invaluable means for getting a knowledge of _many_ things and various conditions, to the very bottom of their sweetness and bitterness; my nature is altogether arranged for short-lived habits, even in the needs of its bodily health, and in general, _as far as_ I can see, from the lowest up to the highest matters. I always think that _this_ will at last satisfy me permanently (the short-lived habit has also that characteristic belief of passion, the belief in everlasting duration; I am to be envied for having found it and recognised it), and then it nourishes me at noon and at eve, and spreads a profound satisfaction around me and in me, so that I have no longing for anything else, not needing to compare, or despise, or hate. But one day the habit has had its time: the good thing separates from me, not as something which then inspires disgust in me—but peaceably and as though satisfied with me, as I am with it; as if we had to be mutually thankful, and _thus_ shook hands for farewell. And already the new habit waits at the door, and similarly also my belief—indestructible fool and sage that I am!—that this new habit will be the right one, the ultimate right one. So it is with me as regards foods, thoughts, men, cities, poems, music, doctrines, arrangements of the day, and modes of life.—On the other hand, I hate _permanent_ habits, and feel as if a tyrant came into my neighbourhood, and as if my life's breath _condensed_, when events take such a form that permanent habits seem necessarily to grow out of them: for example, through an official position, through constant companionship with the same persons, through a settled abode, or through a uniform state of health. Indeed, from the bottom of my soul I am gratefully disposed to all my misery and sickness, and to whatever is imperfect in me, because such things leave me a hundred back-doors through which I can escape from permanent habits. The most unendurable thing, to be sure, the really terrible thing, would be a life without habits, a life which continually required improvisation:—that would be my banishment and my Siberia.
296.
_A Fixed Reputation._—A fixed reputation was formerly a matter of the very greatest utility; and wherever society continues to be ruled by the herd-instinct, it is still most suitable for every individual _to give_ to his character and business _the appearance_ of unalterableness,—even when they are not so in reality. "One can rely on him, he remains the same"—that is the praise which has most significance in all dangerous conditions of society. Society feels with satisfaction that it has a reliable _tool_ ready at all times in the virtue of this one, in the ambition of that one, and in the reflection and passion of a third one,—it honours this _tool-like nature_, this self-constancy, this unchangeableness in opinions, efforts, and even in faults, with the highest honours. Such a valuation, which prevails and has prevailed everywhere simultaneously with the morality of custom, educates "characters," and brings all changing, re-learning, and self-transforming into _disrepute_. Be the advantage of this mode of thinking ever so great otherwise, it is in any case the mode of judging which is most injurious _to knowledge_: for precisely the good-will of the knowing one ever to declare himself unhesitatingly as _opposed_ to his former opinions, and in general to be distrustful of all that wants to be fixed in him—is here condemned and brought into disrepute. The disposition of the thinker, as incompatible with a "fixed reputation," is regarded as _dishonourable_, while the petrifaction of opinions has all the honour to itself:—we have at present still to live under the interdict of such rules! How difficult it is to live when one feels that the judgment of many millenniums is around one and against one. It is probable that for many millenniums knowledge was afflicted with a bad conscience, and that there must have been much self-contempt and secret misery in the history of the greatest intellects.
297.
_Ability to Contradict._—Everyone knows at present that the ability to endure contradiction is a high indication of culture. Some people even know that the higher man courts opposition, and provokes it, so as to get a cue to his hitherto unknown partiality. But the _ability_ to contradict, the attainment of _good_ conscience in hostility to the accustomed, the traditional and the hallowed,—that is more than both the above-named abilities, and is the really great, new and astonishing thing in our culture, the step of all steps of the emancipated intellect: who knows that?— 298.
_A Sigh._—I caught this notion on the way, and rapidly took the readiest, poor words to hold it fast, so that it might not again fly away. And now it has died in these dry words, and hangs and flaps about in them—and I hardly know now, when I look upon it, how I could have had such happiness when I caught this bird.
299.
