Page 71 of 80
973.
The human horizon.—Philosophers may be conceived as men who make the greatest efforts to[Pg 376] discover to what extent man can elevate himself—this holds good more particularly of Plato: how far man's power can extend. But they do this as individuals; perhaps the instinct of Csars and of all founders of states, etc., was greater, for it preoccupied itself with the question how far man could be urged forward in development under "favourable circumstances." What they did not sufficiently understand, however, was the nature of favourable circumstances. The great question: "Where has the plant 'man' grown most magnificently heretofore? In order to answer this, a comparative study of history is necessary.
974.
Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths.
975.
To remain objective, severe, firm, and hard while making a thought prevail is perhaps the best forte of artists; but if for this purpose any one have to work upon human material (as teachers, statesmen, have to do, etc.), then the repose, the coldness, and the hardness soon vanish. In natures like Csar and Napoleon we are able to divine something of the nature of "disinterestedness" in their work on their marble, whatever be the number of men that are sacrificed in the process. In this direction the future of higher men lies: to bear the greatest responsibilities and not to go to rack and ruin[Pg 377] through them.—Hitherto the deceptions of inspiration have almost always been necessary for a man not to lose faith in his own hand, and in his right to his task.
976.
The reason why philosophers are mostly failures. Because among the conditions which determine them there are qualities which generally ruin other men:—
(1) A philosopher must have an enormous multiplicity of qualities; he must be a sort of abbreviation of man and have all man's high and base desires: the danger of the contrast within him, and of the possibility of his loathing himself;
(2) He must be inquisitive in an extraordinary number of ways: the danger of versatility;
(3) He must be just and honest in the highest sense, but profound both in love and hate (and in injustice);
(4) He must not only be a spectator but a lawgiver: a judge and defendant (in so far as he is an abbreviation of the world);
(5) He must be extremely multiform and yet firm and hard. He must be supple.
977.
The really regal calling of the philosopher (according to the expression of Alcuin the Anglo-Saxon): "Prava corrigere, et recta corroborare, et sancta sublimare."
978.
The new philosopher can only arise in conjunction with a ruling class, as the highest spiritualisation of the latter. Great politics, the rule of the earth, as a proximate contingency, the total lack of principles necessary thereto.
979.
Fundamental concept: the new values must first be created—this remains our duty! The philosopher must be our lawgiver. New species. (How the greatest species hitherto [for instance, the Greeks] were reared: this kind of accident must now be consciously striven for.)
980.
Supposing one thinks of the philosopher as an educator who, looking down from his lonely elevation, is powerful enough to draw long chains of generations up to him: then he must be granted the most terrible privileges of a great educator. An educator never says what he himself thinks; but only that which he thinks it is good for those whom he is educating to hear upon any subject. This dissimulation on his part must not be found out; it is part of his masterliness that people should believe in his honesty, he must be capable of all the means of discipline and education: there are some natures which he will only be able to raise by means of lashing them with his scorn; others who are lazy, irresolute, cowardly, and vain, he will[Pg 379] be able to affect only with exaggerated praise. Such a teacher stands beyond good and evil, but nobody must know that he does.
981.
We must not make men "better," we must not talk to them about morality in any form as if "morality in itself," or an ideal kind of man in general, could be taken for granted; but we must create circumstances in which stronger men are necessary, such as for their part will require a morality (or, better still: a bodily and spiritual discipline) which makes men strong, and upon which they will consequently insist! As they will need one so badly, they will have it.
We must not let ourselves be seduced by blue eyes and heaving breasts: greatness of soul has absolutely nothing romantic about it. And unfortunately nothing whatever amiable either.
982.
From warriors we must learn: (1) to associate death with those interests for which we are fighting—that makes us venerable; (2) we must learn to sacrifice numbers, and to take our cause sufficiently seriously not to spare men; (3) we must practise inexorable discipline, and allow ourselves violence and cunning in war.
983.
The education which rears those ruling virtues that allow a man to become master of his benevolence[Pg 380] and his pity: the great disciplinary virtues ("Forgive thine enemies" is mere child's play beside them), and the passions of the creator, must be elevated to the heights—we must cease from carving marble! The exceptional and powerful position of those creatures (compared with that of all princes hitherto): the Roman Csar with Christ's soul.
984.
We must not separate greatness of soul from intellectual greatness. For the former involves independence; but without intellectual greatness independence should not be allowed; all it does is to create disasters even in its lust of well-doing and of practising "justice." Inferior spirits must obey, consequently they cannot be possessed of greatness.
985.
The more lofty philosophical man who is surrounded by loneliness, not because he wishes to be alone, but because he is what he is, and cannot find his equal: what a number of dangers and torments are reserved for him, precisely at the present time, when we have lost our belief in the order of rank, and consequently no longer know how to understand or honour this isolation! Formerly the sage almost sanctified himself in the consciences of the mob by going aside in this way; to-day the anchorite sees himself as though enveloped in a cloud of gloomy doubt and suspicions. And not alone by the[Pg 381] envious and the wretched: in every well-meant act that he experiences he is bound to discover misunderstanding, neglect, and superficiality. He knows the crafty tricks of foolish pity which makes these people feel so good and holy when they attempt to save him from his own destiny, by giving him more comfortable situations and more decent and reliable society. Yes, he will even get to admire the unconscious lust of destruction with which all mediocre spirits stand up and oppose him, believing all the while that they have a holy right to do so! For men of such incomprehensible loneliness it is necessary to put a good stretch of country between them and the officiousness of their fellows: this is part of their prudence. For such a man to maintain himself uppermost to-day amid the dangerous maelstroms of the age which threaten to draw him under, even cunning and disguise will be necessary. Every attempt he makes to order his life in the present and with the present, every time he draws near to these men and their modern desires, he will have to expiate as if it were an actual sin: and withal he may look with wonder at the concealed wisdom of his nature, which after every one of these attempts immediately leads him back to himself by means of illnesses and painful accidents.
