material from the ,google ,print project47 ,,human1 ,,all ,,too ,,human ,a ,,book ,,for ,,free ,,spirits ,,by ,,friedrich ,,nietzsche ,,translated ,,by ,,alexander ,,harvey ,,chicago ,,charles ,h4 ,,kerr ,,company #aijh ,copyright #aijh ,by ,charles ,h4 ,kerr ,company ,,contents ,,author',s ,,preface ,,of ,,the ,,first ,,and ,,last ,,things ,,history ,,of ,,the ,,moral ,,feelings ,,the ,,religious ,,life ,,preface4 #a ,it is often enough1 and always with great surprise1 intimated to me that there is something both ordinary and unusual in all my writings1 from the ,birth of ,tragedy to the recently published ,prelude to a ,philosophy of the ,future3 they all contain1 ,i have been told1 snares and nets for short sighted birds1 and something that is almost a constant1 subtle1 incitement to an overturning of habitual opinions and of approved customs4 ,what68 ,everything is merely--human--all too human8 ,with this exclamation my writings are gone through1 not without a certain dread and mistrust of ethic itself and not without a disposition to ask the exponent of evil things if those things be not simply misrepresented4 ,my writings have been termed a school of distrust1 still more of disdain3 also1 and more happily1 of courage1 audacity even4 ,and in fact1 ,i myself do not believe that anybody ever looked into the world with a distrust as deep as mine1 seeming1 as ,i do1 not simply the timely advocate of the devil1 but1 to employ theological terms1 an enemy and challenger of ,god2 and whosoever has experienced any of the consequences of such deep distrust1 anything of the chills and the agonies of isolation to which such an unqualified difference of standpoint condemns him endowed with it1 will also understand how often ,i must have sought relief and self-forgetfulness from any source--through any object of veneration or enmity1 of scientific seriousness or wanton lightness2 also why ,i1 when ,i could not find what ,i was in need of1 had to fashion it for myself1 counterfeiting it or imagining it 7and what poet or writer has ever done anything else1 and what other purpose can all the art in the world possibly have87 ,that which ,i always stood most in need of in order to effect my cure and self-recovery was faith1 faith enough not to be thus isolated1 not to look at life from so singular a point of view--a magic apprehension 7in eye and mind7 of relationship and equality1 a calm confidence in friendship1 a blindness1 free from suspicion and questioning1 to two sidedness2 a pleasure in externals1 superficialities1 the near1 the accessible1 in all things possessed of color1 skin and seeming4 ,perhaps ,i could be fairly reproached with much art in this regard1 many fine counterfeitings2 for example1 that1 wisely or wilfully1 ,i had shut my eyes to ,schopenhauer's blind will towards ethic1 at a time when ,i was already clear sighted enough on the subject of ethic2 likewise that ,i had deceived myself concerning ,richard ,wagner's incurable romanticism1 as if it were a beginning and not an end2 likewise concerning the ,greeks1 likewise concerning the ,germans and their future--and there may be1 perhaps1 a long list of such likewises4 ,granted1 however1 that all this were true1 and with justice urged against me1 what does it signify1 what can it signify in regard to how much of the self-sustaining capacity1 how much of reason and higher protection are embraced in such self-deception8--and how much more falsity is still necessary to me that ,i may therewith always reassure myself regarding the luxury of my truth4 ,enough1 ,i still live2 and life is not considered now apart from ethic2 it will have deception2 it thrives 7lebt7 on deception 444 but am ,i not beginning to do all over again what ,i have always done1 ,i1 the old immoralist1 and bird snarer--talk unmorally1 ultramorally1 beyond good and evil8 #b ,thus1 then1 have ,i evolved for myself the free spirits to whom this discouraging-encouraging work1 under the general title ,human1 ,all ,too ,human1 is dedicated4 ,such free spirits do not really exist and never did exist4 ,but ,i stood in need of them1 as ,i have pointed out1 in order that some good might be mixed with my evils 7illness1 loneliness1 strangeness1 acedia1 incapacity73 to serve as gay spirits and comrades1 with whom one may talk and laugh when one is disposed to talk and laugh1 and whom one may send to the devil when they grow wearisome4 ,they are some compensation for the lack of friends4 ,that such free spirits can possibly exist1 that our ,europe will yet number among her sons of to-morrow or of the day after to-morrow1 such a brilliant and enthusiastic company1 alive and palpable and not merely1 as in my case1 fantasms and imaginary shades1 ,i1 myself1 can by no means doubt4 ,i see them already coming1 slowly1 slowly4 ,may it not be that ,i am doing a little something to expedite their coming when ,i describe in advance the influences under which ,i see them evolving and the ways along which they travel8 #c ,it may be conjectured that a soul in which the type of free spirit can attain maturity and completeness had its decisive and deciding event in the form of a great emancipation or unbinding1 and that prior to that event it seemed only the more firmly and forever chained to its place and pillar4 ,what binds strongest8 ,what cords seem almost unbreakable8 ,in the case of mortals of a choice and lofty nature they will be those of duty3 that reverence1 which in youth is most typical1 that timidity and tenderness in the presence of the traditionally honored and the worthy1 that gratitude to the soil from which we sprung1 for the hand that guided us1 for the relic before which we were taught to pray--their sublimest moments will themselves bind these souls most strongly4 ,the great liberation comes suddenly to such prisoners1 like an earthquake3 the young soul is all at once shaken1 torn apart1 cast forth--it comprehends not itself what is taking place4 ,an involuntary onward impulse rules them with the mastery of command2 a will1 a wish are developed to go forward1 anywhere1 at any price2 a strong1 dangerous curiosity regarding an undiscovered world flames and flashes in all their being4 ,better to die than live here--so sounds the tempting voice3 and this here1 this at home constitutes all they have hitherto loved4 ,a sudden dread and distrust of that which they loved1 a flash of contempt for that which is called their duty1 a mutinous1 wilful1 volcanic-like longing for a far away journey1 strange scenes and people1 annihilation1 petrifaction1 a hatred surmounting love1 perhaps a sacrilegious impulse and look backwards1 to where they so long prayed and loved1 perhaps a flush of shame for what they did and at the same time an exultation at having done it1 an inner1 intoxicating1 delightful tremor in which is betrayed the sense of victory--a victory8 over what8 over whom8 a riddle-like victory1 fruitful in questioning and well worth questioning1 but the first victory1 for all--such things of pain and ill belong to the history of the great liberation4 ,and it is at the same time a malady that can destroy a man1 this first outbreak of strength and will for self-destination1 self-valuation1 this will for free will3 and how much illness is forced to the surface in the frantic strivings and singularities with which the freedman1 the liberated seeks henceforth to attest his mastery over things6 ,he roves fiercely around1 with an unsatisfied longing and whatever objects he may encounter must suffer from the perilous expectancy of his pride2 he tears to pieces whatever attracts him4 ,with a sardonic laugh he overturns whatever he finds veiled or protected by any reverential awe3 he would see what these things look like when they are overturned4 ,it is wilfulness and delight in the wilfulness of it1 if he now1 perhaps1 gives his approval to that which has heretofore been in ill repute--if1 in curiosity and experiment1 he penetrates stealthily to the most forbidden things4 ,in the background during all his plunging and roaming--for he is as restless and aimless in his course as if lost in a wilderness--is the interrogation mark of a curiosity growing ever more dangerous4 ,can we not upset every standard8 and is good perhaps evil8 and ,god only an invention and a subtlety of the devil8 ,is everything1 in the last resort1 false8 ,and if we are dupes are we not on that very account dupers also8 must we not be dupers also8 ,such reflections lead and mislead him1 ever further on1 ever further away4 ,solitude1 that dread goddess and mater saeva cupidinum1 encircles and besets him1 ever more threatening1 more violent1 more heart breaking--but who to-day knows what solitude is8 #d ,from this morbid solitude1 from the deserts of such trial years1 the way is yet far to that great1 overflowing certainty and healthiness which cannot dispense even with sickness as a means and a grappling hook of knowledge2 to that matured freedom of the spirit which is1 in an equal degree1 self mastery and discipline of the heart1 and gives access to the path of much and various reflection--to that inner comprehensiveness and self satisfaction of over-richness which precludes all danger that the spirit has gone astray even in its own path and is sitting intoxicated in some corner or other2 to that overplus of plastic1 healing1 imitative and restorative power which is the very sign of vigorous health1 that overplus which confers upon the free spirit the perilous prerogative of spending a life in experiment and of running adventurous risks3 the past-master-privilege of the free spirit4 ,in the interval there may be long years of convalescence1 years filled with many hued painfully-bewitching transformations1 dominated and led to the goal by a tenacious will for health that is often emboldened to assume the guise and the disguise of health4 ,there is a middle ground to this1 which a man of such destiny can not subsequently recall without emotion2 he basks in a special fine sun of his own1 with a feeling of birdlike freedom1 birdlike visual power1 birdlike irrepressibleness1 a something extraneous 7,drittes7 in which curiosity and delicate disdain have united4 ,a free spirit--this refreshing term is grateful in any mood1 it almost sets one aglow4 ,one lives--no longer in the bonds of love and hate1 without a yes or no1 here or there indifferently1 best pleased to evade1 to avoid1 to beat about1 neither advancing nor retreating4 ,one is habituated to the bad1 like a person who all at once sees a fearful hurly-burly beneath him--and one was the counterpart of him who bothers himself with things that do not concern him4 ,as a matter of fact the free spirit is bothered with mere things--and how many things--which no longer concern him4 #e ,a step further in recovery3 and the free spirit draws near to life again1 slowly indeed1 almost refractorily1 almost distrustfully4 ,there is again warmth and mellowness3 feeling and fellow feeling acquire depth1 lambent airs stir all about him4 ,he almost feels3 it seems as if now for the first time his eyes are open to things near4 ,he is in amaze and sits hushed3 for where had he been8 ,these near and immediate things3 how changed they seem to him6 ,he looks gratefully back--grateful for his wandering1 his self exile and severity1 his lookings afar and his bird flights in the cold heights4 ,how fortunate that he has not1 like a sensitive1 dull home body1 remained always in the house and at home6 ,he had been beside himself1 beyond a doubt4 ,now for the first time he really sees himself--and what surprises in the process4 ,what hitherto unfelt tremors6 ,yet what joy in the exhaustion1 the old sickness1 the relapses of the convalescent6 ,how it delights him1 suffering1 to sit still1 to exercise patience1 to lie in the sun6 ,who so well as he appreciates the fact that there comes balmy weather even in winter1 who delights more in the sunshine athwart the wall8 ,they are the most appreciative creatures in the world1 and also the most humble1 these convalescents and lizards1 crawling back towards life3 there are some among them who can let no day slip past them without addressing some song of praise to its retreating light4 ,and speaking seriously1 it is a fundamental cure for all pessimism 7the cankerous vice1 as is well known1 of all idealists and humbugs71 to become ill in the manner of these free spirits1 to remain ill quite a while and then bit by bit grow healthy--,i mean healthier4 ,it is wisdom1 worldly wisdom1 to administer even health to oneself for a long time in small doses4 #f ,about this time it becomes at last possible1 amid the flash lights of a still unestablished1 still precarious health1 for the free1 the ever freer spirit to begin to read the riddle of that great liberation1 a riddle which has hitherto lingered1 obscure1 well worth questioning1 almost impalpable1 in his memory4 ,if once he hardly dared to ask why so apart8 so alone8 renouncing all ,i loved8 renouncing respect itself8 why this coldness1 this suspicion1 this hate for one's very virtues8--now he dares1 and asks it loudly1 already hearing the answer1 you had to become master over yourself1 master of your own good qualities4 ,formerly they were your masters3 but they should be merely your tools along with other tools4 ,you had to acquire power over your aye and no and learn to hold and withhold them in accordance with your higher aims4 ,you had to grasp the perspective of every representation 7,werthschaetzung7--the dislocation1 distortion and the apparent end or teleology of the horizon1 besides whatever else appertains to the perspective3 also the element of demerit in its relation to opposing merit1 and the whole intellectual cost of every affirmative1 every negative4 ,you had to find out the inevitable error#a in every ,yes and in every ,no1 error as inseparable from life1 life itself as conditioned by the perspective and its inaccuracy4#a ,above all1 you had to see with your own eyes where the error#a is always greatest3 there1 namely1 where life is littlest1 narrowest1 meanest1 least developed and yet cannot help looking upon itself as the goal and standard of things1 and smugly and ignobly and incessantly tearing to tatters all that is highest and greatest and richest1 and putting the shreds into the form of questions from the standpoint of its own well being4 ,you had to see with your own eyes the problem of classification1 7,rangordnung1 regulation concerning rank and station7 and how strength and sweep and reach of perspective wax upward together3 ,you had--enough1 the free spirit knows henceforward which you had it has obeyed and also what it now can do and what it now1 for the first time1 dare4 #a ,ungerechtigkeit1 literally wrongfulness1 injustice1 unrighteousness4 #g ,accordingly1 the free spirit works out for itself an answer to that riddle of its liberation and concludes by generalizing upon its experience in the following fashion3 ,what ,i went through everyone must go through in whom any problem is germinated and strives to body itself forth4 ,the inner power and inevitability of this problem will assert themselves in due course1 as in the case of any unsuspected pregnancy--long before the spirit has seen this problem in its true aspect and learned to call it by its right name4 ,our destiny exercises its influence over us even when1 as yet1 we have not learned its nature3 it is our future that lays down the law to our to-day4 ,granted1 that it is the problem of classification#b of which we free spirits may say1 this is our problem1 yet it is only now1 in the midday of our life1 that we fully appreciate what preparations1 shifts1 trials1 ordeals1 stages1 were essential to that problem before it could emerge to our view1 and why we had to go through the various and contradictory longings and satisfactions of body and soul1 as circumnavigators and adventurers of that inner world called man2 as surveyors of that higher and of that progression#c that is also called man--crowding in everywhere1 almost without fear1 disdaining nothing1 missing nothing1 testing everything1 sifting everything and eliminating the chance impurities--until at last we could say1 we free spirits3 ,here--a new problem6 ,here1 a long ladder on the rungs of which we ourselves have rested and risen1 which we have actually been at times4 ,here is a something higher1 a something deeper1 a something below us1 a vastly extensive order1 7,ordnung7 a comparative classification 7,rangordnung71 that we perceive3 here--our problem6 #b ,rangordnung3 the meaning is the problem of grasping the relative importance of things4 #c ,uebereinander3 one over another4 #h ,to what stage in the development just outlined the present book belongs 7or is assigned7 is something that will be hidden from no augur or psychologist for an instant4 ,but where are there psychologists to-day8 ,in ,france1 certainly2 in ,russia1 perhaps2 certainly not in ,germany4 ,grounds are not wanting1 to be sure1 upon which the ,germans of to-day may adduce this fact to their credit3 unhappily for one who in this matter is fashioned and mentored in an un-,german school6 ,this ,german book1 which has found its readers in a wide circle of lands and peoples--it has been some ten years on its rounds--and which must make its way by means of any musical art and tune that will captivate the foreign ear as well as the native--this book has been read most indifferently in ,germany itself and little heeded there3 to what is that due8 ,it requires too much1 ,i have been told1 it addresses itself to men free from the press of petty obligations1 it demands fine and trained perceptions1 it requires a surplus1 a surplus of time1 of the lightness of heaven and of the heart1 of otium in the most unrestricted sense3 mere good things that we ,germans of to-day have not got and therefore cannot give4 ,after so graceful a retort1 my philosophy bids me be silent and ask no more questions3 at times1 as the proverb says1 one remains a philosopher only because one says--nothing6 ,nice1 ,spring1 #ahhf4 ,,of ,,the ,,first ,,and ,,last ,,things4 #a ,chemistry of the ,notions and the ,feelings4--,philosophical problems1 in almost all their aspects1 present themselves in the same interrogative formula now that they did two thousand years ago3 how can a thing develop out of its antithesis8 for example1 the reasonable from the non-reasonable1 the animate from the inanimate1 the logical from the illogical1 altruism from egoism1 disinterestedness from greed1 truth from error8 ,the metaphysical philosophy formerly steered itself clear of this difficulty to such extent as to repudiate the evolution of one thing from another and to assign a miraculous origin to what it deemed highest and best1 due to the very nature and being of the thing-in-itself4 ,the historical philosophy1 on the other hand1 which can no longer be viewed apart from physical science1 the youngest of all philosophical methods1 discovered experimentally 7and its results will probably always be the same7 that there is no antithesis whatever1 except in the usual exaggerations of popular or metaphysical comprehension1 and that an error of the reason is at the bottom of such contradiction4 ,according to its explanation1 there is1 strictly speaking1 neither unselfish conduct1 nor a wholly disinterested point of view4 ,both are simply sublimations in which the basic element seems almost evaporated and betrays its presence only to the keenest observation4 ,all that we need and that could possibly be given us in the present state of development of the sciences1 is a chemistry of the moral1 religious1 aesthetic conceptions and feeling1 as well as of those emotions which we experience in the affairs1 great and small1 of society and civilization1 and which we are sensible of even in solitude4 ,but what if this chemistry established the fact that1 even in its domain1 the most magnificent results were attained with the basest and most despised ingredients8 ,would many feel disposed to continue such investigations8 ,mankind loves to put by the questions of its origin and beginning3 must one not be almost inhuman in order to follow the opposite course8 #b ,the ,traditional ,error of ,philosophers4--,all philosophers make the common mistake of taking contemporary man as their starting point and of trying1 through an analysis of him1 to reach a conclusion4 ,man involuntarily presents himself to them as an aeterna veritas as a passive element in every hurly-burly1 as a fixed standard of things4 ,yet everything uttered by the philosopher on the subject of man is1 in the last resort1 nothing more than a piece of testimony concerning man during a very limited period of time4 ,lack of the historical sense is the traditional defect in all philosophers4 ,many innocently take man in his most childish state as fashioned through the influence of certain religious and even of certain political developments1 as the permanent form under which man must be viewed4 ,they will not learn that man has evolved1#d that the intellectual faculty itself is an evolution1 whereas some philosophers make the whole cosmos out of this intellectual faculty4 ,but everything essential in human evolution took place aeons ago1 long before the four thousand years or so of which we know anything3 during these man may not have changed very much4 ,however1 the philosopher ascribes instinct to contemporary man and assumes that this is one of the unalterable facts regarding man himself1 and hence affords a clue to the understanding of the universe in general4 ,the whole teleology is so planned that man during the last four thousand years shall be spoken of as a being existing from all eternity1 and with reference to whom everything in the cosmos from its very inception is naturally ordered4 ,yet everything evolved3 there are no eternal facts as there are no absolute truths4 ,accordingly1 historical philosophising is henceforth indispensable1 and with it honesty of judgment4 #d geworden4 #c ,appreciation of ,simple ,truths4--,it is the characteristic of an advanced civilization to set a higher value upon little1 simple truths1 ascertained by scientific method1 than upon the pleasing and magnificent errors originating in metaphysical and aesthetical epochs and peoples4 ,to begin with1 the former are spoken of with contempt as if there could be no question of comparison respecting them1 so rigid1 homely1 prosaic and even discouraging is the aspect of the first1 while so beautiful1 decorative1 intoxicating and perhaps beatific appear the last named4 ,nevertheless1 the hardwon1 the certain1 the lasting and1 therefore1 the fertile in new knowledge1 is the higher2 to hold fast to it is manly and evinces courage1 directness1 endurance4 ,and not only individual men but all mankind will by degrees be uplifted to this manliness when they are finally habituated to the proper appreciation of tenable1 enduring knowledge and have lost all faith in inspiration and in the miraculous revelation of truth4 ,the reverers of forms1 indeed1 with their standards of beauty and taste1 may have good reason to laugh when the appreciation of little truths and the scientific spirit begin to prevail1 but that will be only because their eyes are not yet opened to the charm of the utmost simplicity of form or because men though reared in the rightly appreciative spirit1 will still not be fully permeated by it1 so that they continue unwittingly imitating ancient forms 7and that ill enough1 as anybody does who no longer feels any interest in a thing74 ,formerly the mind was not brought into play through the medium of exact thought4 ,its serious business lay in the working out of forms and symbols4 ,that has now changed4 ,any seriousness in symbolism is at present the indication of a deficient education4 ,as our very acts become more intellectual1 our tendencies more rational1 and our judgment1 for example1 as to what seems reasonable1 is very different from what it was a hundred years ago3 so the forms of our lives grow ever more intellectual and1 to the old fashioned eye1 perhaps1 uglier1 but only because it cannot see that the richness of inner1 rational beauty always spreads and deepens1 and that the inner1 rational aspect of all things should now be of more consequence to us than the most beautiful externality and the most exquisite limning4 #d ,astrology and the ,like4--,it is presumable that the objects of the religious1 moral1 aesthetic and logical notions pertain simply to the superficialities of things1 although man flatters himself with the thought that here at least he is getting to the heart of the cosmos4 ,he deceives himself because these things have power to make him so happy and so wretched1 and so he evinces1 in this respect1 the same conceit that characterises astrology4 ,astrology presupposes that the heavenly bodies are regulated in their movements in harmony with the destiny of mortals3 the moral man presupposes that that which concerns himself most nearly must also be the heart and soul of things4 #e ,misconception of ,dreams4--,in the dream1 mankind1 in epochs of crude primitive civilization1 thought they were introduced to a second1 substantial world3 here we have the source of all metaphysic4 ,without the dream1 men would never have been incited to an analysis of the world4 ,even the distinction between soul and body is wholly due to the primitive conception of the dream1 as also the hypothesis of the embodied soul1 whence the development of all superstition1 and also1 probably1 the belief in god4 ,the dead still live3 for they appear to the living in dreams4 ,so reasoned mankind at one time1 and through many thousands of years4 #f ,the ,scientific ,spirit ,prevails only ,partially1 not ,wholly4--,the specialized1 minutest departments of science are dealt with purely objectively4 ,but the general universal sciences1 considered as a great1 basic unity1 posit the question--truly a very living question--3 to what purpose8 what is the use8 ,because of this reference to utility they are1 as a whole1 less impersonal than when looked at in their specialized aspects4 ,now in the case of philosophy1 as forming the apex of the scientific pyramid1 this question of the utility of knowledge is necessarily brought very conspicuously forward1 so that every philosophy has1 unconsciously1 the air of ascribing the highest utility to itself4 ,it is for this reason that all philosophies contain such a great amount of high flying metaphysic1 and such a shrinking from the seeming insignificance of the deliverances of physical science3 for the significance of knowledge in relation to life must be made to appear as great as possible4 ,this constitutes the antagonism between the specialties of science and philosophy4 ,the latter aims1 as art aims1 at imparting to life and conduct the utmost depth and significance3 in the former mere knowledge is sought and nothing else--whatever else be incidentally obtained4 ,heretofore there has never been a philosophical system in which philosophy itself was not made the apologist of knowledge in the abstract4 ,on this point1 at least1 each is optimistic and insists that to knowledge the highest utility must be ascribed4 ,they are all under the tyranny of logic1 which is1 from its very nature1 optimism4 #g ,the ,discordant ,element in ,science4--,philosophy severed itself from science when it put the question3 what is that knowledge of the world and of life