Friedrich Nietzsche
Fighter for Freedom
GA 5
Part I - i. The Character
1.
[ 1 ] Friedrich Nietzsche characterizes himself as a lonely ponderer and friend of riddles, as a personality not made for the age in which he lived. The one who follows such paths as his, “meets no one; this is a part of going one's own way. No one approaches to help him; all that happens to him of danger, accidents, evil and bad weather, he must get along with alone,” he says in the preface of the second edition of his Morgenröte, Dawn. But it is stimulating to follow him into his loneliness. In the words in which he expressed his relationship to Schopenhauer, I would like to describe my relationship to Nietzsche: “I belong to those readers of Nietzsche who, after they have read the first page, know with certainty that they will read all pages, and listen to every word he has said. My confidence in him was there immediately ... I understood him as if he had written just for me, in order to express all that I would say intelligibly but immediately and foolishly.” One can speak thus and yet be far from acknowledging oneself as a “believer” in Nietzsche's world conception. But Nietzsche himself could not be further from wishing to have such “believers.” Did he not put into Zarathustra's mouth these words:
[ 2 ] “You say you believe in Zarathustra, but of what account is Zarathustra? You are my believer, but of what account are all believers?
[ 3 ] “You have not searched for yourselves as yet; there you found me. Thus do all believers, but, for that reason, there is so little in all believing. Now I advise you to forsake me and to find yourselves; and only when all of you have denied me will I return to you.”
[ 4 ] Nietzsche is no Messianic founder of a religion; therefore he can wish for friends who support his opinion, but he cannot wish for confessors to his teaching, who give up their own selves to find his.
[ 5 ] In Nietzsche's personality are found instincts which are contrary to the complete gamut of the ideas of his contemporaries. With instinctive aversion he rejects most of the important cultural ideas of those amid whom he developed himself and, indeed, not as one rejects an assertion in which one has discovered a logical contradiction, but rather as one turns away from a color which causes pain to the eye. The aversion starts from the immediate feeling to begin with, conscious thinking does not come into consideration at all. What other people feel when such thoughts as guilt, conscience, sin, life beyond, ideal happiness, fatherland, pass through their heads, works unpleasantly upon Nietzsche. The instinctive manner of rejection of these ideas also differentiates Nietzsche from the so-called “free thinkers” of the present. The latter know all the intellectual objections to “the old illusionary ideas,” but how rarely is one found who can say that his instincts no longer depend upon them! It is precisely the instincts which play bad tricks upon the free thinkers of the present time. The thinking takes on a character independent of the inherited ideas, but the instincts cannot adapt themselves to the changed character of the intellect. These “free thinkers” put just any belief of modern science in place of an old idea, but they speak about it in such a way that one realizes that the intellect goes another way from that of the instincts. The intellect searches in matter, in power, in the laws of nature, for the origin of phenomena; but the instincts misguide so that one has the same feeling toward this being that others have toward their personal God. Intellects of this type defend themselves against the accusation of the denial of God, but they do not do this because their world conception leads them to something which is in harmony with any form of God, but rather because from their forefathers they have inherited the tendency to feel an instinctive shudder at the expression, “the denial of God.” Great natural scientists emphasize that they do not wish to banish such ideas as God and immortality, but rather that they wish to transform them, in the sense of modern science. Their instincts simply have remained behind their intellect.
[ 6 ] A large number of these “free spirits” are of the opinion that the will of man is unfree. They say that under certain circumstances man must behave as his character and the conditions working upon him force him to act. But if we look at the opponents of the theory of “free will,” we shall find that the instincts of these “free spirits” turn away from a doer of an “evil” deed with exactly the same aversion as do the instincts of those who represent the opinion that according to its desires the “free will” could turn itself toward good or toward evil.
[ 7 ] The contradiction between intellect and instinct is the mark of our “modern spirits.” Within the most liberal thinkers of the present age the implanted instincts of Christian orthodoxy also still live. Exactly opposite instincts are active in Nietzsche's nature. He does not need first to reflect whether there are reasons against the acceptance of a personal world leader. His instinct is too proud to bow before such a one; for this reason he rejects such a representation. He says in his Zarathustra, “But that I may reveal to you my heart, to you, my friends: if there were Gods, how could I stand it not to be a God! Therefore, there are no Gods.” Nothing in his inner being compels him to accuse either himself or another as “guilty” of a committed action. To consider such a “guilty” action as unseemly, he needs no theory of “free” or “unfree” will.
[ 8 ] The patriotic feelings of his German compatriots are also repugnant to Nietzsche's instincts. He cannot make his feelings and his thinking dependent upon the circles of the people amid whom he was born and reared, nor upon the age in which he lives. “It is so small-townish,” he says in his Schopenhauer als Erzieher, Schopenhauer as Educator, “to make oneself duty-bound to opinions which no longer bind one a few hundred miles away. Orient and Occident are strokes of chalk which someone draws before our eyes to make fools of our timidity. I will make the attempt to come to freedom, says the young soul to itself; and then should it be hindered because accidentally two nations hate and fight each other, or because an ocean lies between two parts of the earth, or because there a religion is taught which did not exist a few thousand years previously?” The soul experiences of the Germans during the War of 1870 found so little echo in his soul that “while the thunder of battle passed from Wörth over Europe,” he sat in a small corner of the Alps, “brooding and puzzled, consequently most grieved, and at the same time not grieved,” and wrote down his thoughts about the Greeks. And, a few weeks later, as he found himself “under the walls of Metz,” he still was not freed from the questions which he had concerning the life and art of the Greeks. (See Versuch einer Selbstkritik, Attempt at a Self-Critique, in the 2nd edition of his Geburt der Tragödie, Birth of Tragedy.) When the war came to an end, he entered so little enthusiasm of his German contemporaries over the decisive victory that in the year 1873 in his writing about David Strauss he spoke about “the bad and dangerous consequences” of the victorious struggle. He even represented it as insanity that German culture should have been victorious in this struggle, and he described this insanity as dangerous because if it should become dominant within the German nation, the danger would exist of transforming the victory into complete defeat; a defeat, yes, an extirpation of the German spirit in favor of “the German realm.” This was Nietzsche's attitude at a time when the whole of Europe was filled with national fanaticism. It is the thinking of a personality not in harmony with his time, of a fighter against his time. Much more could be added to what has been said to show that Nietzsche's life of feeling and reflection was completely different from that of his contemporaries.
2.
[ 9 ] Nietzsche is no “thinker” in the usual sense of the word. For the deeply penetrating and valid questions which he had to ask in regard to the world and life, mere thinking was not sufficient. For these questions, all the forces of human nature must be unchained; intellectual thinking alone is not sufficient for the task. Nietzsche has no confidence in merely intellectually conceived reasons for an opinion. “There is a mistrust in me for dialectic, even for proofs” he writes to Georg Brandes on the 2nd of December 1887 (see his Menschen und Werke, Men and Works, p. 212). For those who would ask the reasons for his opinions, he is ready with the answer of Zarathustra, “You ask why? I do not belong to those of whom one may ask their why.” For him, a criterion was not that an opinion could be proved logically, but rather if it acted upon all forces of the human personality in such a way that it had value for life. He grants validity to a thought only if he finds it will add to the development of life. To see man as healthy as possible, as powerful as possible, as creative as possible, is his desire. Truth, beauty, all ideals, have value and concern the human being only to the extent that they foster life.
[ 10 ] The question about the value of truth appears in several of Nietzsche's writings. In the most daring form it is asked in his Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Beyond Good and Evil. “The will for truth which has misled us into so many hazards, that famous truthfulness, about which all philosophers have spoken with awe: what questions this will for truth has already put before us! What marvelous, difficult, worthy questions! This is already a long story, yet it seems that it has barely begun. Is it any wonder that we finally become mistrustful, lose patience, turn about impatiently? Is it any wonder that from the Sphinx we ourselves also learn to ask questions? Then who is it who asks questions here? What is it in us that really wants to penetrate ‘to truth?’ In fact, we had to stand for a long time before the question about the cause of will—until we finally remained completely still before a yet more fundamental question. We asked about the value of willing. That is, provided we want truth; why not rather untruth?”
[ 11 ] This is a thought of a boldness hardly to be surpassed. If one places beside it what another daring “ponderer and friend of riddles,” Johann Gottlieb Fichte, said about the striving after truth, then one realizes for the first time from what depths of human nature Nietzsche brings forth his ideas. “I am destined,” said Fichte, “to bear witness to truth; upon my life and my destiny, nothing depends; upon the effects of my life, infinitely much depends. I am a priest of truth; I am in its debt; for it I have bound myself to do all, to dare all, and to suffer all.” (Fichte, Über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten, On the Task of the Scholar, Lecture 4). These words describe the relationship of the most noble spirits of the newer Western culture to truth. In the face of all of Nietzsche's cited expressions, they appear superficial. Against them one can ask, Is it not possible that untruth has more valuable effects upon life than truth? Is it impossible that truth harms life? Has Fichte himself posed these questions? Have others done it who have borne “witness to truth?”
[ 12 ] But Nietzsche poses these questions. And he believes that he can become clear only when he treats this striving after truth not merely as an intellectual matter, but seeks the instincts which bring forth this striving. For it could well have been that these instincts make use of truth only as a medium to accomplish something which stands higher than truth. Nietzsche thinks after he has “looked at the philosophers long enough between the lines and upon the fingers,” that “most thinking of philosophers is secretly led by their instincts, and forced along definite ways.” The philosophers consider that the final impulse to action is the striving after truth. They believe this because they are unable to look into the depths of human nature. In reality, this striving after truth is guided by the will to power. With the help of truth, this power and fullness of life should be increased for the personality. The conscious thinking of the philosopher is of the opinion that the recognition of truth is a final goal; the unconsicous instinct that motivates this thinking strives toward the fostering of life. From this instinct, “the falsity of a judgment is no real objection toward a judgment;” for him only the question comes into consideration, “to what extent is it life furthering, life supporting, species supporting, perhaps even species cultivating.” (Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Beyond Good and Evil, ¶ 4.)
[ 13 ] Do you call will to truth, you wisest ones, that which impels you and makes you ardent?
[ 14 ] Will for the conceivableness of all being: thus do I name your will!
[ 15 ] All being would you first make conceivable, because you doubt with good reason whether it is already thinkable.
[ 16 ] But it shall yield to you and bend itself to you! So wills your will. Smooth shall it become, and subject to the spirit, as its mirror and reflection.
[ 17 ] That is your entire will, you wisest ones, a Will to Power. (Zarathustra, second part, The Self Surpassing).
[ 18 ] Truth is to make the world subservient to the spirit, and thereby serve life. Only as a life necessity has it value. But can one not go further and ask, what is this life worth in itself? Nietzsche considers such a question to be impossible. That everything alive wants to live as powerfully, as meaningfully as possible, he accepts as a fact about which he ponders no further. Life instincts ask no further about the value of life. They ask only what possibilities there are to increase the strength of its bearers. “Judgments, evaluations of life, either for or against, can never be true, in the final analysis; they have value only as symptoms, they come into consideration only as symptoms, and in themselves such judgments are nonsense. One must absolutely stretch out one's fingers and try to comprehend the astonishing finesse in the fact that the value of life cannot be measured. It cannot be measured by a living person because he partakes of it; indeed, for him it is even an object of strife: therefore he is no judge; neither can it be appraised by a dead person, for another reason. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life remains, so to speak, an accusation against him, a question concerning his wisdom and lack of wisdom.” (Götzendämmerung, Das Problem des Sokrates, The Twilight of Idols, The Problem of Socrates.) The question about the value of life exists only for a poorly educated, sick personality. A well-rounded personality lives without asking how much his life is worth.
[ 19 ] Because Nietzsche has the point of view described above, he places such little weight upon logical proofs for a judgment. It is of little account to him that a judgment lets itself be proved logically; he is interested in whether one can live well under its influence. Not alone the intellect, but the whole personality of the human being must be satisfied. The best thoughts are those which bring all forces of human nature into an activity adapted to the person.
