The Dawn of Day

135

Arousing Pity. – Among savages men think with a moral shudder of the possibility of becoming an object of pity, for such a state they regard as deprived of all virtue. Pitying is equivalent to despising: they do not want to see a contemptible being suffer, for this would afford them no enjoyment. On the other hand, to behold one of their enemies suffering, some one whom they look upon as their equal in pride, but whom torture cannot induce to give up his pride, and in general to see some one suffer who refuses to lower himself by appealing for pity – which would in their eyes be the most profound and shameful humiliation – this is the very joy of joys. Such a spectacle excites the deepest admiration in the soul of the savage, and he ends by killing such a brave man when it is in his power, afterwards according funeral honours to the unbending one. If he had groaned, however; if his countenance had lost its expression of calm disdain; if he had shown himself to be contemptible, – well, in such a case he might have been allowed to live like a dog: he would no longer have aroused the pride of the spectator, and pity would have taken the place of admiration.

136

Happiness in Pity. – If, as is the case among the Hindus, we decree the end and aim of all intellectual activity to be the knowledge of human misery, and if for generation after generation this dreadful resolution be steadily adhered to, pity in the eyes of such men of hereditary pessimism comes to have a new value as a preserver of life, something that helps to make existence endurable, although it may seem worthy of being rejected with horror and disgust. Pity becomes an antidote to suicide, a sentiment which brings pleasure with it and enables us to taste superiority in small doses. It gives some diversion to our minds, makes our hearts full, banishes fear and lethargy, and incites us to speak, to complain, or to act: it is a relative happiness when compared with the misery of the knowledge that hampers the individual on every side, bewilders him, and takes away his breath. Happiness, however, no matter of what nature it may be, gives us air and light and freedom of movement.

137

Why Double the “Ego”? – To view our own experiences in the same light as we are in the habit of looking at those of others is very comforting and an advisable medicine. On the other hand, to look upon the experiences of others and adopt them as if they were our own – which is called for by the philosophy of pity – would ruin us in a very short time: let us only make the experiment without trying to imagine it any longer! The first maxim is, in addition, undoubtedly more in accordance with reason and goodwill towards reason; for we estimate more objectively the value and significance of an event when it happens to others, – the value, for instance, of a death, loss of money or slander. But pity, taking as its principle of action the injunction, “Suffer the misfortune of another as much as he himself,” would lead the point of view of the ego with all its exaggerations and deviations to become the point of view of the other person, the sympathiser: so that we should have to suffer at the same time from our own ego and the other's ego. In this way we would voluntarily overload ourselves with a double irrationality, instead of making the burden of our own as light as possible.

138

Becoming more Tender. – Whenever we love some one and venerate and admire him, and afterwards come to perceive that he is suffering – which always causes us the utmost astonishment, since we cannot but feel that the happiness we derive from him must flow from a superabundant source of personal happiness – our feelings of love, veneration, and admiration are essentially changed: they become more tender; that is, the gap that separates us seems to be bridged over and there appears to be an approach to equality. It now seems possible to give him something in return, whilst we had previously imagined him as being altogether above our gratitude. Our ability to requite him for what we have received from him arouses in us feelings of much joy and pleasure. We endeavour to ascertain what can best calm the grief of our friend, and we give it to him; if he wishes for kind words, looks, attentions, services, or presents, we give them; but, above all, if he would like to see us suffering from the sight of his suffering, we pretend to suffer, for all this secures for us the enjoyment of active gratitude, which is equivalent in a way to good-natured revenge. If he wants none of these things, and refuses to accept them from us, we depart from him chilled and sad, almost mortified; it appears to us as if our gratitude had been declined, and on this point of honour even the best of men is still somewhat touchy. It results from all this that even in the best case there is something humiliating in suffering, and something elevating and superior in sympathy, – a fact which will keep the two feelings apart for ever and ever.

139

Higher in Name only. – You say that the morality of pity is a higher morality than that of stoicism? Prove it! But take care not to measure the “higher” and “lower” degrees of morality once more by moral yardsticks; for there are no absolute morals. So take your yardstick from somewhere else, and be on your guard!

