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
_Danger of Vegetarians._--The immense prevalence of rice-eating impels
to the use of opium and narcotics, in like manner as the immense
prevalence of potato-eating impels to the use of brandy:--it also
impels, however, in its more subtle after-effects to modes of thought
and feeling which operate narcotically. This is in accord with the fact
that those who promote narcotic modes of thought and feeling, like
those Indian teachers, praise a purely vegetable diet, and would like
to make it a law for the masses: they want thereby to call forth and
augment the need which _they_ are in a position to satisfy.
146.
_German Hopes.--_Do not let us forget that the names of peoples are
generally names of reproach. The Tartars, for example, according to
their name, are "the dogs"; they were so christened by the Chinese.
_"Deutschen"_ (Germans) means originally "heathen": it is thus that the
Goths after their conversion named the great mass of their unbaptized
fellow-tribes, according to the indication in their translation of
the Septuagint, in which the heathen are designated by the word which
in Greek signifies "the nations." (See Ulfilas.)--It might still be
possible for the Germans to make an honourable name ultimately out
of their old name of reproach, by becoming the first _non-Christian_
nation of Europe; for which purpose Schopenhauer, to their honour,
regarded them as highly qualified. The work of _Luther_ would thus be
consummated,--he who taught them to be anti-Roman, and to say: "Here
_I_ stand! _I_ cannot do otherwise!"--
147.
_Question and Answer._--What do savage tribes at present accept
first of all from Europeans? Brandy and Christianity, the European
narcotics.--And by what means are they fastest ruined?--By the European
narcotics.
148.
_Where Reformations Originate._--At the time of the great corruption
of the church it was least of all corrupt in Germany: it was on
that account that the Reformation originated _here,_ as a sign that
even the beginnings of corruption were felt to be unendurable. For,
comparatively speaking, no people was ever more Christian than the
Germans at the time of Luther; their Christian culture was just about
to burst into bloom with a hundred-fold splendour,--one night only was
still lacking; but that night brought the storm which put an end to all.
149.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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