Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900; Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900 -- Criticism and interpretation; Philosophy
All instincts which do not find a vent without, _turn inwards_--this is
what I mean by the growing "internalisation" of man: consequently we
have the first growth in man, of what subsequently was called his soul.
The whole inner world, originally as thin as if it had been stretched
between two layers of skin, burst apart and expanded proportionately,
and obtained depth, breadth, and height, when man's external outlet
became _obstructed._ These terrible bulwarks, with which the social
organisation protected itself against the old instincts of freedom
(punishments belong pre-eminently to these bulwarks), brought it
about that all those instincts of wild, free, prowling man became
turned backwards _against man himself._ Enmity, cruelty, the delight
in persecution, in surprises, change, destruction--the turning all
these instincts against their own possessors: this is the origin of
the "bad conscience." It was man, who, lacking external enemies and
obstacles, and imprisoned as he was in the oppressive narrowness and
monotony of custom, in his own impatience lacerated, persecuted,
gnawed, frightened, and ill-treated himself; it was this animal in the
hands of the tamer, which beat itself against the bars of its cage; it
was this being who, pining and yearning for that desert home of which
it had been deprived, was compelled to create out of its own self, an
adventure, a torture-chamber, a hazardous and perilous desert--it was
this fool, this homesick and desperate prisoner--who invented the "bad
conscience." 100-101
A herd of blonde beasts of prey, a race of conquerors and masters,
which with all its warlike organisation and all its organising power
pounces with its terrible claws on a population, in numbers possibly
tremendously superior, but as yet formless, as yet nomad. Such is
the origin of the "State." That fantastic theory that makes it
begin with a contract is, I think, disposed of. He who can command,
he who is a master by "nature," he who comes on the scene forceful
in deed and gesture--what has he to do with contracts? Such beings
defy calculation, they come like fate, without cause, reason, notice,
excuse, they are there like the lightning is there, too terrible, too
sudden, too convincing, too "different," to be personally even hated.
Their work is an instinctive creating and impressing of forms, they are
the most involuntary, unconscious artists that there are.... 103
It is only the bad conscience, only the will for self-abuse, that
provides the necessary conditions for the existence of altruism as a
_value._ 105
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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