THE SELF AND THE OTHER
401
the American to that basic feeling of risk which is the substance
of man. Because if humanity inevitably progresses, that is almost
saying that we can abandon
all
watchfulness, stop worrying, throw
off
all
responsibility, or, as we say in Spain, "snore away" and let
humanity bear us inevitably to perfection and pleasure. Human his–
tory thus loses all the sinew of drama and
is
reduced to a peaceful
tourist trip, organized by some transcendent "Cook's." Traveling
thus securely toward its fulfillment, the civilization in which we are
embarked would be like that Phaeacian ship in Homer which sailed
straight to port without a pilot. This security
is
what we are now
paying for. That, gentlemen,
is
one of the reasons why I told you
that I am not a progressivist. That
is
why I prefer to renew in
myself, at frequent intervals, the emotion aroused in my youth by
Hegel's words at the beginning of his
Philosophy of History: "When
we contemplate the past, that is, history,"
he says,
" the first thing we
see is nothing but-ruins."
Let us, in passing, seize the opportunity to see, from the eleva–
tion of
this
vision, the element of frivolousness, and even of marked
vulgarity, in Nietzsche's famous imperative:
"Live dangerously."
(Which, furthermore, is not Nietzsche's but the exaggeration of an
old Italian Renaissance motto, which Nietzsche, I believe, must
have known through Burckhardt. The Italians of today, especially
the super-Italians of today, nevertheless go about shouting Nietz–
sche's motto. Because it
is
characteristic of the contemporary super–
nationalist to be ignorant of his nation, of the rich past of
his
nation.
Otherwise, instead of taking Nietzsche's version, the Italians could
have learned, directly from Ariosto, a motto which is different and
the same:
Vivere risolutamente.)
Because he does not say "Live
alertly," which would have been good; but, "Live dangerously."
And this shows that Nietzsche, despite rus genius, did not know
that the very substance of our life is danger and that hence it is
rather affected-not to say trying too hard for an effect-to pro–
pose to us as something new, added and original that we should
seek and collect danger. An idea, furthermore, which
is
typical of
the period which called itself
"fin de siecle,"
and which will be
known in history- it culminated about 1900-as the period in
wruch man felt himself most secure and, at the same time, as the
epoch-with its stiff shirts and frock-coats, its
femmes fatales,
its
