166

At the crossroads.  Disgusting! You want to be part of a system in which one must either be a wheel and nothing else, or get run over by the other wheels! In which it goes without saying that everyone is what he has been made by decree from above! In which the hunt for 'connections' is among the natural duties! In which no one feels insulted if a man is drawn to his attention with the words 'he could be of use to you some day'! In which one is not ashamed to visit somebody in order to obtain his recommendation! In which one has not the faintest idea how with this easy conformity to such customs one has designated oneself a common piece of nature's pottery which others may use and smash without feeling very much compunction about it; as if one said: 'there will never be a shortage of things like me: take me! Don't stand on ceremony!'

167

Unconditional homage.  When I think of the most read German philosopher, of the most heard German composer and of the most respected German statesman, I have to admit to myself that the Germans, that nation of unconditional feelings, are much imposed upon nowadays, and by their own great men. Each of these three cases represents a glorious spectacle: each is a stream in its own, self-fashioned bed, and so mightily agitated it can often seem as though it wanted to flow uphill. And yet, however much respect one may have for them, who would not on the whole prefer to be of a different opinion from Schopenhauer!  And who could be of one opinion with Richard Wagner, on the whole or in detail? however true it may be that, as somebody once said, wherever he takes offence or gives offence a problem lies buried  suffice it to say that he himself does not bring it to light.  And finally, how many would want to be wholeheartedly of one opinion with Bismarck⁷², even if he showed any sign of being of one opinion with himself! To be sure: no principles but strong drives  a volatile mind in the service of strong drives and for that reason without principles  ought not to be anything strikingly uncommon in a statesman, but on the contrary something right and natural; only hitherto this has not been German! just as little as has a loud to-do about music or discord and annoyance about a composer, just as little as has the novel and extraordinary posture chosen by Schopenhauer: not above things or on his knees before things  both could have been called German  but against things! Incredible! And unpleasant! To range oneself alongside things and yet to do so as their enemy, in the last resort as the enemy of oneself!  what is the unconditional admirer to do with such a model! And what is he to do at all with three such models, who cannot even keep the peace among themselves! Schopenhauer is an enemy of Wagner's music, and Wagner an enemy of Bismarck's politics, and Bismarck an enemy of everything Wagnerian and Schopenhauerian! What is to be done! Where shall we satisfy our thirst for wholesale homage! Might one not select from the composer's music several hundred bars of good music which appeal to the heart because they possess heart: might one not go aside with this little theft and forget all the rest! And do the same in regard to the philosopher and the statesman  select, lay to one's heart, and in particular forget the rest! Yes, if only forgetting were not so difficult! There was once a very proud man who would accept nothing, good or bad, but what came from himself: but when he needed forgetfulness he found he could not give it to himself and had to summon the spirits three times; they came, they listened to his demand, and at length they said: 'this alone stands not within our power!'' Can the Germans not profit from the experience of Manfred? Why summon the spirits at all! There is no point in doing so; one may want to forget, but one cannot. And what an enormous amount 'the rest' is that one would have to forget if one wanted to go on being a wholesale admirer of these three great men of our age! It would thus be more advisable to take the opportunity here offered of attempting something novel: namely, to grow more honest towards oneself and to make of a nation of credulous emulation and blind and bitter animosity a nation of conditional consent and benevolent opposition; firstly, however, to learn that unconditional homage to people is something ludicrous, that to learn differently in this matter is not discreditable even for Germans, and that there is a profound maxim worth laying to heart: 'Ce qui importe, ce ne sont point les personnes: mais les choses'⁷³. This maxim is, like him who spoke it, great, honest, simple and taciturn  like Carnot⁷⁴, the soldier and republican.  But may one now speak to Germans of a Frenchman in this way, and of a Frenchman who is a republican? Perhaps not; perhaps, indeed, one may not even recall what Niebuhr⁷⁵ ventured in his time to tell the Germans: that no one had given him so strong an impression of true greatness as Carnot.

168

A model.  What is it I love in Thucydides⁷⁶, why do I honour him more highly than Plato? He takes the most comprehensive and impartial delight in all that is typical in men and events and believes that to each type there pertains a quantum of good sense: this he seeks to discover. He displays greater practical justice than Plato; he does not revile or belittle those he does not like or who have harmed him in life. On the contrary: through seeing nothing but types he introduces something great into all the things and persons he treats of; for what interest would posterity, to whom he dedicates his work, have in that which was not typical! Thus in him, the portrayer of man, that culture of the most impartial knowledge of the world finds its last glorious flower: that culture which had in Sophocles⁷⁷ its poet, in Pericles⁷⁸ its statesman, in Hippocrates⁷⁹ its physician, in Democritus⁸⁰ its natural philosopher; which deserves to be baptised with the name of its teachers, the Sophists, and which from this moment of baptism unfortunately begins suddenly to become pale and ungraspable to us  for now we suspect that it must have been a very immoral culture, since a Plato and all the Socratic schools fought against it! Truth is here so tangled and twisted one does not like the idea of trying to sort it out: let the ancient error (error veritate simplicior⁸¹) continue to run its ancient course!

169

The Hellenic very foreign to us.  Oriental or modern, Asiatic or European: in contrast to the Hellenic, all these have in common the employment of massiveness and pleasure in great quantity as the language of the sublime; while in Paestum⁸², Pompeii⁸³ and Athens, and with the whole of Greek architecture, one stands astonished at the smallness of the masses by means of which the Greeks know how to express and love to express the sublime.  Likewise: how simple the people of Greece appeared in their own conception of themselves! How greatly we surpass them in our knowledge of man! But how labyrinthine do our souls appear to us in comparison with theirs! If we desired and dared an architecture corresponding to the nature of our soul (we are too cowardly for it!)  our model would have to be the labyrinth! The fact is betrayed by our music, the art which is really our own and in which we really find expression! (For in music men let themselves go, in the belief that when they are concealed in music no one is capable of seeing them.)

170

Different perspectives of feeling.  What does our chatter about the Greeks amount to! What do we understand of their art, the soul of which is  passion for naked male beauty! It was only from that viewpoint that they were sensible of female beauty. Thus their perspective on female beauty was quite different from ours. And similarly with their love of women: they reverenced differently, they despised differently.