Human, All-Too-Human: A Book for Free Spirits, Part 1: Complete Works, Volume SixNietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
PhilosophyPhilosophy
Human, All-Too-Human: A Book for Free Spirits, Part 1: Complete Works, Volume Six
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Human beings
aim cannot be encompassed by every clumsy hand that has just five
fingers. Finally, there comes from time to time--what is certainly
most difficult to concede to them, but must also be conceded--a moment
when they emerge from their silent solitariness and try once more the
strength of their lungs; they then call to each other like people lost
in a wood, to make themselves known and for mutual encouragement;
whereby, to be sure, much becomes audible that sounds evil to ears for
which it is not intended. Soon, however, silence again prevails in
the wood, such silence that the buzzing, humming, and fluttering of
the countless insects that live in, above, and beneath it, are again
plainly heard.
439.
CULTURE AND CASTE.--A higher culture can only originate where there are
two distinct castes of society: that of the working class, and that of
the leisured class who are capable of true leisure; or, more strongly
expressed, the caste of compulsory labour and the caste of free labour.
The point of view of the division of happiness is not essential when
it is a question of the production of a higher culture; in any case,
however, the leisured caste is more susceptible to suffering and
suffer more, their pleasure in existence is less and their task is
greater. Now supposing there should be quite an interchange between the
two castes, so that on the one hand the duller and less intelligent
families and individuals are lowered from the higher caste into the
lower, and, on the other hand, the freer men of the lower caste obtain
access to the higher, a condition of things would be attained beyond
which one can only perceive the open sea of vague wishes. Thus speaks
to us the vanishing voice of the olden time; but where are there still
ears to hear it?
440.
OF GOOD BLOOD.--That which men and women of good blood possess much
more than others, and which gives them an undoubted right to be
more highly appreciated, are two arts which are always increased by
inheritance: the art of being able to command, and the art of proud
obedience. Now wherever commanding is the business of the day (as in
the great world of commerce and industry), there results something
similar to these families of good blood, only the noble bearing in
obedience is lacking which is an inheritance from feudal conditions and
hardly grows any longer in the climate of our culture.
441.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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