Nietzsche: The Will to Power. Friedrich Nietzsche
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in regard to life, but owing to the fact that our eyes have been opened to all kinds of "desiderata." With mocking anger we survey that which is called "Ideal": we despise ourselves only because we are unable at every moment of our lives to quell that absurd emotion which is called "Idealism." This pampering by means of ideals is stronger than the anger of the disillusioned one.
17.
To what extent does Schopenhauerian Nihilism continue to be the result of the same ideal as that which gave rise to Christian Theism? The amount of certainty concerning the most exalted desiderata, the highest values and the greatest degree of perfection, was so great, that the philosophers started out from it as if it had been an a priori and absolute fact: "God" at the head, as the given quantity—Truth. "To become like God," "to be absorbed into the Divine Being"—these were for centuries the most ingenuous and most convincing desiderata (but that which convinces is not necessarily true on that account: it is nothing more nor less than convincing. An observation for donkeys).
The granting of a personal-reality to this accretion of ideals has been unlearned: people have become atheistic. But has the ideal actually been abandoned? The latest metaphysicians, as a matter of fact, still seek their true "reality" in it—the "thing-in-itself" beside which everything else is merely appearance. Their dogma is, that because our world of appearance is so obviously not the expression of that ideal, it therefore cannot be "true"—and at bottom does not even lead back to that metaphysical world as cause. The unconditioned, in so far as it stands for that highest degree of perfection, cannot possibly be the reason of all the conditioned. Schopenhauer, who desired it otherwise, was obliged to imagine this metaphysical basis as the antithesis to the ideal, as "an evil, blind will": thus it could be "that which appears," that which manifests itself in the world of appearance. But even so, he did not give up that ideal absolute—he circumvented it....
(Kant seems to have needed the hypothesis of "intelligible freedom,"3 in order to relieve the ens perfectum of the responsibility of having contrived this world as it is, in short, in order to explain evil: scandalous logic for a philosopher!).
18.
The most general sign of modern times: in his own estimation, man has lost an infinite amount of dignity. For a long time he was the centre and tragic hero of life in general; then he endeavoured to demonstrate at least his relationship to the most essential and in itself most valuable side of life—as all metaphysicians do, who wish to hold fast to the dignity of man, in their belief that moral values are cardinal values. He who has let God go, clings all the more strongly to the belief in morality.
19.
Every purely moral valuation (as, for instance, the Buddhistic) terminates in Nihilism: Europe must expect the same thing! It is supposed that one can get along with a morality bereft of a religious background; but in this direction the road to Nihilism is opened. There is nothing in religion which compels us to regard ourselves as valuing creatures.
20.
The question which Nihilism puts, namely, "to what purpose?" is the outcome of a habit, hitherto, to regard the purpose as something fixed, given and exacted from outside—that is to say, by some supernatural authority. Once the belief in this has been unlearned, the force of an old habit leads to the search after another authority, which would know how to speak unconditionally, and could point to goals and missions. The authority of the conscience now takes the first place (the more morality is emancipated from theology, the more imperative does it become) as a compensation for the personal authority. Or the authority of reason. Or the gregarious instinct (the herd). Or history with its immanent spirit, which has its goal in itself, and to which one can abandon oneself. One would like to evade the will, as also the willing of a goal and the risk of setting oneself a goal. One would like to get rid of the responsibility (Fatalism would be accepted). Finally: Happiness and with a dash of humbug, the happiness of the greatest number.
It is said:—
(1) A definite goal is quite unnecessary.
(2) Such a goal cannot possibly be foreseen. Precisely now, when will in its fullest strength were necessary, it is in the weakest and most pusillanimous condition. Absolute mistrust concerning the organising power of the will.
21.
The perfect Nihilist.—The Nihilist's eye idealises in an ugly sense, and is inconstant to what it remembers: it allows its recollections to go astray and to fade, it does not protect them from that cadaverous coloration with which weakness dyes all that is distant and past. And what it does not do for itself it fails to do for the whole of mankind as well—that is to say, it allows it to drop.
22.
Nihilism. It may be two things:—
A. Nihilism as a sign of enhanced spiritual strength: active Nihilism.
B. Nihilism as a sign of the collapse and decline of spiritual strength: passive Nihilism.
23.
Nihilism, a normal condition.
It may be a sign of strength; spiritual vigour may have increased to such an extent that the goals toward which man has marched hitherto (the "convictions," articles of faith) are no longer suited to it (for a faith generally expresses the exigencies of the conditions of existence, a submission to the authority of an order of things which conduces to the prosperity, the growth and power of a living creature ...); on the other hand, a sign of insufficient strength, to fix a goal, a "wherefore," and a faith for itself.
It reaches its maximum of relative strength, as a powerful destructive force, in the form of active Nihilism.
Its opposite would be weary Nihilism, which no longer attacks: its most renowned form being Buddhism: as passive Nihilism, a sign of weakness: spiritual strength may be fatigued, exhausted, so that the goals and values which have prevailed hitherto are no longer suited to it and are no longer believed in—so that the synthesis of values and goals (upon which every strong culture stands) decomposes, and the different values contend with one another: Disintegration, then everything which is relieving, which heals, becalms, or stupefies, steps into the foreground under the cover of various disguises, either religious, moral, political or æsthetic, etc.
24.
Nihilism is not only a meditating over the "in vain!"—not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one's shoulder to the plough; one destroys. This, if you will, is illogical; but the Nihilist does not believe in the necessity of being logical.... It is the condition of strong minds and wills; and to these it is impossible to be satisfied with the negation of judgment: the negation by deeds proceeds from their nature. Annihilation by the reasoning faculty seconds annihilation by the hand.
25.
Concerning the genesis of the Nihilist. The courage of all one really knows comes but late in life. It is only quite recently that I have acknowledged to myself that heretofore I have been a Nihilist from top to toe. The energy and thoroughness with which I marched forward as a Nihilist deceived me concerning this fundamental principle. When one is progressing towards a goal it seems impossible that "aimlessness per se" should be one's fundamental article of faith.
26.
The Pessimism of strong natures. The "wherefore" after a terrible struggle, even after victory. That something may exist which is a hundred times more important than the question, whether we feel well or unwell, is the fundamental instinct of all strong natures—and consequently too, whether the others feel well or unwell. In short, that we have a purpose, for which we would not even hesitate to sacrifice men, run all risks, and bend our backs to the worst: this is the great passion.