Self-Reliance

'Ne to quæsiveris extra.' ['Do not seek yourself outside yourself']



Man is his own star; and the soul that can

Render an honest and a perfect man,

Commands all light, all influence, all fate;

Nothing to him falls early or too late.

Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,

Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.

Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher's

Honest Man's Fortune



Cast the bantling on the rocks,

Suckle him with the she-wolf's teat,

Wintered with the hawk and fox,

Power and speed be hands and feet.



I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men, but what they thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory is not without pre-established harmony. The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope.

Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort and advancing on Chaos and the Dark.

What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text in the face and behavior of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these have not. Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in their faces we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody; all conform to it; so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold then, he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary.

The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit is in the playhouse; independent, irresponsible, looking out from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences them on their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys, as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never about consequences, about interests; he gives an independent, genuine verdict. You must court him; he does not court you. But the man is as it were clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has once acted or spoken with éclat he is a committed person, watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his account. There is no Lethe for this. Ah, that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who can thus avoid all pledges and, having observed, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence, — must always be formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which being seen to be not private but necessary, would sink like darts into the ear of men, and put them in fear.

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most requests is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, 'What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within?' my friend suggested, — 'But these impulses may be from below, not from above.' I replied, 'They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's child, I will live then from the Devil.' No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat of philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes, why should I not say to him, 'Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper; be good-natured and modest; have that grace; and never varnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off Thy love afar is spite at home.' Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some edge to it, — else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be preached, as the counteraction of the doctrine of love, when that pules and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, Whim. I hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company. Then again, do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they my poor? I tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to sots, and the thousand-fold Relief Societies; — though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a wicked dollar, which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold.

Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues. Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world, — as invalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your table like base house-keepers, — under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the precise man you are: and of course so much force is withdrawn from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a blind-man's-bluff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect I anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous word? Do I not know that with all this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution he will do no such thing? Do I not know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side, the permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister? He is a retained attorney, and these airs of the bench are the emptiest affectation. Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say chagrins us and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere. We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentlest asinine expression. There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean 'the foolish face of praise,' the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease, in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved by a low usurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face, with the most disagreeable sensation.

For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The by-standers look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlor. If this aversion had its origin in contempt and resistance like his own he might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs. Yet is the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the senate and the college. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is decorous and prudent, for they are timid, as being very vulnerable themselves. But when to their feminine rage the indignation of the people is added, when the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment.

The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loth to disappoint them.

But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in a new day. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the Deity, yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them heart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color. Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee.

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

I suppose no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will are rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of Andes and Himmaleh are insignificant in the curve of the sphere. Nor does it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza; — read it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not and see it not. My book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my web also. We pass for what we are. Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.

There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If I can be firm enough to-day to do right and scorn eyes, I must have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn appearances and you always may. The force of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a train of great days and victories behind. They shed a united light on the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of angels. That is it which throws thunder into Chatham's voice, and dignity into Washington's port, and America into Adams's eye. Honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemera. It is always ancient virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it and pay it homage because it is not a trap for our love and homage, but is self-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an old immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a young person.

I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward. Instead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the Spartan fife. Let us never bow and apologize more. A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to please me. I will stand here for humanity, and though I would make it kind, I would make it true. Let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face of custom and trade and office, the fact which is the upshot of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature. He measures you and all men and all events. Ordinarily, every body in society reminds us of somewhat else, or of some other person. Character, reality, reminds you of nothing else; it takes place of the whole creation. The man must be so much that he must make all circumstances indifferent. Every true man is a cause, a country, and an age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design; — and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of clients. A man Caesar is born, and for ages after we have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, and millions of minds so grow and cleave to his genius that he is confounded with virtue and the possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of one man; as, Monachism, of the Hermit Antony; the Reformation, of Luther; Quakerism, of Fox; Methodism, of Wesley; Abolition, of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton called 'the height of Rome,' and all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons.

Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an interloper in the world which exists for him. But the man in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, a statue, or a costly book have an alien and forbidding air, much like a gay equipage, and seem to say like that, Who are you, Sir?' Yet they all are his, suitors for his notice, petitioners to his faculties that they will come out and take possession. The picture waits for my verdict; it is not to command me, but I am to settle its claims to praise. That popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead-drunk in the street, carried to the duke's house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke's bed, and, on his waking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince.

Our reading is mendicant and sycophantic. In history our imagination plays us false. Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier vocabulary than private John and Edward in a small house and common day's work; but the things of life are the same to both; the sum total of both is the same. Why all this deference to Alfred and Scanderbeg and Gustavus? Suppose they were virtuous; did they wear out virtue? As great a stake depends on your private act to-day as followed their public and renowned steps. When private men shall act with original views, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen.

The world has been instructed by its kings, who have so magnetized the eyes of nations. It has been taught by this colossal symbol the mutual reverence that is due from man to man. The joyful loyalty with which men have everywhere suffered the king, the noble, or the great proprietor to walk among them by a law of his own, make his own scale of men and things and reverse theirs, pay for benefits not with money but with honor, and represent the law in his person, was the hieroglyphic by which they obscurely signified their consciousness of their own right and comeliness, the right of every man.

The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we inquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee? What is the aboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What is the nature and power of that science-baffling star, without parallax, without calculable elements, which shoots a ray of beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark of independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis cannot go, all things find their common origin. For the sense of being which in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and being also proceed. We first share the life by which things exist and afterwards see them as appearances in nature and forget that we have shared their cause. Here is the fountain of action and of thought. Here are the lungs of that inspiration which giveth man wisdom and which cannot be denied without impiety and atheism. We lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm. Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind and his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the expression of them, but he knows that these things are so, like day and night, not to be disputed. My wilful actions and acquisitions are but roving; — the idlest reverie, the faintest native emotion, command my curiosity and respect. Thoughtless people contradict as readily the statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; for they do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose to see this or that thing. But perception is not whimsical, but fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time all mankind, — although it may chance that no one has seen it before me. For my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun.

The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh he should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the world with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, from the centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the whole. Whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away, — means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it, — one as much as another. All things are dissolved to their centre by their cause, and in the universal miracle petty and particular miracles disappear. If therefore a man claims to know and speak of God and carries you backward to the phraseology of some old mouldered nation in another country, in another world, believe him not. Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fulness and completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being? Whence then this worship of the past? The centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul. Time and space are but physiological colors which the eye makes, but the soul is light: where it is, is day; where it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an injury if it be any thing more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and becoming.

Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say 'I think,' 'I am,' but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied and it satisfies nature in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.

This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few texts, on a few lives. We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they chance to see, — painfully recollecting the exact word they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand them and are willing to let the words go; for at any time they can use words as good when occasion comes. If we live truly, we shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be weak. When we have new perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn.

And now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid; probably cannot be said; for all that we say is the far-off remembering of the intuition. That thought by what I can now nearest approach to say it, is this. When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the footprints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name; — the way, the thought, the good, shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and experience. You take the way from man, not to man. All persons that ever existed are its forgotten ministers. Fear and hope are alike beneath it. There is somewhat low even in hope. In the hour of vision there is nothing that can be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation, perceives the self-existence of Truth and Right, and calms itself with knowing that all things go well. Vast spaces of nature, the Atlantic Ocean, the South Sea; long intervals of time, years, centuries, are of no account. This which I think and feel underlay every former state of life and circumstances, as it does underlie my present, and what is called life and what is called death.

Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates; that the soul becomes; for that forever degrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside. Why then do we prate of self-reliance? Inasmuch as the soul is present there will be power not confident but agent. To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather of that which relies because it works and is. Who has more obedience than I masters me, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. We fancy it rhetoric when we speak of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, and that a man or a company of men, plastic and permeable to principles, by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities, nations, kings, rich men, poets, who are not.

This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE. Self-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into all lower forms. All things real are so by so much virtue as they contain. Commerce, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war, eloquence, personal weight, are somewhat, and engage my respect as examples of its presence and impure action. I see the same law working in nature for conservation and growth. Power is, in nature, the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing and therefore self-relying soul.

Thus all concentrates: let us not rove; let us sit at home with the cause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within. Let our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our native riches.

But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his genius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men. We must go alone. I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary! So let us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of our friends, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood and I all men's. Not for that will I adopt their petulance or folly, even to the extent of being ashamed of it. But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet door and say, — 'Come out unto us.' But keep thy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act. 'What we love that we have, but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love.'

If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and faith, let us at least resist our temptations; let us enter into the state of war and wake Thor and Woden, courage and constancy, in our Saxon breasts. This is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse. Say to them, 'O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth's. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but proximities. I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife, — but these relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth it will bring us out safe at last.' — But so may you give these friends pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify me and do the same thing.

The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one or the other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfil your round of duties by clearing yourself in the direct, or in the reflex way. Consider whether you have satisfied your relations to father, mother, cousin, neighbor, town, cat and dog — whether any of these can upbraid you. But I may also neglect this reflex standard and absolve me to myself. I have my own stern claims and perfect circle. It denies the name of duty to many offices that are called duties. But if I can discharge its debts it enables me to dispense with the popular code. If any one imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its commandment one day.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!

If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by distinction society, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, desponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state, but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to their practical force and do lean and beg day and night continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born.

If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not 'studying a profession,' for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances. Let a Stoic open the resources of man and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a man is the word made flesh, born to shed healing to the nations; that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, idolatries and customs out of the window, we pity him no more but thank and revere him; — and that teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor and make his name dear to all history.

It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views.

1. In what prayers do men allow themselves! That which they call a holy office is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad and asks for some foreign addition to come through some foreign virtue, and loses itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural, and mediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves a particular commodity, anything less than all good, is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He will then see prayer in all action. The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature, though for cheap ends. Caratach, in Fletcher's 'Bonduca,' when admonished to inquire the mind of the god Audate, replies, —



His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors;

Our valors are our best gods.



Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work and already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to them who weep foolishly and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with their own reason. The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide; him all tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out to him and embraces him because he did not need it. We solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation. The gods love him because men hated him. 'To the persevering mortal,' said Zoroaster, 'the blessed Immortals are swift.'

As men's prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease of the intellect. They say with those foolish Israelites, 'Let not God speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any man with us, and we will obey.' Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my brother, because he has shut his own temple doors and recites fables merely of his brother's, or his brother's brother's God. Every new mind is a new classification. If it prove a mind of uncommon activity and power, a Locke, a Lavoisier, a Hutton, a Bentham, a Fourier, it imposes its classification on other men, and lo! a new system. In proportion to the depth of the thought, and so to the number of the objects it touches and brings within reach of the pupil, is his complacency. But chiefly is this apparent in creeds and churches, which are also classifications of some powerful mind acting on the elemental thought of duty and man's relation to the Highest. Such is Calvinism, Quakerism, Swedenborgism. The pupil takes the same delight in subordinating every thing to the new terminology as a girl who has just learned botany in seeing a new earth and new seasons thereby. It will happen for a time that the pupil will find his intellectual power has grown by the study of his master's mind. But in all unbalanced minds the classification is idolized, passes for the end and not for a speedily exhaustible means, so that the walls of the system blend to their eye in the remote horizon with the walls of the universe; the luminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their master built. They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to see, — how you can see; 'It must be somehow that you stole the light from us.' They do not yet perceive that light, unsystematic, indomitable, will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and call it their own. If they are honest and do well, presently their neat new pinfold will be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot and vanish, and the immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, million-colored, will beam over the universe as on the first morning.

2. It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination, did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. In manly hours we feel that duty is our place. The soul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance that he goes, the missionary of wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign and not like an interloper or a valet.

I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe for the purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins.

Travelling is a fool's paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I see the Vatican and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.

3. But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, and our system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind? Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the Distant. The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed. And why need we copy the Doric or the Gothic model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur of thought and quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if the American artist will study with hope and love the precise thing to be done by him, considering the climate, the soil, the length of the day, the wants of the people, the habit and form of the government, he will create a house in which all these will find themselves fitted, and taste and sentiment will be satisfied also.

Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare? Where is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. Shakspeare will never be made by the study of Shakspeare. Do that which is assigned you, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different from all these. Not possibly will the soul, all rich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue are two organs of one nature. Abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life, obey thy heart, and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again.

4. As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so does our spirit of society. All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man improves.

Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not amelioration. For every thing that is given something is taken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts. What a contrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, with a watch, a pencil and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the naked New Zealander, whose property is a club, a spear, a mat and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under! But compare the health of the two men and you shall see that the white man has lost his aboriginal strength. If the traveller tell us truly, strike the savage with a broad-axe and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and heal as if you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow shall send the white to his grave.

The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His note-books impair his memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance-office increases the number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity, entrenched in establishments and forms, some vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom where is the Christian?

There is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the standard of height or bulk. No greater men are now than ever were. A singular equality may be observed between the great men of the first and of the last ages; nor can all the science, art, religion, and philosophy of the nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than Plutarch's heroes, three or four and twenty centuries ago. Not in time is the race progressive. Phocion, Socrates, Anaxagoras, Diogenes, are great men, but they leave no class. He who is really of their class will not be called by their name, but will be his own man, and in his turn the founder of a sect. The arts and inventions of each period are only its costume and do not invigorate men. The harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good. Hudson and Behring accomplished so much in their fishing-boats as to astonish Parry and Franklin, whose equipment exhausted the resources of science and art. Galileo, with an opera-glass, discovered a more splendid series of celestial phenomena than any one since. Columbus found the New World in an undecked boat. It is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of means and machinery which were introduced with loud laudation a few years or centuries before. The great genius returns to essential man. We reckoned the improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of science, and yet Napoleon conquered Europe by the bivouac, which consisted of falling back on naked valor and disencumbering it of all aids. The Emperor held it impossible to make a perfect army, says Las Casas, 'without abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries and carriages, until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should receive his supply of corn, grind it in his hand-mill and bake his bread himself.'

Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation to-day, next year die, and their experience dies with them.

And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem the religious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property, out of new respect for his nature. Especially he hates what he has if he sees that it is accidental, — came to him by inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; it does not belong to him, has no root in him and merely lies there because no revolution or no robber takes it away. But that which a man is, does always by necessity acquire; and what the man acquires, is living property, which does not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or revolutions, or fire, or storm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually renews itself wherever the man breathes. 'Thy lot or portion of life,' said the Caliph Ali, 'is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after it.' Our dependence on these foreign goods leads us to our slavish respect for numbers. The political parties meet in numerous conventions; the greater the concourse and with each new uproar of announcement, The delegation from Essex! The Democrats from New Hampshire! The Whigs of Maine! the young patriot feels himself stronger than before by a new thousand of eyes and arms. In like manner the reformers summon conventions and vote and resolve in multitude. Not so, O friends! will the God deign to enter and inhabit you, but by a method precisely the reverse. It is only as a man puts off all foreign support and stands alone that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and, in the endless mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and, so perceiving throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head.

So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shall sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.



1841

目 录

中文目录

英文目录

企鹅口袋书系列·伟大的思想

伟大的思想(第一辑)天才,舍我其谁?

(英汉双语)



[德]弗里德里希·尼采 著

R. J. 霍林代尔 英译 阎沛衡 汉译











中国出版集团

中国对外翻译出版公司

中文目录

瞧!这个人!

——天性,何以成就自我的价值?
序言
天才,舍我其谁?
机灵,岂但如此?
佳作,何以叠出?
天运,我自晓得!

真理的曙光

——铁锤,何以矫正以往的哲理?
箴言,足以抒怀!
贻误,独有四遭!
铁锤,为我代言!

返回总目录

瞧!这个人!

——天性,何以成就自我的价值?

序言

(一)

深知,为人类之前途提出一个最高的目标,乃是一件以往从未有过的事情,乃是一件刻不容缓的事情。于是,诠释鄙人,乃“何许人也”便是一件义不容辞的事情了。

其实,这本应是一个不言自明的道理,因为鄙人早已用赤裸裸的事实,回答了这个“何许人也”的问题。然而,问题在于:鄙人所负责任之重大同所处同辈之渺小,相去甚远,乃至于令人见所未见,闻所未闻。我活着,乃是靠我的信誉——或许,仅仅是因为某种“偏执”的原因,我——还活着?……或许,只需要向夏日里专程赴上恩加丁河谷的所谓“文化人士”之规劝妥协一下,承认鄙人已经故去便是了……于是,我这里便有了一种叛逆的义务——表现出某种违背自我意愿乃至天性的傲慢,并且就此宣布:听好!尼采便是尼采;最重要的是,不得与他人同日而语。

(二)

不过,尼采绝非凶神恶煞之鬼,亦非道德败坏之人——相反,他天生就是一个无神论者,并且始终都以善行为荣。在同辈之间,尼采似乎总能为此而自豪。尼采,乃是哲学家狄俄尼索斯的信徒;不过,他宁做性之狂者,不为圣之仁人。或许,你一定得读读这本论著——尼采以乐观而向上、和蔼而可亲的语言描述本来相互对立的局面,或许你会因此而折服——或许,舍此尼采别无选择。于是,我最终的承诺便只能是“改造”人类了。尼采并未树立新的偶像——只是让陈腐的偶像懂得泥塑的双腿意味着什么罢了。摒弃陈腐的偶像(并以此替代“理想”一词)——这,便是尼采所事之事。尼采深知:在人们塑造一个理想世界的同时,现实世界已经从某种程度上失去了它原有的价值和本来的意义——因而便丧失了其真实性……其实,谓“理念世界”和“表象世界”的区别,简言之,便是“人为世界”和“真实世界”之区别而已……足见,理念世界的谎言,始终都是对真实世界的诅咒——在这种谎言的包围中,人类自身的灵魂深处发生了扭曲——于是,他们的价值观被颠倒了——他们顶礼膜拜,提升未来,以为只有这样,才足以保证社会的繁荣、未来的美好——这,便是他们的权力。

(三)

一个懂得从鄙人著述中汲取营养的人,便知道那是一种顶级的营养,一种健康的营养。人,生来就需要这种营养,否则就会伤风感冒——因此,他绝无必要去冒这个风险。冰冷世界并不遥远,与世隔绝危险重重——但是,阳光下的万物却是平和幸福的——因为在这里,人可以自由地呼吸!您可知道,这意味着什么?——按照鄙人的理解和诠释,哲学,乃是一种甘愿在冰雪和大山中度过的生活,乃是一种对生活中一切未知和疑惑的追问——一种对一切为伦理学道德说教所排斥的理念的追寻。正是从这种对禁锢的惊诧中得来的长期经验,使尼采学会了寻找“道德”与“理想”之源的方法,并由此发现“道德”与“理想”同人们的期望相去甚远:哲学家们不为人所知的阅历,乃至他们伟大姓名背后的心路历程,在尼采面前一览无遗。一种精神能够承载多少真理?一种精神又敢于承载多少真理?这就逐渐成了鄙人用以测量真理“价值”的尺度。相信理想,是错误——虽不是盲目的,但却是懦弱的……每一次知识的获得,每一次知识的进步,都是勇敢的结果,严肃的结果,净化的结果……鄙人并不排斥什么“理想”,只想增强一下“理想”之免疫力罢了……“人们在禁锢中挣扎” 〔1〕 (奥维德语)——这便预示着,鄙人的哲学总有一天会获得成功,因为在真理面前,一切为理想主义原则所禁锢的东西都算不得什么。

(四)

在鄙人所有著述中,《扎拉图斯拉的独白》 〔2〕 堪称一枝独秀之作,是鄙人馈赠人类最富意义的礼物——因为人类从未接受过这样一个礼物:她,不仅是现存书籍中最能令人亢奋的著述,有顶好的营养——她,用一个穿越千年之声宣告——用全部的事实证明:人类脚下还有一段漫长的路途要走;而且,值得称道的是,从其问世的那一天起,便以其真理的含量无穷而著称——她,像一口取之不尽、用之不竭的水井,只要你将手中的吊桶放下去,便不愁没有金银财宝钓上来。这里,既不需要先知们的预见,也不需要宗教领袖们的提示——只要有病魔的“协助”和冲创意志 〔3〕 的提升便足够了。最重要的是,人们务必听清楚从扎拉图斯拉口中传来的声音——只要你不至于曲解它智慧的意味,她——简直就像一只“翠鸟”发出的乐音——“只有来自鸽子脚尖的——最平静的语言,才足以激活最激烈的暴风雨和最深刻的大思考——从而为世界导航——”

树上掉落的无花果最香甜——因为果实被擦破了红色的皮。我愿做一缕清凉的北风——催熟那香甜的无花果。

此时此刻,这里的劝导是否像香甜的无花果一般——掉落在您的身边?朋友:请吮吸它醉人的果汁,品尝它香甜的果实!秋天来了——秋高气爽,正是午后之天啊——

这里,没有盲目热衷的必要;这里,没有布道说教的场地;这里,没有信徒虔诚的戒律:无限充裕的阳光和无比深厚的幸福——一滴滴,一句句洒向人间——柔情而缓慢的步伐,恰似这轻盈话语的节奏。这些,都是精心挑选的结果——在这里,做一个静心的倾听者,那是一种无上的权益——没有人不可以自由地倾听扎拉图斯拉的独白……除非,扎拉图斯拉的独白——丧失了她诱人的魅力!……然而,一旦他再度回归独处的时候,他——又会说些什么呢?毫无疑问,即便在这种情况下——同任何“先哲”、“圣人”、“救世主”以及其他“颓废者”相反……他的话语是与众不同的,因为他——是与众不同的……

我,要独自离开了,我的拥护者们!你们,也得各自离开了!——好让我心安理得。

离开我吧,不要接受扎拉图斯拉的诱惑!最好是,以其为耻!或许,他已然骗过了你们。

须知——独有高明之士,必能取敌之长而避友之短也。

如果,一个学生总也无所进取,他又怎么能够回报恩师呢?如此,何不趁早摘掉这顶桂冠?