140

Praise and Blame. – When a war has come to an unsuccessful conclusion we try to find the man who is to blame for the war; when it comes to a successful conclusion we praise the man who is responsible for it. In all unsuccessful cases attempts are made to blame somebody, for non-success gives rise to dejection, against which the single possible remedy is involuntarily applied; a new incitement of the sense of power; and this incitement is found in the condemnation of the “guilty” one. This guilty one is not perhaps the scapegoat of the faults of others; he is merely the victim of the feeble, humiliated, and depressed people who wish to prove upon some one that they have not yet lost all their power. Even self-condemnation after a defeat may be the means of restoring the feeling of power.

On the other hand, glorification of the originator is often but an equally blind result of another instinct that demands its victim, – and in this case the sacrifice appears to be sweet and attractive even for the victim. This happens when the feeling of power is satiated in a nation or a society by so great and fascinating a success that a weariness of victory supervenes and pride wishes to be discharged: a feeling of self-sacrifice is aroused and looks for its object. Thus, whether we are blamed or praised we merely, as a rule, provide opportunities for the gratification of others, and are only too often caught up and whirled away for our neighbours to discharge upon us their accumulated feelings of praise or blame. In both cases we confer a benefit upon them for which we deserve no credit and they no thanks.

141

More Beautiful but Less Valuable. – Picturesque morality: such is the morality of those passions characterised by sudden outbursts, abrupt transitions; pathetic, impressive, dreadful, and solemn attitudes and gestures. It is the semi-savage stage of morality: never let us be tempted to set it on a higher plane merely on account of its æsthetic charms.

142

Sympathy. – In order to understand our neighbour, that is, in order to reproduce his sentiments in ourselves, we often, no doubt, plumb the cause of his feelings, as, for example, by asking ourselves, Why is he sad? in order that we may become sad ourselves for the same reason. But we much more frequently neglect to act thus, and we produce these feelings in ourselves in accordance with the effects which they exhibit in the person we are studying, – by imitating in our own body the expression of his eyes, his voice, his gait, his attitude (or, at any rate, the likeness of these things in words, pictures, and music), or we may at least endeavour to mimic the action of his muscles and nervous system. A like feeling will then spring up in us as the result of an old association of movements and sentiments which has been trained to run backwards and forwards. We have developed to a very high pitch this knack of sounding the feelings of others, and when we are in the presence of any one else we bring this faculty of ours into play almost involuntarily, – let the inquirer observe the animation of a woman's countenance and notice how it vibrates and quivers with animation as the result of the continual imitation and reflection of what is going on around her.

It is music, however, more than anything else that shows us what past-masters we are in the rapid and subtle divination of feelings and sympathy; for even if music is only the imitation of an imitation of feelings, nevertheless, despite its distance and vagueness, it often enables us to participate in those feelings, so that we become sad without any reason for feeling so, like the fools that we are, merely because we hear certain sounds and rhythms that somehow or other remind us of the intonation and the movements, or perhaps even only of the behaviour, of sorrowful people. It is related of a certain Danish king that he was wrought up to such a pitch of warlike enthusiasm by the song of a minstrel that he sprang to his feet and killed five persons of his assembled court: there was neither war nor enemy; there was rather the exact opposite; yet the power of the retrospective inference from a feeling to the cause of it was sufficiently strong in this king to overpower both his observation and his reason. Such, however, is almost invariably the effect of music (provided that it thrills us), and we have no need of such paradoxical instances to recognise this, – the state of feeling into which music transports us is almost always in contradiction to the appearance of our actual state, and of our reasoning power which recognises this actual state and its causes.

