查拉图斯特拉如是说 英文版 Thus Spake Zarathustra
尼采 Friedrich Nietzsche
APPENDIX. Page 1
NOTES ON "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA" BY ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.
I have had some opportunities of studying the conditions under whichNietzsche is read in Germany, France, and England, and I have found that,in each of these countries, students of his philosophy, as if actuated byprecisely similar motives and desires, and misled by the same mistakentactics on the part of most publishers, all proceed in the same happy-go-lucky style when "taking him up." They have had it said to them that hewrote without any system, and they very naturally conclude that it does notmatter in the least whether they begin with his first, third, or last book,provided they can obtain a few vague ideas as to what his leading and mostsensational principles were.
Preachers of Death.Morality.ill-constituted on theother.
Now, it is clear that the book with the most mysterious, startling, orsuggestive title, will always stand the best chance of being purchased bythose who have no other criteria to guide them in their choice than theaspect of a title-page; and this explains why "Thus Spake Zarathustra" isalmost always the first and often the only one of Nietzsche's books thatfalls into the hands of the uninitiated.
The title suggests all kinds of mysteries; a glance at the chapter-headingsquickly confirms the suspicions already aroused, and the sub-title: "ABook for All and None", generally succeeds in dissipating the last doubtsthe prospective purchaser may entertain concerning his fitness for the bookor its fitness for him. And what happens?
"Thus Spake Zarathustra" is taken home; the reader, who perchance may knowno more concerning Nietzsche than a magazine article has told him, tries toread it and, understanding less than half he reads, probably never getsfurther than the second or third part,--and then only to feel convincedthat Nietzsche himself was "rather hazy" as to what he was talking about.Such chapters as "The Child with the Mirror", "In the Happy Isles", "TheGrave-Song," "Immaculate Perception," "The Stillest Hour", "The SevenSeals", and many others, are almost utterly devoid of meaning to all thosewho do not know something of Nietzsche's life, his aims and hisfriendships.
As a matter of fact, "Thus Spake Zarathustra", though it is unquestionablyNietzsche's opus magnum, is by no means the first of Nietzsche's works thatthe beginner ought to undertake to read. The author himself refers to itas the deepest work ever offered to the German public, and elsewhere speaksof his other writings as being necessary for the understanding of it. Butwhen it is remembered that in Zarathustra we not only have the history ofhis most intimate experiences, friendships, feuds, disappointments,triumphs and the like, but that the very form in which they are narrated isone which tends rather to obscure than to throw light upon them, thedifficulties which meet the reader who starts quite unprepared will be seento be really formidable.
Zarathustra, then,--this shadowy, allegorical personality, speaking inallegories and parables, and at times not even refraining from relating hisown dreams--is a figure we can understand but very imperfectly if we haveno knowledge of his creator and counterpart, Friedrich Nietzsche; and itwere therefore well, previous to our study of the more abstruse parts ofthis book, if we were to turn to some authoritative book on Nietzsche'slife and works and to read all that is there said on the subject. Thosewho can read German will find an excellent guide, in this respect, in FrauFoerster-Nietzsche's exhaustive and highly interesting biography of herbrother: "Das Leben Friedrich Nietzsche's" (published by Naumann); whilethe works of Deussen, Raoul Richter, and Baroness Isabelle von Unger-Sternberg, will be found to throw useful and necessary light upon manyquestions which it would be difficult for a sister to touch upon.
In regard to the actual philosophical views expounded in this work, thereis an excellent way of clearing up any difficulties they may present, andthat is by an appeal to Nietzsche's other works. Again and again, ofcourse, he will be found to express himself so clearly that all referenceto his other writings may be dispensed with; but where this is not thecase, the advice he himself gives is after all the best to be followedhere, viz.:--to regard such works as: "Joyful Science", "Beyond Good andEvil", "The Genealogy of Morals", "The Twilight of the Idols", "TheAntichrist", "The Will to Power", etc., etc., as the necessary preparationfor "Thus Spake Zarathustra".
