Human, All-Too-Human: A Book For Free Spirits; Part II

319

Of the “Nation of Thinkers” (or of Bad Thinking). – The vague, vacillating, premonitory, elementary, intuitive elements – to choose obscure names for obscure things – that are attributed to the German nature would be, if they really still existed, a proof that our culture has remained several stages behind and is still surrounded by the spell and atmosphere of the Middle Ages. – It is true that in this backwardness there are certain advantages: by these qualities the Germans (if, as has been said before, they still possess them) would possess the capacity, which other nations have now lost, for doing certain things and particularly for understanding certain things. Much undoubtedly is lost if the lack of sense – which is just the common factor in all those qualities – is lost. Here too, however, there are no losses without the highest compensatory gains, so that no reason is left for lamenting, granting that we do not, like children, and gourmands, wish to enjoy at once the fruits of all seasons of the year.

320

Carrying Coals to Newcastle. – The governments of the great States have two instruments for keeping the people dependent, in fear and obedience: a coarser, the army, and a more refined, the school. With the aid of the former they win over to their side the ambition of the higher strata and the strength of the lower, so far as both are characteristic of active and energetic men of moderate or inferior gifts. With the aid of the latter they win over gifted poverty, especially the intellectually pretentious semi-poverty of the middle classes. Above all, they make teachers of all grades into an intellectual court looking unconsciously “towards the heights.” By putting obstacle after obstacle in the way of private schools and the wholly distasteful individual tuition they secure the disposal of a considerable number of educational posts, towards which numerous hungry and submissive eyes are turned to an extent five times as great as can ever be satisfied. These posts, however, must support the holder but meagrely, so that he maintains a feverish thirst for promotion and becomes still more closely attached to the views of the government. For it is always more advantageous to foster moderate discontent than contentment, the mother of courage, the grandmother of free thought and exuberance. By means of this physically and mentally bridled body of teachers, the youth of the country is as far as possible raised to a certain level of culture that is useful to the State and arranged on a suitable sliding-scale. Above all, the immature and ambitious minds of all classes are almost imperceptibly imbued with the idea that only a career which is recognised and hall-marked by the State can lead immediately to social distinction. The effect of this belief in government examinations and titles goes so far that even men who have remained independent and have risen by trade or handicraft still feel a pang of discontent in their hearts until their position too is marked and acknowledged by a gracious bestowal of rank and orders from above – until one becomes a “somebody.” Finally the State connects all these hundreds of offices and posts in its hands with the obligation of being trained and hallmarked in these State schools if one ever wishes to enter this charmed circle. Honour in society, daily bread, the possibility of a family, protection from above, the feeling of community in a common culture – all this forms a network of hopes into which every young man walks: how should he feel the slightest breath of mistrust? In the end, perhaps, the obligation of being a soldier for one year has become with every one, after the lapse of a few generations, an unreflecting habit, an understood thing, with an eye to which we construct the plan of our lives quite early. Then the State can venture on the master-stroke of weaving together school and army, talent, ambition and strength by means of common advantages – that is, by attracting the more highly gifted on favourable terms to the army and inspiring them with the military spirit of joyful obedience; so that finally, perhaps, they become attached permanently to the flag and endow it by their talents with an ever new and more brilliant lustre. Then nothing more is wanted but an opportunity for great wars. These are provided from professional reasons (and so in all innocence) by diplomats, aided by newspapers and Stock Exchanges. For “the nation,” as a nation of soldiers, need never be supplied with a good conscience in war – it has one already.

321

The Press. – If we consider how even to-day all great political transactions glide upon the stage secretly and stealthily; how they are hidden by unimportant events, and seem small when close at hand; how they only show their far-reaching effect, and leave the soil still quaking, long after they have taken place; – what significance can we attach to the Press in its present position, with its daily expenditure of lung-power in order to bawl, to deafen, to excite, to terrify? Is it anything more than an everlasting false alarm, which tries to lead our ears and our wits into a false direction?

