,note3 ,images of the original pages are available through ,internet ,archive4 ,see https3_/_/archive4org_/details_/egotismi ngerman#jjsantuoft ,transcriber's note3 ,page numbers enclosed in square brackets 7example3 ,pg #e7 have been included to facilitate the use of the index4 ,,egotism ,,in ,,german ,,philosophy by ,g4 ,,santayana ,late ,professor of ,philosophy in ,harvard ,university ,london and ,toronto ,j4 ,m4 ,dent ,sons ,limited ,new ,york3 ,charles ,scribner's ,sons #aiaf ,pg #e ,,preface ,this book is one of the many that the present war has brought forth1 but it is the fruit of a long gestation4 ,during more than twenty years1 while ,i taught philosophy at ,harvard ,college1 ,i had continual occasion to read and discuss ,german metaphysics4 ,from the beginning it wore in my eyes a rather questionable shape4 ,under its obscure and fluctuating tenets ,i felt something sinister at work1 something at once hollow and aggressive4 ,it seemed a forced method of speculation1 producing more confusion than it found1 and calculated chiefly to enable practical materialists to call themselves idealists and rationalists to remain theologians4 ,at the same time the fear that its secret might be eluding me1 seeing that by blood and tradition ,i was perhaps handicapped in the matter1 spurred me to great and prolonged efforts to understand what confronted me so bewilderingly4 ,i wished to be as clear and just about it as ,i could--more clear and just1 indeed1 than it ever was about itself4 ,for the rest1 ,german philosophy was never my chief interest1 and ,i write frankly as an outsider1 with no professorial pretensions2 merely using my common ,pg #f reason in the presence of claims put forth by others to a logical authority and a spiritual supremacy which they are far from possessing4 ,a reader indoctrinated in the ,german schools is1 therefore1 free not to read further4 ,my object is neither to repeat his familiar arguments in their usual form1 nor to refute them2 my object is to describe them intelligibly and to judge them from the point of view of the layman1 and in his interests4 ,for those who wish to study ,german philosophy1 the original authors are at hand3 all ,i would give here is the aroma of ,german philosophy that has reached my nostrils4 ,if the reader has smelt something of the kind1 so much the better3 we shall then understand each other4 ,the function of history or of criticism is not passively to reproduce its subject-matter4 ,one real world1 with one stout corpus of ,german philosophy1 is enough4 ,reflection and description are things superadded1 things which ought to be more winged and more selective than what they play upon4 ,they are echoes of reality in the sphere of art1 sketches which may achieve all the truth appropriate to them without belying their creative limitations3 for their essence is to be intellectual symbols1 at once indicative and original4 ,egotism--subjectivity in thought and wilfulness in morals--which is the soul of ,german philosophy1 ,pg #g is by no means a gratuitous thing4 ,it is a genuine expression of the pathetic situation in which any animal finds itself upon earth1 and any intelligence in the universe4 ,it is an inevitable and initial circumstance in life4 ,but like every material accident1 it is a thing to abstract from and to discount as far as possible4 ,the perversity of the ,germans1 the childishness and sophistry of their position1 lies only in glorifying what is an inevitable impediment1 and in marking time on an earthly station from which the spirit of man--at least in spirit--is called to fly4 ,this glorified and dogged egotism1 which a thousand personal and technical evidences had long revealed to me in ,german philosophy1 might now1 ,i should think1 be evident to the whole world4 ,not that the ,german philosophers are responsible for the war1 or for that recrudescence of corporate fanaticism which prepared it from afar4 ,they merely shared and justified prophetically that spirit of uncompromising self-assertion and metaphysical conceit which the ,german nation is now reducing to action4 ,it is a terrible thing to have a false religion1 all the more terrible the deeper its sources are in the human soul4 ,like many a false religion before it1 this which now inspires the ,germans has made a double assault upon mankind1 one with the secular arm1 and another by solemn asseverations and sophistries4 ,this assault1 ,pg #h though its incidental methods may be dubious1 has been bold and honest enough in principle4 ,it has been like those which all conquerors and all founders of militant religions have made at intervals against liberty or reason4 ,and the issue will doubtless be the same4 ,liberty may be maimed1 but not killed2 reason may be bent1 but not broken4 ,the dark aggression is to be repelled1 if possible1 by force of arms2 but failing that1 it will be nullified in time by the indomitable moral resistance which maturer races1 richer in wisdom1 can exert successfully against the rude will of the conqueror4 ,pg #i ,,contents ,i4 ,,the ,,general ,,character ,,of ,,german ,,philosophy ,,ii4 ,,the ,,protestant ,,heritage ,,iii4 ,,transcendentalism ,,iv4 ,,hints ,,of ,,egotism ,,in ,,goethe ,v4 ,,seeds ,,of ,,egotism ,,in ,,kant ,,vi4 ,,transcendentalism ,,perfected ,,vii4 ,,fichte ,,on ,,the ,,mission ,,of ,,germany ,,viii4 ,,the ,,egotism ,,of ,,ideas ,,ix4 ,,egotism ,,and ,,selfishness ,x4 ,,the ,,breach ,,with ,,christianity ,,xi4 ,,nietzsche ,,and ,,schopenhauer ,,xii4 ,,the ,,ethics ,,of ,,nietzsche ,,xiii4 ,,the ,,superman ,,xiv4 ,,heathenism ,,xv4 ,,german ,,genius ,,xvi4 ,,egotism ,,in ,,practice ,,index ,,egotism ,,in ,,german ,,philosophy ,pg #aa ,,chapter ,i ,,the ,,general ,,character ,,of ,,german ,,philosophy ,what ,i propose in these pages to call ,german philosophy is not identical with philosophy in ,germany4 ,the religion of the ,germans is foreign to them2 and the philosophy associated with religion before the ,reformation1 and in ,catholic circles since1 is a system native to the late ,roman ,empire4 ,their irreligion is foreign too2 the sceptical and the scientific schools that have been conspicuous in other countries have taken root in ,germany as well4 ,thus1 if we counted the ,catholics and the old-fashioned ,protestants on the one hand1 and the materialists 7who call themselves monists7 on the other1 we should very likely discover that the majority of intelligent ,germans held views which ,german philosophy proper must entirely despise1 and that this philosophy seemed as strange to them as to other people4 ,for an original and profound philosophy has arisen in ,germany1 as distinct in genius and method from ,pg #ab ,greek and ,catholic philosophy as this is from the ,indian systems4 ,the great characteristic of ,german philosophy is that it is deliberately subjective and limits itself to the articulation of self-consciousness4 ,the whole world appears there1 but at a certain remove2 it is viewed and accepted merely as an idea framed in consciousness1 according to principles fetched from the most personal and subjective parts of the mind1 such as duty1 will1 or the grammar of thought4 ,the direction in which ,german philosophy is profound is the direction of inwardness4 ,whatever we may think of its competence in other matters1 it probes the self--as unaided introspection may--with extraordinary intentness and sincerity4 ,in inventing the transcendental method1 the study of subjective projections and perspectives1 it has added a new dimension to human speculation4 ,the foreign religion and the foreign irreligion of ,germany are both incompatible with ,german philosophy4 ,this philosophy cannot accept any dogmas1 for its fundamental conviction is that there are no existing things except imagined ones3 ,god as much as matter is exhausted by the thought of him1 and entirely resident in this thought4 ,the notion that knowledge can discover anything1 or that anything previously existing can be revealed1 is discarded altogether3 for there is nothing to discover1 and even ,pg #ac if there was1 the mind could not reach it2 it could only reach the idea it might call up from its own depths4 ,this idea might be perhaps justified and necessary by virtue of its subjective roots in the will or in duty1 but never justified by its supposed external object1 an object with which nobody could ever compare it4 ,german philosophy is no more able to believe in ,god than in matter1 though it must talk continually of both4 ,at the same time this subjectivism is not irreligious4 ,it is mystical1 faithful1 enthusiastic3 it has all the qualities that gave early ,protestantism its religious force4 ,it is rebellious to external authority1 conscious of inward light and of absolute duties4 ,it is full of faith1 if by faith we understand not definite beliefs held on inadequate evidence1 but a deep trust in instinct and destiny4 ,rather than religious1 however1 this philosophy is romantic4 ,it accepts passionately the aims suggested to it by sentiment or impulse4 ,it despises prudence and flouts the understanding4 ,in ,faust and in ,pier ,gynt we have a poetic echo of its fundamental inspiration1 freed from theological accommodations or academic cant4 ,it is the adventure of a wild1 sensitive1 boyish mind1 that now plays the fairy prince and now the shabby and vicious egoist2 a rebel and an enthusiast1 yet often a sensualist to ,pg #ad boot by way of experiment2 a man eager for experience but blind to its lessons1 vague about nature1 and blundering about duty1 but confident that he can in some way play the magician and bring the world round to serve his will and spiritual necessities4 ,happiness and despair are alike impossible with such a temperament4 ,its empiricism is perennial4 ,it cannot lose faith in the vital impulse it expresses2 all its fancy1 ingenuity1 and daring philosophy are embroideries which it makes upon a dark experience4 ,it cannot take outer facts very seriously2 they are but symbols of its own unfathomable impulses4 ,so pensive animals might reason4 ,the just and humble side of ,german philosophy--if we can lend it virtues to which it is deeply indifferent--is that it accepts the total relativity of the human mind and luxuriates in it1 much as we might expect spiders or porpoises to luxuriate in their special sensibility1 making no vain effort to peep through the bars of their psychological prison4 ,this sort of agnosticism in a minor key is conspicuous in the ,critique of ,pure ,reason4 ,in a major key it reappears in ,nietzsche1 when he proclaims a preference for illusion over truth4 ,more mystically expressed it pervades the intervening thinkers4 ,the more profound they are the more content and even delighted they are to consider nothing but their own ,pg #ae creations4 ,their theory of knowledge proclaims that knowledge is impossible4 ,you know only your so-called knowledge1 which itself knows nothing2 and you are limited to the autobiography of your illusions4 ,the ,germans express this limitation of their philosophy by calling it idealism4 ,in several senses it fully deserves this name4 ,it is idealistic psychologically in that it regards mental life as groundless and all-inclusive1 and denies that a material world exists1 except as an idea necessarily bred in the mind4 ,it is idealistic1 too1 in that it puts behind experience a background of concepts1 and not of matter2 a ghostly framework of laws1 categories1 moral or logical principles to be the stiffening and skeleton of sensible experience1 and to lend it some substance and meaning4 ,it is idealistic in morals also1 in that it approves of pursuing the direct objects of will1 without looking over one's shoulder or reckoning the consequences4 ,these direct objects are ideals1 whereas happiness1 or any satisfaction based on renunciation and compromise1 seems to these spirited philosophers the aim of a degraded1 calculating mind4 ,the word idealism1 used in this sense1 should not mislead us2 it indicates sympathy with life and its passions1 particularly the learned and political ones2 it does not indicate any distaste for material goods or material agencies4 ,the ,german moral imagination is in its first or dogmatic ,pg #af stage1 not in the second or critical one4 ,it is in love with life rather than with wisdom4 ,there is accordingly one sense of the term idealism--the original one--in which this philosophy knows nothing of it1 the ,platonic and poetic sense in which the ideal is something better than the fact4 ,the ,platonic idealist is the man by nature so wedded to perfection that he sees in everything not the reality but the faultless ideal which the reality misses and suggests4 ,hegel1 indeed1 drew an outline portrait of things1 according to what he thought their ideal essence2 but it was uglier and more dreary than the things themselves4 ,platonic idealism requires a gift of impassioned contemplation1 an incandescent fancy that leaps from the things of sense to the goals of beauty and desire4 ,it spurns the earth and believes in heaven1 a form of religion most odious to the ,germans4 ,they think this sort of idealism not only visionary but somewhat impious2 for their own religion takes the form of piety and affection towards everything homely1 imperfect1 unstable1 and progressive4 ,they yearn to pursue the unattainable and encounter the unforeseen4 ,this romantic craving hangs together with their taste for the picturesque and emphatic in the plastic arts1 and for the up-welling evanescent emotions of music4 ,yet their idealism is a religion of the actual4 ,it rejects nothing ,pg #ag in the daily experience of life1 and looks to nothing essentially different beyond4 ,it looks only for more of the same thing1 believing in perpetual growth1 which is an ambiguous notion4 ,under the fashionable name of progress what these idealists sincerely cherish is the vital joy of transition2 and usually the joy of this transition lies much more in shedding their present state than in attaining a better one4 ,for they suffer and wrestle continually1 and by a curious and deeply animal instinct1 they hug and sanctify this endless struggle all the more when it rends and bewilders them1 bravely declaring it to be absolute1 infinite1 and divine4 ,such in brief is ,german philosophy1 at least1 such it might be said to be if any clear account of it did not necessarily falsify it2 but one of its chief characteristics1 without which it would melt away1 is ambiguity4 ,you cannot maintain that the natural world is the product of the human mind without changing the meaning of the word mind and of the word human4 ,you cannot deny that there is a substance without turning into a substance whatever you substitute for it4 ,you cannot identify yourself with ,god without at once asserting and denying the existence of ,god and of yourself4 ,when you speak of such a thing as the consciousness of society you must never decide whether you mean the consciousness ,pg #ah individuals have of society or a fabled consciousness which society is to have of itself3 the first meaning would spoil your eloquence1 and the second would betray your mythology4 ,what is involved in all these equivocations is not merely a change of vocabulary1 that shifting use of language which time brings with it4 ,no1 the persistence of the old meanings alone gives point to the assertions that change them and identify them with their opposites4 ,everywhere1 therefore1 in these speculations1 you must remain in suspense as to what precisely you are talking about4 ,a vague1 muffled1 dubious thought must carry you along as on a current4 ,your scepticism must not derange your common sense2 your conduct must not express your radical opinions2 a certain afflatus must bear you nobly onward through a perpetual incoherence4 ,you must always be thinking not of what you are thinking of but of yourself or of something higher ,otherwise you cannot live this philosophy or understand it from within4 ,the mere existence of this system1 as of any other1 proves that a provocation to frame it is sometimes found in experience or language or the puzzles of reflection4 ,not that there need be any solidity in it on that account4 ,german philosophy is a sort of religion1 and like other religions it may be capable ,pg #ai of assimilating a great amount of wisdom1 while its first foundation is folly4 ,this first folly itself will not lack plausible grounds2 there is provocation enough in a single visit to a madhouse for the assertion that the mind can know nothing but the ideas it creates2 nevertheless the assertion is false1 and such facile scepticism loses sight of the essence of knowledge4 ,the most disparate minds1 since they do not regard themselves1 may easily regard the same object4 ,only the maniac stares at his own ideas2 he confuses himself in his perceptions2 he projects them into the wrong places1 and takes surrounding objects to be different from what they are4 ,but perceptions originally have external objects2 they express a bodily reaction1 or some inward preparation for such a reaction4 ,they are reports4 ,the porpoise and the spider are not shut up in their self-consciousness2 however foreign to us may be the language of their senses1 they know the sea and air that we know1 and have to meet the same changes and accidents there which we meet--and they even have to meet us1 sometimes1 to their sorrow4 ,their knowledge does not end in acquaintance with that sensuous language of theirs1 whatever it may be1 but flies with the import of that language and salutes the forces which confront them in action1 and which also confront us4 ,in focussing these forces through the lenses and veils ,pg #bj of sense knowledge arises2 and to arrest our attention on those veils and lenses and say they are all we know1 belies the facts of the case and is hardly honest4 ,if we could really do that1 we should be retracting the first act of intelligence and becoming artificial idiots4 ,yet this sophistication is the first principle of ,german philosophy 7borrowed1 indeed1 from non-,germans71 and is the thesis supposed to be proved in ,kant's ,critique of ,pure ,reason4 ,pg #ba ,,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,protestant ,,heritage ,the ,german people1 according to ,fichte and ,hegel1 are called by the plan of ,providence to occupy the supreme place in the history of the universe4 ,a little consideration of this belief will perhaps lead us more surely to the heart of ,german philosophy than would the usual laborious approach to it through what is called the theory of knowledge4 ,this theory of knowledge is a tangle of equivocations2 but even if it were correct it would be something technical1 and the technical side of a great philosophy1 interesting as it may be in itself1 hardly ever determines its essential views4 ,these essential views are derived rather from instincts or traditions which the technique of the system is designed to defend2 or1 at least1 they decide how that technique shall be applied and interpreted4 ,the moment we hear ,fichte and ,hegel mentioning a providential plan of the world1 we gather that in their view the history of things is not infinite and endlessly various1 but has a closed plot like a drama in which one nation 7the very one to which these ,pg #bb philosophers belong7 has the central place and the chief rle3 and we perceive at once that theirs is a revealed philosophy4 ,it is the heir of ,judaism4 ,it could never have been formed by free observation of life and nature1 like the philosophy of ,greece or of the ,renaissance4 ,it is ,protestant theology rationalised4 ,the element of religious faith1 in the ,protestant sense of the word faith1 is essential to it4 ,about the witness of tradition1 even about the witness of the senses1 it may be as sceptical as it likes4 ,it may reduce nature and ,god to figments of the mind2 but throughout its criticism of all matters of fact it will remain deeply persuaded that the questioning and striving spirit within is indefeasible and divine4 ,it will never reduce all things1 including the mind1 to loose and intractable appearances1 as might a free idealism4 ,it will employ its scepticism to turn all things into ideas1 in order to chain them the more tightly to the moral interests of the thinker4 ,these moral interests1 human and pathetic as they may seem to the outsider1 it will exalt immeasurably1 pronouncing them to be groundless and immutable2 and it will never tolerate the suspicion that all things might not minister to them4 ,from the same tenet of ,fichte and ,hegel we may also learn that in the plan of the world1 as this revealed philosophy conceives it1 the principal figures ,pg #bc are not individuals1 like the ,creator1 the ,redeemer1 and one's own soul1 but nations and institutions4 ,it is of the essence of ,protestantism and of ,german philosophy that religion should gradually drop its supernatural personages and comforting private hopes and be absorbed in the duty of living manfully and conscientiously the conventional life of this world4 ,not the whole life of the world1 however1 since gay religions and many other gay things are excluded1 or admitted only as childish toys4 ,positive religion1 in fact1 disappears1 as well as the frivolous sort of worldliness1 and there remains only a consecrated worldliness that is deliberate and imposed as a duty4 ,just as in pantheism ,god is naturalised into a cosmic force1 so in ,german philosophy the ,biblical piety of the earlier ,protestants is secularised into social and patriotic zeal4 ,german philosophy has inherited from ,protestantism its earnestness and pious intention2 also a tendency to retain1 for whatever changed views it may put forward1 the names of former beliefs4 ,god1 freedom1 and immortality1 for instance1 may eventually be transformed into their opposites1 since the oracle of faith is internal2 but their names may be kept1 together with a feeling that what will now bear those names is much more satisfying than what they originally stood for4 ,if it should seem that ,pg #bd ,god came nearest to us1 and dwelt within us1 in the form of vital energy1 if freedom should turn out really to mean personality1 if immortality1 in the end1 should prove identical with the endlessness of human progress1 and if these new thoughts should satisfy and encourage us as the evanescent ideas of ,god1 freedom1 and immortality satisfied and encouraged our fathers1 why should we not use these consecrated names for our new conceptions1 and thus indicate the continuity of religion amid the flux of science8 ,this expedient is not always hypocritical4 ,it was quite candid in men like ,spinoza and ,emerson1 whose attachment to positive religion had insensibly given1 way to a half-mystical1 half-intellectual satisfaction with the natural world1 as their eloquent imagination conceived it4 ,but whether candid or disingenuous1 this habit has the advantage of oiling the wheels of progress with a sacred unction4 ,in facilitating change it blurs the consciousness of change1 and leads people to associate with their new opinions sentiments which are logically incompatible with them4 ,the attachment of many tender-minded people to ,german philosophy is due to this circumstance1 for ,german philosophy is not tender4 ,the beauty and the torment of ,protestantism is that it opens the door so wide to what lies beyond it4 ,this progressive quality it has fully transmitted ,pg #be to all the systems of ,german philosophy4 ,not that each of them1 like the earlier ,protestant sects1 does not think itself true and final2 but in spite of itself it suggests some next thing4 ,we must expect1 therefore1 that the more conservative elements in each system should provoke protests in the next generation2 and it is hard to say whether such inconstancy is a weakness1 or is simply loyalty to the principle of progress4 ,kant was a puritan2 he revered the rule of right as something immutable and holy1 perhaps never obeyed in the world4 ,fichte was somewhat freer in his ,calvinism2 the rule of right was the moving power in all life and nature1 though it might have been betrayed by a doomed and self-seeking generation4 ,hegel was a very free and superior ,lutheran2 he saw that the divine will was necessarily and continuously realised in this world1 though we might not recognise the fact in our petty moral judgments4 ,schopenhauer1 speaking again for this human judgment1 revolted against that cruel optimism1 and was an indignant atheist2 and finally1 in ,nietzsche1 this atheism became exultant2 he thought it the part of a man to abet the movement of things1 however calamitous1 in order to appropriate its wild force and be for a moment the very crest of its wave4 ,protestantism was not a reformation by accident1 ,pg #bf because it happened to find the church corrupt2 it is a reformation essentially1 in that every individual must reinterpret the ,bible and the practices of the church in his own spirit4 ,if he accepted them without renewing them in the light of his personal religious experience1 he would never have what ,protestantism thinks living religion4 ,german philosophy has inherited this characteristic2 it is not a cumulative science that can be transmitted ready made4 ,it is essentially a reform1 a revision of traditional knowledge1 which each neophyte must make for himself1 under pain of rendering only lip-service to transcendental truth1 and remaining at heart unregenerate4 ,his chief business is to be converted2 he must refute for himself the natural views with which he and all other men have begun life4 ,and still these views--like the temptations of ,satan--inevitably form themselves afresh in each generation1 and even in the philosopher1 between one spell of introspective thought and another1 so that he always has to recapitulate his saving arguments from the beginning4 ,each new idealist in each of his books1 often in every lecture and every chapter1 must run back to refute again the same homely opponents--materialism1 naturalism1 dualism1 or whatever he may call them4 ,dead as each day he declares these foes to be1 he has to fight them again in his own soul on the morrow4 ,pg #bg ,hence his continual preoccupation lest he fall away1 or lest the world should forget him4 ,to preserve his freedom and his idealism he must daily conquer them anew4 ,this philosophy is secondary1 critical1 sophistical2 it has a perennial quarrel with inevitable opinions4 ,protestantism1 in spite of its personal status1 wished to revert to primitive ,christianity4 ,in this desire it was guided partly by a conventional faith in the ,scriptures1 and partly by a deep sympathy with experimental religion4 ,german religion and philosophy are homesick3 they wish to be quite primitive once more4 ,and they actually remain primitive in spirit1 spontaneous and tentative1 even in the midst of the most cumbrous erudition1 as a composition of ,drer's1 where flesh1 fish1 and fowl crowd every corner1 still remains primitive1 puzzled1 and oppressed4 ,such a nave but overloaded mind is lost in admiration of its own depth and richness2 yet1 in fact1 it is rather helpless and immature2 it has not learned to select what suffices1 or to be satisfied