lectures14+15-第13章
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his ascetic tendencies save him from the petty personal
pretensions which so obstruct our ordinary social intercourse;
and his purity gives us in him a clean man for a companion。
Felicity; purity; charity; patience; self…severitythese are
splendid excellencies; and the saint of all men shows them in the
completest possible measure。
But; as we saw; all these things together do not make saints
infallible。 When their intellectual outlook is narrow; they fall
into all sorts of holy excesses; fanaticism or theopathic
absorption; self…torment; prudery; scrupulosity; gullibility; and
morbid inability to meet the world。 By the very intensity of his
fidelity to the paltry ideals with which an inferior intellect
may inspire him; a saint can be even more objectionable and
damnable than a superficial carnal man would be in the same
situation。 We must judge him not sentimentally only; and not in
isolation; but using our own intellectual standards; placing him
in his environment; and estimating his total function。
Now in the matter of intellectual standards; we must bear in mind
that it is unfair; where we find narrowness of mind; always to
impute it as a vice to the individual; for in religious and
theological matters he probably absorbs his narrowness from his
generation。 Moreover; we must not confound the essentials of
saintliness; which are those general passions of which I have
spoken; with its accidents; which are the special determinations
of these passions at any historical moment。 In these
determinations the saints will usually be loyal to the temporary
idols of their tribe。 Taking refuge in monasteries was as much
an idol of the tribe in the middle ages; as bearing a hand in the
world's work is to…day。 Saint Francis or Saint Bernard; were
they living to…day; would undoubtedly be leading consecrated
lives of some sort; but quite as undoubtedly they would not lead
them in retirement。 Our animosity to special historic
manifestations must not lead us to give away the saintly impulses
in their essential nature to the tender mercies of inimical
critics。
The most inimical critic of the saintly impulses whom I know is
Nietzsche。 He contrasts them with the worldly passions as we
find these embodied in the predaceous military character;
altogether to the advantage of the latter。 Your born saint; it
must be confessed; has something about him which often makes the
gorge of a carnal man rise; so it will be worth while to consider
the contrast in question more fully。
Dislike of the saintly nature seems to be a negative result of
the biologically useful instinct of welcoming leadership; and
glorifying the chief of the tribe。 The chief is the potential;
if not the actual tyrant; the masterful; overpowering man of
prey。 We confess our inferiority and grovel before him。 We
quail under his glance; and are at the same time proud of owning
so dangerous a lord。 Such instinctive and submissive
hero…worship must have been indispensable in primeval tribal
life。 In the endless wars of those times; leaders were
absolutely needed for the tribe's survival。 If there were any
tribes who owned no leaders; they can have left no issue to
narrate their doom。 The leaders always had good consciences; for
conscience in them coalesced with will; and those who looked on
their face were as much smitten with wonder at their freedom from
inner restraint as with awe at the energy of their outward
performances。
Compared with these beaked and taloned graspers of the world;
saints are herbivorous animals; tame and harmless barn…yard
poultry。 There are saints whose beard you may; if you ever care
to; pull with impunity。 Such a man excites no thrills of wonder
veiled in terror; his conscience is full of scruples and returns;
he stuns us neither by his inward freedom nor his outward power;
and unless he found within us an altogether different faculty of
admiration to appeal to; we should pass him by with contempt。
In point of fact; he does appeal to a different faculty。
Reenacted in human nature is the fable of the wind; the sun; and
the traveler。 The sexes embody the discrepancy。 The woman loves
the man the more admiringly the stormier he shows himself; and
the world deifies its rulers the more for being willful and
unaccountable。 But the woman in turn subjugates the man by the
mystery of gentleness in beauty; and the saint has always charmed
the world by something similar。 Mankind is susceptible and
suggestible in opposite directions; and the rivalry of influences
is unsleeping。 The saintly and the worldly ideal pursue their
feud in literature as much as in real life。
For Nietzsche the saint represents little but sneakingness and
slavishness。 He is the sophisticated invalid; the degenerate par
excellence; the man of insufficient vitality。 His prevalence
would put the human type in danger。
〃The sick are the greatest danger for the well。 The weaker; not
the stronger; are the strong's undoing。 It is not FEAR of our
fellow…man; which we should wish to see diminished; for fear
rouses those who are strong to become terrible in turn
themselves; and preserves the hard…earned and successful type of
humanity。 What is to be dreaded by us more than any other doom is
not fear; but rather the great disgust; not fear; but rather the
great pitydisgust and pity for our human fellows。 。 。 。 The
MORBID are our greatest perilnot the 'bad' men; not the
predatory beings。 Those born wrong; the miscarried; the broken
they it is; the WEAKEST who are undermining the vitality of the
race; poisoning our trust in life; and putting humanity in
question。 Every look of them is a sigh'Would I were something
other! I am sick and tired of what I am。' In this swamp…soil of
self…contempt; every poisonous weed flourishes; and all so small;
so secret; so dishonest; and so sweetly rotten。 Here swarm the
worms of sensitiveness and resentment; here the air smells odious
with secrecy; with what is not to be acknowledged; here is woven
endlessly the net of the meanest of conspiracies; the conspiracy
of those who suffer against those who succeed and are victorious;
here the very aspect of the victorious is hatedas if health;
success; strength; pride; and the sense of power were in
themselves things vicious; for which one ought eventually to make
bitter expiation。 Oh; how these people would themselves like to
inflict the expiation; how they thirst to be the hangmen! And
all the while their duplicity never confesses their hatred to
be hatred。〃'222'
'222' Zur Genealogie der Moral; Dritte Abhandlung; Section 14。 I
have abridged; and in one place transposed; a sentence。
Poor Nietzsche's antipathy is itself sickly enough; but we all
know what he means; and he expresses well the clash between the
two Ideals。 The carnivorous…minded 〃strong man;〃 the adult male
and cannibal; can see nothing but mouldiness and morbidness in
the saint's gentleness and self…severity; and regards him with
pure loathing。 The whole feud revolves essentially upon two
pivots: Shall the seen world or the unseen world be our chief
sphere of adaptation? and must our means of adaptation in this
seen world be aggressiveness or non…resistance?
The debate is serious。 In some sense and to some degree both
worlds must be acknowledged and taken account of; and in the seen
world both aggressive