52 NietzscheNietzsche, philosophy was an enterprise with a decided impact on life.
Philosophy went well beyond a contemplative, reflective portrayal of
life; it both induced and embodied this transformation. Thought is
action. Certainly, this transformation did not apply to every thought
process and thinker. A certain charisma on the part of the thinker and a
vitalizing power of thought is an essential component to ensure that
truths are not simply detected, but actualized. One decade later,
Nietzsche called the philosophers who could realize their ideas the
"tyrants of the spirit" (2,214; HHl § 261).
The finest examples of "tyrants of the spirit" could be found in
ancient Greece. Parmenides, Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Plato all
wanted to reach the "core of all being with a single leap" (2,215; HHl
§ 261). We should not be misled by their sometimes intricate and long
chains of argumentation. These "tyrants" did not uncover their truths
in these ways. Those extended arguments were merely supplementary
demonstrations, verbose intimidations, and logical excesses, preliminar-
ies and posdiminaries. In point of fact, the heroes of philosophy wanted
to risk the leap into the public arena after their leap into truth and to
communicate their powerful messages, which were designed to induce
either particular individuals or an entire society to see, experience, and
lead their lives differendy from the way they had before. But the time for
such tyrants was now past; only the "gospel of the tortoise" (2,216; HH
I § 261) remained. 'Truths" could no longer be captured in a single leap,
and they were no longer forced imperiously upon people. Philosophy
had lost the will to power, and a new breed that merely picked apart
grand old "truths" with philological and historical analysis was in the
ascendant.
This is how the young Nietzsche, who had studied the great philo-
sophical deeds of antiquity as a philologist, pictured the situation in the
moment of experiencing, through the lens of Schopenhauer, the unex-
pected return of a "tyrant of the spirit." His involvement with
Schopenhauer had a significant impact on his philological writing. "It is
a terrible thought," Nietzsche wrote in late 1867 in his log, "to con-