with what is best4 ,faith for the ,germans must be a primitive and groundless assurance1 not knowledge credibly transmitted by others whose experience may have been greater than our own4 ,even philosophy is not conceived as a reasonable adjustment to what may have ,pg #bh been discovered to be the constitution of the world2 it is in the first instance a criticism1 to dissolve that reputed knowledge1 and then1 when primitive innocence is happily restored1 it is a wager or demand made beyond all evidence1 and in contempt of all evidence1 in obedience to an innate impulse4 ,of course1 it is usual1 as a concession to the weaker brethren1 to assume that experience1 in the end1 will seem to satisfy these demands1 and that we shall win our bets and our wars2 but the point of principle1 borrowed by ,german philosophy from ,protestantism1 is that the authority of faith is intrinsic and absolute1 while any external corroboration of it is problematical and not essential to the rightness of the assumptions that faith makes4 ,in this we have a fundamental characteristic of the school4 ,carried 7as it seldom is7 to its logical conclusion1 it leads to the ultra-romantic and ultra-idealistic doctrine that the very notion of truth or fact is a fiction of1 the will1 invented to satisfy our desire for some fixed point of reference in thought4 ,in this doctrine we may see the culmination of the ,protestant rebellion against mediation in religion1 against external authority1 and against dogma4 ,the ,protestant precept to search the ,scriptures1 and the sense that every man must settle the highest questions for himself1 have contributed to the zeal ,pg #bi with which science and scholarship have been pursued in ,germany4 ,in no other country has so large1 so industrious1 and 7amid its rude polemics7 so co-operative a set of professors devoted itself to all sorts of learning4 ,but as the original motive was to save one's soul1 an apologetic and scholastic manner has often survived3 the issue is prejudged and egotism has appeared even in science4 ,for favourable as ,protestantism is to investigation and learning1 it is almost incompatible with clearness of thought and fundamental freedom of attitude4 ,if the controlling purpose is not political or religious1 it is at least philosophical1 that is to say1 arbitrary4 ,we must remember that the greater part of the facts on which theories are based are reported or inferred facts--all in the historical sciences1 since the documents and sources must first be pronounced genuine or spurious by the philosophical critic4 ,here presumptions and private methods of inference determine what shall be admitted for a fact1 to say nothing of the interpretation to be given to it4 ,hence a piece of ,biblical or ,homeric criticism1 a history of ,rome or of ,germany often becomes a little system of egotistical philosophy1 posited and defended with all the parental zeal and all the increasing conviction with which a prophet defends his supernatural inspirations4 ,pg #cj ,the distinction between ,mary and ,martha is not a ,german distinction3 in ,germany the rapt idealist is busy about many things1 so that his action is apt to be heady and his contemplation perturbed4 ,only the principle is expected to be spiritual1 the illustrations must all be material and mundane4 ,there is no paradox in ,german idealism turning to material science1 commerce1 and war for a fresh field of operation4 ,no degeneracy is implied in such an extension of its vocation1 especially when the other ideals of the state--pure learning1 art1 social organisation--are pursued at the same time with an equal ardour4 ,the test of a genuine ,german idealist is that he should forget and sink his private happiness in whatever service the state may set him to do4 ,in view of this political fidelity the changing opinions of men are all indifferent to true religion4 ,it is not a question of correctness in opinion or conduct1 since for the idealist there can be no external standard of truth1 existence1 or excellence on which such correctness could depend4 ,ideas are so much real experience and have no further subject-matter4 ,thought is simply more or less rich1 elaborate1 or vehement1 like a musical composition1 and more or less consistent with itself4 ,it is all a question of depth and fulness of experience1 obtained by hacking one's way through this visionary and bewitched ,pg #ca existence1 the secret purpose of which is to serve the self in its development4 ,in this philosophy imagination that is sustained is called knowledge1 illusion that is coherent is called truth1 and will that is systematic is called virtue4 ,evidently the only sanction or vindication that such a belief will look for is the determination to reassert it4 ,religion is here its own heaven1 and faith the only proof of its own truth4 ,what is harmonised in the end is not the experience through which people have actually passed but only the echoes of that experience chiming in the mystic ear4 ,memory too can play the egotist4 ,subjectivism can rule even within the subject and can make him substitute his idea of himself1 in his most self-satisfied moment1 for the poor desultory self that he has actually been4 ,the ,german philosophers have carried on ,protestantism beyond itself4 ,they have separated the two ingredients mingled in traditional religions4 ,one of these ingredients--the vital faith or self-trust of the animal will--they have retained4 ,the other--the lessons of experience--they have rejected4 ,to which element the name of religion should still be given1 if it is given to either1 is a matter of indifference4 ,the important thing is that1 call it religion or irreligion1 we should know what we are clinging to4 ,pg #cb ,,chapter ,,iii ,,transcendentalism ,fichte called ,locke the worst of philosophers1 but it was ungrateful of him1 seeing that his own philosophy was founded on one of ,locke's errors4 ,it was ,locke who first thought of looking into his own breast to find there the genuine properties of gold and of an apple2 and it is clear that nothing but lack of consecutiveness and courage kept him from finding the whole universe in the same generous receptacle4 ,this method of looking for reality in one's own breast1 when practised with due consecutiveness and courage by the ,germans1 became the transcendental method2 but it must be admitted that the ,german breast was no longer that anatomical region which ,locke had intended to probe1 but a purely metaphysical point of departure1 a migratory ego that could be here1 there1 and everywhere at once1 being present at any point from which thought or volition might be taken to radiate4 ,it was no longer so easy to entrap as the soul of ,locke1 which he asserted travelled with him in his coach from ,london to ,oxford4 ,but the practice of ,pg #cc looking for all things within one's own breast1 in the subtler sense of searching for them in one's memory and experience1 begat in time the whole romantic and subjective school of philosophy4 ,leibniz1 the first of ,german philosophers1 although an enemy of ,locke's sensualism and of his slackness in logic1 was even more explicit in assigning a mental seat to all sensible objects4 ,the soul1 he said1 had no windows and1 he might have added1 no doors2 no light could come to it from without2 and it could not exert any transitive force or make any difference beyond its own insulated chamber4 ,it was a camera obscura1 with a universe painted on its impenetrable walls4 ,the changes which went on in it were like those in a dream1 due to the charge of pent-up energies and fecundities within it2 for the ,creator had wound it up at the creation like a clock1 destined to go for ever1 striking infinite hours1 with ever richer chimes4 ,here1 in miniature1 with a clearness and beauty never afterwards equalled1 we have the nature and movement of the transcendental self set forth before us3 a closed circle of experience1 admitting of no relations with anything beyond1 but infinite in its own potential developments1 and guided by an inner force1 according to an innate unconscious plan4 ,all duties1 all principles of interpretation1 all data1 all ,pg #cd visioned objects1 operated within this single life1 diversifying its field of view1 and testifying to its secret endowment4 ,nevertheless1 the later idealists1 ungrateful to ,locke for their first principle1 were ungrateful also to ,leibniz for their ultimate conception1 anticipated by him in all its completeness4 ,there were reasons1 of course1 for this ingratitude4 ,leibniz1 like the transcendentalists1 had supposed that the objects of sense1 as experience reveals them1 were begotten out of the latent nature of the soul2 but he had also conceived that there were many souls1 as many as atoms in the physical world1 and that the images arising in each were signs of the presence and actual condition of its companions4 ,thus perception1 while yielding directly only an idea1 as in a dream1 was indirectly symbolic of an outer reality1 like a dream significant and capable of interpretation4 ,and being an undaunted rationalist1 ,leibniz assumed that the sooth-sayer capable of reading this dream was reason1 and that whatever reason conceived to be right and necessary actually must be true in the great outer world4 ,it was at this point that ,kant deviated into his radical subjectification of knowledge4 ,his mind had been more open than that of ,leibniz to the influences of ,english psychology1 it had stewed longer in its ,pg #ce own juice1 and he could not help asking how1 if the senses could reveal only ideas of sense1 reason was ever able to reveal anything but ideas of reason4 ,those inferences about the vast world outside1 which ,leibniz had allowed his spirits to make in their solitary confinement1 were reduced by the more scrupulous ,kant to scribblings upon their prison walls4 ,these scribblings he officially termed the ideas of pure--that is1 of unsupported--reason2 but in his private capacity he gently continued to agree with ,leibniz and to believe them true4 ,there was no anomaly1 according to ,kant1 in this situation4 ,an idea might by chance be the image of a reality1 but we could never know that it was4 ,for the proof would have to be supplied by a further idea1 and would terminate in that4 ,the hypothesis and the corroboration would alike be mental1 since experience was of ideas and could envisage nothing but the vicissitudes of the mind4 ,if you had asked ,leibniz what determined the order in which perceptions came into any mind1 he would doubtless have answered that the ,creator did so1 or 7translating that symbol into its analytic equivalent in his system7 that what did so was the innate destiny or predisposition of that mind to develop in harmony with the best possible universe4 ,here is a very remarkable unconscious principle of ,pg #cf evolution seated in the spirit and presiding over all its experience4 ,this is precisely what is meant by a transcendental principle4 ,this principle1 unconscious as it is1 sometimes betrays its mighty workings to consciousness4 ,besides the incidental multitude of ideas which it breeds1 it makes itself felt in subterranean strains and rumblings1 in the sense of movement and of longing4 ,this darker but deeper manifestation of the transcendental clock-work ,leibniz called appetition1 and under the name of ,will it has played a great part in later ,german systems4 ,to call it ,will is1 of course1 to speak improperly and mythologically1 for actual willing requires an idea of what is willed4 ,when we say a man doesn't know what he wants1 we mean that he can will nothing1 for lack of a clear idea of his interests and situation1 although he doubtless wants or lacks many specific things1 the absence of which is rendering him unhappy and restless4 ,these instinctive appetitions for objects of which the mind is ignorant may1 by a figure of speech1 be called unconscious ,will2 a phrase which would be a contradiction in terms if this word ,will 7which ,i write with a capital letter7 were not used metaphorically4 ,from this metaphor1 when its boldness seems to be dulled by use1 we may pass insensibly to giving the name of ,will to that whole transcendental potency ,pg #cg of the soul which1 like the mainspring of a watch1 lay coiled up tightly within it from the beginning of time4 ,a man's transcendental ,will can then be called the source of everything that ever happens to him--his birth1 his character1 his whole life1 and his death--all that he most detests and most emphatically does not will1 like his nightmares1 being an expression of the original pregnancy of his spirit1 and its transcendental principle of development4 ,there is but one thing to add touching a point often left by these philosophers in the most hopeless obscurity4 ,in ,leibniz the number of spirits was infinite3 in the later systems they are reduced to one4 ,this difference seems greater than it is1 for when such terms as ,spirit or ,will are used metaphorically1 standing for unconscious laws of continuity or development1 and when the ,will or ,spirit present in me now may be said to have presided over the destinies of my soul infinite ages before ,i was born1 there seems to be no good reason why the same ,spirit or ,will should not preside over all the inhabitants of the universe at all times1 be they gods or humming-birds4 ,such a ,spirit or ,will resembles the notion of ,providence1 or the law of evolution1 or the pre-established harmony of ,leibniz far more than it resembles a mind4 ,those philosophers1 intent on proving that the ,spirit can be only one1 might ,pg #ch have proceeded1 therefore1 by urging that a ,spirit was at best a formal and abstract law1 covering such disparate facts1 that all flesh and fowl1 all demons and angels1 might just as well be animated by a single ,spirit4 ,as it takes all sorts of things to make a world1 it might take all sorts of things to express a ,spirit4 ,this cool and consciously verbal way of making all one1 however1 is not the way of the ,germans4 ,no doubt in practice the unity of the ,spirit or ,will in their systems amounts to nothing more1 yet their intention and illusion is rather that whenever two things can be called manifestations of one ,spirit in the loosest and most metaphorical sense of this word they are thereby proved to be data in one spirit in the most intimate and psychological sense of the same4 ,so that what really happens to transcendentalists is not that they unite all the transcendental units of ,leibniz into one even looser transcendental unit1 but that they limit the universe to what in ,leibniz was one of an infinite number of parallel careers4 ,nay1 they limit even that one career to the experience present at one point1 that of the most intense and comprehensive self-consciousness4 ,the unity they desire and believe in is accordingly an actual and intense unity4 ,all its elements are to be viewed at once1 bound and merged together by ,pg #ci the simultaneous intuition of all their relations1 and this in a single1 unchanging1 eternal moment of thought1 or rather of unutterable feeling4 ,the union is1 therefore1 real1 psychic1 mystical1 and so close that everything that was to be united there1 by a curious irony1 remains outside4 ,what can lead serious thinkers1 we may ask1 into such pitfalls and shams8 ,in this case1 a powerful and not unworthy motive4 ,all transcendentalism takes the point of view of what it calls knowledge2 whenever it mentions anything--matter1 ,god1 oneself--it means not that thing but the idea of it4 ,by knowledge it understands the image or belief1 the fact of cognition4 ,whatever is thought of exists1 or can exist1 in this philosophy1 only for thought2 yet this thought is called not illusion but knowledge1 because knowledge is what the thought feels that it is4 ,evidently on this principle none of ,leibniz's spirits could know any other1 nor could any phase of the same spirit know any other phase4 ,the unbridgeable chasm of want of experience would cut off knowledge from everything but its content1 the ideas it has of its objects4 ,those fabled external objects would be brought back into my ideas1 and identified with them2 my ideas in turn would be drawn in and identified with the fact that ,i entertain them and this fact itself would condense into the ,pg #dj more intimate and present fact that intensely1 vaguely1 deeply ,i feel that ,i am1 or am tending to be1 something or other4 ,my ,will or ,spirit1 the rumble of my unconscious appetitions1 thus absorbs my ideas1 my ideas absorb their objects1 and these objects absorb the world1 past1 present1 and future4 ,earth and heaven1 ,god and my fellowmen are mere expressions of my ,will1 and if they were anything more1 ,i could not now be alive to their presence4 ,my ,will is absolute4 ,with that conclusion transcendentalism is complete4 ,is such transcendentalism impossibly sceptical8 ,is it absurdly arrogant8 ,is it wonderfully true8 ,in so complex a world as this1 there is room for a great number of cross-vistas3 when all has been surveyed from one point of view and in one set of terms1 nothing excludes the same reality from being surveyed from a different centre and expressed in a different notation4 ,to represent a man1 sculpture is apparently exhaustive2 yet it does not exclude painting1 or the utterly disparate description of the man in words2 surveys in which there need be no contradiction in the deliverance1 though there is the widest diversity and even incommensurability in the methods4 ,each sort of net drawn through the same sea catches a different sort of fish2 and the fishermen may quarrel about what the sea contained1 if each regards his draught as exhaustive4 ,yet the sea ,pg #da contained all their catches1 and also the residue1 perhaps infinite1 that escaped them all4 ,now one net which every intelligent being casts over things is that of his own apprehension1 experience1 and interests4 ,he may not reflect often on his personal principle of selection and arrangement2 he may be so interested in the movements he sees through his glass as never to notice the curious circular frame1 perhaps prismatic1 which his glass imposes on the landscape4 ,yet among all the properties of things1 the adventitious properties imputed to them in apprehension are worth noting too2 indeed1 it chastens and transforms our whole life if we have once noted them and taken them to heart4 ,not that this circumstance implies for a moment what the dizziness of idealists has inferred1 that things exist only as perceived or when we perceive them4 ,what follows is rather that1 besides the things and in the most interesting contrast to their movement1 there is the movement of our minds in observing them4 ,if1 for instance1 ,i happen not to know the name of my great-grandfather1 and am vexed at my ignorance1 ,i may search the parish records and discover it1 together with many circumstances of his life4 ,this does not prove that my interest in genealogy created my great-grandfather1 as a consistent egotist would assert2 but it does show how my interest was a ,pg #db nucleus for my discoveries and for the terms1 such as great-grandfather1 in which ,i express them--for it was no intrinsic property of that worthy man that he was to become my great-grandfather after his death1 or that ,i was to discover him4 ,this vortex which things1 as apprehension catches them1 seem to form round each whirling spectator1 is the fascinating theme of lyric poetry1 of psychological novels1 and of ,german philosophy4 ,dominated as this philosophy is by the transcendental method1 it regards views1 and the history and logic of views1 as more primitive and important than the objects which these views have in common4 ,the genial ,professor ,paulsen of ,berlin 7whose pupil ,i once had the advantage of being7 had a phrase that continually recurred in his lectures3 ,man kann sagen1 as much as to say1 ,things will yield the following picture1 if one cares to draw it4 ,and he once wrote an article in honour of ,kant very pertinently entitled3 ,was uns ,kant sein kann2 because no veritable disciple of ,kant accepts what ,kant taught as he taught it1 but each rises from the study of the master having irresistibly formed one or more systems of his own4 ,to take what views we will of things1 if things will barely suffer us to take them1 and then to declare that the things are mere terms in the views we take of them--that is transcendentalism4 ,pg #dc ,,chapter ,,iv ,,hints ,,of ,,egotism ,,in ,,goethe ,all transcendentalists are preoccupied with the self1 but not all are egotists4 ,some regard as a sad disability this limitation of their knowledge to what they have created2 they are humble1 and almost ashamed to be human1 and to possess a mind that must cut them off hopelessly from all reality4 ,on the other hand there are many instinctive egotists who are not transcendentalists1 either because their attention has not been called to this system1 or because they discredit all speculation1 or because they see clearly that the senses and the intellect1 far from cutting us off from the real things that surround us1 have the function of adjusting our action to them and informing our mind about them4 ,such an instinctive egotist does not allege that he creates the world by willing and thinking it1 yet he is more interested in his own sensations1 fancies1 and preferences than in the other things in the world4 ,the attention he bestows on things seems to him to bathe in light their truly interesting side4 ,what he chiefly considers is his own experience--what he ,pg #dd cared for first1 what second1 what he thinks to-day1 what he will probably think to-morrow1 what friends he has had1 and how they have lost their charm1 what religions he has believed in1 and in general what contributions the universe has made to him and he to the universe4 ,his interest in personality need not be confined to his own2 he may have a dramatic imagination1 and may assign their appropriate personality to all other people2 every situation he hears of or invents may prompt him to conceive the thrilling passions and pungent thoughts of some alter ego1 in whom latent sides of his own nature may be richly expressed4 ,and impersonal things1 too1 may fascinate him1 when he feels that they stir his genius fruitfully2 and he will be the more ready to scatter his favours broadcast in that what concerns him is not any particular truth or person 7things which might prove jealous and exclusive71 but rather the exercise of his own powers of universal sympathy4 ,something of this sort seems to appear in ,goethe2 and although his contact with philosophical egotism was but slight1 and some of his wise maxims are incompatible with it1 yet his romanticism1 his feeling for development in everything1 his private life1 the nebulous character of his religion1 and some of his most important works1 like ,faust and ,wilhelm ,meister1 are all so full of the spirit of ,german ,pg #de philosophy1 that it would be a pity not to draw some illustration for our subject from so pleasant a source4 ,there are hints of egotism in ,goethe1 but in ,goethe there are hints of everything1 and it would be easy to gather an imposing mass of evidence to the effect that he was not like the transcendentalists1 but far superior to them4 ,for one thing he was many-sided1 not encyclopdic2 he went out to greet the variety of things1 he did not pack it together4 ,he did not even arrange the phases of his experience 7as he did those of ,faust7 in an order supposed to be a progress1 although1 as the commentators on ,faust inform us1 not a progress in mere goodness4 ,hegel might have understood all these moral attitudes1 and described them in a way not meant to appear satirical2 but he would have criticised and demolished them1 and declared them obsolete--all but the one at which he happened to stop4 ,goethe loved them all2 he hated to outgrow them1 and if involuntarily he did so1 at least he still honoured the feelings that he had lost4 ,he kept his old age genial and green by that perennial love4 ,in order to hold his head above water and be at peace in his own heart1 he did not need to be a ,christian1 a pagan1 or an epicurean2 yet he lent himself unreservedly1 in imagination1 to ,christianity1 paganism1 and sensuality--three things ,pg #df your transcendental egotist can never stomach3 each in its way would impugn his self-sufficiency4 ,nevertheless the sympathies of ,goethe were only romantic or sthetic2 they were based on finding in others an interesting variation from himself1 an exotic possibility1 rather than an identity with himself in thought or in fate4 ,christianity was an atmosphere necessary to certain figures1 that of ,gretchen1 for instance1 who would have been frankly vulgar without it2 paganism was a learned masque1 in which one could be at once distinguished and emancipated2 and sensuality was a sentimental and scientific licence in which the free mind might indulge in due season4 ,the sympathy ,goethe felt with things was that of a lordly observer1 a traveller1 a connoisseur1 a philanderer2 it was egotistical sympathy4 ,nothing1 for instance1 was more romantic in ,goethe than his classicism4 ,his ,iphigenie and his ,helena and his whole view of antiquity were full of the pathos of distance4 ,that pompous sweetness1 that intense moderation1 that moral somnambulism were too intentional2 and ,goethe felt it himself4 ,in ,faust1 after ,helen has evaporated1 he makes the hero revisit his native mountains and revert to the thought of ,gretchen4 ,it is a wise home-coming1 because that craze for classicism which ,helen symbolised alienated the mind from real life and led ,pg #dg only to hopeless imitations and lackadaisical poses4 ,gretchen's garden1 even the ,walpurgisnacht1 was in truth more classical4 ,this is only another way of saying that in the attempt to be ,greek the truly classical was missed even by ,goethe1 since the truly classical is not foreign to anybody4 ,it is precisely that part of tradition and art which does not alienate us from our own life or from nature1 but reveals them in all their depth and nakedness1 freed from the fashions and hypocrisies of time and place4 ,the effort to reproduce the peculiarities of antiquity is a proof that we are not its natural heirs1 that we do not continue antiquity instinctively4 ,people can mimic only what they have not absorbed4 ,they reconstruct and turn into an archological masquerade only what strikes them as outlandish4 ,the genuine inheritors of a religion or an art never dream of reviving it2 its antique accidents do not interest them1 and its eternal substance they possess by nature4 ,the ,germans are not in this position in regard to the ancients4 ,whether sympathetic like ,goethe1 or disparaging like ,burckhardt1 or both at once1 like ,hegel1 they have seen in antiquity its local colour1 its mannerisms1 its documents1 and above all its contrasts with the present4 ,it was not so while the traditions of antiquity were still living and ,pg #dh authoritative4 ,but the moderns1 and especially the ,germans1 have not a humble mind4 ,they do not go to school with the ,greeks unfeignedly1 as if ,greek