through which mankind may be made happiest8 ,this happened when the ,socratic school arose3 with the standpoint of happiness the arteries of investigating science were compressed too tightly to permit of any circulation of the blood--and are so compressed to-day4 #h ,pneumatic ,explanation of ,nature4#e--,metaphysic reads the message of nature as if it were written purely pneumatically1 as the church and its learned ones formerly did where the bible was concerned4 ,it requires a great deal of expertness to apply to nature the same strict science of interpretation that the philologists have devised for all literature1 and to apply it for the purpose of a simple1 direct interpretation of the message1 and at the same time1 not bring out a double meaning4 ,but1 as in the case of books and literature1 errors of exposition are far from being completely eliminated1 and vestiges of allegorical and mystical interpretations are still to be met with in the most cultivated circles1 so where nature is concerned the case is--actually much worse4 #e ,pneumatic is here used in the sense of spiritual4 ,pneuma being the ,greek word in the ,new ,testament for the ,holy ,spirit4--,ed4 #i ,metaphysical ,world4--,it is true1 there may be a metaphysical world2 the absolute possibility of it can scarcely be disputed4 ,we see all things through the medium of the human head and we cannot well cut off this head3 although there remains the question what part of the world would be left after it had been cut off4 ,but that is a purely abstract scientific problem and one not much calculated to give men uneasiness3 yet everything that has heretofore made metaphysical assumptions valuable1 fearful or delightful to men1 all that gave rise to them is passion1 error and self deception3 the worst systems of knowledge1 not the best1 pin their tenets of belief thereto4 ,when such methods are once brought to view as the basis of all existing religions and metaphysics1 they are already discredited4 ,there always remains1 however1 the possibility already conceded3 but nothing at all can be made out of that1 to say not a word about letting happiness1 salvation and life hang upon the threads spun from such a possibility4 ,accordingly1 nothing could be predicated of the metaphysical world beyond the fact that it is an elsewhere1#f another sphere1 inaccessible and incomprehensible to us3 it would become a thing of negative properties4 ,even were the existence of such a world absolutely established1 it would nevertheless remain incontrovertible that of all kinds of knowledge1 knowledge of such a world would be of least consequence--of even less consequence than knowledge of the chemical analysis of water would be to a storm tossed mariner4 #f ,anderssein4 #aj ,the ,harmlessness of ,metaphysic in the ,future4--,as soon as religion1 art and ethics are so understood that a full comprehension of them can be gained without taking refuge in the postulates of metaphysical claptrap at any point in the line of reasoning1 there will be a complete cessation of interest in the purely theoretical problem of the thing in itself and the phenomenon4 ,for here1 too1 the same truth applies3 in religion1 art and ethics we are not concerned with the essence of the cosmos4#g ,we are in the sphere of pure conception4 ,no presentiment or intuition can carry us any further4 ,with perfect tranquility the question of how our conception of the world could differ so sharply from the actual world as it is manifest to us1 will be relegated to the physiological sciences and to the history of the evolution of ideas and organisms4 #g ,wesen der ,welt an sich4 #aa ,language as a ,presumptive ,science4--,the importance of language in the development of civilization consists in the fact that by means of it man placed one world1 his own1 alongside another1 a place of leverage that he thought so firm as to admit of his turning the rest of the cosmos on a pivot that he might master it4 ,in so far as man for ages looked upon mere ideas and names of things as upon aeternae veritates1 he evinced the very pride with which he raised himself above the brute4 ,he really supposed that in language he possessed a knowledge of the cosmos4 ,the language builder was not so modest as to believe that he was only giving names to things4 ,on the contrary he thought he embodied the highest wisdom concerning things in mere words2 and1 in truth1 language is the first movement in all strivings for wisdom4 ,here1 too1 it is faith in ascertained truth#h from which the mightiest fountains of strength have flowed4 ,very tardily--only now--it dawns upon men that they have propagated a monstrous error in their belief in language4 ,fortunately1 it is too late now to arrest and turn back the evolutionary process of the reason1 which had its inception in this belief4 ,logic itself rests upon assumptions to which nothing in the world of reality corresponds4 ,for example1 the correspondence of certain things to one another and the identity of those things at different periods of time are assumptions pure and simple1 but the science of logic originated in the positive belief that they were not assumptions at all but established facts4 ,it is the same with the science of mathematics which certainly would never have come into existence if mankind had known from the beginning that in all nature there is no perfectly straight line1 no true circle1 no standard of measurement4 #h ,glaube an die gefundene ,wahrheit1 as distinguished from faith in what is taken on trust as truth4 #ab ,dream and ,civilization4--,the function of the brain which is most encroached upon in slumber is the memory2 not that it is wholly suspended1 but it is reduced to a state of imperfection as1 in primitive ages of mankind1 was probably the case with everyone1 whether waking or sleeping4 ,uncontrolled and entangled as it is1 it perpetually confuses things as a result of the most trifling similarities1 yet in the same mental confusion and lack of control the nations invented their mythologies1 while nowadays travelers habitually observe how prone the savage is to forgetfulness1 how his mind1 after the least exertion of memory1 begins to wander and lose itself until finally he utters falsehood and nonsense from sheer exhaustion4 ,yet1 in dreams1 we all resemble this savage4 ,inadequacy of distinction and error of comparison are the basis of the preposterous things we do and say in dreams1 so that when we clearly recall a dream we are startled that so much idiocy lurks within us4 ,the absolute distinctness of all dream-images1 due to implicit faith in their substantial reality1 recalls the conditions in which earlier mankind were placed1 for whom hallucinations had extraordinary vividness1 entire communities and even entire nations laboring simultaneously under them4 ,therefore3 in sleep and in dream we make the pilgrimage of early mankind over again4 #ac ,logic of the ,dream4--,during sleep the nervous system1 through various inner provocatives1 is in constant agitation4 ,almost all the organs act independently and vigorously4 ,the blood circulates rapidly4 ,the posture of the sleeper compresses some portions of the body4 ,the coverlets influence the sensations in different ways4 ,the stomach carries on the digestive process and acts upon other organs thereby4 ,the intestines are in motion4 ,the position of the head induces unaccustomed action4 ,the feet1 shoeless1 no longer pressing the ground1 are the occasion of other sensations of novelty1 as is1 indeed1 the changed garb of the entire body4 ,all these things1 following the bustle and change of the day1 result1 through their novelty1 in a movement throughout the entire system that extends even to the brain functions4 ,thus there are a hundred circumstances to induce perplexity in the mind1 a questioning as to the cause of this excitation4 ,now1 the dream is a seeking and presenting of reasons for these excitations of feeling1 of the supposed reasons1 that is to say4 ,thus1 for example1 whoever has his feet bound with two threads will probably dream that a pair of serpents are coiled about his feet4 ,this is at first a hypothesis1 then a belief with an accompanying imaginative picture and the argument3 these snakes must be the causa of those sensations which ,i1 the sleeper1 now have4 ,so reasons the mind of the sleeper4 ,the conditions precedent1 as thus conjectured1 become1 owing to the excitation of the fancy1 present realities4 ,everyone knows from experience how a dreamer will transform one piercing sound1 for example1 that of a bell1 into another of quite a different nature1 say1 the report of cannon4 ,in his dream he becomes aware first of the effects1 which he explains by a subsequent hypothesis and becomes persuaded of the purely conjectural nature of the sound4 ,but how comes it that the mind of the dreamer goes so far astray when the same mind1 awake1 is habitually cautious1 careful1 and so conservative in its dealings with hypotheses8 why does the first plausible hypothesis of the cause of a sensation gain credit in the dreaming state8 7,for in a dream we look upon that dream as reality1 that is1 we accept our hypotheses as fully established74 ,i have no doubt that as men argue in their dreams to-day1 mankind argued1 even in their waking moments1 for thousands of years3 the first causa1 that occurred to the mind with reference to anything that stood in need of explanation1 was accepted as the true explanation and served as such4 7,savages show the same tendency in operation1 as the reports of travelers agree74 ,in the dream this atavistic relic of humanity manifests its existence within us1 for it is the foundation upon which the higher rational faculty developed itself and still develops itself in every individual4 ,dreams carry us back to the earlier stages of human culture and afford us a means of understanding it more clearly4 ,dream thought comes so easily to us now because we are so thoroughly trained to it through the interminable stages of evolution during which this fanciful and facile form of theorising has prevailed4 ,to a certain extent the dream is a restorative for the brain1 which1 during the day1 is called upon to meet the many demands for trained thought made upon it by the conditions of a higher civilization4--,we may1 if we please1 become sensible1 even in our waking moments1 of a condition that is as a door and vestibule to dreaming4 ,if we close our eyes the brain immediately conjures up a medley of impressions of light and color1 apparently a sort of imitation and echo of the impressions forced in upon the brain during its waking moments4 ,and now the mind1 in co-operation with the imagination1 transforms this formless play of light and color into definite figures1 moving groups1 landscapes4 ,what really takes place is a sort of reasoning from effect back to cause4 ,as the brain inquires3 whence these impressions of light and color8 it posits as the inducing causes of such lights and colors1 those shapes and figures4 ,they serve the brain as the occasions of those lights and colors because the brain1 when the eyes are open and the senses awake1 is accustomed to perceiving the cause of every impression of light and color made upon it4 ,here again the imagination is continually interposing its images inasmuch as it participates in the production of the impressions made through the senses day by day3 and the dream-fancy does exactly the same thing--that is1 the presumed cause is determined from the effect and after the effect3 all this1 too1 with extraordinary rapidity1 so that in this matter1 as in a matter of jugglery or sleight-of-hand1 a confusion of the mind is produced and an after effect is made to appear a simultaneous action1 an inverted succession of events1 even4--,from these considerations we can see how late strict1 logical thought1 the true notion of cause and effect must have been in developing1 since our intellectual and rational faculties to this very day revert to these primitive processes of deduction1 while practically half our lifetime is spent in the super-inducing conditions4--,even the poet1 the artist1 ascribes to his sentimental and emotional states causes which are not the true ones4 ,to that extent he is a reminder of early mankind and can aid us in its comprehension4 #ad ,association4#i--;,all strong feelings are associated with a variety of allied sentiments and emotions4 ,they stir up the memory at the same time4 ,when we are under their influence we are reminded of similar states and we feel a renewal of them within us4 ,thus are formed habitual successions of feelings and notions1 which1 at last1 when they follow one another with lightning rapidity are no longer felt as complexities but as unities4 ,in this sense we hear of moral feelings1 of religious feelings1 as if they were absolute unities4 ,in reality they are streams with a hundred sources and tributaries4 ,here again1 the unity of the word speaks nothing for the unity of the thing4 #i ,miterklingen3 to sound simultaneously with4 #ae ,no ,within and ,without in the ,world4#aj--;,as ,democritus transferred the notions above and below to limitless space1 where they are destitute of meaning1 so the philosophers do generally with the idea within and without1 as regards the form and substance 7,wesen und ,erscheinung7 of the world4 ,what they claim is that through the medium of profound feelings one can penetrate deep into the soul of things 7,innre71 draw close to the heart of nature4 ,but these feelings are deep only in so far as with them are simultaneously aroused1 although almost imperceptibly1 certain complicated groups of thoughts 7,gedankengruppen7 which we call deep3 a feeling is deep because we deem the thoughts accompanying it deep4 ,but deep thought can nevertheless be very widely sundered from truth1 as for instance every metaphysical thought4 ,take from deep feeling the element of thought blended with it and all that remains is strength of feeling which is no voucher for the validity of knowledge1 as intense faith is evidence only of its own intensity and not of the truth of that in which the faith is felt4 #aj ,kein ,innen und ,aussen in der ,welt3 the above translation may seem too literal but some dispute has arisen concerning the precise idea the author means to convey4 #af ,phenomenon and ,thing-in-,itself4--,the philosophers are in the habit of placing themselves in front of life and experience--that which they call the world of phenomena--as if they were standing before a picture that is unrolled before them in its final completeness4 ,this panorama1 they think1 must be studied in every detail in order to reach some conclusion regarding the object represented by the picture4 ,from effect1 accordingly is deduced cause and from cause is deduced the unconditioned4 ,this process is generally looked upon as affording the all sufficient explanation of the world of phenomena4 ,on the other hand one must1 7while putting the conception of the metaphysical distinctly forward as that of the unconditioned1 and consequently of the unconditioning7 absolutely deny any connection between the unconditioned 7of the metaphysical world7 and the world known to us3 so that throughout phenomena there is no manifestation of the thing-in-itself1 and getting from one to the other is out of the question4 ,thus is left quite ignored the circumstance that the picture--that which we now call life and experience--is a gradual evolution1 is1 indeed1 still in process of evolution and for that reason should not be regarded as an enduring whole from which any conclusion as to its author 7the all-sufficient reason7 could be arrived at1 or even pronounced out of the question4 ,it is because we have for thousands of years looked into the world with moral1 aesthetic1 religious predispositions1 with blind prejudice1 passion or fear1 and surfeited ourselves with indulgence in the follies of illogical thought1 that the world has gradually become so wondrously motley1 frightful1 significant1 soulful3 it has taken on tints1 but we have been the colorists3 the human intellect1 upon the foundation of human needs1 of human passions1 has reared all these phenomena and injected its own erroneous fundamental conceptions into things4 ,late1 very late1 the human intellect checks itself3 and now the world of experience and the thing-in-itself seem to it so severed and so antithetical that it denies the possibility of one's hinging upon the other--or else summons us to surrender our intellect1 our personal will1 to the secret and the awe-inspiring in order that thereby we may attain certainty of certainty hereafter4 ,again1 there are those who have combined all the characteristic features of our world of phenomena--that is1 the conception of the world which has been formed and inherited through a series of intellectual vagaries--and instead of holding the intellect responsible for it all1 have pronounced the very nature of things accountable for the present very sinister aspect of the world1 and preached annihilation of existence4 ,through all these views and opinions the toilsome1 steady process of science 7which now for the first time begins to celebrate its greatest triumph in the genesis of thought7 will definitely work itself out1 the result1 being1 perhaps1 to the following effect3 ,that which we now call the world is the result of a crowd of errors and fancies which gradually developed in the general evolution of organic nature1 have grown together and been transmitted to us as the accumulated treasure of all the past--as the treasure1 for whatever is worth anything in our humanity rests upon it4 ,from this world of conception it is in the power of science to release us only to a slight extent--and this is all that could be wished--inasmuch as it cannot eradicate the influence of hereditary habits of feeling1 but it can light up by degrees the stages of the development of that world of conception1 and lift us1 at least for a time1 above the whole spectacle4 ,perhaps we may then perceive that the thing-in-itself is a meet subject for ,homeric laughter3 that it seemed so much1 everything1 indeed1 and is really a void--void1 that is to say1 of meaning4 #ag ,metaphysical ,explanation4--,man1 when he is young1 prizes metaphysical explanations1 because they make him see matters of the highest import in things he found disagreeable or contemptible3 and if he is not satisfied with himself1 this feeling of dissatisfaction is soothed when he sees the most hidden world-problem or world-pain in that which he finds so displeasing in himself4 ,to feel himself more unresponsible and at the same time to find things 7,dinge7 more interesting--that is to him the double benefit he owes to metaphysics4 ,later1 indeed1 he acquires distrust of the whole metaphysical method of explaining things3 he then perceives1 perhaps1 that those effects could have been attained just as well and more scientifically by another method3 that physical and historical explanations would1 at least1 have given that feeling of freedom from personal responsibility just as well1 while interest in life and its problems would be stimulated1 perhaps1 even more4 #ah ,the ,fundamental ,problems of ,metaphysics4--,if a history of the development of thought is ever written1 the following proposition1 advanced by a distinguished logician1 will be illuminated with a new light3 ,the universal1 primordial law of the apprehending subject consists in the inner necessity of cognizing every object by itself1 as in its essence a thing unto itself1 therefore as self-existing and unchanging1 in short1 as a substance4 ,even this law1 which is here called primordial1 is an evolution3 it has yet to be shown how gradually this evolution takes place in lower organizations3 how the dim1 mole eyes of such organizations see1 at first1 nothing but a blank sameness3 how later1 when the various excitations of desire and aversion manifest themselves1 various substances are gradually distinguished1 but each with an attribute1 that is1 a special relationship to such an organization4 ,the first step towards the logical is judgment1 the essence of which1 according to the best logicians1 is belief4 ,at the foundation of all beliefs lie sensations of pleasure or pain in relation to the apprehending subject4 ,a third feeling1 as the result of two prior1 single1 separate feelings1 is judgment in its crudest form4 ,we organic beings are primordially interested by nothing whatever in any thing 7,ding7 except its relation to ourselves with reference to pleasure and pain4 ,between the moments in which we are conscious of this relation1 7the states of feeling7 lie the moments of rest1 of not-feeling3 then the world and every thing 7,ding7 have no interest for us3 we observe no change in them 7as at present a person absorbed in something does not notice anyone passing by74 ,to plants all things are1 as a rule1 at rest1 eternal1 every object like itself4 ,from the period of lower organisms has been handed down to man the belief that there are like things 7gleiche ,dinge73 only the trained experience attained through the most advanced science contradicts this postulate4 ,the primordial belief of all organisms is1 perhaps1 that all the rest of the world is one thing and motionless4--,furthest away from this first step towards the logical is the notion of causation3 even to-day we think that all our feelings and doings are1 at bottom1 acts of the free will2 when the sentient individual contemplates himself he deems every feeling1 every change1 a something isolated1 disconnected1 that is to say1 unqualified by any thing2 it comes suddenly to the surface1 independent of anything that went before or came after4 ,we are hungry1 but originally we do not know that the organism must be nourished3 on the contrary that feeling seems to manifest itself without reason or purpose2 it stands out by itself and seems quite independent4 ,therefore3 the belief in the freedom of the will is a primordial error of everything organic as old as the very earliest inward prompting of the logical faculty2 belief in unconditioned substances and in like things 7gleiche ,dinge7 is also a primordial and equally ancient error of everything organic4 ,inasmuch as all metaphysic has concerned itself particularly with substance and with freedom of the will1 it should be designated as the science that deals with the fundamental errors of mankind as if they were fundamental truths4 #ai ,number4--,the invention of the laws of number has as its basis the primordial and prior-prevailing delusion that many like things exist 7although in point of fact there is no such thing is a duplicate71 or that1 at least1 there are things 7but there is no thing74 ,the assumption of plurality always presupposes that something exists which manifests itself repeatedly1 but just here is where the delusion prevails2 in this very matter we feign realities1 unities1 that have no existence4 ,our feelings1 notions1 of space and time are false for they lead1 when duly tested1 to logical contradictions4 ,in all scientific demonstrations we always unavoidably base our calculation upon some false standards of duration or measurement but as these standards are at least constant1 as1 for example1 our notions of time and space1 the results arrived at by science possess absolute accuracy and certainty in their relationship to one another3 one can keep on building upon them--until is reached that final limit at which the erroneous fundamental conceptions1 7the invariable breakdown7 come into conflict with the results established--as1 for example1 in the case of the atomic theory4 ,here we always find ourselves obliged to give credence to a thing or material substratum that is set in motion1 although1 at the same time1 the whole scientific programme has had as its aim the resolving of everything material into motions themselves3 here again we distinguish with our feeling that which does the moving and that which is moved1#aa and we never get out of this circle1 because the belief in things#ab has been from time immemorial rooted in our nature4--,when ,kant says the intellect does not derive its laws from nature1 but dictates them to her he states the full truth as regards the idea of nature which we form 7nature world1 as notion1 that is1 as error7 but which is merely the synthesis of a host of errors of the intellect4 ,to a world not the outcome of our conception1 the laws of number are wholly inapplicable3 such laws are valid only in the world of mankind4 #aa ,wir scheiden auch hier noch mit unserer ,empfindung ,bewegendes und ,bewegtes4 #ab ,glaube an ,dinge4 #bj ,some ,backward ,steps4--,one very forward step in education is taken when man emerges from his superstitious and religious ideas and fears and1 for instance1 no longer believes in the dear little angels or in original sin1 and has stopped talking about the salvation of the soul3 when he has taken this step to freedom he has1 nevertheless1 through the utmost exertion of his mental power1 to overcome metaphysics4 ,then a backward movement is necessary3 he must appreciate the historical justification1 and to an equal extent the psychological considerations1 in such a movement4 ,he must understand that the greatest advances made by mankind have resulted from such a course and that without this very backward movement the highest achievements of man hitherto would have been impossible4--,with regard to philosophical metaphysics ,i see ever more and more who have arrived at the negative goal 7that all positive metaphysic is a delusion7 but as yet very few who go a few steps backward3 one should look out over the last rungs of the ladder1 but not try to stand on them1 that is to say4 ,the most advanced as yet go only far enough to free themselves from metaphysic and look back at it with an air of superiority3 whereas here1 no less than in the hippodrome1 it is necessary to turn around in order to reach the end of the course4 #ba ,presumable ,nature of the ,victory of ,doubt4--,let us assume for a moment the validity of the skeptical standpoint3 granted that there is no metaphysical world1 and that all the metaphysical explanations of the only world we know are useless to us1 how would we then contemplate men and things8 ,menschen und ,dinge4 ,this can be thought out and it is worth while doing so1 even if the question whether anything metaphysical has ever been demonstrated by or through ,kant and ,schopenhauer1 be put altogether aside4 ,for it is1 to all appearances1 highly probable that men1 on this point1 will be1 in the mass1 skeptical4 ,the question thus becomes3 what sort of a notion will human society1 under the influence of such a state of mind1 form of itself8 ,perhaps the scientific demonstration of any metaphysical world is now so difficult that mankind will never be free from a distrust of it4 ,and when there is formed a feeling of distrust of metaphysics1 the results are1 in the mass1 the same as if metaphysics were refuted altogether and could no longer be believed4 ,in both cases the historical question1 with regard to an unmetaphysical disposition in mankind1 remains the same4 #bb ,disbelief in the monumentum aere perennius4#ac--;,a decided disadvantage1 attending the termination of metaphysical modes of thought1 is that the individual fixes his mind too attentively upon his own brief lifetime and feels no strong inducement to aid in the foundation