Nietzsche: The Will to Power. Friedrich Nietzsche
Читать онлайн книгу.
they have overcome Christianity by means of modern natural science. Christian values are by no means overcome by such people. "Christ on the cross" is still the most sublime symbol—even now....
220.
The two great Nihilistic movements are: (a) Buddhism, (b) Christianity. The latter has only just about reached a state of culture in which it can fulfil its original object,—it has found its level,—and now it can manifest itself without disguise.....
221.
We have re-established the Christian ideal, it now only remains to determine its value.
(1) Which values does it deny? What does the ideal that opposes it stand for?—Pride, pathos of distance, great responsibility, exuberant spirits, splendid animalism, the instincts of war and of conquest; the deification of passion, revenge, cunning, anger, voluptuousness, adventure, knowledge—the noble ideal is denied: the beauty, wisdom, power, pomp, and awfulness of the type man: the man who postulates aims, the "future" man (here Christianity presents itself as the logical result of Judaism).
(2) Can it be realised?—Yes, of course, when the climatic conditions are favourable—as in the case of the Indian ideal. Both neglect the factor work.—It separates a creature from a people, a state, a civilised community, and jurisdiction; it rejects education, wisdom, the cultivation of good manners, acquisition and commerce; it cuts adrift everything which is of use and value to men—by means of an idiosyncrasy of sentiment it isolates a man. It is non-political, anti-national, neither aggressive nor defensive,—and only possible within a strictly-ordered State or state of society, which allows these holy parasites to flourish at the cost of their neighbours.....
(3) It has now become the will to be happy—and nothing else! "Blessedness" stands for something self-evident, that no longer requires any justification—everything else (the way to live and let live) is only a means to an end....
But what follows is the result of a low order of thought, the fear of pain, of defilement, of corruption, is great enough to provide ample grounds for allowing everything to go to the dogs.... This is a poor way of thinking, and is the sign of an exhausted race; we must not allow ourselves to be deceived. ("Become as little children." Natures of the same order: Francis of Assisi, neurotic, epileptic, visionary, like Jesus.)
222.
The higher man distinguishes himself from the lower by his fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune: it is a sign of degeneration when eudemonistic values begin to prevail (physiological fatigue and enfeeblement of will-power). Christianity, with its prospect of "blessedness," is the typical attitude of mind of a suffering and impoverished species of man. Abundant strength will be active, will suffer, and will go under: to it the bigotry of Christian salvation is bad music and hieratic posing and vexation.
223.
Poverty, humility, and chastity are dangerous and slanderous ideals; but like poisons, which are useful cures in the case of certain diseases, they were also necessary in the time of the Roman Empire.
All ideals are dangerous: because they lower and brand realities; they are all poisons, but occasionally indispensable as cures.
224.
God created man, happy, idle, innocent, and immortal: our actual life is a false, decadent, and sinful existence, a punishment.... Suffering, struggle, work, and death are raised as objections against life, they make life questionable, unnatural—something that must cease, and for which one not only requires but also has—remedies!
Since the time of Adam, man has been in an abnormal state: God Himself delivered up His Son for Adam's sin, in order to put an end to the abnormal condition of things: the natural character of life is a curse; to those who believe in Him, Christ restores normal life: He makes them happy, idle, and innocent. But the world did not become fruitful without labour; women do not bear children without pain; illness has not ceased: believers are served just as badly as unbelievers in this respect. All that has happened is, that man is delivered from death and sin—two assertions which allow of no verification, and which are therefore emphasised by the Church with more than usual heartiness. "He is free from sin,"—not owing to his own efforts, not owing to a vigorous struggle on his part, but redeemed by the death of the Saviour,—consequently, perfectly innocent and paradisaical.
Actual life is nothing more than an illusion (that is to say, a deception, an insanity). The whole of struggling, fighting, and real existence—so full of light and shade, is only bad and false: everybody's duty is to be delivered from it.
"Man, innocent, idle, immortal, and happy"—this concept, which is the object of the "most supreme desires," must be criticised before anything else. Why should guilt, work, death, and pain (and, from the Christian point of view, also knowledge ...) be contrary to all supreme desires?—The lazy Christian notions: "blessedness," "innocence," "immortality."
225.
The eccentric concept "holiness" does not exist—"God" and "man" have not been divorced from each other. "Miracles" do not exist—such spheres do not exist: the only one to be considered is the "intellectual" (that is to say, the symbolically-psychological). As decadence: a counterpart to "Epicureanism." ... Paradise according to Greek notions was only "Epicurus' Garden."
A life of this sort lacks a purpose: it strives after nothing;—a form of the "Epicurean gods"—there is no longer any reason to aim at anything,—not even at having children:—everything has been done.
226.
They despised the body: they did not reckon with it: nay, more—they treated it as an enemy. It was their delirium to think that a man could carry a "beautiful soul" about in a body that was a cadaverous abortion.... In order to inoculate others with this insanity they had to present the concept "beautiful soul" in a different way, and to transvalue the natural value, until, at last, a pale, sickly, idiotically exalted creature, something angelic, some extreme perfection and transfiguration was declared to be the higher man.
227.
Ignorance in matters psychological.—The Christian has no nervous system;—contempt for, and deliberate and wilful turning away from, the demands of the body, and the naked body; it is assumed that all this is in keeping with man's nature, and must perforce work the ultimate good of the soul;—all functions of the body are systematically reduced to moral values; illness itself is regarded as determined by morality, it is held to be the result of sin, or it is a trial or a state of salvation, through which man becomes more perfect than he could become in a state of health (Pascal's idea); under certain circumstances, there are wilful attempts at inducing illness.
228.
What in sooth is this struggle "against Nature" on the part of the Christian? We shall not, of course, let ourselves be deceived by his words and explanations. It is Nature against something which is also Nature. With many, it is fear; with others, it is loathing; with yet others, it is the sign of a certain intellectuality, the love of a bloodless and passionless ideal; and in the case of the most superior men, it is love of an abstract Nature—these try to live up to their ideal. It is easily understood that humiliation in the place of self-esteem, anxious cautiousness towards the passions, emancipation from the usual duties (whereby, a higher notion of rank is created), the incitement to constant war on behalf of enormous issues, habituation to effusiveness of feelings—all this goes to constitute a type: in such a type the hypersensitiveness of a perishing body preponderates; but the nervousness and the inspirations it engenders are interpreted differently. The taste of this kind of creature tends either (1) to subtilise, (2) to indulge in bombastic eloquence, or (3) to go in for extreme feelings. The natural inclinations do get satisfied, but they are interpreted in a new way; for instance, as "justification before God," "the feeling of redemption through grace," every undeniable feeling of pleasure becomes (interpreted in this way!) pride, voluptuousness, etc. General problem: what will become of the man who slanders and practically