But I am also clear
in my own mind why I can even feel greater fellow-suffering for lower natures
than for higher ones. A higher nature is what it is precisely because it has
been raised by its own suffering to the heights of resignation, or else has within it – and cultivates – the capacity for such a
development. Such a nature is extremely close to mine, is indeed similar to it,
and with it I attain to fellow-joy. That is why, basically, I feel less
fellow-suffering for people than for animals. For I can see that the latter are
totally denied the capacity to rise above suffering, and to achieve a state of
resignation and deep, divine calm. And so, in the event of their suffering, as
happens when they are tormented, all I see – with a sense of my own tormented
despair – is their absolute, redemption-less suffering without any higher
purpose, their only release being death which confirms my belief that it would
have been better for them never to have entered upon life. And so, if this
suffering can have a purpose, it is simply to awaken a sense of
fellow-suffering in man, who thereby absorbs the animal’s defective existence,
and becomes the redeemer of the world by recognising the error of all
existence. (This meaning will one day become clearer to you from the Good
Friday morning scene in the third act of Parzifal.)