wisdom might possibly be true wisdom1 a pure expression of experience and reason1 valid essentially for us4 ,they prefer to take that wisdom for a phase of sentiment1 of course outgrown1 but still enabling them to reconstruct learnedly the image of a fascinating past4 ,this is what they call giving vitality to classical studies1 turning them into ,kulturgeschichte4 ,this is a vitality lent by the living to the dead1 not one drawn by the young and immature from a perennial fountain4 ,in truth classical studies were vital only so long as they were still authoritative morally and set the standard for letters and life4 ,they became otiose and pedantic when they began to serve merely to recover a dead past in its trivial detail1 and to make us grow sentimental over its remoteness1 its beauty1 and its ruins4 ,how much freer and surer was ,goethe's hand when it touched the cord of romanticism6 ,how perfectly he knew the heart of the romantic egotist6 ,the romantic egotist sets no particular limits to the range of his interests and sympathies2 his programme1 indeed1 is to absorb the whole world4 ,he is no wounded and disappointed creature1 like ,byron1 that takes to sulking and naughtiness because things ,pg #di taste bitter in his mouth4 ,he finds good and evil equally digestible4 ,the personal egotism of ,byron or of ,musset after all was humble2 it knew how weak it was in the universe4 ,but absolute egotism in ,goethe1 as in ,emerson1 summoned all nature to minister to the self3 all nature1 if not actually compelled to this service by a human creative fiat1 could at least be won over to it by the engaging heroism of her favourite child4 ,in his warm pantheistic way ,goethe felt the swarming universal life about him2 he had no thought of dragooning it all1 as sectarians and nationalists would1 into vindicating some particular creed or nation4 ,yet that fertile and impartial universe left each life free and in uncensored competition with every other life4 ,each creature might feed blamelessly on all the others and become1 if it could1 the focus and epitome of the world4 ,the development of self was the only duty1 if only the self was developed widely and securely enough1 with insight1 calmness1 and godlike irresponsibility4 ,goethe exhibited this principle in practice more plainly1 perhaps1 than in theory4 ,his family1 his friends1 his feelings were so many stepping-stones in his moral career2 he expanded as he left them behind4 ,his love-affairs were means to the fuller realisation of himself4 ,not that his love-affairs were sensual or his infidelities callous2 far from it4 ,they ,pg #ej often stirred him deeply and unsealed the springs of poetry in his heart2 that was precisely their function4 ,every tender passion opened before him a primrose path into which his inexorable genius led him to wander4 ,if in passing he must tread down some flower1 that was a great sorrow to him2 but perhaps that very sorrow and his inevitable remorse were the most needful and precious elements in the experience4 ,every pathetic sweetheart in turn was a sort of ,belgium to him2 he violated her neutrality with a sigh2 his heart bled for her innocent sufferings1 and he never said afterwards in self-defence1 like the ,german ,chancellor1 that she was no better than she should be4 ,but he must press on4 ,his beckoning destiny1 the claims of his spiritual growth1 compelled him to sacrifice her and to sacrifice his own lacerated feelings on the altar of duty to his infinite self4 ,indeed1 so truly supreme was this vocation that universal nature too1 he thought1 was bound to do herself some violence in his behalf and to grant him an immortal life1 that so noble a process of self-expansion might go on for ever4 ,goethe's perfect insight into the ways of romantic egotism appears also in ,faust1 and not least in the latter parts of it1 which are curiously prophetic4 ,if the hero of that poem has a somewhat incoherent character1 soft1 wayward1 emotional1 yet at the same ,pg #ea time stubborn and indomitable1 that circumstance only renders him the fitter vehicle for absolute ,will1 a metaphysical entity whose business is to be vigorous and endlessly energetic while remaining perfectly plastic4 ,faust was at first a scholar1 fervid and grubbing1 but so confused and impatient that he gave up science for magic4 ,notwithstanding the shams of professional people which offended him1 a private and candid science was possible1 which might have brought him intellectual satisfaction2 and the fact would not have escaped him if he had been a simple lover of truth4 ,but absolute ,will cannot be restricted to any single interest1 much less to the pursuit of a frigid truth in which it cannot believe2 for the ,will would not be absolute if it recognised any truth which it had to discover2 it can recognise and love only the truth that it makes4 ,its method of procedure1 we are told1 consists in first throwing out certain assumptions1 such perhaps as that everything must have a cause or that life and progress must be everlasting2 and the truth is then whatever conforms to these assumptions4 ,but since evidently these assumptions might be utterly false1 it is clear that what interests absolute ,will is not truth at all1 but only orthodoxy4 ,a delightful illustration of this is given by ,faust when1 emulating ,luther for a moment1 he undertakes to translate the ,pg #eb first verse of ,saint ,john--that being the ,gospel that impresses him most favourably4 ,the point is not prosaically to discover what the ,evangelist meant1 but rather what he must and shall have meant4 ,the ,word will never do2 the ,sense would be somewhat better2 but ,in the beginning was ,force would have even more to recommend it4 ,suddenly1 however1 what absolute ,will demands flashes upon him1 and he writes down contentedly3 ,in the beginning was the ,deed3 ,auf einmal seh' ich ,rat ,und schreibe getrost3 ,im ,anfang war die ,that6 ,yet even in this exciting form1 the life of thought cannot hold him long4 ,he aches to escape from it2 not that his knowledge of the sciences1 as well as his magic1 will not accompany him through life2 he will not lose his acquired art nor his habit of reflection1 and in this sense his career is really a progress1 in that his experience accumulates2 but the living interest is always something new4 ,he turns to miscellaneous adventures1 not excluding love2 from that he passes to imperial politics1 a sad mess1 thence to sentimental classicism1 rather an unreality1 and finally to war1 to public works1 to trade1 to piracy1 to colonisation1 and to clearing his acquired estates of tiresome old natives1 who insist on ringing church bells and are impervious to the new ,kultur4 ,these public ,pg #ec enterprises he finds more satisfying1 perhaps only because he dies in the midst of them4 ,are these hints of romantic egotism in ,goethe mere echoes of his youth and of the ambient philosophy1 echoes which he would have rejected if confronted with them in an abstract and doctrinal form1 as he rejected the system of ,fichte8 ,would he not have judged ,schopenhauer more kindly8 ,above all1 what would he have thought of ,nietzsche1 his own wild disciple8 ,no doubt he would have wished to buttress and qualify in a thousand ways that faith in absolute ,will which they emphasised so exclusively1 ,schopenhauer in metaphysics and ,nietzsche in morals4 ,but the same faith was a deep element in his own genius1 as in that of his country1 and he would hardly have disowned it4 ,pg #ed ,,chapter ,v ,,seeds ,,of ,,egotism ,,in ,,kant ,kant is remarkable among sincere philosophers for the pathetic separation which existed between his personal beliefs and his official discoveries4 ,his personal beliefs were mild and half orthodox and hardly differed from those of ,leibniz2 but officially he was entangled in the subjective criticism of knowledge1 and found that the process of knowing was so complicated and so exquisitely contrived to make knowledge impossible1 that while the facts of the universe were there1 and we might have1 like ,leibniz1 a shrewd and exact notion of what they were1 officially we had no right to call them facts or to allege that we knew them4 ,as there was much in ,kant's personal belief which this critical method of his could not sanction1 so there were implications and consequences latent in his critical method which he never absorbed1 being an old man when he adopted it4 ,one of these latent implications was egotism4 ,the fact that each spirit was confined to its own perceptions condemned it to an initial subjectivity and agnosticism4 ,what things might exist besides his ideas he could never know4 ,that such things ,pg #ee existed was not doubted2 ,kant never accepted that amazing principle of dogmatic egotism that nothing is able to exist unless ,i am able to know it4 ,on the contrary he assumed that human perceptions1 with the moral postulates which he added to them1 were symbols of a real world of forces or spirits existing beyond4 ,this assumption reduced our initial idiotism to a constitutional taint of our animal minds1 not unlike original sin1 and excluded that romantic pride and self-sufficiency in which a full-fledged transcendentalism always abounds4 ,to this contrite attitude of ,kant's agnosticism his personal character and ethics corresponded4 ,a wizened little old bachelor1 a sedentary provincial scribe1 scrupulous and punctual1 a courteous moralist who would have us treat humanity in the person of another as an end and never merely as a means1 a pacifist and humanitarian who so revered the moral sense according to ,shaftesbury and ,adam ,smith that1 after having abolished earth and heaven1 he was entirely comforted by the sublime truth that nevertheless it remained wrong to tell a lie--such a figure has nothing in it of the officious egotist or the superman4 ,yet his very love of exactitude and his scruples about knowledge1 misled by the psychological fallacy that nothing can be an object of knowledge except some idea in the mind1 led him ,pg #ef in the end to subjectivism2 while his rigid conscience1 left standing in that unnatural void1 led him to attribute absoluteness to what he called the categorical imperative4 ,but this void outside and this absolute oracle within are germs of egotism1 and germs of the most virulent species4 ,the categorical imperative1 or unmistakable voice of conscience1 was originally something external enough--too external1 indeed1 to impose by itself a moral obligation4 ,the thunders of ,sinai and the voice from the whirlwind in ,job fetched their authority from the suggestion of power2 there spoke an overwhelming physical force of which we were the creatures and the playthings1 a voice which far from interpreting our sense of justice1 or our deepest hopes1 threatened to crush and to flout them4 ,if some of its commandments were moral1 others were ritual or even barbarous2 the only moral sanction common to them all came from our natural prudence and love of life2 our wisdom imposed on us the fear of the ,lord4 ,the prophets and the gospel did much to identify this external divine authority with the human conscience2 an identification which required a very elaborate theory of sin and punishment and of existence in other worlds1 since the actual procedure of nature and history can never be squared with any ideal of right4 ,pg #eg ,in ,kant1 who in this matter followed ,calvin1 the independence between the movement of nature1 both within and without the soul1 and the ideal of right was exaggerated into an opposition4 ,the categorical imperative was always authoritative1 but perhaps never obeyed4 ,the divine law was far from being like the absolute ,will in ,fichte1 ,hegel1 and ,schopenhauer1 a name for a universal metaphysical force1 or even for the flux of material substance4 ,on the contrary the sublimity of the categorical imperative lay precisely in the fact that1 while matter and life moved on in their own unregenerate way1 a principle which they ought to follow1 overarched and condemned them1 and constrained them to condemn themselves4 ,human nature was totally depraved and incapable of the least merit1 nor had it any power of itself to become righteous4 ,its amiable spontaneous virtues1 having but a natural motive1 were splendid vices4 ,moral worth began only when the will1 transformed at the touch of unmerited grace1 surrendered every impulse in overwhelming reverence for the divine law4 ,this ,calvinistic doctrine might seem to rebuke all actual inclinations1 and far from making the will morally absolute1 as egotism would1 to raise over against it an alien authority1 what ought to be willed4 ,such was1 of course1 ,kant's ostensible intention2 but ,pg #eh sublime as such a situation was declared to be1 he felt rather dissatisfied in its presence4 ,a categorical imperative crying in the wilderness1 a duty which nobody need listen to1 or suffer for disregarding1 seemed rather a forlorn authority4 ,to save the face of absolute right another world seemed to be required1 as in orthodox ,christianity1 in which it might be duly vindicated and obeyed4 ,kant's scepticism1 by which all knowledge of reality was denied us1 played conveniently into the hands of this pious requirement4 ,if the whole natural world1 which we can learn something about by experience1 is merely an idea in our minds1 nothing prevents any sort of real but unknown world from lying about us unawares4 ,what could be more plausible and opportune than that the categorical imperative which the human mind1 the builder of this visible world1 had rejected1 should in that other real world be the head stone of the corner8 ,this happy thought1 had it stood alone1 might have seemed a little fantastic2 but it was only a laboured means of re-establishing the theology of ,leibniz1 in which ,kant privately believed1 behind the transcendental idealism which he had put forward professorially4 ,the dogmatic system from which he started seemed to him1 as it stood1 largely indefensible and a little oppressive4 ,to purify it he ,pg #ei adopted a fallacious principle of criticism1 namely1 that our ideas are all we can know1 a principle which1 if carried out1 would undermine that whole system1 and every other4 ,he1 therefore1 hastened to adopt a corrective principle of reconstruction1 no less fallacious1 namely1 that conscience bids us assume certain things to be realities which reason and experience know nothing of4 ,this brought him round to a qualified and ambiguous form of his original dogmas1 to the effect that although there was no reason to think that ,god1 heaven1 and free-will exist1 we ought to act as if they existed1 and might call that wilful action of ours faith in their existence4 ,thus in the philosophy of ,kant there was a stimulating ambiguity in the issue4 ,he taught rather less than he secretly believed1 and his disciples1 seizing the principle of his scepticism1 but lacking his conservative instincts1 believed rather less than he taught them4 ,doubtless in his private capacity ,kant hoped1 if he did not believe1 that ,god1 free-will1 and another life subsisted in fact1 as every believer had hitherto supposed2 it was only the method of proving their reality that had been illegitimate4 ,for no matter how strong the usual arguments might seem 7and they did not seem very strong7 they could convey no transcendent assurance2 on the contrary1 the more proofs you draw for anything from reason and ,pg #fj experience1 the better you prove that that thing is a mere idea in your mind4 ,it was almost prudent1 so to speak1 that ,god1 freedom1 and immortality1 if they had claims to reality1 should remain without witness in the sphere of knowledge1 as inadvertently or ironically it was still called2 but to circumvent this compulsory lack of evidence ,god had at least implanted in us a veridical conscience1 which if it took itself seriously 7as it ought to do1 being a conscience7 would constrain us to postulate what1 though we could never know it1 happened to be the truth4 ,such was the way in which the good ,kant thought to play hide-and-seek with reality4 ,the momentum of his transcendental method1 however1 led to a very different and quite egotistical conclusion4 ,an adept in transcendentalism can hardly suppose that ,god1 free-will1 and heaven1 even if he postulates them1 need exist at all4 ,existence1 for him1 is an altogether inferior category4 ,even a specific moral law1 thundering unalterable maxims1 must seem to him a childish notion4 ,what the ego postulates is nothing fixed and already existing1 but only such ideal terms as1 for the moment1 express its attitude4 ,if it is striving to remember1 it posits a past2 if it is planning1 it posits a future2 if it is consciously eloquent1 it posits an audience4 ,these things do not and cannot exist otherwise than in ,pg #fa their capacity of things posited by the ego4 ,all1 therefore1 that the categorical imperative can mean for the complete transcendentalist is that he should live as if all things were real which are imaginatively requisite for him1 if he is to live hard3 this intensity of life in him being itself the only reality4 ,at that stage of development at which ,kant found himself1 ,god1 freedom1 and immortality may have been necessary postulates of practical reason4 ,but to suppose that these imagined objects1 therefore1 existed apart from the excellent philosopher whose conscience had not yet transcended them1 would be not to have profited by his teaching4 ,it would be merely to repeat it4 ,a later and more advanced transcendentalist1 instead of ,god1 freedom1 and immortality1 might just as dutifully posit matter1 empire1 and the beauty of a warrior's death4 ,his conscience might no longer be an echo of ,christianity1 but the trumpet-blast of a new heathenism4 ,it is for the ego who posits to judge what it should posit4 ,the postulates of practical reason1 by which ,kant hoped to elude the subjectivity which he attributed to knowledge1 are no less subjective than knowledge1 and far more private and variable4 ,the senses and the intellect1 if they deceive us1 seem to deceive us all in much the same way1 and the dream they ,pg #fb plunge us into in common seems to unite us2 but what obscurity1 diversity1 hostility in the ideals of our hearts6 ,the postulates that were intended to save the ,kantian philosophy from egotism are the most egotistical part of it4 ,in the categorical imperative we see something native and inward to the private soul1 in some of its moods1 quietly claiming to rule the invisible world1 to set ,god on his throne and open eternity to the human spirit4 ,the most subjective of feelings1 the feeling of what ought to be1 legislates for the universe4 ,egotism could hardly go further4 ,but this is not all4 ,the categorical imperative1 not satisfied with proclaiming itself secretly omnipotent1 proclaims itself openly ruthless4 ,kant expressly repudiated as unworthy of a virtuous will any consideration of happiness1 or of consequences1 either to oneself or to others4 ,he was personally as mild and kindly as the ,vicar of ,wakefield 7whose goodness he denied to be moral because it was natural71 but his moral doctrine was in principle a perfect frame for fanaticism4 ,give back1 as time was bound to give back1 a little flesh to this skeleton of duty1 make it the voice not of a remote ,mosaic decalogue1 but of a rich temperament and a young life1 and you will have sanctified beforehand every stubborn passion and every romantic crime4 ,in the guise of an infallible ,pg #fc conscience1 before which nothing has a right to stand1 egotism is launched upon its irresponsible career4 ,the categorical imperative1 as ,kant personally conceived it1 was that of the conscience of the eighteenth century1 which had become humanitarian without ceasing to be ,christian1 the conscience of the ,puritans passing into that of ,rousseau4 ,but the categorical principle in morals1 like the ego in logic1 can easily migrate4 ,if to-day you are right in obeying your private conscience against all considerations of prudence or kindness 7though you are prudent and kind by nature1 so that this loyalty to a ruthless ,duty is a sacrifice for you71 to-morrow you may be right in obeying the categorical imperative of your soul in another phase1 and to carry out no matter what irresponsible enterprise1 though your heart may bleed at the victims you are making4 ,the principle of fanaticism is present in either case2 and ,kant provides1 in his transcendental agnosticism1 a means of cutting off all protests from experience or common sense1 or a more enlightened self-interest4 ,these protests1 he thinks1 are not only ignoble1 but they come from a deluded mind1 since the world they regard is a creature of the imagination1 whereas the categorical imperative1 revealed to the inner man1 is a principle prior to all worlds and1 therefore1 not to be corrected by any suasion which this particular ,pg #fd world1 now imagined by us1 might try to exercise on our free minds4 ,thus it is from ,kant1 directly or indirectly1 that the ,german egotists draw the conviction which is their most tragic error4 ,their self-assertion and ambition are ancient follies of the human race2 but they think these vulgar passions the creative spirit of the universe4 ,kant1 or that soul within ,kant which was still somewhat cramped in its expression1 was the prophet and even the founder of the new ,german religion4 ,pg #fe ,,chapter ,,vi ,,transcendentalism ,,perfected ,fichte purified the system of ,kant of all its inconsistent and humane elements2 he set forth the subjective system of knowledge and action in its frankest and most radical form4 ,the ego1 in order to live a full and free life1 posited or feigned a world of circumstances1 in the midst of which it might disport itself2 but this imagined theatre was made to suit the play1 and though it might seem to oppress the ,will with all sorts of hindrances1 and even to snuff it out altogether1 it was really only a mirage which that ,will1 being wiser than it knew1 had raised in order to enjoy the experience of exerting itself manfully4 ,it would seem obvious from this that the ,will could never be defeated1 and that in spite of its name it was identical with destiny or the laws of nature3 and those transcendentalists who lean to naturalism1 or pass into it unawares1 like ,schelling or ,emerson1 actually understand the absolute ,will in this way4 ,but not so ,fichte1 nor what ,i take to be the keener and more heroic romantic school1 whose last prophet was ,nietzsche4 ,the ,germans1 in ,pg #ff the midst of their fantastic metaphysics1 sometimes surprise us by their return to immediate experience3 after all1 it was in wrestling with the ,lord that their philosophy was begotten4 ,as a matter of fact1 the will is often defeated--especially if we are stubborn in defining our will2 and this tragic fact by no means refutes the ,fichtean philosophy1 which knows how to deal with it heroically4 ,it conceives that what is inviolable is only what ought to be1 the unconscious plan or idea of perfect living which is hidden in the depths of all life3 a will not animated in some measure by this idea cannot exist1 or at least cannot be noticed or respected by this philosophy4 ,but when1 where1 how often and how far this divine idea shall be carried out is left unexplained4 ,actual will may be feeble or wicked in any degree2 and in consequence the world that ought to be evoked in its maximum conceivable richness1 may dwindle and fade to nothing4 ,the ,will may accordingly be defeated2 not1 indeed1 by imagined external things1 but by its own apathy and tergiversation4 ,in this case1 according to the logic of this system 7which is as beautifully thought out as that of ,plotinus71 the dissolving world will appear to be overwhelmingly formidable and real4 ,in expiring because we have no longer the warmth to keep it alive1 it will seem to be killing us2 for the passivity of the ego1 says ,fichte1 is posited as activity ,pg #fg in the non-ego4 ,that way of speaking is scholastic2 but the thought1 if we take the egotistical point of view1 is deep and true4 ,so any actual will may perish by defect and die out2 but actual will may also perish by sublimation4 ,the true object of absolute ,will is not things or pleasures or length of life1 but willing itself2 and the more intense and disinterested this willing is1 the better it manifests absolute ,will4 ,the heroic act of dashing oneself against overwhelming obstacles may1 therefore1 be the highest fulfilment of the divine idea4 ,the will dares to perish in order to have dared everything4 ,in its material ruin it remains ideally victorious4 ,if we consider the matter under the form of eternity1 we shall see that this heroic and suicidal will has accomplished what it willed2 it has not only lived perilously but perished nobly4 ,it is hardly necessary to point out how completely this theory justifies any desperate enterprise to which one happens to be wedded4 ,it justifies1 for instance1 any wilful handling of history and science4 ,the ,will by right lays down the principles on which things must and shall be arranged4 ,if things slip somehow from the traces1 so much the grander your scientific deed in striving to rein them in4 ,after all1 you first summoned them into being only that you might drive them4 ,if they seem to run wild and upset you1 ,pg #fh like the steeds of ,hippolytus1 you will1 at least1 not have missed the glory1 while you lived and drove1 of assuming the attitude of a master4 ,call spirits from the vasty deep3 if they do not come1 what of it8 ,that will only prove the absolute self-sufficiency of your duty to call them4 ,what tightens this speculative bond between ,fichte and the ,nietzschean school is that he himself applied his theory of absolute ,will to national life4 ,this ego1 which was identical with mind in general1 he identified also with the ,german people4 ,if the ,germans suffered their national will to be domesticated in the ,napoleonic empire1 the creative spirit of the universe would be extinguished1 and ,god himself1 who existed only when incarnate in mankind1 would disappear4 ,it was evidently one's duty to prevent this if possible2 and ,fichte poured out all the vehemence of his nature into the struggle for freedom4 ,the mere struggle1 the mere protest in the soul1 according to his system1 would secure the end desired3 self-assertion1 not material success1 was the goal4 ,a happy equilibrium once established in human life would have been only a temptation1 a sort of ,napoleonic or ,mephistophelian quietus falling on the will to strive4 ,i am not sure how far ,fichte1 in his romantic and puritan tension of soul1 would have' relished the ,pg #fi present organisation of ,germany4 ,he was a man of the people1 a radical and an agitator as much as a prophet of nationalism1 and the shining armour in which ,german freedom is now encased might have seemed to him too ponderous4 ,he might have discerned in victory the beginning of corruption4 ,nevertheless we should remember that a perfected idealism has a tendency to change into its opposite and become a materialism for all practical purposes4 ,absolute ,will is