If we inquire how it happened that this imitation of the feelings of others has become so common, there will be no doubt as to the answer: man being the most timid of all beings because of his subtle and delicate nature has been made familiar through his timidity with this sympathy for, and rapid comprehension of, the feelings of others, even of animals. For century after century he saw danger in everything that was unfamiliar to him, in anything that happened to be alive, and whenever the spectacle of such things and creatures came before his eyes he imitated their features and attitude, drawing at the same time his own conclusion as to the nature of the evil intentions they concealed. This interpretation of all movements and all facial characteristics in the sense of intentions, man has even brought to bear on things inanimate, – urged on as he was by the illusion that there was nothing inanimate. I believe that this is the origin of everything that we now call a feeling for nature, that sensation of joy which men experience at the sight of the sky, the fields, the rocks, the forests, the storms, the stars, the landscapes, and spring: without our old habits of fear which forced us to suspect behind everything a kind of second and more recondite sense, we should now experience no delight in nature, in the same way as men and animals do not cause us to rejoice if we have not first been deterred by that source of all understanding, namely, fear. For joy and agreeable surprise, and finally the feeling of ridicule, are the younger children of sympathy, and the much younger brothers and sisters of fear. The faculty of rapid perception, which is based on the faculty of rapid dissimulation, decreases in proud and autocratic men and nations, as they are less timid; but, on the other hand, every category of understanding and dissimulation is well known to timid peoples, and among them is to be found the real home of imitative arts and superior intelligence.

When, proceeding from the theory of sympathy such as I have just outlined, I turn my attention to the theory, now so popular and almost sacrosanct, of a mystical process by means of which pity blends two beings into one, and thus permits them immediately to understand one another, when I recollect that even so clear a brain as Schopenhauer's delighted in such fantastic nonsense, and that he in his turn transplanted this delight into other lucid and semi-lucid brains, I feel unlimited astonishment and compassion. How great must be the pleasure we experience in this senseless tomfoolery! How near must even a sane man be to insanity as soon as he listens to his own secret intellectual desires! – Why did Schopenhauer really feel so grateful, so profoundly indebted to Kant? He revealed on one occasion the undoubted answer to this question. Some one had spoken of the way in which the qualitias occulta of Kant's Categorical Imperative might be got rid of, so that the theory itself might be rendered intelligible. Whereupon Schopenhauer gave utterance to the following outburst: “An intelligible Categorical Imperative! Preposterous idea! Stygian darkness! God forbid that it should ever become intelligible! The fact that there is actually something unintelligible, that this misery of the understanding and its conceptions is limited, conditional, final, and deceptive, – this is beyond question Kant's great gift.” Let any one consider whether a man can be in possession of a desire to gain an insight into moral things when he feels himself comforted from the start by a belief in the inconceivableness of these things! one who still honestly believes in illuminations from above, in magic, in ghostly appearances, and in the metaphysical ugliness of the toad!

143

Woe to us if this Impulse should Rage! – Supposing that the impulse towards devotion and care for others (“sympathetic affection”) were doubly as strong as it now is, life on earth could not be endured. Let it only be considered how many foolish things every one of us does day by day and hour by hour, merely out of solicitude and devotion for himself, and how unbearable he seems in doing so: and what then would it be like if we were to become for other people the object of the stupidities and importunities with which up to the present they have only tormented themselves! Should we not then take precipitately to our heels as soon as one of our neighbours came towards us? And would it not be necessary to overwhelm this sympathetic affection with the abuse that we now reserve for egoism?

144

Closing our Ears to the Complaints of others. – When we let our sky be clouded by the complaints and suffering of other mortals, who must bear the consequences of such gloom? No doubt those other mortals, in addition to all their other burdens! If we are merely to be the echoes of their complaints, we cannot accord them either help or comfort; nor can we do so if we were continually keeping our ears open to listen to them, – unless we have learnt the art of the Olympians, who, instead of trying to make themselves unhappy, endeavoured to feel edified by the misfortunes of mankind. But this is something too Olympian for us, although, in our enjoyment of tragedy, we have already taken a step towards this ideal divine cannibalism.

145

“Unegoistic.” – This man is empty and wishes to be filled, that one is over-full and wishes to be emptied: both of them feel themselves urged on to look for an individual who can help them. And this phenomenon, interpreted in a higher sense, is in both cases known by the same name, “love.” Well? and could this love be something unegoistic?

