CONTROLLING EMOTIONS - Wikimedia Commons · Human All-Too-Human 39 Astonishing functions of human...

PDF generated using the open source mwlib toolkit. See http://code.pediapress.com/ for more information.PDF generated at: Wed, 22 May 2013 14:56:37 UTC

CONTROLLING EMOTIONS

ContentsArticlesDEFINING GOOD 1

Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Good 1Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume IV/Manichaean Controversy/Concerning theNature of Good/Chapter 1 8Beyond Good and Evil/Chapter I 9Beyond Good and Evil/Chapter IX 18

DEFINING HAPPINESS 31Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/The Highest Good 31

DEFINING EMOTIONS 36Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Passions 36

DEFINING TRUE KNOWLEDGE 38

EMOTIONAL EFFECTS AFTER KNOWLEDGE CREATION 39Human All-Too-Human 39Astonishing functions of human brain and miracles of mind 170Personal Idealism/Axioms as Postulates 247The Analysis of Mind/Lecture XIV 287

DEFINING MORALITY 290The Human Origin of Morals/Chapter VI 290Ethics (Spinoza)/Part 3 293Ethics (Spinoza)/Part 4 321The Spirit of the Chinese People/1 348Heretics/7 3701911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Psychology 373The Lost Keys of Freemasonry/Chapter 1 4731911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brain 476

undefined 515Help:Books 515Portal:Portals 518

ALTERING GOOD, HAPPINESS AND MORALITY IN A HUMAN 519

ALTERING GOOD, HAPPINESS, AND MORALITY IN SOCIETY 520Wikisource:Authors-S 520

ReferencesArticle Sources and Contributors 538Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 539

Article LicensesLicense 540

1

DEFINING GOOD

Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Good

←Western Vicariate of the Cape of Good Hope Catholic Encyclopedia(1913)Good

Godfrey Goodman→

"Good" is one of those primary ideas which cannot be strictly defined. In order to fix its philosophical significancewe may begin by observing that the word is employed firstly as an adjective and secondly as a substantive. Thisdistinction which is clearly marked in French by the two different terms, bon and le bien, may be preserved inEnglish by prefixing an article to the term when it is employed substantively. We call a tool or instrument good, if itserves the purpose for which it is intended. That is to say, it is good because it is an efficient means to obtain adesired result. The result, in turn, may be desired for itself, or it may be sought as a means to some ulterior end. If itis sought for itself, it is or it is estimated by us to be a good, and therefore desirable on its own account. When wetake some step to obtain it, it is the end of our action. The series of means and ends either stretches out indefinitely,or it must terminate in some desired object or objects which are ends in themselves. Again we sometimes call a thinggood because it possesses completely, or in a high degree, the perfections proper to its nature, as a good painting,good respiration. Sometimes, too, things are termed good because they are of a nature to produce somethingdesirable; that is, they are good casually. Finally, we speak of good conduct, a good man, a good intention, and herethe adjective has for us a sense different from any of the foregoing, unless indeed, we are utilitarian philosophers, towhom morally good is but another term for useful.Now in all these locutions the word conveys directly or indirectly the idea of desirability. The merely useful isdesired for the end towards which it is employed; the end is desired on its own account. The latter is conceived aspossessing some character, quality, power, which renders it an object of desire. Two questions now arise:•• What is it which, in the nature or being of any object, constitutes it desirable? Or, in more technical phrase, what,

metaphsically speaking, constitutes the good or goodness in a thing, absolutely considered?•• What is the relationship existing between the good thus absolutely constituted and the subject to which it is

desirable? Or what is implied by good, relatively considered?These two questions may be combined in one: "What is the good in the ontological order?" In exposing the reply tothis question we shall come across the moral good, and the ethical aspect of the problem, which shall be treated inthe second place.I. ONTOLOGICAL

In Greek philosophy no topic receives more attention than the nature of the good. The speculations of Plato andAristotle, especially have had a notable influence on Christian thought; they were adopted, in eclectic fashion, by theearly Fathers, who combined many of the ancient philosophic ideas with revealed truth, by correcting some andamplifying others. The synthesis was carried on by the earlier Scholastics, and took definitive form from the hand ofSt. Thomas. Some of his predecessors, as well as some of his followers, disagree with him on a few minor points,most of which, however, are of a character too subtle to call for attention in this article. We shall, therefore, presentthe doctrine of St. Thomas in outline as the approved teaching of our schools.Plato

According to Plato, in the objective order corresponding to our thought, there are two different worlds: the world ofthings, and the incomparably higher, nobler world of ideas, which transcends the world of things. The objects

http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Catholic_Encyclopedia_%281913%29/Western_Vicariate_of_the_Cape_of_Good_Hopehttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Catholic_Encyclopedia_%281913%29http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Catholic_Encyclopedia_%281913%29http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Catholic_Encyclopedia_%281913%29/Godfrey_Goodman

Catholic Encyclopedia (1913)/Good 2

corresponding directly to our universal concepts are not things, but ideas. The objective idea is not indwelling in theessences of those things which fall within the scope of our corresponding universal concept, but the thing borrows orderives something from the idea. While the being or existence proper to the world of things is imperfect, unstable,essentially transitory, and therefore not truly deserving of the name of being, whcih implies permanence, ideas on thecontrary are incorruptible, unchangeable, and truly existence. Now, among ideas the noblest and highest is the ideagood: it is the supreme and sovereign idea. Whatever things possess goodness have it only because they participatein or draw from, the Sovereign Good. Their goodness then, is something distinct from, and added to, their properessences or being. What, in Plato s mind, is the nature of this participation we need not explain further than that hemakes it consist in this, that the thing is a copy or imitation of the idea. This sovereign idea, the Good, is identicalwith God. It is not a synthesis of all other ideas but is unique, transcendent, and individual. Whether Plato held thatother ideas exist in God as in their proper dwelling-place is not quite clear. Aristotle so interpreted Plato; and it isvery likely that Aristotle was better qualified to understand Plato s meaning than were subsequent philosophers whohave disputed his interpretation. The Supreme Good imparts to the intellect the power to perceive, and givesintelligibility to the intelligible. It is, therefore, the source of truth. God, the essential and supreme Good, can impartnothing that is not good. This view leads to the inference that the origin of evil lies beyond the control of God. Thetheory leans, therefore, to dualism, and its influence may be traced through the early Gnostic and Manichaeanheresies, and, in a minor degree, in the doctrines of the Priscillanists and Albigenses.Aristotle

Starting from the Platonic definition, good is that which all desire, Aristotle, rejecting the Platonic doctrine of atranscendent world of ideas, holds that the good and being are identical; good is not something added to being, it isbeing. Everything that is, is good because it is; the quantity, if one may use the word loosely, of being or existencewhich a thing possesses, is at the same time the stock of goodenss. A diminution or an increase of its being is adiminution or increase of its goodness. Being and the good are, then, objectively the same, every being is good,every good is being. Our concepts, being and good differ formally: the first simply denotes existence; the second,existence as a perfection, or the power of contributing to the perfection of a being. It follows from this that evil is notbeing at all; it is, on the contrary, the privation of being. Again, while being, viewed as the object of tendency,appetite, or will, gives rise to the concept good, so, when considered as the proper object of the intellect, it isrepresented under the concept true or truth, and it is the beautiful, inasmuch as the knowledge of it is attended bythat particular pleasurable emotion which we call asthetic.As god is the fullness of being, so, therefore, the supreme,infinite Being is also the Supreme Good from which all creatures derive their being and goodness.Neo-Platonism

The neo-Platonists perpetuated the Platonic theory, mixed with Aristotelean, Judaic, and other oriental ideas.Plotinus introduced the doctrine of a triple hypostasis, i.e. the one, the intelligence, and the universal soul, above theworld of changing being, which is multiple. The intelligence is ordained to good; but, incapable of grasping it in itsentirety, it breaks it up into parts, which constitute the essences. These essences by becoming united with a materialprinciple constitute things. The Pseudo-Dionysius propagated the Platonic influence in his work "De NominibusDivinis", the doctrine of which is based on the scriptures. God is supereminently being — "I am who am" — but inHim the good is anterior to being, and the ineffable name of God is above all His other names. The good is moreuniversal than being, for it embraces the material principle which does not possess any being of its own. The bondwhich unites beings among themselves and to the Supreme Being is love, which has for its object the good. Thetrend of the Pseudo-Dionysius is away from the dualisim which admits a principle of evil, but on the other hand,itinclines towards pantheism.The Fathers

