On the Genealogy of Morality (Hackett Classics) by Friedrich Nietzsche

Author:Friedrich Nietzsche [Nietzsche, Friedrich]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.
Published: 1998-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

9

A certain asceticism—we have seen it—a hard and lighthearted renunciation with the best of intentions, belongs to the most favorable conditions of highest spirituality, likewise also to its most natural consequences: from the outset, then, it will not astonish us if the ascetic ideal has always been treated with considerable prepossession precisely by philosophers. A serious historical reckoning proves the tie between ascetic ideal and philosophy to be even closer and stricter still. One could say that it was only on the apron strings of this ideal that philosophy ever learned to take its first steps and half-steps on earth—alas, ever so clumsily, alas, with ever so discouraged faces, alas, so ready to fall down and lie on its belly, this shy little blunderer and milquetoast with crooked legs! In the beginning philosophy fared as have all good things,—for a long time they hadn’t the courage to themselves, they were always looking around to see if there weren’t someone who would come to their help, still more, they were afraid of everyone who watched them. Just list the individual drives and virtues of the philosopher one after the other—his doubting drive, his negating drive, his wait-and-see (“ephectic”) drive, his analytical drive, his exploring, searching, venturing drive, his comparing, balancing drive, his will to neutrality and objectivity, his will to every “sine ira et studio”—: have we already grasped that for the longest time they all went against the first demands of morality and of conscience? (not to mention reason itself, which, even in his late day, Luther loved to call Fraw Klüglin the shrewd whore). That a philosopher, if he were to come to a consciousness of himself, would have had to feel himself to be none other than the “nitimur in vetitum” incarnate—and accordingly was on guard against “feeling himself,” against coming to a consciousness of himself ? … Things are, as stated, no different with all good things of which we are proud today; even measured by the standard of the ancient Greeks our entire modern being, insofar as it is not weakness but rather power and consciousness of power, appears as nothing but hubris and godlessness: for the longest time those very things that are the reverse of what we venerate today had conscience on their side and God as their watchman. Hubris is our entire stance toward nature today, our violation of nature with the help of machines and the so thoughtless inventiveness of technicians and engineers; hubris is our stance toward God, that is to say toward some alleged spider of purpose and morality behind the great snare-web of causality—we could say with Charles the Bold in battle with Louis XI “je combats l’universelle araignée”—; hubris is our stance toward ourselves—for we experiment with ourselves as we would not permit ourselves to do with any animal and merrily and curiously slit open our souls while the body is still living: what do we care anymore about the “salvation” of the soul! Afterwards we heal ourselves:

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