查拉图斯特拉如是说 英文版 Thus Spake Zarathustra
尼采 Friedrich Nietzsche
APPENDIX. Page 3
The last verse introduces the expression, "THE GREAT NOONTIDE!" In thepoem to be found at the end of "Beyond Good and Evil", we meet with theexpression again, and we shall find it occurring time and again inNietzsche's works. It will be found fully elucidated in the fifth part of"The Twilight of the Idols"; but for those who cannot refer to this book,it were well to point out that Nietzsche called the present period--ourperiod--the noon of man's history. Dawn is behind us. The childhood ofmankind is over. Now we KNOW; there is now no longer any excuse formistakes which will tend to botch and disfigure the type man. "Withrespect to what is past," he says, "I have, like all discerning ones, greattoleration, that is to say, GENEROUS self-control...But my feeling changessuddenly, and breaks out as soon as I enter the modern period, OUR period.Our age KNOWS..." (See Note on Chapter LXX.).
Chapter LI. On Passing-by.
Here we find Nietzsche confronted with his extreme opposite, with himtherefore for whom he is most frequently mistaken by the unwary."Zarathustra's ape" he is called in the discourse. He is one of those atwhose hands Nietzsche had to suffer most during his life-time, and at whosehands his philosophy has suffered most since his death. In this respect itmay seem a little trivial to speak of extremes meeting; but it iswonderfully apt. Many have adopted Nietzsche's mannerisms and word-coinages, who had nothing in common with him beyond the ideas and"business" they plagiarised; but the superficial observer and a largeportion of the public, not knowing of these things,--not knowing perhapsthat there are iconoclasts who destroy out of love and are thereforecreators, and that there are others who destroy out of resentment andrevengefulness and who are therefore revolutionists and anarchists,--areprone to confound the two, to the detriment of the nobler type.
If we now read what the fool says to Zarathustra, and note the tricks ofspeech he has borrowed from him: if we carefully follow the attitude heassumes, we shall understand why Zarathustra finally interrupts him. "Stopthis at once," Zarathustra cries, "long have thy speech and thy speciesdisgusted me...Out of love alone shall my contempt and my warning bird takewing; BUT NOT OUT OF THE SWAMP!" It were well if this discourse were takento heart by all those who are too ready to associate Nietzsche with lesserand noiser men,--with mountebanks and mummers.
Chapter LII. The Apostates.
It is clear that this applies to all those breathless and hasty "tasters ofeverything," who plunge too rashly into the sea of independent thought and"heresy," and who, having miscalculated their strength, find it impossibleto keep their head above water. "A little older, a little colder," saysNietzsche. They soon clamber back to the conventions of the age theyintended reforming. The French then say "le diable se fait hermite," butthese men, as a rule, have never been devils, neither do they becomeangels; for, in order to be really good or evil, some strength and deepbreathing is required. Those who are more interested in supportingorthodoxy than in being over nice concerning the kind of support they giveit, often refer to these people as evidence in favour of the true faith.
Chapter LIII. The Return Home.
This is an example of a class of writing which may be passed over toolightly by those whom poetasters have made distrustful of poetry. Fromfirst to last it is extremely valuable as an autobiographical note. Theinevitable superficiality of the rabble is contrasted with the peaceful andprofound depths of the anchorite. Here we first get a direct hintconcerning Nietzsche's fundamental passion--the main force behind all hisnew values and scathing criticism of existing values. In verse 30 we aretold that pity was his greatest danger. The broad altruism of the law-giver, thinking over vast eras of time, was continually being pitted byNietzsche, in himself, against that transient and meaner sympathy for theneighbour which he more perhaps than any of his contemporaries had sufferedfrom, but which he was certain involved enormous dangers not only forhimself but also to the next and subsequent generations (see Note B., where"pity" is mentioned among the degenerate virtues). Later in the book weshall see how his profound compassion leads him into temptation, and howfrantically he struggles against it. In verses 31 and 32, he tells us towhat extent he had to modify himself in order to be endured by his fellowswhom he loved (see also verse 12 in "Manly Prudence"). Nietzsche's greatlove for his fellows, which he confesses in the Prologue, and which is atthe root of all his teaching, seems rather to elude the discerning powersof the average philanthropist and modern man. He cannot see the wood forthe trees. A philanthropy that sacrifices the minority of the present-dayfor the majority constituting posterity, completely evades his mentalgrasp, and Nietzsche's philosophy, because it declares Christian values tobe a danger to the future of our kind, is therefore shelved as brutal,cold, and hard (see Note on Chapter XXXVI.). Nietzsche tried to be allthings to all men; he was sufficiently fond of his fellows for that: inthe Return Home he describes how he ultimately returns to loneliness inorder to recover from the effects of his experiment.
