作于八月十四日早。翻译：我用打字代替手写，因为在我的血管里抽了四根血之后，我太虚弱了，连笔都抓不住。我已经厌倦了思考，因为在目前这种绝望的情况下，我看不到答案。但我更厌倦记录我的想法。除了弥补人类的健忘和沉溺于唯我论的撤退之外，我看不出这有什么意义。我曾经非常喜欢后者，并且相信两者是统一的——沉迷于辩证法是超越前者的最明显和最光荣的标志。但前者变得越来越功利，在最近的许多场合与后者背道而驰，我开始对说话、写作或任何利用人类语言能力的行为感到恶心，甚至有害。不，我不是一个实证主义者，至少目前不是，因为我不觉得有任何动力去探索语言和事实之间的积极联系，这并不是因为我持有一个完全的幻觉主义学说，而是因为任何一种思想，只要能激起一种被证实的乐观主义，就会自然而然地激起一种同样强烈的悲观主义。这事一遍又一遍地重复，使我精疲力竭。不，我也不赞同那些反对悲观主义的人。但这就是问题所在。乐观或悲观的主张对我都没有说服力。在提供任何真理价值的意义上，它们都没有对我产生任何深刻的影响，但它们的参考，它们的指示，它们的内涵，指向任何人都能注意到的真正的不和谐，最剧烈地折磨着我的心。描述和现实之间不可避免的不匹配折磨着我，因为手头的任何命题都不能作为阐述问题的真正第一步。笛卡尔不也面临同样的问题吗?在他被现实欺骗了多年，并且强烈地拒绝了它的仁慈之后，他是否满足于再次进入思想的舞台，演绎他对现实的草图呢?是的，他会感到相当满足，至少在他写作的时候是这样，因为如果不是为了传达他认为非常重要的东西而发出的命令，没有人能写出这么多的单词。我必须补充一点，即使是休谟，他心中也有一种亲近而珍贵的东西，他赖以生存的一切理由都依赖于它，这是在他感到难以忍受和无法形容的疲倦时使他恢复活力的力量源泉。我强烈地感觉到，如果一个人阻碍任何观念的发展，使其深入到个人的层面，从而使自己紧紧地依附于自己所坚持的观念，那将对人们产生怎样的影响。那将导致任何信仰的瓦解，任何支持我们继续存在的信念。人们将会清楚地看到，这是必要的，因为人们不能像浪漫主义者所说的那样放弃他们的意识或情感，因为他们被赋予了将伴随一生并在坟墓中结束的意识或情感。那么，显而易见的推论是，如果感性不能被抛弃，那么，知道一个人的诅咒或祝福的内容，不管我们认为它是什么，难道不是比暂停我们思考的意志，心不在焉地走进坟墓更好吗?人的这种困境，总是在幽静时有利于前者，在拥挤时有利于后者。我所走过的前一条路，虽然自诩的光荣越来越少，厌恶和厌倦越来越多，但我仍然坚定地认为，这是摆在我面前的唯一道路。但是，人类生存的全部问题可以归结为这个吗?道德问题的产生源于人们对道德的真正需要。由此我们知道，虚无主义不是问题的根源，而是问题的一个极端。同样，教条主义标志着问题的另一个极端。至少这是我们目前可以处理的一个合理的界限。应该说尼采的思考方向是正确的，他希望超越这两个极端的道德界限。然而，他没有提供实际的解决方案，而只是一种精神，一种观念，只能用说教的形式来描述，通过隐喻的易错性。为什么?因为他不知道超人是什么，因为他不是超人，而只知道他认为这种超越的人格化应该是什么样子。他正在用自己的眼睛勾勒出超人的形象，通过他的眼睛，他努力扩大自己的视野，尽可能地接近更多的人。对于那些认为尼采是唯我论者和愤世嫉俗者(尤其是罗素)的人来说，这将是不可理解的，因为他们自己看到的不是尼采的愿景，而是他的隐喻的直接含义。他们站在光谱的另一边，很少受到另一个极端的影响。因此，他们可以兴奋和幸福地思考道德问题，而不必脱离人的概念。他们没有体验到虚无主义者身上那种刻薄的阴霾，所以很容易抛弃他们的前提，从存在主义者的结论开始，存在主义者的结论可以更方便地表达为“人是万物的尺度”。 原文：I type in replacement of handwriting, for after four tubes of blood squeezed out of my veins, I am too feeble to clasp a pen. I am weary of thinking, for no answer is foreseeable in the present desperate situation. But I am even more weary at recording my thinking. I see little point in that apart from compensating for the human forgetfulness and indulging in a solipsistic retreat. I used to enjoy the latter immensely and believe in the unity between the two - that an indulgence in dialectic is the most diaphanous and honourable sign of transcending the former. But the former has grown increasingly utilitarian and departed from the latter in many occasions of late, which I start to feel nauseous and even baneful at the act of speaking, writing or any form that exploits the human linguistic ability. No, I am not a positivist, at least not at the moment, for I do not feel any drive to explore the positive link between language and fact, not because that I hold a complete illusionist doctrine, but that any thought that provokes a form of convicted optimism would then provoke, quite autonomously, a pessimism with equal strength. The repetition of this wears me out. No, I do not endorse any of those opposing pessimism either. But that is the problem. Propositions with either an optimistic or pessimistic tone tether to me with any strength. None of them has any profound impact on me in the sense of offering any truth value, but their reference, their indication, their connotation, which directs at the true dissonance observable by anyone with attentiveness, wrings my heart most violently. The inexorable mismatch between descriptions and actuality tortures me, for none of the propositions at hand serves as a genuine first step to the exposition of the problem. Isn't Descartes