These directions, though they are by no means simple to carry out, seem atleast to possess the quality of definiteness and straightforwardness."Follow them and all will be clear," I seem to imply. But I regret to saythat this is not really the case. For my experience tells me that evenafter the above directions have been followed with the greatest possiblezeal, the student will still halt in perplexity before certain passages inthe book before us, and wonder what they mean. Now, it is with the view ofgiving a little additional help to all those who find themselves in thisposition that I proceed to put forth my own personal interpretation of themore abstruse passages in this work.
In offering this little commentary to the Nietzsche student, I should likeit to be understood that I make no claim as to its infallibility orindispensability. It represents but an attempt on my part--a very feebleone perhaps--to give the reader what little help I can in surmountingdifficulties which a long study of Nietzsche's life and works has enabledme, partially I hope, to overcome.
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Perhaps it would be as well to start out with a broad and rapid sketch ofNietzsche as a writer on Morals, Evolution, and Sociology, so that thereader may be prepared to pick out for himself, so to speak, all passagesin this work bearing in any way upon Nietzsche's views in those threeimportant branches of knowledge.
(A.) Nietzsche and Morality.
In morality, Nietzsche starts out by adopting the position of therelativist. He says there are no absolute values "good" and "evil"; theseare mere means adopted by all in order to acquire power to maintain theirplace in the world, or to become supreme. It is the lion's good to devouran antelope. It is the dead-leaf butterfly's good to tell a foe afalsehood. For when the dead-leaf butterfly is in danger, it clings to theside of a twig, and what it says to its foe is practically this: "I am nota butterfly, I am a dead leaf, and can be of no use to thee." This is alie which is good to the butterfly, for it preserves it. In nature everyspecies of organic being instinctively adopts and practises those actswhich most conduce to the prevalence or supremacy of its kind. Once themost favourable order of conduct is found, proved efficient andestablished, it becomes the ruling morality of the species that adopts itand bears them along to victory. All species must not and cannot valuealike, for what is the lion's good is the antelope's evil and vice versa.
Concepts of good and evil are therefore, in their origin, merely a means toan end, they are expedients for acquiring power.
Applying this principle to mankind, Nietzsche attacked Christian moralvalues. He declared them to be, like all other morals, merely an expedientfor protecting a certain type of man. In the case of Christianity thistype was, according to Nietzsche, a low one.
Conflicting moral codes have been no more than the conflicting weapons ofdifferent classes of men; for in mankind there is a continual war betweenthe powerful, the noble, the strong, and the well-constituted on the oneside, and the impotent, the mean, the weak, and the ill-constituted on theother. The war is a war of moral principles. The morality of the powerfulclass, Nietzsche calls NOBLE- or MASTER-MORALITY; that of the weak andsubordinate class he calls SLAVE-MORALITY. In the first morality it is theeagle which, looking down upon a browsing lamb, contends that "eating lambis good." In the second, the slave-morality, it is the lamb which, lookingup from the sward, bleats dissentingly: "Eating lamb is evil."
(B.) The Master- and Slave-Morality Compared.
The first morality is active, creative, Dionysian. The second is passive,defensive,--to it belongs the "struggle for existence."
Where attempts have not been made to reconcile the two moralities, they maybe described as follows:--All is GOOD in the noble morality which proceedsfrom strength, power, health, well-constitutedness, happiness, andawfulness; for, the motive force behind the people practising it is "thestruggle for power." The antithesis "good and bad" to this first classmeans the same as "noble" and "despicable." "Bad" in the master-moralitymust be applied to the coward, to all acts that spring from weakness, tothe man with "an eye to the main chance," who would forsake everything inorder to live.
With the second, the slave-morality, the case is different. There,inasmuch as the community is an oppressed, suffering, unemancipated, andweary one, all THAT will be held to be good which alleviates the state ofsuffering. Pity, the obliging hand, the warm heart, patience, industry,and humility--these are unquestionably the qualities we shall here findflooded with the light of approval and admiration; because they are themost USEFUL qualities--; they make life endurable, they are of assistancein the "struggle for existence" which is the motive force behind the peoplepractising this morality. To this class, all that is AWFUL is bad, in factit is THE evil par excellence. Strength, health, superabundance of animalspirits and power, are regarded with hate, suspicion, and fear by thesubordinate class.
