The Will to Power. Friedrich Nietzsche

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СКАЧАТЬ or the " heart "; thoroughly convinced of the dominion of the desires (Schopenhauer said " Will," but nothing is more characteristic of his philosophy than that it entirely lacks all actual willing}. Even morality is reduced to an instinct (" Pity "). Auguste Comte is the continuation of the eighteenth century (the dominion of the heart over the head, sensuality in the theory of knowledge, altruistic exaltation). The fact that science has become as sovereign as it is today, proves how the nineteenth century has emancipated itself from the dominion of ideals. A certain absence of " needs " and wishes makes our scientific curiosity and rigor possible this is our kind of virtue. Romanticism is the counterstroke of the eighteenth century; a sort of accumulated longing for its grand style of exaltation (as a matter of fact, largely mingled with mummery and self-deception: the desire was to represent strong nature and strong passion}. The nineteenth century instinctively goes in search of theories by means of which it may feel its fatalistic submission to the empire of facts justified. Hegel s success against sentimentality and romantic idealism was already a sign of its fatalistic trend of thought, in its belief that superior reason belongs to the triumphant side, and in its justification of the actual " state " (in the place of " humanity," etc.). Schopenhauer: we are something foolish, and at the best self- suppressive. The success of determinism, the genealogical derivation of obligations which were formerly held to be absolute, the teaching of environment and adaptation, the reduction of will to a process of reflex movement, the denial of the will as a " working cause "; finally a real process of re-christening: so little will is observed that the word itself becomes available for another purpose. Further theories: the teaching of objectivity, " will-less " contemplation, as the only road to truth, as also to beauty (also the belief in " genius," in order to have the right to be submissive); mechanism, the determinable rigidity of the mechanical process; so-called " Naturalism," the elimination of the choosing, directing, inter preting subject, on principle. Kant, with his " practical reason," with his moral fanaticism, is quite eighteenth century style; still completely outside the historical movement, without any notion whatsoever of the reality of his time, for instance, revolution; he is not affected by Greek philosophy; he is a phantasist of the notion of duty, a sensualist with a hidden leaning to dogmatic pampering. The return to Kant in our century means a return to the eighteenth century: people desire to create themselves a right to the old ideas and to the old exaltation hence a theoryofknowledge which" describes limits," that is to say, which admits of the option of fixing a Beyond to the domain of reason. Hegel's way of thinking is not so very far removed from that of Goethe: see the latter on the subject of Spinoza, for instance. The will to deify the All and Life, in order to find both peace and happiness in contemplating them: Hegel looks for reason everywhere in the presence of reason man may be submissive and resigned. In Goethe we find a kind of fatalism which is almost joyous and confiding, which neither revolts nor weakens, which strives to make a totality out of itself, in the belief that only in totality does every thing seem good and justified, and find itself resolved.

      96. The period of rationalism followed by a period of sentimentality. To what extent does Schopenhauer come under "sentimentality"? (Hegel under intellectuality?)

      97. The seventeenth century suffers from humanity as from a host of contradictions (" Famas de con tradictions " that we are ); it endeavours to discover man, to co-ordinate him, to excavate him: whereas the eighteenth century tries to forget what is known of man s nature, in order to adapt him to its Utopia. " Superficial, soft, humane " gushes over " humanity." The seventeenth century tries to banish all traces of the individual in order that the artist s work may resemble life as much as possible. The eighteenth century strives to create interest in the author by means of the work. The seventeenth century seeks art in art, a piece of culture; the eighteenth uses art in its propaganda for political and social reforms. " Utopia," the " ideal man," the deification of Nature, the vanity of making one s own personality the centre of interest, subordination to the propa ganda of social ideas, charlatanism all this we derive from the eighteenth century. The style of the seventeenth century: propre exact et libre. The strong individual who is self-sufficient, or who appeals ardently to God and that obtrusive- ness and indiscretion of modern authors these things are opposites. u Showing-oneself-ofif" what a contrast to the Scholars of Port- Royal! Alfieri had a sense for the grand style. The hate of the burlesque (that which lacks dignity), the lack of a sense of Nature belongs to the seventeenth century.

