Фридрих Вильгельм Ницше
We Philologists
84
Philologists appear to me to be a secret society who wish to train our youth by means of the culture of antiquity · I could well understand this society and their views being criticised from all sides. A great deal would depend upon knowing what these philologists understood by the term "culture of antiquity" – If I saw, for example, that they were training their pupils against German philosophy and German music, I should either set about combating them or combating the culture of antiquity, perhaps the former, by showing that these philologists had not understood the culture of antiquity. Now I observe:
1. A great indecision in the valuation of the culture of antiquity on the part of philologists.
2. Something very non-ancient in themselves; something non-free.
3. Want of clearness in regard to the particular type of ancient culture they mean.
4. Want of judgment in their methods of instruction, e. g., scholarship.
5. Classical education is served out mixed up with Christianity.
85
It is now no longer a matter of surprise to me that, with such teachers, the education of our time should be worthless. I can never avoid depicting this want of education in its true colours, especially in regard to those things which ought to be learnt from antiquity if possible, for example, writing, speaking, and so on.
86
The transmission of the emotions is hereditary: let that be recollected when we observe the effect of the Greeks upon philologists.
87
Even in the best of cases, philologists seek for no more than mere "rationalism" and Alexandrian culture – not Hellenism.
88
Very little can be gained by mere diligence, if the head is dull. Philologist after philologist has swooped down on Homer in the mistaken belief that something of him can be obtained by force. Antiquity speaks to us when it feels a desire to do so, not when we do.
89
The inherited characteristic of our present-day philologists · a certain sterility of insight has resulted, for they promote the science, but not the philologist.
90
The following is one way of carrying on classical studies, and a frequent one: a man throws himself thoughtlessly, or is thrown, into some special branch or other, whence he looks to the right and left and sees a great deal that is good and new. Then, in some unguarded moment, he asks himself: "But what the devil has all this to do with me?" In the meantime he has grown old and has become accustomed to it all; and therefore he continues in his rut – just as in the case of marriage.
91
In connection with the training of the modern philologist the influence of the science of linguistics should be mentioned and judged; a philologist should rather turn aside from it. the question of the early beginnings of the Greeks and Romans should be nothing to him. how can they spoil their own subject in such a way?
92
A morbid passion often makes its appearance from time to time in connection with the oppressive uncertainty of divination, a passion for believing and feeling sure at all costs: for example, when dealing with Aristotle, or in the discovery of magic numbers, which, in Lachmann's case, is almost an illness.
93
The consistency which is prized in a savant is pedantry if applied to the Greeks.
94
(The Greeks and the Philologists.)
95
Bergk's "History of Literature": Not a spark of Greek fire or Greek sense.
96
People really do compare our own age with that of Pericles, and congratulate themselves on the reawakening of the feeling of patriotism: I remember a parody on the funeral oration of Pericles by G. Freytag,9 in which this prim and strait-laced "poet" depicted the happiness now experienced by sixty-year-old men. – All pure and simple caricature! So this is the result! And sorrow and irony and seclusion are all that remain for him who has seen more of antiquity than this.
97
If we change a single word of Lord Bacon's we may say. infimarum Græcorum virtutum apud philologos laus est, mediarum admiratio, supremarum sensus nullus.
98
How can anyone glorify and venerate a whole people! It is the individuals that count, even in the case of the Greeks.
99
There is a great deal of caricature even about the Greeks · for example, the careful attention devoted by the Cynics to their own happiness.
100
The only thing that interests me is the relationship of the people considered as a whole to the training of the single individuals · and in the case of the Greeks there are some factors which are very favourable to the development of the individual. They do not, however, arise from the goodwill of the people, but from the struggle between the evil instincts.
By means of happy inventions and discoveries, we can train the individual differently and more highly than has yet been done by mere chance and accident. There are still hopes. the breeding of superior men.
101
The Greeks are interesting and quite disproportionately important because they had such a host of great individuals. How was that possible? This point must be studied.
102
The history of Greece has hitherto always been written optimistically.
103
Selected points from antiquity: the power, fire, and swing of the feeling the ancients had for music (through the first Pythian Ode), purity in their historical sense, gratitude for the blessings of culture, the fire and corn feasts.
The ennoblement of jealousy: the Greeks the most jealous nation.
Suicide, hatred of old age, of penury. Empedocles on sexual love.
104
Nimble and healthy bodies, a clear and deep sense for the observation of everyday matters, manly freedom, belief in good racial descent and good upbringing, warlike virtues, jealousy in the ἁριστεὑειν, delight in the arts, respect for leisure, a sense for free individuality, for the symbolical.
105
The spiritual culture of Greece an aberration of the amazing political impulse towards ἁριστεὑειν. The πὁλις utterly opposed to new education; culture nevertheless existed.
106
When I say that, all things considered, the Greeks were more moral than modern men what do I mean by that? From what we can perceive of the activities of their soul, it is clear that they had no shame, they had no bad conscience. They were more sincere, open-hearted, and passionate, as artists are; they exhibited a kind of child-like naiveté. It thus came about that even in all their evil actions they had a dash of purity about them, something approaching the holy. A remarkable number of individualities: might there not have been a higher morality in that? When we recollect that character develops slowly, what can it be that, in the long run, breeds individuality? Perhaps vanity, emulation? Possibly. Little inclination for conventional things.
107
The Greeks as the geniuses among the nations.
Their childlike nature, credulousness.