146

Looking Beyond our Neighbour. – What? Ought the nature of true morality to consist for us in fixing our eyes upon the most direct and immediate consequences of our action for other people, and in our coming to a decision accordingly? This is only a narrow and bourgeois morality, even though it may be a morality: but it seems to me that it would be more superior and liberal to look beyond these immediate consequences for our neighbour in order to encourage more distant purposes, even at the risk of making others suffer, – as, for example, by encouraging the spirit of knowledge in spite of the certainty that our free-thought will have the instant effect of plunging others into doubt, grief, and even worse afflictions. Have we not at least the right to treat our neighbour as we treat ourselves? And if, where we are concerned, we do not think in such a narrow and bourgeois fashion of immediate consequences and sufferings, why should we be compelled to act thus in regard to our neighbour? Supposing that we felt ready to sacrifice ourselves, what is there to prevent us from sacrificing our neighbour together with ourselves, – just as States and Sovereigns have hitherto sacrificed one citizen to the others, “for the sake of the general interest,” as they say?

We too, however, have general interests, perhaps even more general than theirs: so why may we not sacrifice a few individuals of this generation for the benefit of generations to come? so that their affliction, anxiety, despair, blunders, and misery may be deemed essential because a new plough is to break up the ground and render it fertile for all. Finally, we communicate the disposition to our neighbour by which he is enabled to feel himself a victim: we persuade him to carry out the task for which we employ him. Are we then devoid of all pity? If, however, we wish to achieve a victory over ourselves beyond our pity, is not this a higher and more liberal attitude and disposition than that in which we only feel safe after having ascertained whether an action benefits or harms our neighbour? On the contrary, it is by means of such sacrifice – including the sacrifice of ourselves, as well as of our neighbours – that we should strengthen and elevate the general sense of human power, even supposing that we attain nothing more than this. But even this itself would be a positive increase of happiness. Then, if even this … but not a word more! You have understood me at a glance.

147

The Cause of “Altruism.” – Men have on the whole spoken of love with so much emphasis and adoration because they have hitherto always had so little of it, and have never yet been satiated with this food: in this way it became their ambrosia. If a poet wished to show universal benevolence in the image of a Utopia, he would certainly have to describe an agonising and ridiculous state of things, the like of which was never seen on earth, – every one would be surrounded, importuned, and sighed for, not as at present, by one lover, but by thousands, by everybody indeed, as the result of an irresistible craving which would then be as vehemently insulted and cursed as selfishness has been by men of past ages. The poets of this new condition of things, if they had sufficient leisure to write, would be dreaming of nothing but the blissful and loveless past, the divine selfishness of yore, and the wonderful possibilities in former times of remaining alone, not being run after by one's friends, and of even being hated and despised – or any other odious expressions which the beautiful animal world in which we live chooses to coin.

148

Looking Far Ahead. – If, in accordance with the present definition, only those actions are moral which are done for the sake of others, and for their sake only, then there are no moral actions at all! If, in accordance with another definition, only those actions are moral which spring from our own free will, then there are no moral actions in this case either! What is it, then, that we designate thus, which certainly exists and wishes as a consequence to be explained? It is the result of a few intellectual blunders; and supposing that we were able to free ourselves from these errors, what would then become of “moral actions”? It is due to these errors that we have up to the present attributed to certain actions a value superior to what was theirs in reality: we separated them from “egoistic” and “non-free” actions. When we now set them once more in the latter categories, as we must do, we certainly reduce their value (their own estimate of value) even below its reasonable level, because “egoistic” and “non-free” actions have up to the present been under-valued owing to that alleged profound and essential difference.

In future, then, will these very actions be less frequently performed, since they will be less highly esteemed? Inevitably! Or at all events for a fairly long time, as long as the scale of valuations remains under the reacting influence of former mistakes! But we make some return for this by giving back to men their good courage for the carrying out of actions that are now reputed to be selfish, and thus restore their value, – we relieve men's bad consciences! and as up to the present egoistic actions have been by far the most frequent, and will be so to all eternity, we free the whole conception of these actions and of life from its evil appearance! This is a very high and important result. When men no longer believe themselves to be evil, they cease to be so.