not a natural being1 not anybody's will or thought2 it is a disembodied and unrealised genius which first comes into operation when it begins to surround itself with objects and points of resistance1 so as to become aware of its own stress and vocation4 ,what these objects or felt resistances may be is not prejudged2 or rather it is prejudged that they shall be most opposite to spirit1 and that spirit shall experience its own passivity--one mode of its fated and requisite experience--in the form of an influence which it imputes to dead and material things4 ,the whole business of spirit may1 therefore1 well be with matter4 ,science might be mechanical1 art might be cumbrous and material1 all the instruments of life might be brutal1 life itself might be hard1 bitter1 and obsessed1 and yet the whole might remain a direct manifestation of pure spirit1 absolute freedom1 and creative duty4 ,this speculative possibility ,pg #gj is worth noting3 it helps us to understand modern ,germany4 ,it is no paradox that idealists should be so much at home among material things4 ,these material things1 according to them1 are the offspring of their spirit4 ,why should they not sink fondly into the manipulation of philological details or chemical elements1 or over-ingenious commerce and intrigue8 ,why should they not dote on blood and iron8 ,why should these fruits of the spirit be uncongenial to it8 ,a theoretical materialist1 who looks on the natural world as on a soil that he has risen from and feeds on1 may perhaps feel a certain piety towards those obscure abysses of nature that have given him birth2 but his delight will be rather in the clear things of the imagination1 in the humanities1 by which the rude forces of nature are at once expressed and eluded4 ,not so the transcendentalist4 ,regarding his mind as the source of everything1 he is moved to solemn silence and piety only before himself3 on the other hand1 what bewitches him1 what he loves to fondle1 is his progeny1 the material environment1 the facts1 the laws1 the blood1 and the iron in which he conceives 7quite truly1 perhaps7 that his spirit perfectly and freely expresses itself4 ,to despise the world and withdraw into the realm of mind1 as into a subtler and more congenial sphere1 is quite contrary to his idealism4 ,such a retreat might bring him ,pg #ga peace1 and he wants war4 ,his idealism teaches him that strife and contradiction1 as ,heraclitus said1 are the parents of all things2 and if he stopped striving1 if he grew sick of ambition and material goods1 he thinks he would be forsaking life1 for he hates as he would death what another kind of idealists have called salvation4 ,we are told that ,god1 when he had made the world1 found it very good1 and the transcendentalist1 when he assumes the ,creator's place1 follows his example4 ,the hatred and fear of matter is perhaps not a sign of a pure spirit4 ,even contemplatively1 a divine mind may perfectly well fall in love with matter1 as the ,moon-goddess did with ,endymion4 ,such matter might be imagined only1 as if ,diana had merely dreamt of her swain2 and the fond image might not be less dear on that account4 ,the romantic poet finds his own spirit greeting him in rocks1 clouds1 and waves2 the musician pours out his soul in movement and tumult2 why should not the transcendental general1 or engineer1 or commercial traveller find his purest ideal in trade1 crafts1 and wars8 ,grim work1 above all1 is what absolute ,will demands4 ,it needs the stimulus of resistance to become more intensely conscious of ,self1 which is said to be its ultimate object in imagining a world at all4 ,acquisition interests it more than possession1 because the sense ,pg #gb of effort and power is then more acute4 ,the more material the arts that engage it1 and the more complicated and worldly its field of action1 the more intense will be its exertion1 and the greater its joy4 ,this is no idealism for a recluse or a moping poet2 it does not feel itself to be something incidental and fugitive in the world1 like a bird's note1 that it should fear to be drowned in the crash of material instruments or to be forced to a hideous tension and shrillness3 shrillness and tension are its native element4 ,it is convinced that it has composed all the movements there are or can be in existence1 and it feels all the more masterful1 the more numerous and thunderous is the orchestra it leads4 ,it is entirely at home in a mechanical environment1 which it can prove transcendentally to be perfectly ideal4 ,its most congenial work is to hack its way through to the execution of its ,world-,plan4 ,its most adequate and soul-satisfying expression is a universal battle4 ,pg #gc ,,chapter ,,vii ,,fichte ,,on ,,the ,,mission ,,of ,,germany ,when the ancient ,jews enlarged their conception of ,jehovah so as to recognise in him the only living ,god to whom all nature and history were subject1 they did not cease to regard the universal power as at the same time their special national deity4 ,here was a latent contradiction4 ,it was ingeniously removed by saying that ,jehovah1 while not essentially a tribal deity1 had chosen ,israel for his people by a free act of grace with no previous merit on their part2 so that the pride of the ,jews was not without humility4 ,no humility1 however1 is mingled with the claim which the ,germans now make to a similar pre-eminence4 ,modern critics1 says ,max ,stirner1 inveigh against religion because it sets up ,god1 the divine1 or the moral law over against man1 regarding them as external things1 whereas the critics transform all these objects into ideas in the human mind4 ,nevertheless the essential mistake of religion1 to assign a mission to man at all1 is not avoided by these critics1 who continue to insist that man shall be divine1 or ideally human1 or what not2 morality1 ,pg #gd freedom1 humanity1 etc41 are his essence4 ,now a divinity which is subjective or immanent evidently cannot choose any nation1 save by dwelling and manifesting itself more particularly in them4 ,they can be highly favoured only in that they are intrinsically superior1 and on that account may be figuratively called vessels of election4 ,therefore1 if the spirit which is in a nation is not one spirit among many in the world 7as the primitive ,hebrews supposed and as a naturalistic philosophy would maintain71 but is the one holy and universal spirit1 and if at the same time this spirit dwells in that nation pre-eminently1 or even exclusively1 humility on the part of this nation would evidently be out of place4 ,accordingly1 the ,germans cannot help bearing witness to the divine virtues and prerogatives which they find in themselves1 some of which are set forth by ,fichte as follows3 ,the present age stands precisely in the middle of earthly time1 between the era in which men were still self-seeking1 earthly1 and impulsive1 and the coming era in which they will live for the sake of pure ideals4 ,the ,germans prefigure this better age1 and are leading the rest of the world into it4 ,they have created the modern world by uniting the political heritage of classical ,europe with the true religion that lingered in ,asia1 and they have raised ,pg #ge the two to a higher unity in their ,kultur4 ,from them is drawn the best blood of most other nations and the spiritual force that has fashioned them all4 ,the ,germans have never forsaken their native land nor suffered seriously from immigration4 ,their language is primitive1 and they have never exchanged it for a foreign one4 ,hence ,german alone is truly a mother-tongue4 ,its intellectual terms retain a vital and vivid connection with sensible experience4 ,true poetry and philosophy1 therefore1 exist only in ,german4 ,captious persons who judge by mere crude feeling may fancy that ,german is not very melodious2 but these matters cannot be rightly judged without reference to first principles1 which in this case would prove that the sweetest language is that which exhausts all possible sounds and combines them in all available ways4 ,whether ,german or some other language comes nearest to this a priori ideal of euphony must be left for empirical observation to decide4 ,the ,german nature1 being pure1 deep1 earnest1 and bold1 has instinctively seized upon the true essence of ,christianity and discarded with abhorrence all the lies and corruption that obscured it4 ,this essence is the imperative need of turning from the natural to the ideal life4 ,the ,german knows that his own soul is safe2 but this is not enough for him ,pg #gf in his unselfishness4 ,his zeal is kindled easily for warmth and light everywhere2 and this zeal of his is patient and efficacious1 taking hold on real life and transforming it4 ,as he presses on he finds more than he sought1 for he has plunged into the quick stream of life which forges ahead of itself and carries him forward with it4 ,the dead heart of other nations may dream of gods in the clouds1 or of some perfect type of human life already exemplified in the past and only to be approached or repeated in the future4 ,the spirit of the ,german is no coinage of earth2 it is the living source of all the suns1 and rushes to create absolutely new things for ever4 ,the ,german mind is the self-consciousness of ,god4 ,i do not see that the strain of war or the intoxication of victory could add much to these boasts1 uttered by ,fichte when1 for the moment1 he had abandoned all hope of military self-assertion on the part of his country1 and relied on education and philosophy alone to preserve and propagate ,german righteousness4 ,even in detail1 what he says often seems strangely like what official ,germany is now saying4 ,even the hysterical hatred of ,england is not absent4 ,in ,england ,fichte did not see the champion of ,protestantism1 morality1 and political liberty1 nor the constant foe of ,napoleon1 but only a universal commercial vampire4 ,his contempt for ,pg #gg the ,latin races1 too1 was boundless4 ,in the matter of race1 indeed1 he entertained a curious idea that there must have been1 from all eternity until the beginning of history1 a primitive ,normal ,people1 a tribe of ,adams and ,eves2 because according to a principle which he adopted from ,calvinistic theology1 if all men had been originally slaves to nature none could ever have become free4 ,this ,normal ,people were1 of course1 the ancestors of the ,germans4 ,earth-born savage tribes must have existed also for the ,normal ,people to subdue1 since but for some such conquest the primitive equilibrium would never have been broken1 ,eden and the jungle would never have been merged together1 and history1 which is a record of novelties1 would never have begun4 ,the theory of evolution has rendered the reasons for such a view obsolete2 but the idea that the bulk of mankind are mongrels formed by the union of blonde godlike creatures with some sort of anthropoid blacks1 recurred later in ,gobineau and has had a certain vogue in ,germany4 ,fichte1 following ,calvin and ,kant1 made a very sharp distinction between the life of nature and that of duty4 ,the ideal must be pursued without the least thought of advantage4 ,trades1 he says1 must be practised spontaneously1 without any other reward than longer vigils4 ,the young must never hear it ,pg #gh mentioned that any one could ever be incited or guided in life by the thought of his own preservation or well-being4 ,knowledge is no report of existing things or laws which have happened to be discovered4 ,knowledge is the very life of ,god1 and self-generated4 ,it is an intellectual activity for its own sake1 according to rules for their own sake4 ,in plain ,english1 it is pure imagination4 ,but the method to be imposed on this madness is fixed innately1 both for thought and for morals4 ,only frivolity can interfere with a unanimous idealism4 ,we must not suppose that this prescription of austere and abstract aims implies any aversion on ,fichte's part to material progress1 compulsory ,kultur1 or military conquest4 ,german idealism1 as we have seen1 is not ,platonic or ascetic1 that it should leave the world behind4 ,on the contrary1 its mission is to consecrate the world and show that every part of it is an organ of the spirit4 ,this is a form of piety akin to the ,hebraic4 ,even the strictest ,calvinists1 who taught that the world was totally depraved1 were able1 in every sense of the phrase1 to make a very good thing of it4 ,they reclaimed1 they appropriated1 they almost enjoyed it4 ,so ,fichte gives us prophetic glimpses of an idealistic ,germany conquering the world4 ,the state does not aim at self-preservation1 still less is it concerned to come to the aid of those ,pg #gi members of the human family that lag behind the movement of the day4 ,the dominion of unorganised physical force must be abolished by a force obedient to reason and spirit4 ,true life consists in refashioning human relations after a model innate in the mind4 ,the glorious destiny of ,germany is to bring forth and establish the world anew4 ,natural freedom is a disgraceful thing1 a mere medley of sensual and intellectual impulses without any principle of order4 ,it is for the ,germans to decide whether a providential progress exists by becoming themselves the providence that shall bring progress about1 or whether on the contrary every higher thought is folly4 ,if they should fail1 history would never blame them1 for in that case there would be no more history4 ,the sole animating principle of history is the tendency towards a universal ,christian ,european monarchy4 ,this tendency is deeper than the plans of men and stronger than their intentions4 ,that a state1 even when on the very point of making war1 should solemnly assert its love of peace and its aversion to conquest1 is nothing2 for in the first place it must needs make this asseveration and so hide its real intention if it would succeed in its design2 and the well-known principle ,threaten war that thou mayst have peace may also be inverted in this way3 ,promise peace that thou mayst begin war with advantage2 and ,pg #hj in the second place the state may be wholly in earnest in its peaceful assurances1 so far as its self-knowledge has gone2 but let the favourable opportunity for aggrandisement present itself1 and the previous good resolution is forgotten4 ,if the people are disinclined to obey the ,idea1 the government must constrain them to do so4 ,all the powers of all the citizens must be absorbed in the state4 ,personal liberty could be turned to no good use when such individuality and variety of training as are good for the state have been provided for by its regulations4 ,nor must any idleness be tolerated4 ,an ideal education must make men over so that they shall be incapable of willing anything but what that education wills them to will4 ,the state may then rely upon its subjects1 for whoever has a well-grounded will1 wills what he wills for all eternity4 ,as to foreign relations1 the state1 in obedience to its ideal mission1 must conquer the surrounding barbarians and raise them to a state of culture4 ,it is this process almost exclusively that has introduced progress into history4 ,what impels the ,macedonian hero 444 to seek foreign lands8 ,what chains victory to his footsteps and scatters before him in terror the countless hordes of his enemies8 ,is this mere fortune8 ,no2 it is an ,idea4444 ,the civilised must rule and the uncivilised must obey1 if ,right is to be the law ,pg #ha of the world4444 ,tell me not of the thousands who fell round his path2 speak not of his own early death4 ,after the realisation of his ,idea1 what was there greater for him to do than to die8 ,this enthusiasm for ,alexander 7which ,hegel shared7 is not merely retrospective4 ,at last in one nation of the world the highest1 purest morality1 such as was never seen before among men1 will arise and will be made secure for all future time1 and thence will be extended over all other peoples4 ,there will ensue a transformation of the human race from earthly and sensual creatures into pure and noble spirits4 ,do you know anything higher than death8444 ,who has a right to stand in the way of an enterprise begun in the face of this peril8 ,it may seem curious that an uncompromising puritan like ,fichte1 a prophet sprung from the people1 a theoretical republican who quarrelled with his students for forming clubs and fighting duels1 a fierce idealist full of contempt for worldlings1 should have so perfectly supplied the ,junkers and bankers with their philosophy4 ,but the phenomenon is not new4 ,plato1 divine and urbane as he was1 supplied the dull ,spartans with theirs4 ,men of idealistic faith are confident that the foundations of things must be divine1 and when1 upon investigating these foundations1 they come upon sinister principles--blind ,pg #hb impulse1 chance1 murderous competition--they fanatically erect these very principles into sacred maxims4 ,all strength1 they are antecedently convinced1 must come from ,god2 therefore if deception1 wilfulness1 tyranny1 and big battalions are the means to power1 they must be the chosen instruments of ,god on earth4 ,in some such way the ,catholic ,church1 too1 for fear of impiety1 is seen blessing many a form of deceit and oppression4 ,thus the most ardent speculation may come to sanction the most brutal practice4 ,the primitive passions so sanctioned1 because they seem to be safe and potent1 are probably too narrowly organised to sustain themselves long2 and meantime they miss and trample down the best things that mankind possesses4 ,nevertheless they are a force like any other1 a force not only vehement but contagious1 and capable of many victories though of no stable success4 ,such passions1 and the philosophies that glorify them1 are sincere1 absorbing1 and if frankly expressed irrefutable4 ,the transcendental theory of a world merely imagined by the ego1 and the will that deems itself absolute are certainly desperate delusions2 but not more desperate or deluded than many another system that millions have been brought to accept4 ,the thing bears all the marks of a new religion4 ,the fact that the established religions of ,germany are still forms ,pg #hc of ,christianity may obscure the explicit and heathen character of the new faith3 it passes for a somewhat faded speculation1 or for the creed of a few extremists1 when in reality it dominates the judgment and conduct of the nation4 ,no religious tyranny could be more complete4 ,it has its prophets in the great philosophers and historians of the last century2 its high priests and pharisees in the government and the professors2 its faithful flock in the disciplined mass of the nation2 its heretics in the socialists2 its dupes in the ,catholics and the liberals1 to both of whom the national creed1 if they understood it1 would be an abomination2 it has its martyrs now by the million1 and its victims among unbelievers are even more numerous1 for its victims1 in some degree1 are all men4 ,pg #hd ,,chapter ,,viii ,,the ,,egotism ,,of ,,ideas ,when we are discussing egotism need we speak of ,hegel8 ,the tone of this philosopher1 especially in his later writings1 was full of contempt for everything subjective3 the point of view of the individual1 his opinions and wishes1 were treated as of no account unless they had been brought into line with the providential march of events and ideas in the great world4 ,this realism1 pronounced and even acrid as it was1 was still idealistic in the sense that the substance of the world was conceived not to be material but conceptual--a law or logic which animated phenomena and was the secret of their movement4 ,the world was like a riddle or confused oracle2 and the solution to the puzzle lay in the romantic instability or self-contradiction inherent in every finite form of being1 which compelled it to pass into something different4 ,the direction of this movement we might understand sympathetically in virtue of a sort of vital dialectic or dramatic necessity in our own reflection4 ,hegel was a solemn sophist3 he made discourse the key to reality4 ,pg #he ,this technical realism in ,hegel was reinforced by his historical imagination1 which continually produces an impression of detachment1 objectivity1 and impersonal intelligence2 he often seems to be lost in the events of his story and to be plucking the very heart out of the world4 ,again1 he adored the state1 by which in his view the individual should be entirely subjugated1 not for the benefit of other individuals 7that would be a sort of vicarious selfishness no less barren than private profit71 but in the rapt service of common impersonal ends4 ,the family was a first natural group in which the individual should be happy to lose himself1 the trade-guild was another1 and the state was the highest and most comprehensive of all2 there was nothing worthy or real in a man except his functions in society4 ,nevertheless this denial of egotism is apparent only4 ,it is a play within the play4 ,on the smaller stage the individual--save for his lapses and stammerings--is nothing but the instrument and vehicle of divine decrees2 in fact he is a puppet1 and the only reality of him is the space he fills in the total spectacle4 ,but that little stage is framed in by another1 often overlooked1 but ever present2 and on this larger and nearer stage the ego struts alone4 ,it is ,i that pull the strings1 enjoy the drama1 supply its plot and moral1 and possess the freedom and actuality which ,pg #hf my puppets lack4 ,on the little stage the soul of a man is only one of ,god's ideas1 and his whole worth lies in helping out the pantomime2 on the big stage1 ,god is simply my idea of ,god and the purpose of the play is to express my mind4 ,the spectacle in which every individual dances automatically to the divine tune is only my dream4 ,the philosophy of ,hegel is accordingly subjective and all its realism is but a pose and a tone wilfully assumed4 ,that this is the truth of the matter might be inferred1 apart from many continual hints and implications1 from the fact that the system is transcendental and founded on ,kant4 ,objectivity can1 therefore1 be only a show1 a matter of make-believe1 something imputed to things and persons by the mind1 whose poetic energies it manifests4 ,everything must be set down as a creation of mind1 simply because it is an object of thought or knowledge4 ,this underlying subjectivism also explains the singular satisfaction of ,hegel1 whose glance was comprehensive enough1 with so strangely limited a world as he describes to us4 ,he described what he knew best or had heard of most1 and felt he had described the universe4 ,this illusion was inevitable1 because his principle was that the universe was created by description and resided in it4 ,the mission of ,hegel1 as he himself conceived it1 was not to ,pg #hg discover the real world or any part of it3 in theory he retracted all belief in a real world and set in its place his conception or knowledge of it--therefore quite adequate to its object4 ,if ,china was the oldest country he had heard of1 the world began with ,china1 and if ,prussia was the youngest and he 7as he had to be7 its latest philosopher1 the world ended with ,prussia and with himself4 ,this seems a monstrous egotism1 but it is not arbitrary2 in one sense it was the least pretentious of attitudes1 since it was limited to the description of a current view1 not of a separate or prior object4 ,the value of a philosophy could lie only in the fullness and fidelity with which it might focus the conceptions of the age in which it arose4 ,hegel hoped to do this for his own times2 he did not covet truth to anything further4 ,the same attitude explains the servility of his moral philosophy1 which is simply an apology for the established order of things and for the prejudices of his time and country4 ,his deepest conviction was that no system of ethics could be more1 and if it tried to be more would be less1 because it would be merely personal4 ,when1 for instance1 he condemned harshly the ,roman patria potestas it was because it offended the individualism of the ,protestant and modern conscience2 and if in the next breath he condemned even more harshly the sentimentalists ,pg #hh who made tender feeling and good intentions the test of virtue1 it was because these individual consciences absolved themselves from conformity to the established church and state4 ,to inquire whether in itself or in respect to human economy generally1 the morality of ,buddha1 or ,socrates1 or ,rousseau was the best would have seemed to him absurd3 the question could only be what approaches or contributions each of these made to the morality approved by the ,lutheran community and by the ,prussian ministry of education and public worship4 ,the truth1 then as now1 was whatever every good ,german believed4 ,this pious wish of ,hegel's to interpret the orthodoxy of his generation was successful1 and the modest hopes of his philosophy were fulfilled4 ,never perhaps was a system so true to its date and so false to its subject4 ,the egotism of ,hegel appears also in his treatment of mathematical and physical questions4 ,the infinite he called the false infinite1 so as to avoid the dilemmas which it placed him in1 such as why the evolution of the ,idea began six thousand years ago1 or less2 what more could happen now that in his self-consciousness that evolution was complete2 why it should have gone on in this planet only1 or if it had gone on elsewhere also1 why the ,idea evolving there might not have been a different ,idea4 ,but all such questions ,pg #hi are excluded when one understands that this philosophy is only a point of view3 the world it describes is a vista not separable from the egotistical perspectives that frame it in4 ,the extent of the world need not be discussed1 because that extent is an appearance only2 in reality the world has no extent1 because it is only my present idea4 ,the infinite thus lost its application2 but the word was too idealistic to be discarded4 ,accordingly the title of true infinite was bestowed on the eventual illusion of completeness1 on an alleged system of relations out of relation to anything beyond4 ,that nothing existent1 unless it was the bad infinite1 could be absolute in this manner did not ruffle ,hegel1 for the existent did not really concern him but only knowledge1 that is1 a circle of present and objectless ideas4 ,knowledge1 however limited in fact1 always has the completeness in question for the egotist1 whose objects are not credited with existing beyond himself4 ,egotism could hardly receive a more radical expression than this3 to declare the ego infinite because it can never find anything that is beyond its range4 ,the favourite tenet of ,hegel that everything involves its opposite is also a piece of egotism2 for it is equivalent to making things conform to words1 not words to things2 and the ego1 particularly in ,pg #ij philosophers1 is a nebula of words4 ,in defining things1 if you insist on defining them1 you are constrained to define them by their relation to other things1 or even exclusion of them4 ,if1 therefore1 things are formed by your definitions of them1 these relations and exclusions