We Philologists Part 12

176

Men not to be used like things!

From the former very incomplete philology and knowledge of antiquity there flowed out a stream of freedom, while our own highly developed knowledge produces slaves and serves the idol of the State.

177

There will perhaps come a time when scientific work will be carried on by women, while the men will have to _create,_ using the word in a spiritual sense: states, laws, works of art, &c.

People should study typical antiquity just as they do typical men: _i.e._, imitating what they understand of it, and, when the pattern seems to lie far in the distance, considering ways and means and preliminary preparations, and devising stepping-stones.

178

The whole feature of study lies in this: that we should study only what we feel we should like to imitate; what we gladly take up and have the desire to multiply. What is really wanted is a progressive canon of the _ideal_ model, suited to boys, youths, and men.

179

Goethe grasped antiquity in the right way invariably with an emulative soul. But who else did so? One sees nothing of a well-thought-out pedagogics of this nature: who knows that there is a certain knowledge of antiquity which cannot be imparted to youths!

The puerile character of philology: devised by teachers for pupils.

180

The ever more and more common form of the ideal: first men, then inst.i.tutions, finally tendencies, purposes, or the want of them. The highest form: the conquest of the ideal by a backward movement from tendencies to inst.i.tutions, and from inst.i.tutions to men.

181

I will set down in writing what I no longer believe--and also what I do believe. Man stands in the midst of the great whirlpool of forces, and imagines that this whirlpool is rational and has a rational aim in view: error! The only rationality that we know is the small reason of man: he must exert it to the utmost, and it invariably leaves him in the lurch if he tries to place himself in the hands of "Providence."

Our only happiness lies in reason; all the remainder of the world is dreary. The highest reason, however, is seen by me in the work of the artist, and he can feel it to be such: there may be something which, when it can be consciously brought forward, may afford an even greater feeling of reason and happiness: for example, the course of the solar system, the breeding and education of a man.

Happiness lies in rapidity of feeling and thinking: everything else is slow, gradual, and stupid. The man who could feel the progress of a ray of light would be greatly enraptured, for it is very rapid.

Thinking of one's self affords little happiness. But when we do experience happiness therein the reason is that we are not thinking of ourselves, but of our ideal. This lies far off; and only the rapid man attains it and rejoices.

An amalgamation of a great centre of men for the breeding of better men is the task of the future. The individual must become familiarised with claims that, when he says Yea to his own will, he also says Yea to the will of that centre--for example, in reference to a choice, as among women for marriage, and likewise as to the manner in which his child shall be brought up. Until now no single individuality, or only the very rarest, have been free: they were influenced by these conceptions, but likewise by the bad and contradictory organisation of the individual purposes.

182

Education is in the first place instruction in what is necessary, and then in what is changing and inconstant. The youth is introduced to nature, and the sway of laws is everywhere pointed out to him; followed by an explanation of the laws of ordinary society. Even at this early stage the question will arise: was it absolutely necessary that this should have been so? He gradually comes to need history to ascertain how these things have been brought about. He learns at the same time, however, that they may be changed into something else. What is the extent of man's power over things? This is the question in connection with all education. To show how things may become other than what they are we may, for example, point to the Greeks. We need the Romans to show how things became what they were.

183

If, then, the Romans had spurned the Greek culture, they would perhaps have gone to pieces completely. When could this culture have once again arisen? Christianity and Romans and barbarians: this would have been an onslaught: it would have entirely wiped out culture. We see the danger amid which genius lives. Cicero was one of the greatest benefactors of humanity, even in his own time.

There is no "Providence" for genius; it is only for the ordinary run of people and their wants that such a thing exists: they find their satisfaction, and later on their justification.

184

Thesis: the death of ancient culture inevitable. Greek culture must be distinguished as the archetype; and it must be shown how all culture rests upon shaky conceptions.

The dangerous meaning of art: as the protectress and galvanisation of dead and dying conceptions; history, in so far as it wishes to restore to us feelings which we have overcome. To feel "historically" or "just"

towards what is already past, is only possible when we have risen above it. But the danger in the adoption of the feelings necessary for this is very great . let the dead bury their dead, so that we ourselves may not come under the influence of the smell of the corpses.

THE DEATH OF THE OLD CULTURE.

1. The signification of the studies of antiquity hitherto pursued: obscure; mendacious.

2. As soon as they recognise the goal they condemn themselves to death for their goal is to describe ancient culture itself as one to be demolished.

3. The collection of all the conceptions out of which h.e.l.lenic culture has grown up. Criticism of religion, art, society, state, morals.

4. Christianity is likewise denied.

5. Art and history--dangerous.

6. The replacing of the study of antiquity which has become superfluous for the training of our youth.

Thus the task of the science of history is completed and it itself has become superfluous, if the entire inward continuous circle of past efforts has been condemned. Its place must be taken by the science of the _future_.

185

"Signs" and "miracles" are not believed; only a "Providence" stands in need of such things. There is no help to be found either in prayer or asceticism or in "vision." If all these things const.i.tute religion, then there is no more religion for me.

My religion, if I can still apply this name to something, lies in the work of breeding genius . from such training everything is to be hoped.

All consolation comes from art. Education is love for the offspring; an excess of love over and beyond our self-love. Religion is "love beyond ourselves." The work of art is the model of such a love beyond ourselves, and a perfect model at that.

186

The stupidity of the will is Schopenhauer's greatest thought, if thoughts be judged from the standpoint of power. We can see in Hartmann how he juggled away this thought. n.o.body will ever call something stupid--G.o.d.

187

This, then, is the new feature of all the future progress of the world men must never again be ruled over by religious conceptions. Will they be any _worse_? It is not my experience that they behave well and morally under the yoke of religion; I am not on the side of Demopheles[14] The fear of a beyond, and then again the fear of divine punishments will hardly have made men better.