你,尊重我;但是,有一天你的尊重失去意义了,怎么办?切记!一尊眼看就要倒塌的塑像,是不会对人有死亡的威胁的。

你说,你相信扎拉图斯拉?那么,扎拉图斯拉的价值何在?你,是我的信徒:那么,信徒的价值又何在呢?

你,找到了我,却迷失了自我。所有的信徒都别无二致——所有的信仰都一文不值。

于是,我求你,放开我,去寻找自我;当所有的人都听信于你而背叛了我的那一刻,“余,乃可回归于汝”……



弗里德里希·尼采

当这一天到来的时候,一切都是那么地美好——葡萄串露出了棕色的脸蛋儿,生活中充满了阳光的气息儿:左看看,右瞧瞧,从未见过——这么多美好的事物一起涌现。我,绝没有埋葬过去的四十四个春秋;然而,这却是一件出乎意料的事情——当生命的冲动被唤醒的时候,生命的力量便会焕发出不朽的光芒。第一部《重估一切价值》、《扎拉图斯拉之歌》、《真理的曙光》——所有这些,都是献给这一年——甚至是这一年里最后一个季度的礼物!所图之事,不过借“铁锤”之力,敲醒沉睡之众而已。于是,一旦有感于生命的垂青——必然悦自我以生命的成功。

天才,舍我其谁?

(一)

我,运地活着,或许是命该如此——相信,不会有别的诠释了。如果用某种扑朔迷离的方式叙述,那便是:如果我是我的父亲,我已经死去;如果我是我的母亲,则我依然活着,且已然老迈年高。生与死,乃是生命的两极,分布在生命云梯的两端,一端最高,一端最低,一端已然颓废,一端还在延伸;如果还有什么中庸的方式可以借用,或者如果在生命的终极问题上仍有选择的余地,我便会说:正是这个中庸、这个余地成就了尼采——将尼采同其他所有的人区别开来。对于生命的升迁与堕落,尼采有常人不及的触觉,我深谙此道,是杰出的传道、授业、解惑之人——知晓升迁与堕落,因为曾经升迁与堕落。

我的父亲谢世之际,不过36岁而已:他讨人喜欢,体弱多病,注定成为这个世界的匆匆过客——与其说那是生命,不如说那只是对生命友善的提示罢了。也是在我36岁的那一年——就是在父亲谢世的那一年,我跌落到了人生的最低谷——我依然活着,只是连离我三步之遥的视野都跃不过去。那是在——1879年——我辞去了巴塞尔大学的教授职务,在圣莫里茨度过了那一年的夏天,又在瑙姆堡度过了随后的冬天,那是我人生中最灰暗的时光,过着隐君子一般的生活:《彷徨者和他的独居生活》, 〔4〕 便是这一时期的著述。毋庸置疑,在那些日子里我饱尝了独居的滋味儿……

第二年冬天,是我在意大利热那亚度过的第一个冬天——温和而甜蜜,超凡而脱俗。其实,这一切都是我撰写《黎明》所付出的心血带来的必然结果。《黎明》的问世,带给我光明和兴奋,甚至带给我生机勃勃的精神力量——在我看来,这一切恰恰是生理上的极度亏欠,乃至精神上的无限痛楚所换来的补偿。在经历那些痛苦的过程中,我遭受了连续三天三夜的头痛,同时遭遇了难以忍受的痰喘折磨——然而,这一时期,我却多有超常的思维能力,处理问题坚决果断,毫不迟疑。相反,在我健康状况稍好的时候,我却不够野心勃勃,不够缜密,不够干脆。或许,只有我的那些读者们才知道我是如何将辩证法视为颓废的征兆的,最有说服力的情形——莫过于对待苏格拉底的那个例子了。至于,那些原本影响智力的病魔,乃至由发烧引起的半昏迷状态,为什么足以引起我思维的神奇变化——所有这些,对我来说至今仍然是个“谜”。为了弄清那些病魔的性质及其发生的规律,我首度求诸于学究的方法。

我的心脏,总是跳动得很慢,因而从来没有医生诊断出我发高烧的病症来。有位大夫,甚至一度将我当作精神病人来对待,可临了,他却说:“不!不是你的精神出了问题,而是我的神经出了差错!”其实,身体局部的任何病变都可能失去其症状的。比如,过度疲劳,就会引起消化功能的极度衰退,从而引起胃部的病变,但是却不至于会有什么生理器官表现出胃病的症状来。有时,眼睛的症状会严重到接近失明的地步,但是这不过是病变的过程而已,并非病变的原因所在:因此,一旦其他生命指数得以提高,视力就会随之得以恢复。

——对我而言,病了又好了,好了又病了,这样的事,简直像一条年年不断的锁链一样——更为不幸的是,这里还同时伴随着旧病的复发和新病的恶化,的确颇有几分像颓废的周期性发生一般。至此,我所亲身遭遇的颓废情节,还需要更多的补充吗?我以为,我已经彻彻底底地交代清楚了。而且,可以毫不夸张地说,从整体把握事物的微妙技术到通过直觉发现细微差别的能力,从“明察秋毫”的心理战术到所有决定我性格特质的生理规律,我都是在这一时期里学来的。换言之,正是在这一时期,我的一切——观察能力及其感觉系统,都变得更加敏感、精微和周到——所有这些,都是这一特殊的时期所赋予我的特异禀赋。如果从病理学的视角上考察这些相对健康的价值和观念,同时又从相反的视角上将充裕而有保障的富人生活看作是人类本能颓废的秘密所在——那么,这些便是尼采所着力最多的地方,也是尼采阅历所独到的特殊领域——在这个特殊的领域中,尼采乃是绝对的大师。于是,尼采便具备了逆转乾坤的资质和能力:或许,惟有在尼采的眼中,这便是“重估价值”的可能性所在,也是“重估价值”的首要理由所存。

(二)

如果忽略了尼采颓废的一面,尼采便会立刻站到颓废者的对立面去。对此,这里的证据是,在同病魔抗争时,尼采总会本能地选择对自己有益的方式,而在同样的情况下,对于颓废者来说,却总会选择对他们有害的方式。总体而言,我是健康的;局部而论,我又是虚弱的。从自己所习惯的生活环境中绝对地脱离出来,并且坚持不再接受照顾、伺候和家庭医生的护理——这样就脱离了对本能的无条件依赖,从而懂得了什么才是当时最重要的东西。由于对自身了如指掌,即便在颓废之际,我也能够自己让自己健康起来:做到这一点的先决条件——任何生理学家都不会排斥的——便是你的身体基本上是健康的。一个通常多病的身体是健康不起来的,自然也就难以再使自己健康起来了;相反,对于一个通常健康的身体,生病反而会成为他生命的精神兴奋剂,从而使其生命力更加旺盛。事实上,我那一段长时期的病情,对自己的健康来说似乎正是如此:我发现自己的生活新鲜了许多,甚至连我自身的状态也改变了许多——我用他人难得的方式品味着生活中所有美好的事物乃至无足轻重的小事——所凭借的无非是向往健康的意愿,无非是憧憬生命的意志——一言以蔽之,无非是尼采生命哲学的力量……

值得注意的是:正是在那些生命处于低潮的岁月里,我摒弃了悲观厌世的情绪,才没有沿着这个路子滑下去:对于我而言,正是自我恢复的本能使我的生活信念免于向贫乏而悲观的方向滑落……那么,一个人成功的秘诀是什么?一个成功人士给我们的感觉是舒服的——他,好似一块神奇的木材整体雕琢而成,看上去——坚硬、雅致而香气扑鼻;他,只品读对身心有益的事和物——一旦什么地方对身心有益的奢侈超越了他的限度,尼采决不涉足庆幸和享用;总为治病疗伤而预言,常化恶遇劣境为契机——只要不被恶劣的境遇所击溃,他便会十足地坚强。在所见、所闻和所历中,他本能地汇集了如下的结论:他有自己取舍的原则,他能抵御许多,许多。无论是在阅览书籍,还是在游历盛景,或者在审度人群,他永远都守候着自己的大本营:然而,只要他选准了,只要他认可了,只要他相信了,他都会肃然起敬。

对外界刺激的反应,他总是迟钝的——正是这种反应的迟钝,造成了他性格上的过于谨慎和妄自尊大——当一个刺激物向他袭来时,他总是先要间接地试探,从来都不会迎上去直接面对刺激对象。他从不相信“厄运”和“罪孽”:相反,他却懂得如何回避那些负面的东西——然而,只要是对他发展有益的事物,他总会毫不迟疑地勇敢面对。足见,他绝非什么颓废之人;相反,他总是站在颓废的对立面——至此,他已经将自己的形象勾勒得够清晰了。

(三)

我以为,能有这样一位父亲,乃是我得天独厚的人缘:父亲在奥登堡宅邸生活了几年之后,做了牧师,那是在他生命中最后几年里的事情;他在当地布道时,听人说,天使应该就是父亲那个样子。由此,我便涉足了种族问题的探究。原来,鄙人乃是波兰的贵族出身,且没有半点的混血成分,压根儿就不是什么德意志人。而当我考证我那些尊贵的对立面时,其卑微的血统是谁都难以预测的,(比如)我总觉得母亲和姐姐的血脉同下等人有关,这一点对我圣洁的血统简直是一种亵渎。时至今日,我想起母亲和姐姐给我的待遇时,心中仍然充满了极端的憎恶——这种极端的感觉常常是难以言说的——在我身体最脆弱、最需要静养的时候,总觉得什么地方就好像偏偏安放了一台魔鬼般的机器一般——准确无误地工作着……每每在这样的场合,我总得使出全身的力气——就像抵御毒蛇的侵入一般……或许,种高度失衡的不和谐现象得从生理解剖学的视角上去介入,才足以解释得清楚……不过,我深信对“永久轮回”的深恶痛绝,是我打地狱中走过之后才得来的真实感觉——不过,这些全都是拜母亲和姐姐所赐了。——然而,即使作为一个波兰人,尼采的出生也是一个异乎寻常的返祖现象。不过,要弄清这个地球上曾经有过的、顶级高贵的种族的原始天性,何以达到鄙人一般的巅峰水准,或许人们还得追溯到几个世纪以前,才足以解决问题。

同当下一切贵族阶层的观念背道而驰,鄙人总有一个感觉,这个感觉至高无上而与众不同——当今年轻的德意志皇帝,连做鄙人的马车夫都是一种“荣誉”,还得看鄙人情愿不情愿授予他呢。不过,也有一个例外,我会感激我的同仁——我深怀感恩之心,也深谙此间之理。瓦格纳夫人科茜玛,无疑是出身最高贵的人。于是,我便不能不多说几句了,理查德·瓦格纳绝对是同我关系最密切的人……没有人可以跟他相提并论……在一个不可超越的意义上,一切流行的亲疏远近理念,在生理学上都是无稽之谈。可谁知道,罗马教皇如今仍然在经营这种子虚乌有的理念。人类是同父母关系最为疏远的动物——于是,认为同父母关系接近的观念,便沦为最极端、最庸俗的表现。越是高级的种族,越是需要追溯其起源,这样她便会集合更多的优点,保留更好的传统,储备更大的能量。最伟大的群体是最古老的种族:虽然鄙人并不完全知晓,但是古罗马尤利乌斯·恺撒,或许就是鄙人的祖先——或许,马其顿亚历山大(大帝),那个狄俄尼索斯酒神的化身,也跟鄙人有关……不信你瞧——就在鄙人写作的瞬间,邮递员便将狄俄尼索斯的智慧送达了鄙人的身边。

(四)

给自己树敌,这种玩意儿,鄙人从来不懂——即便在看来非常必要的情况下,鄙人也不会为自己树敌的——毫无疑问,这一点也得归功于鄙人的父亲。虽然看上去不大像基督的信徒,但是鄙人怎么也不会干出伤害自己的事情。人们可以任意设想鄙人的生活,但却很难(其实,只有一次)发现什么人对鄙人抱有恶意——不仅如此,或许人们还会表现出良多的善意呢……甚至,根据鄙人的经验,每一个人都会毫无例外地有过为个人利益辩护的阅历;鄙人能够驯服每一只狗熊,甚至还能使小丑们检点自己的行为。在巴塞尔文法学校任教的七年里,鄙人教授过(古)希腊语中最难理解的语法现象。即便如此,鄙人也从未惩罚过那里的学生;只要在鄙人班里学习过的学生,再懒的也能变得勤奋起来。平日里,总得经常处理一些意料之外的事情——如果只顾教书而不闻窗外之事,那么面对那些突如其来的事情,常常会令人措手不及。乐器毕竟是乐器,如果跑了调子,那一定是演奏乐器的人出了问题——如此,我真的该生一场病,如此便可避免跑调的问题,自然也省得那声音不堪入耳了。我常常听到“乐器们”的抱怨,说什么从来没有哪个器乐师能从它们身上弹出过最佳的音乐来……要说最好的器乐师,那便是非海因里希·冯·斯坦因莫属了,遗憾的是,他英年早逝。海因里希·冯·斯坦因,曾难得获此允准,在锡尔斯-玛利亚逗留过三天——他自称,并非为上恩加丁河谷而来。就在那短短的三天里,这位难得的高人,以他普鲁士小主人的全部冲动和毫无掩饰的激情,深深地涉入了瓦格纳风格的神秘世界——涉入了杜林音乐的精神天地而情不自拔,恰似凭借着狂风的威力一般,其乐音的余韵在天空中自由地翱翔,其本人也如虎添翼,一瞬间便飞黄腾达。不过,鄙人还得不断地提醒他,那是这里清爽空气的微妙功用,谁都会有同样的感觉,你不能高居于拜罗伊特6000英尺以外的天空而无视这个事实——然而,他偏偏就不信这个“邪”……如此也罢,因为我知道:即便大大小小的不端行为全都冲我而来,那也不是故意而来,至少不是恶意所致:相反,值得我抱怨的倒是许许多多的“善意”——却招致我生命中不少的“厄运”。鄙人的阅历足以令人怀疑一切所谓无私的动机,怀疑一切为了他人的“博爱”。在我看来,那便是一种软弱的表现,一种无力接受刺激的表现——只有在颓废者之间,怜悯才被呼作美德。对于那些施舍怜悯的人士,我的非难是:羞耻、敬畏乃至对距离的微妙感觉最容易迷惑他们,怜悯总有下民——乌合之众的味道,因而就会像粗俗的行为一样为他们所误解——而在某种情况下,施舍怜悯的手甚至会以直接侵入的方式葬送一个伟大的命运,破坏一个单独疗伤的疾体,剥夺一个人犯罪的权力。我以为,在高贵的德行中绝不应该包容怜悯的行为:在“扎拉图斯拉的诱惑”一节中,我创设了这样一个情节——由于痛苦的折磨他大声地呼叫,“怜悯”就像终极的罪孽袭击着他——引诱他走向堕落,背叛自我。于是,为了坚守自我——坚守崇高的使命,必须摆脱所谓无私行为中诸多低劣而短视的行为影响——这些行为的表现非常之活跃,因而要摆脱其恶劣的影响,对扎拉图斯拉来说乃是一个必由的考验——或许,乃是一个终极的考验——自然,那也是对其真实能力的最好证明了。

(五)

其实,从另一个视角上看,我——不过是父亲的翻版,不过是父亲过早谢世的生命延续而已。就像人们从来没有生活在平等的群体中一般,对他们而言,“补偿”就像平等权利一样高不可攀。因此,在大大小小冒犯自身权益的愚蠢行为发生在身边的时候,鄙人一概不采取什么反抗的手段、什么保护的措施——即便鄙人是有理的,也绝不以所谓正当防卫一类的行为进行反击。鄙人之所谓的补救办法是,在愚蠢行为发生之后,尽早递出一份投诉的状子:这样,周围的人们或许还会高看你一眼,以为那也是一种高级的补偿……打个比方说吧,假若我狼吞虎咽地吃下一瓶果酱,那一定是为了驱除胃里酸味儿一类的东西……于是,你便可以自信了——随他们去吧,反正鄙人总可以补救回来的:只要抓着机会,鄙人总会感谢那些“冒犯者”的,乃至于有时简直就是因为冒犯本身而感谢——或者,还可以找机会求助于“冒犯者”——这样,总比反过来帮他们的忙要体面一些吧……而且,在鄙人看来,即便是最粗俗的言辞、最鄙陋的信件也要比沉默寡言善解人意一些,实诚一些——因为,那些喜欢沉默而寡言的人常常是缺乏敏锐之见和礼貌之心的人;沉默便是反抗,而且将本来应该一吐为快的东西再吞噬下去,还会使人养成坏的习性——乃至于损坏了好端端的胃口。难怪,凡是沉默寡言的人都有消化不良的毛病。——人们总会看到的,尼采绝没有低估过“卤莽”的价值,因为此乃——迄今为止,在处理对立问题上最为仁义的方式了;于是,即便在当今优雅的举止中,“卤莽”——也当数最佳德行之一了。——要知道,对于一个足够富裕的人而言,犯错误或者被人家冤枉一类的事情,乃是一种幸运的遇合。假若上帝真的会光临人间,那么他唯一该做的事情不是别的,而是教会人家出错:人类所要承担的,不是惩罚,而是罪过——唯如是,上帝乃上帝也。

(六)

试图摆脱怨恨,却总是得益于怨恨——谁知道,这也是鄙人那些痼疾所带来的效应,乃至于鄙人终生都得感激涕零!然而,事情却并非那么简单:为了这个效应,你必须经历由至盛到至衰的生命历程。不管你得了什么样的疾病——只要在同病势、弱势相悖而行的情况下,体内原有的抗体——抵御或者抵抗病情的能力就会减弱。你会浑身疼痛难忍——却不知何以摆脱痛楚、何以应付痛楚、何以击退痛楚才是——总之,病魔缠身,无以脱体,以至于病入膏肓,连记忆力也会严重减退。体弱多病,原本就是一种怨恨。——对付它,患者唯有良药一剂——谓之俄罗斯之宿命论。须知,本宿命论乃是不由反抗的:一个信奉它的俄国士兵,一旦在战役中支撑不住,便会倒在雪中——不吃不喝,不受外物——不汲取任何养料——自然,最终便不再有生命的迹象……这种宿命论的最大欺骗性在于,它——不仅不会直接摧残人的意志,而且即便在你生命垂危之际,仍然能够延续你的生命;然而,这种宿命论的危害性却在于,仅仅通过降低人的新陈代谢功能——使之缓慢运作,最终麻醉人的意志。在逻辑上,如果给以上的流程再加上几个步骤,那么,人们就完全可以推测到:即便你被送进了坟墓,你——仍然可以再睡上几个礼拜……因为,人如果处处都得做出快速的反应,其生命就会枯竭,最终便会完全丧失肌体的反应能力:这便是宿命论的逻辑。其实,没有什么东西比怨恨更能消耗生命的火焰了。恼怒、对病魔的敏感、无以复仇的抱怨、欲望的失落、复仇的怒火、任何意义上的造孽——这些,对一个精疲力竭的人来说,无疑是对其反应最具副作用的因素:比如,它足以招致神经能量的快速消耗,同时导致病人排泄量增大,入胃胆汁多。怨恨,乃是患者的禁忌——患者的魔鬼;可悲的是,怨恨又是患者难以克制的情绪。——深谙此道者,莫过于那位渊博的生理学家——佛陀释迦牟尼了,他紧紧地抓住了人性的这个弱点。释迦的“宗教”,以见长于对怨恨的依赖而著称,不如呼做一个系统的“卫生术”便妥了,也省得人家将其同以怜悯著称的基督教混为一谈:为求心灵之自由,必得先求躯体之健康,这是不言而喻的。“以怨抱怨,怨重怨;以德抱怨,怨消怨”,这是释迦“卫生术”的第一条教义——它不是伦理学的说法,而是生理学的原理。——怨恨的天性是脆弱,因而到头来伤害最大的不是别人而是意志薄弱的怨天尤人者本人——相反,富裕的天性则是预设,而试图成为这种预设的主宰者,却几乎是所有富人的特征。其实,这是一种自作多情的表现。主张向复仇心理和报复行为作斗争——乃至于向“自由意志”论宣战,乃是鄙人全部哲学的逻辑——而反对基督教的斗争只是其中一次特殊的战役而已。只要懂得这一思想严肃性的人,便会明白正是在这些问题上,表现着鄙人个人的社会承担乃至于尼采人性哲学的实践意义。然而,在那些颓废的日子里,鄙人只能将所有这些,视若有害的东西而不得已远离它们;而当生活变得充裕并值得骄傲的时候,尼采又将它们置于脑后而暂时忘却它们。多年来,所谓“俄罗斯宿命论”之于鄙人,总是一旦抓住机会——而且,几乎总是在痛楚难熬的时间和地点,总是在疼痛难忍的住所里和人群中,紧紧地缠着鄙人不放——还好,不必改变它们,也不必为它们所改变——更不必固执地反抗它们……奇怪得很,在那些日子里,时而自己好似已为宿命论所击败,时而自己又似乎还在宿命论的包围中挣扎,并企图拼命地苏醒过来——谁知道,每一次这样的试探,都是一件冒着生命危险的事情。——认命,不再奢望自身的“改变”?——这里,一切都是对理性的挑战。