The Fathers, in general, treated the question of good from the standpoint of hermeneneutics rather than from thephilosophic. Their chief concern is to affirm that God is the Supreme Good, that He is the creator of all that exists,that creatures derive their goodness from Him, while they are distinct from Him; and that there is no supreme


independent, principle of evil. St. Augustine, however (De Natura boni, P.L., XLIII), examines the topic fully and ingreat detail. Some of his expressions seem tinged with the Platonic notion that good is antecedent to being; butelsewhere he makes the good, and being in God fundamentally identical. Boethius distinguishes a double goodnessin things created; first, that which in them is one with their being; second, an accidental goodness added to theirnature by God. In God these two elements of good, the essential and the accidental, are but one, since there are noaccidents in God.Scholastic Doctrine

St. Thomas starts from the Aristotelean principle that being and the good are objectively one. Being conceived asdesirable is the good. The good differs from the true in this, that, while both are objectively nothing else than being,the good is being considered as the object of appetitie, desire, and will, the true is being a the object of the intellect.God, the Supreme Being and the source of all other being is consequently the Supreme Good, and the goodness ofcreatures results from the diffusion of His goodness. In a creature, considered as a subject having existence, wedistinguish several elements of the goodness which it possesses:•• Its existence or being, which is the ground of all the other elements.•• Its powers, activities, and capacities. These are the complement of the first, and they serve it to pursue and

appropriate whatever is requisite for and contributory to sustaining its existence, and developing that existenceinto the fullness of perfection proper to it.

•• Each perfection that is acquired is a further measure of existence for it, hence a good.• The totality of these various elements, forming its total good subjectively, that is, its entire being in a state of

normal perfection according to its mind, is its good complete. This is the sense of the axiom: omne ens est bonumsibi (every being is a good unto itself).

The privation of any of its powers or due perfections is an evil for it, as, for instance, blindness, the loss of the power of sight, is an evil for an animal. Hence evil is not something positive and does not exist in itself; as the axiom expresses it, malum in bono fundatur (evil has its base in good). Let us pass now to good in the relative sense. Every being has a natural tendency to continue and to develop itself. This tendency brings its activities into play; each power has its proper object, and a conatus pushing it to action. The end to which action is directed is something that is of a nature to contribute, when obtained, to the well-being or perfection of the subject. For this reason it is needed, pursued, desired, and, because of its desirability, is designated good. For example, the plant for its existence and development requires light, air, heat, moisture, nurtriment. It has various organs adapted to appropriate these things, which are good for it, and, when by the exercise of these functions it acquires and appropriates them, it reaches its perfection and runs its course in nature. Now if we look into the cosmos, we perceive that the innumerable varieties of being in it are bound together in an indescribably complex system of mutual action and ineraction, as they obey the laws of their nature. One class contributes to the other in that orderly relationship which constitutes the harmony of the universe. True — to change the metaphor — with our limited powers of observation we are unable to follow the innumerable threads of this large and varied sweeps to warrant the induction that everything is good for some other thing, that everything has its proper end in the great whole. Omne ens est bonum alteri. Since this orderly correlation of things is necessary to them in order that they may obtain from one another the help which they need, it too is good for them. This order is also a good in itself, because it is a created reflection of the unity and harmony of the Divine being and goodness. When we consider the Supreme Being as the efficient cause, conserver, and director of this majestic order, we reach the conception of Divine providence. And then arises the question, what is the end towards which this Providence directs the universe? The end again is the good, i.e. God Himself. Not indeed that, as in the case of creatures He may derive any advantage or perfection from the world, but that it, by participating in His goodness, may manifest it. This manifestation is what we understand by the expression, giving glory to God. God is the Alpha and the Omega of the good; the source from which it flows, the end to which it returns. I am the Beginning and I am the End. It must be remembered that, throughout the treatment of this subject, the term good, like all other terms which we predicate of God and of creatures is used not univocally but analogically when referred to God. (See


ANALOGY.)The defined doctrine on the good, ontologically considered, is formulated by the Vatican Council (Session III, Const.de Fide Catholica, cap.i):

This one, only, true God, of His own goodness and almighty power, not for the increase of His ownhappiness, not to acquire but to manifest His perfection by the blessings which He bestows on creatures,with absolute freedom of counsel created from the beginning of time both the spiritual and the corporealcreature, to wit, the angelic and the mundane; and afterwards the human creature.

In Canon 4 we read:If anyone shall say that finite things, borth corporeal and spiritual, or at least spiritual, hav emanatedfrom the Divine substance; or that the Divine essence, by the manifestation and evolution of itself,becomes all things; or lastly, that God is universal or indefinite being, which by determining itselfconstitutes the universality of things distince according to genera species, and individuals, let him beanathema.

II. ETHICAL

The moral good is not a kind, distinct from the good viewed ontologically; it is one form of perfection proper tohuman life, but, because of its excellence and supreme practical importance, it demands special treatment withreference to its own distinctive character which differentiates it from all other goods and perfections of man. It isagain, in Greek philosophy, that we find the principles which have supplied the school with a basis for rationalspeculations, controlled and supplemented by revelation.Plato

The supreme good of man is, as we have seen, the idea good, identical with God. By union with God man attains hishighest subjective good, which is happiness. This assimilation is effected by knowledge and love; the means toachieve it is to preserve in the soul a due harmony throughout its various parts in subordination to the intellect whichis the highest faculty. The establishment of this harmony brings man to a participation in the Divine unity; andthrough this union man attains to happiness, which remains even though he suffers pain and the privation ofperishable goods. To regulate our actions harmoniously we stand in need of true knowledge, i.e. wisdom. Thehighest duty of man, therefore, is to obtain wisdom, which leads to God.Aristotle

The end of man, his highest subjective good, is happiness or well-being. Happiness is not pleasure; for pleasure is afeeling consequent upon action, while happiness is a state of activity. Happiness consists in perfect action, i.e. theactual exercise by man of his faculties — especially of his highest faculty, the speculative intellect — in perfectcorrespondence, with the norm which his nature itself prescribes. Action may deviate from this norm either byexcess or defect. The golden mean is to be preserved, and in this consists virtue. The various faculties, higher andlower, are regulated by their respective virtures to carry on their activites in due order. Pleasure follows action dulyperformed, even the highest form of activity, i.e. speculative contemplation of truth; but, as has been noted,happiness consists in the very operation itself. A life of contemplation, however, cannot be enjoyed unless a manposssesses enough goods of the lower orders to relieve him from the toils and the cares of life. hence happiness isbeyond the reach of many. It is to be observed therefore that, while both Plato and Aristotle, as well as theScholatics, hold that happiness is the end of man, their conception of happiness is quite different from the hedonisticidea of happiness as presented in English utiltarianism. For the utilitarian happiness is the sum total of pleasurablefeelings, from whatever source they may be derived. On the other hand, in our sense, happiness — eudaimonia,beatitudo — is a distinct state or condition of consciousness accompanying and dependent on the realizaion inconduct of one definite good or perfection, the nature of which is objectively fixed and not dependent on ourindividual preferences. (See UTILITARIANISM).Hedonists


The supreme good of man according to Aristippus is pleasure or the enjoyment of the moment, and pleasure isessentially gentle motion. Pleasure can never be bad, and the primary form of it is bodily pleasure. But, in order tosecure the maximum of pleasure, prudent self-control is necessary; and this is virtue. Epicurus held that pleasure isthe chief good; but pleasure is rest, not motion; and the highest form of pleasure is freedom from pain and theabsence of all desires or needs that we cannot satisfy. Hence an important means towards happiness is the control ofour desires, and the extinction of those that we cannot gratify, which is brought about by virtue. (See CYRENAICSCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY; HEDONISM, HAPPINESS.)The Stoics

Everything in the universe is regulated by law. Man s highest good, or happiness, is to conform his conduct touniversal law, which is Divine in its origin. To pursue this end is virtue. Virtue is to be cultivated in scorn ofconsequences, whether pleasurable or painful. The Stoic principle, "duty for duty's sake alone", reappears in Kant,with the modification that the norm of right action is not to be regarded as imposed by a Divine will; its originalsource is the human mind, or the free spirit itself.St. Thomas

The radical difference which distinguishes the nobler forms of ancient ethics from Christian ethics is that, whereasthe former identifies virtuous life with happiness, that is, with the possession and enjoyment of the highest good, theChristian conception is that a virtuous life, while it is, indeed, the proximate end and good of man, is not, in itself,his ultimate end and supreme good. A life of virtue, the moral good, leads him to the acquisition of an ulterior andultimate end. Furthermore the happiness, which in an imperfect measure attends the virtuous life, may beaccompanied with pain, sorrow, and the privation of terrestrial goods; complete happiness (beatitudo) is not to befound in earthly existence, but in the life to come, and will consist in union with God, the Supreme Good.(A) The Proximate End and Good (Bonum Morale)

