136

Happiness in pity.  If, like the Indians, one posits as the goal of all intellectual activity the knowledge of human misery⁶⁴ and remains faithful to such a terrible objective throughout many generations of the spirit: then in the eyes of such men of inherited pessimism pity at last acquires a new value as a life-preservative power  it makes existence endurable, even though existence may seem worthy of being thrown off in disgust and horror. Pity becomes the antidote to self-destruction, as a sensation which includes pleasure and proffers the taste of superiority in small doses: it skims off our dross, makes the heart full, banishes fear and torpor, incites us to words, complaint, and action measured against the misery of the knowledge which comes from all sides, hounds the individual into a dark narrow corner and takes away his breath, it is a relative happiness. Happiness, however, whatever kind it may be, brings air, light and freedom of movement.

137

Why double your 'ego'!  To view our own experiences with the eves with which we are accustomed to view them when they are the experiences of others  this is very comforting and a medicine to be recommended. On the other hand, to view and imbibe the experiences of others as if they were ours  as is the demand of a philosophy of pity  this would destroy us, and in a very short time: but just try the experiment of doing it, and fantasise no longer! Moreover, the former maxim is certainly more in accord with reason and the will to rationality, for we adjudge the value and meaning of an event more objectively when it happens to another than we do when it happens to us: the value, for example, of a death, or a money-loss, or a slander. Pity as a principle of action, with the demand: suffer from another's ill-fortune as he himself suffers, would, on the other hand, entail that the ego-stand-point, with its exaggeration and excess, would also become the stand-point of the person feeling pity: so that we would have to sutter from our own ego and at the same time from the ego of the other, and would thus voluntarily encumber ourselves with a double load of irrationality instead of making the burden of our own as light as possible.

138

Growing tenderer.  If we love, honour, admire someone, and then afterwards discover that he is suffering  a discovery that always fills us with the greatest astonishment, for we cannot think otherwise than that the happiness that flows across to us from him must proceed from a superabundant well of happiness of his own  our feeling of love, reverence and admiration changes in an essential respect: it grows tenderer; that is to say, the gulf between us and him seems to be bridged, an approximation to identity seems to occur. Only now do we conceive it possible that we might give back to him, while he previously dwelt in our imagination as being elevated above our gratitude. This capacity to give back produces in us great joy and exultation. We try to divine what it is will ease his pain, and we give it to him; if he wants words of consolation, comforting looks, attentions, acts of service, presents  we give them; but above all, if he wants us to suffer at his suffering we give ourselves out to be suffering; in all this, however, we have the enjoyment of active gratitude  which, in short, is benevolent revenge. If he wants and takes nothing whatever from us, we go away chilled and saddened, almost offended: it is as though our gratitude had been repulsed  and on this point of honour even the most benevolent man is ticklish.  From all this it follows that, even in the most favourable case, there is something degrading in suffering and something elevating and productive of superiority in pitying  which separates these two sensations from one another to all eternity.

139

Said to be higher!  You say that the morality of pity is a higher morality than that of stoicism⁶⁵? Prove it! but note that 'higher' and 'lower' in morality is not to be measured by a moral yardstick: for there is no absolute morality. So take your yardstick from elsewhere and  watch out!

140

Praise and blame.  If a war proves unsuccessful one asks who was to 'blame' for the war; if it ends in victory one praises its instigator. Guilt is always sought wherever there is failure; for failure brings with it a depression of spirits against which the sole remedy is instinctively applied: a new excitation of the feeling of power  and this is to be discovered in the condemnation of the 'guilty'. This guilty person is not to be thought of as a scapegoat for the guilt of others: he is a sacrifice to the weak, humiliated and depressed, who want to demonstrate on something that they still have some strength left. To condemn oneself can also be a means of restoring the feeling of strength after a defeat.  On the other hand, the glorification of the instigator is often the equally blind result of another drive which wants its sacrifice  and this time the sacrifice smells sweet and inviting to the sacrificial beast itself  : for when the feeling of power in a people or a society is surfeited by a great and glittering success and a weariness with victory sets in, one relinquishes some of one's pride; the feeling of devotion rises up and seeks an object.  Whether we are praised or blamed, what we usually constitute is opportunities, and arbitrarily seized opportunities, for our neighbours to discharge the drive to praise or blame which has become distended in them: in both cases we do them a favour for which we deserve no credit and they display no gratitude.