Chapter LIV. The Three Evil Things.
Nietzsche is here completely in his element. Three things hitherto best-cursed and most calumniated on earth, are brought forward to be weighed.Voluptuousness, thirst of power, and selfishness,--the three forces inhumanity which Christianity has done most to garble and besmirch,--Nietzsche endeavours to reinstate in their former places of honour.Voluptuousness, or sensual pleasure, is a dangerous thing to discussnowadays. If we mention it with favour we may be regarded, howeverunjustly, as the advocate of savages, satyrs, and pure sensuality. If wecondemn it, we either go over to the Puritans or we join those who are wontto come to table with no edge to their appetites and who therefore grumbleat all good fare. There can be no doubt that the value of healthy innocentvoluptuousness, like the value of health itself, must have been greatlydiscounted by all those who, resenting their inability to partake of thisworld's goods, cried like St Paul: "I would that all men were even as Imyself." Now Nietzsche's philosophy might be called an attempt at givingback to healthy and normal men innocence and a clean conscience in theirdesires--NOT to applaud the vulgar sensualists who respond to everystimulus and whose passions are out of hand; not to tell the mean, selfishindividual, whose selfishness is a pollution (see Aphorism 33, "Twilight ofthe Idols"), that he is right, nor to assure the weak, the sick, and thecrippled, that the thirst of power, which they gratify by exploiting thehappier and healthier individuals, is justified;--but to save the cleanhealthy man from the values of those around him, who look at everythingthrough the mud that is in their own bodies,--to give him, and him alone, aclean conscience in his manhood and the desires of his manhood. "Do Icounsel you to slay your instincts? I counsel to innocence in yourinstincts." In verse 7 of the second paragraph (as in verse I of paragraph19 in "The Old and New Tables") Nietzsche gives us a reason for hisoccasional obscurity (see also verses 3 to 7 of "Poets"). As I havealready pointed out, his philosophy is quite esoteric. It can serve nopurpose with the ordinary, mediocre type of man. I, personally, can nolonger have any doubt that Nietzsche's only object, in that part of hisphilosophy where he bids his friends stand "Beyond Good and Evil" with him,was to save higher men, whose growth and scope might be limited by the toostrict observance of modern values from foundering on the rocks of a"Compromise" between their own genius and traditional conventions. Theonly possible way in which the great man can achieve greatness is by meansof exceptional freedom--the freedom which assists him in experiencingHIMSELF. Verses 20 to 30 afford an excellent supplement to Nietzsche'sdescription of the attitude of the noble type towards the slaves inAphorism 260 of the work "Beyond Good and Evil" (see also Note B.)
Chapter LV. The Spirit of Gravity.
(See Note on Chapter XLVI.) In Part II. of this discourse we meet with adoctrine not touched upon hitherto, save indirectly;--I refer to thedoctrine of self-love. We should try to understand this perfectly beforeproceeding; for it is precisely views of this sort which, after having beencut out of the original context, are repeated far and wide as internalevidence proving the general unsoundness of Nietzsche's philosophy.Already in the last of the "Thoughts out of Season" Nietzsche speaks asfollows about modern men: "...these modern creatures wish rather to behunted down, wounded and torn to shreds, than to live alone with themselvesin solitary calm. Alone with oneself!--this thought terrifies the modernsoul; it is his one anxiety, his one ghastly fear" (English Edition, page141). In his feverish scurry to find entertainment and diversion, whetherin a novel, a newspaper, or a play, the modern man condemns his own ageutterly; for he shows that in his heart of hearts he despises himself. Onecannot change a condition of this sort in a day; to become endurable tooneself an inner transformation is necessary. Too long have we lostourselves in our friends and entertainments to be able to find ourselves sosoon at another's bidding. "And verily, it is no commandment for to-dayand to-morrow to LEARN to love oneself. Rather is it of all arts thefinest, subtlest, last, and patientest."
