Kitabı oku: «Human All-Too-Human, Part 1», sayfa 17

473

Socialism, With Regard to Its Means. – Socialism is the fantastic younger brother of almost decrepit despotism, which it wants to succeed; its efforts are, therefore, in the deepest sense reactionary. For it desires such an amount of State power as only despotism has possessed, – indeed, it outdoes all the past, in that it aims at the complete annihilation of the individual, whom it deems an unauthorised luxury of nature, which is to be improved by it into an appropriate organ of the general community. Owing to its relationship, it always appears in proximity to excessive developments of power, like the old typical socialist, Plato, at the court of the Sicilian tyrant; it desires (and under certain circumstances furthers) the Cæsarian despotism of this century, because, as has been said, it would like to become its heir. But even this inheritance would not suffice for its objects, it requires the most submissive prostration of all citizens before the absolute State, such as has never yet been realised; and as it can no longer even count upon the old religious piety towards the State, but must rather strive involuntarily and continuously for the abolition thereof, – because it strives for the abolition of all existing States,– it can only hope for existence occasionally, here and there for short periods, by means of the extremest terrorism. It is therefore silently preparing itself for reigns of terror, and drives the word "justice" like a nail into the heads of the half-cultured masses in order to deprive them completely of their understanding (after they had already suffered seriously from the half-culture), and to provide them with a good conscience for the bad game they are to play. Socialism may serve to teach, very brutally and impressively, the danger of all accumulations of State power, and may serve so far to inspire distrust of the State itself. When its rough voice strikes up the way-cry "as much State as possible," the shout at first becomes louder than ever, – but soon the opposition cry also breaks forth, with so much greater force: "as little State as possible."

474

The Development of the Mind Feared by the State. – The Greek polis was, like every organising political power, exclusive and distrustful of the growth of culture; its powerful fundamental impulse seemed almost solely to have a paralysing and obstructive effect thereon. It did not want to let any history or any becoming have a place in culture; the education laid down in the State laws was meant to be obligatory on all generations to keep them at one stage of development. Plato also, later on, did not desire it to be otherwise in his ideal State. In spite of the polis culture developed itself in this manner; indirectly to be sure, and against its will, the polis furnished assistance because the ambition of individuals therein was stimulated to the utmost, so that, having once found the path of intellectual development, they followed it to its farthest extremity. On the other hand, appeal should not be made to the panegyric of Pericles, for it is only a great optimistic dream about the alleged necessary connection between the Polis and Athenian culture; immediately before the night fell over Athens the plague and the breakdown of tradition, Thucydides makes this culture flash up once more like of the evil day that had preceded.

