... Lycurgus succeeded in fixing the Spartans like cement for some centuries—but after that came the thaw, and all their hardness melted. The last remains of the petrified Doric art are now removed to museums.... Is something happening——?
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If I sow not in the spring, in autumn I shall eat no bread. Every day brings troubles and worries enough for poor, weak man. He had to forget his work for a moment, and now he is lost: he will die of hunger or cold. In order merely to preserve our existence we have to strain mind and body to the utmost: nay more, we have to think of the surrounding world exclusively with a view to gaining a livelihood from it. There is no time to think about truth! This is why positivism was invented, with its theory of natural development. Really, everything we see is mysterious and incomprehensible. A tiny midge and a huge elephant, a caressing breeze and a blizzard, a young tree and a rocky mountain—what are all these? What are they, why are they? we incessantly ask ourselves, but we may not speak out. For philosophy is ever pushed aside to make room for the daily needs. Only those think who are unable to trouble about self-preservation, or who will not trouble, or who are too careless: that is, sick, desperate, or lazy people. These return to the riddle which workaday men, confirmed in the certainty that they are right, have construed into "naturalness."
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Kant, and after him Schopenhauer, was exceedingly fond of the epithet "disinterested," and used it on every occasion when the supply of laudatory terms he had at his disposal was exhausted. "Disinterested thinking," which does not pursue any practical aim, is, according to Schopenhauer, the highest ideal towards which man can strive. This truth he considered universal, an a priori. But had he chanced to be brought amongst Russian peasants he would have had to change his opinion. With them thoughts about destiny and the why and wherefore of the universe and infinity and so on, would by no means be considered disinterested, particularly if the man who devoted himself to such thoughts were at the same time to announce, as becomes a philosopher, that he claimed complete freedom from physical labour. There the philosopher, were he even Plato, would be stigmatised with the disgraceful nickname, "Idle-jack." There the highest activity is interested activity, directed towards strictly practical purposes; and if the peasants could speak learnedly, they would certainly call the principle upon which their judgment is founded an a priori. Tolstoy, who draws his wisdom from the folk-sources, attacks the learned for the very fact that they do not want to work, but are disinterestedly occupied in the search for truth.
100
It is clear to any impartial observer that practically every man changes his opinion ten times a day. Much has been said on this subject, it has served for innumerable satires and humorous sketches. Nobody has ever doubted that it was a vice to be unstable is one's opinions. Three-fourths of our education goes to teaching us most carefully to conceal within ourselves the changeableness of our moods and judgments. A man who cannot keep his word is the last of men: never to be trusted. Likewise, a man with no firm convictions: it is impossible to work together with him. Morality, here as always making towards utilitarian ends, issues the "eternal" principle: thou shalt remain true to thy convictions. In cultured circles this commandment is considered so unimpeachable that men are terrified even to appear inconstant in their own eyes. They become petrified in their beliefs, and no greater shame can happen to them than that they should be forced to admit that they have altered in their convictions. When a straightforward man like Montaigne plainly speaks of the inconstancy of his mind and his views, he is regarded as a libeller of himself. One need neither see, nor hear, nor understand what is taking place around one: once your mind is made up, you have lost your right to grow, you must remain a stock, a statue, the qualities and defects of which are known to everybody.
101
Every philosophic world-conception starts from some or other solution of the general problem of human existence, and proceeds from this to direct the course of human life in some particular direction or other. We have neither the power nor the data for the solution of general problems, and consequently all our moral deductions are arbitrary, they only witness to our prejudices if we are naturally timid, or to our propensities and tastes if we are self-confident. But to keep up prejudices is a miserable, unworthy business: nobody will dispute that. Therefore let us cease to grieve about our differences in opinion, let us wish that in the future there should be many more differences, and much less unanimity. There is no arbitrary truth: it remains to suppose that truth lies in changeable human tastes and desires. In so far as our common social existence demands it—let us try to come to an understanding, to agree: but not one jot more. Any agreement which does not arise out of common necessity will be a crime against the Holy Spirit.
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