Nay! Guide thyself—honest and fair—
And follow me, with care! with care!"[1]
He regards it as part of the humanity of a teacher to caution his pupils against himself, and even says that a pupil rewards his teacher ill who always remains his pupil.[2] Knowing from his own experience how difficult it is to find the truth, having become mistrustful of those who are sure they have it, deeming such confidence indeed an obstacle to truth—knowing that one may actually have to turn against oneself in the higher loyalty, he holds those alone to be genuine pupils, i.e., genuine continuers of a teacher's thought, who, if need be, oppose it.[3] He wished his own philosophy to advance slowly among men, to be tried, criticised, or even overcome. He felt that it was above all problems which he presented, and his most pressing preliminary need was of help in formulating them—"as soon as you feel against me, you do not understand my state of mind, and hence not my arguments either."[4] What a sense he had of the uncertainty of his way is shown in a memorandum like this: "This way is so dangerous! I dare not speak to myself, being like a sleep-walker, who wanders over house-roofs and has a sacred right not to be called by name. 'What do I matter?' is the only consoling voice I wish to hear."[5] He came to have a sense of the problematical in morality itself—just that about which most of us have no doubts at all (whether because we think, or do not think, I leave undetermined). "Science [positive knowledge] reveals the flow of things, but not the goal."[6] It has been proved impossible to build a culture on scientific knowledge alone.[7] Hence he says frankly to us, "This is my way, where is yours? The way—there is not."[8]
And yet it would be leaving something out of account if I did not add that in following his uncertain, venturesome way, Nietzsche experienced a certain elevation of spirit. It was the mood of the explorer—the risk gives added zest. He some-
- ↑ Ibid., VI, 42, § 7 (the translation is by Thomas Common).
- ↑ Dawn of Day, § 447; Zarathustra, I, xxii, § 3.
- ↑ Werke (pocket ed.), III, 441, § 19; Dawn of Day, § 542.
- ↑ Werke, XI, 384, § 599.
- ↑ Ibid., XI, 385, § 603.
- ↑ Werke, XIII, 357, § 672.
- ↑ I borrow here from Riehl, op. cit., p. 67.
- ↑ Zarathustra, III, xi, § 2.
