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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3006510 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #52263 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52263) diff --git a/old/52263-0.txt b/old/52263-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 8aea4ad..0000000 --- a/old/52263-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8442 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Twilight of the Idols - The Antichrist, by -Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Twilight of the Idols - The Antichrist - Complete Works, Volume Sixteen - -Author: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - -Editor: Oscar Levy - -Translator: Anthony M. Ludovici - -Release Date: June 7, 2016 [eBook #52263] -[Most recently updated: May 30, 2022] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org - (Images generouly made available by the Hathi Trust.) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS *** - - - - -THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS - -BY - -FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE - -Or, How to Philosophise with the Hammer - - -THE ANTICHRIST - -_NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA, AND ETERNAL RECURRENCE_ - - -TRANSLATED BY - -ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI - - -The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche - -The First Complete and Authorised English Translation - -Edited by Dr Oscar Levy - -Volume Sixteen - -T.N. FOULIS - -13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET - -EDINBURGH: AND LONDON - -1911 - - - - - CONTENTS - - TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS - - TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE - PREFACE - MAXIMS AND MISSILES - THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES - “REASON” IN PHILOSOPHY - HOW THE “TRUE WORLD” ULTIMATELY BECAME A FABLE - MORALITY AS THE ENEMY OF NATURE - THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS - THE “IMPROVERS” OF MANKIND - THINGS THE GERMANS LACK - SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE ACT - THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS - - THE ANTICHRIST - - ETERNAL RECURRENCE - - NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA - - - - -TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE - - -_The Twilight of the Idols_ was written towards the end of the summer -of 1888, its composition seems to have occupied only a few days,—so -few indeed that, in _Ecce Homo_ (p. 118), Nietzsche says he hesitates -to give their number; but, in any case, we know it was completed on the -3rd of September in Sils Maria. The manuscript which was dispatched to -the printers on the 7th of September bore the title: “_Idle Hours of a -Psychologist_”; this, however, was abandoned in favour of the present -title, while the work was going through the press. During September -and the early part of October 1888, Nietzsche added to the original -contents of the book by inserting the whole section entitled “Things -the Germans Lack,” and aphorisms 32-43 of “Skirmishes in a War with the -Age”; and the book, as it now stands, represents exactly the form in -which Nietzsche intended to publish it in the course of the year 1889. -Unfortunately its author was already stricken down with illness when -the work first appeared at the end of January 1889, and he was denied -the joy of seeing it run into nine editions, of one thousand each, -before his death in 1900. - -Of _The Twilight of the Idols,_ Nietzsche says in _Ecce Homo_ (p. -118):—“If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how -everything before my time was standing on its head, he should begin -reading me in this book. That which is called ‘Idols’ on the title-page -is simply the old truth that has been believed in hitherto. In plain -English, _The Twilight of the Idols_ means that the old truth is on its -last legs.” - -Certain it is that, for a rapid survey of the whole of Nietzsche’s -doctrine, no book, save perhaps the section entitled “Of Old and New -Tables” in _Thus Spake Zarathustra,_ could be of more real value than -_The Twilight of the Idols._ Here Nietzsche is quite at his best. He -is ripe for the marvellous feat of the transvaluation of all values. -Nowhere is his language—that marvellous weapon which in his hand -became at once so supple and so murderous—more forcible and more -condensed. Nowhere are his thoughts more profound. But all this does -not by any means imply that this book is the easiest of Nietzsche’s -works. On the contrary, I very much fear that, unless the reader is -well prepared, not only in Nietzscheism, but also in the habit of -grappling with uncommon and elusive problems, a good deal of the -contents of this work will tend rather to confuse than to enlighten -him in regard to what Nietzsche actually wishes to make clear in these -pages. - -How much prejudice, for instance, how many traditional and deep-seated -opinions, must be uprooted, if we are to see even so much as an -important note of interrogation in the section entitled “The Problem -of Socrates”—not to speak of such sections as “Morality as the Enemy -of Nature,” “The Four Great Errors,” &c. The errors exposed in these -sections have a tradition of two thousand years behind them; and only a -fantastic dreamer could expect them to be eradicated by a mere casual -study of these pages. Indeed, Nietzsche himself looked forward only to -a gradual change in the general view of the questions he discussed; he -knew only too well what the conversion of “light heads” was worth, and -what kind of man would probably be the first to rush into his arms; -and, grand psychologist that he was, he guarded himself beforehand -against bad company by means of his famous warning:—“The first -adherents of a creed do not prove anything against it.” - -To the aspiring student of Nietzsche, however, it ought not to be -necessary to become an immediate convert in order to be interested in -the treasure of thought which Nietzsche here lavishes upon us. For -such a man it will be quite difficult enough to regard the questions -raised in this work as actual problems. Once, however, he has succeeded -in doing this, and has given his imagination time to play round these -questions _as_ problems, the particular turn or twist that Nietzsche -gives to their elucidation, may then perhaps strike him, not only as -valuable, but as absolutely necessary. - -With regard to the substance of _The Twilight of the Idols,_ Nietzsche -says in _Ecce Homo_ (p. 119):—“There is the waste of an all-too-rich -autumn in this book: you trip over truths. You even crush some to -death, there are too many of them.” - -And what are these truths? They are things that are not yet held to -be true. They are the utterances of a man who, as a single exception, -escaped for a while the general insanity of Europe, with its blind -idealism in the midst of squalor, with its unscrupulous praise of -so-called “Progress” while it stood knee-deep in the belittlement -of “Man,” and with its vulgar levity in the face of effeminacy and -decay;—they are the utterances of one who voiced the hopes, the -aims, and the realities of another world, not of an ideal world, not -of a world beyond, but of a real world, of _this_ world regenerated -and reorganised upon a sounder, a more virile, and a more orderly -basis,—in fact, of a perfectly _possible_ world, one that has already -existed in the past, and could exist again, if only the stupendous -revolution of a transvaluation of all values were made possible. - -This then is the nature of the truths uttered by this one sane man in -the whole of Europe at the end of last century; and when, owing to his -unequal struggle against the overwhelming hostile forces of his time, -his highly sensitive personality was at last forced to surrender itself -to the enemy and become one with them—that is to say, insane!—at -least the record of his sanity had been safely stored away, beyond the -reach of time and change, in the volumes which constitute his life-work. - - * * * * * - -Nietzsche must have started upon the “Antichrist,” immediately after -having dispatched the “Idle Hours of a Psychologist” to the printers, -and the work appears to have been finished at the end of September -1888. It was intended by Nietzsche to form the first book of a large -work entitled “The Transvaluation of all Values”; but, though this work -was never completed, we can form some idea from the substance of the -“Antichrist” and from the titles of the remaining three books, which -alas! were never written, of what its contents would have been. These -titles are:—Book II. The Free Spirit. A Criticism of Philosophy as a -Nihilistic Movement. Book III. The Immoralist. A Criticism of the most -Fatal Kind of Ignorance,—Morality. Book IV. Dionysus. The Philosophy -of Eternal Recurrence. - -Nietzsche calls this book “An Attempted Criticism of Christianity.” -Modest as this sub-title is, it will probably seem not quite modest -enough to those who think that Nietzsche fell far short of doing -justice to their Holy Creed. Be this as it may, there is the solution -of a certain profound problem in this book, which, while it is the key -to all Nietzscheism, is also the justification and the sanctification -of Nietzsche’s cause. The problem stated quite plainly is this: “_To -what end_ did Christianity avail itself of falsehood?” - -Many readers of this amazing little work, who happen to be acquainted -with Nietzsche’s doctrine of Art and of Ruling, will probably feel -slightly confused at the constant deprecation of falsehood, of -deception, and of arbitrary make-believe, which seems to run through -this book like a litany in praise of a certain Absolute Truth. - -Remembering Nietzsche’s utterance in volume ii. (p. 26) of the _Will -to Power,_ to wit:—“The prerequisite of all living things and of -their lives is: that there should be a large amount of faith, that -it should be possible to pass definite judgments on things, and -that there should be no doubt at all concerning values. Thus it is -necessary that something should be assumed to be true, _not_ that it -is true;”—remembering these words, as I say, the reader may stand -somewhat aghast before all those passages in the second half of this -volume, where the very falsehoods of Christianity, its assumptions, its -unwarrantable claims to Truth, are declared to be pernicious, base and -corrupt. - -Again and again, if we commit the error of supposing that Nietzsche -believed in a truth that was absolute, we shall find throughout his -works reasons for charging him with apparently the very same crimes -that he here lays at the door of Christianity. What then is the -explanation of his seeming inconsistency? - -It is simple enough. Nietzsche’s charge of falsehood against -Christianity is not a moral one,—in fact it may be taken as a general -rule that Nietzsche scrupulously avoids making moral charges, and that -he emains throughout faithful to his position Beyond Good and Evil -(see, for instance Aph. 6 (Antichrist) where he repudiates all moral -prejudice in charging humanity with corruption). A man who maintained -that “truth is that form of error which enables a particular species to -prevail,” could not make a _moral_ charge of falsehood against any one, -or any institution; but he could do so from another standpoint He could -well say, for instance, “falsehood is that kind of error which causes a -particular species to degenerate and to decay.” - -Thus the fact that Christianity “lied” becomes a subject of alarm -to Nietzsche, not owing to the fact that it is immoral to lie, but -because in this particular instance, the lie was harmful, hostile to -life, and dangerous to humanity; for “a belief might be false and yet -life-preserving” (_Beyond Good and Evil,_ pp. 8, 9). - -Suppose, therefore, we say with Nietzsche that there is no absolute -truth, but that all that has been true in the past which has been -the means of making the “plant man flourish best”—or, since the -meaning of “best” is open to some debate, let us say, flourish in a -Nietzschean sense, that is to say, thanks to a mastery of life, and -to a preponderance of all those qualities which say yea to existence, -and which suggest no flight from this world and all its pleasure and -pain. And suppose we add that, wherever we may find the plant man -flourishing, in this sense, we should there suspect the existence of -truth?—I If we say this with Nietzsche, any sort of assumption or -arbitrary valuation which aims at a reverse order of things, becomes a -dangerous lie in a super-moral and purely physiological sense. - -With these preparatory remarks we are now prepared to read aphorism -56 with a complete understanding of what Nietzsche means, and -to recognise in this particular aphorism the key to the whole of -Nietzsche’s attitude towards Christianity. It is at once a solution of -our problem, and a justification of its author’s position. Naturally, -it still remains open to Nietzsche’s opponents to argue, if they -choose, that man has flourished best under the sway of nihilistic -religions—religions which deny life,—and that consequently the -falsehoods of Christianity are not only warrantable but also in the -highest degree blessed; but, in any case, the aphorism in question -completely exonerates Nietzsche from a charge of inconsistency in the -use of the terms “truth” and “falsehood” throughout his works, and -it moreover settles once and for all the exact altitude from which -our author looked down upon the religions of the world, not only to -criticise them, but also to _place_ them in the order of their merit as -disciplinary systems aiming at the cultivation of particular types of -men. - -Nietzsche says in aphorism 56:—“After all, the question is, to what -end are falsehoods perpetrated? The fact that, in Christianity, ‘holy’ -ends are entirely absent, constitutes _my_ objection to the means it -employs. Its ends are only _bad_ ends: the poisoning, the calumniation -and the denial of life, the contempt of the body, the degradation and -self-pollution of man by virtue of the concept sin,—consequently its -means are bad as well.” - -Thus, to repeat it once more, it is not because Christianity availed -itself of all kinds of lies that Nietzsche condemns it; for the Book -of Manu—which he admires—is just as full of falsehood as the Semitic -Book of Laws; but, in the Book of Manu the lies are calculated to -preserve and to create a strong and noble type of man, whereas in -Christianity the opposite type was the aim,—an aim which has been -achieved in a manner far exceeding even the expectations of the -faithful. - -This then is the main argument of the book and its conclusion; but, in -the course of the general elaboration of this argument, many important -side-issues are touched upon and developed, wherein Nietzsche reveals -himself as something very much more valuable than a mere iconoclast. -Of course, on every page of his philosophy,—whatever his enemies may -maintain to the contrary,—he never once ceases to construct, since he -is incessantly enumerating and emphasising those qualities and types -which he fain would rear, as against those he fain would see destroyed; -but it is in aphorism 57 of this book that Nietzsche makes the -plainest and most complete statement of his actual taste in Sociology, -and it is upon this aphorism that all his followers and disciples will -ultimately have to build, if Nietzscheism is ever to become something -more than a merely intellectual movement. - -ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI. - - - - -PREFACE - - -To maintain a cheerful attitude of mind in the midst of a gloomy and -exceedingly responsible task, is no slight artistic feat. And yet, what -could be more necessary than cheerfulness? Nothing ever succeeds which -exuberant spirits have not helped to produce. Surplus power, alone, -is the proof of power.—A _transvaluation of all values,_—this note -of interrogation which is so black, so huge, that it casts a shadow -even upon him who affixes it,—is a task of such fatal import, that -he who undertakes it is compelled every now and then to rush out into -the sunlight in order to shake himself free from an earnestness that -becomes crushing, far too crushing. This end justifies every means, -every event on the road to it is a windfall. Above all _war._ War has -always been the great policy of all spirits who have penetrated too -far into themselves or who have grown too deep; a wound stimulates the -recuperative powers. For many years, a maxim, the origin of which I -withhold from learned curiosity, has been my motto: - -_ increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus._ - -At other times another means of recovery which is even more to my -taste, is to cross-examine idols. There are more idols than realities -in the world: this constitutes my “evil eye” for this world: it is -also my “evil ear.” To put questions in this quarter with a hammer, and -to hear perchance that well-known hollow sound which tells of blown-out -frogs,—what a joy this is for one who has ears even behind his ears, -for an old psychologist and Pied Piper like myself in whose presence -precisely that which would fain be silent, _must betray itself._ - -Even this treatise—as its title shows—is above all a recreation, -a ray of sunshine, a leap sideways of a psychologist in his leisure -moments. Maybe, too, a new war? And are we again cross-examining new -idols? This little work is a great declaration of war; and with regard -to the cross-examining of idols, this time it is not the idols of the -age but eternal idols which are here struck with a hammer as with -a tuning fork,—there are certainly no idols which are older, more -convinced, and more inflated. Neither are there any more hollow. This -does not alter the fact that they are believed in more than any others, -besides they are never called idols,—at least, not the most exalted -among their number. - -FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. - -TURIN, the 30th _September_ 1888. - on the day when the first - book of the Transvaluation - of all Values was finished. - - - - -MAXIMS AND MISSILES - - -1 - -Idleness is the parent of all psychology. What? Is psychology then -a—vice? - - -2 - -Even the pluckiest among us has but seldom the courage of what he -really knows. - - -3 - -Aristotle says that in order to live alone, a man must be either an -animal or a god. The third alternative is lacking: a man must be -both—a _philosopher._ - - -4 - -“All truth is simple.”—Is not this a double lie? - - -5 - -Once for all I wish to be blind to many things.—Wisdom sets bounds -even to knowledge. - - -6 - -A man recovers best from his exceptional nature—his -intellectuality—by giving his animal instincts a chance. - - -7 - -Which is it? Is man only a blunder of God? Or is God only a blunder of -man? - - -8 - -_From the military school of life._—That which does not kill me, makes -me stronger. - - -9 - -Help thyself, then everyone will help thee. A principle of -neighbour-love. - - -10 - -A man should not play the coward to his deeds. He should not repudiate -them once he has performed them. Pangs of conscience are indecent. - - -11 - -Can a donkey be tragic?—To perish beneath a load that one can neither -bear nor throw off? This is the case of the Philosopher. - - -12 - -If a man knows the wherefore of his existence, then the manner of it -can take care of itself. Man does not aspire to happiness; only the -Englishman does that. - - -13 - -Man created woman—out of what? Out of a rib of his god,—of his -“ideal.” - - -14 - -What? Art thou looking for something? Thou wouldst fain multiply -thyself tenfold, a hundredfold? Thou seekest followers? Seek ciphers! - - -15 - -Posthumous men, like myself, are not so well understood as men who -reflect their age, but they are heard with more respect. In plain -English: we are never understood—hence our authority. - - -16 - -_Among women._—“Truth? Oh, you do not know truth! Is it not an outrage -on all our _pudeurs?_”— - - -17 - -There is an artist after my own heart, modest in his needs: he really -wants only two things, his bread and his art—_panem et Circem._ - - -18 - -He who knows not how to plant his will in things, at least endows them -with some meaning: that is to say, he believes that a will is already -present in them. (A principle of faith.) - - -19 - -What? Ye chose virtue and the heaving breast, and at the same time -ye squint covetously at the advantages of the unscrupulous.—But -with virtue ye renounce all “advantages” ... (to be nailed to an -Antisemite’s door). - - -20 - -The perfect woman perpetrates literature as if it were a petty vice: as -an experiment, _en passant,_ and looking about her all the while to -see whether anybody is noticing her, hoping that somebody _is_ noticing -her. - - -21 - -One should adopt only those situations in which one is in no need of -sham virtues, but rather, like the tight-rope dancer on his tight rope, -in which one must either fall or stand—or escape. - - -22 - -“Evil men have no songs.”[1]—How is it that the Russians have songs? - - -23 - -“German intellect”; for eighteen years this has been a _contradictio in -adjecto._ - - -24 - -By seeking the beginnings of things, a man becomes a crab. The -historian looks backwards: in the end he also _believes_ backwards. - - -25 - -Contentment preserves one even from catching cold. Has a woman who knew -that she was well-dressed ever caught cold?—No, not even when she had -scarcely a rag to her back. - - -26 - -I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. The will to a system, -shows a lack of honesty. - - -27 - -Man thinks woman profound—why? Because he can never fathom her depths. -Woman is not even shallow. - - -28 - -When woman possesses masculine virtues, she is enough to make you run -away. When she possesses no masculine virtues, she herself runs away. - -29 - -“How often conscience had to bite in times gone by! What good teeth it -must have had! And to-day, what is amiss?”—A dentist’s question. - - -30 - -Errors of haste are seldom committed singly. The first time a man -always docs too much. And precisely on that account he commits a second -error, and then he does too little. - - -31 - -The trodden worm curls up. This testifies to its caution. It thus -reduces its chances of being trodden upon again. In the language of -morality: Humility.— - - -32 - -There is such a thing as a hatred of lies and dissimulation, which is -the outcome of a delicate sense of humour; there is also the selfsame -hatred but as the result of cowardice, in so far as falsehood is -forbidden by Divine law. Too cowardly to lie.... - - -33 - -What trifles constitute happiness! The sound of a bagpipe. Without -music life would be a mistake. The German imagines even God as a -songster. - - -34 - -_On ne peut penser et écrire qu’assis_ (G. Flaubert). Here I have got -you, you nihilist! A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy -Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value. - - -35 - -There are times when we psychologists are like horses, and grow -fretful. We see our own shadow rise and fall before us. The -psychologist must look away from himself if he wishes to see anything -at all. - - -36 - -Do we immoralists injure virtue in any way? Just as little as the -anarchists injure royalty. Only since they have been shot at do princes -sit firmly on their thrones once more. Moral: _morality must be shot -at._ - - -37 - -Thou runnest _ahead?_—Dost thou do so as a shepherd or as an -exception? A third alternative would be the fugitive.... First question -of conscience. - - -38 - -Art thou genuine or art thou only an actor? Art thou a representative -or the thing represented, itself? Finally, art thou perhaps simply a -copy of an actor? ... Second question of conscience. - - -39 - -_The disappointed man speaks:_—I sought for great men, but all I found -were the apes of their ideal. - - -40 - -Art thou one who looks on, or one who puts his own shoulder to the -wheel?—Or art thou one who looks away, or who turns aside?... Third -question of conscience. - - -41 - -Wilt thou go in company, or lead, or go by thyself?... A man should -know what he desires, and that he desires something.—Fourth question -of conscience. - - -42 - -They were but rungs in my ladder, on them I made my ascent:—to that -end I had to go beyond them. But they imagined that I wanted to lay -myself to rest upon them. - - -43 - -What matters it whether I am acknowledged to be right! I am much too -right. And he who laughs best to-day, will also laugh last. - - -44 - -The formula of my happiness: a Yea, a Nay, a straight line, _goal...._ - - -[1] This is a reference to Seume’s poem “_Die Gesänge_,” the first verse -of which is:— - - _“Wo man singet, lass dich ruhig nieder,_ - _Ohne Furcht, was man im Lande glaubt_; - _Wo man singet, wird kein Mensch beraubt_: - _Bösewichter haben keine Lieder_.” - -(Wherever people sing thou canst safely settle down without a qualm -as to what the general faith of the land may be Wherever people sing, -no man is ever robbed; _rascals_ have no songs.) Popular tradition, -however, renders the lines thus:— - - _“Wo man singt, da lass dich ruhig nieder;_ - _Base Menschen_ [evil men] _haben keine Lieder.”_ - - - - -THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES - - -1 - -In all ages the wisest have always agreed in their judgment of life: -_it is no good._ At all times and places the same words have been -on their lips,—words full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of -weariness of life, full of hostility to life. Even Socrates’ dying -words were:—“To live—means to be ill a long while: I owe a cock to -the god Æsculapius.” Even Socrates had had enough of it. What does that -prove? What does it point to? Formerly people would have said (—oh, -it has been said, and loudly enough too; by our Pessimists loudest of -all!): “In any case there must be some truth in this! The _consensus -sapientium_ is a proof of truth.”—Shall we say the same to-day? _May_ -we do so? “In any case there must be some sickness here,” we make -reply. These great sages of all periods should first be examined more -closely! Is it possible that they were, everyone of them, a little -shaky on their legs, effete, rocky, decadent? Does wisdom perhaps -appear on earth after the manner of a crow attracted by a slight smell -of carrion? - - -2 - -This irreverent belief that the great sages were decadent types, first -occurred to me precisely in regard to that case concerning which both -learned and vulgar prejudice was most opposed to my view. I recognised -Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decline, as instruments in the -disintegration of Hellas, as pseudo-Greek, as anti-Greek (“The Birth -of Tragedy,” 1872). That _consensus sapientium,_ as I perceived ever -more and more clearly, did not in the least prove that they were right -in the matter on which they agreed. It proved rather that these sages -themselves must have been alike in some physiological particular, in -order to assume the same negative attitude towards life—in order to -be bound to assume that attitude. After all, judgments and valuations -of life, whether for or against, cannot be true: their only value lies -in the fact that they are symptoms; they can be considered only as -symptoms,—_per se_ such judgments are nonsense. You must therefore -endeavour by all means to reach out and try to grasp this astonishingly -subtle axiom, _that the value of life cannot be estimated._ A living -man cannot do so, because he is a contending party, or rather the very -object in the dispute, and not a judge; nor can a dead man estimate -it—for other reasons. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value -of life, is almost an objection against him, a note of interrogation -set against his wisdom—a lack of wisdom. What? Is it possible that all -these great sages were not only decadents, but that they were not even -wise? Let me however return to the problem of Socrates. - - -3 - -To judge from his origin, Socrates belonged to the lowest of the low: -Socrates was mob. You know, and you can still see it for yourself, -how ugly he was. But ugliness, which in itself is an objection, was -almost a refutation among the Greeks. Was Socrates really a Greek? -Ugliness is not infrequently the expression of thwarted development, -or of development arrested by crossing. In other cases it appears -as a decadent development. The anthropologists among the criminal -specialists declare that I the typical criminal is ugly: _monstrum -in fronte, monstrum in animo._ But the criminal is a decadent?[1] -Was Socrates a typical criminal?—At all events this would not clash -with that famous physiognomist’s judgment which was so repugnant to -Socrates’ friends. While on his way through Athens a certain foreigner -who was no fool at judging by looks, told Socrates to his face that -he was a monster, that his body harboured all the worst vices and -passions. And Socrates replied simply: “You know me, sir!”— - - -4 - -Not only are the acknowledged wildness and anarchy of Socrates’ -instincts indicative of decadence, but also that preponderance of the -logical faculties and that malignity of the misshapen which was his -special characteristic. Neither should we forget those aural delusions -which were religiously interpreted as “the demon of Socrates.” -Everything in him is exaggerated, _buffo,_ caricature, his nature is -also full of concealment, of ulterior motives, and of underground -currents. I try to understand the idiosyncrasy from which the Socratic -equation:—Reason = Virtue = Happiness, could have arisen: the -weirdest equation ever seen, and one which was essentially opposed to -all the instincts of the older Hellenes. - - -5 - -With Socrates Greek taste veers round in favour of dialectics: what -actually occurs? In the first place a noble taste is vanquished: -with dialectics the mob comes to the top. Before Socrates’ time, -dialectical manners were avoided in good society: they were regarded -as bad manners, they were compromising. Young men were cautioned -against them. All such proffering of one’s reasons was looked upon with -suspicion. Honest things like honest men do not carry their reasons -on their sleeve in such fashion. It is not good form to make a show -of everything. That which needs to be proved cannot be worth much. -Wherever authority still belongs to good usage, wherever men do not -prove but command, the dialectician is regarded as a sort of clown. -People laugh at him, they do not take him seriously. Socrates was a -clown who succeeded in making men take him seriously: what then was the -matter? - - -6 - -A man resorts to dialectics only when he has no other means to hand. -People know that they excite suspicion with it and that it is not -very convincing. Nothing is more easily dispelled than a dialectical -effect: this is proved by the experience of every gathering in which -discussions are held. It can be only the last defence of those who have -no other weapons. One must require to extort one’s right, otherwise one -makes no use of it. That is why the Jews were dialecticians. Reynard -the Fox was a dialectician: what?—and was Socrates one as well? - - -7 - -Is the Socratic irony an expression of revolt, of mob resentment? -Does Socrates, as a creature suffering under oppression, enjoy his -innate ferocity in the knife-thrusts of the syllogism? Does he wreak -his revenge on the noblemen he fascinates?—As a dialectician a man -has a merciless instrument to wield; he can play the tyrant with it: -he compromises when he conquers with it. The dialectician leaves it to -his opponent to prove that he is no idiot: he infuriates, he likewise -paralyses. The dialectician cripples the intellect of his opponent. Can -it be that dialectics was only a form of revenge in Socrates? - - -8 - -I have given you to understand in what way Socrates was able to repel: -now it is all the more necessary to explain how he fascinated.—One -reason is that he discovered a new kind of _Agon,_ and that he was the -first fencing-master in the best circles in Athens. He fascinated by -appealing to the combative instinct of the Greeks,—he introduced a -variation into the contests between men and youths. Socrates was also a -great erotic. - - -9 - -But Socrates divined still more. He saw right through his noble -Athenians; he perceived that his case, his peculiar case, was no -exception even in his time. The same kind of degeneracy was silently -preparing itself everywhere: ancient Athens was dying out. And Socrates -understood that the whole world needed him,—his means, his remedy, his -special artifice for self-preservation. Everywhere the instincts were -in a state of anarchy; everywhere people were within an ace of excess: -the _monstrum in animo_ was the general danger. “The instincts would -play the tyrant; we must discover a counter-tyrant who is stronger than -they.” On the occasion when that physiognomist had unmasked Socrates, -and had told him what he was, a crater full of evil desires, the great -Master of Irony let fall one or two words more, which provide the key -to his nature. “This is true,” he said, “but I overcame them all.” How -did Socrates succeed in mastering himself? His case was at bottom only -the extreme and most apparent example of a state of distress which -was beginning to be general: that state in which no one was able to -master himself and in which the instincts turned one against the other. -As the extreme example of this state, he fascinated—his terrifying -ugliness made him conspicuous to every eye: it is quite obvious that he -fascinated still more as a reply, as a solution, as an apparent cure of -this case. - - -10 - -When a man finds it necessary, as Socrates did, to create a tyrant out -of reason, there is no small danger that something else wishes to play -the tyrant. Reason was then discovered as a saviour; neither Socrates -nor his “patients” were at liberty to be rational or not, as they -pleased; at that time it was _de rigueur,_ it had become a last shift. -The fanaticism with which the whole of Greek thought plunges into -reason, betrays a critical condition of things: men were in danger; -there were only two alternatives: either perish or else be absurdly -rational. The moral bias of Greek philosophy from Plato onward, is the -outcome of a pathological condition, as is also its appreciation of -dialectics. Reason = Virtue = Happiness, simply means: we must imitate -Socrates, and confront the dark passions permanently with the light -of day—the light of reason. We must at all costs be clever, precise, -clear: all yielding to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads -downwards. - - -11 - -I have now explained how Socrates fascinated: he seemed to be a -doctor, a Saviour. Is it necessary to expose the errors which lay in -his faith in “reason at any price”?—It is a piece of self-deception -on the part of philosophers and moralists to suppose that they can -extricate themselves from degeneration by merely waging war upon it. -They cannot thus extricate themselves; that which they choose as a -means, as the road to salvation, is in itself again only an expression -of degeneration—they only modify its mode of manifesting itself: -they do not abolish it. Socrates was a misunderstanding. _The whole -of the morality of amelioration—that of Christianity as well—was -a misunderstanding._ The most blinding light of day: reason at any -price; life made clear, cold, cautious, conscious, without instincts, -opposed to the instincts, was in itself only a disease, another kind -of disease—and by no means a return to “virtue,” to “health,” and to -happiness. To be obliged to fight the instincts—this is the formula of -degeneration: as long as life is in the ascending line, happiness is -the same as instinct. - - -12 - -—Did he understand this himself, this most intelligent of -self-deceivers? Did he confess this to himself in the end, in the -wisdom of his courage before death. Socrates wished to die. Not Athens, -but his own hand gave him the draught of hemlock; he drove Athens to -the poisoned cup. “Socrates is not a doctor,” he whispered to himself, -“death alone can be a doctor here.... Socrates himself has only been ill -a long while.” - - -[1] It should be borne in mind that Nietzsche recognised two types of -criminals,—the criminal from strength, and the criminal from weakness. -This passage alludes to the latter, Aphorism 45, p. 103, alludes to the -former.—TR. - - - - -“REASON” IN PHILOSOPHY - - -1 - -You ask me what all idiosyncrasy is in philosophers? ... For instance -their lack of the historical sense, their hatred even of the idea of -Becoming, their Egyptianism. They imagine that they do honour to a -thing by divorcing it from history _sub specie æterni,—_when they -make a mummy of it. All the ideas that philosophers have treated for -thousands of years, have been mummied concepts; nothing real has ever -come out of their hands alive. These idolaters of concepts merely -kill and stuff things when they worship,—they threaten the life of -everything they adore. Death, change, age, as well as procreation and -growth, are in their opinion objections,—even refutations. That which -is cannot evolve; that which evolves _is_ not. Now all of them believe, -and even with desperation, in Being. But, as they cannot lay hold of -it, they try to discover reasons why this privilege is withheld from -them. “Some merely apparent quality, some deception must be the cause -of our not being able to ascertain the nature of Being: where is the -deceiver?” “We have him,” they cry rejoicing, “it is sensuality!” These -senses, _which in other things are so immoral,_ cheat us concerning the -true world. Moral: we must get rid of the deception of the senses, of -Becoming, of history, of falsehood.—History is nothing more than the -belief in the senses, the belief in falsehood. Moral: we must say “no” -to everything in which the senses believe: to all the rest of mankind: -all that belongs to the “people.” Let us be philosophers, mummies, -monotono-theists, grave-diggers!—And above all, away with the _body,_ -this wretched _idée fixe_ of the senses, infected with all the faults -of logic that exist, refuted, even impossible, although it be impudent -enough to pose as if it were real! - - -2 - -With a feeling of great reverence I except the name of _Heraclitus._ -If the rest of the philosophic gang rejected the evidences of the -senses, because the latter revealed a state of multifariousness and -change, he rejected the same evidence because it revealed things as if -they possessed permanence and unity. Even Heraclitus did an injustice -to the senses. The latter lie neither as the Eleatics believed them -to lie, nor as he believed them to lie,—they do not lie at all. The -interpretations we give to their evidence is what first introduces -falsehood into it; for instance the lie of unity, the lie of matter, -of substance and of permanence. Reason is the cause of our falsifying -the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show us a state -of Becoming, of transiency, and of change, they do not lie. But in -declaring that Being was an empty illusion, Heraclitus will remain -eternally right. The “apparent” world is the only world: the “true -world” is no more than a false adjunct thereto. - - -3 - -And what delicate instruments of observation we have in our senses! -This human nose, for instance, of which no philosopher has yet spoken -with reverence and gratitude, is, for the present, the most finely -adjusted instrument at our disposal: it is able to register even such -slight changes of movement as the spectroscope would be unable to -record. Our scientific triumphs at the present day extend precisely -so far as we have accepted the evidence of our senses,—as we have -sharpened and armed them, and learned to follow them up to the -end. What remains is abortive and not yet science—that is to say, -metaphysics, theology, psychology, epistemology, or formal science, or -a doctrine of symbols, like logic and its applied form mathematics. -In all these things reality does not come into consideration at all, -even as a problem; just as little as does the question concerning the -general value of such a convention of symbols as logic. - - -4 - -The other idiosyncrasy of philosophers is no less dangerous; it -consists in confusing the last and the first things. They place that -which makes its appearance last—unfortunately! for it ought not -to appear at all!—the “highest concept,” that is to say, the most -general, the emptiest, the last cloudy streak of evaporating reality, -at the beginning as the beginning. This again is only their manner of -expressing their veneration: the highest thing must not have grown out -of the lowest, it must not have grown at all.... Moral: everything -of the first rank must be _causa sui._ To have been derived from -something else, is as good as an objection, it sets the value of a -thing in question. All superior values are of the first rank, all the -highest concepts—that of Being, of the Absolute, of Goodness, of -Truth, and of Perfection; all these things cannot have been evolved, -they must therefore be _causa sui._ All these things cannot however be -unlike one another, they cannot be opposed to one another. Thus they -attain to their stupendous concept “God.” The last, most attenuated and -emptiest thing is postulated as the first thing, as the absolute cause, -as _ens realissimum._ Fancy humanity having to take the brain diseases -of morbid cobweb-spinners seriously!—And it has paid dearly for having -done so. - - -5 - -—Against this let us set the different manner in which we (—you -observe that I am courteous enough to say “we”) conceive the problem of -the error and deceptiveness of things. Formerly people regarded change -and evolution in general as the proof of appearance, as a sign of the -fact that something must be there that leads us astray. To-day, on -the other hand, we realise that precisely as far as the rational bias -forces us to postulate unity, identity, permanence, substance, cause, -materiality and being, we are in a measure involved in error, driven -necessarily to error; however certain we may feel, as the result of a -strict examination of the matter, that the error lies here. It is just -the same here as with the motion of the sun: In its case it was our -eyes that were wrong; in the matter of the concepts above mentioned it -is our language itself that pleads most constantly in their favour. -In its origin language belongs to an age of the most rudimentary -forms of psychology: if we try to conceive of the first conditions of -the metaphysics of language, _i.e._ in plain English, of reason, we -immediately find ourselves in the midst of a system of fetichism. For -here, the doer and his deed are seen in all circumstances, will is -believed in as a cause in general; the ego is taken for granted, the -ego as Being, and as substance, and the faith in the ego as substance -is projected into all things—in this way, alone, the concept “thing” -is created. Being is thought into and insinuated into everything as -cause; from the concept “ego,” alone, can the concept “Being” proceed. -At the beginning stands the tremendously fatal error of supposing the -will to be something that actuates,—a faculty. Now we know that it -is only a word.[1] Very much later, in a world a thousand times more -enlightened, the assurance, the subjective certitude, in the handling -of the categories of reason came into the minds of philosophers as a -surprise. They concluded that these categories could not be derived -from experience,—on the contrary, the whole of experience rather -contradicts them. _Whence do they come therefore?_ In India, as in -Greece, the same mistake was made: “we must already once have lived -in a higher world (—instead of in a much lower one, which would have -been the truth!), we must have been divine, for we possess reason!” -... Nothing indeed has exercised a more simple power of persuasion -hitherto than the error of Being, as it was formulated by the Eleatics -for instance: in its favour are every word and every sentence that we -utter!—Even the opponents of the Eleatics succumbed to the seductive -powers of their concept of Being. Among others there was Democritus in -his discovery of the atom. “Reason” in language!—oh what a deceptive -old witch it has been! I fear we shall never be rid of God, so long as -we still believe in grammar. - - -6 - -People will feel grateful to me if I condense a point of view, which -is at once so important and so new, into four theses: by this means -I shall facilitate comprehension, and shall likewise challenge -contradiction. - -_Proposition One._ The reasons upon which the apparent nature of “this” -world have been based, rather tend to prove its reality,—any other -kind of reality defies demonstration. - -_Proposition Two._ The characteristics with which man has endowed -the “true Being” of things, are the characteristics of non-Being, of -_nonentity._ The “true world” has been erected upon a contradiction of -the real world; and it is indeed an apparent world, seeing that it is -merely a _moralo-optical_ delusion. - -_Proposition Three._ There is no sense in spinning yarns about another -world, provided, of course, that we do not possess a mighty instinct -which urges us to slander, belittle, and cast suspicion upon this life: -in this case we should be avenging ourselves on this life with the -phantasmagoria of “another,” of a “better” life. - -_Proposition Four._ To divide the world into a “true” and an “apparent” -world, whether after the manner of Christianity or of Kant (after all -a Christian in disguise), is only a sign of decadence,—a symptom of -_degenerating_ life. The fact that the artist esteems the appearance -of a thing higher than reality, is no objection to this statement. For -“appearance” signifies once more reality here, but in a selected, -strengthened and corrected form. The tragic artist is no pessimist,—he -says _Yea_ to everything questionable and terrible, he is Dionysian. - - -[1] Nietzsche here refers to the concept “free will” of the Christians; -this does not mean that there is no such thing as will—that is to say -a powerful determining force from within.—TR. - - -HOW THE “TRUE WORLD” ULTIMATELY BECAME A FABLE - -THE HISTORY OF AN ERROR - -1. The true world, attainable to the sage, the pious man and the man of -virtue,—he lives in it, _he is it._ - - (The most ancient form of the idea was relatively clever, - simple, convincing. It was a paraphrase of the proposition - “I, Plato, am the truth.”) - - -2. The true world which is unattainable for the moment, is promised to -the sage, to the pious man and to the man of virtue (“to the sinner who -repents”). - - (Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, more - insidious, more evasive,—It _becomes a woman,_ it becomes - Christian.) - - -3. The true world is unattainable, it cannot be proved, it cannot -promise anything; but even as a thought, alone, it is a comfort, an -obligation, a command. - - (At bottom this is still the old sun; but seen through mist - and scepticism: the idea has become sublime, pale, northern, - Königsbergian.)[1] - - -4. The true world—is it unattainable? At all events it is unattained. -And as unattained it is also _unknown._ Consequently it no longer -comforts, nor saves, nor constrains: what could something unknown -constrain us to? - - (The grey of dawn. Reason stretches itself and yawns for the - first time. The cock-crow of positivism.) - - -5. The “true world”—an idea that no longer serves any purpose, that -no longer constrains one to anything,—a useless idea that has become -quite superfluous, consequently an exploded idea: let us abolish it! - - (Bright daylight; breakfast; the return of common sense - and of cheerfulness; Plato blushes for shame and all - free-spirits kick up a shindy.) - - -6. We have suppressed the true world: what world survives? the apparent -world perhaps?... Certainly not! _In abolishing the true world we have -also abolished the world of appearance!_ - - (Noon; the moment of the shortest shadows; the end of the - longest error; mankind’s zenith; _Incipit Zarathustra._) - - -[1] Kant was a native of Königsberg and lived there all his life. Did -Nietzsche know that Kant was simply a Scotch Puritan, whose family had -settled in Germany? - - - - -MORALITY AS THE ENEMY OF NATURE - - -1 - -There is a time when all passions are simply fatal in their action, -when they wreck their victims with the weight of their folly,—and -there is a later period, a very much later period, when they marry with -the spirit, when they “spiritualise” themselves. Formerly, owing to the -stupidity inherent in passion, men waged war against passion itself: -men pledged themselves to annihilate it,—all ancient moral-mongers -were unanimous on this point, “_il faut tuer les passions._” The -most famous formula for this stands in the New Testament, in that -Sermon on the Mount, where, let it be said incidentally, things are -by no means regarded _from a height._ It is said there, for instance, -with an application to sexuality: “if thy eye offend thee, pluck it -out”: fortunately no Christian acts in obedience to this precept. -To annihilate the passions and desires, simply on account of their -stupidity, and to obviate the unpleasant consequences of their -stupidity, seems to us to-day merely an aggravated form of stupidity. -We no longer admire those dentists who extract teeth simply in order -that they may not ache again. On the other hand, it will be admitted -with some reason, that on the soil from which Christianity grew, the -idea of the “spiritualisation of passion” could not possibly have been -conceived. The early Church, as everyone knows, certainly did wage war -against the “intelligent,” in favour of the “poor in spirit” In these -circumstances how could the passions be combated intelligently? The -Church combats passion by means of excision of all kinds: its practice, -its “remedy,” is _castration._ It never inquires “how can a desire -be spiritualised, beautified, deified?”—In all ages it has laid the -weight of discipline in the process of extirpation (the extirpation -of sensuality, pride, lust of dominion, lust of property, and -revenge).—But to attack the passions at their roots, means attacking -life itself at its source: the method of the Church is hostile to life. - - -2 - -The same means, castration and extirpation, are instinctively chosen -for waging war against a passion, by those who are too weak of will, -too degenerate, to impose some sort of moderation upon it; by those -natures who, to speak in metaphor (—and without metaphor), need -_la Trappe,_ or some kind of ultimatum of war, a _gulf_ set between -themselves and a passion. Only degenerates find radical methods -indispensable: weakness of will, or more strictly speaking, the -inability not to react to a stimulus, is in itself simply another form -of degeneracy. Radical and mortal hostility to sensuality, remains a -suspicious symptom: it justifies one in being suspicious of the general -state of one who goes to such extremes. Moreover, that hostility and -hatred reach their height only when such natures no longer possess -enough strength of character to adopt the radical remedy, to renounce -their inner “Satan.” Look at the whole history of the priests, the -philosophers, and the artists as well: the most poisonous diatribes -against the senses have not been said by the impotent, nor by the -ascetics; but by those impossible ascetics, by those who found it -necessary to be ascetics. - - -3 - -The spiritualisation of sensuality is called _love:_ it is a great -triumph over Christianity. Another triumph is our spiritualisation of -hostility. It consists in the fact that we are beginning to realise -very profoundly the value of having enemies: in short that with them -we are forced to do and to conclude precisely the reverse of what -we previously did and concluded. In all ages the Church wished to -annihilate its enemies: we, the immoralists and Antichrists, see our -advantage in the survival of the Church. Even in political life, -hostility has now become more spiritual,—much more cautious, much -more thoughtful, and much more moderate. Almost every party sees its -self-preservative interests in preventing the Opposition from going -to pieces; and the same applies to politics on a grand scale. A new -creation, more particularly, like the new Empire, has more need -of enemies than friends: only as a contrast does it begin to feel -necessary, only as a contrast does it _become_ necessary. And we behave -in precisely the same way to the “inner enemy”: in this quarter too we -have spiritualised enmity, in this quarter too we have understood its -value. A man is productive only in so far as he is rich in contrasted -instincts; he can remain young only on condition that his soul does -not begin to take things easy and to yearn for peace. Nothing has -grown more alien to us than that old desire—the “peace of the soul,” -which is the aim of Christianity. Nothing could make us less envious -than the moral cow and the plump happiness of a clean conscience. The -man who has renounced war has renounced a grand life. In many cases, -of course, “peace of the soul” is merely a misunderstanding,—it is -something _very different_ which has failed to find a more honest name -for itself. Without either circumlocution or prejudice I will suggest a -few cases. “Peace of the soul” may for instance be the sweet effulgence -of rich animality in the realm of morality (or religion). Or the first -presage of weariness, the first shadow that evening, every kind of -evening, is wont to cast. Or a sign that the air is moist, and that -winds are blowing up from the south. Or unconscious gratitude for a -good digestion (sometimes called “brotherly love”). Or the serenity -of the convalescent, on whose lips all things have a new taste, and -who bides his time. Or the condition which follows upon a thorough -gratification of our strongest passion, the well-being of unaccustomed -satiety. Or the senility of our will, of our desires, and of our vices. -Or laziness, coaxed by vanity into togging itself out in a moral garb. -Or the ending of a state of long suspense and of agonising uncertainty, -by a state of certainty, of even terrible certainty. Or the expression -of ripeness and mastery in the midst of a task, of a creative work, of -a production, of a thing willed, the calm breathing that denotes that -“freedom of will” has been attained. Who knows?—maybe _The Twilight -of the Idols_ is only a sort of “peace of the soul.” - - -4 - -I will formulate a principle. All naturalism in morality—that is to -say, every sound morality is ruled by a life instinct,—any one of -the laws of life is fulfilled by the definite canon “thou shalt,” -“thou shalt not,” and any sort of obstacle or hostile element in the -road of life is thus cleared away. Conversely, the morality which is -antagonistic to nature—that is to say, almost every morality that has -been taught, honoured and preached hitherto, is directed precisely -against the life-instincts,—it is a condemnation, now secret, now -blatant and impudent, of these very instincts. Inasmuch as it says “God -sees into the heart of man,” it says Nay to the profoundest and most -superior desires of life and takes God as the enemy of life. The saint -in whom God is well pleased, is the ideal eunuch. Life terminates where -the “Kingdom of God” begins. - - -5 - -Admitting that you have understood the villainy of such a mutiny -against life as that which has become almost sacrosanct in Christian -morality, you have fortunately understood something besides; and that -is the futility, the fictitiousness, the absurdity and the falseness -of such a mutiny. For the condemnation of life by a living creature is -after all but the symptom of a definite kind of life: the question as -to whether the condemnation is justified or the reverse is not even -raised. In order even to approach the problem of the value of life, -a man would need to be placed outside life, and moreover know it as -well as one, as many, as all in fact, who have lived it These are -reasons enough to prove to us that this problem is an inaccessible one -to us. When we speak of values, we speak under the inspiration, and -through the optics of life: life itself urges us to determine values: -life itself values through us when we determine values. From which it -follows that even that morality which is antagonistic to life, and -which conceives God as the opposite and the condemnation of life, is -only a valuation of life—of what life? of what kind of life? But I -have already answered this question: it is the valuation of declining, -of enfeebled, of exhausted and of condemned life. Morality, as it has -been understood hitherto—as it was finally formulated by Schopenhauer -in the words “The Denial of the Will to Life,” is the instinct of -degeneration itself, which converts itself into an imperative: it says: -“Perish!” It is the death sentence of men who are already doomed. - - -6 - -Let us at last consider how exceedingly simple it is on our part to -say: “Man should be thus and thus!” Reality shows us a marvellous -wealth of types, and a luxuriant variety of forms and changes: and yet -the first wretch of a moral loafer that comes along cries “No! Man -should be different!” He even knows what man should be like, does this -sanctimonious prig: he draws his own face on the wall and declares: -“_ecce homo!_” But even when the moralist addresses himself only to the -individual and says “thus and thus shouldst thou be!” he still makes -an ass of himself. The individual in his past and future is a piece of -fate, one law the more, one necessity the more for all that is to come -and is to be. To say to him “change thyself,” is tantamount to saying -that everything should change, even backwards as well. Truly these have -been consistent moralists, they wished man to be different, _i.e._, -virtuous; they wished him to be after their own image,—that is to say -sanctimonious humbugs. And to this end they denied the world! No slight -form of insanity! No modest form of immodesty! Morality, in so far it -condemns _per se,_ and _not_ out of any aim, consideration or motive of -life, is a specific error, for which no one should feel any mercy, a -degenerate idiosyncrasy, that has done an unutterable amount of harm. -We others, we immoralists, on the contrary, have opened our hearts -wide to all kinds of comprehension, understanding and approbation.[1] -We do not deny readily, we glory in saying yea to things. Our eyes -have opened ever wider and wider to that economy which still employs -and knows how to use to its own advantage all that which the sacred -craziness of priests and the morbid reason in priests, rejects; to -that economy in the law of life which draws its own advantage even out -of the repulsive race of bigots, the priests and the virtuous,—what -advantage?—But we ourselves, we immoralists, are the reply to this -question. - -[1] _Cf._ Spinoza, who says in the _Tractatus politico_ (1677), Chap. -I, § 4: _“Sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere, non tugert, -negue detestari, sed intelligere”_ (“I have carefully endeavoured not -to deride, or deplore, or detest human actions, but to understand -them.”).—TR. - - - - -THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS - - -1 - -_The error of the confusion of cause and effect.—_There is no more -dangerous error than to confound the effect with the cause: I call -this error the intrinsic perversion of reason. Nevertheless this error -is one of the most ancient and most recent habits of mankind. In one -part of the world it has even been canonised; and it bears the name of -“Religion” and “Morality.” Every postulate formulated by religion and -morality contains it. Priests and the promulgators of moral laws are the -promoters of this perversion of reason.—Let me give you an example. -Everybody knows the book of the famous Cornaro, in which he recommends -his slender diet as the recipe for a long, happy and also virtuous -life. Few books have been so widely read, and to this day many thousand -copies of it are still printed annually in England. I do not doubt that -there is scarcely a single book (the Bible of course excepted) that -has worked more mischief, shortened more lives, than this well-meant -curiosity. The reason of this is the confusion of effect and cause. -This worthy Italian saw the cause of his long life in his diet: whereas -the prerequisites of long life, which are exceptional slowness of -molecular change, and a low rate of expenditure in energy, were the -cause of his meagre diet He was not at liberty to eat a small or a -great amount. His frugality was not the result of free choice, he would -have been ill had he eaten more. He who does not happen to be a carp, -however, is not only wise to eat well, but is also compelled to do so. -A scholar of the present day, with his rapid consumption of nervous -energy, would soon go to the dogs on Cornaro’s diet. _Crede experto._— - - -2 - -The most general principle lying at the root of every religion and -morality, is this: “Do this and that and avoid this and that—and -thou wilt be happy. Otherwise——.” Every morality and every -religion is this Imperative—I call it the great original sin of -reason,—_immortal unreason._ In my mouth this principle is converted -into its opposite—first example of my “Transvaluation of all Values”: -a well-constituted man, a man who is one of “Nature’s lucky strokes,” -_must_ perform certain actions and instinctively fear other actions; -he introduces the element of order, of which he is the physiological -manifestation, into his relations with men and things. In a formula: -his virtue is the consequence of his good constitution. Longevity -and plentiful offspring are not the reward of virtue, virtue itself -is on the contrary that retardation of the metabolic process which, -among other things, results in a long life and in plentiful offspring, -in short in _Cornarism._ The Church and morality say: “A race, a -people perish through vice and luxury.” My reinstated reason says: -when a people are going to the dogs, when they are degenerating -physiologically, vice and luxury (that is to say, the need of ever -stronger and more frequent stimuli such as all exhausted natures are -acquainted with) are bound to result. Such and such a young man grows -pale and withered prematurely. His friends say this or that illness -is the cause of it I say: the fact that he became ill, the fact that -he did not resist illness, was in itself already the outcome of -impoverished life, of hereditary exhaustion. The newspaper reader says: -such and such a party by committing such an error will meet its death. -My superior politics say: a party that can make such mistakes, is in -its last agony—it no longer possesses any certainty of instinct. Every -mistake is in every sense the sequel to degeneration of the instincts, -to disintegration of the will. This is almost the definition of evil, -Everything valuable is instinct—and consequently easy, necessary, -free. Exertion is an objection, the god is characteristically different -from the hero (in my language: light feet are the first attribute of -divinity). - - -3 - -_The error of false causality._ In all ages men have believed that -they knew what a cause was: but whence did we derive this knowledge, -or more accurately, this faith in the fact that we know? Out of the -realm of the famous “inner facts of consciousness,” not one of which -has yet proved itself to be a fact We believed ourselves to be causes -even in the action of the will; we thought that in this matter at -least we caught causality red-handed. No one doubted that all the -_antecedentia_ of an action were to be sought in consciousness, and -could be discovered there—as “motive”—if only they were sought. -Otherwise we should not be free to perform them, we should not have -been responsible for them. Finally who would have questioned that a -thought is caused? that the ego causes the thought? Of these three -“facts of inner consciousness” by means of which causality seemed to -be guaranteed, the first and most convincing is that of the will as -cause; the conception of consciousness (“spirit”) as a cause, and -subsequently that of the ego (the “subject”) as a cause, were merely -born afterwards, once the causality of the will stood established -as “given,” as a fact of experience. Meanwhile we have come to our -senses. To-day we no longer believe a word of all this. The “inner -world” is full of phantoms and will-o’-the-wisps: the will is one of -these. The will no longer actuates, consequently it no longer explains -anything—all it does is to accompany processes; it may even be absent. -The so-called “motive” is another error. It is merely a ripple on -the surface of consciousness, a side issue of the action, which is -much more likely to conceal than to reveal the _antecedentia_ of the -latter. And as for the ego! It has become legendary, fictional, a -play upon words: it has ceased utterly and completely from thinking, -feeling, and willing! What is the result of it all? There are no such -things as spiritual causes. The whole of popular experience on this -subject went to the devil! That is the result of it all. For we had -blissfully abused that experience, we had built the world upon it as a -world of causes, as a world of will, as a world of spirit. The most -antiquated and most traditional psychology has been at work here, it -has done nothing else: all phenomena were deeds in the light of this -psychology, and all deeds were the result of will; according to it the -world was a complex mechanism of agents, an agent (a “subject”) lay -at the root of all things. Man projected his three “inner facts of -consciousness,” the will, the spirit, and the ego in which he believed -most firmly, outside himself. He first deduced the concept Being out -of the concept Ego, he supposed “things” to exist as he did himself, -according to his notion of the ego as cause. Was it to be wondered at -that later on he always found in things only that which he had laid -in them?—The thing itself, I repeat, the concept thing was merely a -reflex of the belief in the ego as cause. And even your atom, my dear -good Mechanists and Physicists, what an amount of error, of rudimentary -psychology still adheres to it!—Not to speak of the “thing-in-itself,” -of the _horrendum pudendum_ of the metaphysicians! The error of spirit -regarded as a cause, confounded with reality! And made the measure of -reality! And called _God!_ - - -4 - -_The Error of imaginary Causes._ Starting out from dreamland, we -find that to any definite sensation, like that produced by a distant -cannon shot for instance, we are wont to ascribe a cause after the -fact (very often quite a little romance in which the dreamer himself -is, of course, the hero). Meanwhile the sensation becomes protracted -like a sort of continuous echo, until, as it were, the instinct of -causality allows it to come to the front rank, no longer however as a -chance occurrence, but as a thing which has some meaning. The cannon -shot presents itself in a _causal_ manner, by means of an apparent -reversal in the order of time. That which occurs last, the motivation, -is experienced first, often with a hundred details which flash past -like lightning, and the shot is the _result._ What has happened? The -ideas suggested by a particular state of our senses, are misinterpreted -as the cause of that state. As a matter of fact we proceed in precisely -the same manner when we are awake. The greater number of our general -sensations—every kind of obstacle, pressure, tension, explosion in -the interplay of the organs, and more particularly the condition of -the _nervus sympathies_—stimulate our instinct of causality: we will -have a reason which will account for our feeling thus or thus,—for -feeling ill or well. We are never satisfied by merely ascertaining -the fact that we feel thus or thus: we admit this fact—we become -conscious of it—only when we have attributed it to some kind of -motivation. Memory, which, in such circumstances unconsciously becomes -active, adduces former conditions of a like kind, together with the -causal interpretations with which they are associated,—but not their -real cause. The belief that the ideas, the accompanying processes -of consciousness, have been the causes, is certainly produced by -the agency of memory. And in this way we become _accustomed_ to a -particular interpretation of causes which, truth to tell, actually -hinders and even utterly prevents the investigation of the proper -cause. - - -5 - -_The Psychological Explanation of the above Fact._ To trace something -unfamiliar back to something familiar, is at once a relief, a comfort -and a satisfaction, while it also produces a feeling of power. The -unfamiliar involves danger, anxiety and care,—the fundamental instinct -is to get rid of these painful circumstances. First principle: any -explanation is better than none at all. Since, at bottom, it is -only a question of shaking one’s self free from certain oppressive -ideas, the means employed to this end are not selected with overmuch -punctiliousness: the first idea by means of which the unfamiliar is -revealed as familiar, produces a feeling of such comfort that it is -“held to be true.” The proof of happiness (“of power”) as the criterion -of truth. The instinct of causality is therefore conditioned and -stimulated by the feeling of fear. Whenever possible, the question -“why?” should not only educe the cause as cause, but rather a certain -kind of cause—a comforting, liberating and reassuring cause. The first -result of this need is that something known or already experienced, and -recorded in the memory, is posited as the cause. The new factor, that -which has not been experienced and which is unfamiliar, is excluded -from the sphere of causes. Not only do we try to find a certain kind -of explanation as the cause, but those kinds of explanations are -selected and preferred which dissipate most rapidly the sensation of -strangeness, novelty and unfamiliarity,—in fact the most ordinary -explanations. And the result is that a certain manner of postulating -causes tends to predominate ever more and more, becomes concentrated -into a system, and finally reigns supreme, to the complete exclusion -of all other causes and explanations. The banker thinks immediately of -business, the Christian of “sin,” and the girl of her love affair. - - -6 - -_The whole Domain of Morality and Religion may be classified under the -Rubric “Imaginary Causes.”_ The “explanation” of general unpleasant -sensations. These sensations are dependent upon certain creatures who -are hostile to us (evil spirits: the most famous example of this—the -mistaking of hysterical women for witches). These sensations are -dependent upon actions which are reprehensible (the feeling of “sin,” -“sinfulness” is a manner of accounting for a certain physiological -disorder—people always find reasons for being dissatisfied with -themselves). These sensations depend upon punishment, upon compensation -for something which we ought not to have done, which we ought not -to have been (this idea was generalised in a more impudent form by -Schopenhauer, into that principle in which morality appears in its real -colours,—that is to say, as a veritable poisoner and slanderer of -life: “all great suffering, whether mental or physical, reveals what -we deserve: for it could not visit us if we did not deserve it,” “The -World as Will and Idea,” vol. 2, p. 666). These sensations are the -outcome of ill-considered actions, having evil consequences, (—the -passions, the senses, postulated as causes, as guilty. By means of -other calamities distressing physiological conditions are interpreted -as “merited”).—The “explanation” of pleasant sensations. These -sensations are dependent upon a trust in God. They may depend upon -our consciousness of having done one or two good actions (a so-called -“good conscience” is a physiological condition, which may be the -outcome of good digestion). They may depend upon the happy issue of -certain undertakings (—an ingenuous mistake: the happy issue of an -undertaking certainly does not give a hypochondriac or a Pascal any -general sensation of pleasure). They may depend upon faith, love and -hope,—the Christian virtues. As a matter of fact all these pretended -explanations are but the results of certain states, and as it were -translations of feelings of pleasure and pain into a false dialect: a -man is in a condition of hopefulness because the dominant physiological -sensation of his being is again one of strength and wealth; he trusts -in God because the feeling of abundance and power gives him a peaceful -state of mind. Morality and religion are completely and utterly parts -of the psychology of error: in every particular case cause and effect -are confounded; as truth is confounded with the effect of that which is -believed to be true; or a certain state of consciousness is confounded -with the chain of causes which brought it about. - - -7 - -_The Error of Free-Will._ At present we no longer have any mercy upon -the concept “free-will”: we know only too well what it is—the most -egregious theological trick that has ever existed for the purpose of -making mankind “responsible” in a theological manner,—that is to -say, to make mankind dependent upon theologians. I will now explain -to you only the psychology of the whole process of inculcating the -sense of responsibility. Wherever men try to trace responsibility -home to anyone, it is the instinct of punishment and of the desire -to judge which is active. Becoming is robbed of its innocence when -any particular condition of things is traced to a will, to intentions -and to responsible actions. The doctrine of the will was invented -principally for the purpose of punishment,—that is to say, with -the intention of tracing guilt. The whole of ancient psychology, -or the psychology of the will, is the outcome of the fact that its -originators, who were the priests at the head of ancient communities, -wanted to create for themselves a right to administer punishments—or -the right for God to do so. Men were thought of as “free” in order that -they might be judged and punished—in order that they might be held -guilty: consequently every action had to be regarded as voluntary, -and the origin of every action had to be imagined as lying in -consciousness(—in this way the most fundamentally fraudulent character -of psychology was established as the very principle of psychology -itself). Now that we have entered upon the opposite movement, now that -we immoralists are trying with all our power to eliminate the concepts -of guilt and punishment from the world once more, and to cleanse -psychology, history, nature and all social institutions and customs -of all signs of those two concepts, we recognise no more radical -opponents than the theologians, who with their notion of “a moral order -of things,” still continue to pollute the innocence of Becoming with -punishment and guilt Christianity is the metaphysics of the hangman. - - -8 - -What then, alone, can our teaching be?—That no one gives man his -qualities, neither God, society, his parents, his ancestors, nor -himself (—this nonsensical idea which is at last refuted here, was -taught as “intelligible freedom” by Kant, and perhaps even as early -as Plato himself). No one is responsible for the fact that he exists -at all, that he is constituted as he is, and that he happens to be in -certain circumstances and in a particular environment. The fatality of -his being cannot be divorced from the fatality of all that which has -been and will be. This is not the result of an individual intention, -of a will, of an aim, there is no attempt at attaining to any “ideal -man,” or “ideal happiness” or “ideal morality” with him,—it is absurd -to wish him to be careering towards some sort of purpose. _We_ invented -the concept “purpose”; in reality purpose is altogether lacking. One -is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is -in the whole,—there is nothing that could judge, measure, compare, -and condemn our existence, for that would mean judging, measuring, -comparing and condemning the whole. _But there is nothing outside the -whole!_ The fact that no one shall any longer be made responsible, that -the nature of existence may not be traced to a _causa prima_, that the -world is an entity neither as a sensorium nor as a spirit—_this alone -is the great deliverance_,—thus alone is the innocence of Becoming -restored.... The concept “God” has been the greatest objection to -existence hitherto.... We deny God, we deny responsibility in God: thus -alone do we save the world.— - - - - -THE “IMPROVERS” OF MANKIND - - -1 - -You are aware of my demand upon philosophers, that they should take -up a stand Beyond Good and Evil,—that they should have the illusion -of the moral judgment beneath them. This demand is the result of a -point of view which I was the first to formulate: _that there are no -such things as moral facts._ Moral judgment has this in common with -the religious one, that it believes in realities which are not real. -Morality is only an interpretation of certain phenomena: or, more -strictly speaking, a misinterpretation of them. Moral judgment, like -the religious one, belongs to a stage of ignorance in which even the -concept of reality, the distinction between real and imagined things, -is still lacking: so that truth, at such a stage, is applied to a host -of things which to-day we call “imaginary.” That is why the moral -judgment must never be taken quite literally: as such it is sheer -nonsense. As a sign code, however, it is invaluable: to him at least -who knows, it reveals the most valuable facts concerning cultures and -inner conditions, which did not know enough to “understand” themselves. -Morality is merely a sign-language, simply symptomatology: one must -already know what it is all about in order to turn it to any use. - - -2 - -Let me give you one example, quite provisionally. In all ages there -have been people who wished to “improve” mankind: this above all -is what was called morality. But the most different tendencies -are concealed beneath the same word. Both the taming of the beast -man, and the rearing of a particular type of man, have been called -“improvement”: these zoological _termini,_ alone, represent real -things—real things of which the typical “improver,” the priest, -naturally knows nothing, and will know nothing. To call the taming -of an animal “improving” it, sounds to our ears almost like a joke. -He who knows what goes on in menageries, doubts very much whether an -animal is improved in such places. It is certainly weakened, it is -made less dangerous, and by means of the depressing influence of fear, -pain, wounds, and hunger, it is converted into a sick animal. And the -same holds good of the tamed man whom the priest has “improved.” In -the early years of the Middle Ages, during which the Church was most -distinctly and above all a menagerie, the most beautiful examples of -the “blond beast” were hunted down in all directions,—the noble -Germans, for instance, were “improved.” But what did this “improved” -German, who had been lured to the monastery look like after the -process? He looked like a caricature of man, like an abortion: he had -become a “sinner,” he was caged up, he had been imprisoned behind a -host of apparling notions. He now lay there, sick, wretched, malevolent -even toward himself: full of hate for the instincts of life, full of -suspicion in regard to all that is still strong and happy. In short a -“Christian.” In physiological terms: in a fight with an animal, the -only way of making it weak may be to make it sick. The Church undersood -this: it ruined man, it made him weak,—but it laid claim to having -“improved” him. - - -3 - -Now let us consider the other case which is called morality, the -case of the rearing of a particular race and species. The most -magnificent example of this is offered by Indian morality, and is -sanctioned religiously as the “Law of Manu.” In this book the task -is set of rearing no less than four races at once: a priestly race, -a warrior race, a merchant and agricultural race, and finally a race -of servants—the Sudras. It is quite obvious that we are no longer -in a circus watching tamers of wild animals in this book. To have -conceived even the plan of such a breeding scheme, presupposes the -existence of a man who is a hundred times milder and more reasonable -than the mere lion-tamer. One breathes more freely, after stepping out -of the Christian atmosphere of hospitals and prisons, into this more -salubrious, loftier and more spacious world. What a wretched thing the -New Testament is beside Manu, what an evil odour hangs around it!—But -even this organisation found it necessary to be terrible,—not this -time in a struggle with the animal-man, but with his opposite, the -non-caste man, the hotch-potch man, the Chandala. And once again it -had no other means of making him weak and harmless, than by making -him sick,—it was the struggle with the greatest “number.” Nothing -perhaps is more offensive to our feelings than these measures of -security on the part of Indian morality. The third edict, for instance -(Avadana-Sastra I.), which treats “of impure vegetables,” ordains that -the only nourishment that the Chandala should be allowed must consist -of garlic and onions, as the holy scriptures forbid their being given -corn or grain-bearing fruit, water and fire. The same edict declares -that the water which they need must be drawn neither out of rivers, -wells or ponds, but only out of the ditches leading to swamps and out -of the holes left by the footprints of animals. They are likewise -forbidden to wash either their linen or themselves since the water -which is graciously granted to them must only be used for quenching -their thirst. Finally Sudra women are forbidden to assist Chandala -women at their confinements, while Chandala women are also forbidden to -assist each other at such times. The results of sanitary regulations of -this kind could not fail to make themselves felt; deadly epidemics and -the most ghastly venereal diseases soon appeared, and in consequence -of these again “the Law of the Knife,”—that is to say circumcision, -was prescribed for male children and the removal of the small labia -from the females. Manu himself says: “the Chandala are the fruit of -adultery, incest, and crime (—this is the necessary consequence of the -idea of breeding). Their clothes shall consist only of the rags torn -from corpses, their vessels shall be the fragments of broken pottery, -their ornaments shall be made of old iron, and their religion shall be -the worship of evil spirits; without rest they shall wander from place -to place. They are forbidden to write from left to right or to use -their right hand in writing: the use of the right hand and writing from -left to right are reserved to people of virtue, to people of race.” - - -4 - -These regulations are instructive enough: we can see in them the -absolutely pure and primeval humanity of the Aryans,—we learn that -the notion “pure blood,” is the reverse of harmless. On the other hand -it becomes clear among which people the hatred, the Chandala hatred -of this humanity has been immortalised, among which people it has -become religion and genius. From this point of view the gospels are -documents of the highest value; and the Book of Enoch is still more -so. Christianity as sprung from Jewish roots and comprehensible only -as grown upon this soil, represents the counter-movement against that -morality of breeding, of race and of privilege:—it is essentially an -anti-Aryan religion: Christianity is the transvaluation of all Aryan -values, the triumph of Chandala values, the proclaimed gospel of the -poor and of the low, the general insurrection of all the down-trodden, -the wretched, the bungled and the botched, against the “race,”—the -immortal revenge of the Chandala as the _religion of love._ - - -5 - -The morality of breeding and the morality of taming, in the means which -they adopt in order to prevail, are quite worthy of each other: we may -lay down as a leading principle that in order to create morality a -man must have the absolute will to immorality. This is the great and -strange problem with which I have so long been occupied: the psychology -of the “Improvers” of mankind. A small, and at bottom perfectly -insignificant fact, known as the “_pia fraus_,” first gave me access -to this problem: the _pia fraus_, the heirloom of all philosophers and -priests who “improve” mankind. Neither Manu, nor Plato, nor Confucius, -nor the teachers of Judaism and Christianity, have ever doubted their -right to falsehood. They have never doubted their right to quite a -number of other things To express oneself in a formula, one might -say:—all means which have been used heretofore with the object of -making man moral, were through and through immoral. - - - - -THINGS THE GERMANS LACK - - -1 - -Among Germans at the present day it does not suffice to have intellect; -one is actually forced to appropriate it, to lay claim to it. - -Maybe I know the Germans, perhaps I may tell them a few home-truths. -Modern Germany represents such an enormous store of inherited and -acquired capacity, that for some time it might spend this accumulated -treasure even with some prodigality. It is no superior culture that has -ultimately become prevalent with this modern tendency, nor is it by any -means delicate taste, or noble beauty of the instincts; but rather a -number of virtues more manly than any that other European countries can -show. An amount of good spirits and self-respect, plenty of firmness -in human relations and in the reciprocity of duties; much industry and -much perseverance—and a certain inherited soberness which is much more -in need of a spur than of a brake. Let me add that in this country -people still obey without feeling that obedience humiliates. And no one -despises his opponent. - -You observe that it is my desire to be fair to the Germans: and in this -respect I should not like to be untrue to myself,—I must therefore -also state my objections to them. It costs a good deal to attain to a -position of power; for power _stultifies._ The Germans—they were once -called a people of thinkers: do they really think at all at present? -Nowadays the Germans are bored by intellect, they mistrust intellect; -politics have swallowed up all earnestness for really intellectual -things—“Germany, Germany above all.”[1] I fear this was the death-blow -to German philosophy. “Are there any German philosophers? Are there any -German poets? Are there any good German books?” people ask me abroad. I -blush; but with that pluck which is peculiar to me, even in moments of -desperation, I reply: “Yes, Bismarck!”—Could I have dared to confess -what books _are_ read to-day? Cursed instinct of mediocrity!— - - -2 - -What might not German intellect have been!—who has not thought sadly -upon this question! But this nation has deliberately stultified itself -for almost a thousand years: nowhere else have the two great European -narcotics, alcohol and Christianity, been so viciously abused as in -Germany. Recently a third opiate was added to the list, one which in -itself alone would have sufficed to complete the ruin of all subtle -and daring intellectual animation, I speak of music, our costive and -constipating German music. How much peevish ponderousness, paralysis, -dampness, dressing-gown languor, and beer is there not in German -intelligence! - -How is it really possible that young men who consecrate their whole -lives to the pursuit of intellectual ends, should not feel within them -the first instinct of intellectuality, the _self-preservative instinct -of the intellect_—and should drink beer? The alcoholism of learned -youths does not incapacitate them for becoming scholars—a man quite -devoid of intellect may be a great scholar,—but it is a problem in -every other respect. Where can that soft degeneracy not be found, which -is produced in the intellect by beer! I once laid my finger upon a case -of this sort, which became almost famous,—the degeneration of our -leading German free-spirit, the _clever_ David Strauss, into the author -of a suburban gospel and New Faith. Not in vain had he sung the praises -of “the dear old brown liquor” in verse—true unto death. - - -3 - -I have spoken of German intellect. I have said that it is becoming -coarser and shallower. Is that enough?—In reality something very -different frightens me, and that is the ever steady decline of -German earnestness, German profundity, and German passion in things -intellectual. Not only intellectuality, but also pathos has altered. -From time to time I come in touch with German universities; what -an extraordinary atmosphere prevails among their scholars! what -barrenness! and what self-satisfied and lukewarm intellectuality! For -any one to point to German science as an argument against me would show -that he grossly misunderstood my meaning, while it would also prove -that he had not read a word of my writings. For seventeen years I -have done little else than expose the de-intellectualising influence -of our modern scientific studies. The severe slavery to which every -individual nowadays is condemned by the enormous range covered by the -sciences, is the chief reason why fuller, richer and profounder natures -can find no education or educators that are fit for them. Nothing -is more deleterious to this age than the superfluity of pretentious -loafers and fragmentary human beings; our universities are really -the involuntary forcing houses for this kind of withering-up of the -instincts of intellectuality. And the whole of Europe is beginning -to know this—politics on a large scale deceive no one. Germany is -becoming ever more and more the Flat-land of Europe. I am still in -search of a German with whom I could be serious after my own fashion. -And how much more am I in search of one with whom I could be cheerful -_—The Twilight of the Idols:_ ah! what man to-day would be capable -of understanding the kind of seriousness from which a philosopher is -recovering in this work! It is our cheerfulness that people understand -least. - - -4 - -Let us examine another aspect of the question: it is not only obvious -that German culture is declining, but adequate reasons for this decline -are not lacking. After all, nobody can spend more than he has:—this -is true of individuals, it is also true of nations. If you spend -your strength in acquiring power, or in politics on a large scale, -or in economy, or in universal commerce, or in parliamentarism, or -in military interests—if you dissipate the modicum of reason, of -earnestness, of will, and of self-control that constitutes your nature -in one particular fashion, you cannot dissipate it in another. Culture -and the state—let no one be deceived on this point—are antagonists: -A “culture-state”[2] is merely a modern idea. The one lives upon -the other, the one flourishes at the expense of the other. All great -periods of culture have been periods of political decline; that which -is great from the standpoint of culture, was always unpolitical—even -anti-political. Goethe’s heart opened at the coming of Napoleon—it -closed at the thought of the “Wars of Liberation.” At the very moment -when Germany arose as a great power in the world of politics, France -won new importance as a force in the world of culture. Even at this -moment a large amount of fresh intellectual earnestness and passion -has emigrated to Paris; the question of pessimism, for instance, -and the question of Wagner; in France almost all psychological and -artistic questions are considered with incomparably more subtlety and -thoroughness than they are in Germany,—the Germans are even incapable -of this kind of earnestness. In the history of European culture the -rise of the Empire signifies, above all, a displacement of the centre -of gravity. Everywhere people are already aware of this: in things that -really matter—and these after all constitute culture,—the Germans -are no longer worth considering. I ask you, can you show me one single -man of brains who could be mentioned in the same breath with other -European thinkers, like your Goethe, your Hegel, your Heinrich Heine, -and your Schopenhauer?—The fact that there is no longer a single -German philosopher worth mentioning is an increasing wonder. - - -5 - -Everything that matters has been lost sight of by the whole of the -higher educational system of Germany: the end quite as much as the -means to that end. People forget that education, the process of -cultivation itself, is the end—and not “the Empire”—they forget that -the _educator_ is required for this end—and not the public-school -teacher and university scholar. Educators are needed who are themselves -educated, superior and noble intellects, who can prove that they are -thus qualified, that they are ripe and mellow products of culture -at every moment of their lives, in word and in gesture;—not the -learned louts who, like “superior wet-nurses,” are now thrust upon the -youth of the land by public schools and universities. With but rare -exceptions, that which is lacking in Germany is the first prerequisite -of education—that is to say, the educators; hence the decline of -German culture. One of those rarest exceptions is my highly respected -friend Jacob Burckhardt of Bâle: to him above all is Bâle indebted -for its foremost position in human culture What the higher schools -of Germany really do accomplish is this, they brutally train a vast -crowd of young men, in the smallest amount of time possible, to become -useful and exploitable servants of the state. “Higher education” -and a vast crowd—these terms contradict each other from the start. -All superior education can only concern the exception: a man must be -privileged in order to have a right to such a great privilege. All -great and beautiful things cannot be a common possession: _pulchrum -est paucorum hominum._—What is it that brings about the decline of -German culture? The fact that “higher education” is no longer a special -privilege—the democracy of a process of cultivation that has become -“general,” _common._ Nor must it be forgotten that the privileges of -the military profession by urging many too many to attend the higher -schools, involve the downfall of the latter. In modern Germany nobody -is at liberty to give his children a noble education: in regard to -their teachers, their curricula, and their educational aims, our higher -schools are one and all established upon a fundamentally doubtful -mediocre basis. Everywhere, too, a hastiness which is unbecoming rules -supreme; just as if something would be forfeited if the young man were -not “finished” at the age of twenty-three, or did not know how to -reply to the most essential question, “which calling to choose?”—The -superior kind of man, if you please, does not like “callings,” -precisely because he knows himself to be called. He has time, he takes -time, he cannot possibly think of becoming “finished,”—in the matter -of higher culture, a man of thirty years is a beginner, a child. Our -overcrowded public-schools, our accumulation of foolishly manufactured -public-school masters, are a scandal: maybe there are very serious -_motives_ for defending this state of affairs, as was shown quite -recently by the professors of Heidelberg; but there can be no reasons -for doing so. - - -6 - -In order to be true to my nature, which is affirmative and which -concerns itself with contradictions and criticism only indirectly -and with reluctance, let me state at once what the three objects -are for which we need educators. People must learn to see; they -must learn to think, and they must learn to speak and to write: the -object of all three of these pursuits is a noble culture. To learn -to see—to accustom the eye to calmness, to patience, and to allow -things to come up to it; to defer judgment, and to acquire the habit -of approaching and grasping an individual case from all sides. This -is the first preparatory schooling of intellectuality. One must not -respond immediately to a stimulus; one must acquire a command of the -obstructing and isolating instincts. To learn to see, as I understand -this matter, amounts almost to that which in popular language is -called “strength of will”: its essential feature is precisely _not_ -to _wish_ to see, to be able to postpone one’s decision. All lack of -intellectuality, all vulgarity, arises out of the inability to resist -a stimulus:—one must respond or react, every impulse is indulged. In -many cases such necessary action is already a sign of morbidity, of -decline, and a symptom of exhaustion. Almost everything that coarse -popular language characterises as vicious, is merely that physiological -inability to refrain from reacting.—As an instance of what it means -to have learnt to see, let me state that a man thus trained will as a -learner have become generally slow, suspicious, and refractory. With -hostile calm he will first allow every kind of strange and _new_ thing -to come right up to him,—he will draw back his hand at its approach. -To stand with all the doors of one’s soul wide open, to lie slavishly -in the dust before every trivial fact, at all times of the day to be -strained ready for the leap, in order to deposit one’s self, to plunge -one’s self, into other souls and other things, in short, the famous -“objectivity” of modern times, is bad taste, it is essentially vulgar -and cheap. - - -7 - -As to learning how to think—our schools no longer have any notion -of such a thing. Even at the universities, among the actual scholars -in philosophy, logic as a theory, as a practical pursuit, and as a -business, is beginning to die out. Turn to any German book: you will -not find the remotest trace of a realisation that there is such a -thing as a technique, a plan of study, a will to mastery, in the -matter of thinking,—that thinking insists upon being learnt, just -as dancing insists upon being learnt, and that thinking insists upon -being learnt as a form of dancing. What single German can still say he -knows from experience that delicate shudder which _light footfalls_ -in matters intellectual cause to pervade his whole body and limbs! -Stiff awkwardness in intellectual attitudes, and the clumsy fist in -grasping—these things are so essentially German, that outside Germany -they are absolutely confounded with the German spirit. The German -has no fingers for delicate _nuances. _ The fact that the people of -Germany have actually tolerated their philosophers, more particularly -that most deformed cripple of ideas that has ever existed—the great -Kant, gives one no inadequate notion of their native elegance. For, -truth to tell, dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the -curriculum of all noble education: dancing with the feet, with ideas, -with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with -the pen—that one must learn how to write?—But at this stage I should -become utterly enigmatical to German readers. - - -[1] The German national hymn: “_Deutschland, Deutschland über -alles.—_” TR. - -[2] The word _Kultur-Staat_ “culture-state” has become a standard -expression in the German language, and is applied to the leading -European States.—TR. - - - - -SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE - - -1 - -_My Impossible People._—Seneca, or the toreador of virtue—-Rousseau, -or the return to nature, _in impuris naturalibus._—Schiller, or the -Moral-Trumpeter of Sackingen.—Dante, or the hyæna that writes poetry -in tombs.—Kant, or _cant_ as an intelligible character.—Victor -Hugo, or the lighthouse on the sea of nonsense.—Liszt, or the -school of racing—after women.—George Sand, or _lactea ubertas,_ -in plain English: the cow with plenty of beautiful milk.—Michelet, -or enthusiasm in its shirt sleeves.—Carlyle, or Pessimism after -undigested meals.—John Stuart Mill, or offensive lucidity.—The -brothers Goncourt, or the two Ajaxes fighting with Homer. Music by -Offenbach.—Zola, or the love of stinking. - - -2 - -_Renan._—Theology, or the corruption of reason by original sin -(Christianity). Proof of this,—Renan who, even in those rare cases -where he ventures to say either Yes or No on a general question, -invariably misses the point with painful regularity. For instance, -he would fain associate science and nobility: but surely it must be -obvious that science is democratic. He seems to be actuated by a -strong desire to represent an aristocracy of intellect: but, at the -same time he grovels on his knees, and not only on his knees, before -the opposite doctrine, the gospel of the humble. What is the good of -all free-spiritedness, modernity, mockery and acrobatic suppleness, -if in one’s belly one is still a Christian, a Catholic, and even a -priest! Renan’s forte, precisely like that of a Jesuit and Father -Confessor, lies in his seductiveness. His intellectuality is not -devoid of that unctuous complacency of a parson,—like all priests, he -becomes dangerous only when he loves. He is second to none in the art -of skilfully worshipping a dangerous thing. This intellect of Renan’s, -which in its action is enervating, is one calamity the more, for poor, -sick France with her will-power all going to pieces. - - -3 - -_Sainte-Beuve._—There is naught of man in him; he is full of petty -spite towards all virile spirits. He wanders erratically; he is subtle, -inquisitive, a little bored, for ever with his ear to key-holes,—at -bottom a woman, with all woman’s revengefulness and sensuality. As a -psychologist he is a genius of slander; inexhaustively rich in means -to this end; no one understands better than he how to introduce a -little poison into praise. In his fundamental instincts he is plebeian -and next of kin to Rousseau’s resentful spirit: consequently he is -a Romanticist—for beneath all romanticism Rousseau’s instinct for -revenge grunts and frets. He is a revolutionary, but kept within -bounds by “funk.” He is embarrassed in the face of everything that is -strong (public opinion, the Academy, the court, even Port Royal). He -is embittered against everything great in men and things, against -everything that believes in itself. Enough of a poet and of a female to -be able to feel greatness as power; he is always turning and twisting, -because, like the proverbial worm, he constantly feels that he is -being trodden upon. As a critic he has no standard of judgment, no -guiding principle, no backbone. Although he possesses the tongue of -the Cosmopolitan libertine which can chatter about a thousand things, -he has not the courage even to acknowledge his _libertinage._ As a -historian he has no philosophy, and lacks the power of philosophical -vision,—hence his refusal to act the part of a judge, and his adoption -of the mask of “objectivity” in all important matters. His attitude -is better in regard to all those things in which subtle and effete -taste is the highest tribunal: in these things he really does have -the courage of his own personality—he really does enjoy his own -nature—he actually is a _master,_—In some respects he is a prototype -of Baudelaire. - - -4 - -“_The Imitation of Christ_” is one of those books which I cannot even -take hold of without physical loathing: it exhales a perfume of the -eternally feminine, which to appreciate fully one must be a Frenchman -or a Wagnerite. This saint has a way of speaking about love which -makes even Parisiennes feel a little curious.—I am told that that -_most intelligent_ of Jesuits, Auguste Comte, who wished to lead his -compatriots back to Rome by the circuitous route of science, drew his -inspiration from this book. And I believe it: “The religion of the -heart.” - - -5 - -_G. Eliot._—They are rid of the Christian God and therefore -think it all the more incumbent upon them to hold tight to Christian -morality: this is an English way of reasoning; but let us not take it -ill in moral females _à la_ Eliot. In England, every man who indulges -in any trifling emancipation from theology, must retrieve his honour -in the most terrifying manner by becoming a moral fanatic. That is how -they do penance in that country.—As for us, we act differently. When -we renounce the Christian faith, we abandon all right to Christian -morality. This is not by any means self-evident and in defiance of -English shallow-pates the point must be made ever more and more plain. -Christianity is a system, a complete outlook upon the world, conceived -as a whole. If its leading concept, the belief in God, is wrenched -from it, the whole is destroyed; nothing vital remains in our grasp. -Christianity presupposes that man does not and cannot know what is -good or bad for him: the Christian believes in God who, alone, can -know these things. Christian morality is a command, its origin is -transcendental. It is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; -it is true only on condition that God is truth,—it stands or falls -with the belief in God. If the English really believe that they know -intuitively, and of their own accord, what is good and evil; if, -therefore, they assert that they no longer need Christianity as a -guarantee of morality, this in itself is simply the outcome of the -dominion of Christian valuations, and a proof of the strength and -profundity of this dominion. It only shows that the origin of English -morality has been forgotten, and that its exceedingly relative right to -exist is no longer felt. For Englishmen morality is not yet a problem. - - -6 - -_George Sand._—I have been reading the first “_Lettres d’un -Voyageur_:” like everything that springs from Rousseau’s influence -it is false, made-up, blown out, and exaggerated! I cannot endure -this bright wall-paper style, any more than I can bear the vulgar -striving after generous feelings. The worst feature about it is -certainly the coquettish adoption of male attributes by this female, -after the manner of ill-bred schoolboys. And how cold she must have -been inwardly all the while, this insufferable artist! She wound -herself up like a clock—and wrote. As cold as Hugo and Balzac, as -cold as all Romanticists are as soon as they begin to write! And how -self-complacently she must have lain there, this prolific ink-yielding -cow. For she had something German in her (German in the bad sense), -just as Rousseau, her master, had;—something which could only have -been possible when French taste was declining!—and Renan adores her!... - - -7 - -_A Moral for Psychologists._ Do not go in for any note-book psychology! -Never observe for the sake of observing! Such things lead to a false -point of view, to a squint, to something forced and exaggerated. -To experience things on purpose—this is not a bit of good. In the -midst of an experience a man should not turn his eyes upon himself; -in such cases any eye becomes the “evil eye.” A born psychologist -instinctively avoids seeing for the sake of seeing. And the same holds -good of the born painter. Such a man never works “from nature,”—he -leaves it to his instinct, to his _camera obscura_ to sift and to -define the “fact,” “nature,” the “experience.” The general idea, -the conclusion, the result, is the only thing that reaches his -consciousness. He knows nothing of that wilful process of deducing -from particular cases. What is the result when a man sets about this -matter differently?—when, for instance, after the manner of Parisian -novelists, he goes in for note-book psychology on a large and small -scale? Such a man is constantly spying on reality, and every evening -he bears home a handful of fresh curios.... But look at the result!—a -mass of daubs, at best a piece of mosaic, in any case something heaped -together, restless and garish. The Goncourts are the greatest sinners -in this respect: they cannot put three sentences together which are not -absolutely painful to the eye—the eye of the psychologist. From an -artistic standpoint, nature is no model. It exaggerates, distorts, and -leaves gaps. Nature is the _accident._ To study “from nature” seems to -me a bad sign: it betrays submission, weakness, fatalism—this lying -in the dust before trivial facts is unworthy of a thorough artist. To -see _what is_—is the function of another order of intellects, the -_anti-artistic,_ the matter-of-fact. One must know _who_ one is. - - -8 - -_Concerning the psychology of the artist_ For art to be possible at -all—that is to say, in order that an æsthetic mode of action and of -observation may exist, a certain preliminary physiological state is -indispensable _ecstasy._[1] This state of ecstasy must first have -intensified the susceptibility of the whole machine: otherwise, no art -is possible. All kinds of ecstasy, however differently produced, have -this power to create art, and above all the state dependent upon sexual -excitement—this most venerable and primitive form of ecstasy. The same -applies to that ecstasy which is the outcome of all great desires, -all strong passions; the ecstasy of the feast, of the arena, of the -act of bravery, of victory, of all extreme action; the ecstasy of -cruelty; the ecstasy of destruction; the ecstasy following upon certain -meteorological influences, as for instance that of spring-time, or upon -the use of narcotics; and finally the ecstasy of will, that ecstasy -which results from accumulated and surging will-power.—The essential -feature of ecstasy is the feeling of increased strength and abundance. -Actuated by this feeling a man gives of himself to things, _he -forces_ them to partake of his riches, he does violence to them—this -proceeding is called _idealising._ Let us rid ourselves of a prejudice -here: idealising does not consist, as is generally believed, in a -suppression or an elimination of detail or of unessential features. -A stupendous _accentuation_ of the principal characteristics is by -far the most decisive factor at work, and in consequence the minor -characteristics vanish. - - -9 - -In this state a man enriches everything from out his own abundance: -what he sees, what he wills, he sees distended, compressed, strong, -overladen with power. He transfigures things until they reflect his -power,—until they are stamped with his perfection. This compulsion -to transfigure into the beautiful is—Art. Everything—even that which -he is not,—is nevertheless to such a man a means of rejoicing over -himself; in Art man rejoices over himself as perfection.—It is -possible to imagine a contrary state, a specifically anti-artistic -state of the instincts,—a state in which a man impoverishes, -attenuates, and draws the blood from everything. And, truth to tell, -history is full of such anti-artists, of such creatures of low -vitality who have no choice but to appropriate everything they see -and to suck its blood and make it thinner. This is the case with the -genuine Christian, Pascal for instance. There is no such thing as a -Christian who is also an artist ... Let no one be so childish as to -suggest Raphael or any homeopathic Christian of the nineteenth century -as an objection to this statement: Raphael said Yea, Raphael _did_ -Yea,—consequently Raphael was no Christian. - - -10 - -What is the meaning of the antithetical concepts _Apollonian_ and -_Dionysian_ which I have introduced into the vocabulary of Æsthetic, as -representing two distinct modes of ecstasy?—Apollonian ecstasy acts -above all as a force stimulating the eye, so that it acquires the power -of vision. The painter, the sculptor, the epic poet are essentially -visionaries. In the Dionysian state, on the other hand, the whole -system of passions is stimulated and intensified, so that it discharges -itself by all the means of expression at once, and vents all its power -of representation, of imitation, of transfiguration, of transformation, -together with every kind of mimicry and histrionic display at the same -time. The essential feature remains the facility in transforming, -the inability to refrain from reaction (—a similar state to that of -certain hysterical patients, who at the slightest hint assume any -rôle). It is impossible for the Dionysian artist not to understand any -suggestion; no outward sign of emotion escapes him, he possesses the -instinct of comprehension and of divination in the highest degree, -just as he is capable of the most perfect art of communication. He -enters into every skin, into every passion: he is continually changing -himself. Music as we understand it to-day is likewise a general -excitation and discharge of the emotions; but, notwithstanding this, it -is only the remnant of a much richer world of emotional expression, a -mere residuum of Dionysian histrionism. For music to be made possible -as a special art, quite a number of senses, and particularly the -muscular sense, had to be paralysed (at least relatively: for all -rhythm still appeals to our muscles to a certain extent): and thus man -no longer imitates and represents physically everything he feels, as -soon as he feels it. Nevertheless that is the normal Dionysian state, -and in any case its primitive state. Music is the slowly attained -specialisation of this state at the cost of kindred capacities. - - -11 - -The actor, the mime, the dancer, the musician, and the lyricist, are -in their instincts fundamentally related; but they have gradually -specialised in their particular branch, and become separated—even -to the point of contradiction. The lyricist remained united with the -musician for the longest period of time; and the actor with the dancer. -The architect manifests neither a Dionysian nor an Apollonian state: In -his case it is the great act of will, the will that moveth mountains, -the ecstasy of the great will which aspires to art. The most powerful -men have always inspired architects; the architect has always been -under the suggestion of power. In the architectural structure, man’s -pride, man’s triumph over gravitation, man’s will to power, assume -a visible form. Architecture is a sort of oratory of power by means -of forms. Now it is persuasive, even flattering, and at other times -merely commanding. The highest sensation of power and security finds -expression in grandeur of style. That power which no longer requires to -be proved, which scorns to please; which responds only with difficulty; -which feels no witnesses around it; which is oblivious of the fact -that it is being opposed; which relies on itself fatalistically, and -is a law among laws:—such power expresses itself quite naturally in -grandeur of style. - - -12 - -I have been reading the life of Thomas Carlyle, that unconscious and -involuntary farce, that heroico-moral interpretation of dyspeptic -moods.