The Joyful Wisdom 13

The Joyful Wisdom 13

The Argument of Isolation._—The reproach of conscience, even in the

most conscientious, is weak against the feeling: "This and that are

contrary to the good morals of _your_ society." A cold glance or a wry

mouth, on the part of those among whom and for whom one has been

educated, is still _feared_ even by the strongest. What is really feared

there? Isolation! as the argument which demolishes even the best

arguments for a person or cause!—It is thus that the gregarious instinct

speaks in us.

 

 

51.

 

_Sense for Truth._—Commend me to all scepticism where I am permitted to

answer: "Let us put it to the test!" But I don't wish to hear anything

more of things and questions which do not admit of being tested. That is

the limit of my "sense for truth": for bravery has there lost its right.

 

 

52.

 

_What others Know of us._—That which we know of ourselves and have in

our memory is not so decisive for the happiness of our life as is

generally believed. One day it flashes upon our mind what _others_ know

of us (or think they know)—and then we acknowledge that it is the more

powerful. We get on with our bad conscience more easily than with our

bad reputation.

 

 

53.

 

_Where Goodness Begins._—Where bad eyesight can no longer see the evil

impulse as such, on account of its refinement,—there man sets up the

kingdom of goodness; and the feeling of having now gone over into the

kingdom of goodness brings all those impulses (such as the feelings of

security, of comfortableness, of benevolence) into simultaneous

activity, which were threatened and confined by the evil impulses.

Consequently, the duller the eye so much the further does goodness

extend! Hence the eternal cheerfulness of the populace and of children!

Hence the gloominess and grief (allied to the bad conscience) of great

thinkers.

 

 

54.

 

_The Consciousness of Appearance._—How wonderfully and novelly, and at

the same time how awfully and ironically, do I feel myself situated with

respect to collective existence, with my knowledge! I have _discovered_

for myself that the old humanity and animality, yea, the collective

primeval age, and the past of all sentient being, continues to meditate,

love, hate, and reason in me,—I have suddenly awoke in the midst of this

dream, but merely to the consciousness that I just dream, and that I

_must_ dream on in order not to perish; just as the sleep-walker must

dream on in order not to tumble down. What is it that is now

"appearance" to me! Verily, not the antithesis of any kind of

essence,—what knowledge can I assert of any kind of essence whatsoever,

except merely the predicates of its appearance! Verily not a dead mask

which one could put upon an unknown X, and which to be sure one could

also remove! Appearance is for me the operating and living thing itself;

which goes so far in its self-mockery as to make me feel that here there

is appearance, and Will o' the Wisp, and spirit-dance, and nothing

more,—that among all these dreamers, I also, the "thinker," dance my

dance, that the thinker is a means of prolonging further the terrestrial

dance, and in so far is one of the masters of ceremony of existence, and

that the sublime consistency and connectedness of all branches of

knowledge is perhaps, and will perhaps, be the best means for

_maintaining_ the universality of the dreaming, the complete, mutual

understandability of all those dreamers, and thereby _the duration of

the dream_.

 

 

55.

 

_The Ultimate Nobility of Character._—What then makes a person "noble"?

Certainly not that he makes sacrifices; even the frantic libertine makes

sacrifices. Certainly not that he generally follows his passions; there

are contemptible passions. Certainly not that he does something for

others and without selfishness; perhaps the effect of selfishness is

precisely at its greatest in the noblest persons.—But that the passion

which seizes the noble man is a peculiarity, without his knowing that it

is so: the use of a rare and singular measuring-rod, almost a frenzy:

the feeling of heat in things which feel cold to all other persons: a

divining of values for which scales have not yet been invented: a

sacrificing on altars which are consecrated to an unknown God: a bravery

without the desire for honour: a self-sufficiency which has

superabundance, and imparts to men and things. Hitherto, therefore, it

has been the rare in man, and the unconsciousness of this rareness, that

has made men noble. Here, however, let us consider that everything

ordinary, immediate, and indispensable, in short, what has been most

preservative of the species, and generally the _rule_ in mankind

hitherto, has been judged unreasonable and calumniated in its entirety

by this standard, in favour of the exceptions. To become the advocate of

the rule—that may perhaps be the ultimate form and refinement in which

nobility of character will reveal itself on earth.

 

 

56.

 

_The Desire for Suffering._—When I think of the desire to do something,

how it continually tickles and stimulates millions of young Europeans,

who cannot endure themselves and all their ennui,—I conceive that there

must be a desire in them to suffer something, in order to derive from

their suffering a worthy motive for acting, for doing something.

Distress is necessary! Hence the cry of the politicians, hence the many

false, trumped-up, exaggerated "states of distress" of all possible

kinds, and the blind readiness to believe in them. This young world

desires that there should arrive or appear _from the outside_—not

happiness—but misfortune; and their imagination is already busy

beforehand to form a monster out of it, so that they may afterwards be

able to fight with a monster. If these distress-seekers felt the power

to benefit themselves, to do something for themselves from internal

sources, they would also understand how to create a distress of their

own, specially their own, from internal sources. Their inventions might

then be more refined, and their gratifications might sound like good

music: while at present they fill the world with their cries of

distress, and consequently too often with the _feeling of distress_ in

the first place! They do not know what to make of themselves—and so they

paint the misfortune of others on the wall; they always need others! And

always again other others!—Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to

paint my _happiness_ on the wall.

 

-----

 

Footnote 7:

 

Allusions to the song of Clara in Goethe's "Egmont."—TR.

 

 

 

 

BOOK SECOND

 

 

57.

 

_To the Realists._—Ye sober beings, who feel yourselves armed against

passion and fantasy, and would gladly make a pride and an ornament out

of your emptiness, ye call yourselves realists and give to understand

that the world is actually constituted as it appears to you; before you

alone reality stands unveiled, and ye yourselves would perhaps be the

best part of it,—oh, ye dear images of Sais! But are not ye also in your

unveiled condition still extremely passionate and dusky beings compared

with the fish, and still all too like an enamoured artist?[8]—and what

is "reality" to an enamoured artist! Ye still carry about with you the

valuations of things which had their origin in the passions and

infatuations of earlier centuries! There is still a secret and

ineffaceable drunkenness embodied in your sobriety! Your love of

"reality," for example—oh, that is an old, primitive "love"! In every

feeling, in every sense-impression, there is a portion of this old love:

and similarly also some kind of fantasy, prejudice, irrationality,

ignorance, fear, and whatever else has become mingled and woven into it.

There is that mountain! There is that cloud! What is "real" in them?

Remove the phantasm and the whole human _element_ therefrom, ye sober

ones! Yes, if ye could do _that_! If ye could forget your origin, your

past, your preparatory schooling,—your whole history as man and beast!

There is no "reality" for us—nor for you either, ye sober ones,—we are

far from being so alien to one another as ye suppose, and perhaps our

good-will to get beyond drunkenness is just as respectable as your

belief that ye are altogether _incapable_ of drunkenness.

 

 

58.

 

_Only as Creators!_—It has caused me the greatest trouble, and for ever

causes me the greatest trouble, to perceive that unspeakably more

depends upon _what things are called_, than on what they are. The

reputation, the name and appearance, the importance, the usual measure