Origin
The first thinker to use the word in a psychological sense was the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. (Kaufmann, Nietzsche, chapter 7, section II). In the opening section of Human, All Too Human entitled ‘Of first and last things’, Nietzsche wrote:
there is, strictly speaking, neither unselfish conduct, nor a wholly disinterested point of view. Both are simply sublimations in which the basic element seems almost evaporated and betrays its presence only to the keenest observation. All that we need and that could possibly be given us in the present state of development of the sciences, is a chemistry of the moral, religious, aesthetic conceptions and feeling, as well as of those emotions which we experience in the affairs, great and small, of society and civilization, and which we are sensible of even in solitude. But what if this chemistry established the fact that, even in its domain, the most magnificent results were attained with the basest and most despised ingredients? Would many feel disposed to continue such investigations? Mankind loves to put by the questions of its origin and beginning: must one not be almost inhuman in order to follow the opposite course?
Read more about this topic: Sublimation (psychology)
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
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