Like all creatures involved in the cosmic system, man requires and seeks for the conservation and perfection of hisbeing a variety of things and conditions, all of which are, therefor, good for him. A composite being, partly corporealand partly spiritual, he possesses two sets of tendencies and appetites. Rational, he employs contrivance in order toobtain goods not immediately within his reach. That he may attain the perfection of this highly complex nature, hemust observe an order in the pursuit of different kinds of goods, lest the enjoyment of a good of lower value maycause him to lose or forfeit a higher one, in which case the former would be no true benefit to him at all. Besides,with a hierarchy of activities, capacities, and needs, he is a unity, an individual, a person; hence there exists for him agood in which all is other goods focus in harmonious correlation; and they are to be viewed and valued through themedium of this paramount good, not merely in isolated relation to their respective corresponding appetites.There are, then, several divisions of good;•• corporeal good is whatever contributes to the perfection of the purely animal nature;•• spiritual good is that which perfects the spiritual faculty-knowledge, truth;•• useful good is that which is desired merely as a means to something else; the delectable or pleasurable good is any

good regarded merely in the light of the pleasure it produces.The moral good (bonum honestum) consists in the due ordering of free action or conduct according to the norm of reason, the highest faculty, to which it is to conform. This is the good which determines the true valuation of all other goods sought by the activities which make up conduct. Any lower good acquired to the detriment of this one is really but a loss (bonum apparens). While all other kinds of good may, in turn, be viewed as means, themorla good is good as an end and is not a mere means to other goods. The pleasurable, though not in the order of things an independent end in itself, may be deliberately chosen as an end of action, or object of pursuit. Now let us apply these distinctions. Good being the object of any tendency, man has as many kinds of goods as he has appetites, needs, and faculties. The normal exercise of his powers and the acquisition thereby of any good is followed by satisfaction, which, when it reaches a certain degree of intensity, is the feeling of pleasure. He may and sometimes does pursue


things not on account of their intrinsic worth, but simply that he may obtain pleasure from them. On the othr hand,he may seek a good on account of its intrinsic power to satisfy a need or to contribute to the perfection of his naturein some respect. This may be illustrated in the case of food; for as the old adage has it, "the wise man eats to live, theepicure lives to eat." The faculty which is distinctively human is reason; man lives as a man properly speaking, whenall his activites are directed by reason according to the law which reason reads in his very nature. This conformity ofconduct to reason s dictates is the highest natural perfection that his activities can possess; it is what is meant byrectitude of conduct, righteousness, or the moral good. "Those actions", says St. Thomas, "are good which areconformable to reason. Those are bad which are contrary to reason" (I-II:18:5). "The proximate rule of free action isreason, the remote is the eternal law, that is, the Divine Nature" (I-II:21:1, I-II:19:4). The motive impelling us to seekthe moral good is not self-interest, but the intrinsic worth of righteousness. Why does a just man pay is debts? Askhim and he will reply, perhaps, n the first instance, "Because it is my duty". But ask him further: "Why do you fulfillthis duty?" He will answer: "Because it is right to do so". When other goods are pursued in violation of the rationalorder, action is deprived of its due moral perfection and, therefore, becomes wrong or bad, though it may retain allits other ontological goodness. The good which is the object of suh an action, although it retains its particular relativegoodness with regard to the want which it serves, is not a good for the whole personality. For example, if, on a daywhen flesh meat is forbidden, a man dines on roast-beef, the food is just as good physically as it would be on anyother day, but this goodness is outweighed, because his action is a violation of reason which dictates that he ought toobey the command of lawful authority.While the moral good is fixed by the Author of nature, yet, because man is endowed with free will or the power ofelecting which good he shall make the goal of action, he can, if he pleases, ignore the dictates of right reason andseek his other goods in a disorderly manner. He may pursue pleasure, riches, fame, or any other desirable end,though his conscience — that is, his reason — tells him that the means which he takes to satisfy his desire is wrong.He thereby frustrates his rational nature and deprives himself of his highest perfection. He cannot change the law ofthings, and this privation of his highest good is the immediate essential punishment incurred by his violation of themoral law. Another punishment is that the loss is attended, generally speaking, by that peculiar painful feeling calledremorse; but this effect may cease to be perceived when the moral impulses of reason have been habituallydisregarded.In order that an action mayy posses in an essential degree — no action is absolutely perfect — its moral perfection, itmust be in conformity with the law in three respects:• The action, considered under the character by which it ranks as an element of conduct, must be good. The

physical act of giving another person money may be either an act of justice, when one pays a debt, or it may be anact of mercy or benevolence, as it is if one give the money to relieve distress. Both, of these actions possess thefundamental element of goodness (bonum ex objecto).

• The motive, if there is a motive beyond the immediate object of the act, must also be good. If one pays a mansome money that one owes him with the purpose, indeed, of paying one s debts, but also with the ulterior purposeof enabling him to carry out a plot to murder one s enemy, the end is bad, and the action is thereby vitiated. Theend which is the motive must also be good (bonum ex fine). Thus, an action, otherwise good, is spoiled if directedto an immoral end; converselly, however, an action which in its fundamental character is bad is not rendered goodby directing it to a good end. The end does not justify the means.

•• The circumstances under which the action is performed should be in entire conformity with reason, otherwise itlacks something of moral completeness, though it may not be thereby rendered totally immoral. We frequentlysay that something which a person has done was right enough in itself, but he did not do it in the proper place orseason.

This triple goodness is expressd in the axiom: bonum ex integra causa, malum ex quocumque defectu ("An action isgood when good in every respect; it is wrong when wrong is any respect"). (B) The Ultimate Good — God —Beatitude


The perfection of life, then, is to realize the moral good. But now arises the question: "Is life its own end?" Or, inother words: "What is the ultimate end appointed for man?" To answer this question we must consider the good firstunder the aspect of end. We consider the good first under the aspect of end. "We not alone act", says St. Thomas,"for an immediate end, but all our actions converge towards an ultimate end or good, otherwise the entire serieswould be aimless." The test by which we may determine whether any object of pursuit is the ultimate end is: "Does itsatisfy all desire?" If it does not, it is not adequate to complete man's perfection and establish him in the possessionof his highest good and consequent happiness. Here St. Thomas, following St. Augustine, examines the variousobjects of human desire — pleasure, riches, power, fame, etc. — and rejects them all as inadequate. What then is thehighest good, the ultimate end? St. Thomas appeals to Revelation which teaches that in life to come the righteousshall possess and enjoy God himself in endless fruition. The argument is summed up in the well-known words of St.Augustine: "Thou has made us, O Lord, for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they rest in Thee". The moralcondition necessary to this future consummation is that our wills be here conformed to the Divine will as expressedin the moral law and in His revealed positive law. Thus the attainment of the proximate good in this life leads to thepossession of the Supreme Good in the next. Another condition indispensable is that our actions be vivified byDivine grace (see GRACE). What precisely will be the act by which the soul will apprehend the Sovereign Good is adisputed question among theologians. The Thomist theory is that it will be an act of the intellect, while the Scotistopinion is that it will be an act of the will. However this may be, one thing is dogmatically certain: the soul in thisassimilation shall not lose its selfhood, nor be absorbed according to the pantheistic sense in the Divine Substance.A word or two may be added upon a point which owing to the prevalence of kantian ideas is of actual importance.As we have seen, the moral good and the supreme good are ends in themselves; they are not means, nor are they tobe pursued merely as means to pleasure or agreeable feeling. But may we make the agreeable any part of ourmotive? Kant answers in the negative; for to allow this to enter into our motive is to vitiate the only moral motive,"right for right's sake," by self interest. This theory does not pay due regard to the order of things. The pleasurablefeeling attendant upon action, in the order of nature, established by God, served as a motive to action, and itsfunction is to guarantee that actions necessary welfare shall not be neglected. Why, then, should it be unlawful toaim at an end which God has attached to the good? Similarly as the attainment of our supreme good will be the causeof everlasting happiness, we may resonably make this accompanying end the motive of our action, provided that wedo not make it the sole or predominant motive.In conclusion, we may now state in a word the central idea of our doctrine. God as Infinite Being is Infinite Good;creatures are good because they derive their measure of being from Him. This participation manifests His goodness,or glorifies God, which is the end for which he created man. The rational creature is destined to be united to God asthe Supreme End and Good in a special manner. In order that he may attain to this consummation, it is necessary thatin this life, by conforming his conduct to conscience, the interpreter of the moral law, he realizes in himself therighteousness which is the true perfection of his nature. Thus God is the Supreme Good, as principle and as end. "Iam the beginning and I am the end."St. Thomas, S. Theol., I, QQ. v, vi, xliv, xlvii, lxv; I-II, v, xvii-xx, xciv; IDEM, Summa Contra Gentiles, tr. RICKABY, God and His Creatures