475

European Man and the Destruction of Nationalities. – Commerce and industry, interchange of books and letters, the universality of all higher culture, the rapid changing of locality and landscape, and the present nomadic life of all who are not landowners, – these circumstances necessarily bring with them a weakening, and finally a destruction of nationalities, at least of European nationalities; so that, in consequence of perpetual crossings, there must arise out of them all a mixed race, that of the European man. At present the isolation of nations, through the rise of national enmities, consciously or unconsciously counteracts this tendency; but nevertheless the process of fusing advances slowly, in spite of those occasional counter-currents. This artificial nationalism is, however, as dangerous as was artificial Catholicism, for it is essentially an un natural condition of extremity and martial la which has been proclaimed by the few over the many, and requires artifice, lying, and force maintain its reputation. It is not the interests the many (of the peoples), as they probably say, but it is first of all the interests of certain princely dynasties, and then of certain commercial and social classes, which impel to this nationalism; once we have recognised this fact, we should just fearlessly style ourselves good Europeans and labour actively for the amalgamation of nations; in which efforts Germans may assist by virtue of their hereditary position as interpreters and intermediaries between nations. By the way, the great problem of the Jews only exists within the national States, inasmuch as their energy and higher intelligence, their intellectual and volitional capital, accumulated from generation to generation in tedious schools of suffering, must necessarily attain to universal supremacy here to an extent provocative of envy and hatred; so that the literary misconduct is becoming prevalent in almost all modern nations – and all the more so as they again set up to be national – of sacrificing the Jews as the scape-goats of all possible public and private abuses. So soon as it is no longer a question of the preservation or establishment of nations, but of the production and training of a European mixed-race of the greatest possible strength, the Jew is just as useful and desirable an ingredient as any other national remnant. Every nation, every individual, has unpleasant and even dangerous qualities, – it is cruel to require that the Jew should be an exception. Those qualities may even be dangerous and frightful in a special degree in his case; and perhaps the young Stock-Exchange Jew is in general the most repulsive invention of the human species. Nevertheless, in a general summing up, I should like to know how much must be excused in a nation which, not without blame on the part of all of us, has had the most mournful history of all nations, and to which we owe the most loving of men (Christ), the most upright of sages (Spinoza), the mightiest book, and the most effective moral law in the world? Moreover, in the darkest times of the Middle Ages, when Asiatic clouds had gathered darkly over Europe, it was Jewish free-thinkers, scholars, and physicians who upheld the banner of enlightenment and of intellectual independence under the severest personal sufferings, and defended Europe against Asia; we owe it not least to their efforts that a more natural, more reasonable, at all events un-mythical, explanation of the world was finally able to get the upper hand once more, and that the link of culture which now unites us with the enlightenment of Greco-Roman antiquity has remained unbroken. If Christianity has done everything to orientalise the Occident, Judaism has assisted essentially in occidentalising it anew; which, in a certain sense, is equivalent to making Europe's mission and history a continuation of that of Greece.

476

Apparent Superiority of the Middle Ages. – The Middle Ages present in the Church an institution with an absolutely universal aim, involving the whole of humanity, – an aim, moreover, which – presumedly – concerned man's highest interests; in comparison therewith the aims of the States and nations which modern history exhibits make a painful impression; they seem petty, base, material, and restricted in extent. But this different impression on our imagination should certainly not determine our judgment; for that universal institution corresponded to feigned and fictitiously fostered needs, such as the need of salvation, which, wherever they did not already exist, it had first of all to create: the, new institutions, however, relieve actual distresses; and the time is coming when institutions will arise to minister to the common, genuine needs of all men, and to cast that fantastic prototype, the Catholic Church, into shade and oblivion.

477

War Indispensable. – It is nothing but fanaticism and beautiful soulism to expect very much (or even, much only) from humanity when it has forgotten how to wage war. For the present we know of no other means whereby the rough energy of the camp, the deep impersonal hatred, the cold-bloodedness of murder with a good conscience, the general ardour of the system in the destruction of the enemy, the proud indifference to great losses, to one's own existence and that of one's friends, the hollow, earthquake-like convulsion of the soul, can be as forcibly and certainly communicated to enervated nations as is done by every great war: owing to the brooks and streams that here break forth, which, certainly, sweep stones and rubbish of all sorts along with them and destroy the meadows of delicate cultures, the mechanism in the workshops of the mind is afterwards, in favourable circumstances, rotated by new power. Culture can by no means dispense with passions, vices, and malignities. When the Romans, after having become Imperial, had grown rather tired of war, they attempted to gain new strength by beast-baitings, gladiatoral combats, and Christian persecutions. The English of to-day, who appear on the whole to have also renounced war, adopt other means in order to generate anew those vanishing forces; namely, the dangerous exploring expeditions, sea voyages and mountaineerings, nominally undertaken for scientific purposes, but in reality to bring home surplus strength from adventures and dangers of all kinds. Many other such substitutes for war will be discovered, but perhaps precisely thereby it will become more and more obvious that such a highly cultivated and therefore necessarily enfeebled humanity as that of modern Europe not only needs wars, but the greatest and most terrible wars, – consequently occasional relapses into barbarism, – lest, by the means of culture, it should lose its culture and its very existence.