_What one should Learn from Artists._—What means have we for making things beautiful, attractive, and desirable, when they are not so?—and I suppose they are never so in themselves! We have here something to learn from physicians, when, for example, they dilute what is bitter, or put wine and sugar into their mixing-bowl; but we have still more to learn from artists, who in fact, are continually concerned in devising such inventions and artifices. To withdraw from things until one no longer sees much of them, until one has even to see things into them, _in order to see them at all_—or to view them from the side, and as in a frame—or to place them so that they partly disguise themselves and only permit of perspective views—or to look at them through coloured glasses, or in the light of the sunset—or to furnish them with a surface or skin which is not fully transparent: we should learn all that from artists, and moreover be wiser than they. For this fine power of theirs usually ceases with them where art ceases and life begins; _we_, however, want to be the poets of our life, and first of all in the smallest and most commonplace matters.
300.
_Prelude to Science._—Do you believe then that the sciences would have arisen and grown up if the sorcerers, alchemists, astrologers and witches had not been their forerunners; those who, with their promisings and foreshadowings, had first to create a thirst, a hunger, and a taste for _hidden and forbidden_ powers? Yea, that infinitely more had to be _promised_ than could ever be fulfilled, in order that something might be fulfilled in the domain of knowledge? Perhaps the whole of _religion_, also, may appear to some distant age as an exercise and a prelude, in like manner as the prelude and preparation of science here exhibit themselves, though _not_ at all practised and regarded as such.
Perhaps religion may have been the peculiar means for enabling individual men to enjoy but once the entire self-satisfaction of a God and all his self-redeeming power. Indeed!—one may ask—would man have learned at all to get on the tracks of hunger and thirst for _himself_, and to extract satiety and fullness out of _himself_, without that religious schooling and preliminary history? Had Prometheus first to _fancy_ that he had _stolen_ the light, and that he did penance for the theft—in order finally to discover that he had created the light, _in that he had longed for the light_, and that not only man, but also _God_ had been the work of _his_ hands and the clay in his hands? All mere creations of the creator?—just as the illusion, the theft, the Caucasus, the vulture, and the whole tragic Prometheia of all thinkers!
301.
_Illusion of the Contemplative._—Higher men are distinguished from lower, by seeing and hearing immensely more, and in a thoughtful manner—and it is precisely this that distinguishes man from the animal, and the higher animal from the lower. The world always becomes fuller for him who grows up into the full stature of humanity; there are always more interesting fishing-hooks, thrown out to him; the number of his stimuli is continually on the increase, and similarly the varieties of his pleasure and pain,—the higher man becomes always at the same time happier and unhappier. An _illusion_, however, is his constant accompaniment all along: he thinks he is placed as a _spectator_ and _auditor_ before the great pantomime and concert of life; he calls his nature a _contemplative nature_, and thereby overlooks the fact that he himself is also a real creator, and continuous poet of life,—that he no doubt differs greatly from the _actor_ in this drama, the so-called practical man, but differs still more from a mere onlooker or spectator _before_ the stage. There is certainly _vis contemplativa_, and re-examination of his work peculiar to him as poet, but at the same time, and first and foremost, he has the _vis creativa_, which the practical man or doer _lacks_, whatever appearance and current belief may say to the contrary. It is we, we who think and feel, that actually and unceasingly _make_ something which does not yet exist: the whole eternally increasing world of valuations, colours, weights, perspectives, gradations, affirmations and negations. This composition of ours is continually learnt, practised, and translated into flesh and actuality, and even into the commonplace, by the so-called practical men (our actors, as we have said). Whatever has _value_ in the present world, has it not in itself, by its nature,—nature is always worthless:—but a value was once given to it, bestowed upon it, and it was _we_ who gave and bestowed! We only have created the world _which is of any account to man_!—But it is precisely this knowledge that we lack, and when we get hold of it for a moment we have forgotten it the next: we misunderstand our highest power, we contemplative men, and estimate ourselves at too low a rate,—we are neither as _proud nor as happy_ as we might be.