of institutions capable of enduring for centuries3 he wishes himself to gather the fruit from the tree that he plants and consequently he no longer plants those trees which require centuries of constant cultivation and are destined to afford shade to generation after generation in the future4 ,for metaphysical views inspire the belief that in them is afforded the final sure foundation upon which henceforth the whole future of mankind may rest and be built up3 the individual promotes his own salvation2 when1 for example1 he builds a church or a monastery he is of opinion that he is doing something for the salvation of his immortal soul3--,can science1 as well1 inspire such faith in the efficacy of her results8 ,in actual fact1 science requires doubt and distrust as her surest auxiliaries2 nevertheless1 the sum of the irresistible 7that is all the onslaughts of skepticism1 all the disintegrating effects of surviving truths7 can easily become so great 7as1 for instance1 in the case of hygienic science7 as to inspire the determination to build eternal works upon it4 ,at present the contrast between our excitated ephemeral existence and the tranquil repose of metaphysical epochs is too great because both are as yet in too close juxtaposition4 ,the individual man himself now goes through too many stages of inner and outer evolution for him to venture to make a plan even for his life time alone4 ,a perfectly modern man1 indeed1 who wants to build himself a house feels as if he were walling himself up alive in a mausoleum4 #ac ,monument more enduring than brass3 ,horace1 ,odes ,,iii3,,xxx4 #bc ,age of ,comparison4--,the less men are bound by tradition1 the greater is the inner activity of motives1 the greater1 correspondingly1 the outer restlessness1 the promiscuous flow of humanity1 the polyphony of strivings4 ,who now feels any great impulse to establish himself and his posterity in a particular place8 ,for whom1 moreover1 does there exist1 at present1 any strong tie8 ,as all the methods of the arts were copied from one another1 so were all the methods and advancements of moral codes1 of manners1 of civilizations4--,such an age derives its significance from the fact that in it the various ideas1 codes1 manners and civilizations can be compared and experienced side by side2 which was impossible at an earlier period in view of the localised nature of the rule of every civilization1 corresponding to the limitation of all artistic effects by time and place4 ,to-day the growth of the aesthetic feeling is decided1 owing to the great number of artistic forms which offer themselves for comparison4 ,the majority--those that are condemned by the method of comparison--will be allowed to die out4 ,in the same way there is to-day taking place a selection of the forms and customs of the higher morality which can result only in the extinction of the vulgar moralities4 ,this is the age of comparison6 ,that is its glory--but also its pain4 ,let us not1 however shrink from this pain4 ,rather would we comprehend the nature of the task imposed upon us by our age as adequately as we can3 posterity will bless us for doing so--a posterity that knows itself to be developed through and above the narrow1 early race-civilizations as well as the culture-civilization of comparison1 but yet looks gratefully back upon both as venerable monuments of antiquity4 #bd ,possibility of ,progress4--,when a master of the old civilization 7den alten ,cultur7 vows to hold no more discussion with men who believe in progress1 he is quite right4 ,for the old civilization#ad has its greatness and its advantages behind it1 and historic training forces one to acknowledge that it can never again acquire vigor3 only intolerable stupidity or equally intolerable fanaticism could fail to perceive this fact4 ,but men may consciously determine to evolve to a new civilization where formerly they evolved unconsciously and accidentally4 ,they can now devise better conditions for the advancement of mankind1 for their nourishment1 training and education1 they can administer the earth as an economic power1 and1 particularly1 compare the capacities of men and select them accordingly4 ,this new1 conscious civilization is killing the other which1 on the whole1 has led but an unreflective animal and plant life3 it is also destroying the doubt of progress itself--progress is possible4 ,i mean3 it is hasty and almost unreflective to assume that progress must necessarily take place3 but how can it be doubted that progress is possible8 ,on the other hand1 progress in the sense and along the lines of the old civilization is not even conceivable4 ,if romantic fantasy employs the word progress in connection with certain aims and ends identical with those of the circumscribed primitive national civilizations1 the picture presented of progress is always borrowed from the past4 ,the idea and the image of progress thus formed are quite without originality4 #ad ,cultur1 culture1 civilisation etc41 but there is no exact ,english equivalent4 #be ,private ,ethics and ,world ,ethics4--,since the extinction of the belief that a god guides the general destiny of the world and1 notwithstanding all the contortions and windings of the path of mankind1 leads it gloriously forward1 men must shape oecumenical1 world-embracing ends for themselves4 ,the older ethics1 namely ,kant's1 required of the individual such a course of conduct as he wishes all men to follow4 ,this evinces much simplicity--as if any individual could determine off hand what course of conduct would conduce to the welfare of humanity1 and what course of conduct is preeminently desirable6 ,this is a theory like that of freedom of competition1 which takes it for granted that the general harmony of things must prevail of itself in accordance with some inherent law of betterment or amelioration4 ,it may be that a later contemplation of the needs of mankind will reveal that it is by no means desirable that all men should regulate their conduct according to the same principle2 it may be best1 from the standpoint of certain ends yet to be attained1 that men1 during long periods should regulate their conduct with reference to special1 and even1 in certain circumstances1 evil1 objects4 ,at any rate1 if mankind is not to be led astray by such a universal rule of conduct1 it behooves it to attain a knowledge of the condition of culture that will serve as a scientific standard of comparison in connection with cosmical ends4 ,herein is comprised the tremendous mission of the great spirits of the next century4 #bf ,reaction as ,progress4--,occasionally harsh1 powerful1 impetuous1 yet nevertheless backward spirits1 appear1 who try to conjure back some past era in the history of mankind3 they serve as evidence that the new tendencies which they oppose1 are not yet potent enough1 that there is something lacking in them3 otherwise they the tendencies would better withstand the effects of this conjuring back process4 ,thus ,luther's reformation shows that in his century all the impulses to freedom of the spirit were still uncertain1 lacking in vigor1 and immature4 ,science could not yet rear her head4 ,indeed the whole ,renaissance appears but as an early spring smothered in snow4 ,but even in the present century ,schopenhauer's metaphysic shows that the scientific spirit is not yet powerful enough3 for the whole mediaeval ,christian world-standpoint 7,weltbetrachtung7 and conception of man 7,mensch-,empfindung7#ae once again1 notwithstanding the slowly wrought destruction of all ,christian dogma1 celebrated a resurrection in ,schopenhauer's doctrine4 ,there is much science in his teaching although the science does not dominate1 but1 instead of it1 the old1 trite metaphysical necessity4 ,it is one of the greatest and most priceless advantages of ,schopenhauer's teaching that by it our feelings are temporarily forced back to those old human and cosmical standpoints to which no other path could conduct us so easily4 ,the gain for history and justice is very great4 ,i believe that without ,schopenhauer's aid it would be no easy matter for anyone now to do justice to ,christianity and its ,asiatic relatives--a thing impossible as regards the christianity that still survives4 ,after according this great triumph to justice1 after we have corrected in so essential a respect the historical point of view which the age of learning brought with it1 we may begin to bear still farther onward the banner of enlightenment--a banner bearing the three names3 ,petrarch1 ,erasmus1 ,voltaire4 ,we have taken a forward step out of reaction4 #ae ,literally man-feeling or human outlook4 #bg ,a ,substitute for ,religion4--,it is supposed to be a recommendation for philosophy to say of it that it provides the people with a substitute for religion4 ,and in fact1 the training of the intellect does necessitate the convenient laying out of the track of thought1 since the transition from religion by way of science entails a powerful1 perilous leap1--something that should be advised against4 ,with this qualification1 the recommendation referred to is a just one4 ,at the same time1 it should be further explained that the needs which religion satisfies and which science must now satisfy1 are not immutable4 ,even they can be diminished and uprooted4 ,think1 for instance1 of the christian soul-need1 the sighs over one's inner corruption1 the anxiety regarding salvation--all notions that arise simply out of errors of the reason and require no satisfaction at all1 but annihilation4 ,a philosophy can either so affect these needs as to appease them or else put them aside altogether1 for they are acquired1 circumscribed needs1 based upon hypotheses which those of science explode4 ,here1 for the purpose of affording the means of transition1 for the sake of lightening the spirit overburdened with feeling1 art can be employed to far better purpose1 as these hypotheses receive far less support from art than from a metaphysical philosophy4 ,then from art it is easier to go over to a really emancipating philosophical science4 #bh ,discredited ,words4--,away with the disgustingly over-used words optimism and pessimism6 ,for the occasion for using them grows daily less2 only drivelers now find them indispensably necessary4 ,what earthly reason could anyone have for being an optimist unless he had a god to defend who must have created the best of all possible worlds1 since he is himself all goodness and perfection8--but what thinking man has now any need for the hypothesis that there is a god8--,there is also no occasion whatever for a pessimistic confession of faith1 unless one has a personal interest in denouncing the advocate of god1 the theologian or the theological philosopher1 and maintaining the counter proposition that evil reigns1 that wretchedness is more potent than joy1 that the world is a piece of botch work1 that phenomenon 7,erscheinung7 is but the manifestation of some evil spirit4 ,but who bothers his head about the theologians any more--except the theologians themselves8 ,apart from all theology and its antagonism1 it is manifest that the world is neither good nor bad1 7to say nothing about its being the best or the worst7 and that these ideas of good and bad have significance only in relation to men1 indeed1 are without significance at all1 in view of the sense in which they are usually employed4 ,the contemptuous and the eulogistic point of view must1 in every case1 be repudiated4 #bi ,intoxicated by the ,perfume of ,flowers4--,the ship of humanity1 it is thought1 acquires an ever deeper draught the more it is laden4 ,it is believed that the more profoundly man thinks1 the more exquisitely he feels1 the higher the standard he sets for himself1 the greater his distance from the other animals--the more he appears as a genius 7,genie7 among animals--the nearer he gets to the true nature of the world and to comprehension thereof3 this1 indeed1 he really does through science1 but he thinks he does it far more adequately through his religions and arts4 ,these are1 certainly1 a blossoming of the world1 but not1 therefore1 nearer the roots of the world than is the stalk4 ,one cannot learn best from it the nature of the world1 although nearly everyone thinks so4 ,error has made men so deep1 sensitive and imaginative in order to bring forth such flowers as religions and arts4 ,pure apprehension would be unable to do that4 ,whoever should disclose to us the essence of the world would be undeceiving us most cruelly4 ,not the world as thing-in-itself but the world as idea#af 7as error7 is rich in portent1 deep1 wonderful1 carrying happiness and unhappiness in its womb4 ,this result leads to a philosophy of world negation3 which1 at any rate1 can be as well combined with a practical world affirmation as with its opposite4 #af ,vorstellung3 this word sometimes corresponds to the ,english word idea1 at others to conception or notion4 #cj ,evil ,habits in ,reaching ,conclusions4--,the most usual erroneous conclusions of men are these3 a thing#ag exists1 therefore it is right3 ,here from capacity to live is deduced fitness1 from fitness1 is deduced justification4 ,so also3 an opinion gives happiness1 therefore it is the true one1 its effect is good1 therefore it is itself good and true4 ,here is predicated of the effect that it gives happiness1 that it is good in the sense of utility1 and there is likewise predicated of the cause that it is good1 but good in the sense of logical validity4 ,conversely1 the proposition would run3 a thing#ag cannot attain success1 cannot maintain itself1 therefore it is evil3 a belief troubles the believer1 occasions pain1 therefore it is false4 ,the free spirit1 who is sensible of the defect in this method of reaching conclusions and has had to suffer its consequences1 often succumbs to the temptation to come to the very opposite conclusions 7which1 in general1 are1 of course1 equally erroneous73 a thing cannot maintain itself3 therefore it is good2 a belief is troublesome1 therefore it is true4 #ag ,sache1 thing but not in the sense of ,ding4 ,sache is of very indefinite application 7res74 #ca ,the ,illogical is ,necessary4--,among the things which can bring a thinker to distraction is the knowledge that the illogical is necessary to mankind and that from the illogical springs much that is good4 ,the illogical is so imbedded in the passions1 in language1 in art1 in religion and1 above all1 in everything that imparts value to life that it cannot be taken away without irreparably injuring those beautiful things4 ,only men of the utmost simplicity can believe that the nature man knows can be changed into a purely logical nature4 ,yet were there steps affording approach to this goal1 how utterly everything would be lost on the way6 ,even the most rational man needs nature again1 from time to time1 that is1 his illogical fundamental relation 7,grundstellung7 to all things4 #cb ,being ,unjust is ,essential4--,all judgments of the value of life are illogically developed and therefore unjust4 ,the vice of the judgment consists1 first1 in the way in which the subject matter comes under observation1 that is1 very incompletely2 secondly in the way in which the total is summed up2 and1 thirdly1 in the fact that each single item in the totality of the subject matter is itself the result of defective perception1 and this from absolute necessity4 ,no practical knowledge of a man1 for example1 stood he never so near to us1 can be complete--so that we could have a logical right to form a total estimate of him2 all estimates are summary and must be so4 ,then the standard by which we measure1 7our being7 is not an immutable quantity2 we have moods and variations1 and yet we should know ourselves as an invariable standard before we undertake to establish the nature of the relation of any thing 7,sache7 to ourselves4 ,perhaps it will follow from all this that one should form no judgments whatever2 if one could but merely live without having to form estimates1 without aversion and without partiality6--for everything most abhorred is closely connected with an estimate1 as well as every strongest partiality4 ,an inclination towards a thing1 or from a thing1 without an accompanying feeling that the beneficial is desired and the pernicious contemned1 an inclination without a sort of experiential estimation of the desirability of an end1 does not exist in man4 ,we are primordially illogical and hence unjust beings and can recognise this fact3 this is one of the greatest and most baffling discords of existence4 #cc ,error ,respecting ,living for the ,sake of ,living ,essential4--,every belief in the value and worthiness of life rests upon defective thinking2 it is for this reason alone possible that sympathy with the general life and suffering of mankind is so imperfectly developed in the individual4 ,even exceptional men1 who can think beyond their own personalities1 do not have this general life in view1 but isolated portions of it4 ,if one is capable of fixing his observation upon exceptional cases1 ,i mean upon highly endowed individuals and pure souled beings1 if their development is taken as the true end of world-evolution and if joy be felt in their existence1 then it is possible to believe in the value of life1 because in that case the rest of humanity is overlooked3 hence we have here defective thinking4 ,so1 too1 it is even if all mankind be taken into consideration1 and one species only of impulses 7the less egoistic7 brought under review and those1 in consideration of the other impulses1 exalted3 then something could still be hoped of mankind in the mass and to that extent there could exist belief in the value of life3 here1 again1 as a result of defective thinking4 ,whatever attitude1 thus1 one may assume1 one is1 as a result of this attitude1 an exception among mankind4 ,now1 the great majority of mankind endure life without any great protest1 and believe1 to this extent1 in the value of existence1 but that is because each individual decides and determines alone1 and never comes out of his own personality like these exceptions3 everything outside of the personal has no existence for them or at the utmost is observed as but a faint shadow4 ,consequently the value of life for the generality of mankind consists simply in the fact that the individual attaches more importance to himself than he does to the world4 ,the great lack of imagination from which he suffers is responsible for his inability to enter into the feelings of beings other than himself1 and hence his sympathy with their fate and suffering is of the slightest possible description4 ,on the other hand1 whosoever really could sympathise1 necessarily doubts the value of life2 were it possible for him to sum up and to feel in himself the total consciousness of mankind1 he would collapse with a malediction against existence1--for mankind is1 in the mass1 without a goal1 and hence man cannot find1 in the contemplation of his whole course1 anything to serve him as a mainstay and a comfort1 but rather a reason to despair4 ,if he looks beyond the things that immediately engage him to the final aimlessness of humanity1 his own conduct assumes in his eyes the character of a frittering away4 ,to feel oneself1 however1 as humanity 7not alone as an individual7 frittered away exactly as we see the stray leaves frittered away by nature1 is a feeling transcending all feeling4 ,but who is capable of it8 ,only a poet1 certainly3 and poets always know how to console themselves4 #cd ,for ,tranquility4--,but will not our philosophy become thus a tragedy8 ,will not truth prove the enemy of life1 of betterment8 ,a question seems to weigh upon our tongue and yet will not put itself into words3 whether one can knowingly remain in the domain of the untruthful8 or1 if one must1 whether1 then1 death would not be preferable8 ,for there is no longer any ought 7,sollen71 morality2 so far as it is involved ought1 is1 through our point of view1 as utterly annihilated as religion4 ,our knowledge can permit only pleasure and pain1 benefit and injury1 to subsist as motives4 ,but how can these motives be distinguished from the desire for truth8 ,even they rest upon error 7in so far1 as already stated1 partiality and dislike and their very inaccurate estimates palpably modify our pleasure and our pain74 ,the whole of human life is deeply involved in untruth4 ,the individual cannot extricate it from this pit without thereby fundamentally clashing with his whole past1 without finding his present motives of conduct1 7as that of honor7 illegitimate1 and without opposing scorn and contempt to the ambitions which prompt one to have regard for the future and for one's happiness in the future4 ,is it true1 does there1 then1 remain but one way of thinking1 which1 as a personal consequence brings in its train despair1 and as a theoretical consequence brings in its train a philosophy of decay1 disintegration1 self annihilation8 ,i believe the deciding influence1 as regards the after-effect of knowledge1 will be the temperament of a man2 ,i can1 in addition to this after-effect just mentioned1 suppose another1 by means of which a much simpler life1 and one freer from disturbances than the present1 could be lived2 so that at first the old motives of vehement passion might still have strength1 owing to hereditary habit1 but they would gradually grow weaker under the influence of purifying knowledge4 ,a man would live1 at last1 both among men and unto himself1 as in the natural state1 without praise1 reproach1 competition1 feasting one's eyes1 as if it were a play1 upon much that formerly inspired dread4 ,one would be rid of the strenuous element1 and would no longer feel the goad of the reflection that man is not even as much as nature1 nor more than nature4 ,to be sure1 this requires1 as already stated1 a good temperament1 a fortified1 gentle and naturally cheerful soul1 a disposition that has no need to be on its guard against its own eccentricities and sudden outbreaks and that in its utterances manifests neither sullenness nor a snarling tone--those familiar1 disagreeable characteristics of old dogs and old men that have been a long time chained up4 ,rather must a man1 from whom the ordinary bondages of life have fallen away to so great an extent1 so do that he only lives on in order to grow continually in knowledge1 and to learn to resign1 without envy and without disappointment1 much1 yes nearly everything1 that has value in the eyes of men4 ,he must be content with such a free1 fearless soaring above men1 manners1 laws and traditional estimates of things1 as the most desirable of all situations4 ,he will freely share the joy of being in such a situation1 and he has1 perhaps1 nothing else to share--in which renunciation and self-denial really most consist4 ,but if more is asked of him1 he will1 with a benevolent shake of the head1 refer to his brother1 the free man of fact1 and will1 perhaps1 not dissemble a little contempt3 for1 as regards his freedom1 thereby hangs a tale4#ah #ah den mit dessen ,freiheit hat es eine eigene ,bewandtniss4 ,,history ,,of ,,the ,,moral ,,feelings4 #ce ,advantages of ,psychological ,observation4--,that reflection regarding the human1 all-too-human--or as the learned jargon is3 psychological observation--is among the means whereby the burden of life can be made lighter1 that practice in this art affords presence of mind in difficult situations and entertainment amid a wearisome environment1 aye1 that maxims may be culled in the thorniest and least pleasing paths of life and invigoration thereby obtained3 this much was believed1 was known--in former centuries4 ,why was this forgotten in our own century1 during which1 at least in ,germany1 yes in ,europe1 poverty as regards psychological observation would have been manifest in many ways had there been anyone to whom this poverty could have manifested itself4 ,not only in the novel1 in the romance1 in philosophical standpoints--these are the works of exceptional men2 still more in the state of opinion regarding public events and personages2 above all in general society1 which says much about men but nothing whatever about man1 there is totally lacking the art of psychological analysis and synthesis4 ,but why is the richest and most harmless source of entertainment thus allowed to run to waste8 ,why is the greatest master of the psychological maxim no longer read8--for1 with no exaggeration whatever be it said3 the educated person in ,europe who has read ,la ,rochefoucauld and his intellectual and artistic affinities is very hard to find2 still harder1 the person who knows them and does not disparage them4 ,apparently1 too1 this unusual reader takes far less pleasure in them than the form adopted by these artists should afford him3 for the subtlest mind cannot adequately appreciate the art of maxim-making unless it has had training in it1 unless it has competed in it4 ,without such practical acquaintance1 one is apt to look upon this making and forming as a much easier thing than it really is2 one is not keenly enough alive to the felicity and the charm of success4 ,hence present day readers of maxims have but a moderate1 tempered pleasure in them1 scarcely1 indeed1 a true perception of their merit1 so that their experiences are about the same as those of the average beholder of cameos3 people who praise because they cannot appreciate1 and are very ready to admire and still readier to turn away4 #cf ,objection4--,or is there a counter-proposition to the dictum that psychological observation is one of the means of consoling1 lightening1 charming existence8 ,have enough of the unpleasant effects of this art been experienced to justify the person striving for culture in turning his regard away from it8 ,in all truth1 a certain blind faith in the goodness of human nature1 an implanted distaste for any disparagement of human concerns1 a sort of shamefacedness at the nakedness of the soul1 may be far more desirable things in the general happiness of a man1 than this only occasionally advantageous quality of psychological sharpsightedness2 and perhaps belief in the good1 in virtuous men and actions1 in a plenitude of disinterested benevolence has been more productive of good in the world of men in so far as it has made men less distrustful4 ,if ,plutarch's heroes are enthusiastically imitated and a reluctance is experienced to looking too critically into the motives of their actions1 not the knowledge but the welfare of human society is promoted thereby3 psychological error and above all obtuseness in regard to it1 help human nature forward1 whereas knowledge of the truth is more promoted by means of the stimulating strength of a hypothesis2 as ,la ,rochefoucauld in the first edition of his ,sentences and ,moral ,maxims has expressed it3 ,what the world calls virtue is ordinarily but a phantom created by the passions1 and to which we give a good name in order to do whatever we please with impunity4 ,la ,rochefoucauld and those other ,french masters of soul-searching 7to the number of whom has lately been added a ,german1 the author of ,psychological ,observations7 are like expert marksmen who again and again hit the black spot--but it is the black spot in human nature4 ,their art inspires amazement1 but finally some spectator1 inspired1 not by the scientific spirit but by a humanitarian feeling1 execrates an art that seems to implant