Chapter 5 The Birth of Tragedy Volume 5 (Part One 1882)

tragic birth vol. first part 1882 1. The teacher of the existential object Whether I look at people from the perspective of good or evil, I always feel that everyone, or even all people, has a problem: deliberately trying to preserve human beings.Not, of course, from any sentiment of love for our fellow human beings, but simply because there is nothing in them more deeply rooted, more ruthless, more invincible than this instinct—that is the nature of our species.Although we have long been prepared to use the general short-sightedness to strictly distinguish whether our neighbors are beneficial or harmful, good or evil.But when we do a statistic and spend more time thinking about the whole problem, we will not believe this definition and distinction, and finally we have to let it go.Even the most harmful man may still care to preserve mankind (including the most beneficial), because he wants to protect himself, or to influence others with stimuli that do not contain man's already corrupted decay.

Hatred, which often leads to misfortune, greed, ambition, and other so-called evils--belongs to the incredible system of preserving mankind, a rather wasteful and in general very stupid system, but nevertheless it proves that the preservation of mankind until now.My dear compatriots and neighbors, I don't know if you will live long enough to witness the "unimaginable" human encounter that could endanger humanity and perhaps make it extinct tens of thousands of years ago, and now even God cannot save it." very serious" disadvantage.To satisfy your best or worst desires, it is better to go through a catastrophe, no matter what kind of experience, may make you in some way a visionary and giver of mankind, people may praise you, but the opposite Yes, maybe taunt you (though you'll be hard-pressed to find someone who's actually qualified to taunt you).One day, when they suddenly realize, they will find their lost conscience, cry out their misfortune and shame, and fall into the embrace of truth.

Or we laugh at ourselves as we laugh at the most solid truth.For the highest experience and knowledge of the truth is not enough; even the most gifted cannot come close!Still, laughter is hopeful.When the proverb "Humans are the most important, what is the individual!" is incorporated into human nature, when the final shortcut to liberation is always in front of you, maybe laughter and wisdom are connected (maybe this is the only one) "Joyful Wisdom").Anyway, that's always two different things.At the same time, when the comedy of existence has not itself become a self-consciousness, it is still tragic, moral and religious.

What does the new look of these founders of morality and religion, advocates of moral values, and teachers of awakening conscience imply?They have always been heroes of one side, and though they see other sides too, they are so concerned with this side of themselves that the heroes are to the other side a sort of moving set or machine, playing the role of confidant and confidant. The role of servant, always ready to serve that side (poets, for example, are often servants of some moral or other).obviously.These tragic figures also work for the good of mankind, though they pretend to work for the good of God, as if they were messengers of God.They also promote human life and at the same time promote faith in life. "It's worth living," they all cried. "There are very important things in life, which are deeply hidden, and beware of them!" These words of encouragement have governed the noblest as well as the humblest, and it is this inspiration which has always inspired reason With a passionate spirit, save humanity.These motives, so splendidly accomplished, seek with all their power to make us forget entirely that it was mere impulse, instinct, folly, and unwarranted action.

Life should be loved, for...!Man should benefit himself and his neighbor, for the sake of...!All these "should" and "for" imply everything, even the future!Since those are necessary, unconceived, and involuntary actions, they should be conceived and ultimately governed by reason—for this purpose, the ethicist volunteers to plan in existence. Mentor, for this he also invented a different being.In this way, the new machinery lifts the old ordinary "being" from the old ordinary hub. No!He doesn't want us to laugh at the being, or at ourselves, at himself.For him, the individual is always the individual, something is always an infinity in itself, the human being is neither an "integer" nor a "zero."However ignorant and persistent his inventions and values ​​may be, and how badly he has misunderstood the way of nature and denied it—all ethical systems have hitherto been so ignorant and unnatural to such an extent that any of them Man is enough to destroy man—wherever and whenever that "hero" springs forth, and there is a new find: the terrible laughter of the same characters, and the belly laugh of many at that thought.