(London, 1905). II, xxiii; III, i-xi lxxxi,cxvi; ST. AUGUSTINE, De Natura Boni; IDEM, De Doctrina Christiana; IDEM, De Civitate Dei:

PLATO, Republic, IV-X; IDEM, Phaero, 64 sqq,; IDEM, Theatetus; ARISTOTLE, Metaphysics, I, II, IV, VI; IDEM, Nicomach. Ethics, I, i-iv;

IX; X; BOUQUILLON, Theologia Fundamentalis, lib. I; lib, III, tract. i; lib. IV; all textbooks of Scholastic philosophy-goo is treated in ontology

and in ethics; RICKABY, Moral Philosophy (London, 1901); MIVART, On Truth, sect. iii, iv (London, 1889); TURNER, History of Philosophy

(Boston and London, 1903), passim; JANET AND SEAILLES, History of the Problems of Philosophy, ed. JONES (London and new york, 1902),

II, i, ii; FARGES, La liberte et le Devoir, pt. II, iii; MCDONALD, The principles of Moral Science, bk. I, chs i-vi, xl; HARPER, The Metaphysic

of the School (London, 1884), vol. I, bk. II, ch.iv.

JAMES J FOX

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume IV/Manichaean Controversy/Concerning the Nature of Good/Chapter 1 8

Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/VolumeIV/Manichaean Controversy/Concerning theNature of Good/Chapter 1

←Preface Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers: Series I/Volume IV/Manichaean Controversy/Concerning the Nature ofGoodPhilip Schaff et al.Chapter 1

Chapter 2→

Chapter 1.—God the Highest and Unchangeable Good, from Whom are All Other Good Things, Spiritual andCorporeal.The highest good, than which there is no higher, is God, and consequently He is unchangeable good, hence trulyeternal and truly immortal. All other good things are only from Him, not of Him. For what is of Him, is Himself. And consequently if He alone is unchangeable, all things that He has made, because He has made them out ofnothing, are changeable. For He is so omnipotent, that even out of nothing, that is out of what is absolutelynon-existent, He is able to make good things both great and small, both celestial and terrestrial, both spiritual andcorporeal. But because He is also just, He has not put those things that He has made out of nothing on an equalitywith that which He begat out of Himself. Because, therefore, no good things whether great or small, throughwhatever gradations of things, can exist except from God; but since every nature, so far as it is nature, is good, itfollows that no nature can exist save from the most high and true God: because all things even not in the highestdegree good, but related to the highest good, and again, because all good things, even those of most recent origin,which are far from the highest good, can have their existence only from the highest good. Therefore every spirit,though subject to change, and every corporeal entity, is from God, and all this, having been made, is nature. Forevery nature is either spirit or body. Unchangeable spirit is God, changeable spirit, having been made, is nature, butis better than body; but body is not spirit, unless when the wind, because it is invisible to us and yet its power is feltas something not inconsiderable, is in a certain sense called spirit.

http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_IV/Manichaean_Controversy/Concerning_the_Nature_of_Good/Prefacehttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_Ihttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_IVhttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_IV/Manichaean_Controversyhttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_IV/Manichaean_Controversy/Concerning_the_Nature_of_Goodhttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_IV/Manichaean_Controversy/Concerning_the_Nature_of_Goodhttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Author:Philip_Schaffhttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Nicene_and_Post-Nicene_Fathers:_Series_I/Volume_IV/Manichaean_Controversy/Concerning_the_Nature_of_Good/Chapter_2

Beyond Good and Evil/Chapter I 9

Beyond Good and Evil/Chapter I

←Preface Beyond Good and Evil by FriedrichNietzscheChapter I. On the Prejudices of Philosophers

Chapter II.→

1. The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many a hazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which allphilosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, what questions has this Will to Truth not laid before us! Whatstrange, perplexing, questionable questions! It is already a long story; yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Isit any wonder if we at last grow distrustful, lose patience, and turn impatiently away? That this Sphinx teaches us atlast to ask questions ourselves? WHO is it really that puts questions to us here? WHAT really is this "Will to Truth"in us? In fact we made a long halt at the question as to the origin of this Will--until at last we came to an absolutestandstill before a yet more fundamental question. We inquired about the VALUE of this Will. Granted that we wantthe truth: WHY NOT RATHER untruth? And uncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the value of truthpresented itself before us--or was it we who presented ourselves before the problem? Which of us is the Oedipushere? Which the Sphinx? It would seem to be a rendezvous of questions and notes of interrogation. And could it bebelieved that it at last seems to us as if the problem had never been propounded before, as if we were the first todiscern it, get a sight of it, and RISK RAISING it? For there is risk in raising it, perhaps there is no greater risk.2. "HOW COULD anything originate out of its opposite? For example, truth out of error? or the Will to Truth out ofthe will to deception? or the generous deed out of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out ofcovetousness? Such genesis is impossible; whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool; things of thehighest value must have a different origin, an origin of THEIR own--in this transitory, seductive, illusory, paltryworld, in this turmoil of delusion and cupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in the lap of Being, in theintransitory, in the concealed God, in the 'Thing-in-itself-- THERE must be their source, and nowhere else!"--Thismode of reasoning discloses the typical prejudice by which metaphysicians of all times can be recognized, this modeof valuation is at the back of all their logical procedure; through this "belief" of theirs, they exert themselves for their"knowledge," for something that is in the end solemnly christened "the Truth." The fundamental belief ofmetaphysicians is THE BELIEF IN ANTITHESES OF VALUES. It never occurred even to the wariest of them todoubt here on the very threshold (where doubt, however, was most necessary); though they had made a solemn vow,"DE OMNIBUS DUBITANDUM." For it may be doubted, firstly, whether antitheses exist at all; and secondly,whether the popular valuations and antitheses of value upon which metaphysicians have set their seal, are notperhaps merely superficial estimates, merely provisional perspectives, besides being probably made from somecorner, perhaps from below--"frog perspectives," as it were, to borrow an expression current among painters. In spiteof all the value which may belong to the true, the positive, and the unselfish, it might be possible that a higher andmore fundamental value for life generally should be assigned to pretence, to the will to delusion, to selfishness, andcupidity. It might even be possible that WHAT constitutes the value of those good and respected things, consistsprecisely in their being insidiously related, knotted, and crocheted to these evil and apparently opposedthings--perhaps even in being essentially identical with them. Perhaps! But who wishes to concern himself with suchdangerous "Perhapses"! For that investigation one must await the advent of a new order of philosophers, such as willhave other tastes and inclinations, the reverse of those hitherto prevalent--philosophers of the dangerous "Perhaps" inevery sense of the term. And to speak in all seriousness, I see such new philosophers beginning to appear.3. Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and having read between their lines long enough, I now say to myselfthat the greater part of conscious thinking must be counted among the Instinctive functions, and it is so even in thecase of philosophical thinking; one has here to learn anew, as one learned anew about heredity and "innateness." Aslittle as the act of birth comes into consideration in the whole process and procedure of heredity, just as little is"being-conscious" OPPOSED to the instinctive in any decisive sense; the greater part of the conscious thinking of a

http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Beyond_Good_and_Evilhttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Beyond_Good_and_Evilhttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Author:Friedrich_Nietzschehttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Author:Friedrich_Nietzschehttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Beyond_Good_and_Evil/Chapter_II


