Reading Nietzsche

Corpus · The Gay Science · Full-text route

Our Own Experiments

Optional full-text route · Station 23 of 35

Read: Book IV, §§319–332, in full, from the original 1882 edition. Begin at §319 and stop before §333.
Allow: About 55–75 minutes, including the passages, this guide, rereading, and a short written response. This is an editorial estimate, not a measured reading time. The fourteen sections total about 2,200 words in the free edition; §§329 and 326 are much the longest. If you need two sittings, stop after §326.

Preferred translation: Walter Kaufmann. Free alternative (Thomas Common, The Joyful Wisdom): begin at §319 · §324 · §326 · §329 · §332.

Quotations on this page follow Common’s free translation, including his section titles. Kaufmann’s wording differs, and none of it is quoted here; this lesson has not been compared with Kaufmann’s text. Where a word drives the interpretation, this page notes the German, from the Projekt Gutenberg-DE text.

Before you read

Station 22 ended with pain as a captain’s call to take in sail. These fourteen sections turn the book’s honesty on the self: its experiences, its pains, its seriousness, its hurry. Most are short. Two long ones, §§326 and 329, carry much of the station’s weight.

The main question: When does self-experiment learn from pain—and when does it only sweeten pain, or inflict it?

Keep using the marks: P, H, V, and ? for Nietzsche’s own hedge only.

What to notice

  1. Experiment. §319 says “We ourselves want to be our own experiments”; §324 calls life “an experiment of the thinker.” Watch who is the subject of each experiment.
  2. Looking away. §321 ends, “Let us rather go aside! Let us look away!” Compare §276’s “Looking aside” (station 20).
  3. Seriousness and hurry. §§327, 329, and 331 describe an age that cannot laugh, rest, or listen.

Close reading

One way to group the sections

These groups are this guide’s, not Nietzsche’s.

Experience and experiment

§319, “As Interpreters of our Experiences,” charges that “founders of religions and their kin” never made their experiences “a matter of the intellectual conscience.” They never asked, “What did I really experience?” Instead they experience “‘miracles’ and ‘regenerations,’ and hear the voices of angels!” Mark it V and H: a generalization about religious founders, offered without examples. Then the contrast: “we who are different, who are thirsty for reason, want to look as carefully into our experiences, as in the case of a scientific experiment, hour by hour, day by day! We ourselves want to be our own experiments, and our own subjects of experiment.” For the last phrase the German has Versuchs-Thiere, experimental animals. Here Common’s “experiences” is right: the German is Erlebnisse, the word he rendered “events” in §114. §319, our own experiments

§320 is a dialogue. A asks whether B seeks a place in the sun where his existence “may justify itself.” B answers: “I want more; I am no seeker. I want to create my own sun for myself.” Do not assign B’s answer to Nietzsche automatically.

§321, “A New Precaution,” advises: “Let us no longer think so much about punishing, blaming, and improving!” If we do change someone, perhaps we have been changed by him (German vielleicht; mark ?). It ends: “Let us rather go aside! Let us look away!” The German, Sehen wir weg!, repeats §276’s Wegsehen. The New Year’s wish returns here as advice about blame and punishment. §321, a new precaution

§322 says that thinkers “in whom all the stars move in cyclic orbits, are not the most profound”; one who looks into himself finds Milky Ways that “lead into the very chaos and labyrinth of existence.” Compare §109’s chaos (station 13). §323 is two sentences on fighting for a time “on the side of our adversaries.”

§324, “In Media Vita,” is the station’s centre. “No! Life has not deceived me!” Ever since “the great liberator broke my fetters,” namely the thought “that life may be an experiment of the thinker,” life has grown, in Common’s words, “richer, more desirable and more mysterious.” The German says wahrer, truer, not richer. Knowledge is “a world of dangers and victories,” and the principle is given in quotation marks: “Life as a means to knowledge.” With it “one can not only be brave, but can even live joyfully and laugh joyfully!” The last sentence ties laughter to “the full meaning of war and victory.” Mark it V. The “thinker” is der Erkennende, the one who seeks knowledge. §324, in media vita

Pain and greatness

§325, “What Belongs to Greatness,” moves the experiment from the self to others. “Who can attain to anything great if he does not feel the force and will in himself to inflict great pain?” The ability to suffer is “a small matter: in that line, weak women and even slaves often attain masterliness.” Greatness is not to perish “when one inflicts great anguish and hears the cry of this anguish.” State both parts plainly. The section ranks the capacity to suffer as an achievement of “weak women and even slaves” (German schwache Frauen und selbst Sclaven), and it defines greatness by the capacity to inflict pain on others. Mark it V. §325, what belongs to greatness

