The Will to Power: An Attempted Transvaluation of All...

No justice in history, no goodness in Nature. That is why the pessimist when he is an artist prefers those historical subjects where the absence of justice reveals itself with magnificent simplicity, where perfection actually comes to expression—and likewise he prefers that in Nature, where her callous evil character is not hypocritically concealed, where that character is seen in perfection.... The Nihilistic artist betrays himself in willing and preferring cynical history and cynical Nature.

What is tragic?—Again and again I have pointed to the great misunderstanding of Aristotle in maintaining that the tragic emotions were the two depressing emotions—fear and pity. Had he been right, tragedy would be an art unfriendly to life: it would have been necessary to caution people against it as against something generally harmful and suspicious. Art, otherwise the great stimulus of life, the great intoxicant of life, the great will to life, here became a tool of decadence, the hand-maiden of pessimism and ill-health (for to suppose, as Aristotle supposed, that by exciting these emotions we thereby purged people of them, is simply an error). Something which habitually excites fear or pity, disorganises, weakens, and discourages: and supposing Schopenhauer were right in thinking that tragedy taught resignation (i.e. a meek renunciation of happiness, hope, and of the will to live), this would presuppose an art in which art itself was denied. Tragedy would then constitute a process of dissolution; the instinct of life would destroy itself in the instinct of art. Christianity, Nihilism, tragic art, physiological decadence; these things would then be linked, they would then preponderate together and assist each other onwards—downwards.... Tragedy would thus be a symptom of decline.

This theory may be refuted in the most cold-blooded way, namely, by measuring the effect of a tragic emotion by means of a dynamometer The result would be a fact which only the bottomless falsity of a doctrinaire could misunderstand: that tragedy is a tonic. If Schopenhauer refuses to see the truth here, if he regards general depression as a tragic condition, if he would have informed the Greeks (who to his disgust were not "resigned") that they did not firmly possess the highest principles of life: it is only owing to his parti pris, to the need of consistency in his system, to the dishonesty of the doctrinaire—that dreadful dishonesty which step for step corrupted the whole psychology of Schopenhauer (he who had arbitrarily and almost violently misunderstood genius, art itself, morality, pagan religion, beauty, knowledge, and almost everything).

The tragic artist.—Whether, and in regard to what, the judgment "beautiful" is established is a question of an individual's or of a people's strength The feeling of plenitude, of overflowing strength (which gaily and courageously meets many an obstacle before which the weakling shudders)—the feeling of power utters the judgment "beautiful" concerning things and conditions which the instinct of impotence can only value as hateful and ugly. The flair which enables us to decide whether the objects we encounter are dangerous, problematic, or alluring, likewise determines our æsthetic Yea. ("This is beautiful," is an affirmation).

From this we see that, generally speaking, a preference for questionable and terrible things is a symptom of strength; whereas the taste for pretty and charming trifles is characteristic of the weak and the delicate. The love of tragedy is typical of strong ages and characters: its non plus ultra is perhaps the Divina Commedia. It is the heroic spirits which in tragic cruelty say Yea unto themselves: they are hard enough to feel pain as a pleasure.

On the other hand, supposing weaklings desire to get pleasure from an art which was not designed for them, what interpretation must we suppose they would like to give tragedy in order to make it suit their taste? They would interpret their own feeling of value into it: e.g. the "triumph of the moral order of things," or the teaching of the "uselessness of existence," or the incitement to "resignation" (or also half-medicinal and half-moral outpourings, à la Aristotle). Finally, the art of terrible natures, in so far as it may excite the nerves, may be regarded by the weak and exhausted as a stimulus: this is now taking place, for instance, in the case of the admiration meted out to Wagner's art. A test of man's well-being and consciousness of power is the extent to which he can acknowledge the terrible and questionable character of things, and whether he is in any need of a faith at the end.