"Yes, it is worth living! Yes, I should live!" Life and you and I are interested in ourselves again.It is undeniable that "laughter", rationality and naturalness have finally prevailed over those great planning teachers so far.In the end, the momentary tragedy of existence turns again into eternal comedy, and "a chain of laughter."Because of this "corrective" laughter, human nature has been entirely transformed by the new face of the Masters who project existence - human nature is now an additional requirement, the new face of those teachers and the "curated teachings" necessary condition.

Man has gradually become a dreamy animal who has to live out more states of being than any other animal: man has to believe every moment that he knows why he exists.If there is no periodic confidence in life and the rationality in life, it is impossible for human beings to have such prosperity.Humanity has always proclaimed: "Some things are really not to be laughed at." And the most perceptive philanthropists have added that "not only funny and joyful wisdom, but also tragic wisdom, will use Its sublime and uncoordinated perspective evaluates the methods and inevitability of the protection of human beings!"

So do you understand me?my brother!Do you already understand this new law of rise and fall?We will also have our own era! 2. Intellectual conscience I have often repeated the same experience, always with a fresh effort to resist it, and although it is true, I do not want to believe that most human beings lack an intellectual conscience.Indeed, it often seems to me that, in making this request, one is as lonely in the metropolis as in the desert.Everyone looks at you with strange eyes and judges this good and that bad by his scale, and when you say that their measurement is not quite accurate, no one will be ashamed and blush, and no one will respond. You express anger, and their suspicion may just be laughed off.Seriously, most people don't feel like believing this or that and living by it.And it is vulgar and contemptible to fail to know beforehand the most definite reasons for and against, which do not bother them afterwards—even the most gifted of men and noblest of women. "Most people".

But what to me are kindness, decency, and genius, if there is an iota of slack in a man's beliefs and judgments of these virtues, if he fails to cling to that truth as the innermost longing and the last Deep need, then you can distinguish a person's high and low! In certain pious people I find a reason for my aversion, and treat them as such: at least their corrupt intellectual conscience betrays themselves in the same manner!But he who stands in the midst of the recurring rhetoric and all that is inconceivable, not evidently uncertain, who does not question, who does not tremble with desire, and who accepts questions without aversion to asking them (even makes him happy to live to the point of weariness)—this is what I consider vulgar and disdainful, and that is the first situation I look for in everyone.Fools or others have repeatedly tried to convince me that as long as one is human, one has such emotions.

I think this is my special "improper style". 3. Noble and humble To the humble, all noble and generous sentiments appear improper, because the highest and the best are not to be trusted.When they hear that, they blink and seem to want to say "surely it's good for one not to be able to see through all walls".They envy the noble man, as if he finds his advantage by cunning means.They regard the noble man as a kind of fool, when they are all quite candid in their conviction that there are no selfish motives or rewards, and they scorn his pleasure, and laugh at the light in his eye, Status, how can a person with his eyes open expect to encounter disadvantages! It must be that he has been influenced by noble people, and there is something wrong with his reason." They thought so, and then showed contemptuous faces, just as they despised as insane joy from his fixed thoughts.It is well known that the lowly man only wants to preserve his perceived advantage, and that this idea is stronger than the strongest stimulus (not an attempt at impropriety)--his cleverness and whims.

