Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
I: Criticism of Religion§235 Against remorse. I do not like this form of cowardice in regard to one’s own actions, one must not leave one’s self in the lurch under the pressure of sudden shame or distress. Extreme pride is much more fitting here. What is the good of it all in the end! No deed gets undone because it is regretted, no more than because it is “forgiven” or “atoned for”. A man must be a theologian in order to believe in a power that erases faults: we immoralists prefer not to believe in “guilt”. We believe that all deeds of whatever kind are identically of the same value at root; just as deeds which turn against us may be useful from an economical point of view and even generally desirable.
In certain individual cases, we admit that we might well have been spared a given action; the circumstances alone predisposed us in its favour. Which of us, if favoured by circumstances, would not already have committed every possible crime? —
That is why one should never say: “You should not have done this or that”, but only: “How strange it is that I have not done such and such a thing hundreds of times already!
As a matter of fact, only a very small number of acts are typical acts and real epitomes of a personality, and seeing what a small number of people really are personalities, a single act very rarely characterises a man. Acts are mostly dictated by circumstances; they are superficial or merely reflex movements performed in response to a stimulus, long before the depths of our beings are affected or consulted in the matter. A fit of temper, a lunge, a knife thrust: what personality is there in that?
A deed very often brings a sort of stupor or feeling of constraint in its wake: so that the agent feels almost spellbound at its recollection, or as though he belonged to it and were not an independent creature. This mental disorder, which is a form of hypnotism, must be resisted at all costs: surely a single deed whatever it be when it is compared with all one has done is nothing and may be deducted from the sum without making the account wrong. The unfair interest which society manifests in controlling the whole of our lives in one direction, as though the very purpose of its existence were to cultivate a certain individual act, should not infect the man of action: but unfortunately this happens almost continually. The reason of this is, that every deed, if followed by unexpected consequences, leads to a certain mental disturbance, no matter whether the consequences be good or bad. Behold a lover who has been given a promise, or a poet while he is receiving applause from an audience: as far as intellectual torpor is concerned, these men are in no way different from the anarchist who is suddenly confronted by a policeman bearing a search warrant.
There are some acts which are unworthy of us: acts which, if they were regarded as typical, would set us down as belonging to a lower class of man. The one fault that has to be avoided here, is to regard them as typical. There is another kind of act of which we are unworthy: exceptional acts, born of a particular abundance of happiness and health; they are the highest waves of our spring tides, driven to an unusual height by a storm, an accident: such acts and “deeds” are also not typical. An artist should never be judged according to the standard of his works.