Friedrich Nietzsche - Nietzsche - The Will to Power

Auguste Comte is the continuation of the eighteenth century (the dominion of the heart over the head, sensuality in the theory of knowledge, altruistic exaltation).

The fact that science has become as sovereign as it is to-day, proves how the nineteenth century has emancipated itself from the dominion of ideals. A certain absence of "needs" and wishes makes our scientific curiosity and rigour possible—this is our kind of virtue.

Romanticism is the counterstroke of the eighteenth century; a sort of accumulated longing for its grand style of exaltation (as a matter of fact, largely mingled with mummery and self-deception: the desire was to represent strong nature and strong passion ).

The nineteenth century instinctively goes in search of theories by means of which it may feel its fatalistic, submission to the empire of facts justified. Hegel's success against sentimentality and romantic idealism was already a sign of its fatalistic trend of thought, in its belief that superior reason belongs to the triumphant side, and in its justification of the actual "state" (in the place of "humanity," etc.).—Schopenhauer: we are something foolish, and at the best self-suppressive. The success of determinism, the genealogical derivation of obligations which were formerly held to be absolute, the teaching of environment and adaptation, the reduction of will to a process of reflex movement, the denial of the will as a "working cause"; finally—a real process of re-christening: so little will is observed that the word itself becomes available for another purpose. Further theories: the teaching of objectivity, "will-less" contemplation, as the only road to truth, as also to beauty (also the belief in "genius," in order to have the right to be submissive ); mechanism, the determinable rigidity of the mechanical process; so-called "Naturalism," the elimination of the choosing, directing, interpreting subject, on principle.

Kant, with his "practical reason," with his moral fanaticism, is quite eighteenth century style; still completely outside the historical movement, without any notion whatsoever of the reality of his time, for instance, revolution; he is not affected by Greek philosophy; he is a phantasist of the notion of duty, a sensualist with a hidden leaning to dogmatic pampering.

The return to Kant in our century means a return to the eighteenth century, people desire to create themselves a right to the old ideas and to the old exaltation—hence a theory of knowledge which "describes limits," that is to say, which admits of the option of fixing a Beyond to the domain of reason.

Hegel's way of thinking is not so very far removed from that of Goethe: see the latter on the subject of Spinoza, for instance. The will to deify the All and Life, in order to find both peace and happiness in contemplating them: Hegel looks for reason everywhere—in the presence of reason man may be submissive and resigned. In Goethe we find a kind of fatalism which is almost joyous and confiding, which neither revolts nor weakens, which strives to make a totality out of itself, in the belief that only in totality does everything seem good and justified, and find itself resolved.

96.

The period of rationalism —followed by a period of sentimentality. To what extent does Schopenhauer come under "sentimentality"? (Hegel under intellectuality?)

97.

The seventeenth century suffers from humanity as from a host of contradictions (" l'amas de contradictions " that we are); it endeavours to discover man, to co-ordinate him, to excavate him: whereas the eighteenth century tries to forget what is known of man's nature, in order to adapt him to its Utopia. "Superficial, soft, humane"—gushes over "humanity."

The seventeenth century tries to banish all traces of the individual in order that the artist's work may resemble life as much as possible. The eighteenth century strives to create interest in the author by means of the work. The seventeenth century seeks art in art, a piece of culture; the eighteenth uses art in its propaganda for political and social reforms.

"Utopia," the "ideal man," the deification of Nature, the vanity of making one's own personality the centre of interest, subordination to the propaganda of social ideas, charlatanism—all this we derive from the eighteenth century.

The style of the seventeenth century: propre exact et libre.

The strong individual who is self-sufficient, or who appeals ardently to God—and that obtrusiveness and indiscretion of modern authors—these things are opposites. "Showing-oneself-off"—what a contrast to the Scholars of Port-Royal!

Alfieri had a sense for the grand style.

The hate of the burlesque (that which lacks dignity), the lack of a sense of Nature belongs to the seventeenth century.

98.

Against Rousseau.—Alas! man is no longer sufficiently evil; Rousseau's opponents, who say that "man is a beast of prey," are unfortunately wrong. Not the corruption of man, but the softening and moralising of him is the curse. In the sphere which Rousseau attacked most violently, the relatively strongest and most successful type of man was still to be found (the type which still possessed the great passions intact: Will to Power, Will to Pleasure, the Will and Ability to Command). The man of the eighteenth century must be compared with the man of the Renaissance (also with the man of the seventeenth century in France) if the matter is to be understood at all: Rousseau is a symptom of self-contempt and of inflamed vanity—both signs that the dominating will is lacking: he moralises and seeks the cause of his own misery after the style of a revengeful man in the ruling classes.

99.

Voltaire—Rousseau. —A state of nature is terrible; man is a beast of prey: our civilisation is an extraordinary triumph over this beast of prey in nature—this was Voltaires conclusion. He was conscious of the mildness, the refinements, the intellectual joys of the civilised state; he despised obtuseness, even in the form of virtue, and the lack of delicacy even in ascetics and monks.

The moral depravity of man seemed to pre-occupy Rousseau ; the words "unjust," "cruel," are the best possible for the purpose of exciting the instincts of the oppressed, who otherwise find themselves under the ban of the vetitum and of disgrace; so that their conscience is opposed to their indulging any insurrectional desires. These emancipators seek one thing above all: to give their party the great accents and attitudes of higher Nature .

100.

Rousseau ; the rule founded on sentiment; Nature as the source of justice; man perfects himself in proportion as he approaches Nature (according to Voltaire, in proportion as he leaves Nature behind ). The very same periods seem to the one to demonstrate the progress of humanity and, to the other, the increase of injustice and inequality.

Voltaire, who still understood umanità in the sense of the Renaissance, as also virtù (as "higher culture"), fights for the cause of the " honnêtes gens " " la bonne compagnie " taste, science, arts, and even for the cause of progress and civilisation.

The flare-up occurred towards 1760 : On the one hand the citizen of Geneva, on the other le seigneur de Ferney. It is only from that moment and henceforward that Voltaire was the man of his age, the philosopher, the representative of Toleration and of Disbelief (theretofore he had been merely un bel esprit ). His envy and hatred of Rousseau's success forced him upwards.