302.
_The Danger of the Happiest Ones._—To have fine senses and a fine taste; to be accustomed to the select and the intellectually best as our proper and readiest fare; to be blessed with a strong, bold, and daring soul; to go through life with a quiet eye and a firm step, ever ready for the worst as for a festival, and full of longing for undiscovered worlds and seas, men and Gods; to listen to all joyous music, as if there, perhaps, brave men, soldiers and seafarers, took a brief repose and enjoyment, and in the profoundest pleasure of the moment were overcome with tears and the whole purple melancholy of happiness: who would not like all this to be _his_ possession, his condition! It was the _happiness of Homer_! The condition of him who invented the Gods for the Greeks,—nay, who invented _his_ Gods for himself! But let us not conceal the fact that with this happiness of Homer in one's soul, one is more liable to suffering than any other creature under the sun! And only at this price do we purchase the most precious pearl that the waves of existence have hitherto washed ashore! As its possessor one always becomes more sensitive to pain, and at last too sensitive: a little displeasure and loathing sufficed in the end to make Homer disgusted with life. He was unable to solve a foolish little riddle which some young fishers proposed to him! Yes, the little riddles are the dangers of the happiest ones!— 303.
_Two Happy Ones._—Certainly this man, notwithstanding his youth, understands the _improvisation of life_, and astonishes even the acutest observers. For it seems that he never makes a mistake, although he constantly plays the most hazardous games. One is reminded of the improvising masters of the musical art, to whom even the listeners would fain ascribe a divine _infallibility_ of the hand, notwithstanding that they now and then make a mistake, as every mortal is liable to do. But they are skilled and inventive, and always ready in a moment to arrange into the structure of the score the most accidental tone (where the jerk of a finger or a humour brings it about), and to animate the accident with a fine meaning and a soul.—Here is quite a different man: everything that he intends and plans fails with him in the long run.
That on which he has now and again set his heart has already brought him several times to the abyss, and to the very verge of ruin; and if he has as yet got out of the scrape, it certainly has not been merely with a "black eye." Do you think he is unhappy over it? He resolved long ago not to regard his own wishes and plans as of so much importance. "If this does not succeed with me,"—he says to himself, "perhaps that will succeed; and on the whole I do not know but that I am under more obligation to thank my failures than any of my successes. Am I made to be headstrong, and to wear the bull's horns? That which constitutes the worth and the sum of life _for me_, lies somewhere else; I know more of life, because I have been so often on the point of losing it; and just on that account I _have_ more of life than any of you!"
304.
_In Doing we Leave Undone._—In the main all those moral systems are distasteful to me which say: "Do not do this! Renounce! Overcome thyself!" On the other hand I am favourable to those moral systems which stimulate me to do something, and to do it again from morning till evening, and dream of it at night, and think of nothing else but to do it _well_, as well as it is possible for _me_ alone! From him who so lives there fall off one after the other the things that do not pertain to such a life: without hatred or antipathy, he sees _this_ take leave of him to-day, and _that_ to-morrow, like the yellow leaves which every livelier breeze strips from the tree: or he does not see at all that they take leave of him, so firmly is his eye fixed upon his goal, and generally forward, not sideways, backward, nor downward. "Our doing must determine what we leave undone; in that we do, we leave undone"—so it pleases me, so runs _my placitum_. But I do not mean to strive with open eyes for my impoverishment; I do not like any of the negative virtues whose very essence is negation and self-renunciation.
305.
_Self-control._—Those moral teachers who first and foremost order man to get himself into his own power, induce thereby a curious infirmity in him,—namely, a constant sensitiveness with reference to all natural strivings and inclinations, and as it were, a sort of itching. Whatever may henceforth drive him, draw him, allure or impel him, whether internally or externally—it always seems to this sensitive being, as if his self-control were in danger: he is no longer at liberty to trust himself to any instinct, to any free flight, but stands constantly with defensive mien, armed against himself, with sharp distrustful eye, the eternal watcher of his stronghold, to which office he has appointed himself. Yes, he can be _great_ in that position! But how unendurable he has now become to others, how difficult even for himself to bear, how impoverished and cut off from the finest accidents of his soul! Yea, even from all further _instruction_! For we must be able to lose ourselves at times, if we want to learn something of what we have not in ourselves.