will be the essence of things4 ,the notion of such intrinsic relativity in things is a sophism even in logic1 since elementary terms can never be defined yet may be perfectly well understood and arrested in intuition2 but what here concerns us is rather the egotistical motive behind that sophism3 namely1 that the most verbal and subjective accidents to which the names of things are subject in human discourse should be deputed to be the groundwork of the things and their inmost being4 ,egotistical1 too1 was ,hegel's tireless hatred of what he called the abstract understanding4 ,in his criticisms of this faculty and the opinions it forms there is much keenness and some justice4 ,people often reason in the abstract1 floating on words as on bladders3 in their knowingness they miss the complexity and volume of real things4 ,but the errors or abuses into which verbal intelligence may fall would never produce that implacable zeal with which ,hegel persecutes it4 ,what obsesses him is the fear that1 in spite of its frivolity1 the understanding may some day understand3 that it may correct its inadequacies1 ,pg #ia trace the real movement of things1 and seeing their mechanism lose that effet d'ensemble1 that dramatic illusion1 which he calls reason4 ,imagine a landscape-painter condemned to have a naturalist always at his elbow3 soon it would not be merely the errors of the naturalist that would irritate him1 but the naturalist himself4 ,the artist intent on panoramic effects does not wish to be forced to look through a microscope2 in changing his focus he loses his subjective object3 not reality but appearance is the reality for him4 ,hegel1 since it was his mission to substitute so-called knowledge for being1 had to go further2 he had to convince himself1 not only that the structure of nature discovered by the understanding was irrelevant to his own conceptual mythology1 but that such a structure did not exist4 ,he was not willing to confess 7as the landscape-painter might7 that he was an egotist2 that it was the subjective that interested him1 and that in so great a world the subjective too has its place4 ,no6 he must pretend that his egotism was not egotism1 but identity with the absolute1 and that those who dared to maintain that the world wagged in its own way1 apart from the viewing mind1 were devils1 because they suggested that the viewing mind was not ,god4 ,it is this latent but colossal egotism that makes ,pg #ib plausible the strange use which ,hegel sometimes makes of the word substance4 ,his substance is but his grammar of discourse2 for he was not looking for substance1 in which he could not consistently believe1 but only for the ultimate synthetic impression which he might gather from appearances4 ,for the theatre-goer1 the function of scenery and actors is that they should please and impress him3 but what1 in the end1 impresses and pleases him8 ,the cumulative burden and force of the play2 the enhanced life which it has stimulated in himself4 ,this1 for that ruthless egotist1 the aesthete1 is the substance of all things theatrical4 ,of course1 in fact1 nothing could be falser1 for the author and actors are real people1 with lives far outrunning their function in the theatre and truly grounding it4 ,even the stage machinery has its natural history1 and the artisans who made it have theirs1 both full of mute inglorious tragedies4 ,these real substances behind his entertainment the spectator1 in his sthetic egotism1 laughs at as irrelevant2 for him1 as for ,hamlet1 the play's the thing4 ,what is most his own1 his imaginative reaction on the spectacle1 the terms in which he finds it easiest and most exciting to describe it1 he calls the substance of it3 a term which betrays the profound impudence of the deliberate egotist2 the deepest reality he will recognise is merely specious1 ,pg #ic existing only for the mind that imagines it4 ,what is supposed to rescue the system of ,hegel from subjectivism is the most subjective of things--a dialectic which obeys the impulses of a theoretical parti pris1 and glorifies a fixed idea4 ,when we have understood all this1 those traits of ,hegel's which at first sight seem least egotistical--his historical insight and his enthusiasm for organised society--take on a new colour4 ,that historical insight is not really sympathetic2 it is imperious1 external1 contemptuous1 feigned4 ,if you are a modern reading the ,greeks1 especially if you read them in the romantic spirit of ,goethe's classicism1 and know of them just what ,hegel knew1 you will think his description wonderfully penetrating1 masterly1 and complete3 but would schylus or ,plato have thought it so8 ,they would have laughed1 or rather they would not have understood that such a description referred to them at all4 ,it is the legend of the ,greeks1 not the life of the ,greeks1 that is analysed by him4 ,so his account of medival religion represents the ,protestant legend1 not the ,catholic experience4 ,what we know little or nothing about seems to us in ,hegel admirably characterised3 what we know intimately seems to us painted with the eye of a pedantic1 remote1 and insolent foreigner4 ,it is but an idea of his own that he is foisting upon us1 calling it our soul4 ,pg #id ,he is creating a world in his head which might be admirable1 if ,god had made it4 ,every one is subject to such illusions of perspective and to the pathos of distance1 now favourable1 now unfavourable to what he studies2 but ,hegel1 thinking he had the key to the divine design1 fancied himself deeply sympathetic because he saw in everything some fragment of himself4 ,but no part of the world was that2 every part had its own inalienable superiority1 which to transcend was to lose for ever4 ,to the omniscient egotist every heart is closed4 ,the past will never give away its secret except to some self-forgetful and humble lover who by nature has a kindred destiny4 ,the egotist who thinks to grasp it1 so as to serve it up at his philosophic banquet1 or exhibit it in his museum of antiquities1 grasps only himself2 and in that sense1 to his confusion1 his egotism turns out true4 ,the egotism that appears in this lordly way of treating the past is egotism of the imagination1 the same that was expressed in the romantic love of nature1 which was really a very subtle1 very studious1 very obstinate love of self1 intent on finding some reference and deference to oneself in everything4 ,but there is also an egotism of passion1 which in ,hegel appears in his worship of the state4 ,the passions is the old and fit name for what the ,germans call ,pg #ie ideals4 ,the passions are not selfish in the sense in which the ,german moralists denounce selfishness2 they are not contrived by him who harbours them for his ulterior profit4 ,they are ideal1 dangerous1 often fatal4 ,even carnal passions are not selfish1 if by the self we understand the whole man3 they are an obsession to which he sacrifices himself4 ,but the transcendental philosophy with its migratory ego can turn any single passion1 or any complex of passions1 into a reputed centre of will1 into a moral personage4 ,as the passion usurps more and more of the man's nature it becomes a fierce egotist in his place2 it becomes fanaticism or even madness4 ,this substitution of a passion for a man1 when nobody thought the ego migratory1 seemed a disease4 ,what folly1 we said to the human soul1 to sacrifice your natural life to this partial1 transitory1 visionary passion6 ,but the ,german idealist recognises no natural life1 no natural individual4 ,his ego can migrate into any political body or any synthetic idea4 ,therefore1 his passions1 far from seeming follies to him1 seem divine inspirations1 calls to sacrifice1 fidelities to the ideal4 ,i am far from wishing to say that a ,german idealist is commonly just to all the passions and raises them in turn to be his highest and absolute will4 ,his passions are generally few and mental4 ,accidents of ,pg #if training or limitations of temperament keep him respectable2 but he is never safe4 ,dazzle him with a sophism1 such1 for instance1 as that the more evil the more good1 or hypnotise him with a superstition1 such as that organisation is an end in itself1 and nothing more is needed to turn him into a romantic criminal4 ,even the absolute requires an enemy to whet its edge upon1 and the state1 which according to ,hegel is morally absolute1 requires rival states in order that its separate individuality may not seem to vanish1 and with it the occasion for blessed and wholesome wars4 ,hegel rejects the notion that nations have any duties to one another because1 as he asserts1 there is no moral authority or tribunal higher than the state1 to which its government could be subject4 ,this assertion is evidently false1 since in the first place there is ,god or1 if the phrase be preferred1 there is the highest good of mankind1 hedging in very narrowly the path that states should follow between opposite vices2 and in the second place there is the individual1 whose natural allegiance to his family1 friends1 and religion1 to truth and to art1 is deeper and holier than his allegiance to the state1 which for the soul of man is an historical and geographical accident4 ,no doubt at the present stage of civilisation there is more to be gained than lost by ,pg #ig co-operating loyally with the governments under which we happen to live1 not because any state is divine1 but because as yet no less cumbrous machinery is available for carrying on the economy of life with some approach to decency and security4 ,for ,hegel1 however1 the life of the state was the moral substance1 and the souls of men but the accidents2 and as to the judgment of ,god he asserted that it was none other than the course of history4 ,this is a characteristic saying1 in which he seems to proclaim the moral government of the world1 when in truth he is sanctifying a brutal law of success and succession4 ,the best government1 of course1 succumbs in time like the worst1 and sooner2 the dark ages followed upon the ,roman ,empire and lasted twice as long4 ,but ,hegel's ,god was simply the world1 or a formula supposed to describe the world4 ,he despised every ideal not destined to be realised on earth1 he respected legality more than justice1 and extant institutions more than moral ideals2 and he wished to flatter a government in whose policy war and even crime were recognised weapons4 ,this reign of official passion is not1 let me repeat1 egotism in the natural man who is subject to it2 it is the sacrifice of the natural man and of all men to an abstract obsession1 called an ideal4 ,the vice of absoluteness and egotism is transferred ,pg #ih to that visionary agent4 ,the man may be docile and gentle enough1 but the demon he listens to is ruthless and deaf4 ,it forbids him to ask1 ,at what price do ,i pursue this ideal8 ,how much harm must ,i do to attain this good8 ,no2 this imperative is categorical4 ,the die is cast1 the war against human nature and happiness is declared1 and an idol that feeds on blood1 the ,absolute ,state1 is set up in the heart and over the city4 ,pg #ii ,,chapter ,,ix ,,egotism ,,and ,,selfishness ,in a review of egotism in ,german philosophy it would hardly be excusable to ignore the one notable writer who has openly adopted egotism in name as well as in fact4 ,the work of ,max ,stirner on the single separate person and what he may call his own hardly belongs to ,german philosophy as ,i have been using the words3 it lacks the transcendental point of departure1 as well as all breadth of view1 metaphysical subtlety1 or generous afflatus2 it is a bold1 frank1 and rather tiresome protest against the folly of moral idealism1 against the sacrifice of the individual to any ghostly powers such as ,god1 duty1 the state1 humanity1 or society2 all of which this redoubtable critic called spooks and regarded as fixed ideas and pathological obsessions4 ,this crudity was relieved by a strong mother-wit and a dogged honesty2 and it is not impossible that this poor schoolmaster1 in his solitary meditations1 may have embodied prophetically a rebellion against polite and religious follies which is brewing in the working classes--classes which to-morrow perhaps will absorb all mankind and give for the first time a plebeian tone to philosophy4 ,pg #ajj ,max ,stirner called the migratory ego back to its nest4 ,he exorcised that spook which had been ascending and descending the ladder of abstractions1 lodged now in a single passion1 now in a political body1 now in a logical term1 now in the outspread universe4 ,the only true ego1 he insisted1 was the bodily person1 the natural individual who is born and dies4 ,no other organ or seat existed for the mind1 or for any of its functions4 ,personal interests were the only honest interests a man could have1 and if he was brow-beaten or indoctrinated into sacrificing them1 that moral coercion was a scandal and a wrong4 ,the indomitable individual should shake off those chains1 which were only cobwebs1 and come into his own4 ,egotism thus becomes individualism1 and threatens to become selfishness4 ,the logic of these positions does not seem to have been clear to ,max ,stirner4 ,that the individual must possess all his wishes and aspirations1 even the most self-denying and suicidal1 is obvious2 he is the seat of those very obsessions and superstitions which ,max ,stirner deplored4 ,the same thing is true of knowledge3 a man can know only what he knows and what his faculties make him capable of knowing4 ,this fact is the excuse for transcendentalism1 and the element of truth in it4 ,but the fact that volition and knowledge must have their ,pg #aja seat in some person prejudges nothing about the scope of their objects4 ,the fallacy of egotism begins with the inference that1 therefore1 a person can know only his ideas and can live only for his own benefit4 ,on the contrary1 what makes knowledge knowledge is that our sensibility may report something which is not merely our feeling2 and our moral being arises when our interests likewise begin to range over the world4 ,to deny that a man is capable of generosity because his generosity must be his own1 is insufferable quibbling4 ,even our vanities and follies are disinterested in their way2 their egotism is not a calculated selfishness4 ,when a man orders his tomb according to his taste1 it is not in the hope of enjoying his residence in it4 ,max ,stirner1 while deprecating all subordination of the individual to society1 expected people1 even after they were emancipated1 to form voluntary unions for specific purposes1 such as playing games4 ,did he think that such companionship and co-operation would go without gregarious feelings and ideal interests8 ,would not a player wish his side to win8 ,would he not impose a rather painful strain upon himself at times for the sake of that spook1 victory8 ,all the sacrifices that society or religion imposes on a man1 when they are legitimate1 are based on the same principle4 ,pg #ajb ,the protest of ,max ,stirner against sham ideals and aims forced upon us by social pressure should not then have extended to ideals congenial to the natural man and founded on his instincts4 ,since the seat of our enthusiasms must be personal1 their appeal should be so too1 if they are to inspire us efficaciously2 but every art and science shows that they may be utterly impersonal in their object4 ,it was not in proposing ideal aims that the ,german philosophers were wrong3 that was the noble and heroic side of their doctrine1 as well as a point in which their psychology was correct4 ,their error lay in defining these aims arbitrarily and imposing them absolutely1 trying to thrust into us ideals like endless strife and absolute will1 which perhaps our souls abhor4 ,but if our souls abhor those things1 it is because they love something else2 and this other thing they love for its own sake1 so that the very refusal to sacrifice to those idols is a proof of faith in a true ,god4 ,the conclusion of ,max ,stirner1 that because those idols are false1 and the worship of them is cruel and superstitious1 therefore we must worship nothing and merely enjoy in a piggish way what we may call our own1 is a conclusion that misreads human nature4 ,it overlooks the fact that man lives by the imagination1 that the imagination--when not chaotic and futile--is exercised in the arts of life1 that the objects ,pg #ajc of these arts are impersonal1 and that to achieve these objects brings us a natural happiness4 ,the ,germans are by nature a good stolid people1 and it is curious that their moralists1 of every school1 are so fantastic and bad4 ,the trouble lies perhaps in this1 that they are all precipitate4 ,they have not taken the trouble to decipher human nature1 which is an endowment1 something many-sided1 unconscious1 with a margin of variation1 and have started instead with the will1 which is only an attitude1 something casual1 conscious1 and narrowly absolute4 ,nor have they learned to respect sufficiently the external conditions under which human nature operates and to which it must conform--,god1 the material world1 the nature and will of other men4 ,their morality consequently terminates in ideals1 casual1 conscious1 and absolute expressions of the passions1 or else expires in a mysticism which renounces all moral judgment4 ,a reasonable morality terminates instead in the arts1 by which human ideals and passions are compounded with experience and adapted to the materials they must work in4 ,the immaturity of the ,german moralists appears in their conception that the good is life1 which is what an irrational animal might say3 whereas for a rational being the good is only the good part of life1 that healthy1 stable1 wise1 kind1 and beautiful sort of life which he calls happiness4 ,pg #ajd ,,chapter ,x ,,the ,,breach ,,with ,,christianity ,german philosophy has a religious spirit1 but its alliance with ,christianity has always been equivocal and external4 ,even in the speculations of ,leibniz1 concerned as he was about orthodoxy1 there was a spirit of independence and absolutism which was rationalistic1 not to say heathen4 ,the principle of sufficient reason1 for instance1 demands that ,god and nature shall explain their existence and behaviour to us1 as timid parents explain their behaviour to their censorious children4 ,by rendering everything necessary1 even the acts of ,god1 it takes the place of ,god and makes him superfluous4 ,such frigid optimism as this principle involves1 besides being fatalistic1 is deeply discouraging to that hope of deliverance which is the soul of ,christianity3 for if this is the best world possible1 how poor must be that realm of possible worlds where everything is tainted1 and there is no heaven6 ,the theory1 too1 that each soul contains the seeds of its whole experience and suffices for its own infinite development1 destroys the meaning of creation1 revelation1 miracles1 sin1 grace1 and ,pg #aje charity4 ,thus without intending it1 even the obsequious but incredibly intelligent ,leibniz undermined all the doctrines of ,christianity in the act of thinking them afresh1 and insinuated into them a sort of magic heathen individualism4 ,kant1 ,fichte1 and ,hegel were less punctilious in their theology1 but they still intended to be or to seem ,christians4 ,they felt that what made the sanctity of traditional religion and its moral force could be recovered in a purer form in their systems4 ,this feeling of theirs was not unwarranted2 at least1 many religious minds1 after the first shock of losing their realistic faith1 have seen in transcendentalism a means1 and perhaps the only safe means1 of still maintaining a sort of ,christianity which shall not claim any longer to be a miraculous or exceptional revelation1 but only a fair enough poetic symbol for the principles found in all moral life4 ,that he who loses his life shall save it1 for instance1 is a maxim much prized and much glossed by ,hegelians4 ,they lend it a meaning of their own1 which might1 indeed1 be said to be the opposite of what the ,gospel meant2 for there the believer is urged to discard the very world with which ,hegel asks him to identify himself4 ,the idea is that if you surrender your private interests to those of your profession1 science1 or country1 you become thereby a good and important person1 and ,pg #ajf unintentionally a happy one4 ,you will then feel that the world shares your thoughts and renders them perpetual1 while you1 being absorbed in ideal pursuits1 forget your private miseries and mortality4 ,in this sort of moral psychology there is evidently some truth2 but the law of experience which it points to is but a loose and ambiguous law1 which disguises more facts than it expresses4 ,honest minds will rebel against the suggestion that when you outgrow a desire you have fulfilled it2 and they will detect the furtive irony in bidding you live hard in order not to feel the vanity of living4 ,to drown sorrow in work1 and to forget private failures in public interests1 is certainly possible1 but it is only drugging yourself with hurry and routine1 which may not be more advantageous to others than it really is to yourself4 ,impersonal or ideal aims are not necessarily less delusive or higher than personal ones2 in fact there is far more likelihood that they are conventional humbug4 ,this pathological hygiene of idealism1 which always stops at some uncriticised impulse1 thinks it secures health when perhaps it has only increased the dose of illusion4 ,nevertheless transcendentalism has this important element in common with ,christianity and with the other ,hebraic religions1 that it regards human interests as the core of the universe and ,god as the ,pg #ajg ,god of man1 who disposes all things for man's benefit4 ,in its eyes the sphere of providence and moral life is bounded by the history of a part of ,europe and ,asia for a few thousand years4 ,so long as transcendentalism is taken to imply some such philosophy of history it can compound its differences with liberal ,christianity1 since they are at one in the cardinal point of their faith1 which is the apotheosis of the human spirit4 ,yet this human egotism1 which comforts so many minds1 offends others1 in their way no less religious4 ,of course1 those who believe in the infinity of the universe1 be they mystics or naturalists1 smile at such pettiness and fatuity4 ,but even among transcendentalists1 some are repelled2 for the dominion which they attribute to their ego is a dominion over appearances only2 they do not pretend that the grammar of the human intellect can lay down the law for the world at large4 ,at the same time1 in their own house they wish to keep their freedom4 ,that prescribed evolution and that reversible optimism of the absolute transcendentalists are repulsive to them2 they resent that such a precise and distasteful career should be imposed on their transcendental individuality1 and should swallow it up4 ,it is these rebels that have carried romanticism and ,german philosophy into its last phase4 ,they have broken at ,pg #ajh last with ,christianity and at the same time with the theological and cosmic transcendentalism that was its treacherous ally1 and hoped to be its heir4 ,the transcendentalism of ,schopenhauer1 sweeping as it was in its way1 retained the modest and agnostic character it had had in ,kant3 he proclaimed that the world was his idea1 but meant only 7what is undeniable7 that his idea of the world was his idea4 ,the egotistical doctrine that the whole universe is but the image of it created by the mind disappeared altogether in his system4 ,the so-called ,will which he still placed behind everything was no longer his own will evolving experience out of nothing2 it was a fanciful name for whatever force or substance might lie behind experience1 animating all its objects1 determining their inherent life1 and constituting them facts collateral with himself4 ,if his metaphysics remained idealistic1 it was on account of his romantic habit of assimilating the life of nature to that of man1 as hasty introspection reveals it2 so that the universe is described in moral and poetical terms rather than in the terms of science4 ,the consequences of this change were important4 ,the ,will became infinite in what ,hegel called the evil sense1 that is1 in the true one4 ,it was no longer possible to speak of a plan of creation1 nor of a dramatic progress in history1 with its beginning in ,pg #aji ,eden and its end in ,berlin4 ,life was seen to radiate1 as it really does1 from an elementary form into all sorts of disparate and incomparable growths1 capable of endless diversity4 ,no limit1 no forced co-operation1 no stereotyped method was imputed to life4 ,the pocket universe of ,hegel opened out to the stars1 so hateful to that philosopher4 ,man lost his importance and at the same time the insufferable burden of his false pretensions4 ,in ,schopenhauer frankness returned1 and with frankness clearness4 ,yet he could not quite reconcile man to his actual place in nature4 ,a deep prejudice still intervened4 ,both ,christianity and romanticism had accustomed people to disregard the intrinsic value of things4 ,things ought to be useful for salvation1 or symbols of other greater but unknown things3 it was not to be expected that they should be simply good in themselves4 ,this life was to be justified1 if justified at all1 only as servile work or tedious business may be justified1 not as health or artistic expression justify themselves4 ,unless some external and ulterior end could be achieved by living1 it was thought that life would be vanity4 ,remove now the expectation of a millennium or of a paradise in the sky1 and it may seem that all serious value has disappeared from our earthly existence4 ,yet this feeling is only a temporary after-image of a particular education4 ,pg #aaj ,the romantic poets1 through pride1 restlessness1 and longing for vague impossible things1 came to the same conclusion that the church had reached through censoriousness and hope4 ,to be always dissatisfied seemed to that ,faust-like age a mark of loftiness4 ,to be dissatisfied is1 indeed1 a healthy and promising thing1 when what troubles us can be set right2 but the romantic mind despises such incidental improvements which far from freeing the wild egotistical soul would rather fatten and harness it4 ,it is beneath the romantic pessimist to remember that people1 in all ages1 sometimes achieve what they have set their hearts on1 and that if human will and conduct were better disciplined1 this contentment would be more frequent and more massive4 ,on the contrary1 he asserts that willing is always and everywhere abortive4 ,how can he persuade himself of something so evidently false8 ,by that mystical misinterpretation of human nature which is perhaps the core of romanticism4 ,he imagines that what is desired is not3 this or that--food1 children1 victory1 knowledge1 or some other specific goal of a human instinct--but an abstract and perpetual happiness behind all these alternating interests4 ,of course an abstract and perpetual happiness is impossible1 not merely because events are sure to disturb any equilibrium we may