Nietzsche and Other Exponents of IndividualismCarus, Paul
Philosophy
Nietzsche and Other Exponents of Individualism
Carus, Paul
Individualism; Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900
"They wish to learn whether Zarathustra still liveth.
Verily, do I still live.
"More dangerous than among animals I found it among men.
Dangerous ways are taken by Zarathustra. Let mine animals
lead me!"
Here is a sentence worth quoting:
"Of all that is written I love only that which the writer
wrote with his blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt
learn that blood is spirit."
In another chapter on the back-worlds-men Nietzsche writes:
"Once Zarathustra threw his spell beyond man, like all
back-worlds-men. Then the world seemed to me the work of a
suffering and tortured God.
"Alas! brethren, that God whom I created was man's work
and man's madness, like all Gods!
"Man he was, and but a poor piece of man and the I. From
mine own ashes and flame it came unto me, that ghost yea
verily! It did not come unto me from beyond!
"What happened, brethren? I overcame myself, the sufferer,
and carrying mine own ashes unto the mountains invented
for myself a brighter flame. And lo! the ghost departed
from me!
"Now to me, the convalescent, it would be suffering and
pain to believe in such ghosts: suffering it would be for
me and humiliation. Thus spake I unto the back-worlds-men."
Nietzsche's self is not ideal but material; it is not thought, not even
the will, but the body. The following passage sounds like Vedantism as
interpreted by a materialist:
"He who is awake and knoweth saith: Body I am throughout,
and nothing besides; and soul is merely a word for a
something in body.
"Body is one great reason, a plurality with one sense, a
war and a peace, a flock and a herdsman.
"Also thy little reason, my brother, which thou callest
'spirit'--it is a tool of thy body, a little tool and toy
of thy great reason.
"T, thou sayest and art proud of that word. But the
greater thing is--which thou wilt not believe--thy body
and its great reason. It doth not say T, but it is the
acting 'I.'
"The self ever listeneth and seeketh: it compareth,
subdueth, conquereth, destroyeth. It ruleth and is the
ruler of the 'I' as well.
"Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, standeth a
mighty lord, an unknown wise man--whose name is self. In
thy body he dwelleth, thy body he is.
"There is more reason in thy body than in thy best wisdom.
And who can know why thy body needeth thy beat wisdom?
"Thy self laugheth at thine 'I' and its prancings: What
are these boundings and flights of thought? it saith
unto itself. A round-about way to my purpose. I am the
leading-string of the I and the suggester of its concepts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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