This kind of artistic pessimism is precisely the reverse of that religio-moral pessimism which suffers from the corruption of man and the enigmatic character of existence: the latter insists upon deliverance, or at least upon the hope of deliverance. Those who suffer, doubt, and distrust themselves,—the sick, in other words,—have in all ages required the transporting influence of visions in order to be able to exist at all (the notion "blessedness" arose in this way). A similar case would be that of the artists of decadence, who at bottom maintain a Nihilistic attitude to life, and take refuge in the beauty of form,—in those select cases in which Nature is perfect, in which she is indifferently great and indifferently beautiful. (The "love of the beautiful" may thus be something very different from the ability to see or create the beautiful: it may be the expression of impotence in this respect.) The most convincing artists are those who make harmony ring out of every discord, and who benefit all things by the gift of their power and inner harmony: in every work of art they merely reveal the symbol of their inmost experiences—their creation is gratitude for life.

The depth of the tragic artist consists in the fact that his æsthetic instinct surveys the more remote results, that he does not halt shortsightedly at the thing that is nearest, that he says Yea to the whole cosmic economy, which justifies the terrible, the evil, and the questionable; which more than justifies it.

The conception of the work which lies right in the background of this book, is extraordinarily gloomy and unpleasant: among all the types of pessimism which have ever been known hitherto, none seems to have attained to this degree of malice. The contrast of a true and of an apparent world is entirely absent here: there is but one world, and it is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive, and without sense. A world, thus constituted is the true world. We are in need of lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this truth—that is to say, in order to live.... That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence.

Metaphysics, morality, religion, science, in this book, all these things are regarded merely as different forms of falsehood: by means of them we are led to believe in life. "Life, must inspire confidence"; the task which this imposes upon us is enormous. In order to solve, this problem man must already be a liar in his heart, but he must above all else be an artist. And he is that. Metaphysics, religion, morality, science, all these things are but the offshoot of his will to art, to falsehood, to a flight from "truth," to a denial of "truth." This ability, this artistic capacity par excellence of man—thanks to which he overcomes reality with lies,—is a quality which he has in common with all other forms of existence. He himself is indeed a piece of reality, of truth, of nature: how could he help being also a piece of genius in prevarication!

The fact that the character of existence is misunderstood, is the profoundest and the highest secret motive behind everything relating to virtue, science, piety, and art. To be blind to many things, to see many things falsely, to fancy many things: Oh, how clever man has been in those circumstances in which he believed he was anything but clever! Love, enthusiasm, "God"—are but subtle forms of ultimate Self-deception; they are but seductions to life and to the belief in life! In those moments when man was deceived, when he had befooled himself and when he believed in life: Oh, how his spirit swelled within him! Oh, what ecstasies he had! What power he felt! And what artistic triumphs in the feeling of power! ... Man had once more become master of "matter,"—master of truth! ... And whenever man rejoices it is always in the same way: he rejoices as an artist, his power is his joy, he enjoys falsehood as his power....

Art is the alleviation of the man of action,—of him who not only sees the terrible and questionable character of existence, but also lives it, will live it,—of the tragic and warlike man, the hero. Art is the alleviation of the sufferer,—as the way to states in which pain is willed, is transfigured, is deified, where suffering is a form of great ecstasy.

It is clear that in this book pessimism, or, better still, Nihilism, stands for "truth." But truth is not postulated as the highest measure of value, and still less as the highest power. The will to appearance, to illusion, to deception, to becoming, and to change (to objective deception), is here regarded as more profound, as more primeval, as more metaphysical than the will to truth, to reality, to appearance: the latter is merely a form of the will to illusion. Happiness is likewise conceived as more primeval than pain: and pain is considered as conditioned, as a consequence Of the will to happiness (of the will to Becoming, to growth, to forming, i.e. to creating; in creating, however, destruction is included). The highest state of Yea-saying to existence is conceived as one from which the greatest pain may not be excluded: the tragico-Dionysian state.

In this way this book is even anti-pessimistic, namely, in the sense that it teaches something which is stronger than pessimism and which is more "divine" than truth: Art. Nobody, it would seem, would be more ready seriously to utter a radical denial of life, an actual denial of action even more than a denial of life, than the author of this book. Except that he knows—for he has experienced it, and perhaps experienced little else!—that art is of more value than truth.

Even in the preface, in which Richard Wagner is, as it were, invited to join with him in conversation, the author expresses this article of faith, this gospel for artists; "Art is the only task of life, art is the metaphysical activity of life...."