(七)

至于战争,却是另一码事。鄙人,天性好战,本能好攻。能够与人为敌,成为他人的敌人——或许,是需要某种与生俱来的天性作为其强悍的支撑的;换言之,强悍的天性在任何情况下,都足以成为“与人为敌”的必要条件。强悍的天性需要耐力的支持,因此必须培养耐力:好战企图的必要性之于强者,恰如报复与复仇心理之于弱者,这是自不待言的。比如,女人的报复心理,是以其柔弱的生理条件为前提的,正如她们对别人的同情心是以其心理上的敏感性为条件的一般。——同样,一个好攻的强者必定以力量为前提,而且必须达到一定的标准;每一次力量的增强都意味着就对手或者问题的一次挑战:对一个好战的哲学家来说,同样有一个挑战的问题,才能与劲敌决斗。决斗即便征服了对手,也绝非单凭耐力便可以奏效,需要以全部的力量、坚韧的毅力以及驾驭武器的能力通览全局,才足以在势均力敌的情况下克敌制胜……而一场势均力敌的决斗,其先决条件是,它——必须是一场正当的决斗。鄙视战争的人,是不会发动战争的;而指挥战争乃至于认为战争有损于尊严的人是不必不发动战争的。根据鄙人的经验,兹就战事的规则提出如下四条建议。首先,鄙人主张只攻击战绩显赫的目标——在特殊情况下,还可以待到对方战绩显赫时再进行攻击。其次,鄙人主张只攻击孤立的或者尚未结成同盟的目标,以便各个解决——一旦招致失败,还可以进退两便……决不在敌众我寡、敌勇我疲的情况下作战:这便是鄙人不战则已,战则必胜的原则。再次,鄙人决不主张实行个人攻击——对于个人,鄙人只将他们用作放大镜一般的工具,以便探知那些难以察明且形显而实隐的危险战情。那便是鄙人击败大卫·斯特劳斯的战术,准确地说那便是鄙人取胜于德意志老年修养术的诀窍——正是鄙人当场揭穿了那种修养术的秘密……那也是鄙人取胜于瓦格纳的秘诀,准确地说那便是鄙人揭穿西方“文化”之虚伪乃至将精明与富裕、后期与伟大混为一谈之混血天性的妙方。最后,鄙人主张只抨击那些抛开不良背景不谈、排除个性区别不论的事与物。其实,就鄙人而言,攻击乃是为了求证善意,在特殊情况下,乃是为了表达感恩。只要将鄙人的名字同一个人、一件事联系在一起,鄙人都会引以为荣,都会倍觉骄傲:无论这个人是志同道合之辈还是离经叛道之流——于尼采,则全然无足轻重。果真向基督教宣战,鄙人是有这个权利的,因为在反对基督教义的征途上鄙人从未经历过失意的事情——即便是顶级虔诚的基督徒,也能同鄙人和平相处。于是,作为基督强制教议的敌对者,鄙人绝不会因世纪的命运问题,而对一个特定的个体 〔5〕 怀恨在心。

(八)

这里,还得冒昧介绍鄙人性格上的最后一个特点,因为正是这一点造成了鄙人同他人交往中不小的麻烦。好洁净,乃鄙人与生俱来的脾性——甚至可以说是一种非常离奇的癖好,致使鄙人的生理感觉——嗅觉——近似于……或是……怎么说呢?——对于人体内部的各类构件——内脏的每一个细微部分……鄙人均能借助于一个敏感的生理触觉——深入并且探知其每一个角落的秘密:所有隐藏在灵魂深处的丑陋东西——无论是先天血统的遗传或是后天教育的禀赋,只要通过一次直接的接触,鄙人几乎都可以准确地觉察出来。如果这些觉察是正确的,洁癖的嗅觉就会对其所觉察到的东西产生本能的抵触,而相应的大脑器官则会小心翼翼地对其做出厌恶的反应——于是,它们便绝不会错误地发出芬芳扑鼻的味道来……就这样,习惯养成了自然——一个对环境苛刻的要求便成了我生命中不可缺少的元件,舍此——在一个肮脏的环境中,我便无法生存——足见,鄙人只能在清澈的水中,或是在近乎透明、发光的自然环境中游弋、沐浴和嬉戏。由于这一癖好,在同他人相处时,鄙人务必持有极大的耐性;于是,鄙人的博爱,便不仅要表现在宽容中同他人相处,还得表现在忍受中同别人交流……博爱,简直是一个对鄙人长期自持能力的考验。——好在,鄙人常常需要与世隔绝,换言之——鄙人得恢复健康,回归自我,还得呼吸一点儿自由、轻松而愉悦的空气……整部《扎拉图斯拉的独白》,就是一首关于独居生活或是对“与世隔绝”的赞歌或是狂想曲什么的——或者不如直接说,《扎拉图斯拉的独白》就是一首关于“洁癖”的赞美诗……但愿:它绝不是在赞美白痴。——只要不是色盲的人,都能辨别得出——它是一颗璀璨钻石。——见不得人类,见不得“乌合之众”,乃是鄙人人性中最大的弱点——因为,它会招来人生最大的危险……如此,君——可还祈望聆听——《扎拉图斯拉的独白》,以资赎回那些“见不得”的代价?

我,怎么了?怎么才能摆脱那“见不得”的窠臼?谁,足以使我双眼复明?怎么才能飞往那理想的高度——那里,“乌合之众”不再坐上法官的席位?

诸多的“见不得”,可曾为我插上飞翔的翅膀?可曾为我增添潜水的能量?——没错,我得飞至巅峰,以便再一次——找到欢乐的源泉。

哦,我找到啦,我的兄弟们!这里就是巅峰!瞧!欢乐的泉水,正向我涌来!生命的泉水,不再有乌合之众的玷污。

欢乐的泉水啊,您不必过于性急!因为,在斟满水杯的同时,常常会倾到水杯。

我,小心翼翼地向您靠近:心,依然向您飞去,不过,也显得过于性急:——

我的心,像火热的夏天,短暂,滚烫,忧郁而过于乐观:我的心,像炎热的夏天,渴望——那泉水带来的清凉!

春天里,缠绵的苦恼,随和风而离去!六月里,多情的怨恨,像雪花一样飘去!我,全然地来到了夏天——炎热的仲夏——

——巅峰的夏日,伴之以清凉的泉水,随之以天堂的静谧:来吧,朋友!静谧将带来良多的福分!

这里是我们的巅峰,里是我们的家园:在这里,我们超然物外,让宵小之辈望尘莫及。

朋友,快将你纯洁的目光投向这欢乐的源泉!别担心——它闪烁的光华会黯然失色!否则,它纯洁的秉性会嘲笑你——胆量不足。

在未来的大树上,我们将筑好自己的“家”:孤独时,雄鹰必定会衔着食物飞来!

不错,宵小之辈哪能享得了这种福份?——因为,吃了这里“火”,便会烧坏了他们的“胃”。

不错,我们没有在这里为宵小之辈们预留他们的“窝”!我们的福窝,便是他们的冰窖——必定会冻坏了他们的“灵”与“肉”。

让我们像疾风一般,傲居在宵小之辈的头顶之上——以雄鹰为伴,以冰雪为邻,在阳光的沐浴中生活——那便是疾风生命的轨迹。

像疾风一般——总有一天,我会穿梭于宵小之辈的腰间与背上,用我的精神窒息他们的呼吸——总有一天,我会实现自己的夙愿。

不错,扎拉图斯拉就是一股强劲的疾风——它将吹遍地球上所有的角落;它将告诫对手及其所有以唾沫伤人的人:尔等小心为妙,不得迎风而唾!……

机灵,岂但如此?

(一)

论智力,总比别人多根筋;论机灵,总比别人多根弦——诸如此类的问题,总也不曾少打搅人。不过,对于那些没什么实际意义的问题,那些无聊的事情——鄙人从不白费工夫去考虑、去涉猎便是了——譬如,鄙人从不涉足什么宗教难题之类的破烦事儿。至于,像在何种意义上,人应该有什么“伏罪”感之类的问题,鄙人便全然不知所以了。同样,鄙人更没有什么良心自责一类的内疚可言:什么扪心自问,哪来的道听途说——对此,鄙人毫无敬意可言……不过,这里实不该留一手,以便后发制人——宁愿当场将邪恶的结果揭露于世,并从价值观上剖析邪恶的过程,这才是鄙人做事的原则。因为,一旦知道了邪恶的结果,人们便会怀疑他们所做过的事情:在鄙人看来,所谓良心的自责,实际上是一种相信邪恶的心理反应。越是错了,越是要提醒自己错了,这便是一种自我尊重——换言之,这便是符合尼采伦理学原则的做法。什么“上帝”,什么“灵魂不死”,什么“赎罪”,什么“来世”——对于这些观念,鄙人从来都没有兴趣,也没有时间去理睬它们,鄙人从小就是这个脾气——或许,对付这一类事情,鄙人从来都不敢“孩子气”十足的!据说,无神论者是主张理性之推理的,而对于事实的本身他们并不在乎。对于这些,鄙人全然不知:这,显然也是鄙人的天性所致了。尼采好奇、尼采多疑、尼采目空一切,那些不成熟的结论,从来都不能满足尼采的胃口。譬如,信奉上帝,便是一个不成熟的结论——一个同思想家的观念背道而弛的粗率结论——乃至在本质上,便是对思想家们的一个赤裸裸的禁令:不许你们思考!……按照神学家们的诠释,“拯救人类”的不是别的——而是他们的奇谈怪论,这是一个异乎寻常的说法:是一个关于人类“精神”营养的问题,对此鄙人便不能不发生极大的兴趣。为了方便起见,按照常规我们可以这样设想:“为了获得最大的体力、最好的文艺复兴时期的艺术品、最为脱俗的德行,人们该怎样修炼自己呢?”——在这些方面,鄙人的经验简直贫乏极了;鄙人接触这类问题太晚,无从尽快获得经验,对于这一点,连我自己也感到惊讶。唯有一文不值的德意志教育——及其“理想主义”——可以从某种程度上解释为什么偏偏在这一点上,鄙人怎么也赶不上“教皇”的要求。这种“教育”,从一开始就教导鄙人忽略现实,一味地追逐虚无缥缈的、“理想”的人生目标。譬如,德意志的“古典教育”就是一个例子——似乎,企图将“古典”和“德意志”从概念上合而为一,并不是一件毫无收获的事情!再说,一个生活在现代社会的莱比锡人,却得接受古典式的德意志教育,这难道不是一件滑稽可笑的事情吗?!——说老实话,为了赎回厨师和那些基督教徒们的面子,鄙人从小到大都没吃过几顿像样的饭——按照所谓伦理学的术语说,那便是“非我主义”、“忘我主义”、“利他主义”等等。然而,正是在莱比锡人膳食的陪伴下,鄙人完成了早期的叔本华研究(1865年),而且认真地改变了自己的“生命意愿”。以伤害自己的胃口为代价,去接受一种不合时宜的营养观念——在鄙人看来,上述的烹调术足以圆满地回答这个问题了。那么,一般意义上的德意志烹调术——在什么地方昧了它的良心呢?!

餐前羹——直到十六世纪,在威尼斯食谱中依然含有“去德意志”的意思;肉片,油面菜;(镇纸压制的)变质布丁!如此食谱,如果用上古兽性十足的餐饮方式用膳,那就绝不仅仅是古德意志人才了解德意志精神的渊源了——此,乃伤肠害胃之道也……德意志精神是一种食古不化的典型,谁也对付不了。——不过,相对于德意志乃至法兰西的饮食习惯,英吉利的饮食习惯则大有“回归天性”或是“同类相餐”的味道——不管怎样,鄙人的胃口是受不了的;在鄙人看来,这似乎像在精神的躯体上添加了一双沉重的脚丫——一双英吉利女人的脚丫……不过,最佳的饮食习惯,大概要算是皮德蒙特人的了。

鄙人,不善用酒;一杯红酒或是啤酒下肚,都足以让我一整天都在“云里雾里”度过——那是谁都不情愿做的事情。懂得这一点,虽然迟了一些,——可经历这一点,却是鄙人从孩提时起就有过的事。就像抽烟一般,小时候只觉得喝酒不过是青少年轻狂的举止而已,后来不知不觉地便养成了喝酒的坏习惯。得到如此严肃的教训,或许还是拜瑙姆堡葡萄酒所赐呢。果真相信喝酒会使人精神振奋起来的话,说不定鄙人早已变成一个基督徒了——那便是让鄙人去相信连自己都以为是最荒唐的事儿。不过,奇怪的是,只要少许饮用一点度数很低的烈酒,自己都会感到浑身不自在;如果再稍稍地多来一点儿,那便足以令人晕头转向了。

然而,在写作方面,鄙人——却从小便表现出非凡的意志来——雄心勃勃,笔耕不辍,立志模仿偶像塞勒斯特 〔6〕 严谨而简明的写作风格。为了用拉丁文写就一篇巨制论文,尼采常常会伏案写作,彻夜不眠,之后还得接着将文中的内容写成报道材料,以备报刊发表之用;而且,文章脱稿之后,还得在写好的拉丁论文上涂一层顶好的保护膜,以防文本损坏。这些事儿,在鄙人还是著名的

(舒尔)普福塔 〔7〕 中学学生的时候,就开始做了。或许,这些都同鄙人的生理学观念直接相关;或许,并不见得同塞勒斯特的生理学观念有所相悖——尽管这同(舒尔)普福塔中学的办学理念在很大程度上是不相吻合的……说实话,直至后来人到中年的时候,鄙人才从严格意义上远离了任何“高酒精成分的”饮料;但是,因为在生活经验上反对素食主义,鄙人便不能郑重其事地劝诫那些超凡脱俗的人们滴酒不沾。这一点,或许同理查德·瓦格纳只能改变鄙人志趣而不能改变鄙人志向的道理是一样的。水足以满足人的各种需要……,因而谁都喜欢住在处处都有清泉流动的地方(如尼斯、都灵、锡尔斯等地);一杯清泉之水,会像一只爱犬一般每每陪伴在你的身边——那是多么惬意!常言道“酒后吐真言”:然而,在这一点上——关于什么是“真言”的问题,鄙人又该同世界较真儿了——在鄙人这里,“真言”是像流水一般运动的……这里的教训足以给人们更多的启示。

谁知道?一次盛宴要比一顿素餐容易消化得多。消化良好的前提是,胃口的各项功能都能协调发挥。首先,你得知道你胃口的大小——为了避免消化不良,你得回避那些单调乏味、耗时过多的聚餐,这里不妨名之曰“间歇式献祭宴会”,就像那些旅馆或者饭店中的客饭席一般的小宴会。——两餐之间,不用零食,不喝咖啡——咖啡会使你忧郁、沮丧、不振作。早晨用茶,好处最多,量不必大,味却得浓:沏茶过淡,不利健康,甚至会让人整天都面带病容,萎靡不振。万事、万物皆有度,恰倒好处最难得。天气不佳时,早晨便不宜用茶了:只需在平日用茶时间的前一个小时,喝上一杯浓浓的去脂可可茶便可以了。——小坐;不必幻想户外会有气象万千,因为思绪若不定,筋骨便不安。偏见,无不源自人体内部。——得静心,得用功——前文曾有涉及——独与“圣灵”相对立,实乃罪过也。

(二)

跟营养问题最接近的,自然是地理和气候问题了。对于居住之地,谁都不能没有自己的选择;可是,就一个肩负使命的人而言,他得付出九牛二虎之力才足以了事,因为对这类人而言,居住之地的挑选余地,实在是太小了。譬如,他们得考虑那里的气候是不是会影响其新陈代谢的节奏问题——会减慢,还是会加快?甚至,连同居住点和气候状况相关的大大小小的问题全都要考虑进去——因为任何一次不经意的疏漏,都可能使他们疏远自己的工作,甚至还可能使他们终身放弃自己的社会职责:当然,他们自己也可能从来都没有意识到这一点——生命的活力,为什么不足以使其得心应手地从事自己所熟悉的智力工作呢?在这方面,又是非鄙人莫属了……不过,在鄙人看来,单单一个新陈代谢的节奏问题还是微不足道的,因为它——还不至于酿成一种不良的积习,乃至将一位天才人物变成一个庸碌之辈——一个“德意志”般的庸才;或许,惟有德意志的天气,才足以降低强健而神奇的五脏功能。新陈代谢的节奏,同一个人精神气质的动与静有着密切的关系;其实,精神本身就是新陈代谢的一种反映。如果我们将这些不同的反映,用表格的方式排列出来,就会发现有的地方适宜于居住或者居住过天才,有的地方适宜于居住将智慧、精明、谋略看作幸福的人,有的地方则总是适宜于天才们安家:而且,他们总是各得其所。巴黎、普罗旺斯、弗洛伦萨、耶路撒冷、雅典——这些地名都足以告诉人们:天高气爽、万里无云的地方,乃是天才的摇篮——换言之,快节奏的新陈代谢——汲取无穷能量的几率才是孕育天才的先决条件。曾经有过这样一个例子,有一位本应成为重量级人物的自由人士,最终却竟然成了一个心胸狭窄、孤陋寡闻、脾气暴躁的家伙,其原因不过是由于缺乏感觉的本能性灵敏,而选择了气候不宜的居住地点而已。幸亏病魔让鄙人变得理智而聪慧,并且学会了用推理的方式辨别现实,否则便难保鄙人也会遭此下场。如今,经由长期的实际磨练,鄙人已经能够像从一台精确而可靠的气象仪器上读数一样,说出各地气候的基本情况来。甚至,在短途的旅行中,鄙人还能够根据自身的生理体验,觉察出空气湿度的变化来,譬如从都灵到米兰的旅程中就是这样。

想起近十年不可思议的生活来,我至今还会后怕。那十年,是我生命的危险期,生活在一个与生命需要根本不相适宜的地方——自然,肯定是一个选错了的地方。瑙姆堡、(舒尔)普福塔、图林根、莱比锡、巴塞尔、威尼斯——就鄙人身体的生理状况而言,这些都是命中不该去的地方。

至于,童年和青年时期,是根本不值得回忆的,而如果将这些都归咎于所谓道德教育的缘故,那就未免太愚蠢了——譬如,鄙人没有志同道合的伙伴,这是无可非议的:因为,至今鄙人仍然没有志同道合者相随,或许永远都不会有,可是这些还不至于妨碍鄙人勇敢无畏、兴高采烈地生活。不懂生理学——憎恶“理想主义”——是鄙人生命中两个无以回避的致命弱点,其中有冗余的东西,也有愚蠢的表现,二者都不是善举,因为它们既无以补偿,又无从反驳。

所有人生中的失误,乃至所有致使离开人生目标的本性和态度上的变化,鄙人都将它们看作是“理想主义”所招致的后果。譬如,在鄙人为什么会成为一位语文学家的问题上——或许,有人会说,尼采起码可以成为一位内科医生或是别的什么足以惊人耳目的人物,为什么没有呢?等等。在巴塞尔大学的那些日子里,鄙人的精力非常充沛,但是鄙人的整个精神生活,却是一塌糊涂的——生命的意义何在,从不考虑,从不反省;在每天的时间安排上,全是重复性的内容,从来都不会用什么别的内容替换那些重叠的东西。不过,那时候却没有什么肮脏的自私心理,也没有什么所谓发自本能的自我保护意识什么的——可以说人人都是平等的,一切都是“无私”的,一切都是“忘我”的——然而,到头来,这些却都成了鄙人永远也不能原谅自己的地方。差一点儿,没走到生命的尽头,因为差一点儿,便到了生命的终点——就这样,尼采便开始反省那些生命中本来就不合理的东西——“理想主义”。谢天谢地!——是“病魔”将我带上了——回归真实世界的路。——