[ 20 ] Only thoughts of this nature have interest for Nietzsche. He is not a philosophical brain, but a “gatherer of honey of the intellect” who searches for “honey baskets” of knowledge, and tries to bring home what benefits life.
3.
[ 21 ] In Nietzsche's personality, those instincts rule which make man a dominating, controlling being. Everything pleases him which manifests might; everything displeases him which discloses weakness. He feels happy only so long as he finds himself in conditions of life which heighten his power. He loves hindrances, obstacles against his activity, because he becomes aware of his own power by overcoming them. He looks for the most difficult paths which the human being can take. A fundamental trait of his character is expressed in the verse which he has written on the title page of the second edition of his Fröhliche Wissenschaft, Joyful Wisdom:
I live in my own house,
Have never copied anything from anyone,
And have ridiculed every master
Who has not ridiculed himself.
[ 22 ] Every kind of subordination to a strange power Nietzsche feels as weakness. And he thinks differently about that which is a “strange power” than many a one who considers himself to be “an independent, free spirit.” Nietzsche considers it a weakness when the human being; subordinates his thinking and his doing to so-called “eternal, brazen” laws of the intellect. Whatever the uniformly developed personality does, it does not allow it to be prescribed by a moral science, but only by the impulses of its own self. Man is already weak at the moment he searches for laws and rules according to which he shall think and act. Out of his own being the strong individual controls his way of thinking and doing.
[ 23 ] Nietzsche expresses this opinion in the crudest form in sentences, because of which narrow-minded people have characterized him as a downright dangerous spirit: “When the Christian Crusaders in the East came into collision with that invincible order of assassins, those orders of free thinking spirits, par excellence, whose lowest order lived in a state of discipline such as no order of monks ever attained, in some way or other they managed to get an inkling of that symbol and motto that was reserved for the highest grade alone, as their secret: ‘Nothing is true, everything is permissible!’ ... Truly, that was freedom of the spirit; thereby faith itself was giving notice to truth.” (Genealogie der Moral, Genealogy of Morals, 3rd Section, ¶ 24.) That these sentences are the expression of feelings of an aristocratic, of a master nature, which will not permit the individual to live freely according to his own laws, with no regard to the eternal truths and rules of morality, those people do not feel who by nature are adjusted to subordination. A personality such as Nietzsche cannot bear those tyrants who appear in the form of abstract moral commandments. I determine how I am to think, how I am to act, says such a nature.
[ 24 ] There are people who base their justification for calling themselves “free thinkers” upon the fact that in their thinking and acting they do not subject themselves to those laws which are derived from other human beings, but only to “the eternal laws of the intellect,” the “incontrovertible concepts of duty,” or “the Will of God.” Nietzsche does not regard such people as really strong personalities. For they do not think and act according to their own nature, but according to the commands of a higher authority. Whether the slave follows the arbitrariness of his master, the religious the revealed verities of a God, or the philosopher the demands of the intellect, this changes nothing of the fact that they are all obeyers. What does the commanding is of no importance; the deciding factor is that there is commanding, that the human being does not give his own direction for his acting, but thinks that there is a power which delineates this direction.
[ 25 ] The strong, truly free human being will not receive truth, he will create it; he will not let something “be permitted” him; he will not obey. “The real philosophers are commanders and law givers; they say, ‘Thus shall it be,’ they first decide the ‘why’ and ‘wherefore’ and thereby dispose of the preliminary labor of all philosophical workers, all conquerors of the past; they grasp at the future with creative hands and all that is and was becomes for them a means, a tool, a hammer. Their ‘knowing’ is creating, their creating is a law-giving, their will to truth is Will to Power. Are there such philosophers today? Were there once such philosophers? Must there not be such philosophers?” (Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Beyond Good and Evil, ¶ 211.)
4.
[ 26 ] Nietzsche sees a special indication of human weakness in every type of belief in a world beyond, in a world other than that in which man lives. According to him, one can do no greater harm to life than to order one's existence in this world according to another life in a world beyond. One cannot give oneself over to greater confusion than when one assumes the existence of beings behind the phenomena of this world, beings which are not approachable by human knowledge, and which are to be considered as the real basis, as the decisive factor in all existence. By such an assumption one ruins for oneself the joy in this world. One degrades it to illusion, to a mere reflection of the inaccessible. One interprets the world known to us, the world which for us is the only real one, as a futile dream, and attributes true reality to an imaginary, fictitious other world. One interprets the human senses as deceivers, who give us only illusory pictures instead of realities.
[ 27 ] Such a point of view cannot stem from weakness. For the strong person who is deeply rooted in reality, who has joy in life, will not let it enter his head to imagine another reality. He is occupied with this world and needs no other. But the suffering, the ill, those dissatisfied with this life, take refuge in the yonder. What this life has taken away from them, the world beyond is to offer them. The strong, healthy person who has well developed senses fitted to search for the causes of this world in this world itself, requires no causes or beings of the world beyond for the understanding of the appearances within which he lives. The weak person, who perceives reality with crippled eyes and ears, needs causes behind the appearances.
[ 28 ] Out of suffering and sick longing, the belief in the yonder world is born. Out of the inability to penetrate the real world all acceptances of “things in themselves” have originated.
[ 29 ] All who have reason to deny the real life say Yes to an imaginary one. Nietzsche wants to be an affirmer in face of reality. He will explore this world in all directions; he will penetrate into the depths of existence; of another life he wants to know nothing. Even suffering itself cannot provoke him to say No to life, for suffering also is a means to knowledge. “Like a traveler who plans to awaken at a certain hour, and then peacefully succumbs to sleep, we philosophers surrender ourselves to sickness, provided that we have become ill for a time in body and soul; we also close our eyes. And as the traveler knows that somewhere something does not sleep, that something counts the hours and will awaken him, so we also know that the decisive moment will find us awake—that then something will spring forth and catch the spirit in the act; I mean, in the weakness or the turning back or the surrendering or the hardening or the beclouding, as all the many sick conditions of the spirit are called, which in days of health had the pride of spirit against them. After such a self-questioning, self-examination, one learns to look with a finer eye at everything which had been philosophized about until now.” (Preface to the second edition of Fröhliche Wissenschalt, Joyful Wisdom.)
5.
[ 30 ] Nietzsche's friendly attitude toward life and reality shows itself also in his point of view in regard to men and their relationships with each other. In this field Nietzsche is a complete individualist. Each human being is for him a world in itself, a unicum. “This marvelously colorful manifoldness which is unified to a ‘oneness’ and faces us as a certain human being, no accident, however strange, could shake together in a like way a second time.” (Schopenhauer als Erzieher, Schopenhauer as Educator, ¶ 1.) Very few human beings, however, are inclined to unfold their individualities, which exist but once. They are in terror of the loneliness into which they are forced because of this. It is more comfortable and less dangerous to live in the same way as one's fellow men; there one always finds company. The one who arranges his life in his own way is not understood by others, and finds no companions. Loneliness has a special attraction for Nietzsche. He loves to search for secrets within his own self. He flees from the community of human beings. For the most part, his ways of thought are attempts to search for treasures which lie deeply hidden within his personality. The light which others offer him, he despises; the air one breathes where the “community of human beings,” the “average man” lives, he will not breathe. Instinctively he strives toward his “citadel and privacy” where he is free from the crowds, from the many, from the majority. (Jenseits van Gut und Böse, Beyond Good and Evil, ¶ 26). In his Fröliche Wissenschaft, Joyful Wisdom, he complains that it is difficult for him to “digest” his fellow men; and in Jenseits van Gut und Böse, Beyond Good and Evil, ¶ 282, he discloses that at the least he carried away dangerous intestinal disturbances when he sat down at the table where the diet of “ordinary human beings” was served. Human beings must not come too close to Nietzsche if he is to stand them.
6.
[ 31 ] Nietzsche grants validity to a thought, a judgment, in the form to which the free-reigning life instincts give their assent. Attitudes which are decided by life he does not allow to be removed by logical doubt. For this reason his thinking has a firm, free swing. It is not confused by reflections as to whether an assumption is also true “objectively,” whether it does not go beyond the boundaries, of the possibilities of human knowledge, etc. When Nietzsche has recognized the value of a judgment for life, he no longer asks for a further “objective” meaning and validity. And he does not worry about the limits of knowledge. It is his opinion that a healthy thinking creates what it is able to create, and does not torment itself with the useless question, what can I not do?
[ 32 ] The one who wishes to determine the value of a judgment by the degree to which it furthers life, can, of course, only do this on the basis of his own personal life impulses and instincts. He can never wish to say more than, Insofar as my own life instincts are concerned, I consider this particular judgment to be valuable. And Nietzsche never wishes to say anything else when he expresses a point of view. It is just this relationship of his to his thought world which works so beneficially upon the reader who is orientated toward freedom. It gives Nietzsche's writings a character of unselfish, modest dignity. In comparison, how repellent and immodest it sounds when other thinkers believe their person to be the organ by which eternal, irrefutable verities are made known to the world. One can find sentences in Nietzsche's works which express his strong ego-consciousness, for example, “I have given to mankind the deepest book which it possesses, my Zarathustra; soon I shall give it the most independent.” (Götzendämmerung, Twilight of Idols, ¶ 51.) But what do these words indicate? I have dared to write a book whose content is drawn from lower depths of a personality than is usual in similar books, and I shall offer a book which is more independent of every strange judgment than other philosophical writings, for I shall speak about the most important things only in the way they relate to my personal instincts. That is dignified modesty. It would of course go against the taste of those whose lying humility says, I am nothing, my work is everything; I bring nothing of my personal feelings into my books, but I express only what the pure intellect allows me to express. Such people want to deny their person in order to assert that their expressions are those of a higher spirit. Nietzsche considers his thoughts to be the results of his own person and nothing more.
7.
[ 33 ] The specialist philosophers may smile about Nietzsche, or give us their impressions about the “dangers” of his “world conception” as best they can. Of course, many of these spirits, who are nothing but animated textbooks of logic, are not able to praise Nietzsche's creations, which spring from the most mighty, most immediate life impulses.
[ 34 ] In any case, with his bold thought Nietzsche leaps and hits upon deeper secrets of human nature than many a logical thinker with his cautious creeping. Of what use is all logic if it catches only worthless content in its net of concepts? When valuable thoughts are communicated to us, we rejoice in them alone, even if they are not tied together with logical threads. The salvation of life does not depend upon logic alone, but also upon the production of thoughts. At present our specialized philosophy is sufficiently unproductive, and it could very well use the stimulation of the thoughts of a courageous, bold writer like Nietzsche. The power of development of their specialized philosophy is paralyzed through the influence which the thinking of Kant has made upon them. Through this influence it has lost all originality, all courage. From the academic philosophy of his time Kant has taken over the concept of truth which originates from “pure reason,” He has tried to show that through such truth we cannot learn to know things which lie beyond our experience of “things in themselves.” During the last century, infinite, immeasurable cleverness was expended to penetrate into these thoughts of Kant's from all directions, The results of this sharp thinking are unfortunately rather meager and trivial, Should one translate the banalities of many a current philosophical book from academic formulae into healthy speech, such content would compare rather poorly with many a short aphorism of Nietzsche's, In view of present-day philosophy, the latter could speak the proud sentence with a certain justice, “It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in one book—what every other person does not say in one book ...”
8.
[ 35 ] As Nietzsche does not want to express anything but the results of his personal instincts and impulses, so to him strange points of view are nothing more than symptoms from which he draws conclusions about the ruling instincts of individual human beings or whole peoples, races, and so on. He does not occupy himself with discussions or arguments over strange opinions. But he looks for the instincts which are expressed in these opinions. He tries to discover the character of the personalities or people from their attitudes. Whether an attitude indicates the dominance of instincts for health, courage, dignity, joy, and life, or whether it originates from unhealthy, slavish, tired instincts, inimical to life, all this interests him. Truths in themselves are indifferent to him; he concerns himself with the way people develop their truths according to their instincts, and how they further their life goals through them. He looks for the natural causes of human attitudes.
