Nihilism

“ Whatever the friends of nihilism might do to me now, would have its crushing effect upon her, also. Nothing could touch me, that would not injure her. We had become one, indeed, in the sense of being so absorbed in each other, so blended in soul and in thought, that whatever affected one, must act with redoubled power upon the other.
Judged from the standpoint of the nihilists themselves, there was no doubt that they were logical enough in their determination to kill me. ”

“ Thorough Nihilism is the conviction that life is absurd, in the light of the highest values already discovered; it also includes the view that we have not the smallest right to assume the existence of transcendental objects or things in themselves, which would be either divine or morality incarnate. ”

“ Can the deep hatred of the present, of "reality" and "modern ideas" be pushed farther than has been done in your artist-metaphysics?—which would rather believe in Nothing, or in the devil, than in the "Now"? Does not a radical bass of wrath and annihilative pleasure growl on beneath all your contrapuntal vocal art and aural seduction, a mad determination to oppose all that "now" is, a will which is not so very far removed from practical nihilism and which seems to say: "rather let nothing be true, than that you should be in the right, than that your truth should prevail!" ”

“ Nihilism represents an intermediary pathological condition (the vast generalization, the conclusion that there is no purpose in anything, is pathological) : whether it be that the productive forces are not yet strong enough or that decadence still hesitates and has not yet discovered its expedients. ”

“ To deny the will of the infinite, that is to say, God, is impossible without denying the infinite. This we have demonstrated.
The denial of the infinite leads straight to nihilism. Everything becomes "a conception of the mind." ”

“ Nothing could be more useful and deserves more promotion than systematic Nihilism in action. As I understand the phenomena of Christianity and pessimism, this is what they say: " We are ripe for nonentity, for us it is reasonable not to be." ”

“ The common factor to all these appearances is that something will be attained, through the process itself: and now we perceive that becoming has been aiming at nothing, and has achieved nothing. Hence the disillusionment in regard to a so-called purpose in existence, as a cause of nihilism ”

“ What is to be feared, what does work with a fatality found in no other fate, is not the great fear of, but the great nausea with, man; and equally so the great pity for man. Supposing that both these things were one day to espouse each other, then inevitably the maximum of monstrousness would immediately come into the world—the "last will" of man, his will for nothingness, Nihilism. And, in sooth, the way is well paved thereto. ”

“ The moment, however, that man perceives that this world has been devised only for the purpose of meeting certain psychological needs, and that he has no right whatsoever to it, the final form of nihilism comes into being, which comprises a denial of a metaphysical world, and which forbids itself all belief in a real world. From this stand point, the reality of becoming is the only reality that is admitted: all bypaths to back-worlds and false godheads are abandoned but this world is no longer endured although no one wishes to disown it. ”

“ Nihilism now appears, not because the sorrows of existence are greater than they were formerly, but because, in a general way, people have grown suspicious of the "meaning" which might be given to evil and even to existence. ”

“ Nihilism, as a psychological condition, has yet a third and last form. Admitting these two points of view: that no purpose can be assigned to becoming, and that no great entity rules behind all becoming, in which the individual may completely lose himself as in an element of superior value; there still remains the subterfuge which would consist in condemning this whole world of becoming as an illusion, and in discovering a world which would lie beyond it, and would be a real world. ”

“ A pessimistic attitude of mind and a pessimistic doctrine and ecstatic Nihilism, may in [Pg 423] certain circumstances even prove indispensable to the philosopher—that is to say, as a mighty form of pressure, or hammer, with which he can smash up degenerate, perishing races and put them out of existence; with which he can beat a track to a new order of life, or instil a longing for nonentity in those who are degenerate and who desire to perish. ”

“ Herzen defined Nihilism as "the most perfect freedom from all settled concepts, from all inherited restraints and impediments which hamper the progress of the Occidental intellect with the historical drag tied to its foot." ”

“ The rejected world is opposed to an artificially constructed "true and valuable" one. At last we discover out of what material the "true" world was built; all that remains, now, is the rejected world, and to the account of our reasons for rejecting it we place our greatest disillusionment. At this point nihilism is reached ”

“ Consequently, he proclaimed nihilism as the principle of all things. And nihilism, and along with it the death of the intelligence, we repeat, must be admitted, or the Catholic Church—all truth or no truth. ”

“ In this respect, Nihilism, in that it is the negation of a real world and of Being, might be a divine view of the world.
16.
If we are disillusioned, we have not become so in regard to life, but owing to the fact that our eyes have been opened to all kinds of "desiderata." With mocking anger we survey that which is called "Ideal": we despise ourselves only because we are unable at every moment of our lives to quell that absurd emotion which is called "Idealism." This pampering by means of ideals is stronger than the anger of the disillusioned one. ”

“ Error is a piece of cowardice ... every victory on the part of knowledge, is the result of courage, of hardness towards one's self, of cleanliness towards one's self.... The kind of experimental philosophy which I am living, even anticipates the possibility of the most fundamental Nihilism, on principle: but by this I do not mean that it remains standing at a negation, at a no, or at a will to negation. ”