Now Nietzsche believed that the first or the noble-morality conduced to anascent in the line of life; because it was creative and active. On theother hand, he believed that the second or slave-morality, where it becameparamount, led to degeneration, because it was passive and defensive,wanting merely to keep those who practised it alive. Hence his earnestadvocacy of noble-morality.
(C.) Nietzsche and Evolution.
Nietzsche as an evolutionist I shall have occasion to define and discuss inthe course of these notes (see Notes on Chapter LVI., par.10, and onChapter LVII.). For the present let it suffice for us to know that heaccepted the "Development Hypothesis" as an explanation of the origin ofspecies: but he did not halt where most naturalists have halted. He by nomeans regarded man as the highest possible being which evolution couldarrive at; for though his physical development may have reached its limit,this is not the case with his mental or spiritual attributes. If theprocess be a fact; if things have BECOME what they are, then, he contends,we may describe no limit to man's aspirations. If he struggled up frombarbarism, and still more remotely from the lower Primates, his idealshould be to surpass man himself and reach Superman (see especially thePrologue).
(D.) Nietzsche and Sociology.
Nietzsche as a sociologist aims at an aristocratic arrangement of society.He would have us rear an ideal race. Honest and truthful in intellectualmatters, he could not even think that men are equal. "With these preachersof equality will I not be mixed up and confounded. For thus speakethjustice unto ME: 'Men are not equal.'" He sees precisely in thisinequality a purpose to be served, a condition to be exploited. "Everyelevation of the type 'man,'" he writes in "Beyond Good and Evil", "hashitherto been the work of an aristocratic society--and so will it alwaysbe--a society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank anddifferences of worth among human beings."
Those who are sufficiently interested to desire to read his own detailedaccount of the society he would fain establish, will find an excellentpassage in Aphorism 57 of "The Antichrist".
PART I. THE PROLOGUE.
In Part I. including the Prologue, no very great difficulties will appear.Zarathustra's habit of designating a whole class of men or a whole schoolof thought by a single fitting nickname may perhaps lead to a littleconfusion at first; but, as a rule, when the general drift of his argumentsis grasped, it requires but a slight effort of the imagination to discoverwhom he is referring to. In the ninth paragraph of the Prologue, forinstance, it is quite obvious that "Herdsmen" in the verse "Herdsmen, Isay, etc., etc.," stands for all those to-day who are the advocates ofgregariousness--of the ant-hill. And when our author says: "A robbershall Zarathustra be called by the herdsmen," it is clear that these wordsmay be taken almost literally from one whose ideal was the rearing of ahigher aristocracy. Again, "the good and just," throughout the book, isthe expression used in referring to the self-righteous of modern times,--those who are quite sure that they know all that is to be known concerninggood and evil, and are satisfied that the values their little world oftradition has handed down to them, are destined to rule mankind as long asit lasts.
In the last paragraph of the Prologue, verse 7, Zarathustra gives us aforetaste of his teaching concerning the big and the little sagacities,expounded subsequently. He says he would he were as wise as his serpent;this desire will be found explained in the discourse entitled "TheDespisers of the Body", which I shall have occasion to refer to later.
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THE DISCOURSES.
Chapter I. The Three Metamorphoses.
This opening discourse is a parable in which Zarathustra discloses themental development of all creators of new values. It is the story of alife which reaches its consummation in attaining to a second ingenuousnessor in returning to childhood. Nietzsche, the supposed anarchist, hereplainly disclaims all relationship whatever to anarchy, for he shows usthat only by bearing the burdens of the existing law and submitting to itpatiently, as the camel submits to being laden, does the free spiritacquire that ascendancy over tradition which enables him to meet and masterthe dragon "Thou shalt,"--the dragon with the values of a thousand yearsglittering on its scales. There are two lessons in this discourse: first,that in order to create one must be as a little child; secondly, that it isonly through existing law and order that one attains to that height fromwhich new law and new order may be promulgated.
