real it was comes out in a variety of minor indirect ways. Zarathustra gives comfort to his guest-disciples in the thought of the little good perfect things already in the world—put them around you, he says, their golden ripeness heals the heart; the perfect teaches hope.[1] Nietzsche knows the charm of the imperfect, but, as already explained, it is in its suggestions, not for itself.[2] Oddly as it may sound in these secular days, he pronounces the love of man "for God's sake" the most superior and elevated sentiment which mankind has hitherto reached—a love of man, without this thought of something beyond that hallows it, being a more or less stupid and brutish thing.[3] "To man my will clings, with chains I bind myself fast to man, because so I am pulled up to the superman: for thither moves my other will."[4] "Grant me from time to time a glimpse of something complete, finished, happy, mighty, triumphant, in which there is still something of fear, a glimpse of a man who justifies mankind, a complementary and redeeming instance, for whose sake we can hold fast our faith in man!"[5] For man as he is is not a happy throw of nature's dice; there is something fundamentally wrong (verfehltes) with him; connecting with the old religious language, Nietzsche says that in place of the sinfulness we must substitute the general ill-constitutedness (Missrathensein) of man.[6] He is tentative material merely; the failures preponderate; broken fragments, ruins (ein Trümmerfeld) are what we see about us.[7] Hence suffering is Nietzsche's main feeling.[8] We thirst, he says, for great and deep souls, and discover at best a social animal.[9] Only a living habitual sense of perfect things could beget a dissatisfaction like this.
The aim which Nietzsche proposes is different, he thinks, from that of previous moralities. The various moral judgments
- ↑ Zarathustra, IV, xiii, § 15.
- ↑ Joyful Science, § 79.
- ↑ Beyond Good and Evil, § 60. So "in thy friend thou shalt love the superman as thy motive" (Zarathustra, I, xvi).
- ↑ Zarathustra, II, xxi.
- ↑ Genealogy etc., I, § 12.
- ↑ Werke, XIV, 204, § 405; 330, § 166.
- ↑ Will to Power, § 713. Cf. the descriptions in Zarathustra, II, xx.
- ↑ Genealogy etc., I, § 11 ("derm wir leiden am Menschen, es ist kein Zweifel").
- ↑ Werke, XIII, 213, § 498.