(三)

一是,选择养分;二是,选择气候和居地;三则,必定是选择一种修身养性的方式了——这样,人生就不至于再犯大大小小的毛病了。所有这些,对于自成一类的人物来说,要求便会更苛刻一些;然而,就他们本身的利益而言,却会更有用一些。就鄙人而言,广泛的阅读乃是自我修养的方式之一:因此,凡能给鄙人自由的书籍,凡能让鄙人在奇怪的学科和思想之间闲庭信步的书目——总之,凡此种种都是鄙人阅读的对象——不过,鄙人倒不必将它们过于当真。准确地说,正是广泛的阅读,将鄙人从一本正经的较真中解救了出来。平日里,在埋头工作的时候,鄙人身边是不留书的:也不允许任何人在身边说话,甚至连在身边思考问题也不行。然而,这正是我阅读的奥妙之所在……读者可曾注意到,在大脑高度集中的状态下,整个思维乃至整个肌体都处于一个精神酝酿的过程之中,任何偶发事件、任何外部的刺激都会对主体构成一个意外的刺激——都会引起主体一个意外的反应。于是,主体必须尽可能避免任何突发的事件、任何强烈的刺激;筑起一道自我保护的壁垒,乃是培养灵感——孕育精神的本能的、明智的策略之一。那么,要不要特许某个奇异的思想,悄然地爬过这个自我保护的壁垒呢?——毋须讳言,这便是阅读的初衷了……劳动与收获同修身与养性,应当交替而行,轮换而做:因为同修身养性为伴的是快乐,是智慧,是智慧的结晶——书!然者,是德意志的书吗?……这,便得从半年前打鄙人手上滑过的一本书说起。那是一本什么书呢?——那是维克托·布罗夏德的一项研究成果,其书名是《古希腊怀疑论者(研究)》,其中引用了鄙人《第欧根尼·拉尔修论集》 〔8〕 中的不少观点。在两重和五重(歧义)模糊哲学中,古希腊的怀疑论是唯一值得尊崇的哲学思想!……否则,鄙人大概就会永远在几本(数量的确不多)同类的书中周旋,也只能仅对这类书籍的内容了如指掌了。或许,鄙人生性不愿多读、滥读:如果老是闷在书房里自会受不了的。鄙人生来也不愿多爱、泛爱:对于新书,鄙人的态度是——与其“忍”着读,放心看,或者存点儿敬意耐心看,倒不如小心一点儿,乃至敌对一些的好,……说真的,在古典法兰西作家中,只有位数不多的几个,值得人们爱不释读:鄙人仅笃信法兰西文化,并且认为将所有欧洲的东西全都称之为“文化”乃是一个误会,更不必提德意志文化了……在德意志的文化高人中,鄙人所知者并不多,而且究其根底,他们还都是曾经受过法兰西文化熏陶的人。首屈一指的,自然是瓦格纳夫人科茜玛了——她嗓音的天资,的确是一流的。鄙人虽不读帕斯卡,但却喜欢帕斯卡,因为在为基督捐躯者中他是最富教益的人物,先是生理的牺牲,后是心理的逐杀,他都无一幸免——这,便是基督教残无人性的全部逻辑之所在;或许,鄙人天生便有蒙田 〔9〕 的任性,生来便知蒙田的放荡——是也,非也,天晓得?在艺术家的气度上,鄙人则颇有几分莎士比亚的放荡不羁和愤世嫉俗,即便如此,鄙人仍得维护莫里哀(1622—1673,法国演员及剧作家。——译者注)、柯奈(1606—1684,法国剧作家。——译者注)和拉辛(1639—1699,法国剧作家。——译者注)等法兰西名流的高洁——即便如彼,却毫不影响鄙人对法兰西晚期贤达的敬仰,他们的人数是不在少处的。真不敢想象,历史上还有哪个时代,敢同当今巴黎一样拥有如此好奇而精明的心理学家。这里,试举几例——其人数委实不少——如保罗·布尔热(1852—1935,法国作家、批评家。——译者注)、皮埃尔·洛蒂(1850—1923,法国小说家。——译者注)、吉普、美拉克、阿纳托尔·法朗士(1844—1924,法国小说家。——译者注)、朱尔·勒梅特尔(1800—1876,法国喜剧演员。——译者注),或许还可以举出一位出身显赫的人物来,他便是鄙人特别垂青的拉丁文天才居伊·德·莫泊桑(1850—1893,法国作家。——译者注)。对于他们,我们宁肯偏信后代,而不轻信前代——所谓他们的导师那一代人,因为所谓导师那一代尽为德意志哲学所毒害的人。譬如,M. 泰纳(1828—1893,另译“丹纳”,法国文艺理论家、史学家。——译者注)便是受了黑格尔毒害的人,他对伟人及其时代的误解大概都是拜黑格尔所赐。凡德意志影响所及之处,其文化无不受其侵害。不要忘了,法兰西乃是用战争“赎回”其文化精神的……司汤达(1783—1842,又译“斯丹达尔”,法国作家。——译者注)乃是鄙人人生路上难得的遇合之一——因为凡是鄙人人生中具有里程碑意义的东西都是偶然发生的,绝无什么他人的指点之类——而司公之于心理学的见地乃是独具慧眼的,司公之于事态的悟性,则足以使你离真实的伟人最近——看到鹰爪,便知道拿破仑要来了,其价值是无法估量的;最后,必须提及的便是,法兰西历史上难得的稀罕人物——鄙人得另眼看待的、可敬的无神论者普罗斯佩·梅里美……或许,在二公之间,鄙人还得偏重于司汤达?因为,在无神论的境界上,司公与我——或者我与司公殊途同归了,司公笑道:“上帝最好的借口,便是他并不存在”……而尼采,竟也在什么地方说过:“而今,存在的威胁者,何也?曰:上帝……”

(四)

我在所有千年的王国里追寻,追寻那种美妙而富有激情的乐章——最终都以徒劳而告终。抒情诗人,乃是海因里希·海涅(1797—1856,德国诗人、政论家。——译者注)给我的最高的称谓。海涅——借给鄙人一种天赐的怨恨,离开了这个怨恨,鄙人便无以完成那美妙的想象——因为,在判断人类及其种族的价值时,便是看他们能不能将上帝同萨梯(半人半兽的森林之神<希神>。——译者注)区分开来。——海涅的德语造诣极高!总有一天,会有人宣布鄙人和海涅都是一流的德文大师——无论在哪一方面,都是德意志的本土人士所望尘莫及的。

——世人必将以尼采的语言天赋同拜伦《曼弗雷德》 〔10〕 的语言艺术相提并论:鄙人早已独自发现了万恶之渊——而那时,鄙人不过十三岁而已。无“词”以对,只是想看看是什么人胆敢在《曼弗雷德》的面前重提《浮士德》 〔11〕 的大名。德意志人是无以得知“伟大”概念的内涵的:舒曼(1810—1856,德国作曲家。——译者注)便是一例。

出于对口蜜腹剑的撒克逊人 〔12〕 的愤慨,鄙人为《曼弗雷德》作了“跋”。对此,汉斯·冯·比洛却质疑说,他不曾在原稿中见过此类“跋”文:这简直是对神灵的冒犯。于是,鄙人便在莎士比亚的创作范式中寻找文学的最佳格式,发现凯撒(大帝)的形象乃是莎翁独到的笔触,绝不是他人照猫画虎便足以得来的笔墨——人们绝不敢想象连这样的事情也会发生。于是,要么就是它,要么绝不是它。伟大诗人的创作是唯一的,因为他所依据的真实是唯一的——在作品完成之后,即便是作者本人也不能再一次忍受同样的境遇——以便复制作品的原貌了……鄙人,曾试图再次经历《扎拉图斯拉的独白》的“坎坷”——然而,即便在书屋中踱步半晌,也只能以一阵难以控制的抽噎无果而终了。——不知世间还有什么著述能比读莎士比亚的戏剧更让人撕心裂肺:试想——使一个滑稽戏剧中的小丑感人至此,作家要经受多大的磨难!——哈姆雷特感人吗?使读者发狂的,不是疑惑,而是信以为真……然而,要察觉到人物的真实性,读者还得有这个造诣,有这个修养,还得有一个推理正常的头脑……所有的人,都会敬畏真理……而且,说实话:鄙人从不怀疑培根先生乃是怪诞文学的开创者、自戕者:既如此,又何须在乎美利坚那些知识浅薄、头脑不清的可怜虫呢?然而,想象中的真实之所以感人,乃是因为它来自事实中的真实感受(如行为之怪异、犯罪之真实等,都必须是和谐的、共存的、一致的),甚至后者乃是前者的先决条件……无论在何种意义上,培根先生都是首屈一指的唯实论者,但是实际上人们对他——要做什么?做了些什么?乃至他的内心世界是什么?都还知之甚少……见鬼去吧,可爱的批评家先生们!

假若,当初鄙人予扎拉图斯拉的取名不是如此,而是名之以经由洗礼的“理查德·瓦格纳”,那么,两千多年之后,人们对《人性的,太人性的》 〔13〕 的作者推测就不会仅仅满足于那是扎拉图斯拉的幻觉的结局了……

(五)

这里,在涉及鄙人生命创造力的问题之前,先得说句感恩的话,以便对改变鄙人人生价值观发生过影响的方方面面,表达真诚的、意味深长的感激之情。毫无疑问,这里最亲密的关系都是和理查德·瓦格纳的名字联系在一起的。至于,所欠其他人的情谊,鄙人都可以一笔带过;然而,不管怎样在特里布森的那些日子,鄙人是决不会忘记的,那是彼此信任的时光,那是令人兴奋的时光,那是极其难得的时光——那是弥足珍贵的时光……鄙人,虽不知别人同瓦格纳相处的阅历:然而,鄙人却鉴证了我俩——彼此友谊的象征,乃是万里无云的长空。——说到这里,又得提起法国了——对瓦格纳的粉丝还有其他的追随者来说,只要他们觉得瓦格纳身上还有什么同他们相似的地方,那便是他们在向瓦格纳先生表示敬慕了。对此,鄙人该有千条理由拥护,没有半点借口妒忌……其实,鄙人也是一样的——骨子里从不接受德意志的东西,甚至连见到一个德意志般的人影儿,也会倒了鄙人的胃口。于是,同瓦格纳的第一次接触,便注定要成为鄙人人生中大口吸氧的头一回:在鄙人的眼中,瓦格纳便像是外星来客一般,像是德意志人的对立面,乃至于——简直是所有德意志德行的反面教材。——“德意志人”这个概念,对从小呼吸“沼泽空气”长大的五十多岁的人来说,简直是悲观主义者的代名词;这些人,除了成为“德意志人”的革命者以外,别无选择——无论怎样,这些人都绝不会对那些固执偏见的现象保持沉默的——即便它们会改头换面,即便它们身披红装,再着以(欧洲)轻骑兵式的制服,在鄙人看来,那也是完全无关大局的事情……谁都知道,瓦格纳也是一位叛逆者——也逃离过德国人的藩篱……除了巴黎以外,艺术家便无以在欧洲找到自己的栖身之地:因为,只有在巴黎,艺术家才足以找到瓦格纳所设想的五种柔和的感觉,如手指上的细微差别、心理上的病态感觉,等等。在艺术激情的表现力上,在艺术摄制的严肃性上,绝没有什么地方可以同巴黎同日而语——那是典型的巴黎式“严肃”,乃是绝无仅有的艺术语言。惊世骇俗的抱负,乃是法兰西艺术家的灵魂,而在德意志却连这种概念也不曾有过。德意志人,本性“从善”——而瓦格纳却偏偏生来便不知“从善”为何物……好在,鄙人已多次交代了瓦格纳的人格以及什么人同他来往最多的问题:瓦格纳是法国后期的浪漫主义艺术家,像德拉克洛瓦和柏辽兹(1803—1869,法国作曲家。——译者注)一样,也是那种野心勃勃而足以令人亢奋的艺术家,他们天生病态,无药可救,是滔滔不绝的狂热分子,是彻彻底底的艺术名家……那么,谁是瓦格纳最虔诚的首席信徒呢?那无疑是查尔斯·波德莱尔了,不过他也是第一个解读德拉克洛瓦的人。德拉克洛瓦是一个典型的颓废者,一个足以让整整一代艺术家认识自己的人——或许,他也是瓦格纳的最后一个信徒……尽管如此,在某些方面我却永远也不能原谅瓦格纳——他屈尊于德意志人——乃至于变成了德意志之外的德意志人……足见,只要在德意志影响可以延伸到的地方,文化便难免遭殃。

(六)

不管怎样,离开了瓦格纳的音乐,尼采是熬不过那病魔缠身的青年时代的。尼采,生而屈尊为德意志人——一个人想要摆脱难以忍受的屈辱,必得求助于精神上的麻醉。于是,鄙人便找到了瓦格纳——在尼采眼中,瓦格纳乃是德意志绝无仅有的解毒之物——不过,它本身也是一种毒物,这是毋庸置疑的……只要一听到《特里斯坦》的钢琴乐曲响起,尼采便会随之而成为瓦格纳的同路人——我的冯·比洛先生,这可不是我的恭维话!不过,对于瓦格纳早期的作品,鄙人却实在是不敢仰视的——因为它们实在是太普通,太“德意志”化了……尽管这样,我仍然企望还能找到像《特里斯坦》那样令人惊魂动魄,那样余音绕梁的佳作——鄙人翻遍了所有的“艺术”作品,然而还是得认输了。在《特里斯坦》的第一个音符面前,列奥纳多·达芬奇所有的“奇特”都会黯然失色。《特里斯坦》是瓦格纳的登峰造极之作;之后,他接着又创作了《迈斯特的歌手》和《指环》,望能赶上《特里斯坦》的辉煌——然而,使瓦格纳始料未及的是,其结果却偏偏不能如他所愿——这,大概也是天资使然……鄙人,可算是生逢其时,还能偏偏在德意志人群中幸运地存活下来,以便有所担当——鄙人,心智敏捷而好奇善问,足以完成天赋的使命——此,乃鄙人三生有幸之遇合也。对于一个从未病至“快意癫狂”的人,世界是不会眷顾的:因为,那几乎是一种必须履行的义务——乃至于一种必须以神奇的方式才足以奏效的结果。瓦格纳之所以能取得惊人的成就,是因为唯有他才长满了足以在千奇百怪、若喜若狂的大千世界里遨游的羽翼。这一点,鄙人比谁都心知肚明;而鄙人,则有足够的能力将问题最多、危险最大的劣势化为自身的优势,从而使自身倍加强大起来。不难想见,瓦格纳注定会成为鄙人生命中的施主。于是,我们相依为命——我们承受了这个世纪的常人所不能承受的磨难,我们苦得其所,我们的名字将永远写在一起;自然,也像瓦格纳常常会被德意志人误读一样,尼采也绝不会逃过这一劫的——永远也逃不过这一劫。——不过,我的德意志先生们:要理解这两位大师,你们还得花上两个世纪的心智和艺术的修行啊!只怕——你们是达不到这个境界的。——

(七)

对那些特别优异的读者,鄙人这里还得多说上几句:音乐到底给了鄙人什么呢?恰似十月里的一个午后天,音乐给了鄙人愉悦的情怀和微妙的感觉;恰似一个小巧而迷人的女人,音乐给了鄙人个性、奢侈和温婉……鄙人,从未奢望过德意志民族中会出一个懂得音乐的人。通常,所谓德意志的音乐家,特别最有名望的那些人,如果要究其出身的话,其实——他们偏偏一个也不是真正的德意志人?——要么是斯拉夫人、要么是克罗地亚人、要么是意大利人、要么是荷兰人——要么,甚至还是犹太人呢:不然,便是德意志高贵血统的人,或是杳无传人的德意志人,如海因里希·舒尔茨、巴赫和亨德尔,等等。至于尼采本人,足以称得上是一个地道的波兰人,因而又足以步肖邦音乐之后尘了;基于三个理由,鄙人要将瓦格纳的《西格弗里德田园曲》(牧歌)排除在高雅音乐之外,这里或许还应该包括李斯特(1811—1886,匈牙利钢琴家和作曲家。——译者注)的几个作品——虽然,李斯特以其管弦乐队的高雅器乐的格调,略胜其他音乐家一筹。最后,还必须提到的,是阿尔卑斯山脉那边儿的音乐人——说到这里……便不能不提到罗西尼(1792—1868,意大利作曲家。——译者注),更不能不涉及南部的音乐家——威尼斯音乐大师皮特洛·加斯蒂。鄙人之所谓阿尔卑斯山脉的那边儿,其实仅仅是指威尼斯而已;而当鄙人试图以另外一个名词去替代“音乐”二字时,恐怕也只有“威尼斯”一词足以担当此任了。在鄙人的音乐世界里——音乐和眼泪,总是难解难分;在鄙人音乐的词典中——幸福同“南部”总是紧紧地联系在一起,而那幸福的南部——又总是同微微颤动的心灵连接在一起的。

近日, 〔14〕

一个茶褐色的夜晚,

独自地,我伫立在桥头儿,

打远方,传来一阵悠扬的歌儿:

宛如一颗金色的水珠儿,

颤抖着,打水面滚来——越滚越近。

艘艘狭长的船儿,道道夜晚的光儿,声声飞来的音儿——

醉一般,游进那朦胧的夜……

我的心——一把上了弦儿的琴,

一双无形的手——拨动着那根敏感的弦儿——

奏出一首美妙的歌儿,附和着——那船上的曲儿,

我的心,颤抖着,颤抖着——那是幸福的炫耀。

——有人,

——听到否?

(八)

前述诸项选择——养分的选择、气候和居地的选择,乃至修养方式的选择——都与人类自我保护的天性息息相关。人类需要对这些条件进行自我选择,说明自我保护乃是人类自卫的天性,这是毋庸置疑的。不必亲眼看到许多,不必亲耳听见许多,也不必亲自做过许多——只要有一次经验便能够足智多谋,只要有一回事实便足以证明本能的自卫不是可有可无的儿戏,而是务必达到的条件。关于自卫的天性,最能说明问题的例证莫过于味觉的灵敏了。在紧急情况下,尽管说“是”——可能是一种“正常”的反应,可人们却常常还是会情不自禁地说“不”,而且总是要把说“不”的声音压得很低。于是,人们便会设法躲开或者回避那些常常需要说“不”的场面。这里的理论依据是,自卫是一种消费性的东西,而且还不是一种低消费,这种消费还会形成一种潜规则,一种坏习惯,从而导致某种特殊的、完全没有必要的窘境或者发生尴尬情形。可见,人们最大的损失,常常是因为最小或者最寻常的毛病所招致的。避开那些小毛病,远离那些小毛病,也是需要花费代价的——在这个问题上,人们是不该自欺欺人的——因为,那便是在不必要的问题上耗费精力。但是,如果仅仅靠一味回避毛病来解决问题,人们便会无力实施自卫。——假如,鄙人迈出了房门,出现在眼前不是幽静而富有贵族气派的都灵,而是德意志的某个地方城市:我辈便会本能地封闭自我,以便排除由眼前这个懦弱而乏味的世界所带来的一切压力。假如,出现在鄙人眼前的是某个德意志的大都会,其建筑风格不雅,且众木不生、良莠不齐而杂乱无章——如是,鄙人或许得变作豪猪,背着身子,退避三舍了。——然而,如此弄得浑身是刺,恐怕是一种恣意妄为——即便允许你浑身无刺,只剩一双慷慨之拳,或许那是一种加倍的奢侈……

另一种明智的自卫方式是,或尽可能不做任何反应,或尽可能远离复杂的局面和人际关系,免得自身的“自由”和“主动”被人家剥夺,又从而成为别人的囊中之物。以书代游,便是鄙人的教义。在鄙人看来,学者不过是“翻动”书本的人物而已——一位文献学家,每天少说也得“翻动”二百本书——可最终他自己却丧失了思考的良机;一旦翻书停止了,他便无从思考了;即便他思考了,也不过是对某种刺激——某种他所翻动过的内容的反应而已——显然,文献学家的一次思考不过是一个反应罢了。学者们,只会将自己毕生的精力都耗费在对现成思想的肯定或否定上,而他们所批判的也不过是别人已经思考过的东西——他自己是不必思考(没有思想的)的……正是在这种情形下,学者们自卫的本能便为之削弱了;要不然,他们便会跟书过不去。足见,学者们是一个堕落的群体。——这些,便是鄙人亲眼所见:本来天资聪颖,思维敏捷,而且人格自由的青年人,早已在他们三十多岁的黄金时段,因为“读”书而“毁”掉了他们的前程——他们活着的意义,仅在于像火柴棍一样——只需在既定要为之点燃的那一刻——才能够释放一点所谓的火花——过着“思想”而已。