in the soul a taste for belittling and impeaching mankind4 #cg ,nevertheless4--,the matter therefore1 as regards pro and con1 stands thus3 in the present state of philosophy an awakening of the moral observation is essential4 ,the repulsive aspect of psychological dissection1 with the knife and tweezers entailed by the process1 can no longer be spared humanity4 ,such is the imperative duty of any science that investigates the origin and history of the so-called moral feelings and which1 in its progress1 is called upon to posit and to solve advanced social problems3--,the older philosophy does not recognize the newer at all and1 through paltry evasions1 has always gone astray in the investigation of the origin and history of human estimates 7,werthschaetzungen74 ,with what results may now be very clearly perceived1 since it has been shown by many examples1 how the errors of the greatest philosophers have their origin in a false explanation of certain human actions and feelings2 how upon the foundation of an erroneous analysis 7for example1 of the so called disinterested actions71 a false ethic is reared1 to support which religion and like mythological monstrosities are called in1 until finally the shades of these troubled spirits collapse in physics and in the comprehensive world point of view4 ,but if it be established that superficiality of psychological observation has heretofore set the most dangerous snares for human judgment and deduction1 and will continue to do so1 all the greater need is there of that steady continuance of labor that never wearies putting stone upon stone1 little stone upon little stone2 all the greater need is there of a courage that is not ashamed of such humble labor and that will oppose persistence1 to all contempt4 ,it is1 finally1 also true that countless single observations concerning the human1 all-too-human1 have been first made and uttered in circles accustomed1 not to furnish matter for scientific knowledge1 but for intellectual pleasure-seeking2 and the original home atmosphere--a very seductive atmosphere--of the moral maxim has almost inextricably interpenetrated the entire species1 so that the scientific man involuntarily manifests a sort of mistrust of this species and of its seriousness4 ,but it is sufficient to point to the consequences3 for already it is becoming evident that events of the most portentous nature are developing in the domain of psychological observation4 ,what is the leading conclusion arrived at by one of the subtlest and calmest of thinkers1 the author of the work ,concerning the ,origin of the ,moral ,feelings1 as a result of his thorough and incisive analysis of human conduct8 ,the moral man1 he says1 stands no nearer the knowable 7metaphysical7 world than the physical man4#ai ,this dictum1 grown hard and cutting beneath the hammer-blow of historical knowledge1 can some day1 perhaps1 in some future or other1 serve as the axe that will be laid to the root of the metaphysical necessities of men--whether more to the blessing than to the banning of universal well being who can say8--but in any event a dictum fraught with the most momentous consequences1 fruitful and fearful at once1 and confronting the world in the two faced way characteristic of all great facts4 #ai ,der moralische ,mensch1 sagt er1 steht der intelligiblen 7metaphysischen7 ,welt nicht naeher1 als der physische ,mensch4 #ch ,to ,what ,extent ,useful4--,therefore1 whether psychological observation is more an advantage than a disadvantage to mankind may always remain undetermined3 but there is no doubt that it is necessary1 because science can no longer dispense with it4 ,science1 however1 recognizes no considerations of ultimate goals or ends any more than nature does2 but as the latter duly matures things of the highest fitness for certain ends without any intention of doing it1 so will true science1 doing with ideas what nature does with matter1#bj promote the purposes and the welfare of humanity1 7as occasion may afford1 and in many ways7 and attain fitness to ends--but likewise without having intended it4 #bj als die ,nachahmung der ,natur in ,begriffen1 literally3 as the counterfeit of nature in 7regard to7 ideas4 ,he to whom the atmospheric conditions of such a prospect are too wintry1 has too little fire in him3 let him look about him1 and he will become sensible of maladies requiring an icy air1 and of people who are so kneaded together out of ardor and intellect that they can scarcely find anywhere an atmosphere too cold and cutting for them4 ,moreover3 as too serious individuals and nations stand in need of trivial relaxations2 as others1 too volatile and excitable require onerous1 weighty ordeals to render them entirely healthy3 should not we1 the more intellectual men of this age1 which is swept more and more by conflagrations1 catch up every cooling and extinguishing appliance we can find that we may always remain as self contained1 steady and calm as we are now1 and thereby perhaps serve this age as its mirror and self reflector1 when the occasion arises8 #ci ,the ,fable of ,discretionary ,freedom4--,the history of the feelings1 on the basis of which we make everyone responsible1 hence1 the so-called moral feelings1 is traceable in the following leading phases4 ,at first single actions are termed good or bad without any reference to their motive1 but solely because of the utilitarian or prejudicial consequences they have for the community4 ,in time1 however1 the origin of these designations is forgotten but it is imagined that action in itself1 without reference to its consequences1 contains the property good or bad3 with the same error according to which language designates the stone itself as hardness the tree itself as greenness--for the reason1 therefore1 that what is a consequence is comprehended as a cause4 ,accordingly1 the goodness or badness is incorporated into the motive and any deed by itself is regarded as morally ambiguous4 ,a step further is taken1 and the predication good or bad is no longer made of the particular motives but of the entire nature of a man1 out of which motive grows as grow the plants out of the soil4 ,thus man is successively made responsible for his particular acts1 then for his course of conduct1 then for his motives and finally for his nature4 ,now1 at last1 is it discovered that this nature1 even1 cannot be responsible1 inasmuch as it is only and wholly a necessary consequence and is synthesised out of the elements and influence of past and present things3 therefore1 that man is to be made responsible for nothing1 neither for his nature1 nor his motives1 nor his course of conduct nor his particular acts4 ,by this process is gained the knowledge that the history of moral estimates is the history of error1 of the error of responsibility3 as is whatever rests upon the error of the freedom of the will4 ,schopenhauer concluded just the other way1 thus3 since certain actions bring depression 7consciousness of guilt7 in their train1 there must1 then1 exist responsibility1 for there would be no basis for this depression at hand if all man's affairs did not follow their course of necessity--as they do1 indeed1 according to the opinion of this philosopher1 follow their course--but man himself1 subject to the same necessity1 would be just the man that he is--which ,schopenhauer denies4 ,from the fact of such depression ,schopenhauer believes himself able to prove a freedom which man in some way must have had1 not indeed in regard to his actions but in regard to his nature3 freedom1 therefore1 to be thus and so1 not to act thus and so4 ,out of the esse1 the sphere of freedom and responsibility1 follows1 according to his opinion1 the operari1 the spheres of invariable causation1 necessity and irresponsibility4 ,this depression1 indeed1 is due apparently to the operari--in so far as it be delusive--but in truth to whatever esse be the deed of a free will1 the basic cause of the existence of an individual3 in order to let man become whatever he wills to become1 his to will 7,wollen7 must precede his existence4--,here1 apart from the absurdity of the statement just made1 there is drawn the wrong inference that the fact of the depression explains its character1 the rational admissibility of it3 from such a wrong inference does ,schopenhauer first come to his fantastic consequent of the so called discretionary freedom 7intelligibeln ,freiheit74 7,for the origin of this fabulous entity ,plato and ,kant are equally responsible74 ,but depression after the act does not need to be rational3 indeed1 it is certainly not so at all1 for it rests upon the erroneous assumption that the act need not necessarily have come to pass4 ,therefore3 only because man deems himself free1 but not because he is free1 does he experience remorse and the stings of conscience4--,moreover1 this depression is something that can be grown out of2 in many men it is not present at all as a consequence of acts which inspire it in many other men4 ,it is a very varying thing and one closely connected with the development of custom and civilization1 and perhaps manifest only during a relatively brief period of the world's history4--,no one is responsible for his acts1 no one for his nature2 to judge is tantamount to being unjust4 ,this applies as well when the individual judges himself4 ,the proposition is as clear as sunlight1 and yet here everyone prefers to go back to darkness and untruth3 for fear of the consequences4 #dj ,above ,animal4--,the beast in us must be wheedled3 ethic is necessary1 that we may not be torn to pieces4 ,without the errors involved in the assumptions of ethics1 man would have remained an animal4 ,thus has he taken himself as something higher and imposed rigid laws upon himself4 ,he feels hatred1 consequently1 for states approximating the animal3 whence the former contempt for the slave as a not-yet-man1 as a thing1 is to be explained4 #da ,unalterable ,character4--,that character is unalterable is not1 in the strict sense1 true2 rather is this favorite proposition valid only to the extent that during the brief life period of a man the potent new motives can not1 usually1 press down hard enough to obliterate the lines imprinted by ages4 ,could we conceive of a man eighty thousand years old1 we should have in him an absolutely alterable character2 so that the maturities of successive1 varying individuals would develop in him4 ,the shortness of human life leads to many erroneous assertions concerning the qualities of man4 #db ,classification of ,enjoyments and ,ethic4--,the once accepted comparative classification of enjoyments1 according to which an inferior1 higher1 highest egoism may crave one or another enjoyment1 now decides as to ethical status or unethical status4 ,a lower enjoyment 7for example1 sensual pleasure7 preferred to a more highly esteemed one 7for example1 health7 rates as unethical1 as does welfare preferred to freedom4 ,the comparative classification of enjoyments is not1 however1 alike or the same at all periods2 when anyone demands satisfaction of the law1 he is1 from the point of view of an earlier civilization1 moral1 from that of the present1 non-moral4 ,unethical indicates1 therefore1 that a man is not sufficiently sensible to the higher1 finer impulses which the present civilization has brought with it1 or is not sensible to them at all2 it indicates backwardness1 but only from the point of view of the contemporary degree of distinction4--,the comparative classification of enjoyments itself is not determined according to absolute ethics2 but after each new ethical adjustment1 it is then decided whether conduct be ethical or the reverse4 #dc ,inhuman ,men as ,survivals4--,men who are now inhuman must serve us as surviving specimens of earlier civilizations4 ,the mountain height of humanity here reveals its lower formations1 which might otherwise remain hidden from view4 ,there are surviving specimens of humanity whose brains through the vicissitudes of heredity1 have escaped proper development4 ,they show us what we all were and thus appal us2 but they are as little responsible on this account as is a piece of granite for being granite4 ,in our own brains there must be courses and windings corresponding to such characters1 just as in the forms of some human organs there survive traces of fishhood4 ,but these courses and windings are no longer the bed in which flows the stream of our feeling4 #dd ,gratitude and ,revenge4--,the reason the powerful man is grateful is this4 ,his benefactor has1 through his benefaction1 invaded the domain of the powerful man and established himself on an equal footing3 the powerful man in turn invades the domain of the benefactor and gets satisfaction through the act of gratitude4 ,it is a mild form of revenge4 ,by not obtaining the satisfaction of gratitude the powerful would have shown himself powerless and have ranked as such thenceforward4 ,hence every society of the good1 that is to say1 of the powerful originally1 places gratitude among the first of duties4--,swift has added the dictum that man is grateful in the same degree that he is revengeful4 #de ,two-fold ,historical ,origin of ,good and ,evil4--,the notion of good and bad has a two-fold historical origin3 namely1 first1 in the spirit of ruling races and castes4 ,whoever has power to requite good with good and evil with evil and actually brings requital1 7that is1 is grateful and revengeful7 acquires the name of being good2 whoever is powerless and cannot requite is called bad4 ,a man belongs1 as a good individual1 to the good of a community1 who have a feeling in common1 because all the individuals are allied with one another through the requiting sentiment4 ,a man belongs1 as a bad individual1 to the bad1 to a mass of subjugated1 powerless men who have no feeling in common4 ,the good are a caste1 the bad are a quantity1 like dust4 ,good and bad is1 for a considerable period1 tantamount to noble and servile1 master and slave4 ,on the other hand an enemy is not looked upon as bad3 he can requite4 ,the ,trojan and the ,greek are in ,homer both good4 ,not he1 who does no harm1 but he who is despised1 is deemed bad4 ,in the community of the good individuals the quality of goodness is inherited2 it is impossible for a bad individual to grow from such a rich soil4 ,if1 notwithstanding1 one of the good individuals does something unworthy of his goodness1 recourse is had to exorcism2 thus the guilt is ascribed to a deity1 the while it is declared that this deity bewitched the good man into madness and blindness4--,second1 in the spirit of the subjugated1 the powerless4 ,here every other man is1 to the individual1 hostile1 inconsiderate1 greedy1 inhuman1 avaricious1 be he noble or servile2 bad is the characteristic term for man1 for every living being1 indeed1 that is recognized at all1 even for a god3 human1 divine1 these notions are tantamount to devilish1 bad4 ,manifestations of goodness1 sympathy1 helpfulness1 are regarded with anxiety as trickiness1 preludes to an evil end1 deception1 subtlety1 in short1 as refined badness4 ,with such a predisposition in individuals1 a feeling in common can scarcely arise at all1 at most only the rudest form of it3 so that everywhere that this conception of good and evil prevails1 the destruction of the individuals1 their race and nation1 is imminent4--,our existing morality has developed upon the foundation laid by ruling races and castes4 #df ,sympathy ,greater than ,suffering4--,there are circumstances in which sympathy is stronger than the suffering itself4 ,we feel more pain1 for instance1 when one of our friends becomes guilty of a reprehensible action than if we had done the deed ourselves4 ,we once1 that is1 had more faith in the purity of his character than he had himself4 ,hence our love for him1 7apparently because of this very faith7 is stronger than is his own love for himself4 ,if1 indeed1 his egoism really suffers more1 as a result1 than our egoism1 inasmuch as he must take the consequences of his fault to a greater extent than ourselves1 nevertheless1 the unegoistic--this word is not to be taken too strictly1 but simply as a modified form of expression--in us is more affected by his guilt than the unegoistic in him4 #dg ,hypochondria4--,there are people who1 from sympathy and anxiety for others become hypochondriacal4 ,the resulting form of compassion is nothing else than sickness4 ,so1 also1 is there a ,christian hypochondria1 from which those singular1 religiously agitated people suffer who place always before their eyes the suffering and death of ,christ4 #dh ,economy of ,blessings4--,the advantageous and the pleasing1 as the healthiest growths and powers in the intercourse of men1 are such precious treasures that it is much to be wished the use made of these balsamic means were as economical as possible3 but this is impossible4 ,economy in the use of blessings is the dream of the craziest of ,utopians4 #di ,well-,wishing4--,among the small1 but infinitely plentiful and therefore very potent things to which science must pay more attention than to the great1 uncommon things1 well-wishing#ba must be reckoned2 ,i mean those manifestations of friendly disposition in intercourse1 that laughter of the eye1 every hand pressure1 every courtesy from which1 in general1 every human act gets its quality4 ,every teacher1 every functionary adds this element as a gratuity to whatever he does as a duty2 it is the perpetual well spring of humanity1 like the waves of light in which everything grows2 thus1 in the narrowest circles1 within the family1 life blooms and flowers only through this kind feeling4 ,the cheerfulness1 friendliness and kindness of a heart are unfailing sources of unegoistic impulse and have made far more for civilization than those other more noised manifestations of it that are styled sympathy1 benevolence and sacrifice4 ,but it is customary to depreciate these little tokens of kindly feeling1 and1 indeed1 there is not much of the unegoistic in them4 ,the sum of these little doses is very great1 nevertheless2 their combined strength is of the greatest of strengths4--,thus1 too1 much more happiness is to be found in the world than gloomy eyes discover3 that is1 if the calculation be just1 and all these pleasing moments in which every day1 even the meanest human life1 is rich1 be not forgotten4 #ba ,wohl-wollen1 kind feeling4 ,it stands here for benevolence but not benevolence in the restricted sense of the word now prevailing4 #ej ,the ,desire to ,inspire ,compassion4--,la ,rochefoucauld1 in the most notable part of his self portraiture 7first printed #afeh7 reaches the vital spot of truth when he warns all those endowed with reason to be on their guard against compassion1 when he advises that this sentiment be left to men of the masses who stand in need of the promptings of the emotions 7since they are not guided by reason7 to induce them to give aid to the suffering and to be of service in misfortune3 whereas compassion1 in his 7and ,plato's7 view1 deprives the heart of strength4 ,to be sure1 sympathy should be manifested but men should take care not to feel it2 for the unfortunate are rendered so dull that the manifestation of sympathy affords them the greatest happiness in the world4--,perhaps a more effectual warning against this compassion can be given if this need of the unfortunate be considered not simply as stupidity and intellectual weakness1 not as a sort of distraction of the spirit entailed by misfortune itself 7and thus1 indeed1 does ,la ,rochefoucauld seem to view it7 but as something quite different and more momentous4 ,let note be taken of children who cry and scream in order to be compassionated and who1 therefore1 await the moment when their condition will be observed2 come into contact with the sick and the oppressed in spirit and try to ascertain if the wailing and sighing1 the posturing and posing of misfortune do not have as end and aim the causing of pain to the beholder3 the sympathy which each beholder manifests is a consolation to the weak and suffering only in as much as they are made to perceive that at least they have the power1 notwithstanding all their weakness1 to inflict pain4 ,the unfortunate experiences a species of joy in the sense of superiority which the manifestation of sympathy entails2 his imagination is exalted2 he is always strong enough1 then1 to cause the world pain4 ,thus is the thirst for sympathy a thirst for self enjoyment and at the expense of one's fellow creatures3 it shows man in the whole ruthlessness of his own dear self3 not in his mere dullness as ,la ,rochefoucauld thinks4--,in social conversation three fourths of all the questions are asked1 and three fourths of all the replies are made in order to inflict some little pain2 that is why so many people crave social intercourse3 it gives them a sense of their power4 ,in these countless but very small doses in which the quality of badness is administered it proves a potent stimulant of life3 to the same extent that well wishing--7,wohl-wollen7 distributed through the world in like manner1 is one of the ever ready restoratives4--,but will many honorable people be found to admit that there is any pleasure in administering pain8 that entertainment--and rare entertainment--is not seldom found in causing others1 at least in thought1 some pain1 and in raking them with the small shot of wickedness8 ,the majority are too ignoble and a few are too good to know anything of this pudendum3 the latter may1 consequently1 be prompt to deny that ,prosper ,merimee is right when he says3 ,know1 also1 that nothing is more common than to do wrong for the pleasure of doing it4 #ea ,how ,appearance ,becomes ,reality4--,the actor cannot1 at last1 refrain1 even in moments of the deepest pain1 from thinking of the effect produced by his deportment and by his surroundings--for example1 even at the funeral of his own child3 he will weep at his own sorrow and its manifestations as though he were his own audience4 ,the hypocrite who always plays one and the same part1 finally ceases to be a hypocrite2 as in the case of priests who1 when young men1 are always1 either consciously or unconsciously1 hypocrites1 and finally become naturally and then really1 without affectation1 mere priests3 or if the father does not carry it to this extent1 the son1 who inherits his father's calling and gets the advantage of the paternal progress1 does4 ,when anyone1 during a long period1 and persistently1 wishes to appear something1 it will at last prove difficult for him to be anything else4 ,the calling of almost every man1 even of the artist1 begins with hypocrisy1 with an imitation of deportment1 with a copying of the effective in manner4 ,he who always wears the mask of a friendly man must at last gain a power over friendliness of disposition1 without which the expression itself of friendliness is not to be gained--and finally friendliness of disposition gains the ascendancy over him--he is benevolent4 #eb ,the ,point of ,honor in ,deception4--,in all great deceivers one characteristic is prominent1 to which they owe their power4 ,in the very act of deception1 amid all the accompaniments1 the agitation in the voice1 the expression1 the bearing1 in the crisis of the scene1 there comes over them a belief in themselves2 this it is that acts so effectively and irresistibly upon the beholders4 ,founders of religions differ from such great deceivers in that they never come out of this state of self deception1 or else they have1 very rarely1 a few moments of enlightenment in which they are overcome by doubt2 generally1 however1 they soothe themselves by ascribing such moments of enlightenment to the evil adversary4 ,self deception must exist that both classes of deceivers may attain far reaching results4 ,for men believe in the truth of all that is manifestly believed with due implicitness by others4 #ec ,presumed ,degrees of ,truth4--,one of the most usual errors of deduction is3 because someone truly and openly is against us1 therefore he speaks the truth4 ,hence the child has faith in the judgments of its elders1 the ,christian in the assertions of the founder of the church4 ,so1 too1 it will not be admitted that all for which men sacrificed life and happiness in former centuries was nothing but delusion3 perhaps it is alleged these things were degrees of truth4 ,but what is really meant is that1 if a person sincerely believes a thing and has fought and died for his faith1 it would be too unjust if only delusion had inspired him4 ,such a state of affairs seems to contradict eternal justice4 ,for that reason the heart of a sensitive man pronounces against his head the judgment3 between moral conduct and intellectual insight there must always exist an inherent connection4 ,it is1 unfortunately1 otherwise3 for there is no eternal justice4 #ed ,falsehood4--,why do men1 as a rule1 speak the truth in the ordinary affairs of life8 ,certainly not for the reason that a god has forbidden lying4 ,but because first3 it is more convenient1 as falsehood entails invention1 make-believe and recollection 7wherefore ,swift says that whoever invents a lie seldom realises the heavy burden he takes up3 he must1 namely1 for every lie that he tells1 insert twenty more74 ,therefore1 because in plain ordinary relations of life it is expedient to say without circumlocution3 ,i want this1 ,i have done this1 and the like2 therefore1 because the way of freedom and certainty is surer than that of ruse4--,but if it happens that a child is brought up in sinister domestic circumstances1 it will then indulge in falsehood as matter of course1 and involuntarily say anything its own interests may prompt3 an inclination for truth1 an aversion to falsehood1 is quite foreign and uncongenial to it1 and hence it lies in all innocence4 #ee ,ethic ,discredited for ,faith's ,sake4--,no power can sustain itself when it is represented by mere humbugs3 the ,catholic ,church may possess ever so many worldly sources of strength1 but its true might is comprised in those still numberless priestly natures who make their lives stern and strenuous and whose looks and emaciated bodies are eloquent of night vigils1 fasts1 ardent prayer1 perhaps even of whip lashes3 these things make men tremble and cause them anxiety3 what1 if it be really imperative to live thus8 ,this is the dreadful question which their aspect occasions4 ,as they spread this doubt1 they lay anew the prop of their power3 even the free thinkers dare not oppose such disinterestedness with severe truth and cry3 ,thou deceived one1 deceive not6--,only the difference of standpoint separates them from him3 no difference in goodness or badness4 ,but things we cannot accomplish ourselves1 we are apt to criticise unfairly4 ,thus we are told of the cunning and perverted acts of the ,jesuits1 but we overlook the self mastery that each ,jesuit imposes upon himself and also the fact that the easy life which the ,jesuit manuals advocate is for the benefit1 not of the ,jesuits but the laity4 ,indeed1 it may be questioned whether we enlightened ones would become equally competent workers as the result of similar tactics and organization1 and equally worthy of admiration as the result of self mastery1 indefatigable industry and devotion4 #ef ,victory of ,knowledge over ,radical ,evil4--,it proves a material gain to him who would attain knowledge to have had during a considerable