The Joyful Wisdom 8
Consciousness._—Consciousness is the last and latest development of the
organic, and consequently also the most unfinished and least powerful of
these developments. Innumerable mistakes originate out of consciousness,
which, "in spite of fate," as Homer says, cause an animal or a man to
break down earlier than might be necessary. If the conserving bond of
the instincts were not very much more powerful, it would not generally
serve as a regulator: by perverse judging and dreaming with open eyes,
by superficiality and credulity, in short, just by consciousness,
mankind would necessarily have broken down: or rather, without the
former there would long ago have been nothing more of the latter! Before
a function is fully formed and matured, it is a danger to the organism:
all the better if it be then thoroughly tyrannised over! Consciousness
is thus thoroughly tyrannised over—and not least by the pride in it! It
is thought that here is _the quintessence_ of man; that which is
enduring, eternal, ultimate, and most original in him! Consciousness is
regarded as a fixed, given magnitude! Its growth and intermittences are
denied! It is accepted as the "unity of the organism"!—This ludicrous
overvaluation and misconception of consciousness, has as its result the
great utility, that a too rapid maturing of it has thereby been
_hindered_. Because men believed that they already possessed
consciousness, they gave themselves very little trouble to acquire
it—and even now it is not otherwise! It is still an entirely new
_problem_ just dawning on the human eye and hardly yet plainly
recognisable: _to embody knowledge in ourselves_ and make it
instinctive,—a problem which is only seen by those who have grasped the
fact that hitherto our _errors_ alone have been embodied in us, and that
all our consciousness is relative to errors!
12.
_The Goal of Science._—What? The ultimate goal of science is to create
the most pleasure possible to man, and the least possible pain? But what
if pleasure and pain should be so closely connected that he who _wants_
the greatest possible amount of the one _must_ also have the greatest
possible amount of the other,—that he who wants to experience the
"heavenly high jubilation,"[7] must also be ready to be "sorrowful unto
death"?(ref. same footnote) And it is so, perhaps! The Stoics at least
believed it was so, and they were consistent when they wished to have
the least possible pleasure, in order to have the least possible pain
from life. (When one uses the __EXPRESSION__: "The virtuous man is the
happiest," it is as much the sign-board of the school for the masses, as
a casuistic subtlety for the subtle.) At present also ye have still the
choice: either the _least possible pain_, in short painlessness—and
after all, socialists and politicians of all parties could not
honourably promise more to their people,—or the _greatest possible
amount of pain_, as the price of the growth of a fullness of refined
delights and enjoyments rarely tasted hitherto! If ye decide for the
former, if ye therefore want to depress and minimise man's capacity for
pain, well, ye must also depress and minimise his _capacity for
enjoyment_. In fact, one can further the one as well as the other goal
_by science_! Perhaps science is as yet best known by its capacity for
depriving man of enjoyment, and making him colder, more statuesque, and
more Stoical. But it might also turn out to be the _great
pain-bringer_!—And then, perhaps, its counteracting force would be
discovered simultaneously, its immense capacity for making new sidereal
worlds of enjoyment beam forth!
13.