[ 36 ] Nietzsche's striving, of course, is not according to the tendencies of those idealists who attribute an independent value to truth, who want to give it “a purer, higher origin” than that of the instincts. He explains human views as the result of natural forces, just as the natural scientist explains the structure of the eye from the cooperation of natural causes. He recognizes an explanation of the spiritual development of mankind out of special moral purposes, or ideals out of a moral world order, as little as the natural scientist of today recognizes the explanation that nature has built the eye in a certain way for the reason that nature had the intention to create an organ of seeing for the organism. In every ideal Nietzsche sees only the expression of an instinct which looks toward satisfaction in a definite form, just as the modern natural scientist sees in the intentional arrangement of an organ, the result of organic formative laws. If at present there still exist natural scientists and philosophers who reject all purposeful creating in nature, but, who stop short before moral idealism, and see in history the realization of a divine will, an ideal order of things, this belief is an incompleteness of the instinct. Such people lack the necessary perspective for the judging of spiritual happenings, while they have it for the observation of natural happenings. When a human being thinks he is striving toward an ideal which does not derive from reality, he thinks this only because he does not recognize the instinct from which this ideal stems.
[ 37 ] Nietzsche is an anti-idealist in that sense in which the modern natural scientist opposes the assumption of purposes which nature is to materialize. He speaks just as little about moral purposes as the natural scientist speaks about natural purposes. Nietzsche does not consider it wiser to say, Man should materialize a moral ideal, than to explain that the bull has horns so that he may gore with them. He considers the one as well as the other expression to be a product of a world explanation which speaks about “divine providence,” “wise omnipotence,” instead of natural causes.
[ 38 ] This world clarification is a check to all sound thinking; it produces a fictitious fog of ideals which prevents that natural power of seeing, orientated to the observation of reality, that ability to fathom world events; finally, it completely dulls all sense for reality.
9.
[ 39 ] When Nietzsche engages in a spiritual battle he doesn't wish to contradict foreign opinions as such, but he does so because these opinions point to instincts harmful and contrary to nature, against which he wishes to fight. In this regard his intention is similar to that of someone who attacks a harmful natural phenomenon or destroys a dangerous creature. He does not count on the “convincing” power of truth, but on the fact that he will conquer his opponent because the latter has unsound, harmful instincts, while he himself has sound, life-furthering instincts. He looks for no further justification for such a battle when his instinct considers his opponent to be harmful. He does not believe that he has to fight as the representative of an idea, but he fights because his instincts compel him to do so. Of course, it is the same with any spiritual battle, but ordinarily the fighters are as little aware of the real motivations as are the philosophers of their “Will to Power,” or the followers of a moral world order of the natural causes of their moral ideals. They believe that only opinions fight opinions, and they disguise their true motives by cloaks of concepts. They also do not mention the instincts of the opponents which are unsympathetic to them; indeed, perhaps these do not enter their consciousness at all. In short, these forces which are really hostile toward each other do not come out into the open at all. Nietzsche mentions unreservedly those instincts of his opponents which are disagreeable to him, and he also mentions the instincts with which he opposes them. One who wishes to call this cynicism may well do so. But he must be certain not to overlook the fact that never in all human activity has there existed anything other than such cynicism, and that all idealistic, illusory webs are spun by this cynicism.
I. Der Charakter
1.
[ 1 ] Friedrich Nietzsche charakterisiert sich selbst als einsamen Grübler und Rätselfreund, als unzeitgemäße Persönlichkeit. Wer auf solchen eigenen Wegen geht, wie er, «begegnet niemandem: das bringen die ‹eigenen Wege› mit sich. Niemand kommt, ihm dabei zu helfen; mit allem, was ihm von Gefahr, Zufall, Bosheit und schlechtem Wetter zustößt, muss er allein fertig werden», sagt er in der Vorrede zur zweiten Ausgabe seiner «Morgenröte». Aber reizvoll ist es, ihm in seine Einsamkeit zu folgen. Die Worte, die er über sein Verhältnis zu Schopenhauer ausgesprochen hat, möchte ich über das meinige zu Nietzsche sagen: «Ich gehöre zu den Lesern Nietzsches, welche, nachdem sie die erste Seite von ihm gelesen haben, mit Bestimmtheit wissen, dass sie alle Seiten lesen und auf jedes Wort hören werden, das er überhaupt gesagt hat. Mein Vertrauen zu ihm war sofort da ... Ich verstand ihn, als ob er für mich geschrieben hätte: um mich verständlich, aber unbescheiden und töricht auszudrücken.» Man kann so sprechen und weit davon entfernt sein, sich als «Gläubigen» der Nietzscheschen Weltanschauung zu bekennen. Weiter allerdings nicht, als Nietzsche davon entfernt war, sich solche «Gläubige» zu wünschen. Legt er doch seinem «Zarathustra» die Worte in den Mund:
[ 2 ] «Ihr sagt, ihr glaubt an Zarathustra? Aber was liegt an Zarathustra! Ihr seid meine Gläubigen: aber was liegt an allen Gläubigen!
[ 3 ] Ihr hattet euch noch nicht gesucht: da fandet ihr mich. So tun alle Gläubigen; darum ist es so wenig mit allem Glauben. Nun heiße ich euch, mich verlieren und euch finden; und erst, wenn ihr mich alle verleugnet habt, will ich euch wiederkehren.»
[ 4 ] Nietzsche ist kein Messias und Religionsstifter; er kann deshalb sich wohl Freunde seiner Meinungen wünschen; Bekenner seiner Lehren aber, die ihr eigenes Selbst aufgeben, um das seinige zu finden, kann er nicht wollen.
[ 5 ] In Nietzsches Persönlichkeit finden sich Instinkte, denen ganze Vorstellungskreise seiner Zeitgenossen zuwider sind. Von den wichtigsten Kulturideen derjenigen, in deren Mitte er sich entwickelt hat, wendet er sich ab mit einem instinktiven Widerwillen; und zwar nicht so, wie man eine Behauptung ablehnt, in der man einen logischen Widerspruch entdeckt hat, sondern wie man sich von einer Farbe abwendet, die dem Auge Schmerz verursacht. Der Widerwille geht von dem unmittelbaren Gefühl aus; die bewusste Überlegung kommt zunächst gar nicht in Betracht. Was andere Menschen empfinden, wenn ihnen die Gedanken: Schuld, Gewissensbiss, Sünde, jenseitiges Leben, Ideal, Seligkeit, Vaterland durch den Kopf gehen, wirkt auf Nietzsche unangenehm. Die instinktive Art der Abneigung gegen die genannten Vorstellungen unterscheidet Nietzsche auch von den sogenannten «Freigeistern» der Gegenwart. Diese kennen alle Verstandeseinwände gegen die «alten Wahnvorstellungen»; aber wie selten findet sich einer, der von sich sagen kann: seine Instinkte hängen nicht mehr an ihnen! Gerade die Instinkte sind es, die den Freigeistern der Gegenwart böse Streiche spielen. Das Denken nimmt einen von den überlieferten Ideen unabhängigen Charakter an, aber die Instinkte können sich diesem veränderten Charakter des Verstandes nicht anpassen. Diese «freien Geister» setzen irgend einen Begriff der modernen Wissenschaft an die Stelle einer älteren Vorstellung; aber sie sprechen so von ihm, dass man erkennt: der Verstand geht einen andern Weg als die Instinkte. Der Verstand sucht in dem Stoffe, in der Kraft, in der Naturgesetzlichkeit den Urgrund der Erscheinungen; die Instinkte aber verleiten dazu, diesen Wesen gegenüber dasselbe zu empfinden, was andere ihrem persönlichen Gotte gegenüber empfinden. Geister dieser Art wehren sich gegen den Vorwurf der Gottesleugnung; aber sie tun es nicht deshalb, weil ihre Weltauffassung sie auf etwas führt, was mit irgend einer Gottesvorstellung übereinstimmt, sondern weil sie von ihren Vorfahren die Eigenschaft ererbt haben, bei dem Worte «Gottesleugner» ein instinktives Gruseln zu empfinden. Große Naturforscher betonen, dass sie die Vorstellungen: Gott, Unsterblichkeit nicht verbannen, sondern nur im Sinne der modernen Wissenschaft umgestalten wollen. Ihre Instinkte sind eben hinter ihrem Verstande zurückgeblieben.
[ 6 ] Eine große Zahl dieser «freien Geister» vertritt die Ansicht, dass der Wille des Menschen unfrei ist. Sie sagen: der Mensch muss in einem bestimmten Falle so handeln, wie es sein Charakter und die auf ihn einwirkenden Verhältnisse bedingen. Man halte aber Umschau bei diesen Gegnern der Ansicht vom «freien Willen», und man wird finden, dass sich die Instinkte dieser «Freigeister» von dem Vollbringer einer «bösen» Tat geradeso mit Abscheu abwenden, wie es die Instinkte der anderen tun, die der Meinung sind: der «freie Wille» könne sich nach Belieben dem Guten oder dem Bösen zuwenden.
[ 7 ] Der Widerspruch zwischen Verstand und Instinkt ist das Merkmal unserer «modernen Geister». Auch in den freiesten Denkern der Gegenwart leben noch die von der christlichen Orthodoxie gepflanzten Instinkte. Genau die entgegengesetzten sind in Nietzsches Natur wirksam. Er braucht nicht erst darüber nachzudenken, ob es Gründe gegen die Annahme eines persönlichen Weltenlenkers gibt. Sein Instinkt ist zu stolz, um sich vor einem solchen zu beugen; deshalb lehnt er eine derartige Vorstellung ab. Er spricht mit seinem Zarathustra: «Aber dass ich euch ganz mein Herz offenbare, ihr Freunde: wenn es Götter gäbe, wie hielte ich's aus, kein Gott zu sein! Also gibt es keine Götter.» Sich selbst oder einen andern wegen einer begangenen Handlung «schuldig» zu sprechen, dazu drängt ihn nichts in seinem Innern. Um ein solches «schuldig» unstatthaft zu finden, dazu braucht er keine Theorie vom «freien» oder «unfreien» Willen.
[ 8 ] Auch die patriotischen Empfindungen seiner deutschen Volksgenossen sind Nietzsches Instinkten zuwider. Er kann sein Empfinden und Denken nicht abhängig machen von den Gedankenkreisen des Volkes, innerhalb dessen er geboren und erzogen ist; auch nicht von der Zeit, in der er lebt. «Es ist so kleinstädtisch», sagt er in seiner Schrift «Schopenhauer als Erzieher», «sich zu Ansichten verpflichten, welche ein paar hundert Meilen weiter schon nicht mehr verpflichten. Orient und Okzident sind Kreidestriche, die uns jemand vor unsre Augen hinmalt, um unsere Furchtsamkeit zu narren. Ich will den Versuch machen, zur Freiheit zu kommen, sagt sich die junge Seele; und da sollte es sie hindern, dass zufällig zwei Nationen sich hassen und bekriegen, oder dass ein Meer zwischen zwei Erdteilen liegt, oder dass rings um sie eine Religion gelehrt wird, welche doch vor ein paar tausend Jahren nicht bestand.» Die Empfindungen der Deutschen während des Krieges im Jahre 1870 fanden in seiner Seele einen so geringen Widerhall, dass er, «während die Donner der Schlacht von Wörth über Europa weggingen», in einem Winkel der Alpen saß, «sehr vergrübelt und verrätselt, folglich sehr bekümmert und unbekümmert zugleich», und seine Gedanken über die Griechen niederschrieb. Und als er einige Wochen darauf sich selbst «unter den Mauern von Metz» befand, war er «immer noch nicht losgekommen von den Fragezeichen», die er zum Leben und «der griechischen Kunst gesetzt hatte». (Vgl. «Versuch einer Selbstkritik» in der zweiten Auflage seiner «Geburt der Tragödie».) Als der Krieg zu Ende war, stimmte er so wenig in die Begeisterung seiner deutschen Zeitgenossen über den errungenen Sieg ein, dass er schon im Jahre 1873 in seiner Schrift über David Strauß von den «schlimmen und gefährlichen Folgen» des siegreich beendeten Kampfes sprach. Er stellte es sogar als einen Wahn hin, dass auch die deutsche Kultur in diesem Kampfe gesiegt habe, und er nannte diesen Wahn gefährlich, weil, wenn er innerhalb des deutschen Volkes herrschend wird, die Gefahr vorhanden ist, den Sieg «in eine völlige Niederlage zu verwandeln: in die Niederlage, ja Exstirpation des deutschen Geistes zugunsten des ‹Deutschen Reiches›.» Das ist Nietzsches Gesinnung in einer Zeit, in der ganz Europa voll ist von nationaler Begeisterung. Es ist die Gesinnung einer unzeitgemäßen Persönlichkeit, eines Kämpfers gegen seine Zeit. Außer dem Angeführten ließe sich noch vieles nennen, was in Nietzsches Empfindungs- und Vorstellungsleben anders ist, als in dem seiner Zeitgenossen.