faced with the same problem? Does he feel contented to once again enter the platform of ideas and deduce his draft of reality, after he has been tricked by it for years on end and after he has fervently rejected its benevolence. Yes, he would feel fairly contented, at least at the time of his writing, for no man can compose so many words if not for an imperative to deliver something he considers vastly important. Even Hume, I must add, holds something near and dear to his heart, on which he depends all reasons of his continued existence, the power source that would rejuvenate him at the time of unbearable and unutterable weariness. I have felt intensely what effect it would cast on men if one barricades the progression of any notion down to the personal level that tethers oneself to the ideas one's firmly holding. That would lead to the dissolution of any belief, any conviction that supports our continued existence. Such is necessary, as one shall see firmly, for men cannot surrender their consciousness, or sensibility as the romanticists would say, for they have been endowed with it that would last all their life, and ends at their grave. Then the obvious corollary is that if sensibility cannot be renounced, wouldn't it be better to know the contents of one's curse or blessing, whichever we think it is, than to suspend our will to think and walk into our grave absent-mindedly. Such a predicament of men would always favour the former when secluded and latter when crowded. The former path I have trodden, though with less and less self-proclaimed honour and with more and more disgust and weariness, still, and I think so resolutely, to be the only path that lies ahead of me. But can the entire problem of human existence be reduced to that? The infliction of moral problems stems from men's genuine need for morality. From there we know that nihilism is not the root of the problem, but the exposition of one extreme of the problem. Similarly, dogmaticism marks the other extreme of the problem. At least this is a reasonable demarcation we can work with at the moment. It should be said that Nietzsche is thinking in the right direction, where he wishes to transcend the boundary of morality marked by these two extremes. Yet he offers no practical solution, but only a spirit, a notion only describable in the form of sermons, through the fallibility of metaphors. Why? For he knows not what superman is, since he is not one, but only what he thinks the personification of such transcendence ought to look like. He's sketching the form of a superman from his own eyes, through which he has strenuously expanded his vision to approximate as many men as he can. It would be incomprehensible to those who think Nietzsche a solipsist and a cynic (Russell in particular), for they themselves see not the vision of Nietzsche but the immediate implication of his metaphors. They are those who stay on the other side of the spectrum, much less afflicted by the other extreme. Thus, they can excitedly and blissfully ponder the problem of morality without detaching oneself from the notion of men. They fail to experience the caustic haze that covers the nihilists, so it's easy to cast their premise aside and start with the existentialist's conclusion, which can be more conveniently expressed as "man is the measure of all things".
