All psychology hitherto has run aground on moral prejudices and timidities, it has not dared to launch out into the depths. In so far as it is allowable to recognize in that which has hitherto been written, evidence of that which has hitherto been kept silent, it seems as if nobody had yet harboured the notion of psychology as the Morphology and DEVELOPMENT-DOCTRINE OF THE WILL TO POWER, as I conceive of it.
Psychology too has been polluted by moral prejudices. No one has yet revealed the inconspicuous natures of these drives until now. The freeing of psychology from morality could reveal the fundamental drive called “the Will to Power."
The power of moral prejudices has penetrated deeply into the most intellectual world, the world apparently most indifferent and unprejudiced, and has obviously operated in an injurious, obstructive, blinding, and distorting manner. A proper physio-psychology has to contend with unconscious antagonism in the heart of the investigator, it has "the heart" against it even a doctrine of the reciprocal conditionalness of the "good" and the "bad" impulses, causes (as refined immorality) distress and aversion in a still strong and manly conscience—still more so, a doctrine of the derivation of all good impulses from bad ones.
Moral prejudices are deeply embedded in even the most intellectual pursuits. It has operated in a "injurious, obstructive, blinding, and distorting manner."
In all pursuits of truth, there must be a questioner. This questioner harbors moral prejudices that subconsciously guide his questions (and answers). Despite this, the questioner believes to be following a purely logical, objective path to his truth.
Even a questioner with a “still strong and manly conscience” experiences distress and aversion in the face of his own moral prejudices. In order to overcome moral prejudices, we must take into account our own “good” and “bad” impulses at the outset of our investigations.
If, however, a person should regard even the emotions of hatred, envy, covetousness, and imperiousness as life-conditioning emotions, as factors which must be present, fundamentally and essentially, in the general economy of life (which must, therefore, be further developed if life is to be further developed), he will suffer from such a view of things as from sea-sickness. And yet this hypothesis is far from being the strangest and most painful in this immense and almost new domain of dangerous knowledge, and there are in fact a hundred good reasons why every one should keep away from it who CAN do so!
If a man dwells in his “hatred, envy, covetousness, and imperiousness” and convinces himself of their necessity, he will grow sick. We learn to rely on such emotions, granting us a worldview of suffering and decadence.
On the other hand, if one has once drifted hither with one's bark, well! very good! now let us set our teeth firmly! let us open our eyes and keep our hand fast on the helm! We sail away right OVER morality, we crush out, we destroy perhaps the remains of our own morality by daring to make our voyage thither—but what do WE matter. Never yet did a PROFOUNDER world of insight reveal itself to daring travelers and adventurers, and the psychologist who thus "makes a sacrifice"—it is not the sacrifizio dell' intelletto, on the contrary!—will at least be entitled to demand in return that psychology shall once more be recognized as the queen of the sciences, for whose service and equipment the other sciences exist. For psychology is once more the path to the fundamental problems.
If we don't cling to our emotions, and instead take them as what they are (our moral prejudices), then we are in some new way free. We cast our ship off into the unknown depths of the sea, sailing away from morality.
Then where are we heading? It is not known; we are adventurers. We must sacrifice the shelter which morality has granted us and sail out into the unknown.
In doing so, we are not “sacrificing the intellect;" on the contrary: we are removing old polluted values that are no longer useful for us (now that we know they are infected with prejudices). We start afresh with a new psychology that overcomes morality. Such a psychology could undermine our decadent way of viewing the world and rediscovering the fundamental problems.
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