2.
[ 9 ] Nietzsche ist kein «Denker» im gewöhnlichen Sinne des Wortes. Für die fragwürdigen und tiefdringenden Fragen, die er der Welt und dem Leben gegenüber zu stellen hat, reicht das bloße Denken nicht aus. Für diese Fragen müssen alle Kräfte der menschlichen Natur entfesselt werden; die denkende Betrachtung allein ist ihnen nicht gewachsen. Zu bloß erdachten Gründen für eine Meinung hat Nietzsche kein Vertrauen. «Es gibt ein Misstrauen in mir gegen Dialektik, selbst gegen Gründe», schreibt er am z. Dezember 1887 an Georg Brandes. (Vgl. dessen «Menschen und Werke», S. 212.) Wer ihn um die Gründe seiner Ansichten fragt, für den hat er «Zarathustras» Antwort bereit: «Du fragst warum? Ich gehöre nicht zu denen, welche man nach ihrem Warum fragen darf» Nicht ob eine Ansicht logisch bewiesen werden kann, ist für ihn maßgebend, sondern ob sie auf alle Kräfte der menschlichen Persönlichkeit so wirkt, dass sie für das Leben Wert hat. Er lässt einen Gedanken nur gelten, wenn er ihn geeignet findet, zur Entwicklung des Lebens beizutragen. Den Menschen so gesund als möglich, so machtvoll als möglich, so schöpferisch als möglich zu sehen, ist sein Wunsch. Wahrheit, Schönheit, alle Ideale haben nur Wert und gehen den Menschen nur etwas an, insofern sie lebensfördernd sind.
[ 10 ] Die Frage nach dem Werte der Wahrheit tritt in mehreren Schriften Nietzsches auf. In der verwegensten Form wird sie in seinem Buche: «Jenseits von Gut und Böse» gestellt. «Der Wille zur Wahrheit, der uns noch zu manchem Wagnisse verführen wird, jene berühmte Wahrhaftigkeit, von der alle Philosophen bisher mit Ehrerbietung geredet haben: was für Fragen hat dieser Wille zur Wahrheit uns schon vorgelegt! Welche wunderlichen schlimmen fragwürdigen Fragen! Das ist bereits eine lange Geschichte -und doch scheint es, dass sie kaum eben angefangen hat. Was Wunder, wenn wir endlich auch misstrauisch werden, die Geduld verlieren, uns ungeduldig umdrehen? Dass wir von dieser Sphinx auch unsrerseits das Fragen lernen? Wer ist das eigentlich, der uns hier Fragen stellt? Was in uns will eigentlich ‹zur Wahrheit?› — In der Tat, wir machten lange halt vor der Frage nach der Ursache dieses Willens — bis wir, zuletzt, vor einer noch gründlicheren Frage ganz und gar stehen blieben. Wir fragten nach dem Werte dieses Willens. Gesetzt, wir wollen Wahrheit: warum nicht lieber Unwahrheit?»
[ 11 ] Das ist ein Gedanke von kaum zu überbietender Kühnheit. Stellt man daneben, was ein anderer kühner «Grübler und Rätselfreund», Johann Gottlieb Fichte, von dem Streben nach Wahrheit sagt, so sieht man erst, wie tief aus dem Wesen der menschlichen Natur Nietzsche seine Vorstellungen heraufholt. «Ich bin dazu berufen» — sagt Fichte -«der Wahrheit Zeugnis zu geben; an meinem Leben und an meinen Schicksalen liegt nichts; an den Wirkungen meines Lebens liegt unendlich viel. Ich bin ein Priester der Wahrheit; ich bin in ihrem Solde; ich habe mich verbindlich gemacht, alles für sie zu tun und zu wagen und zu leiden.» (Fichte, Vorlesungen «Über die Bestimmung des Gelehrten», vierte Vorlesung.' Diese Worte sprechen das Verhältnis aus, in das sich die edelsten Geister der abendländischen neueren Kultur zur Wahrheit setzen. Nietzsches angeführtem Ausspruch gegenüber erscheinen sie oberflächlich. Man kann gegen sie einwenden: Ist es denn nicht möglich, dass die Unwahrheit wertvollere Wirkungen für das Leben hat, als die Wahrheit? Ist es ausgeschlossen, dass die Wahrheit dem Leben schadet? Hat sich Fichte diese Fragen gestellt? Haben es andere getan, die «der Wahrheit Zeugnis» gegeben haben?
[ 12 ] Nietzsche aber stellt diese Fragen. Und er glaubt über sie erst dann ins Reine zu kommen, wenn er das Streben nach Wahrheit nicht als bloße Verstandessache behandelt, sondern nach den Instinkten sucht, die dieses Streben erzeugen. Denn es könnte ja wohl sein, dass sich diese Instinkte der Wahrheit nur als Mittel bedienten, um etwas zu erreichen, was höher steht, als die Wahrheit. Nietzsche findet, nachdem er «lange genug den Philosophen zwischen die Zeilen und auf die Finger gesehn» hat: «Das meiste bewusste Denken eines Philosophen ist durch seine Instinkte heimlich geführt und in bestimmte Bahnen gezwungen.» Die Philosophen glauben, die letzte Triebfeder ihres Tuns sei das Streben nach Wahrheit. Sie glauben dies, weil sie nicht auf den Grund der menschlichen Natur zu sehen vermögen. In Wirklichkeit wird das Streben nach Wahrheit gelenkt von dem Willen zur Macht. Mit Hilfe der Wahrheit soll die Macht und Lebensfülle der Persönlichkeit erhöht werden. Das bewusste Denken des Philosophen ist der Meinung: die Erkenntnis der Wahrheit sei ein letztes Ziel; der unbewusste Instinkt, der das Denken treibt, strebt nach Förderung des Lebens. Für diesen Instinkt ist «die Falschheit eines Urteils noch kein Einwand gegen ein Urteil»; für ihn kommt allein die Frage in Betracht: «wie weit es lebenfördernd, lebenerhaltend, Art-erhaltend, vielleicht gar Art-züchtend ist» («Jenseits von Gut und Böse», § 3 und 4).
[ 13 ] «‹Wille zur Wahrheit›: heißt ihr's, ihr Weisesten, was euch treibt und brünstig macht?
[ 14 ] Wille zur Denkbarkeit alles Seienden: also heiße ich euren Willen!
[ 15 ] Alles Seiende wollt ihr erst denkbar machen: denn ihr zweifelt mit gutem Misstrauen, ob es schon denkbar ist.
[ 16 ] Aber es soll sich euch fügen und biegen! So will's euer Wille. Glatt soll es werden und dem Geiste untertan, als sein Spiegel und Widerbild.
[ 17 ] Das ist euer ganzer Wille, ihr Weisesten, als ein Wille zur Macht ...» («Zarathustra», 2. Teil, «Von der Selbstüberwindung».)
[ 18 ] Die Wahrheit soll die Welt dem Geiste untertan machen und dadurch dem Leben dienen. Nur als Lebensbedingung hat sie einen Wert. — Kann man nicht aber noch weiter gehen und fragen: was ist das Leben selbst wert? Nietzsche hält eine solche Frage für unmöglich. Dass alles Lebende so machtvoll, so inhaltreich leben will, als irgend möglich ist, nimmt er als eine Tatsache hin, über die er nicht weiter grübelt. Die Lebensinstinkte fragen nicht nach dem Werte des Lebens. Sie fragen nur: welche Mittel gibt es, um die Macht ihres Trägers zu erhöhen. «Urteile, Werturteile über das Leben, für oder wider, können zuletzt niemals wahr sein: sie haben nur Wert als Symptome, sie kommen nur als Symptome in Betracht — an sich sind solche Urteile Dummheiten. Man muss durchaus seine Finger darnach ausstrecken und den Versuch machen, die erstaunliche Finesse zu fassen, dass der Wert des Lebens nicht abgeschätzt werden kann. Von einem Lebenden nicht, weil ein solcher Partei, ja sogar Streitobjekt ist, und nicht Richter; von einem Toten nicht, aus einem andren Grunde. — Von seiten eines Philosophen im Wert des Lebens ein Problem sehen, bleibt dergestalt sogar ein Einwurf gegen ihn, ein Fragezeichen an seiner Weisheit, eine Unweisheit.» -(«Götzen-Dämmerung», «Das Problem des Sokrates».) Die Frage nach dem Werte des Lebens existiert nur für eine mangelhaft ausgebildete, kranke Persönlichkeit. Wer allseitig entwickelt ist, lebt, ohne zu fragen, wie viel sein Leben wert ist.
[ 19 ] Weil Nietzsche die beschriebenen Ansichten hat, deshalb legt er auf logische Beweisgründe für ein Urteil wenig Gewicht. Nicht darauf kommt es ihm an, ob sich das Urteil logisch beweisen lässt, sondern wie gut sich unter seinem Einflusse leben lässt. Nicht allein der Verstand, sondern die ganze Persönlichkeit des Menschen soll befriedigt werden. Die besten Gedanken sind diejenigen, welche alle Kräfte der menschlichen Natur in eine ihnen angemessene Bewegung bringen.
[ 20 ] Nur Gedanken dieser Art haben für Nietzsche Interesse. Er ist kein philosophischer Kopf, sondern ein «Honigsammler des Geistes», der die «Bienenkörbe» der Erkenntnis aufsucht und heimzubringen sucht, was dem Leben frommt.
3.
[ 21 ] In Nietzsches Persönlichkeit sind diejenigen Instinkte vorherrschend, die den Menschen zu einem gebietenden, herrischen Wesen machen. Ihm gefällt alles, was Macht bekundet; ihm missfällt alles, was Schwäche verrät. Er fühlt sich nur so lange glücklich, als er sich in Lebensbedingungen befindet, die seine Kraft erhöhen. Er liebt Hemmnisse, Widerstände für seine Tätigkeit, weil er sich bei ihrer Überwindung seiner Macht bewusst wird. Er sucht die beschwerlichsten Wege auf, die der Mensch gehen kann. Ein Grundzug seines Charakters ist in dem Spruche ausgedrückt, den er der zweiten Ausgabe seiner «Fröhlichen Wissenschaft» auf das Titelblatt gesetzt hat:
«Ich wohne in meinem eignen Haus,
Hab' niemandem nie nichts nachgemacht
Und — lachte noch jeden Meister aus,
Der nicht sich selber ausgelacht.»
[ 22 ] Jede Art von Unterordnung unter eine fremde Macht empfindet Nietzsche als Schwäche. Und über das, was eine «fremde Macht» ist, denkt er anders als mancher, der sich als «unabhängigen, freien Geist» bezeichnet. Nietzsche empfindet es als Schwäche, wenn der Mensch sich in seinem Denken und Handeln sogenannten «ewigen, ehernen» Gesetzen der Vernunft unterwirft. Was die allseitig entwickelte Persönlichkeit tut, das lässt sie sich von keiner Moralwissenschaft vorschreiben, sondern allein von den Antrieben des eigenen Selbst. Der Mensch ist in dem Augenblicke schon schwach, in dem er nach Gesetzen und Regeln sucht, nach denen er denken und handeln soll. Der Starke bestimmt die Art seines Denkens und Handelns aus seinem eigenen Wesen heraus.