478

Industry in the South and the North. – Industry arises in two entirely different ways. The artisans of the South are not industrious because of acquisitiveness but because of the constant needs of others. The smith is industrious because some one is always coming who wants a horse shod or a carriage mended. If nobody came he would loiter about in the market-place. In a fruitful land he has little trouble in supporting himself, for that purpose he requires only a very small amount of work, certainly no industry; eventually he would beg and be contented. The industry of English workmen, on the contrary, has acquisitiveness behind it; it is conscious of itself and its aims; with property it wants power, and with power the greatest possible liberty and individual distinction.

479

Wealth As the Origin of a Nobility of Race. – Wealth necessarily creates an aristocracy of race, for it permits the choice of the most beautiful women and the engagement of the best teachers; it allows a man cleanliness, time for physical exercises, and, above all, immunity from dulling physical labour. So far it provides all the conditions for making man, after a few generations, move and even act nobly and handsomely: greater freedom of character and absence of niggardliness, of wretchedly petty matters, and of abasement before bread-givers. It is precisely these negative qualities which are the most profitable birthday gift, that of happiness, for the young man; a person who is quite poor usually comes to grief through nobility of disposition, he does not get on, and acquires nothing, his race is not capable of living. In this connection, however, it must be remembered that wealth produces almost the same effects whether one have three hundred or thirty thousand thalers a year; there is no further essential progression of the favourable conditions afterwards. But to have less, to beg in boyhood and to abase one's self is terrible, although it may be the proper starting-point for such as seek their happiness in the splendour of courts, in subordination to the mighty, and influential, or for such as wish to be heads of the Church. (It teaches how to slink crouching into the underground passages to favour.)

480

Envy and Inertia in Different Courses. – The two opposing parties, the socialist and the national, – or whatever they may be called in the different countries of Europe, – are worthy of each other; envy and laziness are the motive powers in each of them. In the one camp they desire to work as little as possible with their hands, in the other as little as possible with their heads; in the latter they hate and envy prominent, self-evolving individuals, who do not willingly allow themselves to be drawn up in rank and file for the purpose of a collective effect; in the former they hate and envy the better social caste, which is more favourably circumstanced outwardly, whose peculiar mission, the production of the highest blessings of culture, makes life inwardly all the harder and more painful. Certainly, if it be possible to make the spirit of the collective effect the spirit of the higher classes of society, the socialist crowds are quite right, when they also seek outward equalisation between themselves and these classes, since they are certainly internally equalised with one another already in head and heart. Live as higher men, and always do the deeds of higher culture, – thus everything that lives will acknowledge your right, and the order of society, whose summit ye are, will be safe from every evil glance and attack!

481

High Politics and Their Detriments. – Just as a nation does not suffer the greatest losses that war and readiness for war involve through the expenses of the war, or the stoppage of trade and traffic, or through the maintenance of a standing army, – however great these losses may now be, when eight European States expend yearly the sum of five milliards of marks thereon, – but owing to the fact that year after year its ablest, strongest, and most industrious men are withdrawn in extraordinary numbers from their proper occupations and callings to be turned into soldiers: in the same way, a nation that sets about practising high politics and securing a decisive voice among the great Powers does not suffer its greatest losses where they are usually supposed to be. In fact, from this time onward it constantly sacrifices a number of its most conspicuous talents upon the "Altar of the Fatherland" or of national ambition, whilst formerly other spheres of activity were open to those talents which are now swallowed up by politics. But apart from these public hecatombs, and in reality much more horrible, there is a drama which is constantly being performed simultaneously in a hundred thousand acts; every able, industrious, intellectually striving man of a nation that thus covets political laurels, is swayed by this covetousness, and no longer belongs entirely to himself alone as he did formerly; the new daily questions and cares of the public welfare devour a daily tribute of the intellectual and emotional capital of every citizen; the sum of all these sacrifices and losses of, individual energy and labour is so enormous, that the political growth of a nation almost necessarily entails an intellectual impoverishment and lassitude, a diminished capacity for the performance of works that require great concentration and specialisation. The question may finally be asked: "Does it then pay, all this bloom and magnificence of the total (which indeed only manifests itself as the fear of the new Colossus in other nations, and as the compulsory favouring by them of national trade and commerce) when all the nobler, finer, and more intellectual plants and products, in which its soil was hitherto so rich, must be sacrificed to this coarse and opalescent flower of the nation?"¹⁸

482

Repeated Once More. – Public opinion – private laziness.

