The Joyful Wisdom ("La Gaya Scienza"): Complete Works, Volume TenNietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
PhilosophyPhilosophy
The Joyful Wisdom ("La Gaya Scienza"): Complete Works, Volume Ten
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm
Philosophy
out of such born _enemies of the spirit_ there arises now and then
the rare specimen of humanity who is honoured by the people under
the name of saint or sage: it is out of such men that there arise
those prodigies of morality that make a noise, and make history,--St
Augustine was one of these men. Fear of the intellect, vengeance on the
intellect--Oh! how often have these powerfully impelling vices become
the root of virtues! Yea, virtue _itself!_--And asking the question
among ourselves, even the philosopher's pretension to wisdom, which has
occasionally been made here and there on the earth, the maddest and
most immodest of all pretensions,--has it not always been _above all_
in India as well as in Greece, _a means of concealment?_ Sometimes,
perhaps, from the point of view of education which hallows so many
lies, it is a tender regard for growing and evolving persons, for
disciples who have often to be guarded against themselves by means of
the belief in a person (by means of an error). In most cases, however,
it is a means of concealment for a philosopher, behind which he seeks
protection, owing to exhaustion, age, chilliness, or hardening; as a
feeling of the approaching end, as the sagacity of the instinct which
animals have before their death,--they go apart, remain at rest, choose
solitude, creep into caves, become _wise_.... What? Wisdom a means of
concealment of the philosopher from--intellect?--
360.
_Two Kinds of Causes which are Confounded._--It seems to me one of my
most essential steps and advances that I have learned to distinguish
the cause of an action generally from the cause of an action in a
particular manner, say, in this direction, with this aim. The first
kind of cause is a quantum of stored-up force, which waits to be used
in some manner, for some purpose; the second kind of cause, on the
contrary, is something quite unimportant in comparison with the first,
an insignificant hazard for the most part, in conformity with which
the quantum of force in question "discharges" itself in some unique
and definite manner: the lucifer-match in relation to the barrel of
gunpowder. Among those insignificant hazards and lucifer-matches I
count all the so-called "aims," and similarly the still more so-called
"occupations" of people: they are relatively optional, arbitrary, and
almost indifferent in relation to the immense quantum of force which
presses on, as we have said, to be used up in any way whatever. One
generally looks at the matter in a different manner: one is accustomed
to see the _impelling_ force precisely in the aim (object, calling,
&c.), according to a primeval error,--but it is only the _directing_
force; the steersman and the steam have thereby been confounded. And
yet it is not even always a steersman, the directing force.... Is the
"aim" the "purpose," not often enough only an extenuating pretext, an
additional self-blinding of conceit, which does not wish it to be said
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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