10 Beyond Good and Evilobey some one, and for a long time; OTHERWISE thou wilt
come to grief, and lose all respect for thyself ’—this seems to
me to be the moral imperative of nature, which is certain-
ly neither ‘categorical,’ as old Kant wished (consequently
the ‘otherwise’), nor does it address itself to the individual
(what does nature care for the individual!), but to nations,
races, ages, and ranks; above all, however, to the animal
‘man’ generally, to MANKIND.
- Industrious races find it a great hardship to be idle:
it was a master stroke of ENGLISH instinct to hallow and
begloom Sunday to such an extent that the Englishman un-
consciously hankers for his week—and work-day again:—as
a kind of cleverly devised, cleverly intercalated FAST, such as
is also frequently found in the ancient world (although, as is
appropriate in southern nations, not precisely with respect
to work). Many kinds of fasts are necessary; and wherever
powerful influences and habits prevail, legislators have to
see that intercalary days are appointed, on which such im-
pulses are fettered, and learn to hunger anew. Viewed from
a higher standpoint, whole generations and epochs, when
they show themselves infected with any moral fanaticism,
seem like those intercalated periods of restraint and fast-
ing, during which an impulse learns to humble and submit
itself—at the same time also to PURIFY and SHARPEN it-
self; certain philosophical sects likewise admit of a similar
interpretation (for instance, the Stoa, in the midst of Hel-
lenic culture, with the atmosphere rank and overcharged
with Aphrodisiacal odours).—Here also is a hint for the ex-