8
What then, alone, can our teaching be?—That no one gives man his qualities, neither God, society, his parents, his ancestors, nor himself (—this non-sensical idea which is at last refuted here, was taught as “intelligible freedom” by Kant, and perhaps even as early as Plato himself). No one is responsible for the fact that he exists at all, that he is constituted as he is, and that he happens to be in certain circumstances and in a particular environment. The fatality of his being cannot be divorced from the fatality of all that which has been and will be. This is not the result of an individual intention, of a will, of an aim, there is no attempt at attaining to any “ideal man,” or “ideal happiness” or “ideal morality” with him,—it is absurd to wish him to be careering towards some sort of purpose. We invented the concept “purpose”; in reality purpose is altogether lacking. One is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is in the whole,—there is nothing that could judge, measure, compare, and condemn our existence, for that would mean judging, measuring, comparing and condemning the whole. But there is nothing outside the whole! The fact that no one shall any longer be made responsible, that the nature of existence may not be traced to a causa prima, that the world is an entity neither as a sensorium nor as a spirit—this alone is the great deliverance,—thus alone is the innocence of Becoming restored.... The concept “God” has been the greatest objection to existence hitherto.... We deny God, we deny responsibility in God: thus alone do we save the world.—
[THE “IMPROVERS” OF MANKIND]
1
You are aware of my demand upon philosophers, that they should take up a stand Beyond Good and Evil,—that they should have the illusion of the moral judgment beneath them. This demand is the result of a point of view which I was the first to formulate: that there are no such things as moral facts. Moral judgment has this in common with the religious one, that it believes in realities which are not real. Morality is only an interpretation of certain phenomena: or, more strictly speaking, a misinterpretation of them. Moral judgment, like the religious one, belongs to a stage of ignorance in which even the concept of reality, the distinction between real and imagined things, is still lacking: so that truth, at such a stage, is applied to a host of things which to-day we call “imaginary.” That is why the moral judgment must never be taken quite literally: as such it is sheer nonsense. As a sign code, however, it is invaluable: to him at least who knows, it reveals the most valuable facts concerning cultures and inner conditions, which did not know enough to “understand” themselves. Morality is merely a sign-language, simply symptomatology: one must already know what it is all about in order to turn it to any use.
2
Let me give you one example, quite provisionally. In all ages there have been people who wished to “improve” mankind: this above all is what was called morality. But the most different tendencies are concealed beneath the same word. Both the taming of the beast man, and the rearing of a particular type of man, have been called “improvement”: these zoological termini, alone, represent real things—real things of which the typical “improver,” the priest, naturally knows nothing, and will know nothing. To call the taming of an animal “improving” it, sounds to our ears almost like a joke. He who knows what goes on in menageries, doubts very much whether an animal is improved in such places. It is certainly weakened, it is made less dangerous, and by means of the depressing influence of fear, pain, wounds, and hunger, it is converted into a sick animal. And the same holds good of the tamed man whom the priest has “improved.” In the early years of the Middle Ages, during which the Church was most distinctly and above all a menagerie, the most beautiful examples of the “blond beast” were hunted down in all directions,—the noble Germans, for instance, were “improved.” But what did this “improved” German, who had been lured to the monastery look like after the process? He looked like a caricature of man, like an abortion: he had become a “sinner,” he was caged up, he had been imprisoned behind a host of apparling notions. He now lay there, sick, wretched, malevolent even toward himself: full of hate for the instincts of life, full of suspicion in regard to all that is still strong and happy. In short a “Christian.” In physiological terms: in a fight with an animal, the only way of making it weak may be to make it sick. The Church undersood this: it ruined man, it made him weak,—but it laid claim to having “improved” him.