——清晨,天刚破晓,万象俱新,谁人不是精力正旺——哪个不是神情正好?偏偏得用这一段最佳的时光,去读书——真乃罪过也!——

(九)

至此,鄙人便必须切实面对如何兑现自我价值的问题了。为此,鄙人精心撰写了关于自我维持的方式问题,即关于“自私”的艺术问题,那是别人的得意之笔……假若我们的使命、职业和天命都在相当程度都超越了一般的意义,那么我们最大的风险,莫过于在使命的关照下认知自我。之所以需要兑现个体的价值,乃是因为人们往往不能从最长远的意义上读懂自己。换言之,人们并不懂得“自我”意味着什么。正是在这个意义上,即便是生命中的跌跌撞撞——一时的失足、失误、贻误、羞怯乃至过于拘谨等等,都会以外因的方式影响到使命的进程——其实,这些看似消极的阅历,都是有其积极意义和价值的——都是大智——乃至特智的另一种表达方式: 〔15〕 因为,“懂我”或许正是对付“毁我”的妙方,忘我、误我、虐我、贬我、庸我的做法则无一不是“毁我”的根源所在。如果用道德主义者的说法,则是:只要爱他人,为他人、他物而生存,再严重的利己主义都足以得到保护。显然,这是站在“无私”的立场上说话的。这是一反鄙人往常做法和信念的情形,不过只是一个例外而已:其实,所谓的道德主义者,本来就是以自私自利为行,以自我教养为业的。——人类的意识必须完全摆脱外部命令的强行制约——因为,意识本来就是一个客观、外在而不受约束的存在物。另外,还必须提防不实之辞、不妥之念的负面干扰。可见,只有排除了所有的“风险”,天性便会“自我觉醒”——同时,那些注定要指挥你行为的组织“观念”便会越来越根深蒂固,同时开始居高临下,发号施令,并逐渐将你从边道、弯路上拽回,激活你足以独立的资质和能力——总有一天,这些资质和能力会化为成就你事业不可或缺的积淀乃至手段——除了足以为你的使命、目标、目的及其意义提供有益启示以外,还表现出其他的辅助功能来。——由此看来,鄙人的生活是简单的,也是奇妙的。既然需要重新估定所有的价值,就得有超乎常人的能力。不过,这些能力却不得自相矛盾,自相对立。能力要有秩序;有区别(差异);分类方式不能相互抵触;能力之间必须相互谐调,不得相互混淆,诸多能力之结构绝对不能杂乱无章——所有这些便是鄙人成功的先决条件,也是鄙人天生的工作方式,乃至长期积淀的劳动秘密。至于对自身的内在修养,鄙人却从来都不做最明确的规划和设计。这个事实说明,能力的增长只能通过对天性的善加呵护去实现。懂得这一点是重要的——但是,必须明白:总有一天,鄙人所有的能力都会在一夜之间趋于成熟,达到巅峰——达成终极的完美。正因为这样,鄙人从来也不曾觉得生命中会有什么烦恼的事情——更找不到什么强勉奋争的痕迹,因为:鄙人天生就不是一块什么英雄的料。要“得到”什么,要“追求”什么,立什么“目标”,树什么“夙愿”之类的宏图大志——鄙人生命的过程中,从来都没有这般的事。即便在此刻,眺望生命的未来——遥远的未来!——也恰似眺望那空空如也的大海:大风吹皱了所有的海面,却不见一丝儿奢望。一切便是一切,不必做丝毫的变动;尼采便是尼采,何须做多余的润色?……谁都可以存疑,不过那便是鄙人永久的生命方式。鄙人,心无鸿鹄之志,何必躲躲闪闪!若夫,岁逾不惑之年,谁人不追名逐利?哪个不图女人欢?——不过,尼采尚无此愿也……虽曾荣获过学府里的教授头衔——却也未曾奢望过那档子事——那阵子,尼采——不过一个二十四岁的人而已。

(十)

有人一定会问:尼采怎么就会讲述些传统上微不足道的事情?回答是:既然注定要担当人间之大任,尼采便得加倍“考验”自己。在尼采眼中:关于营养、地域、气候、修身之方式乃至对自我中心主义之诡辩,这些常人所微不足道者——其意义超越了所有概念的重要性,远不是迄今为止人们以为最为重要的东西所能比。准确地说,人们务必学会用新的——不同的方式,重新审度以往的事与物;而且,务必从当下便开始。其实,迄今为止,人们所信以为真的东西,也绝非全然属实,乃至尚有纯属臆测者耳——如果从更为深刻的意义上说,那些所谓臆测之事物,不过是渊源于人性之病态乃至劣根之性质的谎言罢了——诸如“上帝”、“灵魂”、“美德”、“罪孽”、“来世”、“真理”和“永生”一类的概念,全都是谎言……问题在于,人们却偏偏非要从这里找出一个人性的“伟大”和“神圣”来不可……于是,害群之马便被奉为贤达之士;结果,所有政治的问题,社会的秩序,乃至教育的制度都从根本上扭曲了——审度以往的是非——蔑视一切的谎言,则被说成是生命中无足轻重的“琐事”,而加以非难……于是,鄙人便不得不将自己同古往今来的名流贤达置于同一个天平之上——区别,乃是显而易见的。好在,鄙人并没有将这里天平上的名流及其贤达划归于人类的范畴——因为,在鄙人的眼中,他们生性有病,图谋有毒,是人类的渣子,是发育不良的怪胎:完全是一群恶贯满盈、不可救药的怪兽;而其所为之事,不过是对人类进行的报复而已……鄙人必以这群怪兽为敌:于是,无以伦比的机敏,便是鄙人健全天性的反应,便是鄙人与众不同的殊能。鄙人之健体,绝无病态之倾向——即便在病魔缠身的时期,也绝没有疾殇之心态;至于对宗教的狂信、盲信,那更是与鄙人生性无关的了。鄙人,不须曲尊,何必傲慢?怜悯,从来都不是伟大的表现;高呼怜悯者,必是虚伪之辈……谨防一切口蜜腹剑之流!——于尼采,生活是简单的;而于最复杂的事务,生活却偏偏是最简单的。就在今秋的七十多天里,基于对未来数千年的责任之心,为了撰写那部一流的、空前而绝后的著述,鄙人几乎与世隔绝……这期间,只要见过一面的人,谁都知道,鄙人并没有丝毫的紧张;相反,鄙人却倍感精神抖擞,兴致勃勃——从来也没有吃得那么香甜,睡得那么踏实。——表现伟大的使命,除了用戏曲的方式外,鄙人——着实不知道还有什么更好的选择:它是伟大的象征,它是先决的条件。一丝轻微的紧张,一副沮丧的面容,一点嗓门不适的轻咳都会影响一个人的全神贯注——何况尼采是在做一项前无古人的工作呢!……千万不必神经过敏……自然,独居也有独居的苦处,独居也会干扰你的正事——然而,鄙人总是多苦于尘世之“喧闹”……

还是在很小的时候——七岁那一年,鄙人便知道——尼采注定不是一个安分的人——世界现有的语汇中,哪一个也不中尼采的听——然而,谁又见过尼采因此而闷闷不悦呢?时至今日,鄙人依然会同身边的每一个人平等相待,和睦相处,即便是社会底层的平民老百姓,尼采也会抱有恻隐之心:总之,待人接物,明里绝无傲慢之气,暗中亦无诋毁之心。鄙视他人,他人必能察觉:终其一生,鄙人都会对一切存心不良的行为勃然愤怒的……在鄙人这里,衡量一个人是否“伟大”的标准是:看他是否“知命” 〔16〕 ,谁也不必梦想超越天性——过去是这样,将来是这样,永远是这样。务必容忍势必到来的事实,却不必伪装势必发生的事情——在必然世界的面前,一切理想主义的语汇都是苍白而无力的——然而,务必热爱这个世界……

佳作,何以叠出?

(一)

鄙人是鄙人,作品是作品,所谓人为一事,物则为另一事耳。于是,在涉及著述本身之前,还是先将它们是读得还是读不得,做一个“安民告示”的好——不过,只能点到为止便可。其实,必须正式回答这个问题的时机尚未到来,况且鄙人自身的机遇,也未必到来——有些问题恐怕从一开始便注定了——必定要待到鄙人离世之后,才会有一个清晰的答案。然而,总有一天,总有一个地方,人们会像鄙人所预见的那样去传道、去授业——甚至还会建立一个专门诠释扎拉图斯拉的论坛呢。对于这些,谁又敢说不可能呢?然而,如果企望鄙人的逻辑在当今便能够为人所乐听、为人所乐取,那么鄙人便全然地错了。因为,事实是没有人会听鄙人的,没有人会知道何以从鄙人这里获益——反正,人们尚且不能明白鄙人那些深奥的道理;况且,在鄙人自己方面,那些道理也尚且有未尽之宜。谁也不企望被人家误解——于是,鄙人自然要好自为之,不敢自作聪明了。需要重申的是,鄙人平生不存半点“恶意”,也无从将半点“恶意”付诸于尼氏文本——相反,却将太多的“迂腐”注入了鄙人的著述!……在鄙人看来,对任何人而言,持有一本尼氏的著述,都是一件千载难逢的幸事;甚至可以这样设想,他必定会兴奋得跳起了脚而踩丢了鞋——即便踩丢了人家的靴子,那也是预料之中的事……

海因里奇·冯·斯泰因博士曾经诚实地抱怨说,尼氏的《扎拉图斯拉的独白》,他连一个字都没有读懂。其实,问题并没有那么严重——然而,他若是果真读懂了,即便是阅历过其中六句忠言的意味也罢,那么他便会从“凡人”的位置上升到一个相当的高度——即便是这样的高度,也不是“当代人”所能企及的。有了这样一层感觉上的隔膜,何敢奢望鄙人所了解的“当代人”——去识读尼氏的著述呢?严格地说,尼采要走的成功之路和叔本华走过的成功之途乃是恰恰相反的——有道是“不生育,不轻浮”。——这样说,并不是要降低人们拒读尼氏著述的无辜为鄙人所带来的快意。就是在这个刚刚过去的夏天,因为著述任务过重——手头需要处理的文字太多,鄙人已经将其中冗余的部分裁去,也算是求个平衡吧。一位柏林大学的教授好心劝鄙人换一种方式著书,说什么没有人会接受那种叙事的方式——同时还希望鄙人理解这一点。

之后,恰好碰到了两个典型的“例子”,但这两件事情,却都不是发生在德意志,而偏偏是发生在瑞士。一个是,某个“联盟”的V. 威德曼 〔17〕 博士以卡尔.斯比特勒(同为该“联盟”的成员)先生的名义,以“尼采的书是危险的”为题,就《善恶论》 〔18〕 发表短文,对鄙人的著述作了一个总体性评价,那简直是一件鄙人人生中登峰造极的事情——他们居然说出了连作者本人都不敢奢望的“疯话”。另一个,则将《扎拉图斯拉的独白》说成是“一个高级语体的问世”,并且要鄙人随后为他们提供必要的说明;V·威德曼博士还说他钦佩鄙人的勇气,为此鄙人还努力克制过那种体面的感觉呢。虽然其中的话语尚不露天机,以至于连作者本都得佩服他们的严密——但是,那只不过是秃子头上的虱子——明摆着的事实:值得重申的是,人们务必“对以往的价值观念做出重新估定”,以便将钉子钉在鄙人的头上,而不是让鄙人的头碰在钉子的尖上……因为,对鄙人而言,所有要做的事情加在一起,无非是做好一个说明罢了。最重要的是,任何人(包括书籍在内),都不能编造事实。一件不可能阅历的事情,岂可以用耳朵听说?这里随便设想一个极端的例子吧:如果一本书连什么问题都没有涉及,只是用第一人称的方式编造了一种似乎用新的经验堆积起来的事情,那么就连常识乃至稀有的经验都不足以证明那些事情是真实的。在这种情况下,人们又怎么可能听到事实呢?这是一个极为简单的道理,因为:没有人听到,便是没有发生,于是只能称之为道听途说了……其实,这不过是鄙人普通阅历之内的事情而已,或者说,最多不过是鄙人阅历的出处罢了。

一个对鄙人有所了解的人,在经过他自己的判断以后,常常未必一定要成为鄙人的对立面——或许还会多少接受一些鄙人的影响呢,比如一个所谓的“理想主义者”常常就是这样;而一个对鄙人毫无了解的人,则一定会从根本上否认鄙人的东西——乃是鄙人思想的结晶。

“超人” 〔19〕 是一个“类型”,而且是一个至善至美的“类型”——同“现代人”、“善人”、宗教人士以及其他虚无主义者毫无共同之处。在《扎拉图斯拉的独白》中,正是这个“超人”颠覆了传统的道德观念。于是,“超人”便自然而然地变成了一个非常敏感的词语;而在价值观的意义上,又正是这种同传统道德观念毫无共同之处的“对立性”——构成了扎拉图斯拉个性的基本特征,并且几乎处处都会因此而招致与生俱来的非难:甚至将其归属于理想主义“高品位”人群那一类,说什么他是一半“圣人”,一半“天才”的集合……而其他文明一类的畜生们则以他们物以类聚的方式将鄙人猜疑为达尔文主义者;尽管鄙人曾无情地驳斥过卡莱尔的英雄崇拜主义的思想,却仍然有人猜疑鄙人的思想有大骗子卡莱尔(或许他自己并没有意识到这一点,也不情愿让自己成为骗子)英雄崇拜主义的成分。对于这类人,鄙人曾悄悄地提醒他们说:要看看周围的世界,而不要因为西泽·博尔贾或者巴尔锡福尔的影响而不相信自己的耳朵。

对于舆论,特别是报刊关于尼氏著述的议论,鄙人向来都不感兴趣,这一点,朋友们、出版商他们也是知道的,只是没有告诉鄙人罢了。因此,舆论界原本应该是饶了鄙人的。不过,在一个特殊的情况下,鄙人曾经亲眼见证了他们仅就鄙人一本书所数落的所有罪责——那本书便是《善恶论》;关于这件事,这里简直可以讲出一个奇妙的故事来。

还有一家叫做《国民报》的普鲁士周报,那自然是给鄙人那些国外的读者们看的。巧得很,鄙人也读过国外的东西,可以说只有《辩论日报》,竟大着胆子宣称:尼氏的书乃是“时代的产物”,乃是真正天才贵族的哲学。不过,这个胆量,可是《十字报》所没有的;这样说,或许——读者还未必相信呢?……

(二)

以下的话语,就写给意志的国民享用吧?鄙人的书,哪里都有读者——其优选者,惟有出身高贵的智慧之士,且其中还不乏真正的天才人物。在维也纳,在圣彼得堡,在斯德哥尔摩,在哥本哈根,在巴黎,在纽约,到处都可以找到鄙人的读者——显然,鄙人完全不必将自己的读者群限制在欧洲的德意志境内……说实在的,鄙人偏为那些间接的读者们倍受鼓舞。因为,这类读者,有的连鄙人的姓名都不曾听说,有的则甚至连什么是哲学也不曾晓得,然而鄙人每到一地——就说在鄙人所暂且栖身的意大利都灵吧,人们只要看到尼采抛头露面,一个个脸庞儿上便会洋溢着平日里少有的兴奋和善意。给鄙人印象最深的,要算那位超市里年迈的妇人了,每每见到我,她总会使出浑身的力气,将柜子里最甜的葡萄挑给我品尝——在尼采看来,这便是对一个哲学家最大的奖赏……足见,波兰人被呼作斯拉夫人眼中的法兰西公民 〔20〕 ,并非虚言了。

在鄙人的经验中,一位讨人喜欢的俄罗斯女士,是决不会错过任何一次盘问鄙人国籍的机会的——这回事,常使鄙人因腼腆而不善言辞,谁都知道那是最尴尬的局面……对付德意志人,处理德意志事,尼采决无输招,然而——此时此刻,尼采竟束手无策了……鄙人原先的恩师里奇尔曾用心良苦地夸尼采,说凭鄙人的语文才华足以把一篇论说文,写得像发生在巴黎街道上浪漫故事一般精彩——会令人觉得荒诞而又兴奋不已。即便在巴黎,人们也会面对M. 泰恩“所有勇气和计谋”一般的描述而感到惊讶。怕只怕,对古希腊酒神极端的狂热一旦变成一种“永不浸水的盐类混合物”——德意志精神,鄙人便真不知该如何是好了,救救我,上帝!——阿门!

长耳朵,意味着什么——谁都知道,有人甚至还有过切身的体验呢。于是,鄙人便可以断言,尼采的耳朵,是世界上最短的了。这对于女士们来说,是无关要紧的——因为,在鄙人看来,她们都以为尼采已经向他们表示了足够的善意……尼采是一个卓越的反对愚昧者,时又是一个人类历史上的大怪人——在希腊,不仅仅在希腊,尼采完全是一个反对基督的人。

(三)

作为一个作家,鄙人有自己特殊的禀赋,这并非夸大之辞;而在个别情况下,鄙人写作所独有的极大的“摧毁”性品味,则是与生俱来的秉性。人们可以不再理会尼采的著述——最起码可以摆脱尼采哲学的折磨,这是一件极其简单的事情。

来到这个高贵而美妙的世界,是无以伦比的殊荣——但绝对不要沦为德意志的人;那么,最终必定会成为一个杰出的人物。但是,只要当一个人从尼采的著述中,真正读出欣喜若狂的感觉时,他便足以通过某种高尚的意识经验和尼采联系在一起:因为,尼采来自连鸟儿都无以飞抵的高空,而尼采所了解的地狱,人类是无从涉足的。不要扔下鄙人的书,那是要不得的——尼采会搅醒你深夜的睡眠……总之,没有什么书籍比尼采的著述更高傲、更精妙的了——人们足以从中获得世界上最有价值的东西——愤世嫉俗;谁要得到这些,谁就得有十个最敏感的手指和一双最强悍的拳头。任何灵魂的脆弱,都会使他丧失这里的机会,乃至永远都得不到它——连一次小小的“消化不良”也不例外:你的神经务必是麻木的,你的胃口务必是兴奋的。除了灵魂的贫乏外,连精神上的每一点空虚都可能致使你丧失这里的机会——懦弱、肮脏,乃至内心深处的复仇心理都可能招致机会的丧失:听我一句劝诫的话,便足以将所有本能的污秽驱逐于身体之外。在鄙人的同仁中,有几个经验型的人物,他们那里,尼采获得了许多——许多对尼氏著述有益的反馈信息。至于那些不愿意同尼氏著述扯上关系的人,比如鄙人那些所谓的朋友们,便不必受什么个人因素的影响了:每当鄙人有一部著作问世时,他们只需要以欢欣鼓舞的语气,祝贺作者又完成了一部著作,说说“进步还是明显的”一类套话便是了……

全然恶意的“精神”、经由“美化的灵魂”、彻头彻尾的虚假——岂堪应对尼氏的著述?于是,他们眼中所见的,恰似他们脚下所踩的——那便是对他们美化了的“灵魂”所作的绝妙的脚注。鄙人那些善于挑刺的同仁们,实不客气地讲,全是些德意志同胞们——他们总是说未必赞成尼采的观点,虽然有时候他们也能理解尼采的难处——这,无非是要鄙人理解他们的难处……据说,甚至连鄙人的扎拉图斯拉,他们也无法容忍……任何一个持有“女权主义”观点的人——或者干脆说任何一个“女权主义”的男人吧,同样会将尼采拒之门外:因为他们永远都不能穿越那个愤世嫉俗的智慧迷宫。如果人们注定要幸福快乐的话,就必须同艰难的真理同归于途,舍此便没有别的选择——或许,人们从不吝惜自我,但是他们从来都不曾知晓自己还缺乏严厉的习惯。对一个优秀读者,尼采的企望是:一个既有勇气又有好奇之心的庞然大物,一个聪明无比、反应敏捷而胆大心细的巨人——一个天生的探险者兼发现者。打心底讲,至此,鄙人依然不知道怎么对自己的读者说才会更好些,就让扎拉图斯拉替鄙人来代言——唯不知单单为了这里的事儿,扎拉图斯拉是不是愿意将他的“谜语”再重述一遍?

对那些——勇敢的探险者和发现者们;对那些——已经登上灵巧的航船正在波涛汹涌的海面上搏击的勇士们——

对那些——陶醉于谜语,沉迷于曙光——其灵魂已随着长笛的乐音到达那变化莫测之深渊的人们——

没有人会奢望以懦夫的双手去抚摩一条长长的绳索——难道有什么人会情愿破费去丈量那条绳索到底有多长?……

(四)

这里,还得就尼采著述的体裁和风格问题说几句话。通过语言符号——包括使用这些符号的节奏,传达某种心理的状态,某种内心的悲怆——此,乃体裁之意义所在了;在鄙人这里,人物心理状态的变化是复杂的、特别的,因此体裁的适应性——多样性便是不可避免的——总之,体裁的变化是随人物性格的变化而变化的,只要能够恰倒好处地传达人物心理的状态,任何一种体裁都是合适的,都不至于同语言符号的使用发生错位,每一个符号、每一个节奏、每一个姿势——所有修辞的规则,都得服从于艺术表达的需要。——好的体裁——恰似一则优美的曲调,一个单纯的“理想”:足以与“美”同价,与“善”同格,与“物”同值者也……鄙人之天性,岂敢误人乎?