philosopher is secretly influenced by his instincts, and forced into definite channels. And behind all logic and itsseeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, or to speak more plainly, physiological demands, for themaintenance of a definite mode of life For example, that the certain is worth more than the uncertain, that illusion isless valuable than "truth" such valuations, in spite of their regulative importance for US, might notwithstanding beonly superficial valuations, special kinds of maiserie, such as may be necessary for the maintenance of beings suchas ourselves. Supposing, in effect, that man is not just the "measure of things."4. The falseness of an opinion is not for us any objection to it: it is here, perhaps, that our new language sounds moststrangely. The question is, how far an opinion is life-furthering, life- preserving, species-preserving, perhapsspecies-rearing, and we are fundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions (to which the syntheticjudgments a priori belong), are the most indispensable to us, that without a recognition of logical fictions, without acomparison of reality with the purely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable, without a constantcounterfeiting of the world by means of numbers, man could not live--that the renunciation of false opinions wouldbe a renunciation of life, a negation of life. TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS A CONDITION OF LIFE; that iscertainly to impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a philosophy which ventures to do so,has thereby alone placed itself beyond good and evil.5. That which causes philosophers to be regarded half- distrustfully and half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeateddiscovery how innocent they are--how often and easily they make mistakes and lose their way, in short, how childishand childlike they are,--but that there is not enough honest dealing with them, whereas they all raise a loud andvirtuous outcry when the problem of truthfulness is even hinted at in the remotest manner. They all pose as thoughtheir real opinions had been discovered and attained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, divinely indifferentdialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics, who, fairer and foolisher, talk of "inspiration"), whereas, in fact, aprejudiced proposition, idea, or "suggestion," which is generally their heart's desire abstracted and refined, isdefended by them with arguments sought out after the event. They are all advocates who do not wish to be regardedas such, generally astute defenders, also, of their prejudices, which they dub "truths,"-- and VERY far from havingthe conscience which bravely admits this to itself, very far from having the good taste of the courage which goes sofar as to let this be understood, perhaps to warn friend or foe, or in cheerful confidence and self-ridicule. Thespectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally stiff and decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic by-waysthat lead (more correctly mislead) to his "categorical imperative"-- makes us fastidious ones smile, we who find nosmall amusement in spying out the subtle tricks of old moralists and ethical preachers. Or, still more so, thehocus-pocus in mathematical form, by means of which Spinoza has, as it were, clad his philosophy in mail andmask--in fact, the "love of HIS wisdom," to translate the term fairly and squarely--in order thereby to strike terror atonce into the heart of the assailant who should dare to cast a glance on that invincible maiden, that PallasAthene:--how much of personal timidity and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray!6. It has gradually become clear to me what every great philosophy up till now has consisted of--namely, theconfession of its originator, and a species of involuntary and unconscious auto-biography; and moreover that themoral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy has constituted the true vital germ out of which the entire plant hasalways grown. Indeed, to understand how the abstrusest metaphysical assertions of a philosopher have been arrivedat, it is always well (and wise) to first ask oneself: "What morality do they (or does he) aim at?" Accordingly, I donot believe that an "impulse to knowledge" is the father of philosophy; but that another impulse, here as elsewhere,has only made use of knowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an instrument. But whoever considers thefundamental impulses of man with a view to determining how far they may have here acted as INSPIRING GENII(or as demons and cobolds), will find that they have all practiced philosophy at one time or another, and that eachone of them would have been only too glad to look upon itself as the ultimate end of existence and the legitimateLORD over all the other impulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as SUCH, attempts to philosophize. To besure, in the case of scholars, in the case of really scientific men, it may be otherwise--"better," if you will; there theremay really be such a thing as an "impulse to knowledge," some kind of small, independent clock-work, which, whenwell wound up, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT the rest of the scholarly impulses taking any


material part therein. The actual "interests" of the scholar, therefore, are generally in quite another direction--in thefamily, perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics; it is, in fact, almost indifferent at what point of research his littlemachine is placed, and whether the hopeful young worker becomes a good philologist, a mushroom specialist, or achemist; he is not CHARACTERISED by becoming this or that. In the philosopher, on the contrary, there isabsolutely nothing impersonal; and above all, his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHOHE IS,--that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses of his nature stand to each other.7. How malicious philosophers can be! I know of nothing more stinging than the joke Epicurus took the liberty ofmaking on Plato and the Platonists; he called them Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense, and on the face of it, theword signifies "Flatterers of Dionysius"--consequently, tyrants' accessories and lick-spittles; besides this, however, itis as much as to say, "They are all ACTORS, there is nothing genuine about them" (for Dionysiokolax was a popularname for an actor). And the latter is really the malignant reproach that Epicurus cast upon Plato: he was annoyed bythe grandiose manner, the mise en scene style of which Plato and his scholars were masters--of which Epicurus wasnot a master! He, the old school-teacher of Samos, who sat concealed in his little garden at Athens, and wrote threehundred books, perhaps out of rage and ambitious envy of Plato, who knows! Greece took a hundred years to findout who the garden-god Epicurus really was. Did she ever find out?8. There is a point in every philosophy at which the "conviction" of the philosopher appears on the scene; or, to put itin the words of an ancient mystery:Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus.9. You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves abeing like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pityor justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power--howCOULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live--is not that just endeavouring to be otherwise thanthis Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And grantedthat your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"--how couldyou do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality,however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, youwant something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish todictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall beNature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternalglorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, sopersistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longerable to see it otherwise-- and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope thatBECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--Stoicism is self-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to betyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature? . . . But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in oldtimes with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates theworld in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will toPower, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.10. The eagerness and subtlety, I should even say craftiness, with which the problem of "the real and the apparentworld" is dealt with at present throughout Europe, furnishes food for thought and attention; and he who hears only a"Will to Truth" in the background, and nothing else, cannot certainly boast of the sharpest ears. In rare and isolatedcases, it may really have happened that such a Will to Truth--a certain extravagant and adventurous pluck, ametaphysician's ambition of the forlorn hope--has participated therein: that which in the end always prefers a handfulof "certainty" to a whole cartload of beautiful possibilities; there may even be puritanical fanatics of conscience, whoprefer to put their last trust in a sure nothing, rather than in an uncertain something. But that is Nihilism, and the signof a despairing, mortally wearied soul, notwithstanding the courageous bearing such a virtue may display. It seems,however, to be otherwise with stronger and livelier thinkers who are still eager for life. In that they side AGAINST


appearance, and speak superciliously of "perspective," in that they rank the credibility of their own bodies about aslow as the credibility of the ocular evidence that "the earth stands still," and thus, apparently, allowing withcomplacency their securest possession to escape (for what does one at present believe in more firmly than in one'sbody?),--who knows if they are not really trying to win back something which was formerly an even securerpossession, something of the old domain of the faith of former times, perhaps the "immortal soul," perhaps "the oldGod," in short, ideas by which they could live better, that is to say, more vigorously and more joyously, than by"modern ideas"? There is DISTRUST of these modern ideas in this mode of looking at things, a disbelief in all thathas been constructed yesterday and today; there is perhaps some slight admixture of satiety and scorn, which can nolonger endure the BRIC-A-BRAC of ideas of the most varied origin, such as so-called Positivism at present throwson the market; a disgust of the more refined taste at the village-fair motleyness and patchiness of all thesereality-philosophasters, in whom there is nothing either new or true, except this motleyness. Therein it seems to methat we should agree with those skeptical anti-realists and knowledge-microscopists of the present day; their instinct,which repels them from MODERN reality, is unrefuted . . . what do their retrograde by-paths concern us! The mainthing about them is NOT that they wish to go "back," but that they wish to get AWAY therefrom. A little MOREstrength, swing, courage, and artistic power, and they would be OFF--and not back!11. It seems to me that there is everywhere an attempt at present to divert attention from the actual influence whichKant exercised on German philosophy, and especially to ignore prudently the value which he set upon himself. Kantwas first and foremost proud of his Table of Categories; with it in his hand he said: "This is the most difficult thingthat could ever be undertaken on behalf of metaphysics." Let us only understand this "could be"! He was proud ofhaving DISCOVERED a new faculty in man, the faculty of synthetic judgment a priori. Granting that he deceivedhimself in this matter; the development and rapid flourishing of German philosophy depended nevertheless on hispride, and on the eager rivalry of the younger generation to discover if possible something--at all events "newfaculties"--of which to be still prouder!--But let us reflect for a moment--it is high time to do so. "How are syntheticjudgments a priori POSSIBLE?" Kant asks himself--and what is really his answer? "BY MEANS OF A MEANS(faculty)"--but unfortunately not in five words, but so circumstantially, imposingly, and with such display of Germanprofundity and verbal flourishes, that one altogether loses sight of the comical niaiserie allemande involved in suchan answer. People were beside themselves with delight over this new faculty, and the jubilation reached its climaxwhen Kant further discovered a moral faculty in man--for at that time Germans were still moral, not yet dabbling inthe "Politics of hard fact." Then came the honeymoon of German philosophy. All the young theologians of theTubingen institution went immediately into the groves--all seeking for "faculties." And what did they not find--inthat innocent, rich, and still youthful period of the German spirit, to which Romanticism, the malicious fairy, pipedand sang, when one could not yet distinguish between "finding" and "inventing"! Above all a faculty for the"transcendental"; Schelling christened it, intellectual intuition, and thereby gratified the most earnest longings of thenaturally pious-inclined Germans. One can do no greater wrong to the whole of this exuberant and eccentricmovement (which was really youthfulness, notwithstanding that it disguised itself so boldly, in hoary and senileconceptions), than to take it seriously, or even treat it with moral indignation. Enough, however--the world grewolder, and the dream vanished. A time came when people rubbed their foreheads, and they still rub them today.People had been dreaming, and first and foremost--old Kant. "By means of a means (faculty)"--he had said, or atleast meant to say. But, is that--an answer? An explanation? Or is it not rather merely a repetition of the question?How does opium induce sleep? "By means of a means (faculty), "namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor inMoliere,

Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva,

Cujus est natura sensus assoupire.

