This other man found that his thoughts and desires flew away from him as irrevocably as a flock of wild birds and became lost or strangers. He seemed constrained to express everything not himself, everything foreign, remote and as exalted; but in the end he discovered that it was himself he had expressed. "Thy true being," said Nietzsche, "lies not deeply hidden in thee, but an infinite height above thee, or at least above that which thou dost commonly take to be thyself."
189
Life as a Value
Those who say that the belief in Life as a value is not a belief which will arouse the heroic passions and make men die for it, use a form of reasoning, at any rate, which is erroneous. They first confuse the ideal of more complete existence with the more complete existence of an individual, and then demonstrate that this individual will not lay down his life for the sake of his more complete existence! But Life as an ideal is just as impersonal as any other ideal, whether it be Justice or Perfection or Renunciation. True, it has not yet become static, but on that account its attraction is only the stronger; it arouses our very love. And men will die for what they love: they will die for Life.
190
Hebbel's Theory of Tragedy
Hebbel's theory of Tragedy is noble and profound. Not in the misdirection of wills does he find the source of the tragic, but in the core of the will itself, in the inexorable expression and collision of wills. This conception raises Tragedy from a mere consequence and punishment of sin to an expression of Life itself, to the most profound and essential expression of Life. And this is just and worthy of Tragedy. For the character of Tragedy is not negative and condemnatory, but deeply affirmative and joyous. How shallow then must be the theories which would deny Tragedy to the good, to those whose wills are highly directed! Tragedy is not a punishment. The more noble man becomes the more tragic he will also become.
191
Tragic Philosophy
The belief, against which Nietzsche declaimed, that Reason brings Happiness has become to the modern man second nature, so that now the notions of Reason and Happiness are indissolubly connected in his mind. Any argument for a tragic view of Life must therefore appear, first of all, unreasonable; for Happiness as an end is the only reason that will be acknowledged. It remains for us to show that Happiness is itself unreasonable, an impossibility, a chimera. There is no Happiness as an end. Reason does not bring Happiness, nor does virtue, nor does asceticism, nor does comfort. Happiness is an accident. And not even a modern can make accidents happen!