In the last verse Nietzsche challenges us to show that our way is the rightway. In his teaching he does not coerce us, nor does he overpersuade; hesimply says: "I am a law only for mine own, I am not a law for all. This--is now MY way,--where is yours?"
pioneers of Nietzsche's stamp meetwith at the hands of their contemporaries!
Chapter LVI. Old and New Tables. Par. 2.
Nietzsche himself declares this to be the most decisive portion of thewhole of "Thus Spake Zarathustra". It is a sort of epitome of his leadingdoctrines. In verse 12 of the second paragraph, we learn how he himselfwould fain have abandoned the poetical method of expression had he notknown only too well that the only chance a new doctrine has of surviving,nowadays, depends upon its being given to the world in some kind of art-form. Just as prophets, centuries ago, often had to have recourse to themask of madness in order to mitigate the hatred of those who did not andcould not see as they did; so, to-day, the struggle for existence amongopinions and values is so great, that an art-form is practically the onlygarb in which a new philosophy can dare to introduce itself to us.
Pars. 3 and 4.
Many of the paragraphs will be found to be merely reminiscent of formerdiscourses. For instance, par. 3 recalls "Redemption". The last verse ofpar. 4 is important. Freedom which, as I have pointed out before,Nietzsche considered a dangerous acquisition in inexperienced or unworthyhands, here receives its death-blow as a general desideratum. In the firstPart we read under "The Way of the Creating One", that freedom as an end initself does not concern Zarathustra at all. He says there: "Free fromwhat? What doth that matter to Zarathustra? Clearly, however, shall thineeye answer me: free FOR WHAT?" And in "The Bedwarfing Virtue": "Ah thatye understood my word: 'Do ever what ye will--but first be such as CANWILL.'"
Par. 5.
Here we have a description of the kind of altruism Nietzsche exacted fromhigher men. It is really a comment upon "The Bestowing Virtue" (see Noteon Chapter XXII.).
Par. 6.
This refers, of course, to the reception pioneers of Nietzsche's stamp meetwith at the hands of their contemporaries.
Par. 8.
Nietzsche teaches that nothing is stable,--not even values,--not even theconcepts good and evil. He likens life unto a stream. But foot-bridgesand railings span the stream, and they seem to stand firm. Many will bereminded of good and evil when they look upon these structures; for thusthese same values stand over the stream of life, and life flows on beneaththem and leaves them standing. When, however, winter comes and the streamgets frozen, many inquire: "Should not everything--STAND STILL?Fundamentally everything standeth still." But soon the spring cometh andwith it the thaw-wind. It breaks the ice, and the ice breaks down thefoot-bridges and railings, whereupon everything is swept away. This stateof affairs, according to Nietzsche, has now been reached. "Oh, mybrethren, is not everything AT PRESENT IN FLUX? Have not all railings andfoot-bridges fallen into the water? Who would still HOLD ON to 'good' and'evil'?"
Par. 9.
This is complementary to the first three verses of par. 2.
Par. 10.
So far, this is perhaps the most important paragraph. It is a protestagainst reading a moral order of things in life. "Life is somethingessentially immoral!" Nietzsche tells us in the introduction to the "Birthof Tragedy". Even to call life "activity," or to define it further as "thecontinuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations," asSpencer has it, Nietzsche characterises as a "democratic idiosyncracy." Hesays to define it in this way, "is to mistake the true nature and functionof life, which is Will to Power...Life is ESSENTIALLY appropriation,injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusionof its own forms, incorporation and at least, putting it mildest,exploitation." Adaptation is merely a secondary activity, a mere re-activity (see Note on Chapter LVII.).
Pars. 11, 12.
These deal with Nietzsche's principle of the desirability of rearing aselect race. The biological and historical grounds for his insistence uponthis principle are, of course, manifold. Gobineau in his great work,"L'Inegalite des Races Humaines", lays strong emphasis upon the evils whicharise from promiscuous and inter-social marriages. He alone would sufficeto carry Nietzsche's point against all those who are opposed to the otherconditions, to the conditions which would have saved Rome, which havemaintained the strength of the Jewish race, and which are strictlymaintained by every breeder of animals throughout the world. Darwin in hisremarks relative to the degeneration of CULTIVATED types of animals throughthe action of promiscuous breeding, brings Gobineau support from the realmof biology.
The last two verses of par. 12 were discussed in the Notes on ChaptersXXXVI. and LIII.
Par. 13.
This, like the first part of "The Soothsayer", is obviously a reference tothe Schopenhauerian Pessimism.