§326, “Physicians of the Soul and Pain,” turns against “All preachers of morality, as also all theologians,” who persuade people that they are very ill and need “a severe, final, radical cure.” In truth, the section says, people are “inordinately assured of their life and in love with it,” and they have many ways of dulling pain: “We understand very well how to pour sweetness on our bitterness.” “A loss scarcely remains a loss for an hour.” It accuses the moralists of hiding the happiness of “impassioned men”: “Yes, lying is here the right word.” It ends by refusing “Stoical petrification”: “We do not feel sufficiently miserable to have to feel ill in the Stoical fashion!” Mark it P and V. Compare §306’s Stoic (station 22). §326, physicians of the soul

Seriousness, egoism, and hurry

§327, “Taking Things Seriously,” mocks those for whom the intellect is “an awkward, obscure and creaking machine.” Their prejudice, “where there is laughing and gaiety, thinking cannot be worth anything,” is directed “against all ‘Joyful Wisdom.’” Here the book names itself. The German is fröhliche Wissenschaft, the book’s own title, rendered The Joyful Wisdom in Common’s edition and The Gay Science in Kaufmann’s. “Let us show that it is prejudice!” §327, taking things seriously

§328, “Doing Harm to Stupidity,” says that the long preaching against egoism harmed egoism, “in favour of the herd-instinct, as I shall repeat a hundred times!” Ancient philosophy, from Socrates on, preached instead against “thoughtlessness and stupidity,” and so deprived stupidity “of its good conscience.” The section declines to say which preaching was sounder.

§329, “Leisure and Idleness,” opens with a sentence to state plainly: “There is an Indian savagery, a savagery peculiar to the Indian blood, in the manner in which the Americans strive after gold.” The German is indianerhafte, dem Indianer-Blute eigenthümliche Wildheit. The section explains an economic habit by the “blood” of Native Americans and attributes it to Americans generally, without evidence. Mark it H and V. §329, leisure and idleness

The rest is a diagnosis of hurry. “Thinking is done with a stop-watch,” and “Better do anything whatever, than nothing” is “a noose with which all culture and all higher taste may be strangled.” Work has won over “the good conscience,” and the desire for enjoyment now calls itself “need of recreation.” The section ends by reversing the history. Once “it was ‘action’ that suffered from a bad conscience,” and “Only in otium and bellum is there nobility and honour”: in leisure and war. “So rang the voice of ancient prejudice!”

Applause, noise, and the evil hour

§330 says that even the wisest cannot do without their own applause, and cites Tacitus: quando etiam sapientibus gloriae cupido novissima exuitur, the desire for glory is the last thing even the wise put off. The sentence comes from Tacitus’s Histories (IV.6), where the word order is cupido gloriae; the identification is this guide’s. §331, “Better Deaf than Deafened,” says that “without market-place bawling and hoarseness there is now no longer any genius,” so the thinker must “find his stillness betwixt two noises.”

§332, “The Evil Hour,” is hedged: “There has perhaps been” an evil hour for every philosopher (German wohl; mark ?). Common’s “my poor arguments” renders auch meine schlechten Argumente: the philosopher wanted people to believe even his bad arguments. A “malicious bird” flies past and answers: “What do you matter?”

A difficulty

Can the experimenter trust his own report?

§319 asks us to examine our experiences “as in the case of a scientific experiment.” §326 says that we “pour sweetness on our bitterness,” and that “A loss scarcely remains a loss for an hour.” §325 extends the experiment to others: greatness is the will “to inflict great pain.”

Three readings are possible.

Decide which the text best supports. Name one sentence from §319 or §324 and one from §§325–326.

Check your understanding

Try answering before opening each suggested response.

What does §319 accuse the founders of religions of?

Of never making their experiences a matter of the intellectual conscience. They did not ask what they really experienced; thirsty for things contrary to reason, they experienced miracles and heard angels.

How does the end of §321 connect with §276?

Its Sehen wir weg! (Let us look away!) repeats §276’s Wegsehen, looking aside as the only negation. The New Year’s wish becomes advice about punishment and blame.

What does Common’s “richer” render in §324?

Wahrer, truer. Life has become truer, more desirable, and more mysterious since the thought that life may be an experiment of the one who seeks knowledge.

What does §329 call the “ancient prejudice”?

That work was contemptible and that only leisure and war (otium and bellum) were noble. The modern age has reversed it, so that leisure now needs an excuse.

Writing prompt

Write 200–250 words answering:

Choose §324 or §326. Does it show self-experiment learning from pain, or avoiding it?

A successful response states the section’s claim plainly, identifies who suffers and who observes, and does not treat the section’s confidence as evidence.

Continue

Continue to station 24: Knowing, Learning to Love, and Pity →

Read next: Book IV, §§333–338. Its question: can knowing, love, and pity be separated so readily?

Previous station: station 22, §§302–318. Return to the route list in the book guide.

A reading guide from Reading Nietzsche · Revised .

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