Part 8

The rejected world is opposed to an artificially constructed "true and valuable" one. At last we discover out of what material the "true" world was built; all that remains, now, is the rejected world, and to the account of our reasons for rejecting it we place our greatest disillusionment.

At this point Nihilism is reached; the directing values have been retained--nothing more!

This gives rise to the problem of strength and weakness:--

(1) The weak fall to pieces upon it;

(2) The strong destroy what does not fall to pieces of its own accord;

(3) The strongest overcome the directing values.

The whole condition of affairs produces the tragic age.

3. THE NIHILISTIC MOVEMENT AS AN EXPRESSION OF DECADENCE.

38.

Just lately an accidental and in every way inappropriate term has been very much misused: everywhere people are speaking of "Pessimism," and there is a fight around the question (to which some replies must be forthcoming): which is right--Pessimism or Optimism?

People have not yet seen what is so terribly-obvious--namely, that Pessimism is not a problem but a symptom,--that the term ought to be replaced by "Nihilism,"--that the question, "to be or not to be," is itself an illness, a sign of degeneracy, an idiosyncrasy.

The Nihilistic movement is only an expression of physiological decadence.

39.

To be understood:--That every kind of decline and tendency to sickness has incessantly been at work in helping to create general evaluations: that in those valuations which now dominate, decadence has even begun to preponderate, that we have not only to combat the conditions which present misery and degeneration have brought into being; but that all decadence, previous to that of our own times, has been transmitted and has therefore remained an active force amongst us. A universal departure of this kind, on the part of man, from his fundamental instincts, such universal decadence of the valuing judgment, is the note of interrogation par excellence, the real riddle, which the animal "man" sets to all philosophers.

40.

The notion "decadence":--Decay, decline, and waste, are, per se, in no way open to objection; they are the natural consequences of life and vital growth. The phenomenon of decadence is just as necessary to life as advance or progress is: we are not in a position which enables us to suppress it. On the contrary, reason would have it retain its rights.

It is disgraceful on the part of socialist-theorists to argue that circumstances and social combinations could be devised which would put an end to all vice, illness, crime, prostitution, and poverty.... But that is tantamount to condemning Life ... a society is not at liberty to remain young. And even in its prime it must bring forth ordure and decaying matter. The more energetically and daringly it advances, the richer will it be in failures and in deformities, and the nearer it will be to its fall. Age is not deferred by means of institutions. Nor is illness. Nor is vice.

41.

Fundamental aspect of the nature of decadence: what has heretofore been regarded as its causes are its effects.

In this way, the whole perspective of the problems of morality is altered.

All the struggle of morals against vice, luxury, crime, and even against illness, seems a naïveté, a superfluous effort: there is no such thing as "improvement" (a word against repentance).

Decadence itself is not a thing that can be withstood: it is absolutely necessary and is proper to all ages and all peoples. That which must be withstood, and by all means in our power, is the spreading of the contagion among the sound parts of the organism.

Is that done? The very reverse is done. It is precisely on this account that one makes a stand on behalf of humanity.

How do the highest values created hitherto stand in relation to this fundamental question in biology? Philosophy, religion, morality, art, etc.

(The remedy: militarism, for instance, from Napoleon onwards, who regarded civilisation as his natural enemy.)

42.

All those things which heretofore have been regarded as the causes of degeneration, are really its effects.

But those things also which have been regarded as the remedies of degeneration are only palliatives of certain effects thereof: the "cured" are types of the degenerate.