306.
_Stoic and Epicurean._—The Epicurean selects the situations, the persons, and even the events which suit his extremely sensitive, intellectual constitution; he renounces the rest—that is to say, by far the greater part of experience—because it would be too strong and too heavy fare for him. The Stoic, on the contrary, accustoms himself to swallow stones and vermin, glass-splinters and scorpions, without feeling any disgust: his stomach is meant to become indifferent in the end to all that the accidents of existence cast into it:—he reminds one of the Arabic sect of the Assaua, with which the French became acquainted in Algiers; and like those insensible persons, he also likes well to have an invited public at the exhibition of his insensibility, the very thing the Epicurean willingly dispenses with:—he has of course his "garden"! Stoicism may be quite advisable for men with whom fate improvises, for those who live in violent times and are dependent on abrupt and changeable individuals. He, however, who _anticipates_ that fate will permit him to spin "a long thread," does well to make his arrangements in Epicurean fashion; all men devoted to intellectual labour have done it hitherto! For it would be a supreme loss to them to forfeit their fine sensibility, and acquire the hard, stoical hide with hedgehog prickles in exchange.
307.
_In Favour of Criticism._—Something now appears to thee as an error which thou formerly lovedst as a truth, or as a probability: thou pushest it from thee and imaginest that thy reason has there gained a victory. But perhaps that error was then, when thou wast still another person—thou art always another person,—just as necessary to thee as all thy present "truths," like a skin, as it were, which concealed and veiled from thee much which thou still mayst not see. Thy new life, and not thy reason, has slain that opinion for thee: _thou dost not require it any longer_, and now it breaks down of its own accord, and the irrationality crawls out of it as a worm into the light. When we make use of criticism it is not something arbitrary and impersonal,—it is, at least very often, a proof that there are lively, active forces in us, which cast a skin. We deny, and must deny, because something in us _wants_ to live and affirm itself, something which we perhaps do not as yet know, do not as yet see!—So much in favour of criticism.
308.
_The History of each Day._—What is it that constitutes the history of each day for thee? Look at thy habits of which it consists: are they the product of numberless little acts of cowardice and laziness, or of thy bravery and inventive reason? Although the two cases are so different, it is possible that men might bestow the same praise upon thee, and that thou mightst also be equally useful to them in the one case as in the other. But praise and utility and respectability may suffice for him whose only desire is to have a good conscience,—not however for thee, the "trier of the reins," who hast a _consciousness of the conscience_!
309.
_Out of the Seventh Solitude._—One day the wanderer shut a door behind him, stood still, and wept. Then he said: "Oh, this inclination and impulse towards the true, the real, the non-apparent, the certain! How I detest it! Why does this gloomy and passionate taskmaster follow just _me_? I should like to rest, but it does not permit me to do so. Are there not a host of things seducing me to tarry! Everywhere there are gardens of Armida for me, and therefore there will always be fresh separations and fresh bitterness of heart! I must set my foot forward, my weary wounded foot: and because I feel I must do this, I often cast grim glances back at the most beautiful things which could not detain me—_because_ they could not detain me!"
310.
_Will and Wave._—How eagerly this wave comes hither, as if it were a question of its reaching something! How it creeps with frightful haste into the innermost corners of the rocky cliff! It seems that it wants to forestall some one; it seems that something is concealed there that has value, high value.—And now it retreats somewhat more slowly, still quite white with excitement,—is it disappointed? Has it found what it sought?
