Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Schopenhauer as educatorare some who understand what I am trying to say with this exhibitioriof Schopenhauer's destiny and to what end, according to mynotion, Schopenhauer as educator is actually to educate. -7But leaving aside all thoughts of the distant future and a possiblerevolution in education: what would one have to desire and, ifnecessary, procure for an evolving philosopher at present to enablehim to enjoy any leisure at all and, in the most favourable case,achieve the kind of existence demonstrated by Schopenhauer - notan easy one, to be sure, but certainly possible? What would havealso to be devised to make it more probable that he would producesome effect on his contemporaries? And what obstacles would haveto be removed so that above all his example should produce its fulleffect, so that the philosopher should again educate philosophers?Here our reflections turn to practicalities and hard realities.Nature wants always to be of universal utility, but it does not knowhow to find the best and most suitable means and instruments fo rthis end: that is what it suffers from most, that is why nature ismelancholy. That nature has wanted to make existence explicableand significant to man through the production of the philosopherand the artist is, given nature's own desire fo r redemption, certain;yet how uncertain, how dull and feeble is the effect it generallyachieves with the philosophers and artists! How rarely does itachieve any effect at all! In the case of the philosopher especially itexperiences great difficulty in employing him in a universally usefulway; the means it employs seem to be only probing experiments andideas it has chanced upon, so that countless times it fails to achieveits objective and most philosophers fail to become universally useful.Nature seems to be bent on squandering; but it is squandering,not through a wanton luxuriousness, but through inexperience; itcan be assumed that if nature were human it would never cease to beannoyed at itself and its ineptitude. Nature propels the philosopherinto mankind like an arrow; it takes no aim but hopes the arrow willstick somewhere. But countless times it misses and is depressed atthe fact. Nature is just as extravagant in the domain of culture as it isin that of planting and sowing. It achieves its aims in a broad andponderous manner: and in doing so it sacrifices much too muchenergy. The artist is related to the lovers of his art as a heavy cannonis to a flock of sparrows. It is an act of simplicity to start an avalanche177