Compared with the base man, the higher man is more irrational--for the noble, the generous, the self-sacrificing man is in fact incapable of being stimulated by himself, and when he is at his peak, he rationality will be completely reduced.An animal that will risk its life to protect its young, or follow the opposite sex through the perils of the mating season, with no regard for danger or death.Its reason is temporarily suspended, because it focuses all its joy on children and the opposite sex, and the fear generated by joy dominates it strongly, and it appears clumsier than usual, like a noble and magnanimous person. . Since he has such strong feelings of joy and pain, reason should either be silent before them, or submit to their service.His heart went to his head. When a person talks about "passion", those irrational or perverse values ​​seem to him to be utopian and arbitrary. He will always offend those who are dominated by "appetite and passion", He understood that temptation was playing the role of tyrant here, but he did not understand, for example, how a man without a sense of love could risk his health and his honor in this game. Higher people will have different values ​​than ordinary people when they devote themselves to trying special things, things that usually don't affect others, and things that don't seem to be good.But in his special attempt, most of the beliefs are still no different from the value standard of ordinary people, and he still hopes that the value standard of his belief is as clear as that of ordinary people.In doing so he becomes incomprehensible and impractical.These people are rarely rational enough to understand and get along with ordinary people, because for most of the higher people, they are convinced that they have a "passion" hidden in everyone, and they are very enthusiastic about this belief vigorously defended. If these special people do not realize that they are special, how can they understand the lowly and correctly evaluate the ordinary? !This is also where they often think that humans are stupid, inappropriate and cranky, full of wonder at the madness of the world, and don't understand that "one thing must be so"— This is where noble people are never right. 4. Which saved the human race? The strongest and the worst men have hitherto surpassed the head of mankind: they have always revived men who had fallen asleep (a well-ordered society often puts human passions to sleep).They have repeatedly awakened people to have the spirit of comparing with new things, taking risks and resisting, and being keen on untried pursuits, etc. They force people to put forward new views against another view, and put forward new ideal plans against others. An ideal plan—to use power, by overthrowing monuments, especially by pious aggression, and even by new religions and morals! And the same "weakness" remains in every new missionary and teacher--something new tends to discredit the conqueror, though it refines itself and does not immediately set the muscles in motion (due to For this reason, it should not cause such notoriety!). No matter what, new things are always produced under the environment of hoping to overcome evil. It tries to overthrow the old landmarks and old piety, "Only the old is good!".Good people in every era can go deep into the roots of old ideas and breed their fruits. They are also cultivators of the spirit of the times.But every field eventually becomes dry, and the evil plowshares come again and again. There is now a fundamentally erroneous theory of morality, famous especially in England, according to which "good" and "evil" are judged by accumulated experience of whether it is "proper" or not The so-called "good" means that it can protect human beings, and the so-called "evil" means that it is not beneficial to human beings.But in fact, the stimuli of "evil" are suitable for human beings to a certain extent and in terms of indispensable preservation and maintenance, their influence is the same as that of "good"-only their functions are different. 5. Absolute Responsibility All feel the need of the strongest words and tones, the most evocative manners, in order to influence and dominate, and this cannot be left to chance.Revolutionary statesmen, socialists, Christian or non-Christian missionaries, all of whom speak of "responsibility" are, in fact, always speaking of a duty of an absolute character—and those who do not have it are No sentimental power (they know it well)!They want to seize the exhortation to some absolutely inevitable moral philosophy, or to assimilate many religions, as Mazzini did. For they must first have absolute confidence in themselves (based on some supreme and indisputable dominance and elevation within themselves) in order to be absolutely believed by men.In this way, their followers and subordinates feel happy to feel and