Does it merely pretend to be disappointed?—But already another wave approaches, still more eager and wild than the first, and its soul also seems to be full of secrets and of longing for treasure-seeking. Thus live the waves,—thus live we who exercise will!—I do not say more.—But what! Ye distrust me? Ye are angry at me, ye beautiful monsters? Do ye fear that I will quite betray your secret? Well! Just be angry with me, raise your green, dangerous bodies as high as ye can, make a wall between me and the sun—as at present! Verily, there is now nothing more left of the world save green twilight and green lightning-flashes. Do as ye will, ye wanton creatures, roar with delight and wickedness—or dive under again, pour your emeralds down into the depths, and cast your endless white tresses of foam and spray over them—it is all the same to me, for all is so well with you, and I am so pleased with you for it all: how could I betray _you_! For—take this to heart!—I know you and your secret, I know your race! You and I are indeed of one race! You and I have indeed one secret!
311.
_Broken Lights._—We are not always brave, and when we are weary, people of our stamp are liable to lament occasionally in this wise:—"It is so hard to cause pain to men—oh, that it should be necessary! What good is it to live concealed, when we do not want to keep to ourselves that which causes vexation? Would it not be more advisable to live in the madding crowd, and compensate individuals for sins that are committed and must be committed against mankind in general? Foolish with fools, vain with the vain, enthusiastic with enthusiasts? Would that not be reasonable when there is such an inordinate amount of divergence in the main? When I hear of the malignity of others against me—is not my first feeling that of satisfaction? It is well that it should be so!—I seem to myself to say to them—I am so little in harmony with you, and have so much truth on my side: see henceforth that ye be merry at my expense as often as ye can! Here are my defects and mistakes, here are my illusions, my bad taste, my confusion, my tears, my vanity, my owlish concealment, my contradictions! Here you have something to laugh at!
Laugh then, and enjoy yourselves! I am not averse to the law and nature of things, which is that defects and errors should give pleasure!—To be sure there were once 'more glorious' times, when as soon as any one got an idea, however moderately new it might be, he would think himself so _indispensable_ as to go out into the street with it, and call to everybody: 'Behold! the kingdom of heaven is at hand!'—I should not miss myself, if I were a-wanting. We are none of us indispensable!"—As we have said, however, we do not think thus when we are brave; we do not think _about it_ at all.
312.
_My Dog._—I have given a name to my suffering, and call it "dog,"—it is just as faithful, just as importunate and shameless, just as entertaining, just as wise, as any other dog—and I can domineer over it, and vent my bad humour on it, as others do with their dogs, servants, and wives.
313.
_No Picture of a Martyr._—I will take my cue from Raphael, and not paint any more martyr pictures. There are enough of sublime things without its being necessary to seek sublimity where it is linked with cruelty; moreover my ambition would not be gratified in the least if I aspired to be a sublime executioner.
314.
_New Domestic Animals._—I want to have my lion and my eagle about me, that I may always have hints and premonitions concerning the amount of my strength or weakness. Must I look down on them to-day, and be afraid of them? And will the hour come once more when they will look up to me, and tremble?— 315.
_The Last Hour._—Storms are my danger. Shall I have my storm in which I shall perish, just as Oliver Cromwell perished in his storm? Or shall I go out as a light does, not first blown out by the wind, but grown tired and weary of itself—a burnt-out light? Or finally, shall I blow myself out, so as _not to burn out_!
316.
_Prophetic Men._—Ye cannot divine how sorely prophetic men suffer: ye think only that a fine "gift" has been given to them, and would fain have it yourselves,—but I will express my meaning by a simile. How much may not the animals suffer from the electricity of the atmosphere and the clouds! Some of them, as we see, have a prophetic faculty with regard to the weather, for example, apes (as one can observe very well even in Europe,—and not only in menageries, but at Gibraltar). But it never occurs to us that it is their _sufferings_—that are their prophets! When strong positive electricity, under the influence of an approaching cloud not at all visible, is suddenly converted into negative electricity, and an alteration of the weather is imminent, these animals then behave as if an enemy were approaching them, and prepare for defence, or flight: they generally hide themselves,—they do not think of the bad weather as weather, but as an enemy whose hand they already _feel_!
