1050 FRIEDRICHNIETZSCHE
HOW THE“TRU EWORLD” FINALLYBECAME AFABLE
THEHISTORY OF ANERROR
- The true world—attainable for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man; he lives in
it,he is it.
(The oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, simple, and persuasive. A circum-
locution for the sentence, “I, Plato,amthe truth.”) - The true world—unattainable for now, but promised for the sage, the pious, the
virtuous man (“for the sinner who repents”)
(Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, insidious, incomprehensible—it
becomes female,it becomes Christian.) - The true world—unattainable, indemonstrable, unpromisable; but the very
thought of it—a consolation, an obligation, an imperative.
(At bottom, the old sun, but seen through mist and skepticism. The idea has
become elusive, pale, Nordic, Königsbergian [i.e., Kantian].) - The true world—unattainable? At any rate, unattained. And being unattained, also
unknown.Consequently, not consoling,redeeming, or obligating: how could something
unknown obligate us?
(Gray morning. The first yawn of reason. The cockcrow of positivism.) - The “true” world—an idea which is no longer good for anything, not even
obligating—an idea which has become useless and superfluous—consequently,a
refuted idea: let us abolish it!
(Bright day; breakfast; return of bon sensand cheerfulness; Plato’s embarrassed
blush; pandemonium of all free spirits.) - The true world—we have abolished. What world has remained? The apparent
one perhaps? But no! With the true world we have also abolished the apparent one.
(Noon; moment of the briefest shadow; end of the longest error; high point of
humanity; INCIPIT ZARATHUSTRA.)
MORALITY ASANTI-NATURE
[1] All passions have a phase when they are merely disastrous, when they drag
down their victim with the weight of stupidity—and a later, very much later phase when
they wed the spirit, when they “spiritualize” themselves. Formerly, in view of the element
of stupidity in passion, war was declared on passion itself, its destruction was plotted; all
the old moral monsters are agreed on this:il faut tuer les passions[one must kill the pas-
sions]. The most famous formula for this is to be found in the New Testament, in that
Sermon on the Mount, where, incidentally, things are by no means looked at from a
height. There it is said, for example, with particular reference to sexuality: “If thy eye
offend thee, pluck it out.” Fortunately, no Christian acts in accordance with this precept.
Destroyingthe passions and cravings, merely as a preventive measure against their
stupidity and the unpleasant consequences of this stupidity—today this itself strikes us as
merely another acute form of stupidity. We no longer admire dentists who “pluck out”
teeth so that they will not hurt any more.