think we have established in our lives1 but for the ,pg #aaa far more fundamental reason that we have no abstract and perpetual instinct to satisfy4 ,the desire for self-preservation or power or union with ,god is no more perpetual or comprehensive than any other3 it is commonly when we are in straits that we become aware of such objects1 and to achieve them1 or imagine we achieve them1 will give us only a momentary satisfaction1 like any other success4 ,a highest good to be obtained apart from each and every specific interest is more than unattainable2 it is unthinkable4 ,the romanticist1 chasing wilfully that ignis fatuus1 naturally finds his life arduous and disappointing4 ,but he might have learned from ,plato or any sound moralist1 if his genius could allow him to learn anything1 that the highest good of man is the sum and harmony of those specific goods upon which his nature is directed4 ,but because the romantic will was unteachable1 all will was declared to be foolish4 ,schopenhauer was led into his pessimism also by the spirit of opposition2 his righteous wrath was aroused by the sardonic and inhuman optimism of ,hegel1 the arguments for which were so cogent1 so ,calvinistic1 and so irrelevant that they would have lost none of their force if they had been proposed in hell4 ,the best possible world and the worst possible world are1 indeed1 identical for that philosophy4 ,schopenhauer needed to change nothing in the ,pg #aab description of life1 as the other idealists conceived it1 in order to prove that life was a tragedy2 for they were as romantic as himself and as far from feeling the intrinsic value of happiness1 and the possibility of real progress4 ,real progress has little to do with perpetual evolution4 ,it occurs only in certain places and times1 when nature or art comes to the assistance of some definite interest already embodied1 as the interest in security and mutual confidence1 knowledge1 or the fine arts is already embodied in mankind4 ,schopenhauer was not insensible to these achievements2 he felt by instinct the infinity and luxuriance of the moral world4 ,it was in part this secret sympathy with nature that alienated him from ,christianity and from transcendental metaphysics4 ,but because natural goods cannot be desired or possessed for ever1 he thought their value was cancelled1 even for those who desired and possessed them4 ,the leaven of romanticism was still at work1 forbidding him to recognise a natural order1 with which a vital harmony might be established4 ,the ground of life1 the ,will in all things1 was something lurid and tempestuous1 itself a psychological chaos4 ,the alternative to theism in the mind of ,schopenhauer was not naturalism but anarchy4 ,this romantic travesty of life and this conception of metaphysical anarchy were inherited by ,nietzsche ,pg #aac and regarded by him as the last word of philosophy4 ,but he made the breach with ,christianity still wider4 ,the grief of ,schopenhauer in the presence of such a world1 his desperate and exotic remedy--the denial of the will--and his love of contemplation were all evidences of a mind still half ,christian3 his pessimism itself was so much homage to the faith he had lost4 ,such backward glances were not for the impetuous ,nietzsche1 who felt he was a prophet of the future1 and really was one4 ,romantic anarchy delighted him2 and he crowned it with a rakish optimism1 as with the red cap of ,liberty4 ,he was in hearty sympathy with absolute ,will2 he praised it even for being vain and maleficent1 if it was only proud enough to praise itself4 ,pg #aad ,,chapter ,,xi ,,nietzsche ,,and ,,schopenhauer ,it is hardly fair to a writer like ,nietzsche1 so poetical1 fragmentary1 and immature1 to judge him as a philosopher2 yet he wished to be so judged1 and planned a system which was to be an emendation of that of ,schopenhauer4 ,the will to live would become the will to dominate2 pessimism founded on reflection would become optimism founded on courage2 the suspense of the will in contemplation would yield to a more biological account of intelligence and taste2 finally in the place of pity and asceticism 7,schopenhauer's two principles of morals7 ,nietzsche would set up the duty of asserting the will at all costs and being cruelly but beautifully strong4 ,these points of difference from ,schopenhauer cover the whole philosophy of ,nietzsche4 ,i will consider them in order1 leaving the last for the next chapter4 ,the change from the will to live to the will to be powerful is only a change of metaphors3 both are used merely to indicate the general movement of nature4 ,the choice of a psychological symbol for this purpose is indifferent scientifically1 since the ,pg #aae facts in any case remain the same and our knowledge of them is not enlarged2 yet it is an interesting indication of the mind of the poet using it1 because whatever a man knows and loves best1 that he takes his metaphors from4 ,nietzsche had his reasons for liking to call the universal principle a lust for power4 ,he believed he was the herald of two hundred years of war1 he was in love with the vague image of a military aristocracy1 and he was not without a certain biological acumen4 ,an acorn in the ground does not strive to persevere in the state it happens to be in1 but expands1 absorbs surrounding elements1 and transforms them into its own substance1 which itself changes its form4 ,here then is a will to grow1 not simply a will to live or to preserve oneself2 in fact1 as ,nietzsche eloquently said1 here is a will to perish4 ,it is true that when the oak is full grown it seems to pass to the defensive and no longer manifests the will either to perish or to grow4 ,even while the will to grow is operating1 its scope is not indefinite4 ,it would be grotesque to imagine that the acorn1 like the ego of ,german philosophy1 tended to annex the whole earth and the whole sky and to make a single oak of the universe4 ,if we take a broad view1 perhaps the ancient myth that nature tends to re-embody certain fixed types1 though inaccurate1 gives a better picture of the facts than ,pg #aaf the modern myth that she is striving to change in one predetermined direction4 ,nevertheless1 the fact that ,nietzsche's attention was fascinated by the will to grow and to dominate shows that he was in sympathy with young things1 that his heart was big with the future1 and that his age believed in progress4 ,the change from pessimism to optimism1 verbally so complete1 did not imply any divergence between ,nietzsche and ,schopenhauer in their description of the facts2 it was all a matter of a little more spirit in the younger thinker and a little more conscience in the elder4 ,romantic poets and their heroes are well known to oscillate between passionate despair and passionate enterprise4 ,schopenhauer affected passionate despair1 ,nietzsche recommended passionate enterprise1 each being wedded exclusively to one of those moods which ,faust or ,byron could feel alternately and reduce to act with all the dashing tumult of anarchy4 ,the value which the world has in the eyes of its inhabitants is necessarily mixed1 so that a sweeping optimism or pessimism can be only a theoretic pose1 false to the natural sentiment even of those who assume it4 ,both are impressionistic judgments passed on the world at large1 not perhaps without some impertinence4 ,yet it is these poses or attitudes1 or1 if you like1 these impertinences1 that give importance to ,pg #aag transcendental philosophers2 it is their representative and contagious side2 their views of things would concern us little1 if it was the things themselves that we wished to understand1 but our whole study is a study in romanticism4 ,the temper of the age ignored that man is a teachable animal living in a natural world4 ,all that was a vulgar convention2 in truth a disembodied ,will was directed on any and every ideal at random1 and when any of these fantastic objects seemed to be attained nothing was really accomplished1 nothing was accumulated or learned4 ,the wish for some other will-o'-the-wisp immediately succeeded1 always equally passionate and equally foolish4 ,it is amazing that such a picture of human experience should have met with anything but general derision2 but when people read books they compare them with other books1 and when they turn to things they forget books altogether4 ,hence the most palpable falsehoods are held by general consent at certain moments1 because they follow logically from what the books of the previous generation had maintained4 ,this absurdity of ,schopenhauer's is a plausible variation of idealism2 to see how absurd it is you must remember the facts of life1 the existence of any degree of civilisation or progress4 ,in these the travail of human nature appears2 for human nature is not ,pg #aah merely a name for a certain set of passions known to literature2 in that sense ,schopenhauer fully acknowledged it1 and even thought it immutable2 it is rather the constitution of an animal capable of training and development4 ,what is more patent than that a man may learn something by experience and may be trained8 ,but if he can be trained he is capable of adaptation and1 therefore1 of happiness1 and the preposterous assertion that all desires are equally arbitrary and equally fruitless is blown to the winds4 ,the belief in a romantic chaos lends itself to pessimism1 but it also lends itself to absolute self-assertion4 ,kant had boasted that he had removed knowledge in order to make room for faith2 in other words1 he had returned to chaos in order to find freedom4 ,the great egotists1 who detested the pressure of a world they had not posited or created1 followed gladly in that path2 but ,schopenhauer was not an egotist4 ,like ,goethe he was probably more selfish personally than those other philosophers whom their very egotism had made zealous and single-minded2 but in imagination and feeling he was1 like ,goethe1 genial and humane3 the freedom and exuberance of nature impressed him more than his own4 ,had he been an egotist1 as ,fichte1 ,hegel1 and ,nietzsche were1 he might have been an optimist like them4 ,he was rather a happy man1 hugely enjoying ,pg #aai a great many things1 among them food and music2 and he taught that music was a direct transcript of the tormented will to live4 ,how simple it would have been for him1 if he had been an egotist1 to enjoy the spectacle of that tormented will as much as the music which was its faithful image6 ,but no2 such sthetic cruelty1 which was ,nietzsche's delight1 would have revolted ,schopenhauer4 ,he thought tragedy beautiful because it detached us from a troubled world and did not think a troubled world good1 as those unspeakable optimists did1 because it made such a fine tragedy4 ,it is pleasant to find that among all these philosophers one at least was a gentleman4 ,if ,will is the sole substance or force in the universe1 it must be present in everything that exists1 yet ,schopenhauer affirmed that it was absent in sthetic contemplation2 and he looked to an ultimate denial of the ,will1 which if it was to be an act and not merely a void would evidently be impossible on his principles4 ,the ,will might well say to those who attempted to deny it3 ,they reckon ill who leave me out2 when me they fly1 ,i am the wings4 ,in perceiving and correcting this contradiction1 ,nietzsche certainly improved the technique of the system4 ,yet that contradiction was not substantial2 it was verbal merely1 and due to the fond use of the term ,pg #abj ,will for what might more properly be called matter1 energy1 or movement4 ,will taken in the metaphorical sense can never be in abeyance1 so long as anything is going on2 but will taken in its proper sense is in abeyance often2 and this is what ,schopenhauer saw and meant to say4 ,actual and conscious will is a passing phenomenon2 it is so little necessary to life that it always disappears when life is at its height4 ,all pure pleasures1 including those of seeing and thinking1 are without it3 they are ingenuous1 and terminate in their present object4 ,a philosopher should have learned from ,aristotle1 if not from his own experience1 that at the acme of life we live in the eternal1 and that then1 as ,schopenhauer said1 we no longer pry but gaze1 and are freed from willing4 ,this is not to say that ,nietzsche was not very happy and witty in his description of the passions that dominate artists and philosophers1 and in urging that the life of the spirit was an impassioned thing4 ,to prove it1 he might have quoted ,schopenhauer himself1 in those moving passages where he describes the ecstasy of thought and the spell of beauty4 ,it is not the dead or the bloodless that have such feelings4 ,of course1 if the operations of the brain1 and the whole instinctive life of the soul1 were interrupted neither these feelings nor any others would arise4 ,this was at bottom ,schopenhauer's conviction4 ,his ,pg #aba great intuition1 the corner-stone of his philosophy1 was precisely the priority of automatism and instinct over the intellect4 ,his only error came from having given to these underlying processes the name of ,will1 when properly the will is one expression of them only1 as the intellect is4 ,nietzsche1 who adopted the same metaphor1 was led by it into the very confusion which he criticised in ,schopenhauer4 ,nietzsche had no great technical competence3 he saw the inconsistency only when he disliked the result2 when the result fell in with his first impressions he repeated the inconsistency4 ,he often condemned other moralists for being enemies to life3 he reproached the greater part of mankind for loving inglorious ease and resenting the sufferings inseparable from the will to be mighty and to perish4 ,but this churlish attitude of the vulgar would be quite impossible if the heroic will to be powerful were the essence of everybody and even of material things4 ,if ,i am nothing but the will to grow1 how can ,i ever will to shrink8 ,but this inconsistency in ,nietzsche1 like that in ,schopenhauer1 was an honourable one that came of forgetting a false generalisation in the presence of a clear fact4 ,that the will to be powerful is everywhere was a false generalisation2 but it was a clear fact that some people are pious ,christians or ,epicurean ,pg #abb philosophers1 who do not care at all about conquering the world4 ,they want to be let alone1 and perhaps have a shrewd suspicion that no one lives under such dire compulsions as he who undertakes to tyrannise over others4 ,this slave-morality of theirs might be called ,will1 though it is rather instinct and habit2 but it is certainly not a will to be powerful3 it is the opposite of that passion4 ,thus ,nietzsche1 by an honest self-contradiction1 pointed to people who denied the will to be powerful1 in order to abuse them1 just as ,schopenhauer had pointed to people who denied or suspended the will to live1 in order to praise them4 ,pg #abc ,,chapter ,,xii ,,the ,,ethics ,,of ,,nietzsche ,nietzsche occasionally spoke disparagingly of morality1 as if the word and the thing had got a little on his nerves2 and some of his best-known phrases might give the impression that he wished to drop the distinction between good and evil and transcend ethics altogether4 ,such a thought would not have been absurd in itself or even unphilosophical4 ,many serious thinkers1 ,spinoza for instance1 have believed that everything that happens is equally necessary and equally expressive of the will of ,god1 be it favourable or unfavourable to our special interests and1 therefore1 called by us good or bad4 ,a too reverent immersion in nature and history convinces them that to think any part of reality better or worse than the rest is impertinent or even impious4 ,it is true that in the end these philosophers usually stultify themselves and declare enthusiastically that whatever is is right4 ,this rapturous feeling can overcome anybody in certain moods1 as it sometimes overcame ,nietzsche2 but in yielding to it1 besides contradicting all other moral judgments1 these mystics break their difficult resolution never to judge at all4 ,pg #abd ,nietzsche1 however1 was entirely free from this divine impediment in morals4 ,the courage to cling to what his soul loved--and this courage is the essence of morality--was conspicuous in him4 ,he was a poet1 a critic1 a lover of form and of distinctions4 ,few persons have ever given such fierce importance to their personal taste4 ,what he disliked to think of1 say democracy1 he condemned with the fulminations of a god2 what he liked to think of1 power1 he seriously commanded man and nature to pursue for their single object4 ,what ,nietzsche disparaged1 then1 under the name of morality was not all morality1 for he had an enthusiastic master-morality of his own to impose4 ,he was thinking only of the ,christian virtues and especially of a certain ,protestant and ,kantian moralism with which perhaps he had been surfeited4 ,this moralism conceived that duty was something absolute and not a method of securing whatever goods of all sorts are attainable by action4 ,the latter is the common and the sound opinion1 maintained1 for instance1 by ,aristotle2 but ,nietzsche1 who was not humble enough to learn very much by study1 thought he was propounding a revolutionary doctrine when he put goods and evils beyond and above right and wrong3 for this is all that his ,jenseits von ,gut und ,bse amounts to4 ,whatever seemed to him ,pg #abe admirable1 beautiful1 eligible1 whatever was good in the sense opposed not to bse but to schlecht1 ,nietzsche loved with jealous affection4 ,hence his ire against ,christianity1 which he thought renounced too much4 ,hence his hatred of moralism1 which in raising duty to the irresponsible throne of the absolute had superstitiously sacrificed half the goods of life4 ,nietzsche1 then1 far from transcending ethics1 re-established it on its true foundations1 which is not to say that the sketchy edifice which he planned to raise on these foundations was in a beautiful style of architecture or could stand at all4 ,the first principle of his ethics was that the good is power4 ,but this word power seems to have had a great range of meanings in his mind4 ,sometimes it suggests animal strength and size1 as in the big blonde beast2 sometimes vitality1 sometimes fortitude1 sometimes contempt for the will of others1 sometimes 7and this is perhaps the meaning he chiefly intended7 dominion over natural forces and over the people1 that is to say1 wealth and military power4 ,it is characteristic of this whole school that it confuses the laws which are supposed to preside over the movement of things with the good results which they may involve2 so ,nietzsche confuses his biological insight1 that all life is the assertion of some sort of power--the power to breathe1 for instance--with the ,pg #abf admiration he felt for a masterful egotism4 ,but even if we identify life or any kind of existence with the exertion of strength1 the kinds of strength exerted will be heterogeneous and not always compatible4 ,the strength of ,lucifer does not insure victory in war2 it points rather to failure in a world peopled by millions of timid1 pious1 and democratic persons4 ,hence we find ,nietzsche asking himself plaintively1 ,why are the feeble victorious8 ,the fact rankled in his bosom that in the ancient world martial aristocracies had succumbed before ,christianity1 and in the modern world before democracy4 ,by strength1 then1 he could not mean the power to survive1 by being as flexible as circumstances may require4 ,he did not refer to the strength of majorities1 nor to the strength of vermin4 ,at the same time he did not refer to moral strength1 for of moral strength he had no idea4 ,the arts give power1 but only in channels prescribed by their own principles1 not by the will of untrained men4 ,to be trained is to be tamed and harnessed1 an accession of power detestable to ,nietzsche4 ,his ,zarathustra had the power of dancing1 also of charming serpents and eagles3 no wonder that he missed the power1 bestowed by goodness1 of charming and guiding men2 and a ,terpsichorean autocrat would be hard to imagine4 ,a man intent on algebra ,pg #abg or on painting is not striving to rule anybody2 his dominion over painting or algebra is chiefly a matter of concentration and self-forgetfulness4 ,so dominion over the passions changes them from attempts to appropriate anything into sentiments of the mind1 colouring a world which is no longer coveted4 ,to attain such autumnal wisdom is1 if you like1 itself a power of feeling and a kind of strength2 but it is not helpful in conquering the earth4 ,nietzsche was personally more philosophical than his philosophy4 ,his talk about power1 harshness1 and superb immorality was the hobby of a harmless young scholar and constitutional invalid4 ,he did not crave in the least either wealth or empire4 ,what he loved was solitude1 nature1 music1 books4 ,but his imagination1 like his judgment1 was captious2 it could not dwell on reality1 but reacted furiously against it4 ,accordingly1 when he speaks of the will to be powerful1 power is merely an eloquent word on his lips4 ,it symbolises the escape from mediocrity4 ,what power would be when attained and exercised remains entirely beyond his horizon4 ,what meets us everywhere is the sense of impotence and a passionate rebellion against it4 ,the phrases in which ,nietzsche condensed and felt his thought were brilliant1 but they were seldom just4 ,we may perhaps see the principle of his ethics ,pg #abh better if we forget for a moment the will to be powerful and consider this3 that he knew no sort of good except the beautiful1 and no sort of beauty except romantic stress4 ,he was a belated prophet of romanticism4 ,he wrote its epitaph1 in which he praised it more extravagantly than anybody1 when it was alive1 had had the courage to do4 ,consider1 for example1 what he said about truth4 ,since men were governed solely by the will to be powerful1 the truth for its own sake must be moonshine to them4 ,they would wish to cultivate such ideas1 whether true or false1 as might be useful to their ambition4 ,nietzsche 7more candid in this than some other pragmatists7 confessed that truth itself did not interest him2 it was ugly2 the bracing atmosphere of falsehood1 passion1 and subjective perspectives was the better thing4 ,sometimes1 indeed1 a more wistful mood overtook him1 and he wondered whether the human mind would be able to endure the light of truth4 ,that was the great question of the future4 ,we may agree that a mind without poetry1 fiction1 and subjective colouring would not be human1 nor a mind at all2 and that neither truth nor the knowledge of truth would have any intrinsic value if nobody cared about it for its own sake4 ,but some men do care2 and in ignoring this fact ,nietzsche expresses the false and pitiful notion that we can be ,pg #abi interested in nothing except in ourselves and our own future4 ,i am solitary1 says the romantic egotist1 and sufficient unto myself4 ,the world is my idea1 new every day3 what can ,i have to do with truth8 ,this impulse to turn one's back on truth1 whether in contempt or in despair1 has a long history4 ,lessing had said that he preferred the pursuit of truth to the truth itself2 but if we take this seriously 7as possibly it was not meant7 the pursuit of truth at once changes its character4 ,it can no longer be the pursuit of truth1 truth not being wanted1 but only the pursuit of some fresh idea4 ,whether one of these ideas or another comes nearer to the truth would be unimportant and undiscoverable4 ,any idea will do1 so long as it is pregnant with another that may presently take its place2 and as presumably error will precipitate new ideas more readily than truth1 we might almost find it implied in ,lessing's maxim that1 as ,nietzsche maintained1 what is really good is neither truth nor the pursuit of truth 7for you might find it1 and what would you do then871 but rather a perpetual flux of errors4 ,this view is also implied in the very prevalent habit of regarding opinions as justified not by their object but by their date4 ,the intellectual ignominy of believing what we believe simply because of the time and place of our birth1 escapes many evolutionists4 ,pg #acj ,far from trying to overcome this natural prejudice of position1 they raise it into a point of pride4 ,they declare all opinions ever held in the past to be superseded1 and are apparently content that their own should be superseded to-morrow1 but meantime they cover you with obloquy if you are so backward or so forward as not to agree with them to-day4 ,they accept as inevitable the total dominion of the point of view4 ,each new date1 even in the life of an individual thinker1 is expected by them to mark a new phase of doctrine4 ,indeed1 truth is an object which transcendental philosophy cannot envisage3 the absolute ego must be satisfied with consistency4 ,how should the truth1 actual1 natural1 or divine1 be an expression of the living will that attempts1 or in their case despairs1 to discover it8 ,yet that everything1 even the truth1 is an expression of the living will1 is the corner-stone of this philosophy4 ,consider further the spirit in which ,nietzsche condemned ,christianity and the ,christian virtues4 ,many people have denounced ,christianity on the ground that it was false or tyrannical1 while perhaps admitting that it was comforting or had a good moral influence4 ,nietzsche denounced it--and in unmeasured terms--on the ground that 7while1 of course1 as true as any other vital lie7 it was mean1 depressing1 slavish1 and plebeian4 ,how beastly was ,pg #aca the precept of love6 ,actually to love all these grotesque bipeds was degrading4 ,a lover of the beautiful must wish almost all his neighbours out of the way4 ,compassion1 too1 was a lamentable way of assimilating oneself to evil4 ,that contagious misery spoiled one's joy1 freedom1 and courage4 ,disease should not be nursed but cauterised2 the world must be made clean4 ,now there is a sort of love of mankind1 a jealous love of what man might be1 in this much decried maxim of unmercifulness4 ,nietzsche rebelled at the thought of endless wretchedness1 pervasive mediocrity1 crying children1 domestic drudges1 and pompous fools for ever4 ,die ,erde war zu lange schon ein ,irrenhaus6 ,his heart was tender enough1 but his imagination was impatient4 ,when he praised cruelty1 it was on the ground that art was cruel1 that it made beauty out of suffering4 ,suffering1 therefore1 was good1 and so was crime1 which made life keener4 ,only crime1 he said1 raises a man high enough for the lightning to strike him4 ,in the hope of sparing some obscure person a few groans or tears1 would you deprive the romantic hero of so sublime a death8 ,christians1 too1 might say they had their heroes1 their saints2 but what sort of eminence was that8 ,it was produced by stifling half the passions4 ,a ,pg #acb sister of charity could not be an ,arminius2 devotion to such remedial offices spoilt the glory of life4 ,holiness was immoral2 it was a half-suicide4 ,all experience1 the ideal of ,faust1 was what a spirited man must desire4 ,all