But such replies belong to the realm of comedy, and it is high time to replace the Kantian question, "How aresynthetic judgments a PRIORI possible?" by another question, "Why is belief in such judgments necessary?"--ineffect, it is high time that we should understand that such judgments must be believed to be true, for the sake of the


preservation of creatures like ourselves; though they still might naturally be false judgments! Or, more plainlyspoken, and roughly and readily--synthetic judgments a priori should not "be possible" at all; we have no right tothem; in our mouths they are nothing but false judgments. Only, of course, the belief in their truth is necessary, asplausible belief and ocular evidence belonging to the perspective view of life. And finally, to call to mind theenormous influence which "German philosophy"--I hope you understand its right to inverted commas(goosefeet)?--has exercised throughout the whole of Europe, there is no doubt that a certain VIRTUS DORMITIVAhad a share in it; thanks to German philosophy, it was a delight to the noble idlers, the virtuous, the mystics, theartiste, the three-fourths Christians, and the political obscurantists of all nations, to find an antidote to the stilloverwhelming sensualism which overflowed from the last century into this, in short--"sensus assoupire." . . .12. As regards materialistic atomism, it is one of the best- refuted theories that have been advanced, and in Europethere is now perhaps no one in the learned world so unscholarly as to attach serious signification to it, except forconvenient everyday use (as an abbreviation of the means of expression)-- thanks chiefly to the Pole Boscovich: heand the Pole Copernicus have hitherto been the greatest and most successful opponents of ocular evidence. For whileCopernicus has persuaded us to believe, contrary to all the senses, that the earth does NOT stand fast, Boscovich hastaught us to abjure the belief in the last thing that "stood fast" of the earth--the belief in "substance," in "matter," inthe earth-residuum, and particle- atom: it is the greatest triumph over the senses that has hitherto been gained onearth. One must, however, go still further, and also declare war, relentless war to the knife, against the "atomisticrequirements" which still lead a dangerous after-life in places where no one suspects them, like the more celebrated"metaphysical requirements": one must also above all give the finishing stroke to that other and more portentousatomism which Christianity has taught best and longest, the SOUL- ATOMISM. Let it be permitted to designate bythis expression the belief which regards the soul as something indestructible, eternal, indivisible, as a monad, as anatomon: this belief ought to be expelled from science! Between ourselves, it is not at all necessary to get rid of "thesoul" thereby, and thus renounce one of the oldest and most venerated hypotheses--as happens frequently to theclumsiness of naturalists, who can hardly touch on the soul without immediately losing it. But the way is open fornew acceptations and refinements of the soul-hypothesis; and such conceptions as "mortal soul," and "soul ofsubjective multiplicity," and "soul as social structure of the instincts and passions," want henceforth to havelegitimate rights in science. In that the NEW psychologist is about to put an end to the superstitions which havehitherto flourished with almost tropical luxuriance around the idea of the soul, he is really, as it were, thrustinghimself into a new desert and a new distrust--it is possible that the older psychologists had a merrier and morecomfortable time of it; eventually, however, he finds that precisely thereby he is also condemned to INVENT--and,who knows? perhaps to DISCOVER the new.13. Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the instinct of self-preservation as the cardinalinstinct of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to DISCHARGE its strength--life itself is WILL TOPOWER; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent RESULTS thereof. In short, here, aseverywhere else, let us beware of SUPERFLUOUS teleological principles!--one of which is the instinct of self-preservation (we owe it to Spinoza's inconsistency). It is thus, in effect, that method ordains, which must beessentially economy of principles.14. It is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds that natural philosophy is only a world-exposition andworld-arrangement (according to us, if I may say so!) and NOT a world-explanation; but in so far as it is based onbelief in the senses, it is regarded as more, and for a long time to come must be regarded as more--namely, as anexplanation. It has eyes and fingers of its own, it has ocular evidence and palpableness of its own: this operatesfascinatingly, persuasively, and CONVINCINGLY upon an age with fundamentally plebeian tastes--in fact, itfollows instinctively the canon of truth of eternal popular sensualism. What is clear, what is "explained"? Only thatwhich can be seen and felt--one must pursue every problem thus far. Obversely, however, the charm of the Platonicmode of thought, which was an ARISTOCRATIC mode, consisted precisely in RESISTANCE to obvioussense-evidence--perhaps among men who enjoyed even stronger and more fastidious senses than ourcontemporaries, but who knew how to find a higher triumph in remaining masters of them: and this by means of


pale, cold, grey conceptional networks which they threw over the motley whirl of the senses--the mob of the senses,as Plato said. In this overcoming of the world, and interpreting of the world in the manner of Plato, there was anENJOYMENT different from that which the physicists of today offer us--and likewise the Darwinists andanti-teleologists among the physiological workers, with their principle of the "smallest possible effort," and thegreatest possible blunder. "Where there is nothing more to see or to grasp, there is also nothing more for men todo"--that is certainly an imperative different from the Platonic one, but it may notwithstanding be the rightimperative for a hardy, laborious race of machinists and bridge- builders of the future, who have nothing butROUGH work to perform.15. To study physiology with a clear conscience, one must insist on the fact that the sense-organs are not phenomenain the sense of the idealistic philosophy; as such they certainly could not be causes! Sensualism, therefore, at least asregulative hypothesis, if not as heuristic principle. What? And others say even that the external world is the work ofour organs? But then our body, as a part of this external world, would be the work of our organs! But then our organsthemselves would be the work of our organs! It seems to me that this is a complete REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM,if the conception CAUSA SUI is something fundamentally absurd. Consequently, the external world is NOT thework of our organs--?16. There are still harmless self-observers who believe that there are "immediate certainties"; for instance, "I think,"or as the superstition of Schopenhauer puts it, "I will"; as though cognition here got hold of its object purely andsimply as "the thing in itself," without any falsification taking place either on the part of the subject or the object. Iwould repeat it, however, a hundred times, that "immediate certainty," as well as "absolute knowledge" and the"thing in itself," involve a CONTRADICTIO IN ADJECTO; we really ought to free ourselves from the misleadingsignificance of words! The people on their part may think that cognition is knowing all about things, but thephilosopher must say to himself: "When I analyze the process that is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I find awhole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: forinstance, that it is _I_ who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, that thinking is an activity andoperation on the part of a being who is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally, that it is alreadydetermined what is to be designated by thinking--that I KNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already decidedwithin myself what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is just happening is not perhaps'willing' or 'feeling'? In short, the assertion 'I think,' assumes that I COMPARE my state at the present moment withother states of myself which I know, in order to determine what it is; on account of this retrospective connection withfurther 'knowledge,' it has, at any rate, no immediate certainty for me."--In place of the "immediate certainty" inwhich the people may believe in the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series of metaphysical questionspresented to him, veritable conscience questions of the intellect, to wit: "Whence did I get the notion of 'thinking'?Why do I believe in cause and effect? What gives me the right to speak of an 'ego,' and even of an 'ego' as cause, andfinally of an 'ego' as cause of thought?" He who ventures to answer these metaphysical questions at once by anappeal to a sort of INTUITIVE perception, like the person who says, "I think, and know that this, at least, is true,actual, and certain"--will encounter a smile and two notes of interrogation in a philosopher nowadays. "Sir," thephilosopher will perhaps give him to understand, "it is improbable that you are not mistaken, but why should it bethe truth?"17. With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shall never tire of emphasizing a small, terse fact, which isunwillingly recognized by these credulous minds--namely, that a thought comes when "it" wishes, and not when "I"wish; so that it is a PERVERSION of the facts of the case to say that the subject "I" is the condition of the predicate"think." ONE thinks; but that this "one" is precisely the famous old "ego," is, to put it mildly, only a supposition, anassertion, and assuredly not an "immediate certainty." After all, one has even gone too far with this "onethinks"--even the "one" contains an INTERPRETATION of the process, and does not belong to the process itself.One infers here according to the usual grammatical formula--"To think is an activity; every activity requires anagency that is active; consequently" . . . It was pretty much on the same lines that the older atomism sought, besidesthe operating "power," the material particle wherein it resides and out of which it operates--the atom. More rigorous


