174 Nietzschewhat it entrusted and displayed to me—that is the origin from which I
emanate and yet cannot escape.
This intuitive recognition that nature is infused with spirit and soul
has yet to turn back in on itself. It is a recognition that readily steps out-
side of itself and discovers its counterpart in nature. Man invented the
gods as a knowledgeable thinking creature. He saw the gods by sensing
that they were looking at him. The gods are the internalized image of a
nature that looks back if one looks at it. That circumstance may be
oppressive and make us feel persecuted and observed, but it also nour-
ishes our pride. Man looks into space and imagines "the eyes of the uni-
verse telescopically trained from all sides on his action and thought"
(l,875f.; TF), which makes even the most modest of men "instandy
swell up like a tube" (1,875; TF).
If, however, knowledge is no longer as readily directed outward and
mirrored in external nature, but is instead turned back in on itself, it may
regard itself as a lone principle within a nature devoid of consciousness.
Knowledge becomes self-referential and registers its own particular
autism. The bond between the knowledgeable animal and the rest of
nature is severed. Nature becomes the alien Other with which it is
impossible to communicate, but which must be explained. We get along
quite well with this kind of knowledge and even learn to master nature
better than before, but we also experience ourselves as altogether sepa-
rate from it. Nature no longer responds the way it did for religious and
mystical sentiments. There is no nature left to protect us and provide us
with a meaningful origin. The idea of an ultimate cosmic teleology
comes to an end as well, and the idea of a being overarching everything
forfeits its validity. There is no being before becoming, behind becom-
ing, and after becoming.
Metaphysical tradition, smitten with the "world behind" being, seeks
to read the world "pneumatically" like a text, with a "double meaning"
(2,28f.; HH I § 8) in mind. However, the world stands nonmetaphysi-
cally before the knowing gaze as a becoming without meaningful begin-
ning and significant end. Although nature develops dynamically, the