322

After a Great Event. – A nation and a man whose soul has come to light through some great event generally feel the immediate need of some act of childishness or coarseness, as much from shame as for purposes of recreation.

323

To be a Good German means to de-Germanise Oneself. – National differences consist, far more than has hitherto been observed, only in the differences of various grades of culture, and are only to a very small extent permanent (nor even that in a strict sense). For this reason all arguments based on national character are so little binding on one who aims at the alteration of convictions – in other words, at culture. If, for instance, we consider all that has already been German, we shall improve upon the hypothetical question, “What is German?” by the counter-question, “What is now German?” and every good German will answer it practically, by overcoming his German characteristics. For when a nation advances and grows, it bursts the girdle previously given to it by its national outlook. When it remains stationary or declines, its soul is surrounded by a fresh girdle, and the crust, as it becomes harder and harder, builds a prison around, with walls growing ever higher. Hence if a nation has much that is firmly established, this is a sign that it wishes to petrify and would like to become nothing but a monument. This happened, from a definite date, in the case of Egypt. So he who is well-disposed towards the Germans may for his part consider how he may more and more grow out of what is German. The tendency to be un-German has therefore always been a mark of efficient members of our nation.

324

Foreignisms. – A foreigner who travelled in Germany found favour or the reverse by certain assertions of his, according to the districts in which he stayed. All intelligent Suabians, he used to say, are coquettish. – The other Suabians still believed that Uhland was a poet and Goethe immoral. – The best about German novels now in vogue was that one need not read them, for one knew already what they contained. – The native of Berlin seemed more good-humoured than the South German, for he was all too fond of mocking, and so could endure mockery himself, which the South German could not. – The intellect of the Germans was kept down by their beer and their newspapers: he recommended them tea and pamphlets, of course as a cure. – He advised us to contemplate the different nations of worn-out Europe and see how well each displayed some particular quality of old age, to the delight of those who sit before the great spectacle: how the French successfully represent the cleverness and amiability of old age, the English the experience and reserve, the Italians the innocence and candour. Can the other masks of old age be wanting? Where is the proud old man, the domineering old man, the covetous old man? – The most dangerous region in Germany was Saxony and Thuringia: nowhere else was there more mental nimbleness, more knowledge of men, side by side with freedom of thought; and all this was so modestly veiled by the ugly dialect and the zealous officiousness of the inhabitants that one hardly noticed that one here had to deal with the intellectual drill-sergeants of Germany, her teachers for good or evil. – The arrogance of the North Germans was kept in check by their tendency to obey, that of the South Germans by their tendency – to make themselves comfortable. – It appeared to him that in their women German men possessed awkward but self-opinionated housewives, who belauded themselves so perseveringly that they had almost persuaded the world, and at any rate their husbands, of their peculiarly German housewifely virtue. – When the conversation turned on Germany's home and foreign policy, he used to say (he called it “betray the secret”) that Germany's greatest statesman did not believe in great statesmen. – The future of Germany he found menaced and menacing, for Germans had forgotten how to enjoy themselves (an art that the Italians understood so well), but, by the great games of chance called wars and dynastic revolutions, had accustomed themselves to emotionalism, and consequently would one day have an émeute. For that is the strongest emotion that a nation can procure for itself. – The German Socialist was all the more dangerous because impelled by no definite necessity: his trouble lay in not knowing what he wanted; so, even if he attained many of his objects, he would still pine away from desire in the midst of delights, just like Faust, but presumably like a very vulgar Faust. “For the Faust-Devil,” he finally exclaimed, “by whom cultured Germans were so much plagued, was exorcised by Bismarck; but now the Devil has entered into the swine,17 and is worse than ever!”

325

Opinions. – Most men are nothing and count for nothing until they have arrayed themselves in universal convictions and public opinions. This is in accordance with the tailors' philosophy, “The apparel makes the man.” Of exceptional men, however, it must be said, “The wearer primarily makes the apparel.” Here opinions cease to be public, and become something else than masks, ornament, and disguise.

