Page:Complete Works of Nietzsche - Levy - Volume 14.djvu/72

 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. This is the European form of Buddhism, that active negation, after all existence has lost its meaning.

It must not be supposed that " poverty " has grown more acute, on the contrary ! " God, morality, resignation " were remedies in the very deepest stages of misery : active Nihilism made its appearance in circumstances which were relatively much more favourable. The fact, alone, that morality is regarded as overcome, presupposes a certain degree of intellectual culture ; while this very culture, for its part, bears evidence to a certain relative well-being. A certain intellectual fatigue, brought on by the long struggle concerning philosophical opinions, and carried to hopeless scepticism agaitist philosophy, shows moreover that the level of these Nihilists is by no means a low one. Only think of the conditions in which Buddha appeared ! The teaching of the eternal recurrence would have learned principles to go upon (just as Buddha's teaching, for instance, had the notion of causality, etc.).

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What do we mean to-day by the words " botched and bungled " ? In the first place, they are used