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A sort of heritage of morality is perhaps presupposed here: one feels that one can be lavish with it and fling a great deal of it out of the window without materially reducing one's means. One is never tempted to admire "beautiful souls," one always knows one's self to be their superior. The monsters of virtue should be met with inner scorn; dniaiser la vertu—Oh, the joy of it!
One should revolve round one's self, have no desire to be "better" or "anything else" at all than one is. One should be too interested to omit throwing the tentacles or meshes of every morality out to things.
426.
Concerning the psychology of philosophers. They should be psychologists—this was possible only from the nineteenth century onwards—and no longer little Jack Homers, who see three or four [Pg 344] feet in front of them, and are almost satisfied to burrow inside themselves. We psychologists of the future are not very intent on self-contemplation: we regard it almost as a sign of degeneration when an instrument endeavours "to know itself":[10] we are instruments of knowledge and we would fain possess all the precision and ingenuousness of an instrument—consequently we may not analyse or "know" ourselves. The first sign of a great psychologist's self-preservative instinct: he never goes in search of himself, he has no eye, no interest, no inquisitiveness where he himself is concerned.... The great egoism of our dominating will insists on our completely shutting our eyes to ourselves, and on our appearing "impersonal," "disinterested"!—Oh to what a ridiculous degree we are the reverse of this!
We are no Pascals, we are not particularly interested in the "Salvation of the soul," in our own happiness, and in our own virtue.—We have neither enough time nor enough curiosity to be so concerned with ourselves. Regarded more deeply, the case is again different, we thoroughly mistrust all men who thus contemplate their own navels: because introspection seems to us a degenerate form of the psychologist's genius, as a note of interrogation affixed to the psychologist's instinct: just as a painter's eye is degenerate which is actuated by the will to see for the sake of seeing.
[10] TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.—Goethe invariably inveighed against the "gnoti seauton" of the Socratic school; he was of the opinion that an animal which tries to see its inner self must be sick.
2. A Criticism of Greek Philosophy.
427.
The apparition of Greek philosophers since the time of Socrates is a symptom of decadence; the anti-Hellenic instincts become paramount.
The "Sophist" is still quite Hellenic—as are also Anaxagoras, Democritus, and the great Ionians; but only as transitional forms. The polis loses its faith in the unity of its culture, in its rights of dominion over every other polis.... Cultures, that is to say, "the gods," are exchanged, and thus the belief in the exclusive prerogative of the deus autochthonus is lost. Good and Evil of whatever origin get mixed: the boundaries separating good from evil gradually vanish.... This is the "Sophist." ...
On the other hand, the "philosopher" is the reactionary: he insists upon the old virtues. He sees the reason of decay in the decay of institutions: he therefore wishes to revive old institutions;—he sees decay in the decline of authority: he therefore endeavours to find new authorities (he travels abroad, explores foreign literature and exotic religions....);—he will reinstate the ideal polis, after the concept "polis" has become superannuated (just, as the Jews kept themselves together as a "people" after they had fallen into slavery). They become interested in all tyrants: their desire is to re-establish virtue with "force majeure".
[Pg 346] Gradually everything genuinely Hellenic is held responsible for the state of decay (and Plato is just as ungrateful to Pericles, Homer, tragedy, and rhetoric as the prophets are to David and Saul). The downfall of Greece is conceived as an objection to the fundamental principles of Hellenic culture: the profound error of philosophers—Conclusion: the Greek world perishes. The cause thereof: Homer, mythology, ancient morality, etc.
The anti-Hellenic development of philosophers' valuations:—the Egyptian influence ("Life after death" made into law....);—the Semitic influence (the "dignity of the sage," the "Sheik");—the Pythagorean influence, the subterranean cults, Silence, means of terrorisation consisting of appeals to a "Beyond," mathematics: the religious valuation consisting of a sort of intimacy with a cosmic entity;—the sacerdotal, ascetic, and transcendental influences;—the dialectical influence,—I am of opinion that even Plato already betrays revolting and pedantic meticulousness in his concepts!—Decline of good intellectual taste: the hateful noisiness of every kind of direct dialectics seems no longer to be felt.
The two decadent tendencies and extremes run side by side: (a) the luxuriant and more charming kind of decadence which shows a love of pomp and art, and (b) the gloomy kind, with its religious and moral pathos, its stoical self-hardening tendency, its Platonic denial of the senses, and its preparation of the soil for the coming of Christianity.
428.
To what extent psychologists have been corrupted by the moral idiosyncrasy!—Not one of the ancient philosophers had the courage to advance the theory of the non-free will (that is to say, the theory that denies morality);—not one had the courage to identify the typical feature of happiness, of every kind of happiness **("pleasure"), with the will to power: for the pleasure of power was considered immoral;—not one had the courage to regard virtue as a result of immorality (as a result of a will to power) in the service of a species (or of a race, or of a polis); for the will to power was considered immoral.
In the whole of moral evolution, there is no sign of truth: all the conceptual elements which come into play are fictions; all the psychological tenets are false; all the forms of logic employed in this department of prevarication are sophisms. The chief feature of all moral philosophers is their total lack of intellectual cleanliness and self-control: they regard "fine feelings" as arguments: their heaving breasts seem to them the bellows of godliness.... Moral philosophy is the most suspicious period in the history of the human intellect.
The first great example: in the name of morality and under its patronage, a great wrong was committed, which as a matter of fact was in every respect an act of decadence. Sufficient stress cannot be laid upon this fact, that the great Greek philosophers not only represented [Pg 348] the decadence of every kind of Greek ability, but also made it contagious.... This "virtue" made wholly abstract was the highest form of seduction; to make oneself abstract means to turn one's back on the world.
The moment is a very remarkable one: the Sophists are within sight of the first criticism of morality, the first knowledge of morality:—they classify the majority of moral valuations (in view of their dependence upon local conditions) together;—they lead one to understand that every form of morality is capable of being upheld dialectically: that is to say, they guessed that all the fundamental principles of a morality must be sophistical—a proposition which was afterwards proved in the grandest possible style by the ancient philosophers from Plato onwards (up to Kant);—they postulate the primary truth that there is no such thing as a "moral per se," a "good per se," and that it is madness to talk of "truth" in this respect.