期待着:乐音总有听众,悲怆可逢奇人,忠言单遇知音——眼下,尼氏的扎拉图斯拉依然在追寻他自己的知音——天哪!那——还得花费多长的时间!但愿,未来的知音值得他追寻……到那时,人们才会如实地理解这里被挥霍了的艺术:才会更多地领略这种全新的、从未听说的风格,才会真正接受这种在艺术手段上直接革新了的风格——到那时,尼氏的艺术才会不至于为之荒废了。然而,如果这种事情发生在操德意志语言的人群之中,便需要考究一番了:对此,本人理应事先就给予激烈驳斥。在鄙人面前,他们还不至于用德意志的语言捡到什么便宜的——其实,他们又何曾用这种语言做成过什么?因为:这种艺术的韵律,庄重的文体,足以传达情感升降的微妙,足以焕发超人的激情……这种著述的体裁及其风格的独到,唯有鄙人的笔触才足以独立地创造;……如同《扎拉图斯拉的独白》第三版最后一节——“七只海豹”一般的酒神赞美诗,比之迄今为止的所谓“诗歌”,鄙人不知早已超出了它们多少倍。

(五)

读鄙人的书,好比聆听天下顶好的心理学家讲演一般——或许,这便是一个优秀读者的第一感觉——只要他们像作者一样去体味,读鄙人的书,便会如同一位资深的语文学家在诵读罗马诗人贺拉斯 〔21〕 的诗歌一般。——在鄙人看来,相信“自我主义”与“非自我主义”的对立,本来便是一个天真的错误,因为所谓“自我”本身就是一个“高级骗局”——一个虚构的“观念”而已。这一点,是不需要什么哲学背景或者道德说教的理论支持的,因为那是一个连思维肤浅的俗人,乃至于连傻瓜也能明白的道理,谁都知道:基本上是没有人会持反对意见的。

无所谓自我主义,也无所谓非自我主义——在心理学的意义上,二者都是无稽之谈。什么“人类要为幸福而奋斗” ……什么“幸福就是对德行的报偿”……什么“愉快和不愉快是对立的”,如此等等,不一而足。对人类的蛊惑,对道德的诠释,从根基上扭曲了整个心理学的基础——心理学完全被道德概念化了——以至于到了可怕、荒唐的地步,说什么“爱情是非利己主义的”……人必须坚守自我,必须坚定立场,否则人便索性不必爱了。不过,这种事终究是精明的女人们心里最明白了:她们玩上一把“非我”的游戏,过是为了让毫无偏见的男人们领略一下大丈夫的滋味而已……恐怕鄙人还真不敢冒昧地自称已经吃透了女人的心?不过——果真如如此,那便是狄俄尼索斯酒神的眷顾了。天晓得?说不定鄙人便是第一个女人灵魂不朽的心理学大师。恰似一个遥远的故事所讲述的那样——除去那些发育不全、丧失了生育能力的自由女士们,哪个敢说不喜欢我?幸运的是,鄙人并没有注定被女人们撕得粉碎:因为,一个十足的女人,要她高兴,便会将你撕成碎片的……鄙人,是了解那些温柔而又失去理智的女人的……天那,那多像一群危险而隐蔽的爬行动物啊!你可以惬意地和她们相处!……一个精明的女人,其复仇的欲望是会超越其天性的。—— 〔22〕 毋庸讳言,女人比男人聪明,也比男人恶毒,女人的善意往往是恶情的端倪……所谓“美丽的心灵”常常掩饰着生理上的缺陷——这样说,并非因鄙人愤世嫉俗乃至玩世不恭所致。为平等的权力而奋争乃是病魔的症结所在:这个道理,只要是做医生的,谁都知道。——一般说来,一个女人越是具备女人的天性,她就越是会为了保护自己而拼命地同权利斗争:正是由于天性的缘故,迄今为止——在男女永久的性别之争中,女人总是处于优势地位的。——鄙人这里的“爱”情观,不知读者是否还可以听得下去?惟有这里的“爱”情观,才值得用哲学的头脑去思考。然而,在方法论上,在根本意义上,关于“爱”情的战争,应该渊源于道德观念上对性意识的厌恶。鄙人的陈辞,是否击中了问题的要害——从而使人们聊以解决或者补救女人带来的问题呢?扎拉图斯拉说,男人给女人带来孩子,因为女人需要孩子;足见,男人只是一种工具而已。——对于病态或者无以受孕的女人来说,“女人的解放”只会引起她们本能的厌恶,而对于常态或者健康的女人来说,同男人决斗则会成为她们独有的手段——或巧立名目,或独用战术,那便是很寻常的事儿了。而当她们将自己升格为“自为女人”、“高级女人”、“理想主义女人”的时候,她们实际上已经降低了自己作为女人的基本品味;这些无疑都是文法学校的栽培——妇女要掌权,妇女要当家,妇女要成为政治上的投票机等等之所致了。其实,那些主张妇女解放的人们,便是在纯粹的女人世界里,也不过都是些无政府主义者罢了——她们也属于被剥夺了基本社会权利的人群,其歇斯底里的“本事”,也不过是向男人世界的复仇罢了……顺便说一下,在整个人群中最恶毒的“理想主义者”——其实还是男人,比如亨里克·易卜生便是个例子,他提倡什么典型的老处女主义——其结果无非是玷污了人类的良心,破坏了天然的性爱罢了……这,原本是一件坦诚而严肃的事情。为了将这一思想说得透彻一些,关于鄙人的道德准则,这里有必要再多说几句,以便将它同“罪恶”的东西严格地区分开来:“罪恶”一词的本意无非是要揭露违背天性的东西,如果需要说得典雅些,那便是要揭开“理想主义”的底子。这里的附言是:做“贞洁”的布道,便是公开地煽动对天性的对抗。所有,以“下流”、“不道德”为借口,轻蔑性生活、诽谤性生活的人,都是对人类生命的犯罪——都是对人类生命神圣精神的亵渎。

(六)

要对作为心理学家的尼采作一个概括的叙述,得用《善恶之外》中一段有关心理学的文字,读者大概会感到难以理解——顺便说一下,鄙人并不赞成将作者同文中人物简单联系在一起的不实猜测:“心灵之天性,惟天下最大之隐者所独有,诱惑之神和天籁之音的交响曲吹奏者,善于将他们的声音吹抵每一颗心灵的深处——不用言语,不必盼顾,毫无怂恿之意,毫无煽动之情,聆听者却偏偏深知其中的意味——无关乎吹奏者怎么样,有关于追随者怎么行,原本是被动而来,如今却铁了心去……心灵之天资,足以令一切必张扬而自足的东西,都变得须静谧才便于倾听,足以安抚人浮躁的心灵,赋予人崭新的企望,以便憧憬那遥远的未来——企望,犹如镜面一般的平静,透过它足以看到蓝天的深邃……心灵之天资,足以让笨拙而匆匆忙忙的人群有机会停一停,想一想,然后从容地上路;心灵之天资,足以推测那由隐匿而被人们遗忘了瑰宝,足以感知那深压在冰山底下的金银和财宝;心灵之天资,宛如一根奇妙的‘魔杖’,足以将泥沙筑成的监狱中搁置了许久——许久的每一颗金粒都打捞上岸……心灵之天资,只要你沾到它的边,富裕便会不期而至——那不是偏爱,你不必猜疑;不是上帝的保佑,不是别人的恩惠——是你自身的财富,是你自为的改变——恰似一股熔冰的和风,迎面吹来:你受到触动,你变得开朗,你一鸣惊人,你不必意外;或许,你依然不够确定,你依然不够完美;或许,你依然比较稚嫩,你依然比较脆弱;然而,你一定充满了不可名状的冲动——充满了崭新的意愿和朦胧的欲望——充满了你从未意识到的、奇怪的意志——冲创意志 〔23〕 ,兼有逆反的心思……”

天运,我自晓得!

(一)

我的命运,我知晓——总有一天,尼采的名字会同那些可怕的记忆联系在一起——那将是一场空前的灾难,那将是一次良心的抉择,那将是一个对迄彼为止的所信、所愿及其所尊崇的背叛。我,不是一个人,我,是一剂炸药。——如此,鄙人何以成为某一宗教的发起人?——宗教,乃是下等人的事;在同宗教人士接触之后,鄙人还得清洗自己的手(鄙人并不需要“信奉者”,因为鄙人从不信奉什么人,即便同下等人说话的事儿,鄙人也懒得动嘴去做……总有一个可怕的感觉——有一天,鄙人会被众人呼作圣人:人们会说,难怪尼采老早就将那本书公诸于世;其实,那都是为了避免他人伤害我……鄙人不企图做“圣民”,也不希望成小丑……或许鄙人便是一个小丑……是小丑也罢,不是小丑也好——总之,迄今为止,没有什么人要比圣徒更虚伪的了——真理,必将出自“小丑”——鄙人之口。——不过,鄙人的真理是令人敬畏的:那是因为,所有迄今为止的谎言全被唤作真理了。——重估一切价值:这,便是鄙人——“小丑”治愈人类过激行为的药方——“回归自我”乃是至上的原则——于我,便是精神和血肉的见证。鄙人,注定要成为人间第一个体面的人——知晓自己务必站在千年“虚假”的对立面……鄙人,第一个发现了真理就是真理的天机。不!——鄙人,第一个嗅出了谎言就是谎言的味道……鄙人的嗅觉,便是鄙人的天赋……站在虚假真理的对立面上——揭穿从来没有为人所揭穿过的“谎言”,传诵从来没有为人所传诵过的喜讯,此乃尼采之天运耳。此一番天降之大任,舍我其谁?——非斯人,何足堪肩?尼采出世了,喜讯传来了,指望便有了。于是,天数注定,尼采必成为真理的代言人。

当真理步入同千年“谎言”的搏杀时,人们必然要感到强烈的震撼——如地球在抽搐、在痉挛一般,像峡谷和大山在移位、在迁徙一般——那,便是人类生来都没有做过的梦。到那时,政治,将全然成为一种精神的战争;所有以往社会的权力结构,都将被抛入历史的垃圾堆——躺在“谎言”的沙滩上安息:地球上,将会发生一场从未有过的战争——惟有在尼采出现之后,地球上才会产生一个“宏大的”政治。

(二)

假若命运的方舟,足以运载真正的伟人,何不寻而得之?尼氏的扎拉图斯拉,便会为你揭开这里的秘密。

假若要成为善恶的操控者,何不先做一个坚决的破坏者——破坏原有的价值观?

足见,大善与大恶同处一寓:然而,大善务必大扬之,大恶务必大抑之。

尼采,乃史间最令人敬畏之人;然而,这并不意味着尼采便是人间最慈善的人。他懂得,破坏足以带来快乐;在某种意义上——破坏越大,快乐越多——是破坏?是快乐?二者均依他狄俄尼索斯的天性而定——然而,这一天性却不便于区分“口是”和“行非”。尼采,乃是首屈一指的非道德主义者:实至名归的破坏主义者。

(三)

首屈一指的非道德主义者:君所名之曰扎拉图斯拉的大人物,其名其姓意味如何?——这里,本该问津者,却无人问津,于是——尼采便自问自答了:在善与恶的抗争中,乃是扎拉图斯拉第一个看到了事物发展的真实轨迹,并且将道德理念区分为动力、原因和自我消失三个范畴纳入玄学的领域,这些便是扎拉图斯拉的贡献所在——同史间波斯人的最大特点是大相径庭的。其实,在这里,问题的本身便是问题的答案。正是扎拉图斯拉本人首先触动了——道德理念的致命弱点:因此,他必须首先同时认识到问题的严重性。而在这方面,扎拉图斯拉不仅具有比其他任何思想家更长、更多的经验——因为,实际上整个人类历史,便是一个对所谓“世界道德秩序”命题的实验性反驳——更重要的是,扎拉图斯拉比历史上任何一个思想家,都更加逼近真理。他的教义,也惟有他的教义,维持了真理的尊严——那是一个至高的德行——换言之,那是一个同懦弱的、逃避现实的“理想主义”截然相反的理念;即便将所有思想家的胆量叠加在一起,也比不了扎拉图斯拉的胆略。说老实话——或者不如直截了当地说:“理想主义”不过是波斯人的德行而已。——鄙人说清楚了吗?试以扎拉图斯拉的真理观,对道德理念进行相反的自我克制,对道德主义者进行相反的自我抵御,使之向扎拉图斯拉贴近,向尼采贴近——这,便是扎拉图斯拉其名其姓之真实意味所在了。

(四)

实际上,谓非道德主义者,是包含两层否定含义的。首先,鄙人否认那些迄今为止总被奉为高人、善人及慈善者一类的人;其次,鄙人还否认那些生来便被尊为贵人并且具有支配地位的人物,所谓道德的化身——颓废的道德主义者,其实——不如直截了当地说,鄙人所否认的第二类,便是那些基督教卫道士一类的人。

这里的第二类人,可被拟定为主导阶层,他们往往对慈善价值的估计过高;而这些在鄙人看来,偏偏基本上都是颓废的根源、体弱的症结,都是同健康向上的生命水火不相容的东西:岂不知——否定和破坏乃是肯定和建设的一种存在方式——一种极其合理状态?——首先,对待那些善者,鄙人得用心理学的方式。而要辨别一个人是属于哪个类型的人,人们便得先估计一下他的自身价值——而要知道他的自身价值,便又得了解他的生存方式。谁晓得——善者们的生存方式原来是扯谎:换言之,无论如何他们的生存目的绝不是考察现实社会的基本构成;彻言之,不管何时他们也没有唤醒过人们慈善的本性,乃至于不管在什么情况下,他们连一个虽无远见却够善意的“干预”也决不会允许。将悲情从普遍意义上看作“异议”,作某种必须废除的东西,那便是“愚顽透顶”了,而从一般意义上讲,其后果无异于一场真实的灾难,一次愚昧的厄运——几乎同一个驱除阴天的拙劣意欲相差无几——或许,不是“可惜”,便是“可怜”了……在整个社会的总体结构中,现实的恐惧(如在情感、情欲以及冲创意志方面)在很大程度上,都变成了比微薄的幸福(所谓“善行”)更为重要的生命必需品;因为后者(幸福)总是被本能的虚假所限制,使为了获得少许的自由的空间,人们都得小心翼翼。假若需要展示一下人类历史盲目乐观之后果,就既无法估量,也不可思议,然而却又大有必要。首先,乐观主义同悲观主义一样是颓废的,或许还是更有害的。扎拉图斯拉说道:“善人是从不说真话的。善人教给你的不是虚假的“保护”便是虚假的“安全”:人们生来就被包围在善者的谎言中——一切都被善者的谎言彻底扭曲了。好在,世界并不仅仅为了善者的需要而缔造,温存的动物还足以从其夹缝中找到自己狭小的存身之处;而一旦到处都成了“善者”、受骗者、温存的动物以及慈善的人士乃至“美丽的灵魂”——或者,

像赫伯特·斯宾塞所希望的利他主义者的世界,那便意味着伟大人格的丧失,美好人类的阉割——于是,人类的地位将会变得无足轻重——这些,便是基督教卫道士们意图达到的目的!……准确地说,这便是卫道士们道德“真谛”之所在……正是在这个意义上,扎拉图斯拉将善者称为“灭亡之端倪”——“最后之人”;总之,在扎拉图斯拉的眼中,所谓“善者”乃是人类最危险的族群,因为他们维护自己的存在乃是以牺牲社会的真理为代价——乃是以牺牲人类的未来为代价。

“善者”——是不会有什么新招的,他们永远是灭亡的端倪——

“善者”将“主”钉上了十字架,“主”便将新的价值“钉”在了新的法案上——他们为了自己而牺牲未来,他们将人类的未来钉上了十字架!

“善者”——永远是灭亡的端倪……

无论世界的诽谤者们做过的伤害有多大,“善者”们所为的伤害——都是其大无比的。

(五)

扎拉图斯拉,既然是“善者”的第一位心理医师,便必然是“恶者”的第一位知心朋友。堕落的族群要升格为最高的人群,必定要以其对立面——具有强大生命力和自信心的族群的牺牲为代价。于是,温存的动物要发出其德行最辉煌最灿烂的光芒时,那些异常的族群,便必得贬为“恶人”了。无论在何种意义上,只要“虚假”以“真理”的面目出现,“真实”便会从实际意义上肩负最坏的名声。对此,扎拉图斯拉坚信不疑:他说准确意义上的善识,即所谓“最好”的知识,使他对普通的人群深感厌恶;也正是这种深恶痛绝的感触给他添上了“飞向遥远未来”的翅膀——他并不掩饰,是在同“善者”人格相对立的意义上,他形成了自身超乎常人的秉性,即所谓“超人”的人格;而“善者”与所谓“正义”之士却将这个超凡之人——“超人”,唤作魔鬼……

你们是最“高大”的人——鄙人目所未及,眼所未见!然而,疑云却由此而生——我偷偷地笑了:因为,我猜到你们会将“超人”呼作魔鬼的!

在“高大”的面前,你们的灵魂是那样的不堪入目——总以为“超人”会在所谓的“善行”面前,深感汗颜……

果真想知道扎拉图斯拉的真实人格吗?其实也不难:他笔下的人,便是活生生的人——现实中的人:在现实中,他毫不示弱——不疏远现实,也不迷恋现实,因为他便是现实——人家怕的扎拉图斯拉也会怕,人家疑惑的扎拉图斯拉也会疑惑——唯有这样,人类便会伟大起来……

(六)

不过,在另一个意义上,鄙人之所谓“非道德主义者”这一概念,还可以作为区别的标志乃至荣誉的象征;为有这样一个概念,鄙人甚感骄傲——因为,它使鄙人远离了整个基督的泛爱与仁慈。没有人会觉得基督的说教是真实的:于是,便需要从一个史间绝无仅有的心理学高度和深度上考察问题。基督的道德说教,对迄今为止的思想家来说,恰似荷马史诗中的女魔一般——有着蛊惑人心的意味。而当中伤人类思想的毒素像泉水一般涌来时,在尼采之前,何曾有人深入过炮制毒素的洞穴——世界毒流的源头,寻根问底?何曾有人以身存疑——猜想过毒素之洞穴、毒流之源头的真实存在?还是在尼采之前,何曾有人成为哲学史上的心理学大师,又幸免于站在它的反面而堕落为“高级骗子”——理想主义者的命运?还是在尼采之前,何曾有人见过真正的心理学说?——于是,首当其冲者,便招来莫名的横祸;不由分说,这也是天命了:好在,尼采也会第一个鄙视鄙视者的……自然,鄙视人家,必然给尼采带来厄运……

(七)

鄙人,说清楚了吗?——鄙人,何以定格?鄙人,何以区别于他人?——唯有免戴了基督道德说教之面具而已。于是,鄙人便需要一个词语——一个概念,这个词语——这个概念,足以炫耀尼采对任何人都无以幸免的“火药”味儿。对于尼采,不能尽快打开这个词语——这个概念的慧眼,便无异于在人性纯洁的良心表面涂上了一层厚厚的污泥,无异于将自我欺骗蜕变成了本能,无异于要泯灭了考察每一个事件、考究每一个原因、尊重每一个现实之冲创意志的基因 〔24〕 ,无异于一个心理学家在犯罪问题上造了假。对基督教徒的道德说教视而不见,乃是不折不扣的犯罪——对生命的犯罪……在千年的历史上,在民族的兴亡中,在最先和最后之间,在哲学家和老夫人之间——如果仅仅区分了“五”到“六”个历史的瞬间,鄙人便要理所当然地坐在那第七个瞬间的席位上——于是,从这一点上看,人们相差无几。基督教徒,是迄今为止的“道德人”,是无以伦比的“奇怪人”——然而,无论是作为“道德人”还是“奇怪人”,他们荒唐、他们虚假、他们空虚、他们轻浮,因为他们连自己都要伤害——这一点,甚至连史间最大的骗子手都得在梦中才足以做到。基督的道德说教,乃是“扯谎意念” 〔25〕 最恶毒的表现形式,乃是人类生命中不折不扣的魔鬼:因为它,人类便会走向灭亡。至此,令人震惊的不是贻误本身,也不是整个精神领域“善意”、“修行”、“体面”乃至“勇气”的千年匮乏,致使它们背叛了自身的价值——而是天性的失却,准确地说——是天性的扭曲,致使人们将基督的清规戒律奉为最高义理,并且以法律的方式凌驾于社会,迫使人们无条件地履行基督教的清规和戒律——这无疑是一个可怕的事实!……既然如此,大错所殃及的便不仅仅是某一个人,某一个民族,而是整个人类了!……蔑视别人原本是生命的本能;“灵魂”、“精神”原本是毁坏肌体的元素;生命的某些先天状态原本是污秽的,比如性行为便是;甚至在那些为成功所做的基本努力中,也能找出个龌龊的本源来,说什么那都是不折不扣的利己主义——须知,“利己主义”这个概念的本身便有诋毁中伤的意味!另一方面,我们还可以通过那些诋毁和违背天性的概念符号中看出问题来——譬如什么“无私”、“失重”、“去个性”及“爱朋友”(——交朋友的欲望!)还有什么“高价值”和“价值的价值”之类,……哟!这里都说了些什么呀?……不对!莫非是人类自己要走向衰微?总得这样吗?不对!——他们总是将颓废的东西奉为至上的法宝。这一点,难道有错?所谓无私的道德说教,乃是不折不扣的价值贬值——譬如,将陈述句“我要死去”转换为祈使句“你们都得死去”——其实说教者的语气又何止于“祈使”而已!这,难道不是事实?……这便是史间所兜售的道德逻辑,“唯一”的逻辑——所谓“无私”的道德义理——压根儿就违背了生命的意志,摧残了生命的根基——是,谓之“泯灭意志” 〔26〕 也。

