Friedrich_Nietzsche - Untimely_Meditations_(Cambridge_Texts_in_the_History_of_Philosophy__1997)

Untimely Meditationsto call this moderation and mediocritas in courage, whic h if not wise isat any rate prudent, an Aristotelean virtue he would be in error: fo rthis species of courage is the mean, not between two faults, but betweena fault and a virtue and it is within this mean between virtueand fault that all the qualities of the philistine lie.'But nonetheless he is a classic writer!' We shall now see.9It might perhaps be in order to go on to speak of Strauss the stylistand artist in language, but let us first of all consider whether as awriter he is capable of constructing his house, whether he reallyunderstands the architecture of a book. This will determine whetherhe is a genuine, thoughtful and practised maker of books; and if wehave to answer in the negative, his fame can always take refuge in hisclaim to be a 'classic writer of prose'. The latter capacity without theformer would, to .be sure, not suffice to raise him to the rank of aclassic author, but at best to that of the clsic improvisers or virtuosiof style who, with all their skill in expression, reveal in the actualerection of the building the clumsy hand and ignorant eye of thebungler. We shall therefore ask whether Strauss possesses the artisticpower to construct a whole, totum ponere. *As a rule the first written draft suffices to show whether the authorhas envisaged his work as a whole and found the general teII!po andcorrect proportions appropriate to what he has envisaged. If thismost vital of tasks has been achieved and the building itself erected. with proper scale and balance, there nonetheless remains a greatdeal still to do: how many minor errors must be corrected, howmany holes stopped, here and there a provisional partition or a falsefloor must be replaced, dust and rubble lie everywhere, andwherever you look you can see signs of the labour that has beengoing on; the house as a whole is still uninhabitable and uncomfortable:all the walls are bare and the wind whistles through the openwindows. Whether Strauss has done the great and wearisome worknow needed will not concern us very long when we ask if he has producedthe building itself in fair proportions and visualized it as awhole. The opposite of this, to put a book together out of bits andpieces, is well known to be the way of scholars. They trust that thesebits and pieces will cohere of themselves and thereby confuse logical*totum ponere: to construct a whole (repeating previous phrase)40