declare themselves.Here we have the most natural, and most of them are also the most powerful opponents of moral enlightenment and skepticism, but there are not many of them; on the other hand, wherever interest induces obedience, there will be Many of those opponents, when both argument and honor seemed to be holding it back. A man is ashamed when he thinks of being a sovereign, or an instrument of a party, organization, or even a consortium, and wishes only to be that instrument, or to himself and to the public.Such a person desires a sentimental principle to which he can appeal at all times—a principle of absolute "should" by which one can obey oneself without shame and show oneself to be dominated.All nobler servility soon grasps the absolute inevitability, and the mortal enemy is he who abstracts the absolute character of duty: "Rectification" Ask them for this (principle), and not just rectitude. 6. Loss of dignity Meditation has lost all its formal dignity.Formal and dignified forms of meditation made the meditator an object of ridicule, and it was no longer acceptable for a wise man to be old fashioned. When we are on the road, on a journey, or in various situations of business, our thoughts are in a hurry, even when we are dealing with the most important things.We long for a little rest and preparation, even a little peace.It seems that each of us has a machine that is constantly turning in our brains, and even under unfavorable conditions, it is still active.Previously, this was the case when a man was aware of it only when he wanted to think on certain occasions—perhaps that was an exception—now he wanted to become wiser and gather his mind into one thought.For this, he draws his face, stops, like a praying man—no, he still stands (on one or both feet) in the street for hours when the thought "comes." This is really a "meaningful thing"! Seven, bothersome work A vast field awaits the man who at present takes moral questions as his subject of study.At any time, in any person (great or small), all passions must be considered individually and tracked down individually.All people's rational attitudes, values ​​and explanations of things must be clear! All that has so far colored existence has lacked a history: where do we find the history of love, of greed, of envy, of conscience, of pity, of cruelty?Even a comparative history of law is as absent as that of punishment.Has the general idea of ​​dividing the day into hours of work, play, rest, etc., been examined?Do we understand the influence of morality upon what is nourished?Is there a nutritional philosophy (as evidenced by the constant and repeated calls for and against vegetarianism)?Has the experience of living in a self-governing manner, such as that of a monastery, been collected?Has anyone ever proclaimed the dialectic of marriage and friendship?For the daily habits of life, businessmen, scholars, artists and workers, have any of them thought about it?There is so much to think about! For many things, people simply regard it as the "existence status" of human beings, but have they investigated the factors such as reason, lust, and habits that are so regarded?There has been something to be learned, and still progress, to be made concerning human stimulation in observing the various degrees of development in isolation.According to different moral trends, those who spend most of their time will accomplish more. This is needed for whole generations and generations of scholars who systematically cooperate to make the data and opinions completed thoroughly. Research.The same is true of the decisions of reason with respect to different moral tendencies ("What reason is there for the sun of the highest value of this basic moral judgment and standard to shine here and another sun there?"). There is a new task here, to point out the errors of all these reasons, and to decide the whole nature of moral judgments hitherto.Assuming that all this work is to be done, most of the critiques of all problems are brought to the fore (whether or not science is in a position to accomplish the goal of human action, and after it has proved that it can get rid of those critiques or abolition) followed by a series of experiments in which each heroic act was satisfied in itself.An experiment that has been going on for centuries is often relegated to the inconspicuous place in the history of previous great work and dedication. Science has not yet built its gigantic structure, but that time will come. 8. Unconscious virtues It is characteristic of man to be conscious—especially when he has a clear view of his surroundings—and we can also learn from the fact that man is attracted only to laws in progress and rejects what he does not understand or only half understands. A glimpse into the nature of human beings in this example; because of the keenness and dexterity of "consciousness" itself, some people who are more sensitive and dexterous often have ignorance and unconsciousness, as if it is behind the characteristics of consciousness. as if nothing was hidden—as well as delicate carvings on reptilian scales (it would be a mistake to think of those carvings as decorations or reptilian armor; for only through a microscope There is no way to see clearly. Therefore, it is only possible to see those carvings as decorations or armor if you have animal-like vision. But who has animal vision!) For example, we have intelligence, ambition and tactility, and people all over the world know this.Indeed, we have had greater intellect, ambition, and greater tactility once, but all this—our scales—existed before the microscope!And intuitive morality would say: "Great! He at least thinks that unconscious morality is possible—and that would satisfy us!" Alas, you imprecise creatures! 9. Our innovation Human nature has many things in its early days, but is so feeble in its infancy that it does not notice that it has those things, which are suddenly apparent after a long time. It manifests itself, perhaps over centuries—that's the time that makes those things strong and mature. To some, at certain times, it will seem, that this or that talent, this or that virtue, will be altogether wanting; but let us wait patiently, if we have time to wait, even for the sake of our posterity— One day, they will reveal to the world the inner nature that the ancestors themselves did not know.Of course, there are often sons who betray their fathers, so after he has a son, it is best not to get to know himself too early. Inside of us all hide whole gardens and cultivated fields, and to use another analogy, we are all active volcanoes that will erupt at some point—and when, of course, no one knows, not even Almighty God. predict. 10. Human atavistic inheritance I love to think of a few people in an era, they are like flashbacks of past cultures suddenly emerging, their influence does not disappear with time, like a person and his civilization are inherited from generation to generation, so they still have a lot of things It is worth our deep thinking! Man now feels that they seem strange, rare, and special, while for him who feels that these forces conceived him to face a different relative world, he must justify them, honor them, and make their things more perfect. Mature.For that, maybe he'll be a great man, or a crazy weirdo (if he doesn't wreck it all together sooner).In the past, these rare qualities were so common that they were often regarded as normal, and it was considered impossible for them and ordinary people to be as great as they were, because madness and loneliness did not pose a danger to them.Primarily, they lived in old-fashioned families, and the shock of old stimuli gave them that temperament, which cannot be inherited in circumstances where the character, habits, and values ​​of the race change too rapidly. The evolutionary drive contained within the human race moves as fast as the beat of music, and in our current situation an evolutionary "andante" is absolutely necessary - as is the tempo of passion and the spirit of slowness - to protect The same goes for the spirit of the family. 11. Consciousness Consciousness is the last and most recent development of the endowments with which man is born, and is therefore the crudest and least powerful of these developments.Innumerable mistakes originate from consciousness, which, as Homer said, "does not care about fate", often causes an animal or a person to collapse earlier than it expected.If the protective instinct were not so powerful, it would not be able to function as a regulating device; with perverted judgment, dreaming with eyes open, superficial and rash, simply put, only with consciousness, human beings are bound to collapse and collapse. Destruction, or without the former factors, human beings would have been worse than later! Before a function is fully formed and mature, it is dangerous to organic organisms. It would be best if it could be completely suppressed!And the consciousness is completely suppressing everything like this, and there is no complacency at all!People think that this is the essence of man, the enduring, unchanging, ultimate and most original thing in him!Consciousness is seen as given and fixed, it has no "growth and intermittency"!It is a "single individual of organic beings"! —This ridiculous overestimation and misunderstanding of consciousness has also the ingenious effect of hindering its development by completing it too quickly.Because humans believed they already possessed consciousness, they didn't do themselves any trouble getting it - but now it's all different!In the human eye, an entirely new problem is arising, and not yet so clearly identifiable: making knowledge crystallize in us and become an instinct. — This problem can only be seen by those who realize that hitherto only the error has materialized in us, and that all our consciousness is associated with this error! 