period the idea that mankind is a radically bad and perverted thing3 it is a false idea1 as is its opposite1 but it long held sway and its roots have reached down even to ourselves and our present world4 ,in order to understand ourselves we must understand it2 but in order to attain a loftier height we must step above it4 ,we then perceive that there is no such thing as sin in the metaphysical sense3 but also1 in the same sense1 no such thing as virtue2 that this whole domain of ethical notions is one of constant variation2 that there are higher and deeper conceptions of good and evil1 moral and immoral4 ,whoever desires no more of things than knowledge of them attains speedily to peace of mind and will at most err through lack of knowledge1 but scarcely through eagerness for knowledge 7or through sin1 as the world calls it74 ,he will not ask that eagerness for knowledge be interdicted and rooted out2 but his single1 all powerful ambition to know as thoroughly and as fully as possible1 will soothe him and moderate all that is strenuous in his circumstances4 ,moreover1 he is now rid of a number of disturbing notions2 he is no longer beguiled by such words as hell-pain1 sinfulness1 unworthiness3 he sees in them merely the flitting shadow pictures of false views of life and of the world4 #eg ,ethic as ,man's ,self-,analysis4--,a good author1 whose heart is really in his work1 wishes that someone would arise and wholly refute him if only thereby his subject be wholly clarified and made plain4 ,the maid in love wishes that she could attest the fidelity of her own passion through the faithlessness of her beloved4 ,the soldier wishes to sacrifice his life on the field of his fatherland's victory3 for in the victory of his fatherland his highest end is attained4 ,the mother gives her child what she deprives herself of--sleep1 the best nourishment and1 in certain circumstances1 her health1 her self4--,but are all these acts unegoistic8 ,are these moral deeds miracles because they are1 in ,schopenhauer's phrase impossible and yet accomplished8 ,is it not evident that in all four cases man loves one part of himself1 7a thought1 a longing1 an experience7 more than he loves another part of himself8 that he thus analyses his being and sacrifices one part of it to another part8 ,is this essentially different from the behavior of the obstinate man who says ,i would rather be shot than go a step out of my way for this fellow8--,preference for something 7wish1 impulse1 longing7 is present in all four instances3 to yield to it1 with all its consequences1 is not unegoistic4--,in the domain of the ethical man conducts himself not as individuum but as dividuum4 #eh ,what ,can be ,promised4--,actions can be promised1 but not feelings1 for these are involuntary4 ,whoever promises somebody to love him always1 or to hate him always1 or to be ever true to him1 promises something that it is out of his power to bestow4 ,but he really can promise such courses of conduct as are the ordinary accompaniments of love1 of hate1 of fidelity1 but which may also have their source in motives quite different3 for various ways and motives lead to the same conduct4 ,the promise to love someone always1 means1 consequently3 as long as ,i love you1 ,i will manifest the deportment of love2 but if ,i cease to love you my deportment1 although from some other motive1 will be just the same1 so that to the people about us it will seem as if my love remained unchanged4--,hence it is the continuance of the deportment of love that is promised in every instance in which eternal love 7provided no element of self deception be involved7 is sworn4 #ei ,intellect and ,ethic4--,one must have a good memory to be able to keep the promises one makes4 ,one must have a strong imagination in order to feel sympathy4 ,so closely is ethics connected with intellectual capacity4 #fj ,desire for ,vengeance and ,vengeance ,itself4--,to meditate revenge and attain it is tantamount to an attack of fever1 that passes away3 but to meditate revenge without possessing the strength or courage to attain it is tantamount to suffering from a chronic malady1 or poisoning of body and soul4 ,ethics1 which takes only the motive into account1 rates both cases alike3 people generally estimate the first case as the worst 7because of the consequences which the deed of vengeance may entail74 ,both views are short sighted4 #fa ,ability to ,wait4--,ability to wait is so hard to acquire that great poets have not disdained to make inability to wait the central motive of their poems4 ,so ,shakespeare in ,othello1 ,sophocles in ,ajax1 whose suicide would not have seemed to him so imperative had he only been able to cool his ardor for a day1 as the oracle foreboded3 apparently he would then have repulsed somewhat the fearful whispers of distracted thought and have said to himself3 ,who has not already1 in my situation1 mistaken a sheep for a hero8 is it so extraordinary a thing8 ,on the contrary it is something universally human3 ,ajax should thus have soothed himself4 ,passion will not wait3 the tragic element in the lives of great men does not generally consist in their conflict with time and the inferiority of their fellowmen but in their inability to put off their work a year or two3 they cannot wait4--,in all duels1 the friends who advise have but to ascertain if the principals can wait3 if this be not possible1 a duel is rational inasmuch as each of the combatants may say3 either ,i continue to live and the other dies instantly1 or vice versa4 ,to wait in such circumstances would be equivalent to the frightful martyrdom of enduring dishonor in the presence of him responsible for the dishonor3 and this can easily cost more anguish than life is worth4 #fb ,glutting ,revenge4--,coarse men1 who feel a sense of injury1 are in the habit of rating the extent of their injury as high as possible and of stating the occasion of it in greatly exaggerated language1 in order to be able to feast themselves on the sentiments of hatred and revenge thus aroused4 #fc ,value of ,disparagement4--,not a few1 perhaps the majority of men1 find it necessary1 in order to retain their self esteem and a certain uprightness in conduct1 to mentally disparage and belittle all the people they know4 ,but as the inferior natures are in the majority and as a great deal depends upon whether they retain or lose this uprightness1 so-- #fd ,the ,man in a ,rage4--,we should be on our guard against the man who is enraged against us1 as against one who has attempted our life1 for the fact that we still live consists solely in the inability to kill3 were looks sufficient1 it would have been all up with us long since4 ,to reduce anyone to silence by physical manifestations of savagery or by a terrorizing process is a relic of under civilization4 ,so1 too1 that cold look which great personages cast upon their servitors is a remnant of the caste distinction between man and man2 a specimen of rude antiquity3 women1 the conservers of the old1 have maintained this survival1 too1 more perfectly than men4 #fe ,whither ,honesty ,may ,lead4--,someone once had the bad habit of expressing himself upon occasion1 and with perfect honesty1 on the subject of the motives of his conduct1 which were as good or as bad as the motives of all men4 ,he aroused first disfavor1 then suspicion1 became gradually of ill repute and was pronounced a person of whom society should beware1 until at last the law took note of such a perverted being for reasons which usually have no weight with it or to which it closes its eyes4 ,lack of taciturnity concerning what is universally held secret1 and an irresponsible predisposition to see what no one wants to see--oneself--brought him to prison and to early death4 #ff ,punishable1 not ,punished4--,our crime against criminals consists in the fact that we treat them as rascals4 #fg ,sancta simplicitas of ,virtue4--,every virtue has its privilege3 for example1 that of contributing its own little bundle of wood to the funeral pyre of one condemned4 #fh ,morality and ,consequence4--,not alone the beholders of an act generally estimate the ethical or unethical element in it by the result3 no1 the one who performed the act does the same4 ,for the motives and the intentions are seldom sufficiently apparent1 and amid them the memory itself seems to become clouded by the results of the act1 so that a man often ascribes the wrong motives to his acts or regards the remote motives as the direct ones4 ,success often imparts to an action all the brilliance and honor of good intention1 while failure throws the shadow of conscience over the most estimable deeds4 ,hence arises the familiar maxim of the politician3 ,give me only success3 with it ,i can win all the noble souls over to my side--and make myself noble even in my own eyes4--,in like manner will success prove an excellent substitute for a better argument4 ,to this very day many well educated men think the triumph of ,christianity over ,greek philosophy is a proof of the superior truth of the former--although in this case it was simply the coarser and more powerful that triumphed over the more delicate and intellectual4 ,as regards superiority of truth1 it is evident that because of it the reviving sciences have connected themselves1 point for point1 with the philosophy of ,epicurus1 while ,christianity has1 point for point1 recoiled from it4 #fi ,love and ,justice4--,why is love so highly prized at the expense of justice and why are such beautiful things spoken of the former as if it were a far higher entity than the latter8 ,is the former not palpably a far more stupid thing than the latter8--,certainly1 and on that very account so much the more agreeable to everybody3 it is blind and has a rich horn of plenty out of which it distributes its gifts to everyone1 even when they are unmerited1 even when no thanks are returned4 ,it is impartial like the rain1 which according to the bible and experience1 wets not alone the unjust but1 in certain circumstances1 the just as well1 and to their skins at that4 #gj ,execution4--,how comes it that every execution causes us more pain than a murder8 ,it is the coolness of the executioner1 the painful preparation1 the perception that here a man is being used as an instrument for the intimidation of others4 ,for the guilt is not punished even if there be any3 this is ascribable to the teachers1 the parents1 the environment1 in ourselves1 not in the murderer--,i mean the predisposing circumstances4 #ga ,hope4--,pandora brought the box containing evils and opened it4 ,it was the gift of the gods to men1 a gift of most enticing appearance externally and called the box of happiness4 ,thereupon all the evils1 7living1 moving things7 flew out3 from that time to the present they fly about and do ill to men by day and night4 ,one evil only did not fly out of the box3 ,pandora shut the lid at the behest of ,zeus and it remained inside4 ,now man has this box of happiness perpetually in the house and congratulates himself upon the treasure inside of it2 it is at his service3 he grasps it whenever he is so disposed1 for he knows not that the box which ,pandora brought was a box of evils4 ,hence he looks upon the one evil still remaining as the greatest source of happiness--it is hope4--,zeus intended that man1 notwithstanding the evils oppressing him1 should continue to live and not rid himself of life1 but keep on making himself miserable4 ,for this purpose he bestowed hope upon man3 it is1 in truth1 the greatest of evils for it lengthens the ordeal of man4 #gb ,degree of ,moral ,susceptibility ,unknown4--,the fact that one has or has not had certain profoundly moving impressions and insights into things--for example1 an unjustly executed1 slain or martyred father1 a faithless wife1 a shattering1 serious accident1--is the factor upon which the excitation of our passions to white heat principally depends1 as well as the course of our whole lives4 ,no one knows to what lengths circumstances 7sympathy1 emotion7 may lead him4 ,he does not know the full extent of his own susceptibility4 ,wretched environment makes him wretched4 ,it is as a rule not the quality of our experience but its quantity upon which depends the development of our superiority or inferiority1 from the point of view of good and evil4 #gc ,the ,martyr ,against ,his ,will4--,in a certain movement there was a man who was too cowardly and vacillating ever to contradict his comrades4 ,he was made use of in each emergency1 every sacrifice was demanded of him because he feared the disfavor of his comrades more than he feared death3 he was a petty1 abject spirit4 ,they perceived this and upon the foundation of the qualities just mentioned they elevated him to the altitude of a hero1 and finally even of a martyr4 ,although the cowardly creature always inwardly said ,no1 he always said ,yes with his lips1 even upon the scaffold1 where he died for the tenets of his party3 for beside him stood one of his old associates who so domineered him with look and word that he actually went to his death with the utmost fortitude and has ever since been celebrated as a martyr and exalted character4 #gd ,general ,standard4--,one will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity1 ordinary actions to habit and mean actions to fear4 #ge ,misunderstanding of ,virtue4--,whoever has obtained his experience of vice in connection with pleasure as in the case of one with a youth of wild oats behind him1 comes to the conclusion that virtue must be connected with self denial4 ,whoever1 on the other hand1 has been very much plagued by his passions and vices1 longs to find in virtue the rest and peace of the soul4 ,that is why it is possible for two virtuous people to misunderstand one another wholly4 #gf ,the ,ascetic4--,the ascetic makes out of virtue a slavery4 #gg ,honor ,transferred from ,persons to ,things4--,actions prompted by love or by the spirit of self sacrifice for others are universally honored wherever they are manifest4 ,hence is magnified the value set upon whatever things may be loved or whatever things conduce to self sacrifice3 although in themselves they may be worth nothing much4 ,a valiant army is evidence of the value of the thing it fights for4 #gh ,ambition a ,substitute for ,moral ,feeling4--,moral feeling should never become extinct in natures that are destitute of ambition4 ,the ambitious can get along without moral feeling just as well as with it4--,hence the sons of retired1 ambitionless families1 generally become by a series of rapid gradations1 when they lose moral feeling1 the most absolute lunkheads4 #gi ,vanity ,enriches4--,how poor the human mind would be without vanity6 ,as it is1 it resembles a well stacked and ever renewed ware-emporium that attracts buyers of every class3 they can find almost everything1 have almost everything1 provided they bring with them the right kind of money--admiration4 #hj ,senility and ,death4--,apart from the demands made by religion1 it may well be asked why it is more honorable in an aged man1 who feels the decline of his powers1 to await slow extinction than to fix a term to his existence himself8 ,suicide in such a case is a quite natural and due proceeding that ought to command respect as a triumph of reason3 and did in fact command respect during the times of the masters of ,greek philosophy and the bravest ,roman patriots1 who usually died by their own hand4 ,eagerness1 on the other hand1 to keep alive from day to day with the anxious counsel of physicians1 without capacity to attain any nearer to one's ideal of life1 is far less worthy of respect4--,religions are very rich in refuges from the mandate of suicide3 hence they ingratiate themselves with those who cling to life4 #ha ,delusions ,regarding ,victim and ,regarding ,evil ,doer4--,when the rich man takes a possession away from the poor man 7for example1 a prince who deprives a plebeian of his beloved7 there arises in the mind of the poor man a delusion3 he thinks the rich man must be wholly perverted to take from him the little that he has4 ,but the rich man appreciates the value of a single possession much less because he is accustomed to many possessions1 so that he cannot put himself in the place of the poor man and does not act by any means as ill as the latter supposes4 ,both have a totally false idea of each other4 ,the iniquities of the mighty which bulk most largely in history are not nearly so monstrous as they seem4 ,the hereditary consciousness of being a superior being with superior environment renders one very callous and lulls the conscience to rest4 ,we all feel1 when the difference between ourselves and some other being is exceedingly great1 that no element of injustice can be involved1 and we kill a fly with no qualms of conscience whatever4 ,so1 too1 it is no indication of wickedness in ,xerxes 7whom even the ,greeks represent as exceptionally noble7 that he deprived a father of his son and had him drawn and quartered because the latter had manifested a troublesome1 ominous distrust of an entire expedition3 the individual was in this case brushed aside as a pestiferous insect4 ,he was too low and mean to justify continued sentiments of compunction in the ruler of the world4 ,indeed no cruel man is ever as cruel1 in the main1 as his victim thinks4 ,the idea of pain is never the same as the sensation4 ,the rule is precisely analogous in the case of the unjust judge1 and of the journalist who by means of devious rhetorical methods1 leads public opinion astray4 ,cause and effect are in all these instances entwined with totally different series of feeling and thoughts1 whereas it is unconsciously assumed that principal and victim feel and think exactly alike1 and because of this assumption the guilt of the one is based upon the pain of the other4 #hb ,the ,soul's ,skin4--,as the bones1 flesh1 entrails and blood vessels are enclosed by a skin that renders the aspect of men endurable1 so the impulses and passions of the soul are enclosed by vanity3 it is the skin of the soul4 #hc ,sleep of ,virtue4--,if virtue goes to sleep1 it will be more vigorous when it awakes4 #hd ,subtlety of ,shame4--,men are not ashamed of obscene thoughts1 but they are ashamed when they suspect that obscene thoughts are attributed to them4 #he ,naughtiness ,is ,rare4--,most people are too much absorbed in themselves to be bad4 #hf ,the ,mite in the ,balance4--,we are praised or blamed1 as the one or the other may be expedient1 for displaying to advantage our power of discernment4 #hg ,luke #ah3ad ,improved4--,he that humbleth himself wisheth to be exalted4 #hh ,prevention of ,suicide4--,there is a justice according to which we may deprive a man of life1 but none that permits us to deprive him of death3 this is merely cruelty4 #hi ,vanity4--,we set store by the good opinion of men1 first because it is of use to us and next because we wish to give them pleasure 7children their parents1 pupils their teacher1 and well disposed persons all others generally74 ,only when the good opinion of men is important to somebody1 apart from personal advantage or the desire to give pleasure1 do we speak of vanity4 ,in this last case1 a man wants to give himself pleasure1 but at the expense of his fellow creatures1 inasmuch as he inspires them with a false opinion of himself or else inspires good opinion in such a way that it is a source of pain to others 7by arousing envy74 ,the individual generally seeks1 through the opinion of others1 to attest and fortify the opinion he has of himself2 but the potent influence of authority--an influence as old as man himself--leads many1 also1 to strengthen their own opinion of themselves by means of authority1 that is1 to borrow from others the expedient of relying more upon the judgment of their fellow men than upon their own4--,interest in oneself1 the wish to please oneself attains1 with the vain man1 such proportions that he first misleads others into a false1 unduly exalted estimate of himself and then relies upon the authority of others for his self estimate2 he thus creates the delusion that he pins his faith to4--,it must1 however1 be admitted that the vain man does not desire to please others so much as himself and he will often go so far1 on this account1 as to overlook his own interests3 for he often inspires his fellow creatures with malicious envy and renders them ill disposed in order that he may thus increase his own delight in himself4 #ij ,limits of the ,love of ,mankind4--,every man who has declared that some other man is an ass or a scoundrel1 gets angry when the other man conclusively shows that the assertion was erroneous4 #ia ,weeping ,morality4--,how much delight morality occasions6 ,think of the ocean of pleasing tears that has flowed from the narration of noble1 great-hearted deeds6--,this charm of life would disappear if the belief in complete irresponsibility gained the upper hand4 #ib ,origin of ,justice4--,justice 7reasonableness7 has its origin among approximate equals in power1 as ,thucydides 7in the dreadful conferences of the ,athenian and ,melian envoys7 has rightly conceived4 ,thus1 where there exists no demonstrable supremacy and a struggle leads but to mutual1 useless damage1 the reflection arises that an understanding would best be arrived at and some compromise entered into4 ,the reciprocal nature is hence the first nature of justice4 ,each party makes the other content inasmuch as each receives what it prizes more highly than the other4 ,each surrenders to the other what the other wants and receives in return its own desire4 ,justice is therefore reprisal and exchange upon the basis of an approximate equality of power4 ,thus revenge pertains originally to the domain of justice as it is a sort of reciprocity4 ,equally so1 gratitude4--,justice reverts naturally to the standpoint of self preservation1 therefore to the egoism of this consideration3 why should ,i injure myself to no purpose and perhaps never attain my end8--,so much for the origin of justice4 ,only because men1 through mental habits1 have forgotten the original motive of so called just and rational acts1 and also because for thousands of years children have been brought to admire and imitate such acts1 have they gradually assumed the appearance of being unegotistical4 ,upon this appearance is founded the high estimate of them1 which1 moreover1 like all estimates1 is continually developing1 for whatever is highly esteemed is striven for1 imitated1 made the object of self sacrifice1 while the merit of the pain and emulation thus expended is1 by each individual1 ascribed to the thing esteemed4--,how slightly moral would the world appear without forgetfulness6 ,a poet could say that ,god had posted forgetfulness as a sentinel at the portal of the temple of human merit6 #ic ,concerning the ,law of the ,weaker4--,whenever any party1 for instance1 a besieged city1 yields to a stronger party1 under stipulated conditions1 the counter stipulation is that there be a reduction to insignificance1 a burning and destruction of the city and thus a great damage inflicted upon the stronger party4 ,thus arises a sort of equalization principle upon the basis of which a law can be established4 ,the enemy has an advantage to gain by its maintenance4--,to this extent there is also a law between slaves and masters1 limited only by the extent to which the slave may be useful to his master4 ,the law goes originally only so far as the one party may appear to the other potent1 invincible1 stable1 and the like4 ,to such an extent1 then1 the weaker has rights1 but very limited ones4 ,hence the famous dictum that each has as much law on his side as his power extends 7or more accurately1 as his power is believed to extend74 #id ,the ,three ,phases of ,morality ,hitherto4--,it is the first evidence that the animal has become human when his conduct ceases to be based upon the immediately expedient1 but upon the permanently useful2 when he has1 therefore1 grown utilitarian1 capable of purpose4 ,thus is manifested the first rule of reason4 ,a still higher stage is attained when he regulates his conduct upon the basis of honor1 by means of which he gains mastery of himself and surrenders his desires to principles2 this lifts him far above the phase in which he was actuated only by considerations of personal advantage as he understood it4 ,he respects and wishes to be respected4 ,this means that he comprehends utility as a thing dependent upon what his opinion of others is and their opinion of him4 ,finally he regulates his conduct 7the highest phase of morality hitherto attained7 by his own standard of men and things4 ,he himself decides1 for himself and for others1 what is honorable and what is useful4 ,he has become a law giver to opinion1 upon the basis of his ever higher developing conception of the utilitarian and the honorable4 ,knowledge makes him capable of placing the highest utility1 7that is1 the universal1 enduring utility7 before merely personal utility1--of placing ennobling recognition of the enduring and universal before the merely temporary3 he lives and acts as a collective individuality4 #ie ,ethic of the ,developed ,individual4--,hitherto the altruistic has been looked upon as the distinctive characteristic of moral conduct1 and it is manifest that it was the consideration of universal utility that prompted praise and recognition of altruistic conduct4 ,must not a radical departure from this point of view be imminent1 now that it is being ever more clearly perceived that in the most personal considerations the most general welfare is attained3 so that conduct inspired by the most personal considerations of advantage is just the sort which has its origin in the present conception of morality 7as a universal utilitarianism78 ,to contemplate oneself as a complete personality and bear the welfare of that personality in mind in all that one does--this is productive of better results than any sympathetic susceptibility and conduct in behalf of others4 ,indeed we all suffer from such disparagement of our own personalities1 which are at present made to deteriorate from neglect4 ,capacity is1 in fact1 divorced from our personality in most cases1 and sacrificed to the state1 to science1 to the needy1 as if it were the bad which deserved to be made a sacrifice4 ,now1 we are willing to labor for our fellowmen but only to the extent that we find our own highest advantage in so doing1 no more1 no less4 ,the whole matter depends upon what may be understood as one's advantage3 the crude1 undeveloped1 rough individualities will be the very ones to estimate it most inadequately4 #if ,usage and ,ethic4--,to be moral1 virtuous1 praiseworthy means to yield obedience to ancient law and hereditary usage4 ,whether this obedience be rendered readily or with difficulty is long immaterial4 ,enough that it be rendered4 ,good finally comes to mean him who acts in the traditional manner1 as a result of heredity or natural disposition1 that is to say does what is customary with scarcely an effort1 whatever that may be 7for example revenges injuries when revenge1 as with the ancient ,greeks1 was part of good morals74 ,he is called good because he is good to some purpose1 and as benevolence1 sympathy1 considerateness1 moderation and the like come1 in the general course of conduct1 to be finally recognized as good to some purpose 7as utilitarian7 the benevolent man1 the helpful man1 