—Carlyle, a man of strong words and attitudes, a rhetorician by -necessity, who seems ever to be tormented by the desire of finding some -kind of strong faith, and by his inability to do so (—in this respect -a typical Romanticist!). To yearn for a strong faith is not the proof -of a strong faith, but rather the reverse. If a man have a strong faith -he can indulge in the luxury of scepticism; he is strong enough, firm -enough, well-knit enough for such a luxury. Carlyle stupefies something -in himself by means of the _fortissimo_ of his reverence for men of a -strong faith, and his rage over those who are less foolish: he is in -sore need of noise. An attitude of constant and passionate dishonesty -towards himself—this is his _proprium;_ by virtue of this he is and -remains interesting.—Of course, in England he is admired precisely -on account of his honesty. Well, that is English; and in view of the -fact that the English are the nation of consummate cant, it is not only -comprehensible but also very natural. At bottom, Carlyle is an English -atheist who makes it a point of honour not to be one. - - -13 - -_Emerson._—He is much more enlightened, much broader, more versatile, -and more subtle than Carlyle; but above all, he is happier. He is one -who instinctively lives on ambrosia and who leaves the indigestible -parts of things on his plate. Compared with Carlyle he is a man of -taste.—Carlyle, who was very fond of him, nevertheless declared that -“he does not give us enough to chew.” This is perfectly true but -it is not unfavourable to Emerson.—Emerson possesses that kindly -intellectual cheerfulness which deprecates overmuch seriousness; he -has absolutely no idea of how old he is already, and how young he will -yet be,—he could have said of himself, in Lope de Vega’s words: “_yo -me sucedo a mi mismo._” His mind is always finding reasons for being -contented and even thankful; and at times he gets preciously near to -that serene superiority of the worthy bourgeois who returning from an -amorous rendezvous _tamquam re bene gesta,_ said gratefully “_Ut desint -vires, tamen est laudanda voluptas._”— - - -14 - -_Anti-Darwin._—As to the famous “struggle for existence,” it seems to -me, for the present, to be more of an assumption than a fact. It does -occur, but as an exception. The general condition of life is not one -of want or famine, but rather of riches, of lavish luxuriance, and even -of absurd prodigality,—where there is a struggle, it is a struggle -for power. We should not confound Malthus with nature.—Supposing, -however, that this struggle exists,—and it does indeed occur,—its -result is unfortunately the very reverse of that which the Darwinian -school seems to desire, and of that which in agreement with them we -also might desire: that is to say, it is always to the disadvantage -of the strong, the privileged, and the happy exceptions. Species -do not evolve towards perfection: the weak always prevail over the -strong—simply because they are the majority, and because they are also -the more crafty. Darwin forgot the intellect (—that is English!), the -weak have more intellect. In order to acquire intellect, one must be in -need of it. One loses it when one no longer needs it. He who possesses -strength flings intellect to the deuce (—“let it go hence!”[2] -say the Germans of the present day, “the _Empire_ will remain”). -As you perceive, intellect to me means caution, patience, craft, -dissimulation, great self-control, and everything related to mimicry -(what is praised nowadays as virtue is very closely related the latter). - - -15 - -_Casuistry of a Psychologist._—This man knows mankind: to what purpose -does he study his fellows? He wants to derive some small or even -great advantages from them,—he is a politician!... That man yonder -is also well versed in human nature: and ye tell me that he wishes to -draw no personal profit from his knowledge, that he is a thoroughly -disinterested person? Examine him a little more closely! Maybe he -wishes to derive a more wicked advantage from his possession; namely, -to feel superior to men, to be able to look down upon them, no longer -to feel one of them. This “disinterested person” is a despiser of -mankind; and the former is of a more humane type, whatever appearances -may seem to say to the contrary. At least he considers himself the -equal of those about him, at least he classifies himself with them. - - -16 - -_The psychological tact_ of Germans seems to me to have been set in -doubt by a whole series of cases which my modesty forbids me to -enumerate. In one case at least I shall not let the occasion slip -for substantiating my contention: I bear the Germans a grudge for -having made a mistake about Kant and his “backstairs philosophy,” as -I call it. Such a man was not the type of intellectual uprightness. -Another thing I hate to hear is a certain infamous “and”: the Germans -say, “Goethe _and_ Schiller,”—I even fear that they say, “Schiller -and Goethe.” ... Has nobody found Schiller out yet?—But there are -other “ands” which are even more egregious. With my own ears I have -heard—only among University professors, it is true!—men speak of -“Schopenhauer _and_ Hartmann.” ...[3] - - -17 - -The most intellectual men, provided they are also the most courageous, -experience the most excruciating tragedies: but on that very account -they honour life, because it confronts them with its most formidable -antagonism. - - -18 - -Concerning “_the Conscience of the Intellect_” Nothing seems to me -more uncommon to-day than genuine hypocrisy. I strongly suspect that -this growth is unable to flourish in the mild climate of our culture. -Hypocrisy belongs to an age of strong faith,—one in which one does -not lose one’s own faith in spite of the fact that one has to make -an outward show of holding another faith. Nowadays a man gives it -up; or, what is still more common, he acquires a second faith,—in -any case, however, he remains honest. Without a doubt it is possible -to have a much larger number of convictions at present, than it was -formerly: _possible_—that is to say, allowable,—that is to say, -_harmless._ From this there arises an attitude of toleration towards -one’s self. Toleration towards one’s self allows of a greater number -of convictions: the latter live comfortably side by side, and they -take jolly good care, as all the world does to-day, not to compromise -themselves. How does a man compromise himself to-day? When he is -consistent; when he pursues a straight course; when he has anything -less than five faces; when he is genuine.... I very greatly fear that -modern man is much too fond of comfort for certain vices; and the -consequence is that the latter are dying out. Everything evil which -is the outcome of strength of will—and maybe there is nothing evil -without the strengh of will,—degenerates, in our muggy atmosphere, -into virtue. The few hypocrites I have known only imitated hypocrisy: -like almost every tenth man to-day, they were actors.— - - -19 - -_Beautiful and Ugly:_—Nothing is more relative, let us say, more -restricted, than our sense of the beautiful. He who would try to -divorce it from the delight man finds in his fellows, would immediately -lose his footing. “Beauty in itself,” is simply a word, it is not even -a concept. In the beautiful, man postulates himself as the standard of -perfection; in exceptional cases he worships himself as that standard. -A species has no other alternative than to say “yea” to itself alone, -in this way. Its lowest instinct, the instinct of self-preservation and -self-expansion, still radiates in such sublimities. Man imagines the -world itself to be overflowing with beauty,—he forgets that he is the -cause of it all. He alone has endowed it with beauty. Alas! and only -with human all-too-human beauty! Truth to tell man reflects himself in -things, he thinks everything beautiful that throws his own image back -at him. The judgment “beautiful” is the “vanity of his species.” ... -A little demon of suspicion may well whisper into the sceptic’s ear: -is the world really beautified simply because man thinks it beautiful? -He has only humanised it—that is all. But nothing, absolutely nothing -proves to us that it is precisely man who is the proper model of -beauty. Who knows what sort of figure he would cut in the eyes of a -higher judge of taste? He might seem a little _outré_? perhaps even -somewhat amusing? perhaps a trifle arbitrary? “O Dionysus, thou divine -one, why dost thou pull mine ears?” Ariadne asks on one occasion of -her philosophic lover, during one of those famous conversations on the -island of Naxos. “I find a sort of humour in thine ears, Ariadne: why -are they not a little longer?” - - -20 - -Nothing is beautiful; man alone is beautiful: all æsthetic rests on -this piece of ingenuousness, it is the first axiom of this science. -And now let us straightway add the second to it: nothing is ugly save -the degenerate man,—within these two first principles the realm of -æsthetic judgments is confined. From the physiological standpoint, -everything ugly weakens and depresses man. It reminds him of decay, -danger, impotence; he literally loses strength in its presence. The -effect of ugliness may be gauged by the dynamometer. Whenever man’s -spirits are downcast, it is a sign that he scents the proximity of -something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage -and his pride—these things collapse at the sight of what is ugly, and -rise at the sight of what is beautiful. In both cases an inference is -drawn; the premises to which are stored with extra ordinary abundance -in the instincts. Ugliness is understood to signify a hint and a -symptom of degeneration: that which reminds us however remotely of -degeneracy, impels us to the judgment “ugly.” Every sign of exhaustion, -of gravity, of age, of fatigue; every kind of constraint, such as -cramp, or paralysis; and above all the smells, colours and forms -associated with decomposition and putrefaction, however much they may -have been attenuated into symbols,—all these things provoke the same -reaction which is the judgment “ugly.” A certain hatred expresses -itself here: what is it that man hates? Without a doubt it is the -_decline of his type._ In this regard his hatred springs from the -deepest instincts of the race: there is horror, caution, profundity and -far-reaching vision in this hatred,—it is the most profound hatred -that exists. On its account alone Art is profound. - - -21 - -_Schopenhauer._—Schopenhauer, the last German who is to be reckoned -with (—who is a European event like Goethe, Hegel, or Heinrich Heine, -and who is not merely local, national), is for a psychologist a case -of the first rank: I mean as a malicious though masterly attempt to -enlist on the side of a general nihilistic depreciation of life, the -very forces which are opposed to such a movement,—that is to say, the -great self-affirming powers of the “will to live,” the exuberant forms -of life itself. He interpreted Art, heroism, genius, beauty, great -sympathy, knowledge, the will to truth, and tragedy, one after the -other, as the results of the denial, or of the need of the denial, of -the “will”—the greatest forgery, Christianity always excepted, which -history has to show. Examined more carefully, he is in this respect -simply the heir of the Christian interpretation; except that he knew -how to approve in a Christian fashion (_i.e._, nihilistically) even -of the great facts of human culture, which Christianity completely -repudiates. (He approved of them as paths to “salvation,” as -preliminary stages to “salvation,” as _appetisers_ calculated to arouse -the desire for “salvation.”) - - -22 - -Let me point to one single instance. Schopenhauer speaks of beauty with -melancholy ardour,—why in sooth does he do this? Because in beauty -he sees a bridge on which one can travel further, or which stimulates -one’s desire to travel further. According to him it constitutes a -momentary emancipation from the “will”—it lures to eternal salvation. -He values it more particularly as a deliverance from the “burning core -of the will” which is sexuality,—in beauty he recognises the negation -of the procreative instinct. Singular Saint! Some one contradicts thee; -I fear it is Nature. Why is there beauty of tone, colour, aroma, and -of rhythmic movement in Nature at all? What is it forces beauty to the -fore? Fortunately, too, a certain philosopher contradicts him. No less -an authority than the divine Plato himself (thus does Schopenhauer -call him), upholds another proposition: that all beauty lures to -procreation,—that this precisely is the chief characteristic of its -effect, from the lowest sensuality to the highest spirituality. - - -23 - -Plato goes further. With an innocence for which a man must be Greek -and not “Christian,” he says that there would be no such thing as -Platonic philosophy if there were not such beautiful boys in Athens: -it was the sight of them alone that set the soul of the philosopher -reeling with erotic passion, and allowed it no rest until it had -planted the seeds of all lofty things in a soil so beautiful. He -was also a singular saint!—One scarcely believes one’s ears, even -supposing one believes Plato. At least one realises that philosophy was -pursued differently in Athens; above all, publicly. Nothing is less -Greek than the cobweb-spinning with concepts by an anchorite, _amor -intellectualis dei_ after the fashion of Spinoza. Philosophy according -to Plato’s style might be defined rather as an erotic competition, as a -continuation and a spiritualisation of the old agonal gymnastics and -the conditions on which they depend.... What was the ultimate outcome -of this philosophic eroticism of Plato’s? A new art-form of the Greek -_Agon,_ dialectics.—In opposition to Schopenhauer and to the honour of -Plato, I would remind you that all the higher culture and literature of -classical France, as well, grew up on the soil of sexual interests. In -all its manifestations you may look for gallantry, the senses, sexual -competition, and “woman,” and you will not look in vain. - - -24 - -_L’Art pour l’Art._—The struggle against a purpose in art is always a -struggle against the moral tendency in art, against its subordination -to morality. _L’art pour l’art_ means, “let morality go to the devil!” -—But even this hostility betrays the preponderating power of the moral -prejudice. If art is deprived of the purpose of preaching morality -and of improving mankind, it does not by any means follow that art is -absolutely pointless, purposeless, senseless, in short _l’art pour -l’art_—a snake which bites its own tail. “No purpose at all is better -than a moral purpose!”—thus does pure passion speak. A psychologist, -on the other hand, puts the question: what does all art do? does it -not praise? does it not glorify? does it not select? does it not -bring things into prominence? In all this it strengthens or weakens -certain valuations. Is this only a secondary matter? an accident? -something in which the artist’s instinct has no share? Or is it not -rather the very prerequisite which enables the artist to accomplish -something?... Is his most fundamental instinct concerned with art? -Is it not rather concerned with the purpose of art, with life? with -a certain desirable kind of life? Art is the great stimulus to life; -how can it be regarded as purpose less, as pointless, as _l’art pour -l’art?_—There still remains one question to be answered: Art also -reveals much that is ugly, hard and questionable in life,—does it -not thus seem to make life intolerable?—And, as a matter of fact, -there have been philosophers who have ascribed this function to art. -According to Schopenhauer’s doctrine, the general object of art was to -“free one from the Will”; and what he honoured as the great utility -of tragedy, was that it “made people more resigned.”—But this, as -I have already shown, is a pessimistic standpoint; it is the “evil -eye”: the artist himself must be appealed to. What is it that the soul -of the tragic artist communicates to others? Is it not precisely his -fearless attitude towards that which is terrible and questionable? -This attitude is in itself a highly desirable one; he who has once, -experienced it honours it above everything else. He communicates it. He -must communicate, provided he is an artist and a genius in the art of -communication. A courageous and free spirit, in the presence of a mighty -foe, in the presence of a sublime misfortune, and face to face with a -problem that inspires horror—this is the triumphant attitude which -the tragic artist selects and which he glorifies. The martial elements -in our soul celebrate their Saturnalia in tragedy; he who is used to -suffering, he who looks out for suffering, the heroic man, extols his -existence by means of tragedy,—to him alone does the tragic artist -offer this cup of sweetest cruelty.— - - -25 - -To associate in an amiable fashion with anybody; to keep the house of -one’s heart open to all, is certainly liberal: but it is nothing else. -One can recognise the hearts that are capable of noble hospitality, by -their wealth of screened windows and closed shutters: they keep their -best rooms empty. Whatever for?—Because they are expecting guests who -are somebodies. - - -26 - -We no longer value ourselves sufficiently highly when we communicate -our soul’s content. Our real experiences are not at all garrulous. They -could not communicate themselves even if they wished to. They are at a -loss to find words for such confidences. Those things for which we find -words, are things wehave already overcome. In all speech there lies -an element of contempt. Speech, it would seem, was only invented for -average, mediocre and communicable things.—Every spoken word proclaims -the speaker vulgarised—(Extract from a moral code for deaf-and-dumb -people and other philosophers.) - - -27 - -“This picture is perfectly beautiful!”[4] The dissatisfied and -exasperated literary woman with a desert in her heart and in her belly, -listening with agonised curiosity every instant to the imperative -which whispers to her from the very depths of her being: _aut liberi, -aut libri:_ the literary woman, sufficiently educated to understand the -voice of nature, even when nature speaks Latin, and moreover enough -of a peacock and a goose to speak even French with herself in secret -“_Je me verrai, je me lirai, je m’extasierai et je dirai: Possible, que -j’aie eu tant d’esprit?_” ... - - -28 - -The objective ones speak.—“Nothing comes more easily to us, than to -be wise, patient, superior. We are soaked in the oil of indulgence and -of sympathy, we are absurdly just, we forgive everything. Precisely on -that account we should be severe with ourselves; for that very reason -we ought from time to time to go in for a little emotion, a little -emotional vice. It may seem bitter to us; and between ourselves we may -even laugh at the figure which it makes us cut But what does it matter? -We have no other kind of self-control left. This is our asceticism, our -manner of performing penance.” _To become personal_—the virtues of the -“impersonal and objective one.” - - -29 - -_Extract from a doctor’s examination paper._—“What is the task of all -higher schooling?”—To make man into a machine. “What are the means -employed?”—He must learn how to be bored. “How is this achieved?”—By -means of the concept duty. “What example of duty has he before his -eyes?”—The philologist: it is he who teaches people how to swat. -“Who is the perfect man?”—The Government official. “Which philosophy -furnishes the highest formula for the Government official?”—Kant’s -philosophy: the Government official as thing-in-itself made judge over -the Government official as appearance. - - -30 - -_The right to Stupidity._—The worn-out worker, whose breath is -slow, whose look is good-natured, and who lets things slide just as -they please: this typical figure which in this age of labour (and -of “Empire!”) is to be met with in all classes of society, has now -begun to appropriate even Art, including the book, above all the -newspaper,—and how much more so beautiful nature, Italy! This man -of the evening, with his “savage instincts lulled,” as Faust has it; -needs his summer holiday, his sea-baths, his glacier, his Bayreuth. -In such ages Art has the right to be _purely foolish,_—as a sort of -vacation for spirit, wit and sentiment. Wagner understood this. Pure -foolishness[5] is a pick-me-up.... - - -31 - -_Yet another problem of diet._—The means with which Julius Cæsar -preserved himself against sickness and headaches: heavy marches, -the simplest mode of living, uninterrupted sojourns in the open -air, continual hardships,—generally speaking these are the -self-preservative and self-defensive measures against the extreme -vulnerability of those subtle machines working at the highest -pressure, which are called geniuses. - - -32 - -_The Immoralist speaks._—Nothing is more distasteful to true -philosophers than man when he begins to wish.... If they see man only -at his deeds; if they see this bravest, craftiest and most enduring -of animals even inextricably entangled in disaster, how admirable he -then appears to them! They even encourage him.... But true philosophers -despise the man who wishes, as also the “desirable” man—and all the -desiderata and _ideals_ of man in general. If a philosopher could be a -nihilist, he would be one; for he finds only nonentity behind all human -ideals. Or, not even nonentity, but vileness, absurdity, sickness, -cowardice, fatigue and all sorts of dregs from out the quaffed goblets -of his life.... How is it that man, who as a reality is so estimable, -ceases from deserving respect the moment he begins to desire? Must he -pay for being so perfect as a reality? Must he make up for his deeds, -for the tension of spirit and will which underlies all his deeds, by an -eclipse of his powers in matters of the imagination and in absurdity? -Hitherto the history of his desires has been the _partie honteuse_ of -mankind: one should take care not to read too deeply in this history. -That which justifies man is his reality,—it will justify him to all -eternity. How much more valuable is a real man than any other man -who is merely the phantom of desires, of dreams of stinks and of -lies?—than any kind of ideal man? ... And the ideal man, alone, is -what the philosopher cannot abide. - - -33 - -_The Natural Value of Egoism._—Selfishness has as much value as the -physiological value of him who practises it: its worth may be great, -or it may be worthless and contemptible. Every individual may be -classified according to whether he represents the ascending or the -descending line of life. When this is decided, a canon is obtained -by means of which the value of his selfishness may be determined. -If he represent the ascending line of life, his value is of course -extraordinary—and for the sake of the collective life which in him -makes one step _forward,_ the concern about his maintenance, about -procuring his _optimum_ of conditions may even be extreme. The human -unit, the “individual,” as the people and the philosopher have always -understood him, is certainly an error: he is nothing in himself, no -atom, no “link in the chain,” no mere heritage from the past,—he -represents the whole direct line of mankind up to his own life.... -If he represent declining development, decay, chronic degeneration, -sickness (—illnesses are on the whole already the outcome of decline, -and not the cause thereof), he is of little worth, and the purest -equity would have him _take away_ as little as possible from those who -are lucky strokes of nature. He is then only a parasite upon them.... - - -34 - -_The Christian and the Anarchist._—When the anarchist, as the -mouthpiece of the decaying strata of society, raises his voice in -splendid indignation for “right,” “justice,” “equal rights,” he -is only groaning under the burden of his ignorance, which cannot -understand _why_ he actually suffers,—what his poverty consists -of—the poverty of life. An instinct of causality is active in -him: someone must be responsible for his being so ill at ease. His -“splendid indignation” alone relieves him somewhat, it is a pleasure -for all poor devils to grumble—it gives them a little intoxicating -sensation of power. The very act of complaining, the mere fact that one -bewails one’s lot, may lend such a charm to life that on that account -alone, one is ready to endure it. There is a small dose of revenge in -every lamentation. One casts one’s afflictions, and, under certain -circumstances, even one’s baseness, in the teeth of those who are -different, as if their condition were an injustice, an _iniquitous_ -privilege. “Since I am _a blackguard_ you ought to be one too.” It is -upon such reasoning that revolutions are based.—To bewail one’s lot -is always despicable: it is always the outcome of weakness. Whether -one ascribes one’s afflictions to others or to _one’s self,_ it is all -the same. The socialist does the former, the Christian, for instance, -does the latter. That which is common to both attitudes, or rather -that which is equally ignoble in them both, is the fact that somebody -must be to _blame_ if one suffers—in short that the sufferer drugs -himself with the honey of revenge to allay his anguish. The objects -towards which this lust of vengeance, like a lust of pleasure, are -directed, are purely accidental causes. In all directions the sufferer -finds reasons for cooling his petty passion for revenge. If he is a -Christian, I repeat, he finds these reasons in himself. The Christian -and the Anarchist—both are decadents. But even when the Christian -condemns, slanders, and sullies the world, he is actuated by precisely -the same instinct as that which leads the socialistic workman to curse, -calumniate and cast dirt at society. The last “Judgment” itself is -still the sweetest solace to revenge—revolution, as the socialistic -workman expects it, only thought of as a little more remote.... The -notion of a “Beyond,” as well—why a Beyond, if it be not a means of -splashing mud over a “Here,” over this world? ... - - -35 - -_A Criticism of the Morality of Decadence._—An “altruistic” -morality, a morality under which selfishness withers, is in all -circumstances a bad sign. This is true of individuals and above -all of nations. The best are lacking when selfishness begins to be -lacking. Instinctively to select that which is harmful to one, to be -_lured_ by “disinterested” motives,—these things almost provide the -formula for decadence. “Not to have one’s own interests at heart” -—this is simply a moral fig-leaf concealing a very different fact, a -physiological one, to wit:—“I no longer know how to find what is to my -interest.”... Disintegration of the instincts!—All is up with man when -he becomes altruistic.—Instead of saying ingenuously “I am no longer -any good,” the lie of morality in the decadent’s mouth says: “Nothing -is any good,—life is no good.”—A judgment of this kind ultimately -becomes a great danger; for it is infectious, and it soon flourishes -on the polluted soil of society with tropical luxuriance, now as a -religion (Christianity), anon as a philosophy (Schopenhauerism). In -certain circumstances the mere effluvia of such a venomous vegetation, -springing as it does out of the very heart of putrefaction, can poison -life for thousands and thousands of years. - - -36 - -_A moral for doctors._—The sick man is a parasite of society. In -certain cases it is indecent to go on living. To continue to vegetate -in a state of cowardly dependence upon doctors and special treatments, -once the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost, ought to -be regarded with the greatest contempt by society. The doctors, for -their part, should be the agents for imparting this contempt,—they -should no longer prepare prescriptions, but should every day administer -a fresh dose of _disgust_ to their patients. A new responsibility -should be created, that of the doctor—the responsibility of ruthlessly -suppressing and eliminating _degenerate_ life, in all cases in which -the highest interests of life itself, of ascending life, demand such -a course—for instance in favour of the right of procreation, in -favour of the right of being born, in favour of the right to live. -One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. -Death should be chosen freely,—death at the right time, faced clearly -and joyfully and embraced while one is surrounded by one’s children -and other witnesses. It should be affected in such a way that a proper -farewell is still possible, that he who is about to take leave of us -is still _himself,_ and really capable not only of valuing what he -has achieved and willed in life, but also of _summing-up_ the value -of life itself. Everything precisely the opposite of the ghastly -comedy which Christianity has made of the hour of death. We should -never forgive Christianity for having so abused the weakness of the -dying man as to do violence to his conscience, or for having used -his manner of dying as a means of valuing both man and his past—In -spite of all cowardly prejudices, it is our duty, in this respect, -above all to reinstate the proper—that is to say, the physiological, -aspect of so-called _natural_ death, which after all is perfectly -“unnatural” and nothing else than suicide. One never perishes through -anybody’s fault but one’s own. The only thing is that the death which -takes place in the most contemptible circumstances, the death that -is not free, the death which occurs at the wrong time, is the death -of a coward. Out of the very love one bears to life, one should wish -death to be different from this—that is to say, free, deliberate, and -neither a matter of chance nor of surprise. Finally let me whisper a -word of advice to our friends the pessimists and all other decadents. -We have not the power to prevent ourselves from being born: but this -error—for sometimes it is an error—can be rectified if we choose. The -man who does away with himself, performs the most estimable of deeds: -he almost deserves to live for having done so. Society—nay, life -itself, derives more profit from such a deed than from any sort of life -spent in renunciation, anæmia and other virtues,—at least the suicide -frees others from the sight of him, at least he removes one objection -against life. Pessimism _pur et vert,_ can _be proved only_ by the -self-refutation of the pessimists themselves: one should go a step -further in one’s consistency; one should not merely deny life with -“The World as Will and Idea,” as Schopenhauer did; one should in the -first place _deny Schopenhauer._ ... Incidentally, Pessimism, however -infectious it may be, does not increase the morbidness of an age or of -a whole species; it is rather the expression of that morbidness. One -falls a victim to it in the same way as one falls a victim to cholera; -one must already be predisposed to the disease. Pessimism in itself -does not increase the number of the world’s _decadents_ by a single -unit. Let me remind you of the statistical fact that in those years in -which cholera rages, the total number of deaths does not exceed that of -other years. - - -37 - -_Have we become more moral?_—As might have been expected, the whole -_ferocity_ of moral stultification, which, as is well known, passes -for morality itself in Germany, hurled itself against my concept -“Beyond Good and Evil.” I could tell you some nice tales about this. -Above all, people tried to make me see the “incontestable superiority” -of our age in regard to moral sentiment, and the _progress_ we had -made in these matters. Compared with us, a Cæsar Borgia was by no -means to be represented as “higher man,” the sort of _Superman,_ -which I declared him to be. The editor of the Swiss paper the _Bund_ -went so far as not only to express his admiration for the courage -displayed by my enterprise, but also to pretend to “understand” that -the intended purpose of my work was to abolish all decent feeling. -Much obliged!—In reply, I venture to raise the following question: -_have we really become more moral?_ The fact that everybody believes -that we have is already an objection to the belief. We modern men, -so extremely delicate and susceptible, full of consideration one for -the other, actually dare to suppose that the pampering fellow-feeling -which we all display, this unanimity which we have at last acquired -in sparing and helping and trusting one another marks a definite step -forward, and shows us to be far ahead of the man of the Renaissance. -But every age thinks the same, it is _bound_ to think the same. This -at least, is certain, that we should not dare to stand amid the -conditions which prevailed at the Renaissance, we should not even dare -to imagine ourselves in those conditions: our nerves could not endure -that reality, not to speak of our muscles. The inability to do this -however does not denote any progress; but simply the different and -more senile quality of our particular nature, its greater weakness, -delicateness, and susceptibility, out of which a morality _more rich -in consideration_ was bound to arise. If we imagine our delicateness -and senility, our physiological decrepitude as non-existent, our -morality of “humanisation” would immediately lose all value—no -morality has any value _per se_—it would even fill us with scorn. On -the other hand, do not let us doubt that we moderns, wrapped as we are -in the thick cotton wool of our humanitarianism which would shrink -even from grazing a stone, would present a comedy to Cæsar Borgia’s -contemporaries which would literally make them die of laughter. We are -indeed, without knowing it, exceedingly ridiculous with our modern -“virtues.” ... The decline of the instincts of hostility and of -those instincts that arouse suspicion,—for this if anything is what -constitutes our progress—is only one of the results manifested by -the general decline in _vitality_: it requires a hundred times more -trouble and caution to live such a dependent and senile existence. -In such circumstances everybody gives everybody else a helping hand, -and, to a certain extent, everybody is either an invalid or an -invalid’s attendant. This is then called “virtue”: among those men -who knew a different life—that is to say, a fuller, more prodigal, -more superabundant sort of life, it might have been called by another -name,—possibly “cowardice,” or “vileness,” or “old woman’s morality.” -... Our mollification of morals—this is my cry; this it you will is -my _innovation_—is the outcome of our decline; conversely hardness -and terribleness in morals may be the result of a surplus of life. -When the latter state prevails, much is dared, much is challenged, -and much is also _squandered_. That which formerly was simply the -salt of life, would now be our _poison_. To be indifferent—even this -is a form of strength—for that, likewise, we are too senile, too -decrepit: our morality of fellow-feeling, against which I was the -first to raise a finger of warning, that which might be called _moral -impressionism_, is one symptom the more of the excessive physiological -irritability which is peculiar to everything decadent. That movement -which attempted to introduce itself in a scientific manner on the -shoulders of Schopenhauer’s morality of pity—a very sad attempt!—is -in its essence the movement of decadence in morality, and as such -it is intimately related to Christian morality. Strong ages and -noble cultures see something contemptible in pity, in the “love of -one’s neighbour,” and in a lack of egoism and of self-esteem.—Ages -should be measured according to their _positive forces_;—valued -by this standard that prodigal and fateful age of the Renaissance, -appears as the last _great_ age, while we moderns with our anxious -care of ourselves and love of our neighbours, with all our unassuming -virtues of industry, equity, and scientific method—with our lust of -collection, of economy and of mechanism—represent a _weak_ age.... -Our virtues are necessarily determined, and are even stimulated, by our -weakness. “Equality,” a certain definite process of making everybody -uniform, which only finds its expression in the theory of equal rights, -is essentially bound up with a declining culture: the chasm between -man and man, class and class, the multiplicity of types, the will to -be one’s self, and to distinguish one’s self—that, in fact, which I -call the _pathos of distance_ is proper to all _strong_ ages. The force -of tension,—nay, the tension itself, between extremes grows slighter -every day,—the extremes themselves are tending to become obliterated -to the point of becoming identical. All our political theories and -state constitutions, not by any means excepting “The German Empire,” -are the logical consequences, the necessary consequences of decline; -the unconscious effect of _decadence_ has begun to dominate even the -ideals of the various sciences. My objection to the whole of English -and French sociology still continues to be this, that it knows only -the _decadent form_ of society from experience, and with perfectly -childlike innocence takes the instincts of decline as the norm, the -standard, of sociological valuations. _Descending_ life, the decay -of all organising power—that is to say, of all that power which -separates, cleaves gulfs, and establishes rank above and below, -formulated itself in modern sociology as _the_ ideal. Our socialists -are decadents: but Herbert Spencer was also a _decadent,_—he saw -something to be desired in the triumph of altruism!... - - -38 - -_My Concept of Freedom._—Sometimes the value of a thing does not lie -in that which it helps us to achieve, but in the amount we have to -pay for it,—what it _costs_ us. For instance, liberal institutions -straightway cease from being liberal, the moment they are soundly -established: once this is attained no more grievous and more thorough -enemies of freedom exist than liberal institutions! One knows, of -course, what they bring about: they undermine the Will to Power, -they are the levelling of mountain and valley exalted to a morality, -they make people small, cowardly and pleasure-loving,—by means of -them the gregarious animal invariably triumphs. Liberalism, or, in -plain English, the _transformation of mankind into cattle._ The -same institutions, so long as they are fought for, produce quite -other results; then indeed they promote the cause of freedom quite -powerfully. Regarded more closely, it is war which produces these -results, war in favour of liberal institutions, which, as war, allows -the illiberal instincts to subsist. For war trains men to be free. -What in sooth is freedom? Freedom is the will to be responsible -for ourselves. It is to preserve the distance which separates us -from other men. To grow more indifferent to hardship, to severity, -to privation, and even to life itself. To be ready to sacrifice -men for one’s cause, one’s self included. Freedom denotes that the -virile instincts which rejoice in war and in victory, prevail over -other instincts; for instance, over the instincts of “happiness.” -The man who has won his freedom, and how much more so, therefore, -the spirit that has won its freedom, tramples ruthlessly upon that -contemptible kind of comfort which tea-grocers, Christians, cows, -women, Englishmen and other democrats worship in their dreams. The -free man is a _warrior._—How is freedom measured in individuals -as well as in nations? According to the resistance which has to be -overcome, according to the pains which it costs to remain _uppermost._ -The highest type of free man would have to be sought where the -greatest resistance has continually to be overcome: five paces away -from tyranny, on the very threshold of the danger of thraldom. This -is psychologically true if, by the word “Tyrants” we mean inexorable -and terrible instincts which challenge the _maximum_ amount of -authority and discipline to oppose them—the finest example of this -is Julius Cæsar; it is also true politically: just examine the course -of history. The nations which were worth anything, which _got to -be_ worth anything, never attained to that condition under liberal -institutions: _great danger_ made out of them something which deserves -reverence, that danger which alone can make us aware of our resources, -our virtues, our means of defence, our weapons, our _genius,_—which -_compels_ us to be strong. _First_ principle: a man must need to be -strong, otherwise he will never attain it.—Those great forcing-houses -of the strong, of the strongest kind of men that have ever existed on -earth, the aristocratic communities like those of Rome and Venice, -understood freedom precisely as I understand the word: as something -that one has and that one has _not,_ as something that one _will_ have -and that one _seizes by force._ - - -39 - -_A Criticism of Modernity._—Our institutions are no longer any good; -on this point we are all agreed. But the fault does not lie with -them; but with _us._ Now that we have lost all the instincts out -of which institutions grow, the latter on their part are beginning -to disappear from our midst because we are no longer fit for them. -Democracy has always been the death agony of the power of organisation: -already in “Human All-too-Human,” Part I., Aph. 472, I pointed out -that modern democracy, together with its half-measures, of which the -“German Empire” is an example, was a decaying form of the State. For -institutions to be possible there must exist a sort of will, instinct, -imperative, which cannot be otherwise than antiliberal to the point of -wickedness: the will to tradition, to authority, to responsibility -for centuries to come, to _solidarity_ in long family lines forwards -and backwards _in infinitum._ If this will is present, something is -founded which resembles the _imperium Romanum;_ or Russia, the _only_ -great nation to-day that has some lasting power and grit in her, that -can bide her time, that can still promise something.—Russia the -opposite of all wretched European petty-statism and neurasthenia, -which the foundation of the German Empire has brought to a crisis. The -whole of the Occident no longer possesses those instincts from which -institutions spring, out of which a _future_ grows: maybe nothing is -more opposed to its “modern spirit” than these things. People live -for the present, the live at top speed,—they certainly live without -any sense of responsibility; and this is precisely what they call -“freedom.” Everything in institutions which makes them institutions, -is scorned, loathed and repudiated: everybody is in mortal fear of a -new slavery, wherever the word “authority” is so much as whispered. -The decadence of the valuing instinct, both in our politicians and in -our political parties, goes so far, that they instinctively prefer -that which acts as a solvent, that which precipitates the final -catastrophe.... As an example of this behold _modern_ marriage. All -reason has obviously been divorced from modern marriage: but this is -no objection to matrimony itself but to modernity. The rational basis -of marriage—it lay in the exclusive legal responsibility of the man: -by this means some ballast was laid in the ship of matrimony, whereas -nowadays it has a list, now on this side, now on that. The rational -basis of marriage—it lay in its absolute indissolubleness: in this way -it was given a gravity which knew how to make its influence felt, in -the face of the accident of sentiment, passion and momentary impulse: -it lay also in the fact that the responsibility of choosing the parties -to the contract, lay with the families. By showing ever more and more -favour to love-marriages, the very foundation of matrimony, that which -alone makes it an institution, has been undermined. No institution -ever has been nor ever will be built upon an idiosyncrasy; as I say, -marriage cannot be based upon “love.” It can be based upon sexual -desire; upon the instinct of property (wife and child as possessions); -upon the instinct of dominion, which constantly organises for itself -the smallest form of dominion,—the family which _requires_ children -and heirs in order to hold fast, also in the physiological sense, to -a certain quantum of acquired power, influence and wealth, so as to -prepare for lasting tasks, and for solidarity in the instincts from -one century to another. Marriage as an institution presupposes the -affirmation of the greatest and most permanent form of organisation; if -society cannot as a whole _stand security_ for itself into the remotest -generations, marriage has no meaning whatsoever.—Modern marriage _has -lost_ its meaning; consequently it is being abolished. - - -40 - -_The question of the Working-man._—The mere fact that there is such -a thing as the question of the working-man is due to stupidity, or at -bottom to degenerate instincts which are the cause of all the stupidity -of modern times. Concerning certain things _no questions ought to be -put:_ the first imperative principle of instinct. For the life of me -I cannot see what people want to do with the working-man of Europe, -now that they have made a question of him. He is far too comfortable -to cease from questioning ever more and more, and with ever less -modesty. After all, he has the majority on his side. There is now -not the slightest hope that an unassuming and contented sort of man, -after the style of the Chinaman, will come into being in this quarter: -and this would have been the reasonable course, it was even a dire -necessity. What has been done? Everything has been done with the view -of nipping the very pre-requisite of this accomplishment in the bud, -—with the most frivolous thoughtlessness those selfsame instincts by -means of which a working-class becomes possible, and _tolerable even_ -to its members themselves, have been destroyed root and branch. The -working-man has been declared fit for military service; he has been -granted the right of combination, and of voting: can it be wondered at -that he already regards his condition as one of distress (expressed -morally, as an injustice)? But, again I ask, what do people want? If -they desire a certain end, then they should desire the means thereto. -If they will have slaves, then it is madness to educate them to be -masters. - - -41 - -“The kind of freedom I do _not_ mean....”[6]—In an age like the -present, it simply adds to one’s perils to be left to one’s instincts. -The instincts contradict, disturb, and destroy each other; I have -already defined modernism as physiological self-contradiction. A -reasonable system of education would insist upon at least one of -these instinct-systems being _paralysed_ beneath an iron pressure, in -order to allow others to assert their power, to grow strong, and to -dominate. At present, the only conceivable way of making the individual -possible would be to _prune_ him:—of making him possible—that is to -say, _whole._ The very reverse occurs. Independence, free development, -and _laisser aller_ are clamoured for most violently precisely by -those for whom no restraint _could be too severe_—this is true _in -politics,_ it is true in Art. But this is a symptom of decadence: our -modern notion of “freedom” is one proof the more of the degeneration of -instinct. - - -42 - -_Where faith is necessary._—Nothing is more rare among moralists and -saints than uprightness; maybe they say the reverse is true, maybe -they even believe it. For, when faith is more useful, more effective, -more convincing than _conscious_ hypocrisy, by instinct that hypocrisy -forthwith becomes _innocent:_ first principle towards the understanding -of great saints. The same holds good of philosophers, that other order -of saints; their whole business compels them to concede only certain -truths—that is to say, those by means of which their particular trade -receives the _public_ sanction,—to speak “Kantingly”: the truths of -_practical_ reason. They know what they _must_ prove; in this respect -they are practical,—they recognise each other by the fact that -they agree upon “certain truths.”—“Thou shalt not lie”—in plain -English:—_Beware,_ Mr Philosopher, of speaking the truth.... - - -43 - -_A quiet hint to Conservatives._—That which we did not know -formerly, and know now, or might know if we chose,—is the fact that -a _retrograde formation,_ a reversion in any sense or degree, is -absolutely impossible. We physiologists, at least, are aware of this. -But all priests and moralists have believed in it,—they wished to -drag and screw man back to a former standard of virtue. Morality has -always been a Procrustean bed. Even the politicians have imitated -the preachers of virtue in this matter. There are parties at the -present day whose one aim and dream is to make all things adopt the -_crab-march._ But not everyone can be a crab. It cannot be helped: we -must go forward,—that is to say step by step further and further into -decadence (—this is my definition of modern “progress”). We can hinder -this development, and by so doing dam up and accumulate degeneration -itself and render it more convulsive, more _volcanic:_ we cannot do -more. - - -44 - -_My concept of Genius._—Great men, like great ages, are explosive -material, in which a stupendous amount of power is accumulated; -the first conditions of their existence are always historical and -physiological; they are the outcome of the fact that for long ages -energy has been collected, hoarded up, saved up and preserved for their -use, and that no explosion has taken place. When, the tension in the -bulk has become sufficiently excessive, the most fortuitous stimulus -suffices in order to call “genius,” “great deeds,” and momentous -fate into the world. What then is the good of all environment, -historical periods, “_Zeitgeist_” (Spirit of the age) and “public -opinion”?—Take the case of Napoleon. France of the Revolution, -and still more of the period preceding the Revolution, would have -brought forward a type which was the very reverse of Napoleon: it -actually _did_ produce such a type. And because Napoleon was something -different, the heir of a stronger, more lasting and older civilisation -than that which in France was being smashed to atoms he became master -there, he was the only master there. Great men are necessary, the age -in which they appear is a matter of chance; the fact that they almost -invariably master their age is accounted for simply by the fact that -they are stronger, that they are older, and that power has been stored -longer for them. The relation of a genius to his age is that which -exists between strength and weakness and between maturity and youth: -the age is relatively always very much younger, thinner, less mature, -less resolute and more childish. The fact that the general opinion in -France at the present day, is utterly different on this very point (in -Germany too, but that is of no consequence); the fact that in that -country the theory of environment—a regular neuropathic notion—has -become sacrosanct and almost scientific, and finds acceptance even -among the physiologists, is a very bad, and exceedingly depressing -sign. In England too the same belief prevails: but nobody will be -surprised at that. The Englishman knows only two ways of understanding -the genius and the “great man”: either _democratically_ in the style -of Buckle, or religiously after the manner of Carlyle.—The danger -which great men and great ages represent, is simply extraordinary; -every kind of exhaustion and of sterility follows in their wake. The -great man is an end; the great age—the Renaissance for instance,—is -an end. The genius—in work and in deed,—is necessarily a squanderer: -the fact that he spends himself constitutes his greatness. The instinct -of self-preservation is as it were suspended in him; the overpowering -pressure of out-flowing energy in him forbids any such protection and -prudence. People call this “self-sacrifice,” they praise his “heroism,” -his indifference to his own well-being, his utter devotion to an idea, -a great cause, a father-land: All misunderstandings.... He flows out, -he flows over, he consumes himself, he does not spare himself,—and -does all this with fateful necessity, irrevocably, involuntarily, just -as a river involuntarily bursts its dams. But, owing to the fact that -humanity has been much indebted to such explosives, it has endowed them -with many things, for instance, with a kind of _higher morality_.... -This is indeed the sort of gratitude that humanity is capable of: it -_misunderstands_ its benefactors. - - -45 - -_The criminal and his like._—The criminal type is the type of the -strong man amid unfavourable conditions, a strong man made sick. He -lacks the wild and savage state, a form of nature and existence which -is freer and more dangerous, in which everything that constitutes -the shield and the sword in the instinct of the strong man, takes -a place by right. Society puts a ban upon his virtues; the most -spirited instincts inherent in him immediately become involved with -the depressing passions, with suspicion, fear and dishonour. But this -is almost the recipe for physiological degeneration. When a man has -to do that which he is best suited to do, which he is most fond of -doing, not only clandestinely, but also with long suspense, caution and -ruse, he becomes anæmic; and inasmuch as he is always having to pay -for his instincts in the form of danger, persecution and fatalities, -even his feelings begin to turn against these instincts—he begins to -regard them as fatal. It is society, our tame, mediocre, castrated -society, in which an untutored son of nature who comes to us from his -mountains or from his adventures at sea, must necessarily degenerate -into a criminal. Or almost necessarily: for there are cases in which -such a man shows himself to be stronger than society: the Corsican -Napoleon is the most celebrated case of this. Concerning the problem -before us, Dostoiewsky’s testimony is of importance—Dostoiewsky who, -incidentally, was the only psychologist from whom I had anything -to learn: he belongs to the happiest windfalls of my life, happier -even than the discovery of Stendhal. This profound man, who was -right ten times over in esteeming the superficial Germans low, found -the Siberian convicts among whom he lived for many years,—those -thoroughly hopeless criminals for whom no road back to society stood -open—very different from what even he had expected,—that is to say -carved from about the best, hardest and most valuable material that -grows on Russian soil.[7] Let us generalise the case of the criminal; -let us imagine creatures who for some reason or other fail to meet -with public approval, who know that they are regarded neither as -beneficent nor useful,—the feeling of the Chandala, who are aware -that they are not looked upon as equal, but as proscribed, unworthy, -polluted. The thoughts and actions of all such natures are tainted -with a subterranean mouldiness; everything in them is of a paler hue -than in those on whose existence the sun shines. But almost all those -creatures whom, nowadays, we honour and respect, formerly lived in this -semi-sepulchral atmosphere: the man of science, the artist, the genius, -the free spirit, the actor, the business man, and the great explorer. -As long as the _priest_ represented the highest type of man, every -valuable kind of man was depreciated.... The time is coming—this I -guarantee—when he will pass as the _lowest_ type, as our Chandala, as -the falsest and most disreputable kind of man.... I call your attention -to the fact that even now, under the sway of the mildest customs and -usages which have ever ruled on earth or at least in Europe, every -form of standing aside, every kind of prolonged, excessively prolonged -concealment, every unaccustomed and obscure form of existence tends to -approximate to that type which the criminal exemplifies to perfection. -All pioneers of the spirit have, for a while, the grey and fatalistic -mark of the Chandala on their brows: _not_ because they are regarded as -Chandala, but because they themselves feel the terrible chasm which -separates them from all that is traditional and honourable. Almost -every genius knows the “Catilinarian life” as one of the stages in his -development, a feeling of hate, revenge and revolt against everything -that exists, that has ceased to evolve.... Catiline—the early stage of -every Cæsar. - - -46 - -_Here the outlook is free._—When a philosopher holds his tongue it may -be the sign of the loftiness of his soul: when he contradicts himself -it may be love; and the very courtesy of a knight of knowledge may -force him to lie. It has been said, and not without subtlety:—_il -est indigne des grands cœurs de répandre le trouble qu’ils -ressentent[8]:_ but it is necessary to add that there may also be -_grandeur de cœur_ in not shrinking _from the most undignified -proceeding._ A woman who loves sacrifices her honour; a knight of -knowledge who “loves,” sacrifices perhaps his humanity; a God who -loved, became a Jew.... - - -47 - -_Beauty no accident_—Even the beauty of a race or of a family, -the charm and perfection of all its movements, is attained with -pains: like genius it is the final result of the accumulated work -of generations. Great sacrifices must have been made on the altar -ol good taste, for its sake many things must have been done, and -much must have been left undone—the seventeenth century in France -is admirable for both of these things,—in this century there must -have been a principle of selection in respect to company, locality, -clothing, the gratification of the instinct of sex; beauty must have -been preferred to profit, to habit, to opinion and to indolence. The -first rule of all:—nobody must “let himself go,” not even when he is -alone.—Good things are exceedingly costly:; and in all cases the law -obtains that he who possesses them is a different person from him who -is _acquiring_ them. Everything good is an inheritance: that which is -not inherited is imperfect, it is simply a beginning. In Athens at -the time of Cicero—who expresses his surprise at the fact—the men -and youths were by far superior in beauty to the women: but what hard -work and exertions the male sex had for centuries imposed upon itself -in the service of beauty! We must not be mistaken in regard to the -method employed here: the mere discipline of feelings and thoughts -is little better than nil (—it is in this that the great error of -German culture, which is quite illusory, lies): the _body_ must be -persuaded first. The strict maintenance of a distinguished and tasteful -demeanour, the obligation of frequenting only those who do not “let -themselves go,” is amply sufficient to render one distinguished and -tasteful: in two or three generations everything has already _taken -deep root._ The fate of a people and of humanity is decided according -to whether they begin culture at the _right place—not_ at the “soul” -(as the fatal superstition of the priests and half-priests would have -it): the right place is the body, demeanour, diet, physiology—the rest -follows as the night the day.... That is why the Greeks remain the -_first event in culture_—they knew and they _did_ what was needful. -Christianity with its contempt of the body is the greatest mishap that -has ever befallen mankind. - - -48 - -_Progress in my sense._—I also speak of a “return to nature,” although -it is not a process of going back but of going up—up into lofty, free -and even terrible nature and naturalness; such a nature as can play -with great tasks and _may_ play with them.... To speak in a _parable._ -Napoleon was an example of a “return to nature,” as I understand it -(for instance _in rebus tacticis,_ and still more, as military experts -know, in strategy). But Rousseau—whither did he want to return? -Rousseau this first modern man, idealist and _canaille_ in one person; -who was in need of moral “dignity,” in order even to endure the sight -of his own person,—ill with unbridled vanity and wanton self-contempt; -this abortion, who planted his tent on the threshold of modernity, -also wanted a “return to nature”; but, I ask once more, whither did -he wish to return? I hate Rousseau, even _in_ the Revolution itself: -the latter was the historical expression of this hybrid of idealist -and _canaille._ The bloody farce which this Revolution ultimately -became, its “immorality,” concerns me but slightly; what I loathe -however is its Rousseauesque _morality_—the so-called “truths” of the -Revolution, by means of which it still exercises power and draws all -flat and mediocre things over to its side. The doctrine of equality! -... But there is no more deadly poison than this; for it _seems_ to -proceed from the very lips of justice, whereas in reality it draws -the curtain down on all justice.... “To equals equality, to unequals -inequality”—that would be the real speech of justice and that which -follows from it “Never make unequal things equal.” The fact that so -much horror and blood are associated with this doctrine of equality, -has lent this “modern idea” _par excellence_ such a halo of fire and -glory, that the Revolution as a drama has misled even the most noble -minds.—That after all is no reason for honouring it the more.—I can -see only one who regarded it as it should be regarded—that is to say, -with _loathing;_ I speak of Goethe. - - -49 - -_Goethe_.—No mere German, but a European event: a magnificent attempt -to overcome the eighteenth century by means of a return to nature, by -means of an ascent to the naturalness of the Renaissance, a kind of -self-overcoming on the part of the century in question.—He bore the -strongest instincts of this century in his breast: its sentimentality, -and idolatry of nature, its anti-historic, idealistic, unreal, and -revolutionary spirit (—the latter is only a form of the unreal). He -enlisted history, natural science, antiquity, as well as Spinoza, and -above all practical activity, in his service. He drew a host of very -definite horizons around him; far from liberating himself from life, he -plunged right into it; he did not give in; he took as much as he could -on his own shoulders, and into his heart. That to which he aspired was -_totality_; he was opposed to the sundering of reason, sensuality, -feeling and will (as preached with most repulsive scholasticism -by Kant, the antipodes of Goethe); he disciplined himself into a -harmonious whole, he _created_ himself. Goethe in the midst of an age -of unreal sentiment, was a convinced realist: he said yea to everything -that was like him in this regard,—there was no greater event in his -life than that _ens realissimum_, surnamed Napoleon. Goethe conceived -a strong, highly-cultured man, skilful in all bodily accomplishments, -able to keep himself in check, having a feeling of reverence for -himself, and so constituted as to be able to risk the full enjoyment -of naturalness in all its rich profusion and be strong enough for this -freedom; a man of tolerance, not out of weakness but out of strength, -because he knows how to turn to his own profit that which would ruin -the mediocre nature; a man unto whom nothing is any longer forbidden, -unless it be weakness either as a vice or as a virtue. Such a spirit, -_become free_, appears in the middle of the universe with a feeling -of cheerful and confident fatalism; he believes that only individual -things are bad, and that as a whole the universe justifies and, affirms -itself—_He no longer denies_.... But such a faith is the highest Of -all faiths: I christened it with the name of Dionysus. - - -50 - -It might be said that, in a certain sense, the nineteenth century -also strove after all that Goethe himself aspired to: catholicity in -understanding, in approving; a certain reserve towards everything, -daring realism, and a reverence for every fact. How is it that -the total result of this is not a Goethe, but a state of chaos, a -nihilistic groan, an inability to discover where one is, an instinct -of fatigue which _in praxi_ is persistently driving Europe _to hark -back to the eighteenth century_? (—For instance in the form of maudlin -romanticism, altruism, hyper-sentimentality, pessimism in taste, -and socialism in politics). Is not the nineteenth century, at least -in its closing years, merely an accentuated, brutalised eighteenth -century,—that is to say a century of decadence? And has not Goethe -been—not alone for Germany, but also for the whole of Europe,—merely -an episode, a beautiful “in vain”? But great men are misunderstood when -they are regarded from the wretched standpoint of public utility. The -fact that no advantage can be derived from them—_this in itself may -perhaps be peculiar to greatness._ - - -51 - -Goethe is the last German whom I respect: he had understood three -things as I understand them. We also agree as to the “cross.”[9] People -often ask me why on earth I write in _German:_ nowhere am I less read -than in the Fatherland. But who knows whether I even _desire_ to be -read at present?—To create things on which time may try its teeth in -vain; to be concerned both in the form and the substance of my writing, -about a certain degree of immortality—never have I been modest enough -to demand less of myself. The aphorism, the sentence, in both of -which I, as the first among Germans, am a master, are the forms of -“eternity”; it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone -else says in a whole book,—what everyone else does _not_ say in a -whole book. - -I have given mankind the deepest book it possesses, my _Zarathustra;_ -before long I shall give it the most independent one. - - -[1] The German word _Rausch_ as used by Nietzsche here, suggests a -blend of our two English words “intoxication” and “elation.”—TR. - -[2] An allusion to a verse in Luther’s hymn: “_Lass fahren dahin_ ... -_das Reich muss uns doch bleiben,_” which Nietzsche applies to the -German Empire.—TR. - -[3] A disciple of Schopenhauer who blunted the sharpness of his -master’s Pessimism and who watered it down for modern requirements.—TR. - -[4] Quotation from the Libretto of Mozart’s “Magic Flute” Act I, Sc. -3.—TR. - -[5] This alludes to Parsifal. See my note on p. 96, vol. i., “The Will -to Power.”—TR. - -[6] This is a playful adaptation of Max von Schenkendorfs poem -“_Freiheit_” The proper line reads: “_Freiheit die ich meine_” (The -freedom that I do mean).—TR. - -[7] See “Memoirs of a House of the Dead,” by Dostoiewsky (translation -by Marie von Thilo: “Buried Alive”).—TR. - -[8] Clothilde de Veaux.—TR. - -[9] See my note on p. 147 of Vol. I. of the _Will to Power._—TR. - - - - -THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS - - -1 - -In conclusion I will just say a word concerning that world to which I -have sought new means of access, to which I may perhaps have found a -new passage—the ancient world. My taste, which is perhaps the reverse -of tolerant, is very far from saying yea through and through even to -this world: on the whole it is not over eager to say _Yea,_ it would -prefer to say _Nay,_ and better still nothing whatever.... This is true -of whole cultures; it is true of books,—it is also true of places -and of landscapes. Truth to tell, the number of ancient books that -count for something in my life is but small; and the most famous are -not of that number. My sense of style, for the epigram as style, was -awakened almost spontaneously upon my acquaintance with Sallust. I have -not forgotten the astonishment of my respected teacher Corssen, when -he was forced to give his worst Latin pupil the highest marks,—at one -stroke I had learned all there was to learn. Condensed, severe, with as -much substance as possible in the background, and with cold but roguish -hostility towards all “beautiful words” and “beautiful feelings”—in -these things I found my own particular bent. In my writings up to my -“Zarathustra,” there will be found a very earnest ambition to attain -to the _Roman_ style, to the “_ære perennius_” in style.—The same -thing happened on my first acquaintance with Horace. Up to the present -no poet has given me the same artistic raptures as those which from -the first I received from an Horatian ode. In certain languages it -would be absurd even to aspire to what is accomplished by this poet. -This mosaic of words, in which every unit spreads its power to the -left and to the right over the whole, by its sound, by its place in -the sentence, and by its meaning, this _minimum_ in the compass and -number of the signs, and the _maximum_ of energy in the signs which is -thereby achieved—all this is Roman, and, if you will believe me, noble -_par excellence._ By the side of this all the rest of poetry becomes -something popular,—nothing more than senseless sentimental twaddle. - - -2 - -I am not indebted to the Greeks for anything like such strong -impressions; and, to speak frankly, they cannot be to us what the -Romans are. One cannot _learn_ from the Greeks—their style is too -strange, it is also too fluid, to be imperative or to have the effect -of a classic. Who would ever have learnt writing from a Greek! Who -would ever have learned it without the Romans!... Do not let anyone -suggest Plato to me. In regard to Plato I am a thorough sceptic, and -have never been able to agree to the admiration of Plato the _artist,_ -which is traditional among scholars. And after all, in this matter, -the most refined judges of taste in antiquity are on my side. In my -opinion Plato bundles all the forms of style pell-mell together, -in this respect he is one of the first decadents of style: he has -something similar on his conscience to that which the Cynics had -who invented the _satura Menippea._ For the Platonic dialogue—this -revoltingly self-complacent and childish kind of dialectics—to -exercise any charm over you, you must never have read any good French -authors,—Fontenelle for instance. Plato is boring. In reality my -distrust of Plato is fundamental. I find him so very much astray -from all the deepest instincts of the Hellenes, so steeped in moral -prejudices, so pre-existently Christian—the concept “good” is already -the highest value with him,—that rather than use any other expression -I would prefer to designate the whole phenomenon Plato with the hard -word “superior bunkum,” or, if you would like it better, “idealism.” -Humanity has had to pay dearly for this Athenian having gone to school -among the Egyptians (—or among the Jews in Egypt?...) In the great -fatality of Christianity, Plato is that double-faced fascination -called the “ideal,” which made it possible for the more noble natures -of antiquity to misunderstand themselves and to tread the _bridge_ -which led to the “cross.” And what an amount of Plato is still to be -found in the concept “church,” and in the construction, the system -and the practice of the church!—My recreation, my predilection, my -cure, after all Platonism, has always been Thucydides. Thucydides and -perhaps Machiavelli’s _principe_ are most closely related to me owing -to the absolute determination which they show of refusing to deceive -themselves and of seeing reason in _reality,_—not in “rationality,” -and still less in “morality.” There is no more radical cure than -Thucydides for the lamentably rose-coloured idealisation of the -Greeks which the “classically-cultured” stripling bears with him into -life, as a reward for his public school training. His writings must be -carefully studied line by line, and his unuttered thoughts must be read -as distinctly as what he actually says. There are few thinkers so rich -in unuttered thoughts. In him the culture “of the Sophists”—that is to -say, the culture of realism, receives its most perfect expression: this -inestimable movement in the midst of the moral and idealistic knavery -of the Socratic Schools which was then breaking out in all directions. -Greek philosophy is the decadence of the Greek instinct: Thucydides is -the great summing up, the final manifestation of that strong, severe -positivism which lay in the instincts of the ancient Hellene. After -all, it is courage in the face of reality that distinguishes such -natures as Thucydides from Plato: Plato is a coward in the face of -reality—consequently he takes refuge in the ideal: Thucydides is -master of himself,—consequently he is able to master life. - - -3 - -To rout up cases of “beautiful souls,” “golden means” and other -perfections among the Greeks, to admire, say, their calm grandeur, -their ideal attitude of mind, their exalted simplicity—from this -“exalted simplicity,” which after all is a piece of _niaiserie -allemande,_ I was preserved by the psychologist within me. I saw their -strongest instinct, the Will to Power, I saw them quivering with the -fierce violence of this instinct,—I saw all their institutions grow -out of measures of security calculated to preserve each member of -their society from the inner _explosive material_ that lay in his -neighbour’s breast This enormous internal tension thus discharged -itself in terrible and reckless hostility outside the state: the -various states mutually tore each other to bits, in order that each -individual state could remain at peace with itself. It was then -necessary to be strong; for danger lay close at hand,—it lurked in -ambush everywhere. The superb suppleness of their bodies, the daring -realism and immorality which is peculiar to the Hellenes, was a -necessity not an inherent quality. It was a result, it had not been -there from the beginning. Even their festivals and their arts were but -means in producing a feeling of superiority, and of showing it: they -are measures of self-glorification; and in certain circumstances of -making one’s self terrible.... Fancy judging the Greeks in the German -style, from their philosophers; fancy using the suburban respectability -of the Socratic schools as a key to what is fundamentally Hellenic!... -The philosophers are of course the decadents of Hellas, the -counter-movement directed against the old and noble taste—(against the -agonal instinct, against the _Polls,_ against the value of the race, -against the authority of tradition), Socratic virtues were preached to -the Greeks, _because_ the Greeks had lost virtue: irritable, cowardly, -unsteady, and all turned to play-actors, they had more than sufficient -reason to submit to having morality preached to them. Not that it -helped them in any way; but great words and attitudes are so becoming -to decadents. - - -4 - -I was the first who, in order to understand the ancient, still rich and -even superabundant Hellenic instinct, took that marvellous phenomenon, -which bears the name of Dionysus, seriously: it can be explained only -as a manifestation of excessive energy. Whoever had studied the Greeks, -as that most profound of modern connoisseurs of their culture, Jakob -Burckhardt of Bâle, had done, knew at once that something had been -achieved by means of this interpretation. And in his “_Cultur der -Griechen_” Burckhardt inserted a special chapter on the phenomenon -in question. If you would like a glimpse of the other side, you have -only to refer to the almost laughable poverty of instinct among German -philologists when they approach the Dionysian question. The celebrated -Lobeck, especially, who with the venerable assurance of a worm dried up -between books, crawled into this world of mysterious states, succeeded -inconvincing himself that he was scientific, whereas he was simply -revoltingly superficial and childish,—Lobeck, with all the pomp of -profound erudition, gave us to understand that, as a matter of fact, -there was nothing at all in all these curiosities. Truth to tell, the -priests may well have communicated not a few things of value to the -participators in such orgies; for instance, the fact that wine provokes -desire, that man in certain circumstances lives on fruit, that plants -bloom in the spring and fade in the autumn. As regards the astounding -wealth of rites, symbols and myths which take their origin in the orgy, -and with which the world of antiquity is literally smothered, Lobeck -finds that it prompts him to a feat of even greater ingenuity than -the foregoing phenomenon did. “The Greeks,” he says, (_Aglaophamus,_ -I. p. 672), “when they had nothing better to do, laughed, sprang and -romped about, or, inasmuch as men also like a change at times, they -would sit down, weep and bewail their lot Others then came up who tried -to discover some reason for this strange behaviour; and thus, as an -explanation of these habits, there arose an incalculable number of -festivals, legends, and myths. On the other hand it was believed that -the _farcical performances_ which then perchance began to take place -on festival days, necessarily formed part of the celebrations, and -they were retained as an indispensable part of the ritual.”—This is -contemptible nonsense, and no one will take a man like Lobeck seriously -for a moment We are very differently affected when we examine the -notion “Hellenic,” as Winckelmann and Goethe conceived it, and find it -incompatible with that element out of which Dionysian art springs—I -speak of orgiasm. In reality I do not doubt that Goethe would have -completely excluded any such thing from the potentialities of the Greek -soul. _Consequently Goethe did not understand the Greeks._ For it is -only in the Dionysian mysteries, in the psychology of the Dionysian -state, that the _fundamental fact_ of the Hellenic instinct—its “will -to life”—is expressed. What did the Hellene secure himself with these -mysteries? _Eternal_ life, the eternal recurrence of life; the future -promised and hallowed in the past; the triumphant Yea to life despite -death and change; real life conceived as the collective prolongation -of life through procreation, through the mysteries of sexuality. -To the Greeks, the symbol of sex was the most venerated of symbols, -the really deep significance of all the piety of antiquity. All the -details of the act of procreation, pregnancy and birth gave rise to -the loftiest and most solemn feelings. In the doctrine of mysteries, -_pain_ was pronounced holy: the “pains of childbirth” sanctify pain in -general,—all becoming and all growth, everything that guarantees the -future _involves_ pain.... In order that there may be eternal joy in -creating, in order that the will to life may say Yea to itself in all -eternity, the “pains of childbirth” must also be eternal. All this is -what the word Dionysus signifies: I know of no higher symbolism than -this Greek symbolism, this symbolism of the Dionysian phenomenon. In -it the profoundest instinct of life, the instinct that guarantees the -future of life and life eternal, is understood religiously,—the road -to life itself, procreation, is pronounced _holy,_ ... It was only -Christianity which, with its fundamental resentment against life, made -something impure out of sexuality: it flung _filth_ at the very basis, -the very first condition of our life. - - -5 - -The psychology of orgiasm conceived as the feeling of a superabundance -of vitality and strength, within the scope of which even pain _acts -as a stimulus,_ gave me the key to the concept _tragic_ feeling, -which has been misunderstood not only by Aristotle, but also even -more by our pessimists. Tragedy is so far from proving anything in -regard to the pessimism of the Greeks, as Schopenhauer maintains, -that it ought rather to be considered as the categorical repudiation -and _condemnation_ thereof. The saying of Yea to life, including -even its most strange and most terrible problems, the will to life -rejoicing over its own inexhaustibleness in the _sacrifice_ of its -highest types—this is what I called Dionysian, this is what I -divined as the bridge leading to the psychology of the _tragic_ poet. -Not in order to escape from terror and pity, not to purify one’s self -of a dangerous passion by discharging it with vehemence—this is how -Aristotle understood it—but to be far beyond terror and pity and to -be the eternal lust of Becoming itself—that lust which also involves -the _lust of destruction._ And with this I once more come into touch -with the spot from which I once set out—-the “Birth of Tragedy” was -my first transvaluation of all values: with this I again take my stand -upon the soil from out of which my will and my capacity spring—I, the -last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus,—I, the prophet of eternal -recurrence. - - -THE END. - - - - -THE HAMMER SPEAKETH - - -“Why so hard!”—said the diamond once unto the charcoal; “are we then -not next of kin?” - -“Why so soft? O my brethren; this is my question to you. For are ye -not—my brothers? - -“Why so soft, so servile and yielding? Why are your hearts so fond of -denial and self-denial? How is it that so little fate looketh out from -your eyes? - -“And if ye will not be men of fate and inexorable, how can ye hope one -day to conquer with me? - -“And if your hardness will not sparkle, cut and divide, how can ye hope -one day to create with me? - -“For all creators are hard. And it must seem to you blessed to stamp -your hand upon millenniums as upon wax,— - -—Blessed to write upon the will of millenniums as upon brass,—harder -than brass, nobler than brass.—Hard through and through is only the -noblest. - -This new table of values, O my brethren, I set over your heads: Become -hard.” - -—“Thus Spake Zarathustra,” - -III., 29. - - - - -THE ANTICHRIST - -An Attempted Criticism of Christianity - - - - -PREFACE - - -This book belongs to the very few. Maybe not one of them is yet alive; -unless he be of those who understand my Zarathustra. How _can_ I -confound myself with those who to-day already find a hearing?—Only the -day after to-morrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously. - -I am only too well aware of the conditions under which a man -understands me, and then _necessarily_ understands. He must be -intellectually upright to the point of hardness, in order even to -endure my seriousness and my passion. He must be used to living on -mountain-tops,—and to feeling the wretched gabble of politics and -national egotism _beneath_ him. He must have become indifferent; he -must never inquire whether truth is profitable or whether it may -prove fatal.... Possessing from strength a predilection for questions -for which no one has enough courage nowadays; the courage for the -_forbidden;_ his predestination must be the labyrinth. The experience -of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for the most -remote things. A new conscience for truths which hitherto have -remained dumb. And the will to economy on a large scale: to husband -his strength and his enthusiasm.... He must honour himself, he must -love himself; he must be absolutely free with regard to himself.... -Very well then! Such men alone are my readers, my proper readers, -my preordained readers: of what account are the rest?—the rest are -simply—humanity.—One must be superior to humanity in power, in -loftiness of soul,—in contempt. - -FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. - - -1 - -Let us look each other in the face. We are hyperboreans,—we know -well enough how far outside the crowd we stand. “Thou wilt find the -way to the Hyperboreans neither by land nor by water”: Pindar already -knew this much about us. Beyond the north, the ice, and death—_our -life, our happiness...._ We discovered happiness; we know the way; we -found the way out of thousands of years of labyrinth. Who _else_ would -have found it?—Not the modern man, surely?—“I do not know where I -am or what I am to do; I am everything that knows not where it is or -what to do,”—sighs the modern man. We were made quite ill by _this_ -modernity,—with its indolent peace, its cowardly compromise, and the -whole of the virtuous filth of its Yea and Nay. This tolerance and -_largeur de cœur_ which “forgives” everything because it “understands” -everything, is a Sirocco for us. We prefer to live amid ice than to -be breathed upon by modern virtues and other southerly winds!... We -were brave enough; we spared neither ourselves nor others: but we -were very far from knowing whither to direct our bravery. We were -becoming gloomy; people called us fatalists. _Our_ fate—it was the -abundance, the tension and the storing up of power. We thirsted for -thunderbolts and great deeds; we kept at the most respectful distance -from the joy of the weakling, from “resignation.” ... Thunder was in -our air, that part of nature which we are, became overcast—_for we had -no direction._ The formula of our happiness: a Yea, a Nay, a straight -line, a goal. - - -2 - -What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to -Power, and power itself in man. What is bad?—All that proceeds -from weakness. What is happiness?—The feeling that power is -_increasing,_—that resistance has been overcome. - -Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not -virtue, but efficiency[1] (virtue in the Renaissance sense, _virtu,_ -free from all moralic acid). The weak and the botched shall perish: -first principle of our humanity. And they ought even to be helped to -perish. - -What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy with all the -botched and the weak—Christianity. - - -3 - -The problem I set in this work is not what will replace mankind in the -order of living being! (—Man is an _end_—); but, what type of man -must be _reared,_ must be _willed,_ as having the higher value, as -being the most worthy of life and the surest guarantee of the future. - -This more valuable type has appeared often enough already: but as a -happy accident, as an exception, never as _willed._ He has rather been -precisely the most feared; hitherto he has been almost the terrible in -itself;—and from out the very fear he provoked there arose the will -to rear the type which has how been reared, _attained:_ the domestic -animal, the gregarious animal, the sick animal man,—the Christian. - - -4 - -Mankind does _not_ represent a development towards a better, stronger -or higher type, in the sense in which this is supposed to occur to-day. -“Progress” is merely a modern idea—that is to say, a false idea.[2] -The modern European is still far below the European of the Renaissance -in value. The process of evolution does not by any means imply -elevation, enhancement and increasing strength. - -On the other hand isolated and individual cases are continually -succeeding in different places on earth, as the outcome of the most -different cultures, and in these a _higher type_ certainly manifests -itself: something which by the side of mankind in general, represents a -kind of superman. Such lucky strokes of great success have always been -possible and will perhaps always be possible. And even whole races, -tribes and nations may in certain circumstances represent such _lucky -strokes._ - - -5 - -We must not deck out and adorn Christianity: it has waged a deadly -war upon this _higher_ type of man, it has set a ban upon all the -fundamental instincts of this type, and has distilled evil and the -devil himself out of these instincts:—the strong man as the typical -pariah, the villain. Christianity has sided with everything weak, low, -and botched; it has made an ideal out of _antagonism_ towards all the -self-preservative instincts of strong life: it has corrupted even the -reason of the strongest intellects, by teaching that the highest values -of intellectuality are sinful, misleading and full of temptations. -The most lamentable example of this was the corruption of Pascal, who -believed in the perversion of his reason through original sin, whereas -it had only been perverted by his Christianity. - - -6 - -A painful and ghastly spectacle has just risen before my eyes. I tore -down the curtain which concealed mankind’s _corruption._ This word in -my mouth is at least secure from the suspicion that it contains a moral -charge against mankind. It is—I would fain emphasise this again—free -from moralic acid: to such an extent is this so, that I am most -thoroughly conscious of the corruption in question precisely in those -quarters in which hitherto people have aspired with most determination -to “virtue” and to “godliness.” As you have already surmised, I -understand corruption in the sense of _decadence._ What I maintain is -this, that all the values upon which mankind builds its highest hopes -and desires are _decadent_ values. - -I call an animal, a species, an individual corrupt, when it loses its -instincts, when it selects and _prefers_ that which is detrimental to -it. A history of the “higher feelings,” of “human ideals”—and it is -not impossible that I shall have to write it—would almost explain why -man is so corrupt. Life itself, to my mind, is nothing more nor less -than the instinct of growth, of permanence, of accumulating forces, -of power: where the will to power is lacking, degeneration sets in. -My contention is that all the highest values of mankind _lack_ this -will,—that the values of decline and of _nihilism_ are exercising the -sovereign power under the cover of the holiest names. - - -7 - -Christianity is called the religion of _pity._—Pity is opposed to -the tonic passions which enhance the energy of the feeling of life: -its action is depressing. A man loses power when he pities. By -means of pity the drain on strength which suffering itself already -introduces into the world is multiplied a thousandfold. Through pity, -suffering itself becomes infectious; in certain circumstances it may -lead to a total loss of life and vital energy, which is absurdly -put of proportion to the magnitude of the cause (—the case of the -death of the Nazarene). This is the first standpoint; but there is a -still more important one. Supposing one measures pity according to -the value of the reactions it usually stimulates, its danger to life -appears in a much more telling light On the whole, pity thwarts the -law of development which is the law of selection. It preserves that -which is ripe for death, it fights in favour of the disinherited and -the condemned of life; thanks to the multitude of abortions of all -kinds which it maintains in life, it lends life itself a sombre and -questionable aspect. People have dared to call pity a virtue (—in -every _noble_ culture it is considered as a weakness—); people went -still further, they exalted it to _the_ virtue, the root and origin -of all virtues,—but, of course, what must never be forgotten is the -fact that this was done from the standpoint of a philosophy which -was nihilistic, and on whose shield the device _The Denial of Life_ -was inscribed. Schopenhauer was right in this respect: by means of -pity, life is denied and made _more worthy of denial,_—pity is -the _praxis_ of Nihilism. I repeat, this depressing and infectious -instinct thwarts those instincts which aim at the preservation and -enhancement of the value life: by _multiplying_ misery quite as much -as by preserving all that is miserable, it is the principal agent in -promoting decadence,—pity exhorts people to nothing, to _nonentity!_ -But they do not say “_nonentity_” they say “Beyond,” or “God,” or “the -true life”; or Nirvana, or Salvation, or Blessedness, instead. This -innocent rhetoric, which belongs to the realm of the religio-moral -idiosyncrasy, immediately appears to be _very much less innocent_ if -one realises what the tendency is which here tries to drape itself in -the mantle of sublime expressions—the tendency of hostility to life. -Schopenhauer was hostile to life: that is why he elevated pity to a -virtue.... Aristotle, as you know, recognised in pity a morbid and -dangerous state, of which it was wise to rid one’s self from time to -time by a purgative: he regarded tragedy as a purgative. For the sake -of the instinct of life, it would certainly seem necessary to find some -means of lancing any such morbid and dangerous accumulation of pity, as -that which possessed Schopenhauer (and unfortunately the whole of our -literary and artistic decadence as well, from St Petersburg to Paris, -from Tolstoi to Wagner), if only to make it _burst...._ Nothing is -more unhealthy in the midst of our unhealthy modernity, than Christian -pity. To be doctors _here,_ to be inexorable _here,_ to wield the knife -effectively _here,—_ all this is our business, all this is _our_ -kind of love to our fellows, this is what makes _us_ philosophers, us -hyperboreans!— - - -8 - -It is necessary to state whom we regard as our antithesis:—the -theologians, and all those who have the blood of theologians in their -veins—the whole of our philosophy.... A man must have had his very -nose upon this fatality, or better still he must have experienced it -in his own soul; he must almost have perished through it, in order -to be unable to treat this matter lightly (—the free-spiritedness -of our friends the naturalists and physiologists is, in my opinion, -a _joke,_—what they lack in these questions is passion, what they -lack is having suffered from these questions—). This poisoning -extends much further than people think: I unearthed the “arrogant” -instinct of the theologian, wherever nowadays people feel themselves -idealists,—wherever, thanks to superior antecedents, they claim the -right to rise above reality and to regard it with suspicion.... Like -the priest the idealist has every grandiloquent concept in his hand -(—and not only in his hand!), he wields them all with kindly contempt -against the “understanding,” the “senses,” “honours,” “decent living,” -“science”; he regards such things as _beneath_ him, as detrimental and -seductive forces, upon the face of which, “the Spirit” moves in pure -absoluteness:—as if humility, chastity, poverty, in a word _holiness,_ -had not done incalculably more harm to life hitherto, than any sort of -horror and vice.... Pure spirit is pure falsehood.... As long as the -priest, the _professional_ denier, calumniator and poisoner of life, is -considered as the _highest_ kind of man, there can be no answer to the -question, what _is_ truth? Truth has already been turned topsy-turvy, -when the conscious advocate of nonentity and of denial passes as the -representative of “truth.” - - -9 - -It is upon this theological instinct that I wage war. I find traces -of it everywhere. Whoever has the blood of theologians in his veins, -stands from the start in a false and dishonest position to all things. -The pathos which grows out of this state, is called _Faith:_ that is -to say, to shut one’s eyes once and for all, in order not to suffer -at the sight of incurable falsity. People convert this faulty view of -all things into a moral, a virtue, a thing of holiness. They endow -their distorted vision with a good conscience,—they claim that no -_other_ point of view is any longer of value, once theirs has been -made sacrosanct with the names “God,” “Salvation,” “Eternity.” I -unearthed the instinct of the theologian everywhere: it is the most -universal, and actually the most subterranean form of falsity on earth. -That which a theologian considers true, _must_ of necessity be false: -this furnishes almost the criterion of truth. It is his most profound -self-preservative instinct which forbids reality ever to attain to -honour in any way, or even to raise its voice. Whithersoever the -influence of the theologian extends, _valuations_ are topsy-turvy, -and the concepts “true” and “false” have necessarily changed places: -that which is most deleterious to life, is here called “true,” that -which enhances it, elevates it, says Yea to it, justifies it and -renders it triumphant, is called “false.” ... If it should happen that -theologians, _via_ the “conscience” either of princes or of the people, -stretch out their hand for power, let us not be in any doubt as to -what results therefrom each time, namely:—the will to the end, the -_nihilistic_ will to power.... - - -10 - -Among Germans I am immediately understood when I say, that philosophy -is ruined by the blood of theologians. The Protestant minister is -the grand-father of German philosophy, Protestantism itself is the -latter’s _peccatum originale._ Definition of Protestantism: the -partial paralysis of Christianity—and of reason.... One needs only to -pronounce the words “Tübingen Seminary,” in order to understand what -German philosophy really is at bottom, theology _in disguise_.... The -Swabians are the best liars in Germany, they lie innocently.... Whence -came all the rejoicing with which the appearance of Kant was greeted -by the scholastic world of Germany, three-quarters of which consist of -clergymen’s and schoolmasters’ sons? Whence came the German conviction, -which finds an echo even now, that Kant inaugurated a change for the -_better?_ The theologian’s instinct in the German scholar divined what -had once again been made possible.... A back-staircase leading into -the old ideal was discovered, the concept “true world,” the concept -morality as the _essence_ of the world (—those two most vicious errors -that have ever existed!), were, thanks to a subtle and wily scepticism, -once again, if not demonstrable, at least no longer _refutable...._ -Reason, the _prerogative_ of reason, does not extend so far.... Out of -reality they had made “appearance”; and an absolutely false world—that -of being—had been declared to be reality. Kant’s success is merely a -theologian’s success. Like Luther, and like Leibniz, Kant was one brake -the more upon the already squeaky wheel of German uprightness. - - -11 - -One word more against Kant as a _moralist._ A virtue _must_ be _our_ -invention, our most personal defence and need: in every other sense it -is merely a danger. That which does not constitute a condition of our -life, is merely harmful to it: to possess a virtue merely because one -happens to respect the concept “virtue,” as Kant would have us do, is -pernicious. “Virtue,” “Duty,” “Goodness in itself,” goodness stamped -with the character of impersonality and universal validity—these -things are mere mental hallucinations, in which decline the final -devitalisation of life and Königsbergian Chinadom find expression. The -most fundamental laws of preservation and growth, demand precisely the -reverse, namely:—that each should discover _his_ own virtue, his own -Categorical Imperative. A nation goes to the dogs when it confounds -its concept of duty with the general concept of duty. Nothing is more -profoundly, more thoroughly pernicious, than every impersonal feeling -of duty, than every sacrifice to the Moloch of abstraction.—Fancy no -one’s having thought Kant’s Categorical Imperative _dangerous to life!_ -... The instinct of the theologist alone took it under its wing!—An -action stimulated by the instinct of life, is proved to be a proper -action by the happiness that accompanies it: and that nihilist with the -bowels of a Christian dogmatist regarded happiness as an _objection -..._. What is there that destroys a man more speedily than to work, -think, feel, as an automaton of “duty,” without internal promptings, -without a profound personal predilection, without joy? This is the -recipe _par excellence_ of decadence and even of idiocy.... Kant became -an idiot—And he was the contemporary of Goethe! This fatal spider was -regarded as _the_ German philosopher,—is still regarded as such!... I -refrain from saying what I think of the Germans.... Did Kant not see in -the French Revolution the transition of the State from the inorganic to -the _organic_ form? Did he not ask himself whether there was a single -event on record which could be explained otherwise than as a moral -faculty of mankind; so that by means of it, “mankind’s tendency towards -good,” might be _proved_ once and for all? Kant’s reply: “that is the -Revolution.” Instinct at fault in anything and everything, hostility to -nature as an instinct, German decadence made into philosophy_—that is -Kant!_ - - -12 - -Except for a few sceptics, the respectable type in the history of -philosophy, the rest do not know the very first pre-requisite of -intellectual uprightness. They all behave like females, do these great -enthusiasts and animal prodigies,—they regard “beautiful feelings” -themselves as arguments, the “heaving breast” as the bellows of -divinity, and conviction as the _criterion_ of truth. In the end, -even Kant, with “Teutonic” innocence, tried to dress this lack of -intellectual conscience up in a scientific garb by means of the concept -“practical reason.” He deliberately invented a kind of reason which -at times would allow one to dispense with reason, that is to say when -“morality,” when the sublime command “thou shalt,” makes itself heard. -When one remembers that in almost all nations the philosopher is only a -further development of the priestly type, this heirloom of priesthood, -this _fraud towards one’s self,_ no longer surprises one. When a man -has a holy life-task, as for instance to improve, save, or deliver -mankind, when a man bears God in his breast, and is the mouthpiece of -imperatives from another world,—with such a mission he stands beyond -the pale of all merely reasonable valuations. He is even sanctified by -such a taste, and is already the type of a higher order! What does a -priest care about science! He stands too high for that!—And until now -the priest has _ruled!_—He it was who determined the concept “true -and false.” - - -13 - -Do not let us undervalue the fact that we _ourselves,_ we free spirits, -are already a “transvaluation of all values,” an incarnate declaration -of war against all the old concepts “true” and “untrue” and of a -triumph over them. The most valuable standpoints are always the last -to be found: but the most valuable standpoints are the methods. AH the -methods and the first principles of our modern scientific procedure, -had for years to encounter the profoundest contempt: association -with them meant exclusion from the society of decent people—one was -regarded as an “enemy of God,” as a scoffer at truth and as “one -possessed.” With one’s scientific nature, one belonged to the Chandala. -We have had the whole feeling of mankind against us; hitherto their -notion of that which ought to be truth, of that which ought to serve -the purpose of truth: every “thou shalt,” has been directed against -us.... Our objects, our practices, our calm, cautious distrustful -manner—everything about us seemed to them absolutely despicable and -beneath contempt After all, it might be asked with some justice, -whether the thing which kept mankind blindfold so long, were not an -æsthetic taste: what they demanded of truth was a _picturesque_ effect, -and from the man of science what they expected was that he should make -a forcible appeal to their senses. It was our _modesty_ which ran -counter to their taste so long ... And oh! how well they guessed this, -did these divine turkey-cocks!— - - -14 - -We have altered our standpoint. In every respect we have become -more modest We no longer derive man from the “spirit,” and from the -“godhead”; we have thrust him back among the beasts. We regard him as -the strongest animal, because he is the craftiest: one of the results -thereof is his intellectuality. On the other hand we guard against the -vain pretension, which even here would fain assert itself: that man is -the great _arrière pensée_ of organic evolution! He is by no means the -crown of creation, beside him, every other creature stands at the same -stage of perfection.... And even in asserting this we go a little too -far; for, relatively speaking, man is the most botched and diseased -of animals, and he has wandered furthest from his instincts. Be all -this as it may, he is certainly the most _interesting!_ As regards -animals, Descartes was the first, with really admirable daring, to -venture the thought that the beast was _machina,_ and the whole of -our physiology is endeavouring to prove this proposition. Moreover, -logically we do not set man apart, as Descartes did: the extent -to which man is understood to-day goes only so far as he has been -understood mechanistically. Formerly man was given “free will,” as his -dowry from a higher sphere; nowadays we have robbed him even of will, -in view of the fact that no such faculty is any longer known. The only -purpose served by the old word “will,” is to designate a result, a -sort of individual reaction which necessarily follows upon a host of -partly discordant and partly harmonious stimuli:—the will no longer -“effects” or “moves” anything.... Formerly people thought that man’s -consciousness, his “spirit,” was a proof of his lofty origin, of his -divinity. With the idea of perfecting man, he was conjured to draw his -senses inside himself, after the manner of the tortoise, to cut off all -relations with terrestrial things, and to divest himself of his mortal -shell. Then the most important thing about him, the “pure spirit,” -would remain over. Even concerning these things we have improved our -standpoint Consciousness, “spirit,” now seems to us rather a symptom of -relative imperfection in the organism, as an experiment, a groping, a -misapprehension, an affliction which absorbs an unnecessary quantity of -nervous energy. We deny that anything can be done perfectly so long as -it is done consciously. “Pure spirit” is a piece of “pure stupidity”: -if we discount the nervous system, the senses and the “mortal shell,” -we have miscalculated—that it is all!... - - -15 - -In Christianity neither morality nor religion comes in touch at all -with reality. Nothing but imaginary _causes_ (God, the soul, the ego, -spirit, free will—or even non-free will); nothing but imaginary -_effects_ (sin, salvation, grace, punishment, forgiveness of sins). -Imaginary beings are supposed to have intercourse (God, spirits, -souls); imaginary Natural History (anthropocentric: total lack of -the notion “natural causes”); an imaginary _psychology_ (nothing -but misunderstandings of self, interpretations of pleasant or -unpleasant general feelings; for instance of the states of the _nervus -sympathicus,_ with the help of the sign language of a religio-moral -idiosyncrasy,—repentance, pangs of conscience, the temptation of -the devil, the presence of God); an imaginary teleology (the Kingdom -of God, the Last Judgment, Everlasting Life).—This purely fictitious -world distinguishes itself very unfavourably from the world of -dreams: the latter _reflects_ reality, whereas the former falsifies, -depreciates and denies it Once the concept “nature” was taken to mean -the opposite of the concept God, the word “natural” had to acquire the -meaning of abominable,—the whole of that fictitious world takes its -root in the hatred of nature (—reality!—), it is the expression of -profound discomfiture in the presence of reality.... _But this explains -everything._ What is the only kind of man who has reasons for wriggling -out of reality by lies? The man who suffers from reality. But in -order to suffer from reality one must be a bungled portion of it. The -preponderance of pain over pleasure is the _cause_ of that fictitious -morality and religion: but any such preponderance furnishes the formula -for decadence. - - -16 - -A criticism of the Christian concept of God inevitably leads to the -same conclusion.—A nation that still believes in itself, also has -its own God. In him it honours the conditions which enable it to -remain uppermost,—that is to say, its virtues. It projects its joy -over itself, its feeling of power, into a being, to whom it can be -thankful for such things. He who is rich, will give of his riches: a -proud people requires a God, unto whom it can _sacrifice_ things.... -Religion, when restricted to these principles, is a form of gratitude. -A man is grateful for his own existence; for this he must have a -God.—Such a God must be able to benefit and to injure him, he must be -able to act the friend and the foe. He must be esteemed for his good -as well as for his evil qualities. The monstrous castration of a God -by making him a God only of goodness, would lie beyond the pale of the -desires of such a community. The evil God is just as urgently needed -as the good God: for a people in such a form of society certainly does -not owe its existence to toleration and humaneness.... What would be -the good of a God who knew nothing of anger, revenge, envy, scorn, -craft, and violence?—who had perhaps never experienced the rapturous -_ardeurs_ of victory and of annihilation? No one would understand such -a God: why should one possess him?—Of course, when a people is on -the road to ruin; when it feels its belief in a future, its hope of -freedom vanishing for ever; when it becomes conscious of submission -as the most useful quality, and of the virtues of the submissive as -self-preservative measures, then its God must also modify himself. -He then becomes a tremulous and unassuming sneak; he counsels “peace -of the soul,” the cessation of all hatred, leniency and “love” even -towards friend and foe. He is for ever moralising, he crawls into -the heart of every private virtue, becomes a God for everybody, he -retires from active service and becomes a Cosmopolitan.... Formerly -he represented a people, the strength of a people, everything -aggressive and desirous of power lying concealed in the heart of a -nation: now he is merely the good God.... In very truth Gods have no -other alternative, they are _either_ the Will to Power—in which case -they are always the Gods of whole nations,—or, on the other hand, the -incapacity for power—in which case they necessarily become good. - - -17 - -Wherever the Will to Power, no matter in what form, begins to decline, -a physiological retrogression, decadence, always supervenes. The -godhead of _decadence,_ shorn of its masculine virtues and passions -is perforce converted into the God of the physiologically degraded, -of the weak. Of course they do not call themselves the weak, they -call themselves “the good.” ... No hint will be necessary to help you -to understand at what moment in history the dualistic fiction of a -good and an evil God first became possible. With the same instinct by -which the subjugated reduce their God to “Goodness in itself,” they -also cancel the good qualities from their conqueror’s God; they avenge -themselves on their masters by diabolising the latter’s God.—The _good -God_ and the devil as well:—both the abortions of decadence.—How -is it possible that we are still so indulgent towards the simplicity -of Christian theologians to-day, as to declare with them that the -evolution of the concept God, from the “God of Israel,” the God of -a people, to the Christian God, the quintessence of all goodness, -marks a _step forward?_—But even Renan does this. As if Renan had -a right to simplicity! Why the very contrary stares one in the face. -When the pre-requisites of _ascending_ life, when everything strong, -plucky, masterful and proud has been eliminated from the concept -of God, and step by step he has sunk down to the symbol of a staff -for the weary, of a last straw for all those who are drowning; when -he becomes the pauper’s God, the sinner’s God, the sick man’s God -_par excellence,_ and the attribute “Saviour,” “Redeemer,” remains -_over_ as the one essential attribute of divinity: what does such a -metamorphosis, such an abasement of the godhead imply?—Undoubtedly, -“the kingdom of God” has thus become larger. Formerly all he had was -his people, his “chosen” people. Since then he has gone travelling -over foreign lands, just as his people have done; since then he has -never rested anywhere: until one day he felt at home everywhere, the -Great Cosmopolitan,—until he got the “greatest number,” and half the -world on his side. But the God of the “greatest number,” the democrat -among gods, did not become a proud heathen god notwithstanding: he -remained a Jew, he remained the God of the back streets, the God of -all dark corners and hovels, of all the unwholesome quarters of the -world!... His universal empire is now as ever a netherworld empire, -an infirmary, a subterranean empire, a ghetto-empire.... And he -himself is so pale, so weak, so decadent ... Even the palest of the -pale were able to master him—our friends the metaphysicians, those -albinos of thought. They spun their webs around him so long that -ultimately he was hypnotised by their movements and himself became a -spider, a metaphysician. Thenceforward he once more began spinning the -world out of his inner being—_sub specie Spinozæ,_—thenceforward -he transfigured himself into something ever thinner and ever more -anæmic, became “ideal,” became “pure spirit,” became _“absotutum”_ and -“thing-in-itself.” ... _The decline and fall of a god:_ God became the -“thing-in-itself.” - - -18 - -The Christian concept of God—God as the deity of the sick, God as a -spider, God as spirit—is one of the most corrupt concepts of God that -has ever been attained on earth. Maybe it represents the low-water -mark in the evolutionary ebb of the godlike type God degenerated into -the _contradiction of life,_ instead of being its transfiguration and -eternal Yea! With God war is declared on life, nature, and the will to -life! God is the formula for every calumny of this world and for every -lie concerning a beyond! In God, nonentity is deified, and the will to -nonentity is declared holy! - - -19 - -The fact that the strong races of Northern Europe did not repudiate -the Christian God, certainly does not do any credit to their religious -power, not to speak of their taste They ought to have been able -successfully to cope with such a morbid and decrepit offshoot of -decadence. And a curse lies on their heads; because they were unable to -cope with him: they made illness, decrepitude and contradiction a part -of all their instincts,—since then they have not _created_ any other -God! Two thousand years have passed and not a single new God! But still -there exists, and as if by right,—like an _ultimum_ and _maximum_ of -god-creating power,—the _creator spiritus_ in man, this miserable God -of Christian monotono-theism! This hybrid creature of decay, nonentity, -concept and contradiction, in which all the instincts of decadence, all -the cowardices and languors of the soul find their sanction!