NINTH DIVISION
MAN ALONE BY HIMSELF

483

The Enemies of Truth. – Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.

484

A Topsy-turvy World. – We criticise a thinker more severely when he puts an unpleasant statement before us; and yet it would be more reasonable to do so when we find his statement pleasant.

485

Decided Character. – A man far oftener appears to have a decided character from persistently following his temperament than from persistently following his principles.

486

The One Thing Needful. – One thing a man must have: either a naturally light disposition or a disposition lightened by art and knowledge.

487

The Passion For Things. – Whoever sets his passion on things (sciences, arts, the common weal, the interests of culture) withdraws much fervour from his passion for persons (even when they are the representatives of those things; as statesmen, philosophers, and artists are the representatives of their creations).

488

Calmness in Action. – As a cascade in its descent becomes more deliberate and suspended, so the great man of action usually acts with more calmness than his strong passions previous to action would lead one to expect.

489

Not Too Deep. – Persons who grasp a matter in all its depth seldom remain permanently true to it. They have just brought the depth up into the light, and there is always much evil to be seen there.

490

The Illusion of Idealists. – All idealists imagine that the cause which they serve is essentially better than all other causes, and will not believe that if their cause is really to flourish it requires precisely the same evil-smelling manure which all other human undertakings have need of.

491

Self-observation. – Man is exceedingly well protected from himself and guarded against his self-exploring and self-besieging; as a rule he can perceive nothing of himself but his outworks. The actual fortress is inaccessible, and even invisible, to him, unless friends and enemies become traitors and lead him inside by secret paths.

492

The Right Calling. – Men can seldom hold on to a calling unless they believe or persuade themselves that it is really more important than any other. Women are the same with their lovers.

493

Nobility of Disposition. – Nobility of disposition consists largely in good-nature and absence of distrust, and therefore contains precisely that upon which money-grabbing and successful men take a pleasure in walking with superiority and scorn.

494

Goal and Path. – Many are obstinate with regard to the once-chosen path, few with regard to the goal.

495

The Offensiveness in an Individual Way of Life. – All specially individual lines of conduct excite irritation against him who adopts them; people feel themselves reduced to the level of commonplace creatures by the extraordinary treatment he bestows on himself.

496

The Privilege of Greatness. – It is the privilege of greatness to confer intense happiness with insignificant gifts.

497

Unintentionally Noble. – A person behaves with unintentional nobleness when he has accustomed himself to seek naught from others and always to give to them.

498

A Condition of Heroism. – When a person wishes to become a hero, the serpent must previously have become a dragon, otherwise he lacks his proper enemy.

499

Friends. – Fellowship in joy, and, not sympathy in sorrow, makes people friends.

500

Making Use of Ebb and Flow. – For the purpose of knowledge we must know how to make use of the inward current which draws us towards a thing, and also of the current which after a time draws us away from it.

501

Joy in Itself. – "Joy in the Thing" people say; but in reality it is joy in itself by means of the thing.

502

The Unassuming Man. – He who is unassuming towards persons manifests his presumption all the more with regard to things (town, State, society, time, humanity). That is his revenge.

503

Envy and Jealousy. – Envy and jealousy are the pudenda of the human soul. The comparison may perhaps be carried further.

504

The Noblest Hypocrite. – It is a very noble hypocrisy not to talk of one's self at all.

505

Vexation. – Vexation is a physical disease, which is not by any means cured when its cause is subsequently removed.

506

The Champions of Truth. – Truth does not find fewest champions when it is dangerous to speak it, but when it is dull.

507

More Troublesome Even Than Enemies. – Persons of whose sympathetic attitude we are not, in all circumstances, convinced, while for some reason or other (gratitude, for instance) we are obliged to maintain the appearance of unqualified sympathy with them, trouble our imagination far more than our enemies do.