is duly styled good4 7,at first other and more important kinds of utilitarian qualities stand in the foreground47 ,bad is not habitual 7unusual71 to do things not in accordance with usage1 to oppose the traditional1 however rational or the reverse the traditional may be4 ,to do injury to one's social group or community 7and to one's neighbor as thus understood7 is looked upon1 through all the variations of moral laws1 in different ages1 as the peculiarly immoral act1 so that to-day we associate the word bad with deliberate injury to one's neighbor or community4 ,egoistic and non-egoistic do not constitute the fundamental opposites that have brought mankind to make a distinction between moral and immoral1 good and bad2 but adherence to traditional custom1 and emancipation from it4 ,how the traditional had its origin is quite immaterial2 in any event it had no reference to good and bad or any categorical imperative but to the all important end of maintaining and sustaining the community1 the race1 the confederation1 the nation4 ,every superstitious custom that originated in a misinterpreted event or casualty entailed some tradition1 to adhere to which is moral4 ,to break loose from it is dangerous1 more prejudicial to the community than to the individual 7because divinity visits the consequences of impiety and sacrilege upon the community rather than upon the individual74 ,now every tradition grows ever more venerable--the more remote is its origin1 the more confused that origin is4 ,the reverence due to it increases from generation to generation4 ,the tradition finally becomes holy and inspires awe4 ,thus it is that the precept of piety is a far loftier morality than that inculcated by altruistic conduct4 #ig ,delight in the ,moral4--,a potent species of joy 7and thereby the source of morality7 is custom4 ,the customary is done more easily1 better1 therefore preferably4 ,a pleasure is felt in it and experience thus shows that since this practice has held its own it must be good4 ,a manner or moral that lives and lets live is thus demonstrated advantageous1 necessary1 in contradistinction to all new and not yet adopted practices4 ,the custom is therefore the blending of the agreeable and the useful4 ,moreover it does not require deliberation4 ,as soon as man can exercise compulsion1 he exercises it to enforce and establish his customs1 for they are to him attested lifewisdom4 ,so1 too1 a community of individuals constrains each one of their number to adopt the same moral or custom4 ,the error herein is this3 ,because a certain custom has been agreeable to the feelings or at least because it proves a means of maintenance1 this custom must be imperative1 for it is regarded as the only thing that can possibly be consistent with well being4 ,the well being of life seems to spring from it alone4 ,this conception of the customary as a condition of existence is carried into the slightest detail of morality4 ,inasmuch as insight into true causation is quite restricted in all inferior peoples1 a superstitious anxiety is felt that everything be done in due routine4 ,even when a custom is exceedingly burdensome it is preserved because of its supposed vital utility4 ,it is not known that the same degree of satisfaction can be experienced through some other custom and even higher degrees of satisfaction1 too4 ,but it is fully appreciated that all customs do become more agreeable with the lapse of time1 no matter how difficult they may have been found in the beginning1 and that even the severest way of life may be rendered a matter of habit and therefore a pleasure4 #ih ,pleasure and ,social ,instinct4--,through his relations with other men1 man derives a new species of delight in those pleasurable emotions which his own personality affords him2 whereby the domain of pleasurable emotions is made infinitely more comprehensive4 ,no doubt he has inherited many of these feelings from the brutes1 which palpably feel delight when they sport with one another1 as mothers with their young4 ,so1 too1 the sexual relations must be taken into account3 they make every young woman interesting to every young man from the standpoint of pleasure1 and conversely4 ,the feeling of pleasure originating in human relationships makes men in general better4 ,the delight in common1 the pleasures enjoyed together heighten one another4 ,the individual feels a sense of security4 ,he becomes better natured4 ,distrust and malice dissolve4 ,for the man feels the sense of benefit and observes the same feeling in others4 ,mutual manifestations of pleasure inspire mutual sympathy1 the sentiment of homogeneity4 ,the same effect is felt also at mutual sufferings1 in a common danger1 in stormy weather4 ,upon such a foundation are built the earliest alliances3 the object of which is the mutual protection and safety from threatening misfortunes1 and the welfare of each individual4 ,and thus the social instinct develops from pleasure4 #ii ,the ,guiltless ,nature of ,so-,called ,bad ,acts4--,all bad acts are inspired by the impulse to self preservation or1 more accurately1 by the desire for pleasure and for the avoidance of pain in the individual4 ,thus are they occasioned1 but they are not1 therefore1 bad4 ,pain self prepared does not exist1 except in the brains of the philosophers1 any more than pleasure self prepared 7sympathy in the ,schopenhauer sense74 ,in the condition anterior to the state we kill the creature1 be it man or ape1 that attempts to pluck the fruit of a tree before we pluck it ourselves should we happen to be hungry at the time and making for that tree3 as we would do to-day1 so far as the brute is concerned1 if we were wandering in savage regions4--,the bad acts which most disturb us at present do so because of the erroneous supposition that the one who is guilty of them towards us has a free will in the matter and that it was within his discretion not to have done these evil things4 ,this belief in discretionary power inspires hate1 thirst for revenge1 malice1 the entire perversion of the mental processes1 whereas we would feel in no way incensed against the brute1 as we hold it irresponsible4 ,to inflict pain not from the instinct of self preservation but in requital--this is the consequence of false judgment and is equally a guiltless course of conduct4 ,the individual can1 in that condition which is anterior to the state1 act with fierceness and violence for the intimidation of another creature1 in order to render his own power more secure as a result of such acts of intimidation4 ,thus acts the powerful1 the superior1 the original state founder1 who subjugates the weaker4 ,he has the right to do so1 as the state nowadays assumes the same right1 or1 to be more accurate1 there is no right that can conflict with this4 ,a foundation for all morality can first be laid only when a stronger individuality or a collective individuality1 for example society1 the state1 subjects the single personalities1 hence builds upon their unification and establishes a bond of union4 ,morality results from compulsion1 it is indeed itself one long compulsion to which obedience is rendered in order that pain may be avoided4 ,at first it is but custom1 later free obedience and finally almost instinct4 ,at last it is 7like everything habitual and natural7 associated with pleasure--and is then called virtue4 #ajj ,shame4--,shame exists wherever a mystery exists3 but this is a religious notion which in the earlier period of human civilization had great vogue4 ,everywhere there were circumscribed spots to which access was denied on account of some divine law1 except in special circumstances4 ,at first these spots were quite extensive1 inasmuch as stipulated areas could not be trod by the uninitiated1 who1 when near them1 felt tremors and anxieties4 ,this sentiment was frequently transferred to other relationships1 for example to sexual relations1 which1 as the privilege and gateway of mature age1 must be withdrawn from the contemplation of youth for its own advantage3 relations which many divinities were busy in preserving and sanctifying1 images of which divinities were duly placed in marital chambers as guardians4 7,in ,turkish such an apartment is termed a harem or holy thing1 the same word also designating the vestibule of a mosque74 ,so1 too1 ,kingship is regarded as a centre from which power and brilliance stream forth1 as a mystery to the subjects1 impregnated with secrecy and shame1 sentiments still quite operative among peoples who in other respects are without any shame at all4 ,so1 too1 is the whole world of inward states1 the so-called soul1 even now1 for all non-philosophical persons1 a mystery1 and during countless ages it was looked upon as a something of divine origin1 in direct communion with deity4 ,it is1 therefore1 an adytum and occasions shame4 #aja ,judge ,not4--,care must be taken1 in the contemplation of earlier ages1 that there be no falling into unjust scornfulness4 ,the injustice in slavery1 the cruelty in the subjugation of persons and peoples must not be estimated by our standard4 ,for in that period the instinct of justice was not so highly developed4 ,who dare reproach the ,genoese ,calvin for burning the physician ,servetus at the stake8 ,it was a proceeding growing out of his convictions4 ,and the ,inquisition1 too1 had its justification4 ,the only thing is that the prevailing views were false and led to those proceedings which seem so cruel to us1 simply because such views have become foreign to us4 ,besides1 what is the burning alive of one individual compared with eternal hell pains for everybody else8 ,and yet this idea then had hold of all the world without in the least vitiating1 with its frightfulness1 the other idea of a god4 ,even we nowadays are hard and merciless to political revolutionists1 but that is because we are in the habit of believing the state a necessity1 and hence the cruelty of the proceeding is not so much understood as in the other cases where the points of view are repudiated4 ,the cruelty to animals shown by children and ,italians is due to the same misunderstanding4 ,the animal1 owing to the exigencies of the church catechism1 is placed too far below the level of mankind4--,much1 too1 that is frightful and inhuman in history1 and which is almost incredible1 is rendered less atrocious by the reflection that the one who commands and the one who executes are different persons4 ,the former does not witness the performance and hence it makes no strong impression on him4 ,the latter obeys a superior and hence feels no responsibility4 ,most princes and military chieftains appear1 through lack of true perception1 cruel and hard without really being so4--,egoism is not bad because the idea of the neighbor--the word is of ,christian origin and does not correspond to truth--is very weak in us1 and we feel ourselves1 in regard to him1 as free from responsibility as if plants and stones were involved4 ,that another is in suffering must be learned and it can never be wholly learned4 #ajb ,man ,always ,does ,right4--,we do not blame nature when she sends a thunder storm and makes us wet3 why then do we term the man who inflicts injury immoral8 ,because in the latter case we assume a voluntary1 ruling1 free will1 and in the former necessity4 ,but this distinction is a delusion4 ,moreover1 even the intentional infliction of injury is not1 in all circumstances termed immoral4 ,thus1 we kill a fly intentionally without thinking very much about it1 simply because its buzzing about is disagreeable2 and we punish a criminal and inflict pain upon him in order to protect ourselves and society4 ,in the first case it is the individual who1 for the sake of preserving himself or in order to spare himself pain1 does injury with design3 in the second case1 it is the state4 ,all ethic deems intentional infliction of injury justified by necessity2 that is when it is a matter of self preservation4 ,but these two points of view are sufficient to explain all bad acts done by man to men4 ,it is desired to obtain pleasure or avoid pain4 ,in any sense1 it is a question1 always1 of self preservation4 ,socrates and ,plato are right3 whatever man does he always does right3 that is1 does what seems to him good 7advantageous7 according to the degree of advancement his intellect has attained1 which is always the measure of his rational capacity4 #ajc ,the ,inoffensive in ,badness4--,badness has not for its object the infliction of pain upon others but simply our own satisfaction as1 for instance1 in the case of thirst for vengeance or of nerve excitation4 ,every act of teasing shows what pleasure is caused by the display of our power over others and what feelings of delight are experienced in the sense of domination4 ,is there1 then1 anything immoral in feeling pleasure in the pain of others8 ,is malicious joy devilish1 as ,schopenhauer says8 ,in the realm of nature we feel joy in breaking boughs1 shattering rocks1 fighting with wild beasts1 simply to attest our strength thereby4 ,should not the knowledge that another suffers on our account here1 in this case1 make the same kind of act1 7which1 by the way1 arouses no qualms of conscience in us7 immoral also8 ,but if we had not this knowledge there would be no pleasure in one's own superiority or power1 for this pleasure is experienced only in the suffering of another1 as in the case of teasing4 ,all pleasure is1 in itself1 neither good nor bad4 ,whence comes the conviction that one should not cause pain in others in order to feel pleasure oneself8 ,simply from the standpoint of utility1 that is1 in consideration of the consequences1 of ultimate pain1 since the injured party or state will demand satisfaction and revenge4 ,this consideration alone can have led to the determination to renounce such pleasure4--,sympathy has the satisfaction of others in view no more than1 as already stated1 badness has the pain of others in view4 ,for there are at least two 7perhaps many more7 elementary ingredients in personal gratification which enter largely into our self satisfaction3 one of them being the pleasure of the emotion1 of which species is sympathy with tragedy1 and another1 when the impulse is to action1 being the pleasure of exercising one's power4 ,should a sufferer be very dear to us1 we divest ourselves of pain by the performance of acts of sympathy4--,with the exception of some few philosophers1 men have placed sympathy very low in the rank of moral feelings3 and rightly4 #ajd ,self ,defence4--,if self defence is in general held a valid justification1 then nearly every manifestation of so called immoral egoism must be justified1 too4 ,pain is inflicted1 robbery or killing done in order to maintain life or to protect oneself and ward off harm4 ,a man lies when cunning and delusion are valid means of self preservation4 ,to injure intentionally when our safety and our existence are involved1 or the continuance of our well being1 is conceded to be moral4 ,the state itself injures from this motive when it hangs criminals4 ,in unintentional injury the immoral1 of course1 can not be present1 as accident alone is involved4 ,but is there any sort of intentional injury in which our existence and the maintenance of our well being be not involved8 ,is there such a thing as injuring from absolute badness1 for example1 in the case of cruelty8 ,if a man does not know what pain an act occasions1 that act is not one of wickedness4 ,thus the child is not bad to the animal1 not evil4 ,it disturbs and rends it as if it were one of its playthings4 ,does a man ever fully know how much pain an act may cause another8 ,as far as our nervous system extends1 we shield ourselves from pain4 ,if it extended further1 that is1 to our fellow men1 we would never cause anyone else any pain 7except in such cases as we cause it to ourselves1 when we cut ourselves1 surgically1 to heal our ills1 or strive and trouble ourselves to gain health74 ,we conclude from analogy that something pains somebody and can in consequence1 through recollection and the power of imagination1 feel pain also4 ,but what a difference there always is between the tooth ache and the pain 7sympathy7 that the spectacle of tooth ache occasions6 ,therefore when injury is inflicted from so called badness the degree of pain thereby experienced is always unknown to us3 in so far1 however1 as pleasure is felt in the act 7a sense of one's own power1 of one's own excitation7 the act is committed to maintain the well being of the individual and hence comes under the purview of self defence and lying for self preservation4 ,without pleasure1 there is no life2 the struggle for pleasure is the struggle for life4 ,whether the individual shall carry on this struggle in such a way that he be called good or in such a way that he be called bad is something that the standard and the capacity of his own intellect must determine for him4 #aje ,justice that ,rewards4--,whoever has fully understood the doctrine of absolute irresponsibility can no longer include the so called rewarding and punishing justice in the idea of justice1 if the latter be taken to mean that to each be given his due4 ,for he who is punished does not deserve the punishment4 ,he is used simply as a means to intimidate others from certain acts4 ,equally1 he who is rewarded does not merit the reward4 ,he could not act any differently than he did act4 ,hence the reward has only the significance of an encouragement to him and others as a motive for subsequent acts4 ,the praise is called out only to him who is running in the race and not to him who has arrived at the goal4 ,something that comes to someone as his own is neither a punishment nor a reward4 ,it is given to him from utiliarian considerations1 without his having any claim to it in justice4 ,hence one must say the wise man praises not because a good act has been done precisely as was once said3 the wise man punishes not because a bad act has been done but in order that a bad act may not be done4 ,if punishment and reward ceased1 there would cease with them the most powerful incentives to certain acts and away from other acts4 ,the purposes of men demand their continuance of punishment and reward and inasmuch as punishment and reward1 blame and praise operate most potently upon vanity1 these same purposes of men imperatively require the continuance of vanity4 #ajf ,the ,water ,fall4--,at the sight of a water fall we may opine that in the countless curves1 spirations and dashes of the waves we behold freedom of the will and of the impulses4 ,but everything is compulsory1 everything can be mathematically calculated4 ,thus it is1 too1 with human acts4 ,we would be able to calculate in advance every single action if we were all knowing1 as well as every advance in knowledge1 every delusion1 every bad deed4 ,the acting individual himself is held fast in the illusion of volition4 ,if1 on a sudden1 the entire movement of the world stopped short1 and an all knowing and reasoning intelligence were there to take advantage of this pause1 he could foretell the future of every being to the remotest ages and indicate the path that would be taken in the world's further course4 ,the deception of the acting individual as regards himself1 the assumption of the freedom of the will1 is a part of this computable mechanism4 #ajg ,non-,responsibility and ,non-,guilt4--,the absolute irresponsibility of man for his acts and his nature is the bitterest drop in the cup of him who has knowledge1 if he be accustomed to behold in responsibility and duty the patent of nobility of his human nature4 ,all his estimates1 preferences1 dislikes are thus made worthless and false4 ,his deepest sentiment1 with which he honored the sufferer1 the hero1 sprang from an error4 ,he may no longer praise1 no longer blame1 for it is irrational to blame and praise nature and necessity4 ,just as he cherishes the beautiful work of art1 but does not praise it 7as it is incapable of doing anything for itself71 just as he stands in the presence of plants1 he must stand in the presence of human conduct1 his own included4 ,he may admire strength1 beauty1 capacity1 therein1 but he can discern no merit4 ,the chemical process and the conflict of the elements1 the ordeal of the invalid who strives for convalescence1 are no more merits than the soul-struggles and extremities in which one is torn this way and that by contending motives until one finally decides in favor of the strongest--as the phrase has it1 although1 in fact1 it is the strongest motive that decides for us4 ,all these motives1 however1 whatever fine names we may give them1 have grown from the same roots in which we believe the baneful poisons lurk4 ,between good and bad actions there is no difference in kind but1 at most1 in degree4 ,good acts are sublimated evil4 ,bad acts are degraded1 imbruted good4 ,the very longing of the individual for self gratification 7together with the fear of being deprived of it7 obtains satisfaction in all circumstances1 let the individual act as he may1 that is1 as he must3 be it in deeds of vanity1 revenge1 pleasure1 utility1 badness1 cunning1 be it in deeds of self sacrifice1 sympathy or knowledge4 ,the degrees of rational capacity determine the direction in which this longing impels3 every society1 every individual has constantly present a comparative classification of benefits in accordance with which conduct is determined and others are judged4 ,but this standard perpetually changes4 ,many acts are called bad that are only stupid1 because the degree of intelligence that decided for them was low4 ,indeed1 in a certain sense1 all acts now are stupid1 for the highest degree of human intelligence that has yet been attained will in time most certainly be surpassed and then1 in retrospection1 all our present conduct and opinion will appear as narrow and petty as we now deem the conduct and opinion of savage peoples and ages4--,to perceive all these things may occasion profound pain but there is1 nevertheless1 a consolation4 ,such pains are birth pains4 ,the butterfly insists upon breaking through the cocoon1 he presses through it1 tears it to pieces1 only to be blinded and confused by the strange light1 by the realm of liberty4 ,by such men as are capable of this sadness--how few there are6--will the first attempt be made to see if humanity may convert itself from a thing of morality to a thing of wisdom4 ,the sun of a new gospel sheds its first ray upon the loftiest height in the souls of those few3 but the clouds are massed there1 too1 thicker than ever1 and not far apart are the brightest sunlight and the deepest gloom4 ,everything is necessity--so says the new knowledge3 and this knowledge is itself necessity4 ,all is guiltlessness1 and knowledge is the way to insight into this guiltlessness4 ,if pleasure1 egoism1 vanity be necessary to attest the moral phenomena and their richest blooms1 the instinct for truth and accuracy of knowledge2 if delusion and confusion of the imagination were the only means whereby mankind could gradually lift itself up to this degree of self enlightenment and self emancipation--who would venture to disparage the means8 ,who would have the right to feel sad if made aware of the goal to which those paths lead8 ,everything in the domain of ethic is evolved1 changeable1 tottering2 all things flow1 it is true--but all things are also in the stream3 to their goal4 ,though within us the hereditary habit of erroneous judgment1 love1 hate1 may be ever dominant1 yet under the influence of awaking knowledge it will ever become weaker3 a new habit1 that of understanding1 not-loving1 not-hating1 looking from above1 grows up within us gradually and in the same soil1 and may1 perhaps1 in thousands of years be powerful enough to endow mankind with capacity to develop the wise1 guiltless man 7conscious of guiltlessness7 as unfailingly as it now developes the unwise1 irrational1 guilt-conscious man--that is to say1 the necessary higher step1 not the opposite of it4 ,,the ,,religious ,,life4 #ajh ,the ,double ,contest ,against ,evil4--,if an evil afflicts us we can either so deal with it as to remove its cause or else so deal with it that its effect upon our feeling is changed3 hence look upon the evil as a benefit of which the uses will perhaps first become evident in some subsequent period4 ,religion and art 7and also the metaphysical philosophy7 strive to effect an alteration of the feeling1 partly by an alteration of our judgment respecting the experience 7for example1 with the aid of the dictum whom ,god loves1 he chastizes7 partly by the awakening of a joy in pain1 in emotion especially 7whence the art of tragedy had its origin74 ,the more one is disposed to interpret away and justify1 the less likely he is to look directly at the causes of evil and eliminate them4 ,an instant alleviation and narcotizing of pain1 as is usual in the case of tooth ache1 is sufficient for him even in the severest suffering4 ,the more the domination of religions and of all narcotic arts declines1 the more searchingly do men look to the elimination of evil itself1 which is a rather bad thing for the tragic poets--for there is ever less and less material for tragedy1 since the domain of unsparing1 immutable destiny grows constantly more circumscribed--and a still worse thing for the priests1 for these last have lived heretofore upon the narcoticizing of human ill4 #aji ,sorrow is ,knowledge4--,how willingly would not one exchange the false assertions of the homines religiosi that there is a god who commands us to be good1 who is the sentinel and witness of every act1 every moment1 every thought1 who loves us1 who plans our welfare in every misfortune--how willingly would not one exchange these for truths as healing1 beneficial and grateful as those delusions6 ,but there are no such truths4 ,philosophy can at most set up in opposition to them other metaphysical plausibilities 7fundamental untruths as well74 ,the tragedy of it all is that1 although one cannot believe these dogmas of religion and metaphysics if one adopts in heart and head the potent methods of truth1 one has yet become1 through human evolution1 so tender1 susceptible1 sensitive1 as to stand in need of the most effective means of rest and consolation4 ,from this state of things arises the danger that1 through the perception of truth or1 more accurately1 seeing through delusion1 one may bleed to death4 ,byron has put this into deathless verse3 ,sorrow is knowledge3 they who know the most ,must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth1 ,the tree of knowledge is not that of life4 ,against such cares there is no better protective than the light fancy of ,horace1 7at any rate during the darkest hours and sun eclipses of the soul7 expressed in the words quid aeternis minorem consiliis animum fatigas8 cur non sub alta vel platano vel hac pinu jacentes4#bb #bb ,then wherefore should you1 who are mortal1 outwear ,your soul with a profitless burden of care ,say1 why should we not1 flung at ease neath this pine1 ,or a plane-tree's broad umbrage1 quaff gaily our wine8 7,translation of ,sir ,theodore ,martin47 ,at any rate1 light fancy or heavy heartedness of any degree must be better than a romantic retrogression and desertion of one's flag1 an approach to ,christianity in any form3 for with it1 in the present state of knowledge1 one can have nothing to do without hopelessly defiling one's intellectual