326

Two Kinds of Sobriety. – In order not to confound the sobriety arising from mental exhaustion with that arising from moderation, one must remark that the former is peevish, the latter cheerful.

327

Debasement of Joy. – To call a thing good not a day longer than it appears to us good, and above all not a day earlier – that is the only way to keep joy pure. Otherwise, joy all too easily becomes insipid and rotten to the taste, and counts, for whole strata of the people, among the adulterated foodstuffs.

328

The Scapegoat of Virtue. – When a man does his very best, those who mean well towards him, but are not capable of appreciating him, speedily seek a scapegoat to immolate, thinking it is the scapegoat of sin – but it is the scapegoat of virtue.

329

Sovereignty. – To honour and acknowledge even the bad, when it pleases one, and to have no conception of how one could be ashamed of being pleased thereat, is the mark of sovereignty in things great and small.

330

Influence a Phantom, not a Reality. – The man of mark gradually learns that so far as he has influence he is a phantom in other brains, and perhaps he falls into a state of subtle vexation of soul, in which he asks himself whether he must not maintain this phantom of himself for the benefit of his fellow-men.

331

Giving and Taking. – When one takes away (or anticipates) the smallest thing that another possesses, the latter is blind to the fact that he has been given something greater, nay, even the greatest thing.

332

Good Ploughland. – All rejection and negation betoken a deficiency in fertility. If we were good ploughland, we should allow nothing to be unused or lost, and in every thing, event, or person we should welcome manure, rain, or sunshine.

333

Intercourse as an Enjoyment. – If a man renounces the world and intentionally lives in solitude, he may come to regard intercourse with others, which he enjoys but seldom, as a special delicacy.

334

To Know how to Suffer in Public. – We must advertise our misfortunes and from time to time heave audible sighs and show visible marks of impatience. For if we could let others see how assured and happy we are in spite of pain and privation, how envious and ill-tempered they would become at the sight! – But we must take care not to corrupt our fellow-men; besides, if they knew the truth, they would levy a heavy toll upon us. At any rate our public misfortune is our private advantage.

335

Warmth on the Heights. – On the heights it is warmer than people in the valleys suppose, especially in winter. The thinker recognises the full import of this simile.

336

To Will the Good and be Capable of the Beautiful. – It is not enough to practise the good one must have willed it, and, as the poet says, include the Godhead in our will. But the beautiful we must not will, we must be capable of it, in innocence and blindness, without any psychical curiosity. He that lights his lantern to find perfect men should remember the token by which to know them. They are the men who always act for the sake of the good and in so doing always attain to the beautiful without thinking of the beautiful. Many better and nobler men, from impotence or from want of beauty in their souls, remain unrefreshing and ugly to behold, with all their good will and good works. They rebuff and injure even virtue through the repulsive garb in which their bad taste arrays her.

337

Danger of Renunciation. – We must beware of basing our lives on too narrow a foundation of appetite. For if we renounce all the joys involved in positions, honours, associations, revels, creature comforts, and arts, a day may come when we perceive that this repudiation has led us not to wisdom but to satiety of life.

338

Final Opinion on Opinions. – Either we should hide our opinions or hide ourselves behind our opinions. Whoever does otherwise, does not know the way of the world, or belongs to the order of pious fire-eaters.

339

“Gaudeamus Igitur.” – Joy must contain edifying and healing forces for the moral nature of man. Otherwise, how comes it that our soul, as soon as it basks in the sunshine of joy, unconsciously vows to itself, “I will be good!” “I will become perfect!” and is at once seized by a premonition of perfection that is like a shudder of religious awe?

340

To One who is Praised. – So long as you are praised, believe that you are not yet on your own course but on that of another.

341

Loving the Master. – The apprentice and the master love the master in different ways.

342

All-too-Beautiful and Human. – “Nature is too beautiful for thee, poor mortal,” one often feels. But now and then, at a profound contemplation of all that is human, in its fulness, vigour, tenderness, and complexity, I have felt as if I must say, in all humility, “Man also is too beautiful for the contemplation of man!” Nor did I mean the moral man alone, but every one.