experience would involve1 ,i suppose1 passing through all the sensations of a murderer1 a maniac1 and a toad2 even through those of a saint or a sister of charity4 ,but the romantic mind despises results2 it is satisfied with poses4 ,consider1 too1 the romantic demand for a violent chiaroscuro1 a demand which blossoms into a whole system of ethics4 ,good and evil1 we are told1 enhance one another1 like light and shade in a picture2 without evil there can be no good1 so to diminish the one is to undermine the other1 and the greatest and most heroic man is he who not only does most good but also most harm4 ,in his love of mischief1 in his tenderness for the adventurer who boldly inflicts injury and suffering on others and on himself1 in order to cut a more thrilling and stupendous figure in his own eyes1 ,nietzsche gave this pernicious doctrine its frankest expression2 but unfortunately it was not wholly his own4 ,in its essence it belongs to ,hegel1 and under various sophistical disguises it has been adopted by all his academic followers in ,england and ,america4 ,the arguments used to defend it are old sophisms borrowed from the ,stoics1 who ,pg #acc had turned the physical doctrine of ,heraclitus1 that everything is a mixture of contraries1 into an argument for resignation to inevitable evils and detachment from tainted goods4 ,the ,stoics1 who were neither romantic nor worldly1 used these sophisms in an attempt to extirpate the passions1 not to justify them4 ,they were sufficiently refuted by the excellent ,plutarch where he observes that according to this logic it was requisite and necessary that ,thersites should be bald in order that ,achilles might have leonine hair4 ,the absurdity is1 indeed1 ludicrous1 if we are thinking of real things and of the goods and evils of experience2 but egotists never think of that2 what they always think of is the picture of those realities in their imagination4 ,for the observer1 effects of contrast do alter the values of the elements considered2 and1 indeed1 the elements themselves1 if one is very unsympathetic1 may not have at all in contemplation the quality they have in experience3 whence sthetic cruelty4 ,the respect which ,hegel and ,nietzsche have for those sophisms becomes intelligible when we remember what imperturbable egotists they were4 ,this egotism in morals is partly mystical4 ,there is a luxurious joy in healing the smart of evil in one's mind1 without needing to remove or diminish the evil in the world4 ,the smart may be healed by ,pg #acd nursing the conviction that evil after all is good1 no matter how much of it there is or how much of it we do4 ,in part1 however1 this egotism is romantic2 it does not ask to be persuaded that evil1 in the end1 is good4 ,it feels that evil is good in the present2 it is so intense a thing to feel and so exciting a thing to do4 ,here we have what ,nietzsche wished to bring about1 a reversal of all values4 ,to do evil is the true virtue1 and to be good is the most hopeless vice4 ,milk is for babes2 your strong man should be soaked in blood and in alcohol4 ,we should live perilously2 and as material life is the power to digest poisons1 so true excellence is the power to commit all manner of crimes1 and to survive4 ,that there is no ,god is proved by ,nietzsche pragmatically1 on the ground that belief in the existence of ,god would have made him uncomfortable4 ,not at all for the reason that might first occur to us3 to imagine himself a lost soul has always been a point of pride with the romantic genius4 ,the reason was that if there had been any gods he would have found it intolerable not to be a god himself4 ,poor ,nietzsche6 ,the laurels of the ,almighty would not let him sleep4 ,it is hard to know if we should be more deceived in taking these sallies seriously or in not taking them so4 ,on the one hand it all seems the swagger ,pg #ace of an immature1 half-playful mind1 like a child that tells you he will cut your head off4 ,the dreamy impulse1 in its inception1 is sincere enough1 but there is no vestige of any understanding of what it proposes1 of its conditions1 or of its results4 ,on the other hand these explosions are symptomatic2 there stirs behind them unmistakably an elemental force4 ,that an attitude is foolish1 incoherent1 disastrous1 proves nothing against the depth of the instinct that inspires it4 ,who could be more intensely unintelligent than ,luther or ,rousseau8 ,yet the world followed them1 not to turn back4 ,the molecular forces of society1 so to speak1 had already undermined the systems which these men denounced4 ,if the systems have survived it is only because the reformers1 in their intellectual helplessness1 could supply nothing to take their place4 ,so ,nietzsche1 in his genial imbecility1 betrays the shifting of great subterranean forces4 ,what he said may be nothing1 but the fact that he said it is all-important4 ,out of such wild intuitions1 because the heart of the child was in them1 the man of the future may have to build his philosophy4 ,we should forgive ,nietzsche his boyish blasphemies4 ,he hated with clearness1 if he did not know what to love4 ,pg #acf ,,chapter ,,xiii ,,the ,,superman ,in his views on matters of fact ,nietzsche1 as becomes the nave egotist1 was quite irresponsible4 ,if he said the course of history repeated itself in cycles1 it was because the idea pleased him2 it seemed a symbol of self-approval on the world's part4 ,if he hailed the advent of a race of men superior to ourselves and of stronger fibre1 it was because human life as it is1 and especially his own life1 repelled him4 ,he was sensitive and1 therefore1 censorious4 ,he gazed about him1 he gazed at himself1 he remembered the disappointing frailties and pomposity of the great man1 ,wagner1 whom he had once idolised4 ,his optimism for the moment yielded to his sincerity4 ,he would sooner abolish than condone such a world1 and he fled to some solitary hillside by the sea1 saying to himself that man was a creature to be superseded4 ,dissatisfaction with the actual is what usually leads people to frame ideals at all1 or at least to hold them fast2 but such a negative motive leaves the ideal vague and without consistency4 ,if we could suddenly have our will1 we should very likely find the result trivial or horrible4 ,so the superman of ,pg #acg ,nietzsche might prove1 if by magic he could be realised4 ,to frame solid ideals1 which would1 in fact1 be better than actual things1 is not granted to the merely irritable poet2 it is granted only to the master-workman1 to the modeller of some given substance to some given use--things which define his aspiration1 and separate what is relevant and glorious in his dreams from that large part of them which is merely ignorant and peevish4 ,it was not for ,nietzsche to be an artist in morals and to institute anything coherent1 even in idea4 ,the superman of ,nietzsche is rendered the more chimerical by the fact that he must contradict not only the common man of the present but also the superior men1 the half-superhuman men1 of the past4 ,to transcend humanity is no new ambition2 that has always been the effort of ,indian and ,christian religious discipline and of ,stoic philosophy4 ,but this spiritual superiority1 like that of artists and poets1 has come of abstraction2 a superiority to life1 in that these minds were engrossed in the picture or lesson of life rather than in living2 and if they powerfully affected the world1 as they sometimes did1 it was by bringing down into it something supermundane1 the arresting touch of an ulterior wisdom4 ,nietzsche1 on the contrary1 even more than most modern philosophers1 loved mere life with the pathetic intensity of ,pg #ach the wounded beast2 his superman must not rise above our common condition by his purely spiritual resources1 or by laying up his treasure in any sort of heaven4 ,he must be not a superior man but a kind of physiological superman1 a griffin in soul1 if not in body1 who instead of labouring hands and religious faith should have eagle's wings and the claws of a lion4 ,his powers should be superior to ours by resembling those of fiercer and wilder animals4 ,the things that make a man tame--,nietzsche was a retired professor living in a boarding-house--must be changed into their opposites4 ,but man has been tamed by agriculture1 material arts1 children1 experience2 therefore these things are to be far from the superman4 ,if he must resemble somebody1 it will be rather the condottieri of the renaissance or the princes and courtiers of the seventeenth century2 ,csar ,borgia is the supreme instance4 ,he must have a splendid presence and address1 gallantry1 contempt for convention1 loyalty to no country1 no woman1 and no idea1 but always a buoyant and lordly assertion of instinct and of self4 ,in the helter-skelter of his irritable genius1 ,nietzsche jumbled together the ferocity of solitary beasts1 the indifference and hauteur of patricians1 and the antics of revellers1 and out of that mixture he hoped to evoke the rulers of the coming age4 ,pg #aci ,how could so fantastic an ideal impose on a keen satirist like ,nietzsche and a sincere lover of excellence8 ,because true human excellence seemed to him hostile to life1 and he felt--this was his strong and sane side1 his lien on the future--that life must be accepted as it is or may become1 and false beliefs1 hollow demands1 and hypocritical1 forced virtues must be abandoned4 ,this new wisdom was that which ,goethe1 too1 had felt and practised2 and of all masters of life ,goethe was the one whom ,nietzsche could best understand4 ,but a master of life1 without being in the least hostile to life1 since he fulfils it1 nevertheless uses life for ends which transcend it4 ,even ,goethe1 omnivorous and bland as he was1 transcended life in depicting and judging and blessing it4 ,the saints and the true philosophers have naturally emphasised more this renunciation of egotism3 they have seen all things in the light of eternity--that is1 as they are in truth--and have consequently felt a reasonable contempt for mere living and mere dying2 and in that precisely lies moral greatness4 ,here ,nietzsche could not follow2 rationality chilled him2 he craved vehemence4 ,how life can be fulfilled and made beautiful by reason was never better shown than by the ,greeks1 both by precept and example4 ,nietzsche in his youth was a professor of ,greek literature3 one would have ,pg #adj expected his superman to be a sort of ,greek hero4 ,something of the ,dorian harshness in beauty1 something of the ,pindaric high-born and silent victor may have been fused into ,nietzsche's ideal2 certainly ,bacchic freedom and ardour were to enter in4 ,but on the whole it is remarkable how little he learned from the ,greeks1 no modesty or reverence1 no joy in order and in loveliness1 no sense for friendship1 none for the sanctity of places and institutions4 ,he repeated the paradoxes of some of their sophists1 without remembering how their wise men had refuted them4 ,for example1 he gave a new name and a new prominence to the distinction between what he called the ,dionysiac and the ,apollonian elements in ,greek genius4 ,he saw how false was that whitewashed notion of the ,greek mind which young ladies derived from sketching a plaster cast of the ,apollo ,belvidere4#a ,he saw that a demonic force1 as the generation of ,goethe called it1 underlay everything2 what he did not see was that this demonic force was under control1 which is the secret of the ,pg #ada whole matter4 ,the point had been thoroughly elucidated by ,plato1 in the contrast he drew between inspiration and art4 ,but ,plato was rather ironical about inspiration1 and had a high opinion of art2 and ,nietzsche1 with1 his contrary instinct1 rushes away without understanding the mind of the master or the truth of the situation4 ,he thinks he alone has discovered the divinity of ,dionysus and of the ,muses1 which ,plato took as a matter of course but would not venerate superstitiously4 ,inspiration1 like will1 is a force without which reason can do nothing4 ,inspiration must be presupposed2 but in itself it can do nothing good unless it is in harmony with reason1 or is brought into harmony with it4 ,this two-edged wisdom that makes impulse the stuff of life and reason its criterion1 is1 of course1 lost on ,nietzsche1 and with it the whole marvel of ,greek genius4 ,there is nothing exceptional in being alive and impulsive2 any savage can run wild and be frenzied and enact histrionic passions3 the virtue of the ,greeks lay in the exquisite firmness with which they banked their fires without extinguishing them1 so that their life remained human 7indeed1 remained infra-human1 like that of ,nietzsche's superman7 and yet became beautiful3 they were severe and fond of maxims1 on a basis of universal tolerance2 they governed themselves rationally1 with a careful freedom1 while well aware ,pg #adb that nature and their own bosoms were full of gods1 all of whom must be reverenced4 ,after all1 this defect in appreciation is inseparable from the transcendental pose4 ,the ancients1 like everything else1 never seem to the egotist a reality co-ordinate with himself1 from which he might still have something to learn4 ,they are only so much content for his self-consciousness1 so much matter for his thought to transcend4 ,they can contain nothing for him but the part of his outgrown self which he deigns to identify with them4 ,his mind must always envelop them and be the larger thing4 ,no wonder that in this school learning is wasted for the purposes of moral education4 ,whoever has seen the learned egotist flies at his approach4 ,history in his hands is a demonstration of his philosophy4 ,science is a quarry of proofs for his hobbies4 ,if we do not agree with him we are not merely mistaken 7every philosopher tells us that71 but we are false to ourselves and ignorant of our ideal significance4 ,his ego gives us our place in the world4 ,he informs us of what we mean1 whatever we may say2 and he raises our opinions1 as he might his food1 to a higher unity in his own person4 ,he is priest in every temple4 ,he approaches a picture-gallery or a foreign religion in a dictatorial spirit1 with his a priori categories ready on his lips2 pedantry and vanity speak in his ,pg #adc every gesture1 and the lesson of nothing can reach his heart4 ,no1 neither the philosophy inherited by ,nietzsche nor his wayward imagination was fit to suggest to him a nobler race of men4 ,on the contrary1 they shut him off from comprehension of the best men that have existed4 ,like the utopias or ideals of many other satirists and minor philosophers1 the superman is not a possibility1 it is only a protest4 ,our society is outworn1 but hard to renew2 the emancipated individual needs to master himself4 ,in what spirit or to what end he will do so1 we do not know1 and ,nietzsche cannot tell us4 ,he is the jester1 to whom all incoherences are forgiven1 because all indiscretions are allowed4 ,his mind is undisciplined1 and his tongue outrageous1 but he is at bottom the friend of our conscience1 and full of shrewd wit and tender wisps of intuition4 ,behind his gay wisdom and trivial rhymes lies a great anguish4 ,his intellect is lost in a chaos4 ,his heart denies itself the relief of tears and can vent itself only in forced laughter and mock hopes that gladden nobody1 least of all himself4 #a ,i was about to say3 ,how false was the notion of ,winkelmann about the grandeur and repose of the ,greek spirit4 ,but ,winkelmann1 if his sense for the chained monsters in the ,greek soul was inadequate1 was at least in real sympathy with what had inspired ,greek sculpture1 love and knowledge of the human body in the life1 made gentle by discipline and kept strong by training4 ,for that reason ,winkelmann seems hardly a ,german3 his learning was deficient and his heart was humble4 ,he did not patronise the ancients1 he believed in them4 ,pg #add ,,chapter ,,xiv ,,heathenism ,schopenhauer somewhere observes that the word heathen1 no longer in reputable use elsewhere1 had found a last asylum in ,oxford1 the paradise of dead philosophies4 ,even ,oxford1 ,i believe1 has now abandoned it2 yet it is a good word4 ,it conveys1 as no other word can1 the sense of vast multitudes tossing in darkness1 harassed by demons of their own choice4 ,no doubt it implies also a certain sanctimony in the superior person who uses it1 as if he at least were not chattering in the general ,babel4 ,what justified ,jews1 ,christians1 and ,moslems 7as ,mohammed in particular insisted7 in feeling this superiority was the possession of a ,book1 a chart of life1 as it were1 in which the most important features of history and morals were mapped out for the guidance of teachable men4 ,the heathen1 on the contrary1 were abandoned to their own devices1 and even prided themselves on following only their spontaneous will1 their habit1 presumption1 or caprice4 ,most unprejudiced people would now agree that the value of those sacred histories and rules of life did not depend on their alleged miraculous origin1 ,pg #ade but rather on that solidity and perspicacity in their authors which enabled them to perceive the laws of sweet and profitable conduct in this world4 ,it was not religion merely that was concerned1 at least not that outlying1 private1 and almost negligible sphere to which we often apply this name2 it was the whole fund of experience mankind had gathered by living2 it was wisdom4 ,now1 to record these lessons of experience1 the ,greeks and ,romans also had their ,books2 their history1 poetry1 science1 and civil law4 ,so that while the theologically heathen may be those who have no ,bible1 the morally and essentially heathen are those who possess no authoritative wisdom1 or reject the authority of what wisdom they have2 the untaught or unteachable who disdain not only revelation but what revelation stood for among early peoples1 namely1 funded experience4 ,in this sense the ,greeks were the least heathen of men4 ,they were singularly docile to political experiment1 to law1 to methodical art1 to the proved limitations and resources of mortal life4 ,this life they found closely hedged about by sky1 earth1 and sea1 by war1 madness1 and conscience with their in-dwelling deities1 by oracles and local genii with their accustomed cults1 by a pervasive fate1 and the jealousy of invisible gods4 ,yet they saw that these divine forces were constant1 and that they exercised ,pg #adf their pressure and bounty with so much method that a prudent art and religion could be built up in their midst4 ,all this was simply a poetic prologue to science and the arts2 it largely passed into them1 and would have passed into them altogether if the naturalistic genius of ,greece had not been crossed in ,socrates by a premature discouragement1 and diverted into other channels4 ,early ,hebraism itself had hardly been so wise4 ,it had regarded its tribal and moral interests as absolute1 and the ,creator as the champion and omnipotent agent of ,israel4 ,but this arrogance and inexperience were heathen4 ,soon the ascendency of ,israel over nature and history was proclaimed to be conditional on their fidelity to the ,law2 and as the spirit of the nation under chastisement became more and more penitential1 it was absorbed increasingly in the praise of wisdom4 ,salvation was to come only by repentance1 by being born again with a will wholly transformed and broken2 so that the later ,jewish religion went almost as far as ,platonism or ,christianity in the direction opposite to heathenism4 ,this movement in the direction of an orthodox wisdom was regarded as a progress in those latter days of antiquity when it occurred1 and it continued to be so regarded in ,christendom until the rise of romanticism4 ,the most radical reformers simply ,pg #adg urged that the current orthodoxy1 religious or scientific1 was itself imperfectly orthodox1 being corrupt1 overloaded1 too vague1 or too narrow4 ,as every actual orthodoxy is avowedly incomplete and partly ambiguous1 a sympathetic reform of it is always in order4 ,yet very often the reformers are deceived4 ,what really offends them may not be what is false in the received orthodoxy1 but what though true is uncongenial to them4 ,in that case heathenism1 under the guise of a search for a purer wisdom1 is working in their souls against wisdom of any sort4 ,such is the suspicion that ,catholics would throw on ,protestantism1 naturalists on idealism1 and conservatives generally on all revolutions4 ,but if ever heathenism needed to pose as constructive reform1 it is now quite willing and able to throw off the mask4 ,desire for any orthodox wisdom at all may be repudiated2 it may be set down to low vitality and failure of nerve4 ,in various directions at once we see to-day an intense hatred and disbelief gathering head against the very notion of a cosmos to be discovered1 or a stable human nature to be respected4 ,nature1 we are told1 is an artificial symbol employed by life2 truth is a temporary convention2 art is an expression of personality2 war is better than peace1 effort than achievement1 and feeling than intelligence2 change is deeper than ,pg #adh form2 will is above morality4 ,expressions of this kind are sometimes wanton and only half thought out2 but they go very deep in the subjective direction4 ,behind them all is a sincere revulsion against the difficult and confused undertakings of reason2 against science1 institutions1 and moral compulsions4 ,they mark an honest retreat into immediate experience and animal faith4 ,man used to be called a rational animal1 but his rationality is something eventual and ideal1 whereas his animality is actual and profound4 ,heathenism1 if we consider life at large1 is the primal and universal religion4 ,it has never been my good fortune to see wild beasts in the jungle1 but ,i have sometimes watched a wild bull in the ring1 and ,i can imagine no more striking1 simple1 and heroic example of animal faith2 especially when the bull is what is technically called noble1 that is1 when he follows the lure again and again with eternal singleness of thought1 eternal courage1 and no suspicion of a hidden agency that is mocking him4 ,what the red rag is to this brave creature1 their passions1 inclinations1 and chance notions are to the heathen4 ,what they will they will2 and they would deem it weakness and disloyalty to ask whether it is worth willing or whether it is attainable4 ,the bull1 magnificently sniffing the air1 surveys the arena with the cool contempt and ,pg #adi disbelief of the idealist1 as if he said3 ,you seem1 you are a seeming2 ,i do not quarrel with you1 ,i do not fear you4 ,i am real1 you are nothing4 ,then suddenly1 when his eye is caught by some bright cloak displayed before him1 his whole soul changes4 ,his will awakes and he seems to say3 ,you are my destiny2 ,i want you1 ,i hate you1 you shall be mine1 you shall not stand in my path4 ,i will gore you4 ,i will disprove you4 ,i will pass beyond you4 ,i shall be1 you shall not have been4 ,later1 when sorely wounded and near his end1 he grows blind to all these excitements4 ,he smells the moist earth1 and turns to the dungeon where an hour ago he was at peace4 ,he remembers the herd1 the pasture beyond1 and he dreams3 ,i shall not die1 for ,i love life4 ,i shall be young again1 young always1 for ,i love youth4 ,all this outcry is nought to me1 this strange suffering is nought4 ,i will go to the fields again1 to graze1 to roam1 to love4 ,so exactly1 with not one least concession to the unsuspected reality1 the heathen soul stands bravely before a painted world1 covets some bauble1 and defies death4 ,heathenism is the religion of will1 the faith which life has in itself because it is life1 and in its aims because it is pursuing them4 ,in their tentative1 many-sided1 indomitable way1 the ,germans have been groping for four hundred ,pg #aej years towards a restoration of their primitive heathenism4 ,germany under the long tutelage of ,rome had been like a spirited and poetic child brought up by very old and very worldly foster-parents4 ,for many years the elfin creature may drink in their gossip and their maxims with simple wonder2 but at last he will begin to be restive under them1 ask himself ominous questions1 protest1 suffer1 and finally break into open rebellion4 ,naturally he will not find at first theories and precepts of his own to take the place of his whole education2 he will do what he can with his traditions1 revising1 interpreting1 and patching them with new ideas2 and only if he has great earnestness and speculative power will he ever reach an unalloyed expression of his oppressed soul4 ,now in ,germany speculative power and earnestness existed in a high degree1 not1 of course1 in most people1 but in the best and most representative2 and it was this lite that made the ,reformation1 and carried it on into historical criticism and transcendental philosophy1 until in the nineteenth century1 in ,schopenhauer1 ,wagner1 and ,nietzsche1 the last remnants of ,christian education were discarded and the spontaneous heathen morality of the race reasserted itself in its purity4 ,that this assertion was not consistent1 that it was thrown into the language and images of some alien system1 is not to be ,pg #aea wondered at2 but the ,christianity of ,parsifal1 like the ,buddhism of the denial of the will1 is a pure piece of romanticism1 an exotic setting for those vacillations and sinkings which absolute ,will may very well be subject to in its absolute chaos4 ,the rebellion of the heathen soul is unmistakable in the ,reformation1 but it is not recognised in this simple form1 because those who feel that it was justified do not dream that it was heathen1 and those who see that it was heathen will not admit that it was justified4 ,externally1 of course1 it was an effort to recover the original essence of ,christianity2 but why should a free and absolute being care for that original essence when he has discovered it1 unless his own mind demanded that very thing8 ,and if his mind demanded it1 what need has he to read that demand into an ancient revelation which1 as a matter of fact1 turned on quite other matters8 ,it was simply the inertia of established prejudice that made people use tradition to correct tradition2 until the whole substance of tradition1 worn away by that internal friction1 should be dissolved1 and impulse and native genius should assert themselves unimpeded4 ,judaism and ,christianity1 like ,greek philosophy1 were singly inspired by the pursuit of happiness1 in whatever form it might be really attainable3 now ,pg #aeb on earth if possible1 or in the millennium1 or in some abstracted and inward life1 like that of the ,stoics1 or in the last resort1 in a different life altogether beyond the grave4 ,but heathenism ignores happiness1 despises it1 or thinks it impossible4 ,the regimen and philosophy of ,germany are inspired by this contempt for happiness1 for one's own happiness as well as for other people's4 ,happiness seems to the ,german moralists something unheroic1 an abdication before external things1 a victory of the senses over the will4 ,they think the pursuit of happiness low1 