——话头儿暂且搁在这里,这里不妨设定不是人类在退化,而是那些人类的寄生虫——神父、牧师及其僧侣们,借助于道德理念的威力,将他们自己提升为决定人类命运的群体——在基督教的道德理念中,他们凭着直觉神化了自己的权力……于是,鄙人的顿悟便由此而生了:人类的教导者们、领导者们,还包括那些神学研究者们,你们个个都是颓废的人:因此,务必对有碍于人类生命的一切价值(观)进行重新估定,对所有道德理念进行确切定义:道德理念——是颓废者们特有的癖性,其中隐藏着他们向人类生命复仇的阴谋——而且,隐藏得非常之巧妙。对于这一定义,鄙人非认真对待不可。

(八)

鄙人,说清楚了吗?——此前,并没有借扎拉图斯拉之口,说出五年前尚不得脱口而出的那句话。——揭去基督道德理念的假面具,乃是一件决不会有平静结局的事件——乃至会酿成一场空前的大灾难。谁揭开这个秘密,谁便是一支不可忽视的力量,便会像命运之神一般,主宰命运的沉浮,并由此,将人类历史一分为二。有人要生活在他之前,有人必生活在他之后……那是一次真理的电闪雷鸣,不偏不倚——撞击着基督立足的制高点:谁抓住了为之击毁的目标,谁便会清楚地看到握在手中的真谛——此刻,史间一贯被呼之为“真理”的东西,在一瞬间将被认定为最有害、最恶毒、最秘密的谎言;原来,“促进”人类的发展,不过是一个冠以“神圣”二字的托词,目的又无非是为了巧妙地吮吸生命本身,使之贫血化而已——基督的道德理念不过是叫人们去相信吸血鬼的那些把戏罢了……谁揭穿了道德理念的假面具,谁便同时揭开了所有价值观念的遮羞布;谁不再敬畏那些所谓最可尊敬——乃至已被宣告为圣徒一类的人,谁便会发现他们的致命伤——致命,乃是因为他们在玩弄把戏……“上帝”的问世,从一开始便构成了生命的对立面——一切都是有害的,有毒的,造谣中伤的,整个世间的敌意全冲着生命而来——从而构成了一个可怕的统一体!“此岸世界”和“彼岸世界”的割分,从一开始便剥夺了“唯有世界” 〔27〕 的真实价值——最终免除了人间真实生活的目标、理由和功课!“灵魂”、“精神”,乃至“不死的灵魂”,从一开始便忽略了躯体的价值,从而使之独具“神圣”而不得健康——于是,生命中所有的事情都得严肃地对待,唯独养分、居所、整洁乃至气候,偏偏成了无足轻重之事!不是使之健康,而是救其“灵魂”——岂不构成了:一个不断谢罪同耶稣救赎之间的无限循环!“罪孽”连同惩罚罪孽的手段——“严刑”,乃至“自由意志”的创造,其目的无非是将它们同人类的天性相混淆,从而将对天性的怀疑变成人类的第二天性!在“忘我”、“非我”的概念中,其颓废的实际象征性在于:迫于有害事物之引诱,而无以发现自身优势之所在;而“毁我”的实际象征性则在于:使症结的意义一般化,从而使“责任”、“神圣”和“牧师”的概念深入化!最终,最可怕的是,在“善者”的概念里,一切公共的事业都变得脆弱化、病态化而建构不良化,一切都因自我而遭罪,一切都因自我而灭亡——选举法被取消,一个同荣耀和高贵相对立、同拥护者相对立、同相信未来和保护未来者相对立的思想被唾弃——之后,后者便被呼作罪人……所有这一切,便是为人所信的基督道德理念之所为!

——无耻!见鬼去吧!——

(九)

鄙人,说清楚了吗?——一个同十字架水火不相容的狄俄尼索斯信徒……

注释

〔1〕 此,系原文注释,英文原文是“We strive after the forbidden”(Ovid)。

〔2〕 Zarathustra原译:《扎拉图斯拉如是说》,见陈鼓应著《尼采新论》之“尼采年谱”,世纪出版集团&上海人民出版社,2006年第一版,第156—212页;其他相关译著也多依这个译法,比如杨恒达等译《尼采生存哲学》,九州出版社,2003年第一版,第268页,等;另外,“扎拉图斯拉”尚有其他译法,如“查拉图斯特拉”、“查拉图斯拉”等,这里采用了《辞海》(上海辞书出版社,1979年第一版,第2246页)的说法。——译者注

〔3〕 “will to power”是尼采哲学中的重要概念,原译为“权力意志”,陈鼓应先生以为不妥,因为在《扎拉图斯拉的独白》中,这种意志,乃是一种“创造生命的意志”(见陈鼓应著《尼采新论》之“序一:生命的驱动力——‘冲创意志’的理解”,世纪出版集团&上海人民出版社,2006年第一版,第1—2页),与权力并无牵连;现依陈说,译为“冲创意志”;另外,周国平先生则将其译为“强力意志”,亦无不妥,见周国平著《尼采:在世纪的转折点上》,世纪出版集团&上海人民出版社,1986年第一版,第87页;刘娟译《尼采传》(贵州人民出版社,2004年第一版)中也采用了“强力意志”的译法,见该书“目录”。——译者注

〔4〕 “The Wanderer and his Shadow”是尼采36岁时的著述,原译《漂流者与其影子》,见张秀章等选编《尼采箴言录》,吉林人民出版社,2003年第一版,第202页;另有《漫游者及其影子》的译法,见陈鼓应著《尼采新论》之“尼采年谱”,世纪出版集团&上海人民出版社,2006年第一版。——译者注

〔5〕 这里虽将“the individual”译为“一个特定的个体”,但是依据这里的语用环境,这个“特定的个体”实际上应该就是指“上帝”而言的。——译者注

〔6〕 罗马历史家,86—34B.C.,著有《喀提林阴谋》、《朱古达战争》等。——译者注

〔7〕 Schulpforta,原译“普福塔”,是尼采所在的中学校名,这里依音译采用了“舒尔普福塔”的地名译名(见《外国地名译名手册》,商务印书馆,1993年第一版),并在“舒尔”二字上加了括弧,以免误解。——译者注

〔8〕 尼采的Laertiana全称应该是ANALECTA LAERTIANA。他的文章先附Diogenes Leartius(即《第欧根尼·拉尔修论集》)(Laertiana)的若干古希腊语文本,然后是分析性文字,而分析文字则多是拉丁语。足见,尼采语文学造诣之深厚。

〔9〕 Montaigne,1533—1592,又译蒙台涅,文艺复兴时期法兰西思想家和散文作家,详见《辞海》(上海辞书出版社,1979年,第一版),第3725页。——译者注

〔10〕 《曼弗雷德》,是拜伦于1817年发表的诗剧,反映他对欧洲民族解放运动的悲观失望情绪。——译者注

〔11〕 浮士德,欧洲中世纪传说中的人物,为获得知识和权力,向魔鬼出卖自己的灵魂;德国作家歌德创作同名诗剧《浮士德》,这里的字里行间均流露出尼采并不看好歌德才华的情绪。——译者注

〔12〕 撒克逊人是五、六世纪入侵不列颠并定居在那里的日耳曼民族,他们曾洗劫城镇和乡村,不列颠人或被杀戮,或沦为奴隶,或被驱赶至西部、西北部山区,大部分人则同入侵者融合,形成了后来的英格兰人(或称为英吉利人)。这里,尼采或许是因为撒克逊人的野蛮入侵而对其存有偏见。参见《中国大百科全书》(外国历史Ⅱ):英国历史(第1095页),中国大百科全书出版社,北京,上海,1990年1月第一版。——译者注

〔13〕 “Human, All Too Human”,原译:《人性的,太人性的》,见陈鼓应著《尼采新论》之“尼采年谱”,世纪出版集团&上海人民出版社,2006年第一版。——译者注

〔14〕 这里的诗句已有一个译文,可以参阅,见张秀章等选编《尼采箴言录》(吉林人民出版社,2003年第一版),第161—162页。——译者注

〔15〕 这里所述的道理,恰同国人之所谓“大智若愚”一般;于是,“特智”便“若灾”、“若难”了。——译者注

〔16〕 “amor fati”,一个拉丁语汇,其大意是“love of fate”或者“love of one's fate”,里姑且译作“知命”,但并不等同于中国文化中的“知(天)命”;依据全书的语境,结合尼采的观点,这里的“知命”,应该解释为“知天性”才对,因为“知天性”便会爱生命,从而激活“创造生命的意志”(Der Wille zur Macht,即英文的“The Will to Power”),以资成就未来。——译者注the will to power,仍译为“冲创意之”,参见前文第14页注释7及第123页注释19。——译者注

〔17〕 V. Widmann,又译惠特曼、魏得曼。——译者注。

〔18〕 Beyond Good and Evil,译《善恶的彼岸》、一译《善与恶之外》、一译《尼采论善恶》,分别见:张秀章等选编《尼采箴言录》之“尼采年谱”,吉林人民出版社,2003年,第一版;陈鼓应著《尼采新论》之“尼采年谱”,世纪出版集团&上海人民出版社,2006年,第一版和朱泱译《尼采论善恶》,团结出版社,2006年,第一版。——译者注。

〔19〕 “超人”(superman),是尼采哲学中的重要概念,是他在新的世界观、人生观和价值观的基础上所设定的新价值的创造者;尼采的理想人格是由“超人”来代表的,尼采的哲学理念是由“超人”去体现的,因而尼采的哲学也是以超人学说而著称的。——译者注。

〔20〕 尼采自称波兰人的后裔,又以法兰西人为至尊,于是:当受到斯拉夫人群的敬重时,自然会感慨一番了。——译者注

〔21〕 Horace,又译霍瑞斯,65—8B.C., 原名Quintus Horatius Flaccus,罗马诗人及讽刺文学家。——译者注

〔22〕 毋庸讳言,这里用“她”指代《扎拉图斯拉的独白》一书是不大恰当的,因为尼采的骨子里是蔑视女性的,姑且用之。——译者注

〔23〕 这里将“new ill will”译为“从未意识到的、奇怪的意志”。其实,依据这里的语境,这种意志就是陈鼓应先生所译的“冲创意志”,即所谓“创造生命的意志”,参见前文第14页注释7及第123页注释19。——译者注。

〔24〕 这里,依据上下文将“fundamental will”译为“冲创意志的基因”,可参考前文第14页注释7及第123页注释19及其他相关注释。——译者注

〔25〕 同上文的“冲创意志”(the will to the power)相对,这里将“the will to the lie”译为“扯谎意念”,以构成一对相反相成的汉译概念,因为在尼采那里二者本来就是一对因对立而存在的哲学概念;另外参见前文第14页注释7及第123页注释19及其他相关注释。——译者注

〔26〕 依据行文的逻辑——先有“冲创意志”,后有“扯谎意志”,故将这里的“a will to the end”再译为“泯灭意志”,相为呼应。——译者注

〔27〕 将”the only world”译为“唯有世界”,以资区别于基督世界的“此岸世界”与“彼岸世界”,从而凸显尼采的真实世界观。——译者注

真理的曙光

——铁锤,何以矫正以往的哲理?

箴言,足以抒怀!

1.心理学起步于无所事事。

什么是心理学?——一种恶习?

2.勇者未必勇于其所知。

3.隐身者,不为畜牲,必为上帝——亚里斯多德如是说;不过,也有例外,那便是:既为畜牲,又为上帝——一位哲人补充道。

4.“是真理,皆便宜”——莫非是谎言不成?——

5.够了,烦死人了。——智慧,绝非卖弄之所及也。

6.听其“自然”——身,便不“紧张”;心,则会自由。

7.告诉我——那到底是:上帝造就人类之误?还是人类崇信上帝之错?

8.在生命的战场上驰骋——不被枪杀,便会强大。

9.自助者,人助之。——基督慈善者之原则。

10.行动起来吧,勇敢地!不要见死不救!——事后忏悔,无济于事!

11.驴子尚堪悲哀乎?为包袱所压,不必忍受,不必摆脱?……有哲学家如是说。

12.知道了活着的理由,何必在乎活着的方式?人,何必为福分所累?不过,对于英吉利人,则另当别论了。

13.男人造就了女人——什么造就了男人?上帝的肋骨,上帝的“理想”……

14.汝,追寻什么?十倍于汝?百倍于汝?鲜花于汝?——岂不水中捞月,一场空也!

15.生不逢时者,不如时髦之士为人所信;然则,为人所闻者,多不胜数矣!鄙人,便是了。准而言之:鄙人一方,不求人知——此,为官者尚不例外……

16.女流之际——可有“真理”?哟,她们并不晓得真理,对吧?这样说,还不至于造成彼此廉耻之心的伤害吧?

17.艺术家便是艺术家,其要求总是低微的——其奢望总是简单的:面包与艺术——生计与追寻……

18.不善养意志者,必善找借口——意志是不养自成的(“信仰”的原则)。

19.奇怪!有德行和博大襟怀的人,眼睛偏偏盯上了老百姓度日的那点儿优越性——这些人到底要做什么?——有“德行”,弃“实惠”……(反犹太主义者的家门上都这么写)。

20.一个十足的女人糟蹋学问,便像踩死了一只脚下的蚂蚁一般若无其事;而在她横过马路的时候,却又像在做什么试探一般小心翼翼——东张张,西望望,瞧瞧有什么人在“回眸”,以便引起人家的再“回眸”……

21.虚幻的德行,在以下的情形下是吃不开的:一个在钢丝上走路的人,要么便走稳了,要么便会掉下来,要么还得跳下来……

22.“不法分子无遁词”——怎么俄罗斯人偏偏尽废话?

23.“德意志的智慧”:熬过十八年,干戈化玉帛。

24.寻找初始者的踪迹,常常得学着螃蟹横向而行,寻找历史的轨迹,偏偏得学会倒退逆流而上;于是,一位历史学家,往往是一个宁信前贤,不信后秀的人。

25.据说,惬意的感觉足以抵御流感的袭击——谁见过一位穿着时髦的女人得了感冒症?!——其实,女人几乎是不必穿什么东西的。

26.对于主张条理化者,鄙人一概表示怀疑,并敬而远之。因为,接近条理化,必然疏远综合化。

27.女流多“深沉”——何以见得?——谁也很难摸清她们的“底”。其实,不如说女流从来不肤浅便是了。

28.一个阳刚之气十足的女人,你要远离她;一位阴柔气象饱满的女子,她会撇开你。

29.“良心何曾咬过你的牙!真个的,是好牙幺!今天,又是哪里不舒服?”——牙科大夫如是说。

30.鲁莽而轻率之举,少有一而止者也。何?首举,损多而益少,不安。故,举其二,随乃慎而为之者也……

31.遭遇践踏之际,蠕虫便会卷起身来。此,精明之举也——足以减少为人蹂躏之几率。依伦理学之术语而言:乃“谦卑”者也。

32.恨透了谎言,伪君子们便本能地露出他们虚荣的面目来;于是,便以牙还牙地憎恨那些懦弱的人——以便杜绝他们的扯谎。因为,既为懦夫,岂可扯谎?……

33.幸福的代价太低了——不过一个风笛的价值而已。——没有音乐的生活是悲哀的——不过,德意志人则会把上帝的声音当作音乐的。

34.虚无主义是不让“人们思考和写作”(G. 弗劳伯特),因为那是没有意义的——鄙人,终于了解了你,虚无主义的同胞!刻苦、勤奋乃至兢兢业业,都是对神圣精神的冒犯——唯有那马路边的逛游中得来的主意才是最有价值的。

35.心理学家们,常常像马匹一般焦虑不安而难以驾驭——看着自己的影子在面前晃动;谁晓得:他们得离开原本固定的位置,便足以欣赏到更为广阔的景象。

36.非道德主义者,在多大程度上伤害了所谓的德行?——哪知道:远不如无政府主义者伤害了所谓的王权。一旦他们王冠的权威受到了冲击,他们一定会加固自己王权的宝座。所谓的德行:必须受到冲击。

37.你,又要走啦?——这回,该像牧人一般了?难道是偶然间,就这一回了?不过,要是第三回的话,你还可以像逃兵一般地……良心第一问。

38.你是在玩真的?还是在演戏?是代替人家?还是得人家代替?——噢,原来你不过是在摹仿演戏而已……良心第二问。

39.鄙人,寻找过伟人的踪迹——不过,除了其理想的光环以外,便一无所获了。——失落者如是说

40.你是要旁观?还是要介入?还是要离开——远观?……良心第三问。

41.是同行呢?还是前行?是前行呢?还是独行?一个人,必须明白自己要做什么、自己在做什么。——良心第四问。

42.于我,这些不过是台阶而已;攀上台阶,只是要越过台阶。奇怪的是,有人总以为:鄙人要定居在台阶之上……

43.证明你对了,又能怎么样!鄙人的问题是,对的次数太多了。——今天,你笑得最好;最后,你还得笑得最好。

44.鄙人,幸福的妙诀——是也,非也,一条直线、一个目标……

贻误,独有四遭!

