Even supposing, however, that in this case we are able to overcome the difficulty, and that mere hazard has placed in our scales results which permit of a mutual balance, we have now, in the idea of the consequences of a particular action, a motive for performing this very action, but only one motive! When we have finally decided to act, however, we are fairly often influenced by another order of motives than those of the “image of the consequences.” What brings this about may be the habitual working of our inner machinery, or some little encouragement on the part of a person whom we fear or honour or love, or the love of comfort which prefers to do that which lies nearest; or some stirring of the imagination provoked at the decisive moment by some event of trifling importance; or some physical influence which manifests itself quite unexpectedly; a mere whim brings it about; or the outburst of a passion which, as it accidentally happens, is ready to burst forth—in a word, motives operate which we do not understand very well, or which we do not understand at all, and which we can never balance against one another in advance.
It is probable that a contest is going on among these motives too, a driving backwards and forwards, a rising and lowering of the parts, and it is this which would be the real “contest of motives,” something quite invisible and unknown to us. I have calculated the consequences and the successes, and in doing so have set a very necessary motive in the line of combat with the other motives,—but I am as little able to draw up this battle line as to see it: the battle itself is hidden from my sight, as likewise is the victory, as victory; for I certainly come to know what I shall finally do, but I cannot know what motive has in the end proved to be the victor. Nevertheless, we are decidedly not in the habit of taking all these unconscious phenomena into account, and we generally conceive of the preliminary stages of an action only so far as they are conscious: thus we mistake the combat of the motives for a comparison of the possible consequences of different actions,—a mistake that brings with it most important consequences, and consequences that are most fatal to the development of morals.
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AIMS? WILL?—We have accustomed ourselves to believe in two kingdoms, the domain of purposes and volition, and the domain of chance. In this latter domain everything is done senselessly, there is a continual going to and fro without any one being able to say why or wherefore. We stand in awe of this powerful realm of the great cosmic stupidity, for in most instances we learn to know it when it falls down upon the other world, that of aims and intentions, like a slate from a roof, always overwhelming some beautiful purpose of ours.
This belief in these two kingdoms arises from ancient romanticism and legend: we clever dwarfs, with all our will and aims, are interfered with, knocked down, and very often crushed to death by those ultra–stupid giants, the accidents,—but in spite of this we should not like to be deprived of the fearful poetry of their proximity, for these monsters very often make their appearance when life in the spider’s web of definite aims has become too tiresome or too anxious for us, and they sometimes bring about a divine diversion when their hands for once tear the whole web in pieces,—not that these irrational beings ever intend to do what they do, or even observe it. But their coarse and bony hands rend our web as if it were thin air.
Moira was the name given by the Greeks to this realm of the incalculable and of sublime and eternal limitedness; and they set it round their gods like a horizon beyond which they could neither see nor act,—with that secret defiance of the gods which one meets with in different nations; the gods are worshipped, but a final trump card is held in readiness to play against them. As instances of this we may recollect that the Indians and the Persians, who conceived all their gods as having to depend upon the sacrifices of mortals, so that if it came to the worst the mortals could, at least, let the gods die of starvation; or the gods of the stubborn and melancholy Scandinavians, who enjoyed a quiet revenge in the thought that a twilight of the gods was to come as some compensation for the perpetual fear which their evil gods caused them. The case of Christianity was very different, for its essential feelings were not those of the Indians, Persians, Greeks, or Scandinavians. Christianity commanded its disciples to worship in the dust the spirit of power, and to kiss the very dust. It gave the world to understand that this omnipotent “realm of stupidity” was not so stupid as it seemed, and that we, on the contrary, were stupid when we could not perceive that behind this realm stood God Himself: He who, although fond of dark, crooked and wonderful ways, at last brought everything to a “glorious end.” This new myth of God, who had hitherto been mistaken for a race of giants or Moira, and who was now Himself the spinner and weaver of webs and purposes even more subtle than those of our own intellect—so subtle, indeed, that they appear to be incomprehensible and even unreasonable—this myth was so bold a transformation and so daring a paradox that the over–refined ancient world could not resist it, however extravagant and contradictory the thing seemed: for, let it be said in confidence, there was a contradiction in it,—if our intellect cannot divine the intellect and aims of God, how did it divine this quality of its intellect and this quality of God’s intellect?
In more modern times, indeed, the doubt has increased as to whether the slate that falls from the roof is really thrown by “Divine love,” and mankind again harks back to the old romance of giants and dwarfs. Let us learn then, for it is time we did so, that even in our supposed separate domain of aims and reason the giants likewise rule. And our aims and reason are not dwarfs, but giants. And our own webs are just as often and as clumsily rent by ourselves as by the slate. And not everything is purpose that is called purpose, and still less is everything will that is called will. And if you come to the conclusion, “Then there is only one domain, that of stupidity and hazard?” it must be added that possibly there is only one domain, possibly there is neither will nor aim, and we may only have imagined these things. Those iron hands of necessity that shake the dice–box of chance continue their game indefinitely: hence, it must happen that certain throws perfectly resemble every degree of appropriateness and good sense. It may be that our own voluntary acts and purposes are merely such throws, and that we are too circumscribed and vain to conceive our extremely circumscribed state! that we ourselves shake the dice–box with iron hands, and do nothing in our most deliberate actions but play the game of necessity. Possibly! To rise beyond this “possibly” we should indeed have been guests in the Underworld, playing at dice and betting with Proserpine at the table of the goddess herself.
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MORAL FASHIONS.—How moral judgments as a whole have changed! The greatest marvels of the morality of antiquity, such as Epictetus, knew nothing of the glorification, now so common, of the spirit of sacrifice, of living for others: after the fashion of morality now prevailing we should really call them immoral; for they fought with all their strength for their own ego and against all sympathy for others, especially for the sufferings and moral imperfections of others. Perhaps they would reply to us by saying, “If you feel yourselves to be such dull and ugly people, by all means think of others more than yourselves. You will be quite right in doing so!”