184
Love and the Sensualists
On those who affirm Life as innocent and holy, there is an obligation laid. Their lives must be innocent: Life must be to them a sustained act of worship. How many of them have been lacking just here! Heine failed, in spite of his real nobility. Goethe, however, attained unity and sincerity; and Nietzsche was a figure of beautiful integrity and innocence. They were neither of them mere "writers." Nor must we be: there is upon us the compulsion to prove that a life of innocence is possible. And as a first step, we must separate ourselves from those who, before they have sought innocence, praise the senses. For they confuse and defile everything.
185
Free Will
Only those who have knowledge of Becoming can know what the freedom of the will is. Freedom—that is to will Becoming with all its suffering, voluntarily to go on the way which Fate and the highest Life direct us. Slavery—that is to deny Becoming, to cling to the static, and to be dragged along the stream of change. To be dragged, not to remain stationary; for men by taking thought cannot gain immunity from change. Their will and their desires avail them nothing. For the stream of Becoming is unchangeable in its power. It is Man that changes. When he affirms Becoming, he is enlarged; when he denies it, he is straitened.
186
Tragedy, Life and Love
In the highest Life two qualities are always to be found together, exuberance and suffering. Life is founded on this paradox, which is fundamental; for in the emotion of Love we are most conscious of it. Love is the most joyful and most suffering thing: its plenitude of joy is so great that it can endure gladly the worst griefs. And tragedy is the truest expression in art of Life and of Love; for its characteristic, too, is a Joy triumphing over Fate.