"Let us go with all our 'devils' to the help of our 'God'!"

By Sadhika on

It is a rare occurrence indeed to find a "moral" idea that Nietzsche stands for. There are plenty of ideas of the old philosophers and moralists, as well as his contemporaries, which he calls into question. However, he is vague when it comes to praising a philosopher, simply because, more often than not, he does not put his finger on the precise idea of that philosopher that he holds in high regard.

“Honesty, granting that it is the virtue of which we cannot rid ourselves, we free spirits—well, we will labour at it with all our perversity and love, and not tire of "perfecting" ourselves in our virtue, which alone remains: may its glance some day overspread like a gilded, blue, mocking twilight this aging civilization with its dull gloomy seriousness!” 


After all the criticism about “truth-telling” and his disclosure of our artistry of speech, Nietzsche settles upon honesty, as a virtue of man. Granted, he calls it a virtue “of which we cannot rid ourselves” (almost as if he would renounce the idea as soon as he advocated it!), he does argue for the defending of honesty, whenever it may call upon us to do so.


“And if, nevertheless, our honesty should one day grow weary, and sigh, and stretch its limbs, and find us too hard, and would fain have it pleasanter, easier, and gentler, like an agreeable vice, let us remain hard, we latest Stoics, and let us send to its help whatever devilry we have in us:—our disgust at the clumsy and undefined, our "nitimur in vetitum (we strive for the forbidden)," our love of adventure, our sharpened and fastidious curiosity, our most subtle, disguised, intellectual Will to Power and universal conquest, which rambles and roves avidiously around all the realms of the future.”


Nietzsche’s treatment of the virtue of ‘honesty’ as having a will of its own, a will to power of its own (to be more accurate) and how he believes that its constant struggle with the other elements of our being might lead it into the temptation of complacency from time to time, is consistent with his philosophy. It is not easy to be honest. There would be nary a man who could claim to have been entirely honest even within the confines of his soul, let alone in the streets. It is amusing how Nietzsche invokes the Stoicical spirit in us at this point, especially when he was vociferous in his criticism of them, in the first chapter of the same book. 


“Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves indifference as a power—how could you live in accordance with such indifference? To live—is not that just endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different?...In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders!”


Perhaps the most beautiful line in this chapter (Our Virtues): “let us go with all our "devils" to the help of our "God"!”, brings to mind Nietzsche’s beliefs about how our prejudices and all that we deem “immoral” by the standards of our democratic souls, are just as important for our survival as the traits we define as "virtuous". It is quite a singular perspective that our ungodliness is the foothold for our deliverance.


“They will say: "Their 'honesty'—that is their devilry, and nothing else!" What does it matter! And even if they were right—have not all Gods hitherto been such sanctified, re-baptized devils? And after all, what do we know of ourselves? And what the spirit that leads us wants to be called? (It is a question of names.) And how many spirits we harbour? Our honesty, we free spirits—let us be careful lest it become our vanity, our ornament and ostentation, our limitation, our stupidity!”


These words sound more Jungian than Nietzschean to my ears. Jung has explored the superimposition of the evil spirit on the good, in his work, Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, wherein he explains how the devil and the god are “endowed with the same peculiar spiritual substance”, which is expressed in the idea of the fallen angel in the Old Testament. 



Explore more:

1. Beyond Good and Evil - Friedrich Nietzsche

2. Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious - Carl Jung

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