202 Nietzsche
haughtiness must be cooled off in the medium of science. "Scientific
methods," Nietzsche wrote in a fragment of 1877, "relieve the wodd of
a great pathos; they show how poindess it was for man to have worked
his way into this height of feeling" (8,428). Although the sciences are
also constrained by perspectives, they can be elevated above them. They
broaden our oudook and enable us to see our own position in relation
to the whole, not because science more closely approximates absolute
truth, but for precisely the opposite reason—namely that passion, owing
to its vigorous focus, posits itself as absolute and admits of no alterna-
tive beyond that focus. Science, however, by dint of its methodical dis-
tance, keeps us aware of the relativity of knowledge. Passions aim for
totality, whereas science, as Nietzsche understood it, teaches reserve. We
can grasp particulars, but never the sum total. Nonetheless, our pas-
sionate hunger for integrated knowledge remains intact, and it is diffi-
cult to renounce the "pathos" of the grand truths. "The interest in truth
will cease, the less it provides pleasure" (2,209; HHI § 251).
Even though science is to be commended for cooling down our pas-
sions, it should not take this process too far. Society is threatened not
only by unbridled passions but also by the prospect of paralysis once sci-
ence has tempered them. Nietzsche depicted his bicameral system as a
guard against the twin perils of unleashed vitalism in the one direction
and nihilistic paralysis in the other. When new insights begin to bore us
and the magic of stripping away illusions wears off through force of
habit, this nihilism begins to loom as a threat. It is not enough for pas-
sions to be subdued by science; we must also remain vigilant so as to
defend the obstinacy of life against knowledge. Nietzsche expected
"higher culture" to provide people with "two chambers of the brain, as
it were, one to experience science and the other nonscience" (2,209; HH
1 § 251). He advocated an art of living that takes into account the fact
that life can no longer be a single entity and that our wodd consists of
several worlds. The two worlds of science and nonscience are further
subdivided into various scientific disciplines as well as diverse cultural
spheres such as religion, politics, art, and morality. Categorizing philos-