Human, All Too Human 173nature, because in doing so we project onto the external world what we
ourselves are—namely spirit, consciousness, and soul. The greatest chal-
lenge is to posit a blind, opaque, merely existing being. If a stone does
not know that it is there, how is it there? Is it there? Where is it situated
in time and space if there is no perspectivist consciousness that draws
up the coordinates of classification in time and space? How does a stone
"live"? Can we endure knowing that it is nothing but a stone? Novalis
once said that stones are solidified tears and that some mountains look
as though they had grown petrified from sheer horror at the sight of
human beings. Michelangelo was certain that the idea of plastic form is
inherent in the stone; it is only a matter of chiseling off the superfluous
elements to allow it to emerge.
By immersing himself in the attributes of knowledge, Nietzsche
touched on the enigma of being devoid of consciousness. He contend-
ed that it is the spontaneous tendency of knowledge to encounter its
own principle in all of nature precisely because being devoid of con-
sciousness is actually inconceivable and unfamiliar to it "In the great
prehistorical era of mankind, spirit was presumed to be everywhere and
it did not occur to people to revere it as a privilege of man" (3,41; D §
31). Because man had made the spiritual dimension a common proper-
ty of nature, man was not ashamed of being descended from animals,
trees, or even stones. The notion of animated nature and omnipresence
of the spirit was not an overextension of human consciousness, but an
expression of modesty. In Daybreak, Nietzsche wrote that people saw
"in the spirit that which joins us with nature, not that which separates us
from it. Thus, people were educated in modesty' (3,41; Z> § 3). It is not
immodest to look upon nature as though nature might look back.
Anyone who receives this look back from nature experiences an
encounter of the originated with its origin. Anyone who seeks out ori-
gins, supposing that he might find truth there, hopes to discern what can
discern him. The origin is nothing but the experience that signifies
knowing: being known. The big eye of nature that sees me, its meaning
that shoulders me, this living world to which I give back and mirror back