317.
_Retrospect._—We seldom become conscious of the real pathos of any period of life as such, as long as we continue in it, but always think it is the only possible and reasonable thing for us henceforth, and that it is altogether _ethos_ and not _pathos_[10]—to speak and distinguish like the Greeks. A few notes of music to-day recalled a winter and a house, and a life of utter solitude to my mind, and at the same time the sentiments in which I then lived: I thought I should be able to live in such a state always. But now I understand that it was entirely pathos and passion, something comparable to this painfully bold and truly comforting music,—it is not one's lot to have these sensations for years, still less for eternities: otherwise one would become too "ethereal" for this planet.
318.
_Wisdom in Pain._—In pain there is as much wisdom as in pleasure: like the latter it is one of the best self-preservatives of a species. Were it not so, pain would long ago have been done away with; that it is hurtful is no argument against it, for to be hurtful is its very essence. In pain I hear the commanding call of the ship's captain: "Take in sail!" "Man," the bold seafarer, must have learned to set his sails in a thousand different ways, otherwise he could not have sailed long, for the ocean would soon have swallowed him up. We must also know how to live with reduced energy: as soon as pain gives its precautionary signal, it is time to reduce the speed—some great danger, some storm, is approaching, and we do well to "catch" as little wind as possible.—It is true that there are men who, on the approach of severe pain, hear the very opposite call of command, and never appear more proud, more martial, or more happy, than when the storm is brewing; indeed, pain itself provides them with their supreme moments! These are the heroic men, the great _pain-bringers_ of mankind: those few and rare ones who need just the same apology as pain generally,—and verily, it should not be denied them! They are forces of the greatest importance for preserving and advancing the species, were it only because they are opposed to smug ease, and do not conceal their disgust at this kind of happiness.
319.
_As Interpreters of our Experiences._—One form of honesty has always been lacking among founders of religions and their kin:—they have never made their experiences a matter of the intellectual conscience. "What did I really experience? What then took place in me and around me? Was my understanding clear enough? Was my will directly opposed to all deception of the senses, and courageous in its defence against fantastic notions?"—None of them ever asked these questions, nor to this day do any of the good religious people ask them. They have rather a thirst for things which are _contrary to reason_, and they don't want to have too much difficulty in satisfying this thirst,—so they experience "miracles" and "regenerations," and hear the voices of angels! But we who are different, who are thirsty for reason, want to look as carefully into our experiences, as in the case of a scientific experiment, hour by hour, day by day! We ourselves want to be our own experiments, and our own subjects of experiment.
320.
_On Meeting Again._—A: Do I quite understand you? You are in search of something? _Where_, in the midst of the present, actual world, is _your_ niche and star? Where can _you_ lay yourself in the sun, so that you also may have a surplus of well-being, that your existence may justify itself? Let everyone do that for himself—you seem to say, —and let him put talk about generalities, concern about others and society, out of his mind!—B: I want more; I am no seeker. I want to create my own sun for myself.
321.
_A New Precaution._—Let us no longer think so much about punishing, blaming, and improving! We shall seldom be able to alter an individual, and if we should succeed in doing so, something else may also succeed, perhaps unawares: _we_ may have been altered by him! Let us rather see to it that our own influence on _all that is to come_ outweighs and overweighs his influence! Let us not struggle in direct conflict!—all blaming, punishing, and desire to improve comes under this category. But let us elevate ourselves all the higher! Let us ever give to our pattern more shining colours! Let us obscure the other by our light! No! We do not mean to become _darker_ ourselves on his account, like all that punish and are discontented! Let us rather go aside! Let us look away!
322.
_A Simile._—Those thinkers in whom all the stars move in cyclic orbits, are not the most profound. He who looks into himself, as into an immense universe, and carries Milky Ways in himself, knows also how irregular all Milky Ways are; they lead into the very chaos and labyrinth of existence.