[ 23 ] Diese Ansicht spricht Nietzsche am schroffsten in Sätzen aus, um derentwillen ihn kleinlich denkende Menschen geradezu als einen gefährlichen Geist bezeichnet haben: «Als die christlichen Kreuzfahrer im Orient auf jenen unbesiegbaren Assassinenorden stießen, jenen Freigeisterorden par excellence, dessen unterste Grade in einem Gehorsame lebten, wie einen gleichen kein Mönchsorden erreicht hat, da bekamen sie auf irgend welchem Wege auch einen Wink über jenes Symbol und Kerbholzwort, das nur den obersten Graden, als deren Sekretum, vorbehalten war: ‹Nichts ist wahr, alles ist erlaubt›.1Vom Verfasser hervorgehoben Wohlan, das war Freiheit des Geistes, damit war der Wahrheit selbst der Glaube gekündigt» ... («Genealogie der Moral», 3. Abhandlung, § 24.) Dass diese Sätze die Empfindungen einer vornehmen, einer Herrennatur zum Ausdruck bringen, die sich die Erlaubnis, frei, nach ihren eigenen Gesetzen zu leben, durch keine Rücksicht auf ewige Wahrheiten und Vorschriften der Moral verkümmern lassen will, fühlen diejenigen Menschen nicht, die, ihrer Art nach, zur Unterwürfigkeit geeignet sind. Eine Persönlichkeit, wie die Nietzsches ist, verträgt auch jene Tyrannen nicht, die in der Form abstrakter Sittengebote auftreten. Ich bestimme, wie ich denken, wie ich handeln will, sagt eine solche Natur.
[ 24 ] Es gibt Menschen, die ihre Berechtigung, sich «Freidenker» zu nennen, davon herleiten, dass sie sich in ihrem Denken und Handeln nicht solchen Gesetzen unterwerfen, die von anderen Menschen herrühren, sondern nur den «ewigen Gesetzen der Vernunft», den «unumstößlichen Pflichtbegriffen» oder dem «Willen Gottes». Nietzsche sieht solche Menschen nicht als wahrhaft starke Persönlichkeiten an. Denn auch sie denken und handeln nicht nach ihrer eigenen Natur, sondern nach den Befehlen einer höheren Autorität. Ob der Sklave der Willkür seines Herrn, der Religiöse den geoffenbarten Wahrheiten eines Gottes oder der Philosoph den Aussprüchen der Vernunft folgt, das ändert nichts an dem Umstande, dass sie alle Gehorchende sind. Was befiehlt, ist dabei gleichgültig; das ausschlaggebende ist, dass überhaupt befohlen wird, dass der Mensch sich nicht selbst die Richtung für sein Tun gibt, sondern der Meinung ist, es gebe eine Macht, welche ihm diese Richtung vorzeichnet.
[ 25 ] Der starke, wahrhaft freie Mensch will die Wahrheit nicht empfangen — er will sie schaffen; er will sich nichts «erlauben» lassen, er will nicht gehorchen. «Die eigentlichen Philosophen aber sind Befehlende und Gesetzgeber: sie sagen: ‹so soll es sein!›; sie bestimmen erst das Wohin? und Wozu? des Menschen und verfügen dabei über die Vorarbeit aller philosophischen Arbeiter, aller Überwältiger der Vergangenheit, — sie greifen mit schöpferischer Hand nach der Zukunft, und alles, was ist und war, wird ihnen dabei zum Mittel, zum Werkzeug, zum Hammer. Ihr ‹Erkennen› ist Schaffen, ihr Schaffen ist eine Gesetzgebung, ihr Wille zur Wahrheit ist — Wille zur Macht. — Gibt es heute solche Philosophen? Gab es schon solche Philosophen? Muss es nicht solche Philosophen geben?» («Jenseits von Gut und Böse», §211.)
4.
[ 26 ] Ein besonderes Zeichen menschlicher Schwäche sieht Nietzsche in jeder Art von Glauben an ein Jenseits, an eine andere Welt, als die ist, in der der Mensch lebt. Man kann, nach seiner Ansicht, dem Leben keinen größeren Schaden tun, als wenn man sein Leben im Diesseits im Hinblick auf ein anderes Leben im Jenseits einrichtet. Man kann sich keiner größeren Verirrung hingeben, als wenn man hinter den Erscheinungen dieser Welt Wesenheiten annimmt, die der menschlichen Erkenntnis unzugänglich sind, und die als der eigentliche Urgrund, als das Bestimmende alles Daseins gelten sollen. Durch eine solche Annahme verdirbt man sich die Freude an dieser Welt. Man würdigt sie zum Scheine, zu einem bloßen Abglanz eines Unzugänglichen herab. Man erklärt die uns bekannte Welt, die für uns allein wirkliche, für einen nichtigen Traum und schreibt die wahre Wirklichkeit einer erträumten, erdichteten anderen Welt zu. Man erklärt die menschlichen Sinne für Betrüger, die uns Scheinbilder statt Wirklichkeiten liefern.
[ 27 ] Nur aus der Schwäche kann eine solche Ansicht stammen. Denn der Starke, der fest in der Wirklichkeit wurzelt, der seine Freude am Leben hat, wird es sich nicht in den Sinn kommen lassen, eine andere Wirklichkeit zu erdichten. Er ist mit dieser Welt beschäftigt und bedarf keiner andern. Aber die Leidenden, die Kranken, die unzufrieden sind mit diesem Leben, nehmen ihre Zuflucht zum Jenseits. Was ihnen das Diesseits entzogen hat, soll ihnen das Jenseits bieten. Der Starke, der Gesunde, der entwickelte und taugliche Sinne hat, um die Gründe dieser Welt in ihr selber aufzusuchen, der bedarf zur Erklärung der Erscheinungen, innerhalb derer er lebt, keiner jenseitigen Gründe und Wesenheiten. Der Schwache, der mit verkrüppelten Augen und Ohren die Wirklichkeit wahrnimmt, der braucht Ursachen hinter den Erscheinungen.
[ 28] Aus dem Leiden und der kranken Sehnsucht ist der Glaube an das Jenseits geboren. Aus dem Unvermögen, die wirkliche Welt zu durchschauen, sind alle Annahmen von «Dingen an sich» erwachsen.
[ 29] Alle, welche Grund haben, das wirkliche Leben zu verneinen, sagen Ja zu einem erdichteten. Nietzsche will ein Jasager gegenüber der Wirklichkeit sein. Diese Welt will er durchforschen nach allen Richtungen, er will sich einbohren in die Tiefen des Daseins; von einem andern Leben will er nichts wissen. Ihn kann selbst das Leiden nicht veranlassen, Nein zum Leben zu sagen; denn auch das Leiden ist ihm ein Mittel der Erkenntnis. «Nicht anders, als es ein Reisender macht, der sich vorsetzt, zu einer bestimmten Stunde aufzuwachen, und sich dann ruhig dem Schlafe überlässt: so ergeben wir Philosophen, gesetzt, dass wir krank werden, uns zeitweilig mit Leib und Seele der Krankheit — wir machen gleichsam vor uns die Augen zu. Und wie jener weiß, dass irgend etwas nicht schläft, irgend etwas die Stunden abzählt und ihn aufwecken wird, so wissen auch wir, dass der entscheidende Augenblick uns wach finden wird, — dass dann etwas hervorspringt und den Geist auf der Tat ertappt, ich meine auf der Schwäche oder Umkehr oder Ergebung oder Verhärtung oder Verdüsterung, und wie alle die krankhaften Zustände des Geistes heißen, welche in gesunden Tagen den Stolz des Geistes wider sich haben... Man lernt nach einer derartigen Selbst-Befragung, Selbst-Versuchung, mit einem feineren Auge nach allem, worüber überhaupt bisher philosophiert worden ist, hinsehn...» Vorrede zur zweiten Ausgabe der «Fröhlichen Wissenschaft».)
5.
[ 30 ] Dieser lebens- und wirklichkeitsfreundliche Sinn Nietzsches zeigt sich auch in seinen Anschauungen über die Menschen und ihre gegenseitigen Beziehungen. Auf diesem Gebiete ist Nietzsche vollkommener Individualist. Jeder Mensch gilt ihm als eine Welt für sich, ein Unikum. Das wunderlich bunte Mancherlei, das zum «Einerlei» vereinigt ist und uns als ein bestimmter Mensch entgegentritt, kann kein noch so seltsamer Zufall ein zweites Mal in gleicher Weise zusammenschütteln. («Schopenhauer als Erzieher», i.) Die wenigsten Menschen sind jedoch geneigt, ihre nur einmal vorhandenen Eigentümlichkeiten zu entfalten. Sie fürchten sich vor der Einsamkeit, in die sie dadurch gedrängt werden. Es ist bequemer und gefahrloser, in gleicher Weise wie die Mitmenschen zu leben; man findet dann immer Gesellschaft. Wer auf seine eigene Art sich einrichtet, wird von anderen nicht verstanden und findet keine Genossen. Für Nietzsche hat die Einsamkeit einen besonderen Reiz. Er liebt es, die Heimlichkeiten des eigenen Innern aufzusuchen. Er flieht die Gemeinschaft der Menschen. Seine Gedankengänge sind zumeist Bohrversuche nach Schätzen, die tief in seiner Persönlichkeit verborgen liegen. Das Licht, das andere ihm bieten, verschmäht er; die Luft, die man da atmet, wo das «Gemeinsame der Menschen», die «Regel Mensch» lebt, will er nicht mitatmen. Er trachtet instinktiv nach seiner «Burg und Heimlichkeit, wo er von der Menge, den vielen, den allermeisten erlöst ist». («Jenseits von Gut und Böse», § 26.) In seiner «Fröhlichen Wissenschaft» klagt er, dass es ihm schwer ist, seine Mitmenschen zu «verdauen»; und in «Jenseits von Gut und Böse» (§ 282) verrät er, dass er zumeist gefährliche Verdauungsstörungen davontrug, wenn er sich an Tische setzte, an denen die Kost des «Allgemein-Menschlichen» genossen wurde. Die Menschen dürfen Nietzsche nicht zu nahe kommen, wenn er sie ertragen soll.
6.
[ 31] Nietzsche erklärt einen Gedanken, ein Urteil in derjenigen Form für gültig, zu der die freiwaltenden Lebensinstinkte ihre Zustimmung geben. Ansichten, für die das Leben sich entscheidet, lässt er sich durch keine logischen Zweifel nehmen. Dadurch erhält sein Denken einen sichern, freien Zug. Es wird nicht beirrt durch Bedenken wie: ob eine Behauptung auch «objektiv» wahr ist, ob sie die Grenzen des menschlichen Erkenntnisvermögens nicht überschreitet und so weiter. Wenn Nietzsche den Wert eines Urteiles für das Leben erkannt hat, dann fragt er nicht mehr nach einer weiteren «objektiven» Bedeutung und Gültigkeit desselben. Und wegen Grenzen des Erkennens macht er sich keine Sorgen. Er ist der Ansicht, dass ein gesundes Denken das schafft, was es schaffen kann, und sich nicht mit der nutzlosen Frage abquält: was kann ich nicht?
