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1052.
The two types; Dionysus and Christ on the Cross. We should ascertain whether the typically religious man is a decadent phenomenon (the great innovators are one and all morbid and epileptic); but do not let us forget to include that type of the religious man who is pagan. Is the pagan cult not a form of gratitude for, and affirmation of, Life? Ought not its most representative type to be an apology and deification of Life? The type of a well-constituted and ecstatically overflowing spirit! The type of a spirit which absorbs the contradictions and problems of existence, and which solves them!
At this point I set up the Dionysus of the Greeks: the religious affirmation of Life, of the whole of Life, not of denied and partial Life (it is typical that in this cult the sexual act awakens ideas of depth, mystery, and reverence).
Dionysus versus "Christ"; here you have the contrast. It is not a difference in regard to the martyrdom,—but the latter has a different meaning. Life itself—Life s eternal fruitfulness and recurrence caused anguish, destruction, and the will to annihilation. In the other case, the suffering of the "Christ as the Innocent One" stands as an objection against Life, it is the formula of Life's condemnation.—Readers will guess that the problem concerns the meaning of suffering; whether a Christian or a tragic meaning be given to it. In the first case it is the road to a holy mode of existence; in the second case existence itself is regarded as sufficiently holy to justify an enormous amount of suffering. The tragic man says yea even to the most excruciating suffering: he is sufficiently strong, rich, and capable of deifying, to be able to do this; the Christian denies even the happy lots on earth: he is weak, poor, and disinherited enough to suffer from life in any form. God on the Cross is a curse upon Life, a signpost directing people to deliver themselves from it;—Dionysus cut into pieces is a promise of Life: it will be for ever born anew, and rise afresh from destruction.
1053.
My philosophy reveals the triumphant thought through which all other systems of thought must ultimately perish. It is the great disciplinary thought: those races that cannot bear it are doomed; those which regard it as the greatest blessing are destined to rule.
1054.
The greatest of all fights: for this purpose a new weapon is required.
A hammer: a terrible alternative must be created. Europe must be brought face to face with the logic of facts, and confronted with the question whether its will for ruin is really earnest.
General levelling down to mediocrity must be avoided. Rather than this it would be preferable to perish.
1055.
A pessimistic attitude of mind and a pessimistic doctrine and ecstatic Nihilism, may in[Pg 423] certain circumstances even prove indispensable to the philosopher—that is to say, as a mighty form of pressure, or hammer, with which he can smash up degenerate, perishing races and put them out of existence; with which he can beat a track to a new order of life, or instil a longing for nonentity in those who are degenerate and who desire to perish.
1056.
I wish to teach the thought which gives unto many the right to cancel their existences—the great disciplinary thought.
1057.
Eternal Recurrence. A prophecy.
1. The exposition of the doctrine and its theoretical first principles and results.
2. The proof of the doctrine.
3. Probable results which will follow from its being believed. (It makes everything break open.)
(a) The means of enduring it.
(b) The means of ignoring it.
4. Its place in history is a means.
The period of greatest danger. The foundation of an oligarchy above peoples and their interests: education directed at establishing a political policy for humanity in general.
A counterpart of Jesuitism.
1058.
The two greatest philosophical points of view (both discovered by Germans).
(a) That of becoming and that of evolution.
(b) That based upon the values of existence (but the wretched form of German pessimism must first be overcome!)—
Both points of view reconciled by me in a decisive manner.
Everything becomes and returns for ever, escape is impossible!
Granted that we could appraise the value of existence, what would be the result of it? The thought of recurrence is a principle of selection in the service of power (and barbarity!).
The ripeness of man for this thought.
1059.
1. The thought of eternal recurrence: its first principles which must necessarily be true if it were true. What its result is.
2. It is the most oppressive thought: its probable results, provided it be not prevented, that is to say, provided all values be not transvalued.
3. The means of enduring it: the transvaluation of all values. Pleasure no longer to be found in certainty, but in uncertainty; no longer "cause and effect," but continual creativeness; no longer the will to self-preservation, but to power; no longer the modest expression "it is all only subjective," but "it is all our work! let us be proud of it."
1060.
In order to endure the thought of recurrence, freedom from morality is necessary; new means against the fact pain (pain regarded as the instrument, as the father of pleasure; there is no accretive consciousness of pain); pleasure derived from all kinds of uncertainty and tentativeness, as a counterpoise to extreme fatalism; suppression of the concept "necessity"; suppression of the "will"; suppression of "absolute knowledge."
Greatest elevation of man's consciousness of strength, as that which creates superman.
1061.
The two extremes of thought—the materialistic and the platonic—are reconciled in eternal recurrence: both are regarded as ideals.
1062.
If the universe had a goal, that goal would have been reached by now. If any sort of unforeseen final state existed, that state also would have! been reached. If it were capable of any halting or stability of any being, it would only have possessed this capability of becoming stable for one instant in its development; and again becoming would have been at an end for ages, and with it all thinking and all "spirit." The fact of "intellects" being in a state of development proves that the universe can have no goal, no[Pg 426] final state, and is incapable of being. But the old habit of thinking of some purpose in regard to all phenomena, and of thinking of a directing and creating deity in regard to the universe, is so powerful, that the thinker has to go to great pains in order to avoid thinking of the very aimlessness of the world as intended. The idea that the universe intentionally evades a goal, and even knows artificial means wherewith it prevents itself from falling into a circular movement, must occur to all those who would fain attribute to the universe the capacity of eternally regenerating itself—that is to say, they would fain impose upon a finite, definite force which is invariable in quantity, like the universe, the miraculous gift of renewing its forms and its conditions for all eternity. Although the universe is no longer a God, it must still be capable of the divine power of creating and transforming; it must forbid itself to relapse into any one of its previous forms; it must not only have the intention, but also the means, of avoiding any sort of repetition, every second of its existence, even, it must control every single one of its movements, with the view of avoiding goals, final states, and repetitions and all the other results of such an unpardonable and insane method of thought and desire. All this is nothing more than the old religious mode of thought and desire, which, in spite of all, longs to believe that in some way or other the universe resembles the old, beloved, infinite, and infinitely-creative God—that in some way or other "the old God still lives"—that longing of Spinoza's[Pg 427] which is expressed in the words "deus sive natura" (what he really felt was "natura sive deus"). Which, then, is the proposition and belief in which the decisive change, the present preponderance of the scientific spirit over the religious and god-fancying spirit, is best formulated? Ought it not to be: the universe, as force, must not be thought of as unlimited, because it cannot be thought of in this way,—we forbid ourselves the concept infinite force, because it is incompatible with the idea of force? Whence it follows that the universe lacks the power of eternal renewal.