(一)

首误者,乃原因结果之错位也。——没有什么贻误比将原因同过程相混淆更危险的了。鄙人,将它看作颓废的内在原因所在。而且,从古至今,它都足以称得上是最古老而又最年轻的习惯性贻误了:因为,在人们的心中它已经被正当化——乃至于被奉若神明,名之曰“宗教”,名之曰“道德”。每一条宗教和道德的教义中都包含着这些内容,神父及其道德条律的制订者们都是颓废原因的炮制者。——这里,试举一例,以便说明这个道理。众所周知,在《科尔纳罗节食主义》一书中,作者将其“瘦身食谱”作为长寿和幸福的秘诀推销给读者——而且,是作为最有效力的道德处方兜售给读者的。很少有什么书会流传如此之广泛;即便在今天,在英格兰每年都有成千上万册的《瘦身食谱》付诸印刷。鄙人从不怀疑:除了《圣经》以外,没有任何书的危害会比《瘦身食谱》更大,缩短寿命的几率会比《瘦身食谱》更多,这是奇迹,名副其实的奇迹——其伪装是何等的巧妙,乃至于无人可以察觉。究其理论原因之所在:无非是将过程误以为是原因罢了。聪明的意大利人从其食谱中悟出了“长寿”的秘诀:要“长寿”者,必备一个迟缓的新陈代谢系统;要“长寿”者,必具一个偌小的消化能量——此,便是《瘦身食谱》的先决条件。吃多,吃少,不由食者自己决定;省食,节约,也不是食者自己的“意愿”:因为,多吃了,食者便会得病。相反,如果食者没能成为那种骨瘦如柴的坯子,食者还得继续按部就班地依食谱用膳。于是,一个我们这个时代的学者,如果需要大量的智能消耗,他便只能成为科尔纳罗主义摄生法的牺牲品了。

这便是——科尔纳罗节食主义的信条。——

(二)

各种宗教及其教义最普遍的布道方式是:“做……,如此这般;忍……,如此这般——你便会幸福!否则……如此这般,……”每一种教义,每一种宗教都是必须履行的责任。——鄙人,将此唤作元罪恶的起因——不朽的荒唐,莫名的失常。谁晓得,这种布道的方式已经走向了它的反面——而成为鄙人“重估一切价值”的第一个案例:一个神志清楚的人,一个“幸福的人”,必定做出某种行为,而对其他的行为又必定做出某种本能的回避,同时将这种生理感受的过程传递给与他相关的人和事。在这一过程中:他的德行便是他幸福的结果……长寿和多子多孙并不是对德行的奖赏,因为德行本身意味着新陈代谢的降低,而新陈代谢的降低即便是在其他物种之际,也会长寿,也能多子多孙。简言之,这便是科尔纳罗节食主义的结果。教会及其教义都认为:“罪孽和奢华足以使一个种族、一个民族灭亡。”鄙人的回答则是:从生理学的意义上讲,当一个民族走向退化、濒临灭亡时,罪孽和奢华便由然而生了。换言之,一旦一个民族有对奢侈物的需求越来越强、越来越大的时候,其心灵便会感到极度的疲劳;而一个年轻人,则会过早地憔悴和衰老。于是,他的朋友们便会说:那都是某种疾病所致。可是,鄙人以为:一个人得了病而无力抵抗,乃是他生命枯竭和遗传性疲劳的表现。有报纸的读者说:如果总是这样的阴差阳错,这个群体便会毁灭自身。一位高级政治人士则会说:一个经常阴差阳错的群体实际上已经结束了自己的生命——因为,就其本能而言,这个群体已经不再安逸。每一个贻误,不管是什么样的贻误,都是本能退化的结果,都是意志退化的结果:因此,人们需要从德行上给“坏事”(贻误)下一个定义。每一件善事都是生性如此——因而也是轻松的,必要的,自由的。而每一次尝试,则都是有缺陷的——上帝同勇士不同,要特别地加以区分(用鄙人的话说便是:脚轻,乃上帝之重要属性也)。

(三)

二误者,乃因果关系之不实也。

人们总以为自己是知道事情的原委的:然而,人们的知识从何而来?准确地讲:人们为什么要相信自己所拥有的知识呢?是从宗教王国的“灵光”里来的吗?迄今为止的事实,尚不足以证明这些都是真的。在意愿行为中,人们总以为自己是事物的动因;至少,会以为自己是在这一过程中捕捉事物的因果关系。于是,人们从不怀疑意识活动便是在寻找所有行为的“前提”——原因;而且,只要人们寻找它们,人们便会发现它们——行为的“动机”:因为,一旦离开了动机,人们便不能自由行为,自然也便谈不上为行为负责了。既然如此,谁还会争辩思想是由什么引起的问题呢?谁还会怀疑思想便是“自己”产生的命题呢?……在以上三个直接同因果关系相连的“内因”中,最重要且最富说服力的原因便是意志;作为原因的意识(思维)和作为原因的“自我”(主体),不过是因果关系中作为经验主义,在意志的基础上建立起来的一个已知事实所产生的附属概念而已。……之后,人们便可以较好地思考了。如今,人们绝不轻信只言片语。因为,“内部世界”充满了不确定的因素和不可靠的线索:意志便是其中之一。意志不会激活什么,因而便不再说明什么——意志只是事件的伴随物而已,因而便可以忽略不计。而所谓“动机”:其实,又是一个误会。因为,它不过是意识的一个表面现象,行为的一个伴随物罢了,与其说它揭示了行为的“前提”,不如说它隐蔽了行为的“前提”更准确一些。至于,“自我主义”,则完全是一个无稽之谈,一个虚构的概念,一个文字游戏罢了:正是它全然窒息了思维、感觉和意志!之后,还会发生什么呢?其实,从来就没有什么精神的理由!一切支撑精神理由的所谓经验主义见鬼去吧!这便是随后发生的事!——人们巧妙地滥用了“经验主义”,而正是在经验主义的基础上,人们创设了一个新的世界——一个理由的世界,一个意志的世界,一个精神的世界。还好,一个最为古老而长寿的心理学在这里发生了作用——的确,它并不神秘:对于它,每一个事件都是一个行为;每一个行为都是一个意志的反映——于是,整个世界便构成了一个多元的动因复合体,一个附着在每一个事件上的动因(“主体”)复合物。人们在其自身之外,设计了三个“内因”——“意志”、“精神”和“自我”,并且对其深信不疑——同时,还由“自我”的概念中导出“存在”的概念来,并且根据自己的形象假定“物”便是人们所拥有的东西,根据“自我”的概念假定“物”便是引发事件的原因。难怪,后来人们从“物”中所发现的总是他们原来所置入的东西!——需要重申的是:“物”本身,或者“物”这个概念不过是作为“自我”的信念对原因的反映而已……机械论者、物理学家——先生们,你们可曾晓得:即便是你们的原子论学说,依然存在不少疑问,依然包含了不少基本的心理学问题!——这里姑且不论“具体”怎么样了,难道你们不会“脸红”,不会“惊诧”吗?尊敬的玄学家们!将精神领域的贻误,当作事物发生的理由,从而加以实地应用,并以此来度量现实!这,便是人们奉之为“上帝”的精神境界了!

(四)

三误者,乃事物原因之虚构也。

——这里,就从一个梦中的故事说起吧:比如,在某种意义上,一个远程炮弹的射程,总会被顺理成章地误计为发射炮弹的原因所在——其实,准确地说,在这个滑稽的故事中,其主人公,不过是做梦者一人而已,颇有点耸人听闻的味道。不仅如此,这种“感受”还会被当作一种共鸣而继续流传:一般都是维持现状,一旦有了机会,这种“虚构原因”便会自动占据突出的地位——于是,这便不再是一个偶然的事件,而是一个必须追究“意味”的问题了。炮弹的射入是有原因的,又是逆时序而展开的,这是显而易见的。然而,动机作为后来的东西却被首先经历了,而且常常像电闪雷鸣一般被数以百计的细节所掩盖,随之炮弹才射入的……究竟发生了什么?概念被误解了——由某种状态所引起的结果,被人们以引起这种状态的原因而接受。——其实,人们完全可以在梦醒之后,试做同一件事情。这样,人们就会发现,在这一过程中,大多数人的一般感觉都是——抑制、压迫、紧张和突然,人们的器官特别是神经系统便会做出相应的反应——(从而)激活体内虚构原因的心理机制;在这一过程中,人们总想知道引起各种感觉的原因——为什么会感觉良好,又为什么会感觉不好?然而,仅仅知道人们在感觉这个事实,还是很不够:人们还得感谢这个事实——因为,只有人们带着某种动机完成了这一事件——才能意识到这个事实。在这种情况下,记忆会在人们并没有意识到的情况下,回忆起先前的同类情形,并且将由这种状态所产生的结果翻译成“原因”——而不是因果关系。毫无疑问,认为这些观念(即在意识中所伴随发生的观念),都是原因的观点也是由记忆所唤醒的东西。因此,将某种状态所产生的结果解读为“原因”的情形,便形成了定势,乃至于从事实上阻塞或者阻止了人们探知事物真正原因的通路。

(五)

关于原因虚构的心理学诠释。

——从未知,追溯已知,乃是一种消解痛楚、抚慰心灵,从而使人的欲念得以满足的心理过程;而且,这一过程还足以给人充实的感觉。危险、骚扰和焦虑伴随未知——第一天性之功用在于驱除这些消极的情绪。于是,这里的第一原则便是:有所解释总比无所解释好。因为,实际上,这是一个如何摆脱无以忍受之观念的问题;而为了摆脱这些观念,人们并不十分在乎用什么手段:第一种观点认为,其实,未知就是已知,只是因为“已知”对他们有太多的好处,致使人们将其奉为“真理”而已。快乐和效力,乃是一个真理的准则。——可见,虚构原因的心理机制便是靠可怕的感觉来维持并激活的。如果可能,这里还得说明其“为什么”的问题。单就原因而言,并不是所有的原因都能成其为原因的——即成其为抚慰心灵、释放积怨、舒缓压力之原因。一切已知的、已经历的和贮存在记忆之中的事物都被设定为原因,这便是需要的第一个结果。而一切新的、未经历的、奇怪的东西又都被排除在原因之外。——于是,就不仅需要对原因进行解释,对精选或优选类型进行解释,而且还需要对以最快的速度和最高的频率将新的、未经历的、奇怪的感觉排除在外的过程进行解释——这些,便是最普通的解释类型了。——而进行这些解释的结果则会:导致一种特殊的原因归属型解释越来越占优势,并且集中于一个系统之中,从而最终支配其他类型的解释;换言之,原因归属型解释便会直接将其他原因及其解释类型全都排除在外。

——一位银行家,最先想到的一定是他的“生意”;一个基督徒,最先想到的一定是他的“罪孽”;而一位美女,最先想到的则一定是她的爱情。

(六)

整个道德和宗教的王国都应该归属于原因虚构的范畴之内。

——关于心理“不悦”感的阐释。

“不悦”或者“不快”的感觉可能来自他人对我们的敌意(或者邪念:最富有宗教意味的情形——常被误以为是女巫歇斯底里的发作)。这种感觉,也可能来自我们无以证明的行为(譬如“罪孽”感、由于生理不适而引起的“自责”感——因为,人们总会为自己不如意的事情找个理由)。这种感觉,可能来自惩罚、来自“报应”——人们本不应该欠的债、本不应该还的情(在叔本华的概括中这些都是厚颜无耻的东西,其哲学命题是:它反映了基督道德的真实面目,是对生命的亵渎与中伤:“每一次巨痛——无论是生理的还是心理的,都值得人们承受;因为,如果它不值得人们承受,它便不会问津于人们的。”《意志与理想的世界》第二部分第666页)。这种感觉,还可能由草率的、拙劣的行为所诱发(——被设定为“原因”而“应该责备”的情绪、情感和意识;被解读为由心理上理应承受的忧伤所引起生理痛苦)。

——关于心理“愉悦”感的阐释。

这种感觉,可能来自对上帝的信任;这种感觉,可能来自对善行的意识(有时,就连一个诸如良好消化一类的生理状态,也会被误以为是所谓的“良心”的);这种感觉,可能来自成功的喜悦(——一个天真的谬论:在自疑病或者帕斯卡症的状态下,即便成功了也绝不会带来什么愉快感觉的);这种感觉,还可能来自信任、希望和基督教徒之间的兄弟之爱——所谓基督之德行。——实际上,所有这些预设性的阐释都是从结果上考虑问题的,而且似乎将“愉悦”感和“不悦”感全都解读为某种虚伪的“方言”了:人之所以处于希望的状态,乃是因为作为其生理基本的感觉是强悍的、充裕的;人之所以相信上帝,乃是因为丰富而强悍的感觉足以使之平静下来。——足见,道德与宗教完全陷入了错误的心理学阐释之中:在每一种具体的情形下,它们——或者,把原因错误地当成了结果;或者,将这个信以为真的结果错误地当成了真理;或者,将某种意识下的状态错误地当成了这一状态的因果关系。

(七)

四误者,乃自由意志之失也。

如今,无论在什么意义上,人们都已经不再赞同“自由意志”的观念了:因为,“自由意志”意味着什么,人们是非常地清楚的:声名狼藉的神学之士们,其所有的手段,不过是为了使人类在神学的意义上负有他们自己的责任和义务罢了;换言之,不过是为了使人类紧紧地依附于“神”的威力而已……于是,鄙人的责任便在于对此作一个心理学的解读。

——神学的责任及其义务是无处不在的;否则,惩罚和裁判便会自然而然地一起找上你的门来。如果考察一下一个人处在某种状态下的意志、意图及其责任和义务行为的话,便足以察觉其天真无邪的天性已然被剥夺殆尽:其实,“意志”教义所创设的基本目的原本便是为了惩罚人们;换言之,原本便是为了让人们找到负罪的感觉。整个旧日的心理学——关于意志的心理学,都是以作者的主观企望为出发点的。于是,旧日主持社区活动的牧师们,便为他们自己设定了颁布惩罚条例的权力——乃至于企望同时再为上帝设定一个颁布惩罚条例的权力……在这些条例中,人被认为是“自由的”,乃是为了让他们找到负罪的感觉:于是,每一个行为都得被认为是自愿的;换言之,每一个行为都是发自个体自我意识的——就这样,心理学中最虚伪的东西竟变成了最基本的东西,从而编入了心理学的每一条原则……如今,当人们从相反的立场上审度问题的时候,特别是当我们非道德主义者竭尽全力,以便从地球上驱除伏罪和惩罚的理念,从而净化心理学、史学、人性,乃至社会诸部门及其法令条款之环境的时候,扑入我们视野的依然是神学之士们的激进主张——这些主张,依然无从与世俗的观念同日而语——依然在利用道德秩序的理念,通过“惩罚”和“伏罪”的手段,浸染着人类天真无邪的心灵。

足见,基督教之品性——不过是刽子手们独有的形而上之学罢了……

(八)

那么,我们的学说又该是什呢?

——从来便没有什么救世主,足以改变人类的禀性:上帝不会,社会不会,父母不会,祖上不会,人类自己也不会(——康德提出过一个最终为人们所拒绝的荒谬概念,叫做“概念自由”;在康德之前,或许柏拉图也曾涉及过这一概念)。没有人可以替自身的存在、对自身的模样、或者对其所生存的环境,负有什么责任、义务之类的事情。决定人类天性的东西是很难同决定其阅历和命运的东西分得清楚的。人类的命运,不是靠一个特殊的设计、意愿、企图便可以决定的;人类的问题,也不是靠实现几个“人之典范”、“福之样板”乃至“德之化身”便足以解决的——足见,企图给人类的天性设定某种人为的“目标”之类东西,乃是一种荒唐的做法。这里,之所以借用“目标”这个概念的原因在于:在现实中,是没有什么目标的……“一”是必要的,“一”是未来的一部分,“一”属于整体,“一”在整体之中——从来就没有什么能够判断、测度、比喻,乃至惩罚我们人格的——因为,那样会导致人类之整体为之所判断、所揣度、所比喻,乃至所惩罚……离开了人类之整体,一切都将不复存在!于是,谁都不再负有责任和义务,而所谓人格的表现也将无以追溯其恰当的原因,作为整体的世界便既不是感觉的中枢,也不再有“精神”的问题——惟此,方是伟大的革命——惟此,方足以恢复人性之清白与无辜……足见,“上帝”——才是迄今为止人类生存的最大障碍……我们否认上帝;而在否认上帝的同时,我们便否认了上帝所赋予人类的责任和义务:唯此,方足以救赎世界的未来。

铁锤,为我代言!

“何以如此之坚硬?”木炭曾对钻石说,“莫非是因为:彼此尚不够亲近?”

“何以如此之软弱?”哟,我的兄弟们,我这里还得问问你们呢:“莫非是因为:彼此尚不是兄弟?”

何以如此之软弱?无以抵抗,还是卑躬屈节?何必抑郁,何必克制?莫非命运之前景,如此之渺茫?

如果——你不是命运之神,如果——你不够百折不挠:你,何以同鄙人分享胜利之喜悦?

如果你的“坚硬”不足以击败对手,而是被对手击得溃不成军:有一天,你——又何以同鄙人一起,再造那崭新的世界?

如果所有的创造都是“坚硬”的。那么——何不将你的手紧贴在千年祈福的祭坛上?——恰似紧贴在平日里祈福的烛台前——那种感觉,一定是幸福的。

将你千年至福的意愿记下来——恰似记录在金属制成的模板上——比金属要“坚硬”,比金属要高贵:因为最高贵的,乃是最“坚硬”的。

这,便是新制的法台,我一定要将它递给您;哟,我的兄弟们:“坚硬”起来吧!

Friedrich Nietzsche

Why I am so wise

TRANSLATED BY R. J. HOLLINGDALE











PENGUIN BOOKS-GREAT IDEAS

英文目录

Contents

Ecce Homo

How One Becomes What One Is
Foreword
Why I am So Wise
Why I am So Clever
Why I Write Such Good Books
Why I am a Destiny

Twilight of the Idols

or How to Philosophize with a Hammer
Maxims and Arrows
The Four Great Errors
The Hammer Speaks

返回总目录

Ecce Homo

How One Becomes What One Is

Foreword

1

SEEING that I must shortly approach mankind with the heaviest demand that has ever been made on it, it seems to me indispensable to say who I am. This ought really to be known already: for I have not neglected to 'bear witness' about myself. But the disparity between the greatness of my task and the smallness of my contemporaries has found expression in the fact that I have been neither heard nor even so much as seen. I live on my own credit, it is perhaps merely a prejudice that I am alive at all?... I need only to talk with any of the 'cultured people' who come to the Ober-Engadin in the summer to convince myself that I am not alive... Under these circumstances there exists a duty against which my habit, even more the pride of my instincts revolts, namely to say: Listen to me! for I am thus and thus. Do not, above all, confound me with what I am not!

2

I am, for example, absolutely not a bogey-man, not a moral-monster - I am even an antithetical nature to the species of man hitherto honoured as virtuous. Between ourselves, it seems to me that precisely this constitutes part of my pride. I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysos, I prefer to be even a satyr rather than a saint. But you have only to read this writing. Perhaps I have succeeded in giving expression to this antithesis in a cheerful and affable way - perhaps this writing had no point at all other than to do this. The last thing I would promise would be to 'improve' mankind. I erect no new idols; let the old idols learn what it means to have legs of clay. To overthrow idols (my word for 'ideals') - that rather is my business. Reality has been deprived of its value, its meaning, its veracity to the same degree as an ideal world has been fabricated... The 'real world' and the 'apparent world' - in plain terms: the fabricated world and reality... The lie of the ideal has hitherto been the curse on reality, through it mankind itself has become mendacious and false down to its deepest instincts - to the point of worshipping the inverse values to those which alone could guarantee it prosperity, future, the exalted right to a future.

3

He who knows how to breathe the air of my writings knows that it is an air of the heights, a robust air. One has to be made for it, otherwise there is no small danger one will catch cold. The ice is near, the solitude is terrible - but how peacefully all things lie in the light! how freely one breathes! how much one feels beneath one! - Philosophy, as I have hitherto understood and lived it, is a voluntary living in ice and high mountains - a seeking after everything strange and questionable in existence, all that has hitherto been excommunicated by morality. From the lengthy experience afforded by such a wandering in the forbidden I learned to view the origin of moralizing and idealizing very differently from what might be desirable: the hidden history of the philosophers, the psychology of their great names came to light for me. - How much truth can a spirit bear, how much truth can a spirit dare? that became for me more and more the real measure of value. Error (- belief in the ideal -) is not blindness, error is cowardice... Every acquisition, every step forward in knowledge is the result of courage, of severity towards oneself, of cleanliness with respect to oneself... I do not refute ideals, I merely draw on gloves in their presence... Nitimur in vetitum: in this sign my philosophy will one day conquer, for what has hitherto been forbidden on principle has never been anything but the truth.-

4

- Within my writings my Zarathustra stands by itself. I have with this book given mankind the greatest gift that has ever been given it. With a voice that speaks across millennia, it is not only the most exalted book that exists, the actual book of the air of the heights - the entire fact man lies at a tremendous distance beneath it - it is also the profoundest, born out of the innermost abundance of truth, an inexhaustible well into which no bucket descends without coming up filled with gold and goodness. Here there speaks no 'prophet', none of those gruesome hybrids of sickness and will to power called founders of religions. One has above all to hear correctly the tone that proceeds from this mouth, this halcyon tone, if one is not to do pitiable injustice to the meaning of its wisdom. 'It is the stillest words which bring the storm, thoughts that come on doves' feet guide the world -'



The figs are falling from the trees, they are fine and sweet: and as they fall their red skins split. I am a north wind to ripe figs.

Thus, like figs, do these teachings fall to you, my friends: now drink their juice and eat their sweet flesh! It is autumn all around and clear sky and afternoon -



Here there speaks no fanatic, here there is no 'preaching', here faith is not demanded: out of an infinite abundance of light and depth of happiness there falls drop after drop, word after word - a tender slowness of pace is the tempo of these discourses. Such things as this reach only the most select; it is an incomparable privilege to be a listener here; no one is free to have ears for Zarathustra ... With all this, is Zarathustra not a seducer?... But what does he himself say when for the first time he again goes back into his solitude? Precisely the opposite of that which any sort of 'sage', 'saint', 'world-redeemer' and other décadent would say in such a case... He does not only speak differently, he is different...

I now go away alone, my disciples! You too now go away and be alone! So I will have it.

Go away from me and guard yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he has deceived you.

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.

One repays a teacher badly if one remains only a pupil. And why, then, should you not pluck at my laurels?

You respect me; but how if one day your respect should tumble? Take care that a falling statue does not strike you dead!

You say you believe in Zarathustra? But of what importance is Zarathustra? You are my believers: but of what importance are all believers?

You had not yet sought yourselves when you found me. Thus do all believers; therefore all belief is of so little account.

Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only when you have all denied me will I return to you...

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

On this perfect day, when everything has become ripe and not only the grapes are growing brown, a ray of sunlight has fallen on to my life: I looked behind me, I looked before me, never have I seen so many and such good things together. Not in vain have I buried my forty-fourth year today, I was entitled to bury it - what there was of life in it is rescued, is immortal. The first book of the Revaluation of all Values, the Songs of Zarathustra, the Twilight of the Idols, my attempt to philosophize with a hammer - all of them gifts of this year, of its last quarter even! How should I not be grateful to my whole life? - And so I tell myself my life.