[ 32 ] Wer den Wert eines Urteils nach dem Grade bestimmen will, in dem es das Leben fördert, kann diesen Grad natürlich nur durch seine eigenen, persönlichen Lebenstriebe und Lebensinstinkte festsetzen. Er kann nie mehr sagen wollen, als: in bezug auf meine Lebensinstinkte halte ich dieses bestimmte Urteil für ein wertvolles. Und Nietzsche will auch nie etwas anderes sagen, wenn er eine Ansicht ausspricht. Gerade dieses sein Verhältnis zu seiner Gedankenwelt wirkt so wohltuend auf den freiheitlich gesinnten Leser. Es gibt Nietzsches Schriften den Charakter anspruchsloser, bescheidener Vornehmheit. Wie abstoßend und unbescheiden klingt es daneben, wenn andere Denker glauben, ihre Person sei das Organ, durch das der Welt ewige, unumstößliche Wahrheiten verkündet werden. Man kann in Nietzsches Werken Sätze finden, die ein starkes Selbstbewusstsein ausdrücken, zum Beispiel: «Ich habe der Menschheit das tiefste Buch gegeben, das sie besitzt, meinen Zarathustra: ich gebe ihr über kurzem das unabhängigste.» — («Götzen-Dämmerung», «Streifzüge eines Unzeitgemäßen», §51.) Was besagt dies aber aus seinem Munde? Ich habe es gewagt, ein Buch zu schreiben, dessen Inhalt tiefer aus dem Wesen einer Persönlichkeit geholt ist, als das sonst bei ähnlichen Büchern der Fall ist; und ich werde ein Buch liefern, das unabhängiger von jedem fremden Urteil ist, als andere philosophische Schriften; denn ich werde über die wichtigsten Dinge bloß aussprechen, wie sich meine persönlichen Instinkte zu ihnen verhalten. Das ist vornehme Bescheidenheit. Sie geht freilich denen wider den Geschmack, deren verlogene Demut sagt: ich bin nichts, mein Werk ist alles; ich bringe nichts von persönlichem Empfinden in meine Bücher, sondern ich spreche bloß aus, was die reine Vernunft mich aussprechen heißt. Solche Menschen wollen ihre Person verleugnen, um behaupten zu können, dass ihre Aussprüche die eines höheren Geistes sind. Nietzsche hält seine Gedanken für Erzeugnisse seiner Person und für nicht mehr.
7.
[ 33 ] Die Fachphilosophen mögen über Nietzsche lächeln oder ihre Meinungen über die «Gefahren» seiner «Weltanschauung» zum besten geben. Manche dieser Geister, die nichts sind als personifizierte Lehrbücher der Logik, können natürlich Nietzsches aus den mächtigsten, unmittelbarsten Lebensimpulsen entspringendes Schaffen nicht loben.
[ 34 ] Nietzsche mit seinen kühnen Gedankensprüngen trifft jedenfalls auf tiefere Geheimnisse der menschlichen Natur, als mancher logische Denker mit seinem vorsichtigen Kriechen. Was nutzt alle Logik, wenn sie mit ihren Begriffsnetzen nur einen wertlosen Inhalt fängt? Wenn uns wertvolle Gedanken mitgeteilt werden, dann erfreuen wir uns an ihnen, wenn sie auch nicht mit logischen Fäden verknüpft sind. Das Heil des Lebens hängt nicht allein von der Logik ab, sondern auch von der Gedankenerzeugung. Unsere Fachphilosophie ist gegenwärtig unfruchtbar genug, und sie könnte die Belebung mit Gedanken eines mutigen, kühnen Schriftstellers, wie es Nietzsche ist, sehr wohl brauchen. Die Entwicklungskraft dieser Fachphilosophie ist gelähmt durch den Einfluss, den das Kantische Denken auf sie genommen hat. Sie hat durch diesen Einfluss alle Ursprünglichkeit, allen Mut verloren. Kant hat aus der Schulphilosophie seiner Zeit den Begriff von Wahrheiten, die aus der «reinen Vernunft» stammen, übernommen. Er hat zu zeigen versucht, dass wir durch solche Wahrheit nichts wissen können von Dingen, die jenseits unserer Erfahrung liegen, von «Dingen an sich». Seit einem Jahrhundert ist nun unermesslicher Scharfsinn aufgewendet worden, um diesen Kantischen Gedanken nach allen Seiten durchzudenken. Die Erzeugnisse dieses Scharfsinns sind allerdings oft dürftig und trivial. Übersetzte man die Banalitäten manches philosophischen Buches der Gegenwart aus den Schulformeln in eine gesunde Sprache, so würde sich ein solcher Inhalt gegenüber manchem kurzen Aphorismus Nietzsches armselig genug ausnehmen. Dieser konnte im Hinblick auf die Philosophie der Gegenwart mit einem gewissen Recht den stolzen Satz aussprechen: «Mein Ehrgeiz ist, in zehn Sätzen zu sagen, was jeder andere in einem Buche sagt — was jeder andere in einem Buche mehr sagt ... »
8.
[ 35 ] Wie Nietzsche in seinen eigenen Meinungen nichts geben will als ein Erzeugnis seiner persönlichen Instinkte und Triebe, so sind ihm auch fremde Ansichten nichts weiter als Symptome, aus denen er auf die in einzelnen Menschen oder ganzen Völkern, Rassen und so weiter vorwaltenden Instinkte schließt. Er macht sich nichts mit Diskussionen oder Widerlegungen fremder Meinungen zu schaffen. Aber er sucht die Instinkte auf, die sich in diesen Meinungen aussprechen. Er sucht die Charaktere der Persönlichkeiten oder Völker aus ihren Ansichten zu erkennen. Ob eine Ansicht auf das Vorwalten der Instinkte für Gesundheit, Tapferkeit, Vornehmheit, Lebensfreude hinweist, oder ob sie aus ungesunden, sklavischen, müden, lebens-feindlichen Instinkten entspringt, das interessiert ihn. Wahrheiten an sich sind ihm gleichgültig; er kümmert sich darum, wie die Menschen ihre Wahrheiten ihren Instinkten gemäß ausbilden, und wie sie damit ihre Lebensziele fördern. Die natürlichen Ursachen der menschlichen Ansichten will er aufsuchen.
[ 36 ] Nach dem Sinne jener Idealisten, die der Wahrheit einen selbständigen Wert zuerkennen, die ihr einen «reinen, höheren Ursprung» als den aus den Instinkten geben wollen, ist Nietzsches Bestreben allerdings nicht. Er erklärt die menschlichen Ansichten als das Ergebnis natürlicher Kräfte, wie der Naturforscher die Einrichtung des Auges aus dem Zusammenwirken natürlicher Ursachen erklärt. Eine Erklärung der geistigen Entwicklung der Menschheit aus besonderen sittlichen Zwecken, Idealen, aus einer sittlichen Weltordnung erkennt er ebenso wenig an, wie der Naturforscher der Gegenwart die Erklärung anerkennt, dass die Natur das Auge deswegen in einer bestimmten Weise gebaut hat, weil sie den Zweck hatte, dem Organismus ein Organ zum Sehen anzuerschaffen. In jedem Ideal sieht Nietzsche nur den Ausdruck für einen Instinkt, der sich auf eine bestimmte Art seine Befriedigung sucht, wie der moderne Naturforscher in der zweckmäßigen Einrichtung eines Organs das Ergebnis organischer Bildungsgesetze sieht. Wenn es gegenwärtig noch Naturforscher und Philosophen gibt, die jedes Schaffen der Natur nach Zwecken ablehnen, aber vor dem sittlichen Idealismus halt machen und in der Geschichte die Verwirklichung eines göttlichen Willens, einer idealen Ordnung der Dinge sehen, so ist dies eine Instinkthalbheit. Solchen Personen fehlt für die Beurteilung geistiger Vorgänge der richtige Blick, während sie ihn in der Beobachtung von Naturvorgängen zeigen. Wenn ein Mensch glaubt, er strebe ein Ideal an, das nicht aus der Wirklichkeit stammt, so glaubt er dies nur, weil er den Instinkt nicht kennt, aus dem dieses Ideal entsteht.
[ 37 ] Nietzsche ist Anti-Idealist in dem Sinne, wie der moderne Naturforscher Gegner der Annahme von Zwecken ist, die die Natur verwirklichen soll. Er spricht ebenso wenig von sittlichen Zwecken, wie der Naturforscher von Naturzwecken spricht. Nietzsche hält es nicht für weiser, zu sagen: der Mensch soll ein sittliches Ideal verwirklichen, wie zu erklären: der Stier hat Hörner, damit er stoßen könne. Er betrachtet den einen wie den andern Ausspruch als Produkt einer Welterklärung, welche von «göttlicher Vorsehung», «weiser Allmacht», statt von natürlichen Wirkungen spricht.
[ 38 ] Diese Welterklärung ist ein Hemmschuh für alles gesunde Denken; sie schafft einen erdichteten, idealen Nebel, der das natürliche, auf die Beobachtung der Wirklichkeit gerichtete Sehvermögen hindert, die Weltvorgänge zu durchschauen; sie stumpft endlich völlig allen Wirklichkeitssinn ab.
9.
[ 39 ] Wenn Nietzsche sich in einen geistigen Kampf einlässt, so will er nicht fremde Meinungen als solche widerlegen, sondern er tut es, weil diese Meinungen auf schädliche, naturwidrige Instinkte hinweisen, die er bekämpfen will. Er hat dabei eine ähnliche Absicht, wie sie jemand hat, der eine schädliche Naturwirkung bekämpft oder ein gefährliches Naturwesen vertilgt. Er baut nicht auf die «überzeugende» Kraft der Wahrheit, sondern darauf, dass er den Gegner besiegen wird, wenn dieser die ungesunden, schädlichen Instinkte, er aber die gesunden, lebenfördernden hat. Er sucht nach keiner weiteren Rechtfertigung eines solchen Kampfes, wenn seine Instinkte die des Gegners als schädlich empfinden. Er glaubt nicht als Vertreter irgend einer Idee kämpfen zu müssen, sondern er kämpft, weil ihn seine Instinkte dazu treiben. Zwar ist das bei keinem geistigen Kampfe anders, aber gewöhnlich sind sich die Kämpfer der wirklichen Triebfedern ebenso wenig bewusst, wie die Philosophen sich ihres «Willens zur Macht» oder die Anhänger der sittlichen Weltordnung der natürlichen Ursachen ihrer sittlichen Ideale. Sie glauben, dass lediglich Meinung gegen Meinung kämpft, und verhüllen ihre wirklichen Motive durch Begriffsmäntel. Sie nennen auch die Instinkte des Gegners nicht, die ihnen unsympathisch sind, ja diese kommen ihnen vielleicht gar nicht zum Bewusstsein. Kurz, die Kräfte, die eigentlich feindlich gegen einander gerichtet sind, treten gar nicht offen hervor. Nietzsche nennt rücksichtslos die Instinkte des Gegners, die ihm zuwider sind, und er nennt auch die Instinkte, die er ihnen entgegensetzt. Wer dies Zynismus nennen will, der mag es tun. Er soll aber nur nicht übersehen, dass es in aller menschlichen Tätigkeit niemals etwas anderes als solchen Zynismus gegeben hat, und dass alle idealistischen Wahngewebe von diesem Zynismus geweht sind.
I. The character
1.
[ 1 ] Friedrich Nietzsche characterizes himself as a solemn brooder and puzzle lover, as an unconventional personality. Those who go their own way, as he does, "meet no one: that is what 'their own way' entails. No one comes to help him; he has to deal with everything that happens to him from danger, chance, malice and bad weather alone," he says in the preface to the second edition of his "Dawn". But it is appealing to follow him into his solitude. I would like to say the words he spoke about his relationship to Schopenhauer about mine to Nietzsche: "I am one of those readers of Nietzsche who, after reading the first page of his work, know with certainty that they will read all the pages and listen to every word he has ever said. My trust in him was immediate ... I understood him as if he had written for me: to express myself intelligibly, but immodestly and foolishly." One can speak like this and be far from professing to be a "believer" in Nietzsche's world view. No further, however, than Nietzsche was from wishing for such "believers". After all, he puts the words into the mouth of his "Zarathustra":
[ 2 ] "You say you believe in Zarathustra? But what lies in Zarathustra! You are my believers: but what lies in all believers!"
[ 3 ] You had not yet sought yourselves: then you found me. So do all believers; therefore it is so little with all faith. Now I bid you lose me and find me; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you."
[ 4 ] Nietzsche is not a messiah and founder of a religion; he can therefore well wish for friends of his opinions; but he cannot want confessors of his teachings who give up their own selves in order to find his own.