12. The purpose of learning If the ultimate aim of science is to create the greatest possible pleasure and the least possible pain, if pleasure and pain are very closely related, what would the greatest possibility of either of them require?And what about the greatest possibility that the other one is bound to be obtained?To experience "supreme joy," one must also be prepared to "sorrow unto death."Maybe that's it!At least that was the view of the Stoics, who consistently advocated that minimizing pleasure would minimize pain in life. (When one expresses one's opinion with the phrase "the chaste is the happiest," it is like a school bulletin board for students, leaving this sophistical complication to the clever.) For the moment we still have a choice: either the least possible pain in the midst of a temporary painlessness (after all socialism and all politicians can't dignifiedly promise people a little more pain), or the greatest possible pain, thinking that a country full of The growth price of noble pleasures and enjoyments that are rarely attempted before.If you choose the former, you must suppress and minimize the ability to bear pain, and you must also suppress and minimize the ability to bear joy. In fact, one can use learning to further the ends of both. Perhaps we are not quite clear that learning has the power to prevent people from enjoying themselves, and should make him calmer, more dignified, and more restrained.However, it can also turn into the greatest pain-maker! —But perhaps we shall also discover its counter-force: its infinite power to light up another new and joyous planetary world. 13. Power Consciousness Theory Depending on our likes and dislikes, we often use our power over others to produce beneficial or harmful results.As far as harm is done, we must make our powers feel the harm done by the other, for pain is far easier to feel than pleasure, which always seeks its cause, while pleasure seeks only to remain what it is and never to go to it. look later.As far as doing good is concerned, by being kind to those who are ready to depend on us (that is, those who are accustomed to think of us as their raison d'être), we strengthen them—and so we strengthen us. themselves; or we shall make them understand that this superiority lies in our strength, so that they will be more content with themselves, and more hostile to and combat the enemy of our strength. Whether we sacrifice for good or evil, the basic value of our actions will not change, even if we stake our lives for legitimate reasons, like martyrs for the church.It is indeed a sacrifice to our power to desire, or to protect our power.A man in this condition feels that he has "acquired the truth," and how he does not let many "acquires" slip away in order to maintain this feeling!The reason why he didn't throw it away was so that he could remain "above" - ​​that is, above those who "lack the truth"!It is true that we have very little joy when we do evil, and a pure joy can only be obtained when we do good—a sign that we still lack strength, or that it is because of our shortcoming that it Betrayed bad temper.It creates danger and uncertainty for itself and for the power we already have, and the atmosphere of vengeance, scorn, punishment, and defeat darkens our horizons.And only those who are most suspicious of the sense of power and long for it like to stamp the stamp of power on the rebellious individual—those who see the conquered as the object of alms, to them a burden and boredom. How does one get used to adapting to one's own life?This is a question, but also about trying, that he may prefer to adapt slowly or suddenly, perhaps prefer the safe or the dangerous, and have the courage to increase his strength. —He often finds this or that adaptation according to his own disposition.An easy spoil is of little value to the haughty, who think that only the unbroken man can be their enemy.In the same way, they will go all out for the victims only when they encounter very difficult situations. Although those people are not worthy of their hard work and arrogance, they take this opportunity to show their strength to those who are equal to them. How humble and attentive I am!To them, strife and struggle are honorable under any circumstances, as long as they are due. We can sense that in the future these "knights" will accustom themselves to be very courteous to others.And to those who are not proud and wish to conquer anything, sympathy is a pleasant feeling; and the easy trophies, the victims, are to them a charming thing.It is said that sympathy is a virtue of frivolous women. 