—— - - -20 - -With my condemnation of Christianity I should not like to have done -an injustice to a religion which is related to it and the number of -whose followers is even greater; I refer to Buddhism. As nihilistic -religions, they are akin,—they are religions of decadence,—while -each is separated from the other in the most extraordinary fashion. -For being able to compare them at all, the critic of Christianity is -profoundly grateful to Indian scholars.—Buddhism is a hundred times -more realistic than Christianity,—it is part of its constitutional -heritage to be able to face problems objectively and coolly, it is -the outcome of centuries of lasting philosophical activity. The -concept “God” was already exploded when it appeared. Buddhism is -the only really _positive_ religion to be found in history, even -in its epistemology (which is strict phenomenalism)—it no longer -speaks of the “struggle with _sin_” but fully recognising the true -nature of reality it speaks of the “struggle with _pain._” It already -has—and this distinguishes it fundamentally from Christianity,—the -self-deception of moral concepts beneath it,—to use my own -phraseology, it stands _Beyond Good and Evil._ The two physiological -facts upon which it rests and upon which it bestows its attention -are: in the first place excessive irritability of feeling, which -manifests itself as a refined susceptibility to pain, _and also_ as -super-spiritualisation, an all-too-lengthy sojourn amid concepts and -logical procedures, under the influence of which the personal instinct -has suffered in favour of the “impersonal.” (—Both of these states -will be known to a few of my readers, the objective ones, who, like -myself, will know them from experience.) Thanks to these physiological -conditions, a state of depression set in, which Buddha sought to combat -by means of hygiene. Against it, he prescribes life in the open, a life -of travel; moderation and careful choice in food; caution in regard to -all intoxicating liquor, as also in regard to all the passions which -tend to create bile and to heat the blood; and he deprecates care -either on one’s own or on other people’s account He recommends ideas -that bring one either peace or good cheer,—he invents means whereby -the habit of contrary ideas may be lost He understands goodness—being -good—as promoting health. _Prayer_ is out of the question, as is -also _asceticism;_ there is neither a Categorical Imperative nor any -discipline whatsoever, even within the walls of a monastery (—it is -always possible to leave it if one wants to). All these things would -have been only a means of accentuating the excessive irritability -already referred to. Precisely on this account he does not exhort his -followers to wage war upon those who do not share their views; nothing -is more abhorred in his doctrine than the feeling of revenge, of -aversion, and of resentment (—“not through hostility doth hostility -end”: the touching refrain of the whole of Buddhism....) And in this -he was right; for it is precisely these passions which are thoroughly -unhealthy in view of the principal dietetic object The mental fatigue -which he finds already existent and which expresses itself in -excessive “objectivity” (_i.e._, the enfeeblement of the individual’s -interest—loss of ballast and of “egoism”), he combats by leading -the spiritual interests as well imperatively back to the individual -In Buddha’s doctrine egoism is a duty: the thing which is above all -necessary, _i.e.,_ “how canst thou be rid of suffering” regulates -and defines the whole of the spiritual diet (—let anyone but think -of that Athenian who also declared war upon pure “scientificality,” -Socrates, who made a morality out of personal egoism even in the realm -of problems). - - -21 - -The pre-requisites for Buddhism are a very mild climate, great -gentleness and liberality in the customs of a people and _no_ -militarism. The movement must also originate among the higher and -even learned classes. Cheerfulness, peace and absence of desire, are -the highest of inspirations, and they are _realised._ Buddhism is not -a religion in which perfection is merely aspired to: perfection is -the normal case. In Christianity all the instincts of the subjugated -and oppressed come to the fore: it is the lowest classes who seek -their salvation in this religion. Here the pastime, the manner of -killing time is to practise the casuistry of sin, self-criticism, and -conscience inquisition. Here the ecstasy in the presence of a _powerful -being,_ called “god,” is constantly maintained by means of prayer; -while the highest thing is regarded as unattainable, as a gift, as an -act of “grace” Here plain dealing is also entirely lacking: concealment -and the darkened room are Christian. Here the body is despised, hygiene -is repudiated as sensual; the church repudiates even cleanliness (—the -first Christian measure after the banishment of the Moors was the -closing of the public baths, of which Cordova alone possessed 270). -A certain spirit of cruelty towards one’s self and others is also -Christian: hatred of all those who do not share one’s views; the will -to persecute Sombre and exciting ideas are in the foreground; the most -coveted states and those which are endowed with the finest names, are -really epileptic in their nature; diet is selected in such a way as -to favour morbid symptoms and to over-excite the nerves. Christian, -too, is the mortal hatred of the earth’s rulers,—the “noble,”—and -at the same time a sort of concealed and secret competition with them -(the subjugated leave the “body” to their master—all they want is -the “soul”). Christian is the hatred of the intellect, of pride, of -courage, freedom, intellectual _libertinage;_ Christian is the hatred -of the _senses,_ of the joys of the senses, of joy in general. - - -22 - -When Christianity departed from its native soil, which consisted of the -lowest classes, the _submerged masses_ of the ancient world, and set -forth in quest of power among barbaric nations, it no longer met with -exhausted men but inwardly savage and self-lacerating men—the strong -but bungled men. Here, dissatisfaction with one’s self, suffering -through one’s self, is not as in the case of Buddhism, excessive -irritability and susceptibility to pain, but rather, conversely, it -is an inordinate desire for inflicting pain, for a discharge of the -inner tension in hostile deeds and ideas. Christianity was in need of -_barbaric_ ideas and values, in order to be able to master barbarians: -such are for instance, the sacrifice of the first-born, the drinking -of blood at communion, the contempt of the intellect and of culture; -torture in all its forms, sensual and non-sensual; the great pomp of -the cult Buddhism is a religion for _senile_ men, for races which -have become kind, gentle, and over-spiritual, and which feel pain too -easily (—Europe is not nearly ripe for it yet—); it calls them back -to peace and cheerfulness, to a regimen for the intellect, to a certain -hardening of the body. Christianity aims at mastering _beasts of prey_; -its expedient is to make them _ill,_—to render feeble is the Christian -recipe for taming, for “civilisation.” Buddhism is a religion for the -close and exhaustion of civilisation; Christianity does not even find -civilisation at hand when it appears, in certain circumstances it lays -the foundation of civilisation. - - -23 - -Buddhism, I repeat, is a hundred times colder, more truthful, -more objective. It no longer requires to justify pain and its -susceptibility to suffering by the interpretation of sin,—it simply -says what it thinks, “I suffer.” To the barbarian, on the other hand, -suffering in itself is not a respectable thing: in order to acknowledge -to himself that he suffers, what he requires, in the first place, is -an explanation (his instinct directs him more readily to deny his -suffering, or to endure it in silence). In his case, the word “devil” -was a blessing: man had an almighty and terrible enemy,—he had no -reason to be ashamed of suffering at the hands of such an enemy.— - -At bottom there are in Christianity one or two subtleties which belong -to the Orient In the first place it knows that it is a matter of -indifference whether a thing be true or not; but that it is of the -highest importance that it should be believed to be true. Truth and -the belief that something is true: two totally separate worlds of -interest, almost _opposite worlds,_ the road to the one and the road to -the other lie absolutely apart To be initiated into this fact almost -constitutes one a sage in the Orient: the Brahmins understood it thus, -so did Plato, and so does every disciple of esoteric wisdom. If for -example it give anyone pleasure to believe himself delivered from sin, -it is _not_ a necessary prerequisite thereto that he should be sinful, -but only that he should _feel_ sinful. If, however, _faith_ is above -all necessary, then reason, knowledge, and scientific research must be -brought into evil repute: the road to truth becomes the _forbidden_ -road.—Strong _hope_ is a much greater stimulant of life than any -single realised joy could be. Sufferers must be sustained by a hope -which no actuality can contradict,—and which cannot ever be realised: -the hope of another world. (Precisely on account of this power that -hope has of making the unhappy linger on, the Greeks regarded it as -the evil of evils, as the most _mischievous_ evil: it remained behind -in Pandora’s box.) In order that _love_ may be possible, God must be a -person. In order that the lowest instincts may also make their voices -heard God must be young. For the ardour of the women a beautiful saint, -and for the ardour of the men a Virgin Mary has to be pressed into the -foreground. All this on condition that Christianity wishes to rule -over a certain soil, on which Aphrodisiac or Adonis cults had already -determined the _notion_ of a cult. To insist upon _chastity_ only -intensifies the vehemence and profundity of the religious instinct—it -makes the cult warmer, more enthusiastic, more soulful.—Love is the -state in which man sees things most widely different from what they -are. The force of illusion reaches its zenith here, as likewise the -sweetening and transfiguring power. When a man is in love he endures -more than at other times; he submits to everything. The thing was to -discover a religion in which it was possible to love: by this means -the worst in life is overcome—it is no longer even seen.—So much -for three Christian virtues Faith, Hope, and Charity: I call them the -three Christian _precautionary measures._—Buddhism is too full of aged -wisdom, too positivistic to be shrewd in this way. - - -24 - -Here I only touch upon the problem of the origin of Christianity. -The first principle of its solution reads: Christianity can be -understood only in relation to the soil out of which it grew,—it is -not a counter-movement against the Jewish instinct, it is the rational -outcome of the latter, one step further in its appalling logic. In -the formula of the Saviour: “for Salvation is of the Jews.”—The -second principle is: the psychological type of the Galilean is still -recognisable, but it was only in a state of utter degeneration (which -is at once a distortion and an overloading with foreign features) that -he was able to serve the purpose for which he has been used,—namely, -as the type of a Redeemer of mankind. - -The Jews are the most remarkable people in the history of the world, -because when they were confronted with the question of Being or -non-Being, with simply uncanny deliberateness, they preferred Being -_at any price:_ this price was the fundamental _falsification_ of all -Nature, all the naturalness and all the reality, of the inner quite -as much as of the outer world. They hedged themselves in behind all -those conditions under which hitherto a people has been able to live, -has been allowed to live; of themselves they created an idea which was -the reverse of _natural_ conditions,—each in turn, they twisted first -religion, then the cult, then morality, history and psychology, about -in a manner so perfectly hopeless that they were made _to contradict -their natural value._ We meet with the same phenomena again, and -exaggerated to an incalculable degree, although only as a copy:—the -Christian Church as compared with the “chosen people,” lacks all -claim to originality. Precisely on this account the Jews are the most -_fatal_ people in the history of the world: their ultimate influence -has falsified mankind to such an extent, that even to this day the -Christian can be anti-Semitic in spirit, without comprehending that he -himself is the _final consequence of Judaism._ - -It was in my “Genealogy of Morals” that I first gave a -psychological exposition of the idea of the antithesis noble and -_resentment-morality,_ the latter having arisen out of an attitude -of negation to the former: but this is Judæo-Christian morality -heart and soul. In order to be able to say Nay to everything that -represents the ascending movement of life, prosperity, power, -beauty, and self-affirmation on earth, the instinct of resentment, -become genius, bad to invent _another_ world, from the standpoint -of which that _Yea-saying_ to life appeared as _the_ most evil and -most abominable thing. From the psychological standpoint the Jewish -people are possessed of the toughest vitality. Transplanted amid -impossible conditions, with profound self-preservative intelligence, -it voluntarily took the side of all the instincts of decadence,—_not_ -as though dominated by them, but because it detected a power in them -by means of which it could assert itself _against_ “the world.” The -Jews are the opposite of all _decadents_: they have been forced to -represent them to the point of illusion, and with a _non plus ultra_ of -histrionic genius, they have known how to set themselves at the head -of all decadent movements (St Paul and Christianity for instance), in -order to create something from them which is stronger than every party -_saying Yea to life._ For the category of men which aspires to power in -Judaism and Christianity,—that is to say, for the sacerdotal class, -decadence is but a _means;_ this category of men has a vital interest -in making men sick, and in turning the notions “good” and “bad,” “true” -and “false,” upside down in a manner which is not only dangerous to -life, but also slanders it. - - -25 - -The history of Israel is invaluable as the typical history of every -_denaturalization_ of natural values: let me point to five facts -which relate thereto. Originally, and above all in the period of -the kings, even Israel’s attitude to all things was the _right_ one -—that is to say, the natural one. Its Jehovah was the expression of -its consciousness of power, of its joy over itself, of its hope for -itself: victory and salvation were expected from him, through him it -was confident that Nature would give what a people requires—above -all rain. Jehovah is the God of Israel, and _consequently_ the God -of justice: this is the reasoning of every people which is in the -position of power, and which has a good conscience in that position. In -the solemn cult both sides of this self-affirmation of a people find -expression: it is grateful for the great strokes of fate by means of -which it became uppermost; it is grateful for the regularity in the -succession of the seasons and for all good fortune in the rearing of -cattle and in the tilling of the soil.—This state of affairs remained -the ideal for some considerable time, even after it had been swept away -in a deplorable manner by anarchy from within and the Assyrians from -without But the people still retained, as their highest desideratum, -that vision of a king who was a good soldier and a severe judge; -and he who retained it most of all was that typical prophet (—that -is to say, critic and satirist of the age), Isaiah.—But all hopes -remained unrealised. The old God was no longer able to do what he had -done formerly. He ought to have been dropped. What happened? The idea -of him was changed,—the idea of him was denaturalised: this was the -price they paid for retaining him.—Jehovah, the God of “Justice,”—is -no longer one with Israel, no longer the expression of a people’s -sense of dignity: he is only a god on certain conditions.... The -idea of him becomes a weapon in the hands of priestly agitators who -henceforth interpret all happiness as a reward, all unhappiness as a -punishment for disobedience to God, for “sin”: that most fraudulent -method of interpretation which arrives at a so-called “moral order -of the Universe,” by means of which the concept “cause” and “effect” -is turned upside down. Once natural causation has been swept out of -the world by reward and punishment, a causation _hostile to nature_ -becomes necessary; whereupon all the forms of unnaturalness follow. -A God who _demands,_—in the place of a God who helps, who advises, -who is at bottom only a name for every happy inspiration of courage -and of self-reliance.... Morality is no longer the expression of the -conditions of life and growth, no longer the most fundamental instinct -of life, but it has become abstract, it has become the opposite of -life,—Morality as the fundamental perversion of the imagination, -as the “evil eye” for all things. What is Jewish morality, what is -Christian morality? Chance robbed of its innocence; unhappiness -polluted with the idea of “sin”; well-being interpreted as a danger, as -a “temptation”; physiological indisposition poisoned by means of the -canker-worm of conscience.... - - -26 - -The concept of God falsified; the concept of morality falsified: but -the Jewish priesthood did not stop at this. No use could be made of -the whole _history_ of Israel, therefore it must go! These priests -accomplished that miracle of falsification, of which the greater part -of the Bible is the document: with unparalleled contempt and in the -teeth of all tradition and historical facts, they interpreted their own -people’s past in a religious manner,—that is to say, they converted -it into a ridiculous mechanical process of salvation, on the principle -that all sin against Jehovah led to punishment, and that all pious -worship of Jehovah led to reward. We would feel this shameful act of -historical falsification far more poignantly if the ecclesiastical -interpretation of history through millenniums had not blunted almost -all our sense for the demands of uprightness _in historicis._ And -the church is seconded by the philosophers: _the_ of “a moral order -of the universe” permeates the whole development even of more modern -philosophy. What does a “moral order of the universe” mean? That once -and for all there is such a thing as a will of God which determines -what man has to do and what he has to leave undone; that the value -of a people or of an individual is measured according to how much or -how little the one or the other obeys the will of God; that in the -destinies of a people or of an individual, the will of God shows -itself dominant, that is to say it punishes or rewards according to -the degree of obedience. In the place of this miserable falsehood, -_reality_ says: a parasitical type of man, who can flourish only at the -cost of all the healthy elements of life, the priest abuses the name -of God: he calls that state of affairs in which the priest determines -the value of things “the Kingdom of God”; he calls the means whereby -such a state of affairs is attained or maintained, “the Will of God”; -with cold-blooded cynicism he measures peoples, ages and individuals -according to whether they favour or oppose the ascendancy of the -priesthood. Watch him at work: in the hands of the Jewish priesthood -the Augustan Age in the history of Israel became an age of decline; -the exile, the protracted misfortune transformed itself into eternal -_punishment_ for the Augustan Age—that age in which the priest did not -yet exist Out of the mighty and thoroughly free-born figures of the -history of Israel, they made, according to their requirements, either -wretched bigots and hypocrites, or “godless ones”: they simplified -the psychology of every great event to the idiotic formula “obedient -or disobedient to God.”—A step further: the “Will of God,” that is -to say the self-preservative measures of the priesthood, must be -known—to this end a “revelation” is necessary. In plain English: a -stupendous literary fraud becomes necessary, “holy scriptures” are -discovered,—and they are published abroad with all hieratic pomp, -with days of penance and lamentations over the long state Of “sin.” -The “Will of God” has long stood firm: the whole of the trouble -lies in the fact that the “Holy Scriptures” have been discarded.... -Moses was already the “Will of God” revealed.... What had happened? -With severity and pedantry, the priest had formulated once and for -all—even to the largest and smallest contributions that were to be -paid to him (—not forgetting the daintiest portions of meat; for the -priest is a consumer of beef-steaks)—_what he wanted,_ “what the Will -of God was.” ... Hence-forward everything became so arranged that the -priests were _indispensable everywhere._ At all the natural events of -life, at birth, at marriage, at the sick-bed, at death,—not to speak -of the sacrifice (“the meal”),—the holy parasite appears in order -to denaturalise, or in his language, to “sanctify,” everything.... -For this should be understood: every natural custom, every natural -institution (the State, the administration of justice, marriage, the -care of the sick and the poor), every demand inspired by the instinct -of life, in short everything that has a value in itself, is rendered -absolutely worthless and even dangerous through the parasitism of the -priest (or of the “moral order of the universe”): a sanction after -the fact is required,—a _power which imparts value_ is necessary, -which in so doing says, Nay to nature, and which by this means alone -_creates_ a valuation.... The priest depreciates and desecrates nature: -it is only at this price that he exists at all.—Disobedience to God, -that is to say, to the priest, to the “law,” now receives the name of -“sin”; the means of “reconciling one’s self with God” are of course -of a nature which render subordination to the priesthood all the -more fundamental: the priest alone is able to “save.” ... From the -psychological standpoint, in every society organised upon a hieratic -basis, “sins” are indispensable: they are the actual weapons of power, -the priest _lives_ upon sins, it is necessary for him that people -should “sin.” ... Supreme axiom: “God forgiveth him that repenteth”—in -plain English: _him that submitteth himself to the priest._ - - -27 - -Christianity grew out of an utterly _false_ soil, in which all nature, -every natural value, every _reality_ had the deepest instincts of the -ruling class against it; it was a form of deadly hostility to reality -which has never been surpassed. The “holy people” which had retained -only priestly values and priestly names for all things, and which, with -a logical consistency that is terrifying, had divorced itself from -everything still powerful on earth as if it were “unholy,” “worldly,” -“sinful,”—this people created a final formula for its instinct which -was consistent to the point of self-suppression; as _Christianity_ it -denied even the last form of reality, the “holy people,” the “chosen -people,” _Jewish_ reality itself. The case is of supreme interest: -the small insurrectionary movement christened with the name of Jesus -of Nazareth, is the Jewish instinct _over again,_—in other words, -it is the sacerdotal instinct which can no longer endure the priest -as a fact; it is the discovery of a kind of life even more fantastic -than the one previously conceived, a vision of life which is even -more unreal than that which the organisation of a church stipulates. -Christianity denies the church.[3] - -I fail to see against whom was directed the insurrection of which -rightly or _wrongly_ Jesus is understood to have been the promoter, -if it were not directed against the Jewish church,—the word “church” -being used here in precisely the same sense in which it is used to-day. -It was an insurrection against the “good and the just,” against -the “prophets of Israel,” against the hierarchy of society—not -against the latter’s corruption, but against caste, privilege, order, -formality. It was the lack of faith in “higher men,” it was a “Nay” -uttered against everything that was tinctured with the blood of priests -and theologians. But the hierarchy which was set in question if only -temporarily by this movement, formed the construction of piles upon -which, alone, the Jewish people was able to subsist in the midst of the -“waters”; it was that people’s _last_ chance of survival wrested from -the world at enormous pains, the _residuum_ of its political autonomy: -to attack this construction was tantamount to attacking the most -profound popular instinct, the most tenacious national will to live -that has ever existed on earth. This saintly anarchist who called the -lowest of the low, the outcasts and “sinners,” the Chandala of Judaism, -to revolt against the established order of things (and in language -which, if the gospels are to be trusted, would get one sent to Siberia -even to-day)—this man was a political criminal in so far as political -criminals were possible in a community so absurdly non-political. This -brought him to the cross: the proof of this is the inscription found -thereon. He died for _his_ sins—and no matter how often the contrary -has been asserted there is absolutely nothing to show that he died for -the sins of others. - - -28 - -As to whether he was conscious of this contrast, or whether he was -merely _regarded_ as such, is quite another question. And here, alone, -do I touch upon the problem of the psychology of the Saviour.—I -confess there are few books which I have as much difficulty in reading -as the gospels. These difficulties are quite different from those which -allowed the learned curiosity of the German, mind to celebrate one -of its most memorable triumphs. Many years have now elapsed since I, -like every young scholar, with the sage conscientiousness of a refined -philologist, relished the work of the incomparable Strauss. I was then -twenty years of age; now I am too serious for that sort of thing. What -do I care about the contradictions of “tradition”? How can saintly -legends be called “tradition” at all! The stories of saints constitute -the most ambiguous literature on earth: to apply the scientific method -to them, _when there are no other documents to hand,_ seems to me to be -a fatal procedure from the start—simply learned fooling. - - -29 - -The point that concerns me is the psychological type of the Saviour. -This type might be contained in the gospels, in spite of the gospels, -and however much it may have been mutilated, or overladen with -foreign features: just as that of Francis of Assisi is contained -in his legends in spite of his legends. It is _not_ a question of -the truth concerning what he has done, what he has said, and how he -actually died; but whether his type may still be conceived in any way, -whether it has been handed down to us at all?—The attempts which -to my knowledge have been made to read the _history_ of a “soul” out -of the gospels, seem to me to point only to disreputable levity in -psychological matters. M. Renan, that buffoon _in psychologies,_ has -contributed the two most monstrous ideas imaginable to the explanation -of the type of Jesus: the idea of the _genius_ and the idea of the -_hero_ (“_héros_”). But if there is anything thoroughly unevangelical -surely it is the idea of the hero. It is precisely the reverse of all -struggle, of all consciousness of taking part in the fight, that has -become instinctive here: the inability to resist is here converted into -a morality (“resist not evil,” the profoundest sentence in the whole of -the gospels, their key in a certain sense), the blessedness of peace, -of gentleness, of not _being able_ to be an enemy. What is the meaning -of “glad tidings”?—True life, eternal life has been found—it is not -promised, it is actually here, it is in _you;_ it is life in love, in -love free from all selection or exclusion, free from all distance. -Everybody is the child of God—Jesus does not by any means claim -anything for himself alone,—as the child of God everybody is equal to -everybody else.... Fancy making Jesus a _hero!_—And what a tremendous -misunderstanding the word “genius” is! Our whole idea of “spirit,” -which is a civilised idea, could have had no meaning whatever in the -world in which Jesus lived. In the strict terms of the physiologist, a -very different word ought to be used here.... We know of a condition of -morbid irritability of the sense of _touch,_ which recoils shuddering -from every kind of contact, and from every attempt at grasping a solid -object. Any such physiological _habitus_ reduced to its ultimate -logical conclusion, becomes an instinctive hatred of all reality, a -flight into the “intangible,” into the “incomprehensible”; a repugnance -to all formulæ, to every notion of time and space, to everything that -is established such as customs, institutions, the church; a feeling -at one’s ease in a world in which no sign of reality is any longer -visible, a merely “inner” world, a “true” world, an “eternal” world.... -“The Kingdom of God is within you”... - - -30 - -_The instinctive hatred of reality_ is the outcome of an extreme -susceptibility to pain and to irritation, which can no longer endure to -be “touched” at all, because every sensation strikes too deep. - -_The instinctive exclusion of all aversion, of all hostility, of all -boundaries and distances in feeling,_ is the outcome of an extreme -susceptibility to pain and to irritation, which regards all resistance, -all compulsory resistance as insufferable _anguish_(—that is to say, -as harmful, as _deprecated_ by the self-preservative instinct), and -which knows blessedness (happiness) only when it is no longer obliged -to offer resistance to anybody, either evil or detrimental,—love as -the Only ultimate possibility of life.... - -These are the two _physiological realities_ upon which and out of which -the doctrine of salvation has grown. I call them a sublime further -development of hedonism, upon a thoroughly morbid soil. Epicureanism, -the pagan theory of salvation, even though it possessed a large -proportion of Greek vitality and nervous energy, remains the most -closely related to the above. Epicurus was a _typical_ decadent: and I -was the first to recognise him as such.—The terror of pain, even of -infinitely slight pain—such a state cannot possibly help culminating -in a _religion_ of love.... - - -31 - -I have given my reply to the problem in advance. The prerequisite -thereto was the admission of the fact that the type of the Saviour has -reached us only in a very distorted form. This distortion in itself -is extremely feasible: for many reasons a type of that kind could not -be pure, whole, and free from additions. The environment in which -this strange figure moved, must have left its mark upon him, and the -history, the _destiny_ of the first Christian communities must have -done so to a still greater degree. Thanks to that destiny, the type -must have been enriched retrospectively with features which can be -interpreted only as serving the purposes of war and of propaganda -That strange and morbid world into which the gospels lead us—a -world which seems to have been drawn from a Russian novel, where -the scum and dross of society, diseases of the nerves and “childish” -imbecility seem to have given each other rendezvous—must in any case -have _coarsened_ the type: the first disciples especially must have -translated an existence conceived entirely in symbols and abstractions -into their own crudities, in order at least to be able to understand -something about it,—for them the type existed only after it had -been cast in a more familiar mould.... The prophet, the Messiah, the -future judge, the teacher of morals, the thaumaturgist, John the -Baptist—all these were but so many opportunities of misunderstanding -the type.... Finally, let us not under-rate the _proprium_ of all great -and especially sectarian veneration: very often it effaces from the -venerated object, all the original and frequently painfully un-familiar -traits and idiosyncrasies—_it does not even see them._ It is greatly -to be deplored that no Dostoiewsky lived in the neighbourhood of this -most interesting decadent,—I mean someone who would have known how to -feel the poignant charm of such a mixture of the sublime, the morbid, -and the childlike. Finally, the type, as an example of decadence, may -actually have been extraordinarily multifarious and contradictory: -this, as a possible alternative, is not to be altogether ignored. -Albeit, everything seems to point away from it; for, precisely in this -case, tradition would necessarily have been particularly true and -objective: whereas we have reasons for assuming the reverse. Meanwhile -a yawning chasm of contradiction separates the mountain, lake, and -pastoral preacher, who strikes us as a Buddha on a soil only very -slightly Hindu, from that combative fanatic, the mortal enemy of -theologians and priests, whom Renan’s malice has glorified as “_le -grand maître en ironie._” For my part, I do not doubt but what the -greater part of this venom (and even of _esprit_) was inoculated into -the type of the Master only as the outcome of the agitated condition -of Christian propaganda. For we have ample reasons for knowing the -unscrupulousness of all sectarians when they wish to contrive their own -_apology_ out of the person of their master. When the first Christian -community required a discerning, wrangling, quarrelsome, malicious and -hair-splitting theologian, to oppose other theologians, it created its -“God” according to its needs; just as it did not hesitate to put upon -his lips those utterly unevangelical ideas of “his second coming,” the -“last judgment,”—ideas with which it could not then dispense,—and -every kind of expectation and promise which happened to be current. - - -32 - -I can only repeat that I am opposed to the importation of the fanatic -into the type of the Saviour: the word “_impérieux,_” which Renan -uses, in itself annuls the type. The “glad tidings” are simply that -there are no longer any contradictions, that the Kingdom of Heaven is -for the _children;_ the faith which raises its voice here is not a -faith that has been won by a struggle,—it is to hand, it was there -from the beginning, it is a sort of spiritual return to childishness. -The case of delayed and undeveloped puberty in the organism, as the -result of degeneration is at least familiar to physiologists. A faith -of this sort does not show anger, it does not blame, neither does it -defend itself: it does not bring “the sword,”—it has no inkling of -how it will one day establish feuds between man and man. It does not -demonstrate itself, either by miracles, or by reward and promises, or -yet “through the scriptures”: it is in itself at every moment its own -miracle, its own reward, its own proof, its own “Kingdom of God.” This -faith cannot be formulated—it lives, it guards against formulas. The -accident of environment, of speech, of preparatory culture, certainly -determines a particular series of conceptions: early Christianity deals -only in Judæo-Semitic conceptions (—the eating and drinking at the -last supper form part of these,—this idea which like everything Jewish -has been abused so maliciously by the church). But one should guard -against seeing anything more than a language of signs, semiotics, an -opportunity for parables in all this. The very fact that no word is to -be taken literally, is the only condition on which this Anti-realist -is able to speak at all. Among Indians he would have made use of the -ideas of Sankhyara, among Chinese, those of Lao-tze—and would not -have been aware of any difference. With a little terminological laxity -Jesus might be called a “free spirit”—he cares not a jot for anything -that is established: the word _killeth,_ everything fixed _killtth._ -The idea, _experience,_ “life” as he alone knows it, is, according to -him, opposed to every kind of word, formula, law, faith and dogma. He -speaks only of the innermost things: “life” or “truth,” or “light,” is -his expression for the innermost thing,—everything else, the whole of -reality, the whole of nature, language even, has only the value of a -sign, of a simile for him.—It is of paramount importance not to make -any mistake at this point, however great may be the temptation thereto -that lies in Christian—I mean to say, ecclesiastical prejudice. Any -such essential symbolism stands beyond the pale of all religion, all -notions of cult, all history, all natural science, all experience of -the world, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology, all books and -all Art—for his “wisdom” is precisely the complete ignorance[4] of the -existence of such things. He has not even heard speak of _culture,_ he -does not require to oppose it,—he does not deny it.... The same holds -good of the state, of the whole of civil and social order, of work -and of war—he never had any reason to deny the world, he had not the -vaguest notion of the ecclesiastical concept “the world.” ... Denying -is precisely what was quite impossible to him.—Dialectic is also -quite absent, as likewise the idea that any faith, any “truth” can be -proved by argument (—his proofs are inner “lights,” inward feelings of -happiness and self-affirmation, a host of “proofs of power”—). Neither -can such a doctrine contradict, it does not even realise the fact that -there are or can be other doctrines, it is absolutely incapable of -imagining a contrary judgment.... Wherever it encounters such things, -from a feeling of profound sympathy it bemoans such “blindness,”—for -it sees the “light,”—but it raises no objections. - - -33 - -The whole psychology of the “gospels” lacks the concept of guilt and -punishment, as also that of reward. “Sin,” any sort of aloofness -between God and man, is done away with,—_this is precisely what -constitutes the “glad tidings”._ Eternal bliss is not promised, it is -not bound up with certain conditions; it is the only reality—the rest -consists only of signs wherewith to speak about it.... - -The results of such a state project themselves into a new practice -of life, the actual evangelical practice. It is not a “faith” which -distinguishes the Christians: the Christian acts, he distinguishes -himself by means of a _different_ mode of action. He does not resist -his enemy either by words or in his heart He draws no distinction -between foreigners and natives, between Jews and Gentiles (“the -neighbour” really means the co-religionist, the Jew). He is angry with -no one, he despises no one. He neither shows himself at the tribunals -nor does he acknowledge any of their claims (“Swear not at all”). -He never under any circumstances divorces his wife, even when her -infidelity has been proved.—All this is at bottom one principle, it is -all the outcome of one instinct— - -The life of the Saviour was naught else than this practice,—neither -was his death. He no longer required any formulæ, any rites for his -relations with God—not even prayer. He has done with all the Jewish -teaching of repentance and of atonement; he alone knows the _mode_ -of life which makes one feel “divine,” “saved,” “evangelical,” and -at all times a “child of God.” _Not_ “repentance,” _not_ “prayer and -forgiveness” are the roads to God: the _evangelical mode of life -alone_ leads to God, it _is_ “God.”—That which the gospels abolished -was the Judaism of the concepts “sin,” “forgiveness of sin,” “faith,” -“salvation through faith,”—the whole doctrine of the Jewish church was -denied by the “glad tidings.” - -The profound instinct of how one must live in order to feel “in -Heaven,” in order to feel “eternal,” while in every other respect -one feels by _no_ means “in Heaven”: this alone is the psychological -reality of “Salvation.”—A new life and _not_ a new faith.... - - -34 - -If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist, it is -this that he regarded only _inner_ facts as facts, as “truths,”—that -he understood the rest, everything natural, temporal, material -and historical, only as signs, as opportunities for parables. The -concept “the Son of Man,” is not a concrete personality belonging to -history, anything individual and isolated, but an “eternal” fact, -a psychological symbol divorced from the concept of time. The same -is true, and in the highest degree, of the _God_ of this typical -symbolist, of the “Kingdom of God,” of the “Kingdom of Heaven,” and -of the “Sonship of God.” Nothing is more un-Christlike than the -_ecclesiastical crudity_ of a personal God, of a Kingdom of God that -is coming, of a “Kingdom of Heaven” beyond, of a “Son of God” as the -second person of the Trinity. All this, if I may be forgiven the -expression, is as fitting as a square peg in a round hole—and oh! -what a hole!—the gospels: a _world-historic_ cynicism in the scorn -of symbols.... But what is meant by the signs “Father” and “Son,” is -of course obvious—not to everybody, I admit: with the word “Son,” -_entrance_ into the feeling of the general transfiguration of all -things (beatitude) is expressed, with the word “Father,” _this feeling -itself_ the feeling of eternity and of perfection.—I blush to have to -remind you of what the Church has done with this symbolism: has it not -set an Amphitryon story at the threshold of the Christian “faith”? And -a dogma of immaculate conception into the bargain?... _But by so doing -it defiled conception._—— - -The “Kingdom of Heaven” is a state of the heart—not something -which exists “beyond this earth” or comes to you “after death.” The -whole idea of natural death is lacking in the gospels. Death is not -a bridge, not a means of access: it is absent because it belongs to -quite a different and merely apparent world the only use of which is -to furnish signs, similes. The “hour of death” is not a Christian -idea—the “hour,” time in general, physical life and its crises do not -exist for the messenger of “glad tidings.” ... The “Kingdom of God” is -not some thing that is expected; it has no yesterday nor any day after -to-morrow, it is not going to come in a “thousand years”—it is an -experience of a human heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere.... - - -35 - -This “messenger of glad tidings” died as he lived and as he -taught—_not_ in order “to save mankind,” but in order to show how one -ought to live. It was a mode of life that he bequeathed to mankind: his -behaviour before his judges, his attitude towards his executioners, -his accusers, and all kinds of calumny and scorn,—his demeanour on -the _cross._ He offers no resistance; he does not defend his rights; -he takes no step to ward off the most extreme consequences, he does -more,—he provokes them. And he prays, suffers and loves with those, in -those, who treat him ill.... _Not_ to defend one’s self, _not_ to show -anger, not to hold anyone responsible.... But to refrain from resisting -even the evil one,—to _love_ him.... - - -36 - -—Only we spirits that have _become free,_ possess the necessary -condition for understanding something which nineteen centuries have -misunderstood,—that honesty which has become an instinct and a passion -in us, and which wages war upon the “holy lie” with even more vigour -than upon every other lie.... Mankind was unspeakably far from our -beneficent and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the mind, -which, alone, renders the solution of such strange and subtle things -possible: at all times, with shameless egoism, all that people sought -was their _own_ advantage in these matters, the Church was built up out -of contradiction to the gospel.... - -Whoever might seek for signs pointing to the guiding fingers of an -ironical deity behind the great comedy of existence, would find no -small argument in the _huge note of interrogation_ that is called -Christianity. The fact that mankind is on its knees before the reverse -of that which formed the origin, the meaning and the _rights_ of -the gospel; the fact that, in the idea “Church,” precisely that is -pronounced holy which the “messenger of glad tidings” regarded as -_beneath_ him, as _behind_ him—one might seek in vain for a more -egregious example _of world-historic_ irony—- - - -37 - -—Our age is proud of its historical sense: how could it allow -itself to be convinced of the nonsensical idea that at the beginning -Christianity consisted only of the _clumsy fable of the thaumaturgist -and of the Saviour,_ and that all its spiritual and symbolic -side was only developed later? On the contrary: the history of -Christianity—from the death on the cross onwards—is the history of -a gradual and ever coarser misunderstanding of an original symbolism. -With every extension of Christianity over ever larger and ruder -masses, who were ever less able to grasp its first principles, the -need of _vulgarising and barbarising it_ increased proportionately—it -absorbed the teachings and rites of all the _subterranean_ cults of the -_imperium Romanum,_ as well as the nonsense of every kind of morbid -reasoning. The fatal feature of Christianity lies in the necessary -fact that its faith had to become as morbid, base and vulgar as the -needs to which it had to minister were morbid, base and vulgar. _Morbid -barbarism_ at last braces itself together for power in the form of the -Church—the Church, this deadly hostility to all honesty, to all -loftiness of the soul, to all discipline of the mind, to all frank and -kindly humanity.—_Christian_ and _noble_ values: only we spirits _who -have become free have_ re-established this contrast in values which is -the greatest that has ever existed on earth!— - - -38 - -—I cannot, at this point, stifle a sigh. There are days when I -am visited by a feeling blacker than the blackest melancholy—the -_contempt of man._ And in order that I may leave you in no doubt as -to what I despise, _whom_ I despise: I declare that it is the man of -to-day, the man with whom I am fatally contemporaneous. The man of -to-day, I am asphyxiated by his foul breath.... Towards the past, like -all knights of knowledge, I am profoundly tolerant,—that is to say, -I exercise a sort of _generous_ self-control: with gloomy caution I -pass through whole millennia of this mad-house world, and whether it -be called “Christianity,” “Christian Faith,” or “Christian Church,” I -take care not to hold mankind responsible for its mental disorders. -But my feeling suddenly changes, and vents itself the moment I enter -the modern age, _our_ age. Our age _knows...._ That which formerly -was merely morbid, is now positively indecent It is indecent nowadays -to be a Christian. _And it is here that my loathing begins._ I look -about me: not a word of what was formerly known as “truth” has remained -standing; we can no longer endure to hear a priest even pronounce the -word “truth.” Even he who makes but the most modest claims upon truth, -_must_ know at present, that a theologian, a priest, or a pope, not -only errs but actually _ties,_ with every word that he utters,—and -that he is no longer able to lie from “innocence,” from “ignorance.” -Even the priest knows quite as well as everybody else does that there -is no longer any “God,” any “sinner” or any “Saviour,” and that “free -will,” and “a moral order of the universe” are _lies._ Seriousness, -the profound self-conquest of the spirit no longer allows anyone to -be _ignorant_ about this.... All the concepts of the Church have been -revealed in their true colours—that is to say, as the most vicious -frauds on earth, calculated to _depreciate_ nature and all natural -values. The priest himself has been recognised as what he is—that is -to say, as the most dangerous kind of parasite, as the actual venomous -spider of existence.... At present we know, our _conscience_ knows, -the real value of the gruesome inventions which the priests and the -Church have made, _and what end they served._ By means of them that -state of self-profanation on the part of man has been attained, the -sight of which makes one heave. The concepts “Beyond,” “Last Judgment,” -“Immortality of the Soul,” the “soul” itself, are merely so many -instruments of torture, so many systems of cruelty, on the strength -of which the priest became and remained master.... Everybody knows -this, _and nevertheless everything remains as it was._ Whither has -the last shred of decency, of self-respect gone, if nowadays even -our statesmen—a body of men who are otherwise so unembarrassed, and -such thorough anti-Christians in deed—still declare themselves -Christians and still flock to communion?[5].... Fancy a prince at the -head of his legions, magnificent as the expression of the egoism and -self-exaltation of his people,—but _shameless_ enough to acknowledge -himself a Christian!... What then does Christianity deny? What does -it call “world”? “The world” to Christianity means that a man is a -soldier, a judge, a patriot, that he defends himself, that he values -his honour, that he desires his own advantage, that he is _proud._ -... The conduct of every moment, every instinct, every valuation that -leads to a deed, is at present anti-Christian: what an _abortion of -falsehood_ modern man must be, in order to be able _without a blush_ -still to call himself a Christian!—— - - -39 - -—I will retrace my steps, and will tell you the _genuine_ -history of Christianity.—The very word “Christianity” is a -misunderstanding,—truth to tell, there never was more than one -Christian, and he _died_ on the Cross. The “gospel” _died_ on the -cross. That which thenceforward was called “gospel” was the reverse -of that “gospel” that Christ had lived: it was “evil tidings,” a -_dysangel_ It is false to the point of nonsense to see in “faith,” -in the faith in salvation through Christ, the distinguishing trait -of the Christian: the only thing that is Christian is the Christian -mode of existence, a life such as he led who died on the Cross.... To -this day a life of this kind is still possible; for certain men, it -is even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity will be possible -in all ages.... _Not_ a faith, but a course of action, above all a -course of inaction, non-interference, and a different life.... States -of consciousness, any sort of faith, a holding of certain things -for true, as every psychologist knows, are indeed of absolutely no -consequence, and are only of fifth-rate importance compared with the -value of the instincts: more exactly, the whole concept of intellectual -causality is false. To reduce the fact of being a Christian, or of -Christianity, to a holding of something for true, to a mere phenomenon -of consciousness, is tantamount to denying Christianity. _In fact -there have never been any Christians._ The “Christian,” he who for two -thousand years has been called a Christian, is merely a psychological -misunderstanding of self. Looked at more closely, there ruled in -him, _notwithstanding_ all his faith, only instincts—and _what -instincts!_—“Faith” in all ages, as for instance in the case of -Luther, has always been merely a cloak, a pretext, a _screen,_ behind -which the instincts played their game,—a prudent form of _blindness_ -in regard to the dominion of _certain_ instincts. “Faith” I have -already characterised as a piece of really Christian cleverness; for -people have always spoken of “faith” and acted according to their -instincts.... In the Christian’s world of ideas there is nothing which -even touches reality: but I have already recognised in the instinctive -hatred of reality the actual motive force, the only driving power at -the root of Christianity. What follows therefrom? That here, even -_in psychologicis_, error is fundamental,—that is to say capable -of determining the spirit of things,—that is to say, _substance._ -Take one idea away from the whole, and put one realistic fact in its -stead,—and the whole of Christianity tumbles into nonentity!—Surveyed -from above, this strangest of all facts,-a religion not only dependent -upon error, but inventive and showing signs of genius only in those -errors which are dangerous and which poison life and the human -heart—remains a _spectacle for gods,_ for those gods who are at the -same time philosophers and whom I met for instance in those celebrated -dialogues on the island of Naxos. At the moment when they get rid -of their _loathing (—and we do as well!_), they will be thankful -for the spectacle the Christians have offered: the wretched little -planet called Earth perhaps deserves on account of _this_ curious -case alone, a divine glance, and divine interest.... Let us not -therefore underestimate the Christians: the Christian, false _to the -point of innocence in falsity,_ is far above the apes,—in regard to -the Christians a certain well-known theory of Descent becomes a mere -good-natured compliment. - - -40 - -—The fate of the gospel was decided at the moment of the death,—it -hung on the “cross.” ... It was only death, this unexpected and -ignominious death; it was only the cross which as a rule was reserved -simply for the _canaille,_—only this appalling paradox which -confronted the disciples with the actual riddle: _Who was that? what -was that?_—The state produced by the excited and profoundly wounded -feelings of these men, the suspicion that such a death might imply the -_refutation_ of their cause, and the terrible note of interrogation: -“why precisely thus?” will be understood only too well. In this case -everything _must_ be necessary, everything must have meaning, a reason, -the highest reason. The love of a disciple admits of no such thing as -accident. Only then did the chasm yawn: “who has killed him?” “who was -his natural enemy?”—this question rent the firmament like a flash of -lightning. Reply: _dominant_ Judaism, its ruling class. Thenceforward -the disciple felt himself in revolt _against_ established order; he -understood Jesus, after the fact, as one in _revolt against established -order._ Heretofore this warlike, this nay-saying and nay-doing feature -in Christ had been lacking; nay more, he was its contradiction. The -small primitive community had obviously understood _nothing_ of the -principal factor of all, which was the example of freedom and of -superiority to every form of _resentment_ which lay in this way of -dying. And this shows how little they understood him altogether! At -bottom Jesus could not have desired anything else by his death than to -give the strongest public _example_ and _proof_ of his doctrine.... -But his disciples were very far from _forgiving this_ death—though if -they had done so it would have been in the highest sense evangelical -on their part,—neither were they prepared, with a gentle and serene -calmness of heart, to _offer_ themselves for a similar death.... -Precisely the most unevangelical feeling, _revenge,_ became once more -ascendant. It was impossible for the cause to end with this death: -“compensation” and “judgment” were required (—and forsooth, what could -be more unevangelical than “compensation,” “punishment,” “judgment”!) -The popular expectation of a Messiah once more became prominent; -attention was fixed upon one historical moment: the “Kingdom of God” -descends to sit in judgment upon his enemies. But this proves that -everything was misunderstood: the “Kingdom of God” regarded as the last -scene of the last act, as a promise! But the Gospel had clearly been -the living, the fulfilment, the _reality_ of this “Kingdom of God.” -It was precisely a death such as Christ’s that was this “Kingdom of -God.” It was only now that all the contempt for the Pharisees and the -theologians, and all bitter feelings towards them, were introduced -into the character of the Master,—and by this means he himself was -converted into a Pharisee and a theologian! On the other hand, the -savage veneration of these completely unhinged souls could no longer -endure that evangelical right of every man to be the child of God, -which Jesus had taught: their revenge consisted in _elevating_ Jesus in -a manner devoid of all reason, and in separating him from themselves: -just as, formerly, the Jews, with the view of revenging themselves on -their enemies, separated themselves from their God, and placed him high -above them. The Only God, and the Only Son of God:—both were products -of resentment. - - -41 - -—And from this time forward an absurd problem rose into prominence: -“how _could_ God allow it to happen?” To this question the disordered -minds of the small community found a reply which in its absurdity -was literally terrifying: God gave his Son as a _sacrifice_ for the -forgiveness of sins. Alas! how prompt and sudden was the end of -the gospel! Expiatory sacrifice for guilt, and indeed in its most -repulsive and barbaric form,—the sacrifice of the _innocent_ for -the sins of the guilty! What appalling Paganism!—For Jesus himself -had done away with the concept “guilt,”—he denied any gulf between -God and man, he _lived_ this unity between God and man, it was this -that constituted _his_ “glad tidings.” ... And he did _not_ teach it -as a privilege!—Thenceforward there was gradually imported into the -type of the Saviour the doctrine of the Last Judgment, and of the -“second coming,” the doctrine of sacrificial death, and the doctrine -of _Resurrection,_ by means of which the whole concept “blessedness,” -the entire and only reality of the gospel, is conjured away—in favour -of a state _after_ death!... St Paul, with that rabbinic impudence -which characterises all his doings, rationalised this conception, this -prostitution of a conception, as follows: “if Christ did not rise from -the dead, our faith is vain.”—And, in a trice, the most contemptible -of all unrealisable promises, the _impudent_ doctrine of personal -immortality, was woven out of the gospel.... St Paul even preached this -immortality as a reward. - - -42 - -You now realise what it was that came to an end with the death on the -cross: a new and thoroughly original effort towards a Buddhistic -movement of peace, towards real and _not_ merely promised _happiness -on earth._ For, as I have already pointed out, this remains the -fundamental difference between the two religions _of decadence:_ -Buddhism promises little but fulfils more, Christianity promises -everything but fulfils nothing.—The “glad tidings” were followed -closely by the absolutely _worst_ tidings—those of St Paul. Paul is -the incarnation of a type which is the reverse of that of the Saviour; -he is the genius in hatred, in the standpoint of hatred, and in the -relentless logic of hatred. And alas what did this dysangelist not -sacrifice to his hatred! Above all the Saviour himself: he nailed him -to _his_ cross. Christ’s life, his example, his doctrine and death, -the sense and the right of the gospel—not a vestige of alt this -was left, once this forger, prompted by his hatred, had understood -in it only that which could serve his purpose. _Not_ reality: _not_ -historical truth! ... And once more, the sacerdotal instinct of -the Jew, perpetrated the same great crime against history,—he -simply cancelled the yesterday, and the day before that, out of -Christianity; he _contrived of his own accord a history of the birth -of Christianity._ He did more: he once more falsified the history of -Israel, so as to make it appear as a prologue to _his_ mission: all the -prophets had referred to _his_ “Saviour.” ... Later on the Church even -distorted the history of mankind so as to convert it into a prelude to -Christianity.... The type of the Saviour, his teaching, his life, his -death, the meaning of his death, even the sequel to his death—nothing -remained untouched, nothing was left which even remotely resembled -reality. St Paul simply transferred the centre of gravity of the whole -of that great life, to a place _behind_ this life,—in the _lie_ of -the “resuscitated” Christ. At bottom, he had no possible use for the -life of the Saviour,—he needed the death on the cross, _and_ something -more. To regard as honest a man like St Paul (a man whose home was the -very headquarters of Stoical enlightenment) when he devises a proof -of the continued existence of the Saviour out of a hallucination; or -even to believe him when he declares that he had this hallucination, -would amount to foolishness on the part of a psychologist: St Paul -desired the end, consequently he also desired the means.... Even what -he himself did not believe, was believed in by the idiots among whom -he spread _his_ doctrine.—What he wanted was power; with St Paul the -priest again aspired to power,—he could make use only of concepts, -doctrines, symbols with which masses may be tyrannised over, and -with which herds are formed. What was the only part of Christianity -which was subsequently borrowed by Muhamed? St Paul’s invention, his -expedient for priestly tyranny and to the formation of herds: the -belief in immortality—_that is to say, the doctrine of the “Last -Judgment.” ..._ - - -43 - -When the centre of gravity of life is laid, _not_ in life, but in a -beyond—_in nonentity,_—life is utterly robbed of its balance. The -great lie of personal immortality destroys all reason, all nature in -the instincts,—everything in the instincts that is beneficent, that -promotes life and that is a guarantee of the future, henceforward -aroused suspicion. The very meaning of life is now construed as the -effort to live in such a way that life no longer has any point.... Why -show any public spirit? Why be grateful for one’s origin and one’s -forebears? Why collaborate with one’s fellows, and be confident? Why -be concerned about the general weal or strive after it?... All these -things are merely so many “temptations,” so many deviations from the -“straight path.” “One thing only is necessary.” ... That everybody, as -an “immortal soul,” should have equal rank, that in the totality of -beings, the “salvation” of each individual may lay claim to eternal -importance, that insignificant bigots and three-quarter-lunatics may -have the right to suppose that the laws of nature may be persistently -_broken_ on their account,—any such magnification of every kind -of selfishness to infinity, to _insolence,_ cannot be branded with -sufficient contempt And yet it is to this miserable flattery of -personal vanity that Christianity owes its _triumph,_—by this means -it lured all the bungled and the botched, all revolting and revolted -people, all abortions, the whole of the refuse and offal of humanity, -over to its side. The “salvation of the soul”—in plain English: “the -world revolves around me” ... The poison of the doctrine “_equal_ -rights for all”—has been dispensed with the greatest thoroughness by -Christianity: Christianity, prompted by the most secret recesses of -bad instincts, has waged a deadly war upon all feeling of reverence -and distance between man and man—that is to say, the _prerequisite_ -of all elevation, of every growth in culture; out of the resentment -of the masses it wrought its _principal weapons_ against us, against -everything noble, joyful, exalted on earth, against our happiness on -earth.... To grant “immortality” to every St Peter and St Paul, was -the greatest, the most vicious outrage upon _noble_ humanity that has -ever been perpetrated.—And do not let us underestimate the fatal -influence which, springing from Christianity, has insinuated itself -even into politics! Nowadays no one has the courage of special rights, -of rights of t dominion, of a feeling of self-respect and of respect -for his equals,—of _pathos of distance._ Our politics are diseased -with this lack of courage!—The aristocratic attitude of mind has been -most thoroughly undermined by the lie of the equality of souls; and if -the belief in the “privilege of the greatest number” creates and will -continue _to create revolutions,_—it is Christianity, let there be no -doubt about it, and Christian values, which convert every revolution -into blood and crime! Christianity is the revolt of all things that -crawl on their bellies against everything that is lofty: the gospel of -the “lowly” _lowers...._ - - -44 - -—The Gospels are invaluable as a testimony of the corruption which -was already persistent _within_ the first Christian communities. That -which St Paul, with the logician’s cynicism of a Rabbi, carried to its -logical conclusion, was nevertheless merely the process of decay which -began with the death of the Saviour.—These gospels cannot be read -too cautiously; difficulties lurk behind every word they contain. I -confess, and people will not take this amiss, that they are precisely -on that account a joy of the first rank for a psychologist,—as the -reverse of all naive perversity, as refinement _par excellence,_ as -a masterpiece of art in psychological corruption. The gospels stand -alone. Altogether the Bible allows of no comparison. The _first_ thing -to be remembered if we do not wish to lose the scent here, is, that -we are among Jews. The dissembling of holiness which, here, literally -amounts to genius, and which has never been even approximately achieved -elsewhere either by books or by men, this fraud in word and pose -which in this book is elevated to an _Art,_ is not the accident of -any individual gift, of any exceptional nature. These qualities are -a matter of _race._ With Christianity, the art of telling holy lies, -which constitutes the whole of Judaism, reaches its final mastership, -thanks to many centuries of Jewish and most thoroughly serious training -and practice. The Christian, this _ultima ratio_ of falsehood, is the -Jew over again—he is even three times a Jew.... The fundamental will -only to make use of concepts, symbols and poses, which are demonstrated -by the practice of the priests, the instinctive repudiation of every -other kind of practice, every other standpoint of valuation and of -utility—all this is not only tradition, it is _hereditary;_ only as -an inheritance is it able to work like nature. The whole of mankind, -the best brains, and even the best ages—(one man only excepted who -is perhaps only a monster)—have allowed themselves to be deceived. -The gospels were read as the _book of innocence ..._ this is no -insignificant sign of the virtuosity with which deception has been -practised here.—Of course, if we could only succeed in seeing all -these amazing bigots and pretended saints, even for a moment, all -would be at an end—and it is precisely because _I_ can read no -single word of theirs, without seeing their pretentious poses, _that -I have made an end of them_.... I cannot endure a certain way they -have of casting their eyes heavenwards.—Fortunately for Christianity, -books are for the greatest number, merely literature. We must not let -ourselves be led away: “judge not!” they say, but they dispatch all -those to hell who stand in their way. Inasmuch as they let God do the -judging, they themselves, judge; inasmuch as they glorify God, they -glorify themselves; inasmuch as they exact those virtues of which -they themselves happen to be capable—nay more, of which they are in -need in order to be able to remain on top at all;—they assume the -grand airs of struggling for virtue, of struggling for the dominion of -virtue. “We live, we die, we sacrifice ourselves for the good” (—“the -Truth,” “the Light,” “the Kingdom of God”): as a matter of fact they -do only what they cannot help doing. Like sneaks they have to play a -humble part; sit away in corners, and remain obscurely in the shade, -and they make all this appear a duty; their humble life now appears as -a duty, and their humility is one proof the more of their piety!... -Oh, what a humble, chaste and compassionate kind of falsity! “Virtue -itself shall bear us testimony.” ... Only read the gospels as books -calculated to seduce by means of morality: morality is appropriated by -these petty people,—they know what morality can do! The best way of -leading mankind by the nose is with morality! The fact is that the most -conscious _conceit_ of people who believe themselves to be _chosen,_ -here simulates modesty: in this way they, the Christian community, the -“good and the just” place themselves once and for all on a certain -side, the side “of Truth”—and the rest of mankind, “the world” on -the other.... This was the most fatal kind of megalomania that had -ever yet existed on earth: insignificant little abortions of bigots -and liars began to lay sole claim to the concepts “God,” “Truth,” -“Light,” “Spirit,” “Love,” “Wisdom,” “Life,” as if these things were, -so to speak, synonyms of themselves, in order to fence themselves off -from “the world”; little ultra-Jews, ripe for every kind of madhouse, -twisted values round in order to suit themselves, just as if the -Christian, alone, were the meaning, the salt, the standard and even the -“_ultimate tribunal_” of all the rest of mankind.... The whole fatality -was rendered possible only because a kind of megalomania, akin to this -one and allied to it in race,—the Jewish kind—was already to hand in -the world: the very moment the gulf between Jews and Judæo-Christians -was opened, the latter had no alternative left, but to adopt the same -self-preservative measures as the Jewish instinct suggested, even -_against_ the Jews themselves, whereas the Jews, theretofore, had -employed these same measures only against the Gentiles. The Christian -is nothing more than an anarchical Jew. - - -45 - -—Let me give you a few examples of what these paltry people have -stuffed into their heads, what they have laid _on the lips of their -Master_: quite a host of confessions from “beautiful souls.”— - -“And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart -thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against -them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom -and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.” (Mark vi. -11.)—_How evangelical!..._ - -“And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in -me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, -and he were cast into the sea.” (Mark ix. 42.)—How _evangelical!..._ - -“And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it fa better for thee to -enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be -cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not -quenched.” (Mark ix. 47, 48.)—The eye is not precisely what is meant -in this passage.... - -“Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, -which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God -come with power.” (Mark ix. 1.)—Well _lied,_ lion![6] ... - -“Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his -cross, and follow me. _For_ ...” (_A psychologist’s comment._ Christian -morality is refuted by its “For’s”: its “reasons” refute,—this is -Christian.) (Mark viii. 34.) - -“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, -ye shall be judged.” (Matthew vii. I, 2.)—What a strange notion of -justice on the part of a “just” judge!... - -“For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even -the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye -more _than others?_ do not even the publicans so?” (Matthew v. 46, 47.) -The principle of “Christian love”: it insists upon being _well paid_.... - -“But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father -forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew vi. 15.)—Very compromising for the -“Father” in question. - -“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all -these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew vi. 33)—“All these -things”—that is to say, food, clothing, all the necessities of life. -To use a moderate expression, this is an _error ..._. Shortly before -this God appears as a tailor, at least in certain cases.... - -“Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward -_is_ great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto -the prophets.” (Luke vi. 23.)—_Impudent_ rabble! They dare to compare -themselves with the prophets.... - -“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and _that_ the Spirit of God -dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, _him shall God -destroy;_ for the temple of God is holy, which _temple ye are._” (St -Paul, I Corinthians iii. 16, 17.)—One cannot have too much contempt -for this sort of thing.... - -“Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world -shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?” -(St Paul, I Corinthians vi. 2.)—Unfortunately this is not merely the -speech of a lunatic.... This _appalling impostor_ proceeds thus: “Know -ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to -this life?” - -“Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in -the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by -the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe ... not many -wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble _are called;_ -But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the -wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound -the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things -which are despised, hath God chosen; _yea,_ and things which are not, -to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in -his presence.” (St Paul, I Corinthians i. 20 _et seq._)—In order to -_understand_ this passage, which is of the highest importance as an -example of the psychology of every Chandala morality, the reader should -refer to my _Genealogy of Morals:_ in this book, the contrast between -a _noble_ and a Chandala morality born of _resentment_ and impotent -revengefulness, is brought to light for the first time. St Paul was the -greatest of all the apostles of revenge.... - - -46 - -_What follows from this?_ That one does well to put on one’s gloves -when reading the New Testament The proximity of so much pitch almost -defiles one. We should feel just as little inclined to hobnob with -“the first Christians” as with Polish Jews: not that we need explain -our objections.... They simply smell bad.—In vain have I sought for a -single sympathetic feature in the New Testament; there is not a trace -of freedom, kindliness, open-heartedness and honesty to be found in -it. Humaneness has not even made a start in this book, while _cleanly_ -instincts are entirely absent from it.... Only evil instincts are to be -found in the New Testament, it shows no sign of courage, these people -lack even the courage of their evil instincts. All is cowardice, all is -a closing of one’s eyes and self-deception. Every book becomes clean, -after one has just read the New Testament: for instance, immediately -after laying down St Paul, I read with particular delight that most -charming and most wanton of scoffers, Petronius, of whom someone might -say what Domenico Boccaccio wrote to the Duke of Parma about Cæsar -Borgia: “_è tutto festo_”—immortally healthy, immortally cheerful -and well-constituted. ... These petty bigots err in their calculations -and in the most important thing of all. They certainly attack; but -everything they assail is, by that very fact alone, _distinguished._ -He whom a “primitive Christian” attacks, is _not_ thereby sullied.... -Conversely it is an honour to be opposed by “primitive Christians.” -One cannot read the New Testament without feeling a preference for -everything in it which is the subject of abuse—not to speak of the -“wisdom of this world,” which an impudent windbag tries in vain to -confound “by the foolishness of preaching.” Even the Pharisees and the -Scribes derive advantage from such opposition: they must certainly -have been worth something in order to have been hated in such a -disreputable way. Hypocrisy—as if this were a reproach which the -“first Christians” _were at liberty_ to make!—After all the Scribes -and Pharisees were the _privileged ones;_ this was quite enough, the -hatred of the Chandala requires no other reasons. I very much fear -that the “first Christian”—as also the “_last Christian” whom I may -yet be able to meet,—_ is in his deepest instincts a rebel against -everything privileged; he lives and struggles unremittingly for “equal -rights”!... Regarded more closely, he has no alternative.... If one’s -desire be personally to represent “one of the chosen of God”—or a -“temple of God,” or “a judge of angels,”—then every _other_ principle -of selection, for instance that based upon a standard of honesty, -intellect, manliness and pride, or upon beauty and freedom of heart, -becomes the “world,”—_evil in itself._ Moral: every word on the lips -of a “first Christian” is a lie, every action he does is an instinctive -falsehood,—all his values, all his aims are pernicious; but the man -he, hates, _the thing_ he hates, _has value._ ... The Christian, more -particularly the Christian priest, is a _criterion of values_—Do I -require to add that in the whole of the New Testament only _one_ figure -appears which we cannot help respecting? Pilate, the Roman Governor. To -take a Jewish quarrel _seriously_ was a thing he could not get himself -to do. One Jew more or less—what did it matter?... The noble scorn -of a Roman, in whose presence the word “truth” had been shamelessly -abused, has enriched the New Testament with the only saying which _is -of value,_—and this saying is not only the criticism, but actually the -shattering of that Testament: “What is truth!”... - - -47 - -—That which separates us from other people is not the fact that -we can discover no God, either in history, or in nature, or behind -nature,—but that we regard what has been revered as “God,” not as -“divine,” but as wretched, absurd, pernicious; not as an error, but as -a _crime against life._ ... We deny God as God.... If the existence -of this Christian God were _proved_ to us, we should feel even less -able to believe in him.—In a formula: _deus qualem Paulus creavit, -dei negatio._—A religion such as Christianity which never once comes -in touch with reality, and which collapses the very moment reality -asserts its rights even on one single point, must naturally be a mortal -enemy of the “wisdom of this world”—that is to say, _science._ It -will call all those means good with which mental discipline, lucidity -and severity in intellectual matters, nobility and freedom of the -intellect may be poisoned, calumniated and _decried_. “Faith” as an -imperative is a _veto_ against science,—_in praxi,_ it means lies -at any price. St Paul _understood_ that falsehood—that “faith” was -necessary; subsequently the Church understood St Paul.—That “God” -which St Paul invented for himself, a God who “confounds” the “wisdom -of this world” (in a narrower sense, the two great opponents of all -superstition, philology and medicine), means, in very truth, simply St -Paul’s firm _resolve_ to do so: to call his own will “God”, _thora,_ -that is arch-Jewish. St Paul insists upon confounding the “wisdom of -this world”: his enemies are the _good old_ philologists and doctors of -the Alexandrine schools; it is on them that he wages war. As a matter -of fact no one is either a philologist or a doctor, who is not also an -_Antichrist._ As a philologist, for instance, a man sees _behind_ the -“holy books,” as a doctor he sees _behind_ the physiological rottenness -of the typical Christian. The doctor says “incurable,” the philologist -says “forgery.” - - -48 - -—Has anybody ever really understood the celebrated story which stands -at the beginning of the Bible,—concerning God’s deadly panic over -_science?_ ... Nobody has understood it This essentially sacerdotal -book naturally begins with the great inner difficulty of the priest: -_he_ knows only one great danger, _consequently_ “God” has only one -great danger.— - -The old God, entirely “spirit,” a high-priest through and through, and -wholly perfect, is wandering in a leisurely fashion round his garden; -but he is bored. Against boredom even the gods themselves struggle in -vain.[7] What does he do? He invents man,—man is entertaining.... But, -behold, even man begins to be bored. God’s compassion for the only -form of misery which is peculiar to all paradises, exceeds all bounds: -so forthwith he creates yet other animals. God’s _first_ mistake: man -did not think animals entertaining,—he dominated them, he did not even -wish to be an “animal.” Consequently God created woman. And boredom did -indeed cease from that moment,—but many other things ceased as well! -Woman was God’s _second_ mistake.—“Woman in her innermost nature is a -serpent, Heva”—every priest knows this: “all evil came into this world -through woman,”—every priest knows this too. “_Consequently science_ -also comes from woman.” ... Only through woman did man learn to taste -of the tree of knowledge.—What had happened? Panic had seized the -old God Man himself had been his _greatest_ mistake, he had created -a rival for himself, science makes you _equal to God,_—it is all up -with priests and gods when man becomes scientific!—Moral: science is -the most prohibited thing of all,—it alone, is forbidden. Science is -the _first,_ the germ of all sins, the original sin. _This alone is -morality._—“Thou shalt _not_ know”:—the rest follows as a matter of -course, God’s panic did not deprive him of his intelligence. How can -one _guard_ against science? For ages this was his principal problem. -Reply: man must be kicked out of paradise! Happiness, leisure leads to -thinking,—all thoughts are bad thoughts.... Man _must_ not think.—And -the “priest-per-se” proceeds to invent distress, death, the vital -danger of pregnancy, every kind of misery, decrepitude, and affliction, -and above all _disease,_—all these are but weapons employed in the -struggle with science! Trouble prevents man from thinking.... And -notwithstanding all these precautions! Oh, horror! the work of science -towers aloft, it storms heaven itself, it rings the death-knell of the -gods,—what’s to be done?—The old God invents _war;_ he separates the -nations, and contrives to make men destroy each other mutually (—the -priests have always been in need of war....) War, among other things, -is a great disturber of science!—Incredible! Knowledge, _the rejection -of the sacerdotal yoke,_ nevertheless increases.—So the old God -arrives at this final decision: “Man has become scientific,—_there is -no help for it, he must be drowned!_” ... - - -49 - -You have understood me The beginning of the Bible contains the whole -psychology of the priest—The priest knows only one great danger, and -that is science,—the healthy concept of cause and effect But, on the -whole, science flourishes onlyunder happy conditions,—a man must -have time, he must also have superfluous mental energy in order to -“pursue knowledge” ... “_Consequently_ man must be made unhappy,”—this -has been the argument of the priest of all ages.—You have already -divined what, in accordance with such a manner of arguing, must -first have come into the world:—“sin.” ... The notion of guilt and -punishment, the whole “moral order of the universe,” was invented -against science,—against the deliverance of man from the priest.... -Man must _not_ cast his glance upon the outer world, he must turn it -inwards into himself; he must not as a learner look cleverly and -cautiously _into_ things; he must not see at all: he must _suffer._ -... And he must suffer, so that he may be in need of the priest every -minute.—Away with doctors! What is needed is a Saviour!—The notion of -guilt and punishment, including the doctrine of “grace,” of “salvation” -and of “forgiveness”—all _lies_ through and through without a shred -of psychological reality—were invented in order to destroy man’s -_sense of causality:_ they are an attack on the concept of cause and -effect!—And _not_ an attack with the fist, with the knife, with -honesty in hate and love! But one actuated by the most cowardly, most -crafty, and most ignoble instincts! A _priests_ attack! A _parasite’s_ -attack! A vampyrism of pale subterranean leeches!—... When the natural -consequences of an act are no longer “natural,” but are thought to -be conjured up by phantom concepts of superstition, by “God,” by -“spirits,” and by “souls,” as merely moral consequences, in the form -of rewards, punishments, hints, and educational means,—then the whole -basis of knowledge is destroyed,—_then the greatest crime against man -has been perpetrated._—Sin, I repeat, this form of self-pollution _par -excellence_ on the part of man, was invented in order to make science, -culture and every elevation and noble trait in man quite impossible; by -means of the invention of sin the priest is able to _rule._ - - -50 - -—I cannot here dispense with a psychology of “faith” and of the -“faithful,” which will naturally be to the advantage of the “faithful.” -If to-day there are still many who do not know how very _indecent_ it -is to be a “believer”—_or_ to what extent such a state is the sign -of decadence, and of the broken will to Life,—they will know it no -later than to-morrow. My voice can make even those hear who are hard -of hearing.—If perchance my ears have not deceived me, it seems that -among Christians there is such a thing as a kind of criterion of truth, -which is called “the proof of power.” “Faith saveth; _therefore_ it -is true.”—It might be objected here that it is precisely salvation -which is not proved but only _promised:_ salvation is bound up with -the condition “faith,”—one _shall_ be saved, _because_ one has -faith.... But how prove _that_ that which the priest promises to the -faithful really will take place, to wit: the “Beyond” which defies -all demonstration?—The assumed “proof of power” is at bottom once -again only a belief in the fact that the effect which faith promises -will not fail to take place. In a formula: “I believe that faith -saveth;—_consequently_ it is true.”—But with this we are at the end -of our tether. This “consequently” would be the _absurdum_ itself as -a criterion of truth.—Let us be indulgent enough to assume, however, -that salvation is proved by faith (—_not_ only desired, and _not_ -merely promised by the somewhat suspicious lips of a priest): could -salvation—or, in technical terminology, _happiness_—ever be a proof -of truth? So little is it so that, when pleasurable sensations make -their influence felt in replying to the question “what is true,” they -furnish almost the contradiction of truth, or at any rate they make -it in the highest degree suspicious. The proof through “happiness,” -is a proof of happiness—and nothing else; why in the world should -we take it for granted that _true_ judgments cause more pleasure than -false ones, and that in accordance with a pre-established harmony, they -necessarily bring pleasant feelings in their wake?—The experience of -all strict and profound minds teaches the _reverse._ Every inch of -truth has been conquered only after a struggle, almost everything to -which our heart, our love and our trust in life cleaves, has had to be -sacrificed for it Greatness of soul is necessary for this: the service -of truth is the hardest of all services.—What then is meant by honesty -in things intellectual? It means that a man is severe towards his own -heart, that he scorns “beautiful feelings,” and that he makes a matter -of conscience out of every Yea and Nay!—-Faith saveth: _consequently_ -it lies.... - - -51 - -The fact that faith may in certain circumstances save, the fact that -salvation as the result of an _idée fixe_ does not constitute a true -idea, the fact that faith moves _no_ mountains, but may very readily -raise them where previously they did not exist—all these things are -made sufficiently clear by a mere casual stroll through a _lunatic -asylum._ Of course _no_ priest would find this sufficient: for he -instinctively denies that illness is illness or that lunatic asylums -are lunatic asylums. Christianity is in _need_ of illness, just as -Ancient Greece was in need of a superabundance of health. The actual -ulterior motive of the whole of the Church’s system of salvation -is to _make people ill._ And is not the Church itself the Catholic -madhouse as an ultimate ideal?—The earth as a whole converted into a -madhouse?—The kind of religious man which the Church aims at producing -is a typical _decadent_ The moment of time at which a religious crisis -attains the ascendancy over a people, is always characterised by -nerve-epidemics; the “inner world” of the religious man is ridiculously -like the “inner world” of over-irritable and exhausted people; the -“highest” states which Christianity holds up to mankind as the value -of values, are epileptic in character,—the Church has pronounced only -madmen _or_ great swindlers _in majorem dei honorem_ holy. Once I -ventured to characterise the whole of the Christian training of penance -and salvation (which nowadays is best studied in England) as a _folie -circulaire_ methodically generated upon a soil which, of course, is -already prepared for it,—that is to say, which is thoroughly morbid. -Not every one who likes can be a Christian: no man is “converted” -to Christianity,—he must be sick enough for it ... We others who -possess enough courage both for health and for contempt, how rightly -_we_ may despise a religion which taught men to misunderstand the -body I which would not rid itself of the superstitions of the soul! -which made a virtue of taking inadequate nourishment! which in health -combats a sort of enemy, devil, temptation! which persuaded itself that -it was possible to bear a perfect soul about in a cadaverous body, -and which, to this end, had to make up for itself a new concept of -“perfection,” a pale, sickly, idiotically gushing ideal,—so-called -“holiness,”—holiness, which in itself is simply a symptom of an -impoverished, enervated and incurably deteriorated body!... The -movement of Christianity, as a European movement, was from first to -last, a general accumulation of the ruck and scum of all sorts and -kinds (—and these, by means of Christianity, aspire to power). It -does _not_ express the downfall of a race, it is rather a conglomerate -assembly of all the decadent elements from everywhere which seek each -other and crowd together. It was not, as some believe, the corruption -of antiquity, of _noble_ antiquity, which made Christianity possible: -the learned idiocy which nowadays tries to support such a notion cannot -be too severely contradicted. At the time when the morbid and corrupted -Chandala classes became Christianised in the whole of the _imperium,_ -the very _contrary type,_ nobility, was extant in its finest and -maturest forms. The greatest number became master; the democracy of -Christian instincts triumphed.... Christianity was not “national,” it -was not determined by race,—it appealed to all the disinherited forms -of life, it had its allies everywhere. Christianity is built upon the -rancour of the sick; its instinct is directed _against_ the sound, -against health. Everything well-constituted, proud, high-spirited, -and beautiful is offensive to its ears and eyes. Again I remind you -of St Paul’s priceless words: “And God hath chosen the _weak_ things -of the world, the _foolish_ things of the world; and _base_ things of -the world, and things which are _despised”_: this was the formula, _in -hoc signo_ decadence triumphed.—_God on the Cross_—does no one yet -understand the terrible ulterior motive of this symbol?—Everything -that suffers, everything that hangs on the cross, is _divine...._ All -of us hang on the cross, consequently we are _divine ..._. We alone are -divine.... Christianity was a victory; a _nobler_ type of character -perished through it,—Christianity has been humanity’s greatest -misfortune hitherto.—— - - -52 - -Christianity also stands opposed to everything happily constituted -in the _mind,_—it can make use only of morbid reason as Christian -reason; it takes the side of everything idiotic, it utters a curse -upon “intellect,” upon the _superbia_ of the healthy intellect. Since -illness belongs to the essence of Christianity, the typically Christian -state, “faith,” _must_ also be a form of illness, and all straight, -honest and scientific roads to knowledge must be repudiated by the -Church as forbidden.... Doubt in itself is already a sin.... The total -lack of psychological cleanliness in the priest, which reveals itself -in his look, is a _result_ of decadence. Hysterical women, as also -children with scrofulous constitutions, should be observed as a proof -of how invariably instinctive falsity, the love of lying for the sake -of lying, and the in ability either to look or to walk straight, are -the expression of decadence. “Faith” simply means the refusal to know -what is true. The pious person, the priest of both sexes, is false -because he is ill: his instinct _demands_ that truth should not assert -its right anywhere. “That which makes ill is good: that which proceeds -from abundance, from superabundance and from power, is evil”: that -is the view of the faithful. The _constraint to lie_—that is the -sign by which I recognise every predetermined theologian.—Another -characteristic of the theologian is his lack of _capacity_ for -_philology._ What I mean here by the word philology is, in a general -sense to be understood as the art of reading well, of being able to -take account of facts _without_ falsifying them by interpretation, -without losing either caution, patience or subtlety owing to one’s -desire to understand. Philology as _ephexis_[8] in interpretation, -whether one be dealing with books, newspaper reports, human destinies -or meteorological records,—not to speak of the “salvation of the -soul.” ... The manner in which a theologian, whether in Berlin or in -Rome, interprets a verse from the “Scriptures,” or an experience, or -the triumph of his nation’s army for instance, under the superior -guiding light of David’s Psalms, is always so exceedingly _daring,_ -that it is enough to make a philologist’s hair stand on end. And what -is he to do, when pietists and other cows from Swabia explain their -miserable every-day lives in their smoky hovels by means of the “Finger -of God,” a miracle of “grace,” of “Providence,” of experiences of -“salvation”! The most modest effort of the intellect, not to speak of -decent feeling, ought at least to lead these interpreters to convince -themselves of the absolute childishness and unworthiness of any such -abuse of the dexterity of God’s fingers. However small an amount of -loving piety we might possess, a god who cured us in time of a cold in -the nose, or who arranged for us to enter a carriage just at the moment -when a cloud burst over our heads, would be such an absurd God, that he -would have to be abolished, even if he existed.[9] God as a domestic -servant, as a postman, as a general provider,—in short, merely a word -for the most foolish kind of accidents.... “Divine Providence,” as it -is believed in to-day by almost every third man in “cultured Germany,” -would be an argument against God, in fact it would be the strongest -argument against God that could be Imagined. And in any case it is an -argument against the Germans. - - -53 - -—The notion that martyrs prove anything at all in favour of a thing, -is so exceedingly doubtful, that I would fain deny that there has ever -yet existed a martyr who had anything to do with truth. In the very -manner in which a martyr flings his little parcel of truth at the -head of the world, such a low degree of intellectual honesty and such -obtuseness in regard to the question “truth” makes itself felt, that -one never requires to refute a martyr. Truth is not a thing which one -might have and another be without: only peasants or peasant-apostles, -after the style of Luther, can think like this about truth. You may be -quite sure, that the greater a man’s degree of conscientiousness may -be in matters intellectual, the more modest he will show himself on -this point To _know_ about five things, and with a subtle wave of the -hand to refuse to know _others._ ... “Truth” as it is understood by -every prophet, every sectarian, every free thinker, every socialist and -every church-man, is an absolute proof of the fact that these people -haven’t even begun that discipline of the mind and that process of -self-mastery, which is necessary for the discovery of any small, even -exceedingly small truth.—Incidentally, the deaths of martyrs have -been a great misfortune in the history of the world: they led people -astray.... The conclusion which all idiots, women and common people -come to, that there must be something in a cause for which someone lays -down his life (or which, as in the case of primitive Christianity, -provokes an epidemic of sacrifices),—this conclusion put a tremendous -check upon all investigation, upon the spirit of investigation and of -caution. Martyrs have _harmed_ the cause of truth. ... Even to this day -it only requires the crude fact of persecution, in order to create an -honourable name for any obscure sect who does not matter in the least -What? is a cause actually changed in any way by the fact that some -one has laid down his life for it? An error which becomes honourable, -is simply an error that possesses one seductive charm the more: do -you suppose, dear theologians, that we shall give you the chance of -acting the martyrs for your lies?—A thing is refuted by being laid -respectfully on ice, and theologians are refuted in the same way. This -was precisely the world-historic foolishness of all persecutors; they -lent the thing they combated a semblance of honour by conferring the -fascination of martyrdom upon it.... Women still lie prostrate before -an error to-day, because they have been told that some one died on the -cross for it _Is the cross then an argument?_—But concerning all these -things, one person alone has said what mankind has been in need of for -thousands of years,—_Zarathustra._ - -“Letters of blood did they write on the way they went, and their folly -taught that truth is proved by blood. - -“But blood is the very worst testimony of truth; blood poisoneth even -the purest teaching, and turneth it into delusion and into blood feuds. - -“And when a man goeth through fire for his teaching—what does that -prove? Verily, it is more when out of one’s own burning springeth one’s -own teaching.”[10] - - -54 - -Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: great minds are sceptical. -Zarathustra is a sceptic. Strength and the _freedom_ which proceeds -from the power and excessive power of the mind, _manifests_ itself -through scepticism. Men of conviction are of no account whatever -in regard to any principles of value or of non-value. Convictions -are prisons. They never see far enough, they do not look down from -a sufficient height: but in order to have any say in questions of -value and non-value, a man must see five hundred convictions _beneath_ -him,—_behind_ him.... A spirit who desires great things, and who also -desires the means thereto, is necessarily a sceptic. Freedom from every -kind of conviction _belongs_ to strength, to the _ability_ to open -one’s eyes freely.... The great passion of a sceptic, the basis and -power of his being, which is more enlightened and more despotic than he -is himself, enlists all his intellect into its service; it makes him -unscrupulous; it even gives him the courage to employ unholy means; -in certain circumstances it even allows him convictions. Conviction -as a _means:_ much is achieved merely by means of a conviction. Great -passion makes use of and consumes convictions, it does not submit to -them—it knows that it is a sovereign power. Conversely; the need of -faith, of anything either absolutely affirmative or negative, Carlylism -(if I may be allowed this expression), is the need of _weakness._ -The man of beliefs, the “believer” of every sort and condition, is -necessarily a dependent man;—he is one who cannot regard _himself_ as -an aim, who cannot postulate aims from the promptings of his own heart -The “believer” does not belong to himself, he can be only a means, -he must be _used up,_ he is in need of someone who uses him up. His -instinct accords the highest honour to a morality of self-abnegation: -everything in him, his prudence, his experience, his vanity, persuade -him to adopt this morality. Every sort of belief is in itself an -expression of self-denial, of self-estrangement. ... If one considers -how necessary a regulating code of conduct is to the majority of -people, a code of conduct which constrains them and fixes them from -outside; and how control, or in a higher sense, _slavery,_ is the only -and ultimate condition under which the weak-willed man, and especially -woman, flourish; one also understands conviction, “faith.” The man -of conviction finds in the latter his _backbone._ To be _blind_ to -many things, to be impartial about nothing, to belong always to a -particular side, to hold a strict and necessary point of view in all -matters of values—these are the only conditions under which such a man -can survive at all. But all this is the reverse of, the _antagonist_ -of, the truthful man,—of truth.... The believer is not at liberty to -have a conscience for the question “true” and “untrue”: to be upright -on _this_ point would mean his immediate downfall. The pathological -limitations of his standpoint convert the convinced man into the -fanatic—Savonarola, Luther Rousseau, Robespierre, Saint-Simon,—these -are the reverse type of the strong spirit that has become _free._ But -the grandiose poses of these _morbid_ spirits, of these epileptics -of ideas, exercise an influence over the masses,—fanatics are -picturesque, mankind prefers to look at poses than to listen to reason. - - -55 - -One step further in the psychology of conviction of “faith.” It -is already some time since I first thought of considering whether -convictions were not perhaps more dangerous enemies of truth than lies -(“Human All-too-Human,” Part I, Aphs. 54 and 483). Now I would fain put -the decisive question: is there any difference at all between a lie -and a conviction?—All the world believes that there is, but what in -Heaven’s name does not all the world believe! Every conviction has its -history, its preliminary stages, its period of groping and of mistakes: -it becomes a conviction only after it has _not_ been one for a long -time, only after it has _scarcely_ been one for a long time. What? -might not falsehood be the embryonic form of conviction?—At times -all that is required is a change of personality: very often what was -a lie in the father becomes a conviction in the son.—I call a lie, -to refuse to see something that one sees, to refuse to see it exactly -_as_ one sees it: whether a lie is perpetrated before witnesses or not -is beside the point.—The most common sort of lie is the one uttered -to one’s self; to lie to others is relatively exceptional. Now this -refusal to see what one sees, this refusal to see a thing exactly as -one sees it, is almost the first condition for all those who belong -to a _party_ in any sense whatsoever: the man who belongs to a party -perforce becomes a liar. German historians, for instance, are convinced -that Rome stood for despotism, whereas the Teutons introduced the -spirit of freedom into the world: what difference is there between -this conviction and a lie? After this is it to be wondered at, that -all parties, including German historians, instinctively adopt the -grandiloquent phraseology of morality,—that morality almost owes -its _survival_ to the fact that the man who belongs to a party, no -matter what it may be, is in need of morality every moment?—“This -is our conviction: we confess it to the whole world, we live and die -for it,—let us respect every thing that has a conviction!”—I have -actually heard antisemites speak in this way. On the contrary, my dear -sirs! An antisemite does not become the least bit more respectable -because he lies on principle.... Priests, who in such matters are -more subtle, and who perfectly understand the objection to which the -idea of a conviction lies open—that is to say of a falsehood which -is perpetrated on principle _because_ it serves a purpose, borrowed -from the Jews the prudent measure of setting the concept “God,” “Will -of God,” “Revelation of God,” at this place. Kant, too, with his -categorical imperative, was on the same road: this was his _practical_ -reason.—There are some questions in which it is _not_ given to man -to decide between true and false; all the principal questions, all -the principal problems of value, stand beyond human reason.... To -comprehend the limits of reason—this alone is genuine philosophy. For -what purpose did God give man revelation? Would God have done anything -superfluous? Man cannot of his own accord know what is good and what is -evil, that is why God taught man his will.... Moral: the priest does -_not_ lie, such questions as “truth” or “falseness” have nothing to do -with the things concerning which the priest speaks; such things do not -allow of lying. For, in order to lie, it would be necessary to know -_what_ is true in this respect. But that is precisely what man cannot -know: hence the priest is only the mouthpiece of God.—This sort of -sacerdotal syllogism is by no means exclusively Judaic or Christian; -the right to lie and the _prudent measure_ of “revelation” belongs -to the priestly type, whether of decadent periods or of Pagan times -(—Pagans are all those who say yea to life, and to whom “God” is the -word for the great yea to all things). The “law,” the “will of God,” -the “holy book,” and inspiration.—All these things are merely words -for the conditions under which the priest attains to power, and with -which he maintains his power,—these concepts are to be found at the -base of all sacerdotal organisations, of all priestly or philosophical -and ecclesiastical governments. The “holy lie,” which is common to -Confucius, to the law-book of Manu, to Muhamed, and to the Christian -church, is not even absent in Plato. “Truth is here”; this phrase -means, wherever it is uttered: _the priest lies...._ - - -56 - -After all, the question is, to what _end_ are falsehoods perpetrated? -The fact that, in Christianity, “holy” ends are entirely absent, -constitutes _my_ objection to the means it employs. Its ends are only -_bad_ ends: the poisoning, the calumniation and the denial of life, -the contempt of the body, the degradation and self-pollution of man by -virtue of the concept sin,—consequently its means are bad as well.—My -feelings are quite the reverse when I read the law-book of _Manu, an_ -incomparably superior and more intellectual work, which it would be -a sin against the _spirit_ even to _mention_ in the same breath with -the Bible. You will guess immediately why: it has a genuine philosophy -behind it, _in_ it, not merely an evil-smelling Jewish distillation -of Rabbinism and superstition,—it gives something to chew even -to the most fastidious psychologist. And, _not_ to forget the most -important point of all, it is fundamentally different from every kind -of Bible: by means of it the _noble classes,_ the philosophers and the -warriors guard and guide the masses; it is replete with noble values, -it is filled with a feeling of perfection, with a saying of yea to -life, and a triumphant sense of well-being in regard to itself and to -life,—the sun shines upon the whole book.—All those things which -Christianity smothers with its bottomless vulgarity: procreation, -woman, marriage, are here treated with earnestness, with revere nee, -with love and confidence. How can one possibly place in the hands of -children and women, a book that contains those vile words: “to avoid -fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman -have her own husband ... it is better to marry than to burn.”[11] -And is it decent to be a Christian so long as the very origin of -man is Christianised,—that is to say, befouled, by the idea of the -_immaculata conceptio?_ ... I know of no book in which so many delicate -and kindly things are said to woman, as in the Law-Rook of Manu; these -old grey-beards and saints have a manner of being gallant to women -which, perhaps, cannot be surpassed. “The mouth of a woman,” says Manu -on one occasion, “the breast of a maiden, the prayer of a child, and -the smoke of the sacrifice, are always pure.” Elsewhere he says: “there -is nothing purer than the light of the sun, the shadow cast by a cow, -air, water, fire and the breath of a maiden.” And finally—perhaps this -is also a holy lie:—“all the openings of the body above the navel are -pure, all those below the navel are impure. Only in a maiden is the -whole body pure.” - - -57 - -The unholiness of Christian means is caught _in flagranti,_ if only -the end aspired to by Christianity be compared with that of the -Law-Book of Manu; if only these two utterly opposed aims be put under -a strong light The critic of Christianity simply cannot avoid making -Christianity _contemptible._—A Law-Book like that of Manu comes into -being like every good law-book: it epitomises the experience, the -precautionary measures, and the experimental morality of long ages, -it settles things definitely, it no longer creates. The prerequisite -for a codification of this kind, is the recognition of the fact that -the means which procure authority for a _truth_ to which it has cost -both time and great pains to attain, are fundamentally different from -those with which that same truth would be proved. A law-book never -relates the utility, the reasons, the preliminary casuistry, of a -law: for it would be precisely in this way that it would forfeit its -imperative tone, the “thou shalt,” the first condition of its being -obeyed. The problem lies exactly in this.—At a certain stage in the -development of a people, the most far-seeing class within it (that is -to say, the class that sees farthest backwards and forwards), declares -the experience of how its fellow-creatures ought to live—_can_ -live—to be finally settled. Its object is, to reap as rich and as -complete a harvest as possible, in return for the ages of experiment -and _terrible_ experience it has traversed. Consequently, that which -has to be avoided, above all, is any further experimentation, the -continuation of the state when values are still fluid, the testing, -choosing, and criticising of values _in infinitum. _ Against all this a -double wall is built up: in the first place, _Revelation,_ which is the -assumption that the rationale of every law is not human in its origin, -that it was not sought and found after ages of error, but that it is -divine in its origin, completely and utterly without a history, gift, a -miracle, a mere communication.... And secondly, _tradition,_ which is -the assumption that the law has obtained since the most primeval times, -that it is impious and a crime against one’s ancestors to attempt to -doubt it. The authority of law is established on the principles: God -_gave_ it, the ancestors _lived_ it.—The superior reason of such a -procedure lies in the intention to draw consciousness off step by step -from that mode of life which has been recognised as correct (_i.e., -proved_ after enormous and carefully examined experience), so that -perfect automatism of the instincts may be attained,—this being the -only possible basis of all mastery of every kind of perfection in -the Art of Life. To draw up a law-book like Manu’s, is tantamount -to granting a people mastership for the future, perfection for the -future,—the right to aspire to the highest Art of Life. _To that -end it must be made unconscious;_ this is the object of every holy -lie.—_The order of castes,_ the highest, the dominating law, is only -the sanction of a _natural order,_ of a natural legislation of the -first rank, over which no arbitrary innovation, no “modern idea” has -any power. Every healthy society falls into three distinct types, which -reciprocally condition one another and which gravitate differently in -the physiological sense; and each of these has its own hygiene, its -own sphere of work, its own special feeling of perfection, and its -own mastership. It is Nature, not Manu, that separates from the rest, -those individuals preponderating in intellectual power, those excelling -in muscular strength and temperament, and the third class which is -distinguished neither in one way nor the other, the mediocre,—the -latter as the greatest number, the former as the _élite._ The superior -caste—I call them the _fewest,_—has, as the perfect caste, the -privileges of the fewest: it devolves upon them to represent happiness, -beauty and goodness on earth. Only the most intellectual men have -the right to beauty, to the beautiful: only in them is goodness not -weakness. _Pulchrum est paucorum hominum:_ goodness is a privilege. -On the other hand there is nothing which they should be more strictly -forbidden than repulsive manners or a pessimistic look, a look that -makes everything _seem ugly,_—or even indignation at the general -aspect of things. Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala, and so -is pessimism. “_The world is perfect_”—that is what the instinct of -the most intellectual says, the yea-saying instinct; “imperfection, -every kind of _inferiority_ to us, distance, the pathos of distance, -even the Chandala belongs to this perfection.” The most intellectual -men, as the _strongest_ find their happiness where others meet -with their ruin: in the labyrinth, in hardness towards themselves -and others, in endeavour; their delight is self-mastery: with them -asceticism becomes a second nature, a need, an instinct They regard -a difficult task as their privilege; to play with burdens which crush -their fellows is to them a _recreation...._ Knowledge, a form of -asceticism.—They are the most honourable kind of men: but that does -not prevent them from being the most cheerful and most gracious. They -rule, not because they will, but because they _are;_ they are not at -liberty to take a second place.—The second in rank are the guardians -of the law, the custodians of order and of security, the noble -warriors, the king, above all, as the highest formula of the warrior, -the judge, and keeper of the law. The second in rank are the executive -of the most intellectual, the nearest to them in duty, relieving them -of all that is _coarse_ in the work of ruling,—their retinue, their -right hand, their best disciples. In all this, I repeat, there is -nothing arbitrary, nothing “artificial,” that which is _otherwise_ is -artificial,—by that which is otherwise, nature is put to shame.... The -order of castes, and the order of rank merely formulates the supreme -law of life itself; the differentiation of the three types is necessary -for the maintenance of society, and for enabling higher and highest -types to be reared,—the _inequality_ of rights is the only condition -of there being rights at all.—A right is a privilege. And in his -way, each has his privilege. Let us not underestimate the privileges -of the _mediocre._ Life always gets harder towards the summit,—the -cold increases, responsibility increases. A high civilisation is a -pyramid: it can stand only upon a broad base, its first prerequisite is -a strongly and soundly consolidated mediocrity. Handicraft, commerce, -agriculture, science, the greater part of art,—in a word, the whole -range of professional and business callings, is compatible only with -mediocre ability and ambition; such pursuits would be out of place -among exceptions, the instinct pertaining thereto would oppose not -only aristocracy but anarchy as well. The fact that one is publicly -useful, a wheel, a function, presupposes a certain natural destiny: it -is not _society,_ but the only kind of _happiness_ of which the great -majority are capable, that makes them intelligent machines. For the -mediocre it is a joy to be mediocre; in them mastery in one thing, a -speciality, is a natural instinct. It would be absolutely unworthy of -a profound thinker to see any objection in mediocrity _per se._ For -in itself it is the first essential condition under which exceptions -are possible; a high culture is determined by it. When the exceptional -man treats the mediocre with more tender care than he does himself or -his equals, this is not mere courtesy of heart on his part—but simply -his _duty._ ... Whom do I hate most among the rabble of the present -day? The socialistic rabble, the Chandala apostles, who undermine the -working man’s instinct, his happiness and his feeling of contentedness -with his insignificant existence,—who make him envious, and who teach -him revenge. ... The wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies in the -claim to equal rights. What is _bad?_ But I have already replied to -this: Everything that proceeds from weakness, envy and _revenge._—The -anarchist and the Christian are offspring of the same womb.... - - -58 - -In point of fact, it matters greatly to what end one lies: whether one -preserves or _destroys_ by means of falsehood. It is quite justifiable -to bracket the _Christian_ and the _Anarchist_ together: their object, -their instinct, is concerned only with destruction. The proof of this -proposition can be read quite plainly from history: history spells it -with appalling distinctness. Whereas we have just seen a religious -legislation, whose object was to render the highest possible means of -making life _flourish,_ and of making a grand organisation of society, -eternal,—Christianity found its mission in putting an end to such an -organisation, _precisely because life flourishes through it._ In the -one case, the net profit to the credit of reason, acquired through -long ages of experiment and of insecurity, is applied usefully to the -most remote ends, and the harvest, which is as large, as rich and -as complete as possible, is reaped and garnered: in the other case, -on the contrary, the harvest is _blighted_ in a single night That -which stood there, _ære perennius,_ the _imperium Romanum,_ the most -magnificent form of organisation, under difficult conditions, that has -ever been achieved, and compared with which everything that preceded, -and everything which followed it, is mere patchwork, gimcrackery, -and dilettantism,—those holy anarchists made it their “piety,” to -destroy “the world”—that is to say, the _imperium Romanum,_ until -no two stones were left standing one on the other,—until even the -Teutons and other clodhoppers were able to become master of it The -Christian and the anarchist are both decadents; they are both incapable -of acting in any other way than disintegratingly, poisonously and -witheringly, like _blood-suckers;_ they are both actuated by an -instinct of _mortal hatred_ of everything that stands erect, that is -great, that is lasting, and that is a guarantee of the future.... -Christianity was the vampire of the _imperium Romanum,_—in a night -it shattered the stupendous achievement of the Romans, which was to -acquire the territory for a vast civilisation which could _bide its -time._—Does no one understand this yet? The _imperium Romanum_ that -we know, and which the history of the Roman province teaches us to -know ever more thoroughly, this most admirable work of art on a grand -scale, was the beginning, its construction was calculated _to prove_ -its worth by millenniums,—unto this day nothing has ever again been -built in this fashion, nor have men even dreamt since of building on -this scale _sub specie aterni!_—This organisation was sufficiently -firm to withstand bad emperors: the accident of personalities must -have nothing to do with such matters—the _first_ principle of all -great architecture. But it was not sufficiently firm to resist the -_corruptest_ form of corruption, to resist the Christians.... These -stealthy canker-worms, which under the shadow of night, mist and -duplicity, insinuated themselves into the company of every individual, -and proceeded to drain him of all seriousness for _real_ things, -of all his instinct for _realities;_ this cowardly, effeminate and -sugary gang have step by step alienated all “souls” from this colossal -edifice,—those valuable, virile and noble natures who felt that -the cause of Rome was their own personal cause, their own personal -seriousness, their own personal _pride._ The stealth of the bigot, -the secrecy of the conventicle, concepts as black as hell such as -the sacrifice of the innocent, the _unto mystica_ in the drinking -of blood, above all the slowly kindled fire of revenge, of Chandala -revenge—such things became master of Rome, the same kind of religion -on the pre-existent form of which Epicurus had waged war. One has -only to read Lucretius in order to understand what Epicurus combated, -_not_ Paganism, but “Christianity,” that is to say the corruption of -souls through the concept of guilt, through the concept of punishment -and immortality. He combated the _subterranean_ cults, the whole of -latent Christianity—to deny immortality was at that time a genuine -_deliverance._—And Epicurus had triumphed, every respectable thinker -in the Roman Empire was an Epicurean: _then St Paul appeared_ ... St -Paul, the Chandala hatred against Rome, against “the world,” the Jew, -the eternal Jew _par excellence,_ become flesh and genius. ... What -he divined was, how, by the help of the small sectarian Christian -movement, independent of Judaism, a universal conflagration could be -kindled; how, with the symbol of the “God on the Cross,” everything -submerged, everything secretly insurrectionary, the whole offspring -of anarchical intrigues could be gathered together to constitute an -enormous power. “For salvation is of the Jews.”—Christianity is -the formula for the supersession, _and_ epitomising of all kinds of -subterranean cults, that of Osiris, of the Great Mother, of Mithras for -example: St Paul’s genius consisted in his discovery of this. In this -matter his instinct was so certain, that, regardless of doing violence -to truth, he laid the ideas by means of which those Chandala religions -fascinated, upon the very lips of the “Saviour” he had invented, and -not only upon his lips,—that he _made_ out of him something which even -a Mithras priest could understand.... This was his moment of Damascus: -he saw that he had _need of_ the belief in immortality in order to -depreciate “the world,” that the notion of “hell” would become master -of Rome, that with a “Beyond” _this life_ can be killed. ... Nihilist -and Christian,—they rhyme in German, and they do not only rhyme. - - -59 - -The whole labour of the ancient world _in vain:_ I am at a loss for a -word which could express my feelings at something so atrocious.—And -in view of the fact that its labour was only preparatory, that with -adamantine self-consciousness it laid the substructure, alone, to -a work which was to last millenniums, the whole _significance_ of -the ancient world was certainly in vain!... What was the use of the -Greeks? what was the use of the Romans?—All the prerequisites of a -learned culture, all the scientific methods already existed, the great -and peerless art of reading well had already been established—that -indispensable condition to tradition, to culture and to scientific -unity; natural science hand in hand with mathematics and mechanics -was on the best possible road,—the sense for facts, the last and -most valuable of all senses, had its schools, and its tradition was -already centuries old! Is this understood? Everything _essential_ had -been discovered to make it possible for work to be begun:—methods, -and this cannot be said too often, are the essential thing, also the -most difficult thing, while they moreover have to wage the longest war -against custom and indolence. That which to-day we have successfully -reconquered for ourselves, by dint of unspeakable self-discipline—for -in some way or other all of us still have the bad instincts, the -Christian instincts, in our body,—the impartial eye for reality, -the cautious hand, patience and seriousness in the smallest details, -complete _uprightness_ in knowledge,—all this was already there; it -had been there over two thousand years before! And in addition to this -there was also that excellent and subtle tact and taste! _Not_ in the -form of brain drilling! _Not_ in the form of “German” culture with the -manners of a boor! But incarnate, manifesting itself in men’s bearing -and in their instinct,—in short constituting reality.... _All this -in vain!_ In one night it became merely a memory!—The Greeks! The -Romans! Instinctive nobility, instinctive taste, methodic research, -the genius of organisation and administration, faith, the _will_ to -the future of mankind, the great _yea_ to all things materialised -in the _imperium Romanum,_ become visible to all the senses, grand -style no longer manifested in mere art, but in reality, in truth, -in _life._—And buried in a night, not by a natural catastrophe! -Not stamped to death by Teutons and other heavy-footed vandals! -But destroyed by crafty, stealthy, invisible anæmic vampires! Not -conquered,—but only drained of blood!... The concealed lust of -revenge, miserable envy become _master!_ Everything wretched, inwardly -ailing, and full of ignoble feelings, the whole Ghetto-world of souls, -was in a trice _uppermost!_—One only needs to read any one of the -Christian agitators—St Augustine, for instance,—in order to realise, -in order to _smell,_ what filthy fellows came to the top in this -movement. You would deceive yourselves utterly if you supposed that the -leaders of the Christian agitation showed any lack of understanding -—Ah! they were shrewd, shrewd to the point of holiness were these -dear old Fathers of the Church I What they lack is something quite -different. Nature neglected them,—it forgot to give them a modest -dowry of decent, of respectable and of _cleanly_ instincts.... Between -ourselves, they are not even men. If Islam despises Christianity, it is -justified a thousand times over; for Islam presupposes men. - - -60 - -Christianity destroyed the harvest we might have reaped from the -culture of antiquity, later it also destroyed our harvest of the -culture of Islam. The wonderful Moorish world of Spanish culture, which -in its essence is more closely related to _us,_ and which appeals -more to our sense and taste than Rome and Greece, was _trampled to -death_(—I do not say by what kind of feet), why?—because it owed -its origin to noble, to manly instincts, because it said yea to life, -even that life so full of the rare and refined luxuries of the Moors! -... Later on the Crusaders waged war upon something before which it -would have been more seemly in them to grovel in the dust,—a culture, -beside which even our Nineteenth Century would seem very poor and -very “senile.”—Of course they wanted booty: the Orient was rich.... -For goodness’ sake let us forget our prejudices! Crusades—superior -piracy, that is all! German nobility—that is to say, a Viking nobility -at bottom, was in its element in such wars: the Church was only too -well aware of how German nobility is to be won.... German nobility -was always the “Swiss Guard” of the Church, always at the service of -all the bad instincts of the Church; but it was _well paid for it -all...._ Fancy the Church having waged its deadly war upon everything -noble on earth, precisely with the help of German swords, German blood -and courage! A host of painful _questions_ might be raised on this -point German nobility scarcely takes a place in the history of higher -culture: the reason of this is obvious; Christianity, alcohol—the two -_great_ means of corruption. As a matter of fact choice ought to be -just as much out of the question between Islam and Christianity, as -between an Arab and a Jew. The decision is already self-evident; nobody -is at liberty to exercise a choice in this matter. A man is either of -the Chandala or he is _not ..._ “War with Rome to the knife! Peace -and friendship with Islam”: this is what that great free spirit, that -genius among German emperors,—Frederick the Second, not only felt -but also _did._ What? Must a German in the first place be a genius, a -free-spirit, in order to have _decent_ feelings? I cannot understand -how a German was ever able to have _Christian_ feelings. - -Here it is necessary to revive a memory which will be a hundred times -more painful to Germans. The Germans have destroyed the last great -harvest of culture which was to be garnered for Europe,—it destroyed -the _Renaissance._ Does anybody at last understand, _will_ anybody -understand what the Renaissance was? _The transvaluation of Christian -values,_ the attempt undertaken with all means, all instincts and all -genius to make the _opposite_ values, the _noble_ values triumph,... -Hitherto there has been only _this_ great war: there has never yet -been a more decisive question than the Renaissance,—_my_ question -is the question of the Renaissance:—there has never been a more -fundamental, a more direct and a more severe _attack,_ delivered with -a whole front upon the centre of the foe. To attack at the decisive -quarter, at the very seat of Christianity, and there to place _noble_ -values on the throne,—that is to say, to _introduce_ them into the -instincts, into the most fundamental needs and desires of those -sitting there.... I see before me a possibility perfectly magic in -its charm and glorious colouring—it seems to me to scintillate -with all the quivering grandeur of refined beauty, that there is -an art at work within it which is so divine, so infernally divine, -that one might seek through millenniums in vain for another such -possibility; I see a spectacle so rich in meaning and so wonderfully -paradoxical to boot, that it would be enough to make all the gods of -Olympus rock with immortal laughter,—_Cæsar Borgia as Pope._ ... -Do you understand me? ... Very well then, this would have been the -triumph which I alone am longing for to-day:—this would have _swept_ -Christianity _away!_—What happened? A German monk, Luther, came to -Rome. This monk, with all the vindictive instincts of an abortive -priest in his body, foamed with rage over the Renaissance in Rome.... -Instead of, with the profoundest gratitude, understanding the vast -miracle that had taken place, the overcoming of Christianity at its -_headquarters,_—the fire of his hate knew only how to draw fresh fuel -from this spectacle. A religious man thinks only of himself.—Luther -saw the corruption of the Papacy when the very reverse stared him in -the face: the old corruption, the _peceatum originate,_ Christianity -_no_ longer sat upon the Papal chair! But Life! The triumph of -Life! The great yea to all lofty, beautiful and daring things!... -And Luther reinstated the Church; he attacked it The Renaissance -thus became an event without meaning, a great _in vain!_—Ah these -Germans, what have they not cost us already! In vain—this has always -been the achievement of the Germans.—The Reformation, Leibniz, -Kant and so-called German philosophy, the Wars of Liberation, the -Empire—in each case are in vain for something which had already -existed, for something which _cannot be recovered._ ... I confess it, -these Germans are my enemies: I despise every sort of uncleanliness -in concepts and valuations in them, every kind of cowardice in the -face of every honest yea or nay. For almost one thousand years, now, -they have tangled and confused everything they have laid their hands -on; they have on their conscience all the half-measures, all the -three-eighth measures of which Europe is sick; they also have the -most unclean, the most incurable, and the most irrefutable kind of -Christianity—Protestantism—on their conscience.... If we shall never -be able to get rid of Christianity, the _Germans_ will be to blame. - - -62 - -—With this I will now conclude and pronounce my judgment. I _condemn_ -Christianity and confront it with the most terrible accusation that -an accuser has ever had in his mouth. To my mind it is the greatest -of all conceivable corruptions, it has had the will to the last -imaginable corruption. The Christian Church allowed nothing to escape -from its corruption; it converted every value into its opposite, every -truth into a He, and every honest impulse into an ignominy of the -soul. Let anyone dare to speak to me of its humanitarian blessings! -To _abolish_ any sort of distress was opposed to its profoundest -interests; its very existence depended on states of distress; it -created states of distress in order to make itself immortal.... The -cancer germ of sin, for instance: the Church was the first to enrich -mankind with this misery!—The “equality of souls before God,” this -falsehood, this _pretext_ for the _rancunes_ of all the base-minded, -this anarchist bomb of a concept, which has ultimately become the -revolution, the modern idea, the principle of decay of the whole of -social order,—this is _Christian_ dynamite ... The “humanitarian” -blessings of Christianity! To breed a self-contradiction, an art of -self-profanation, a will to lie at any price, an aversion, a contempt -of all good and honest instincts out of _humanitas!_ Is this what you -call the blessings of Christianity?—Parasitism as the only method of -the Church; sucking all the blood, all the love, all the hope of life -out of mankind with anæmic and sacred ideals. A “Beyond” as the will to -deny all reality; the cross as the trade-mark of the most subterranean -form of conspiracy that has ever existed,—against health, beauty, -well-constitutedness, bravery, intellect, kindliness of soul, _against -Life itself...._ - -This eternal accusation against Christianity I would fain write on all -walls, wherever there are walls,—I have letters with which I can make -even the blind see.... I call Christianity the one great curse, the one -enormous and innermost perversion, the one great instinct of revenge, -for which no means are too venomous, too underhand, too underground and -too _petty,_—I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind.... - -And _time_ is reckoned from the _dies nefastus_ upon which this -fatality came into being—from the first day of Christianity!—_why -not rather from its last day?—From to-day?_—Transvaluation of all -Values!... - - -[1] The German “_Tüchtigkeit_” has a nobler ring than our word -“efficiency.”—TR. - -[2] _Cf._ Disraeli: “But enlightened Europe is not happy. Its existence -is a fever which it calls progress. Progress to what?” (“Tancred,” Book -III., Chap, vii.).—TR. - -[3] It will be seen from this that in spite of Nietzsche’s ruthless -criticism of the priests, he draws a sharp distinction between -Christianity and the Church. As the latter still contained elements -of order, it was more to his taste than the denial of authority -characteristic of real Christianity.—TR. - -[4] “_reine Thorheit_” in the German text, referring once again to -Parsifal.—Tr. - -[5] This applies apparently to Bismarck, the forger of the Ems telegram -and a sincere Christian.—Tr. - -[6] An adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Well roared, lion” (_Mid. N. D.,_ -Act 5, Sc. i.), the lion, as is well known, being the symbol for St -Mark in Christian literature and Art—TR. - -[7] A parody on a line in Schiller’s “_Jungfrau von Orleans_” (Act 3, -Sc. vi.): “_Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens._” (With -stupidity even the gods themselves struggle in vain).—TR. - -[8] ἒφεξις = Lat. Retentio, Inhibitio (Stephanus, Thesaurus Græcæ -Linguæ); therefore: reserve, caution. The Greek Sceptics were also -called Ephectics owing to their caution in judging and in concluding -from facts.—TR. - -[9] The following passage from Multatuti will throw light on this -passage:— - -“Father:—‘Behold, my son, how wisely Providence has arranged -everything! This bird lays its eggs in its nest and the young will be -hatched just about the time when there will be worms and flies with -which to feed them. Then they will sing a song of praise in honour of -the Creator who overwhelms his creatures with blessings.’— - -“Son:—‘Will the worms join in the song, Dad?’”.—TR. - -[10] “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” The Priests.—TR. - -[11] I Corinthians vii. 2, 9.—TR. - - - - -THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE - -AND - -EXPLANATORY NOTES TO “THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.” - - -TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE - -The notes concerning the Eternal Recurrence, in this volume, are said -by Mrs Foerster-Nietzsche to have been the first that Nietzsche ever -wrote on the subject of his great doctrine. This being so, they must -have been composed towards the autumn of the year 1881. - -I have already pointed out elsewhere (_Will to Power,_ vol. ii., -Translator’s Preface) how much importance Nietzsche himself ascribed -to this doctrine, and how, until the end, he regarded it as the -inspiration which had led to his chief work, _Thus Spake Zarathustra._ -For the details relating to its inception, however, I would refer the -reader to Mrs Foerster-Nietzsche’s Introduction to her brother’s chief -work, which was translated for the eleventh volume of this Edition of -the Complete Works. - -In reading these notes it would be well to refer to Nietzsche’s other -utterances on the subject which are to be found at the end of vol. -ii. of the _Will to Power,_ and also, if possible, to have recourse -to the original German text. Despite the greatest care, I confess -that in some instances, I have felt a little doubt as to the precise -English equivalent for the thoughts expressed under the heading -_Eternal Recurrence;_ and, though I have attributed this difficulty to -the extreme novelty of the manner in which the subject is presented, -it is well that the reader should be aware that such doubt has been -entertained. For I disbelieve utterly in mere verbal translation, -however accurate, and would question anybody’s right to convert a -German sentence into English—even though he were so perfect in -both languages as to be almost absolutely bilingual,—if he did not -completely grasp the thought behind the sentence. - -The writing of the collected Explanatory Notes to _Thus Spake -Zarathustra_, cannot be given any exact date. Some of them consist of -comments, written down by Nietzsche after the completion of the book, -and kept as the nucleus of an actual commentary to Zarathustra, which -it seems to have been his intention, one day, to write; while others -are merely memoranda and rough sketches, probably written before the -completion of the work, and which served the purpose of a draft of his -original plan. The reader who knows _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ will be -able to tell wherein the book ultimately differed from the plan visible -in these preliminary notes. - -As an authoritative, though alas! all too fragmentary elucidation of a -few of the more obscure passages of Zarathustra, some of these notes -are of the greatest value; and, in paragraph 73, for instance, there -is an interpretation of the Fourth and Last Part, which I myself would -have welcomed with great enthusiasm, at the time when I was having my -first struggles with the spirit of this great German sage’s life work. - -ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI. - - - - -I. ETERNAL RECURRENCE - - -1. THE DOCTRINE EXPOUNDED AND SUBSTANTIATED. - - -1. - -The extent of universal energy is limited; it is not “infinite”: we -should beware of such excesses in our concepts! Consequently the number -of states, changes, combinations, and evolutions of this energy, -although it may be enormous and practically incalculable, is at any -rate definite and not unlimited. The time, however, in which this -universal energy works its changes is infinite—that is to say, energy -remains eternally the same and is eternally active:—at this moment an -infinity has already elapsed, that is to say, every possible evolution -must already have taken place. Consequently the present process of -evolution must be a repetition, as was also the one before it, as will -also be the one which will follow. And so on forwards and backwards! -Inasmuch as the entire state of all forces continually returns, -everything has existed an infinite number of times. Whether, apart from -this, anything exactly like something that formerly existed has ever -appeared, is completely beyond proof. It would seem that each complete -state of energy forms all qualities afresh even to the smallest -degree, so that two different complete states could have nothing in -common. Is it to be supposed that in one and the same complete states -two precisely similar things could appear—for instance two leaves? -I doubt it: it would take for granted that they had both had an -absolutely similar origin, and in that case we should have to assume -that right back in infinity two similar things had also existed despite -all the changes in the complete states and their creation of new -qualities—an impossible assumption. - - -2 - -Formerly it was thought that unlimited energy was a necessary corollary -to unlimited activity in time, and that this energy could be exhausted -by no form of consumption. Now it is thought that energy remains -constant and docs not require to be infinite. It is eternally active -but it is no longer able eternally to create new forms, it must repeat -itself: that is my conclusion. - - -3 - -An incalculable number of complete states of energy have existed, -but these have not been infinitely different: for if they had been, -unlimited energy would have been necessary. The energy of the universe -can only have a given number of possible qualities. - - -4 - -The endless evolution of new forms is a contradiction, for it would -imply eternally increasing energy. But whence would it grow? Whence -would it derive its nourishment and its surplus of nourishment? The -assumption that the universe is an organism contradicts the very -essence of the organic. - - -5 - -In what principle and belief is that decisive turning point in -philosophical thought best expressed which has come into being thanks -to the preponderance of the scientific spirit over the religious and -God-creating one? We insist upon the fact that the world as a sum of -energy must not be regarded as unlimited—we forbid ourselves the -concept infinite energy, because it seems incompatible with the concept -energy. - - -6 - -An unlimited number of new changes and states on the part of limited -energy is a contradiction, however extensive one may imagine it to be, -and however economical the changes may be, provided it is infinite. -We are therefore forced to conclude: (1) either that the universe -began its activity at a given moment of time and will end in a similar -fashion,—but the beginning of activity is absurd; if a state of -equilibrium had been reached it would have persisted to all eternity; -(2) Or there is no such thing as an endless number of changes, but -a circle consisting of a definite number of them which continually -recurs: activity is eternal, the number of the products and states of -energy is limited. - - -7 - -If all the possible combinations and relations of forces had not -already been exhausted, then an infinity would not yet lie behind -us. Now since infinite time must be assumed, no fresh possibility -can exist and everything must have appeared already, and moreover an -infinite number of times. - - -8 - -The present world of forces leads back to a state of greatest -simplicity in these forces: it likewise leads forwards to such a -state,—cannot and must not _both_ states be identical? No incalculable -number of states can evolve out of a system of limited forces, that -is to say, out of a given quantity of energy which may be precisely -measured. Only when we falsely assume that space is unlimited, and that -therefore energy gradually becomes dissipated, can the final state be -an unproductive and lifeless one. - - -9 - -First principles.—The last physical state of energy which we can -imagine must necessarily be the first also. The absorption of energy -in latent energy must be the cause of the production of the most vital -energy. For a highly positive state must follow a negative state Space -like matter is a subjective form, time is not. The notion of space -first arose from the assumption that space could be empty. But there is -no such thing as empty space. Everything is energy. - -We cannot think of that which moves and that which is moved together, -but both these things constitute matter and space. We isolate. - - -10 - -Concerning the resurrection of the world.—Out of two negatives, when -they are forces, a positive arises. (Darkness comes of light opposed to -light, cold arises from warmth opposed to warmth, &c, &c.) - - -11 - -An uncertain state of equilibrium occurs just as seldom in nature as -two absolutely equal triangles. Consequently anything like a static -state of energy in general is impossible. If stability were possible it -would already have been reached. - - -12 - -Either complete equilibrium must in itself be an impossibility, or -the changes of energy introduce themselves in the circular process -before that equilibrium which is in itself possible has appeared.—But -it would be madness to ascribe a feeling of self-preservation to -existence! And the same applies to the conception of a contest of pain -and pleasure among atoms. - - -13 - -Physics supposes that energy may be divided up: but every one of its -possibilities must first be adjusted to reality. There can therefore -be no question of dividing energy into equal parts; in every one of -its states it manifests a certain quality, and qualities cannot be -subdivided: hence a state of equilibrium in energy is impossible. - - -14 - -If energy had ever reached a stage of equilibrium that stage would -have persisted: it has therefore never reached such a stage. The -present condition of things contradicts this assumption. If we assume -that there has ever been a state absolutely like the present one this -assumption is in no wise refuted by the present state. For, among -all the endless possibilities, this case must already have occurred, -as an infinity is already behind us. If equilibrium were possible it -would already have been reached.—And if this momentary state has -already existed then that which bore it and the previous one also would -likewise have existed and so on backwards,—and from this it follows -that it has already existed not only twice but three times,—just as it -will exist again not only twice but three times,—in fact an infinite -number of times backwards and forwards. That is to say, the whole -process of Becoming consists of a repetition of a definite number of -precisely similar states.—Clearly the human brain cannot be left to -imagine the whole series of possibilities: but in any case, quite apart -from our ability to judge or our inability to conceive the whole range -of possibilities, the present state at least is a possible one—because -it is a real one. We should therefore say: in the event of the number -of possibilities not being infinite, and assuming that in the course of -unlimited time a limited number of these must appear, all real states -must have been preceded by similar states? Because from every given -moment a whole infinity is to be calculated backwards? The stability of -forces and their equilibrium is a possible alternative: but it has not -been reached; consequently the number of possibilities is greater than -the number of real states. The fact that nothing similar recurs could -not be explained by appealing to accident, but only by supposing that a -certain intention, that no similar things should recur, were actually -inherent in the essence of energy: for, if we grant that the number of -cases is enormous, the occurrence of like cases is more probable than -absolute disparity. - - -15 - -Let us think backwards a moment If the world had a goal, this goal -must have been reached: if a certain (unintentional) final state -existed for the world, this state also would have been reached. If -it were in any way capable of a stationary or stable condition, and -if in the whole course of its existence only one second of Being, in -the strict sense of the word, had been possible, then there could -no longer be such a process as evolution, and therefore no thinking -and no observing of such a process. If on the other hand the world -were something which continually renovated itself, it would then be -understood to be something miraculous and free to create itself—in -fact something divine. Eternal renovation presupposes that energy -voluntarily increases itself, that it not only has the intention, but -also the power, to avoid repeating itself or to avoid returning into a -previous form, and that every instant it adjusts itself in every one of -its movements to prevent such a contingency,—or that it was incapable -of returning to a state it had already passed through. That would -mean that the whole sum of energy was not constant, any more than its -attributes were But a sum of energy which would be inconstant and which -would fluctuate is quite unthinkable Let us not indulge our fancy -any longer with unthinkable things in order to fall once more before -the concept of a Creator (multiplication out of nothing, reduction -out of nothing, absolute arbitrariness and freedom in growth and in -qualities):— - - -16 - -He who does not believe in the circular process of the universe must -pin his faith to an arbitrary God—thus my doctrine becomes necessary -as opposed to all that has been said hitherto in matters of Theism. - - -17 - -The hypothesis which I would oppose to that of the eternal circular -process:—Would it be just as possible to explain the laws of the -mechanical world as exceptions and seemingly as accidents among the -things of the universe, as one possibility only among an incalculable -number of possibilities? Would it be possible to regard ourselves -as accidentally thrust into this corner of the mechanical universal -arrangement?—That all chemical philosophy is likewise an exception -and an accident in the world’s economy, and finally that organic life -is a mere exception and accident in the chemical world? Should we have -to assume as the most general form of existence a world which was -not yet mechanical, which was outside all mechanical laws (although -accessible to them)?—and that as a matter of fact this world would -be the most general now and for evermore, so that the origin of the -mechanical world would be a lawless game which would ultimately acquire -such consistency as the organic laws seem to have now from our point -of view? So that all our mechanical laws would be not eternal, but -evolved, and would have survived innumerable different mechanical -laws, or that they had attained supremacy in isolated corners of the -world and not in others?—It would seem that we need caprice, actual -lawlessness, and only a capacity for law, a primeval state of stupidity -which is not even able to concern itself with mechanics? The origin of -qualities presupposes the existence of quantities, and these, for their -part, might arise from a thousand kinds of mechanical processes. - -Is not the existence of some sort of irregularity and incomplete -circular form in the world about us, a sufficient refutation of -the regular circularity of everything that exists? Whence comes -this variety within the circular process? Is not everything far too -complicated to have been the outcome of unity? And are not the many -chemical laws and likewise the organic species and forms inexplicable -as the result of homogeneity? or of duality?—Supposing there were -such a thing as a regular contracting energy in all the centres of -force in the universe, the question would be, whence could the most -insignificant difference spring? For then the whole world would have -to be resolved into innumerable completely equal rings and spheres of -existence and we should have an incalculable number of exactly equal -worlds side by side. Is it necessary for me to assume this? Must I -suppose that an eternal sequence of like worlds also involves eternal -juxta-position of like worlds? But the multifariousness and disorder -in the world which we have known hitherto contradicts this; no such -universal similarity has existed in evolution, for in that case even -for our part of the cosmos a regular spherical form must have been -formed. Should the production of qualities not be subject to any strict -laws? Can it be possible that different things have been derived from -“energy”? Arbitrarily? Is the conformity to law which we observe -perhaps only a deception? Is it possible that it is not a primeval law? -Is it possible that the multifariousness of qualities even in our part -of the world is the result of the absolute occurrence of arbitrary -characteristics? But that these characteristics no longer appear in our -corner of the globe? Or that our corner of existence has adopted a rule -which we call cause and effect when all the while it is no such thing -(an arbitrary phenomenon become a rule, as for instance oxygen and -hydrogen in chemistry)??? Is this rule simply a protracted kind of mood? - - -18 - -If the universe had been able to become an organism it would have -become one already. _As_ a whole we must try and regard it in the -light of a thing _as_ remote _as possible_ from the organic. I believe -that even our chemical affinity and coherence may be perhaps recently -evolved and that these appearances only occur in certain corners of -the universe at certain epochs. Let us believe in absolute necessity -in the universe but let us guard against postulating any sort of law, -even if it be a primitive and mechanical one of our own experience, -as ruling over the whole and constituting one of its eternal -characteristics.—All chemical qualities might have been evolved and -might disappear and return. Innumerable characteristics might have been -developed which for us,—from our limited point of view in time and -space, defy observation. The transformation of a chemical quality may -perhaps now be taking place, but so slowly that it escapes our most -delicate calculations. - - -19 - -Inorganic matter, even though in most cases it may once have -been organic, can have stored up no experience,—it is always -without a pastl If the reverse were the case a repetition would be -impossible—for then matter would for ever be producing new qualities -with new pasts. - - -20 - -We must guard against ascribing any aspiration or any goal to this -circular process: Likewise we must not, from the point of view of our -own needs, regard it as either monotonous or foolish, &c. We may grant -that the greatest possible irrationality, as also its reverse, may be -an essential feature of it: but we must not value it according to this -hypothesis. Rationality or irrationality cannot stand as attributes of -the universe.—We must not think of the law of this circular process as -a thing evolved, by drawing false analogies with the circular motions -occurring _within_ the circle. There was no primitive chaos followed -gradually by a more harmonious and finally definite circular motion of -all forces: On the contrary everything is eternal and unevolved. If -there ever was a chaos of forces, then that chaos itself was eternal -and was repeated at its particular moment of time in the turn of the -world wheel. The circular process is not the outcome of evolution, it -is a primitive principle like the quantum of energy, and allows of no -exception or violation. All Becoming takes place within the circular -process and the quantum of energy which constitutes it: therefore we -must not apply ephemeral processes like those for instance of heavenly -bodies, of the ebb and flow of tides, of day and night, of the seasons, -to the drawing of analogies for characterising the eternal circular -process. - - -21 - -The “chaos of the universe,” inasmuch as it excludes any aspiration to -a goal, does not oppose the thought of the circular process: the latter -is simply an irrational necessity, absolutely free from any formal -ethical or æsthetical significance. Arbitrariness in small things as in -great is completely lacking here. - - -22 - -Let us guard against believing that the universe has a tendency to -attain to certain forms, or that it aims at becoming more beautiful, -more perfect, more complicated! All that is anthropomorphism! Anarchy, -ugliness, form—are unrelated concepts. There is no such thing as -imperfection in the realm of mechanics. - -Everything has returned: Sirius, and the spider, and thy thoughts at -this moment, and this last thought of thine that all these things will -return. - - -23 - -Our whole world consists of the ashes of an incalculable number of -living creatures: and even if living matter is ever so little compared -with the whole, everything has already been transformed into life once -before and thus the process goes on. If we grant eternal time we must -assume the eternal change of matter. - - -24 - -Whoever thou mayest be, beloved stranger, whom I meet here for the -first time, avail thyself of this happy hour and of the stillness -around us, and above us, and let me tell thee something of the thought -which has suddenly risen before me like a star which would fain shed -down its rays upon thee and every one, as befits the nature of light— - - -25 - -The world of energy suffers no diminution: otherwise with eternal -time it would have grown weak and finally have perished altogether. -The world of energy suffers no stationary state, otherwise this would -already have been reached, and the clock of the universe would be at -a standstill. The world of energy does not therefore reach a state of -equilibrium; for no instant in its career has it had rest; its energy -and its movement have been the same for all time. Whatever state this -world could have reached must ere now have been attained, and not -only once but an incalculable number of times. This applies to this -very moment It has already been here once before, and several times, -and will recur in the same way, with all forces distributed as they -are to-day: and the same holds good of the moment of time which bore -the present and of that which shall be the child of the present. -Fellow-man! Your whole life, like a sandglass, will always be reversed -and will ever run out again,—a long minute of time will elapse until -all those conditions out of which you were evolved return in the wheel -of the cosmic process. And then you will find every pain and every -pleasure, every friend and every enemy, every hope and every error, -every blade of grass and every ray of sunshine once more, and the whole -fabric of things that makes up your life. This ring in which you are -but a grain will glitter afresh for ever. And in every one of these -cycles of human life there will be one hour where for the first time -one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty thought of the eternal -recurrence of all things:—and for mankind this is always the hour of -Noon. - - - - -2. THE EFFECTS OF THE DOCTRINE UPON MANKIND - - -26 - -How can we give weight to our inner life without making it evil and -fanatical towards people who think otherwise. Religious belief is -declining and man is beginning to regard himself as ephemeral and -unessential, a point of view which is making him weak; he does not -exercise so much effort in striving or enduring. What he wants is -momentary enjoyment He would make things light for himself,—and a good -deal of his spirit gets squandered in this endeavour. - - -27 - -The political mania at which I smile just as merrily as my -contemporaries smile at the religious mania of former times is above -all Materialism, a belief in the world, and in the repudiation of a -“Beyond,” of a “back-world.” The object of those who believe in the -latter is the well-being of the ephemeral individual: that is why -Socialism is its fruit; for with Socialism ephemeral individuals wish -to secure their happiness by means of socialisation. They have no -reason to wait, as those men had who believed in eternal souls, in -eternal development and eternal amelioration. My doctrine is: Live -so that thou mayest desire to live again,—that is thy duty,—for in -any case thou wilt live again He unto whom striving is the greatest -happiness, let him strive; he unto whom peace is the greatest -happiness, let him rest; he unto whom subordination, following, -obedience, is the greatest happiness, let him obey. All that is -necessary is that he should know what it is that gives him the highest -happiness, and to fight shy of no means! Eternity is at stake! - - -28 - -“But if everything is necessary, what control have I over my actions?” -Thought and faith are a form of ballast which burden thee in addition -to other burdens thou mayest have, and which are even more weighty than -the latter. Sayest thou that nutrition, the land of thy birth, air, and -society change thee and determine thee? Well, thy opinions do this to -a much greater degree, for they even prescribe thy nourishment, thy -land of adoption, thy atmosphere, and thy society for thee.—If thou -ever assimilatest the thought of thoughts it will also alter thee. The -question which thou wilt have to answer before every deed that thou -doest: “is this such a deed as I am prepared to perform an incalculable -number of times?” is the best ballast. - - -29 - -The mightiest of all thoughts absorbs a good deal of energy which -formerly stood at the disposal of other aspirations, and in this way -it exercises a modifying influence; it creates new laws of motion in -energy, though no new energy. But it is precisely in this respect that -there lies some possibility of determining new emotions and new desires -in men. - - -30 - -Let us try and discover how the thought that something gets repeated -has affected mankind hitherto (the year, for instance, or periodical -illnesses, waking and sleeping, &c). Even supposing the recurrence of -the cycle is only a probability or a possibility, even a thought, even -a possibility, can shatter us and transform us. It is not only feelings -and definite expectations that do this! See what effect the thought of -eternal damnation has had! - - -31 - -From the moment when this thought begins to prevail all colours will -change their hue and a new history will begin. - - -32 - -The history of the future: this thought will tend to triumph ever more -and more, and those who disbelieve in it will be forced, according to -their nature, ultimately to die out. - -He, alone, who will regard his existence as capable of eternal -recurrence will remain over: but among such as these a state will be -possible of which the imagination of no utopist has ever dreamt! - - -33 - -Ye fancy that ye will have a long rest ere your second birth takes -place,—but do not deceive yourselves! ’Twixt your last moment of -consciousness and the first ray of the dawn of your new life no time -will elapse,—as a flash of lightning will the space go by, even though -living creatures think it is billions of years, and are not even able -to reckon it. Timelessness and immediate re-birth are compatible, once -intellect is eliminated! - - -34 - -Thou feelest that thou must soon take thy leave perhaps—and the sunset -glow of this feeling pierces through thy happiness. Give heed to this -sign: it means that thou lovest life and thyself, and life as it has -hitherto affected thee and moulded thee,—and that thou cravest for its -eternity—_Non alia sed hac vita sempiterna!_ - -Know also, that transiency singeth its short song for ever afresh and -that at the sound of the first verse thou wilt almost die of longing -when thou thinkest that it might be for the last time. - - -35 - -Let us stamp the impress of eternity upon our lives! This thought -contains more than all the religions which taught us to contemn this -life as a thing ephemeral, which bade us squint upwards to another and -indefinite existence.— - - -36 - -We must not strive after distant and unknown states of bliss and -blessings and acts of grace, but we must live so that we would fain -live again and live for ever so, to all eternity!—Our duty is present -with us every instant. - - -37 - -The leading tendencies: (1) We must implant the love of life, the -love of every man’s own life in every conceivable way! However each -individual may understand this love of self his neighbour will -acquiesce, and will have to learn great tolerance towards it: however -much it may often run counter to his taste,—provided the individual in -question really helps to increase his joy in his own life! - -(2) We must all be one in our hostility towards everything and -everybody who tends to cast a slur upon the value of life: towards -all gloomy, dissatisfied and brooding natures. We must prevent these -from procreating! But our hostility itself must be a means to our joy! -Thus we shall laugh; we shall mock and we shall exterminate without -bitterness I Let this be our mortal combat - -This life is thy eternal life! - - -38 - -What was the cause of the downfall of the Alexandrian culture? With all -its useful discoveries and its desire to investigate the nature of this -world, it did not know how to lend this life its ultimate importance, -the thought of a Beyond was more important to it! To teach anew in -this regard is still the most important thing of all:—perhaps if -metaphysics are applied to this life in the most emphatic way,—as in -the case of my doctrine! - - -39 - -This doctrine is lenient towards those who do not believe in it It -speaks of no hells and it contains no threats. He who does not believe -in it has but a fleeting life in his consciousness. - - -40 - -It would be terrible if we still believed in sin, but whatever we may -do, however often we may repeat it, it is all innocent. If the thought -of the eternal recurrence of all things does not overwhelm thee, then -it is not thy fault: and if it does overwhelm thee, this does not stand -to thy merit either.—We think more leniently of our forebears than -they themselves thought of themselves; we mourn over the errors which -were to them constitutional; but we do not mourn over their evil. - - -41 - -Let us guard against teaching such a doctrine as if it were a suddenly -discovered religion! It must percolate through slowly, and whole -generations must build on it and become fruitful through it,—in order -that it may grow into a large tree which will shelter all posterity. -What are the two thousand years in which Christianity has maintained -its sway? For the mightiest thought of all many millenniums will be -necessary,—long, long, long will it have to remain puny and weak! - - -42 - -For this thought we do not require thirty years of glory with drums -and fifes, and thirty years of grave-digging followed by an eternity -of macaberesque stillness, as is the case with so many other famous -thoughts. - -Simple and well-nigh arid as it is, this thought must not even require -eloquence to uphold it. - - -43 - -Are ye now prepared? Ye must have experienced every form of -scepticism and ye must have wallowed with voluptuousness in ice-cold -baths,—otherwise ye have no right to this thought; I wish to protect -myself against those who are over-ready to believe, likewise against -those who gush over anything! I would defend my doctrine in advance. -It must be the religion of the freest, most cheerful and most sublime -souls, a delightful pastureland somewhere between golden ice and a pure -heaven! - - - - -EXPLANATORY NOTES TO “THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA” - - -1 - -All goals have been annihilated: valuations are turning against each -other: - -People call him good who hearkens to the dictates of his own heart, but -they also call him good who merely does his duty; - -People call the mild and conciliating man good, but they also call him -good who is brave, inflexible and severe; - -People call him good who does not do violence to himself, but they also -call the heroes of self-mastery good; - -People call the absolute friend of truth good-, but they also call him -good who is pious and a transfigurer of things; - -People call him good who can obey his own voice, but they also call the -devout man good; - -People call the noble and the haughty man good, but also him who does -not despise and who does not assume condescending airs. - -People call him good who is kindhearted and who steps out of the way of -broils, but he who thirsts for fight and triumph is also called good; - -People call him good who always wishes to be first, but they also call -him good who does not wish to be ahead of anybody in anything. - - -2 - -We possess a powerful store of moral _feelings,_ but we have no goal -for them all. They mutually contradict each other: they have their -origin in different tables of values. - -There is a wonderful amount of moral power, but there is no longer any -goal towards which all this power can be directed. - - -3 - -All goals have been annihilated, mankind must give themselves a fresh -goal. It is an error to suppose that they had one: they gave themselves -all the goals they ever had. But the prerequisites of all previous -goals have been annihilated. - -Science traces the course of things but points to no goal: what it does -give consists of the fundamental facts upon which the new goal must be -based. - - -4 - -The profound sterility of the nineteenth century. I have not -encountered a single man who really had a new ideal to bring -forward. The character of German music kept me hoping longest, but -in vain. A stronger type in which all our powers are synthetically -correlated—this constitutes my faith. - -Apparently everything is decadence. We should so direct this movement -of decline that it may provide the strongest with a new form of -existence. - - -5 - -The dissolution of morality, in its practical consequences, leads -to the atomistic individual, and further to the subdivision of the -individual into a quantity of parts—absolute liquefaction. - -That is why a goal is now more than ever necessary; and love, but a new -love. - - -6 - -I say: “As long as your morality hung over me I breathed like one -asphyxiated. That is why I throttled this snake. I wished to live, -consequently it had to die.” - - -7 - -As long as people are still _forced to_ act, that is to say as long as -commands are given, synthesis (the suppression of the moral man) will -not be realised To be unable to be otherwise: instincts and commanding -reason extending beyond any immediate object: the ability to enjoy -one’s own nature in action. - - -8 - -None of them wish to bear the burden of the commander; but they will -perform the most strenuous task if only thou commandest them. - - -9 - -We must overcome the past in ourselves: we must combine the instincts -afresh and direct the whole together to one goal:—an extremely -difficult undertaking! It is not only the evil instincts which have to -be overcome,—the so-called good instincts must be conquered also and -consecrated anew! - - -10 - -No leaps must be made in virtue! But everyone must be given a different -path! Not leading to the highest development of each! Yet everyone may -be a bridge and an example for others. - - -11 - -To help, to pity, to submit and to renounce personal attacks with a -good will,—these things may make even insignificant and superficial -men tolerable to the eye: such men must not be contradicted in their -belief that this good will is “virtue in itself.” - - -12 - -Man makes a deed valuable: but how might a deed make man valuable? - - -13 - -Morality is the concern of those who cannot free themselves from -it: for such people morality therefore belongs to the conditions of -existence. It is impossible to refute conditions of existence: the only -thing one can do is not to have them. - - -14 - -If it were true that life did not deserve to be welcomed, the moral -man, precisely on account of his self-denial and obligingness, would -then be guilty of misusing his fellow to his own personal advantage. - - -15 - -“Love thy neighbour”—this would mean first and foremost: “Let thy -neighbour go his own way”—and it is precisely this kind of virtue that -is the most difficult! - - -16 - -The bad man as the parasite. We must not be merely feasters and -gourmets of life: this is ignoble. - - -17 - -It is a noble sense which forbids our being only feasters and gourmets -of life—this sense revolts against hedonism—: we want to perform -something in return!—But the fundamental feeling of the masses is that -one must live for nothing,—that is their vulgarity. - - -18 - -The converse valuations hold good for the lower among men: in their -case therefore it is necessary to implant virtues. They must be -elevated above their lives, by means of absolute commands and terrible -taskmasters. - - -19 - -What is required: the new law must be made practicable—and out of its -fulfilment, the overcoming of this law, and higher law, must evolve -Zarathustra defines the attitude towards law, inasmuch as he suppresses -the law of laws which is morality. - -Laws as the backbone They must be worked at and created, by being -fulfilled. The slavish attitude which has reigned hitherto towards law! - - -20 - -The self-overcoming of Zarathustra as the prototype of mankind’s -self-overcoming for the benefit of Superman. To this end the overcoming -of morality is necessary. - - -21 - -The type of the lawgiver, his development and his suffering. What is -the purpose of giving laws at all? - -Zarathustra is the herald who calls forth many lawgivers. - - -22 - -_Individual instruments._ - -1. The Commanders, the mighty—who do not love, unless it be that they -love the images according to which they create. The rich in vitality, -the versatile, the free, who overcome that which is extant - -2. The obedient, the “emancipated”—love and reverence constitute their -happiness, they have a sense of what is higher (their deficiencies are -made whole by the sight of the lofty). - -3. The slaves, the order of “henchmen”—: they must be made -comfortable, they must cultivate pity for one another. - - -23 - -The giver, the creator, the teacher—these are preludes of the ruler. - - -24 - -All virtue and all self-mastery has only one purpose: that of preparing -for the rule! - - -25 - -Every sacrifice that the ruler makes is rewarded a hundredfold. - - -26 - -How much does not the warrior, the prince, the man who is responsible -for himself, sacrifice!—this should be highly honoured. - - -27 - -The terrible task of the ruler who educates himself:—the kind of man -and people over which he will rule must be forecast in him: it is in -himself therefore that he must first have become a ruler! - - -28 - -The great educator like nature must elevate obstacles in order that -these may be overcome. - - -29 - -The new teachers as preparatory stages for the highest Architect (they -must impose their type on things). - - -30 - -Institutions may be regarded as the after effects of great individuals -and the means of giving great individuals root and soil—until the -fruit ultimately appears. - - -31 - -As a matter of fact mankind is continually trying to be able to -dispense with great individuals by means of corporations, &c But they -are utterly dependent upon such great individuals for their ideal. - - -32 - -The eudæmonistic and social ideals lead men backwards,—it may be that -they aim at a very useful working class,—they are creating the ideal -slave of the future, the lower caste which must on no account be -lacking! - - -33 - -Equal rights for all!—this is the most extraordinary form of -injustice, for with it the highest men do not get their due. - - -34 - -It is not a matter of the rights of the stronger, for strong and weak -are alike in this, that they all extend their power as far as they can. - - -35 - -A new form of estimating man: above all the question: - -How much power has he got? - -How manifold are his instincts? - -How great is his capacity for communication and assimilation? - -The ruler as the highest type. - - -36 - -Zarathustra rejoices that the war of the classes is at last over, -and that now at length the time is ripe for an order of rank among -individuals. His hatred of the democratic system of levelling is only -a blind; as a matter of fact he is very pleased that this has gone so -far. Now he can perform his task.— - -Hitherto his doctrines had been directed only at the ruling caste of -the future. These lords of the earth must now take the place of God, -and must create for themselves the profound and absolute confidence -of those they rule. Their new holiness, their renunciation of -happiness and ease, must be their first principle. To the lowest they -grant the heirloom of happiness, not to themselves. They deliver the -physiologically botched by teaching them the doctrine of “swift death.” -They offer religions and philosophical systems to each according to his -rank. - - -37 - -“The conflict in the heart of the ruler is the contest between the love -which is in his heart for him who is most remote, and the love which he -feels for his neighbour.” - -To be a creator and to be capable of goodness are not at all things -which exclude one another. They are rather one and the same thing; but -the creator is farsighted and the good man nearsighted. - - -38 - -The feeling of power. The strife of all egos to discover that thought -which will remain poised above men like a star.—The ego is a _primum -mobile._ - - -39 - -The struggle for the application of the power which mankind now -represents! Zarathustra calls to the gladiators of this struggle. - - -40 - -We must make our ideals prevail:—We must strive for power in such a -way as our ideal commands. - - -41 - -The doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence is the turning point of history. - - -42 - -Suddenly the terrible chamber of truth is opened, an unconscious -self-protectiveness, caution, ambush, defence keeps us from the gravest -knowledge. Thus have I lived heretofore. I suppress something; but the -restless babbling and rolling down of stones has rendered my instinct -over-powerful. Now I am rolling my last stone, the most appalling truth -stands close to my hand. - -Truth has been exorcised out of its grave:—we created it, we waked it: -the highest expression of courage and of the feeling of power. Scorn of -all pessimism that has existed hitherto! - -We fight with it,—we find out that our only means of enduring it is -to create a creature who is able to endure it:—unless, of course, we -voluntarily dazzle ourselves afresh and blind ourselves in regard to it -But this we are no longer able to do! - -We it was who created the gravest thought,—let us now create a being -unto whom it will be not only light but blessed. - -In order to be able to create we must allow ourselves greater freedom -than has ever been vouch-safed us before; to this end we must be -emancipated from morality, and we must be relieved by means of feasts -(Premonitions of the future! We must celebrate the future and no longer -the past! We must compose the myth poetry of the future! We must live -in hopes!) Blessed moments I And then we must once again pull down the -curtain and turn our thoughts to the next unswerving purpose. - - -43 - -Mankind must set its goal above itself—not in a false world, however, -but in one which would be a continuation of humanity. - - -44 - -The half-way house is always present when the will to the future -arises: the greatest event stands immediately before it. - - -45 - -Our very essence is to create a being higher than ourselves. We must -create beyond ourselves. That is the instinct of procreation, that is -the instinct of action and of work.—Just as all willing presupposes a -purpose, so does mankind presuppose a creature which is not yet formed -but which provides the aim of life. This is the freedom of all will. -Love, reverence, yearning for perfection, longing, all these things are -inherent in a purpose. - - -46 - -My desire: to bring forth creatures which stand sublimely above the -whole species man: and to sacrifice “one’s neighbours” and oneself to -this end. - -The morality which has existed hitherto was limited within the confines -of the species: all moralities that have existed hitherto have been -useful in the first place in order to give unconditional stability to -this species: once this has been achieved the aim can be elevated. - -One movement is absolute; it is nothing more than the levelling down of -mankind, great ant-organisations, &c. - -The other movement, my movement, is conversely the accentuation of all -contrasts and gulfs, and the elimination of equality, together with the -creation of supremely powerful creatures. - -The first movement brings forth the last man, my movement brings forth -the Superman. It is by no means the goal to regard the latter as the -master of the first: two races ought to exist side by side,—separated -as far asunder as possible; the one, like the Epicurean gods, not -concerning themselves in the least with the others. - - -47 - -The opposite of the Superman is the last man: I created him -simultaneously with the former. - - -48 - -The more an individual is free and firm, the more exacting becomes his -love: at last he yearns for Superman, because nothing else is able to -appease his love, - - -49 - -Half-way round the course Superman arises. - - -50 - -Among men I was frightened: among men I desired a host of things and -nothing satisfied me. It was then that I went into solitude and created -Superman. And when I had created him I draped him in the great veil of -Becoming and let the light of midday shine upon him. - - -51 - -“We wish to create a Being,” we all wish to have a hand in it, to love -it. We all want to be pregnant—and to honour and respect ourselves on -that account. - -We must have a goal in view of which we may all love each other! All -other goals are only fit for the scrap heap. - - -52 - -The strongest in body and soul are the best—Zarathustra’s fundamental -proposition—; from them is generated that higher morality of the -creator. Man must be regenerated after his own image: this is what he -wants, this is his honesty. - - -53 - -Genius to Zarathustra seems like the incarnation of his thought. - - -54 - -Loneliness for a certain time is necessary in order that a creature -may become completely permeated with his own soul—cured and hard. A -new form of community would be one in which we should assert ourselves -martially. Otherwise the spirit becomes tame. No Epicurean “gardens” -and mere “retirement from the masses.” War (but without powder) between -different thoughts and the hosts who support them I - -A new nobility, the result of breeding. Feasts celebrating the -foundation of families. - -The day divided up afresh; bodily exercise for all ages. Ἀγών -as a principle. - -The love of the sexes as a contest around the principle in becoming and -coming.—Ruling will be taught and practised, its hardness as well as -its mildness. As soon as one faculty is acquired in a masterly manner -another one must be striven after. - -We must let ourselves be taught by the evil, and allow them an -opportunity of a contest. We must make use of the degenerate—The right -of punishment will consist in this, that the offender may be used as -an experimental subject (in dietetics): this is the consecration of -punishment, that one man be used for the highest needs of a future -being. - -We protect our new community because it is the bridge to our ideal of -the future And for it we work and let others work. - - -55 - -The measure and mean must be found in striving to attain to something -beyond mankind: the highest and strongest kind of man must be -discovered! The highest tendency must be represented continually -in small things:—perfection, maturity, rosy-cheeked health, mild -discharges of power. Just as an artist works, must we apply ourselves -to our daily task and bring ourselves to perfection in everything we -do. We must be honest in acknowledging our real motives to ourselves, -as is becoming in the mighty man. - - -56 - -No impatience! Superman is our next stage and to this end, to this -limit, moderation and manliness are necessary. - -Mankind must surpass itself, as the Greeks did—and no fleshless -fantasies must be indulged. The higher mind which is associated with a -sickly and nervous character must be suppressed. The goal: the higher -culture of the whole body and not only of the brain. - - -57 - -“Man is something that must be surpassed”:—it is a matter of tempo: -the Greeks were wonderful, there was no haste about them.—My -predecessors: Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, Goethe. - - -58 - -1. Dissatisfaction with ourselves. An antidote to repentance. -The transformation of temperament (_e.g.,_ by means of inorganic -substances). Good will to this dissatisfaction. We should wait for our -thirst and let it become great in order to discover its source. - -2. Death must be transformed into a means of victory and triumph. - -3. The attitude towards disease. Freedom where death is concerned. - -4. The love of the sexes is a means to an ideal (it is the striving of -a being to perish through his opposite). The love for a suffering deity. - -5. Procreation is the holiest of all things. Pregnancy, the creation of -a woman and a man, who wish to enjoy their unity, and erect a monument -to it by means of a child. - -6. Pity as a danger. Circumstances must be created which enable -everyone to be able to help himself, and which leave him to choose -whether he would be helped. - -7. Education must be directed at making men evil, at developing their -inner devil. - -8. Inner war as “development” - -9. “The maintenance of the species,” and the thought of eternal -recurrence. - - -59 - -Principal doctrine. We must strive to make every stage one of -perfection, and rejoice therein,—we must make no leaps! - -In the first place, the promulgation of laws. After the Superman the -doctrine of eternal recurrence will strike us with horror: Now it is -endurable. - - -60 - -Life itself created this thought which is the most oppressive for life. -Life wishes to get beyond its greatest obstacle I - -We must desire to perish in order to arise afresh,—from one day to -the other. Wander through a hundred souls,—let that be thy life and -thy fate! And then finally: desire to go through the whole process once -more! - - -61 - -The highest thing of all would be for us to be able to endure our -immortality. - - -62 - -The moment in which I begot recurrence is immortal, for the sake of -that moment alone I will endure recurrence. - - -63 - -The teaching of eternal recurrence—it is at first oppressive to the -more noble souls and apparently a means of weeding them out,—then the -inferior and less sensitive natures would remain over! “This doctrine -must be suppressed and Zarathustra killed.” - - -64 - -The hesitation of the disciples. “We are already able to bear with this -doctrine, but we should destroy the many by means of it!” - -Zarathustra laughs: “Ye shall be the hammer: I laid this hammer in your -hands.” - - -65 - -I do not speak to you as I speak to the people. The highest thing for -them would be to despise and to annihilate themselves: the next highest -thing would be for them to despise and annihilate each other. - - -66 - -“My will to do good compels me to remain silent. But my will to the -Superman bids me speak and sacrifice even my friends.” - -“I would fain form and transform you, how could I endure things -otherwise!” - - -67 - -The history of higher man. The rearing of the better man is -incalculably more painful. The ideal of the necessary sacrifice which -it involves, as in the case of Zarathustra, should be demonstrated: A -man should leave his home, his family and his native land. Live under -the scorn of the prevailing morality. The anguish of experiments and -errors. The solution of all the joys offered by the older ideals (they -are now felt to be partly hostile and partly strange). - - -68 - -What is it which gives a meaning, a value, an importance to things? -It is the creative heart which yearns and which created out of this -yearning. It created joy and woe. It wanted to sate itself also with -woe. Every kind of pain that man or beast has suffered, we must take -upon ourselves and bless, and have a goal whereby such suffering would -acquire some meaning. - - -69 - -Principal doctrine: the transfiguration of pain into a blessing, and of -poison into food, lies in our power. The will to suffering. - - -70 - -Concerning heroic greatness as the only state of pioneers. (A yearning -for utter ruin as a means of enduring one’s existence.) - -We must not desire one state only; we must rather desire to be -periodical creatures—like existence. - -Absolute indifference to other people’s opinions (because we know their -weights and measures), but their opinions of themselves should be the -subject of pity. - - -71 - -Disciples must unite three qualities in themselves: they must be -true, they must be able and willing to be communicative, they must -have profound insight into each other. - - -72 - -All kinds of higher men and their oppression and blighting (as a case -in point, Duhring, who was ruined by isolation)—on the whole, this -is the fate of higher men to-day, they seem to be a species that is -condemned to die out: this fact seems to come to Zarathustra’s ears -like a great cry for help. All kinds of insane degenerations of higher -natures seem to approach him (nihilism for instance). - - -73 - -_Higher Men who come to Zarathustra in Despair._ - -Temptations to return prematurely to the world—thanks to the -provocation of one’s sympathies. - -1. The rolling stone, the homeless one, the wanderer:—he who has -unlearned the love of his people because he has learned to love many -peoples,—the good European. - -2. The gloomy, ambitious son of the people, shy, lonely, and ready for -anything,—who chooses rather to be alone than to be a destroyer,—he -offers himself as an instrument. - -3. The ugliest man, who is obliged to adorn himself (historical sense) -and who is always in search of a new garment: he desires to make his -appearance becoming, and finally retires into solitude in order not to -be seen, he is ashamed of himself. - -4. He who honours facts (“the brain of a leech”), the most subtle -intellectual conscience, and because he has it in excess, a guilty -conscience,—he wants to get rid of himself. - -5. The poet, who at bottom thirsts, for savage freedom,—he chooses -loneliness and the severity of knowledge. - -6. The discoverer of new intoxicants,—the musician, the sorcerer, who -finally drops on his knees before a loving heart and says: “Not to me -do I wish to lead you but yonder to him.” - -Those who are sober to excess and who have a yearning for intoxication -which they do not gratify. The Supersobersides. - -7. Genius (as an attack of insanity), becoming frozen through lack of -love: “I am neither a genius nor a god.” Great tenderness: “people must -show him more love!” - -8. The rich man who has given everything away and who asks everybody: -“Have you anything you do not want? give me some of it!” as a beggar. - -9. The Kings who renounce dominion: “we seek him who is more worthy -to rule”—against “equality”: the great man is lacking, consequently -reverence is lacking too. - -10. The actor of happiness. - -11. The pessimistic soothsayer who detects fatigue everywhere. - -12. The fool of the big city. - -13. The youth from the mount - -14. The woman (seeks the man). - -15. The envious emaciated toiler and _arriviste. - -16. The good, } and their mad fancy: - -17. The pious, } “For God” that - -18. The self-centred and } means “For me.” - saints, - - -74 - -“I gave you the most weighty thought: maybe mankind will perish through -it, perhaps also mankind will be elevated through it inasmuch as by -its means the elements which are hostile to life will be overcome and -eliminated.” “Ye must not chide Life, but yourselves!”—The destiny -of higher man is to be a creator. The organisation of higher men, the -education of the future ruler. “YE must rejoice in your superior power -when ye rule and when ye form anew.” “Not only man but Superman will -recur eternally!” - - -75 - -The typical suffering of the reformer and also his consolations. The -seven solitudes. - -He lives as though he were beyond all ages: his loftiness allows him to -have intercourse with the anchorites and the misunderstood of every age. - -Only his beauty is his defence. He lays his hands on the next thousand -years. - -His love increases as he sees the impossibility of avoiding the -affliction of pain with it. - - -76 - -Zarathustra’s mood is not one of mad impatience for Superman! It is -peaceful, it can wait: but all action has derived some purpose from -being the road and means thither,—and must be done well and perfectly. - -The repose of the great stream! Consecration of the smallest thing. -All unrest, and violent longing, all loathing should be presented in -the third part and be overcome! The gentleness, and mildness, &c, in -the first and second parts are both signs of a power which is not yet -self-reliant! - -With the recovery of Zarathustra, Cæsar stands there inexorable -and kind:—the gulf separating creation, goodness, and wisdom is -annihilated. - -Clearness, peace, no exaggerated craving, happiness in the moment which -is properly occupied and immortalised! - - -77 - -Zarathustra, Part III.: “I myself am happy.”—When he had taken leave -of mankind he returned unto himself. Like a cloud it vanishes from him. -The manner in which Superman must live: like an Epicurean God. - -Divine suffering is the substance of the third part of Zarathustra. The -human state of the legislator is only brought forward as an example. - -His intense love for his friends seems to him a disease,—once more he -becomes peaceful. - -When the invitations come he gently evades them. - - -78 - -In the fourth part it is necessary to say precisely why it is that the -time of the great noon has come: It is really a description of the age -given by means of visits, but interpreted by Zarathustra. - -In the fourth part it is necessary to say precisely why “a chosen -people” has first to be created:—they are the lucky cases of nature -as opposed to the unlucky (exemplified by the visitors): only to them -—the lucky cases—is Zarathustra able to express himself concerning -ultimate problems, them alone is he able to inspire with activity on -behalf of this theory. They are strong, healthy, hard and above all -noble enough for him to give them the hammer with which to remould the -whole world. - - -79 - -The unity in power of the creator, the lover and the knight of -knowledge. - - -80 - -Love alone shall judge—(the creative love which forgets itself in its -work). - - -81 - -Zarathustra can only dispense happiness once the order of rank is -established. Therefore this doctrine must be taught first. - -The order of rank develops into a system of earthly dominion: the lords -of the earth come last, a new ruling caste. Here and there there arises -from them a perfectly Epicurean God, a Superman, a transfigurer of -existence. - -The Superhuman’s notion of the world. Dionysus. Returning from these -most strange of all pursuits Zarathustra comes back with love to the -narrowest and smallest things,—he blesses all his experiences and dies -with a blessing on his lips. - - -82 - -From people who merely pray we must become people who bless. - - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Twilight of the Idols - The Antichrist - Complete Works, Volume Sixteen</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Editor: Oscar Levy</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Translator: Anthony M. Ludovici</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 7, 2016 [eBook #52263]<br /> -[Most recently updated: May 30, 2022]</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org -(Images generouly made available by the Hathi Trust.)</div> -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS ***</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/cover.png" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> -<h1>THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS</h1> - -<h3>BY</h3> - -<h2>FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE</h2> - -<h4>Or, How to Philosophise with the Hammer</h4> - - -<h4>THE ANTICHRIST</h4> - -<h4><i>NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA, AND ETERNAL RECURRENCE</i></h4> - - -<h4>TRANSLATED BY</h4> - -<h4>ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI</h4> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 175px;"> -<img src="images/ill_niet.jpg" width="175" alt="" /> -</div> -<h4>The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche</h4> - -<h5>The First Complete and Authorised English Translation</h5> - -<h4>Edited by Dr Oscar Levy</h4> - -<h4>Volume Sixteen</h4> - -<h5>T.N. FOULIS</h5> - -<h5>13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET</h5> - -<h5>EDINBURGH: AND LONDON</h5> - -<h5>1911</h5> -<hr class="full" /> - - - -<p style="font-size: 0.8em;" > -CONTENTS<br /> -<br /> -TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS<br /> -<br /> -<a href="#TRANSLATORS_PREFACE">TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE</a><br /> -<a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE</a><br /> -<a href="#MAXIMS_AND_MISSILES">MAXIMS AND MISSILES</a><br /> -<a href="#THE_PROBLEM_OF_SOCRATES">THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES</a><br /> -<a href="#REASON_IN_PHILOSOPHY">“REASON” IN PHILOSOPHY</a><br /> -<a href="#MORALITY_AS_THE_ENEMY_OF_NATURE">MORALITY AS THE ENEMY OF NATURE</a><br /> -<a href="#THE_FOUR_GREAT_ERRORS">THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS</a><br /> -<a href="#THE_IMPROVERS_OF_MANKIND">THE “IMPROVERS” OF MANKIND</a><br /> -<a href="#THINGS_THE_GERMANS_LACK">THINGS THE GERMANS LACK</a><br /> -<a href="#SKIRMISHES_IN_A_WAR_WITH_THE_AGE">SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE</a><br /> -<a href="#THINGS_I_OWE_TO_THE_ANCIENTS">THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS</a><br /> -<br /> -<a href="#THE_ANTICHRIST">THE ANTICHRIST</a><br /> -<br /> -<a href="#THE_ETERNAL_RECURRENCE">THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE</a><br /> -<br /> -<a href="#THUS_SPAKE_ZARATHUSTRA">NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA</a></p> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h4><a name="TRANSLATORS_PREFACE" id="TRANSLATORS_PREFACE">TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE</a></h4> - - -<p><i>The Twilight of the Idols</i> was written towards the end of the summer -of 1888, its composition seems to have occupied only a few days,—so -few indeed that, in <i>Ecce Homo</i> (p. 118), Nietzsche says he hesitates -to give their number; but, in any case, we know it was completed on the -3rd of September in Sils Maria. The manuscript which was dispatched to -the printers on the 7th of September bore the title: “<i>Idle Hours of a -Psychologist</i>”; this, however, was abandoned in favour of the present -title, while the work was going through the press. During September -and the early part of October 1888, Nietzsche added to the original -contents of the book by inserting the whole section entitled “Things -the Germans Lack,” and aphorisms 32-43 of “Skirmishes in a War with the -Age”; and the book, as it now stands, represents exactly the form in -which Nietzsche intended to publish it in the course of the year 1889. -Unfortunately its author was already stricken down with illness when -the work first appeared at the end of January 1889, and he was denied -the joy of seeing it run into nine editions, of one thousand each, -before his death in 1900.</p> - -<p>Of <i>The Twilight of the Idols,</i> Nietzsche says in <i>Ecce Homo</i> (p. -118):—“If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how -everything before my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> time was standing on its head, he should begin -reading me in this book. That which is called ‘Idols’ on the title-page -is simply the old truth that has been believed in hitherto. In plain -English, <i>The Twilight of the Idols</i> means that the old truth is on its -last legs.”</p> - -<p>Certain it is that, for a rapid survey of the whole of Nietzsche’s -doctrine, no book, save perhaps the section entitled “Of Old and New -Tables” in <i>Thus Spake Zarathustra,</i> could be of more real value than -<i>The Twilight of the Idols.</i> Here Nietzsche is quite at his best. He -is ripe for the marvellous feat of the transvaluation of all values. -Nowhere is his language—that marvellous weapon which in his hand -became at once so supple and so murderous—more forcible and more -condensed. Nowhere are his thoughts more profound. But all this does -not by any means imply that this book is the easiest of Nietzsche’s -works. On the contrary, I very much fear that, unless the reader is -well prepared, not only in Nietzscheism, but also in the habit of -grappling with uncommon and elusive problems, a good deal of the -contents of this work will tend rather to confuse than to enlighten -him in regard to what Nietzsche actually wishes to make clear in these -pages.</p> - -<p>How much prejudice, for instance, how many traditional and deep-seated -opinions, must be uprooted, if we are to see even so much as an -important note of interrogation in the section entitled “The Problem -of Socrates”—not to speak of such sections as “Morality as the Enemy -of Nature,” “The Four Great Errors,” &c. The errors exposed in these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span> -sections have a tradition of two thousand years behind them; and only a -fantastic dreamer could expect them to be eradicated by a mere casual -study of these pages. Indeed, Nietzsche himself looked forward only to -a gradual change in the general view of the questions he discussed; he -knew only too well what the conversion of “light heads” was worth, and -what kind of man would probably be the first to rush into his arms; -and, grand psychologist that he was, he guarded himself beforehand -against bad company by means of his famous warning:—“The first -adherents of a creed do not prove anything against it.”</p> - -<p>To the aspiring student of Nietzsche, however, it ought not to be -necessary to become an immediate convert in order to be interested in -the treasure of thought which Nietzsche here lavishes upon us. For -such a man it will be quite difficult enough to regard the questions -raised in this work as actual problems. Once, however, he has succeeded -in doing this, and has given his imagination time to play round these -questions <i>as</i> problems, the particular turn or twist that Nietzsche -gives to their elucidation, may then perhaps strike him, not only as -valuable, but as absolutely necessary.</p> - -<p>With regard to the substance of <i>The Twilight of the Idols,</i> Nietzsche -says in <i>Ecce Homo</i> (p. 119):—“There is the waste of an all-too-rich -autumn in this book: you trip over truths. You even crush some to -death, there are too many of them.”</p> - -<p>And what are these truths? They are things that are not yet held to -be true. They are the utterances of a man who, as a single exception, -escaped for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span> while the general insanity of Europe, with its blind -idealism in the midst of squalor, with its unscrupulous praise of -so-called “Progress” while it stood knee-deep in the belittlement -of “Man,” and with its vulgar levity in the face of effeminacy and -decay;—they are the utterances of one who voiced the hopes, the -aims, and the realities of another world, not of an ideal world, not -of a world beyond, but of a real world, of <i>this</i> world regenerated -and reorganised upon a sounder, a more virile, and a more orderly -basis,—in fact, of a perfectly <i>possible</i> world, one that has already -existed in the past, and could exist again, if only the stupendous -revolution of a transvaluation of all values were made possible.</p> - -<p>This then is the nature of the truths uttered by this one sane man in -the whole of Europe at the end of last century; and when, owing to his -unequal struggle against the overwhelming hostile forces of his time, -his highly sensitive personality was at last forced to surrender itself -to the enemy and become one with them—that is to say, insane!—at -least the record of his sanity had been safely stored away, beyond the -reach of time and change, in the volumes which constitute his life-work.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Nietzsche must have started upon the “Antichrist,” immediately after -having dispatched the “Idle Hours of a Psychologist” to the printers, -and the work appears to have been finished at the end of September -1888. It was intended by Nietzsche to form the first book of a large -work entitled “The Transvaluation of all Values”; but, though this work -was never completed, we can form some idea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> from the substance of the -“Antichrist” and from the titles of the remaining three books, which -alas! were never written, of what its contents would have been. These -titles are:—Book II. The Free Spirit. A Criticism of Philosophy as a -Nihilistic Movement. Book III. The Immoralist. A Criticism of the most -Fatal Kind of Ignorance,—Morality. Book IV. Dionysus. The Philosophy -of Eternal Recurrence.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche calls this book “An Attempted Criticism of Christianity.” -Modest as this sub-title is, it will probably seem not quite modest -enough to those who think that Nietzsche fell far short of doing -justice to their Holy Creed. Be this as it may, there is the solution -of a certain profound problem in this book, which, while it is the key -to all Nietzscheism, is also the justification and the sanctification -of Nietzsche’s cause. The problem stated quite plainly is this: “<i>To -what end</i> did Christianity avail itself of falsehood?”</p> - -<p>Many readers of this amazing little work, who happen to be acquainted -with Nietzsche’s doctrine of Art and of Ruling, will probably feel -slightly confused at the constant deprecation of falsehood, of -deception, and of arbitrary make-believe, which seems to run through -this book like a litany in praise of a certain Absolute Truth.</p> - -<p>Remembering Nietzsche’s utterance in volume ii. (p. 26) of the <i>Will -to Power,</i> to wit:—“The prerequisite of all living things and of -their lives is: that there should be a large amount of faith, that -it should be possible to pass definite judgments on things, and -that there should be no doubt at all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span> concerning values. Thus it is -necessary that something should be assumed to be true, <i>not</i> that it -is true;”—remembering these words, as I say, the reader may stand -somewhat aghast before all those passages in the second half of this -volume, where the very falsehoods of Christianity, its assumptions, its -unwarrantable claims to Truth, are declared to be pernicious, base and -corrupt.</p> - -<p>Again and again, if we commit the error of supposing that Nietzsche -believed in a truth that was absolute, we shall find throughout his -works reasons for charging him with apparently the very same crimes -that he here lays at the door of Christianity. What then is the -explanation of his seeming inconsistency?</p> - -<p>It is simple enough. Nietzsche’s charge of falsehood against -Christianity is not a moral one,—in fact it may be taken as a general -rule that Nietzsche scrupulously avoids making moral charges, and that -he emains throughout faithful to his position Beyond Good and Evil -(see, for instance <a href="#Page_130">Aph. 6</a>(Antichrist) where he repudiates all moral -prejudice in charging humanity with corruption). A man who maintained -that “truth is that form of error which enables a particular species to -prevail,” could not make a <i>moral</i> charge of falsehood against any one, -or any institution; but he could do so from another standpoint He could -well say, for instance, “falsehood is that kind of error which causes a -particular species to degenerate and to decay.”</p> - -<p>Thus the fact that Christianity “lied” becomes a subject of alarm -to Nietzsche, not owing to the fact that it is immoral to lie, but -because in this particular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span> instance, the lie was harmful, hostile to -life, and dangerous to humanity; for “a belief might be false and yet -life-preserving” (<i>Beyond Good and Evil,</i> pp. 8, 9).</p> - -<p>Suppose, therefore, we say with Nietzsche that there is no absolute -truth, but that all that has been true in the past which has been -the means of making the “plant man flourish best”—or, since the -meaning of “best” is open to some debate, let us say, flourish in a -Nietzschean sense, that is to say, thanks to a mastery of life, and -to a preponderance of all those qualities which say yea to existence, -and which suggest no flight from this world and all its pleasure and -pain. And suppose we add that, wherever we may find the plant man -flourishing, in this sense, we should there suspect the existence of -truth?—I If we say this with Nietzsche, any sort of assumption or -arbitrary valuation which aims at a reverse order of things, becomes a -dangerous lie in a super-moral and purely physiological sense.</p> - -<p>With these preparatory remarks we are now prepared to read -<a href="#Page_215">aphorism 56</a> with a complete understanding of what Nietzsche means, and -to recognise in this particular aphorism the key to the whole of -Nietzsche’s attitude towards Christianity. It is at once a solution of -our problem, and a justification of its author’s position. Naturally, -it still remains open to Nietzsche’s opponents to argue, if they -choose, that man has flourished best under the sway of nihilistic -religions—religions which deny life,—and that consequently the -falsehoods of Christianity are not only warrantable but also in the -highest degree blessed; but, in any case, the aphorism in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span> question -completely exonerates Nietzsche from a charge of inconsistency in the -use of the terms “truth” and “falsehood” throughout his works, and -it moreover settles once and for all the exact altitude from which -our author looked down upon the religions of the world, not only to -criticise them, but also to <i>place</i> them in the order of their merit as -disciplinary systems aiming at the cultivation of particular types of -men.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche says in <a href="#Page_215">aphorism 56</a>:—“After all, the question is, to what -end are falsehoods perpetrated? The fact that, in Christianity, ‘holy’ -ends are entirely absent, constitutes <i>my</i> objection to the means it -employs. Its ends are only <i>bad</i> ends: the poisoning, the calumniation -and the denial of life, the contempt of the body, the degradation and -self-pollution of man by virtue of the concept sin,—consequently its -means are bad as well.”</p> - -<p>Thus, to repeat it once more, it is not because Christianity availed -itself of all kinds of lies that Nietzsche condemns it; for the Book -of Manu—which he admires—is just as full of falsehood as the Semitic -Book of Laws; but, in the Book of Manu the lies are calculated to -preserve and to create a strong and noble type of man, whereas in -Christianity the opposite type was the aim,—an aim which has been -achieved in a manner far exceeding even the expectations of the -faithful.</p> - -<p>This then is the main argument of the book and its conclusion; but, in -the course of the general elaboration of this argument, many important -side-issues are touched upon and developed, wherein Nietzsche reveals -himself as something very much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span> more valuable than a mere iconoclast. -Of course, on every page of his philosophy,—whatever his enemies may -maintain to the contrary,—he never once ceases to construct, since he -is incessantly enumerating and emphasising those qualities and types -which he fain would rear, as against those he fain would see destroyed; -but it is in <a href="#Page_216">aphorism 57</a> of this book that Nietzsche makes the -plainest and most complete statement of his actual taste in Sociology, -and it is upon this aphorism that all his followers and disciples will -ultimately have to build, if Nietzscheism is ever to become something -more than a merely intellectual movement.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 65%; font-size: 0.8em;">ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</a></h4> - - -<p>To maintain a cheerful attitude of mind in the midst of a gloomy and -exceedingly responsible task, is no slight artistic feat. And yet, what -could be more necessary than cheerfulness? Nothing ever succeeds which -exuberant spirits have not helped to produce. Surplus power, alone, -is the proof of power.—A <i>transvaluation of all values,</i>—this note -of interrogation which is so black, so huge, that it casts a shadow -even upon him who affixes it,—is a task of such fatal import, that -he who undertakes it is compelled every now and then to rush out into -the sunlight in order to shake himself free from an earnestness that -becomes crushing, far too crushing. This end justifies every means, -every event on the road to it is a windfall. Above all <i>war.</i> War has -always been the great policy of all spirits who have penetrated too -far into themselves or who have grown too deep; a wound stimulates the -recuperative powers. For many years, a maxim, the origin of which I -withhold from learned curiosity, has been my motto:</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"> -<i>increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p>At other times another means of recovery which is even more to my -taste, is to cross-examine idols. There are more idols than realities -in the world:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span> this constitutes my “evil eye” for this world: it is -also my “evil ear.” To put questions in this quarter with a hammer, and -to hear perchance that well-known hollow sound which tells of blown-out -frogs,—what a joy this is for one who has ears even behind his ears, -for an old psychologist and Pied Piper like myself in whose presence -precisely that which would fain be silent, <i>must betray itself.</i></p> - -<p>Even this treatise—as its title shows—is above all a recreation, -a ray of sunshine, a leap sideways of a psychologist in his leisure -moments. Maybe, too, a new war? And are we again cross-examining new -idols? This little work is a great declaration of war; and with regard -to the cross-examining of idols, this time it is not the idols of the -age but eternal idols which are here struck with a hammer as with -a tuning fork,—there are certainly no idols which are older, more -convinced, and more inflated. Neither are there any more hollow. This -does not alter the fact that they are believed in more than any others, -besides they are never called idols,—at least, not the most exalted -among their number.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 65%; font-size: 0.8em;">FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 5%; font-size: 0.8em;">TURIN, the 30th <i>September</i> 1888.</p> - - -<p style="margin-left: 5%; font-size: 0.8em;">on the day when the first<br /> book of the Transvaluation<br /> of all Values was -finished.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="MAXIMS_AND_MISSILES" id="MAXIMS_AND_MISSILES">MAXIMS AND MISSILES</a></h4> - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>Idleness is the parent of all psychology. What? Is psychology then -a—vice?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>Even the pluckiest among us has but seldom the courage of what he -really knows.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>Aristotle says that in order to live alone, a man must be either an -animal or a god. The third alternative is lacking: a man must be -both—a <i>philosopher.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>“All truth is simple.”—Is not this a double lie?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>Once for all I wish to be blind to many things.—Wisdom sets bounds -even to knowledge.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>A man recovers best from his exceptional nature—his -intellectuality—by giving his animal instincts a chance.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p>Which is it? Is man only a blunder of God? Or is God only a blunder of -man?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p><i>From the military school of life.</i>—That which does not kill me, makes -me stronger.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">9</p> - -<p>Help thyself, then everyone will help thee. A principle of -neighbour-love.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">10</p> - -<p>A man should not play the coward to his deeds. He should not repudiate -them once he has performed them. Pangs of conscience are indecent.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">11</p> - -<p>Can a donkey be tragic?—To perish beneath a load that one can neither -bear nor throw off? This is the case of the Philosopher.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">12</p> - -<p>If a man knows the wherefore of his existence, then the manner of it -can take care of itself. Man does not aspire to happiness; only the -Englishman does that.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">13</p> - -<p>Man created woman—out of what? Out of a rib of his god,—of his -“ideal.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">14</p> - -<p>What? Art thou looking for something? Thou<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> wouldst fain multiply -thyself tenfold, a hundredfold? Thou seekest followers? Seek ciphers!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">15</p> - -<p>Posthumous men, like myself, are not so well understood as men who -reflect their age, but they are heard with more respect. In plain -English: we are never understood—hence our authority.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">16</p> - -<p><i>Among women.</i>—“Truth? Oh, you do not know truth! Is it not an outrage -on all our <i>pudeurs?</i>”—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">17</p> - -<p>There is an artist after my own heart, modest in his needs: he really -wants only two things, his bread and his art—<i>panem et Circem.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">18</p> - -<p>He who knows not how to plant his will in things, at least endows them -with some meaning: that is to say, he believes that a will is already -present in them. (A principle of faith.)</p> - - -<p class="parnum">19</p> - -<p>What? Ye chose virtue and the heaving breast, and at the same time -ye squint covetously at the advantages of the unscrupulous.—But -with virtue ye renounce all “advantages” ... (to be nailed to an -Antisemite’s door).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">20</p> - -<p>The perfect woman perpetrates literature as if it were a petty vice: as -an experiment, <i>en passant,</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> and looking about her all the while to -see whether anybody is noticing her, hoping that somebody <i>is</i> noticing -her.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">21</p> - -<p>One should adopt only those situations in which one is in no need of -sham virtues, but rather, like the tight-rope dancer on his tight rope, -in which one must either fall or stand—or escape.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">22</p> - -<p>“Evil men have no songs.”<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>—How is it that the Russians have songs?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">23</p> - -<p>“German intellect”; for eighteen years this has been a <i>contradictio in -adjecto.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">24</p> - -<p>By seeking the beginnings of things, a man becomes a crab. The -historian looks backwards: in the end he also <i>believes</i> backwards.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">25</p> - -<p>Contentment preserves one even from catching cold. Has a woman who knew -that she was well-dressed ever caught cold?—No, not even when she had -scarcely a rag to her back.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">26</p> - -<p>I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. The will to a system, -shows a lack of honesty.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">27</p> - -<p>Man thinks woman profound—why? Because he can never fathom her depths. -Woman is not even shallow.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">28</p> - -<p>When woman possesses masculine virtues, she is enough to make you run -away. When she possesses no masculine virtues, she herself runs away.</p> - -<p class="parnum">29</p> - -<p>“How often conscience had to bite in times gone by! What good teeth it -must have had! And to-day, what is amiss?”—A dentist’s question.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">30</p> - -<p>Errors of haste are seldom committed singly. The first time a man -always docs too much. And precisely on that account he commits a second -error, and then he does too little.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">31</p> - -<p>The trodden worm curls up. This testifies to its caution. It thus -reduces its chances of being trodden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> upon again. In the language of -morality: Humility.—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">32</p> - -<p>There is such a thing as a hatred of lies and dissimulation, which is -the outcome of a delicate sense of humour; there is also the selfsame -hatred but as the result of cowardice, in so far as falsehood is -forbidden by Divine law. Too cowardly to lie....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">33</p> - -<p>What trifles constitute happiness! The sound of a bagpipe. Without -music life would be a mistake. The German imagines even God as a -songster.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">34</p> - -<p><i>On ne peut penser et écrire qu’assis</i> (G. Flaubert). Here I have got -you, you nihilist! A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy -Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">35</p> - -<p>There are times when we psychologists are like horses, and grow -fretful. We see our own shadow rise and fall before us. The -psychologist must look away from himself if he wishes to see anything -at all.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">36</p> - -<p>Do we immoralists injure virtue in any way? Just as little as the -anarchists injure royalty. Only since they have been shot at do princes -sit firmly on their thrones once more. Moral: <i>morality must be shot -at.</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">37</p> - -<p>Thou runnest <i>ahead?</i>—Dost thou do so as a shepherd or as an -exception? A third alternative would be the fugitive.... First question -of conscience.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">38</p> - -<p>Art thou genuine or art thou only an actor? Art thou a representative -or the thing represented, itself? Finally, art thou perhaps simply a -copy of an actor?... Second question of conscience.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">39</p> - -<p><i>The disappointed man speaks:</i>—I sought for great men, but all I found -were the apes of their ideal.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">40</p> - -<p>Art thou one who looks on, or one who puts his own shoulder to the -wheel?—Or art thou one who looks away, or who turns aside?... Third -question of conscience.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">41</p> - -<p>Wilt thou go in company, or lead, or go by thyself?... A man should -know what he desires, and that he desires something.—Fourth question -of conscience.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">42</p> - -<p>They were but rungs in my ladder, on them I made my ascent:—to that -end I had to go beyond them. But they imagined that I wanted to lay -myself to rest upon them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">43</p> - -<p>What matters it whether I am acknowledged to be right! I am much too -right. And he who laughs best to-day, will also laugh last.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">44</p> - -<p>The formula of my happiness: a Yea, a Nay, a straight line, <i>goal....</i></p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This is a reference to Seume’s poem “<i>Die Gesänge</i>,” the -first verse of which is:— -</p><p> -<i>“Wo man singet, lass dich ruhig nieder,</i><br /> -<i>Ohne Furcht, was man im Lande glaubt</i>;<br /> -<i>Wo man singet, wird kein Mensch beraubt</i>:<br /> -<i>Bösewichter haben keine Lieder</i>.”<br /> -</p> -<p> -(Wherever people sing thou canst safely settle down without a qualm -as to what the general faith of the land may be Wherever people sing, -no man is ever robbed; <i>rascals</i> have no songs.) Popular tradition, -however, renders the lines thus:— -</p> -<p> -<i>“Wo man singt, da lass dich ruhig nieder;</i><br /> -<i>Base Menschen</i> [evil men] <i>haben keine Lieder.”</i></p> -</div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="THE_PROBLEM_OF_SOCRATES" id="THE_PROBLEM_OF_SOCRATES">THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>In all ages the wisest have always agreed in their judgment of -life: <i>it is no good.</i> At all times and places the same words have -been on their lips,—words full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of -weariness of life, full of hostility to life. Even Socrates’ dying -words were:—“To live—means to be ill a long while: I owe a cock to -the god Æsculapius.” Even Socrates had had enough of it. What does that -prove? What does it point to? Formerly people would have said (—oh, -it has been said, and loudly enough too; by our Pessimists loudest of -all!): “In any case there must be some truth in this! The <i>consensus -sapientium</i> is a proof of truth.”—Shall we say the same to-day? <i>May</i> -we do so? “In any case there must be some sickness here,” we make -reply. These great sages of all periods should first be examined more -closely! Is it possible that they were, everyone of them, a little -shaky on their legs, effete, rocky, decadent? Does wisdom perhaps -appear on earth after the manner of a crow attracted by a slight smell -of carrion?