Chapter XVIII (part 10)

In one we are preternaturally strict with ourselves, analyze with great care every idea before we discuss it; in the other we permit with extreme ease any compromises, and easily keep from seeing that which we do not care to see. Moreover, we reconcile ourselves to this division. We do not find it necessary seriously to introduce into our lives our higher ideals, and almost accept as a principle the division of the "real" from the "spiritual." All of the indecencies of our life have arisen as a result of this; all of those infinite falsifications p. 228 of our life—falsifications of the press, art, drama, science, politics—falsifications in which we suffocate as in a fetid swamp, but which we ourselves create, because we and none other are servants and ministers of those falsifications. We have no sense of the necessity to introduce our ideals into life, to introduce them into our daily activity , and we even admit the possibility that this activity may go counter to our spiritual quests, in accordance with one of those established standards the harm of which we recognize, but for which no one holds himself responsible because he did not create them himself. We have no sense of personal responsibility , no boldness, and we are even without the consciousness of their necessity. All this would be very sad and hopeless if the concept "we" were not so dubious. In reality, the correctness of the very expression "we" is subject to grave doubt. The enormous majority of the population of this globe is engaged in effect in destroying, disfiguring, and falsifying the ideas of the minority. The majority is without ideas. It is incapable of understanding the ideas of the minority, and left to itself it must inevitably disfigure and destroy. Imagine a menagerie full of monkeys. In this menagerie a man is working. The monkeys observe his movements and try to imitate him but they can imitate only his visible movements; the meaning and aim of these movements are closed to them; therefore their actions will have quite another result. And should the monkeys escape from their cages and get hold of the man's tools, then perhaps they will destroy all his work, and inflict great damage on themselves as well. But they will never be able to create anything. Therefore a man would make a great mistake if he referred to their "work," and spoke of them as "we." Creation and destruction—or more correctly, the ability to create or the ability only to destroy—are the principal signs of the two types of men. Morality is necessary to "man": only by regarding everything from the standpoint of morality is it possible to differentiate unmistakably the work of man from the activity of apes. But at the same time delusions are nowhere more easily created than in the region of morality. Allured by his own particular morality and moral gospel, a man forgets the aim of moral perfection, forgets that this aim consists in knowledge. He begins to see an aim in morality itself . Then occurs the a priori division of the emotions p. 229 into good and bad, "moral" and "immoral." The correct understanding of the aim and meaning of the emotions is lost along with this. Man is charmed with his "niceness." He desires that everyone else should be just as nice as he, or as that remote ideal created by himself. Then appears delight in morality for morality's sake, a sort of moral sport—the exercise of morality for morality's sake. A man under these circumstances begins to be afraid of everything. Everywhere, in all manifestations of life, something "immoral" begins to appear to him, threatening to dethrone him or others from that height to which they have risen or may rise. This develops a preternaturally suspicious attitude toward the morality of others.