Pars. 14, 15, 16, 17.
These are supplementary to the discourse "Backworld's-men".
Par. 18.
We must be careful to separate this paragraph, in sense, from the previousfour paragraphs. Nietzsche is still dealing with Pessimism here; but it isthe pessimism of the hero--the man most susceptible of all to desperateviews of life, owing to the obstacles that are arrayed against him in aworld where men of his kind are very rare and are continually beingsacrificed. It was to save this man that Nietzsche wrote. Heroism foiled,thwarted, and wrecked, hoping and fighting until the last, is at lengthovertaken by despair, and renounces all struggle for sleep. This is notthe natural or constitutional pessimism which proceeds from an unhealthybody--the dyspeptic's lack of appetite; it is rather the desperation of thenetted lion that ultimately stops all movement, because the more it movesthe more involved it becomes.
Par. 20.
"All that increases power is good, all that springs from weakness is bad.The weak and ill-constituted shall perish: first principle of our charity.And one shall also help them thereto." Nietzsche partly divined the kindof reception moral values of this stamp would meet with at the hands of theeffeminate manhood of Europe. Here we see that he had anticipated the mostlikely form their criticism would take (see also the last two verses ofpar. 17).
Par. 21.
The first ten verses, here, are reminiscent of "War and Warriors" and of"The Flies in the Market-Place." Verses 11 and 12, however, areparticularly important. There is a strong argument in favour of the sharpdifferentiation of castes and of races (and even of sexes; see Note onChapter XVIII.) running all through Nietzsche's writings. But sharpdifferentiation also implies antagonism in some form or other--henceNietzsche's fears for modern men. What modern men desire above all, ispeace and the cessation of pain. But neither great races nor great casteshave ever been built up in this way. "Who still wanteth to rule?"Zarathustra asks in the "Prologue". "Who still wanteth to obey? Both aretoo burdensome." This is rapidly becoming everybody's attitude to-day.The tame moral reading of the face of nature, together with such democraticinterpretations of life as those suggested by Herbert Spencer, are signs ofa physiological condition which is the reverse of that bounding andirresponsible healthiness in which harder and more tragic values rule.
Par. 24.
This should be read in conjunction with "Child and Marriage". In the fifthverse we shall recognise our old friend "Marriage on the ten-years system,"which George Meredith suggested some years ago. This, however, must not betaken too literally. I do not think Nietzsche's profoundest views onmarriage were ever intended to be given over to the public at all, at leastnot for the present. They appear in the biography by his sister, andalthough their wisdom is unquestionable, the nature of the reforms hesuggests render it impossible for them to become popular just now.
Pars. 26, 27.
See Note on "The Prologue".
Par. 28.
Nietzsche was not an iconoclast from predilection. No bitterness or emptyhate dictated his vituperations against existing values and against thedogmas of his parents and forefathers. He knew too well what these thingsmeant to the millions who profess them, to approach the task of uprootingthem with levity or even with haste. He saw what modern anarchists andrevolutionists do NOT see--namely, that man is in danger of actualdestruction when his customs and values are broken. I need hardly pointout, therefore, how deeply he was conscious of the responsibility he threwupon our shoulders when he invited us to reconsider our position. Thelines in this paragraph are evidence enough of his earnestness.
Chapter LVII. The Convalescent.
We meet with several puzzles here. Zarathustra calls himself the advocateof the circle (the Eternal Recurrence of all things), and he calls thisdoctrine his abysmal thought. In the last verse of the first paragraph,however, after hailing his deepest thought, he cries: "Disgust, disgust,disgust!" We know Nietzsche's ideal man was that "world-approving,exuberant, and vivacious creature, who has not only learnt to compromiseand arrange with that which was and is, but wishes to have it again, AS ITWAS AND IS, for all eternity insatiably calling out da capo, not only tohimself, but to the whole piece and play" (see Note on Chapter XLII.). Butif one ask oneself what the conditions to such an attitude are, one willrealise immediately how utterly different Nietzsche was from his ideal.The man who insatiably cries da capo to himself and to the whole of hismise-en-scene, must be in a position to desire every incident in his lifeto be repeated, not once, but again and again eternally. Now, Nietzsche'slife had been too full of disappointments, illness, unsuccessful struggles,and snubs, to allow of his thinking of the Eternal Recurrence withoutloathing--hence probably the words of the last verse.