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(consequently the otherwise ), nor does it address itself to
the individual (what does nature care for the individual!),
but to nations, races, ages, and ranks; above all, however,
to the animal man generally, to MANKIND.
189. Industrious races find it a great hardship to be idle:
it was a master stroke of ENGLISH instinct to hallow and
begloom Sunday to such an extent that the Englishman
unconsciously hankers for his week and work-day
again: as a kind of cleverly devised, cleverly intercalated
FAST, such as is also frequently found in the ancient
world (although, as is appropriate in southern nations, not
precisely with respect to work). Many kinds of fasts are
necessary; and wherever powerful influences and habits
prevail, legislators have to see that intercalary days are
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appointed, on which such impulses are fettered, and learn
to hunger anew. Viewed from a higher standpoint, whole
generations and epochs, when they show themselves
infected with any moral fanaticism, seem like those
intercalated periods of restraint and fasting, during which
an impulse learns to humble and submit itself at the same
time also to PURIFY and SHARPEN itself; certain
philosophical sects likewise admit of a similar
interpretation (for instance, the Stoa, in the midst of
Hellenic culture, with the atmosphere rank and
overcharged with Aphrodisiacal odours). Here also is a
hint for the explanation of the paradox, why it was
precisely in the most Christian period of European history,
and in general only under the pressure of Christian
sentiments, that the sexual impulse sublimated into love
(amour-passion).
190. There is something in the morality of Plato which
does not really belong to Plato, but which only appears in
his philosophy, one might say, in spite of him: namely,
Socratism, for which he himself was too noble. No one
desires to injure himself, hence all evil is done unwittingly.
The evil man inflicts injury on himself; he would not do
so, however, if he knew that evil is evil. The evil man,
therefore, is only evil through error; if one free him from
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Beyond Good and Evil
error one will necessarily make him good. This mode
of reasoning savours of the POPULACE, who perceive
only the unpleasant consequences of evil-doing, and
practically judge that it is STUPID to do wrong"; while
they accept good as identical with useful and pleasant,
without further thought. As regards every system of
utilitarianism, one may at once assume that it has the same
origin, and follow the scent: one will seldom err. Plato
did all he could to interpret something refined and noble
into the tenets of his teacher, and above all to interpret
himself into them he, the most daring of all interpreters,
who lifted the entire Socrates out of the street, as a
popular theme and song, to exhibit him in endless and
impossible modifications namely, in all his own disguises
and multiplicities. In jest, and in Homeric language as
well, what is the Platonic Socrates, if not [Greek words
inserted here.]
191. The old theological problem of Faith and
Knowledge, or more plainly, of instinct and reason the
question whether, in respect to the valuation of things,
instinct deserves more authority than rationality, which
wants to appreciate and act according to motives,
according to a Why, that is to say, in conformity to
purpose and utility it is always the old moral problem
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that first appeared in the person of Socrates, and had
divided men s minds long before Christianity. Socrates
himself, following, of course, the taste of his talent that
of a surpassing dialectician took first the side of reason;
and, in fact, what did he do all his life but laugh at the
awkward incapacity of the noble Athenians, who were
men of instinct, like all noble men, and could never give
satisfactory answers concerning the motives of their
actions? In the end, however, though silently and secretly,
he laughed also at himself: with his finer conscience and
introspection, he found in himself the same difficulty and
incapacity. But why he said to himself should one
on that account separate oneself from the instincts! One
must set them right, and the reason ALSO one must
follow the instincts, but at the same time persuade the
reason to support them with good arguments. This was
the real FALSENESS of that great and mysterious ironist;
he brought his conscience up to the point that he was
satisfied with a kind of self-outwitting: in fact, he
perceived the irrationality in the moral judgment. Plato,
more innocent in such matters, and without the craftiness
of the plebeian, wished to prove to himself, at the
expenditure of all his strength the greatest strength a
philosopher had ever expended that reason and instinct
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Beyond Good and Evil
lead spontaneously to one goal, to the good, to God"; and
since Plato, all theologians and philosophers have followed
the same path which means that in matters of morality,
instinct (or as Christians call it, Faith, or as I call it, the
herd ) has hitherto triumphed. Unless one should make an
exception in the case of Descartes, the father of rationalism
(and consequently the grandfather of the Revolution),
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