      98. Against Rousseau. Alas! man is no longer sufficiently evil; Rousseau s opponents, who say that " man is a beast of prey," are unfortunately wrong. Not the corruption of man, but the softening and moralising of him is the curse. In the sphere which Rousseau attacked most violently, the relatively strongest and most successful type of man was still to be found (the type which still possessed the great passions intact: Will to Power, Will to Pleasure, the Will and Ability to Com mand). The man of the eighteenth century must be compared with the man of the Renaissance (also with the man of the seventeenth century in France) if the matter is to be understood at all: Rousseau is a symptom of self-contempt and of inflamed vanity both signs that the dominating will is lacking: he moralises and seeks the cause of his own misery after the style of a revengeful man in the ruling classes.

      99. Voltaire Rousseau. A state of nature is terrible; man is a beast of prey: our civilisation is an extraordinary triumph over this beast of prey in nature this was Voltaire s conclusion. He was conscious of the mildness, the refinements, the intellectual joys of the civilized state; he despised obtuseness, even in the form of virtue, and the lack of delicacy even in ascetics and monks. The moral depravity of man seemed to pre occupy Rousseau; the words " unjust," " cruel," are the best possible for the purpose of exciting the instincts of the oppressed, who otherwise find themselves under the ban of the vetitum and of disgrace; so that their conscience is opposed to their indulging any insurrectional desires. These emancipators seek one thing above all: to give their party the great accents and attitudes of higher Nature.

      100. Rousseau: the rule founded on sentiment; Nature as the source of justice; man perfects himself in proportion as he approaches Nature (according to Voltaire, in proportion as he leaves Nature behind}. The very same periods seem to the one to demonstrate the progress of humanity and, to the other, the increase of injustice and inequality. Voltaire, who still understood umanita in the sense of the Renaissance, as also virtu (as " higher culture "), fights for the cause of the " honnetes gens" " la bonne compagnie" taste, science, arts, and even for the cause of progress and civilisation. The flare-up occurred towards 1760: On the one hand the citizen of Geneva, on the other le seigneur de Ferney. It is only from that moment and henceforward that Voltaire was the man of his age, the philosopher, the representative of Toleration and of Disbelief (theretofore he had been merely un bel esprit}. His envy and hatred of Rousseau s success forced him upwards. " Pour la canaille un dieu re mune rateur el vengeur " Voltaire. The criticism of both standpoints in regard to the value of civilisation. To Voltaire nothing seems finer than the social invention: there is no higher goal than to uphold and perfect it. L honnetete consists precisely in respecting social usage; virtue in a certain obedience towards various necessary " prejudices " which favour the maintenance of society. Missionary of Culture, aristocrat, representative of the triumphant and ruling classes and their values. But Rousseau remained a plebeian, even as hommes de lettres, this was preposterous] his shameless contempt for everything that was not himself. The morbid feature in Rousseau is the one which happens to have been most admired and imitated. (Lord Byron resembled him somewhat, he too screwed himself up to sublime attitudes and to revengeful rage a sign of vulgarity; later on, when Venice restored his equilibrium, he under stood what alleviates most and does the most good . . . F insouciance?) In spite of his antecedents, Rousseau is proud of himself; but he is incensed if he is reminded of his origin. . . . In Rousseau there was undoubtedly some brain trouble; in Voltaire rare health and lightsome- ness. The revengefulness of the sick; his periods of insanity as also those of his contempt of man, and of his mistrust. Rousseau s defence of Providence (against Vol taire s Pessimism): he had need of God in order to be able to curse society and civilisation; every thing must be good per se, because God had created it; man alone has corrupted man. The " good man " as a man of Nature was pure fantasy; but with the dogma of God s authorship he became something probable and even not devoid of found ation. Romanticism & la Rousseau: passion (" the sovereign right of passion "); " naturalness "; the fascination of madness (foolishness reckoned as greatness); the СКАЧАТЬ