Against the Ostentatiously Humble
He who is truly humble conceals even his humility.
55
The Pessimists
In pessimistic valuations of Life, the alternative contemplated is generally not between Life and Death, but between different types of Life. The real goal of Schopenhauerism is not the extinction of life, for death is a perfectly normal aspect of existence, and Life would not be denied even if death became universal. In order to deny Life and to triumph over it, the pessimist must continue at least to exist, in a sort of death in life: he must be dead, but he must also know it. That is the goal of Schopenhauerism; perhaps not so difficult, perhaps frequently attained! "They have not enough life even to die," said Nietzsche.
56
Sickness and Health
Some men have such unconquerable faith in Life that they defy their very maladies, creating out of them forms of ecstasy: that is their way of triumphing over them. Perhaps some poetry, certainly not a little religion has sprung from this. In religions defaming the senses and enjoining asceticism, or, in other words, a lowering of vitality, the chronic sufferers affirm Life in their own way; for sickness is their life: their praise of sickness is their praise of Life. And if they sometimes morbidly invite death, that is because death is nothing but another form of experience, of Life. To the sick, if they are to retain self-respect and pride, these doctrines are perhaps the best possible; it is only to the healthy that they are noxious. For the healthy who are converted by them, become sick through them, yet not so sick as to find comfort in them. The aspiration after an ascetic life contends in these men with their old health, their desire to live fully, and causes untold perplexities and conflicts; leaving them at last with nothing but a despairing desire for release. Thus, a religion of consolation becomes for the strong a Will to Death—the very opposite of that which it was to those who created it.
57
The Pride of the Sterile