minds, however, learnt at last to get along without this "earth-residuum," and perhaps some day we shall accustomourselves, even from the logician's point of view, to get along without the little "one" (to which the worthy old "ego"has refined itself).18. It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that it is refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the moresubtle minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refuted theory of the "free will" owes its persistence to this charmalone; some one is always appearing who feels himself strong enough to refute it.19. Philosophers are accustomed to speak of the will as though it were the best-known thing in the world; indeed,Schopenhauer has given us to understand that the will alone is really known to us, absolutely and completely known,without deduction or addition. But it again and again seems to me that in this case Schopenhauer also only did whatphilosophers are in the habit of doing-he seems to have adopted a POPULAR PREJUDICE and exaggerated it.Willing-seems to me to be above all something COMPLICATED, something that is a unity only in name--and it isprecisely in a name that popular prejudice lurks, which has got the mastery over the inadequate precautions ofphilosophers in all ages. So let us for once be more cautious, let us be "unphilosophical": let us say that in all willingthere is firstly a plurality of sensations, namely, the sensation of the condition "AWAY FROM WHICH we go," thesensation of the condition "TOWARDS WHICH we go," the sensation of this "FROM" and "TOWARDS" itself, andthen besides, an accompanying muscular sensation, which, even without our putting in motion "arms and legs,"commences its action by force of habit, directly we "will" anything. Therefore, just as sensations (and indeed manykinds of sensations) are to be recognized as ingredients of the will, so, in the second place, thinking is also to berecognized; in every act of the will there is a ruling thought;--and let us not imagine it possible to sever this thoughtfrom the "willing," as if the will would then remain over! In the third place, the will is not only a complex ofsensation and thinking, but it is above all an EMOTION, and in fact the emotion of the command. That which istermed "freedom of the will" is essentially the emotion of supremacy in respect to him who must obey: "I am free,'he' must obey"--this consciousness is inherent in every will; and equally so the straining of the attention, the straightlook which fixes itself exclusively on one thing, the unconditional judgment that "this and nothing else is necessarynow," the inward certainty that obedience will be rendered--and whatever else pertains to the position of thecommander. A man who WILLS commands something within himself which renders obedience, or which hebelieves renders obedience. But now let us notice what is the strangest thing about the will,--this affair so extremelycomplex, for which the people have only one name. Inasmuch as in the given circumstances we are at the same timethe commanding AND the obeying parties, and as the obeying party we know the sensations of constraint,impulsion, pressure, resistance, and motion, which usually commence immediately after the act of will; inasmuch as,on the other hand, we are accustomed to disregard this duality, and to deceive ourselves about it by means of thesynthetic term "I": a whole series of erroneous conclusions, and consequently of false judgments about the will itself,has become attached to the act of willing--to such a degree that he who wills believes firmly that willing SUFFICESfor action. Since in the majority of cases there has only been exercise of will when the effect of thecommand--consequently obedience, and therefore action--was to be EXPECTED, the APPEARANCE has translateditself into the sentiment, as if there were a NECESSITY OF EFFECT; in a word, he who wills believes with a fairamount of certainty that will and action are somehow one; he ascribes the success, the carrying out of the willing, tothe will itself, and thereby enjoys an increase of the sensation of power which accompanies all success. "Freedom ofWill"--that is the expression for the complex state of delight of the person exercising volition, who commands and atthe same time identifies himself with the executor of the order-- who, as such, enjoys also the triumph overobstacles, but thinks within himself that it was really his own will that overcame them. In this way the personexercising volition adds the feelings of delight of his successful executive instruments, the useful "underwills" orunder-souls--indeed, our body is but a social structure composed of many souls--to his feelings of delight ascommander. L'EFFET C'EST MOI. what happens here is what happens in every well-constructed and happycommonwealth, namely, that the governing class identifies itself with the successes of the commonwealth. In allwilling it is absolutely a question of commanding and obeying, on the basis, as already said, of a social structurecomposed of many "souls", on which account a philosopher should claim the right to include willing- as-such within


the sphere of morals--regarded as the doctrine of the relations of supremacy under which the phenomenon of "life"manifests itself.20. That the separate philosophical ideas are not anything optional or autonomously evolving, but grow up inconnection and relationship with each other, that, however suddenly and arbitrarily they seem to appear in the historyof thought, they nevertheless belong just as much to a system as the collective members of the fauna of aContinent--is betrayed in the end by the circumstance: how unfailingly the most diverse philosophers always fill inagain a definite fundamental scheme of POSSIBLE philosophies. Under an invisible spell, they always revolve oncemore in the same orbit, however independent of each other they may feel themselves with their critical or systematicwills, something within them leads them, something impels them in definite order the one after the other--to wit, theinnate methodology and relationship of their ideas. Their thinking is, in fact, far less a discovery than are-recognizing, a remembering, a return and a home-coming to a far-off, ancient common-household of the soul, outof which those ideas formerly grew: philosophizing is so far a kind of atavism of the highest order. The wonderfulfamily resemblance of all Indian, Greek, and German philosophizing is easily enough explained. In fact, where thereis affinity of language, owing to the common philosophy of grammar--I mean owing to the unconscious dominationand guidance of similar grammatical functions--it cannot but be that everything is prepared at the outset for a similardevelopment and succession of philosophical systems, just as the way seems barred against certain other possibilitiesof world- interpretation. It is highly probable that philosophers within the domain of the Ural-Altaic languages(where the conception of the subject is least developed) look otherwise "into the world," and will be found on pathsof thought different from those of the Indo-Germans and Mussulmans, the spell of certain grammatical functions isultimately also the spell of PHYSIOLOGICAL valuations and racial conditions.--So much by way of rejectingLocke's superficiality with regard to the origin of ideas.21. The CAUSA SUI is the best self-contradiction that has yet been conceived, it is a sort of logical violation andunnaturalness; but the extravagant pride of man has managed to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully with thisvery folly. The desire for "freedom of will" in the superlative, metaphysical sense, such as still holds sway,unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated, the desire to bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for one'sactions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society therefrom, involves nothing less thanto be precisely this CAUSA SUI, and, with more than Munchausen daring, to pull oneself up into existence by thehair, out of the slough of nothingness. If any one should find out in this manner the crass stupidity of the celebratedconception of "free will" and put it out of his head altogether, I beg of him to carry his "enlightenment" a stepfurther, and also put out of his head the contrary of this monstrous conception of "free will": I mean "non-free will,"which is tantamount to a misuse of cause and effect. One should not wrongly MATERIALISE "cause" and "effect,"as the natural philosophers do (and whoever like them naturalize in thinking at present), according to the prevailingmechanical doltishness which makes the cause press and push until it "effects" its end; one should use "cause" and"effect" only as pure CONCEPTIONS, that is to say, as conventional fictions for the purpose of designation andmutual understanding,--NOT for explanation. In "being-in-itself" there is nothing of "casual- connection," of"necessity," or of "psychological non-freedom"; there the effect does NOT follow the cause, there "law" does notobtain. It is WE alone who have devised cause, sequence, reciprocity, relativity, constraint, number, law, freedom,motive, and purpose; and when we interpret and intermix this symbol-world, as "being-in-itself," with things, we actonce more as we have always acted--MYTHOLOGICALLY. The "non-free will" is mythology; in real life it is onlya question of STRONG and WEAK wills.--It is almost always a symptom of what is lacking in himself, when athinker, in every "causal-connection" and "psychological necessity," manifests something of compulsion, indigence,obsequiousness, oppression, and non-freedom; it is suspicious to have such feelings--the person betrays himself. Andin general, if I have observed correctly, the "non-freedom of the will" is regarded as a problem from two entirelyopposite standpoints, but always in a profoundly PERSONAL manner: some will not give up their "responsibility,"their belief in THEMSELVES, the personal right to THEIR merits, at any price (the vain races belong to this class);others on the contrary, do not wish to be answerable for anything, or blamed for anything, and owing to an inwardself-contempt, seek to GET OUT OF THE BUSINESS, no matter how. The latter, when they write books, are in the