integrity and surrendering it unconditionally4 ,these woes may be painful enough1 but without pain one cannot become a leader and guide of humanity3 and woe to him who would be such and lacks this pure integrity of the intellect6 #aaj ,the ,truth in ,religion4--,in the ages of enlightenment justice was not done to the importance of religion1 of this there can be no doubt4 ,it is also equally certain that in the ensuing reaction of enlightenment1 the demands of justice were far exceeded inasmuch as religion was treated with love1 even with infatuation and proclaimed as a profound1 indeed the most profound knowledge of the world1 which science had but to divest of its dogmatic garb in order to possess truth in its unmythical form4 ,religions must therefore--this was the contention of all foes of enlightenment--sensu allegorico1 with regard for the comprehension of the masses1 give expression to that ancient truth which is wisdom in itself1 inasmuch as all science of modern times has led up to it instead of away from it4 ,so that between the most ancient wisdom of man and all later wisdom there prevails harmony1 even similarity of viewpoint2 and the advancement of knowledge--if one be disposed to concede such a thing--has to do not with its nature but with its propagation4 ,this whole conception of religion and science is through and through erroneous1 and none would to-day be hardy enough to countenance it had not ,schopenhauer's rhetoric taken it under protection1 this high sounding rhetoric which now gains auditors after the lapse of a generation4 ,much as may be gained from ,schopenhauer's religio-ethical human and cosmical oracle as regards the comprehension of ,christianity and other religions1 it is nevertheless certain that he erred regarding the value of religion to knowledge4 ,he himself was in this but a servile pupil of the scientific teachers of his time who had all taken romanticism under their protection and renounced the spirit of enlightenment4 ,had he been born in our own time it would have been impossible for him to have spoken of the sensus allegoricus of religion4 ,he would instead have done truth the justice to say3 never has a religion1 directly or indirectly1 either as dogma or as allegory1 contained a truth4 ,for all religions grew out of dread or necessity1 and came into existence through an error of the reason4 ,they have1 perhaps1 in times of danger from science1 incorporated some philosophical doctrine or other into their systems in order to make it possible to continue one's existence within them4 ,but this is but a theological work of art dating from the time in which a religion began to doubt of itself4 ,these theological feats of art1 which are most common in ,christianity as the religion of a learned age1 impregnated with philosophy1 have led to this superstition of the sensus allegoricus1 as has1 even more1 the habit of the philosophers 7namely those half-natures1 the poetical philosophers and the philosophising artists7 of dealing with their own feelings as if they constituted the fundamental nature of humanity and hence of giving their own religious feelings a predominant influence over the structure of their systems4 ,as the philosophers mostly philosophised under the influence of hereditary religious habits1 or at least under the traditional influence of this metaphysical necessity1 they naturally arrived at conclusions closely resembling the ,judaic or ,christian or ,indian religious tenets--resembling1 in the way that children are apt to look like their mothers3 only in this case the fathers were not certain as to the maternity1 as easily happens--but in the innocence of their admiration1 they fabled regarding the family likeness of all religion and science4 ,in reality1 there exists between religion and true science neither relationship nor friendship1 not even enmity3 they dwell in different spheres4 ,every philosophy that lets the religious comet gleam through the darkness of its last outposts renders everything within it that purports to be science1 suspicious4 ,it is all probably religion1 although it may assume the guise of science4--,moreover1 though all the peoples agree concerning certain religious things1 for example1 the existence of a god 7which1 by the way1 as regards this point1 is not the case7 this fact would constitute an argument against the thing agreed upon1 for example the very existence of a god4 ,the consensus gentium and especially hominum can probably amount only to an absurdity4 ,against it there is no consensus omnium sapientium whatever1 on any point1 with the exception of which ,goethe's verse speaks3 ,all greatest sages to all latest ages ,will smile1 wink and slily agree ',tis folly to wait till a fool's empty pate ,has learned to be knowing and free4 ,so children of wisdom must look upon fools ,as creatures who're never the better for schools4 ,stated without rhyme or metre and adapted to our case3 the consensus sapientium is to the effect that the consensus gentium amounts to an absurdity4 #aaa ,origin of ,religious ,worship4--,let us transport ourselves back to the times in which religious life flourished most vigorously and we will find a fundamental conviction prevalent which we no longer share and which has resulted in the closing of the door to religious life once for all so far as we are concerned3 this conviction has to do with nature and intercourse with her4 ,in those times nothing is yet known of nature's laws4 ,neither for earth nor for heaven is there a must4 ,a season1 sunshine1 rain can come or stay away as it pleases4 ,there is wanting1 in particular1 all idea of natural causation4 ,if a man rows1 it is not the oar that moves the boat1 but rowing is a magical ceremony whereby a demon is constrained to move the boat4 ,all illness1 death itself1 is a consequence of magical influences4 ,in sickness and death nothing natural is conceived4 ,the whole idea of natural course is wanting4 ,the idea dawns first upon the ancient ,greeks1 that is to say in a very late period of humanity1 in the conception of a ,moira fate ruling over the gods4 ,if any person shoots off a bow1 there is always an irrational strength and agency in the act4 ,if the wells suddenly run dry1 the first thought is of subterranean demons and their pranks4 ,it must have been the dart of a god beneath whose invisible influence a human being suddenly collapses4 ,in ,india1 the carpenter 7according to ,lubbock7 is in the habit of making devout offerings to his hammer and hatchet4 ,a ,brahmin treats the plume with which he writes1 a soldier the weapon that he takes into the field1 a mason his trowel1 a laborer his plow1 in the same way4 ,all nature is1 in the opinion of religious people1 a sum total of the doings of conscious and willing beings1 an immense mass of complex volitions4 ,in regard to all that takes place outside of us no conclusion is permissible that anything will result thus and so1 must result thus and so1 that we are comparatively calculable and certain in our experiences1 that man is the rule1 nature the ruleless4 ,this view forms the fundamental conviction that dominates crude1 religion-producing1 early civilizations4 ,we contemporary men feel exactly the opposite3 the richer man now feels himself inwardly1 the more polyphone the music and the sounding of his soul1 the more powerfully does the uniformity of nature impress him4 ,we all1 with ,goethe1 recognize in nature the great means of repose for the soul4 ,we listen to the pendulum stroke of this great clock with longing for rest1 for absolute calm and quiescence1 as if we could drink in the uniformity of nature and thereby arrive first at an enjoyment of oneself4 ,formerly it was the reverse3 if we carry ourselves back to the periods of crude civilization1 or if we contemplate contemporary savages1 we will find them most strongly influenced by rule1 by tradition4 ,the individual is almost automatically bound to rule and tradition and moves with the uniformity of a pendulum4 ,to him nature--the uncomprehended1 fearful1 mysterious nature--must seem the domain of freedom1 of volition1 of higher power1 indeed as an ultra-human degree of destiny1 as god4 ,every individual in such periods and circumstances feels that his existence1 his happiness1 the existence and happiness of the family1 the state1 the success or failure of every undertaking1 must depend upon these dispositions of nature4 ,certain natural events must occur at the proper time and certain others must not occur4 ,how can influence be exercised over this fearful unknown1 how can this domain of freedom be brought under subjection8 thus he asks himself1 thus he worries3 ,is there no means to render these powers of nature as subject to rule and tradition as you are yourself8--,the cogitation of the superstitious and magic-deluded man is upon the theme of imposing a law upon nature3 and to put it briefly1 religious worship is the result of such cogitation4 ,the problem which is present to every man is closely connected with this one3 how can the weaker party dictate laws to the stronger1 control its acts in reference to the weaker8 ,at first the most harmless form of influence is recollected1 that influence which is acquired when the partiality of anyone has been won4 ,through beseeching and prayer1 through abject humiliation1 through obligations to regular gifts and propitiations1 through flattering homages1 it is possible1 therefore1 to impose some guidance upon the forces of nature1 to the extent that their partiality be won3 love binds and is bound4 ,then agreements can be entered into by means of which certain courses of conduct are mutually concluded1 vows are made and authorities prescribed4 ,but far more potent is that species of power exercised by means of magic and incantation4 ,as a man is able to injure a powerful enemy by means of the magician and render him helpless with fear1 as the love potion operates at a distance1 so can the mighty forces of nature1 in the opinion of weaker mankind1 be controlled by similar means4 ,the principal means of effecting incantations is to acquire control of something belonging to the party to be influenced1 hair1 finger nails1 food from his table1 even his picture or his name4 ,with such apparatus it is possible to act by means of magic1 for the basic principle is that to everything spiritual corresponds something corporeal4 ,with the aid of this corporeal element the spirit may be bound1 injured or destroyed4 ,the corporeal affords the handle by which the spiritual can be laid hold of4 ,in the same way that man influences mankind does he influences some spirit of nature1 for this latter has also its corporeal element that can be grasped4 ,the tree1 and on the same basis1 the seed from which it grew3 this puzzling sequence seems to demonstrate that in both forms the same spirit is embodied1 now large1 now small4 ,a stone that suddenly rolls1 is the body in which the spirit works4 ,does a huge boulder lie in a lonely moor8 ,it is impossible to think of mortal power having placed it there4 ,the stone must have moved itself there4 ,that is to say some spirit must dominate it4 ,everything that has a body is subject to magic1 including1 therefore1 the spirits of nature4 ,if a god is directly connected with his portrait1 a direct influence 7by refraining from devout offerings1 by whippings1 chainings and the like7 can be brought to bear upon him4 ,the lower classes in ,china tie cords around the picture of their god in order to defy his departing favor1 when he has left them in the lurch1 and tear the picture to pieces1 drag it through the streets into dung heaps and gutters1 crying3 ,you dog of a spirit1 we housed you in a beautiful temple1 we gilded you prettily1 we fed you well1 we brought you offerings1 and yet how ungrateful you are6 ,similar displays of resentment have been made against pictures of the mother of god and pictures of saints in ,catholic countries during the present century when such pictures would not do their duty during times of pestilence and drought4 ,through all these magical relationships to nature countless ceremonies are occasioned1 and finally1 when their complexity and confusion grow too great1 pains are taken to systematize them1 to arrange them so that the favorable course of nature's progress1 namely the great yearly circle of the seasons1 may be brought about by a corresponding course of the ceremonial progress4 ,the aim of religious worship is to influence nature to human advantage1 and hence to instil a subjection to law into her that originally she has not1 whereas at present man desires to find out the subjection to law of nature in order to guide himself thereby4 ,in brief1 the system of religious worship rests upon the idea of magic between man and man1 and the magician is older than the priest4 ,but it rests equally upon other and higher ideas4 ,it brings into prominence the sympathetic relation of man to man1 the existence of benevolence1 gratitude1 prayer1 of truces between enemies1 of loans upon security1 of arrangements for the protection of property4 ,man1 even in very inferior degrees of civilization1 does not stand in the presence of nature as a helpless slave1 he is not willy-nilly the absolute servant of nature4 ,in the ,greek development of religion1 especially in the relationship to the ,olympian gods1 it becomes possible to entertain the idea of an existence side by side of two castes1 a higher1 more powerful1 and a lower1 less powerful3 but both are bound together in some way1 on account of their origin and are one species4 ,they need not be ashamed of one another4 ,this is the element of distinction in ,greek religion4 #aab ,at the ,contemplation of ,certain ,ancient ,sacrificial ,proceedings4--,how many sentiments are lost to us is manifest in the union of the farcical1 even of the obscene1 with the religious feeling4 ,the feeling that this mixture is possible is becoming extinct4 ,we realize the mixture only historically1 in the mysteries of ,demeter and ,dionysos and in the ,christian ,easter festivals and religious mysteries4 ,but we still perceive the sublime in connection with the ridiculous1 and the like1 the emotional with the absurd4 ,perhaps a later age will be unable to understand even these combinations4 #aac ,christianity as ,antiquity4--,when on a ,sunday morning we hear the old bells ringing1 we ask ourselves3 ,is it possible8 ,all this for a ,jew crucified two thousand years ago who said he was ,god's son8 ,the proof of such an assertion is lacking4--,certainly1 the ,christian religion constitutes in our time a protruding bit of antiquity from very remote ages and that its assertions are still generally believed--although men have become so keen in the scrutiny of claims--constitutes the oldest relic of this inheritance4 ,a god who begets children by a mortal woman2 a sage who demands that no more work be done1 that no more justice be administered but that the signs of the approaching end of the world be heeded2 a system of justice that accepts an innocent as a vicarious sacrifice in the place of the guilty2 a person who bids his disciples drink his blood2 prayers for miracles2 sins against a god expiated upon a god2 fear of a hereafter to which death is the portal2 the figure of the cross as a symbol in an age that no longer knows the purpose and the ignominy of the cross--how ghostly all these things flit before us out of the grave of their primitive antiquity6 ,is one to believe that such things can still be believed8 #aad ,the ,un-,greek in ,christianity4--,the ,greeks did not look upon the ,homeric gods above them as lords nor upon themselves beneath as servants1 after the fashion of the ,jews4 ,they saw but the counterpart as in a mirror of the most perfect specimens of their own caste1 hence an ideal1 but no contradiction of their own nature4 ,there was a feeling of mutual relationship1 resulting in a mutual interest1 a sort of alliance4 ,man thinks well of himself when he gives himself such gods and places himself in a relationship akin to that of the lower nobility with the higher2 whereas the ,italian races have a decidedly vulgar religion1 involving perpetual anxiety because of bad and mischievous powers and soul disturbers4 ,wherever the ,olympian gods receded into the background1 there even ,greek life became gloomier and more perturbed4--,christianity1 on the other hand1 oppressed and degraded humanity completely and sank it into deepest mire3 into the feeling of utter abasement it suddenly flashed the gleam of divine compassion1 so that the amazed and grace-dazzled stupefied one gave a cry of delight and for a moment believed that the whole of heaven was within him4 ,upon this unhealthy excess of feeling1 upon the accompanying corruption of heart and head1 ,christianity attains all its psychological effects4 ,it wants to annihilate1 debase1 stupefy1 amaze1 bedazzle4 ,there is but one thing that it does not want3 measure1 standard 7das ,maas7 and therefore is it in the worst sense barbarous1 asiatic1 vulgar1 un-,greek4 #aae ,being ,religious to ,some ,purpose4--,there are certain insipid1 traffic-virtuous people to whom religion is pinned like the hem of some garb of a higher humanity4 ,these people do well to remain religious3 it adorns them4 ,all who are not versed in some professional weapon--including tongue and pen as weapons--are servile3 to all such the ,christian religion is very useful1 for then their servility assumes the aspect of ,christian virtue and is amazingly adorned4--,people whose daily lives are empty and colorless are readily religious4 ,this is comprehensible and pardonable1 but they have no right to demand that others1 whose daily lives are not empty and colorless1 should be religious also4 #aaf ,the ,everyday ,christian4--,if ,christianity1 with its allegations of an avenging ,god1 universal sinfulness1 choice of grace1 and the danger of eternal damnation1 were true1 it would be an indication of weakness of mind and character not to be a priest or an apostle or a hermit1 and toil for one's own salvation4 ,it would be irrational to lose sight of one's eternal well being in comparison with temporary advantage3 ,assuming these dogmas to be generally believed1 the every day ,christian is a pitiable figure1 a man who really cannot count as far as three1 and who1 for the rest1 just because of his intellectual incapacity1 does not deserve to be as hard punished as ,christianity promises he shall be4 #aag ,concerning the ,cleverness of ,christianity4--,it is a master stroke of ,christianity to so emphasize the unworthiness1 sinfulness and degradation of men in general that contempt of one's fellow creatures becomes impossible4 ,he may sin as much as he pleases1 he is not by nature different from me4 ,it is ,i who in every way am unworthy and contemptible4 ,so says the ,christian to himself4 ,but even this feeling has lost its keenest sting for the ,christian does not believe in his individual degradation4 ,he is bad in his general human capacity and he soothes himself a little with the assertion that we are all alike4 #aah ,personal ,change4--,as soon as a religion rules1 it has for its opponents those who were its first disciples4 #aai ,fate of ,christianity4--,christianity arose to lighten the heart1 but now it must first make the heart heavy in order to be able to lighten it afterwards4 ,christianity will consequently go down4 #abj ,the ,testimony of ,pleasure4--,the agreeable opinion is accepted as true4 ,this is the testimony of pleasure 7or as the church says1 the evidence of strength7 of which all religions are so proud1 although they should all be ashamed of it4 ,if a belief did not make blessed it would not be believed4 ,how little it would be worth1 then6 #aba ,dangerous ,play4--,whoever gives religious feeling room1 must then also let it grow4 ,he can do nothing else4 ,then his being gradually changes4 ,the religious element brings with it affinities and kinships4 ,the whole circle of his judgment and feeling is clouded and draped in religious shadows4 ,feeling cannot stand still4 ,one should be on one's guard4 #abb ,the ,blind ,pupil4--,as long as one knows very well the strength and the weakness of one's dogma1 one's art1 one's religion1 its strength is still low4 ,the pupil and apostle who has no eye for the weaknesses of a dogma1 a religion and so on1 dazzled by the aspect of the master and by his own reverence for him1 has1 on that very account1 generally more power than the master4 ,without blind pupils the influence of a man and his work has never become great4 ,to give victory to knowledge1 often amounts to no more than so allying it with stupidity that the brute force of the latter forces triumph for the former4 #abc ,the ,breaking off of ,churches4--,there is not sufficient religion in the world merely to put an end to the number of religions4 #abd ,sinlessness of ,men4--,if one have understood how ,sin came into the world1 namely through errors of the reason1 through which men in their intercourse with one another and even individual men looked upon themselves as much blacker and wickeder than was really the case1 one's whole feeling is much lightened and man and the world appear together in such a halo of harmlessness that a sentiment of well being is instilled into one's whole nature4 ,man in the midst of nature is as a child left to its own devices4 ,this child indeed dreams a heavy1 anxious dream4 ,but when it opens its eyes it finds itself always in paradise4 #abe ,irreligiousness of ,artists4--,homer is so much at home among his gods and is as a poet so good natured to them that he must have been profoundly irreligious4 ,that which was brought to him by the popular faith--a mean1 crude and partially repulsive superstition--he dealt with as freely as the ,sculptor with his clay1 therefore with the same freedom that ,a,eschylus and ,aristophanes evinced and with which in later times the great artists of the renaissance1 and also ,shakespeare and ,goethe1 drew their pictures4 #abf ,art and ,strength of ,false ,interpretation4--,all the visions1 fears1 exhaustions and delights of the saint are well known symptoms of sickness1 which in him1 owing to deep rooted religious and psychological delusions1 are explained quite differently1 that is not as symptoms of sickness4--,so1 too1 perhaps1 the demon of ,socrates was nothing but a malady of the ear that he explained1 in view of his predominant moral theory1 in a manner different from what would be thought rational to-day4 ,nor is the case different with the frenzy and the frenzied speeches of the prophets and of the priests of the oracles4 ,it is always the degree of wisdom1 imagination1 capacity and morality in the heart and mind of the interpreters that got so much out of them4 ,it is among the greatest feats of the men who are called geniuses and saints that they made interpreters for themselves who1 fortunately for mankind1 did not understand them4 #abg ,reverence for ,madness4--,because it was perceived that an excitement of some kind often made the head clearer and occasioned fortunate inspirations1 it was concluded that the utmost excitement would occasion the most fortunate inspirations4 ,hence the frenzied being was revered as a sage and an oracle giver4 ,a false conclusion lies at the bottom of all this4 #abh ,promises of ,wisdom4--,modern science has as its object as little pain as possible1 as long a life as possible--hence a sort of eternal blessedness1 but of a very limited kind in comparison with the promises of religion4 #abi ,forbidden ,generosity4--,there is not enough of love and goodness in the world to throw any of it away on conceited people4 #acj ,survival of ,religious ,training in the ,disposition4--,the ,catholic ,church1 and before it all ancient education1 controlled the whole domain of means through which man was put into certain unordinary moods and withdrawn from the cold calculation of personal advantage and from calm1 rational reflection4 ,a church vibrating with deep tones2 gloomy1 regular1 restraining exhortations from a priestly band1 who involuntarily communicate their own tension to their congregation and lead them to listen almost with anxiety as if some miracle were in course of preparation2 the awesome pile of architecture which1 as the house of a god1 rears itself vastly into the vague and in all its shadowy nooks inspires fear of its nerve-exciting power--who would care to reduce men to the level of these things if the ideas upon which they rest became extinct8 ,but the results of all these things are nevertheless not thrown away3 the inner world of exalted1 emotional1 prophetic1 profoundly repentant1 hope-blessed moods has become inborn in man largely through cultivation4 ,what still exists in his soul was formerly1 as he germinated1 grew and bloomed1 thoroughly disciplined4 #aca ,religious ,after-,pains4--,though one believe oneself absolutely weaned away from religion1 the process has yet not been so thorough as to make impossible a feeling of joy at the presence of religious feelings and dispositions without intelligible content1 as1 for example1 in music2 and if a philosophy alleges to us the validity of metaphysical hopes1 through the peace of soul therein attainable1 and also speaks of the whole true gospel in the look of ,raphael's ,madonna1 we greet such declarations and innuendoes with a welcome smile4 ,the philosopher has here a matter easy of demonstration4 ,he responds with that which he is glad to give1 namely a heart that is glad to accept4 ,hence it is observable how the less reflective free spirits collide only with dogmas but yield readily to the magic of religious feelings2 it is a source of pain to them to let the latter go simply on account of the former4--,scientific philosophy must be very much on its guard lest on account of this necessity--an evolved and hence1 also1 a transitory necessity--delusions are smuggled in4 ,even logicians speak of presentiments of truth in ethics and in art 7for example of the presentiment that the essence of things is unity7 a thing which1 nevertheless1 ought to be prohibited4 ,between carefully deduced truths and such foreboded things there lies the abysmal distinction that the former are products of the intellect and the latter of the necessity4 ,hunger is no evidence that there is food at hand to appease it4 ,hunger merely craves food4 ,presentiment does not denote that the existence of a thing is known in any way whatever4 ,it denotes merely that it is deemed possible to the extent that it is desired or feared4 ,the presentiment is not one step forward in the domain of certainty4--,it is involuntarily believed that the religious tinted sections of a philosophy are better attested than the others1 but the case is at bottom just the opposite3 there is simply the inner wish that it may be so1 that the thing which beautifies may also be true4 ,this wish leads us to accept bad grounds as good4 #acb ,of the ,christian ,need of ,salvation4--,careful consideration must render it possible to propound some explanation of that process in the soul of a ,christian which is termed need of salvation1 and to propound an explanation1 too1 free from mythology3 hence one purely psychological4 ,heretofore psychological explanations of religious conditions and processes have really been in disrepute1 inasmuch as a theology calling itself free gave vent to its unprofitable nature in this