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>This irreverent belief that the great sages were decadent types, first -occurred to me precisely in regard to that case concerning which both -learned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> and vulgar prejudice was most opposed to my view. I recognised -Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decline, as instruments in the -disintegration of Hellas, as pseudo-Greek, as anti-Greek (“The Birth -of Tragedy,” 1872). That <i>consensus sapientium,</i> as I perceived ever -more and more clearly, did not in the least prove that they were right -in the matter on which they agreed. It proved rather that these sages -themselves must have been alike in some physiological particular, in -order to assume the same negative attitude towards life—in order to -be bound to assume that attitude. After all, judgments and valuations -of life, whether for or against, cannot be true: their only value lies -in the fact that they are symptoms; they can be considered only as -symptoms,—<i>per se</i> such judgments are nonsense. You must therefore -endeavour by all means to reach out and try to grasp this astonishingly -subtle axiom, <i>that the value of life cannot be estimated.</i> A living -man cannot do so, because he is a contending party, or rather the very -object in the dispute, and not a judge; nor can a dead man estimate -it—for other reasons. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value -of life, is almost an objection against him, a note of interrogation -set against his wisdom—a lack of wisdom. What? Is it possible that all -these great sages were not only decadents, but that they were not even -wise? Let me however return to the problem of Socrates.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>To judge from his origin, Socrates belonged to the lowest of the low: -Socrates was mob. You know, and you can still see it for yourself, -how ugly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> he was. But ugliness, which in itself is an objection, was -almost a refutation among the Greeks. Was Socrates really a Greek? -Ugliness is not infrequently the expression of thwarted development, -or of development arrested by crossing. In other cases it appears -as a decadent development. The anthropologists among the criminal -specialists declare that I the typical criminal is ugly: <i>monstrum -in fronte, monstrum in animo.</i> But the criminal is a decadent?<a name="FNanchor_1_2" id="FNanchor_1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_2" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> -Was Socrates a typical criminal?—At all events this would not clash -with that famous physiognomist’s judgment which was so repugnant to -Socrates’ friends. While on his way through Athens a certain foreigner -who was no fool at judging by looks, told Socrates to his face that -he was a monster, that his body harboured all the worst vices and -passions. And Socrates replied simply: “You know me, sir!”—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>Not only are the acknowledged wildness and anarchy of Socrates’ -instincts indicative of decadence, but also that preponderance of the -logical faculties and that malignity of the misshapen which was his -special characteristic. Neither should we forget those aural delusions -which were religiously interpreted as “the demon of Socrates.” -Everything in him is exaggerated, <i>buffo,</i> caricature, his nature is -also full of concealment, of ulterior motives, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> of underground -currents. I try to understand the idiosyncrasy from which the Socratic -equation:—Reason = Virtue = Happiness, could have arisen: the -weirdest equation ever seen, and one which was essentially opposed to -all the instincts of the older Hellenes.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>With Socrates Greek taste veers round in favour of dialectics: what -actually occurs? In the first place a noble taste is vanquished: -with dialectics the mob comes to the top. Before Socrates’ time, -dialectical manners were avoided in good society: they were regarded -as bad manners, they were compromising. Young men were cautioned -against them. All such proffering of one’s reasons was looked upon with -suspicion. Honest things like honest men do not carry their reasons -on their sleeve in such fashion. It is not good form to make a show -of everything. That which needs to be proved cannot be worth much. -Wherever authority still belongs to good usage, wherever men do not -prove but command, the dialectician is regarded as a sort of clown. -People laugh at him, they do not take him seriously. Socrates was a -clown who succeeded in making men take him seriously: what then was the -matter?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>A man resorts to dialectics only when he has no other means to hand. -People know that they excite suspicion with it and that it is not -very convincing. Nothing is more easily dispelled than a dialectical -effect: this is proved by the experience of every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> gathering in which -discussions are held. It can be only the last defence of those who have -no other weapons. One must require to extort one’s right, otherwise one -makes no use of it. That is why the Jews were dialecticians. Reynard -the Fox was a dialectician: what?—and was Socrates one as well?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p>Is the Socratic irony an expression of revolt, of mob resentment? -Does Socrates, as a creature suffering under oppression, enjoy his -innate ferocity in the knife-thrusts of the syllogism? Does he wreak -his revenge on the noblemen he fascinates?—As a dialectician a man -has a merciless instrument to wield; he can play the tyrant with it: -he compromises when he conquers with it. The dialectician leaves it to -his opponent to prove that he is no idiot: he infuriates, he likewise -paralyses. The dialectician cripples the intellect of his opponent. Can -it be that dialectics was only a form of revenge in Socrates?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p>I have given you to understand in what way Socrates was able to repel: -now it is all the more necessary to explain how he fascinated.—One -reason is that he discovered a new kind of <i>Agon,</i> and that he was the -first fencing-master in the best circles in Athens. He fascinated by -appealing to the combative instinct of the Greeks,—he introduced a -variation into the contests between men and youths. Socrates was also a -great erotic.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">9</p> - -<p>But Socrates divined still more. He saw right through his noble -Athenians; he perceived that his case, his peculiar case, was no -exception even in his time. The same kind of degeneracy was silently -preparing itself everywhere: ancient Athens was dying out. And Socrates -understood that the whole world needed him,—his means, his remedy, his -special artifice for self-preservation. Everywhere the instincts were -in a state of anarchy; everywhere people were within an ace of excess: -the <i>monstrum in animo</i> was the general danger. “The instincts would -play the tyrant; we must discover a counter-tyrant who is stronger than -they.” On the occasion when that physiognomist had unmasked Socrates, -and had told him what he was, a crater full of evil desires, the great -Master of Irony let fall one or two words more, which provide the key -to his nature. “This is true,” he said, “but I overcame them all.” How -did Socrates succeed in mastering himself? His case was at bottom only -the extreme and most apparent example of a state of distress which -was beginning to be general: that state in which no one was able to -master himself and in which the instincts turned one against the other. -As the extreme example of this state, he fascinated—his terrifying -ugliness made him conspicuous to every eye: it is quite obvious that he -fascinated still more as a reply, as a solution, as an apparent cure of -this case.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">10</p> - -<p>When a man finds it necessary, as Socrates did, to create a tyrant out -of reason, there is no small<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> danger that something else wishes to play -the tyrant. Reason was then discovered as a saviour; neither Socrates -nor his “patients” were at liberty to be rational or not, as they -pleased; at that time it was <i>de rigueur,</i> it had become a last shift. -The fanaticism with which the whole of Greek thought plunges into -reason, betrays a critical condition of things: men were in danger; -there were only two alternatives: either perish or else be absurdly -rational. The moral bias of Greek philosophy from Plato onward, is the -outcome of a pathological condition, as is also its appreciation of -dialectics. Reason = Virtue = Happiness, simply means: we must imitate -Socrates, and confront the dark passions permanently with the light -of day—the light of reason. We must at all costs be clever, precise, -clear: all yielding to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads -downwards.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">11</p> - -<p>I have now explained how Socrates fascinated: he seemed to be a -doctor, a Saviour. Is it necessary to expose the errors which lay in -his faith in “reason at any price”?—It is a piece of self-deception -on the part of philosophers and moralists to suppose that they can -extricate themselves from degeneration by merely waging war upon it. -They cannot thus extricate themselves; that which they choose as a -means, as the road to salvation, is in itself again only an expression -of degeneration—they only modify its mode of manifesting itself: -they do not abolish it. Socrates was a misunderstanding. <i>The whole -of the morality of amelioration—that of Christianity as well—was -a misunderstanding.</i> The most blinding light<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> of day: reason at any -price; life made clear, cold, cautious, conscious, without instincts, -opposed to the instincts, was in itself only a disease, another kind -of disease—and by no means a return to “virtue,” to “health,” and to -happiness. To be obliged to fight the instincts—this is the formula of -degeneration: as long as life is in the ascending line, happiness is -the same as instinct.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">12</p> - -<p>—Did he understand this himself, this most intelligent of -self-deceivers? Did he confess this to himself in the end, in the -wisdom of his courage before death. Socrates wished to die. Not Athens, -but his own hand gave him the draught of hemlock; he drove Athens to -the poisoned cup. “Socrates is not a doctor,” he whispered to himself, -“death alone can be a doctor here.... Socrates himself has only been ill -a long while.”</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_2" id="Footnote_1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_2"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> It should be borne in mind that Nietzsche recognised two -types of criminals,—the criminal from strength, and the criminal from -weakness. This passage alludes to the latter, Aphorism 45, <a href="#Page_103">p. 103</a>,** -alludes to the former.—TR.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="REASON_IN_PHILOSOPHY" id="REASON_IN_PHILOSOPHY">“REASON” IN PHILOSOPHY</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>You ask me what all idiosyncrasy is in philosophers? ... For instance -their lack of the historical sense, their hatred even of the idea of -Becoming, their Egyptianism. They imagine that they do honour to a -thing by divorcing it from history <i>sub specie æterni,—</i>when they -make a mummy of it. All the ideas that philosophers have treated for -thousands of years, have been mummied concepts; nothing real has ever -come out of their hands alive. These idolaters of concepts merely -kill and stuff things when they worship,—they threaten the life of -everything they adore. Death, change, age, as well as procreation and -growth, are in their opinion objections,—even refutations. That which -is cannot evolve; that which evolves <i>is</i> not. Now all of them believe, -and even with desperation, in Being. But, as they cannot lay hold of -it, they try to discover reasons why this privilege is withheld from -them. “Some merely apparent quality, some deception must be the cause -of our not being able to ascertain the nature of Being: where is the -deceiver?” “We have him,” they cry rejoicing, “it is sensuality!” These -senses, <i>which in other things are so immoral,</i> cheat us concerning the -true world. Moral: we must get rid of the deception of the senses, of -Becoming, of history, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> falsehood.—History is nothing more than the -belief in the senses, the belief in falsehood. Moral: we must say “no” -to everything in which the senses believe: to all the rest of mankind: -all that belongs to the “people.” Let us be philosophers, mummies, -monotono-theists, grave-diggers!—And above all, away with the <i>body,</i> -this wretched <i>idée fixe</i> of the senses, infected with all the faults -of logic that exist, refuted, even impossible, although it be impudent -enough to pose as if it were real!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>With a feeling of great reverence I except the name of <i>Heraclitus.</i> -If the rest of the philosophic gang rejected the evidences of the -senses, because the latter revealed a state of multifariousness and -change, he rejected the same evidence because it revealed things as if -they possessed permanence and unity. Even Heraclitus did an injustice -to the senses. The latter lie neither as the Eleatics believed them -to lie, nor as he believed them to lie,—they do not lie at all. The -interpretations we give to their evidence is what first introduces -falsehood into it; for instance the lie of unity, the lie of matter, -of substance and of permanence. Reason is the cause of our falsifying -the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show us a state -of Becoming, of transiency, and of change, they do not lie. But in -declaring that Being was an empty illusion, Heraclitus will remain -eternally right. The “apparent” world is the only world: the “true -world” is no more than a false adjunct thereto.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>And what delicate instruments of observation we have in our senses! -This human nose, for instance, of which no philosopher has yet spoken -with reverence and gratitude, is, for the present, the most finely -adjusted instrument at our disposal: it is able to register even such -slight changes of movement as the spectroscope would be unable to -record. Our scientific triumphs at the present day extend precisely -so far as we have accepted the evidence of our senses,—as we have -sharpened and armed them, and learned to follow them up to the -end. What remains is abortive and not yet science—that is to say, -metaphysics, theology, psychology, epistemology, or formal science, or -a doctrine of symbols, like logic and its applied form mathematics. -In all these things reality does not come into consideration at all, -even as a problem; just as little as does the question concerning the -general value of such a convention of symbols as logic.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>The other idiosyncrasy of philosophers is no less dangerous; it -consists in confusing the last and the first things. They place that -which makes its appearance last—unfortunately! for it ought not -to appear at all!—the “highest concept,” that is to say, the most -general, the emptiest, the last cloudy streak of evaporating reality, -at the beginning as the beginning. This again is only their manner of -expressing their veneration: the highest thing must not have grown out -of the lowest, it must not have grown at all.... Moral: everything -of the first rank must be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> <i>causa sui.</i> To have been derived from -something else, is as good as an objection, it sets the value of a -thing in question. All superior values are of the first rank, all the -highest concepts—that of Being, of the Absolute, of Goodness, of -Truth, and of Perfection; all these things cannot have been evolved, -they must therefore be <i>causa sui.</i> All these things cannot however be -unlike one another, they cannot be opposed to one another. Thus they -attain to their stupendous concept “God.” The last, most attenuated and -emptiest thing is postulated as the first thing, as the absolute cause, -as <i>ens realissimum.</i> Fancy humanity having to take the brain diseases -of morbid cobweb-spinners seriously!—And it has paid dearly for having -done so.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>—Against this let us set the different manner in which we (—you -observe that I am courteous enough to say “we”) conceive the problem of -the error and deceptiveness of things. Formerly people regarded change -and evolution in general as the proof of appearance, as a sign of the -fact that something must be there that leads us astray. To-day, on -the other hand, we realise that precisely as far as the rational bias -forces us to postulate unity, identity, permanence, substance, cause, -materiality and being, we are in a measure involved in error, driven -necessarily to error; however certain we may feel, as the result of a -strict examination of the matter, that the error lies here. It is just -the same here as with the motion of the sun: In its case it was our -eyes that were wrong; in the matter of the concepts above mentioned it -is our language itself that pleads<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> most constantly in their favour. -In its origin language belongs to an age of the most rudimentary -forms of psychology: if we try to conceive of the first conditions of -the metaphysics of language, <i>i.e.</i> in plain English, of reason, we -immediately find ourselves in the midst of a system of fetichism. For -here, the doer and his deed are seen in all circumstances, will is -believed in as a cause in general; the ego is taken for granted, the -ego as Being, and as substance, and the faith in the ego as substance -is projected into all things—in this way, alone, the concept “thing” -is created. Being is thought into and insinuated into everything as -cause; from the concept “ego,” alone, can the concept “Being” proceed. -At the beginning stands the tremendously fatal error of supposing the -will to be something that actuates,—a faculty. Now we know that it -is only a word.<a name="FNanchor_1_3" id="FNanchor_1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_3" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Very much later, in a world a thousand times more -enlightened, the assurance, the subjective certitude, in the handling -of the categories of reason came into the minds of philosophers as a -surprise. They concluded that these categories could not be derived -from experience,—on the contrary, the whole of experience rather -contradicts them. <i>Whence do they come therefore?</i> In India, as in -Greece, the same mistake was made: “we must already once have lived -in a higher world (—instead of in a much lower one, which would have -been the truth!), we must have been divine, for we possess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> reason!” -... Nothing indeed has exercised a more simple power of persuasion -hitherto than the error of Being, as it was formulated by the Eleatics -for instance: in its favour are every word and every sentence that we -utter!—Even the opponents of the Eleatics succumbed to the seductive -powers of their concept of Being. Among others there was Democritus in -his discovery of the atom. “Reason” in language!—oh what a deceptive -old witch it has been! I fear we shall never be rid of God, so long as -we still believe in grammar.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>People will feel grateful to me if I condense a point of view, which -is at once so important and so new, into four theses: by this means -I shall facilitate comprehension, and shall likewise challenge -contradiction.</p> - -<p><i>Proposition One.</i> The reasons upon which the apparent nature of “this” -world have been based, rather tend to prove its reality,—any other -kind of reality defies demonstration.</p> - -<p><i>Proposition Two.</i> The characteristics with which man has endowed -the “true Being” of things, are the characteristics of non-Being, of -<i>nonentity.</i> The “true world” has been erected upon a contradiction of -the real world; and it is indeed an apparent world, seeing that it is -merely a <i>moralo-optical</i> delusion.</p> - -<p><i>Proposition Three.</i> There is no sense in spinning yarns about another -world, provided, of course, that we do not possess a mighty instinct -which urges us to slander, belittle, and cast suspicion upon this life: -in this case we should be avenging ourselves on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> this life with the -phantasmagoria of “another,” of a “better” life.</p> - -<p><i>Proposition Four.</i> To divide the world into a “true” and an “apparent” -world, whether after the manner of Christianity or of Kant (after all -a Christian in disguise), is only a sign of decadence,—a symptom of -<i>degenerating</i> life. The fact that the artist esteems the appearance -of a thing higher than reality, is no objection to this statement. For -“appearance” signifies once more reality here, but in a selected, -strengthened and corrected form. The tragic artist is no pessimist,—he -says <i>Yea</i> to everything questionable and terrible, he is Dionysian.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_3" id="Footnote_1_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_3"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Nietzsche here refers to the concept “free will” of -the Christians; this does not mean that there is no such thing as -will—that is to say a powerful determining force from within.—TR.</p></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> - - -<h5>HOW THE “TRUE WORLD” ULTIMATELY BECAME A FABLE</h5> - -<h5>THE HISTORY OF AN ERROR</h5> - - - -<p>1. The true world, attainable to the sage, the pious man and the man of -virtue,—he lives in it, <i>he is it.</i></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(The most ancient form of the idea was relatively clever, -simple, convincing. It was a paraphrase of the proposition -“I, Plato, am the truth.”)</p></blockquote> - - -<p>2. The true world which is unattainable for the moment, is promised to -the sage, to the pious man and to the man of virtue (“to the sinner who -repents”).</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, more -insidious, more evasive,—It <i>becomes a woman,</i> it becomes -Christian.)</p></blockquote> - - -<p>3. The true world is unattainable, it cannot be proved, it cannot -promise anything; but even as a thought, alone, it is a comfort, an -obligation, a command.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(At bottom this is still the old sun; but seen through mist -and scepticism: the idea has become sublime, pale, northern, -Königsbergian.)<a name="FNanchor_1_4" id="FNanchor_1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_4" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p></blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> - - -<p>4. The true world—is it unattainable? At all events it is unattained. -And as unattained it is also <i>unknown.</i> Consequently it no longer -comforts, nor saves, nor constrains: what could something unknown -constrain us to?</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(The grey of dawn. Reason stretches itself and yawns for the -first time. The cock-crow of positivism.)</p></blockquote> - - -<p>5. The “true world”—an idea that no longer serves any purpose, that -no longer constrains one to anything,—a useless idea that has become -quite superfluous, consequently an exploded idea: let us abolish it!</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(Bright daylight; breakfast; the return of common sense -and of cheerfulness; Plato blushes for shame and all -free-spirits kick up a shindy.)</p></blockquote> - - -<p>6. We have suppressed the true world: what world survives? the apparent -world perhaps?... Certainly not! <i>In abolishing the true world we have -also abolished the world of appearance!</i></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(Noon; the moment of the shortest shadows; the end of the -longest error; mankind’s zenith; <i>Incipit Zarathustra.</i>)</p></blockquote> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_4" id="Footnote_1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_4"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Kant was a native of Königsberg and lived there all his -life. Did Nietzsche know that Kant was simply a Scotch Puritan, whose -family had settled in Germany?</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="MORALITY_AS_THE_ENEMY_OF_NATURE" id="MORALITY_AS_THE_ENEMY_OF_NATURE">MORALITY AS THE ENEMY OF NATURE</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>There is a time when all passions are simply fatal in their action, -when they wreck their victims with the weight of their folly,—and -there is a later period, a very much later period, when they marry with -the spirit, when they “spiritualise” themselves. Formerly, owing to the -stupidity inherent in passion, men waged war against passion itself: -men pledged themselves to annihilate it,—all ancient moral-mongers -were unanimous on this point, “<i>il faut tuer les passions.</i>” The -most famous formula for this stands in the New Testament, in that -Sermon on the Mount, where, let it be said incidentally, things are -by no means regarded <i>from a height.</i> It is said there, for instance, -with an application to sexuality: “if thy eye offend thee, pluck it -out”: fortunately no Christian acts in obedience to this precept. -To annihilate the passions and desires, simply on account of their -stupidity, and to obviate the unpleasant consequences of their -stupidity, seems to us to-day merely an aggravated form of stupidity. -We no longer admire those dentists who extract teeth simply in order -that they may not ache again. On the other hand, it will be admitted -with some reason, that on the soil from which Christianity grew, the -idea of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> the “spiritualisation of passion” could not possibly have been -conceived. The early Church, as everyone knows, certainly did wage war -against the “intelligent,” in favour of the “poor in spirit” In these -circumstances how could the passions be combated intelligently? The -Church combats passion by means of excision of all kinds: its practice, -its “remedy,” is <i>castration.</i> It never inquires “how can a desire -be spiritualised, beautified, deified?”—In all ages it has laid the -weight of discipline in the process of extirpation (the extirpation -of sensuality, pride, lust of dominion, lust of property, and -revenge).—But to attack the passions at their roots, means attacking -life itself at its source: the method of the Church is hostile to life.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>The same means, castration and extirpation, are instinctively chosen -for waging war against a passion, by those who are too weak of will, -too degenerate, to impose some sort of moderation upon it; by those -natures who, to speak in metaphor (—and without metaphor), need -<i>la Trappe,</i> or some kind of ultimatum of war, a <i>gulf</i> set between -themselves and a passion. Only degenerates find radical methods -indispensable: weakness of will, or more strictly speaking, the -inability not to react to a stimulus, is in itself simply another form -of degeneracy. Radical and mortal hostility to sensuality, remains a -suspicious symptom: it justifies one in being suspicious of the general -state of one who goes to such extremes. Moreover, that hostility and -hatred reach their height only when such natures no longer possess -enough strength of character to adopt the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> radical remedy, to renounce -their inner “Satan.” Look at the whole history of the priests, the -philosophers, and the artists as well: the most poisonous diatribes -against the senses have not been said by the impotent, nor by the -ascetics; but by those impossible ascetics, by those who found it -necessary to be ascetics.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>The spiritualisation of sensuality is called <i>love:</i> it is a great -triumph over Christianity. Another triumph is our spiritualisation of -hostility. It consists in the fact that we are beginning to realise -very profoundly the value of having enemies: in short that with them -we are forced to do and to conclude precisely the reverse of what -we previously did and concluded. In all ages the Church wished to -annihilate its enemies: we, the immoralists and Antichrists, see our -advantage in the survival of the Church. Even in political life, -hostility has now become more spiritual,—much more cautious, much -more thoughtful, and much more moderate. Almost every party sees its -self-preservative interests in preventing the Opposition from going -to pieces; and the same applies to politics on a grand scale. A new -creation, more particularly, like the new Empire, has more need -of enemies than friends: only as a contrast does it begin to feel -necessary, only as a contrast does it <i>become</i> necessary. And we behave -in precisely the same way to the “inner enemy”: in this quarter too we -have spiritualised enmity, in this quarter too we have understood its -value. A man is productive only in so far as he is rich in contrasted -instincts; he can remain young only on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> condition that his soul does -not begin to take things easy and to yearn for peace. Nothing has -grown more alien to us than that old desire—the “peace of the soul,” -which is the aim of Christianity. Nothing could make us less envious -than the moral cow and the plump happiness of a clean conscience. The -man who has renounced war has renounced a grand life. In many cases, -of course, “peace of the soul” is merely a misunderstanding,—it is -something <i>very different</i> which has failed to find a more honest name -for itself. Without either circumlocution or prejudice I will suggest a -few cases. “Peace of the soul” may for instance be the sweet effulgence -of rich animality in the realm of morality (or religion). Or the first -presage of weariness, the first shadow that evening, every kind of -evening, is wont to cast. Or a sign that the air is moist, and that -winds are blowing up from the south. Or unconscious gratitude for a -good digestion (sometimes called “brotherly love”). Or the serenity -of the convalescent, on whose lips all things have a new taste, and -who bides his time. Or the condition which follows upon a thorough -gratification of our strongest passion, the well-being of unaccustomed -satiety. Or the senility of our will, of our desires, and of our vices. -Or laziness, coaxed by vanity into togging itself out in a moral garb. -Or the ending of a state of long suspense and of agonising uncertainty, -by a state of certainty, of even terrible certainty. Or the expression -of ripeness and mastery in the midst of a task, of a creative work, of -a production, of a thing willed, the calm breathing that denotes that -“freedom of will” has been attained.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> Who knows?—maybe <i>The Twilight -of the Idols</i> is only a sort of “peace of the soul.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>I will formulate a principle. All naturalism in morality—that is to -say, every sound morality is ruled by a life instinct,—any one of -the laws of life is fulfilled by the definite canon “thou shalt,” -“thou shalt not,” and any sort of obstacle or hostile element in the -road of life is thus cleared away. Conversely, the morality which is -antagonistic to nature—that is to say, almost every morality that has -been taught, honoured and preached hitherto, is directed precisely -against the life-instincts,—it is a condemnation, now secret, now -blatant and impudent, of these very instincts. Inasmuch as it says “God -sees into the heart of man,” it says Nay to the profoundest and most -superior desires of life and takes God as the enemy of life. The saint -in whom God is well pleased, is the ideal eunuch. Life terminates where -the “Kingdom of God” begins.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>Admitting that you have understood the villainy of such a mutiny -against life as that which has become almost sacrosanct in Christian -morality, you have fortunately understood something besides; and that -is the futility, the fictitiousness, the absurdity and the falseness -of such a mutiny. For the condemnation of life by a living creature is -after all but the symptom of a definite kind of life: the question as -to whether the condemnation is justified or the reverse is not even -raised. In order even to approach the problem of the value of life, -a man would need<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> to be placed outside life, and moreover know it as -well as one, as many, as all in fact, who have lived it These are -reasons enough to prove to us that this problem is an inaccessible one -to us. When we speak of values, we speak under the inspiration, and -through the optics of life: life itself urges us to determine values: -life itself values through us when we determine values. From which it -follows that even that morality which is antagonistic to life, and -which conceives God as the opposite and the condemnation of life, is -only a valuation of life—of what life? of what kind of life? But I -have already answered this question: it is the valuation of declining, -of enfeebled, of exhausted and of condemned life. Morality, as it has -been understood hitherto—as it was finally formulated by Schopenhauer -in the words “The Denial of the Will to Life,” is the instinct of -degeneration itself, which converts itself into an imperative: it says: -“Perish!” It is the death sentence of men who are already doomed.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>Let us at last consider how exceedingly simple it is on our part to -say: “Man should be thus and thus!” Reality shows us a marvellous -wealth of types, and a luxuriant variety of forms and changes: and yet -the first wretch of a moral loafer that comes along cries “No! Man -should be different!” He even knows what man should be like, does this -sanctimonious prig: he draws his own face on the wall and declares: -“<i>ecce homo!</i>” But even when the moralist addresses himself only to the -individual and says “thus and thus shouldst thou be!” he still makes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> -an ass of himself. The individual in his past and future is a piece of -fate, one law the more, one necessity the more for all that is to come -and is to be. To say to him “change thyself,” is tantamount to saying -that everything should change, even backwards as well. Truly these have -been consistent moralists, they wished man to be different, <i>i.e.</i>, -virtuous; they wished him to be after their own image,—that is to say -sanctimonious humbugs. And to this end they denied the world! No slight -form of insanity! No modest form of immodesty! Morality, in so far it -condemns <i>per se,</i> and <i>not</i> out of any aim, consideration or motive of -life, is a specific error, for which no one should feel any mercy, a -degenerate idiosyncrasy, that has done an unutterable amount of harm. -We others, we immoralists, on the contrary, have opened our hearts -wide to all kinds of comprehension, understanding and approbation.<a name="FNanchor_1_5" id="FNanchor_1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_5" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> -We do not deny readily, we glory in saying yea to things. Our eyes -have opened ever wider and wider to that economy which still employs -and knows how to use to its own advantage all that which the sacred -craziness of priests and the morbid reason in priests, rejects; to -that economy in the law of life which draws its own advantage even out -of the repulsive race of bigots, the priests and the virtuous,—what -advantage?—But we ourselves, we immoralists, are the reply to this -question.</p> -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_5" id="Footnote_1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_5"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> Spinoza, who says in the <i>Tractatus politico</i> -(1677), Chap. I, § 4: <i>“Sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere, -non tugert, negue detestari, sed intelligere”</i> (“I have carefully -endeavoured not to deride, or deplore, or detest human actions, but to -understand them.”).—TR.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="THE_FOUR_GREAT_ERRORS" id="THE_FOUR_GREAT_ERRORS">THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p><i>The error of the confusion of cause and effect.—</i>There is no more -dangerous error than to confound the effect with the cause: I call -this error the intrinsic perversion of reason. Nevertheless this error -is one of the most ancient and most recent habits of mankind. In one -part of the world it has even been canonised; and it bears the name of -“Religion” and “Morality.” Every postulate formulated by religion and -morality contains it. Priests and the promulgators of moral laws are the -promoters of this perversion of reason.—Let me give you an example. -Everybody knows the book of the famous Cornaro, in which he recommends -his slender diet as the recipe for a long, happy and also virtuous -life. Few books have been so widely read, and to this day many thousand -copies of it are still printed annually in England. I do not doubt that -there is scarcely a single book (the Bible of course excepted) that -has worked more mischief, shortened more lives, than this well-meant -curiosity. The reason of this is the confusion of effect and cause. -This worthy Italian saw the cause of his long life in his diet: whereas -the prerequisites of long life, which are exceptional slowness of -molecular change, and a low rate of expenditure in energy, were the -cause of his meagre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> diet He was not at liberty to eat a small or a -great amount. His frugality was not the result of free choice, he would -have been ill had he eaten more. He who does not happen to be a carp, -however, is not only wise to eat well, but is also compelled to do so. -A scholar of the present day, with his rapid consumption of nervous -energy, would soon go to the dogs on Cornaro’s diet. <i>Crede experto.</i>—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>The most general principle lying at the root of every religion and -morality, is this: “Do this and that and avoid this and that—and -thou wilt be happy. Otherwise——.” Every morality and every -religion is this Imperative—I call it the great original sin of -reason,—<i>immortal unreason.</i> In my mouth this principle is converted -into its opposite—first example of my “Transvaluation of all Values”: -a well-constituted man, a man who is one of “Nature’s lucky strokes,” -<i>must</i> perform certain actions and instinctively fear other actions; -he introduces the element of order, of which he is the physiological -manifestation, into his relations with men and things. In a formula: -his virtue is the consequence of his good constitution. Longevity -and plentiful offspring are not the reward of virtue, virtue itself -is on the contrary that retardation of the metabolic process which, -among other things, results in a long life and in plentiful offspring, -in short in <i>Cornarism.</i> The Church and morality say: “A race, a -people perish through vice and luxury.” My reinstated reason says: -when a people are going to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> the dogs, when they are degenerating -physiologically, vice and luxury (that is to say, the need of ever -stronger and more frequent stimuli such as all exhausted natures are -acquainted with) are bound to result. Such and such a young man grows -pale and withered prematurely. His friends say this or that illness -is the cause of it I say: the fact that he became ill, the fact that -he did not resist illness, was in itself already the outcome of -impoverished life, of hereditary exhaustion. The newspaper reader says: -such and such a party by committing such an error will meet its death. -My superior politics say: a party that can make such mistakes, is in -its last agony—it no longer possesses any certainty of instinct. Every -mistake is in every sense the sequel to degeneration of the instincts, -to disintegration of the will. This is almost the definition of evil, -Everything valuable is instinct—and consequently easy, necessary, -free. Exertion is an objection, the god is characteristically different -from the hero (in my language: light feet are the first attribute of -divinity).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p><i>The error of false causality.</i> In all ages men have believed that -they knew what a cause was: but whence did we derive this knowledge, -or more accurately, this faith in the fact that we know? Out of the -realm of the famous “inner facts of consciousness,” not one of which -has yet proved itself to be a fact We believed ourselves to be causes -even in the action of the will; we thought that in this matter at -least we caught causality red-handed. No one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> doubted that all the -<i>antecedentia</i> of an action were to be sought in consciousness, and -could be discovered there—as “motive”—if only they were sought. -Otherwise we should not be free to perform them, we should not have -been responsible for them. Finally who would have questioned that a -thought is caused? that the ego causes the thought? Of these three -“facts of inner consciousness” by means of which causality seemed to -be guaranteed, the first and most convincing is that of the will as -cause; the conception of consciousness (“spirit”) as a cause, and -subsequently that of the ego (the “subject”) as a cause, were merely -born afterwards, once the causality of the will stood established -as “given,” as a fact of experience. Meanwhile we have come to our -senses. To-day we no longer believe a word of all this. The “inner -world” is full of phantoms and will-o’-the-wisps: the will is one of -these. The will no longer actuates, consequently it no longer explains -anything—all it does is to accompany processes; it may even be absent. -The so-called “motive” is another error. It is merely a ripple on -the surface of consciousness, a side issue of the action, which is -much more likely to conceal than to reveal the <i>antecedentia</i> of the -latter. And as for the ego! It has become legendary, fictional, a -play upon words: it has ceased utterly and completely from thinking, -feeling, and willing! What is the result of it all? There are no such -things as spiritual causes. The whole of popular experience on this -subject went to the devil! That is the result of it all. For we had -blissfully abused that experience, we had built the world upon it as a -world of causes, as a world<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> of will, as a world of spirit. The most -antiquated and most traditional psychology has been at work here, it -has done nothing else: all phenomena were deeds in the light of this -psychology, and all deeds were the result of will; according to it the -world was a complex mechanism of agents, an agent (a “subject”) lay -at the root of all things. Man projected his three “inner facts of -consciousness,” the will, the spirit, and the ego in which he believed -most firmly, outside himself. He first deduced the concept Being out -of the concept Ego, he supposed “things” to exist as he did himself, -according to his notion of the ego as cause. Was it to be wondered at -that later on he always found in things only that which he had laid -in them?—The thing itself, I repeat, the concept thing was merely a -reflex of the belief in the ego as cause. And even your atom, my dear -good Mechanists and Physicists, what an amount of error, of rudimentary -psychology still adheres to it!—Not to speak of the “thing-in-itself,” -of the <i>horrendum pudendum</i> of the metaphysicians! The error of spirit -regarded as a cause, confounded with reality! And made the measure of -reality! And called <i>God!</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p><i>The Error of imaginary Causes.</i> Starting out from dreamland, we -find that to any definite sensation, like that produced by a distant -cannon shot for instance, we are wont to ascribe a cause after the -fact (very often quite a little romance in which the dreamer himself -is, of course, the hero). Meanwhile the sensation becomes protracted -like a sort of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> continuous echo, until, as it were, the instinct of -causality allows it to come to the front rank, no longer however as a -chance occurrence, but as a thing which has some meaning. The cannon -shot presents itself in a <i>causal</i> manner, by means of an apparent -reversal in the order of time. That which occurs last, the motivation, -is experienced first, often with a hundred details which flash past -like lightning, and the shot is the <i>result.</i> What has happened? The -ideas suggested by a particular state of our senses, are misinterpreted -as the cause of that state. As a matter of fact we proceed in precisely -the same manner when we are awake. The greater number of our general -sensations—every kind of obstacle, pressure, tension, explosion in -the interplay of the organs, and more particularly the condition of -the <i>nervus sympathies</i>—stimulate our instinct of causality: we will -have a reason which will account for our feeling thus or thus,—for -feeling ill or well. We are never satisfied by merely ascertaining -the fact that we feel thus or thus: we admit this fact—we become -conscious of it—only when we have attributed it to some kind of -motivation. Memory, which, in such circumstances unconsciously becomes -active, adduces former conditions of a like kind, together with the -causal interpretations with which they are associated,—but not their -real cause. The belief that the ideas, the accompanying processes -of consciousness, have been the causes, is certainly produced by -the agency of memory. And in this way we become <i>accustomed</i> to a -particular interpretation of causes which, truth to tell, actually -hinders and even utterly prevents the investigation of the proper -cause.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p><i>The Psychological Explanation of the above Fact.</i> To trace something -unfamiliar back to something familiar, is at once a relief, a comfort -and a satisfaction, while it also produces a feeling of power. The -unfamiliar involves danger, anxiety and care,—the fundamental instinct -is to get rid of these painful circumstances. First principle: any -explanation is better than none at all. Since, at bottom, it is -only a question of shaking one’s self free from certain oppressive -ideas, the means employed to this end are not selected with overmuch -punctiliousness: the first idea by means of which the unfamiliar is -revealed as familiar, produces a feeling of such comfort that it is -“held to be true.” The proof of happiness (“of power”) as the criterion -of truth. The instinct of causality is therefore conditioned and -stimulated by the feeling of fear. Whenever possible, the question -“why?” should not only educe the cause as cause, but rather a certain -kind of cause—a comforting, liberating and reassuring cause. The first -result of this need is that something known or already experienced, and -recorded in the memory, is posited as the cause. The new factor, that -which has not been experienced and which is unfamiliar, is excluded -from the sphere of causes. Not only do we try to find a certain kind -of explanation as the cause, but those kinds of explanations are -selected and preferred which dissipate most rapidly the sensation of -strangeness, novelty and unfamiliarity,—in fact the most ordinary -explanations. And the result is that a certain manner of postulating -causes tends to predominate ever more and more, becomes concentrated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> -into a system, and finally reigns supreme, to the complete exclusion -of all other causes and explanations. The banker thinks immediately of -business, the Christian of “sin,” and the girl of her love affair.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p><i>The whole Domain of Morality and Religion may be classified under the -Rubric “Imaginary Causes.”</i> The “explanation” of general unpleasant -sensations. These sensations are dependent upon certain creatures who -are hostile to us (evil spirits: the most famous example of this—the -mistaking of hysterical women for witches). These sensations are -dependent upon actions which are reprehensible (the feeling of “sin,” -“sinfulness” is a manner of accounting for a certain physiological -disorder—people always find reasons for being dissatisfied with -themselves). These sensations depend upon punishment, upon compensation -for something which we ought not to have done, which we ought not -to have been (this idea was generalised in a more impudent form by -Schopenhauer, into that principle in which morality appears in its real -colours,—that is to say, as a veritable poisoner and slanderer of -life: “all great suffering, whether mental or physical, reveals what -we deserve: for it could not visit us if we did not deserve it,” “The -World as Will and Idea,” vol. 2, p. 666). These sensations are the -outcome of ill-considered actions, having evil consequences, (—the -passions, the senses, postulated as causes, as guilty. By means of -other calamities distressing physiological conditions are interpreted -as “merited”).—The “explanation” of pleasant sensations. These -sensations are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> dependent upon a trust in God. They may depend upon -our consciousness of having done one or two good actions (a so-called -“good conscience” is a physiological condition, which may be the -outcome of good digestion). They may depend upon the happy issue of -certain undertakings (—an ingenuous mistake: the happy issue of an -undertaking certainly does not give a hypochondriac or a Pascal any -general sensation of pleasure). They may depend upon faith, love and -hope,—the Christian virtues. As a matter of fact all these pretended -explanations are but the results of certain states, and as it were -translations of feelings of pleasure and pain into a false dialect: a -man is in a condition of hopefulness because the dominant physiological -sensation of his being is again one of strength and wealth; he trusts -in God because the feeling of abundance and power gives him a peaceful -state of mind. Morality and religion are completely and utterly parts -of the psychology of error: in every particular case cause and effect -are confounded; as truth is confounded with the effect of that which is -believed to be true; or a certain state of consciousness is confounded -with the chain of causes which brought it about.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p><i>The Error of Free-Will.</i> At present we no longer have any mercy upon -the concept “free-will”: we know only too well what it is—the most -egregious theological trick that has ever existed for the purpose of -making mankind “responsible” in a theological manner,—that is to -say, to make mankind dependent upon theologians. I will now explain -to you only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> the psychology of the whole process of inculcating the -sense of responsibility. Wherever men try to trace responsibility -home to anyone, it is the instinct of punishment and of the desire -to judge which is active. Becoming is robbed of its innocence when -any particular condition of things is traced to a will, to intentions -and to responsible actions. The doctrine of the will was invented -principally for the purpose of punishment,—that is to say, with -the intention of tracing guilt. The whole of ancient psychology, -or the psychology of the will, is the outcome of the fact that its -originators, who were the priests at the head of ancient communities, -wanted to create for themselves a right to administer punishments—or -the right for God to do so. Men were thought of as “free” in order that -they might be judged and punished—in order that they might be held -guilty: consequently every action had to be regarded as voluntary, -and the origin of every action had to be imagined as lying in -consciousness(—in this way the most fundamentally fraudulent character -of psychology was established as the very principle of psychology -itself). Now that we have entered upon the opposite movement, now that -we immoralists are trying with all our power to eliminate the concepts -of guilt and punishment from the world once more, and to cleanse -psychology, history, nature and all social institutions and customs -of all signs of those two concepts, we recognise no more radical -opponents than the theologians, who with their notion of “a moral order -of things,” still continue to pollute the innocence of Becoming with -punishment and guilt Christianity is the metaphysics of the hangman.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p>What then, alone, can our teaching be?—That no one gives man his -qualities, neither God, society, his parents, his ancestors, nor -himself (—this non-sensical idea which is at last refuted here, was -taught as “intelligible freedom” by Kant, and perhaps even as early -as Plato himself). No one is responsible for the fact that he exists -at all, that he is constituted as he is, and that he happens to be in -certain circumstances and in a particular environment. The fatality of -his being cannot be divorced from the fatality of all that which has -been and will be. This is not the result of an individual intention, -of a will, of an aim, there is no attempt at attaining to any “ideal -man,” or “ideal happiness” or “ideal morality” with him,—it is absurd -to wish him to be careering towards some sort of purpose. <i>We</i> invented -the concept “purpose”; in reality purpose is altogether lacking. One -is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is -in the whole,—there is nothing that could judge, measure, compare, -and condemn our existence, for that would mean judging, measuring, -comparing and condemning the whole. <i>But there is nothing outside the -whole!</i> The fact that no one shall any longer be made responsible, that -the nature of existence may not be traced to a <i>causa prima</i>, that the -world is an entity neither as a sensorium nor as a spirit—<i>this alone -is the great deliverance</i>,—thus alone is the innocence of Becoming -restored.... The concept “God” has been the greatest objection to -existence hitherto.... We deny God, we deny responsibility in God: thus -alone do we save the world.—</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="THE_IMPROVERS_OF_MANKIND" id="THE_IMPROVERS_OF_MANKIND">THE “IMPROVERS” OF MANKIND</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - - -<p>You are aware of my demand upon philosophers, that they should take -up a stand Beyond Good and Evil,—that they should have the illusion -of the moral judgment beneath them. This demand is the result of a -point of view which I was the first to formulate: <i>that there are no -such things as moral facts.</i> Moral judgment has this in common with -the religious one, that it believes in realities which are not real. -Morality is only an interpretation of certain phenomena: or, more -strictly speaking, a misinterpretation of them. Moral judgment, like -the religious one, belongs to a stage of ignorance in which even the -concept of reality, the distinction between real and imagined things, -is still lacking: so that truth, at such a stage, is applied to a host -of things which to-day we call “imaginary.” That is why the moral -judgment must never be taken quite literally: as such it is sheer -nonsense. As a sign code, however, it is invaluable: to him at least -who knows, it reveals the most valuable facts concerning cultures and -inner conditions, which did not know enough to “understand” themselves. -Morality is merely a sign-language, simply symptomatology: one must -already know what it is all about in order to turn it to any use.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>Let me give you one example, quite provisionally. In all ages there -have been people who wished to “improve” mankind: this above all -is what was called morality. But the most different tendencies -are concealed beneath the same word. Both the taming of the beast -man, and the rearing of a particular type of man, have been called -“improvement”: these zoological <i>termini,</i> alone, represent real -things—real things of which the typical “improver,” the priest, -naturally knows nothing, and will know nothing. To call the taming -of an animal “improving” it, sounds to our ears almost like a joke. -He who knows what goes on in menageries, doubts very much whether an -animal is improved in such places. It is certainly weakened, it is -made less dangerous, and by means of the depressing influence of fear, -pain, wounds, and hunger, it is converted into a sick animal. And the -same holds good of the tamed man whom the priest has “improved.” In -the early years of the Middle Ages, during which the Church was most -distinctly and above all a menagerie, the most beautiful examples of -the “blond beast” were hunted down in all directions,—the noble -Germans, for instance, were “improved.” But what did this “improved” -German, who had been lured to the monastery look like after the -process? He looked like a caricature of man, like an abortion: he had -become a “sinner,” he was caged up, he had been imprisoned behind a -host of apparling notions. He now lay there, sick, wretched, malevolent -even toward himself: full of hate for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> instincts of life, full of -suspicion in regard to all that is still strong and happy. In short a -“Christian.” In physiological terms: in a fight with an animal, the -only way of making it weak may be to make it sick. The Church undersood -this: it ruined man, it made him weak,—but it laid claim to having -“improved” him.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>Now let us consider the other case which is called morality, the -case of the rearing of a particular race and species. The most -magnificent example of this is offered by Indian morality, and is -sanctioned religiously as the “Law of Manu.” In this book the task -is set of rearing no less than four races at once: a priestly race, -a warrior race, a merchant and agricultural race, and finally a race -of servants—the Sudras. It is quite obvious that we are no longer -in a circus watching tamers of wild animals in this book. To have -conceived even the plan of such a breeding scheme, presupposes the -existence of a man who is a hundred times milder and more reasonable -than the mere lion-tamer. One breathes more freely, after stepping out -of the Christian atmosphere of hospitals and prisons, into this more -salubrious, loftier and more spacious world. What a wretched thing the -New Testament is beside Manu, what an evil odour hangs around it!—But -even this organisation found it necessary to be terrible,—not this -time in a struggle with the animal-man, but with his opposite, the -non-caste man, the hotch-potch man, the Chandala. And once again it -had no other means of making him weak and harmless, than by making -him sick,—it was the struggle with the greatest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> “number.” Nothing -perhaps is more offensive to our feelings than these measures of -security on the part of Indian morality. The third edict, for instance -(Avadana-Sastra I.), which treats “of impure vegetables,” ordains that -the only nourishment that the Chandala should be allowed must consist -of garlic and onions, as the holy scriptures forbid their being given -corn or grain-bearing fruit, water and fire. The same edict declares -that the water which they need must be drawn neither out of rivers, -wells or ponds, but only out of the ditches leading to swamps and out -of the holes left by the footprints of animals. They are likewise -forbidden to wash either their linen or themselves since the water -which is graciously granted to them must only be used for quenching -their thirst. Finally Sudra women are forbidden to assist Chandala -women at their confinements, while Chandala women are also forbidden to -assist each other at such times. The results of sanitary regulations of -this kind could not fail to make themselves felt; deadly epidemics and -the most ghastly venereal diseases soon appeared, and in consequence -of these again “the Law of the Knife,”—that is to say circumcision, -was prescribed for male children and the removal of the small labia -from the females. Manu himself says: “the Chandala are the fruit of -adultery, incest, and crime (—this is the necessary consequence of the -idea of breeding). Their clothes shall consist only of the rags torn -from corpses, their vessels shall be the fragments of broken pottery, -their ornaments shall be made of old iron, and their religion shall be -the worship of evil spirits; without rest they shall wander from place -to place.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> They are forbidden to write from left to right or to use -their right hand in writing: the use of the right hand and writing from -left to right are reserved to people of virtue, to people of race.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>These regulations are instructive enough: we can see in them the -absolutely pure and primeval humanity of the Aryans,—we learn that -the notion “pure blood,” is the reverse of harmless. On the other hand -it becomes clear among which people the hatred, the Chandala hatred -of this humanity has been immortalised, among which people it has -become religion and genius. From this point of view the gospels are -documents of the highest value; and the Book of Enoch is still more -so. Christianity as sprung from Jewish roots and comprehensible only -as grown upon this soil, represents the counter-movement against that -morality of breeding, of race and of privilege:—it is essentially an -anti-Aryan religion: Christianity is the transvaluation of all Aryan -values, the triumph of Chandala values, the proclaimed gospel of the -poor and of the low, the general insurrection of all the down-trodden, -the wretched, the bungled and the botched, against the “race,”—the -immortal revenge of the Chandala as the <i>religion of love.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>The morality of breeding and the morality of taming, in the means which -they adopt in order to prevail, are quite worthy of each other: we may -lay down as a leading principle that in order to create morality a -man must have the absolute will to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> immorality. This is the great and -strange problem with which I have so long been occupied: the psychology -of the “Improvers” of mankind. A small, and at bottom perfectly -insignificant fact, known as the “<i>pia fraus</i>,” first gave me access -to this problem: the <i>pia fraus,</i> the heirloom of all philosophers and -priests who “improve” mankind. Neither Manu, nor Plato, nor Confucius, -nor the teachers of Judaism and Christianity, have ever doubted their -right to falsehood. They have never doubted their right to quite a -number of other things To express oneself in a formula, one might -say:—all means which have been used heretofore with the object of -making man moral, were through and through immoral.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="THINGS_THE_GERMANS_LACK" id="THINGS_THE_GERMANS_LACK">THINGS THE GERMANS LACK</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>Among Germans at the present day it does not suffice to have intellect; -one is actually forced to appropriate it, to lay claim to it.</p> - -<p>Maybe I know the Germans, perhaps I may tell them a few home-truths. -Modern Germany represents such an enormous store of inherited and -acquired capacity, that for some time it might spend this accumulated -treasure even with some prodigality. It is no superior culture that has -ultimately become prevalent with this modern tendency, nor is it by any -means delicate taste, or noble beauty of the instincts; but rather a -number of virtues more manly than any that other European countries can -show. An amount of good spirits and self-respect, plenty of firmness -in human relations and in the reciprocity of duties; much industry and -much perseverance—and a certain inherited soberness which is much more -in need of a spur than of a brake. Let me add that in this country -people still obey without feeling that obedience humiliates. And no one -despises his opponent.</p> - -<p>You observe that it is my desire to be fair to the Germans: and in this -respect I should not like to be untrue to myself,—I must therefore -also state my objections to them. It costs a good deal to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> attain to a -position of power; for power <i>stultifies.</i> The Germans—they were once -called a people of thinkers: do they really think at all at present? -Nowadays the Germans are bored by intellect, they mistrust intellect; -politics have swallowed up all earnestness for really intellectual -things—“Germany, Germany above all.”<a name="FNanchor_1_6" id="FNanchor_1_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_6" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> I fear this was the death-blow -to German philosophy. “Are there any German philosophers? Are there any -German poets? Are there any good German books?” people ask me abroad. I -blush; but with that pluck which is peculiar to me, even in moments of -desperation, I reply: “Yes, Bismarck!”—Could I have dared to confess -what books <i>are</i> read to-day? Cursed instinct of mediocrity!—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>What might not German intellect have been!—who has not thought sadly -upon this question! But this nation has deliberately stultified itself -for almost a thousand years: nowhere else have the two great European -narcotics, alcohol and Christianity, been so viciously abused as in -Germany. Recently a third opiate was added to the list, one which in -itself alone would have sufficed to complete the ruin of all subtle -and daring intellectual animation, I speak of music, our costive and -constipating German music. How much peevish ponderousness, paralysis, -dampness, dressing-gown languor, and beer is there not in German -intelligence!</p> - -<p>How is it really possible that young men who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> consecrate their whole -lives to the pursuit of intellectual ends, should not feel within them -the first instinct of intellectuality, the <i>self-preservative instinct -of the intellect</i>—and should drink beer? The alcoholism of learned -youths does not incapacitate them for becoming scholars—a man quite -devoid of intellect may be a great scholar,—but it is a problem in -every other respect. Where can that soft degeneracy not be found, which -is produced in the intellect by beer! I once laid my finger upon a case -of this sort, which became almost famous,—the degeneration of our -leading German free-spirit, the <i>clever</i> David Strauss, into the author -of a suburban gospel and New Faith. Not in vain had he sung the praises -of “the dear old brown liquor” in verse—true unto death.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>I have spoken of German intellect. I have said that it is becoming -coarser and shallower. Is that enough?—In reality something very -different frightens me, and that is the ever steady decline of -German earnestness, German profundity, and German passion in things -intellectual. Not only intellectuality, but also pathos has altered. -From time to time I come in touch with German universities; what -an extraordinary atmosphere prevails among their scholars! what -barrenness! and what self-satisfied and lukewarm intellectuality! For -any one to point to German science as an argument against me would show -that he grossly misunderstood my meaning, while it would also prove -that he had not read a word of my writings. For seventeen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> years I -have done little else than expose the de-intellectualising influence -of our modern scientific studies. The severe slavery to which every -individual nowadays is condemned by the enormous range covered by the -sciences, is the chief reason why fuller, richer and profounder natures -can find no education or educators that are fit for them. Nothing -is more deleterious to this age than the superfluity of pretentious -loafers and fragmentary human beings; our universities are really -the involuntary forcing houses for this kind of withering-up of the -instincts of intellectuality. And the whole of Europe is beginning -to know this—politics on a large scale deceive no one. Germany is -becoming ever more and more the Flat-land of Europe. I am still in -search of a German with whom I could be serious after my own fashion. -And how much more am I in search of one with whom I could be cheerful -<i>—The Twilight of the Idols:</i> ah! what man to-day would be capable -of understanding the kind of seriousness from which a philosopher is -recovering in this work! It is our cheerfulness that people understand -least.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>Let us examine another aspect of the question: it is not only obvious -that German culture is declining, but adequate reasons for this decline -are not lacking. After all, nobody can spend more than he has:—this -is true of individuals, it is also true of nations. If you spend -your strength in acquiring power, or in politics on a large scale, -or in economy, or in universal commerce, or in parliamentarism, or -in military interests—if you dissipate the modicum<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> of reason, of -earnestness, of will, and of self-control that constitutes your nature -in one particular fashion, you cannot dissipate it in another. Culture -and the state—let no one be deceived on this point—are antagonists: -A “culture-state”<a name="FNanchor_2_7" id="FNanchor_2_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_7" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> is merely a modern idea. The one lives upon -the other, the one flourishes at the expense of the other. All great -periods of culture have been periods of political decline; that which -is great from the standpoint of culture, was always unpolitical—even -anti-political. Goethe’s heart opened at the coming of Napoleon—it -closed at the thought of the “Wars of Liberation.” At the very moment -when Germany arose as a great power in the world of politics, France -won new importance as a force in the world of culture. Even at this -moment a large amount of fresh intellectual earnestness and passion -has emigrated to Paris; the question of pessimism, for instance, -and the question of Wagner; in France almost all psychological and -artistic questions are considered with incomparably more subtlety and -thoroughness than they are in Germany,—the Germans are even incapable -of this kind of earnestness. In the history of European culture the -rise of the Empire signifies, above all, a displacement of the centre -of gravity. Everywhere people are already aware of this: in things that -really matter—and these after all constitute culture,—the Germans -are no longer worth considering. I ask you, can you show me one single -man of brains who could be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> mentioned in the same breath with other -European thinkers, like your Goethe, your Hegel, your Heinrich Heine, -and your Schopenhauer?—The fact that there is no longer a single -German philosopher worth mentioning is an increasing wonder.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>Everything that matters has been lost sight of by the whole of the -higher educational system of Germany: the end quite as much as the -means to that end. People forget that education, the process of -cultivation itself, is the end—and not “the Empire”—they forget that -the <i>educator</i> is required for this end—and not the public-school -teacher and university scholar. Educators are needed who are themselves -educated, superior and noble intellects, who can prove that they are -thus qualified, that they are ripe and mellow products of culture -at every moment of their lives, in word and in gesture;—not the -learned louts who, like “superior wet-nurses,” are now thrust upon the -youth of the land by public schools and universities. With but rare -exceptions, that which is lacking in Germany is the first prerequisite -of education—that is to say, the educators; hence the decline of -German culture. One of those rarest exceptions is my highly respected -friend Jacob Burckhardt of Bâle: to him above all is Bâle indebted -for its foremost position in human culture What the higher schools -of Germany really do accomplish is this, they brutally train a vast -crowd of young men, in the smallest amount of time possible, to become -useful and exploitable servants of the state.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> “Higher education” -and a vast crowd—these terms contradict each other from the start. -All superior education can only concern the exception: a man must be -privileged in order to have a right to such a great privilege. All -great and beautiful things cannot be a common possession: <i>pulchrum -est paucorum hominum.</i>—What is it that brings about the decline of -German culture? The fact that “higher education” is no longer a special -privilege—the democracy of a process of cultivation that has become -“general,” <i>common.</i> Nor must it be forgotten that the privileges of -the military profession by urging many too many to attend the higher -schools, involve the downfall of the latter. In modern Germany nobody -is at liberty to give his children a noble education: in regard to -their teachers, their curricula, and their educational aims, our higher -schools are one and all established upon a fundamentally doubtful -mediocre basis. Everywhere, too, a hastiness which is unbecoming rules -supreme; just as if something would be forfeited if the young man were -not “finished” at the age of twenty-three, or did not know how to -reply to the most essential question, “which calling to choose?”—The -superior kind of man, if you please, does not like “callings,” -precisely because he knows himself to be called. He has time, he takes -time, he cannot possibly think of becoming “finished,”—in the matter -of higher culture, a man of thirty years is a beginner, a child. Our -overcrowded public-schools, our accumulation of foolishly manufactured -public-school masters, are a scandal: maybe there are very serious -<i>motives</i> for defending this state of affairs, as was shown quite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> -recently by the professors of Heidelberg; but there can be no reasons -for doing so.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>In order to be true to my nature, which is affirmative and which -concerns itself with contradictions and criticism only indirectly -and with reluctance, let me state at once what the three objects -are for which we need educators. People must learn to see; they -must learn to think, and they must learn to speak and to write: the -object of all three of these pursuits is a noble culture. To learn -to see—to accustom the eye to calmness, to patience, and to allow -things to come up to it; to defer judgment, and to acquire the habit -of approaching and grasping an individual case from all sides. This -is the first preparatory schooling of intellectuality. One must not -respond immediately to a stimulus; one must acquire a command of the -obstructing and isolating instincts. To learn to see, as I understand -this matter, amounts almost to that which in popular language is -called “strength of will”: its essential feature is precisely <i>not</i> -to <i>wish</i> to see, to be able to postpone one’s decision. All lack of -intellectuality, all vulgarity, arises out of the inability to resist -a stimulus:—one must respond or react, every impulse is indulged. In -many cases such necessary action is already a sign of morbidity, of -decline, and a symptom of exhaustion. Almost everything that coarse -popular language characterises as vicious, is merely that physiological -inability to refrain from reacting.—As an instance of what it means -to have learnt to see, let me state that a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> thus trained will as a -learner have become generally slow, suspicious, and refractory. With -hostile calm he will first allow every kind of strange and <i>new</i> thing -to come right up to him,—he will draw back his hand at its approach. -To stand with all the doors of one’s soul wide open, to lie slavishly -in the dust before every trivial fact, at all times of the day to be -strained ready for the leap, in order to deposit one’s self, to plunge -one’s self, into other souls and other things, in short, the famous -“objectivity” of modern times, is bad taste, it is essentially vulgar -and cheap.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p>As to learning how to think—our schools no longer have any notion -of such a thing. Even at the universities, among the actual scholars -in philosophy, logic as a theory, as a practical pursuit, and as a -business, is beginning to die out. Turn to any German book: you will -not find the remotest trace of a realisation that there is such a -thing as a technique, a plan of study, a will to mastery, in the -matter of thinking,—that thinking insists upon being learnt, just -as dancing insists upon being learnt, and that thinking insists upon -being learnt as a form of dancing. What single German can still say he -knows from experience that delicate shudder which <i>light footfalls</i> -in matters intellectual cause to pervade his whole body and limbs! -Stiff awkwardness in intellectual attitudes, and the clumsy fist in -grasping—these things are so essentially German, that outside Germany -they are absolutely confounded with the German spirit. The German -has no fingers for delicate <i>nuances. </i> The fact that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> the people of -Germany have actually tolerated their philosophers, more particularly -that most deformed cripple of ideas that has ever existed—the great -Kant, gives one no inadequate notion of their native elegance. For, -truth to tell, dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the -curriculum of all noble education: dancing with the feet, with ideas, -with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with -the pen—that one must learn how to write?—But at this stage I should -become utterly enigmatical to German readers.</p> - - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_6" id="Footnote_1_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_6"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The German national hymn: “<i>Deutschland, Deutschland über -alles.—</i>” TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_7" id="Footnote_2_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_7"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The word <i>Kultur-Staat</i> “culture-state” has become a -standard expression in the German language, and is applied to the -leading European States.—TR.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="SKIRMISHES_IN_A_WAR_WITH_THE_AGE" id="SKIRMISHES_IN_A_WAR_WITH_THE_AGE">SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p><i>My Impossible People.</i>—Seneca, or the toreador of virtue—-Rousseau, -or the return to nature, <i>in impuris naturalibus.</i>—Schiller, or the -Moral-Trumpeter of Sackingen.—Dante, or the hyæna that writes poetry -in tombs.—Kant, or <i>cant</i> as an intelligible character.—Victor -Hugo, or the lighthouse on the sea of nonsense.—Liszt, or the -school of racing—after women.—George Sand, or <i>lactea ubertas,</i> -in plain English: the cow with plenty of beautiful milk.—Michelet, -or enthusiasm in its shirt sleeves.—Carlyle, or Pessimism after -undigested meals.—John Stuart Mill, or offensive lucidity.—The -brothers Goncourt, or the two Ajaxes fighting with Homer. Music by -Offenbach.—Zola, or the love of stinking.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p><i>Renan.</i>—Theology, or the corruption of reason by original sin -(Christianity). Proof of this,—Renan who, even in those rare cases -where he ventures to say either Yes or No on a general question, -invariably misses the point with painful regularity. For instance, -he would fain associate science and nobility: but surely it must be -obvious that science is democratic. He seems to be actuated by a -strong desire to represent an aristocracy of intellect: but, at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> -same time he grovels on his knees, and not only on his knees, before -the opposite doctrine, the gospel of the humble. What is the good of -all free-spiritedness, modernity, mockery and acrobatic suppleness, -if in one’s belly one is still a Christian, a Catholic, and even a -priest! Renan’s forte, precisely like that of a Jesuit and Father -Confessor, lies in his seductiveness. His intellectuality is not -devoid of that unctuous complacency of a parson,—like all priests, he -becomes dangerous only when he loves. He is second to none in the art -of skilfully worshipping a dangerous thing. This intellect of Renan’s, -which in its action is enervating, is one calamity the more, for poor, -sick France with her will-power all going to pieces.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p><i>Sainte-Beuve.</i>—There is naught of man in him; he is full of petty -spite towards all virile spirits. He wanders erratically; he is subtle, -inquisitive, a little bored, for ever with his ear to key-holes,—at -bottom a woman, with all woman’s revengefulness and sensuality. As a -psychologist he is a genius of slander; inexhaustively rich in means -to this end; no one understands better than he how to introduce a -little poison into praise. In his fundamental instincts he is plebeian -and next of kin to Rousseau’s resentful spirit: consequently he is -a Romanticist—for beneath all romanticism Rousseau’s instinct for -revenge grunts and frets. He is a revolutionary, but kept within -bounds by “funk.” He is embarrassed in the face of everything that is -strong (public opinion, the Academy, the court, even Port Royal). He -is embittered against everything great in men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> and things, against -everything that believes in itself. Enough of a poet and of a female to -be able to feel greatness as power; he is always turning and twisting, -because, like the proverbial worm, he constantly feels that he is -being trodden upon. As a critic he has no standard of judgment, no -guiding principle, no backbone. Although he possesses the tongue of -the Cosmopolitan libertine which can chatter about a thousand things, -he has not the courage even to acknowledge his <i>libertinage.</i> As a -historian he has no philosophy, and lacks the power of philosophical -vision,—hence his refusal to act the part of a judge, and his adoption -of the mask of “objectivity” in all important matters. His attitude -is better in regard to all those things in which subtle and effete -taste is the highest tribunal: in these things he really does have -the courage of his own personality—he really does enjoy his own -nature—he actually is a <i>master,</i>—In some respects he is a prototype -of Baudelaire.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>“<i>The Imitation of Christ</i>” is one of those books which I cannot even -take hold of without physical loathing: it exhales a perfume of the -eternally feminine, which to appreciate fully one must be a Frenchman -or a Wagnerite. This saint has a way of speaking about love which -makes even Parisiennes feel a little curious.—I am told that that -<i>most intelligent</i> of Jesuits, Auguste Comte, who wished to lead his -compatriots back to Rome by the circuitous route of science, drew his -inspiration from this book. And I believe it: “The religion of the -heart.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p><i>G. Eliot.</i>—They are rid of the Christian God and therefore -think it all the more incumbent upon them to hold tight to Christian -morality: this is an English way of reasoning; but let us not take it -ill in moral females <i>à la</i> Eliot. In England, every man who indulges -in any trifling emancipation from theology, must retrieve his honour -in the most terrifying manner by becoming a moral fanatic. That is how -they do penance in that country.—As for us, we act differently. When -we renounce the Christian faith, we abandon all right to Christian -morality. This is not by any means self-evident and in defiance of -English shallow-pates the point must be made ever more and more plain. -Christianity is a system, a complete outlook upon the world, conceived -as a whole. If its leading concept, the belief in God, is wrenched -from it, the whole is destroyed; nothing vital remains in our grasp. -Christianity presupposes that man does not and cannot know what is -good or bad for him: the Christian believes in God who, alone, can -know these things. Christian morality is a command, its origin is -transcendental. It is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; -it is true only on condition that God is truth,—it stands or falls -with the belief in God. If the English really believe that they know -intuitively, and of their own accord, what is good and evil; if, -therefore, they assert that they no longer need Christianity as a -guarantee of morality, this in itself is simply the outcome of the -dominion of Christian valuations, and a proof of the strength and -profundity of this dominion. It only shows that the origin of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> English -morality has been forgotten, and that its exceedingly relative right to -exist is no longer felt. For Englishmen morality is not yet a problem.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p><i>George Sand.</i>—I have been reading the first “<i>Lettres d’un -Voyageur</i>:” like everything that springs from Rousseau’s influence -it is false, made-up, blown out, and exaggerated! I cannot endure -this bright wall-paper style, any more than I can bear the vulgar -striving after generous feelings. The worst feature about it is -certainly the coquettish adoption of male attributes by this female, -after the manner of ill-bred schoolboys. And how cold she must have -been inwardly all the while, this insufferable artist! She wound -herself up like a clock—and wrote. As cold as Hugo and Balzac, as -cold as all Romanticists are as soon as they begin to write! And how -self-complacently she must have lain there, this prolific ink-yielding -cow. For she had something German in her (German in the bad sense), -just as Rousseau, her master, had;—something which could only have -been possible when French taste was declining!—and Renan adores her!...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p><i>A Moral for Psychologists.</i> Do not go in for any note-book psychology! -Never observe for the sake of observing! Such things lead to a false -point of view, to a squint, to something forced and exaggerated. -To experience things on purpose—this is not a bit of good. In the -midst of an experience a man should not turn his eyes upon himself; -in such cases<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> any eye becomes the “evil eye.” A born psychologist -instinctively avoids seeing for the sake of seeing. And the same holds -good of the born painter. Such a man never works “from nature,”—he -leaves it to his instinct, to his <i>camera obscura</i> to sift and to -define the “fact,” “nature,” the “experience.” The general idea, -the conclusion, the result, is the only thing that reaches his -consciousness. He knows nothing of that wilful process of deducing -from particular cases. What is the result when a man sets about this -matter differently?—when, for instance, after the manner of Parisian -novelists, he goes in for note-book psychology on a large and small -scale? Such a man is constantly spying on reality, and every evening -he bears home a handful of fresh curios.... But look at the result!—a -mass of daubs, at best a piece of mosaic, in any case something heaped -together, restless and garish. The Goncourts are the greatest sinners -in this respect: they cannot put three sentences together which are not -absolutely painful to the eye—the eye of the psychologist. From an -artistic standpoint, nature is no model. It exaggerates, distorts, and -leaves gaps. Nature is the <i>accident.</i> To study “from nature” seems to -me a bad sign: it betrays submission, weakness, fatalism—this lying -in the dust before trivial facts is unworthy of a thorough artist. To -see <i>what is</i>—is the function of another order of intellects, the -<i>anti-artistic,</i> the matter-of-fact. One must know <i>who</i> one is.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p><i>Concerning the psychology of the artist</i> For art to be possible at -all—that is to say, in order that an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> æsthetic mode of action and of -observation may exist, a certain preliminary physiological state is -indispensable <i>ecstasy.</i><a name="FNanchor_1_8" id="FNanchor_1_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_8" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> This state of ecstasy must first have -intensified the susceptibility of the whole machine: otherwise, no art -is possible. All kinds of ecstasy, however differently produced, have -this power to create art, and above all the state dependent upon sexual -excitement—this most venerable and primitive form of ecstasy. The same -applies to that ecstasy which is the outcome of all great desires, -all strong passions; the ecstasy of the feast, of the arena, of the -act of bravery, of victory, of all extreme action; the ecstasy of -cruelty; the ecstasy of destruction; the ecstasy following upon certain -meteorological influences, as for instance that of spring-time, or upon -the use of narcotics; and finally the ecstasy of will, that ecstasy -which results from accumulated and surging will-power.—The essential -feature of ecstasy is the feeling of increased strength and abundance. -Actuated by this feeling a man gives of himself to things, <i>he -forces</i> them to partake of his riches, he does violence to them—this -proceeding is called <i>idealising.</i> Let us rid ourselves of a prejudice -here: idealising does not consist, as is generally believed, in a -suppression or an elimination of detail or of unessential features. -A stupendous <i>accentuation</i> of the principal characteristics is by -far the most decisive factor at work, and in consequence the minor -characteristics vanish.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">9</p> - -<p>In this state a man enriches everything from out his own abundance: -what he sees, what he wills, he sees distended, compressed, strong, -overladen with power. He transfigures things until they reflect his -power,—until they are stamped with his perfection. This compulsion -to transfigure into the beautiful is—Art. Everything—even that which -he is not,—is nevertheless to such a man a means of rejoicing over -himself; in Art man rejoices over himself as perfection.—It is -possible to imagine a contrary state, a specifically anti-artistic -state of the instincts,—a state in which a man impoverishes, -attenuates, and draws the blood from everything. And, truth to tell, -history is full of such anti-artists, of such creatures of low -vitality who have no choice but to appropriate everything they see -and to suck its blood and make it thinner. This is the case with the -genuine Christian, Pascal for instance. There is no such thing as a -Christian who is also an artist ... Let no one be so childish as to -suggest Raphael or any homeopathic Christian of the nineteenth century -as an objection to this statement: Raphael said Yea, Raphael <i>did</i> -Yea,—consequently Raphael was no Christian.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">10</p> - -<p>What is the meaning of the antithetical concepts <i>Apollonian</i> and -<i>Dionysian</i> which I have introduced into the vocabulary of Æsthetic, as -representing two distinct modes of ecstasy?—Apollonian ecstasy acts -above all as a force stimulating the eye, so that it acquires the power -of vision. The painter, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> sculptor, the epic poet are essentially -visionaries. In the Dionysian state, on the other hand, the whole -system of passions is stimulated and intensified, so that it discharges -itself by all the means of expression at once, and vents all its power -of representation, of imitation, of transfiguration, of transformation, -together with every kind of mimicry and histrionic display at the same -time. The essential feature remains the facility in transforming, -the inability to refrain from reaction (—a similar state to that of -certain hysterical patients, who at the slightest hint assume any -rôle). It is impossible for the Dionysian artist not to understand any -suggestion; no outward sign of emotion escapes him, he possesses -the instinct of comprehension and of divination in the highest degree, -just as he is capable of the most perfect art of communication. He -enters into every skin, into every passion: he is continually changing -himself. Music as we understand it to-day is likewise a general -excitation and discharge of the emotions; but, notwithstanding this, it -is only the remnant of a much richer world of emotional expression, a -mere residuum of Dionysian histrionism. For music to be made possible -as a special art, quite a number of senses, and particularly the -muscular sense, had to be paralysed (at least relatively: for all -rhythm still appeals to our muscles to a certain extent): and thus man -no longer imitates and represents physically everything he feels, as -soon as he feels it. Nevertheless that is the normal Dionysian state, -and in any case its primitive state. Music is the slowly attained -specialisation of this state at the cost of kindred capacities.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">11</p> - -<p>The actor, the mime, the dancer, the musician, and the lyricist, are -in their instincts fundamentally related; but they have gradually -specialised in their particular branch, and become separated—even -to the point of contradiction. The lyricist remained united with the -musician for the longest period of time; and the actor with the dancer. -The architect manifests neither a Dionysian nor an Apollonian state: In -his case it is the great act of will, the will that moveth mountains, -the ecstasy of the great will which aspires to art. The most powerful -men have always inspired architects; the architect has always been -under the suggestion of power. In the architectural structure, man’s -pride, man’s triumph over gravitation, man’s will to power, assume -a visible form. Architecture is a sort of oratory of power by means -of forms. Now it is persuasive, even flattering, and at other times -merely commanding. The highest sensation of power and security finds -expression in grandeur of style. That power which no longer requires to -be proved, which scorns to please; which responds only with difficulty; -which feels no witnesses around it; which is oblivious of the fact -that it is being opposed; which relies on itself fatalistically, and -is a law among laws:—such power expresses itself quite naturally in -grandeur of style.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">12</p> - -<p>I have been reading the life of Thomas Carlyle, that unconscious and -involuntary farce, that heroico-moral interpretation of dyspeptic -moods.—Carlyle, a man of strong words and attitudes, a rhetorician<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> by -necessity, who seems ever to be tormented by the desire of finding some -kind of strong faith, and by his inability to do so (—in this respect -a typical Romanticist!). To yearn for a strong faith is not the proof -of a strong faith, but rather the reverse. If a man have a strong faith -he can indulge in the luxury of scepticism; he is strong enough, firm -enough, well-knit enough for such a luxury. Carlyle stupefies something -in himself by means of the <i>fortissimo</i> of his reverence for men of a -strong faith, and his rage over those who are less foolish: he is in -sore need of noise. An attitude of constant and passionate dishonesty -towards himself—this is his <i>proprium;</i> by virtue of this he is and -remains interesting.—Of course, in England he is admired precisely -on account of his honesty. Well, that is English; and in view of the -fact that the English are the nation of consummate cant, it is not only -comprehensible but also very natural. At bottom, Carlyle is an English -atheist who makes it a point of honour not to be one.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">13</p> - -<p><i>Emerson.</i>—He is much more enlightened, much broader, more versatile, -and more subtle than Carlyle; but above all, he is happier. He is one -who instinctively lives on ambrosia and who leaves the indigestible -parts of things on his plate. Compared with Carlyle he is a man of -taste.—Carlyle, who was very fond of him, nevertheless declared that -“he does not give us enough to chew.” This is perfectly true but -it is not unfavourable to Emerson.—Emerson possesses that kindly -intellectual cheerfulness which deprecates overmuch seriousness; he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> -has absolutely no idea of how old he is already, and how young he will -yet be,—he could have said of himself, in Lope de Vega’s words: “<i>yo -me sucedo a mi mismo.</i>” His mind is always finding reasons for being -contented and even thankful; and at times he gets preciously near to -that serene superiority of the worthy bourgeois who returning from an -amorous rendezvous <i>tamquam re bene gesta,</i> said gratefully “<i>Ut desint -vires, tamen est laudanda voluptas.</i>”—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">14</p> - -<p><i>Anti-Darwin.</i>—As to the famous “struggle for existence,” it seems to -me, for the present, to be more of an assumption than a fact. It does -occur, but as an exception. The general condition of life is not one -of want or famine, but rather of riches, of lavish luxuriance, and even -of absurd prodigality,—where there is a struggle, it is a struggle -for power. We should not confound Malthus with nature.—Supposing, -however, that this struggle exists,—and it does indeed occur,—its -result is unfortunately the very reverse of that which the Darwinian -school seems to desire, and of that which in agreement with them we -also might desire: that is to say, it is always to the disadvantage -of the strong, the privileged, and the happy exceptions. Species -do not evolve towards perfection: the weak always prevail over the -strong—simply because they are the majority, and because they are also -the more crafty. Darwin forgot the intellect (—that is English!), the -weak have more intellect. In order to acquire intellect, one must be in -need of it. One loses it when one no longer needs it. He who possesses -strength<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> flings intellect to the deuce (—“let it go hence!”<a name="FNanchor_2_9" id="FNanchor_2_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_9" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> -say the Germans of the present day, “the <i>Empire</i> will remain”). -As you perceive, intellect to me means caution, patience, craft, -dissimulation, great self-control, and everything related to mimicry -(what is praised nowadays as virtue is very closely related the latter).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">15</p> - -<p><i>Casuistry of a Psychologist.</i>—This man knows mankind: to what purpose -does he study his fellows? He wants to derive some small or even -great advantages from them,—he is a politician!... That man yonder -is also well versed in human nature: and ye tell me that he wishes to -draw no personal profit from his knowledge, that he is a thoroughly -disinterested person? Examine him a little more closely! Maybe he -wishes to derive a more wicked advantage from his possession; namely, -to feel superior to men, to be able to look down upon them, no longer -to feel one of them. This “disinterested person” is a despiser of -mankind; and the former is of a more humane type, whatever appearances -may seem to say to the contrary. At least he considers himself the -equal of those about him, at least he classifies himself with them.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">16</p> - -<p><i>The psychological tact</i> of Germans seems to me to have been set in -doubt by a whole series of cases<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> which my modesty forbids me to -enumerate. In one case at least I shall not let the occasion slip -for substantiating my contention: I bear the Germans a grudge for -having made a mistake about Kant and his “backstairs philosophy,” as -I call it. Such a man was not the type of intellectual uprightness. -Another thing I hate to hear is a certain infamous “and”: the Germans -say, “Goethe <i>and</i> Schiller,”—I even fear that they say, “Schiller -and Goethe.” ... Has nobody found Schiller out yet?—But there are -other “ands” which are even more egregious. With my own ears I have -heard—only among University professors, it is true!—men speak of -“Schopenhauer <i>and</i> Hartmann.” ...<a name="FNanchor_3_10" id="FNanchor_3_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_10" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> - - -<p class="parnum">17</p> - -<p>The most intellectual men, provided they are also the most courageous, -experience the most excruciating tragedies: but on that very account -they honour life, because it confronts them with its most formidable -antagonism.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">18</p> - -<p>Concerning “<i>the Conscience of the Intellect</i>” Nothing seems to me -more uncommon to-day than genuine hypocrisy. I strongly suspect that -this growth is unable to flourish in the mild climate of our culture. -Hypocrisy belongs to an age of strong faith,—one in which one does -not lose one’s own faith in spite of the fact that one has to make -an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> outward show of holding another faith. Nowadays a man gives it -up; or, what is still more common, he acquires a second faith,—in -any case, however, he remains honest. Without a doubt it is possible -to have a much larger number of convictions at present, than it was -formerly: <i>possible</i>—that is to say, allowable,—that is to say, -<i>harmless.</i> From this there arises an attitude of toleration towards -one’s self. Toleration towards one’s self allows of a greater number -of convictions: the latter live comfortably side by side, and they -take jolly good care, as all the world does to-day, not to compromise -themselves. How does a man compromise himself to-day? When he is -consistent; when he pursues a straight course; when he has anything -less than five faces; when he is genuine.... I very greatly fear that -modern man is much too fond of comfort for certain vices; and the -consequence is that the latter are dying out. Everything evil which -is the outcome of strength of will—and maybe there is nothing evil -without the strengh of will,—degenerates, in our muggy atmosphere, -into virtue. The few hypocrites I have known only imitated hypocrisy: -like almost every tenth man to-day, they were actors.—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">19</p> - -<p><i>Beautiful and Ugly:</i>—Nothing is more relative, let us say, more -restricted, than our sense of the beautiful. He who would try to -divorce it from the delight man finds in his fellows, would immediately -lose his footing. “Beauty in itself,” is simply a word, it is not even -a concept. In the beautiful, man postulates himself as the standard of -perfection;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> in exceptional cases he worships himself as that standard. -A species has no other alternative than to say “yea” to itself alone, -in this way. Its lowest instinct, the instinct of self-preservation and -self-expansion, still radiates in such sublimities. Man imagines the -world itself to be overflowing with beauty,—he forgets that he is the -cause of it all. He alone has endowed it with beauty. Alas! and only -with human all-too-human beauty! Truth to tell man reflects himself in -things, he thinks everything beautiful that throws his own image back -at him. The judgment “beautiful” is the “vanity of his species.” ... -A little demon of suspicion may well whisper into the sceptic’s ear: -is the world really beautified simply because man thinks it beautiful? -He has only humanised it—that is all. But nothing, absolutely nothing -proves to us that it is precisely man who is the proper model of -beauty. Who knows what sort of figure he would cut in the eyes of a -higher judge of taste? He might seem a little <i>outré</i>? perhaps even -somewhat amusing? perhaps a trifle arbitrary? “O Dionysus, thou divine -one, why dost thou pull mine ears?” Ariadne asks on one occasion of -her philosophic lover, during one of those famous conversations on the -island of Naxos. “I find a sort of humour in thine ears, Ariadne: why -are they not a little longer?”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">20</p> - -<p>Nothing is beautiful; man alone is beautiful: all æsthetic rests on -this piece of ingenuousness, it is the first axiom of this science. -And now let us straightway add the second to it: nothing is ugly save -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> degenerate man,—within these two first principles the realm of -æsthetic judgments is confined. From the physiological standpoint, -everything ugly weakens and depresses man. It reminds him of decay, -danger, impotence; he literally loses strength in its presence. The -effect of ugliness may be gauged by the dynamometer. Whenever man’s -spirits are downcast, it is a sign that he scents the proximity of -something “ugly.” His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage -and his pride—these things collapse at the sight of what is ugly, and -rise at the sight of what is beautiful. In both cases an inference is -drawn; the premises to which are stored with extra ordinary abundance -in the instincts. Ugliness is understood to signify a hint and a -symptom of degeneration: that which reminds us however remotely of -degeneracy, impels us to the judgment “ugly.” Every sign of exhaustion, -of gravity, of age, of fatigue; every kind of constraint, such as -cramp, or paralysis; and above all the smells, colours and forms -associated with decomposition and putrefaction, however much they may -have been attenuated into symbols,—all these things provoke the same -reaction which is the judgment “ugly.” A certain hatred expresses -itself here: what is it that man hates? Without a doubt it is the -<i>decline of his type.</i> In this regard his hatred springs from the -deepest instincts of the race: there is horror, caution, profundity and -far-reaching vision in this hatred,—it is the most profound hatred -that exists. On its account alone Art is profound.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">21</p> - -<p><i>Schopenhauer.</i>—Schopenhauer, the last German who is to be reckoned -with (—who is a European event like Goethe, Hegel, or Heinrich Heine, -and who is not merely local, national), is for a psychologist a case -of the first rank: I mean as a malicious though masterly attempt to -enlist on the side of a general nihilistic depreciation of life, the -very forces which are opposed to such a movement,—that is to say, the -great self-affirming powers of the “will to live,” the exuberant forms -of life itself. He interpreted Art, heroism, genius, beauty, great -sympathy, knowledge, the will to truth, and tragedy, one after the -other, as the results of the denial, or of the need of the denial, of -the “will”—the greatest forgery, Christianity always excepted, which -history has to show. Examined more carefully, he is in this respect -simply the heir of the Christian interpretation; except that he knew -how to approve in a Christian fashion (<i>i.e.</i>, nihilistically) even -of the great facts of human culture, which Christianity completely -repudiates. (He approved of them as paths to “salvation,” as -preliminary stages to “salvation,” as <i>appetisers</i> calculated to arouse -the desire for “salvation.”)</p> - - -<p class="parnum">22</p> - -<p>Let me point to one single instance. Schopenhauer speaks of beauty with -melancholy ardour,—why in sooth does he do this? Because in beauty -he sees a bridge on which one can travel further, or which stimulates -one’s desire to travel further. According to him it constitutes a -momentary emancipation from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> the “will”—it lures to eternal salvation. -He values it more particularly as a deliverance from the “burning core -of the will” which is sexuality,—in beauty he recognises the negation -of the procreative instinct. Singular Saint! Some one contradicts thee; -I fear it is Nature. Why is there beauty of tone, colour, aroma, and -of rhythmic movement in Nature at all? What is it forces beauty to the -fore? Fortunately, too, a certain philosopher contradicts him. No less -an authority than the divine Plato himself (thus does Schopenhauer -call him), upholds another proposition: that all beauty lures to -procreation,—that this precisely is the chief characteristic of its -effect, from the lowest sensuality to the highest spirituality.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">23</p> - -<p>Plato goes further. With an innocence for which a man must be Greek -and not “Christian,” he says that there would be no such thing as -Platonic philosophy if there were not such beautiful boys in Athens: -it was the sight of them alone that set the soul of the philosopher -reeling with erotic passion, and allowed it no rest until it had -planted the seeds of all lofty things in a soil so beautiful. He -was also a singular saint!—One scarcely believes one’s ears, even -supposing one believes Plato. At least one realises that philosophy was -pursued differently in Athens; above all, publicly. Nothing is less -Greek than the cobweb-spinning with concepts by an anchorite, <i>amor -intellectualis dei</i> after the fashion of Spinoza. Philosophy according -to Plato’s style might be defined rather as an erotic competition, as a -continuation and a spiritualisation of the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> agonal gymnastics and -the conditions on which they depend.... What was the ultimate outcome -of this philosophic eroticism of Plato’s? A new art-form of the Greek -<i>Agon,</i> dialectics.—In opposition to Schopenhauer and to the honour of -Plato, I would remind you that all the higher culture and literature of -classical France, as well, grew up on the soil of sexual interests. In -all its manifestations you may look for gallantry, the senses, sexual -competition, and “woman,” and you will not look in vain.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">24</p> - -<p><i>L’Art pour l’Art.</i>—The struggle against a purpose in art is always a -struggle against the moral tendency in art, against its subordination -to morality. <i>L’art pour l’art</i> means, “let morality go to the devil!” -—But even this hostility betrays the preponderating power of the moral -prejudice. If art is deprived of the purpose of preaching morality -and of improving mankind, it does not by any means follow that art is -absolutely pointless, purposeless, senseless, in short <i>l’art pour -l’art</i>—a snake which bites its own tail. “No purpose at all is better -than a moral purpose!”—thus does pure passion speak. A psychologist, -on the other hand, puts the question: what does all art do? does it -not praise? does it not glorify? does it not select? does it not -bring things into prominence? In all this it strengthens or weakens -certain valuations. Is this only a secondary matter? an accident? -something in which the artist’s instinct has no share? Or is it not -rather the very prerequisite which enables the artist to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> accomplish -something?... Is his most fundamental instinct concerned with art? -Is it not rather concerned with the purpose of art, with life? with -a certain desirable kind of life? Art is the great stimulus to life; -how can it be regarded as purpose less, as pointless, as <i>l’art pour -l’art?</i>—There still remains one question to be answered: Art also -reveals much that is ugly, hard and questionable in life,—does it -not thus seem to make life intolerable?—And, as a matter of fact, -there have been philosophers who have ascribed this function to art. -According to Schopenhauer’s doctrine, the general object of art was to -“free one from the Will”; and what he honoured as the great utility -of tragedy, was that it “made people more resigned.”