[ 5 ] In Nietzsche's personality there are instincts to which entire circles of his contemporaries' ideas are repugnant. He turns away from the most important cultural ideas of those in whose midst he has developed with an instinctive aversion; not in the way one rejects an assertion in which one has discovered a logical contradiction, but in the way one turns away from a color that causes pain to the eye. The aversion comes from the immediate feeling; conscious reflection is not even considered at first. What other people feel when the thoughts of guilt, remorse, sin, the afterlife, ideal, bliss, fatherland pass through their minds has an unpleasant effect on Nietzsche. The instinctive nature of his aversion to these ideas also distinguishes Nietzsche from the so-called "free spirits" of the present day. These know all the intellectual objections to the "old delusions"; but how rare it is to find someone who can say of himself: his instincts are no longer attached to them! It is precisely the instincts that play evil tricks on the free spirits of the present. Thought takes on a character that is independent of traditional ideas, but the instincts cannot adapt to this changed character of the mind. These "free spirits" put some concept of modern science in the place of an older idea; but they speak of it in such a way that one recognizes: the mind goes a different way than the instincts. The intellect seeks in the substance, in the force, in the natural law the origin of phenomena; but the instincts tempt us to feel towards these beings what others feel towards their personal God. Spirits of this kind defend themselves against the reproach of denying God; but they do so not because their conception of the world leads them to something that agrees with any idea of God, but because they have inherited from their ancestors the quality of feeling an instinctive horror at the word "denier of God". Great natural scientists emphasize that they do not associate the ideas of: God, immortality do not want to banish them, but only to reshape them in line with modern science. Their instincts have simply lagged behind their intellect.
[ 6 ] A large number of these "free spirits" hold the view that the will of man is unfree. They say that man must act in a particular case in accordance with his character and the circumstances affecting him. But look around at these opponents of the view of "free will" and you will find that the instincts of these "free spirits" turn away from the perpetrator of an "evil" deed with the same disgust as the instincts of others who believe that "free will" can turn to good or evil at will.
[ 7 ] The contradiction between reason and instinct is the hallmark of our "modern minds". Even in the freest thinkers of the present day, the instincts planted by Christian orthodoxy are still alive. Precisely the opposite instincts are at work in Nietzsche's nature. He does not even need to think about whether there are reasons against the assumption of a personal ruler of the world. His instinct is too proud to bow to such a one; therefore he rejects such an idea. He speaks to his Zarathustra: "But that I may fully reveal my heart to you, friends: if there were gods, how could I bear not to be a god! So there are no gods." To pronounce himself or someone else "guilty" for an act committed is something that nothing inside him urges him to do. In order to find such a "guilty" inadmissible, he does not need a theory of "free" or "unfree" will.
[ 8 ] The patriotic sentiments of his fellow Germans are also contrary to Nietzsche's instincts. He cannot make his feelings and thoughts dependent on the thought circles of the people within which he was born and educated, nor on the time in which he lives. "It is so small-town," he says in his essay "Schopenhauer as Educator", "to commit oneself to views that are no longer binding a few hundred miles away. Orient and Occident are chalk lines that someone paints before our eyes to fool our fearfulness. I want to make an attempt to reach freedom, says the young soul; and it should prevent it from doing so that two nations happen to hate and fight each other, or that a sea lies between two continents, or that a religion is taught all around it that did not exist a few thousand years ago." The feelings of the Germans during the war in 1870 found so little resonance in his soul that, "while the thunder of the Battle of Wörth was rolling over Europe", he sat in a corner of the Alps, "very brooding and puzzled, consequently very sorrowful and unconcerned at the same time", and wrote down his thoughts about the Greeks. And when, a few weeks later, he found himself "under the walls of Metz", he had "still not got rid of the question marks" that he had placed on life and "Greek art". (Cf. "Attempt at self-criticism" in the second edition of his "Birth of Tragedy"). When the war was over, he was so out of tune with the enthusiasm of his German contemporaries about the victory that he spoke of the "bad and dangerous consequences" of the victorious battle in his 1873 essay on David Strauss. He even presented it as a delusion that German culture had also triumphed in this battle, and he called this delusion dangerous because, if it becomes dominant within the German people, there is a danger of turning the victory "into a complete defeat: into the defeat, even extirpation of the German spirit in favor of the 'German Reich'." This is Nietzsche's attitude at a time when all of Europe is full of national enthusiasm. It is the attitude of an outmoded personality, a fighter against his time. Apart from the above, many other things could be mentioned that are different in Nietzsche's emotional and imaginative life from that of his contemporaries.
2.
[ 9 ] Nietzsche is not a "thinker" in the usual sense of the word. For the questionable and profound questions that he has to ask of the world and of life, mere thinking is not enough. All the powers of human nature must be unleashed for these questions; thinking contemplation alone is not up to them. Nietzsche has no confidence in merely thought out reasons for an opinion. "There is a distrust in me against dialectics, even against reasons," he wrote to Georg Brandes on December z, 1887. (Cf. his "Menschen und Werke", p. 212.) If anyone asks him for the reasons for his views, he has "Zarathustra's" answer ready for them: "You ask why? I am not one of those who may be asked why." It is not whether a view can be logically proven that is decisive for him, but whether it affects all the forces of the human personality in such a way that it has value for life. He only accepts an idea if he finds it suitable for contributing to the development of life. His wish is to see people as healthy as possible, as powerful as possible, as creative as possible. Truth, beauty, all ideals only have value and only concern man insofar as they promote life.
[ 10 ] The question of the value of truth appears in several of Nietzsche's writings. It is posed in its most audacious form in his book "Beyond Good and Evil". "The will to truth, which will still seduce us to many a venture, that famous truthfulness of which all philosophers have spoken with reverence up to now: what questions has this will to truth already presented to us! What strange, terrible, questionable questions! This is already a long story - and yet it seems that it has barely just begun. What wonder if we finally become suspicious, lose patience, turn around impatiently? That we learn to ask questions from this sphinx? Who is actually asking us questions here? What in us actually wants 'to the truth'? - In fact, we stopped long before the question of the cause of this will - until we finally came to a complete standstill before an even more profound question. We asked about the value of this will. Assuming we want truth: why not rather untruth?"
[ 11 ] This is a thought of almost unsurpassable audacity. If one places next to it what another bold "ponderer and puzzle lover", Johann Gottlieb Fichte, says about the pursuit of truth, one can only see how deeply Nietzsche draws his ideas from the essence of human nature. "I am called" - says Fichte - "to bear witness to the truth; nothing lies in my life and my destiny; infinitely much lies in the effects of my life. I am a priest of the truth; I am in its pay; I have committed myself to do and dare and suffer everything for it." (Fichte, Lectures "On the Destiny of the Scholar", fourth lecture. These words express the relationship in which the noblest spirits of Western modern culture place themselves to truth. Compared to Nietzsche's statement, they appear superficial. One can object to them: Is it not possible that untruth has more valuable effects on life than truth? Is it impossible that truth is harmful to life? Did Fichte ask himself these questions? Have others who have "borne witness to the truth" done so?
[ 12 ] Nietzsche, however, asks these questions. And he believes that he can only come to terms with them if he does not treat the striving for truth as a mere intellectual matter, but rather searches for the instincts that generate this striving. For it could well be that these instincts only use the truth as a means to achieve something higher than the truth. Nietzsche, after having "looked long enough between the lines and at the fingers" of philosophers, finds that "most of the conscious thinking of a philosopher is secretly guided by his instincts and forced into certain paths." Philosophers believe that the ultimate driving force behind their actions is the pursuit of truth. They believe this because they are unable to see to the bottom of human nature. In reality, the pursuit of truth is driven by the will to power. With the help of truth, the power and fullness of life of the personality should be increased. The conscious thinking of the philosopher is of the opinion that the knowledge of truth is an ultimate goal; the unconscious instinct that drives thinking strives to promote life. For this instinct, "the falsity of a judgment is not yet an objection to a judgment"; for it, the only question to be considered is "how far it is life-promoting, life-preserving, species-preserving, perhaps even species-breeding" ("Beyond Good and Evil", § 3 and 4).
[ 13 ] “‘Will to truth’: is that what you call it, you wisest, what drives you and makes you ardent?
[ 14 ] Will to the conceivability of all that exists: thus I call your will!
[ 15 ] You first want to make conceivable everything that exists: for you doubt with good suspicion whether it is already conceivable.
[ 16 ] But it shall submit and bend to you! That is your will. It shall become smooth and subject to the spirit, as its mirror and reflection.
[ 17 ] This is your whole will, ye wisest, as a will to power ...” ("Zarathustra", part 2, "On overcoming oneself".)
[ 18 ] Truth should make the world subject to the spirit and thereby serve life. It only has value as a condition of life. - But can we not go further and ask: what is life itself worth? Nietzsche considers such a question impossible. He accepts the fact that all living things want to live as powerfully, as richly as possible, as a fact about which he does not ponder any further. The instincts of life do not ask about the value of life. They only ask: what means exist to increase the power of their bearer. "Judgments, value judgments about life, for or against, can ultimately never be true: they only have value as symptoms, they only come into consideration as symptoms - in themselves such judgments are stupidities. One must certainly stretch out one's fingers and try to grasp the astonishing subtlety that the value of life cannot be estimated. Not by a living person, because such a person is a party, even an object of dispute, and not a judge; not by a dead person, for another reason. - To see a problem in the value of life on the part of a philosopher remains in this way even an objection against him, a question mark on his wisdom, an unwisdom." -("Götzen-Dämmerung", "Das Problem des Sokrates".) The question of the value of life exists only for a poorly developed, sick personality. He who is developed on all sides lives without asking how much his life is worth.
[ 19 ] Because Nietzsche holds the views described, he attaches little importance to logical reasons for a judgment. What matters to him is not whether the judgment can be proven logically, but how well one can live under its influence. Not only the mind, but the whole personality of man should be satisfied. The best thoughts are those that bring all the forces of human nature into a movement appropriate to them.
[ 20 ] Only thoughts of this kind are of interest to Nietzsche. He is not a philosophical mind, but a "honey-gatherer of the spirit" who seeks out the "beehives" of knowledge and tries to bring home what is pious to life.
3.
[ 21 ] In Nietzsche's personality, those instincts are predominant that make man a commanding, imperious being. He likes everything that expresses power; he dislikes everything that betrays weakness. He only feels happy as long as he is in living conditions that increase his strength. He loves obstacles and resistance to his activity because he becomes aware of his power when he overcomes them. He seeks out the most arduous paths that man can take. A basic trait of his character is expressed in the saying he put on the title page of the second edition of his "Fröhliche Wissenschaft":
"I live in my own house,
Have never imitated anyone
And - laughed at every master,
Who did not laugh at himself."
[ 22 ] Nietzsche perceives any kind of subordination to a foreign power as weakness. And he thinks differently about what a "foreign power" is than some people who describe themselves as an "independent, free spirit". Nietzsche sees it as a weakness when people submit to so-called "eternal, iron" laws of reason in their thoughts and actions. What the all-round developed personality does is not dictated to it by any moral science, but solely by the impulses of its own self. Man is already weak the moment he searches for laws and rules according to which he should think and act. The strong determines the nature of his thoughts and actions from his own being.
[ 23 ] Nietzsche expresses this view most harshly in sentences for the sake of which petty thinkers have described him as a dangerous spirit: "When the Christian crusaders encountered in the Orient that invincible order of assassins, that order of free spirits par excellence, whose lowest grades lived in an obedience such as no monastic order has equaled, they also received by some means a hint of that symbol and notch word which was reserved only for the highest grades, as their secretum: 'Nothing is true, everything is permitted'. 1Highlighted by the author Well, that was freedom of the mind, thereby denouncing the truth itself" ... ("Genealogy of Morals", 3rd treatise, § 24.) That these sentences express the feelings of a noble, a master nature, which does not want to let the permission to live freely, according to its own laws, be withered by any consideration of eternal truths and regulations of morality, is not felt by those people who, according to their nature, are suited to submissiveness. A personality such as Nietzsche's does not tolerate those tyrants who appear in the form of abstract moral commandments. I decide how I want to think, how I want to act, says such a nature.