domain2 for its principal aim1 so far as may be judged from the spirit of its creator1 ,schleier-macher1 was the preservation of the ,christian religion and the maintenance of the ,christian theology4 ,it appeared that in the psychological analysis of religious facts a new anchorage and above all a new calling were to be gained4 ,undisturbed by such predecessors1 we venture the following exposition of the phenomena alluded to4 ,man is conscious of certain acts which are very firmly implanted in the general course of conduct3 indeed he discovers in himself a predisposition to such acts that seems to him to be as unalterable as his very being4 ,how gladly he would essay some other kind of acts which in the general estimate of conduct are rated the best and highest1 how gladly he would welcome the consciousness of well doing which ought to follow unselfish motive6 ,unfortunately1 however1 it goes no further than this longing3 the discontent consequent upon being unable to satisfy it is added to all other kinds of discontent which result from his life destiny in particular or which may be due to so called bad acts2 so that a deep depression ensues accompanied by a desire for some physician to remove it and all its causes4--,this condition would not be found so bitter if the individual but compared himself freely with other men3 for then he would have no reason to be discontented with himself in particular as he is merely bearing his share of the general burden of human discontent and incompleteness4 ,but he compares himself with a being who alone must be capable of the conduct that is called unegoistic and of an enduring consciousness of unselfish motive1 with ,god4 ,it is because he gazes into this clear mirror1 that his own self seems so extraordinarily distracted and so troubled4 ,thereupon the thought of that being1 in so far as it flits before his fancy as retributive justice1 occasions him anxiety4 ,in every conceivable small and great experience he believes he sees the anger of the being1 his threats1 the very implements and manacles of his judge and prison4 ,what succors him in this danger1 which1 in the prospect of an eternal duration of punishment1 transcends in hideousness all the horrors that can be presented to the imagination8 #acc ,before we consider this condition in its further effects1 we would admit to ourselves that man is betrayed into this condition not through his fault and sin but through a series of delusions of the reason2 that it was the fault of the mirror if his own self appeared to him in the highest degree dark and hateful1 and that that mirror was his own work1 the very imperfect work of human imagination and judgment4 ,in the first place a being capable of absolutely unegoistic conduct is as fabulous as the phoenix4 ,such a being is not even thinkable for the very reason that the whole notion of unegoistic conduct1 when closely examined1 vanishes into air4 ,never yet has a man done anything solely for others and entirely without reference to a personal motive2 indeed how could he possibly do anything that had no reference to himself1 that is without inward compulsion 7which must always have its basis in a personal need78 ,how could the ego act without ego8--,a god1 who1 on the other hand1 is all love1 as he is usually represented1 would not be capable of a solitary unegoistic act3 whence one is reminded of a reflection of ,lichtenberg's which is1 in truth1 taken from a lower sphere3 ,we cannot possibly feel for others1 as the expression goes2 we feel only for ourselves4 ,the assertion sounds hard1 but it is not1 if rightly understood4 ,a man loves neither his father nor his mother nor his wife nor his child1 but simply the feelings which they inspire4 ,or1 as ,la ,rochefoucauld says3 ,if you think you love your mistress for the mere love of her1 you are very much mistaken4 ,why acts of love are more highly prized than others1 namely not on account of their nature1 but on account of their utility1 has already been explained in the section on the origin of moral feelings4 ,but if a man should wish to be all love like the god aforesaid1 and want to do all things for others and nothing for himself1 the procedure would be fundamentally impossible because he must do a great deal for himself before there would be any possibility of doing anything for the love of others4 ,it is also essential that others be sufficiently egoistic to accept always and at all times this self sacrifice and living for others1 so that the men of love and self sacrifice have an interest in the survival of unloving and selfish egoists1 while the highest morality1 in order to maintain itself must formally enforce the existence of immorality 7wherein it would be really destroying itself47--,further3 the idea of a god perturbs and discourages as long as it is accepted but as to how it originated can no longer1 in the present state of comparative ethnological science1 be a matter of doubt1 and with the insight into the origin of this belief all faith collapses4 ,what happens to the ,christian who compares his nature with that of ,god is exactly what happened to ,don ,quixote1 who depreciated his own prowess because his head was filled with the wondrous deeds of the heroes of chivalrous romance4 ,the standard of measurement which both employ belongs to the domain of fable4--,but if the idea of ,god collapses1 so too1 does the feeling of sin as a violation of divine rescript1 as a stain upon a god-like creation4 ,there still apparently remains that discouragement which is closely allied with fear of the punishment of worldly justice or of the contempt of one's fellow men4 ,the keenest thorn in the sentiment of sin is dulled when it is perceived that one's acts have contravened human tradition1 human rules and human laws without having thereby endangered the eternal salvation of the soul and its relations with deity4 ,if finally men attain to the conviction of the absolute necessity of all acts and of their utter irresponsibility and then absorb it into their flesh and blood1 every relic of conscience pangs will disappear4 #acd ,if now1 as stated1 the ,christian1 through certain delusive feelings1 is betrayed into self contempt1 that is by a false and unscientific view of his acts and feelings1 he must1 nevertheless1 perceive with the utmost amazement that this state of self contempt1 of conscience pangs1 of despair in particular1 does not last1 that there are hours during which all these things are wafted away from the soul and he feels himself once more free and courageous4 ,the truth is that joy in his own being1 the fulness of his own powers in connection with the inevitable decline of his profound excitation with the lapse of time1 bore off the palm of victory4 ,the man loves himself once more1 he feels it--but this very new love1 this new self esteem seems to him incredible4 ,he can see in it only the wholly unmerited stream of the light of grace shed down upon him4 ,if he formerly saw in every event merely warnings1 threats1 punishments and every kind of indication of divine anger1 he now reads into his experiences the grace of god4 ,the latter circumstance seems to him full of love1 the former as a helpful pointing of the way1 and his entirely joyful frame of mind now seems to him to be an absolute proof of the goodness of ,god4 ,as formerly in his states of discouragement he interpreted his conduct falsely so now he does the same with his experiences4 ,his state of consolation is now regarded as the effect produced by some external power4 ,the love with which1 at bottom1 he loves himself1 seems to be the divine love4 ,that which he calls grace and the preliminary of salvation is in reality self-grace1 self-salvation4 #ace ,therefore a certain false psychology1 a certain kind of imaginativeness in the interpretation of motives and experiences is the essential preliminary to being a ,christian and to experiencing the need of salvation4 ,upon gaining an insight into this wandering of the reason and the imagination1 one ceases to be a ,christian4 #acf ,of ,christian ,asceticism and ,sanctity4--,much as some thinkers have exerted themselves to impart an air of the miraculous to those singular phenomena known as asceticism and sanctity1 to question which or to account for which upon a rational basis would be wickedness and sacrilege1 the temptation to this wickedness is none the less great4 ,a powerful impulse of nature has in every age led to protest against such phenomena4 ,at any rate science1 inasmuch as it is the imitation of nature1 permits the casting of doubts upon the inexplicable character and the supernal degree of such phenomena4 ,it is true that heretofore science has not succeeded in its attempts at explanation4 ,the phenomena remain unexplained still1 to the great satisfaction of those who revere moral miracles4 ,for1 speaking generally1 the unexplained must rank as the inexplicable1 the inexplicable as the non-natural1 supernatural1 miraculous--so runs the demand in the souls of all the religious and all the metaphysicians 7even the artists if they happen to be thinkers71 whereas the scientific man sees in this demand the evil principle4--,the universal1 first1 apparent truth that is encountered in the contemplation of sanctity and asceticism is that their nature is complicated2 for nearly always1 within the physical world as well as in the moral1 the apparently miraculous may be traced successfully to the complex1 the obscure1 the multi-conditioned4 ,let us venture then to isolate a few impulses in the soul of the saint and the ascetic1 to consider them separately and then view them as a synthetic development4 #acg ,there is an obstinacy against oneself1 certain sublimated forms of which are included in asceticism4 ,certain kinds of men are under such a strong necessity of exercising their power and dominating impulses that1 if other objects are lacking or if they have not succeeded with other objects they will actually tyrannize over some portions of their own nature or over sections and stages of their own personality4 ,thus do many thinkers bring themselves to views which are far from likely to increase or improve their fame4 ,many deliberately bring down the contempt of others upon themselves although they could easily have retained consideration by silence4 ,others contradict earlier opinions and do not shrink from the ordeal of being deemed inconsistent4 ,on the contrary they strive for this and act like eager riders who enjoy horseback exercise most when the horse is skittish4 ,thus will men in dangerous paths ascend to the highest steeps in order to laugh to scorn their own fear and their own trembling limbs4 ,thus will the philosopher embrace the dogmas of asceticism1 humility1 sanctity1 in the light of which his own image appears in its most hideous aspect4 ,this crushing of self1 this mockery of one's own nature1 this spernere se sperni out of which religions have made so much is in reality but a very high development of vanity4 ,the whole ethic of the sermon on the mount belongs in this category3 man has a true delight in mastering himself through exaggerated pretensions or excessive expedients and later deifying this tyrannically exacting something within him4 ,in every scheme of ascetic ethics1 man prays to one part of himself as if it were god and hence it is necessary for him to treat the rest of himself as devil4 #ach ,man is ,not at ,all ,hours ,equally ,moral2 this is established4 ,if one's morality be judged according to one's capacity for great1 self sacrificing resolutions and abnegations 7which when continual1 and made a habit are known as sanctity7 one is1 in affection1 or disposition1 the most moral3 while higher excitement supplies wholly new impulses which1 were one calm and cool as ordinarily1 one would not deem oneself even capable of4 ,how comes this8 ,apparently from the propinquity of all great and lofty emotional states4 ,if a man is brought to an extraordinary pitch of feeling he can resolve upon a fearful revenge or upon a fearful renunciation of his thirst for vengeance indifferently4 ,he craves1 under the influences of powerful emotion1 the great1 the powerful1 the immense1 and if he chances to perceive that the sacrifice of himself will afford him as much satisfaction as the sacrifice of another1 or will afford him more1 he will choose self sacrifice4 ,what concerns him particularly is simply the unloading of his emotion4 ,hence he readily1 to relieve his tension1 grasps the darts of the enemy and buries them in his own breast4 ,that in self abnegation and not in revenge the element of greatness consisted must have been brought home to mankind only after long habituation4 ,a god who sacrifices himself would be the most powerful and most effective symbol of this sort of greatness4 ,as the conquest of the most hardly conquered enemy1 the sudden mastering of a passion--thus does such abnegation appear3 hence it passes for the summit of morality4 ,in reality all that is involved is the exchange of one idea for another whilst the temperament remained at a like altitude1 a like tidal state4 ,men when coming out of the spell1 or resting from such passionate excitation1 no longer understand the morality of such instants1 but the admiration of all who participated in the occasion sustains them4 ,pride is their support if the passion and the comprehension of their act weaken4 ,therefore1 at bottom even such acts of self-abnegation are not moral inasmuch as they are not done with a strict regard for others4 ,rather do others afford the high strung temperament an opportunity to lighten itself through such abnegation4 #aci ,even the ,ascetic ,seeks to ,make ,life ,easier1 and generally by means of absolute subjection to another will or to an all inclusive rule and ritual1 pretty much as the ,brahmin leaves absolutely nothing to his own volition but is guided in every moment of his life by some holy injunction or other4 ,this subjection is a potent means of acquiring dominion over oneself4 ,one is occupied1 hence time does not bang heavy and there is no incitement of the personal will and of the individual passion4 ,the deed once done there is no feeling of responsibility nor the sting of regret4 ,one has given up one's own will once for all and this is easier than to give it up occasionally1 as it is also easier wholly to renounce a desire than to yield to it in measured degree4 ,when we consider the present relation of man to the state we perceive unconditional obedience is easier than conditional4 ,the holy person also makes his lot easier through the complete surrender of his life personality and it is all delusion to admire such a phenomenon as the loftiest heroism of morality4 ,it is always more difficult to assert one's personality without shrinking and without hesitation than to give it up altogether in the manner indicated1 and it requires moreover more intellect and thought4 #adj ,after having discovered in many of the less comprehensible actions mere manifestations of pleasure in emotion for its own sake1 ,i fancy ,i can detect in the self contempt which characterises holy persons1 and also in their acts of self torture 7through hunger and scourgings1 distortions and chaining of the limbs1 acts of madness7 simply a means whereby such natures may resist the general exhaustion of their will to live 7their nerves74 ,they employ the most painful expedients to escape if only for a time from the heaviness and weariness in which they are steeped by their great mental indolence and their subjection to a will other than their own4 #ada ,the ,most ,usual ,means by which the ascetic and the sanctified individual seeks to make life more endurable comprises certain combats of an inner nature involving alternations of victory and prostration4 ,for this purpose an enemy is necessary and he is found in the so called inner enemy4 ,that is1 the holy individual makes use of his tendency to vanity1 domineering and pride1 and of his mental longings in order to contemplate his life as a sort of continuous battle and himself as a battlefield1 in which good and evil spirits wage war with varying fortune4 ,it is an established fact that the imagination is restrained through the regularity and adequacy of sexual intercourse while on the other hand abstention from or great irregularity in sexual intercourse will cause the imagination to run riot4 ,the imaginations of many of the ,christian saints were obscene to a degree2 and because of the theory that sexual desires were in reality demons that raged within them1 the saints did not feel wholly responsible for them4 ,it is to this conviction that we are indebted for the highly instructive sincerity of their evidence against themselves4 ,it was to their interest that this contest should always be kept up in some fashion because by means of this contest1 as already stated1 their empty lives gained distraction4 ,in order that the contest might seem sufficiently great to inspire sympathy and admiration in the unsanctified1 it was essential that sexual capacity be ever more and more damned and denounced4 ,indeed the danger of eternal damnation was so closely allied to this capacity that for whole generations ,christians showed their children with actual conscience pangs4 ,what evil may not have been done to humanity through this6 ,and yet here the truth is just upside down3 an exceedingly unseemly attitude for the truth4 ,christianity1 it is true1 had said that every man is conceived and born in sin1 and in the intolerable and excessive ,christianity of ,calderon this thought is again perverted and entangled into the most distorted paradox extant in the well known lines ,the greatest sin of man ,is the sin of being born4 ,in all pessimistic religions the act of procreation is looked upon as evil in itself4 ,this is far from being the general human opinion4 ,it is not even the opinion of all pessimists4 ,empedocles1 for example1 knows nothing of anything shameful1 devilish and sinful in it4 ,he sees rather in the great field of bliss of unholiness simply a healthful and hopeful phenomenon1 ,aphrodite4 ,she is to him an evidence that strife does not always rage but that some time a gentle demon is to wield the sceptre4 ,the ,christian pessimists of practice1 had1 as stated1 a direct interest in the prevalence of an opposite belief4 ,they needed in the loneliness and the spiritual wilderness of their lives an ever living enemy1 and a universally known enemy through whose conquest they might appear to the unsanctified as utterly incomprehensible and half unnatural beings4 ,when this enemy at last1 as a result of their mode of life and their shattered health1 took flight forever1 they were able immediately to people their inner selves with new demons4 ,the rise and fall of the balance of cheerfulness and despair maintained their addled brains in a totally new fluctuation of longing and peace of soul4 ,and in that period psychology served not only to cast suspicion on everything human but to wound and scourge it1 to crucify it4 ,man wanted to find himself as base and evil as possible4 ,man sought to become anxious about the state of his soul1 he wished to be doubtful of his own capacity4 ,everything natural with which man connects the idea of badness and sinfulness 7as1 for instance1 is still customary in regard to the erotic7 injures and degrades the imagination1 occasions a shamed aspect1 leads man to war upon himself and makes him uncertain1 distrustful of himself4 ,even his dreams acquire a tincture of the unclean conscience4 ,and yet this suffering because of the natural element in certain things is wholly superfluous4 ,it is simply the result of opinions regarding the things4 ,it is easy to understand why men become worse than they are if they are brought to look upon the unavoidably natural as bad and later to feel it as of evil origin4 ,it is the master stroke of religions and metaphysics that wish to make man out bad and sinful by nature1 to render nature suspicious in his eyes and to so make himself evil1 for he learns to feel himself evil when he cannot divest himself of nature4 ,he gradually comes to look upon himself1 after a long life lived naturally1 so oppressed by a weight of sin that supernatural powers become necessary to relieve him of the burden2 and with this notion comes the so called need of salvation1 which is the result not of a real but of an imaginary sinfulness4 ,go through the separate moral expositions in the vouchers of christianity and it will always be found that the demands are excessive in order that it may be impossible for man to satisfy them4 ,the object is not that he may become moral but that he may feel as sinful as possible4 ,if this feeling had not been rendered agreeable to man--why should he have improvised such an ideal and clung to it so long8 ,as in the ancient world an incalculable strength of intellect and capacity for feeling was squandered in order to increase the joy of living through feastful systems of worship1 so in the era of christianity an equally incalculable quantity of intellectual capacity has been sacrificed in another endeavor3 that man should in every way feel himself sinful and thereby be moved1 inspired1 inspirited4 ,to move1 to inspire1 to inspirit at any cost--is not this the freedom cry of an exhausted1 over-ripe1 over cultivated age8 ,the circle of all the natural sensations had been gone through a hundred times3 the soul had grown weary4 ,then the saints and the ascetics found a new order of ecstacies4 ,they set themselves before the eyes of all not alone as models for imitation to many1 but as fearful and yet delightful spectacles on the boundary line between this world and the next world1 where in that period everyone thought he saw at one time rays of heavenly light1 at another fearful1 threatening tongues of flame4 ,the eye of the saint1 directed upon the fearful significance of the shortness of earthly life1 upon the imminence of the last judgment1 upon eternal life hereafter2 this glowering eye in an emaciated body caused men1 in the old time world1 to tremble to the depths of their being4 ,to look1 to look away and shudder1 to feel anew the fascination of the spectacle1 to yield to it1 sate oneself upon it until the soul trembled with ardor and fever--that was the last pleasure left to classical antiquity when its sensibilities had been blunted by the arena and the gladiatorial show4 #adb ,to ,sum ,up ,all ,that ,has ,been ,said3 that condition of soul at which the saint or expectant saint is rejoiced is a combination of elements which we are all familiar with1 except that under other influences than those of mere religious ideation they customarily arouse the censure of men in the same way that when combined with religion itself and regarded as the supreme attainment of sanctity1 they are object of admiration and even of prayer--at least in more simple times4 ,very soon the saint turns upon himself that severity that is so closely allied to the instinct of domination at any price and which inspire even in the most solitary individual the sense of power4 ,soon his swollen sensitiveness of feeling breaks forth from the longing to restrain his passions within it and is transformed into a longing to master them as if they were wild steeds1 the master impulse being ever that of a proud spirit2 next he craves a complete cessation of all perturbing1 fascinating feelings1 a waking sleep1 an enduring repose in the lap of a dull1 animal1 plant-like indolence4 ,next he seeks the battle and extinguishes it within himself because weariness and boredom confront him4 ,he binds his self-deification with self-contempt4 ,he delights in the wild tumult of his desires and the sharp pain of sin1 in the very idea of being lost4 ,he is able to play his very passions1 for instance the desire to domineer1 a trick so that he goes to the other extreme of abject humiliation and subjection1 so that his overwrought soul is without any restraint through this antithesis4 ,and1 finally1 when indulgence in visions1 in talks with the dead or with divine beings overcomes him1 this is really but a form of gratification that he craves1 perhaps a form of gratification in which all other gratifications are blended4 ,novalis1 one of the authorities in matters of sanctity1 because of his experience and instinct1 betrays the whole secret with the utmost simplicity when he says3 ,it is remarkable that the close connection of gratification1 religion and cruelty has not long ago made men aware of their inner relationship and common tendency4 #adc ,not ,what the ,saint is but what he was in the eyes of the non-sanctified gives him his historical importance4 ,because there existed a delusion respecting the saint1 his soul states being falsely viewed and his personality being sundered as much as possible from humanity as a something incomparable and supernatural1 because of these things he attained the extraordinary with which he swayed the imaginations of whole nations and whole ages4 ,even he knew himself not for even he regarded his dispositions1 passions and actions in accordance with a system of interpretation as artificial and exaggerated as the pneumatic interpretation of the bible4 ,the distorted and diseased in his own nature with its blending of spiritual poverty1 defective knowledge1 ruined health1 overwrought nerves1 remained as hidden from his view as from the view of his beholders4 ,he was neither a particularly good man nor a particularly bad man but he stood for something that was far above the human standard in wisdom and goodness4 ,faith in him sustained faith in the divine and miraculous1 in a religious significance of all existence1 in an impending day of judgment4 ,in the last rays of the setting sun of the ancient world1 which fell upon the christian peoples1 the shadowy form of the saint attained enormous proportions--to such enormous proportions1 indeed1 that down even to our own age1 which no longer believes in god1 there are thinkers who believe in the saints4 #add ,it stands to reason that this sketch of the saint1 made upon the model of the whole species1 can be confronted with many opposing sketches that would create a more agreeable impression4 ,there are certain exceptions among the species who distinguish themselves either by especial gentleness or especial humanity1 and perhaps by the strength of their own personality4 ,others are in the highest degree fascinating because certain of their delusions shed a particular glow over their whole being1 as is the case with the founder of christianity who took himself for the only begotten son of ,god and hence felt himself sinless2 so that through his imagination--that should not be too harshly judged since the whole of antiquity swarmed with sons of god--he attained the same goal1 the sense of complete sinlessness1 complete irresponsibility1 that can now be attained by every individual through science4--,in the same manner ,i have viewed the saints of ,india who occupy an intermediate station between the christian saints and the ,greek philosophers and hence are not to be regarded as a pure type4 ,knowledge and science--as far as they existed--and superiority to the rest of mankind by logical discipline and training of the intellectual powers were insisted upon by the ,buddhists as essential to sanctity1 just as they were denounced by the christian world as the indications of sinfulness4