Bestowing virtue

To grasp this inner activity of thinking by thinking seems to be a morality-free inner deed. It seems to be a technical, philosophical capability that can be achieved by trying hard enough. Nothing is less true, however. To loosen ourselves from our own centre, and find a point of view in thinking that lies on a periphery that is always in motion, asks for a conquest over the fear of leaving the body consciously - something that is really analogous to dying. Of course it isn't death that will follow, but it feels like dying - leaving the brain that is our hold in thinking, in consciousness. It is the first abyss that has to be crossed and we need virtues to do so.

The I and the soul need a strength in itself to be conscious outside the brain. This strength is exactly virtuous. In the seminar in Burcht / Antwerp this Saturday we studied the virtues, as they were taught by Plato and by Aristotle, by Paul, by Thomas Aquinas and by Rudolf Steiner. Rudolf Steiner gave in his Philosophy of Freedom a kind of 'organon' about freedom and morality. In his work about Friedrich Nietzsche a kind of basic condition for free morality is given. It is not so that Steiner is an absolute Nietzsche-follower, but something in the work of Nietzsche is in accordance with Steiner’s view about free morality. It is the abundance of vitality that is a criterion for the good. Goodness gives strength and power, joy and peace. Evil, seen in this perspective, comes together with loss of vitality, with demolition, sadness and fighting. In this way we can see goodness as a living force that needs nourishment, and this need of nourishment is felt in the same way as all instinctive needs. The human being has a high human instinct: the moral instinct. Steiner wrote about this in the following way:

'Since the Dionysian spirit draws out of himself all impulses for his actions and obeys no external power, he is a free spirit. A free spirit follows only his own nature. Now of course in Nietzsche's works one speaks about instincts as the impulses of the free spirit. I believe that here under one name Nietzsche has collected a whole range of impulses requiring a consideration which goes more into individual differentiations. Nietzsche calls instincts those impulses for nourishment and self preservation present in animals, as well as the highest impulses of human nature, for example, the urge toward knowledge, the impulse to act according to moral standards, the drive to refresh oneself through works of art, and so on. Now, of course, all these impulses are forms of expression of one and the same fundamental force, but they do represent different levels in the development of this power. The moral instincts, for example, are a special level of instinct. Even if it is only admitted that they are but higher forms of sensory instinct, nevertheless they do appear in a special form within man's existence. This shows itself in that it is possible for man to carry out actions which cannot be led back to sensory instincts directly, but only to those impulses which can be defined as higher forms of instinct. The human being himself creates impulses for his own actions, which are not to be derived from his own sensory impulses, but only from conscious thinking. He puts individual purposes before himself, but he puts these before himself consciously, and there is a great difference whether he follows an instinct which arose unconsciously and only afterward was taken into consciousness, or whether he follows a thought which he produced from the very beginning with full consciousness.'

After reading Steiner's book about Nietzsche I wrote: The free unfolding of the impulses of our own will is in Steiner's view possible, because the 'good I' is the actor. In Nietzsche's view it is problematic, because he makes no difference between the different forms of instincts. Here the 'bad I', the I that has egoistic impulses of demolition of every and all 'not-I' could become the actor.

From: Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus spake Zarathustra, The bestowing virtue:
'When your heart overflows broad and full like the river, a blessing and a danger to the lowlanders: there is the origin of your virtue.
When you are exalted above praise and blame, and your will would command all things, as a loving one's will: there is the origin of your virtue.
When you despise pleasant things, and the effeminate couch, and cannot couch far enough from the effeminate: there is the origin of your virtue.
When you are willers of one will, and when that change of every need is needful to you: there is the origin of your virtue.
Truly, a new good and evil is it! Truly, a new deep murmuring, and the voice of a new fountain! Power is it, this new virtue; a ruling thought is it, and around it a subtle soul: a golden sun, with the serpent of knowledge around it.'


Kyriotetes and Exusiai (Dominationes et Potestates), Cupola of the Baptistry in Florence. The Kyriotetes are the beings that are full of 'bestowing virtue'.Bestowing virtue by Mieke Mosmuller