14. What is love? The lust for property and the desire for love, what is the different connection between the two?Perhaps they are just two names for the same stimulus.In one case, outright slander from their preconceived point of view.Another situation is viewed from the point of view of dissatisfaction and longing, and thus glorification as "good".Is our love for our neighbor a search for a new "property"?Likewise, do our love of knowledge, our love of truth, and our general search for novelty count? We have grown tired of old and secure possessions, and once again reach out our hand.Even the most picturesque spots ceased to please us so much after we had lived there three months, and any coast of considerable length aroused our greed and delusion.Owning is mostly made smaller by owning, and our pleasure tries to maintain itself (just owning) by constantly becoming new in us.When we get bored with what we have, we also get bored with ourselves (painful when we have too much).Seeing anyone in difficulty, we gladly take advantage of the opportunity to help him without attempting, as a benevolent or sympathetic person would do, and still call the desire that urges him to acquire something new "Love" and enjoy it (as if the new acquisition recommended itself to him). The love between opposite sexes obviously betrays itself, just like the desperate pursuit of "possession": the lover always hopes to possess the object he pursues absolutely and exclusively.He seeks to have absolute control over his soul and body, to be loved alone, and to rule and reside in another soul.When she thinks this really means that the whole world is excluded from everything he loves; "The most flippant and selfish of them all; when she finally thinks that to the lover himself the world not only seems cold, pale, and meaningless, but that he is ready, at all costs, to upset all Regardless of the time, he was very surprised that this cruel desire for property and improper sex have been "beautified" and "sanctified" to such an extent.Yes, the concept of love as opposed to egoism should be derived from this love, all the more so when it is perhaps the most inappropriate expression for egoism. Here, it is clear that people who have nothing and people who want to have have limited the use of the language (of course, this was a lot before).Those who are blessed with "having much and too much," such as the loveliest and most beloved of all Athenians, do often omit a word from the term "rampant devil."But Eros (the Greek god of love) always laughed at the scolders—they were always his favourites.Of course, everywhere on earth there is a tendency towards love, in which mutual covetousness of two persons leads to yielding to a new desire and greed; A foothold of superiority to straddle others.Anyway, who knows this love?Who has experienced it?Its proper name is friendship. 15. Beyond the distance The mountain makes the whole area look charming from every angle and has a lot of meaning, and after we've said that to ourselves hundreds of times, we don't think twice about admiring it as if it were charm The bestower of the world, we fancied that it would itself be the most fascinating part of the region, so we climbed it without realizing it.Suddenly, the mountains around us seemed to lose their magic from our fantasies. We have long since forgotten that much greatness, like much goodness, only wishes to be seen from a certain distance, and that it comes entirely from the lower than the higher side--it alone does.Perhaps you know that there are many in your neighborhood who can only see and find themselves patient, charming, and lively only from a certain distance, because their self-consciousness has been blinded. 16. Over the board In dealing with people who are shy about expressing their feelings, one has to be able to cover up and pretend to be confused.任何突然变得很体贴、很热心与很兴奋的人都会令他们吃惊并感到厌恶，因为他们认为他已看穿了他们的秘密。假如在这个时候，一个人要表达他的亲善之意，那么就最好设法让对方笑，或说些无伤大雅而风趣的话题，这样，他们的感受便能凝聚，而且恢复平静。不过，在讲这些话之前，我要先给你们一个提示—— 在我们日常生活中，大家彼此之间曾是如此地亲密，似乎再也没有什么能阻扰我们的友情和同胞爱，除了仅有一块小小的木板横隔在我们之间，当你正准备踏上这块木板的时候，我问道："你要越过这块木板来到我这里吗？"那么你就不想过来了，虽经我再三请求，而你还是默然不动。这样一来，高山大河以及能令人阻隔与疏离的一切障碍便都介入到我们中间，纵使我们想要再互相来往也没有办法了。 不管怎样，现在当你想起这块小木板的时候，除了啜泣和讶异，你再也无话可说。 一七、贫穷的刺激 任何方式都不可能使我们在穷人身上制造出一种非常富裕或者华丽的德行来。不过我们可以很从容地将贫穷归诸于一种必然性，这样，它就不会带给我们痛苦，因此我们也不再对命运摆出一副责难的面孔。一个聪明的园丁会将花园里小溪流的水引到喷泉美女雕像的手臂上，如此，他刺激了穷困者——而他不像园丁需要那个美女雕像！ 一八、古代的骄傲 我们的身上已不再有古代那种高贵的气质，因为在我们的观感里已经没有古代那种奴隶。一个没落的希腊贵族发现到，一向高高在上的他们和在最下层的群众之间竟然隔着如此无法测量的活动范围和距离，他甚至很难真切地看到奴隶（即使是柏拉图也没有完全看到）。现在的人则不然，因为我们已习于"人类平等"的理论，虽然它自身并不平等。 有一种人不能随意行动，也没有自己的时间——我们不认为他们是卑贱的，也许在我们每个人的身上都带有很重的这种奴性。依照我们的社会秩序和活动范围来看，现代人的奴性和古代人的奴性在基本上是不一样的。希腊哲学家都是怀着一种秘密感觉度过他的一生，这个感觉即是奴隶比想象中的人民还要多很多，也就是说，除了哲学家之外，每个人都是奴隶；当他们想到即使是世界上最强大的人看起来也象个奴隶时，便马上神气起来。我们不知道，也不能有这种神气。"奴隶"这个字对我们一点作用也没有，即使在我们微笑的时候。 一九、罪恶 去测试最好的人生和最富饶的民众与国土，并且问你自己：一棵骄傲地向天空生长的树是否能免于暴风雨的侵袭？是否能免于被冷落及反对？如果有一个对伟大的生长、甚至德行有利的环境，是否各种的憎恨、嫉妒、顽固、怀疑、严酷、贪婪和暴力便都不会属于这个"有利"的环境？毒药能摧毁一个虚弱的人，同时也能使健壮的人更加坚强——而他并不把它当作毒药。