Book III

149

Little Unconventional Actions are Necessary! – To act occasionally in matters of custom against our own better judgments; to yield in practice while reserving our own intellectual liberty; to behave like everybody else and thus to show ourselves amiable and considerate to all, to compensate them, as it were, even if only to some extent, for our unconventional opinions – all this among many tolerably liberal-minded men is looked upon not only as permissible but even as “honourable,” “humane,” “tolerant,” and “unpedantic,” or whatever fine words may be used to lull to sleep the intellectual conscience. So, for example, one man, although he may be an atheist, has his infant baptized in the usual Christian fashion; another goes through his period of military service, though he may severely condemn all hatred between nations; and a third runs into the Church with a girl because she comes from a religious family, and makes his vows to a priest without feeling ashamed of it. “It is of no importance if one of us does what every one else does and has done” – so says ignorant prejudice! What a profound mistake! For nothing is of greater importance than that a powerful, long-established, and irrational custom should be once again confirmed by the act of some one who is recognised as rational. In this way the proceeding is thought to be sanctioned by reason itself! All honour to your opinions! but little unconventional actions are of still greater value.

150

The Hazard of Marriages. – If I were a god, and a benevolent god, the marriages of men would cause me more displeasure than anything else. An individual can make very great progress within the seventy years of his life – yea, even within thirty years: such progress, indeed, as to surprise even the gods! But when we then see him exposing the inheritance and legacy of his struggles and victories, the laurel crown of his humanity, on the first convenient peg where any female may pick it to pieces for him; when we observe how well he can acquire and how little he is capable of preserving his acquisitions, and how he does not even dream that by procreation he might prepare a still more victorious life, – we then, indeed, become impatient and say, “Nothing can in the end result from humanity, individuals are wasted, for all rationality of a great advance of humanity is rendered impossible by the hazard of marriages: let us cease from being the assiduous spectators and fools of this aimless drama!” It was in this mood that the gods of Epicurus withdrew long ago to their divine seclusion and felicity: they were tired of men and their love affairs.

151

Here are New Ideals to Invent. – At a time when a man is in love he should not be allowed to come to a decision about his life and to determine once and for all the character of his society on account of a whim. We ought publicly to declare invalid the vows of lovers, and to refuse them permission to marry: and this because we should treat marriage itself much more seriously, so that in cases where it is now contracted it would not usually be allowed in future! Are not the majority of marriages such that we should not care to have them witnessed by a third party? And yet this third party is scarcely ever lacking – the child – and he is more than a witness; he is the whipping-boy and scapegoat.

152

Formula of Oath. – “If I am now telling a lie I am no longer an honourable man, and every one may say so to my face.” I recommend this formula in place of the present judicial oath and its customary invocation to the Deity: it is stronger. There is no reason why even religious men should oppose it; for as soon as the customary oath no longer serves, all the religious people will have to turn to their catechism, which says, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.”

153

The Malcontent. – He is one of the brave old warriors: angry with civilisation because he believes that its object is to make all good things – honour, rewards, and fair women – accessible even to cowards.

154

Consolation amid Perils. – The Greeks, in the course of a life that was always surrounded by great dangers and cataclysms, endeavoured to find in meditation and knowledge a kind of security of feeling, a last refugium. We, who live in a much more secure state, have introduced danger into meditation and knowledge, and it is in life itself that we endeavour to find repose, a refuge from danger.

155

Extinct Scepticism. – Hazardous enterprises are rarer in modern times than in antiquity and in the Middle Ages, probably because modern times have no more belief in omens, oracles, stars, and soothsayers. In other words, we have become incapable of believing in a future which is reserved for us, as the ancients did, who – in contradistinction to ourselves – were much less sceptical regarding that which is to be than that which is.

156