The most stimulating division of the book is the fourth, in which Nietzsche's good humour is at its height. This section is a glorification of victory and of all those hardy qualities which go into the perfecting of the individual. Nietzsche reverses Schiller's famous doctrine expressed in "_Die Braut von Messina_": "Life is not of all good the highest." He sees no good over and beyond that of human relationships. The normal instincts to him are the ones which affirm life; the abnormal instincts are those which deny it. The former are summed up in the ethics of Greece under the sway of Dionysus; the latter are epitomised in the Christian religion. The fifth book, called "We Fearless Ones," and the appendix of "Songs of Prince Free-as-a-Bird" were written four years later than the other material and added with an introduction in a later edition of the book. These addenda, while less specific and of a more dialectic nature than the preceding parts, are in spirit manifestly the same as the rest of the book. In "The Joyful Wisdom" we have again an aphoristic style of writing, although it has become keener and more sure of itself since "Human, All-Too-Human" and "The Dawn of Day." In making selections from this book I have chosen those passages which are more general in tone. The connection between the various aphorisms is here even slighter than is Nietzsche's wont, and for that reason no attempt has been made to present a continuous perception of the work. However, the excerpts which follow, though of a less popular nature, are more intimately related to his thoughts than the ones omitted, and consequently are of more interest to the student. [Footnote 1: Love of (one's) destiny.] EXCERPTS FROM "THE JOYFUL WISDOM" Whether I look with a good or an evil eye upon men, I find them always at one problem, each and all of them: to do that which conduces to the conservation of the human species. 31 To laugh at oneself as one would have to laugh in order to laugh _out of the veriest truth,_--to do this the best have not hitherto had enough of the sense of truth, and the most endowed have had far too little genius! There is perhaps still a future even for laughter! 32 The ignoble nature is distinguished by the fact that it keeps its advantage steadily in view, and that this thought of the end and advantage is even stronger than its strongest impulse: not to be tempted to inexpedient activities by its impulses--that is its wisdom and inspiration. In comparison with the ignoble nature the higher nature is more irrational:--for the noble, magnanimous, and self-sacrificing person succumbs in fact to his impulses, and in his best moments his reason _lapses_ altogether. 37 The strongest and most evil spirits have hitherto advanced mankind the most: they always rekindled the sleeping passions--all orderly arranged society lulls the passions to sleep. 39