_The Theory of the Sense of Power._—We exercise our power over others by
doing them good or by doing them ill—that is all we care for! _Doing
ill_ to those on whom we have to make our power felt; for pain is a far
more sensitive means for that purpose than pleasure:—pain always asks
concerning the cause, while pleasure is inclined to keep within itself
and not look backward. _Doing good_ and being kind to those who are in
any way already dependent on us (that is, who are accustomed to think of
us as their _raison d'être_); we want to increase their power, because
we thus increase our own; or we want to show them the advantage there is
in being in our power,—they thus become more contented with their
position, and more hostile to the enemies of _our_ power and readier to
contend with them. If we make sacrifices in doing good or in doing ill,
it does not alter the ultimate value of our actions; even if we stake
our life in the cause, as martyrs for the sake of our church, it is a
sacrifice to _our_ longing for power, or for the purpose of conserving
our sense of power. He who under these circumstances feels that he "is
in possession of truth," how many possessions does he not let go, in
order to preserve this feeling! What does he not throw overboard, in
order to keep himself "up,"—that is to say, _above_ the others who lack
the "truth"! Certainly the condition we are in when we do ill is seldom
so pleasant, so purely pleasant, as that in which we practise
kindness,—it is an indication that we still lack power, or it betrays
ill-humour at this defect in us; it brings with it new dangers and
uncertainties as to the power we already possess, and clouds our horizon
by the prospect of revenge, scorn, punishment and failure. Perhaps only
those most susceptible to the sense of power, and eager for it, will
prefer to impress the seal of power on the resisting individual,—those
to whom the sight of the already subjugated person as the object of
benevolence is a burden and a tedium. It is a question how a person is
accustomed to _season_ his life; it is a matter of taste whether a
person would rather have the slow or the sudden, the safe or the
dangerous and daring increase of power,—he seeks this or that seasoning
always according to his temperament. An easy booty is something
contemptible to proud natures; they have an agreeable sensation only at
the sight of men of unbroken spirit who could be enemies to them, and
similarly, also, at the sight of all not easily accessible possession;
they are often hard toward the sufferer, for he is not worthy of their
effort or their pride,—but they show themselves so much the more
courteous towards their _equals_, with whom strife and struggle would in
any case be full of honour, _if_ at any time an occasion for it should
present itself. It is under the agreeable feelings of _this_ perspective
that the members of the knightly caste have habituated themselves to
exquisite courtesy toward one another.—Pity is the most pleasant feeling
in those who have not much pride, and have no prospect of great
conquests: the easy booty—and that is what every sufferer is—is for them
an enchanting thing. Pity is said to be the virtue of the gay lady.
14.
_What is called Love._—The lust of property and love: what different
associations each of these ideas evoke!—and yet it might be the same
impulse twice named: on the one occasion disparaged from the standpoint
of those already possessing (in whom the impulse has attained something
of repose, and who are now apprehensive for the safety of their
"possession"); on the other occasion viewed from the standpoint of the
unsatisfied and thirsty, and therefore glorified as "good." Our love of
our neighbour,—is it not a striving after new _property_? And similarly
our love of knowledge, of truth; and in general all the striving after
novelties? We gradually become satiated with the old, the securely
possessed, and again stretch out our hands; even the finest landscape in
which we live for three months is no longer certain of our love, and any
kind of more distant coast excites our covetousness: the possession for
the most part becomes smaller through possessing. Our pleasure in
ourselves seeks to maintain itself, by always transforming something new
_into ourselves_,—that is just possessing. To become satiated with a
possession, that is to become satiated with ourselves. (One can also
suffer from excess,—even the desire to cast away, to share out, can
assume the honourable name of "love.") When we see any one suffering, we
willingly utilise the opportunity then afforded to take possession of
him; the beneficent and sympathetic man, for example, does this; he also
calls the desire for new possession awakened in him, by the name of
"love," and has enjoyment in it, as in a new acquisition suggesting
itself to him. The love of the sexes, however, betrays itself most
plainly as the striving after possession: the lover wants the
unconditioned, sole possession of the person longed for by him; he wants
just as absolute power over her soul as over her body; he wants to be
loved solely, and to dwell and rule in the other soul as what is highest
and most to be desired. When one considers that this means precisely to
_exclude_ all the world from a precious possession, a happiness, and an
enjoyment; when one considers that the lover has in view the
impoverishment and privation of all other rivals, and would like to
become the dragon of his golden hoard, as the most inconsiderate and
selfish of all "conquerors" and exploiters; when one considers finally
that to the lover himself, the whole world besides appears indifferent,
colourless, and worthless, and that he is ready to make every sacrifice,
disturb every arrangement, and put every other interest behind his
own,—one is verily surprised that this ferocious lust of property and
injustice of sexual love should have been glorified and deified to such
an extent at all times; yea, that out of this love the conception of
love as the antithesis of egoism should have been derived, when it is
perhaps precisely the most unqualified __EXPRESSION__ of egoism. Here,
evidently, the non-possessors and desirers have determined the usage of
language,—there were, of course, always too many of them. Those who have
been favoured with much possession and satiety, have, to be sure,
dropped a word now and then about the "raging demon," as, for instance,
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