The Joyful Wisdom 7
That which Preserves the Species._—The strongest and most evil spirits
have hitherto advanced mankind the most: they always rekindled the
sleeping passions—all orderly arranged society lulls the passions to
sleep; they always reawakened the sense of comparison, of contradiction,
of delight in the new, the adventurous, the untried; they compelled men
to set opinion against opinion, ideal plan against ideal plan. By means
of arms, by upsetting boundary-stones, by violations of piety most of
all: but also by new religions and morals! The same kind of "wickedness"
is in every teacher and preacher of the _new_—which makes a conqueror
infamous, although it expresses itself more refinedly, and does not
immediately set the muscles in motion (and just on that account does not
make so infamous!). The new, however, is under all circumstances the
_evil_, as that which wants to conquer, which tries to upset the old
boundary-stones and the old piety; only the old is the good! The good
men of every age are those who go to the roots of the old thoughts and
bear fruit with them, the agriculturists of the spirit. But every soil
becomes finally exhausted, and the ploughshare of evil must always come
once more.—There is at present a fundamentally erroneous theory of
morals which is much celebrated, especially in England: according to it
the judgments "good" and "evil" are the accumulation of the experiences
of that which is "expedient" and "inexpedient"; according to this
theory, that which is called good is conservative of the species, what
is called evil, however, is detrimental to it. But in reality the evil
impulses are just in as high a degree expedient, indispensable, and
conservative of the species as the good:—only, their function is
different.
5.
_Unconditional Duties._—All men who feel that they need the strongest
words and intonations, the most eloquent gestures and attitudes, in
order to operate _at all_—revolutionary politicians, socialists,
preachers of repentance with or without Christianity, with all of whom
there must be no mere half-success,—all these speak of "duties," and
indeed, always of duties, which have the character of being
unconditional—without such they would have no right to their excessive
pathos: they know that right well! They grasp, therefore, at
philosophies of morality which preach some kind of categorical
imperative, or they assimilate a good lump of religion, as, for example,
Mazzini did. Because they want to be trusted unconditionally, it is
first of all necessary for them to trust themselves unconditionally, on
the basis of some ultimate, undebatable command, sublime in itself, as
the ministers and instruments of which, they would fain feel and
announce themselves. Here we have the most natural, and for the most
part, very influential opponents of moral enlightenment and scepticism:
but they are rare. On the other hand, there is always a very numerous
class of those opponents wherever interest teaches subjection, while
repute and honour seem to forbid it. He who feels himself dishonoured at
the thought of being the _instrument_ of a prince, or of a party and
sect, or even of wealthy power (for example, as the descendant of a
proud, ancient family), but wishes just to be this instrument, or must
be so before himself and before the public—such a person has need of
pathetic principles which can at all times be appealed to:—principles of
an unconditional _ought_, to which a person can subject himself without
shame, and can show himself subjected. All more refined servility holds
fast to the categorical imperative, and is the mortal enemy of those who
want to take away the unconditional character of duty: propriety demands
this from them, and not only propriety.
6.
_Loss of Dignity._—Meditation has lost all its dignity of form; the
ceremonial and solemn bearing of the meditative person have been made a
mockery, and one would no longer endure a wise man of the old style. We
think too hastily and on the way and while walking and in the midst of
business of all kinds, even when we think on the most serious matters;
we require little preparation, even little quiet:—it is as if each of us
carried about an unceasingly revolving machine in his head, which still
works, even under the most unfavourable circumstances. Formerly it was
perceived in a person that on some occasion he wanted to think—it was
perhaps the exception!—that he now wanted to become wiser and collected
his mind on a thought: he put on a long face for it, as for a prayer,
and arrested his step—nay, stood still for hours on the street when the
thought "came"—on one or on two legs. It was thus "worthy of the
affair"!
7.
_Something for the Laborious._—He who at present wants to make moral
questions a subject of study has an immense field of labour before him.
All kinds of passions must be thought about singly, and followed singly
throughout periods, peoples, great and insignificant individuals; all
their rationality, all their valuations and elucidations of things,
ought to come to light! Hitherto all that has given colour to existence
has lacked a history: where would one find a history of love, of
avarice, of envy, of conscience, of piety, of cruelty? Even a
comparative history of law, as also of punishment, has hitherto been
completely lacking. Have the different divisions of the day, the
consequences of a regular appointment of the times for labour, feast,
and repose, ever been made the object of investigation? Do we know the
moral effects of the alimentary substances? Is there a philosophy of
nutrition? (The ever-recurring outcry for and against vegetarianism
proves that as yet there is no such philosophy!) Have the experiences
with regard to communal living, for example, in monasteries, been
collected? Has the dialectic of marriage and friendship been set forth?
The customs of the learned, of trades-people, of artists, and of
mechanics—have they already found their thinkers? There is so much to
think of thereon! All that up till now has been considered as the
"conditions of existence," of human beings, and all reason, passion and
superstition in this consideration—have they been investigated to the
end? The observation alone of the different degrees of development which
the human impulses have attained, and could yet attain, according to the
different moral climates, would furnish too much work for the most
laborious; whole generations, and regular co-operating generations of
the learned, would be needed in order to exhaust the points of view and
the material here furnished. The same is true of the determining of the
reasons for the differences of the moral climates ("_on what account_
does this sun of a fundamental moral judgment and standard of highest
value shine here—and that sun there?"). And there is again a new labour
which points out the erroneousness of all these reasons, and determines
the entire essence of the moral judgments hitherto made. Supposing all
these labours to be accomplished, the most critical of all questions
would then come into the foreground: whether science is in a position to
_furnish_ goals for human action, after it has proved that it can take
them away and annihilate them—and then would be the time for a process
of experimenting in which every kind of heroism could satisfy itself, an
experimenting for centuries, which would put into the shade all the
great labours and sacrifices of previous history. Science has not
hitherto built its Cyclopic structures; for that also the time will
come.
8.
_Unconscious Virtues._—All qualities in a man of which he is
conscious—and especially when he presumes that they are visible and
evident to his environment also—are subject to quite other laws of
development than those qualities which are unknown to him, or
imperfectly known, which by their subtlety can also conceal themselves
from the subtlest observer, and hide as it were behind nothing,—as in
the case of the delicate sculptures on the scales of reptiles (it would
be an error to suppose them an adornment or a defence—for one sees them
only with the microscope; consequently, with an eye artificially
strengthened to an extent of vision which similar animals, to which they
might perhaps have meant adornment or defence, do not possess!) Our
visible moral qualities, and especially our moral qualities _believed to
be_ visible, follow their own course,—and our invisible qualities of
similar name, which in relation to others neither serve for adornment
nor defence, _also follow their own course_: quite a different course
probably, and with lines and refinements, and sculptures, which might
perhaps give pleasure to a God with a divine microscope. We have, for
example, our diligence, our ambition, our acuteness: all the world knows
about them,—and besides, we have probably once more _our_ diligence,
_our_ ambition, _our_ acuteness; but for these—our reptile scales—the
microscope has not yet been invented!—And here the adherents of
instinctive morality will say, "Bravo! He at least regards unconscious
virtues as possible—that suffices us!"—Oh, ye unexacting creatures!
9.
_Our Eruptions._—Numberless things which humanity acquired in its
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