Seen from the Right Height [Everything Comes Together]

[Seen] from the right height everything comes together: the thoughts of the philosopher, the work of the artist, and good deeds…

The philosopher is the self-revelation of nature’s workshop; the philosopher and the artist tell the trade secrets of nature.

The sphere of the philosopher and the artist exists above the tumult of contemporary history, beyond necessity.

The philosopher as brakeshoe on the wheel of time.

Philosophers appear during those times of great danger, when the wheel of time is turning faster and faster. Together with art, they step into the place vacated by myth. But they are far ahead of their time, since the attention of their contemporaries only turns toward them very slowly.

A people which is becoming conscious of its dangers produces a genius…

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After Socrates it is no longer possible to preserve the commonweal: hence that individualizing ethics which seeks to preserve the individual.

The unmeasured and indiscriminate knowledge drive is, along with its historical background, a sign that life has grown old. There is great danger that individuals are becoming inferior; Therefore, their interests are powerfully captivated by the objects of knowledge, no matter which. The universal drives have become so feeble that they are no longer able to hold the individual in check.

The Teuton used the sciences to transfigure all of his limitations at the same time that he transmitted them: fidelity, modesty, self-restraint, diligence, cleanliness, love of order—the family virtues. But also formlessness, the complete lack of any vivacity in life, and pettiness. His unlimited knowledge drive is the consequence of an impoverished life. Without this drive he would be petty and spiteful—which he often is despite it.

Today we are presented with a higher form of life, against a background of art: and now likewise, the immediate consequence is [the development of] a selective knowledge drive, i.e. philosophy.
Terrible danger: the fusion of the American kind of political agitation with the rootless culture of the scholars…

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Enormous artistic powers are required in opposition to iconic historiography and natural science.
What should the philosopher do? In the midst of this ant-like swarming he must emphasize the problem of existence, all the eternal problems.

The philosopher should recognize what is needed, and the artist should create it. The philosopher should empathize to the utmost with the universal suffering, just as each of the ancient Greek philosophers expresses a need and erects his system in the vacant space indicated by that need.

Within this space he constructs his world.


**The above compiled verbatim from Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Philosopher: Reflections on the Struggle Between Art and Knowledge, conflating moments of pages 3, 6, and 8 as they appear in Philosophy and Truth: Selections from Nietzsche’s Notebooks of the Early 1870’s, edited by Daniel Breazeale.