—But this, as -I have already shown, is a pessimistic standpoint; it is the “evil -eye”: the artist himself must be appealed to. What is it that the soul -of the tragic artist communicates to others? Is it not precisely his -fearless attitude towards that which is terrible and questionable? -This attitude is in itself a highly desirable one; he who has once, -experienced it honours it above everything else. He communicates it. He -must communicate, provided he is an artist and a genius in the art of -communication. A courageous and free spirit, in the presence of a mighty -foe, in the presence of a sublime misfortune, and face to face with a -problem that inspires horror—this is the triumphant attitude which -the tragic artist selects and which he glorifies. The martial elements -in our soul celebrate their Saturnalia in tragedy; he who is used to -suffering, he who looks out for suffering, the heroic man, extols his -existence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> by means of tragedy,—to him alone does the tragic artist -offer this cup of sweetest cruelty.—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">25</p> - -<p>To associate in an amiable fashion with anybody; to keep the house of -one’s heart open to all, is certainly liberal: but it is nothing else. -One can recognise the hearts that are capable of noble hospitality, by -their wealth of screened windows and closed shutters: they keep their -best rooms empty. Whatever for?—Because they are expecting guests who -are somebodies.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">26</p> - -<p>We no longer value ourselves sufficiently highly when we communicate -our soul’s content. Our real experiences are not at all garrulous. They -could not communicate themselves even if they wished to. They are at a -loss to find words for such confidences. Those things for which we find -words, are things wehave already overcome. In all speech there lies -an element of contempt. Speech, it would seem, was only invented for -average, mediocre and communicable things.—Every spoken word proclaims -the speaker vulgarised—(Extract from a moral code for deaf-and-dumb -people and other philosophers.)</p> - - -<p class="parnum">27</p> - -<p>“This picture is perfectly beautiful!”<a name="FNanchor_4_11" id="FNanchor_4_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_11" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> The dissatisfied and -exasperated literary woman with a desert in her heart and in her belly, -listening with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> agonised curiosity every instant to the imperative -which whispers to her from the very depths of her being: <i>aut liberi, -aut libri:</i> the literary woman, sufficiently educated to understand the -voice of nature, even when nature speaks Latin, and moreover enough -of a peacock and a goose to speak even French with herself in secret -“<i>Je me verrai, je me lirai, je m’extasierai et je dirai: Possible, que -j’aie eu tant d’esprit?</i>” ...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">28</p> - -<p>The objective ones speak.—“Nothing comes more easily to us, than to -be wise, patient, superior. We are soaked in the oil of indulgence and -of sympathy, we are absurdly just, we forgive everything. Precisely on -that account we should be severe with ourselves; for that very reason -we ought from time to time to go in for a little emotion, a little -emotional vice. It may seem bitter to us; and between ourselves we may -even laugh at the figure which it makes us cut But what does it matter? -We have no other kind of self-control left. This is our asceticism, our -manner of performing penance.” <i>To become personal</i>—the virtues of the -“impersonal and objective one.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">29</p> - -<p><i>Extract from a doctor’s examination paper.</i>—“What is the task of all -higher schooling?”—To make man into a machine. “What are the means -employed?”—He must learn how to be bored. “How is this achieved?”—By -means of the concept duty. “What example of duty has he before his -eyes?”—The philologist: it is he who teaches people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> how to swat. -“Who is the perfect man?”—The Government official. “Which philosophy -furnishes the highest formula for the Government official?”—Kant’s -philosophy: the Government official as thing-in-itself made judge over -the Government official as appearance.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">30</p> - -<p><i>The right to Stupidity.</i>—The worn-out worker, whose breath is -slow, whose look is good-natured, and who lets things slide just as -they please: this typical figure which in this age of labour (and -of “Empire!”) is to be met with in all classes of society, has now -begun to appropriate even Art, including the book, above all the -newspaper,—and how much more so beautiful nature, Italy! This man -of the evening, with his “savage instincts lulled,” as Faust has it; -needs his summer holiday, his sea-baths, his glacier, his Bayreuth. -In such ages Art has the right to be <i>purely foolish,</i>—as a sort of -vacation for spirit, wit and sentiment. Wagner understood this. Pure -foolishness<a name="FNanchor_5_12" id="FNanchor_5_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_12" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> is a pick-me-up....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">31</p> - -<p><i>Yet another problem of diet.</i>—The means with which Julius Cæsar -preserved himself against sickness and headaches: heavy marches, -the simplest mode of living, uninterrupted sojourns in the open -air, continual hardships,—generally speaking these are the -self-preservative and self-defensive measures against the extreme -vulnerability of those subtle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> machines working at the highest -pressure, which are called geniuses.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">32</p> - -<p><i>The Immoralist speaks.</i>—Nothing is more distasteful to true -philosophers than man when he begins to wish.... If they see man only -at his deeds; if they see this bravest, craftiest and most enduring -of animals even inextricably entangled in disaster, how admirable he -then appears to them! They even encourage him.... But true philosophers -despise the man who wishes, as also the “desirable” man—and all the -desiderata and <i>ideals</i> of man in general. If a philosopher could be a -nihilist, he would be one; for he finds only nonentity behind all human -ideals. Or, not even nonentity, but vileness, absurdity, sickness, -cowardice, fatigue and all sorts of dregs from out the quaffed goblets -of his life.... How is it that man, who as a reality is so estimable, -ceases from deserving respect the moment he begins to desire? Must he -pay for being so perfect as a reality? Must he make up for his deeds, -for the tension of spirit and will which underlies all his deeds, by an -eclipse of his powers in matters of the imagination and in absurdity? -Hitherto the history of his desires has been the <i>partie honteuse</i> of -mankind: one should take care not to read too deeply in this history. -That which justifies man is his reality,—it will justify him to all -eternity. How much more valuable is a real man than any other man -who is merely the phantom of desires, of dreams of stinks and of -lies?—than any kind of ideal man? ... And the ideal man, alone, is -what the philosopher cannot abide.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">33</p> - -<p><i>The Natural Value of Egoism.</i>—Selfishness has as much value as the -physiological value of him who practises it: its worth may be great, -or it may be worthless and contemptible. Every individual may be -classified according to whether he represents the ascending or the -descending line of life. When this is decided, a canon is obtained -by means of which the value of his selfishness may be determined. -If he represent the ascending line of life, his value is of course -extraordinary—and for the sake of the collective life which in him -makes one step <i>forward,</i> the concern about his maintenance, about -procuring his <i>optimum</i> of conditions may even be extreme. The human -unit, the “individual,” as the people and the philosopher have always -understood him, is certainly an error: he is nothing in himself, no -atom, no “link in the chain,” no mere heritage from the past,—he -represents the whole direct line of mankind up to his own life.... -If he represent declining development, decay, chronic degeneration, -sickness (—illnesses are on the whole already the outcome of decline, -and not the cause thereof), he is of little worth, and the purest -equity would have him <i>take away</i> as little as possible from those who -are lucky strokes of nature. He is then only a parasite upon them....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">34</p> - -<p><i>The Christian and the Anarchist.</i>—When the anarchist, as the -mouthpiece of the decaying strata of society, raises his voice in -splendid indignation for “right,” “justice,” “equal rights,” he -is only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> groaning under the burden of his ignorance, which cannot -understand <i>why</i> he actually suffers,—what his poverty consists -of—the poverty of life. An instinct of causality is active in -him: someone must be responsible for his being so ill at ease. His -“splendid indignation” alone relieves him somewhat, it is a pleasure -for all poor devils to grumble—it gives them a little intoxicating -sensation of power. The very act of complaining, the mere fact that one -bewails one’s lot, may lend such a charm to life that on that account -alone, one is ready to endure it. There is a small dose of revenge in -every lamentation. One casts one’s afflictions, and, under certain -circumstances, even one’s baseness, in the teeth of those who are -different, as if their condition were an injustice, an <i>iniquitous</i> -privilege. “Since I am <i>a blackguard</i> you ought to be one too.” It is -upon such reasoning that revolutions are based.—To bewail one’s lot -is always despicable: it is always the outcome of weakness. Whether -one ascribes one’s afflictions to others or to <i>one’s self,</i> it is all -the same. The socialist does the former, the Christian, for instance, -does the latter. That which is common to both attitudes, or rather -that which is equally ignoble in them both, is the fact that somebody -must be to <i>blame</i> if one suffers—in short that the sufferer drugs -himself with the honey of revenge to allay his anguish. The objects -towards which this lust of vengeance, like a lust of pleasure, are -directed, are purely accidental causes. In all directions the sufferer -finds reasons for cooling his petty passion for revenge. If he is a -Christian, I repeat, he finds these reasons in himself. The Christian -and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> Anarchist—both are decadents. But even when the Christian -condemns, slanders, and sullies the world, he is actuated by precisely -the same instinct as that which leads the socialistic workman to curse, -calumniate and cast dirt at society. The last “Judgment” itself is -still the sweetest solace to revenge—revolution, as the socialistic -workman expects it, only thought of as a little more remote.... The -notion of a “Beyond,” as well—why a Beyond, if it be not a means of -splashing mud over a “Here,” over this world? ...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">35</p> - -<p><i>A Criticism of the Morality of Decadence.</i>—An “altruistic” -morality, a morality under which selfishness withers, is in all -circumstances a bad sign. This is true of individuals and above -all of nations. The best are lacking when selfishness begins to be -lacking. Instinctively to select that which is harmful to one, to be -<i>lured</i> by “disinterested” motives,—these things almost provide the -formula for decadence. “Not to have one’s own interests at heart” -—this is simply a moral fig-leaf concealing a very different fact, a -physiological one, to wit:—“I no longer know how to find what is to my -interest.”... Disintegration of the instincts!—All is up with man when -he becomes altruistic.—Instead of saying ingenuously “I am no longer -any good,” the lie of morality in the decadent’s mouth says: “Nothing -is any good,—life is no good.”—A judgment of this kind ultimately -becomes a great danger; for it is infectious, and it soon flourishes -on the polluted soil of society with tropical luxuriance, now as a -religion (Christianity), anon as a philosophy (Schopenhauerism).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> In -certain circumstances the mere effluvia of such a venomous vegetation, -springing as it does out of the very heart of putrefaction, can poison -life for thousands and thousands of years.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">36</p> - -<p><i>A moral for doctors.</i>—The sick man is a parasite of society. In -certain cases it is indecent to go on living. To continue to vegetate -in a state of cowardly dependence upon doctors and special treatments, -once the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost, ought to -be regarded with the greatest contempt by society. The doctors, for -their part, should be the agents for imparting this contempt,—they -should no longer prepare prescriptions, but should every day administer -a fresh dose of <i>disgust</i> to their patients. A new responsibility -should be created, that of the doctor—the responsibility of ruthlessly -suppressing and eliminating <i>degenerate</i> life, in all cases in which -the highest interests of life itself, of ascending life, demand such -a course—for instance in favour of the right of procreation, in -favour of the right of being born, in favour of the right to live. -One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. -Death should be chosen freely,—death at the right time, faced clearly -and joyfully and embraced while one is surrounded by one’s children -and other witnesses. It should be affected in such a way that a proper -farewell is still possible, that he who is about to take leave of us -is still <i>himself,</i> and really capable not only of valuing what he -has achieved and willed in life, but also of <i>summing-up</i> the value -of life itself. Everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> precisely the opposite of the ghastly -comedy which Christianity has made of the hour of death. We should -never forgive Christianity for having so abused the weakness of the -dying man as to do violence to his conscience, or for having used -his manner of dying as a means of valuing both man and his past—In -spite of all cowardly prejudices, it is our duty, in this respect, -above all to reinstate the proper—that is to say, the physiological, -aspect of so-called <i>natural</i> death, which after all is perfectly -“unnatural” and nothing else than suicide. One never perishes through -anybody’s fault but one’s own. The only thing is that the death which -takes place in the most contemptible circumstances, the death that -is not free, the death which occurs at the wrong time, is the death -of a coward. Out of the very love one bears to life, one should wish -death to be different from this—that is to say, free, deliberate, and -neither a matter of chance nor of surprise. Finally let me whisper a -word of advice to our friends the pessimists and all other decadents. -We have not the power to prevent ourselves from being born: but this -error—for sometimes it is an error—can be rectified if we choose. The -man who does away with himself, performs the most estimable of deeds: -he almost deserves to live for having done so. Society—nay, life -itself, derives more profit from such a deed than from any sort of life -spent in renunciation, anæmia and other virtues,—at least the suicide -frees others from the sight of him, at least he removes one objection -against life. Pessimism <i>pur et vert,</i> can <i>be proved only</i> by the -self-refutation of the pessimists themselves: one should go a step -further in one’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> consistency; one should not merely deny life with -“The World as Will and Idea,” as Schopenhauer did; one should in the -first place <i>deny Schopenhauer.</i> ... Incidentally, Pessimism, however -infectious it may be, does not increase the morbidness of an age or of -a whole species; it is rather the expression of that morbidness. One -falls a victim to it in the same way as one falls a victim to cholera; -one must already be predisposed to the disease. Pessimism in itself -does not increase the number of the world’s <i>decadents</i> by a single -unit. Let me remind you of the statistical fact that in those years in -which cholera rages, the total number of deaths does not exceed that of -other years.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">37</p> - -<p><i>Have we become more moral?</i>—As might have been expected, the whole -<i>ferocity</i> of moral stultification, which, as is well known, passes -for morality itself in Germany, hurled itself against my concept -“Beyond Good and Evil.” I could tell you some nice tales about this. -Above all, people tried to make me see the “incontestable superiority” -of our age in regard to moral sentiment, and the <i>progress</i> we had -made in these matters. Compared with us, a Cæsar Borgia was by no -means to be represented as “higher man,” the sort of <i>Superman,</i> -which I declared him to be. The editor of the Swiss paper the <i>Bund</i> -went so far as not only to express his admiration for the courage -displayed by my enterprise, but also to pretend to “understand” that -the intended purpose of my work was to abolish all decent feeling. -Much obliged!—In reply, I venture to raise the following question:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> -<i>have we really become more moral?</i> The fact that everybody believes -that we have is already an objection to the belief. We modern men, -so extremely delicate and susceptible, full of consideration one for -the other, actually dare to suppose that the pampering fellow-feeling -which we all display, this unanimity which we have at last acquired -in sparing and helping and trusting one another marks a definite step -forward, and shows us to be far ahead of the man of the Renaissance. -But every age thinks the same, it is <i>bound</i> to think the same. This -at least, is certain, that we should not dare to stand amid the -conditions which prevailed at the Renaissance, we should not even dare -to imagine ourselves in those conditions: our nerves could not endure -that reality, not to speak of our muscles. The inability to do this -however does not denote any progress; but simply the different and -more senile quality of our particular nature, its greater weakness, -delicateness, and susceptibility, out of which a morality <i>more rich -in consideration</i> was bound to arise. If we imagine our delicateness -and senility, our physiological decrepitude as non-existent, our -morality of “humanisation” would immediately lose all value—no -morality has any value <i>per se</i>—it would even fill us with scorn. On -the other hand, do not let us doubt that we moderns, wrapped as we are -in the thick cotton wool of our humanitarianism which would shrink -even from grazing a stone, would present a comedy to Cæsar Borgia’s -contemporaries which would literally make them die of laughter. We are -indeed, without knowing it, exceedingly ridiculous with our modern -“virtues.” ... The decline of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> instincts of hostility and of -those instincts that arouse suspicion,—for this if anything is what -constitutes our progress—is only one of the results manifested by -the general decline in <i>vitality</i>: it requires a hundred times more -trouble and caution to live such a dependent and senile existence. -In such circumstances everybody gives everybody else a helping hand, -and, to a certain extent, everybody is either an invalid or an -invalid’s attendant. This is then called “virtue”: among those men -who knew a different life—that is to say, a fuller, more prodigal, -more superabundant sort of life, it might have been called by another -name,—possibly “cowardice,” or “vileness,” or “old woman’s morality.” -... Our mollification of morals—this is my cry; this it you will is -my <i>innovation</i>—is the outcome of our decline; conversely hardness -and terribleness in morals may be the result of a surplus of life. -When the latter state prevails, much is dared, much is challenged, -and much is also <i>squandered</i>. That which formerly was simply the -salt of life, would now be our <i>poison</i>. To be indifferent—even this -is a form of strength—for that, likewise, we are too senile, too -decrepit: our morality of fellow-feeling, against which I was the -first to raise a finger of warning, that which might be called <i>moral -impressionism</i>, is one symptom the more of the excessive physiological -irritability which is peculiar to everything decadent. That movement -which attempted to introduce itself in a scientific manner on the -shoulders of Schopenhauer’s morality of pity—a very sad attempt!—is -in its essence the movement of decadence in morality, and as such -it is intimately related to Christian morality. Strong<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> ages and -noble cultures see something contemptible in pity, in the “love of -one’s neighbour,” and in a lack of egoism and of self-esteem.—Ages -should be measured according to their <i>positive forces</i>;—valued -by this standard that prodigal and fateful age of the Renaissance, -appears as the last <i>great</i> age, while we moderns with our anxious -care of ourselves and love of our neighbours, with all our unassuming -virtues of industry, equity, and scientific method—with our lust of -collection, of economy and of mechanism—represent a <i>weak</i> age.... -Our virtues are necessarily determined, and are even stimulated, by our -weakness. “Equality,” a certain definite process of making everybody -uniform, which only finds its expression in the theory of equal rights, -is essentially bound up with a declining culture: the chasm between -man and man, class and class, the multiplicity of types, the will to -be one’s self, and to distinguish one’s self—that, in fact, which I -call the <i>pathos of distance</i> is proper to all <i>strong</i> ages. The force -of tension,—nay, the tension itself, between extremes grows slighter -every day,—the extremes themselves are tending to become obliterated -to the point of becoming identical. All our political theories and -state constitutions, not by any means excepting “The German Empire,” -are the logical consequences, the necessary consequences of decline; -the unconscious effect of <i>decadence</i> has begun to dominate even the -ideals of the various sciences. My objection to the whole of English -and French sociology still continues to be this, that it knows only -the <i>decadent form</i> of society from experience, and with perfectly -childlike innocence takes the instincts of decline as the norm,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> the -standard, of sociological valuations. <i>Descending</i> life, the decay -of all organising power—that is to say, of all that power which -separates, cleaves gulfs, and establishes rank above and below, -formulated itself in modern sociology as <i>the</i> ideal. Our socialists -are decadents: but Herbert Spencer was also a <i>decadent,</i>—he saw -something to be desired in the triumph of altruism!...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">38</p> - -<p><i>My Concept of Freedom.</i>—Sometimes the value of a thing does not lie -in that which it helps us to achieve, but in the amount we have to -pay for it,—what it <i>costs</i> us. For instance, liberal institutions -straightway cease from being liberal, the moment they are soundly -established: once this is attained no more grievous and more thorough -enemies of freedom exist than liberal institutions! One knows, of -course, what they bring about: they undermine the Will to Power, -they are the levelling of mountain and valley exalted to a morality, -they make people small, cowardly and pleasure-loving,—by means of -them the gregarious animal invariably triumphs. Liberalism, or, in -plain English, the <i>transformation of mankind into cattle.</i> The -same institutions, so long as they are fought for, produce quite -other results; then indeed they promote the cause of freedom quite -powerfully. Regarded more closely, it is war which produces these -results, war in favour of liberal institutions, which, as war, allows -the illiberal instincts to subsist. For war trains men to be free. -What in sooth is freedom? Freedom is the will to be responsible -for ourselves. It is to preserve the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> distance which separates us -from other men. To grow more indifferent to hardship, to severity, -to privation, and even to life itself. To be ready to sacrifice -men for one’s cause, one’s self included. Freedom denotes that the -virile instincts which rejoice in war and in victory, prevail over -other instincts; for instance, over the instincts of “happiness.” -The man who has won his freedom, and how much more so, therefore, -the spirit that has won its freedom, tramples ruthlessly upon that -contemptible kind of comfort which tea-grocers, Christians, cows, -women, Englishmen and other democrats worship in their dreams. The -free man is a <i>warrior.</i>—How is freedom measured in individuals -as well as in nations? According to the resistance which has to be -overcome, according to the pains which it costs to remain <i>uppermost.</i> -The highest type of free man would have to be sought where the -greatest resistance has continually to be overcome: five paces away -from tyranny, on the very threshold of the danger of thraldom. This -is psychologically true if, by the word “Tyrants” we mean inexorable -and terrible instincts which challenge the <i>maximum</i> amount of -authority and discipline to oppose them—the finest example of this -is Julius Cæsar; it is also true politically: just examine the course -of history. The nations which were worth anything, which <i>got to -be</i> worth anything, never attained to that condition under liberal -institutions: <i>great danger</i> made out of them something which deserves -reverence, that danger which alone can make us aware of our resources, -our virtues, our means of defence, our weapons, our <i>genius,</i>—which -<i>compels</i> us to be strong.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> <i>First</i> principle: a man must need to be -strong, otherwise he will never attain it.—Those great forcing-houses -of the strong, of the strongest kind of men that have ever existed on -earth, the aristocratic communities like those of Rome and Venice, -understood freedom precisely as I understand the word: as something -that one has and that one has <i>not,</i> as something that one <i>will</i> have -and that one <i>seizes by force.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">39</p> - -<p><i>A Criticism of Modernity.</i>—Our institutions are no longer any good; -on this point we are all agreed. But the fault does not lie with -them; but with <i>us.</i> Now that we have lost all the instincts out -of which institutions grow, the latter on their part are beginning -to disappear from our midst because we are no longer fit for them. -Democracy has always been the death agony of the power of organisation: -already in “Human All-too-Human,” Part I., Aph. 472, I pointed out -that modern democracy, together with its half-measures, of which the -“German Empire” is an example, was a decaying form of the State. For -institutions to be possible there must exist a sort of will, instinct, -imperative, which cannot be otherwise than antiliberal to the point of -wickedness: the will to tradition, to authority, to responsibility -for centuries to come, to <i>solidarity</i> in long family lines forwards -and backwards <i>in infinitum.</i> If this will is present, something is -founded which resembles the <i>imperium Romanum;</i> or Russia, the <i>only</i> -great nation to-day that has some lasting power and grit in her, that -can bide her time, that can still promise something.—Russia the -opposite of all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> wretched European petty-statism and neurasthenia, -which the foundation of the German Empire has brought to a crisis. The -whole of the Occident no longer possesses those instincts from which -institutions spring, out of which a <i>future</i> grows: maybe nothing is -more opposed to its “modern spirit” than these things. People live -for the present, the live at top speed,—they certainly live without -any sense of responsibility; and this is precisely what they call -“freedom.” Everything in institutions which makes them institutions, -is scorned, loathed and repudiated: everybody is in mortal fear of a -new slavery, wherever the word “authority” is so much as whispered. -The decadence of the valuing instinct, both in our politicians and in -our political parties, goes so far, that they instinctively prefer -that which acts as a solvent, that which precipitates the final -catastrophe.... As an example of this behold <i>modern</i> marriage. All -reason has obviously been divorced from modern marriage: but this is -no objection to matrimony itself but to modernity. The rational basis -of marriage—it lay in the exclusive legal responsibility of the man: -by this means some ballast was laid in the ship of matrimony, whereas -nowadays it has a list, now on this side, now on that. The rational -basis of marriage—it lay in its absolute indissolubleness: in this way -it was given a gravity which knew how to make its influence felt, in -the face of the accident of sentiment, passion and momentary impulse: -it lay also in the fact that the responsibility of choosing the parties -to the contract, lay with the families. By showing ever more and more -favour to love-marriages, the very foundation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> of matrimony, that which -alone makes it an institution, has been undermined. No institution -ever has been nor ever will be built upon an idiosyncrasy; as I say, -marriage cannot be based upon “love.” It can be based upon sexual -desire; upon the instinct of property (wife and child as possessions); -upon the instinct of dominion, which constantly organises for itself -the smallest form of dominion,—the family which <i>requires</i> children -and heirs in order to hold fast, also in the physiological sense, to -a certain quantum of acquired power, influence and wealth, so as to -prepare for lasting tasks, and for solidarity in the instincts from -one century to another. Marriage as an institution presupposes the -affirmation of the greatest and most permanent form of organisation; if -society cannot as a whole <i>stand security</i> for itself into the remotest -generations, marriage has no meaning whatsoever.—Modern marriage <i>has -lost</i> its meaning; consequently it is being abolished.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">40</p> - -<p><i>The question of the Working-man.</i>—The mere fact that there is such -a thing as the question of the working-man is due to stupidity, or at -bottom to degenerate instincts which are the cause of all the stupidity -of modern times. Concerning certain things <i>no questions ought to be -put:</i> the first imperative principle of instinct. For the life of me -I cannot see what people want to do with the working-man of Europe, -now that they have made a question of him. He is far too comfortable -to cease from questioning ever more and more, and with ever less -modesty. After all, he has the majority on his side.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> There is now -not the slightest hope that an unassuming and contented sort of man, -after the style of the Chinaman, will come into being in this quarter: -and this would have been the reasonable course, it was even a dire -necessity. What has been done? Everything has been done with the view -of nipping the very pre-requisite of this accomplishment in the bud, -—with the most frivolous thoughtlessness those selfsame instincts by -means of which a working-class becomes possible, and <i>tolerable even</i> -to its members themselves, have been destroyed root and branch. The -working-man has been declared fit for military service; he has been -granted the right of combination, and of voting: can it be wondered at -that he already regards his condition as one of distress (expressed -morally, as an injustice)? But, again I ask, what do people want? If -they desire a certain end, then they should desire the means thereto. -If they will have slaves, then it is madness to educate them to be -masters.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">41</p> - - -<p>“The kind of freedom I do <i>not</i> mean....”<a name="FNanchor_6_13" id="FNanchor_6_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_13" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>—In an age like the -present, it simply adds to one’s perils to be left to one’s instincts. -The instincts contradict, disturb, and destroy each other; I have -already defined modernism as physiological self-contradiction. A -reasonable system of education would insist upon at least one of -these instinct-systems being <i>paralysed</i> beneath an iron pressure, in -order to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> allow others to assert their power, to grow strong, and to -dominate. At present, the only conceivable way of making the individual -possible would be to <i>prune</i> him:—of making him possible—that is to -say, <i>whole.</i> The very reverse occurs. Independence, free development, -and <i>laisser aller</i> are clamoured for most violently precisely by -those for whom no restraint <i>could be too severe</i>—this is true <i>in -politics,</i> it is true in Art. But this is a symptom of decadence: our -modern notion of “freedom” is one proof the more of the degeneration of -instinct.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">42</p> - -<p><i>Where faith is necessary.</i>—Nothing is more rare among moralists and -saints than uprightness; maybe they say the reverse is true, maybe -they even believe it. For, when faith is more useful, more effective, -more convincing than <i>conscious</i> hypocrisy, by instinct that hypocrisy -forthwith becomes <i>innocent:</i> first principle towards the understanding -of great saints. The same holds good of philosophers, that other order -of saints; their whole business compels them to concede only certain -truths—that is to say, those by means of which their particular trade -receives the <i>public</i> sanction,—to speak “Kantingly”: the truths of -<i>practical</i> reason. They know what they <i>must</i> prove; in this respect -they are practical,—they recognise each other by the fact that -they agree upon “certain truths.”—“Thou shalt not lie”—in plain -English:—<i>Beware,</i> Mr Philosopher, of speaking the truth....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">43</p> - -<p><i>A quiet hint to Conservatives.</i>—That which we did not know -formerly, and know now, or might know if we chose,—is the fact that -a <i>retrograde formation,</i> a reversion in any sense or degree, is -absolutely impossible. We physiologists, at least, are aware of this. -But all priests and moralists have believed in it,—they wished to -drag and screw man back to a former standard of virtue. Morality has -always been a Procrustean bed. Even the politicians have imitated -the preachers of virtue in this matter. There are parties at the -present day whose one aim and dream is to make all things adopt the -<i>crab-march.</i> But not everyone can be a crab. It cannot be helped: we -must go forward,—that is to say step by step further and further into -decadence (—this is my definition of modern “progress”). We can hinder -this development, and by so doing dam up and accumulate degeneration -itself and render it more convulsive, more <i>volcanic:</i> we cannot do -more.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">44</p> - -<p><i>My concept of Genius.</i>—Great men, like great ages, are explosive -material, in which a stupendous amount of power is accumulated; -the first conditions of their existence are always historical and -physiological; they are the outcome of the fact that for long ages -energy has been collected, hoarded up, saved up and preserved for their -use, and that no explosion has taken place. When, the tension in the -bulk has become sufficiently excessive, the most fortuitous stimulus -suffices in order to call “genius,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> “great deeds,” and momentous -fate into the world. What then is the good of all environment, -historical periods, “<i>Zeitgeist</i>” (Spirit of the age) and “public -opinion”?—Take the case of Napoleon. France of the Revolution, -and still more of the period preceding the Revolution, would have -brought forward a type which was the very reverse of Napoleon: it -actually <i>did</i> produce such a type. And because Napoleon was something -different, the heir of a stronger, more lasting and older civilisation -than that which in France was being smashed to atoms he became master -there, he was the only master there. Great men are necessary, the age -in which they appear is a matter of chance; the fact that they almost -invariably master their age is accounted for simply by the fact that -they are stronger, that they are older, and that power has been stored -longer for them. The relation of a genius to his age is that which -exists between strength and weakness and between maturity and youth: -the age is relatively always very much younger, thinner, less mature, -less resolute and more childish. The fact that the general opinion in -France at the present day, is utterly different on this very point (in -Germany too, but that is of no consequence); the fact that in that -country the theory of environment—a regular neuropathic notion—has -become sacrosanct and almost scientific, and finds acceptance even -among the physiologists, is a very bad, and exceedingly depressing -sign. In England too the same belief prevails: but nobody will be -surprised at that. The Englishman knows only two ways of understanding -the genius and the “great man”: either <i>democratically</i> in the style -of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> Buckle, or religiously after the manner of Carlyle.—The danger -which great men and great ages represent, is simply extraordinary; -every kind of exhaustion and of sterility follows in their wake. The -great man is an end; the great age—the Renaissance for instance,—is -an end. The genius—in work and in deed,—is necessarily a squanderer: -the fact that he spends himself constitutes his greatness. The instinct -of self-preservation is as it were suspended in him; the overpowering -pressure of out-flowing energy in him forbids any such protection and -prudence. People call this “self-sacrifice,” they praise his “heroism,” -his indifference to his own well-being, his utter devotion to an idea, -a great cause, a father-land: All misunderstandings.... He flows out, -he flows over, he consumes himself, he does not spare himself,—and -does all this with fateful necessity, irrevocably, involuntarily, just -as a river involuntarily bursts its dams. But, owing to the fact that -humanity has been much indebted to such explosives, it has endowed them -with many things, for instance, with a kind of <i>higher morality</i>.... -This is indeed the sort of gratitude that humanity is capable of: it -<i>misunderstands</i> its benefactors.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">45</p> - -<p><i>The criminal and his like.</i>—The criminal type is the type of the -strong man amid unfavourable conditions, a strong man made sick. He -lacks the wild and savage state, a form of nature and existence which -is freer and more dangerous, in which everything that constitutes -the shield and the sword in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> the instinct of the strong man, takes -a place by right. Society puts a ban upon his virtues; the most -spirited instincts inherent in him immediately become involved with -the depressing passions, with suspicion, fear and dishonour. But this -is almost the recipe for physiological degeneration. When a man has -to do that which he is best suited to do, which he is most fond of -doing, not only clandestinely, but also with long suspense, caution and -ruse, he becomes anæmic; and inasmuch as he is always having to pay -for his instincts in the form of danger, persecution and fatalities, -even his feelings begin to turn against these instincts—he begins to -regard them as fatal. It is society, our tame, mediocre, castrated -society, in which an untutored son of nature who comes to us from his -mountains or from his adventures at sea, must necessarily degenerate -into a criminal. Or almost necessarily: for there are cases in which -such a man shows himself to be stronger than society: the Corsican -Napoleon is the most celebrated case of this. Concerning the problem -before us, Dostoiewsky’s testimony is of importance—Dostoiewsky who, -incidentally, was the only psychologist from whom I had anything -to learn: he belongs to the happiest windfalls of my life, happier -even than the discovery of Stendhal. This profound man, who was -right ten times over in esteeming the superficial Germans low, found -the Siberian convicts among whom he lived for many years,—those -thoroughly hopeless criminals for whom no road back to society stood -open—very different from what even he had expected,—that is to say -carved from about the best, hardest and most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> valuable material that -grows on Russian soil.<a name="FNanchor_7_14" id="FNanchor_7_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_14" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Let us generalise the case of the criminal; -let us imagine creatures who for some reason or other fail to meet -with public approval, who know that they are regarded neither as -beneficent nor useful,—the feeling of the Chandala, who are aware -that they are not looked upon as equal, but as proscribed, unworthy, -polluted. The thoughts and actions of all such natures are tainted -with a subterranean mouldiness; everything in them is of a paler hue -than in those on whose existence the sun shines. But almost all those -creatures whom, nowadays, we honour and respect, formerly lived in this -semi-sepulchral atmosphere: the man of science, the artist, the genius, -the free spirit, the actor, the business man, and the great explorer. -As long as the <i>priest</i> represented the highest type of man, every -valuable kind of man was depreciated.... The time is coming—this I -guarantee—when he will pass as the <i>lowest</i> type, as our Chandala, as -the falsest and most disreputable kind of man.... I call your attention -to the fact that even now, under the sway of the mildest customs and -usages which have ever ruled on earth or at least in Europe, every -form of standing aside, every kind of prolonged, excessively prolonged -concealment, every unaccustomed and obscure form of existence tends to -approximate to that type which the criminal exemplifies to perfection. -All pioneers of the spirit have, for a while, the grey and fatalistic -mark of the Chandala on their brows: <i>not</i> because they are regarded as -Chandala, but because they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> themselves feel the terrible chasm which -separates them from all that is traditional and honourable. Almost -every genius knows the “Catilinarian life” as one of the stages in his -development, a feeling of hate, revenge and revolt against everything -that exists, that has ceased to evolve.... Catiline—the early stage of -every Cæsar.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">46</p> - - -<p><i>Here the outlook is free.</i>—When a philosopher holds his tongue it may -be the sign of the loftiness of his soul: when he contradicts himself -it may be love; and the very courtesy of a knight of knowledge may -force him to lie. It has been said, and not without subtlety:—<i>il -est indigne des grands cœurs de répandre le trouble qu’ils -ressentent<a name="FNanchor_8_15" id="FNanchor_8_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_15" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>:</i> but it is necessary to add that there may also be -<i>grandeur de cœur</i> in not shrinking <i>from the most undignified -proceeding.</i> A woman who loves sacrifices her honour; a knight of -knowledge who “loves,” sacrifices perhaps his humanity; a God who -loved, became a Jew....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">47</p> - -<p><i>Beauty no accident</i>—Even the beauty of a race or of a family, -the charm and perfection of all its movements, is attained with -pains: like genius it is the final result of the accumulated work -of generations. Great sacrifices must have been made on the altar -ol good taste, for its sake many things must have been done, and -much must have been left undone—the seventeenth century in France -is admirable for both of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> these things,—in this century there must -have been a principle of selection in respect to company, locality, -clothing, the gratification of the instinct of sex; beauty must have -been preferred to profit, to habit, to opinion and to indolence. The -first rule of all:—nobody must “let himself go,” not even when he is -alone.—Good things are exceedingly costly:; and in all cases the law -obtains that he who possesses them is a different person from him who -is <i>acquiring</i> them. Everything good is an inheritance: that which is -not inherited is imperfect, it is simply a beginning. In Athens at -the time of Cicero—who expresses his surprise at the fact—the men -and youths were by far superior in beauty to the women: but what hard -work and exertions the male sex had for centuries imposed upon itself -in the service of beauty! We must not be mistaken in regard to the -method employed here: the mere discipline of feelings and thoughts -is little better than nil (—it is in this that the great error of -German culture, which is quite illusory, lies): the <i>body</i> must be -persuaded first. The strict maintenance of a distinguished and tasteful -demeanour, the obligation of frequenting only those who do not “let -themselves go,” is amply sufficient to render one distinguished and -tasteful: in two or three generations everything has already <i>taken -deep root.</i> The fate of a people and of humanity is decided according -to whether they begin culture at the <i>right place—not</i> at the “soul” -(as the fatal superstition of the priests and half-priests would have -it): the right place is the body, demeanour, diet, physiology—the rest -follows as the night the day.... That is why the Greeks remain the -<i>first event in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> culture</i>—they knew and they <i>did</i> what was needful. -Christianity with its contempt of the body is the greatest mishap that -has ever befallen mankind.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">48</p> - -<p><i>Progress in my sense.</i>—I also speak of a “return to nature,” although -it is not a process of going back but of going up—up into lofty, free -and even terrible nature and naturalness; such a nature as can play -with great tasks and <i>may</i> play with them.... To speak in a <i>parable.</i> -Napoleon was an example of a “return to nature,” as I understand it -(for instance <i>in rebus tacticis,</i> and still more, as military experts -know, in strategy). But Rousseau—whither did he want to return? -Rousseau this first modern man, idealist and <i>canaille</i> in one person; -who was in need of moral “dignity,” in order even to endure the sight -of his own person,—ill with unbridled vanity and wanton self-contempt; -this abortion, who planted his tent on the threshold of modernity, -also wanted a “return to nature”; but, I ask once more, whither did -he wish to return? I hate Rousseau, even <i>in</i> the Revolution itself: -the latter was the historical expression of this hybrid of idealist -and <i>canaille.</i> The bloody farce which this Revolution ultimately -became, its “immorality,” concerns me but slightly; what I loathe -however is its Rousseauesque <i>morality</i>—the so-called “truths” of the -Revolution, by means of which it still exercises power and draws all -flat and mediocre things over to its side. The doctrine of equality! -... But there is no more deadly poison than this; for it <i>seems</i> to -proceed from the very lips of justice, whereas in reality it draws -the curtain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> down on all justice.... “To equals equality, to unequals -inequality”—that would be the real speech of justice and that which -follows from it “Never make unequal things equal.” The fact that so -much horror and blood are associated with this doctrine of equality, -has lent this “modern idea” <i>par excellence</i> such a halo of fire and -glory, that the Revolution as a drama has misled even the most noble -minds.—That after all is no reason for honouring it the more.—I can -see only one who regarded it as it should be regarded—that is to say, -with <i>loathing;</i> I speak of Goethe.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">49</p> - - -<p><i>Goethe</i>.—No mere German, but a European event: a magnificent attempt -to overcome the eighteenth century by means of a return to nature, by -means of an ascent to the naturalness of the Renaissance, a kind of -self-overcoming on the part of the century in question.—He bore the -strongest instincts of this century in his breast: its sentimentality, -and idolatry of nature, its anti-historic, idealistic, unreal, and -revolutionary spirit (—the latter is only a form of the unreal). He -enlisted history, natural science, antiquity, as well as Spinoza, and -above all practical activity, in his service. He drew a host of very -definite horizons around him; far from liberating himself from life, he -plunged right into it; he did not give in; he took as much as he could -on his own shoulders, and into his heart. That to which he aspired was -<i>totality</i>; he was opposed to the sundering of reason, sensuality, -feeling and will (as preached with most repulsive scholasticism -by Kant, the antipodes of Goethe); he disciplined himself into a -harmonious whole, he <i>created</i> himself. Goethe in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> midst of an age -of unreal sentiment, was a convinced realist: he said yea to everything -that was like him in this regard,—there was no greater event in his -life than that <i>ens realissimum</i>, surnamed Napoleon. Goethe conceived -a strong, highly-cultured man, skilful in all bodily accomplishments, -able to keep himself in check, having a feeling of reverence for -himself, and so constituted as to be able to risk the full enjoyment -of naturalness in all its rich profusion and be strong enough for this -freedom; a man of tolerance, not out of weakness but out of strength, -because he knows how to turn to his own profit that which would ruin -the mediocre nature; a man unto whom nothing is any longer forbidden, -unless it be weakness either as a vice or as a virtue. Such a spirit, -<i>become free</i>, appears in the middle of the universe with a feeling -of cheerful and confident fatalism; he believes that only individual -things are bad, and that as a whole the universe justifies and, affirms -itself—<i>He no longer denies</i>.... But such a faith is the highest Of -all faiths: I christened it with the name of Dionysus.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">50</p> - -<p>It might be said that, in a certain sense, the nineteenth century -also strove after all that Goethe himself aspired to: catholicity in -understanding, in approving; a certain reserve towards everything, -daring realism, and a reverence for every fact. How is it that -the total result of this is not a Goethe, but a state of chaos, a -nihilistic groan, an inability to discover where one is, an instinct -of fatigue which <i>in praxi</i> is persistently driving Europe <i>to hark -back to the eighteenth century</i>? (—For instance in the form of maudlin -romanticism, altruism, hyper-sentimentality,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> pessimism in taste, -and socialism in politics). Is not the nineteenth century, at least -in its closing years, merely an accentuated, brutalised eighteenth -century,—that is to say a century of decadence? And has not Goethe -been—not alone for Germany, but also for the whole of Europe,—merely -an episode, a beautiful “in vain”? But great men are misunderstood when -they are regarded from the wretched standpoint of public utility. The -fact that no advantage can be derived from them—<i>this in itself may -perhaps be peculiar to greatness.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">51</p> - -<p>Goethe is the last German whom I respect: he had understood three -things as I understand them. We also agree as to the “cross.”<a name="FNanchor_9_16" id="FNanchor_9_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_16" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> People -often ask me why on earth I write in <i>German:</i> nowhere am I less read -than in the Fatherland. But who knows whether I even <i>desire</i> to be -read at present?—To create things on which time may try its teeth in -vain; to be concerned both in the form and the substance of my writing, -about a certain degree of immortality—never have I been modest enough -to demand less of myself. The aphorism, the sentence, in both of -which I, as the first among Germans, am a master, are the forms of -“eternity”; it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone -else says in a whole book,—what everyone else does <i>not</i> say in a -whole book.</p> - -<p>I have given mankind the deepest book it possesses, my <i>Zarathustra;</i> -before long I shall give it the most independent one.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_8" id="Footnote_1_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_8"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The German word <i>Rausch</i> as used by Nietzsche here, -suggests a blend of our two English words “intoxication” and -“elation.”—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_9" id="Footnote_2_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_9"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> An allusion to a verse in Luther’s hymn: “<i>Lass fahren -dahin</i> ... <i>das Reich muss uns doch bleiben,</i>” which Nietzsche applies -to the German Empire.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_10" id="Footnote_3_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_10"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> A disciple of Schopenhauer who blunted the sharpness -of his master’s Pessimism and who watered it down for modern -requirements.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_11" id="Footnote_4_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_11"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Quotation from the Libretto of Mozart’s “Magic Flute” Act -I, Sc. 3.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5_12" id="Footnote_5_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_12"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> This alludes to Parsifal. See my note on p. 96, vol. i., -“The Will to Power.”—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6_13" id="Footnote_6_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_13"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> This is a playful adaptation of Max von Schenkendorfs poem -“<i>Freiheit</i>” The proper line reads: “<i>Freiheit die ich meine</i>” (The -freedom that I do mean).—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7_14" id="Footnote_7_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_14"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See “Memoirs of a House of the Dead,” by Dostoiewsky -(translation by Marie von Thilo: “Buried Alive”).—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8_15" id="Footnote_8_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_15"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Clothilde de Veaux.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9_16" id="Footnote_9_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_16"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See my note on p. 147 of Vol. I. of the <i>Will to -Power.</i>—TR.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="THINGS_I_OWE_TO_THE_ANCIENTS" id="THINGS_I_OWE_TO_THE_ANCIENTS">THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>In conclusion I will just say a word concerning that world to which I -have sought new means of access, to which I may perhaps have found a -new passage—the ancient world. My taste, which is perhaps the reverse -of tolerant, is very far from saying yea through and through even to -this world: on the whole it is not over eager to say <i>Yea,</i> it would -prefer to say <i>Nay,</i> and better still nothing whatever.... This is true -of whole cultures; it is true of books,—it is also true of places -and of landscapes. Truth to tell, the number of ancient books that -count for something in my life is but small; and the most famous are -not of that number. My sense of style, for the epigram as style, was -awakened almost spontaneously upon my acquaintance with Sallust. I have -not forgotten the astonishment of my respected teacher Corssen, when -he was forced to give his worst Latin pupil the highest marks,—at one -stroke I had learned all there was to learn. Condensed, severe, with as -much substance as possible in the background, and with cold but roguish -hostility towards all “beautiful words” and “beautiful feelings”—in -these things I found my own particular bent. In my writings up to my -“Zarathustra,” there will be found a very earnest ambition to attain -to the <i>Roman</i> style, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> the “<i>ære perennius</i>” in style.—The same -thing happened on my first acquaintance with Horace. Up to the present -no poet has given me the same artistic raptures as those which from -the first I received from an Horatian ode. In certain languages it -would be absurd even to aspire to what is accomplished by this poet. -This mosaic of words, in which every unit spreads its power to the -left and to the right over the whole, by its sound, by its place in -the sentence, and by its meaning, this <i>minimum</i> in the compass and -number of the signs, and the <i>maximum</i> of energy in the signs which is -thereby achieved—all this is Roman, and, if you will believe me, noble -<i>par excellence.</i> By the side of this all the rest of poetry becomes -something popular,—nothing more than senseless sentimental twaddle.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>I am not indebted to the Greeks for anything like such strong -impressions; and, to speak frankly, they cannot be to us what the -Romans are. One cannot <i>learn</i> from the Greeks—their style is too -strange, it is also too fluid, to be imperative or to have the effect -of a classic. Who would ever have learnt writing from a Greek! Who -would ever have learned it without the Romans!... Do not let anyone -suggest Plato to me. In regard to Plato I am a thorough sceptic, and -have never been able to agree to the admiration of Plato the <i>artist,</i> -which is traditional among scholars. And after all, in this matter, -the most refined judges of taste in antiquity are on my side. In my -opinion Plato bundles all the forms of style pell-mell together, -in this respect he is one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> of the first decadents of style: he has -something similar on his conscience to that which the Cynics had -who invented the <i>satura Menippea.</i> For the Platonic dialogue—this -revoltingly self-complacent and childish kind of dialectics—to -exercise any charm over you, you must never have read any good French -authors,—Fontenelle for instance. Plato is boring. In reality my -distrust of Plato is fundamental. I find him so very much astray -from all the deepest instincts of the Hellenes, so steeped in moral -prejudices, so pre-existently Christian—the concept “good” is already -the highest value with him,—that rather than use any other expression -I would prefer to designate the whole phenomenon Plato with the hard -word “superior bunkum,” or, if you would like it better, “idealism.” -Humanity has had to pay dearly for this Athenian having gone to school -among the Egyptians (—or among the Jews in Egypt?...) In the great -fatality of Christianity, Plato is that double-faced fascination -called the “ideal,” which made it possible for the more noble natures -of antiquity to misunderstand themselves and to tread the <i>bridge</i> -which led to the “cross.” And what an amount of Plato is still to be -found in the concept “church,” and in the construction, the system -and the practice of the church!—My recreation, my predilection, my -cure, after all Platonism, has always been Thucydides. Thucydides and -perhaps Machiavelli’s <i>principe</i> are most closely related to me owing -to the absolute determination which they show of refusing to deceive -themselves and of seeing reason in <i>reality,</i>—not in “rationality,” -and still less in “morality.” There is no more radical cure than -Thucydides for the lamentably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> rose-coloured idealisation of the -Greeks which the “classically-cultured” stripling bears with him into -life, as a reward for his public school training. His writings must be -carefully studied line by line, and his unuttered thoughts must be read -as distinctly as what he actually says. There are few thinkers so rich -in unuttered thoughts. In him the culture “of the Sophists”—that is to -say, the culture of realism, receives its most perfect expression: this -inestimable movement in the midst of the moral and idealistic knavery -of the Socratic Schools which was then breaking out in all directions. -Greek philosophy is the decadence of the Greek instinct: Thucydides is -the great summing up, the final manifestation of that strong, severe -positivism which lay in the instincts of the ancient Hellene. After -all, it is courage in the face of reality that distinguishes such -natures as Thucydides from Plato: Plato is a coward in the face of -reality—consequently he takes refuge in the ideal: Thucydides is -master of himself,—consequently he is able to master life.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>To rout up cases of “beautiful souls,” “golden means” and other -perfections among the Greeks, to admire, say, their calm grandeur, -their ideal attitude of mind, their exalted simplicity—from this -“exalted simplicity,” which after all is a piece of <i>niaiserie -allemande,</i> I was preserved by the psychologist within me. I saw their -strongest instinct, the Will to Power, I saw them quivering with the -fierce violence of this instinct,—I saw all their institutions grow -out of measures of security calculated to preserve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> each member of -their society from the inner <i>explosive material</i> that lay in his -neighbour’s breast. This enormous internal tension thus discharged -itself in terrible and reckless hostility outside the state: the -various states mutually tore each other to bits, in order that each -individual state could remain at peace with itself. It was then -necessary to be strong; for danger lay close at hand,—it lurked in -ambush everywhere. The superb suppleness of their bodies, the daring -realism and immorality which is peculiar to the Hellenes, was a -necessity not an inherent quality. It was a result, it had not been -there from the beginning. Even their festivals and their arts were but -means in producing a feeling of superiority, and of showing it: they -are measures of self-glorification; and in certain circumstances of -making one’s self terrible.... Fancy judging the Greeks in the German -style, from their philosophers; fancy using the suburban respectability -of the Socratic schools as a key to what is fundamentally Hellenic!... -The philosophers are of course the decadents of Hellas, the -counter-movement directed against the old and noble taste(—against the -agonal instinct, against the <i>Polls,</i> against the value of the race, -against the authority of tradition), Socratic virtues were preached to -the Greeks, <i>because</i> the Greeks had lost virtue: irritable, cowardly, -unsteady, and all turned to play-actors, they had more than sufficient -reason to submit to having morality preached to them. Not that it -helped them in any way; but great words and attitudes are so becoming -to decadents.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>I was the first who, in order to understand the ancient, still rich and -even superabundant Hellenic instinct, took that marvellous phenomenon, -which bears the name of Dionysus, seriously: it can be explained only -as a manifestation of excessive energy. Whoever had studied the Greeks, -as that most profound of modern connoisseurs of their culture, Jakob -Burckhardt of Bâle, had done, knew at once that something had been -achieved by means of this interpretation. And in his “<i>Cultur der -Griechen</i>” Burckhardt inserted a special chapter on the phenomenon -in question. If you would like a glimpse of the other side, you have -only to refer to the almost laughable poverty of instinct among German -philologists when they approach the Dionysian question. The celebrated -Lobeck, especially, who with the venerable assurance of a worm dried up -between books, crawled into this world of mysterious states, succeeded -inconvincing himself that he was scientific, whereas he was simply -revoltingly superficial and childish,—Lobeck, with all the pomp of -profound erudition, gave us to understand that, as a matter of fact, -there was nothing at all in all these curiosities. Truth to tell, the -priests may well have communicated not a few things of value to the -participators in such orgies; for instance, the fact that wine provokes -desire, that man in certain circumstances lives on fruit, that plants -bloom in the spring and fade in the autumn. As regards the astounding -wealth of rites, symbols and myths which take their origin in the orgy, -and with which the world of antiquity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> is literally smothered, Lobeck -finds that it prompts him to a feat of even greater ingenuity than -the foregoing phenomenon did. “The Greeks,” he says, (<i>Aglaophamus,</i> -I. p. 672), “when they had nothing better to do, laughed, sprang and -romped about, or, inasmuch as men also like a change at times, they -would sit down, weep and bewail their lot. Others then came up who tried -to discover some reason for this strange behaviour; and thus, as an -explanation of these habits, there arose an incalculable number of -festivals, legends, and myths. On the other hand it was believed that -the <i>farcical performances</i> which then perchance began to take place -on festival days, necessarily formed part of the celebrations, and -they were retained as an indispensable part of the ritual.”—This is -contemptible nonsense, and no one will take a man like Lobeck seriously -for a moment We are very differently affected when we examine the -notion “Hellenic,” as Winckelmann and Goethe conceived it, and find it -incompatible with that element out of which Dionysian art springs—I -speak of orgiasm. In reality I do not doubt that Goethe would have -completely excluded any such thing from the potentialities of the Greek -soul. <i>Consequently Goethe did not understand the Greeks.</i> For it is -only in the Dionysian mysteries, in the psychology of the Dionysian -state, that the <i>fundamental fact</i> of the Hellenic instinct—its “will -to life”—is expressed. What did the Hellene secure himself with these -mysteries? <i>Eternal</i> life, the eternal recurrence of life; the future -promised and hallowed in the past; the triumphant Yea to life despite -death and change; real life conceived as the collective prolongation -of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> life through procreation, through the mysteries of sexuality. -To the Greeks, the symbol of sex was the most venerated of symbols, -the really deep significance of all the piety of antiquity. All the -details of the act of procreation, pregnancy and birth gave rise to -the loftiest and most solemn feelings. In the doctrine of mysteries, -<i>pain</i> was pronounced holy: the “pains of childbirth” sanctify pain in -general,—all becoming and all growth, everything that guarantees the -future <i>involves</i> pain.... In order that there may be eternal joy in -creating, in order that the will to life may say Yea to itself in all -eternity, the “pains of childbirth” must also be eternal. All this is -what the word Dionysus signifies: I know of no higher symbolism than -this Greek symbolism, this symbolism of the Dionysian phenomenon. In -it the profoundest instinct of life, the instinct that guarantees the -future of life and life eternal, is understood religiously,—the road -to life itself, procreation, is pronounced <i>holy,</i> ... It was only -Christianity which, with its fundamental resentment against life, made -something impure out of sexuality: it flung <i>filth</i> at the very basis, -the very first condition of our life.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>The psychology of orgiasm conceived as the feeling of a superabundance -of vitality and strength, within the scope of which even pain <i>acts -as a stimulus,</i> gave me the key to the concept <i>tragic</i> feeling, -which has been misunderstood not only by Aristotle, but also even -more by our pessimists. Tragedy is so far from proving anything in -regard to the pessimism of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> the Greeks, as Schopenhauer maintains, -that it ought rather to be considered as the categorical repudiation -and <i>condemnation</i> thereof. The saying of Yea to life, including -even its most strange and most terrible problems, the will to life -rejoicing over its own inexhaustibleness in the <i>sacrifice</i> of its -highest types—this is what I called Dionysian, this is what I -divined as the bridge leading to the psychology of the <i>tragic</i> poet. -Not in order to escape from terror and pity, not to purify one’s self -of a dangerous passion by discharging it with vehemence—this is how -Aristotle understood it—but to be far beyond terror and pity and to -be the eternal lust of Becoming itself—that lust which also involves -the <i>lust of destruction.</i> And with this I once more come into touch -with the spot from which I once set out—-the “Birth of Tragedy” was -my first transvaluation of all values: with this I again take my stand -upon the soil from out of which my will and my capacity spring—I, the -last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus,—I, the prophet of eternal -recurrence.</p> - - -<h5>THE END.</h5> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="THE_HAMMER_SPEAKETH" id="THE_HAMMER_SPEAKETH">THE HAMMER SPEAKETH</a></h4> - - - -<p>“Why so hard!”—said the diamond once unto the charcoal; “are we then -not next of kin?”</p> - -<p>“Why so soft? O my brethren; this is my question to you. For are ye -not—my brothers?</p> - -<p>“Why so soft, so servile and yielding? Why are your hearts so fond of -denial and self-denial? How is it that so little fate looketh out from -your eyes?</p> - -<p>“And if ye will not be men of fate and inexorable, how can ye hope one -day to conquer with me?</p> - -<p>“And if your hardness will not sparkle, cut and divide, how can ye hope -one day to create with me?</p> - -<p>“For all creators are hard. And it must seem to you blessed to stamp -your hand upon millenniums as upon wax,—</p> - -<p>—Blessed to write upon the will of millenniums as upon brass,—harder -than brass, nobler than brass.—Hard through and through is only the -noblest.</p> - -<p>This new table of values, O my brethren, I set over your heads: Become -hard.”</p> - -<p>—“Thus Spake Zarathustra,”</p> - -<p>III., 29.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h3><a name="THE_ANTICHRIST" id="THE_ANTICHRIST">THE ANTICHRIST</a></h3> - -<p>An Attempted Criticism of Christianity</p> - - - - -<h4><a name="PREFACE2" id="PREFACE2">PREFACE</a></h4> - - -<p>This book belongs to the very few. Maybe not one of them is yet alive; -unless he be of those who understand my Zarathustra. How <i>can</i> I -confound myself with those who to-day already find a hearing?—Only the -day after to-morrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously.</p> - -<p>I am only too well aware of the conditions under which a man -understands me, and then <i>necessarily</i> understands. He must be -intellectually upright to the point of hardness, in order even to -endure my seriousness and my passion. He must be used to living on -mountain-tops,—and to feeling the wretched gabble of politics and -national egotism <i>beneath</i> him. He must have become indifferent; he -must never inquire whether truth is profitable or whether it may -prove fatal.... Possessing from strength a predilection for questions -for which no one has enough courage nowadays; the courage for the -<i>forbidden;</i> his predestination must be the labyrinth. The experience -of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for the most -remote things. A new conscience for truths which hitherto have -remained dumb. And the will to economy on a large scale: to husband -his strength and his enthusiasm.... He must honour himself, he must -love himself; he must be absolutely free with regard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> to himself.... -Very well then! Such men alone are my readers, my proper readers, -my preordained readers: of what account are the rest?—the rest are -simply—humanity.—One must be superior to humanity in power, in -loftiness of soul,—in contempt.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 65%; font-size: 0.8em;">FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>Let us look each other in the face. We are hyperboreans,—we know -well enough how far outside the crowd we stand. “Thou wilt find the -way to the Hyperboreans neither by land nor by water”: Pindar already -knew this much about us. Beyond the north, the ice, and death—<i>our -life, our happiness....</i> We discovered happiness; we know the way; we -found the way out of thousands of years of labyrinth. Who <i>else</i> would -have found it?—Not the modern man, surely?—“I do not know where I -am or what I am to do; I am everything that knows not where it is or -what to do,”—sighs the modern man. We were made quite ill by <i>this</i> -modernity,—with its indolent peace, its cowardly compromise, and the -whole of the virtuous filth of its Yea and Nay. This tolerance and -<i>largeur de cœur</i> which “forgives” everything because it “understands” -everything, is a Sirocco for us. We prefer to live amid ice than to -be breathed upon by modern virtues and other southerly winds!... We -were brave enough; we spared neither ourselves nor others: but we -were very far from knowing whither to direct our bravery. We were -becoming gloomy; people called us fatalists. <i>Our</i> fate—it was the -abundance, the tension<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> and the storing up of power. We thirsted for -thunderbolts and great deeds; we kept at the most respectful distance -from the joy of the weakling, from “resignation.” ... Thunder was in -our air, that part of nature which we are, became overcast—<i>for we had -no direction.</i> The formula of our happiness: a Yea, a Nay, a straight -line, a goal.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to -Power, and power itself in man. What is bad?—All that proceeds -from weakness. What is happiness?—The feeling that power is -<i>increasing,</i>—that resistance has been overcome.</p> - -<p>Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not -virtue, but efficiency<a name="FNanchor_1_17" id="FNanchor_1_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_17" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> (virtue in the Renaissance sense, <i>virtu,</i> -free from all moralic acid). The weak and the botched shall perish: -first principle of our humanity. And they ought even to be helped to -perish.</p> - -<p>What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy with all the -botched and the weak—Christianity.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>The problem I set in this work is not what will replace mankind in the -order of living being! (—Man is an <i>end</i>—); but, what type of man -must be <i>reared,</i> must be <i>willed,</i> as having the higher value, as -being the most worthy of life and the surest guarantee of the future.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> - -<p>This more valuable type has appeared often enough already: but as a -happy accident, as an exception, never as <i>willed.</i> He has rather been -precisely the most feared; hitherto he has been almost the terrible in -itself;—and from out the very fear he provoked there arose the will -to rear the type which has how been reared, <i>attained:</i> the domestic -animal, the gregarious animal, the sick animal man,—the Christian.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>Mankind does <i>not</i> represent a development towards a better, stronger -or higher type, in the sense in which this is supposed to occur to-day. -“Progress” is merely a modern idea—that is to say, a false idea.<a name="FNanchor_2_18" id="FNanchor_2_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_18" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> -The modern European is still far below the European of the Renaissance -in value. The process of evolution does not by any means imply -elevation, enhancement and increasing strength.</p> - -<p>On the other hand isolated and individual cases are continually -succeeding in different places on earth, as the outcome of the most -different cultures, and in these a <i>higher type</i> certainly manifests -itself: something which by the side of mankind in general, represents a -kind of superman. Such lucky strokes of great success have always been -possible and will perhaps always be possible. And even whole races, -tribes and nations may in certain circumstances represent such <i>lucky -strokes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>We must not deck out and adorn Christianity: it has waged a deadly -war upon this <i>higher</i> type of man, it has set a ban upon all the -fundamental instincts of this type, and has distilled evil and the -devil himself out of these instincts:—the strong man as the typical -pariah, the villain. Christianity has sided with everything weak, low, -and botched; it has made an ideal out of <i>antagonism</i> towards all the -self-preservative instincts of strong life: it has corrupted even the -reason of the strongest intellects, by teaching that the highest values -of intellectuality are sinful, misleading and full of temptations. -The most lamentable example of this was the corruption of Pascal, who -believed in the perversion of his reason through original sin, whereas -it had only been perverted by his Christianity.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>A painful and ghastly spectacle has just risen before my eyes. I tore -down the curtain which concealed mankind’s <i>corruption.</i> This word in -my mouth is at least secure from the suspicion that it contains a moral -charge against mankind. It is—I would fain emphasise this again—free -from moralic acid: to such an extent is this so, that I am most -thoroughly conscious of the corruption in question precisely in those -quarters in which hitherto people have aspired with most determination -to “virtue” and to “godliness.” As you have already surmised, I -understand corruption in the sense of <i>decadence.</i> What I maintain is -this, that all the values upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> which mankind builds its highest hopes -and desires are <i>decadent</i> values.</p> - -<p>I call an animal, a species, an individual corrupt, when it loses its -instincts, when it selects and <i>prefers</i> that which is detrimental to -it. A history of the “higher feelings,” of “human ideals”—and it is -not impossible that I shall have to write it—would almost explain why -man is so corrupt. Life itself, to my mind, is nothing more nor less -than the instinct of growth, of permanence, of accumulating forces, -of power: where the will to power is lacking, degeneration sets in. -My contention is that all the highest values of mankind <i>lack</i> this -will,—that the values of decline and of <i>nihilism</i> are exercising the -sovereign power under the cover of the holiest names.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p>Christianity is called the religion of <i>pity.</i>—Pity is opposed to -the tonic passions which enhance the energy of the feeling of life: -its action is depressing. A man loses power when he pities. By -means of pity the drain on strength which suffering itself already -introduces into the world is multiplied a thousandfold. Through pity, -suffering itself becomes infectious; in certain circumstances it may -lead to a total loss of life and vital energy, which is absurdly -put of proportion to the magnitude of the cause (—the case of the -death of the Nazarene). This is the first standpoint; but there is a -still more important one. Supposing one measures pity according to -the value of the reactions it usually stimulates, its danger to life -appears in a much more telling light On the whole, pity thwarts the -law<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> of development which is the law of selection. It preserves that -which is ripe for death, it fights in favour of the disinherited and -the condemned of life; thanks to the multitude of abortions of all -kinds which it maintains in life, it lends life itself a sombre and -questionable aspect. People have dared to call pity a virtue (—in -every <i>noble</i> culture it is considered as a weakness—); people went -still further, they exalted it to <i>the</i> virtue, the root and origin -of all virtues,—but, of course, what must never be forgotten is the -fact that this was done from the standpoint of a philosophy which -was nihilistic, and on whose shield the device <i>The Denial of Life</i> -was inscribed. Schopenhauer was right in this respect: by means of -pity, life is denied and made <i>more worthy of denial,</i>—pity is -the <i>praxis</i> of Nihilism. I repeat, this depressing and infectious -instinct thwarts those instincts which aim at the preservation and -enhancement of the value life: by <i>multiplying</i> misery quite as much -as by preserving all that is miserable, it is the principal agent in -promoting decadence,—pity exhorts people to nothing, to <i>nonentity!</i> -But they do not say “<i>nonentity</i>” they say “Beyond,” or “God,” or “the -true life”; or Nirvana, or Salvation, or Blessedness, instead. This -innocent rhetoric, which belongs to the realm of the religio-moral -idiosyncrasy, immediately appears to be <i>very much less innocent</i> if -one realises what the tendency is which here tries to drape itself in -the mantle of sublime expressions—the tendency of hostility to life. -Schopenhauer was hostile to life: that is why he elevated pity to a -virtue.... Aristotle, as you know, recognised in pity a morbid and -dangerous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> state, of which it was wise to rid one’s self from time to -time by a purgative: he regarded tragedy as a purgative. For the sake -of the instinct of life, it would certainly seem necessary to find some -means of lancing any such morbid and dangerous accumulation of pity, as -that which possessed Schopenhauer (and unfortunately the whole of our -literary and artistic decadence as well, from St Petersburg to Paris, -from Tolstoi to Wagner), if only to make it <i>burst....</i> Nothing is -more unhealthy in the midst of our unhealthy modernity, than Christian -pity. To be doctors <i>here,</i> to be inexorable <i>here,</i> to wield the knife -effectively <i>here,—</i> all this is our business, all this is <i>our</i> -kind of love to our fellows, this is what makes <i>us</i> philosophers, us -hyperboreans!—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p>It is necessary to state whom we regard as our antithesis:—the -theologians, and all those who have the blood of theologians in their -veins—the whole of our philosophy.... A man must have had his very -nose upon this fatality, or better still he must have experienced it -in his own soul; he must almost have perished through it, in order -to be unable to treat this matter lightly (—the free-spiritedness -of our friends the naturalists and physiologists is, in my opinion, -a <i>joke,</i>—what they lack in these questions is passion, what they -lack is having suffered from these questions—). This poisoning -extends much further than people think: I unearthed the “arrogant” -instinct of the theologian, wherever nowadays people feel themselves -idealists,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>—wherever, thanks to superior antecedents, they claim the -right to rise above reality and to regard it with suspicion.... Like -the priest the idealist has every grandiloquent concept in his hand -(—and not only in his hand!), he wields them all with kindly contempt -against the “understanding,” the “senses,” “honours,” “decent living,” -“science”; he regards such things as <i>beneath</i> him, as detrimental and -seductive forces, upon the face of which, “the Spirit” moves in pure -absoluteness:—as if humility, chastity, poverty, in a word <i>holiness,</i> -had not done incalculably more harm to life hitherto, than any sort of -horror and vice.... Pure spirit is pure falsehood.... As long as the -priest, the <i>professional</i> denier, calumniator and poisoner of life, is -considered as the <i>highest</i> kind of man, there can be no answer to the -question, what <i>is</i> truth? Truth has already been turned topsy-turvy, -when the conscious advocate of nonentity and of denial passes as the -representative of “truth.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">9</p> - -<p>It is upon this theological instinct that I wage war. I find traces -of it everywhere. Whoever has the blood of theologians in his veins, -stands from the start in a false and dishonest position to all things. -The pathos which grows out of this state, is called <i>Faith:</i> that is -to say, to shut one’s eyes once and for all, in order not to suffer -at the sight of incurable falsity. People convert this faulty view of -all things into a moral, a virtue, a thing of holiness. They endow -their distorted vision with a good conscience,—they claim that no -<i>other</i> point of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> view is any longer of value, once theirs has been -made sacrosanct with the names “God,” “Salvation,” “Eternity.” I -unearthed the instinct of the theologian everywhere: it is the most -universal, and actually the most subterranean form of falsity on earth. -That which a theologian considers true, <i>must</i> of necessity be false: -this furnishes almost the criterion of truth. It is his most profound -self-preservative instinct which forbids reality ever to attain to -honour in any way, or even to raise its voice. Whithersoever the -influence of the theologian extends, <i>valuations</i> are topsy-turvy, -and the concepts “true” and “false” have necessarily changed places: -that which is most deleterious to life, is here called “true,” that -which enhances it, elevates it, says Yea to it, justifies it and -renders it triumphant, is called “false.” ... If it should happen that -theologians, <i>via</i> the “conscience” either of princes or of the people, -stretch out their hand for power, let us not be in any doubt as to -what results therefrom each time, namely:—the will to the end, the -<i>nihilistic</i> will to power....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">10</p> - -<p>Among Germans I am immediately understood when I say, that philosophy -is ruined by the blood of theologians. The Protestant minister is -the grand-father of German philosophy, Protestantism itself is the -latter’s <i>peccatum originale.</i> Definition of Protestantism: the -partial paralysis of Christianity—and of reason.... One needs only to -pronounce the words “Tübingen Seminary,” in order to understand what -German philosophy really is at bottom,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> theology <i>in disguise</i>.... The -Swabians are the best liars in Germany, they lie innocently.... Whence -came all the rejoicing with which the appearance of Kant was greeted -by the scholastic world of Germany, three-quarters of which consist of -clergymen’s and schoolmasters’ sons? Whence came the German conviction, -which finds an echo even now, that Kant inaugurated a change for the -<i>better?</i> The theologian’s instinct in the German scholar divined what -had once again been made possible.... A back-staircase leading into -the old ideal was discovered, the concept “true world,” the concept -morality as the <i>essence</i> of the world (—those two most vicious errors -that have ever existed!), were, thanks to a subtle and wily scepticism, -once again, if not demonstrable, at least no longer <i>refutable....</i> -Reason, the <i>prerogative</i> of reason, does not extend so far.... Out of -reality they had made “appearance”; and an absolutely false world—that -of being—had been declared to be reality. Kant’s success is merely a -theologian’s success. Like Luther, and like Leibniz, Kant was one brake -the more upon the already squeaky wheel of German uprightness.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">11</p> - -<p>One word more against Kant as a <i>moralist.</i> A virtue <i>must</i> be <i>our</i> -invention, our most personal defence and need: in every other sense it -is merely a danger. That which does not constitute a condition of our -life, is merely harmful to it: to possess a virtue merely because one -happens to respect the concept “virtue,” as Kant would have us do, is -pernicious. “Virtue,” “Duty,” “Goodness in itself,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> goodness stamped -with the character of impersonality and universal validity—these -things are mere mental hallucinations, in which decline the final -devitalisation of life and Königsbergian Chinadom find expression. The -most fundamental laws of preservation and growth, demand precisely the -reverse, namely:—that each should discover <i>his</i> own virtue, his own -Categorical Imperative. A nation goes to the dogs when it confounds -its concept of duty with the general concept of duty. Nothing is more -profoundly, more thoroughly pernicious, than every impersonal feeling -of duty, than every sacrifice to the Moloch of abstraction.—Fancy no -one’s having thought Kant’s Categorical Imperative <i>dangerous to life!</i> -... The instinct of the theologist alone took it under its wing!—An -action stimulated by the instinct of life, is proved to be a proper -action by the happiness that accompanies it: and that nihilist with the -bowels of a Christian dogmatist regarded happiness as an <i>objection -...</i>. What is there that destroys a man more speedily than to work, -think, feel, as an automaton of “duty,” without internal promptings, -without a profound personal predilection, without joy? This is the -recipe <i>par excellence</i> of decadence and even of idiocy.... Kant became -an idiot—And he was the contemporary of Goethe! This fatal spider was -regarded as <i>the</i> German philosopher,—is still regarded as such!... I -refrain from saying what I think of the Germans.... Did Kant not see in -the French Revolution the transition of the State from the inorganic to -the <i>organic</i> form? Did he not ask himself whether there was a single -event on record which could be explained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> otherwise than as a moral -faculty of mankind; so that by means of it, “mankind’s tendency towards -good,” might be <i>proved</i> once and for all? Kant’s reply: “that is the -Revolution.” Instinct at fault in anything and everything, hostility to -nature as an instinct, German decadence made into philosophy<i>—that is -Kant!</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">12</p> - -<p>Except for a few sceptics, the respectable type in the history of -philosophy, the rest do not know the very first pre-requisite of -intellectual uprightness. They all behave like females, do these great -enthusiasts and animal prodigies,—they regard “beautiful feelings” -themselves as arguments, the “heaving breast” as the bellows of -divinity, and conviction as the <i>criterion</i> of truth. In the end, -even Kant, with “Teutonic” innocence, tried to dress this lack of -intellectual conscience up in a scientific garb by means of the concept -“practical reason.” He deliberately invented a kind of reason which -at times would allow one to dispense with reason, that is to say when -“morality,” when the sublime command “thou shalt,” makes itself heard. -When one remembers that in almost all nations the philosopher is only a -further development of the priestly type, this heirloom of priesthood, -this <i>fraud towards one’s self,</i> no longer surprises one. When a man -has a holy life-task, as for instance to improve, save, or deliver -mankind, when a man bears God in his breast, and is the mouthpiece of -imperatives from another world,—with such a mission he stands beyond -the pale of all merely reasonable valuations. He is even sanctified by -such a taste,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> and is already the type of a higher order! What does a -priest care about science! He stands too high for that!—And until now -the priest has <i>ruled!</i>—He it was who determined the concept “true -and false.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">13</p> - -<p>Do not let us undervalue the fact that we <i>ourselves,</i> we free spirits, -are already a “transvaluation of all values,” an incarnate declaration -of war against all the old concepts “true” and “untrue” and of a -triumph over them. The most valuable standpoints are always the last -to be found: but the most valuable standpoints are the methods. AH the -methods and the first principles of our modern scientific procedure, -had for years to encounter the profoundest contempt: association -with them meant exclusion from the society of decent people—one was -regarded as an “enemy of God,” as a scoffer at truth and as “one -possessed.” With one’s scientific nature, one belonged to the Chandala. -We have had the whole feeling of mankind against us; hitherto their -notion of that which ought to be truth, of that which ought to serve -the purpose of truth: every “thou shalt,” has been directed against -us.... Our objects, our practices, our calm, cautious distrustful -manner—everything about us seemed to them absolutely despicable and -beneath contempt After all, it might be asked with some justice, -whether the thing which kept mankind blindfold so long, were not an -æsthetic taste: what they demanded of truth was a <i>picturesque</i> effect, -and from the man of science what they expected was that he should make -a forcible appeal to their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> senses. It was our <i>modesty</i> which ran -counter to their taste so long ... And oh! how well they guessed this, -did these divine turkey-cocks!—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">14</p> - -<p>We have altered our standpoint. In every respect we have become -more modest We no longer derive man from the “spirit,” and from the -“godhead”; we have thrust him back among the beasts. We regard him as -the strongest animal, because he is the craftiest: one of the results -thereof is his intellectuality. On the other hand we guard against the -vain pretension, which even here would fain assert itself: that man is -the great <i>arrière pensée</i> of organic evolution! He is by no means the -crown of creation, beside him, every other creature stands at the same -stage of perfection.... And even in asserting this we go a little too -far; for, relatively speaking, man is the most botched and diseased -of animals, and he has wandered furthest from his instincts. Be all -this as it may, he is certainly the most <i>interesting!</i> As regards -animals, Descartes was the first, with really admirable daring, to -venture the thought that the beast was <i>machina,</i> and the whole of -our physiology is endeavouring to prove this proposition. Moreover, -logically we do not set man apart, as Descartes did: the extent -to which man is understood to-day goes only so far as he has been -understood mechanistically. Formerly man was given “free will,” as his -dowry from a higher sphere; nowadays we have robbed him even of will, -in view of the fact that no such faculty is any longer known. The only -purpose served by the old word<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> “will,” is to designate a result, a -sort of individual reaction which necessarily follows upon a host of -partly discordant and partly harmonious stimuli:—the will no longer -“effects” or “moves” anything.... Formerly people thought that man’s -consciousness, his “spirit,” was a proof of his lofty origin, of his -divinity. With the idea of perfecting man, he was conjured to draw his -senses inside himself, after the manner of the tortoise, to cut off all -relations with terrestrial things, and to divest himself of his mortal -shell. Then the most important thing about him, the “pure spirit,” -would remain over. Even concerning these things we have improved our -standpoint Consciousness, “spirit,” now seems to us rather a symptom of -relative imperfection in the organism, as an experiment, a groping, a -misapprehension, an affliction which absorbs an unnecessary quantity of -nervous energy. We deny that anything can be done perfectly so long as -it is done consciously. “Pure spirit” is a piece of “pure stupidity”: -if we discount the nervous system, the senses and the “mortal shell,” -we have miscalculated—that it is all!...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">15</p> - -<p>In Christianity neither morality nor religion comes in touch at all -with reality. Nothing but imaginary <i>causes</i> (God, the soul, the ego, -spirit, free will—or even non-free will); nothing but imaginary -<i>effects</i> (sin, salvation, grace, punishment, forgiveness of sins). -Imaginary beings are supposed to have intercourse (God, spirits, -souls); imaginary Natural History (anthropocentric: total lack of -the notion “natural causes”); an imaginary <i>psychology</i> (nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> -but misunderstandings of self, interpretations of pleasant or -unpleasant general feelings; for instance of the states of the <i>nervus -sympathicus,</i> with the help of the sign language of a religio-moral -idiosyncrasy,—repentance, pangs of conscience, the temptation of -the devil, the presence of God); an imaginary teleology (the Kingdom -of God, the Last Judgment, Everlasting Life).—This purely fictitious -world distinguishes itself very unfavourably from the world of -dreams: the latter <i>reflects</i> reality, whereas the former falsifies, -depreciates and denies it Once the concept “nature” was taken to mean -the opposite of the concept God, the word “natural” had to acquire the -meaning of abominable,—the whole of that fictitious world takes its -root in the hatred of nature (—reality!—), it is the expression of -profound discomfiture in the presence of reality.... <i>But this explains -everything.</i> What is the only kind of man who has reasons for wriggling -out of reality by lies? The man who suffers from reality. But in -order to suffer from reality one must be a bungled portion of it. The -preponderance of pain over pleasure is the <i>cause</i> of that fictitious -morality and religion: but any such preponderance furnishes the formula -for decadence.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">16</p> - -<p>A criticism of the Christian concept of God inevitably leads to the -same conclusion.—A nation that still believes in itself, also has -its own God. In him it honours the conditions which enable it to -remain uppermost,—that is to say, its virtues. It projects its joy -over itself, its feeling of power, into a being, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> whom it can be -thankful for such things. He who is rich, will give of his riches: a -proud people requires a God, unto whom it can <i>sacrifice</i> things.... -Religion, when restricted to these principles, is a form of gratitude. -A man is grateful for his own existence; for this he must have a -God.—Such a God must be able to benefit and to injure him, he must be -able to act the friend and the foe. He must be esteemed for his good -as well as for his evil qualities. The monstrous castration of a God -by making him a God only of goodness, would lie beyond the pale of the -desires of such a community. The evil God is just as urgently needed -as the good God: for a people in such a form of society certainly does -not owe its existence to toleration and humaneness.... What would be -the good of a God who knew nothing of anger, revenge, envy, scorn, -craft, and violence?—who had perhaps never experienced the rapturous -<i>ardeurs</i> of victory and of annihilation? No one would understand such -a God: why should one possess him?—Of course, when a people is on -the road to ruin; when it feels its belief in a future, its hope of -freedom vanishing for ever; when it becomes conscious of submission -as the most useful quality, and of the virtues of the submissive as -self-preservative measures, then its God must also modify himself. -He then becomes a tremulous and unassuming sneak; he counsels “peace -of the soul,” the cessation of all hatred, leniency and “love” even -towards friend and foe. He is for ever moralising, he crawls into -the heart of every private virtue, becomes a God for everybody, he -retires from active service and becomes a Cosmopolitan.... Formerly -he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> represented a people, the strength of a people, everything -aggressive and desirous of power lying concealed in the heart of a -nation: now he is merely the good God.... In very truth Gods have no -other alternative, they are <i>either</i> the Will to Power—in which case -they are always the Gods of whole nations,—or, on the other hand, the -incapacity for power—in which case they necessarily become good.</p> - - - -<p class="parnum">17</p> - -<p>Wherever the Will to Power, no matter in what form, begins to decline, -a physiological retrogression, decadence, always supervenes. The -godhead of <i>decadence,</i> shorn of its masculine virtues and passions -is perforce converted into the God of the physiologically degraded, -of the weak. Of course they do not call themselves the weak, they -call themselves “the good.” ... No hint will be necessary to help you -to understand at what moment in history the dualistic fiction of a -good and an evil God first became possible. With the same instinct by -which the subjugated reduce their God to “Goodness in itself,” they -also cancel the good qualities from their conqueror’s God; they avenge -themselves on their masters by diabolising the latter’s God.—The <i>good -God</i> and the devil as well:—both the abortions of decadence.—How -is it possible that we are still so indulgent towards the simplicity -of Christian theologians to-day, as to declare with them that the -evolution of the concept God, from the “God of Israel,” the God of -a people, to the Christian God, the quintessence of all goodness, -marks a <i>step forward?</i>—But even Renan does this. As if Renan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> had -a right to simplicity! Why the very contrary stares one in the face. -When the pre-requisites of <i>ascending</i> life, when everything strong, -plucky, masterful and proud has been eliminated from the concept -of God, and step by step he has sunk down to the symbol of a staff -for the weary, of a last straw for all those who are drowning; when -he becomes the pauper’s God, the sinner’s God, the sick man’s God -<i>par excellence,</i> and the attribute “Saviour,” “Redeemer,” remains -<i>over</i> as the one essential attribute of divinity: what does such a -metamorphosis, such an abasement of the godhead imply?—Undoubtedly, -“the kingdom of God” has thus become larger. Formerly all he had was -his people, his “chosen” people. Since then he has gone travelling -over foreign lands, just as his people have done; since then he has -never rested anywhere: until one day he felt at home everywhere, the -Great Cosmopolitan,—until he got the “greatest number,” and half the -world on his side. But the God of the “greatest number,” the democrat -among gods, did not become a proud heathen god notwithstanding: he -remained a Jew, he remained the God of the back streets, the God of -all dark corners and hovels, of all the unwholesome quarters of the -world!... His universal empire is now as ever a netherworld empire, -an infirmary, a subterranean empire, a ghetto-empire.... And he -himself is so pale, so weak, so decadent ... Even the palest of the -pale were able to master him—our friends the metaphysicians, those -albinos of thought. They spun their webs around him so long that -ultimately he was hypnotised by their movements and himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> became a -spider, a metaphysician. Thenceforward he once more began spinning the -world out of his inner being—<i>sub specie Spinozæ,</i>—thenceforward -he transfigured himself into something ever thinner and ever more -anæmic, became “ideal,” became “pure spirit,” became <i>“absotutum”</i> and -“thing-in-itself.” ... <i>The decline and fall of a god:</i> God became the -“thing-in-itself.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">18</p> - -<p>The Christian concept of God—God as the deity of the sick, God as a -spider, God as spirit—is one of the most corrupt concepts of God that -has ever been attained on earth. Maybe it represents the low-water -mark in the evolutionary ebb of the godlike type God degenerated into -the <i>contradiction of life,</i> instead of being its transfiguration and -eternal Yea! With God war is declared on life, nature, and the will to -life! God is the formula for every calumny of this world and for every -lie concerning a beyond! In God, nonentity is deified, and the will to -nonentity is declared holy!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">19</p> - -<p>The fact that the strong races of Northern Europe did not repudiate -the Christian God, certainly does not do any credit to their religious -power, not to speak of their taste They ought to have been able -successfully to cope with such a morbid and decrepit offshoot of -decadence. And a curse lies on their heads; because they were unable to -cope with him: they made illness, decrepitude and contradiction a part -of all their instincts,—since then they have not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> <i>created</i> any other -God! Two thousand years have passed and not a single new God! But still -there exists, and as if by right,—like an <i>ultimum</i> and <i>maximum</i> of -god-creating power,—the <i>creator spiritus</i> in man, this miserable God -of Christian monotono-theism! This hybrid creature of decay, nonentity, -concept and contradiction, in which all the instincts of decadence, all -the cowardices and languors of the soul find their sanction!——</p> - - -<p class="parnum">20</p> - -<p>With my condemnation of Christianity I should not like to have done -an injustice to a religion which is related to it and the number of -whose followers is even greater; I refer to Buddhism. As nihilistic -religions, they are akin,—they are religions of decadence,—while -each is separated from the other in the most extraordinary fashion. -For being able to compare them at all, the critic of Christianity is -profoundly grateful to Indian scholars.—Buddhism is a hundred times -more realistic than Christianity,—it is part of its constitutional -heritage to be able to face problems objectively and coolly, it is -the outcome of centuries of lasting philosophical activity. The -concept “God” was already exploded when it appeared. Buddhism is -the only really <i>positive</i> religion to be found in history, even -in its epistemology (which is strict phenomenalism)—it no longer -speaks of the “struggle with <i>sin</i>” but fully recognising the true -nature of reality it speaks of the “struggle with <i>pain.</i>” It already -has—and this distinguishes it fundamentally from Christianity,—the -self-deception of moral concepts beneath it,—to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> use my own -phraseology, it stands <i>Beyond Good and Evil.</i> The two physiological -facts upon which it rests and upon which it bestows its attention -are: in the first place excessive irritability of feeling, which -manifests itself as a refined susceptibility to pain, <i>and also</i> as -super-spiritualisation, an all-too-lengthy sojourn amid concepts and -logical procedures, under the influence of which the personal instinct -has suffered in favour of the “impersonal.” (—Both of these states -will be known to a few of my readers, the objective ones, who, like -myself, will know them from experience.) Thanks to these physiological -conditions, a state of depression set in, which Buddha sought to combat -by means of hygiene. Against it, he prescribes life in the open, a life -of travel; moderation and careful choice in food; caution in regard to -all intoxicating liquor, as also in regard to all the passions which -tend to create bile and to heat the blood; and he deprecates care -either on one’s own or on other people’s account He recommends ideas -that bring one either peace or good cheer,—he invents means whereby -the habit of contrary ideas may be lost He understands goodness—being -good—as promoting health. <i>Prayer</i> is out of the question, as is -also <i>asceticism;</i> there is neither a Categorical Imperative nor any -discipline whatsoever, even within the walls of a monastery (—it is -always possible to leave it if one wants to). All these things would -have been only a means of accentuating the excessive irritability -already referred to. Precisely on this account he does not exhort his -followers to wage war upon those who do not share their views; nothing -is more abhorred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> in his doctrine than the feeling of revenge, of -aversion, and of resentment (—“not through hostility doth hostility -end”: the touching refrain of the whole of Buddhism....) And in this -he was right; for it is precisely these passions which are thoroughly -unhealthy in view of the principal dietetic object The mental fatigue -which he finds already existent and which expresses itself in -excessive “objectivity” (<i>i.e.</i>, the enfeeblement of the individual’s -interest—loss of ballast and of “egoism”), he combats by leading -the spiritual interests as well imperatively back to the individual -In Buddha’s doctrine egoism is a duty: the thing which is above all -necessary, <i>i.e.,</i> “how canst thou be rid of suffering” regulates -and defines the whole of the spiritual diet (—let anyone but think -of that Athenian who also declared war upon pure “scientificality,” -Socrates, who made a morality out of personal egoism even in the realm -of problems).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">21</p> - -<p>The pre-requisites for Buddhism are a very mild climate, great -gentleness and liberality in the customs of a people and <i>no</i> -militarism. The movement must also originate among the higher and -even learned classes. Cheerfulness, peace and absence of desire, are -the highest of inspirations, and they are <i>realised.</i> Buddhism is not -a religion in which perfection is merely aspired to: perfection is -the normal case. In Christianity all the instincts of the subjugated -and oppressed come to the fore: it is the lowest classes who seek -their salvation in this religion. Here the pastime, the manner of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> -killing time is to practise the casuistry of sin, self-criticism, and -conscience inquisition. Here the ecstasy in the presence of a <i>powerful -being,</i> called “god,” is constantly maintained by means of prayer; -while the highest thing is regarded as unattainable, as a gift, as an -act of “grace” Here plain dealing is also entirely lacking: concealment -and the darkened room are Christian. Here the body is despised, hygiene -is repudiated as sensual; the church repudiates even cleanliness (—the -first Christian measure after the banishment of the Moors was the -closing of the public baths, of which Cordova alone possessed 270). -A certain spirit of cruelty towards one’s self and others is also -Christian: hatred of all those who do not share one’s views; the will -to persecute Sombre and exciting ideas are in the foreground; the most -coveted states and those which are endowed with the finest names, are -really epileptic in their nature; diet is selected in such a way as -to favour morbid symptoms and to over-excite the nerves. Christian, -too, is the mortal hatred of the earth’s rulers,—the “noble,”—and -at the same time a sort of concealed and secret competition with them -(the subjugated leave the “body” to their master—all they want is -the “soul”). Christian is the hatred of the intellect, of pride, of -courage, freedom, intellectual <i>libertinage;</i> Christian is the hatred -of the <i>senses,</i> of the joys of the senses, of joy in general.