343

Real and Personal Estate. – When life has treated us in true robber fashion, and has taken away all that it could of honour, joys, connections, health, and property of every kind, we perhaps discover in the end, after the first shock, that we are richer than before. For now we know for the first time what is so peculiarly ours that no robber hand can touch it, and perhaps, after all the plunder and devastation, we come forward with the airs of a mighty real estate owner.

344

Involuntarily Idealised. – The most painful feeling that exists is finding out that we are always taken for something higher than we really are. For we must thereby confess to ourselves, “There is in you some element of fraud – your speech, your expression, your bearing, your eye, your dealings; and this deceitful something is as necessary as your usual honesty, but constantly destroys its effect and its value.”

345

Idealist and Liar. – We must not let ourselves be tyrannised even by that finest faculty of idealising things: otherwise, truth will one day part company from us with the insulting remark: “Thou arch-liar, what have I to do with thee?”

346

Being Misunderstood. – When one is misunderstood generally, it is impossible to remove a particular misunderstanding. This point must be recognised, to save superfluous expenditure of energy in self-defence.

347

The Water-Drinker Speaks. – Go on drinking your wine, which has refreshed you all your life – what affair is it of yours if I have to be a water-drinker? Are not wine and water peaceable, brotherly elements, that can live side by side without mutual recriminations?

348

From Cannibal Country. – In solitude the lonely man is eaten up by himself, among crowds by the many. Choose which you prefer.

349

The Freezing-Point of the Will. – “Some time the hour will come at last, the hour that will envelop you in the golden cloud of painlessness; when the soul enjoys its own weariness and, happy in patient playing with patience, resembles the waves of a lake, which on a quiet summer day, in the reflection of a many-hued evening sky, sip and sip at the shore and again are hushed – without end, without purpose, without satiety, without need – all calm rejoicing in change, all ebb and flow of Nature's pulse.” Such is the feeling and talk of all invalids, but if they attain that hour, a brief period of enjoyment is followed by ennui. But this is the thawing-wind of the frozen will, which awakes, stirs, and once more begets desire upon desire. – Desire is a sign of convalescence or recovery.

350

The Disclaimed Ideal. – It happens sometimes by an exception that a man only reaches the highest when he disclaims his ideal. For this ideal previously drove him onward too violently, so that in the middle of the track he regularly got out of breath and had to rest.

351

A Treacherous Inclination. – It should be regarded as a sign of an envious but aspiring man, when he feels himself attracted by the thought that with regard to the eminent there is but one salvation – love.

352

Staircase Happiness. – Just as the wit of many men does not keep pace with opportunity (so that opportunity has already passed through the door while wit still waits on the staircase outside), so others have a kind of staircase happiness, which walks too slowly to keep pace with swift-footed Time. The best that it can enjoy of an experience, of a whole span of life, falls to its share long afterwards, often only as a weak, spicy fragrance, giving rise to longing and sadness – as if “it might have been possible” – some time or other – to drink one's fill of this element: but now it is too late.

353

Worms. – The fact that an intellect contains a few worms does not detract from its ripeness.

354

The Seat of Victory. – A good seat on horseback robs an opponent of his courage, the spectator of his heart – why attack such a man? Sit like one who has been victorious!

355

Danger in Admiration. – From excessive admiration for the virtues of others one can lose the sense of one's own, and finally, through lack of practice, lose these virtues themselves, without retaining the alien virtues as compensation.

356

Uses of Sickliness. – He who is often ill not only has a far greater pleasure in health, on account of his so often getting well, but acquires a very keen sense of what is healthy or sickly in actions and achievements, both his own and others'. Thus, for example, it is just the writers of uncertain health – among whom, unfortunately, nearly all great writers must be classed – who are wont to have a far more even and assured tone of health in their writings, because they are better versed than are the physically robust in the philosophy of psychical health and convalescence and in their teachers – morning, sunshine, forest, and fountain.