508

Free Nature. – We are so fond of being out among Nature, because it has no opinions about us.

509

Each Superior in One Thing. – In civilised intercourse every one feels himself superior to all others in at least one thing; kindly feelings generally are based thereon, inasmuch as every one can, in certain circumstances, render help, and is therefore entitled to accept help without shame.

510

Consolatory Arguments. – In the case of a death we mostly use consolatory arguments not so much to alleviate the grief as to make excuses for feeling so easily consoled.

511

Persons Loyal to Their Convictions. – Whoever is very busy retains his general views and opinions almost unchanged. So also does every one who labours in the service of an idea; he will nevermore examine the idea itself, he no longer has any time to do so; indeed, it is against his interests to consider it as still admitting of discussion.

512

Morality and Quantity. – The higher morality of one man as compared with that of another, often lies merely in the fact that his aims are quantitively greater. The other, living in a circumscribed sphere, is dragged down by petty occupations.

513

"The Life" As the Proceeds of Life. – A man may stretch himself out ever so far with his knowledge; he may seem to himself ever so objective, but eventually he realises nothing therefrom but his own biography.

514

Iron Necessity. – Iron necessity is a thing which has been found, in the course of history, to be neither iron nor necessary.

515

From Experience. – The unreasonableness of a thing is no argument against its existence, but rather a condition thereof.

516

Truth. – Nobody dies nowadays of fatal truths, there are too many antidotes to them.

517

A Fundamental Insight. – There is no pre-established harmony between the promotion of truth and the welfare of mankind.

518

Man's Lot. – He who thinks most deeply knows that he is always in the wrong, however he may act and decide.

519

Truth As Circe. – Error has made animals into men; is truth perhaps capable of making man into an animal again?

520

The Danger of Our Culture. – We belong to a period of which the culture is in danger of being destroyed by the appliances of culture.

521

Greatness Means Leading the Way. – No stream is large and copious of itself, but becomes great by receiving and leading on so many tributary streams. It is so, also, with all intellectual greatnesses. It is only a question of some one indicating the direction to be followed by so many affluents; not whether he was richly or poorly gifted originally.

522

A Feeble Conscience. – People who talk about their importance to mankind have a feeble conscience for common bourgeois rectitude, keeping of contracts, promises, etc.

523

Desiring to Be Loved. – The demand to be loved is the greatest of presumptions.

524

Contempt For Men. – The most unequivocal sign of contempt for man is to regard everybody merely as a means to one's own ends, or of no account whatever.

525

Partisans Through Contradiction. – Whoever has driven men to fury against himself has also gained a party in his favour.

526

Forgetting Experiences. – Whoever thinks much and to good purpose easily forgets his own experiences, but not the thoughts which these experiences have called forth.

527

Sticking to an Opinion. – One person sticks to an opinion because he takes pride in having acquired it himself, – another sticks to it because he has learnt it with difficulty and is proud of having understood it; both of them, therefore, out of vanity.

528

Avoiding the Light. – Good deeds avoid the light just as anxiously as evil deeds; the latter fear that pain will result from publicity (as punishment), the former fear that pleasure will vanish with publicity (the pure pleasure per se, which ceases as soon as satisfaction of vanity is added to it).

529

The Length of the Day. – When one has much to put into them, a day has a hundred pockets.

530

The Genius of Tyranny. – When an invincible desire to obtain tyrannical power has been awakened in the soul, and constantly keeps up its fervour, even a very mediocre talent (in politicians, artists, etc.) gradually becomes an almost irresistible natural force.

531

The Enemy's Life. – He who lives by fighting with an enemy has an interest in the preservation of the enemy's life.¹⁹

532

More Important. – Unexplained, obscure matters are regarded as more important than explained, clear ones.

533

Valuation of Services Rendered. – We estimate services rendered to us according to the value set on them by those who render them, not according to the value they have for us.

534

Unhappiness. – The distinction associated with unhappiness (as if it were a sign of stupidity, unambitiousness, or commonplaceness to feel happy) is so great that when any one says to us, "How happy you are!" we usually protest.

