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54 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
Man, your head is haunted; you have wheels
in your head! You imagine great things, and depict to yourself a whole world
of gods that has an existence for you, a spirit-realm to which you suppose
yourself
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MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 55 |
to be called, an ideal that beckons to you. You have a fixed idea!
Do not think that I am jesting or speaking
figuratively when I regard those persons who cling to the Higher, and (because
the vast majority belongs under this head) almost the whole world of men,
as veritable fools, fools in a madhouse. What is it, then, that is called
a "fixed idea"? An idea that has subjected the man to itself. When you recognize,
with regard to such a fixed idea, that it is a folly, you shut its slave
up in an asylum. And is the truth of the faith, say, which we are not to
doubt; the majesty of (e. g.) the people, which we are not to strike
at (he who does is guilty of -- lese-majesty); virtue, against which the
censor is not to let a word pass, that morality may be kept pure; -- are
these not "fixed ideas"? Is not all the stupid chatter of (e. g.
) most of our newspapers the babble of fools who suffer from the fixed idea
of morality, legality, Christianity, etc., and only seem to go about free
because the madhouse in which they walk takes in so broad a space? Touch
the fixed idea of such a fool, and you will at once have to guard your back
against the lunatic's stealthy malice. For these great lunatics are like
the little so-called lunatics in this point too -- that they assail by stealth
him who touches their fixed idea. They first steal his weapon, steal free
speech from him, and then they fall upon him with their nails. Every day
now lays bare the cowardice and vindictiveness of these maniacs, and the
stupid populace hurrahs for their crazy measures. One must read the journals
of this period, and must hear the Philistines talk, to get the horrible conviction
| 56 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
that one is shut up in a house with fools. "Thou shalt not call thy brother
a fool; if thou dost -- etc." But I do not fear the curse, and I say, my
brothers are arch-fools. Whether a poor fool of the insane asylum is possessed
by the fancy that he is God the Father, Emperor of Japan, the Holy Spirit,
etc., or whether a citizen in comfortable circumstances conceives that it
is his mission to be a good Christian, a faithful Protestant, a loyal citizen,
a virtuous man -- both these are one and the same "fixed idea." He who has
never tried and dared not to be a good Christian, a faithful Protestant,
a virtuous man, etc., is possessed and prepossessed* by faith, virtuousness,
etc. Just as the schoolmen philosophized only inside the belief
of the church; as Pope Benedict XIV wrote fat books inside the papist
superstition, without ever throwing a doubt upon this belief; as authors
fill whole folios on the State without calling in question the fixed idea
of the State itself; as our newspapers are crammed with politics because
they are conjured into the fancy that man was created to be a zoon politicon
-- so also subjects vegetate in subjection, virtuous people in virtue, liberals
in humanity, without ever putting to these fixed ideas of theirs the searching
knife of criticism. Undislodgeable, like a madman's delusion, those thoughts
stand on a firm footing, and he who doubts them -- lays hands on the
sacred! Yes, the "fixed idea," that is the truly sacred!
Is it perchance only people possessed by the
devil
*[gefangen und befangen , literally "imprisoned and prepossessed."]
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MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 57 |
that meet us, or do we as often come upon people possessed in the
contrary way -- possessed by "the good," by virtue, morality, the law, or
some "principle" or other? Possessions of the devil are not the only ones.
God works on us, and the devil does; the former "workings of grace," the
latter "workings of the devil." Possessed* people are set** in their opinions.
If the word "possession" displeases you, then
call it prepossession; yes, since the spirit possesses you, and all "inspirations"
come from it, call it -- inspiration and enthusiasm. I add that complete
enthusiasm -- for we cannot stop with the sluggish, half- way kind -- is called
fanaticism.
It is precisely among cultured people that
fanaticism is at home; for man is cultured so far as he takes an
interest in spiritual things, and interest in spiritual things, when it is
alive, is and must be fanaticism; it is a fanatical interest in
the sacred (fanum). Observe our liberals, look into the Sächsischen
Vaterlandsblätter, hear what Schlosser says:*** "Holbach's company
constituted a regular plot against the traditional doctrine and the existing
system, and its members were as fanatical on behalf of their unbelief as
monks and priests, Jesuits and Pietists, Methodists, missionary and Bible
societies, commonly are for mechanical worship and orthodoxy."
Take notice how a "moral man" behaves, who
today often thinks he is through with God and throws off Christianity as
a bygone thing. If you ask him
*[besessene
]
**[versessen]
***"Achtzehntes Jahrhundert
", II, 519.
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58 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
whether he has ever doubted that the copulation of brother and sister is
incest, that monogamy is the truth of marriage, that filial piety is a sacred
duty, then a moral shudder will come over him at the conception of one's
being allowed to touch his sister as wife also, etc. And whence this shudder?
Because he believes in those moral commandments. This moral
faith is deeply rooted in his breast. Much as he rages against the
pious Christians, he himself has nevertheless as thoroughly remained
a Christian -- to wit, a moral Christian. In the form of morality
Christianity holds him a prisoner, and a prisoner under faith. Monogamy
is to be something sacred, and he who may live in bigamy is punished as a
criminal; he who commits incest suffers as a criminal.
Those who are always crying that religion is not to be regarded in the State,
and the Jew is to be a citizen equally with the Christian, show themselves
in accord with this. Is not this of incest and monogamy a dogma of faith?
Touch it, and you will learn by experience how this moral man is a hero
of faith too, not less than Krummacher, not less than Philip II. These
fight for the faith of the Church, he for the faith of the State, or the
moral laws of the State; for articles of faith, both condemn him who acts
otherwise than their faith will allow. The brand of "crime" is stamped
upon him, and he may languish in reformatories, in jails. Moral faith is
as fanatical as religious faith! They call that "liberty of faith" then,
when brother and sister, on account of a relation that they should have settled
with their "conscience," are thrown into prison. "But they set a pernicious
exam-
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MEN OF THE OLD TIME AND THE NEW 59 |
ple." Yes, indeed: others might have taken the notion that the State had
no business to meddle with their relation, and thereupon "purity of morals"
would go to ruin. So then the religious heroes of faith are zealous for the
"sacred God," the moral ones for the "sacred good."
Those who are zealous for something sacred
often look very little like each other. How the strictly orthodox or old-style
believers differ from the fighters for "truth, light, and justice," from
the Philalethes, the Friends of Light, the Rationalists, and others. And
yet, how utterly unessential is this difference! If one buffets single traditional
truths (i.e. miracles, unlimited power of princes), then the Rationalists
buffet them too, and only the old-style believers wail. But, if one buffets
truth itself, he immediately has both, as believers, for opponents.
So with moralities; the strict believers are relentless, the clearer heads
are more tolerant. But he who attacks morality itself gets both to deal with.
"Truth, morality, justice, light, etc.," are to be and remain "sacred." What
any one finds to censure in Christianity is simply supposed to be "unchristian"
according to the view of these rationalists, but Christianity must remain
a "fixture," to buffet it is outrageous, "an outrage." To be sure, the heretic
against pure faith no longer exposes himself to the earlier fury of persecution,
but so much the more does it now fall upon the heretic against pure morals.
...