[ 24 ] There are people who derive their right to call themselves "freethinkers" from the fact that in their thoughts and actions they do not subject themselves to such laws that originate from other people, but only to the "eternal laws of reason", the "irrefutable concepts of duty" or the "will of God". Nietzsche does not regard such people as truly strong personalities. For they too do not think and act according to their own nature, but according to the commands of a higher authority. Whether the slave follows the arbitrariness of his master, the religious the revealed truths of a god or the philosopher the sayings of reason, this does not change the fact that they are all obeyers. What commands does not matter; what is decisive is that commands are given at all, that man does not give himself the direction for his actions, but is of the opinion that there is a power that marks out this direction for him.
[ 25 ] The strong, truly free person does not want to receive the truth - he wants to create it; he does not want to be "allowed" to do anything, he does not want to obey. "But the real philosophers are commanders and legislators: they say: 'this is how it should be!'; they first determine the 'where to' and 'what for' of man and in doing so have at their disposal the preliminary work of all philosophical workers, all overcomers of the past - they reach for the future with a creative hand, and everything that is and was becomes a means, a tool, a hammer for them. Their 'cognition' is creation, their creation is legislation, their will to truth is - will to power. - Are there such philosophers today? Have there ever been such philosophers? Must there not be such philosophers?" ("Beyond Good and Evil", §211.)
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[ 26 ] Nietzsche sees a particular sign of human weakness in any kind of belief in an afterlife, in a world other than the one in which man lives. In his view, one can do no greater harm to life than if one arranges one's life in this world with a view to another life in the hereafter. One cannot indulge in any greater aberration than to assume that behind the phenomena of this world there are beings that are inaccessible to human cognition and that are to be regarded as the actual primordial ground, as the determining factor of all existence. Such an assumption spoils one's enjoyment of this world. It is degraded to a mere reflection of something inaccessible. We declare the world we know, the world that is real for us alone, to be a vain dream and attribute the true reality to a dreamed-up, imaginary other world. The human senses are declared to be deceivers that provide us with illusory images instead of realities.
[ 27 ] Such a view can only come from weakness. For the strong man, who is firmly rooted in reality, who takes pleasure in life, will not entertain the idea of inventing another reality. He is occupied with this world and needs no other. But the suffering, the sick, those who are dissatisfied with this life, take refuge in the hereafter. What this world has deprived them of, the hereafter should offer them. The strong, the healthy, who has developed and capable senses to seek out the reasons of this world within it, needs no otherworldly reasons and entities to explain the phenomena within which he lives. The weak, who perceives reality with crippled eyes and ears, needs causes behind the phenomena.
[ 28 ] The belief in the hereafter is born out of suffering and sick longing. All assumptions of "things in themselves" have grown out of the inability to see through the real world.
[ 29 ] All those who have reason to deny the real life say Yes to a fictionalized one. Nietzsche wants to be a jasager in the face of reality. He wants to explore this world in all directions, he wants to drill into the depths of existence; he wants to know nothing of another life. Even suffering cannot cause him to say no to life; for suffering is also a means of knowledge for him. "Not unlike what a traveler does when he resolves to wake up at a certain hour and then calmly abandons himself to sleep, we philosophers, if we fall ill, temporarily surrender ourselves body and soul to illness - we close our eyes, as it were, before us. And as he knows that something is not asleep, something is counting the hours and will awaken him, so we know that the decisive moment will find us awake, - that something will then spring forth and catch the mind in the act, I mean in weakness or conversion or surrender or hardening or darkening, and whatever all the morbid states of mind are called which in healthy days have the pride of mind against them.... After such self-questioning, self-testing, one learns to look with a finer eye at everything that has been philosophized about so far..." Preface to the second edition of "Fröhliche Wissenschaft")
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[ 30 ] This life- and reality-friendly sense of Nietzsche is also evident in his views on people and their mutual relationships. In this area, Nietzsche is a complete individualist. For him, every person is a world apart, a unique entity. No coincidence, no matter how strange, can shake together the strangely colorful diversity that is united into a "unity" and confronts us as a particular person a second time in the same way. ("Schopenhauer als Erzieher", i.) Very few people, however, are inclined to unfold their peculiarities, which only exist once. They are afraid of the loneliness into which they are thereby forced. It is more comfortable and less dangerous to live in the same way as one's fellow men; one then always finds company. Those who settle down in their own way are not understood by others and find no comrades. For Nietzsche, solitude has a special appeal. He loves to seek out the secrets of his own inner self. He flees the community of people. His trains of thought are mostly attempts to drill for treasures that lie hidden deep within his personality. He spurns the light that others offer him; he does not want to breathe the air that is breathed where the "commonality of people", the "rule of man" lives. He instinctively strives for his "castle and secrecy, where he is redeemed from the crowd, the many, the vast majority". ("Beyond Good and Evil", § 26.) In his "Happy Science" he complains that it is difficult for him to "digest" his fellow human beings; and in "Beyond Good and Evil" (§ 282) he reveals that he usually suffered dangerous indigestion when he sat down at tables where the fare of the "generally human" was enjoyed. People must not get too close to Nietzsche if he is to endure them.
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[ 31 ] Nietzsche declares a thought, a judgment to be valid in the form to which the free instincts of life give their consent. He does not allow any logical doubt to deprive him of views that life decides in favor of. This gives his thinking a secure, free trait. It is not swayed by concerns such as whether an assertion is also "objectively" true, whether it does not exceed the limits of human cognition and so on. Once Nietzsche has recognized the value of a judgement for life, he no longer asks for a further "objective" meaning and validity of the same. And he is not concerned about the limits of cognition. He is of the opinion that healthy thinking creates what it can create and is not tormented by the useless question: what can I not?
[ 32 ] Whoever wants to determine the value of a judgment according to the degree to which it promotes life can, of course, only determine this degree through his own personal life instincts and life instincts. He can never want to say more than: in relation to my life instincts, I consider this particular judgment to be a valuable one. And Nietzsche never wants to say anything else when he expresses an opinion. It is precisely this relationship to his world of thought that has such a beneficial effect on the liberal-minded reader. It gives Nietzsche's writings the character of unpretentious, modest nobility. How repulsive and immodest it sounds when other thinkers believe that their person is the organ through which eternal, irrefutable truths are proclaimed to the world. One can find sentences in Nietzsche's works that express a strong self-confidence, for example: "I have given mankind the deepest book it possesses, my Zarathustra: I give it the most independent one for a short time." - ("Götzen-Dämmerung", "Streifzüge eines Unzeitgemäßen", §51.) But what does this say from his mouth? I have dared to write a book whose contents are drawn more deeply from the nature of a personality than is usually the case with similar books; and I shall deliver a book that is more independent of any foreign judgment than other philosophical writings; for I shall merely speak about the most important things as my personal instincts relate to them. This is noble modesty. Of course, it goes against the taste of those whose mendacious humility says: I am nothing, my work is everything; I bring nothing of personal feeling into my books, but I merely express what pure reason tells me to express. Such people want to deny their person in order to be able to claim that their utterances are those of a higher spirit. Nietzsche considers his thoughts to be products of his person and nothing more.
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[ 33 ] The specialist philosophers may smile at Nietzsche or offer their opinions on the "dangers" of his "world view". Some of these minds, who are nothing but personified textbooks of logic, naturally cannot praise Nietzsche's work, which springs from the most powerful, most direct impulses of life.
[ 34 ] Nietzsche, with his bold leaps of thought, at any rate encounters deeper secrets of human nature than many a logical thinker with his cautious crawling. What use is all logic if it only catches worthless content with its networks of concepts? When valuable thoughts are communicated to us, we rejoice in them, even if they are not linked with logical threads. The salvation of life depends not only on logic, but also on the generation of thought. Our professional philosophy is currently unfruitful enough, and it could very well use the stimulation of the thoughts of a courageous, bold writer such as Nietzsche. The developmental power of this specialist philosophy is paralyzed by the influence that Kantian thought has had on it. It has lost all originality and courage through this influence. Kant adopted the concept of truths derived from "pure reason" from the school philosophy of his time. He tried to show that through such truth we can know nothing of things that lie beyond our experience, of "things in themselves". For a century now, immeasurable ingenuity has been expended to think this Kantian thought through from all sides. However, the products of this ingenuity are often meagre and trivial. If one were to translate the banalities of many a contemporary philosophical book from school formulas into healthy language, such content would look poor enough in comparison with some of Nietzsche's short aphorisms. With regard to contemporary philosophy, the latter could proudly say with a certain right: "My ambition is to say in ten sentences what everyone else says in a book - what everyone else says more in a book ... "
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[ 35 ] Just as Nietzsche wants to give nothing in his own opinions but a product of his personal instincts and drives, so also foreign opinions are nothing more to him than symptoms from which he deduces the instincts prevailing in individual men or whole peoples, races and so on. He does not bother himself with discussions or refutations of other people's opinions. But he seeks out the instincts that express themselves in these opinions. He seeks to recognize the characters of personalities or peoples from their opinions. Whether an opinion points to the prevalence of instincts for health, bravery, nobility, joie de vivre, or whether it springs from unhealthy, slavish, tired, anti-life instincts, that is what interests him. He is indifferent to truths per se; he is concerned with how people form their truths according to their instincts and how they use them to further their goals in life. He wants to seek out the natural causes of human opinions.
[ 36 ] However, Nietzsche's endeavor is not in the spirit of those idealists who grant truth an independent value, who want to give it a "pure, higher origin" than that of instincts. He explains human views as the result of natural forces, just as the natural scientist explains the eye's mechanism from the interaction of natural causes. He recognizes no more an explanation of the spiritual development of mankind from special moral purposes, ideals, from a moral world order, than the natural scientist of the present day recognizes the explanation that nature built the eye in a certain way because it had the purpose of creating an organ for the organism to see. Nietzsche sees in every ideal only the expression of an instinct that seeks its satisfaction in a certain way, just as the modern naturalist sees in the purposeful arrangement of an organ the result of organic laws of formation. If there are still naturalists and philosophers today who reject any creation of nature according to purpose, but stop short of moral idealism and see in history the realization of a divine will, an ideal order of things, then this is an instinctive half-measure. Such persons lack the right view for the judgment of spiritual processes, whereas they show it in the observation of natural processes. If a person believes that he is striving for an ideal that does not originate from reality, he only believes this because he does not know the instinct from which this ideal arises.
[ 37 ] Nietzsche is an anti-idealist in the sense that the modern naturalist is an opponent of the assumption of purposes that nature should realize. He speaks just as little of moral purposes as the natural scientist speaks of natural purposes. Nietzsche does not consider it wiser to say that man should realize a moral ideal than to declare that the bull has horns so that it can thrust. He regards both statements as the product of an explanation of the world that speaks of "divine providence", "wise omnipotence", instead of natural effects.
[ 38 ] This explanation of the world is an obstacle to all sound thinking; it creates a fictitious, ideal fog that prevents natural vision, which is directed towards the observation of reality, from seeing through world processes; it finally completely dulls all sense of reality.
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[ 39 ] When Nietzsche engages in an intellectual battle, he does not want to refute foreign opinions as such, but he does so because these opinions point to harmful, anti-natural instincts that he wants to combat. His intention is similar to that of someone who fights a harmful natural effect or destroys a dangerous natural being. He is not relying on the "convincing" power of truth, but on the fact that he will defeat his opponent if he has the unhealthy, harmful instincts and he has the healthy, life-enhancing ones. He seeks no further justification for such a battle if his instincts perceive those of his opponent as harmful. He does not believe he has to fight as a representative of some idea, but fights because his instincts drive him to do so. Although this is no different in any spiritual struggle, the fighters are usually just as unaware of the real driving forces as the philosophers are of their "will to power" or the supporters of the moral world order of the natural causes of their moral ideals. They believe that only opinion fights against opinion and cloak their real motives in conceptual cloaks. They do not even name the instincts of their opponents, which they find unsympathetic; indeed, they may not even be aware of them. In short, the forces that are actually hostile to each other do not emerge openly. Nietzsche ruthlessly names the instincts of the opponent that are repugnant to him, and he also names the instincts that he sets against them. Whoever wants to call this cynism may do so. But he should not overlook the fact that in all human activity there has never been anything other than such cynicism, and that all idealistic delusions are blown by this cynicism.