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">22</p> - -<p>When Christianity departed from its native soil, which consisted of the -lowest classes, the <i>submerged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> masses</i> of the ancient world, and set -forth in quest of power among barbaric nations, it no longer met with -exhausted men but inwardly savage and self-lacerating men—the strong -but bungled men. Here, dissatisfaction with one’s self, suffering -through one’s self, is not as in the case of Buddhism, excessive -irritability and susceptibility to pain, but rather, conversely, it -is an inordinate desire for inflicting pain, for a discharge of the -inner tension in hostile deeds and ideas. Christianity was in need of -<i>barbaric</i> ideas and values, in order to be able to master barbarians: -such are for instance, the sacrifice of the first-born, the drinking -of blood at communion, the contempt of the intellect and of culture; -torture in all its forms, sensual and non-sensual; the great pomp of -the cult Buddhism is a religion for <i>senile</i> men, for races which -have become kind, gentle, and over-spiritual, and which feel pain too -easily (—Europe is not nearly ripe for it yet—); it calls them back -to peace and cheerfulness, to a regimen for the intellect, to a certain -hardening of the body. Christianity aims at mastering <i>beasts of prey</i>; -its expedient is to make them <i>ill,</i>—to render feeble is the Christian -recipe for taming, for “civilisation.” Buddhism is a religion for the -close and exhaustion of civilisation; Christianity does not even find -civilisation at hand when it appears, in certain circumstances it lays -the foundation of civilisation.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">23</p> - -<p>Buddhism, I repeat, is a hundred times colder, more truthful, -more objective. It no longer requires<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> to justify pain and its -susceptibility to suffering by the interpretation of sin,—it simply -says what it thinks, “I suffer.” To the barbarian, on the other hand, -suffering in itself is not a respectable thing: in order to acknowledge -to himself that he suffers, what he requires, in the first place, is -an explanation (his instinct directs him more readily to deny his -suffering, or to endure it in silence). In his case, the word “devil” -was a blessing: man had an almighty and terrible enemy,—he had no -reason to be ashamed of suffering at the hands of such an enemy.—</p> - -<p>At bottom there are in Christianity one or two subtleties which belong -to the Orient In the first place it knows that it is a matter of -indifference whether a thing be true or not; but that it is of the -highest importance that it should be believed to be true. Truth and -the belief that something is true: two totally separate worlds of -interest, almost <i>opposite worlds,</i> the road to the one and the road to -the other lie absolutely apart To be initiated into this fact almost -constitutes one a sage in the Orient: the Brahmins understood it thus, -so did Plato, and so does every disciple of esoteric wisdom. If for -example it give anyone pleasure to believe himself delivered from sin, -it is <i>not</i> a necessary prerequisite thereto that he should be sinful, -but only that he should <i>feel</i> sinful. If, however, <i>faith</i> is above -all necessary, then reason, knowledge, and scientific research must be -brought into evil repute: the road to truth becomes the <i>forbidden</i> -road.—Strong <i>hope</i> is a much greater stimulant of life than any -single realised joy could be. Sufferers must be sustained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> by a hope -which no actuality can contradict,—and which cannot ever be realised: -the hope of another world. (Precisely on account of this power that -hope has of making the unhappy linger on, the Greeks regarded it as -the evil of evils, as the most <i>mischievous</i> evil: it remained behind -in Pandora’s box.) In order that <i>love</i> may be possible, God must be a -person. In order that the lowest instincts may also make their voices -heard God must be young. For the ardour of the women a beautiful saint, -and for the ardour of the men a Virgin Mary has to be pressed into the -foreground. All this on condition that Christianity wishes to rule -over a certain soil, on which Aphrodisiac or Adonis cults had already -determined the <i>notion</i> of a cult. To insist upon <i>chastity</i> only -intensifies the vehemence and profundity of the religious instinct—it -makes the cult warmer, more enthusiastic, more soulful.—Love is the -state in which man sees things most widely different from what they -are. The force of illusion reaches its zenith here, as likewise the -sweetening and transfiguring power. When a man is in love he endures -more than at other times; he submits to everything. The thing was to -discover a religion in which it was possible to love: by this means -the worst in life is overcome—it is no longer even seen.—So much -for three Christian virtues Faith, Hope, and Charity: I call them the -three Christian <i>precautionary measures.</i>—Buddhism is too full of aged -wisdom, too positivistic to be shrewd in this way.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">24</p> - -<p>Here I only touch upon the problem of the origin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> of Christianity. -The first principle of its solution reads: Christianity can be -understood only in relation to the soil out of which it grew,—it is -not a counter-movement against the Jewish instinct, it is the rational -outcome of the latter, one step further in its appalling logic. In -the formula of the Saviour: “for Salvation is of the Jews.”—The -second principle is: the psychological type of the Galilean is still -recognisable, but it was only in a state of utter degeneration (which -is at once a distortion and an overloading with foreign features) that -he was able to serve the purpose for which he has been used,—namely, -as the type of a Redeemer of mankind.</p> - -<p>The Jews are the most remarkable people in the history of the world, -because when they were confronted with the question of Being or -non-Being, with simply uncanny deliberateness, they preferred Being -<i>at any price:</i> this price was the fundamental <i>falsification</i> of all -Nature, all the naturalness and all the reality, of the inner quite -as much as of the outer world. They hedged themselves in behind all -those conditions under which hitherto a people has been able to live, -has been allowed to live; of themselves they created an idea which was -the reverse of <i>natural</i> conditions,—each in turn, they twisted first -religion, then the cult, then morality, history and psychology, about -in a manner so perfectly hopeless that they were made <i>to contradict -their natural value.</i> We meet with the same phenomena again, and -exaggerated to an incalculable degree, although only as a copy:—the -Christian Church as compared with the “chosen people,” lacks all -claim to originality. Precisely on this account the Jews are the most -<i>fatal</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> people in the history of the world: their ultimate influence -has falsified mankind to such an extent, that even to this day the -Christian can be anti-Semitic in spirit, without comprehending that he -himself is the <i>final consequence of Judaism.</i></p> - -<p>It was in my “Genealogy of Morals” that I first gave a -psychological exposition of the idea of the antithesis noble and -<i>resentment-morality,</i> the latter having arisen out of an attitude -of negation to the former: but this is Judæo-Christian morality -heart and soul. In order to be able to say Nay to everything that -represents the ascending movement of life, prosperity, power, -beauty, and self-affirmation on earth, the instinct of resentment, -become genius, bad to invent <i>another</i> world, from the standpoint -of which that <i>Yea-saying</i> to life appeared as <i>the</i> most evil and -most abominable thing. From the psychological standpoint the Jewish -people are possessed of the toughest vitality. Transplanted amid -impossible conditions, with profound self-preservative intelligence, -it voluntarily took the side of all the instincts of decadence,—<i>not</i> -as though dominated by them, but because it detected a power in them -by means of which it could assert itself <i>against</i> “the world.” The -Jews are the opposite of all <i>decadents</i>: they have been forced to -represent them to the point of illusion, and with a <i>non plus ultra</i> of -histrionic genius, they have known how to set themselves at the head -of all decadent movements (St Paul and Christianity for instance), in -order to create something from them which is stronger than every party -<i>saying Yea to life.</i> For the category of men which aspires to power in -Judaism and Christianity,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>—that is to say, for the sacerdotal class, -decadence is but a <i>means;</i> this category of men has a vital interest -in making men sick, and in turning the notions “good” and “bad,” “true” -and “false,” upside down in a manner which is not only dangerous to -life, but also slanders it.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">25</p> - -<p>The history of Israel is invaluable as the typical history of every -<i>denaturalization</i> of natural values: let me point to five facts -which relate thereto. Originally, and above all in the period of -the kings, even Israel’s attitude to all things was the <i>right</i> one -—that is to say, the natural one. Its Jehovah was the expression of -its consciousness of power, of its joy over itself, of its hope for -itself: victory and salvation were expected from him, through him it -was confident that Nature would give what a people requires—above -all rain. Jehovah is the God of Israel, and <i>consequently</i> the God -of justice: this is the reasoning of every people which is in the -position of power, and which has a good conscience in that position. In -the solemn cult both sides of this self-affirmation of a people find -expression: it is grateful for the great strokes of fate by means of -which it became uppermost; it is grateful for the regularity in the -succession of the seasons and for all good fortune in the rearing of -cattle and in the tilling of the soil.—This state of affairs remained -the ideal for some considerable time, even after it had been swept away -in a deplorable manner by anarchy from within and the Assyrians from -without But the people still retained, as their highest desideratum, -that vision<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> of a king who was a good soldier and a severe judge; -and he who retained it most of all was that typical prophet (—that -is to say, critic and satirist of the age), Isaiah.—But all hopes -remained unrealised. The old God was no longer able to do what he had -done formerly. He ought to have been dropped. What happened? The idea -of him was changed,—the idea of him was denaturalised: this was the -price they paid for retaining him.—Jehovah, the God of “Justice,”—is -no longer one with Israel, no longer the expression of a people’s -sense of dignity: he is only a god on certain conditions.... The -idea of him becomes a weapon in the hands of priestly agitators who -henceforth interpret all happiness as a reward, all unhappiness as a -punishment for disobedience to God, for “sin”: that most fraudulent -method of interpretation which arrives at a so-called “moral order -of the Universe,” by means of which the concept “cause” and “effect” -is turned upside down. Once natural causation has been swept out of -the world by reward and punishment, a causation <i>hostile to nature</i> -becomes necessary; whereupon all the forms of unnaturalness follow. -A God who <i>demands,</i>—in the place of a God who helps, who advises, -who is at bottom only a name for every happy inspiration of courage -and of self-reliance.... Morality is no longer the expression of the -conditions of life and growth, no longer the most fundamental instinct -of life, but it has become abstract, it has become the opposite of -life,—Morality as the fundamental perversion of the imagination, -as the “evil eye” for all things. What is Jewish morality, what is -Christian morality? Chance robbed of its innocence; unhappiness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> -polluted with the idea of “sin”; well-being interpreted as a danger, as -a “temptation”; physiological indisposition poisoned by means of the -canker-worm of conscience....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">26</p> - -<p>The concept of God falsified; the concept of morality falsified: but -the Jewish priesthood did not stop at this. No use could be made of -the whole <i>history</i> of Israel, therefore it must go! These priests -accomplished that miracle of falsification, of which the greater part -of the Bible is the document: with unparalleled contempt and in the -teeth of all tradition and historical facts, they interpreted their own -people’s past in a religious manner,—that is to say, they converted -it into a ridiculous mechanical process of salvation, on the principle -that all sin against Jehovah led to punishment, and that all pious -worship of Jehovah led to reward. We would feel this shameful act of -historical falsification far more poignantly if the ecclesiastical -interpretation of history through millenniums had not blunted almost -all our sense for the demands of uprightness <i>in historicis.</i> And -the church is seconded by the philosophers: <i>the</i> of “a moral order -of the universe” permeates the whole development even of more modern -philosophy. What does a “moral order of the universe” mean? That once -and for all there is such a thing as a will of God which determines -what man has to do and what he has to leave undone; that the value -of a people or of an individual is measured according to how much or -how little the one or the other obeys the will of God; that in the -destinies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> of a people or of an individual, the will of God shows -itself dominant, that is to say it punishes or rewards according to -the degree of obedience. In the place of this miserable falsehood, -<i>reality</i> says: a parasitical type of man, who can flourish only at the -cost of all the healthy elements of life, the priest abuses the name -of God: he calls that state of affairs in which the priest determines -the value of things “the Kingdom of God”; he calls the means whereby -such a state of affairs is attained or maintained, “the Will of God”; -with cold-blooded cynicism he measures peoples, ages and individuals -according to whether they favour or oppose the ascendancy of the -priesthood. Watch him at work: in the hands of the Jewish priesthood -the Augustan Age in the history of Israel became an age of decline; -the exile, the protracted misfortune transformed itself into eternal -<i>punishment</i> for the Augustan Age—that age in which the priest did not -yet exist Out of the mighty and thoroughly free-born figures of the -history of Israel, they made, according to their requirements, either -wretched bigots and hypocrites, or “godless ones”: they simplified -the psychology of every great event to the idiotic formula “obedient -or disobedient to God.”—A step further: the “Will of God,” that is -to say the self-preservative measures of the priesthood, must be -known—to this end a “revelation” is necessary. In plain English: a -stupendous literary fraud becomes necessary, “holy scriptures” are -discovered,—and they are published abroad with all hieratic pomp, -with days of penance and lamentations over the long state Of “sin.” -The “Will of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> God” has long stood firm: the whole of the trouble -lies in the fact that the “Holy Scriptures” have been discarded.... -Moses was already the “Will of God” revealed.... What had happened? -With severity and pedantry, the priest had formulated once and for -all—even to the largest and smallest contributions that were to be -paid to him (—not forgetting the daintiest portions of meat; for the -priest is a consumer of beef-steaks)—<i>what he wanted,</i> “what the Will -of God was.” ... Hence-forward everything became so arranged that the -priests were <i>indispensable everywhere.</i> At all the natural events of -life, at birth, at marriage, at the sick-bed, at death,—not to speak -of the sacrifice (“the meal”),—the holy parasite appears in order -to denaturalise, or in his language, to “sanctify,” everything.... -For this should be understood: every natural custom, every natural -institution (the State, the administration of justice, marriage, the -care of the sick and the poor), every demand inspired by the instinct -of life, in short everything that has a value in itself, is rendered -absolutely worthless and even dangerous through the parasitism of the -priest (or of the “moral order of the universe”): a sanction after -the fact is required,—a <i>power which imparts value</i> is necessary, -which in so doing says, Nay to nature, and which by this means alone -<i>creates</i> a valuation.... The priest depreciates and desecrates nature: -it is only at this price that he exists at all.—Disobedience to God, -that is to say, to the priest, to the “law,” now receives the name of -“sin”; the means of “reconciling one’s self with God” are of course -of a nature which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> render subordination to the priesthood all the -more fundamental: the priest alone is able to “save.” ... From the -psychological standpoint, in every society organised upon a hieratic -basis, “sins” are indispensable: they are the actual weapons of power, -the priest <i>lives</i> upon sins, it is necessary for him that people -should “sin.” ... Supreme axiom: “God forgiveth him that repenteth”—in -plain English: <i>him that submitteth himself to the priest.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">27</p> - -<p>Christianity grew out of an utterly <i>false</i> soil, in which all nature, -every natural value, every <i>reality</i> had the deepest instincts of the -ruling class against it; it was a form of deadly hostility to reality -which has never been surpassed. The “holy people” which had retained -only priestly values and priestly names for all things, and which, with -a logical consistency that is terrifying, had divorced itself from -everything still powerful on earth as if it were “unholy,” “worldly,” -“sinful,”—this people created a final formula for its instinct which -was consistent to the point of self-suppression; as <i>Christianity</i> it -denied even the last form of reality, the “holy people,” the “chosen -people,” <i>Jewish</i> reality itself. The case is of supreme interest: -the small insurrectionary movement christened with the name of Jesus -of Nazareth, is the Jewish instinct <i>over again,</i>—in other words, -it is the sacerdotal instinct which can no longer endure the priest -as a fact; it is the discovery of a kind of life even more fantastic -than the one previously conceived, a vision of life which is even -more unreal than that which the organisation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> of a church stipulates. -Christianity denies the church.<a name="FNanchor_3_19" id="FNanchor_3_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_19" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> - -<p>I fail to see against whom was directed the insurrection of which -rightly or <i>wrongly</i> Jesus is understood to have been the promoter, -if it were not directed against the Jewish church,—the word “church” -being used here in precisely the same sense in which it is used to-day. -It was an insurrection against the “good and the just,” against -the “prophets of Israel,” against the hierarchy of society—not -against the latter’s corruption, but against caste, privilege, order, -formality. It was the lack of faith in “higher men,” it was a “Nay” -uttered against everything that was tinctured with the blood of priests -and theologians. But the hierarchy which was set in question if only -temporarily by this movement, formed the construction of piles upon -which, alone, the Jewish people was able to subsist in the midst of the -“waters”; it was that people’s <i>last</i> chance of survival wrested from -the world at enormous pains, the <i>residuum</i> of its political autonomy: -to attack this construction was tantamount to attacking the most -profound popular instinct, the most tenacious national will to live -that has ever existed on earth. This saintly anarchist who called the -lowest of the low, the outcasts and “sinners,” the Chandala of Judaism, -to revolt against the established order of things (and in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> language -which, if the gospels are to be trusted, would get one sent to Siberia -even to-day)—this man was a political criminal in so far as political -criminals were possible in a community so absurdly non-political. This -brought him to the cross: the proof of this is the inscription found -thereon. He died for <i>his</i> sins—and no matter how often the contrary -has been asserted there is absolutely nothing to show that he died for -the sins of others.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">28</p> - -<p>As to whether he was conscious of this contrast, or whether he was -merely <i>regarded</i> as such, is quite another question. And here, alone, -do I touch upon the problem of the psychology of the Saviour.—I -confess there are few books which I have as much difficulty in reading -as the gospels. These difficulties are quite different from those which -allowed the learned curiosity of the German, mind to celebrate one -of its most memorable triumphs. Many years have now elapsed since I, -like every young scholar, with the sage conscientiousness of a refined -philologist, relished the work of the incomparable Strauss. I was then -twenty years of age; now I am too serious for that sort of thing. What -do I care about the contradictions of “tradition”? How can saintly -legends be called “tradition” at all! The stories of saints constitute -the most ambiguous literature on earth: to apply the scientific method -to them, <i>when there are no other documents to hand,</i> seems to me to be -a fatal procedure from the start—simply learned fooling.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">29</p> - -<p>The point that concerns me is the psychological type of the Saviour. -This type might be contained in the gospels, in spite of the gospels, -and however much it may have been mutilated, or overladen with -foreign features: just as that of Francis of Assisi is contained -in his legends in spite of his legends. It is <i>not</i> a question of -the truth concerning what he has done, what he has said, and how he -actually died; but whether his type may still be conceived in any way, -whether it has been handed down to us at all?—The attempts which -to my knowledge have been made to read the <i>history</i> of a “soul” out -of the gospels, seem to me to point only to disreputable levity in -psychological matters. M. Renan, that buffoon <i>in psychologies,</i> has -contributed the two most monstrous ideas imaginable to the explanation -of the type of Jesus: the idea of the <i>genius</i> and the idea of the -<i>hero</i> (“<i>héros</i>”). But if there is anything thoroughly unevangelical -surely it is the idea of the hero. It is precisely the reverse of all -struggle, of all consciousness of taking part in the fight, that has -become instinctive here: the inability to resist is here converted into -a morality (“resist not evil,” the profoundest sentence in the whole of -the gospels, their key in a certain sense), the blessedness of peace, -of gentleness, of not <i>being able</i> to be an enemy. What is the meaning -of “glad tidings”?—True life, eternal life has been found—it is not -promised, it is actually here, it is in <i>you;</i> it is life in love, in -love free from all selection or exclusion, free from all distance. -Everybody is the child of God—Jesus does not by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> any means claim -anything for himself alone,—as the child of God everybody is equal to -everybody else.... Fancy making Jesus a <i>hero!</i>—And what a tremendous -misunderstanding the word “genius” is! Our whole idea of “spirit,” -which is a civilised idea, could have had no meaning whatever in the -world in which Jesus lived. In the strict terms of the physiologist, a -very different word ought to be used here.... We know of a condition of -morbid irritability of the sense of <i>touch,</i> which recoils shuddering -from every kind of contact, and from every attempt at grasping a solid -object. Any such physiological <i>habitus</i> reduced to its ultimate -logical conclusion, becomes an instinctive hatred of all reality, a -flight into the “intangible,” into the “incomprehensible”; a repugnance -to all formulæ, to every notion of time and space, to everything that -is established such as customs, institutions, the church; a feeling -at one’s ease in a world in which no sign of reality is any longer -visible, a merely “inner” world, a “true” world, an “eternal” world.... -“The Kingdom of God is within you”...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">30</p> - -<p><i>The instinctive hatred of reality</i> is the outcome of an extreme -susceptibility to pain and to irritation, which can no longer endure to -be “touched” at all, because every sensation strikes too deep.</p> - -<p><i>The instinctive exclusion of all aversion, of all hostility, of all -boundaries and distances in feeling,</i> is the outcome of an extreme -susceptibility to pain and to irritation, which regards all resistance, -all compulsory resistance as insufferable <i>anguish</i>(—that is to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> say, -as harmful, as <i>deprecated</i> by the self-preservative instinct), and -which knows blessedness (happiness) only when it is no longer obliged -to offer resistance to anybody, either evil or detrimental,—love as -the Only ultimate possibility of life....</p> - -<p>These are the two <i>physiological realities</i> upon which and out of which -the doctrine of salvation has grown. I call them a sublime further -development of hedonism, upon a thoroughly morbid soil. Epicureanism, -the pagan theory of salvation, even though it possessed a large -proportion of Greek vitality and nervous energy, remains the most -closely related to the above. Epicurus was a <i>typical</i> decadent: and I -was the first to recognise him as such.—The terror of pain, even of -infinitely slight pain—such a state cannot possibly help culminating -in a <i>religion</i> of love....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">31</p> - -<p>I have given my reply to the problem in advance. The prerequisite -thereto was the admission of the fact that the type of the Saviour has -reached us only in a very distorted form. This distortion in itself -is extremely feasible: for many reasons a type of that kind could not -be pure, whole, and free from additions. The environment in which -this strange figure moved, must have left its mark upon him, and the -history, the <i>destiny</i> of the first Christian communities must have -done so to a still greater degree. Thanks to that destiny, the type -must have been enriched retrospectively with features which can be -interpreted only as serving the purposes of war and of propaganda -That strange and morbid world into which the gospels lead us—a -world which seems to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> have been drawn from a Russian novel, where -the scum and dross of society, diseases of the nerves and “childish” -imbecility seem to have given each other rendezvous—must in any case -have <i>coarsened</i> the type: the first disciples especially must have -translated an existence conceived entirely in symbols and abstractions -into their own crudities, in order at least to be able to understand -something about it,—for them the type existed only after it had -been cast in a more familiar mould.... The prophet, the Messiah, the -future judge, the teacher of morals, the thaumaturgist, John the -Baptist—all these were but so many opportunities of misunderstanding -the type.... Finally, let us not under-rate the <i>proprium</i> of all great -and especially sectarian veneration: very often it effaces from the -venerated object, all the original and frequently painfully un-familiar -traits and idiosyncrasies—<i>it does not even see them.</i> It is greatly -to be deplored that no Dostoiewsky lived in the neighbourhood of this -most interesting decadent,—I mean someone who would have known how to -feel the poignant charm of such a mixture of the sublime, the morbid, -and the childlike. Finally, the type, as an example of decadence, may -actually have been extraordinarily multifarious and contradictory: -this, as a possible alternative, is not to be altogether ignored. -Albeit, everything seems to point away from it; for, precisely in this -case, tradition would necessarily have been particularly true and -objective: whereas we have reasons for assuming the reverse. Meanwhile -a yawning chasm of contradiction separates the mountain, lake, and -pastoral preacher, who strikes us as a Buddha<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> on a soil only very -slightly Hindu, from that combative fanatic, the mortal enemy of -theologians and priests, whom Renan’s malice has glorified as “<i>le -grand maître en ironie.</i>” For my part, I do not doubt but what the -greater part of this venom (and even of <i>esprit</i>) was inoculated into -the type of the Master only as the outcome of the agitated condition -of Christian propaganda. For we have ample reasons for knowing the -unscrupulousness of all sectarians when they wish to contrive their own -<i>apology</i> out of the person of their master. When the first Christian -community required a discerning, wrangling, quarrelsome, malicious and -hair-splitting theologian, to oppose other theologians, it created its -“God” according to its needs; just as it did not hesitate to put upon -his lips those utterly unevangelical ideas of “his second coming,” the -“last judgment,”—ideas with which it could not then dispense,—and -every kind of expectation and promise which happened to be current.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">32</p> - -<p>I can only repeat that I am opposed to the importation of the fanatic -into the type of the Saviour: the word “<i>impérieux,</i>” which Renan -uses, in itself annuls the type. The “glad tidings” are simply that -there are no longer any contradictions, that the Kingdom of Heaven is -for the <i>children;</i> the faith which raises its voice here is not a -faith that has been won by a struggle,—it is to hand, it was there -from the beginning, it is a sort of spiritual return to childishness. -The case of delayed and undeveloped puberty in the organism, as the -result<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> of degeneration is at least familiar to physiologists. A faith -of this sort does not show anger, it does not blame, neither does it -defend itself: it does not bring “the sword,”—it has no inkling of -how it will one day establish feuds between man and man. It does not -demonstrate itself, either by miracles, or by reward and promises, or -yet “through the scriptures”: it is in itself at every moment its own -miracle, its own reward, its own proof, its own “Kingdom of God.” This -faith cannot be formulated—it lives, it guards against formulas. The -accident of environment, of speech, of preparatory culture, certainly -determines a particular series of conceptions: early Christianity deals -only in Judæo-Semitic conceptions (—the eating and drinking at the -last supper form part of these,—this idea which like everything Jewish -has been abused so maliciously by the church). But one should guard -against seeing anything more than a language of signs, semiotics, an -opportunity for parables in all this. The very fact that no word is to -be taken literally, is the only condition on which this Anti-realist -is able to speak at all. Among Indians he would have made use of the -ideas of Sankhyara, among Chinese, those of Lao-tze—and would not -have been aware of any difference. With a little terminological laxity -Jesus might be called a “free spirit”—he cares not a jot for anything -that is established: the word <i>killeth,</i> everything fixed <i>killtth.</i> -The idea, <i>experience,</i> “life” as he alone knows it, is, according to -him, opposed to every kind of word, formula, law, faith and dogma. He -speaks only of the innermost things: “life” or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> “truth,” or “light,” is -his expression for the innermost thing,—everything else, the whole of -reality, the whole of nature, language even, has only the value of a -sign, of a simile for him.—It is of paramount importance not to make -any mistake at this point, however great may be the temptation thereto -that lies in Christian—I mean to say, ecclesiastical prejudice. Any -such essential symbolism stands beyond the pale of all religion, all -notions of cult, all history, all natural science, all experience of -the world, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology, all books and -all Art—for his “wisdom” is precisely the complete ignorance<a name="FNanchor_4_20" id="FNanchor_4_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_20" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> of the -existence of such things. He has not even heard speak of <i>culture,</i> he -does not require to oppose it,—he does not deny it.... The same holds -good of the state, of the whole of civil and social order, of work -and of war—he never had any reason to deny the world, he had not the -vaguest notion of the ecclesiastical concept “the world.” ... Denying -is precisely what was quite impossible to him.—Dialectic is also -quite absent, as likewise the idea that any faith, any “truth” can be -proved by argument (—his proofs are inner “lights,” inward feelings of -happiness and self-affirmation, a host of “proofs of power”—). Neither -can such a doctrine contradict, it does not even realise the fact that -there are or can be other doctrines, it is absolutely incapable of -imagining a contrary judgment.... Wherever it encounters such things, -from a feeling of profound sympathy it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> bemoans such “blindness,”—for -it sees the “light,”—but it raises no objections.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">33</p> - -<p>The whole psychology of the “gospels” lacks the concept of guilt and -punishment, as also that of reward. “Sin,” any sort of aloofness -between God and man, is done away with,—<i>this is precisely what -constitutes the “glad tidings”.</i> Eternal bliss is not promised, it is -not bound up with certain conditions; it is the only reality—the rest -consists only of signs wherewith to speak about it....</p> - -<p>The results of such a state project themselves into a new practice -of life, the actual evangelical practice. It is not a “faith” which -distinguishes the Christians: the Christian acts, he distinguishes -himself by means of a <i>different</i> mode of action. He does not resist -his enemy either by words or in his heart He draws no distinction -between foreigners and natives, between Jews and Gentiles (“the -neighbour” really means the co-religionist, the Jew). He is angry with -no one, he despises no one. He neither shows himself at the tribunals -nor does he acknowledge any of their claims (“Swear not at all”). -He never under any circumstances divorces his wife, even when her -infidelity has been proved.—All this is at bottom one principle, it is -all the outcome of one instinct—</p> - -<p>The life of the Saviour was naught else than this practice,—neither -was his death. He no longer required any formulæ, any rites for his -relations with God—not even prayer. He has done with all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> the Jewish -teaching of repentance and of atonement; he alone knows the <i>mode</i> -of life which makes one feel “divine,” “saved,” “evangelical,” and -at all times a “child of God.” <i>Not</i> “repentance,” <i>not</i> “prayer and -forgiveness” are the roads to God: the <i>evangelical mode of life -alone</i> leads to God, it <i>is</i> “God.”—That which the gospels abolished -was the Judaism of the concepts “sin,” “forgiveness of sin,” “faith,” -“salvation through faith,”—the whole doctrine of the Jewish church was -denied by the “glad tidings.”</p> - -<p>The profound instinct of how one must live in order to feel “in -Heaven,” in order to feel “eternal,” while in every other respect -one feels by <i>no</i> means “in Heaven”: this alone is the psychological -reality of “Salvation.”—A new life and <i>not</i> a new faith....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">34</p> - -<p>If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist, it is -this that he regarded only <i>inner</i> facts as facts, as “truths,”—that -he understood the rest, everything natural, temporal, material -and historical, only as signs, as opportunities for parables. The -concept “the Son of Man,” is not a concrete personality belonging to -history, anything individual and isolated, but an “eternal” fact, -a psychological symbol divorced from the concept of time. The same -is true, and in the highest degree, of the <i>God</i> of this typical -symbolist, of the “Kingdom of God,” of the “Kingdom of Heaven,” and -of the “Sonship of God.” Nothing is more un-Christlike than the -<i>ecclesiastical crudity</i> of a personal God, of a Kingdom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> of God that -is coming, of a “Kingdom of Heaven” beyond, of a “Son of God” as the -second person of the Trinity. All this, if I may be forgiven the -expression, is as fitting as a square peg in a round hole—and oh! -what a hole!—the gospels: a <i>world-historic</i> cynicism in the scorn -of symbols.... But what is meant by the signs “Father” and “Son,” is -of course obvious—not to everybody, I admit: with the word “Son,” -<i>entrance</i> into the feeling of the general transfiguration of all -things (beatitude) is expressed, with the word “Father,” <i>this feeling -itself</i> the feeling of eternity and of perfection.—I blush to have to -remind you of what the Church has done with this symbolism: has it not -set an Amphitryon story at the threshold of the Christian “faith”? And -a dogma of immaculate conception into the bargain?... <i>But by so doing -it defiled conception.</i>——</p> - -<p>The “Kingdom of Heaven” is a state of the heart—not something -which exists “beyond this earth” or comes to you “after death.” The -whole idea of natural death is lacking in the gospels. Death is not -a bridge, not a means of access: it is absent because it belongs to -quite a different and merely apparent world the only use of which is -to furnish signs, similes. The “hour of death” is not a Christian -idea—the “hour,” time in general, physical life and its crises do not -exist for the messenger of “glad tidings.” ... The “Kingdom of God” is -not some thing that is expected; it has no yesterday nor any day after -to-morrow, it is not going to come in a “thousand years”—it is an -experience of a human heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">35</p> - -<p>This “messenger of glad tidings” died as he lived and as he -taught—<i>not</i> in order “to save mankind,” but in order to show how one -ought to live. It was a mode of life that he bequeathed to mankind: his -behaviour before his judges, his attitude towards his executioners, -his accusers, and all kinds of calumny and scorn,—his demeanour on -the <i>cross.</i> He offers no resistance; he does not defend his rights; -he takes no step to ward off the most extreme consequences, he does -more,—he provokes them. And he prays, suffers and loves with those, in -those, who treat him ill.... <i>Not</i> to defend one’s self, <i>not</i> to show -anger, not to hold anyone responsible.... But to refrain from resisting -even the evil one,—to <i>love</i> him....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">36</p> - -<p>—Only we spirits that have <i>become free,</i> possess the necessary -condition for understanding something which nineteen centuries have -misunderstood,—that honesty which has become an instinct and a passion -in us, and which wages war upon the “holy lie” with even more vigour -than upon every other lie.... Mankind was unspeakably far from our -beneficent and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the mind, -which, alone, renders the solution of such strange and subtle things -possible: at all times, with shameless egoism, all that people sought -was their <i>own</i> advantage in these matters, the Church was built up out -of contradiction to the gospel....</p> - -<p>Whoever might seek for signs pointing to the guiding fingers of an -ironical deity behind the great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> comedy of existence, would find no -small argument in the <i>huge note of interrogation</i> that is called -Christianity. The fact that mankind is on its knees before the reverse -of that which formed the origin, the meaning and the <i>rights</i> of -the gospel; the fact that, in the idea “Church,” precisely that is -pronounced holy which the “messenger of glad tidings” regarded as -<i>beneath</i> him, as <i>behind</i> him—one might seek in vain for a more -egregious example <i>of world-historic</i> irony—-</p> - - -<p class="parnum">37</p> - -<p>—Our age is proud of its historical sense: how could it allow -itself to be convinced of the nonsensical idea that at the beginning -Christianity consisted only of the <i>clumsy fable of the thaumaturgist -and of the Saviour,</i> and that all its spiritual and symbolic -side was only developed later? On the contrary: the history of -Christianity—from the death on the cross onwards—is the history of -a gradual and ever coarser misunderstanding of an original symbolism. -With every extension of Christianity over ever larger and ruder -masses, who were ever less able to grasp its first principles, the -need of <i>vulgarising and barbarising it</i> increased proportionately—it -absorbed the teachings and rites of all the <i>subterranean</i> cults of the -<i>imperium Romanum,</i> as well as the nonsense of every kind of morbid -reasoning. The fatal feature of Christianity lies in the necessary -fact that its faith had to become as morbid, base and vulgar as the -needs to which it had to minister were morbid, base and vulgar. <i>Morbid -barbarism</i> at last braces itself together for power in the form of the -Church<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>—the Church, this deadly hostility to all honesty, to all -loftiness of the soul, to all discipline of the mind, to all frank and -kindly humanity.—<i>Christian</i> and <i>noble</i> values: only we spirits <i>who -have become free have</i> re-established this contrast in values which is -the greatest that has ever existed on earth!—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">38</p> - -<p>—I cannot, at this point, stifle a sigh. There are days when I -am visited by a feeling blacker than the blackest melancholy—the -<i>contempt of man.</i> And in order that I may leave you in no doubt as -to what I despise, <i>whom</i> I despise: I declare that it is the man of -to-day, the man with whom I am fatally contemporaneous. The man of -to-day, I am asphyxiated by his foul breath.... Towards the past, like -all knights of knowledge, I am profoundly tolerant,—that is to say, -I exercise a sort of <i>generous</i> self-control: with gloomy caution I -pass through whole millennia of this mad-house world, and whether it -be called “Christianity,” “Christian Faith,” or “Christian Church,” I -take care not to hold mankind responsible for its mental disorders. -But my feeling suddenly changes, and vents itself the moment I enter -the modern age, <i>our</i> age. Our age <i>knows....</i> That which formerly -was merely morbid, is now positively indecent It is indecent nowadays -to be a Christian. <i>And it is here that my loathing begins.</i> I look -about me: not a word of what was formerly known as “truth” has remained -standing; we can no longer endure to hear a priest even pronounce the -word “truth.” Even he who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> makes but the most modest claims upon truth, -<i>must</i> know at present, that a theologian, a priest, or a pope, not -only errs but actually <i>ties,</i> with every word that he utters,—and -that he is no longer able to lie from “innocence,” from “ignorance.” -Even the priest knows quite as well as everybody else does that there -is no longer any “God,” any “sinner” or any “Saviour,” and that “free -will,” and “a moral order of the universe” are <i>lies.</i> Seriousness, -the profound self-conquest of the spirit no longer allows anyone to -be <i>ignorant</i> about this.... All the concepts of the Church have been -revealed in their true colours—that is to say, as the most vicious -frauds on earth, calculated to <i>depreciate</i> nature and all natural -values. The priest himself has been recognised as what he is—that is -to say, as the most dangerous kind of parasite, as the actual venomous -spider of existence.... At present we know, our <i>conscience</i> knows, -the real value of the gruesome inventions which the priests and the -Church have made, <i>and what end they served.</i> By means of them that -state of self-profanation on the part of man has been attained, the -sight of which makes one heave. The concepts “Beyond,” “Last Judgment,” -“Immortality of the Soul,” the “soul” itself, are merely so many -instruments of torture, so many systems of cruelty, on the strength -of which the priest became and remained master.... Everybody knows -this, <i>and nevertheless everything remains as it was.</i> Whither has -the last shred of decency, of self-respect gone, if nowadays even -our statesmen—a body of men who are otherwise so unembarrassed, and -such thorough anti-Christians in deed—still declare themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> -Christians and still flock to communion?<a name="FNanchor_5_21" id="FNanchor_5_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_21" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>.... Fancy a prince at the -head of his legions, magnificent as the expression of the egoism and -self-exaltation of his people,—but <i>shameless</i> enough to acknowledge -himself a Christian!... What then does Christianity deny? What does -it call “world”? “The world” to Christianity means that a man is a -soldier, a judge, a patriot, that he defends himself, that he values -his honour, that he desires his own advantage, that he is <i>proud.</i> -... The conduct of every moment, every instinct, every valuation that -leads to a deed, is at present anti-Christian: what an <i>abortion of -falsehood</i> modern man must be, in order to be able <i>without a blush</i> -still to call himself a Christian!——</p> - - -<p class="parnum">39</p> - -<p>—I will retrace my steps, and will tell you the <i>genuine</i> -history of Christianity.—The very word “Christianity” is a -misunderstanding,—truth to tell, there never was more than one -Christian, and he <i>died</i> on the Cross. The “gospel” <i>died</i> on the -cross. That which thenceforward was called “gospel” was the reverse -of that “gospel” that Christ had lived: it was “evil tidings,” a -<i>dysangel</i> It is false to the point of nonsense to see in “faith,” -in the faith in salvation through Christ, the distinguishing trait -of the Christian: the only thing that is Christian is the Christian -mode of existence, a life such as he led who died on the Cross.... To -this day a life of this kind is still possible; for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> certain men, it -is even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity will be possible -in all ages.... <i>Not</i> a faith, but a course of action, above all a -course of inaction, non-interference, and a different life.... States -of consciousness, any sort of faith, a holding of certain things -for true, as every psychologist knows, are indeed of absolutely no -consequence, and are only of fifth-rate importance compared with the -value of the instincts: more exactly, the whole concept of intellectual -causality is false. To reduce the fact of being a Christian, or of -Christianity, to a holding of something for true, to a mere phenomenon -of consciousness, is tantamount to denying Christianity. <i>In fact -there have never been any Christians.</i> The “Christian,” he who for two -thousand years has been called a Christian, is merely a psychological -misunderstanding of self. Looked at more closely, there ruled in -him, <i>notwithstanding</i> all his faith, only instincts—and <i>what -instincts!</i>—“Faith” in all ages, as for instance in the case of -Luther, has always been merely a cloak, a pretext, a <i>screen,</i> behind -which the instincts played their game,—a prudent form of <i>blindness</i> -in regard to the dominion of <i>certain</i> instincts. “Faith” I have -already characterised as a piece of really Christian cleverness; for -people have always spoken of “faith” and acted according to their -instincts.... In the Christian’s world of ideas there is nothing which -even touches reality: but I have already recognised in the instinctive -hatred of reality the actual motive force, the only driving power at -the root of Christianity. What follows therefrom? That here, even -<i>in psychologicis</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> error is fundamental,—that is to say capable -of determining the spirit of things,—that is to say, <i>substance.</i> -Take one idea away from the whole, and put one realistic fact in its -stead,—and the whole of Christianity tumbles into nonentity!—Surveyed -from above, this strangest of all facts,-a religion not only dependent -upon error, but inventive and showing signs of genius only in those -errors which are dangerous and which poison life and the human -heart—remains a <i>spectacle for gods,</i> for those gods who are at the -same time philosophers and whom I met for instance in those celebrated -dialogues on the island of Naxos. At the moment when they get rid -of their <i>loathing (—and we do as well!</i>), they will be thankful -for the spectacle the Christians have offered: the wretched little -planet called Earth perhaps deserves on account of <i>this</i> curious -case alone, a divine glance, and divine interest.... Let us not -therefore underestimate the Christians: the Christian, false <i>to the -point of innocence in falsity,</i> is far above the apes,—in regard to -the Christians a certain well-known theory of Descent becomes a mere -good-natured compliment.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">40</p> - -<p>—The fate of the gospel was decided at the moment of the death,—it -hung on the “cross.” ... It was only death, this unexpected and -ignominious death; it was only the cross which as a rule was reserved -simply for the <i>canaille,</i>—only this appalling paradox which -confronted the disciples with the actual riddle: <i>Who was that? what -was that?</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>—The state produced by the excited and profoundly wounded -feelings of these men, the suspicion that such a death might imply the -<i>refutation</i> of their cause, and the terrible note of interrogation: -“why precisely thus?” will be understood only too well. In this case -everything <i>must</i> be necessary, everything must have meaning, a reason, -the highest reason. The love of a disciple admits of no such thing as -accident. Only then did the chasm yawn: “who has killed him?” “who was -his natural enemy?”—this question rent the firmament like a flash of -lightning. Reply: <i>dominant</i> Judaism, its ruling class. Thenceforward -the disciple felt himself in revolt <i>against</i> established order; he -understood Jesus, after the fact, as one in <i>revolt against established -order.</i> Heretofore this warlike, this nay-saying and nay-doing feature -in Christ had been lacking; nay more, he was its contradiction. The -small primitive community had obviously understood <i>nothing</i> of the -principal factor of all, which was the example of freedom and of -superiority to every form of <i>resentment</i> which lay in this way of -dying. And this shows how little they understood him altogether! At -bottom Jesus could not have desired anything else by his death than to -give the strongest public <i>example</i> and <i>proof</i> of his doctrine.... -But his disciples were very far from <i>forgiving this</i> death—though if -they had done so it would have been in the highest sense evangelical -on their part,—neither were they prepared, with a gentle and serene -calmness of heart, to <i>offer</i> themselves for a similar death.... -Precisely the most unevangelical feeling, <i>revenge,</i> became once more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> -ascendant. It was impossible for the cause to end with this death: -“compensation” and “judgment” were required (—and forsooth, what could -be more unevangelical than “compensation,” “punishment,” “judgment”!) -The popular expectation of a Messiah once more became prominent; -attention was fixed upon one historical moment: the “Kingdom of God” -descends to sit in judgment upon his enemies. But this proves that -everything was misunderstood: the “Kingdom of God” regarded as the last -scene of the last act, as a promise! But the Gospel had clearly been -the living, the fulfilment, the <i>reality</i> of this “Kingdom of God.” -It was precisely a death such as Christ’s that was this “Kingdom of -God.” It was only now that all the contempt for the Pharisees and the -theologians, and all bitter feelings towards them, were introduced -into the character of the Master,—and by this means he himself was -converted into a Pharisee and a theologian! On the other hand, the -savage veneration of these completely unhinged souls could no longer -endure that evangelical right of every man to be the child of God, -which Jesus had taught: their revenge consisted in <i>elevating</i> Jesus in -a manner devoid of all reason, and in separating him from themselves: -just as, formerly, the Jews, with the view of revenging themselves on -their enemies, separated themselves from their God, and placed him high -above them. The Only God, and the Only Son of God:—both were products -of resentment.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">41</p> - -<p>—And from this time forward an absurd problem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> rose into prominence: -“how <i>could</i> God allow it to happen?” To this question the disordered -minds of the small community found a reply which in its absurdity -was literally terrifying: God gave his Son as a <i>sacrifice</i> for the -forgiveness of sins. Alas! how prompt and sudden was the end of -the gospel! Expiatory sacrifice for guilt, and indeed in its most -repulsive and barbaric form,—the sacrifice of the <i>innocent</i> for -the sins of the guilty! What appalling Paganism!—For Jesus himself -had done away with the concept “guilt,”—he denied any gulf between -God and man, he <i>lived</i> this unity between God and man, it was this -that constituted <i>his</i> “glad tidings.” ... And he did <i>not</i> teach it -as a privilege!—Thenceforward there was gradually imported into the -type of the Saviour the doctrine of the Last Judgment, and of the -“second coming,” the doctrine of sacrificial death, and the doctrine -of <i>Resurrection,</i> by means of which the whole concept “blessedness,” -the entire and only reality of the gospel, is conjured away—in favour -of a state <i>after</i> death!... St Paul, with that rabbinic impudence -which characterises all his doings, rationalised this conception, this -prostitution of a conception, as follows: “if Christ did not rise from -the dead, our faith is vain.”—And, in a trice, the most contemptible -of all unrealisable promises, the <i>impudent</i> doctrine of personal -immortality, was woven out of the gospel.... St Paul even preached this -immortality as a reward.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">42</p> - -<p>You now realise what it was that came to an end with the death on the -cross: a new and thoroughly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> original effort towards a Buddhistic -movement of peace, towards real and <i>not</i> merely promised <i>happiness -on earth.</i> For, as I have already pointed out, this remains the -fundamental difference between the two religions <i>of decadence:</i> -Buddhism promises little but fulfils more, Christianity promises -everything but fulfils nothing.—The “glad tidings” were followed -closely by the absolutely <i>worst</i> tidings—those of St Paul. Paul is -the incarnation of a type which is the reverse of that of the Saviour; -he is the genius in hatred, in the standpoint of hatred, and in the -relentless logic of hatred. And alas what did this dysangelist not -sacrifice to his hatred! Above all the Saviour himself: he nailed him -to <i>his</i> cross. Christ’s life, his example, his doctrine and death, -the sense and the right of the gospel—not a vestige of alt this -was left, once this forger, prompted by his hatred, had understood -in it only that which could serve his purpose. <i>Not</i> reality: <i>not</i> -historical truth! ... And once more, the sacerdotal instinct of -the Jew, perpetrated the same great crime against history,—he -simply cancelled the yesterday, and the day before that, out of -Christianity; he <i>contrived of his own accord a history of the birth -of Christianity.</i> He did more: he once more falsified the history of -Israel, so as to make it appear as a prologue to <i>his</i> mission: all the -prophets had referred to <i>his</i> “Saviour.” ... Later on the Church even -distorted the history of mankind so as to convert it into a prelude to -Christianity.... The type of the Saviour, his teaching, his life, his -death, the meaning of his death, even the sequel to his death—nothing -remained untouched, nothing was left which even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> remotely resembled -reality. St Paul simply transferred the centre of gravity of the whole -of that great life, to a place <i>behind</i> this life,—in the <i>lie</i> of -the “resuscitated” Christ. At bottom, he had no possible use for the -life of the Saviour,—he needed the death on the cross, <i>and</i> something -more. To regard as honest a man like St Paul (a man whose home was the -very headquarters of Stoical enlightenment) when he devises a proof -of the continued existence of the Saviour out of a hallucination; or -even to believe him when he declares that he had this hallucination, -would amount to foolishness on the part of a psychologist: St Paul -desired the end, consequently he also desired the means.... Even what -he himself did not believe, was believed in by the idiots among whom -he spread <i>his</i> doctrine.—What he wanted was power; with St Paul the -priest again aspired to power,—he could make use only of concepts, -doctrines, symbols with which masses may be tyrannised over, and -with which herds are formed. What was the only part of Christianity -which was subsequently borrowed by Muhamed? St Paul’s invention, his -expedient for priestly tyranny and to the formation of herds: the -belief in immortality—<i>that is to say, the doctrine of the “Last -Judgment.” ...</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">43</p> - -<p>When the centre of gravity of life is laid, <i>not</i> in life, but in a -beyond—<i>in nonentity,</i>—life is utterly robbed of its balance. The -great lie of personal immortality destroys all reason, all nature in -the instincts,—everything in the instincts that is beneficent, that -promotes life and that is a guarantee<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> of the future, henceforward -aroused suspicion. The very meaning of life is now construed as the -effort to live in such a way that life no longer has any point.... Why -show any public spirit? Why be grateful for one’s origin and one’s -forebears? Why collaborate with one’s fellows, and be confident? Why -be concerned about the general weal or strive after it?... All these -things are merely so many “temptations,” so many deviations from the -“straight path.” “One thing only is necessary.” ... That everybody, as -an “immortal soul,” should have equal rank, that in the totality of -beings, the “salvation” of each individual may lay claim to eternal -importance, that insignificant bigots and three-quarter-lunatics may -have the right to suppose that the laws of nature may be persistently -<i>broken</i> on their account,—any such magnification of every kind -of selfishness to infinity, to <i>insolence,</i> cannot be branded with -sufficient contempt And yet it is to this miserable flattery of -personal vanity that Christianity owes its <i>triumph,</i>—by this means -it lured all the bungled and the botched, all revolting and revolted -people, all abortions, the whole of the refuse and offal of humanity, -over to its side. The “salvation of the soul”—in plain English: “the -world revolves around me” ... The poison of the doctrine “<i>equal</i> -rights for all”—has been dispensed with the greatest thoroughness by -Christianity: Christianity, prompted by the most secret recesses of -bad instincts, has waged a deadly war upon all feeling of reverence -and distance between man and man—that is to say, the <i>prerequisite</i> -of all elevation, of every growth in culture; out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> the resentment -of the masses it wrought its <i>principal weapons</i> against us, against -everything noble, joyful, exalted on earth, against our happiness on -earth.... To grant “immortality” to every St Peter and St Paul, was -the greatest, the most vicious outrage upon <i>noble</i> humanity that has -ever been perpetrated.—And do not let us underestimate the fatal -influence which, springing from Christianity, has insinuated itself -even into politics! Nowadays no one has the courage of special rights, -of rights of t dominion, of a feeling of self-respect and of respect -for his equals,—of <i>pathos of distance.</i> Our politics are diseased -with this lack of courage!—The aristocratic attitude of mind has been -most thoroughly undermined by the lie of the equality of souls; and if -the belief in the “privilege of the greatest number” creates and will -continue <i>to create revolutions,</i>—it is Christianity, let there be no -doubt about it, and Christian values, which convert every revolution -into blood and crime! Christianity is the revolt of all things that -crawl on their bellies against everything that is lofty: the gospel of -the “lowly” <i>lowers....</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">44</p> - -<p>—The Gospels are invaluable as a testimony of the corruption which -was already persistent <i>within</i> the first Christian communities. That -which St Paul, with the logician’s cynicism of a Rabbi, carried to its -logical conclusion, was nevertheless merely the process of decay which -began with the death of the Saviour.—These gospels cannot be read -too cautiously; difficulties lurk behind every word they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> contain. I -confess, and people will not take this amiss, that they are precisely -on that account a joy of the first rank for a psychologist,—as the -reverse of all naive perversity, as refinement <i>par excellence,</i> as -a masterpiece of art in psychological corruption. The gospels stand -alone. Altogether the Bible allows of no comparison. The <i>first</i> thing -to be remembered if we do not wish to lose the scent here, is, that -we are among Jews. The dissembling of holiness which, here, literally -amounts to genius, and which has never been even approximately achieved -elsewhere either by books or by men, this fraud in word and pose -which in this book is elevated to an <i>Art,</i> is not the accident of -any individual gift, of any exceptional nature. These qualities are -a matter of <i>race.</i> With Christianity, the art of telling holy lies, -which constitutes the whole of Judaism, reaches its final mastership, -thanks to many centuries of Jewish and most thoroughly serious training -and practice. The Christian, this <i>ultima ratio</i> of falsehood, is the -Jew over again—he is even three times a Jew.... The fundamental will -only to make use of concepts, symbols and poses, which are demonstrated -by the practice of the priests, the instinctive repudiation of every -other kind of practice, every other standpoint of valuation and of -utility—all this is not only tradition, it is <i>hereditary;</i> only as -an inheritance is it able to work like nature. The whole of mankind, -the best brains, and even the best ages—(one man only excepted who -is perhaps only a monster)—have allowed themselves to be deceived. -The gospels were read as the <i>book of innocence ...</i> this is no -insignificant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> sign of the virtuosity with which deception has been -practised here.—Of course, if we could only succeed in seeing all -these amazing bigots and pretended saints, even for a moment, all -would be at an end—and it is precisely because <i>I</i> can read no -single word of theirs, without seeing their pretentious poses, <i>that -I have made an end of them</i>.... I cannot endure a certain way they -have of casting their eyes heavenwards.—Fortunately for Christianity, -books are for the greatest number, merely literature. We must not let -ourselves be led away: “judge not!” they say, but they dispatch all -those to hell who stand in their way. Inasmuch as they let God do the -judging, they themselves, judge; inasmuch as they glorify God, they -glorify themselves; inasmuch as they exact those virtues of which -they themselves happen to be capable—nay more, of which they are in -need in order to be able to remain on top at all;—they assume the -grand airs of struggling for virtue, of struggling for the dominion of -virtue. “We live, we die, we sacrifice ourselves for the good” (—“the -Truth,” “the Light,” “the Kingdom of God”): as a matter of fact they -do only what they cannot help doing. Like sneaks they have to play a -humble part; sit away in corners, and remain obscurely in the shade, -and they make all this appear a duty; their humble life now appears as -a duty, and their humility is one proof the more of their piety!... -Oh, what a humble, chaste and compassionate kind of falsity! “Virtue -itself shall bear us testimony.” ... Only read the gospels as books -calculated to seduce by means of morality: morality is appropriated by -these petty people,—they know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> what morality can do! The best way of -leading mankind by the nose is with morality! The fact is that the most -conscious <i>conceit</i> of people who believe themselves to be <i>chosen,</i> -here simulates modesty: in this way they, the Christian community, the -“good and the just” place themselves once and for all on a certain -side, the side “of Truth”—and the rest of mankind, “the world” on -the other.... This was the most fatal kind of megalomania that had -ever yet existed on earth: insignificant little abortions of bigots -and liars began to lay sole claim to the concepts “God,” “Truth,” -“Light,” “Spirit,” “Love,” “Wisdom,” “Life,” as if these things were, -so to speak, synonyms of themselves, in order to fence themselves off -from “the world”; little ultra-Jews, ripe for every kind of madhouse, -twisted values round in order to suit themselves, just as if the -Christian, alone, were the meaning, the salt, the standard and even the -“<i>ultimate tribunal</i>” of all the rest of mankind.... The whole fatality -was rendered possible only because a kind of megalomania, akin to this -one and allied to it in race,—the Jewish kind—was already to hand in -the world: the very moment the gulf between Jews and Judæo-Christians -was opened, the latter had no alternative left, but to adopt the same -self-preservative measures as the Jewish instinct suggested, even -<i>against</i> the Jews themselves, whereas the Jews, theretofore, had -employed these same measures only against the Gentiles. The Christian -is nothing more than an anarchical Jew.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">45</p> - -<p>—Let me give you a few examples of what these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> paltry people have -stuffed into their heads, what they have laid <i>on the lips of their -Master</i>: quite a host of confessions from “beautiful souls.”—</p> - -<p>“And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart -thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against -them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom -and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city.” (Mark vi. -11.)—<i>How evangelical!...</i></p> - -<p>“And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in -me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, -and he were cast into the sea.” (Mark ix. 42.)—How <i>evangelical!...</i></p> - -<p>“And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it fa better for thee to -enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be -cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not -quenched.” (Mark ix. 47, 48.)—The eye is not precisely what is meant -in this passage....</p> - -<p>“Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, -which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God -come with power.” (Mark ix. 1.)—Well <i>lied,</i> lion!<a name="FNanchor_6_22" id="FNanchor_6_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_22" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> ...</p> - -<p>“Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his -cross, and follow me. <i>For</i> ...” (<i>A psychologist’s comment.</i> Christian -morality is refuted by its “For’s”: its “reasons” refute,—this is -Christian.) (Mark viii. 34.)</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, -ye shall be judged.” (Matthew vii. I, 2.)—What a strange notion of -justice on the part of a “just” judge!...</p> - -<p>“For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even -the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye -more <i>than others?</i> do not even the publicans so?” (Matthew v. 46, 47.) -The principle of “Christian love”: it insists upon being <i>well paid</i>....</p> - -<p>“But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father -forgive your trespasses.” (Matthew vi. 15.)—Very compromising for the -“Father” in question.</p> - -<p>“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all -these things shall be added unto you.” (Matthew vi. 33)—“All these -things”—that is to say, food, clothing, all the necessities of life. -To use a moderate expression, this is an <i>error ...</i>. Shortly before -this God appears as a tailor, at least in certain cases....</p> - -<p>“Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward -<i>is</i> great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto -the prophets.” (Luke vi. 23.)—<i>Impudent</i> rabble! They dare to compare -themselves with the prophets....</p> - -<p>“Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and <i>that</i> the Spirit of God -dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, <i>him shall God -destroy;</i> for the temple of God is holy, which <i>temple ye are.</i>” (St -Paul, I Corinthians iii. 16, 17.)—One cannot have too much contempt -for this sort of thing....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world -shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?” -(St Paul, I Corinthians vi. 2.)—Unfortunately this is not merely the -speech of a lunatic.... This <i>appalling impostor</i> proceeds thus: “Know -ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to -this life?”</p> - -<p>“Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in -the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by -the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe ... not many -wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble <i>are called;</i> -But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the -wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound -the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things -which are despised, hath God chosen; <i>yea,</i> and things which are not, -to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in -his presence.” (St Paul, I Corinthians i. 20 <i>et seq.</i>)—In order to -<i>understand</i> this passage, which is of the highest importance as an -example of the psychology of every Chandala morality, the reader should -refer to my <i>Genealogy of Morals:</i> in this book, the contrast between -a <i>noble</i> and a Chandala morality born of <i>resentment</i> and impotent -revengefulness, is brought to light for the first time. St Paul was the -greatest of all the apostles of revenge....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">46</p> - -<p><i>What follows from this?</i> That one does well to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> put on one’s gloves -when reading the New Testament The proximity of so much pitch almost -defiles one. We should feel just as little inclined to hobnob with -“the first Christians” as with Polish Jews: not that we need explain -our objections.... They simply smell bad.—In vain have I sought for a -single sympathetic feature in the New Testament; there is not a trace -of freedom, kindliness, open-heartedness and honesty to be found in -it. Humaneness has not even made a start in this book, while <i>cleanly</i> -instincts are entirely absent from it.... Only evil instincts are to be -found in the New Testament, it shows no sign of courage, these people -lack even the courage of their evil instincts. All is cowardice, all is -a closing of one’s eyes and self-deception. Every book becomes clean, -after one has just read the New Testament: for instance, immediately -after laying down St Paul, I read with particular delight that most -charming and most wanton of scoffers, Petronius, of whom someone might -say what Domenico Boccaccio wrote to the Duke of Parma about Cæsar -Borgia: “<i>è tutto festo</i>”—immortally healthy, immortally cheerful -and well-constituted. ... These petty bigots err in their calculations -and in the most important thing of all. They certainly attack; but -everything they assail is, by that very fact alone, <i>distinguished.</i> -He whom a “primitive Christian” attacks, is <i>not</i> thereby sullied.... -Conversely it is an honour to be opposed by “primitive Christians.” -One cannot read the New Testament without feeling a preference for -everything in it which is the subject of abuse—not to speak of the -“wisdom of this world,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> which an impudent windbag tries in vain to -confound “by the foolishness of preaching.” Even the Pharisees and the -Scribes derive advantage from such opposition: they must certainly -have been worth something in order to have been hated in such a -disreputable way. Hypocrisy—as if this were a reproach which the -“first Christians” <i>were at liberty</i> to make!—After all the Scribes -and Pharisees were the <i>privileged ones;</i> this was quite enough, the -hatred of the Chandala requires no other reasons. I very much fear -that the “first Christian”—as also the “<i>last Christian” whom I may -yet be able to meet,—</i> is in his deepest instincts a rebel against -everything privileged; he lives and struggles unremittingly for “equal -rights”!... Regarded more closely, he has no alternative.... If one’s -desire be personally to represent “one of the chosen of God”—or a -“temple of God,” or “a judge of angels,”—then every <i>other</i> principle -of selection, for instance that based upon a standard of honesty, -intellect, manliness and pride, or upon beauty and freedom of heart, -becomes the “world,”—<i>evil in itself.</i> Moral: every word on the lips -of a “first Christian” is a lie, every action he does is an instinctive -falsehood,—all his values, all his aims are pernicious; but the man -he, hates, <i>the thing</i> he hates, <i>has value.</i> ... The Christian, more -particularly the Christian priest, is a <i>criterion of values</i>—Do I -require to add that in the whole of the New Testament only <i>one</i> figure -appears which we cannot help respecting? Pilate, the Roman Governor. To -take a Jewish quarrel <i>seriously</i> was a thing he could not get himself -to do. One Jew more or less—what did it matter?... The noble<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> scorn -of a Roman, in whose presence the word “truth” had been shamelessly -abused, has enriched the New Testament with the only saying which <i>is -of value,</i>—and this saying is not only the criticism, but actually the -shattering of that Testament: “What is truth!”...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">47</p> - -<p>—That which separates us from other people is not the fact that -we can discover no God, either in history, or in nature, or behind -nature,—but that we regard what has been revered as “God,” not as -“divine,” but as wretched, absurd, pernicious; not as an error, but as -a <i>crime against life.</i> ... We deny God as God.... If the existence -of this Christian God were <i>proved</i> to us, we should feel even less -able to believe in him.—In a formula: <i>deus qualem Paulus creavit, -dei negatio.</i>—A religion such as Christianity which never once comes -in touch with reality, and which collapses the very moment reality -asserts its rights even on one single point, must naturally be a mortal -enemy of the “wisdom of this world”—that is to say, <i>science.</i> It -will call all those means good with which mental discipline, lucidity -and severity in intellectual matters, nobility and freedom of the -intellect may be poisoned, calumniated and <i>decried</i>. “Faith” as an -imperative is a <i>veto</i> against science,—<i>in praxi,</i> it means lies -at any price. St Paul <i>understood</i> that falsehood—that “faith” was -necessary; subsequently the Church understood St Paul.—That “God” -which St Paul invented for himself, a God who “confounds” the “wisdom -of this world” (in a narrower sense, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> two great opponents of all -superstition, philology and medicine), means, in very truth, simply St -Paul’s firm <i>resolve</i> to do so: to call his own will “God”, <i>thora,</i> -that is arch-Jewish. St Paul insists upon confounding the “wisdom of -this world”: his enemies are the <i>good old</i> philologists and doctors of -the Alexandrine schools; it is on them that he wages war. As a matter -of fact no one is either a philologist or a doctor, who is not also an -<i>Antichrist.</i> As a philologist, for instance, a man sees <i>behind</i> the -“holy books,” as a doctor he sees <i>behind</i> the physiological rottenness -of the typical Christian. The doctor says “incurable,” the philologist -says “forgery.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">48</p> - -<p>—Has anybody ever really understood the celebrated story which stands -at the beginning of the Bible,—concerning God’s deadly panic over -<i>science?</i> ... Nobody has understood it This essentially sacerdotal -book naturally begins with the great inner difficulty of the priest: -<i>he</i> knows only one great danger, <i>consequently</i> “God” has only one -great danger.—</p> - -<p>The old God, entirely “spirit,” a high-priest through and through, and -wholly perfect, is wandering in a leisurely fashion round his garden; -but he is bored. Against boredom even the gods themselves struggle in -vain.<a name="FNanchor_7_23" id="FNanchor_7_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_23" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> What does he do? He invents man,—man is entertaining.... But, -behold,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> even man begins to be bored. God’s compassion for the only -form of misery which is peculiar to all paradises, exceeds all bounds: -so forthwith he creates yet other animals. God’s <i>first</i> mistake: man -did not think animals entertaining,—he dominated them, he did not even -wish to be an “animal.” Consequently God created woman. And boredom did -indeed cease from that moment,—but many other things ceased as well! -Woman was God’s <i>second</i> mistake.—“Woman in her innermost nature is a -serpent, Heva”—every priest knows this: “all evil came into this world -through woman,”—every priest knows this too. “<i>Consequently science</i> -also comes from woman.” ... Only through woman did man learn to taste -of the tree of knowledge.—What had happened? Panic had seized the -old God Man himself had been his <i>greatest</i> mistake, he had created -a rival for himself, science makes you <i>equal to God,</i>—it is all up -with priests and gods when man becomes scientific!—Moral: science is -the most prohibited thing of all,—it alone, is forbidden. Science is -the <i>first,</i> the germ of all sins, the original sin. <i>This alone is -morality.</i>—“Thou shalt <i>not</i> know”:—the rest follows as a matter of -course, God’s panic did not deprive him of his intelligence. How can -one <i>guard</i> against science? For ages this was his principal problem. -Reply: man must be kicked out of paradise! Happiness, leisure leads to -thinking,—all thoughts are bad thoughts.... Man <i>must</i> not think.—And -the “priest-per-se” proceeds to invent distress, death, the vital -danger of pregnancy, every kind of misery, decrepitude, and affliction, -and above all <i>disease,</i>—all these are but weapons<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> employed in the -struggle with science! Trouble prevents man from thinking.... And -notwithstanding all these precautions! Oh, horror! the work of science -towers aloft, it storms heaven itself, it rings the death-knell of the -gods,—what’s to be done?—The old God invents <i>war;</i> he separates the -nations, and contrives to make men destroy each other mutually (—the -priests have always been in need of war....) War, among other things, -is a great disturber of science!—Incredible! Knowledge, <i>the rejection -of the sacerdotal yoke,</i> nevertheless increases.—So the old God -arrives at this final decision: “Man has become scientific,—<i>there is -no help for it, he must be drowned!</i>” ...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">49</p> - -<p>You have understood me The beginning of the Bible contains the whole -psychology of the priest—The priest knows only one great danger, and -that is science,—the healthy concept of cause and effect But, on the -whole, science flourishes onlyunder happy conditions,—a man must -have time, he must also have superfluous mental energy in order to -“pursue knowledge” ... “<i>Consequently</i> man must be made unhappy,”—this -has been the argument of the priest of all ages.—You have already -divined what, in accordance with such a manner of arguing, must -first have come into the world:—“sin.” ... The notion of guilt and -punishment, the whole “moral order of the universe,” was invented -against science,—against the deliverance of man from the priest.... -Man must <i>not</i> cast his glance upon the outer world, he must turn it -inwards into himself; he must not as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> a learner look cleverly and -cautiously <i>into</i> things; he must not see at all: he must <i>suffer.</i> -... And he must suffer, so that he may be in need of the priest every -minute.—Away with doctors! What is needed is a Saviour!—The notion of -guilt and punishment, including the doctrine of “grace,” of “salvation” -and of “forgiveness”—all <i>lies</i> through and through without a shred -of psychological reality—were invented in order to destroy man’s -<i>sense of causality:</i> they are an attack on the concept of cause and -effect!—And <i>not</i> an attack with the fist, with the knife, with -honesty in hate and love! But one actuated by the most cowardly, most -crafty, and most ignoble instincts! A <i>priests</i> attack! A <i>parasite’s</i> -attack! A vampyrism of pale subterranean leeches!—... When the natural -consequences of an act are no longer “natural,” but are thought to -be conjured up by phantom concepts of superstition, by “God,” by -“spirits,” and by “souls,” as merely moral consequences, in the form -of rewards, punishments, hints, and educational means,—then the whole -basis of knowledge is destroyed,—<i>then the greatest crime against man -has been perpetrated.</i>—Sin, I repeat, this form of self-pollution <i>par -excellence</i> on the part of man, was invented in order to make science, -culture and every elevation and noble trait in man quite impossible; by -means of the invention of sin the priest is able to <i>rule.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">50</p> - -<p>—I cannot here dispense with a psychology of “faith” and of the -“faithful,” which will naturally be to the advantage of the “faithful.” -If to-day there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> are still many who do not know how very <i>indecent</i> it -is to be a “believer”—<i>or</i> to what extent such a state is the sign -of decadence, and of the broken will to Life,—they will know it no -later than to-morrow. My voice can make even those hear who are hard -of hearing.—If perchance my ears have not deceived me, it seems that -among Christians there is such a thing as a kind of criterion of truth, -which is called “the proof of power.” “Faith saveth; <i>therefore</i> it -is true.”—It might be objected here that it is precisely salvation -which is not proved but only <i>promised:</i> salvation is bound up with -the condition “faith,”—one <i>shall</i> be saved, <i>because</i> one has -faith.... But how prove <i>that</i> that which the priest promises to the -faithful really will take place, to wit: the “Beyond” which defies -all demonstration?—The assumed “proof of power” is at bottom once -again only a belief in the fact that the effect which faith promises -will not fail to take place. In a formula: “I believe that faith -saveth;—<i>consequently</i> it is true.”—But with this we are at the end -of our tether. This “consequently” would be the <i>absurdum</i> itself as -a criterion of truth.—Let us be indulgent enough to assume, however, -that salvation is proved by faith (—<i>not</i> only desired, and <i>not</i> -merely promised by the somewhat suspicious lips of a priest): could -salvation—or, in technical terminology, <i>happiness</i>—ever be a proof -of truth? So little is it so that, when pleasurable sensations make -their influence felt in replying to the question “what is true,” they -furnish almost the contradiction of truth, or at any rate they make -it in the highest degree suspicious. The proof through “happiness,” -is a proof of happiness—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> nothing else; why in the world should -we take it for granted that <i>true</i> judgments cause more pleasure than -false ones, and that in accordance with a pre-established harmony, they -necessarily bring pleasant feelings in their wake?—The experience of -all strict and profound minds teaches the <i>reverse.</i> Every inch of -truth has been conquered only after a struggle, almost everything to -which our heart, our love and our trust in life cleaves, has had to be -sacrificed for it Greatness of soul is necessary for this: the service -of truth is the hardest of all services.—What then is meant by honesty -in things intellectual? It means that a man is severe towards his own -heart, that he scorns “beautiful feelings,” and that he makes a matter -of conscience out of every Yea and Nay!—-Faith saveth: <i>consequently</i> -it lies....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">51</p> - -<p>The fact that faith may in certain circumstances save, the fact that -salvation as the result of an <i>idée fixe</i> does not constitute a true -idea, the fact that faith moves <i>no</i> mountains, but may very readily -raise them where previously they did not exist—all these things are -made sufficiently clear by a mere casual stroll through a <i>lunatic -asylum.</i> Of course <i>no</i> priest would find this sufficient: for he -instinctively denies that illness is illness or that lunatic asylums -are lunatic asylums. Christianity is in <i>need</i> of illness, just as -Ancient Greece was in need of a superabundance of health. The actual -ulterior motive of the whole of the Church’s system of salvation -is to <i>make people ill.</i> And is not the Church itself the Catholic -madhouse as an ultimate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> ideal?—The earth as a whole converted into a -madhouse?—The kind of religious man which the Church aims at producing -is a typical <i>decadent</i> The moment of time at which a religious crisis -attains the ascendancy over a people, is always characterised by -nerve-epidemics; the “inner world” of the religious man is ridiculously -like the “inner world” of over-irritable and exhausted people; the -“highest” states which Christianity holds up to mankind as the value -of values, are epileptic in character,—the Church has pronounced only -madmen <i>or</i> great swindlers <i>in majorem dei honorem</i> holy. Once I -ventured to characterise the whole of the Christian training of penance -and salvation (which nowadays is best studied in England) as a <i>folie -circulaire</i> methodically generated upon a soil which, of course, is -already prepared for it,—that is to say, which is thoroughly morbid. -Not every one who likes can be a Christian: no man is “converted” -to Christianity,—he must be sick enough for it ... We others who -possess enough courage both for health and for contempt, how rightly -<i>we</i> may despise a religion which taught men to misunderstand the -body I which would not rid itself of the superstitions of the soul! -which made a virtue of taking inadequate nourishment! which in health -combats a sort of enemy, devil, temptation! which persuaded itself that -it was possible to bear a perfect soul about in a cadaverous body, -and which, to this end, had to make up for itself a new concept of -“perfection,” a pale, sickly, idiotically gushing ideal,—so-called -“holiness,”—holiness, which in itself is simply a symptom of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> an -impoverished, enervated and incurably deteriorated body!... The -movement of Christianity, as a European movement, was from first to -last, a general accumulation of the ruck and scum of all sorts and -kinds (—and these, by means of Christianity, aspire to power). It -does <i>not</i> express the downfall of a race, it is rather a conglomerate -assembly of all the decadent elements from everywhere which seek each -other and crowd together. It was not, as some believe, the corruption -of antiquity, of <i>noble</i> antiquity, which made Christianity possible: -the learned idiocy which nowadays tries to support such a notion cannot -be too severely contradicted. At the time when the morbid and corrupted -Chandala classes became Christianised in the whole of the <i>imperium,</i> -the very <i>contrary type,</i> nobility, was extant in its finest and -maturest forms. The greatest number became master; the democracy of -Christian instincts triumphed.... Christianity was not “national,” it -was not determined by race,—it appealed to all the disinherited forms -of life, it had its allies everywhere. Christianity is built upon the -rancour of the sick; its instinct is directed <i>against</i> the sound, -against health. Everything well-constituted, proud, high-spirited, -and beautiful is offensive to its ears and eyes. Again I remind you -of St Paul’s priceless words: “And God hath chosen the <i>weak</i> things -of the world, the <i>foolish</i> things of the world; and <i>base</i> things of -the world, and things which are <i>despised”</i>: this was the formula, <i>in -hoc signo</i> decadence triumphed.—<i>God on the Cross</i>—does no one yet -understand the terrible ulterior motive of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> symbol?—Everything -that suffers, everything that hangs on the cross, is <i>divine....</i> All -of us hang on the cross, consequently we are <i>divine ...</i>. We alone are -divine.... Christianity was a victory; a <i>nobler</i> type of character -perished through it,—Christianity has been humanity’s greatest -misfortune hitherto.——</p> - - -<p class="parnum">52</p> - -<p>Christianity also stands opposed to everything happily constituted -in the <i>mind,</i>—it can make use only of morbid reason as Christian -reason; it takes the side of everything idiotic, it utters a curse -upon “intellect,” upon the <i>superbia</i> of the healthy intellect. Since -illness belongs to the essence of Christianity, the typically Christian -state, “faith,” <i>must</i> also be a form of illness, and all straight, -honest and scientific roads to knowledge must be repudiated by the -Church as forbidden.... Doubt in itself is already a sin.... The total -lack of psychological cleanliness in the priest, which reveals itself -in his look, is a <i>result</i> of decadence. Hysterical women, as also -children with scrofulous constitutions, should be observed as a proof -of how invariably instinctive falsity, the love of lying for the sake -of lying, and the in ability either to look or to walk straight, are -the expression of decadence. “Faith” simply means the refusal to know -what is true. The pious person, the priest of both sexes, is false -because he is ill: his instinct <i>demands</i> that truth should not assert -its right anywhere. “That which makes ill is good: that which proceeds -from abundance, from superabundance and from power, is evil”: that -is the view of the faithful. The <i>constraint to lie</i>—that is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> the -sign by which I recognise every predetermined theologian.—Another -characteristic of the theologian is his lack of <i>capacity</i> for -<i>philology.</i> What I mean here by the word philology is, in a general -sense to be understood as the art of reading well, of being able to -take account of facts <i>without</i> falsifying them by interpretation, -without losing either caution, patience or subtlety owing to one’s -desire to understand. Philology as <i>ephexis</i><a name="FNanchor_8_24" id="FNanchor_8_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_24" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> in interpretation, -whether one be dealing with books, newspaper reports, human destinies -or meteorological records,—not to speak of the “salvation of the -soul.” ... The manner in which a theologian, whether in Berlin or in -Rome, interprets a verse from the “Scriptures,” or an experience, or -the triumph of his nation’s army for instance, under the superior -guiding light of David’s Psalms, is always so exceedingly <i>daring,</i> -that it is enough to make a philologist’s hair stand on end. And what -is he to do, when pietists and other cows from Swabia explain their -miserable every-day lives in their smoky hovels by means of the “Finger -of God,” a miracle of “grace,” of “Providence,” of experiences of -“salvation”! The most modest effort of the intellect, not to speak of -decent feeling, ought at least to lead these interpreters to convince -themselves of the absolute childishness and unworthiness of any such -abuse of the dexterity of God’s fingers. However small an amount of -loving piety we might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> possess, a god who cured us in time of a cold in -the nose, or who arranged for us to enter a carriage just at the moment -when a cloud burst over our heads, would be such an absurd God, that he -would have to be abolished, even if he existed.<a name="FNanchor_9_25" id="FNanchor_9_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_25" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> God as a domestic -servant, as a postman, as a general provider,—in short, merely a word -for the most foolish kind of accidents.... “Divine Providence,” as it -is believed in to-day by almost every third man in “cultured Germany,” -would be an argument against God, in fact it would be the strongest -argument against God that could be Imagined. And in any case it is an -argument against the Germans.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">53</p> - -<p>—The notion that martyrs prove anything at all in favour of a thing, -is so exceedingly doubtful, that I would fain deny that there has ever -yet existed a martyr who had anything to do with truth. In the very -manner in which a martyr flings his little parcel of truth at the -head of the world, such a low degree of intellectual honesty and such -obtuseness in regard to the question “truth” makes itself felt, that -one never requires to refute a martyr. Truth is not a thing which one -might have and another be without:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> only peasants or peasant-apostles, -after the style of Luther, can think like this about truth. You may be -quite sure, that the greater a man’s degree of conscientiousness may -be in matters intellectual, the more modest he will show himself on -this point To <i>know</i> about five things, and with a subtle wave of the -hand to refuse to know <i>others.</i> ... “Truth” as it is understood by -every prophet, every sectarian, every free thinker, every socialist and -every church-man, is an absolute proof of the fact that these people -haven’t even begun that discipline of the mind and that process of -self-mastery, which is necessary for the discovery of any small, even -exceedingly small truth.—Incidentally, the deaths of martyrs have -been a great misfortune in the history of the world: they led people -astray.... The conclusion which all idiots, women and common people -come to, that there must be something in a cause for which someone lays -down his life (or which, as in the case of primitive Christianity, -provokes an epidemic of sacrifices),—this conclusion put a tremendous -check upon all investigation, upon the spirit of investigation and of -caution. Martyrs have <i>harmed</i> the cause of truth. ... Even to this day -it only requires the crude fact of persecution, in order to create an -honourable name for any obscure sect who does not matter in the least -What? is a cause actually changed in any way by the fact that some -one has laid down his life for it? An error which becomes honourable, -is simply an error that possesses one seductive charm the more: do -you suppose, dear theologians, that we shall give you the chance of -acting the martyrs for your lies?—A thing is refuted by being laid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> -respectfully on ice, and theologians are refuted in the same way. This -was precisely the world-historic foolishness of all persecutors; they -lent the thing they combated a semblance of honour by conferring the -fascination of martyrdom upon it.... Women still lie prostrate before -an error to-day, because they have been told that some one died on the -cross for it <i>Is the cross then an argument?</i>—But concerning all these -things, one person alone has said what mankind has been in need of for -thousands of years,—<i>Zarathustra.</i></p> - -<p>“Letters of blood did they write on the way they went, and their folly -taught that truth is proved by blood.</p> - -<p>“But blood is the very worst testimony of truth; blood poisoneth even -the purest teaching, and turneth it into delusion and into blood feuds.</p> - -<p>“And when a man goeth through fire for his teaching—what does that -prove? Verily, it is more when out of one’s own burning springeth one’s -own teaching.”<a name="FNanchor_10_26" id="FNanchor_10_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_26" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> - - -<p class="parnum">54</p> - -<p>Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: great minds are sceptical. -Zarathustra is a sceptic. Strength and the <i>freedom</i> which proceeds -from the power and excessive power of the mind, <i>manifests</i> itself -through scepticism. Men of conviction are of no account whatever -in regard to any principles of value or of non-value. Convictions -are prisons. They never see far enough, they do not look down from -a sufficient height: but in order to have any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> say in questions of -value and non-value, a man must see five hundred convictions <i>beneath</i> -him,—<i>behind</i> him.... A spirit who desires great things, and who also -desires the means thereto, is necessarily a sceptic. Freedom from every -kind of conviction <i>belongs</i> to strength, to the <i>ability</i> to open -one’s eyes freely.... The great passion of a sceptic, the basis and -power of his being, which is more enlightened and more despotic than he -is himself, enlists all his intellect into its service; it makes him -unscrupulous; it even gives him the courage to employ unholy means; -in certain circumstances it even allows him convictions. Conviction -as a <i>means:</i> much is achieved merely by means of a conviction. Great -passion makes use of and consumes convictions, it does not submit to -them—it knows that it is a sovereign power. Conversely; the need of -faith, of anything either absolutely affirmative or negative, Carlylism -(if I may be allowed this expression), is the need of <i>weakness.</i> -The man of beliefs, the “believer” of every sort and condition, is -necessarily a dependent man;—he is one who cannot regard <i>himself</i> as -an aim, who cannot postulate aims from the promptings of his own heart -The “believer” does not belong to himself, he can be only a means, -he must be <i>used up,</i> he is in need of someone who uses him up. His -instinct accords the highest honour to a morality of self-abnegation: -everything in him, his prudence, his experience, his vanity, persuade -him to adopt this morality. Every sort of belief is in itself an -expression of self-denial, of self-estrangement. ... If one considers -how necessary a regulating code of conduct is to the majority of -people, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> code of conduct which constrains them and fixes them from -outside; and how control, or in a higher sense, <i>slavery,</i> is the only -and ultimate condition under which the weak-willed man, and especially -woman, flourish; one also understands conviction, “faith.” The man -of conviction finds in the latter his <i>backbone.</i> To be <i>blind</i> to -many things, to be impartial about nothing, to belong always to a -particular side, to hold a strict and necessary point of view in all -matters of values—these are the only conditions under which such a man -can survive at all. But all this is the reverse of, the <i>antagonist</i> -of, the truthful man,—of truth.... The believer is not at liberty to -have a conscience for the question “true” and “untrue”: to be upright -on <i>this</i> point would mean his immediate downfall. The pathological -limitations of his standpoint convert the convinced man into the -fanatic—Savonarola, Luther Rousseau, Robespierre, Saint-Simon,—these -are the reverse type of the strong spirit that has become <i>free.</i> But -the grandiose poses of these <i>morbid</i> spirits, of these epileptics -of ideas, exercise an influence over the masses,—fanatics are -picturesque, mankind prefers to look at poses than to listen to reason.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">55</p> - -<p>One step further in the psychology of conviction of “faith.” It -is already some time since I first thought of considering whether -convictions were not perhaps more dangerous enemies of truth than lies -(“Human All-too-Human,” Part I, Aphs. 54 and 483). Now I would fain put -the decisive question:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> is there any difference at all between a lie -and a conviction?—All the world believes that there is, but what in -Heaven’s name does not all the world believe! Every conviction has its -history, its preliminary stages, its period of groping and of mistakes: -it becomes a conviction only after it has <i>not</i> been one for a long -time, only after it has <i>scarcely</i> been one for a long time. What? -might not falsehood be the embryonic form of conviction?—At times -all that is required is a change of personality: very often what was -a lie in the father becomes a conviction in the son.—I call a lie, -to refuse to see something that one sees, to refuse to see it exactly -<i>as</i> one sees it: whether a lie is perpetrated before witnesses or not -is beside the point.—The most common sort of lie is the one uttered -to one’s self; to lie to others is relatively exceptional. Now this -refusal to see what one sees, this refusal to see a thing exactly as -one sees it, is almost the first condition for all those who belong -to a <i>party</i> in any sense whatsoever: the man who belongs to a party -perforce becomes a liar. German historians, for instance, are convinced -that Rome stood for despotism, whereas the Teutons introduced the -spirit of freedom into the world: what difference is there between -this conviction and a lie? After this is it to be wondered at, that -all parties, including German historians, instinctively adopt the -grandiloquent phraseology of morality,—that morality almost owes -its <i>survival</i> to the fact that the man who belongs to a party, no -matter what it may be, is in need of morality every moment?—“This -is our conviction: we confess it to the whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> world, we live and die -for it,—let us respect every thing that has a conviction!”—I have -actually heard antisemites speak in this way. On the contrary, my dear -sirs! An antisemite does not become the least bit more respectable -because he lies on principle.... Priests, who in such matters are -more subtle, and who perfectly understand the objection to which the -idea of a conviction lies open—that is to say of a falsehood which -is perpetrated on principle <i>because</i> it serves a purpose, borrowed -from the Jews the prudent measure of setting the concept “God,” “Will -of God,” “Revelation of God,” at this place. Kant, too, with his -categorical imperative, was on the same road: this was his <i>practical</i> -reason.—There are some questions in which it is <i>not</i> given to man -to decide between true and false; all the principal questions, all -the principal problems of value, stand beyond human reason.... To -comprehend the limits of reason—this alone is genuine philosophy. For -what purpose did God give man revelation? Would God have done anything -superfluous? Man cannot of his own accord know what is good and what is -evil, that is why God taught man his will.... Moral: the priest does -<i>not</i> lie, such questions as “truth” or “falseness” have nothing to do -with the things concerning which the priest speaks; such things do not -allow of lying. For, in order to lie, it would be necessary to know -<i>what</i> is true in this respect. But that is precisely what man cannot -know: hence the priest is only the mouthpiece of God.—This sort of -sacerdotal syllogism is by no means exclusively Judaic or Christian; -the right<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> to lie and the <i>prudent measure</i> of “revelation” belongs -to the priestly type, whether of decadent periods or of Pagan times -(—Pagans are all those who say yea to life, and to whom “God” is the -word for the great yea to all things). The “law,” the “will of God,” -the “holy book,” and inspiration.—All these things are merely words -for the conditions under which the priest attains to power, and with -which he maintains his power,—these concepts are to be found at the -base of all sacerdotal organisations, of all priestly or philosophical -and ecclesiastical governments. The “holy lie,” which is common to -Confucius, to the law-book of Manu, to Muhamed, and to the Christian -church, is not even absent in Plato. “Truth is here”; this phrase -means, wherever it is uttered: <i>the priest lies....</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">56</p> - -<p>After all, the question is, to what <i>end</i> are falsehoods perpetrated? -The fact that, in Christianity, “holy” ends are entirely absent, -constitutes <i>my</i> objection to the means it employs. Its ends are only -<i>bad</i> ends: the poisoning, the calumniation and the denial of life, -the contempt of the body, the degradation and self-pollution of man by -virtue of the concept sin,—consequently its means are bad as well.—My -feelings are quite the reverse when I read the law-book of <i>Manu, an</i> -incomparably superior and more intellectual work, which it would be -a sin against the <i>spirit</i> even to <i>mention</i> in the same breath with -the Bible. You will guess immediately why: it has a genuine philosophy -behind it, <i>in</i> it, not merely an evil-smelling Jewish distillation -of Rabbinism and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> superstition,—it gives something to chew even -to the most fastidious psychologist. And, <i>not</i> to forget the most -important point of all, it is fundamentally different from every kind -of Bible: by means of it the <i>noble classes,</i> the philosophers and the -warriors guard and guide the masses; it is replete with noble values, -it is filled with a feeling of perfection, with a saying of yea to -life, and a triumphant sense of well-being in regard to itself and to -life,—the sun shines upon the whole book.—All those things which -Christianity smothers with its bottomless vulgarity: procreation, -woman, marriage, are here treated with earnestness, with revere nee, -with love and confidence. How can one possibly place in the hands of -children and women, a book that contains those vile words: “to avoid -fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman -have her own husband ... it is better to marry than to burn.”<a name="FNanchor_11_27" id="FNanchor_11_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_27" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> -And is it decent to be a Christian so long as the very origin of -man is Christianised,—that is to say, befouled, by the idea of the -<i>immaculata conceptio?</i> ... I know of no book in which so many delicate -and kindly things are said to woman, as in the Law-Rook of Manu; these -old grey-beards and saints have a manner of being gallant to women -which, perhaps, cannot be surpassed. “The mouth of a woman,” says Manu -on one occasion, “the breast of a maiden, the prayer of a child, and -the smoke of the sacrifice, are always pure.” Elsewhere he says: “there -is nothing purer than the light of the sun, the shadow cast by a cow, -air, water, fire and the breath of a maiden.” And finally—perhaps this -is also a holy lie:—“all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> openings of the body above the navel are -pure, all those below the navel are impure. Only in a maiden is the -whole body pure.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">57</p> - -<p>The unholiness of Christian means is caught <i>in flagranti,</i> if only -the end aspired to by Christianity be compared with that of the -Law-Book of Manu; if only these two utterly opposed aims be put under -a strong light The critic of Christianity simply cannot avoid making -Christianity <i>contemptible.</i>—A Law-Book like that of Manu comes into -being like every good law-book: it epitomises the experience, the -precautionary measures, and the experimental morality of long ages, -it settles things definitely, it no longer creates. The prerequisite -for a codification of this kind, is the recognition of the fact that -the means which procure authority for a <i>truth</i> to which it has cost -both time and great pains to attain, are fundamentally different from -those with which that same truth would be proved. A law-book never -relates the utility, the reasons, the preliminary casuistry, of a -law: for it would be precisely in this way that it would forfeit its -imperative tone, the “thou shalt,” the first condition of its being -obeyed. The problem lies exactly in this.—At a certain stage in the -development of a people, the most far-seeing class within it (that is -to say, the class that sees farthest backwards and forwards), declares -the experience of how its fellow-creatures ought to live—<i>can</i> -live—to be finally settled. Its object is, to reap as rich and as -complete a harvest as possible, in return for the ages of experiment -and <i>terrible</i> experience it has traversed. Consequently, that which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> -has to be avoided, above all, is any further experimentation, the -continuation of the state when values are still fluid, the testing, -choosing, and criticising of values <i>in infinitum. </i> Against all this a -double wall is built up: in the first place, <i>Revelation,</i> which is the -assumption that the rationale of every law is not human in its origin, -that it was not sought and found after ages of error, but that it is -divine in its origin, completely and utterly without a history, gift, a -miracle, a mere communication.... And secondly, <i>tradition,</i> which is -the assumption that the law has obtained since the most primeval times, -that it is impious and a crime against one’s ancestors to attempt to -doubt it. The authority of law is established on the principles: God -<i>gave</i> it, the ancestors <i>lived</i> it.