“ The question which Nihilism puts, namely, "to what purpose?" is the outcome of a habit, hitherto, to regard the purpose as something fixed, given and exacted from outside—that is to say, by some supernatural authority. ”

“ The logic of pessimism leads finally to nihilism: what is the force at work? The notion that there are no values, and no purpose: the recognition of the part that moral valuations have played in all other lofty values. Result: moral valuations are condemnations, negations; morality is the abdication of the will to live. ”

“ A summary criticism of nihilism would be futile. We may recall the opinions of Herzen and of Strahov, that nihilism made no new contributions to thought, that the nihilists had no real understanding even of their own principles, and so on. Many took an adverse view of nihilism as the philosophy and politics of the young. ”

“ Nihilism was a passionate and powerful reaction, not against political despotism, but against the moral despotism that weighs upon the private and inner life of the individual. But it must be confessed that our predecessors, at least in the earlier days, introduced into this highly pacific struggle the same spirit of rebellion and almost the same fanaticism that characterises the present movement. ”

“ The downfall of the moral interpretation of the universe, which loses its raison d’etre once it has tried to take flight to a beyond, meets its end in nihilism. "Nothing has any purpose" (the inconsistency of one explanation of the world, to which men have devoted untold energy, gives rise to the suspicion that all explanations may perhaps be false) . ”

“ This 'soudaine lassitude' [1] then impinges on to the moral nature; the will, losing the sense of life, is paralysed; all standards of value collapse; ideals founder in the most frightful Nihilism. The earth becomes a chaos, the sky an empty space; everything is reduced to nothingness, to an absolute negation. ”

“ Nihilism viewed as the ideal of the highest spiritual power; of the over-rich life, partly destructive, partly ironical.
15. What is belief? How is a belief born? All belief assumes that something is true. The extremest form of nihilism would mean that all belief all assumption of truth is false: because no real world is at hand. It were therefore: only an appearance seen in perspective, whose origin must be found in us (seeing that we are constantly in need of a narrower, a shortened, and simplified world) . Nihilism. ”

“ By 'Pure Reason' and transcendental idealism, Herzen and Bakunine, the first apostles of nihilism, were inspired. But the ideas brought from Europe to Russia soon allied themselves with an indigenous or possibly an Oriental element; namely, a sort of quietist fatalism, which leads to the darkest and most despairing pessimism. On the whole, nihilism is rather a philosophical conception of the sum of life than a purely democratic and revolutionary movement. ”

“ Nihilism is a sign that the botched and bungled [Pg 52] in order to be destroyed, that, having been deprived of morality, they no longer have any reason to "resign themselves," that they take up their stand on the territory of the opposite principle, and will also exercise power themselves, by compelling the powerful to become their hangmen. ”

“ The horrors of nihilism, in fact, can only be escaped by the exercise of faith, by a trust in man’s innate but strictly irrational instinct for that Real “above all reason, beyond all thought” towards which at its best moments his spirit tends. ”

“ This man of the future, who in this wise will redeem us from the old ideal, as he will from that ideal's necessary corollary of great nausea, will to nothingness, and Nihilism; this tocsin of noon and of the great verdict, which renders the will again free, who gives back to the world its goal and to man his hope, this Antichrist and Antinihilist, this conqueror of God and of Nothingness—he must one day come. ”

“ The overcoming of philosophers by the annihilation of the world of being: intermediary period of Nihilism; before there is sufficient strength present to transvalue values, and to make the world of becoming, and of appearance, the only world to be deified and called good. ”

“ With nihilism, no discussion is possible; for the nihilist logic doubts the existence of its interlocutor, and is not quite sure that it exists itself. ”

“ General survey.—As a matter of fact, all abundant growth involves a concomitant process of crumbling to bits and decay: suffering and the symptoms of decline belong to ages of enormous progress; every fruitful and powerful movement of mankind has always brought about a concurrent Nihilistic movement. Under certain circumstances, the appearance of the extremest form of Pessimism and actual Nihilism might be the sign of a process of incisive and most essential growth, and of mankind's transit into completely new conditions of existence. ”

“ Nihilism, a normal condition.
It may be a sign of strength; spiritual vigour may have increased to such an extent that the goals toward which man has marched hitherto (the "convictions," articles of faith) are no longer suited to it (for a faith generally expresses the exigencies of the conditions of existence, a submission to the authority of an order of things which conduces to the prosperity, the growth and power of a living creature ...) ; on the other hand, a sign of insufficient strength, to fix a goal, a "wherefore," and a faith for itself. ”

“ If we can deprive them of their value, the proof that they cannot be applied to the world, is no longer a sufficient reason for depriving that world of its value. Result: The belief in the categories of reason is the cause of nihilism we have measured the worth of the world according to categories which can only be applied to a purely fictitious world. ”