Page 26 of 74
This is especially true of the third section. This division is made up almost entirely of comments on men and affairs, short analyses of human attitudes, desultory excursions into the sociological, brief remarks on man's emotional nature, apothegms dealing with human attributes, bits of racy philosophical gossip, religious and scientific maxims, and the like. Sometimes these observations are cynical, sometimes gracious, sometimes bitter,[Pg 118] sometimes buoyant, sometimes merely witty. But all of them are welded together by a profound conception of humanity.
The most stimulating division of the book is the fourth, in which Nietzsche's good humour is at its height. This section is a glorification of victory and of all those hardy qualities which go into the perfecting of the individual. Nietzsche reverses Schiller's famous doctrine expressed in "Die Braut von Messina": "Life is not of all good the highest." He sees no good over and beyond that of human relationships. The normal instincts to him are the ones which affirm life; the abnormal instincts are those which deny it. The former are summed up in the ethics of Greece under the sway of Dionysus; the latter are epitomised in the Christian religion.
The fifth book, called "We Fearless Ones," and the appendix of "Songs of Prince Free-as-a-Bird" were written four years later than the other material and added with an introduction in a later edition of the book. These addenda, while less specific and of a more dialectic nature than the preceding parts, are in spirit manifestly the same as the rest of the book.
In "The Joyful Wisdom" we have again an aphoristic style of writing, although it has become keener and more sure of itself since "Human, All-Too-Human" and "The Dawn of Day." In making selections from this book I have chosen those passages which are more general in tone. The connection between the various aphorisms is here even slighter than is Nietzsche's wont, and for that reason no attempt has been made to present a continuous perception of the work. However, the excerpts which follow, though of a less popular nature, are more[Pg 119] intimately related to his thoughts than the ones omitted, and consequently are of more interest to the student.
[1] Love of (one's) destiny.
EXCERPTS FROM "THE JOYFUL WISDOM"
Whether I look with a good or an evil eye upon men, I find them always at one problem, each and all of them: to do that which conduces to the conservation of the human species. 31
To laugh at oneself as one would have to laugh in order to laugh out of the veriest truth,—to do this the best have not hitherto had enough of the sense of truth, and the most endowed have had far too little genius! There is perhaps still a future even for laughter! 32
The ignoble nature is distinguished by the fact that it keeps its advantage steadily in view, and that this thought of the end and advantage is even stronger than its strongest impulse: not to be tempted to inexpedient activities by its impulses—that is its wisdom and inspiration. In comparison with the ignoble nature the higher nature is more irrational:—for the noble, magnanimous, and self-sacrificing person succumbs in fact to his impulses, and in his best moments his reason lapses altogether. 37
The strongest and most evil spirits have hitherto advanced mankind the most: they always rekindled the sleeping passions—all orderly arranged society lulls the passions to sleep. 39
The lust of property and love: what different associations each of these ideas evokes!—and yet it might be the same impulse twice named. 51
The poison by which the weaker nature is destroyed is strengthening to the strong individual—and he does not call it poison. 56-57
The virtues of a man are called good, not in respect of the results they have for himself, but in respect of the results which we expect therefrom for ourselves and for society.... The praise of the virtues is the praise of something which is privately injurious to the individual; it is praise of impulses which deprive man of his noblest self-love, and the power to take the best care of himself.... The "neighbour" praises unselfishness because he profits by it! If the neighbour were "unselfishly" disposed himself, he would reject that destruction of power, that injury for his advantage, he would thwart such inclinations in their origin, and above all he would manifest his unselfishness just by not giving it a good name! 58-60
Living—that is to be cruel and inexorable towards all that becomes weak and old in ourselves, and not only in ourselves. 68
It is probable that the manufacturers and great magnates of commerce have hitherto lacked too much all those forms and attributes of a superior race, which alone make persons interesting; if they had had the nobility of the newly-born in their looks and bearing, there would perhaps have been no socialism in the masses of the people. For these are really ready for slavery of every kind, provided that the superior class above them constantly shows itself legitimately superior, and born to command—by its noble presence! 78
When one continually prohibits the expression of the passions as something to be left to the "vulgar," to coarser, bourgeois, and peasant natures—that is, when one does not want to suppress the passions themselves, but only their language and demeanour, one nevertheless realises therewith just what one does not want: the[Pg 121] suppression of the passions themselves, or at least their weakening and alteration.... 83
In magnanimity there is the same amount of egoism as in revenge.... 86-87
Where bad eyesight can no longer see the evil impulse as such, on account of its refinement,—there man sets up the kingdom of goodness.... 88
To become the advocate of the rule—that may perhaps be the ultimate form and refinement in which nobility of character will reveal itself on earth. 90
Women are all skilful in exaggerating their weaknesses, indeed they are inventive in weaknesses, so as to seem quite fragile ornaments to which even a grain of dust does harm; their existence is meant to bring home to man's mind his coarseness, and to appeal to his conscience. 101
There is something quite astonishing and extraordinary in the education of women of the higher class; indeed, there is perhaps nothing more paradoxical. All the world is agreed to educate them with as much ignorance as possible in erotics, and to inspire their soul with a profound shame of such things, and the extremest impatience and horror at the suggestion of them. It is really here only that all the "honour" of women is at stake; what would one not forgive in them in other respects! But here they are intended to remain ignorant to the very backbone:—they are intended to have neither eyes, ears, words, nor thoughts for this, their "wickedness"; indeed knowledge here is already evil. And then! To be hurled as with an awful thunderbolt into reality and knowledge with marriage—and indeed by him whom they most love and esteem: to have to encounter love and shame in contradiction, yea, to have to[Pg 122] feel rapture, abandonment, duty, sympathy, and fright at the unexpected proximity of God and animal, and whatever else besides! all at once!—There, in fact, a psychic entanglement has been effected which is quite unequalled! Even the sympathetic curiosity of the wisest discerner of men does not suffice to divine how this or that woman gets along with the solution of this enigma and the enigma of this solution; what dreadful, far-reaching suspicions must awaken thereby in the poor unhinged soul; and forsooth, how the ultimate philosophy and scepticism of the woman casts anchor at this point!—Afterwards the same profound silence as before: and often even a silence to herself, a shutting of her eyes to herself.—Young wives on that account make great efforts to appear superficial and thoughtless; the most ingenious of them simulate a kind of impudence.—Wives easily feel their husbands as a question-mark to their honour, and their children as an apology or atonement,—they require children, and wish for them in quite another spirit than a husband wishes for them.—In short, one cannot be gentle enough towards women! 104-105
