Book Two: A Criticism of the Highest Values That Have Prevailed Hitherto
V: Concerning the Slander of the so-called Evil Qualities§382 Schopenhauer declared high intellectuality to be the emancipation from the will: he did not wish to recognise the freedom from moral prejudices which is coincident with the emancipation of a great mind; he refused to see what is the typical immorality of genius; he artfully contrived to set up the only moral value he honoured — self-effacement, as the one condition of highest intellectual activity: “objective” contemplation. “Truth”, even in art, only manifests itself after the withdrawal of the will—.
Through all moral idiosyncrasies I see a fundamentally different valuation. Such absurd distinctions as “genius” and the world of will, of morality and immorality, know nothing about at all. The moral is a lower kind of animal than the immoral, he is also weaker; indeed he is a type in regard to morality, but he is not a type of his own. He is a copy; at the best, a good copy — the standard of his worth lies without him. I value a man according to the quantum of power and fullness of his will not according to the enfeeblement and moribund state thereof. I consider that a philosophy which teaches the denial of will is both defamatory and slanderous — I test the power of a will according to the amount of resistance it can offer and the amount of pain and torture it can endure and know how to turn to its own advantage; I do not point to the evil and pain of existence with the finger of reproach, but rather entertain the hope that life may one day be more evil and more full of suffering than it has ever been.
The zenith of intellectuality, according to Schopenhauer, was to arrive at the knowledge that all is to no purpose — in short, to recognise what the good man already does instinctively — He denies that there can be higher states of intellectuality — he regards his view as a non plus ultra. Here intellectuality is placed much lower than goodness; its highest value (as art, for instance) would be to lead up to and to advise the adoption of, morality, the absolute predominance of moral values.
Next to Schopenhauer I will now characterise Kant: there was nothing Greek in Kant; he was quite anti-historical (cf. his attitude in regard to the French Revolution) and a moral fanatic (see Goethe’s words concerning the radically evil element in human nature). Saintliness also lurked somewhere in his soul.
I require a criticism of the saintly type —
Hegel’s value: “Passion” —
Herbert Spencer’s tea—grocer’s philosophy: total absence of an ideal save that of the mediocre man.
Fundamental instinct of all philosophers, historians and psychologists: everything of value in mankind, art, history, science, religion and technology must be shown to be morally valuable and morally conditioned in its aim, means and result. Everything is seen in the light of this highest value; for instance, Rousseau’s question concerning civilisation, “Will it make man grow better”? An amusing question, for the reverse is obvious and it is precisely this which speaks in favour of civilisation.