535

Imagination in Anguish. – When one is afraid of anything, one's imagination plays the part of that evil spirit which springs on one's back just when one has the heaviest load to bear.

536

The Value of Insipid Opponents. – We sometimes remain faithful to a cause merely because its opponents never cease to be insipid.

537

The Value of a Profession. – A profession makes us thoughtless; that is its greatest blessing. For it is a bulwark behind which we are permitted to withdraw when commonplace doubts and cares assail us.

538

Talent. – Many a man's talent appears less than it is, because he has always set himself too heavy tasks.

539

Youth. – Youth is an unpleasant period; for then it is not possible or not prudent to be productive in any sense whatsoever.

540

Too Great Aims. – Whoever aims publicly at great things and at length perceives secretly that he is too weak to achieve them, has usually also insufficient strength to renounce his aims publicly, and then inevitably becomes a hypocrite.

541

In the Current. – Mighty waters sweep many stones and shrubs away with them; mighty spirits many foolish and confused minds.

542

The Dangers of Intellectual Emancipation. – In a seriously intended intellectual emancipation a person's mute passions and cravings also hope to find their advantage.

543

The Incarnation of the Mind. – When any one thinks much and to good purpose, not only his face but also his body acquires a sage look.

544

Seeing Badly and Hearing Badly. – The man who sees little always sees less than there is to see; the man who hears badly always hears something more than there is to hear.

545

Self-enjoyment in Vanity. – The vain man does not wish so much to be prominent as to feel himself prominent; he therefore disdains none of the expedients for self-deception and self-out-witting. It is not the opinion of others that he sets his heart on, but his opinion of their opinion

546

Exceptionally Vain. – He who is usually self-sufficient becomes exceptionally vain, and keenly alive to fame and praise when he is physically ill. The more he loses himself the more he has to endeavour to regain his position by means of the opinion of others.

547

The "Witty." – Those who seek wit do not possess it.

548

A Hint to the Heads of Parties. – When one can make people publicly support a cause they have also generally been brought to the point of inwardly declaring themselves in its favour, because they wish to be regarded as consistent.

549

Contempt. – Man is more sensitive to the contempt of others than to self-contempt.

550

The Tie of Gratitude. – There are servile souls who carry so far their sense of obligation for benefits received that they strangle themselves with the tie of gratitude.

551

The Prophet's Knack. – In predicting beforehand the procedure of ordinary individuals, it must be taken for granted that they always make use of the smallest intellectual expenditure in freeing themselves from disagreeable situations.

552

Man's Sole Right. – He who swerves from the traditional is a victim of the unusual; he who keeps to the traditional is its slave. The man is ruined in either case.

553

Below the Beast. – When a man roars with laughter he surpasses all the animals by his vulgarity.

554

Partial Knowledge. – He who speaks a foreign language imperfectly has more enjoyment therein than he who speaks it well. The enjoyment is with the partially initiated.

555

Dangerous Helpfulness. – There are people who wish to make human life harder for no other reason than to be able afterwards to offer men their life-alleviating recipes – their Christianity, for example.

556

Industriousness and Conscientiousness. – Industriousness and conscientiousness are often antagonists, owing to the fact that industriousness wants to pluck the fruit sour from the tree while conscientiousness wants to let it hang too long, until it falls and is bruised.

557

Casting Suspicion. – We endeavour to cast suspicion on persons whom we cannot endure.

558

The Conditions Are Lacking. – Many people wait all their lives for the opportunity to be good in their own way.

559

Lack of Friends. – Lack of friends leads to the inference that a person is envious or presumptuous. Many a man owes his friends merely to the fortunate circumstance that he has no occasion for envy.

560

Danger in Manifoldness. – With one talent more we often stand less firmly than with one less; just as a table stands better on three feet than on four.

561

An Exemplar For Others. – Whoever wants to set a good example must add a grain of folly to his virtue; people then imitate their exemplar and at the same time raise themselves above him, a thing they love to do.