The Colour-Blindness of Thinkers.—How differently from us the Greeks must have viewed nature, since, as we cannot help admitting, they were quite colour-blind in regard to blue and green, believing the former to be a deeper brown, and the latter to be yellow. Thus, for instance, they used the same word to describe the colour of dark hair, of the corn-flower, and the southern sea; and again they employed exactly the same expression for the colour of the greenest herbs, the human skin, honey, and yellow raisins: whence it follows that their greatest painters reproduced the world they lived in only in black, white, red, and yellow. How different and how much nearer to mankind, therefore, must nature have seemed to them, since in their eyes the tints of mankind predominated also in nature, and nature was, as it were, floating in the coloured ether of humanity! (blue and green more than anything else dehumanise nature). It is this defect which developed the playful facility that characterised the Greeks of seeing the phenomena of nature as gods and demi-gods—that is to say, as human forms.
Let this, however, merely serve as a simile for another supposition. Every thinker paints his world and the things that surround him in fewer colours than really exist, and he is blind to individual colours. This is something more than a mere deficiency. Thanks to this nearer approach and [pg 311] simplification, he imagines he sees in things those harmonies of colours which possess a great charm, and may greatly enrich nature. Perhaps, indeed, it was in this way that men first learnt to take delight in viewing existence, owing to its being first of all presented to them in one or two shades, and consequently harmonised. They practised these few shades, so to speak, before they could pass on to any more. And even now certain individuals endeavour to get rid of a partial colour-blindness that they may obtain a richer faculty of sight and discernment, in the course of which they find that they not only discover new pleasures, but are also obliged to lose and give up some of their former ones.
427.
The Embellishment of Science.—In the same way that the feeling that “nature is ugly, wild, tedious—we must embellish it (embellir la nature)”—brought about rococo horticulture, so does the view that “science is ugly, difficult, dry, dreary and weary, we must embellish it,” invariably gives rise to something called philosophy. This philosophy sets out to do what all art and poetry endeavour to do, viz., giving amusement above all else; but it wishes to do this, in conformity with its hereditary pride, in a higher and more sublime fashion before an audience of superior intellects. It is no small ambition to create for these intellects a kind of horticulture, the principal charm of which—like that of the usual gardening—is to bring about an optical illusion (by means of temples, perspective, [pg 312] grottos, winding walks, and waterfalls, to speak in similes), exhibiting science in a condensed form and in all kinds of strange and unexpected illuminations, infusing into it as much indecision, irrationality, and dreaminess as will enable us to walk about in it “as in savage nature,” but without trouble and boredom.
Those who are possessed of this ambition even dream of making religion superfluous—religion, which among men of former times served as the highest kind of entertainment. All this is now running its course, and will one day attain its highest tide. Even now hostile voices are being raised against philosophy, exclaiming: “Return to science, to nature, and the naturalness of science!” and thus an age may begin which may discover the most powerful beauty precisely in the “savage and ugly” domains of science, just as it is only since the time of Rousseau that we have discovered the sense for the beauty of high mountains and deserts.
428.
Two Kinds of Moralists.—To see a law of nature for the first time, and to see it whole (for example, the law of gravity or the reflection of light and sound), and afterwards to explain such a law, are two different things and concern different classes of minds. In the same way, those moralists who observe and exhibit human laws and habits—moralists with discriminating ears, noses, and eyes—differ entirely from those who interpret their observations. These latter must above all be inventive, and [pg 313] must possess an imagination untrammelled by sagacity and knowledge.
429.
The new Passion.—Why do we fear and dread a possible return to barbarism? Is it because it would make people less happy than they are now? Certainly not! the barbarians of all ages possessed more happiness than we do: let us not deceive ourselves on this point!—but our impulse towards knowledge is too widely developed to allow us to value happiness without knowledge, or the happiness of a strong and fixed delusion: it is painful to us even to imagine such a state of things! Our restless pursuit of discoveries and divinations has become for us as attractive and indispensable as hapless love to the lover, which on no account would he exchange for indifference,—nay, perhaps we, too, are hapless lovers! Knowledge within us has developed into a passion, which does not shrink from any sacrifice, and at bottom fears nothing but its own extinction. We sincerely believe that all humanity, weighed down as it is by the burden of this passion, are bound to feel more exalted and comforted than formerly, when they had not yet overcome the longing for the coarser satisfaction which accompanies barbarism.
It may be that mankind may perish eventually from this passion for knowledge!—but even that does not daunt us. Did Christianity ever shrink from a similar thought? Are not love and death brother and sister? Yes, we detest barbarism,—we [pg 314] all prefer that humanity should perish rather than that knowledge should enter into a stage of retrogression. And, finally, if mankind does not perish through some passion it will perish through some weakness: which would we prefer? This is the main question. Do we wish its end to be in fire and light, or in the sands?