357

Disloyalty a Condition of Mastery. – It cannot be helped – every master has but one pupil, and he becomes disloyal to him, for he also is destined for mastery.

358

Never in Vain. – In the mountains of truth you never climb in vain. Either you already reach a higher point to-day, or you exercise your strength in order to be able to climb higher to-morrow.

359

Through Grey Window-Panes. – Is what you see through this window of the world so beautiful that you do not wish to look through any other window – ay, and even try to prevent others from so doing?

360

A Sign of Radical Changes. – When we dream of persons long forgotten or dead, it is a sign that we have suffered radical changes, and that the soil on which we live has been completely undermined. The dead rise again, and our antiquity becomes modernity.

361

Medicine of the Soul. – To lie still and think little is the cheapest medicine for all diseases of the soul, and, with the aid of good-will, becomes pleasanter every hour that it is used.

362

Intellectual Order of Precedence. – You rank far below others when you try to establish the exception and they the rule.

363

The Fatalist. – You must believe in fate – science can compel you thereto. All that develops in you out of that belief – cowardice, devotion or loftiness, and uprightness – bears witness to the soil in which the grain was sown, but not to the grain itself, for from that seed anything and everything can grow.

364

The Reason for Much Fretfulness. – He that prefers the beautiful to the useful in life will undoubtedly, like children who prefer sweetmeats to bread, destroy his digestion and acquire a very fretful outlook on the world.

365

Excess as a Remedy. – We can make our own talent once more acceptable to ourselves by honouring and enjoying the opposite talent for some time to excess. – Using excess as a remedy is one of the more refined devices in the art of life.

366

“Will a Self.” – Active, successful natures act, not according to the maxim, “Know thyself,” but as if always confronted with the command, “Will a self, so you will become a self.” – Fate seems always to have left them a choice. Inactive, contemplative natures, on the other hand, reflect on how they have chosen their self “once for all” at their entry into life.

367

To Live as Far as Possible without a Following. – How small is the importance of followers we first grasp when we have ceased to be the followers of our followers.

368

Obscuring Oneself. – We must understand how to obscure ourselves in order to get rid of the gnat-swarms of pestering admirers.

369

Ennui. – There is an ennui of the most subtle and cultured brains, to which the best that the world can offer has become stale. Accustomed to eat ever more and more recherché fare and to feel disgust at coarser diet, they are in danger of dying of hunger. For the very best exists but in small quantities, and has sometimes become inaccessible or hard as stone, so that even good teeth can no longer bite it.

370

The Danger in Admiration. – The admiration of a quality or of an art may be so strong as to deter us from aspiring to possess that quality or art.

371

What is Required of Art. – One man wants to enjoy himself by means of art, another for a time to get out of or above himself. – To meet both requirements there exists a twofold species of artists.

372

Secessions. – Whoever secedes from us offends not us, perhaps, but certainly our adherents.

373

After Death. – It is only long after the death of a man that we find it inconceivable that he should be missed – in the case of really great men, only after decades. Those who are honest usually think when any one dies that he is not much missed, and that the pompous funeral oration is a piece of hypocrisy. Necessity first teaches the necessariness of an individual, and the proper epitaph is a belated sigh.

374

Leaving in Hades. – We must leave many things in the Hades of half-conscious feeling, and not try to release them from their shadow-existence, or else they will become, as thoughts and words, our demoniacal tyrants, with cruel lust after our blood.

375

Near to Beggary. – Even the richest intellect sometimes mislays the key to the room in which his hoarded treasures repose. He is then like the poorest of the poor, who must beg to get a living.

376

Chain-Thinkers. – To him who has thought a great deal, every new thought that he hears or reads at once assumes the form of a chain.

377

Pity. – In the gilded sheath of pity is sometimes hidden the dagger of envy.

378

What is Genius? – To aspire to a lofty aim and to will the means to that aim.

379

Vanity of Combatants. – He who has no hope of victory in a combat, or who is obviously worsted, is all the more desirous that his style of fighting should be admired.