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The Egyptians are far more of a literary people than the Greeks. I maintain this against Wolf. The first grain in Eleusis, the first vine in Thebes, the first olive-tree and fig-tree. The Egyptians had lost a great part of their mythology.
The unmathematical undulation of the column in Paestum is analogous to the modification of the tempo: animation in place of a mechanical movement.
The desire to find something certain and fixed in æsthetic led to the worship of Aristotle: I think, however, that we may gradually come to see from his works that he understood nothing about art, and that it is merely the intellectual conversations of the Athenians, echoing in his pages, which we admire.
In Socrates we have as it were lying open before us a specimen of the consciousness out of which, later on, the instincts of the theoretic man originated: that one would rather die than grow old and weak in mind.
At the twilight of antiquity there were still wholly unchristian figures, which were more beautiful, harmonious, and pure than those of any Christians: e.g., Proclus. His mysticism and syncretism were things that precisely Christianity cannot reproach him with. In any case, it would be my desire to live together[Pg 169] with such people. In comparison with them Christianity looks like some crude brutalisation, organised for the benefit of the mob and the criminal classes.
Proclus, who solemnly invokes the rising moon.
With the advent of Christianity a religion attained the mastery which corresponded to a pre-Greek condition of mankind: belief in witchcraft in connection with all and everything, bloody sacrifices, superstitious fear of demoniacal punishments, despair in one's self, ecstatic brooding and hallucination, man's self become the arena of good and evil spirits and their struggles.
All branches of history have experimented with antiquity · critical consideration alone remains. By this term I do not mean conjectural and literary-historical criticism.
Antiquity has been treated by all kinds of historians and their methods. We have now had enough experience, however, to turn the history of antiquity to account without being shipwrecked on antiquity itself.
We can now look back over a fairly long period of human existence · what will the humanity be like which is able to look back at us from an equally long distance? which finds us lying intoxicated among the débris of old culture! which finds its only consolation in "being good" and in holding[Pg 170] out the "helping hand," and turns away from all other consolations!—Does beauty, too, grow out of the ancient culture? I think that our ugliness arises from our metaphysical remnants . our confused morals, the worthlessness of our marriages, and so on, are the cause. The beautiful man, the healthy, moderate, and enterprising man, moulds the objects around him into beautiful shapes after his own image.
Up to the present time all history has been written from the standpoint of success, and, indeed, with the assumption of a certain reason in this success. This remark applies also to Greek history: so far we do not possess any. It is the same all round, however: where are the historians who can survey things and events without being humbugged by stupid theories? I know of only one, Burckhardt. Everywhere the widest possible optimism prevails in science. The question: "What would have been the consequence if so and so had not happened?" is almost unanimously thrust aside, and yet it is the cardinal question. Thus everything becomes ironical. Let us only consider our own lives. If we examine history in accordance with a preconceived plan, let this plan be sought in the purposes of a great man, or perhaps in those of a sex, or of a party. Everything else is a chaos.—Even in natural science we find this deification of the necessary.
Germany has become the breeding-place of this historical optimism; Hegel is perhaps to blame for this. Nothing, however, is more responsible for[Pg 171] the fatal influence of German culture. Everything that has been kept down by success gradually rears itself up: history as the scorn of the conqueror; a servile sentiment and a kneeling down before the actual fact—"a sense for the State," they now call it, as if that had still to be propagated! He who does not understand how brutal and unintelligent history is will never understand the stimulus to make it intelligent. Just think how rare it is to find a man with as great an intelligent knowledge of his own life as Goethe had . what amount of rationality can we expect to find arising out of these other veiled and blind existences as they work chaotically with and in opposition to each other?
And it is especially naive when Hellwald, the author of a history of culture, warns us away from all "ideals," simply because history has killed them off one after the other.
To bring to light without reserve the stupidity and the want of reason in human things · that is the aim of our brethren and colleagues. People will then have to distinguish what is essential in them, what is incorrigible, and what is still susceptible of further improvement. But "Providence" must be kept out of the question, for it is a conception that enables people to take things too easily. I wish to breathe the breath of this purpose into science. Let us advance our knowledge of mankind! The good and rational in man is accidental or apparent, or the contrary of something very irrational. There will come a time when training will be the only thought.[Pg 172]
Surrender to necessity is exactly what I do not teach—for one must first know this necessity to be necessary. There may perhaps be many necessities; but in general this inclination is simply a bed of idleness.
To know history now means · to recognise how all those who believed in a Providence took things too easily. There is no such thing. If human affairs are seen to go forward in a loose and disordered way, do not think that a god has any purpose in view by letting them do so or that he is neglecting them. We can now see in a general way that the history of Christianity on earth has been one of the most dreadful chapters in history, and that a stop must be put to it. True, the influence of antiquity has been observed in Christianity even in our own time, and, as it diminishes, so will our knowledge of antiquity diminish also to an even greater extent. Now is the best time to recognise it: we are no longer prejudiced in favour of Christianity, but we still understand it, and also the antiquity that forms part of it, so far as this antiquity stands in line with Christianity.
Philosophic heads must occupy themselves one day with the collective account of antiquity and make up its balance-sheet. If we have this, antiquity will be overcome. All the shortcomings which now vex us have their roots in antiquity, so that we cannot continue to treat this account with[Pg 173] the mildness which has been customary up to the present. The atrocious crime of mankind which rendered Christianity possible, as it actually became possible, is the guilt of antiquity. With Christianity antiquity will also be cleared away.—At the present time it is not so very far behind us, and it is certainly not possible to do justice to it. It has been availed of in the most dreadful fashion for purposes of repression, and has acted as a support for religious oppression by disguising itself as "culture." It was common to hear the saying, "Antiquity has been conquered by Christianity."
