Human, All Too Human Volume Ii Part 64

EXPRESSING AN ERROR DISAGREEABLY.-It is not to every one's taste to hear truth pleasantly expressed. But let no one at least believe that error will become truth if it is disagreeably expressed.

350.

THE GOLDEN MAXIM.-Man has been bound with many chains, in order that he may forget to comport himself like an animal. And indeed he has become more gentle, more intellectual, more joyous, more meditative than any animal. But now he still suffers from having carried his chains so long, from having been so long without pure air and free movement-these chains, however, are, as I repeat again and again, the ponderous and significant errors of moral, religious, and metaphysical ideas. Only when the disease of chains is overcome is the first great goal reached-the separation of man from the brute. At present we stand in the midst of our work of removing the chains, and in doing so we need the strictest precautions.

Only the enn.o.bled man may be granted freedom of spirit; to him alone comes the alleviation of life and heals his wounds; he is the first who can say that he lives for the sake of joy, with no other aim; in any other mouth, his motto of "Peace around me and goodwill towards all the most familiar things," would be dangerous.-In this motto for single individuals he is thinking of an ancient saying, magnificent and pathetic, which applied to all, and has remained standing above all mankind, as a motto and a beacon whereby shall perish all who adorn their banner too early-the rock on which Christianity foundered. It is not even yet time, it seems, for _all men_ to have the lot of those shepherds who saw the heavens lit up above them and heard the words: "Peace on earth and goodwill to one another among men."-It is still the age of the individual.

_The Shadow_: Of all that you have enunciated, nothing pleased me more than one promise: "Ye want again to be good neighbours to the most familiar things." This will be to the advantage of us poor shadows too.

For do but confess that you have hitherto been only too fond of reviling us.

_The Wanderer_: Reviling? But why did you never defend yourselves? After all, you were very close to our ears.

_The Shadow_: It seemed to us that we were too near you to have a right to talk of ourselves.

_The Wanderer_: What delicacy! Ah, you shadows are "better men"(30) than we, I can see that.

_The Shadow_: And yet you called us "importunate"-us, who know one thing at least extremely well: how to be silent and to wait-no Englishman knows it better. It is true we are very, very often in the retinue of men, but never as their bondsmen. When man shuns light, we shun man-so far, at least, we are free.

_The Wanderer_: Ah, light shuns man far oftener, and then also you abandon him.

_The Shadow_: It has often pained me to leave you. I am eager for knowledge, and much in man has remained obscure to me, because I cannot always be in his company. At the price of complete knowledge of man I would gladly be your slave.

_The Wanderer_: Do you know, do I know, whether you would not then unwittingly become master instead of slave? Or would remain a slave indeed, but would lead a life of humiliation and disgust because you despised your master? Let us both be content with freedom such as you have enjoyed up to now-you and I! For the sight of a being not free would embitter my greatest joys; all that is best would be repugnant to me if any one had to share it with me-I will not hear of any slaves about me.

That is why I do not care for the dog, that lazy, tail-wagging parasite, who first became "doggish" as the slave of man, and of whom they still say that he is loyal to his master and follows him like--

_The Shadow_: Like his shadow, they say. Perhaps I have already followed you too long to-day? It has been the longest day, but we are nearing the end; be patient a little more! The gra.s.s is damp; I am feeling chilly.

_The Wanderer_: Oh, is it already time to part? And I had to hurt you in the end-I saw you became darker.

_The Shadow_: I blushed the only colour I have at command. I remembered that I had often lain at your feet like a dog, and that you then--

_The Wanderer_: Can I not with all speed do something to please you? Have you no wish?

_The Shadow_: None, except perhaps the wish that the philosophic "dog"(31) expressed to Alexander the Great-just move a little out of my light; I feel cold.

_The Wanderer_: What am I to do?

_The Shadow_: Walk under those fir-trees and look around you towards the mountains; the sun is sinking.

_The Wanderer_: Where are you? Where are you?

FOOTNOTES

1 "Foreword" and "forword" would be the literal rendering of the play on words.-TR.

2 The allusion is to the ending of the Second Part of Goethe's _Faust_-"das Ewig Weibliche Zieht uns _hinan_!"-"The Eternal Feminine Draweth us _on_!"-TR.

3 It has been attempted to render the play on "Gewissen" and "Wissen."-TR.

4 Cf. John i. 1.-TR.

5 The German word _Mitfreude_, coined by Nietzsche in opposition to _Mitleid_ (sympathy), is untranslateable.-TR.

6 Herostratus of Ephesus (in 356 B.C.) set fire to the temple of Diana in order (as he confessed on the rack) to gain notoriety.-TR.

7 Quotation from Schiller, _Don Carlos_, i. 5.-TR.

8 This, of course, refers to Jesus and Socrates.-TR.

9 Queen of the Amazons, slain by Achilles in the Trojan War.-TR.

10 From Schiller, _Wallenstein's Lager_: "Wer den Besten seiner Zeit genug gethan, der hat gelebt fur alle Zeiten" ("He that has satisfied the best men of his time has lived for all time").

11 In German _Barockstil_, _i.e._ the degenerate post-Renaissance style in art and literature, which spread from Italy in the seventeenth century.-TR.

12 The original word, _Freizugig_, means, in the modern German Empire, possessing the free right of migration, without pecuniary burdens or other restrictions, from one German state to another. The play on words in _Zug zur Freiheit_ ("impulse to freedom") is untranslateable.-TR.

13 Nietzsche seems to allude to his own case, for he ultimately contracted a myopia which bordered on blindness.-TR.

14 The play on _bergen_ (shelter) and _verbergen_ (hide) is untranslateable.-TR.

15 Allusion to German proverb: "Where there is nothing, the Emperor has lost his rights."-TR.

16 Genesis xiii. 9.-TR.

17 Luke viii. 33.-TR.

18 The play on Freudenschaften (_i.e._ pleasure-giving pa.s.sions) and _Leidenschaften_ (_i.e._ pain-giving pa.s.sions) is often used by Nietzsche, and is untranslateable.-_Tr._

19 The wife of the Stoic Thrasea Paetus, when their complicity in the great conspiracy of 65 A.D. against Nero was discovered, is reported to have said as she committed suicide, "It doesn't hurt, Paetus."-_Tr._

20 It is interesting to compare this judgment with Carlyle's praise of Jean Paul. The dressing-gown is an allusion to Jean Paul's favourite costume.-TR.