The Joyful Wisdom · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
335.
_Cheers for Physics!_—How many men are there who know how to observe? And among the few who do know,—how many observe themselves? "Everyone is furthest from himself"—all the "triers of the reins" know that to their discomfort; and the saying, "Know thyself," in the mouth of a God and spoken to man, is almost a mockery. But that the case of self-observation is so desperate, is attested best of all by the manner in which _almost everybody_ talks of the nature of a moral action, that prompt, willing, convinced, loquacious manner, with its look, its smile, and its pleasing eagerness! Everyone seems inclined to say to you: "Why, my dear Sir, that is precisely _my_ affair! You address yourself with your question to him who _is authorised_ to answer, for I happen to be wiser with regard to this matter than in anything else. Therefore, when a man decides that '_this is right_,' when he accordingly concludes that '_it must therefore be done_,' and thereupon _does_ what he has thus recognised as right and designated as necessary—then the nature of his action is _moral_!"
But, my friend, you are talking to me about three actions instead of one: your deciding, for instance, that "this is right," is also an action,—could one not judge either morally or immorally? _Why_ do you regard this, and just this, as right?—"Because my conscience tells me so; conscience never speaks immorally, indeed it determines in the first place what shall be moral!"—But why do you _listen_ to the voice of your conscience? And in how far are you justified in regarding such a judgment as true and infallible? This _belief_—is there no further conscience for it? Do you know nothing of an intellectual conscience? A conscience behind your "conscience"? Your decision, "this is right," has a previous history in your impulses, your likes and dislikes, your experiences and non-experiences; "_how_ has it originated?" you must ask, and afterwards the further question: "_what_ really impels me to give ear to it?" You can listen to its command like a brave soldier who hears the command of his officer. Or like a woman who loves him who commands. Or like a flatterer and coward, afraid of the commander. Or like a blockhead who follows because he has nothing to say to the contrary. In short, you can give ear to your conscience in a hundred different ways.
But _that_ you hear this or that judgment as the voice of conscience, consequently, _that_ you feel a thing to be right—may have its cause in the fact that you have never reflected about yourself, and have blindly accepted from your childhood what has been designated to you as _right_: or in the fact that hitherto bread and honours have fallen to your share with that which you call your duty,—it is "right" to you, because it seems to be _your_ "condition of existence" (that you, however, have a _right_ to existence appears to you as irrefutable!). The _persistency_ of your moral judgment might still be just a proof of personal wretchedness or impersonality; your "moral force" might have its source in your obstinacy—or in your incapacity to perceive new ideals! And to be brief: if you had thought more acutely, observed more accurately, and had learned more, you would no longer under all circumstances call this and that your "duty" and your "conscience": the knowledge _how moral judgments have in general always originated_, would make you tired of these pathetic words,—as you have already grown tired of other pathetic words, for instance "sin," "salvation," and "redemption."—And now, my friend, do not talk to me about the categorical imperative!
That word tickles my ear, and I must laugh in spite of your presence and your seriousness. In this connection I recollect old Kant, who, as a punishment for having _gained possession surreptitiously_ of the "thing in itself"—also a very ludicrous affair!—was imposed upon by the categorical imperative, and with that in his heart _strayed back again_ to "God," the "soul," "freedom," and "immortality," like a fox which strays back into its cage: and it had been _his_ strength and shrewdness which had _broken open_ this cage!—What? You admire the categorical imperative in you? This "persistency" of your so-called moral judgment? This absoluteness of the feeling that "as I think on this matter, so must everyone think"? Admire rather your _selfishness_ therein! And the blindness, paltriness, and modesty of your selfishness!
For it is selfishness in a person to regard _his_ judgment as universal law, and a blind, paltry and modest selfishness besides, because it betrays that you have not yet discovered yourself, that you have not yet created for yourself any individual, quite individual ideal:—for this could never be the ideal of another, to say nothing of all, of every one!——He who still thinks that "each would have to act in this manner in this case," has not yet advanced half a dozen paces in self-knowledge: otherwise he would know that there neither are nor can be similar actions,—that every action that has been done, has been done in an entirely unique and inimitable manner, and that it will be the same with regard to all future actions; that all precepts of conduct (and even the most esoteric and subtle precepts of all moralities up to the present), apply only to the coarse exterior,—that by means of them, indeed, a semblance of equality can be attained, _but only a semblance_,—that in outlook or retrospect, _every_ action is and remains an impenetrable affair,—that our opinions of "good," "noble" and "great" can never be demonstrated by our actions, because no action is cognisable,—that our opinions, estimates, and tables of values are certainly among the most powerful levers in the mechanism of our actions, that in every single case, nevertheless, the law of their mechanism is untraceable.
Let us _confine_ ourselves, therefore, to the purification of our opinions and appreciations, and to the _construction of new tables of value of our own_:—we will, however, brood no longer over the "moral worth of our actions"! Yes, my friends! As regards the whole moral twaddle of people about one another, it is time to be disgusted with it! To sit in judgment morally ought to be opposed to our taste! Let us leave this nonsense and this bad taste to those who have nothing else to do, save to drag the past a little distance further through time, and who are never themselves the present,—consequently to the many, to the majority! We, however, _would seek to become what we are_,—the new, the unique, the incomparable, making laws for ourselves and creating ourselves! And for this purpose we must become the best students and discoverers of all the laws and necessities in the world. We must be _physicists_ in order to be _creators_ in that sense,—whereas hitherto all appreciations and ideals have been based on _ignorance_ of physics, or in _contradiction_ to it. And therefore, three cheers for physics! And still louder cheers for that which _impels_ us to it—our honesty. _Avarice of Nature._—Why has nature been so niggardly towards humanity that she has not let human beings shine, this man more and that man less, according to their inner abundance of light? Why have not great men such a fine visibility in their rising and setting as the sun? How much less equivocal would life among men then be!
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.