323.
_Happiness in Destiny._—Destiny confers its greatest distinction upon us when it has made us fight for a time on the side of our adversaries. We are thereby _predestined_ to a great victory.
324.
_In Media Vita._—No! Life has not deceived me! On the contrary, from year to year I find it richer, more desirable and more mysterious—from the day on which the great liberator broke my fetters, the thought that life may be an experiment of the thinker—and not a duty, not a fatality, not a deceit!—And knowledge itself may be for others something different; for example, a bed of ease, or the path to a bed of ease, or an entertainment, or a course of idling,—for me it is a world of dangers and victories, in which even the heroic sentiments have their arena and dancing-floor. "_Life as a means to knowledge_"—with this principle in one's heart, one can not only be brave, but can even _live joyfully and laugh joyfully_! And who could know how to laugh well and live well, who did not first understand the full meaning of war and victory!
325.
_What Belongs to Greatness._—Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel the force and will in himself _to inflict_ great pain? The ability to suffer is a small matter: in that line, weak women and even slaves often attain masterliness. But not to perish from internal distress and doubt when one inflicts great anguish and hears the cry of this anguish—that is great, that belongs to greatness.
326.
_Physicians of the Soul and Pain._—All preachers of morality, as also all theologians, have a bad habit in common: all of them try to persuade man that he is very ill, and that a severe, final, radical cure is necessary. And because mankind as a whole has for centuries listened too eagerly to those teachers, something of the superstition that the human race is in a very bad way has actually come over men: so that they are now far too ready to sigh; they find nothing more in life and make melancholy faces at each other, as if life were indeed very hard _to endure_. In truth, they are inordinately assured of their life and in love with it, and full of untold intrigues and subtleties for suppressing everything disagreeable and for extracting the thorn from pain and misfortune. It seems to me that people always speak _with exaggeration_ about pain and misfortune, as if it were a matter of good behaviour to exaggerate here: on the other hand people are intentionally silent in regard to the number of expedients for alleviating pain; as for instance, the deadening of it, or feverish flurry of thought, or a peaceful position, or good and bad reminiscences, intentions, hopes,—also many kinds of pride and fellow-feeling which have almost the effect of anæsthetics: while in the greatest degree of pain fainting takes place of itself. We understand very well how to pour sweetness on our bitterness, especially on the bitterness of our soul; we find a remedy in our bravery and sublimity, as well as in the nobler delirium of submission and resignation. A loss scarcely remains a loss for an hour: in some way or other a gift from heaven has always fallen into our lap at the same moment—a new form of strength, for example: be it but a new opportunity for the exercise of strength! What have the preachers of morality not dreamt concerning the inner "misery" of evil men! What _lies_ have they not told us about the misfortunes of impassioned men!
Yes, lying is here the right word: they were only too well aware of the overflowing happiness of this kind of man, but they kept silent as death about it; because it was a refutation of their theory, according to which happiness only originates through the annihilation of the passions and the silencing of the will! And finally, as regards the recipe of all those physicians of the soul and their recommendation of a severe radical cure, we may be allowed to ask: Is our life really painful and burdensome enough for us to exchange it with advantage for a Stoical mode of life, and Stoical petrification? We do _not_ feel _sufficiently miserable_ to have to feel ill in the Stoical fashion!
327.
_Taking Things Seriously._—The intellect is with most people an awkward, obscure and creaking machine, which is difficult to set in motion: they call it "_taking a thing seriously_" when they work with this machine, and want to think well—oh, how burdensome must good thinking be to them!
That delightful animal, man, seems to lose his good-humour whenever he thinks well; he becomes "serious"! And "where there is laughing and gaiety, thinking cannot be worth anything:"—so speaks the prejudice of this serious animal against all "Joyful Wisdom."—Well, then! Let us show that it is prejudice!
328.
_Doing Harm to Stupidity._—It is certain that the belief in the