Passionate. Quite unconsciously they lived in such a way as to procreate genius. Enemies of shyness and dulness. Pain. Injudicious actions. The nature of their intuitive insight into misery, despite their bright and genial temperament. Profoundness in their apprehension and glorifying of everyday things (fire, agriculture). Mendacious, unhistorical. The significance of the πὁλις in culture instinctively recognised, favourable as a centre and periphery for great men (the facility of surveying a community, and also the possibility of addressing it as a whole). Individuality raised to the highest power through the πὁλις. Envy, jealousy, as among gifted people.
108
The Greeks were lacking in sobriety and caution. Over-sensibility, abnormally active condition of the brain and the nerves; impetuosity and fervour of the will.
109
"Invariably to see the general in the particular is the distinguishing characteristic of genius," says Schopenhauer. Think of Pindar, &c. – "Σωφροσὑιη," according to Schopenhauer, has its roots in the clearness with which the Greeks saw into themselves and into the world at large, and thence became conscious of themselves.
The "wide separation of will and intellect" indicates the genius, and is seen in the Greeks.
"The melancholy associated with genius is due to the fact that the will to live, the more clearly it is illuminated by the contemplating intellect, appreciates all the more clearly the misery of its condition," says Schopenhauer. Cf. the Greeks.
110
The moderation of the Greeks in their sensual luxury, eating, and drinking, and their pleasure therein; the Olympic plays and their worship. that shows what they were.
In the case of the genius, "the intellect will point out the faults which are seldom absent in an instrument that is put to a use for which it was not intended."
"The will is often left in the lurch at an awkward moment: hence genius, where real life is concerned, is more or less unpractical – its behaviour often reminds us of madness."
111
We contrast the Romans, with their matter-of-fact earnestness, with the genial Greeks! Schopenhauer: "The stern, practical, earnest mode of life which the Romans called gravitas presupposes that the intellect does not forsake the service of the will in order to roam far off among things that have no connection with the will."
112
It would have been much better if the Greeks had been conquered by the Persians instead of by the Romans.
113
The characteristics of the gifted man who is lacking in genius are to be found in the average Hellene – all the dangerous characteristics of such a disposition and character.
114
Genius makes tributaries of all partly-talented people: hence the Persians themselves sent their ambassadors to the Greek oracles.
115
The happiest lot that can fall to the genius is to exchange doing and acting for leisure; and this was something the Greeks knew how to value. The blessings of labour! Nugari was the Roman name for all the exertions and aspirations of the Greeks.
No happy course of life is open to the genius, he stands in contradiction to his age and must perforce struggle with it. Thus the Greeks. they instinctively made the utmost exertions to secure a safe refuge for themselves (in the polis). Finally, everything went to pieces in politics. They were compelled to take up a stand against their enemies. this became ever more and more difficult, and at last impossible.
116
Greek culture is based on the lordship of a small class over four to nine times their number of slaves. Judged by mere numbers, Greece was a country inhabited by barbarians. How can the ancients be thought to be humane? There was a great contrast between the genius and the breadwinner, the half-beast of burden. The Greeks believed in a racial distinction. Schopenhauer wonders why Nature did not take it into her head to invent two entirely separate species of men.
The Greeks bear the same relation to the barbarians "as free-moving or winged animals do to the barnacles which cling tightly to the rocks and must await what fate chooses to send them" – Schopenhauer's simile.
117
The Greeks as the only people of genius in the history of the world. Such they are even when considered as learners; for they understand this best of all, and can do more than merely trim and adorn themselves with what they have borrowed, as did the Romans.
The constitution of the polis is a Phœnician invention, even this has been imitated by the Hellenes. For a long time they dabbled in everything, like joyful dilettanti. Aphrodite is likewise Phœnician. Neither do they disavow what has come to them through immigration and does not originally belong to their own country.
118
The happy and comfortable constitution of the politico-social position must not be sought among the Greeks. that is a goal which dazzles the eyes of our dreamers of the future! It was, on the contrary, dreadful; for this is a matter that must be judged according to the following standard: the more spirit, the more suffering (as the Greeks themselves prove). Whence it follows, the more stupidity, the more comfort. The philistine of culture is the most comfortable creature the sun has ever shone upon: and he is doubtless also in possession of the corresponding stupidity.
119
The Greek polis and the αἱεν ἁριστεὑειν grew up out of mutual enmity. Hellenic and philanthropic are contrary adjectives, although the ancients flattered themselves sufficiently.
Homer is, in the world of the Hellenic discord, the pan-Hellenic Greek. The ἁγὡν of the Greeks is also manifested in the Symposium in the shape of witty conversation.
120
Wanton, mutual annihilation inevitable: so long as a single polis wished to exist – its envy for everything superior to itself, its cupidity, the disorder of its customs, the enslavement of the women, lack of conscience in the keeping of oaths, in murder, and in cases of violent death.
Tremendous power of self-control: for example in a man like Socrates, who was capable of everything evil.
121
Its noble sense of order and systematic arrangement had rendered the Athenian state immortal – The ten strategists in Athens! Foolish! Too big a sacrifice on the altar of jealousy.
122
The recreations of the Spartans consisted of feasting, hunting, and making war · their every-day life was too hard. On the whole, however, their state is merely a caricature of the polls, a corruption of Hellas. The breeding of the complete Spartan – but what was there great about him that his breeding should have required such a brutal state!
123
The political defeat of Greece is the greatest failure of culture; for it has given rise to the atrocious theory that culture cannot be pursued unless one is at the same time armed to the teeth. The rise of Christianity was the second greatest failure: brute force on the one hand, and a dull intellect on the other, won a complete victory over the aristocratic genius among the nations. To be a Philhellenist now means to be a foe of brute force and stupid intellects. Sparta was the ruin of Athens in so far as she compelled Athens to turn her entire attention to politics and to act as a federal combination.
