The Joyful Wisdom ("La Gaya Scienza"): Complete Works, Volume Ten — Nietzsche — John Shaqi
The Joyful Wisdom ("La Gaya Scienza"): Complete Works, Volume Ten
Nietzsche · en
an advantage therefrom but one esteems the other advantage, namely,
that a _sacrifice_ has been made, and that the disposition of the
sacrificial animal has once more been _obviously_ endorsed--as higher
and more enduring. It is accordingly, on the one part, the instrumental
character in the virtues which is praised when the virtues are praised,
and on the other part the blind, ruling impulse in every virtue which
refuse to let itself be kept within bounds by the general advantage
to the individual; in short, what is praised is the unreason in the
virtues, in consequence of which the individual allows himself to be
transformed into a function of the whole. The praise of the virtues is
the praise of something which is privately injurious to the individual;
it is praise of impulses which deprive man of his noblest self-love,
and the power to take the best care of himself. To be sure, for the
teaching and embodying of virtuous habits a series of effects of virtue
are displayed, which make it appear that virtue and private advantage
are closely related,--and there is in fact such a relationship!
Blindly furious diligence, for example, the typical virtue of an
instrument, is represented as the way to riches and honour, and as
the most beneficial antidote to tedium and passion: but people are
silent concerning its danger, its greatest dangerousness. Education
proceeds in this manner throughout: it endeavours, by a series of
enticements and advantages, to determine the individual to a certain
mode of thinking and acting, which, when it has become habit, impulse
and passion, rules in him and over him, _in opposition to his ultimate
advantage,_ but "for the general good." How often do I see that blindly
furious diligence does indeed create riches and honours, but at the
same time deprives the organs of the refinement by virtue of which
alone an enjoyment of riches and honours is possible; so that really
the main expedient for combating tedium and passion, simultaneously
blunts the senses and makes the spirit refractory towards new stimuli!
(The busiest of all ages--our age--does not know how to make anything
out of its great diligence and wealth, except always more and more
wealth, and more and more diligence; there is even more genius needed
for laying out wealth than for acquiring it!--Well, we shall have
our "grandchildren"!) If the education succeeds, every virtue of the
individual is a public utility, and a private disadvantage in respect
to the highest private end,--probably some psycho-æsthetic stunting, or
even premature dissolution. One should consider successively from the
same standpoint the virtues of obedience, chastity, piety, and justice.
The praise of the unselfish, self-sacrificing, virtuous person--he,
consequently, who does not expend his whole energy and reason for
_his own_ conservation, development, elevation, furtherance and
augmentation of power, but lives as regards himself unassumingly and