habit at present of taking the side of criminals; a sort of socialistic sympathy is their favourite disguise. And as amatter of fact, the fatalism of the weak-willed embellishes itself surprisingly when it can pose as "la religion de lasouffrance humaine"; that is ITS "good taste."22. Let me be pardoned, as an old philologist who cannot desist from the mischief of putting his finger on bad modesof interpretation, but "Nature's conformity to law," of which you physicists talk so proudly, as though--why, it existsonly owing to your interpretation and bad "philology." It is no matter of fact, no "text," but rather just a naivelyhumanitarian adjustment and perversion of meaning, with which you make abundant concessions to the democraticinstincts of the modern soul! "Everywhere equality before the law--Nature is not different in that respect, nor betterthan we": a fine instance of secret motive, in which the vulgar antagonism to everything privileged andautocratic--likewise a second and more refined atheism--is once more disguised. "Ni dieu, ni maitre"--that, also, iswhat you want; and therefore "Cheers for natural law!"-- is it not so? But, as has been said, that is interpretation, nottext; and somebody might come along, who, with opposite intentions and modes of interpretation, could read out ofthe same "Nature," and with regard to the same phenomena, just the tyrannically inconsiderate and relentlessenforcement of the claims of power--an interpreter who should so place the unexceptionalness and unconditionalnessof all "Will to Power" before your eyes, that almost every word, and the word "tyranny" itself, would eventuallyseem unsuitable, or like a weakening and softening metaphor--as being too human; and who should, nevertheless,end by asserting the same about this world as you do, namely, that it has a "necessary" and "calculable" course,NOT, however, because laws obtain in it, but because they are absolutely LACKING, and every power effects itsultimate consequences every moment. Granted that this also is only interpretation--and you will be eager enough tomake this objection?--well, so much the better.23. All psychology hitherto has run aground on moral prejudices and timidities, it has not dared to launch out intothe depths. In so far as it is allowable to recognize in that which has hitherto been written, evidence of that which hashitherto been kept silent, it seems as if nobody had yet harboured the notion of psychology as the Morphology andDEVELOPMENT-DOCTRINE OF THE WILL TO POWER, as I conceive of it. The power of moral prejudices haspenetrated deeply into the most intellectual world, the world apparently most indifferent and unprejudiced, and hasobviously operated in an injurious, obstructive, blinding, and distorting manner. A proper physio-psychology has tocontend with unconscious antagonism in the heart of the investigator, it has "the heart" against it even a doctrine ofthe reciprocal conditionalness of the "good" and the "bad" impulses, causes (as refined immorality) distress andaversion in a still strong and manly conscience--still more so, a doctrine of the derivation of all good impulses frombad ones. If, however, a person should regard even the emotions of hatred, envy, covetousness, and imperiousness aslife-conditioning emotions, as factors which must be present, fundamentally and essentially, in the general economyof life (which must, therefore, be further developed if life is to be further developed), he will suffer from such a viewof things as from sea-sickness. And yet this hypothesis is far from being the strangest and most painful in thisimmense and almost new domain of dangerous knowledge, and there are in fact a hundred good reasons why everyone should keep away from it who CAN do so! On the other hand, if one has once drifted hither with one's bark,well! very good! now let us set our teeth firmly! let us open our eyes and keep our hand fast on the helm! We sailaway right OVER morality, we crush out, we destroy perhaps the remains of our own morality by daring to make ourvoyage thither--but what do WE matter. Never yet did a PROFOUNDER world of insight reveal itself to daringtravelers and adventurers, and the psychologist who thus "makes a sacrifice"--it is not the sacrifizio dell' intelletto, onthe contrary!--will at least be entitled to demand in return that psychology shall once more be recognized as thequeen of the sciences, for whose service and equipment the other sciences exist. For psychology is once more thepath to the fundamental problems.

Beyond Good and Evil/Chapter IX 18

Beyond Good and Evil/Chapter IX

←Chapter VIII. Beyond Good and Evil by FriedrichNietzscheChapter IX. What is Noble?

Aftersong→

257. EVERY elevation of the type "man," has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society and so it will alwaysbe--a society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human beings, andrequiring slavery in some form or other. Without the PATHOS OF DISTANCE, such as grows out of the incarnateddifference of classes, out of the constant out-looking and down-looking of the ruling caste on subordinates andinstruments, and out of their equally constant practice of obeying and commanding, of keeping down and keeping ata distance--that other more mysterious pathos could never have arisen, the longing for an ever new widening ofdistance within the soul itself, the formation of ever higher, rarer, further, more extended, more comprehensivestates, in short, just the elevation of the type "man," the continued "self-surmounting of man," to use a moral formulain a supermoral sense. To be sure, one must not resign oneself to any humanitarian illusions about the history of theorigin of an aristocratic society (that is to say, of the preliminary condition for the elevation of the type "man"): thetruth is hard. Let us acknowledge unprejudicedly how every higher civilization hitherto has ORIGINATED! Menwith a still natural nature, barbarians in every terrible sense of the word, men of prey, still in possession of unbrokenstrength of will and desire for power, threw themselves upon weaker, more moral, more peaceful races (perhapstrading or cattle-rearing communities), or upon old mellow civilizations in which the final vital force was flickeringout in brilliant fireworks of wit and depravity. At the commencement, the noble caste was always the barbariancaste: their superiority did not consist first of all in their physical, but in their psychical power--they were moreCOMPLETE men (which at every point also implies the same as "more complete beasts").258. Corruption--as the indication that anarchy threatens to break out among the instincts, and that the foundation ofthe emotions, called "life," is convulsed--is something radically different according to the organization in which itmanifests itself. When, for instance, an aristocracy like that of France at the beginning of the Revolution, flung awayits privileges with sublime disgust and sacrificed itself to an excess of its moral sentiments, it was corruption:--it wasreally only the closing act of the corruption which had existed for centuries, by virtue of which that aristocracy hadabdicated step by step its lordly prerogatives and lowered itself to a FUNCTION of royalty (in the end even to itsdecoration and parade-dress). The essential thing, however, in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it should notregard itself as a function either of the kingship or the commonwealth, but as the SIGNIFICANCE and highestjustification thereof--that it should therefore accept with a good conscience the sacrifice of a legion of individuals,who, FOR ITS SAKE, must be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. Its fundamentalbelief must be precisely that society is NOT allowed to exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation andscaffolding, by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate themselves to their higher duties, andin general to a higher EXISTENCE: like those sun- seeking climbing plants in Java--they are called Sipo Matador,--which encircle an oak so long and so often with their arms, until at last, high above it, but supported by it, they canunfold their tops in the open light, and exhibit their happiness.259. To refrain mutually from injury, from violence, from exploitation, and put one's will on a par with that ofothers: this may result in a certain rough sense in good conduct among individuals when the necessary conditions aregiven (namely, the actual similarity of the individuals in amount of force and degree of worth, and their co-relationwithin one organization). As soon, however, as one wished to take this principle more generally, and if possible evenas the FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF SOCIETY, it would immediately disclose what it really is--namely, aWill to the DENIAL of life, a principle of dissolution and decay. Here one must think profoundly to the very basisand resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is ESSENTIALLY appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange andweak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest,

http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Beyond_Good_and_Evil/Chapter_VIIIhttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Beyond_Good_and_Evilhttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Author:Friedrich_Nietzschehttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Author:Friedrich_Nietzschehttp://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=Beyond_Good_and_Evil/Aftersong

Beyond Good and Evil/Chapter IX 19

exploitation;--but why should one for ever use precisely these words on which for ages a disparaging purpose hasbeen stamped? Even the organization within which, as was previously supposed, the individuals treat each other asequal--it takes place in every healthy aristocracy--must itself, if it be a living and not a dying organization, do all thattowards other bodies, which the individuals within it refrain from doing to each other it will have to be the incarnatedWill to Power, it will endeavour to grow, to gain ground, attract to itself and acquire ascendancy-- not owing to anymorality or immorality, but because it LIVES, and because life IS precisely Will to Power. On no point, however, isthe ordinary consciousness of Europeans more unwilling to be corrected than on this matter, people now raveeverywhere, even under the guise of science, about coming conditions of society in which "the exploiting character"is to be absent--that sounds to my ears as if they promised to invent a mode of life which should refrain from allorganic functions. "Exploitation" does not belong to a depraved, or imperfect and primitive society it belongs to thenature of the living being as a primary organic function, it is a consequence of the intrinsic Will to Power, which isprecisely the Will to Life--Granting that as a theory this is a novelty--as a reality it is the FUNDAMENTAL FACTof all history let us be so far honest towards ourselves!260. In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have hitherto prevailed or still prevail on theearth, I found certain traits recurring regularly together, and connected with one another, until finally two primarytypes revealed

CONTROLLING EMOTIONS - Wikimedia Commons · Human All-Too-Human 39 Astonishing functions of human...

Documents

Transcript of CONTROLLING EMOTIONS - Wikimedia Commons · Human All-Too-Human 39 Astonishing functions of human...