Chapter II. The Academic Chairs of Virtue.
Almost the whole of this is quite comprehensible. It is a discourseagainst all those who confound virtue with tameness and smug ease, and whoregard as virtuous only that which promotes security and tends to deepensleep.
Chapter IV. The Despisers of the Body.
Here Zarathustra gives names to the intellect and the instincts; he callsthe one "the little sagacity" and the latter "the big sagacity."Schopenhauer's teaching concerning the intellect is fully endorsed here."An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother, whichthou callest 'spirit,'" says Zarathustra. From beginning to end it is awarning to those who would think too lightly of the instincts and undulyexalt the intellect and its derivatives: Reason and Understanding.
Chapter IX. The Preachers of Death.
This is an analysis of the psychology of all those who have the "evil eye"and are pessimists by virtue of their constitutions.
Chapter XV. The Thousand and One Goals.
In this discourse Zarathustra opens his exposition of the doctrine ofrelativity in morality, and declares all morality to be a mere means topower. Needless to say that verses 9, 10, 11, and 12 refer to the Greeks,the Persians, the Jews, and the Germans respectively. In the penultimateverse he makes known his discovery concerning the root of modern Nihilismand indifference,--i.e., that modern man has no goal, no aim, no ideals(see Note A).
Chapter XVIII. Old and Young Women.
Nietzsche's views on women have either to be loved at first sight or theybecome perhaps the greatest obstacle in the way of those who otherwisewould be inclined to accept his philosophy. Women especially, of course,have been taught to dislike them, because it has been rumoured that hisviews are unfriendly to themselves. Now, to my mind, all this is puremisunderstanding and error.
German philosophers, thanks to Schopenhauer, have earned rather a bad namefor their views on women. It is almost impossible for one of them to writea line on the subject, however kindly he may do so, without being suspectedof wishing to open a crusade against the fair sex. Despite the fact,therefore, that all Nietzsche's views in this respect were dictated to himby the profoundest love; despite Zarathustra's reservation in thisdiscourse, that "with women nothing (that can be said) is impossible," andin the face of other overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Nietzsche isuniversally reported to have mis son pied dans le plat, where the femalesex is concerned. And what is the fundamental doctrine which has givenrise to so much bitterness and aversion?--Merely this: that the sexes areat bottom ANTAGONISTIC--that is to say, as different as blue is fromyellow, and that the best possible means of rearing anything approaching adesirable race is to preserve and to foster this profound hostility. WhatNietzsche strives to combat and to overthrow is the modern democratictendency which is slowly labouring to level all things--even the sexes.His quarrel is not with women--what indeed could be more undignified?--itis with those who would destroy the natural relationship between the sexes,by modifying either the one or the other with a view to making them morealike. The human world is just as dependent upon women's powers as uponmen's. It is women's strongest and most valuable instincts which help todetermine who are to be the fathers of the next generation. By destroyingthese particular instincts, that is to say by attempting to masculinisewoman, and to feminise men, we jeopardise the future of our people. Thegeneral democratic movement of modern times, in its frantic struggle tomitigate all differences, is now invading even the world of sex. It isagainst this movement that Nietzsche raises his voice; he would have womanbecome ever more woman and man become ever more man. Only thus, and he isundoubtedly right, can their combined instincts lead to the excellence ofhumanity. Regarded in this light, all his views on woman appear not onlynecessary but just (see Note on Chapter LVI., par. 21.)
It is interesting to observe that the last line of the discourse, which hasso frequently been used by women as a weapon against Nietzsche's viewsconcerning them, was suggested to Nietzsche by a woman (see "Das Leben F.Nietzsche's").
Chapter XXI. Voluntary Death.
In regard to this discourse, I should only like to point out that Nietzschehad a particular aversion to the word "suicide"--self-murder. He dislikedthe evil it suggested, and in rechristening the act Voluntary Death, i.e.,the death that comes from no other hand than one's own, he was desirous ofelevating it to the position it held in classical antiquity (see Aphorism36 in "The Twilight of the Idols").