materialistic1 and selfish4 ,they wish everybody to sacrifice or rather to forget happiness1 and to do deeds4 ,it is in the nature of things that those who are incapable of happiness should have no idea of it4 ,happiness is not for wild animals1 who can only oscillate between apathy and passion4 ,to be happy1 even to conceive happiness1 you must be reasonable or 7if ,nietzsche prefers the word7 you must be tamed4 ,you must have taken the measure of your powers1 tasted the fruits of your passions and learned your place in the world and what things in it can really serve you4 ,to be happy you must be wise4 ,this happiness is sometimes found instinctively1 and then the rudest fanatic can hardly fail to see how lovely it is2 but sometimes it comes of having learned something by experience 7which empirical people never ,pg #aec do7 and involves some chastening and renunciation2 but it is not less sweet for having this touch of holiness about it1 and the spirit of it is healthy and beneficent4 ,the nature of happiness1 therefore1 dawns upon philosophers when their wisdom begins to report the lessons of experience3 an a priori philosophy can have no inkling of it4 ,happiness is the union of vitality with art1 and in so far as vitality is a spiritual thing and not mere restlessness and vehemence1 art increases vitality4 ,it obviates friction1 waste1 and despair4 ,without art1 vitality is painful and big with monsters4 ,it is hurried easily into folly and crime2 it ignores the external forces and interests which it touches4 ,german philosophy does this theoretically1 by dethroning the natural world and calling it an idea created by the ego for its own purposes2 and it does this practically also by obeying the categorical imperative--no longer the fabled imperatives of ,sinai or of ,knigsberg1 but the inward and vital imperative which the bull obeys1 when trusting absolutely in his own strength1 rage1 and courage1 he follows a little red rag and his destiny this way and that way4 ,pg #aed ,,chapter ,,xv ,,german ,,genius ,it is customary to judge religions and philosophies by their truth1 which is seldom their strong point2 yet the application of that unsympathetic criterion is not unjust1 since they aspire to be true1 maintain that they are so1 and forbid any opposed view1 no matter how obvious and inevitable1 to be called true in their stead4 ,but when religions and philosophies are dead1 or when we are so removed from them by time or training that the question of their truth is not a living question for us1 they do not on that account lose all their interest2 then1 in fact1 for the first time they manifest their virtues to the unbeliever4 ,he sees that they are expressions of human genius2 that however false to their subject-matter they may be1 like the conventions of art they are true to the eye and to the spirit that fashioned them4 ,and as nothing in the world1 not even the truth1 is so interesting as human genius1 these incredible or obsolete religions and philosophies become delightful to us4 ,the sting is gone out of their errors1 which no longer threaten to delude us1 and they have acquired a beauty invisible to the eye of their authors1 because ,pg #aee of the very refraction which the truth suffered in that vital medium4 ,german philosophy is a work of genius4 ,to be heathen is easy2 to have an absolute will and a belief in chaos--or rather a blind battle with chance--is probably the lot of most animals2 but to be condemned to be learned1 industrious1 moral1 and ,christian1 and yet1 through that veil of unavoidable phenomena and conventions1 to pierce to absolute will and freedom1 and to set them forth persuasively as the true reality1 in spite of all the ordered appearances which do not cease to confront and to occupy us--that is a work of genius4 ,it is a wonderful achievement1 to have recovered atavistically the depths of the primitive soul1 in the midst of its later sophistication4 ,in this philosophy the ancestral ego1 the soul perplexed and incredulous at being born into this world1 returns to haunt us in broad day-light and to persuade us with its ghostly eloquence that not that ego but this world is the ghost4 ,the egotism which in ,german philosophy is justified by a theory in ,german genius is a form of experience4 ,it turns everything it touches into a part of its own life1 personal1 spontaneous1 sincere1 original4 ,it is young and self-sufficient2 yet as a continual change of view is incompatible with art and learning1 we see in ,germany1 even more than elsewhere1 ,pg #aef a division of labour between genius and tradition2 nowhere are the types of the young rebel and the tireless pedant so common and so extreme4 ,the notion that something that moves and lives1 as genius does1 can at the same time be absolute has some interesting implications4 ,such a genius and all its works must be unstable4 ,as it has no external sources and no external objects1 as its own past can exercise no control over it 7for that would be the most lifeless of tyrannies71 it is a sort of shooting star1 with no guarantees for the future4 ,this1 for the complete egotist1 has no terrors4 ,a tragic end and a multitude of enemies may seem good to the absolute hero and necessary to his perfect heroism4 ,in the same way1 to be without a subject-matter or an audience may seem good to the absolute poet1 who sings to himself as he goes1 exclusively for the benefit of that glorious and fleeting moment4 ,genius could not be purer than that3 although perhaps it might be hard to prove that it was genius4 ,a kindred implication1 which perhaps might be less welcome to the egotist himself1 is that an absolute genius is formless1 and that the absolute freedom with which it thinks it takes on now this form and now that1 is not really freedom at all1 but subjection to unknown and perhaps ironical forces4 ,absolute ,will1 of which a perfectly free genius is an expression1 ,pg #aeg cannot say specifically what it craves1 for essentially it should crave everything indiscriminately4 ,in practice1 however1 it must seem to aim at this or that precise result4 ,these specific aims are suggested to it by circumstances1 foisted upon it in its replete innocence2 for it is all expectation1 all vague heartiness and zeal for it knows not what4 ,the logic it proclaims at any time and calls eternal is but the fashionable rhetoric of that hour4 ,absolute ,will is a great dupe on whom fortune forces card after card4 ,like ,faust it is helpless before the most vulgar temptations4 ,why should it not fulfil itself now by the pursuit of magic1 now by the seduction of a young girl1 now by an archological pose1 now by a piratical or an engineering enterprise8 ,true1 there are limits to its gullibility2 there are suggestions from which it recoils4 ,the ,german ego1 after swallowing ,christianity whole1 will in ,luther stick at ,indulgences4 ,faust sometimes turns on ,mephistopheles1 as the worm will turn3 he says that he covets all experience1 but in that he does himself a great injustice2 there are experiences he scorns4 ,after all this ego is not really absolute2 it is specifically and pathetically human and directed upon a few natural ends4 ,that is what saves it2 for a mind can have no distinction and a soul no honour if its only maxim is to live on4 ,it may take up with enthusiasm ,pg #aeh whatever it takes up1 but it will take up anything2 and it may do mightily whatever it does1 but it will not do it long4 ,consider1 in this respect1 the pathetic history of the ,german people4 ,it conquered the ,roman empire and it became ,roman1 or wished to become so4 ,it had had a mythology and a morality of its own 7very like in principle to those it has since rediscovered71 yet it accepted ,christianity with the docility of a child4 ,it began to feel1 after some centuries1 how alien to its genius this religion was1 but it could find relief only in a fresh draught from the same foreign sources1 or others more remote4 ,to cease to be ,roman it tried to become ,hebraic and ,greek4 ,in studying these models1 however1 it came upon a new scent4 ,what passed for revelation or for classical perfection was of human national growth1 stratified like the rocks1 and not divine or authoritative at all4 ,if you only made hypotheses enough1 you could prove how it all arose according to necessary laws1 logical1 psychological1 historical1 economical1 and sthetical4 ,above all1 you could prove how nobody had understood anything properly before1 and how the key to it all was in your single hand4 ,yet the triumphs of theory alone soon seemed unsatisfying4 ,wine1 science1 and song once seemed to make ,germany happy1 but if a prince imposed ,pg #aei military discipline1 might not that be an even better thing8 ,for a time wistfulness1 longing1 and the feeling of ,titanic loneliness and of a world to be evoked and snuffed out like a dream1 seemed to fill the cup of intense living1 and the greatest and happiest of ,germans could cry-- ,nur wer die ,sehnsucht kennt weiss1 was ich leide1 allein und abgetrennt von aller ,freude4 ,but presently true intensity of life appeared to lie rather in being a victorious general1 or an ironmaster1 or a commercial traveller1 or a reveller in the ,friedrich-strasse1 or a spy and conspirator anywhere in the world4 ,all these turbid and nondescript ambitions are in a sense artificial2 the ,germans accept them now as a thousand years ago they accepted ,christianity1 because such things are suddenly thrust upon them4 ,by nature they are simple1 honest1 kindly1 easily pleased4 ,there is no latent irony or disbelief in their souls4 ,the pleasures of sense1 plain and copious1 they enjoy hugely1 long labour does not exasperate them1 science fills them with satisfaction1 music entrances them4 ,there ought to be no happier or more innocent nation in this world4 ,unfortunately their very goodness and simplicity render them helpless2 they are what they are dragooned to be4 ,there is no social or intellectual disease to which1 in spots1 ,pg #afj they do not succumb1 as to an epidemic3 their philosophy itself is an example of this4 ,they have the defects of the newly prosperous2 they are far too proud of their possessions1 esteeming them for being theirs1 without knowing whether they are good of their kind4 ,culture is a thing seldom mentioned by those who have it4 ,the real strength of the ,germans lies not in those external achievements of which at this moment they make so much--for they may outgrow this new materialism of theirs--it lies rather in what they have always prized1 their ,gemth and their music4 ,perhaps these two things have a common root4 ,emotion is inarticulate1 yet there is a mighty movement in it1 and a great complexity of transitions and shades4 ,this intrinsic movement of the feelings is ordinarily little noticed because people are too wide awake1 or too imaginative4 ,everything is a fact or a picture to them1 and their emotions seem to them little but obvious qualities of things4 ,they roundly call things beautiful1 painful1 holy1 or ridiculous2 they do not speak of their ,gemth1 although1 of course1 it is by virtue of their emotions that they pass such judgments4 ,but when the occasions of our emotions1 the objects that call them forth1 are not so instantly focussed1 when we know better what we feel than why we feel it1 then we seem to have a richer and more massive sensibility4 ,our feelings ,pg #afa absorb our attention because they remain a thing apart3 they seem to us wonderfully deep because we do not ground them in things external4 ,now music is a means of giving form to our inner feelings without attaching them to events or objects in the world4 ,music is articulate1 but articulate in a language which avoids1 or at least veils the articulation of the world we live in2 it is1 therefore1 the chosen art of a mind to whom the world is still foreign4 ,if this seems in one way an incapacity1 it is also a privilege4 ,not to be at home in the world1 to prize it chiefly for echoes which it may have in the soul1 to have a soul that can give forth echoes1 or that can generate internal dramas of sound out of its own resources--may this not be a more enviable endowment than that of a mind all surface1 a sensitive plate only able to photograph this not too beautiful earth8 ,in any case1 for better or for worse1 inward sensibility1 unabsorbed in worldly affairs1 exists in some people2 a life1 as it were1 still in the womb and not yet in contact with the air4 ,but let these inspired musicians1 masters in their own infinite realms1 beware of the touch of matter4 ,let them not compose a system of the universe out of their ,gemth1 as they might a symphony4 ,let them not raise their baton in the face of the stars or of the nations1 and think to lead them like an orchestra4 ,pg #afb ,,chapter ,,xvi ,,egotism ,,in ,,practice ,theories in their own ethereal essence can have no influence on events4 ,but the men who conceive and adopt a theory form1 in doing so1 certain habits of discrimination and of reaction to things4 ,in fact1 they have conceived and adopted their theory because their habits of apprehension and action suggested it to them1 or could be brought to suggest it3 the explicit theory is a symbol and omen of their practical attitude1 of their way1 as the phrase has it1 of grasping the situation4 ,all philosophies have the common property of being speculative1 and1 therefore1 their immediate influence on those who hold them is in many ways alike1 however opposed the theories may be to one another3 they all make people theoretical4 ,in this sense any philosophy1 if warmly embraced1 has a moralising force1 because1 even if it belittles morality1 it absorbs the mind in intellectual contemplation1 accustoms it to wide and reasoned comparisons1 and makes the sorry escapades of human nature from convention seem even more ignominious than its ruling prejudices4 ,the particular theory of egotism arises from an ,pg #afc exorbitant interest in ourselves1 in the medium of thought and action rather than in its objects4 ,it is not necessarily incorrect1 because the self is actual and indispensable2 but the insistence on it is a little abnormal1 because the self1 like consciousness1 ought to be diaphanous4 ,egotism in philosophy is1 therefore1 a pretty sure symptom of excessive pedantry and inordinate self-assertion4 ,in the lofty theory of egotism life is represented as a sort of game of patience1 in which the rules1 the cards1 the table1 and the empty time on our hands1 all are mere images created by the fancy1 as in a dream4 ,the sense of being occupied1 though one really has nothing to do1 will then be the secret of the whole affair1 and the sole good to be attained by living4 ,of course this fantastic theory is put forward only on great occasions1 when an extreme profundity is in place2 but like other esoteric doctrines it expresses very well the spirit in which those people live habitually who would appeal to it in the last resort4 ,obviously such an egotist should in consistency be a man of principle4 ,he would feel it to be derogatory to his dignity1 and contrary to his settled purpose1 to cheat at the game he has instituted4 ,that luck should sometimes go against him is pre-ordained by himself2 otherwise the game would have no zest1 and to be interested1 to be pressed1 ,pg #afd even to be annoyed seems the highest good to him in his great tedium4 ,he will1 therefore1 be assiduous1 patient1 and law-abiding2 and the idea of ever abandoning his chosen game for anything less forced and less arbitrary will seem to him disloyalty to himself1 and a great wickedness4 ,indeed1 nothing beside his own purpose will have any value in his eyes1 or even any existence4 ,he will therefore inevitably act without consideration for others1 without courtesy1 without understanding4 ,when he chooses to observe anything external--and he is studious--his very attentions will be an insult2 for he will assume that his idea of that external thing is the reality of it1 and that other people can have only such rights and only such a character as he is willing to assign to them4 ,it follows from his egotistical principles that in judging others he should be officious and rude1 learned and mistaken4 ,what the egotist calls his will and his ideals are1 taken together1 simply his passions2 but the passions of the egotist are turned into a system and go unrebuked4 ,a man who lowers his precepts to the level of his will may the more easily raise his practice to the level of his precepts4 ,he endows his life with a certain coherence1 momentum1 and integrity1 just because he has suppressed all vain aspiration and all useless shame4 ,he does not call himself a sinner2 ,pg #afe he would be at a loss for a reason to think himself one2 for really his standard of virtue expresses nothing but his prevalent will4 ,is it not intelligible that such a morality should be more efficacious1 more unifying1 heavier1 and more convinced than one which begins by condemning our natural passions and the habitual course of human life8 ,in fact1 egotism in practice is a solemn and arduous business2 there is nothing malicious about it and nothing gay4 ,there is rather a stolid surprise that such honest sentiments and so much enterprise should not meet everywhere with applause4 ,if other people are put thereby at a disadvantage1 why should they not learn their lesson and adopt in their turn the methods of the superman8 ,if they are touched by the vanity and the charm of existence and neglect the intense pursuit of their absolute will1 why do they complain if they are jostled and beaten8 ,only he deserves life and freedom1 said ,goethe1 who is forced daily to win them afresh4 ,if the egotist suffers passion to speak in his philosophy1 it is perhaps because he has so little passion4 ,men of frank passions quickly see the folly of them2 but the passions of the egotist are muffled1 dull1 like the miserly passions of old men2 they are diffused into sensuality and sentiment1 or hardened into maxims4 ,egotistical lovers can hold hands for hours ,pg #aff and chastely kiss each other for years2 such tokens of affection help to keep them in love and at the same time are a sop to more troublesome impulses4 ,sentimentality and gush mark the absence of passion3 the blood has been diluted to lymph4 ,hence the egotist can the more easily mistake his passions for duties1 and his cupidities for ideals4 ,his devotion to these ideals is pure and enthusiastic2 but in serving them he fattens steadily1 as punctual at his work as at his meals1 as dutifully moved by the approved music as by the official patriotism1 vicious when it seems manly to be vicious1 brutal when it seems politic to be brutal2 he feels he is impeccable1 and he must die in his sins4 ,nothing can ruffle the autonomous conscience of this kind of idealist1 whose nature may be gross1 but whose life is busy and conventional1 and who loudly congratulates himself daily on all he knows and does4 ,turn the circumstances about as you like1 the egotist finds only one ultimate reason for everything4 ,it is not a reason2 it is absolute will4 ,suppose we asked the ego1 in the ,fichtean system1 why it posited a material world to be its implacable enemy and rebellious toy1 and why without necessity it raised this infinity of trouble for itself and for the unhappy world which it created by its fiat4 ,it could only reply3 ,because such is the categorical imperative ,pg #afg within me2 because so ,i will1 so ,i must1 and so my absolute duty and its logic require4 ,if the consequences are tragic--and in the end ,i know they must be tragic--that only proves the sublime unselfishness of my egotism1 the purity of my sacred folly1 the ideality of my groundless will4 ,all reasons1 all justifications which might appeal to me must be posterior to my will2 my will itself can have no justification and no reason4 ,let us admire the sincerity of this searching confession4 ,virtue itself1 if it relied on self-consciousness for its philosophy1 could not justify itself on other grounds4 ,if the difference between virtue and vice is hereby obliterated1 that only proves that the difference is not founded on self-consciousness but on the circumstances and powers under which we live4 ,what self-consciousness can disclose is not the basis of anything4 ,all will is the expression of some animal ,i body1 frail and mortal1 but teachable and rich in resource4 ,the environment in which this will finds itself controls and rewards its various movements1 and establishes within it the difference between virtue and vice1 wisdom and folly4 ,the whole transcendental philosophy1 if made ultimate1 is false1 and nothing but a private perspective4 ,the will is absolute neither in the individual nor in humanity4 ,nature is not a product of ,pg #afh the mind1 but on the contrary there is an external world1 ages prior to any idea of it1 which the mind recognises and feeds upon4 ,there is a steady human nature within us1 which our moods and passions may wrong but cannot annul4 ,there is no categorical imperative but only the operation of instincts and interests more or less subject to discipline and mutual adjustment4 ,our whole life is a compromise1 an incipient loose harmony between the passions of the soul and the forces of nature1 forces which likewise generate and protect the souls of other creatures1 endowing them with powers of expression and self-assertion comparable with our own1 and with aims no less sweet and worthy in their own eyes2 so that the quick and honest mind cannot but practise courtesy in the universe1 exercising its will without vehemence or forced assurance1 judging with serenity1 and in everything discarding the word absolute as the most false and the most odious of words4 ,as ,montaigne observes1 ,he who sets before him1 as in a picture1 this vast image of our mother ,nature in her entire majesty2 who reads in her aspect such universal and continual variety2 who discerns himself therein1 and not himself only but a whole kingdom1 to be but a most delicate dot--he alone esteems things according to the just measure of their greatness4 ,pg #afi ,,index ,alexander the ,great1 a model for ,german idealists1 #hj1 #ha ,aristotle1 #abj1 #abd ,belief in ,god1 disproved pragmatically1 #acd ,bull-psychology1 #adh1 #aec ,burckhardt1 #dg ,byron1 #dh1 #di ,csar ,borgia1 a superman1 #ach ,calvinism1 in ,kant1 #eg2 in ,fichte1 #be1 #gg2 in ,hegel1 #aaa ,categorical imperative1 its origin1 #ef2 its prerogatives1 #fb2 its dangers1 #fc ,chancellor1 the ,german1 his chivalrous after-thought about ,belgium1 #ej ,christianity1 foreign to ,germany1 #aa2 undermined by ,german philosophy1 #ajd1 #aje2 patronised by ,goethe1 #df2 abandoned by romantic individualists1 #ajg2 denounced by ,nietzsche1 #acj-acb2 has one element in common with egotism1 #ajf ,classicism1 romantic in ,goethe1 #df2 missed by ,nietzsche1 #aci-adb2 when truly vital1 #dh ,conquest1 a sublime duty1 #hj1 #ha ,contraries1 alleged to be inseparable1 #hi1 #ij ,criticism1 historical1 has a transcendental basis1 #bi ,critique of ,pure ,reason1 its agnosticism1 #ad2 its sophistical foundation1 #bj ,durer1 #bg ,egotism1 defined1 #f2 distinguished from selfishness1 #ie-ig1 #ajj-ajb1 #aah2 based on error1 #afg2 implicit in the ,kantian imperative and postulates1 #fb-fd2 implies integrity1 force1 self-complacency1 #afc-aff2 is odious in pedants1 #adb ,emerson1 #bd1 #di2 quoted1 #aai ,england1 judged by ,fichte1 #gf ,evil1 justified1 #abc1 #acb-acd ,faith1 ,german conception of it1 #ac1 #bg2 corroborated only by itself1 #ca1 #fh ,faust1 typical egotist1 #ac1 #ad2 prefigures the evolution of ,germany1 #ej1 #ea1 #aeg2 improves on ,saint ,john1 #eb ,fichte1 #fe-hc ,gemth1 why self-conscious1 #afj ,german ethics1 its faults1 #ajc ,german language1 its merits1 #ge ,german nation1 its purity1 #ge2 its mission1 #gh1 #gi2 in what sense the chosen people1 #gc1 #gd2 necessary to the continued existence of ,god1 #fh2 and of history1 #gi2 its fortunes1 #aeh-afj ,german philosophy1 not all philosophy in ,germany1 #aa2 primitive1 #bg2 subjective1 #ab2 in what senses idealistic1 #ae2 in what sense not so1 #af2 ambiguous1 #ag1 #ah2 a revelation1 #bb2 must continually be proved afresh1 #bf2 is a work of genius1 #aee ,gobineau1 #gg ,goethe1 #dc-ec2 quoted1 #aei1 #afe ,good and evil above right and wrong1 #abd ,gospel1 amended by ,faust1 #eb2 glossed by ,hegelians1 #aje ,happiness1 not for the egotist1 #ad1 #ae2 he despises it1 #aeb2 not abstract nor absolute1 #aaj1 #aaa2 attainable1 #aah2 its nature1 #aeb1 #aec ,heathenism1 use of the word1 #add2 contrast with paganism1 #ade1 #adf2 its modern form1 #adg1 #adh ,hegel1 #hd-ih ,human nature1 #aag1 #aah ,idealism1 meanings of the word1 #ae1 #af2 fosters practical materialism1 #e1 #fi-gb1 #gh1 #ha1 #hb2 should be imposed on the young1 #hj2 its mystical issue1 #ch-dj ,ideals1 when captious1 when solid1 #acg ,infinity1 evaded by ,hegel1 #hh1 #hi2 recognised again by ,schopenhauer1 #ajh1 #aji ,kant1 #ed-fd2 #be1 #cd1 #ce1 #db ,knowledge1 assumed to be impossible1 #ae2 abuse of the term1 #ci1 #fj ,leibniz1 anticipates transcendentalism1 #cc2 his insidious theology1 #ajd ,lessing1 on truth1 #abi ,locke1 sets the ball rolling1 #cb ,luther1 #ace1 #aeg ,max ,stirner1 #ii-ajc2 quoted1 #gc ,montaigne1 quoted1 #afh ,music1 #af1 #afa ,musset1 #di ,mysticism1 in knowledge1 #ch-dj2 in morals1 #abc ,nietzsche1 #aad-adc ,optimism1 egotistical1 #be1 #aaa1 #aad1 #aaf1 #aah1 #aai ,passion1 not naturally egotistical1 #aja2 may become so1 #ie1 #ih2 dull in egotists1 #afe1 #aff ,paulsen1 #db ,perception1 terminates in things not in ideas1 #ai ,pessimism1 inherits disregard of intrinsic values1 #aji2 reacts against optimism1 #be1 #aaa2 is arbitrary1 #aaf ,pier ,gynt1 typical egotist1 #ac1 #ad ,plato1 his idealism contrasted with the ,german1 #af2 his oppressive politics1 #ha2 on inspiration1 #ada ,postulates of practical reason1 equivocal1 #eh-fd ,power1 divers meanings of the word1 #abe-abg ,preservation1 no law of nature1 #aae ,progress1 when illusory1 #ag2 when real1 #aab ,protestantism1 #ba-ca1 #aea ,religion in ,german philosophy1 #g1 #ac1 #ge1 #gf1 #hb1 #hc ,rome and ,german genius1 #aej ,schopenhauer1 #ajh-abb ,selfishness1 distinguished from egotism1 #ie1 #ig1 #ajj-ajb1 #aah ,society1 its alleged consciousness1 #ag1 #ah2 a spook1 #ii ,socrates1 #adf ,spinoza1 religious feeling transferred to nature1 #bd2 his mysticism in ethics1 #abc ,spirit1 its meanings1 #cg2 its mystic unity1 #ch ,state1 the absolute1 an idol1 #if-ih ,substance1 egotistical use of the term1 #ag1 #ib ,superman1 #acf-adc ,tender minds1 how attracted to ,german philosophy1 #bd ,transcendentalism1 #cb-db ,truth1 a figment of the will1 #bh2 made in ,germany1 #hh2 less valuable than illusion1 #ad1 #abh-acj2 not the strong point of philosophies1 #aed ,understanding1 hostility of ,hegel to the1 #ij1 #ia ,wagner1 #acf1 #aej ,war1 a boon1 #if2 how it should be started1 #gi2 is to rage for two hundred years1 #aae ,wilhelm ,meister1 #dd ,will1 used metaphorically1 #cf1 #aad2 should be disinterested1 #fg2 may be fulfilled in defeat1 #ff1 #fg2 is unstable and indeterminate1 #aef-aeh2 may be denied1 #aai1 #abj ,winkelmann1 #adj1 note