—The superior reason of such a -procedure lies in the intention to draw consciousness off step by step -from that mode of life which has been recognised as correct (<i>i.e., -proved</i> after enormous and carefully examined experience), so that -perfect automatism of the instincts may be attained,—this being the -only possible basis of all mastery of every kind of perfection in -the Art of Life. To draw up a law-book like Manu’s, is tantamount -to granting a people mastership for the future, perfection for the -future,—the right to aspire to the highest Art of Life. <i>To that -end it must be made unconscious;</i> this is the object of every holy -lie.—<i>The order of castes,</i> the highest, the dominating law, is only -the sanction of a <i>natural order,</i> of a natural legislation of the -first rank, over which no arbitrary innovation, no “modern idea” has -any power. Every healthy society falls into three distinct types, which -reciprocally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> condition one another and which gravitate differently in -the physiological sense; and each of these has its own hygiene, its -own sphere of work, its own special feeling of perfection, and its -own mastership. It is Nature, not Manu, that separates from the rest, -those individuals preponderating in intellectual power, those excelling -in muscular strength and temperament, and the third class which is -distinguished neither in one way nor the other, the mediocre,—the -latter as the greatest number, the former as the <i>élite.</i> The superior -caste—I call them the <i>fewest,</i>—has, as the perfect caste, the -privileges of the fewest: it devolves upon them to represent happiness, -beauty and goodness on earth. Only the most intellectual men have -the right to beauty, to the beautiful: only in them is goodness not -weakness. <i>Pulchrum est paucorum hominum:</i> goodness is a privilege. -On the other hand there is nothing which they should be more strictly -forbidden than repulsive manners or a pessimistic look, a look that -makes everything <i>seem ugly,</i>—or even indignation at the general -aspect of things. Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala, and so -is pessimism. “<i>The world is perfect</i>”—that is what the instinct of -the most intellectual says, the yea-saying instinct; “imperfection, -every kind of <i>inferiority</i> to us, distance, the pathos of distance, -even the Chandala belongs to this perfection.” The most intellectual -men, as the <i>strongest</i> find their happiness where others meet -with their ruin: in the labyrinth, in hardness towards themselves -and others, in endeavour; their delight is self-mastery: with them -asceticism becomes a second nature, a need, an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> instinct They regard -a difficult task as their privilege; to play with burdens which crush -their fellows is to them a <i>recreation....</i> Knowledge, a form of -asceticism.—They are the most honourable kind of men: but that does -not prevent them from being the most cheerful and most gracious. They -rule, not because they will, but because they <i>are;</i> they are not at -liberty to take a second place.—The second in rank are the guardians -of the law, the custodians of order and of security, the noble -warriors, the king, above all, as the highest formula of the warrior, -the judge, and keeper of the law. The second in rank are the executive -of the most intellectual, the nearest to them in duty, relieving them -of all that is <i>coarse</i> in the work of ruling,—their retinue, their -right hand, their best disciples. In all this, I repeat, there is -nothing arbitrary, nothing “artificial,” that which is <i>otherwise</i> is -artificial,—by that which is otherwise, nature is put to shame.... The -order of castes, and the order of rank merely formulates the supreme -law of life itself; the differentiation of the three types is necessary -for the maintenance of society, and for enabling higher and highest -types to be reared,—the <i>inequality</i> of rights is the only condition -of there being rights at all.—A right is a privilege. And in his -way, each has his privilege. Let us not underestimate the privileges -of the <i>mediocre.</i> Life always gets harder towards the summit,—the -cold increases, responsibility increases. A high civilisation is a -pyramid: it can stand only upon a broad base, its first prerequisite is -a strongly and soundly consolidated mediocrity. Handicraft, commerce, -agriculture, science, the greater part of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> art,—in a word, the whole -range of professional and business callings, is compatible only with -mediocre ability and ambition; such pursuits would be out of place -among exceptions, the instinct pertaining thereto would oppose not -only aristocracy but anarchy as well. The fact that one is publicly -useful, a wheel, a function, presupposes a certain natural destiny: it -is not <i>society,</i> but the only kind of <i>happiness</i> of which the great -majority are capable, that makes them intelligent machines. For the -mediocre it is a joy to be mediocre; in them mastery in one thing, a -speciality, is a natural instinct. It would be absolutely unworthy of -a profound thinker to see any objection in mediocrity <i>per se.</i> For -in itself it is the first essential condition under which exceptions -are possible; a high culture is determined by it. When the exceptional -man treats the mediocre with more tender care than he does himself or -his equals, this is not mere courtesy of heart on his part—but simply -his <i>duty.</i> ... Whom do I hate most among the rabble of the present -day? The socialistic rabble, the Chandala apostles, who undermine the -working man’s instinct, his happiness and his feeling of contentedness -with his insignificant existence,—who make him envious, and who teach -him revenge. ... The wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies in the -claim to equal rights. What is <i>bad?</i> But I have already replied to -this: Everything that proceeds from weakness, envy and <i>revenge.</i>—The -anarchist and the Christian are offspring of the same womb....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">58</p> - -<p>In point of fact, it matters greatly to what end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> one lies: whether one -preserves or <i>destroys</i> by means of falsehood. It is quite justifiable -to bracket the <i>Christian</i> and the <i>Anarchist</i> together: their object, -their instinct, is concerned only with destruction. The proof of this -proposition can be read quite plainly from history: history spells it -with appalling distinctness. Whereas we have just seen a religious -legislation, whose object was to render the highest possible means of -making life <i>flourish,</i> and of making a grand organisation of society, -eternal,—Christianity found its mission in putting an end to such an -organisation, <i>precisely because life flourishes through it.</i> In the -one case, the net profit to the credit of reason, acquired through -long ages of experiment and of insecurity, is applied usefully to the -most remote ends, and the harvest, which is as large, as rich and -as complete as possible, is reaped and garnered: in the other case, -on the contrary, the harvest is <i>blighted</i> in a single night That -which stood there, <i>ære perennius,</i> the <i>imperium Romanum,</i> the most -magnificent form of organisation, under difficult conditions, that has -ever been achieved, and compared with which everything that preceded, -and everything which followed it, is mere patchwork, gimcrackery, -and dilettantism,—those holy anarchists made it their “piety,” to -destroy “the world”—that is to say, the <i>imperium Romanum,</i> until -no two stones were left standing one on the other,—until even the -Teutons and other clodhoppers were able to become master of it The -Christian and the anarchist are both decadents; they are both incapable -of acting in any other way than disintegratingly, poisonously and -witheringly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> like <i>blood-suckers;</i> they are both actuated by an -instinct of <i>mortal hatred</i> of everything that stands erect, that is -great, that is lasting, and that is a guarantee of the future.... -Christianity was the vampire of the <i>imperium Romanum,</i>—in a night -it shattered the stupendous achievement of the Romans, which was to -acquire the territory for a vast civilisation which could <i>bide its -time.</i>—Does no one understand this yet? The <i>imperium Romanum</i> that -we know, and which the history of the Roman province teaches us to -know ever more thoroughly, this most admirable work of art on a grand -scale, was the beginning, its construction was calculated <i>to prove</i> -its worth by millenniums,—unto this day nothing has ever again been -built in this fashion, nor have men even dreamt since of building on -this scale <i>sub specie aterni!</i>—This organisation was sufficiently -firm to withstand bad emperors: the accident of personalities must -have nothing to do with such matters—the <i>first</i> principle of all -great architecture. But it was not sufficiently firm to resist the -<i>corruptest</i> form of corruption, to resist the Christians.... These -stealthy canker-worms, which under the shadow of night, mist and -duplicity, insinuated themselves into the company of every individual, -and proceeded to drain him of all seriousness for <i>real</i> things, -of all his instinct for <i>realities;</i> this cowardly, effeminate and -sugary gang have step by step alienated all “souls” from this colossal -edifice,—those valuable, virile and noble natures who felt that -the cause of Rome was their own personal cause, their own personal -seriousness, their own personal <i>pride.</i> The stealth of the bigot, -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> secrecy of the conventicle, concepts as black as hell such as -the sacrifice of the innocent, the <i>unto mystica</i> in the drinking -of blood, above all the slowly kindled fire of revenge, of Chandala -revenge—such things became master of Rome, the same kind of religion -on the pre-existent form of which Epicurus had waged war. One has -only to read Lucretius in order to understand what Epicurus combated, -<i>not</i> Paganism, but “Christianity,” that is to say the corruption of -souls through the concept of guilt, through the concept of punishment -and immortality. He combated the <i>subterranean</i> cults, the whole of -latent Christianity—to deny immortality was at that time a genuine -<i>deliverance.</i>—And Epicurus had triumphed, every respectable thinker -in the Roman Empire was an Epicurean: <i>then St Paul appeared</i> ... St -Paul, the Chandala hatred against Rome, against “the world,” the Jew, -the eternal Jew <i>par excellence,</i> become flesh and genius. ... What -he divined was, how, by the help of the small sectarian Christian -movement, independent of Judaism, a universal conflagration could be -kindled; how, with the symbol of the “God on the Cross,” everything -submerged, everything secretly insurrectionary, the whole offspring -of anarchical intrigues could be gathered together to constitute an -enormous power. “For salvation is of the Jews.”—Christianity is -the formula for the supersession, <i>and</i> epitomising of all kinds of -subterranean cults, that of Osiris, of the Great Mother, of Mithras for -example: St Paul’s genius consisted in his discovery of this. In this -matter his instinct was so certain, that, regardless of doing violence -to truth, he laid the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> ideas by means of which those Chandala religions -fascinated, upon the very lips of the “Saviour” he had invented, and -not only upon his lips,—that he <i>made</i> out of him something which even -a Mithras priest could understand.... This was his moment of Damascus: -he saw that he had <i>need of</i> the belief in immortality in order to -depreciate “the world,” that the notion of “hell” would become master -of Rome, that with a “Beyond” <i>this life</i> can be killed. ... Nihilist -and Christian,—they rhyme in German, and they do not only rhyme.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">59</p> - -<p>The whole labour of the ancient world <i>in vain:</i> I am at a loss for a -word which could express my feelings at something so atrocious.—And -in view of the fact that its labour was only preparatory, that with -adamantine self-consciousness it laid the substructure, alone, to -a work which was to last millenniums, the whole <i>significance</i> of -the ancient world was certainly in vain!... What was the use of the -Greeks? what was the use of the Romans?—All the prerequisites of a -learned culture, all the scientific methods already existed, the great -and peerless art of reading well had already been established—that -indispensable condition to tradition, to culture and to scientific -unity; natural science hand in hand with mathematics and mechanics -was on the best possible road,—the sense for facts, the last and -most valuable of all senses, had its schools, and its tradition was -already centuries old! Is this understood? Everything <i>essential</i> had -been discovered to make it possible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> for work to be begun:—methods, -and this cannot be said too often, are the essential thing, also the -most difficult thing, while they moreover have to wage the longest war -against custom and indolence. That which to-day we have successfully -reconquered for ourselves, by dint of unspeakable self-discipline—for -in some way or other all of us still have the bad instincts, the -Christian instincts, in our body,—the impartial eye for reality, -the cautious hand, patience and seriousness in the smallest details, -complete <i>uprightness</i> in knowledge,—all this was already there; it -had been there over two thousand years before! And in addition to this -there was also that excellent and subtle tact and taste! <i>Not</i> in the -form of brain drilling! <i>Not</i> in the form of “German” culture with the -manners of a boor! But incarnate, manifesting itself in men’s bearing -and in their instinct,—in short constituting reality.... <i>All this -in vain!</i> In one night it became merely a memory!—The Greeks! The -Romans! Instinctive nobility, instinctive taste, methodic research, -the genius of organisation and administration, faith, the <i>will</i> to -the future of mankind, the great <i>yea</i> to all things materialised -in the <i>imperium Romanum,</i> become visible to all the senses, grand -style no longer manifested in mere art, but in reality, in truth, -in <i>life.</i>—And buried in a night, not by a natural catastrophe! -Not stamped to death by Teutons and other heavy-footed vandals! -But destroyed by crafty, stealthy, invisible anæmic vampires! Not -conquered,—but only drained of blood!... The concealed lust of -revenge, miserable envy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> become <i>master!</i> Everything wretched, inwardly -ailing, and full of ignoble feelings, the whole Ghetto-world of souls, -was in a trice <i>uppermost!</i>—One only needs to read any one of the -Christian agitators—St Augustine, for instance,—in order to realise, -in order to <i>smell,</i> what filthy fellows came to the top in this -movement. You would deceive yourselves utterly if you supposed that the -leaders of the Christian agitation showed any lack of understanding -—Ah! they were shrewd, shrewd to the point of holiness were these -dear old Fathers of the Church I What they lack is something quite -different. Nature neglected them,—it forgot to give them a modest -dowry of decent, of respectable and of <i>cleanly</i> instincts.... Between -ourselves, they are not even men. If Islam despises Christianity, it is -justified a thousand times over; for Islam presupposes men.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">60</p> - -<p>Christianity destroyed the harvest we might have reaped from the -culture of antiquity, later it also destroyed our harvest of the -culture of Islam. The wonderful Moorish world of Spanish culture, which -in its essence is more closely related to <i>us,</i> and which appeals -more to our sense and taste than Rome and Greece, was <i>trampled to -death</i>(—I do not say by what kind of feet), why?—because it owed -its origin to noble, to manly instincts, because it said yea to life, -even that life so full of the rare and refined luxuries of the Moors! -... Later on the Crusaders waged war upon something before which it -would have been more seemly in them to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> grovel in the dust,—a culture, -beside which even our Nineteenth Century would seem very poor and -very “senile.”—Of course they wanted booty: the Orient was rich.... -For goodness’ sake let us forget our prejudices! Crusades—superior -piracy, that is all! German nobility—that is to say, a Viking nobility -at bottom, was in its element in such wars: the Church was only too -well aware of how German nobility is to be won.... German nobility -was always the “Swiss Guard” of the Church, always at the service of -all the bad instincts of the Church; but it was <i>well paid for it -all....</i> Fancy the Church having waged its deadly war upon everything -noble on earth, precisely with the help of German swords, German blood -and courage! A host of painful <i>questions</i> might be raised on this -point German nobility scarcely takes a place in the history of higher -culture: the reason of this is obvious; Christianity, alcohol—the two -<i>great</i> means of corruption. As a matter of fact choice ought to be -just as much out of the question between Islam and Christianity, as -between an Arab and a Jew. The decision is already self-evident; nobody -is at liberty to exercise a choice in this matter. A man is either of -the Chandala or he is <i>not ...</i> “War with Rome to the knife! Peace -and friendship with Islam”: this is what that great free spirit, that -genius among German emperors,—Frederick the Second, not only felt -but also <i>did.</i> What? Must a German in the first place be a genius, a -free-spirit, in order to have <i>decent</i> feelings? I cannot understand -how a German was ever able to have <i>Christian</i> feelings.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">61</p> - -<p>Here it is necessary to revive a memory which will be a hundred times -more painful to Germans. The Germans have destroyed the last great -harvest of culture which was to be garnered for Europe,—it destroyed -the <i>Renaissance.</i> Does anybody at last understand, <i>will</i> anybody -understand what the Renaissance was? <i>The transvaluation of Christian -values,</i> the attempt undertaken with all means, all instincts and all -genius to make the <i>opposite</i> values, the <i>noble</i> values triumph,... -Hitherto there has been only <i>this</i> great war: there has never yet -been a more decisive question than the Renaissance,—<i>my</i> question -is the question of the Renaissance:—there has never been a more -fundamental, a more direct and a more severe <i>attack,</i> delivered with -a whole front upon the centre of the foe. To attack at the decisive -quarter, at the very seat of Christianity, and there to place <i>noble</i> -values on the throne,—that is to say, to <i>introduce</i> them into the -instincts, into the most fundamental needs and desires of those -sitting there.... I see before me a possibility perfectly magic in -its charm and glorious colouring—it seems to me to scintillate -with all the quivering grandeur of refined beauty, that there is -an art at work within it which is so divine, so infernally divine, -that one might seek through millenniums in vain for another such -possibility; I see a spectacle so rich in meaning and so wonderfully -paradoxical to boot, that it would be enough to make all the gods of -Olympus rock with immortal laughter,—<i>Cæsar Borgia as Pope.</i> ... -Do you understand me?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> ... Very well then, this would have been the -triumph which I alone am longing for to-day:—this would have <i>swept</i> -Christianity <i>away!</i>—What happened? A German monk, Luther, came to -Rome. This monk, with all the vindictive instincts of an abortive -priest in his body, foamed with rage over the Renaissance in Rome.... -Instead of, with the profoundest gratitude, understanding the vast -miracle that had taken place, the overcoming of Christianity at its -<i>headquarters,</i>—the fire of his hate knew only how to draw fresh fuel -from this spectacle. A religious man thinks only of himself.—Luther -saw the corruption of the Papacy when the very reverse stared him in -the face: the old corruption, the <i>peceatum originate,</i> Christianity -<i>no</i> longer sat upon the Papal chair! But Life! The triumph of -Life! The great yea to all lofty, beautiful and daring things!... -And Luther reinstated the Church; he attacked it The Renaissance -thus became an event without meaning, a great <i>in vain!</i>—Ah these -Germans, what have they not cost us already! In vain—this has always -been the achievement of the Germans.—The Reformation, Leibniz, -Kant and so-called German philosophy, the Wars of Liberation, the -Empire—in each case are in vain for something which had already -existed, for something which <i>cannot be recovered.</i> ... I confess it, -these Germans are my enemies: I despise every sort of uncleanliness -in concepts and valuations in them, every kind of cowardice in the -face of every honest yea or nay. For almost one thousand years, now, -they have tangled and confused everything they have laid their hands -on; they have on their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> conscience all the half-measures, all the -three-eighth measures of which Europe is sick; they also have the -most unclean, the most incurable, and the most irrefutable kind of -Christianity—Protestantism—on their conscience.... If we shall never -be able to get rid of Christianity, the <i>Germans</i> will be to blame.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">62</p> - -<p>—With this I will now conclude and pronounce my judgment. I <i>condemn</i> -Christianity and confront it with the most terrible accusation that -an accuser has ever had in his mouth. To my mind it is the greatest -of all conceivable corruptions, it has had the will to the last -imaginable corruption. The Christian Church allowed nothing to escape -from its corruption; it converted every value into its opposite, every -truth into a He, and every honest impulse into an ignominy of the -soul. Let anyone dare to speak to me of its humanitarian blessings! -To <i>abolish</i> any sort of distress was opposed to its profoundest -interests; its very existence depended on states of distress; it -created states of distress in order to make itself immortal.... The -cancer germ of sin, for instance: the Church was the first to enrich -mankind with this misery!—The “equality of souls before God,” this -falsehood, this <i>pretext</i> for the <i>rancunes</i> of all the base-minded, -this anarchist bomb of a concept, which has ultimately become the -revolution, the modern idea, the principle of decay of the whole of -social order,—this is <i>Christian</i> dynamite ... The “humanitarian” -blessings of Christianity! To breed a self-contradiction, an art of -self-profanation, a will to lie at any price, an aversion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> a contempt -of all good and honest instincts out of <i>humanitas!</i> Is this what you -call the blessings of Christianity?—Parasitism as the only method of -the Church; sucking all the blood, all the love, all the hope of life -out of mankind with anæmic and sacred ideals. A “Beyond” as the will to -deny all reality; the cross as the trade-mark of the most subterranean -form of conspiracy that has ever existed,—against health, beauty, -well-constitutedness, bravery, intellect, kindliness of soul, <i>against -Life itself....</i></p> - -<p>This eternal accusation against Christianity I would fain write on all -walls, wherever there are walls,—I have letters with which I can make -even the blind see.... I call Christianity the one great curse, the one -enormous and innermost perversion, the one great instinct of revenge, -for which no means are too venomous, too underhand, too underground and -too <i>petty,</i>—I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind....</p> - -<p>And <i>time</i> is reckoned from the <i>dies nefastus</i> upon which this -fatality came into being—from the first day of Christianity!—<i>why -not rather from its last day?—From to-day?</i>—Transvaluation of all -Values!...</p> -<hr class="r5" /> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_17" id="Footnote_1_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_17"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The German “<i>Tüchtigkeit</i>” has a nobler ring than our word -“efficiency.”—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_18" id="Footnote_2_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_18"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> Disraeli: “But enlightened Europe is not happy. -Its existence is a fever which it calls progress. Progress to what?” -(“Tancred,” Book III., Chap, vii.).—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_19" id="Footnote_3_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_19"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> It will be seen from this that in spite of Nietzsche’s -ruthless criticism of the priests, he draws a sharp distinction between -Christianity and the Church. As the latter still contained elements -of order, it was more to his taste than the denial of authority -characteristic of real Christianity.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_20" id="Footnote_4_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_20"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> “<i>reine Thorheit</i>” in the German text, referring once -again to Parsifal.—Tr.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5_21" id="Footnote_5_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_21"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> This applies apparently to Bismarck, the forger of the Ems -telegram and a sincere Christian.—Tr.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6_22" id="Footnote_6_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_22"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> An adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Well roared, lion” (<i>Mid. -N. D.,</i> Act 5, Sc. i.), the lion, as is well known, being the symbol -for St Mark in Christian literature and Art—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7_23" id="Footnote_7_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_23"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> A parody on a line in Schiller’s <i>“Jungfrau von Orleans”</i> -(Act 3, Sc. vi.): “<i>Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.</i>” -(With stupidity even the gods themselves struggle in vain).—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8_24" id="Footnote_8_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_24"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> ἒφεξις = Lat. Retentio, Inhibitio (Stephanus, Thesaurus -Græcæ Linguæ); therefore: reserve, caution. The Greek Sceptics were -also called Ephectics owing to their caution in judging and in -concluding from facts.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9_25" id="Footnote_9_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_25"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> The following passage from Multatuti will throw light on -this passage:— -</p> -<p> -“Father:—‘Behold, my son, how wisely Providence has arranged -everything! This bird lays its eggs in its nest and the young will be -hatched just about the time when there will be worms and flies with -which to feed them. Then they will sing a song of praise in honour of -the Creator who overwhelms his creatures with blessings.’— -</p> -<p> -”Son:—‘Will the worms join in the song, Dad?’“.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_10_26" id="Footnote_10_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_26"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> “Thus Spake Zarathustra.” The Priests.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_11_27" id="Footnote_11_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_27"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> I Corinthians vii. 2, 9.—TR.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h3><a name="THE_ETERNAL_RECURRENCE" id="THE_ETERNAL_RECURRENCE">THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE</a></h3> - -<h5>AND</h5> - -<h3>EXPLANATORY NOTES TO “THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA.”</h3> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> - - -<h4>TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE</h4> - - -<p>The notes concerning the Eternal Recurrence, in this volume, are said -by Mrs Foerster-Nietzsche to have been the first that Nietzsche ever -wrote on the subject of his great doctrine. This being so, they must -have been composed towards the autumn of the year 1881.</p> - -<p>I have already pointed out elsewhere (<i>Will to Power,</i> vol. ii., -Translator’s Preface) how much importance Nietzsche himself ascribed -to this doctrine, and how, until the end, he regarded it as the -inspiration which had led to his chief work, <i>Thus Spake Zarathustra.</i> -For the details relating to its inception, however, I would refer the -reader to Mrs Foerster-Nietzsche’s Introduction to her brother’s chief -work, which was translated for the eleventh volume of this Edition of -the Complete Works.</p> - -<p>In reading these notes it would be well to refer to Nietzsche’s other -utterances on the subject which are to be found at the end of vol. -ii. of the <i>Will to Power,</i> and also, if possible, to have recourse -to the original German text. Despite the greatest care, I confess -that in some instances, I have felt a little doubt as to the precise -English equivalent for the thoughts expressed under the heading -<i>Eternal Recurrence;</i> and, though I have attributed this difficulty to -the extreme novelty of the manner in which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> subject is presented, -it is well that the reader should be aware that such doubt has been -entertained. For I disbelieve utterly in mere verbal translation, -however accurate, and would question anybody’s right to convert a -German sentence into English—even though he were so perfect in -both languages as to be almost absolutely bilingual,—if he did not -completely grasp the thought behind the sentence.</p> - -<p>The writing of the collected Explanatory Notes to <i>Thus Spake -Zarathustra</i>, cannot be given any exact date. Some of them consist of -comments, written down by Nietzsche after the completion of the book, -and kept as the nucleus of an actual commentary to Zarathustra, which -it seems to have been his intention, one day, to write; while others -are merely memoranda and rough sketches, probably written before the -completion of the work, and which served the purpose of a draft of his -original plan. The reader who knows <i>Thus Spake Zarathustra</i> will be -able to tell wherein the book ultimately differed from the plan visible -in these preliminary notes.</p> - -<p>As an authoritative, though alas! all too fragmentary elucidation of a -few of the more obscure passages of Zarathustra, some of these notes -are of the greatest value; and, in paragraph 73, for instance, there -is an interpretation of the Fourth and Last Part, which I myself would -have welcomed with great enthusiasm, at the time when I was having my -first struggles with the spirit of this great German sage’s life work.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 65%; font-size: 0.8em;">ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="I_ETERNAL_RECURRENCE" id="I_ETERNAL_RECURRENCE">I. ETERNAL RECURRENCE</a></h4> - - -<h5>1. THE DOCTRINE EXPOUNDED AND SUBSTANTIATED.</h5> - - -<p class="parnum">1.</p> - -<p>The extent of universal energy is limited; it is not “infinite”: we -should beware of such excesses in our concepts! Consequently the number -of states, changes, combinations, and evolutions of this energy, -although it may be enormous and practically incalculable, is at any -rate definite and not unlimited. The time, however, in which this -universal energy works its changes is infinite—that is to say, energy -remains eternally the same and is eternally active:—at this moment an -infinity has already elapsed, that is to say, every possible evolution -must already have taken place. Consequently the present process of -evolution must be a repetition, as was also the one before it, as will -also be the one which will follow. And so on forwards and backwards! -Inasmuch as the entire state of all forces continually returns, -everything has existed an infinite number of times. Whether, apart from -this, anything exactly like something that formerly existed has ever -appeared, is completely beyond proof. It would seem that each complete -state of energy forms all qualities afresh even to the smallest -degree, so that two different complete states could have nothing in -common.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> Is it to be supposed that in one and the same complete states -two precisely similar things could appear—for instance two leaves? -I doubt it: it would take for granted that they had both had an -absolutely similar origin, and in that case we should have to assume -that right back in infinity two similar things had also existed despite -all the changes in the complete states and their creation of new -qualities—an impossible assumption.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>Formerly it was thought that unlimited energy was a necessary corollary -to unlimited activity in time, and that this energy could be exhausted -by no form of consumption. Now it is thought that energy remains -constant and docs not require to be infinite. It is eternally active -but it is no longer able eternally to create new forms, it must repeat -itself: that is my conclusion.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>An incalculable number of complete states of energy have existed, -but these have not been infinitely different: for if they had been, -unlimited energy would have been necessary. The energy of the universe -can only have a given number of possible qualities.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>The endless evolution of new forms is a contradiction, for it would -imply eternally increasing energy. But whence would it grow? Whence -would it derive its nourishment and its surplus of nourishment?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> The -assumption that the universe is an organism contradicts the very -essence of the organic.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>In what principle and belief is that decisive turning point in -philosophical thought best expressed which has come into being thanks -to the preponderance of the scientific spirit over the religious and -God-creating one? We insist upon the fact that the world as a sum of -energy must not be regarded as unlimited—we forbid ourselves the -concept infinite energy, because it seems incompatible with the concept -energy.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>An unlimited number of new changes and states on the part of limited -energy is a contradiction, however extensive one may imagine it to be, -and however economical the changes may be, provided it is infinite. -We are therefore forced to conclude: (1) either that the universe -began its activity at a given moment of time and will end in a similar -fashion,—but the beginning of activity is absurd; if a state of -equilibrium had been reached it would have persisted to all eternity; -(2) Or there is no such thing as an endless number of changes, but -a circle consisting of a definite number of them which continually -recurs: activity is eternal, the number of the products and states of -energy is limited.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p>If all the possible combinations and relations of forces had not -already been exhausted, then an infinity would not yet lie behind -us. Now since<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> infinite time must be assumed, no fresh possibility -can exist and everything must have appeared already, and moreover an -infinite number of times.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p>The present world of forces leads back to a state of greatest -simplicity in these forces: it likewise leads forwards to such a -state,—cannot and must not <i>both</i> states be identical? No incalculable -number of states can evolve out of a system of limited forces, that -is to say, out of a given quantity of energy which may be precisely -measured. Only when we falsely assume that space is unlimited, and that -therefore energy gradually becomes dissipated, can the final state be -an unproductive and lifeless one.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">9</p> - -<p>First principles.—The last physical state of energy which we can -imagine must necessarily be the first also. The absorption of energy -in latent energy must be the cause of the production of the most vital -energy. For a highly positive state must follow a negative state Space -like matter is a subjective form, time is not. The notion of space -first arose from the assumption that space could be empty. But there is -no such thing as empty space. Everything is energy.</p> - -<p>We cannot think of that which moves and that which is moved together, -but both these things constitute matter and space. We isolate.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">10</p> - -<p>Concerning the resurrection of the world.—Out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> of two negatives, when -they are forces, a positive arises. (Darkness comes of light opposed to -light, cold arises from warmth opposed to warmth, &c., &c.)</p> - - -<p class="parnum">11</p> - -<p>An uncertain state of equilibrium occurs just as seldom in nature as -two absolutely equal triangles. Consequently anything like a static -state of energy in general is impossible. If stability were possible it -would already have been reached.</p> - - - -<p class="parnum">12</p> - - -<p>Either complete equilibrium must in itself be an impossibility, or -the changes of energy introduce themselves in the circular process -before that equilibrium which is in itself possible has appeared.—But -it would be madness to ascribe a feeling of self-preservation to -existence! And the same applies to the conception of a contest of pain -and pleasure among atoms.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">13</p> - -<p>Physics supposes that energy may be divided up: but every one of its -possibilities must first be adjusted to reality. There can therefore -be no question of dividing energy into equal parts; in every one of -its states it manifests a certain quality, and qualities cannot be -subdivided: hence a state of equilibrium in energy is impossible.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">14</p> - -<p>If energy had ever reached a stage of equilibrium that stage would -have persisted: it has therefore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> never reached such a stage. The -present condition of things contradicts this assumption. If we assume -that there has ever been a state absolutely like the present one this -assumption is in no wise refuted by the present state. For, among -all the endless possibilities, this case must already have occurred, -as an infinity is already behind us. If equilibrium were possible it -would already have been reached.—And if this momentary state has -already existed then that which bore it and the previous one also would -likewise have existed and so on backwards,—and from this it follows -that it has already existed not only twice but three times,—just as it -will exist again not only twice but three times,—in fact an infinite -number of times backwards and forwards. That is to say, the whole -process of Becoming consists of a repetition of a definite number of -precisely similar states.—Clearly the human brain cannot be left to -imagine the whole series of possibilities: but in any case, quite apart -from our ability to judge or our inability to conceive the whole range -of possibilities, the present state at least is a possible one—because -it is a real one. We should therefore say: in the event of the number -of possibilities not being infinite, and assuming that in the course of -unlimited time a limited number of these must appear, all real states -must have been preceded by similar states? Because from every given -moment a whole infinity is to be calculated backwards? The stability of -forces and their equilibrium is a possible alternative: but it has not -been reached; consequently the number of possibilities is greater than -the number of real states. The fact that nothing similar recurs could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> -not be explained by appealing to accident, but only by supposing that a -certain intention, that no similar things should recur, were actually -inherent in the essence of energy: for, if we grant that the number of -cases is enormous, the occurrence of like cases is more probable than -absolute disparity.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">15</p> - -<p>Let us think backwards a moment If the world had a goal, this goal -must have been reached: if a certain (unintentional) final state -existed for the world, this state also would have been reached. If -it were in any way capable of a stationary or stable condition, and -if in the whole course of its existence only one second of Being, in -the strict sense of the word, had been possible, then there could -no longer be such a process as evolution, and therefore no thinking -and no observing of such a process. If on the other hand the world -were something which continually renovated itself, it would then be -understood to be something miraculous and free to create itself—in -fact something divine. Eternal renovation presupposes that energy -voluntarily increases itself, that it not only has the intention, but -also the power, to avoid repeating itself or to avoid returning into a -previous form, and that every instant it adjusts itself in every one of -its movements to prevent such a contingency,—or that it was incapable -of returning to a state it had already passed through. That would -mean that the whole sum of energy was not constant, any more than its -attributes were But a sum of energy which would be inconstant and which -would fluctuate is quite unthinkable Let us not indulge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> our fancy -any longer with unthinkable things in order to fall once more before -the concept of a Creator (multiplication out of nothing, reduction -out of nothing, absolute arbitrariness and freedom in growth and in -qualities):—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">16</p> - -<p>He who does not believe in the circular process of the universe must -pin his faith to an arbitrary God—thus my doctrine becomes necessary -as opposed to all that has been said hitherto in matters of Theism.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">17</p> - -<p>The hypothesis which I would oppose to that of the eternal circular -process:—Would it be just as possible to explain the laws of the -mechanical world as exceptions and seemingly as accidents among the -things of the universe, as one possibility only among an incalculable -number of possibilities? Would it be possible to regard ourselves -as accidentally thrust into this corner of the mechanical universal -arrangement?—That all chemical philosophy is likewise an exception -and an accident in the world’s economy, and finally that organic life -is a mere exception and accident in the chemical world? Should we have -to assume as the most general form of existence a world which was -not yet mechanical, which was outside all mechanical laws (although -accessible to them)?—and that as a matter of fact this world would -be the most general now and for evermore, so that the origin of the -mechanical world would be a lawless game which would ultimately acquire -such consistency as the organic laws seem to have now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> from our point -of view? So that all our mechanical laws would be not eternal, but -evolved, and would have survived innumerable different mechanical -laws, or that they had attained supremacy in isolated corners of the -world and not in others?—It would seem that we need caprice, actual -lawlessness, and only a capacity for law, a primeval state of stupidity -which is not even able to concern itself with mechanics? The origin of -qualities presupposes the existence of quantities, and these, for their -part, might arise from a thousand kinds of mechanical processes.</p> - -<p>Is not the existence of some sort of irregularity and incomplete -circular form in the world about us, a sufficient refutation of -the regular circularity of everything that exists? Whence comes -this variety within the circular process? Is not everything far too -complicated to have been the outcome of unity? And are not the many -chemical laws and likewise the organic species and forms inexplicable -as the result of homogeneity? or of duality?—Supposing there were -such a thing as a regular contracting energy in all the centres of -force in the universe, the question would be, whence could the most -insignificant difference spring? For then the whole world would have -to be resolved into innumerable completely equal rings and spheres of -existence and we should have an incalculable number of exactly equal -worlds side by side. Is it necessary for me to assume this? Must I -suppose that an eternal sequence of like worlds also involves eternal -juxta-position of like worlds? But the multifariousness and disorder -in the world which we have known<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> hitherto contradicts this; no such -universal similarity has existed in evolution, for in that case even -for our part of the cosmos a regular spherical form must have been -formed. Should the production of qualities not be subject to any strict -laws? Can it be possible that different things have been derived from -“energy”? Arbitrarily? Is the conformity to law which we observe -perhaps only a deception? Is it possible that it is not a primeval law? -Is it possible that the multifariousness of qualities even in our part -of the world is the result of the absolute occurrence of arbitrary -characteristics? But that these characteristics no longer appear in our -corner of the globe? Or that our corner of existence has adopted a rule -which we call cause and effect when all the while it is no such thing -(an arbitrary phenomenon become a rule, as for instance oxygen and -hydrogen in chemistry)??? Is this rule simply a protracted kind of mood?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">18</p> - -<p>If the universe had been able to become an organism it would have -become one already. <i>As</i> a whole we must try and regard it in the -light of a thing <i>as</i> remote <i>as possible</i> from the organic. I believe -that even our chemical affinity and coherence may be perhaps recently -evolved and that these appearances only occur in certain corners of -the universe at certain epochs. Let us believe in absolute necessity -in the universe but let us guard against postulating any sort of law, -even if it be a primitive and mechanical one of our own experience, -as ruling over the whole and constituting one of its eternal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> -characteristics.—All chemical qualities might have been evolved and -might disappear and return. Innumerable characteristics might have been -developed which for us,—from our limited point of view in time and -space, defy observation. The transformation of a chemical quality may -perhaps now be taking place, but so slowly that it escapes our most -delicate calculations.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">19</p> - -<p>Inorganic matter, even though in most cases it may once have -been organic, can have stored up no experience,—it is always -without a pastl If the reverse were the case a repetition would be -impossible—for then matter would for ever be producing new qualities -with new pasts.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">20</p> - -<p>We must guard against ascribing any aspiration or any goal to this -circular process: Likewise we must not, from the point of view of our -own needs, regard it as either monotonous or foolish, &c. We may grant -that the greatest possible irrationality, as also its reverse, may be -an essential feature of it: but we must not value it according to this -hypothesis. Rationality or irrationality cannot stand as attributes of -the universe.—We must not think of the law of this circular process as -a thing evolved, by drawing false analogies with the circular motions -occurring <i>within</i> the circle. There was no primitive chaos followed -gradually by a more harmonious and finally definite circular motion of -all forces: On the contrary everything is eternal and unevolved. If -there ever was a chaos of forces, then that chaos<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> itself was eternal -and was repeated at its particular moment of time in the turn of the -world wheel. The circular process is not the outcome of evolution, it -is a primitive principle like the quantum of energy, and allows of no -exception or violation. All Becoming takes place within the circular -process and the quantum of energy which constitutes it: therefore we -must not apply ephemeral processes like those for instance of heavenly -bodies, of the ebb and flow of tides, of day and night, of the seasons, -to the drawing of analogies for characterising the eternal circular -process.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">21</p> - -<p>The “chaos of the universe,” inasmuch as it excludes any aspiration to -a goal, does not oppose the thought of the circular process: the latter -is simply an irrational necessity, absolutely free from any formal -ethical or æsthetical significance. Arbitrariness in small things as in -great is completely lacking here.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">22</p> - -<p>Let us guard against believing that the universe has a tendency to -attain to certain forms, or that it aims at becoming more beautiful, -more perfect, more complicated! All that is anthropomorphism! Anarchy, -ugliness, form—are unrelated concepts. There is no such thing as -imperfection in the realm of mechanics.</p> - -<p>Everything has returned: Sirius, and the spider, and thy thoughts at -this moment, and this last thought of thine that all these things will -return.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">23</p> - -<p>Our whole world consists of the ashes of an incalculable number of -living creatures: and even if living matter is ever so little compared -with the whole, everything has already been transformed into life once -before and thus the process goes on. If we grant eternal time we must -assume the eternal change of matter.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">24</p> - -<p>Whoever thou mayest be, beloved stranger, whom I meet here for the -first time, avail thyself of this happy hour and of the stillness -around us, and above us, and let me tell thee something of the thought -which has suddenly risen before me like a star which would fain shed -down its rays upon thee and every one, as befits the nature of light—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">25</p> - -<p>The world of energy suffers no diminution: otherwise with eternal -time it would have grown weak and finally have perished altogether. -The world of energy suffers no stationary state, otherwise this would -already have been reached, and the clock of the universe would be at -a standstill. The world of energy does not therefore reach a state of -equilibrium; for no instant in its career has it had rest; its energy -and its movement have been the same for all time. Whatever state this -world could have reached must ere now have been attained, and not -only once but an incalculable number of times. This applies to this -very moment It has already been here once before, and several times, -and will recur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> in the same way, with all forces distributed as they -are to-day: and the same holds good of the moment of time which bore -the present and of that which shall be the child of the present. -Fellow-man! Your whole life, like a sandglass, will always be reversed -and will ever run out again,—a long minute of time will elapse until -all those conditions out of which you were evolved return in the wheel -of the cosmic process. And then you will find every pain and every -pleasure, every friend and every enemy, every hope and every error, -every blade of grass and every ray of sunshine once more, and the whole -fabric of things that makes up your life. This ring in which you are -but a grain will glitter afresh for ever. And in every one of these -cycles of human life there will be one hour where for the first time -one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty thought of the eternal -recurrence of all things:—and for mankind this is always the hour of -Noon.</p> - - - -<h5>2. THE EFFECTS OF THE DOCTRINE UPON MANKIND</h5> - - -<p class="parnum">26</p> - -<p>How can we give weight to our inner life without making it evil and -fanatical towards people who think otherwise. Religious belief is -declining and man is beginning to regard himself as ephemeral and -unessential, a point of view which is making him weak; he does not -exercise so much effort in striving or enduring. What he wants is -momentary enjoyment He would make things light for himself,—and a good -deal of his spirit gets squandered in this endeavour.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">27</p> - -<p>The political mania at which I smile just as merrily as my -contemporaries smile at the religious mania of former times is above -all Materialism, a belief in the world, and in the repudiation of a -“Beyond,” of a “back-world.” The object of those who believe in the -latter is the well-being of the ephemeral individual: that is why -Socialism is its fruit; for with Socialism ephemeral individuals wish -to secure their happiness by means of socialisation. They have no -reason to wait, as those men had who believed in eternal souls, in -eternal development and eternal amelioration. My doctrine is: Live -so that thou mayest desire to live again,—that is thy duty,—for in -any case thou wilt live again He unto whom striving is the greatest -happiness, let him strive; he unto whom peace is the greatest -happiness, let him rest; he unto whom subordination, following, -obedience, is the greatest happiness, let him obey. All that is -necessary is that he should know what it is that gives him the highest -happiness, and to fight shy of no means! Eternity is at stake!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">28</p> - -<p>“But if everything is necessary, what control have I over my actions?” -Thought and faith are a form of ballast which burden thee in addition -to other burdens thou mayest have, and which are even more weighty than -the latter. Sayest thou that nutrition, the land of thy birth, air, and -society change thee and determine thee? Well, thy opinions do this to -a much greater degree, for they even prescribe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> thy nourishment, thy -land of adoption, thy atmosphere, and thy society for thee.—If thou -ever assimilatest the thought of thoughts it will also alter thee. The -question which thou wilt have to answer before every deed that thou -doest: “is this such a deed as I am prepared to perform an incalculable -number of times?” is the best ballast.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">29</p> - -<p>The mightiest of all thoughts absorbs a good deal of energy which -formerly stood at the disposal of other aspirations, and in this way -it exercises a modifying influence; it creates new laws of motion in -energy, though no new energy. But it is precisely in this respect that -there lies some possibility of determining new emotions and new desires -in men.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">30</p> - -<p>Let us try and discover how the thought that something gets repeated -has affected mankind hitherto (the year, for instance, or periodical -illnesses, waking and sleeping, &). Even supposing the recurrence of -the cycle is only a probability or a possibility, even a thought, even -a possibility, can shatter us and transform us. It is not only feelings -and definite expectations that do this! See what effect the thought of -eternal damnation has had!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">31</p> - -<p>From the moment when this thought begins to prevail all colours will -change their hue and a new history will begin.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">32</p> - -<p>The history of the future: this thought will tend to triumph ever more -and more, and those who disbelieve in it will be forced, according to -their nature, ultimately to die out.</p> - -<p>He, alone, who will regard his existence as capable of eternal -recurrence will remain over: but among such as these a state will be -possible of which the imagination of no utopist has ever dreamt!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">33</p> - -<p>Ye fancy that ye will have a long rest ere your second birth takes -place,—but do not deceive yourselves! ’Twixt your last moment of -consciousness and the first ray of the dawn of your new life no time -will elapse,—as a flash of lightning will the space go by, even though -living creatures think it is billions of years, and are not even able -to reckon it. Timelessness and immediate re-birth are compatible, once -intellect is eliminated!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">34</p> - -<p>Thou feelest that thou must soon take thy leave perhaps—and the sunset -glow of this feeling pierces through thy happiness. Give heed to this -sign: it means that thou lovest life and thyself, and life as it has -hitherto affected thee and moulded thee,—and that thou cravest for its -eternity—<i>Non alia sed hac vita sempiterna!</i></p> - -<p>Know also, that transiency singeth its short song for ever afresh and -that at the sound of the first verse thou wilt almost die of longing -when thou thinkest that it might be for the last time.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">35</p> - -<p>Let us stamp the impress of eternity upon our lives! This thought -contains more than all the religions which taught us to contemn this -life as a thing ephemeral, which bade us squint upwards to another and -indefinite existence.—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">36</p> - -<p>We must not strive after distant and unknown states of bliss and -blessings and acts of grace, but we must live so that we would fain -live again and live for ever so, to all eternity!—Our duty is present -with us every instant.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">37</p> - -<p>The leading tendencies: (1) We must implant the love of life, the -love of every man’s own life in every conceivable way! However each -individual may understand this love of self his neighbour will -acquiesce, and will have to learn great tolerance towards it: however -much it may often run counter to his taste,—provided the individual in -question really helps to increase his joy in his own life!</p> - -<p>(2) We must all be one in our hostility towards everything and -everybody who tends to cast a slur upon the value of life: towards -all gloomy, dissatisfied and brooding natures. We must prevent these -from procreating! But our hostility itself must be a means to our joy! -Thus we shall laugh; we shall mock and we shall exterminate without -bitterness I Let this be our mortal combat</p> - -<p>This life is thy eternal life!</p> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">38</p> - -<p>What was the cause of the downfall of the Alexandrian culture? With all -its useful discoveries and its desire to investigate the nature of this -world, it did not know how to lend this life its ultimate importance, -the thought of a Beyond was more important to it! To teach anew in -this regard is still the most important thing of all:—perhaps if -metaphysics are applied to this life in the most emphatic way,—as in -the case of my doctrine!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">39</p> - -<p>This doctrine is lenient towards those who do not believe in it It -speaks of no hells and it contains no threats. He who does not believe -in it has but a fleeting life in his consciousness.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">40</p> - -<p>It would be terrible if we still believed in sin, but whatever we may -do, however often we may repeat it, it is all innocent. If the thought -of the eternal recurrence of all things does not overwhelm thee, then -it is not thy fault: and if it does overwhelm thee, this does not stand -to thy merit either.—We think more leniently of our forebears than -they themselves thought of themselves; we mourn over the errors which -were to them constitutional; but we do not mourn over their evil.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">41</p> - -<p>Let us guard against teaching such a doctrine as if it were a suddenly -discovered religion! It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> must percolate through slowly, and whole -generations must build on it and become fruitful through it,—in order -that it may grow into a large tree which will shelter all posterity. -What are the two thousand years in which Christianity has maintained -its sway? For the mightiest thought of all many millenniums will be -necessary,—long, long, long will it have to remain puny and weak!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">42</p> - -<p>For this thought we do not require thirty years of glory with drums -and fifes, and thirty years of grave-digging followed by an eternity -of macaberesque stillness, as is the case with so many other famous -thoughts.</p> - -<p>Simple and well-nigh arid as it is, this thought must not even require -eloquence to uphold it.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">43</p> - -<p>Are ye now prepared? Ye must have experienced every form of -scepticism and ye must have wallowed with voluptuousness in ice-cold -baths,—otherwise ye have no right to this thought; I wish to protect -myself against those who are over-ready to believe, likewise against -those who gush over anything! I would defend my doctrine in advance. -It must be the religion of the freest, most cheerful and most sublime -souls, a delightful pastureland somewhere between golden ice and a pure -heaven!</p> - - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> -<h4><a name="THUS_SPAKE_ZARATHUSTRA" id="THUS_SPAKE_ZARATHUSTRA">EXPLANATORY NOTES TO “THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA”</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>All goals have been annihilated: valuations are turning against each -other:</p> - -<p>People call him good who hearkens to the dictates of his own heart, but -they also call him good who merely does his duty;</p> - -<p>People call the mild and conciliating man good, but they also call him -good who is brave, inflexible and severe;</p> - -<p>People call him good who does not do violence to himself, but they also -call the heroes of self-mastery good;</p> - -<p>People call the absolute friend of truth good-, but they also call him -good who is pious and a transfigurer of things;</p> - -<p>People call him good who can obey his own voice, but they also call the -devout man good;</p> - -<p>People call the noble and the haughty man good, but also him who does -not despise and who does not assume condescending airs.</p> - -<p>People call him good who is kindhearted and who steps out of the way of -broils, but he who thirsts for fight and triumph is also called good;</p> - -<p>People call him good who always wishes to be first, but they also call -him good who does not wish to be ahead of anybody in anything.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>We possess a powerful store of moral <i>feelings,</i> but we have no goal -for them all. They mutually contradict each other: they have their -origin in different tables of values.</p> - -<p>There is a wonderful amount of moral power, but there is no longer any -goal towards which all this power can be directed.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>All goals have been annihilated, mankind must give themselves a fresh -goal. It is an error to suppose that they had one: they gave themselves -all the goals they ever had. But the prerequisites of all previous -goals have been annihilated.</p> - -<p>Science traces the course of things but points to no goal: what it does -give consists of the fundamental facts upon which the new goal must be -based.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>The profound sterility of the nineteenth century. I have not -encountered a single man who really had a new ideal to bring -forward. The character of German music kept me hoping longest, but -in vain. A stronger type in which all our powers are synthetically -correlated—this constitutes my faith.</p> - -<p>Apparently everything is decadence. We should so direct this movement -of decline that it may provide the strongest with a new form of -existence.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>The dissolution of morality, in its practical consequences, leads -to the atomistic individual, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> further to the subdivision of the -individual into a quantity of parts—absolute liquefaction.</p> - -<p>That is why a goal is now more than ever necessary; and love, but a new -love.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p class="parnum">I say: “As long as your morality hung over me I breathed like one -asphyxiated. That is why I throttled this snake. I wished to live, -consequently it had to die.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p>As long as people are still <i>forced to</i> act, that is to say as long as -commands are given, synthesis (the suppression of the moral man) will -not be realised To be unable to be otherwise: instincts and commanding -reason extending beyond any immediate object: the ability to enjoy -one’s own nature in action.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p>None of them wish to bear the burden of the commander; but they will -perform the most strenuous task if only thou commandest them.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">9</p> - -<p>We must overcome the past in ourselves: we must combine the instincts -afresh and direct the whole together to one goal:—an extremely -difficult undertaking! It is not only the evil instincts which have to -be overcome,—the so-called good instincts must be conquered also and -consecrated anew!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">10</p> - -<p>No leaps must be made in virtue! But everyone must be given a different -path! Not leading to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> highest development of each! Yet everyone may -be a bridge and an example for others.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">11</p> - -<p>To help, to pity, to submit and to renounce personal attacks with a -good will,—these things may make even insignificant and superficial -men tolerable to the eye: such men must not be contradicted in their -belief that this good will is “virtue in itself.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">12</p> - -<p>Man makes a deed valuable: but how might a deed make man valuable?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">13</p> - -<p>Morality is the concern of those who cannot free themselves from -it: for such people morality therefore belongs to the conditions of -existence. It is impossible to refute conditions of existence: the only -thing one can do is not to have them.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">14</p> - -<p>If it were true that life did not deserve to be welcomed, the moral -man, precisely on account of his self-denial and obligingness, would -then be guilty of misusing his fellow to his own personal advantage.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">15</p> - -<p>“Love thy neighbour”—this would mean first and foremost: “Let thy -neighbour go his own way”—and it is precisely this kind of virtue that -is the most difficult!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">16</p> - -<p>The bad man as the parasite. We must not be merely feasters and -gourmets of life: this is ignoble.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">17</p> - -<p>It is a noble sense which forbids our being only feasters and gourmets -of life—this sense revolts against hedonism—: we want to perform -something in return!—But the fundamental feeling of the masses is that -one must live for nothing,—that is their vulgarity.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">18</p> - -<p>The converse valuations hold good for the lower among men: in their -case therefore it is necessary to implant virtues. They must be -elevated above their lives, by means of absolute commands and terrible -taskmasters.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">19</p> - -<p>What is required: the new law must be made practicable—and out of its -fulfilment, the overcoming of this law, and higher law, must evolve -Zarathustra defines the attitude towards law, inasmuch as he suppresses -the law of laws which is morality.</p> - -<p>Laws as the backbone They must be worked at and created, by being -fulfilled. The slavish attitude which has reigned hitherto towards law!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">20</p> - -<p>The self-overcoming of Zarathustra as the prototype of mankind’s -self-overcoming for the benefit of Superman. To this end the overcoming -of morality is necessary.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">21</p> - -<p>The type of the lawgiver, his development and his suffering. What is -the purpose of giving laws at all?</p> - -<p>Zarathustra is the herald who calls forth many lawgivers.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">22</p> - -<p><i>Individual instruments.</i></p> - -<p>1. The Commanders, the mighty—who do not love, unless it be that they -love the images according to which they create. The rich in vitality, -the versatile, the free, who overcome that which is extant</p> - -<p>2. The obedient, the “emancipated”—love and reverence constitute their -happiness, they have a sense of what is higher (their deficiencies are -made whole by the sight of the lofty).</p> - -<p>3. The slaves, the order of “henchmen”—: they must be made -comfortable, they must cultivate pity for one another.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">23</p> - -<p>The giver, the creator, the teacher—these are preludes of the ruler.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">24</p> - -<p>All virtue and all self-mastery has only one purpose: that of preparing -for the rule!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">25</p> - -<p>Every sacrifice that the ruler makes is rewarded a hundredfold.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">26</p> - -<p>How much does not the warrior, the prince, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> man who is responsible -for himself, sacrifice!—this should be highly honoured.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">27</p> - -<p>The terrible task of the ruler who educates himself:—the kind of man -and people over which he will rule must be forecast in him: it is in -himself therefore that he must first have become a ruler!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">28</p> - -<p>The great educator like nature must elevate obstacles in order that -these may be overcome.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">29</p> - -<p>The new teachers as preparatory stages for the highest Architect (they -must impose their type on things).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">30</p> - -<p>Institutions may be regarded as the after effects of great individuals -and the means of giving great individuals root and soil—until the -fruit ultimately appears.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">31</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact mankind is continually trying to be able to -dispense with great individuals by means of corporations, &c. But they -are utterly dependent upon such great individuals for their ideal.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">32</p> - -<p>The eudæmonistic and social ideals lead men backwards,—it may be that -they aim at a very useful working class,—they are creating the ideal -slave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> of the future, the lower caste which must on no account be -lacking!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">33</p> - -<p>Equal rights for all!—this is the most extraordinary form of -injustice, for with it the highest men do not get their due.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">34</p> - -<p>It is not a matter of the rights of the stronger, for strong and weak -are alike in this, that they all extend their power as far as they can.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">35</p> - -<p>A new form of estimating man: above all the question:</p> - -<p>How much power has he got?</p> - -<p>How manifold are his instincts?</p> - -<p>How great is his capacity for communication and assimilation?</p> - -<p>The ruler as the highest type.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">36</p> - -<p>Zarathustra rejoices that the war of the classes is at last over, -and that now at length the time is ripe for an order of rank among -individuals. His hatred of the democratic system of levelling is only -a blind; as a matter of fact he is very pleased that this has gone so -far. Now he can perform his task.—</p> - -<p>Hitherto his doctrines had been directed only at the ruling caste of -the future. These lords of the earth must now take the place of God, -and must create for themselves the profound and absolute confidence -of those they rule. Their new holiness, their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> renunciation of -happiness and ease, must be their first principle. To the lowest they -grant the heirloom of happiness, not to themselves. They deliver the -physiologically botched by teaching them the doctrine of “swift death.” -They offer religions and philosophical systems to each according to his -rank.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">37</p> - -<p>“The conflict in the heart of the ruler is the contest between the love -which is in his heart for him who is most remote, and the love which he -feels for his neighbour.”</p> - -<p>To be a creator and to be capable of goodness are not at all things -which exclude one another. They are rather one and the same thing; but -the creator is farsighted and the good man nearsighted.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">38</p> - -<p>The feeling of power. The strife of all egos to discover that thought -which will remain poised above men like a star.—The ego is a <i>primum -mobile.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">39</p> - -<p>The struggle for the application of the power which mankind now -represents! Zarathustra calls to the gladiators of this struggle.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">40</p> - -<p>We must make our ideals prevail:—We must strive for power in such a -way as our ideal commands.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">41</p> - -<p>The doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence is the turning point of history.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">42</p> - -<p>Suddenly the terrible chamber of truth is opened, an unconscious -self-protectiveness, caution, ambush, defence keeps us from the gravest -knowledge. Thus have I lived heretofore. I suppress something; but the -restless babbling and rolling down of stones has rendered my instinct -over-powerful. Now I am rolling my last stone, the most appalling truth -stands close to my hand.</p> - -<p>Truth has been exorcised out of its grave:—we created it, we waked it: -the highest expression of courage and of the feeling of power. Scorn of -all pessimism that has existed hitherto!</p> - -<p>We fight with it,—we find out that our only means of enduring it is -to create a creature who is able to endure it:—unless, of course, we -voluntarily dazzle ourselves afresh and blind ourselves in regard to it -But this we are no longer able to do!</p> - -<p>We it was who created the gravest thought,—let us now create a being -unto whom it will be not only light but blessed.</p> - -<p>In order to be able to create we must allow ourselves greater freedom -than has ever been vouch-safed us before; to this end we must be -emancipated from morality, and we must be relieved by means of feasts -(Premonitions of the future! We must celebrate the future and no longer -the past! We must compose the myth poetry of the future! We must live -in hopes!) Blessed moments I And then we must once again pull down the -curtain and turn our thoughts to the next unswerving purpose.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">43</p> - -<p>Mankind must set its goal above itself—not in a false world, however, -but in one which would be a continuation of humanity.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">44</p> - -<p>The half-way house is always present when the will to the future -arises: the greatest event stands immediately before it.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">45</p> - -<p>Our very essence is to create a being higher than ourselves. We must -create beyond ourselves. That is the instinct of procreation, that is -the instinct of action and of work.—Just as all willing presupposes a -purpose, so does mankind presuppose a creature which is not yet formed -but which provides the aim of life. This is the freedom of all will. -Love, reverence, yearning for perfection, longing, all these things are -inherent in a purpose.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">46</p> - -<p>My desire: to bring forth creatures which stand sublimely above the -whole species man: and to sacrifice “one’s neighbours” and oneself to -this end.</p> - -<p>The morality which has existed hitherto was limited within the confines -of the species: all moralities that have existed hitherto have been -useful in the first place in order to give unconditional stability to -this species: once this has been achieved the aim can be elevated.</p> - -<p>One movement is absolute; it is nothing more than the levelling down of -mankind, great ant-organisations, &c.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> - -<p>The other movement, my movement, is conversely the accentuation of all -contrasts and gulfs, and the elimination of equality, together with the -creation of supremely powerful creatures.</p> - -<p>The first movement brings forth the last man, my movement brings forth -the Superman. It is by no means the goal to regard the latter as the -master of the first: two races ought to exist side by side,—separated -as far asunder as possible; the one, like the Epicurean gods, not -concerning themselves in the least with the others.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">47</p> - -<p>The opposite of the Superman is the last man: I created him -simultaneously with the former.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">48</p> - -<p>The more an individual is free and firm, the more exacting becomes his -love: at last he yearns for Superman, because nothing else is able to -appease his love,</p> - - -<p class="parnum">49</p> - -<p>Half-way round the course Superman arises.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">50</p> - -<p>Among men I was frightened: among men I desired a host of things and -nothing satisfied me. It was then that I went into solitude and created -Superman. And when I had created him I draped him in the great veil of -Becoming and let the light of midday shine upon him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">51</p> - -<p>“We wish to create a Being,” we all wish to have a hand in it, to love -it. We all want to be pregnant—and to honour and respect ourselves on -that account.</p> - -<p>We must have a goal in view of which we may all love each other! All -other goals are only fit for the scrap heap.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">52</p> - -<p>The strongest in body and soul are the best—Zarathustra’s fundamental -proposition—; from them is generated that higher morality of the -creator. Man must be regenerated after his own image: this is what he -wants, this is his honesty.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">53</p> - -<p>Genius to Zarathustra seems like the incarnation of his thought.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">54</p> - -<p>Loneliness for a certain time is necessary in order that a creature -may become completely permeated with his own soul—cured and hard. A -new form of community would be one in which we should assert ourselves -martially. Otherwise the spirit becomes tame. No Epicurean “gardens” -and mere “retirement from the masses.” War (but without powder) between -different thoughts and the hosts who support them I</p> - -<p>A new nobility, the result of breeding. Feasts celebrating the -foundation of families.</p> - -<p>The day divided up afresh; bodily exercise for all ages. Ἀγών -as a principle.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> - -<p>The love of the sexes as a contest around the principle in becoming and -coming.—Ruling will be taught and practised, its hardness as well as -its mildness. As soon as one faculty is acquired in a masterly manner -another one must be striven after.</p> - -<p>We must let ourselves be taught by the evil, and allow them an -opportunity of a contest. We must make use of the degenerate—The right -of punishment will consist in this, that the offender may be used as -an experimental subject (in dietetics): this is the consecration of -punishment, that one man be used for the highest needs of a future -being.</p> - -<p>We protect our new community because it is the bridge to our ideal of -the future And for it we work and let others work.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">55</p> - -<p>The measure and mean must be found in striving to attain to something -beyond mankind: the highest and strongest kind of man must be -discovered! The highest tendency must be represented continually -in small things:—perfection, maturity, rosy-cheeked health, mild -discharges of power. Just as an artist works, must we apply ourselves -to our daily task and bring ourselves to perfection in everything we -do. We must be honest in acknowledging our real motives to ourselves, -as is becoming in the mighty man.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">56</p> - -<p>No impatience! Superman is our next stage and to this end, to this -limit, moderation and manliness are necessary.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mankind must surpass itself, as the Greeks did—and no fleshless -fantasies must be indulged. The higher mind which is associated with a -sickly and nervous character must be suppressed. The goal: the higher -culture of the whole body and not only of the brain.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">57</p> - -<p>“Man is something that must be surpassed”:—it is a matter of tempo: -the Greeks were wonderful, there was no haste about them.—My -predecessors: Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, Goethe.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">58</p> - -<p>1. Dissatisfaction with ourselves. An antidote to repentance. -The transformation of temperament (<i>e.g.,</i> by means of inorganic -substances). Good will to this dissatisfaction. We should wait for our -thirst and let it become great in order to discover its source.</p> - -<p>2. Death must be transformed into a means of victory and triumph.</p> - -<p>3. The attitude towards disease. Freedom where death is concerned.</p> - -<p>4. The love of the sexes is a means to an ideal (it is the striving of -a being to perish through his opposite). The love for a suffering deity.</p> - -<p>5. Procreation is the holiest of all things. Pregnancy, the creation of -a woman and a man, who wish to enjoy their unity, and erect a monument -to it by means of a child.</p> - -<p>6. Pity as a danger. Circumstances must be created which enable -everyone to be able to help<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> himself, and which leave him to choose -whether he would be helped.</p> - -<p>7. Education must be directed at making men evil, at developing their -inner devil.</p> - -<p>8. Inner war as “development”</p> - -<p>9. “The maintenance of the species,” and the thought of eternal -recurrence.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">59</p> - -<p>Principal doctrine. We must strive to make every stage one of -perfection, and rejoice therein,—we must make no leaps!</p> - -<p>In the first place, the promulgation of laws. After the Superman the -doctrine of eternal recurrence will strike us with horror: Now it is -endurable.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">60</p> - -<p>Life itself created this thought which is the most oppressive for life. -Life wishes to get beyond its greatest obstacle I</p> - -<p>We must desire to perish in order to arise afresh,—from one day to -the other. Wander through a hundred souls,—let that be thy life and -thy fate! And then finally: desire to go through the whole process once -more!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">61</p> - -<p>The highest thing of all would be for us to be able to endure our -immortality.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">62</p> - -<p>The moment in which I begot recurrence is immortal, for the sake of -that moment alone I will endure recurrence.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">63</p> - -<p>The teaching of eternal recurrence—it is at first oppressive to the -more noble souls and apparently a means of weeding them out,—then the -inferior and less sensitive natures would remain over! “This doctrine -must be suppressed and Zarathustra killed.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">64</p> - -<p>The hesitation of the disciples. “We are already able to bear with this -doctrine, but we should destroy the many by means of it!”</p> - -<p>Zarathustra laughs: “Ye shall be the hammer: I laid this hammer in your -hands.”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">65</p> - -<p>I do not speak to you as I speak to the people. The highest thing for -them would be to despise and to annihilate themselves: the next highest -thing would be for them to despise and annihilate each other.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">66</p> - -<p>“My will to do good compels me to remain silent. But my will to the -Superman bids me speak and sacrifice even my friends.”</p> - -<p>“I would fain form and transform you, how could I endure things -otherwise!”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">67</p> - -<p>The history of higher man. The rearing of the better man is -incalculably more painful. The ideal of the necessary sacrifice which -it involves, as in the case of Zarathustra, should be demonstrated: A -man should leave his home, his family and his native<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> land. Live under -the scorn of the prevailing morality. The anguish of experiments and -errors. The solution of all the joys offered by the older ideals (they -are now felt to be partly hostile and partly strange).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">68</p> - -<p>What is it which gives a meaning, a value, an importance to things? -It is the creative heart which yearns and which created out of this -yearning. It created joy and woe. It wanted to sate itself also with -woe. Every kind of pain that man or beast has suffered, we must take -upon ourselves and bless, and have a goal whereby such suffering would -acquire some meaning.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">69</p> - -<p>Principal doctrine: the transfiguration of pain into a blessing, and of -poison into food, lies in our power. The will to suffering.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">70</p> - -<p>Concerning heroic greatness as the only state of pioneers. (A yearning -for utter ruin as a means of enduring one’s existence.)</p> - -<p>We must not desire one state only; we must rather desire to be -periodical creatures—like existence.</p> - -<p>Absolute indifference to other people’s opinions (because we know their -weights and measures), but their opinions of themselves should be the -subject of pity.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">71</p> - -<p>Disciples must unite three qualities in themselves: they must be -true, they must be able and willing to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> be communicative, they must -have profound insight into each other.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">72</p> - -<p>All kinds of higher men and their oppression and blighting (as a case -in point, Duhring, who was ruined by isolation)—on the whole, this -is the fate of higher men to-day, they seem to be a species that is -condemned to die out: this fact seems to come to Zarathustra’s ears -like a great cry for help. All kinds of insane degenerations of higher -natures seem to approach him (nihilism for instance).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">73</p> - -<p><i>Higher Men who come to Zarathustra in Despair.</i></p> - -<p>Temptations to return prematurely to the world—thanks to the -provocation of one’s sympathies.</p> - -<p>1. The rolling stone, the homeless one, the wanderer:—he who has -unlearned the love of his people because he has learned to love many -peoples,—the good European.</p> - -<p>2. The gloomy, ambitious son of the people, shy, lonely, and ready for -anything,—who chooses rather to be alone than to be a destroyer,—he -offers himself as an instrument.</p> - -<p>3. The ugliest man, who is obliged to adorn himself (historical sense) -and who is always in search of a new garment: he desires to make his -appearance becoming, and finally retires into solitude in order not to -be seen, he is ashamed of himself.</p> - -<p>4. He who honours facts (“the brain of a leech”), the most subtle -intellectual conscience, and because he has it in excess, a guilty -conscience,—he wants to get rid of himself.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> - -<p>5. The poet, who at bottom thirsts, for savage freedom,—he chooses -loneliness and the severity of knowledge.</p> - -<p>6. The discoverer of new intoxicants,—the musician, the sorcerer, who -finally drops on his knees before a loving heart and says: “Not to me -do I wish to lead you but yonder to him.”</p> - -<p>Those who are sober to excess and who have a yearning for intoxication -which they do not gratify. The Supersobersides.</p> - -<p>7. Genius (as an attack of insanity), becoming frozen through lack of -love: “I am neither a genius nor a god.” Great tenderness: “people must -show him more love!”</p> - -<p>8. The rich man who has given everything away and who asks everybody: -“Have you anything you do not want? give me some of it!” as a beggar.</p> - -<p>9. The Kings who renounce dominion: “we seek him who is more worthy -to rule”—against “equality”: the great man is lacking, consequently -reverence is lacking too.</p> - -<p>10. The actor of happiness.</p> - -<p>11. The pessimistic soothsayer who detects fatigue everywhere.</p> - -<p>12. The fool of the big city.</p> - -<p>13. The youth from the mount</p> - -<p>14. The woman (seeks the man).</p> - -<p>15. The envious emaciated toiler and <i>arriviste.</i></p> - -<p>16. The good, } and their mad fancy:</p> - -<p>17. The pious, }“For God” that</p> - -<p>18. The self-centred and } means “For me.”<br /> - and saints,</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">74</p> - -<p>“I gave you the most weighty thought: maybe mankind will perish through -it, perhaps also mankind will be elevated through it inasmuch as by -its means the elements which are hostile to life will be overcome and -eliminated.” “Ye must not chide Life, but yourselves!”—The destiny -of higher man is to be a creator. The organisation of higher men, the -education of the future ruler. “YE must rejoice in your superior power -when ye rule and when ye form anew.” “Not only man but Superman will -recur eternally!”</p> - - -<p class="parnum">75</p> - -<p>The typical suffering of the reformer and also his consolations. The -seven solitudes.</p> - -<p>He lives as though he were beyond all ages: his loftiness allows him to -have intercourse with the anchorites and the misunderstood of every age.</p> - -<p>Only his beauty is his defence. He lays his hands on the next thousand -years.</p> - -<p>His love increases as he sees the impossibility of avoiding the -affliction of pain with it.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">76</p> - -<p>Zarathustra’s mood is not one of mad impatience for Superman! It is -peaceful, it can wait: but all action has derived some purpose from -being the road and means thither,—and must be done well and perfectly.</p> - -<p>The repose of the great stream! Consecration of the smallest thing. -All unrest, and violent longing, all loathing should be presented in -the third part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> and be overcome! The gentleness, and mildness, &c., in -the first and second parts are both signs of a power which is not yet -self-reliant!</p> - -<p>With the recovery of Zarathustra, Cæsar stands there inexorable -and kind:—the gulf separating creation, goodness, and wisdom is -annihilated.</p> - -<p>Clearness, peace, no exaggerated craving, happiness in the moment which -is properly occupied and immortalised!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">77</p> - -<p>Zarathustra, Part III.: “I myself am happy.”—When he had taken leave -of mankind he returned unto himself. Like a cloud it vanishes from him. -The manner in which Superman must live: like an Epicurean God.</p> - -<p>Divine suffering is the substance of the third part of Zarathustra. The -human state of the legislator is only brought forward as an example.</p> - -<p>His intense love for his friends seems to him a disease,—once more he -becomes peaceful.</p> - -<p>When the invitations come he gently evades them.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">78</p> - -<p>In the fourth part it is necessary to say precisely why it is that the -time of the great noon has come: It is really a description of the age -given by means of visits, but interpreted by Zarathustra.</p> - -<p>In the fourth part it is necessary to say precisely why “a chosen -people” has first to be created:—they are the lucky cases of nature -as opposed to the unlucky (exemplified by the visitors): only to them -—the lucky cases—is Zarathustra able to express himself concerning -ultimate problems, them alone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> is he able to inspire with activity on -behalf of this theory. They are strong, healthy, hard and above all -noble enough for him to give them the hammer with which to remould the -whole world.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">79</p> - -<p>The unity in power of the creator, the lover and the knight of -knowledge.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">80</p> - -<p>Love alone shall judge—(the creative love which forgets itself in its -work).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">81</p> - -<p>Zarathustra can only dispense happiness once the order of rank is -established. Therefore this doctrine must be taught first.</p> - -<p>The order of rank develops into a system of earthly dominion: the lords -of the earth come last, a new ruling caste. Here and there there arises -from them a perfectly Epicurean God, a Superman, a transfigurer of -existence.</p> - -<p>The Superhuman’s notion of the world. Dionysus. Returning from these -most strange of all pursuits Zarathustra comes back with love to the -narrowest and smallest things,—he blesses all his experiences and dies -with a blessing on his lips.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">82</p> - -<p>From people who merely pray we must become people who bless.</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Twilight of the Idols - The Antichrist - Complete Works, Volume Sixteen - -Author: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - -Editor: Oscar Levy - -Translator: Anthony M. Ludovici - -Release Date: June 7, 2016 [EBook #52263] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS *** - - - - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org -(Images generouly made available by the Hathi Trust.) - - - - - -THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS - -BY - -FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE - -Or, How to Philosophise with the Hammer - - -THE ANTICHRIST - -_NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA, AND ETERNAL RECURRENCE_ - - -TRANSLATED BY - -ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI - - -The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche - -The First Complete and Authorised English Translation - -Edited by Dr Oscar Levy - -Volume Sixteen - -T.N. FOULIS - -13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET - -EDINBURGH: AND LONDON - -1911 - - - - CONTENTS - - TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS - - TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE - PREFACE - MAXIMS AND MISSILES - THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES - "REASON" IN PHILOSOPHY - HOW THE "TRUE WORLD" ULTIMATELY BECAME A FABLE - MORALITY AS THE ENEMY OF NATURE - THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS - THE "IMPROVERS" OF MANKIND - THINGS THE GERMANS LACK - SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE ACT - THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS - - THE ANTICHRIST - - ETERNAL RECURRENCE - - NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA - - - - -TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE - - -_The Twilight of the Idols_ was written towards the end of the summer -of 1888, its composition seems to have occupied only a few days,--so -few indeed that, in _Ecce Homo_ (p. 118), Nietzsche says he hesitates -to give their number; but, in any case, we know it was completed on the -3rd of September in Sils Maria. The manuscript which was dispatched to -the printers on the 7th of September bore the title: "_Idle Hours of a -Psychologist_"; this, however, was abandoned in favour of the present -title, while the work was going through the press. During September -and the early part of October 1888, Nietzsche added to the original -contents of the book by inserting the whole section entitled "Things -the Germans Lack," and aphorisms 32-43 of "Skirmishes in a War with the -Age"; and the book, as it now stands, represents exactly the form in -which Nietzsche intended to publish it in the course of the year 1889. -Unfortunately its author was already stricken down with illness when -the work first appeared at the end of January 1889, and he was denied -the joy of seeing it run into nine editions, of one thousand each, -before his death in 1900. - -Of _The Twilight of the Idols,_ Nietzsche says in _Ecce Homo_ (p. -118):--"If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how -everything before my time was standing on its head, he should begin -reading me in this book. That which is called 'Idols' on the title-page -is simply the old truth that has been believed in hitherto. In plain -English, _The Twilight of the Idols_ means that the old truth is on its -last legs." - -Certain it is that, for a rapid survey of the whole of Nietzsche's -doctrine, no book, save perhaps the section entitled "Of Old and New -Tables" in _Thus Spake Zarathustra,_ could be of more real value than -_The Twilight of the Idols._ Here Nietzsche is quite at his best. He -is ripe for the marvellous feat of the transvaluation of all values. -Nowhere is his language--that marvellous weapon which in his hand -became at once so supple and so murderous--more forcible and more -condensed. Nowhere are his thoughts more profound. But all this does -not by any means imply that this book is the easiest of Nietzsche's -works. On the contrary, I very much fear that, unless the reader is -well prepared, not only in Nietzscheism, but also in the habit of -grappling with uncommon and elusive problems, a good deal of the -contents of this work will tend rather to confuse than to enlighten -him in regard to what Nietzsche actually wishes to make clear in these -pages. - -How much prejudice, for instance, how many traditional and deep-seated -opinions, must be uprooted, if we are to see even so much as an -important note of interrogation in the section entitled "The Problem -of Socrates"--not to speak of such sections as "Morality as the Enemy -of Nature," "The Four Great Errors," &c. The errors exposed in these -sections have a tradition of two thousand years behind them; and only a -fantastic dreamer could expect them to be eradicated by a mere casual -study of these pages. Indeed, Nietzsche himself looked forward only to -a gradual change in the general view of the questions he discussed; he -knew only too well what the conversion of "light heads" was worth, and -what kind of man would probably be the first to rush into his arms; -and, grand psychologist that he was, he guarded himself beforehand -against bad company by means of his famous warning:--"The first -adherents of a creed do not prove anything against it." - -To the aspiring student of Nietzsche, however, it ought not to be -necessary to become an immediate convert in order to be interested in -the treasure of thought which Nietzsche here lavishes upon us. For -such a man it will be quite difficult enough to regard the questions -raised in this work as actual problems. Once, however, he has succeeded -in doing this, and has given his imagination time to play round these -questions _as_ problems, the particular turn or twist that Nietzsche -gives to their elucidation, may then perhaps strike him, not only as -valuable, but as absolutely necessary. - -With regard to the substance of _The Twilight of the Idols,_ Nietzsche -says in _Ecce Homo_ (p. 119):--"There is the waste of an all-too-rich -autumn in this book: you trip over truths. You even crush some to -death, there are too many of them." - -And what are these truths? They are things that are not yet held to -be true. They are the utterances of a man who, as a single exception, -escaped for a while the general insanity of Europe, with its blind -idealism in the midst of squalor, with its unscrupulous praise of -so-called "Progress" while it stood knee-deep in the belittlement -of "Man," and with its vulgar levity in the face of effeminacy and -decay;--they are the utterances of one who voiced the hopes, the -aims, and the realities of another world, not of an ideal world, not -of a world beyond, but of a real world, of _this_ world regenerated -and reorganised upon a sounder, a more virile, and a more orderly -basis,--in fact, of a perfectly _possible_ world, one that has already -existed in the past, and could exist again, if only the stupendous -revolution of a transvaluation of all values were made possible. - -This then is the nature of the truths uttered by this one sane man in -the whole of Europe at the end of last century; and when, owing to his -unequal struggle against the overwhelming hostile forces of his time, -his highly sensitive personality was at last forced to surrender itself -to the enemy and become one with them--that is to say, insane!--at -least the record of his sanity had been safely stored away, beyond the -reach of time and change, in the volumes which constitute his life-work. - - * * * * * - -Nietzsche must have started upon the "Antichrist," immediately after -having dispatched the "Idle Hours of a Psychologist" to the printers, -and the work appears to have been finished at the end of September -1888. It was intended by Nietzsche to form the first book of a large -work entitled "The Transvaluation of all Values"; but, though this work -was never completed, we can form some idea from the substance of the -"Antichrist" and from the titles of the remaining three books, which -alas! were never written, of what its contents would have been. These -titles are:--Book II. The Free Spirit. A Criticism of Philosophy as a -Nihilistic Movement. Book III. The Immoralist. A Criticism of the most -Fatal Kind of Ignorance,--Morality. Book IV. Dionysus. The Philosophy -of Eternal Recurrence. - -Nietzsche calls this book "An Attempted Criticism of Christianity." -Modest as this sub-title is, it will probably seem not quite modest -enough to those who think that Nietzsche fell far short of doing -justice to their Holy Creed. Be this as it may, there is the solution -of a certain profound problem in this book, which, while it is the key -to all Nietzscheism, is also the justification and the sanctification -of Nietzsche's cause. The problem stated quite plainly is this: "_To -what end_ did Christianity avail itself of falsehood?" - -Many readers of this amazing little work, who happen to be acquainted -with Nietzsche's doctrine of Art and of Ruling, will probably feel -slightly confused at the constant deprecation of falsehood, of -deception, and of arbitrary make-believe, which seems to run through -this book like a litany in praise of a certain Absolute Truth. - -Remembering Nietzsche's utterance in volume ii. (p. 26) of the _Will -to Power,_ to wit:--"The prerequisite of all living things and of -their lives is: that there should be a large amount of faith, that -it should be possible to pass definite judgments on things, and -that there should be no doubt at all concerning values. Thus it is -necessary that something should be assumed to be true, _not_ that it -is true;"--remembering these words, as I say, the reader may stand -somewhat aghast before all those passages in the second half of this -volume, where the very falsehoods of Christianity, its assumptions, its -unwarrantable claims to Truth, are declared to be pernicious, base and -corrupt. - -Again and again, if we commit the error of supposing that Nietzsche -believed in a truth that was absolute, we shall find throughout his -works reasons for charging him with apparently the very same crimes -that he here lays at the door of Christianity. What then is the -explanation of his seeming inconsistency? - -It is simple enough. Nietzsche's charge of falsehood against -Christianity is not a moral one,--in fact it may be taken as a general -rule that Nietzsche scrupulously avoids making moral charges, and that -he emains throughout faithful to his position Beyond Good and Evil -(see, for instance Aph. 6 (Antichrist) where he repudiates all moral -prejudice in charging humanity with corruption). A man who maintained -that "truth is that form of error which enables a particular species to -prevail," could not make a _moral_ charge of falsehood against any one, -or any institution; but he could do so from another standpoint He could -well say, for instance, "falsehood is that kind of error which causes a -particular species to degenerate and to decay." - -Thus the fact that Christianity "lied" becomes a subject of alarm -to Nietzsche, not owing to the fact that it is immoral to lie, but -because in this particular instance, the lie was harmful, hostile to -life, and dangerous to humanity; for "a belief might be false and yet -life-preserving" (_Beyond Good and Evil,_ pp. 8, 9). - -Suppose, therefore, we say with Nietzsche that there is no absolute -truth, but that all that has been true in the past which has been -the means of making the "plant man flourish best"--or, since the -meaning of "best" is open to some debate, let us say, flourish in a -Nietzschean sense, that is to say, thanks to a mastery of life, and -to a preponderance of all those qualities which say yea to existence, -and which suggest no flight from this world and all its pleasure and -pain. And suppose we add that, wherever we may find the plant man -flourishing, in this sense, we should there suspect the existence of -truth?--I If we say this with Nietzsche, any sort of assumption or -arbitrary valuation which aims at a reverse order of things, becomes a -dangerous lie in a super-moral and purely physiological sense. - -With these preparatory remarks we are now prepared to read aphorism -56 with a complete understanding of what Nietzsche means, and -to recognise in this particular aphorism the key to the whole of -Nietzsche's attitude towards Christianity. It is at once a solution of -our problem, and a justification of its author's position. Naturally, -it still remains open to Nietzsche's opponents to argue, if they -choose, that man has flourished best under the sway of nihilistic -religions--religions which deny life,--and that consequently the -falsehoods of Christianity are not only warrantable but also in the -highest degree blessed; but, in any case, the aphorism in question -completely exonerates Nietzsche from a charge of inconsistency in the -use of the terms "truth" and "falsehood" throughout his works, and -it moreover settles once and for all the exact altitude from which -our author looked down upon the religions of the world, not only to -criticise them, but also to _place_ them in the order of their merit as -disciplinary systems aiming at the cultivation of particular types of -men. - -Nietzsche says in aphorism 56:--"After all, the question is, to what -end are falsehoods perpetrated? The fact that, in Christianity, 'holy' -ends are entirely absent, constitutes _my_ objection to the means it -employs. Its ends are only _bad_ ends: the poisoning, the calumniation -and the denial of life, the contempt of the body, the degradation and -self-pollution of man by virtue of the concept sin,--consequently its -means are bad as well." - -Thus, to repeat it once more, it is not because Christianity availed -itself of all kinds of lies that Nietzsche condemns it; for the Book -of Manu--which he admires--is just as full of falsehood as the Semitic -Book of Laws; but, in the Book of Manu the lies are calculated to -preserve and to create a strong and noble type of man, whereas in -Christianity the opposite type was the aim,--an aim which has been -achieved in a manner far exceeding even the expectations of the -faithful. - -This then is the main argument of the book and its conclusion; but, in -the course of the general elaboration of this argument, many important -side-issues are touched upon and developed, wherein Nietzsche reveals -himself as something very much more valuable than a mere iconoclast. -Of course, on every page of his philosophy,--whatever his enemies may -maintain to the contrary,--he never once ceases to construct, since he -is incessantly enumerating and emphasising those qualities and types -which he fain would rear, as against those he fain would see destroyed; -but it is in aphorism 57 of this book that Nietzsche makes the -plainest and most complete statement of his actual taste in Sociology, -and it is upon this aphorism that all his followers and disciples will -ultimately have to build, if Nietzscheism is ever to become something -more than a merely intellectual movement. - -ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI. - - - - -PREFACE - - -To maintain a cheerful attitude of mind in the midst of a gloomy and -exceedingly responsible task, is no slight artistic feat. And yet, what -could be more necessary than cheerfulness? Nothing ever succeeds which -exuberant spirits have not helped to produce. Surplus power, alone, -is the proof of power.--A _transvaluation of all values,_--this note -of interrogation which is so black, so huge, that it casts a shadow -even upon him who affixes it,--is a task of such fatal import, that -he who undertakes it is compelled every now and then to rush out into -the sunlight in order to shake himself free from an earnestness that -becomes crushing, far too crushing. This end justifies every means, -every event on the road to it is a windfall. Above all _war._ War has -always been the great policy of all spirits who have penetrated too -far into themselves or who have grown too deep; a wound stimulates the -recuperative powers. For many years, a maxim, the origin of which I -withhold from learned curiosity, has been my motto: - -_ increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus._ - -At other times another means of recovery which is even more to my -taste, is to cross-examine idols. There are more idols than realities -in the world: this constitutes my "evil eye" for this world: it is -also my "evil ear." To put questions in this quarter with a hammer, and -to hear perchance that well-known hollow sound which tells of blown-out -frogs,--what a joy this is for one who has cars even behind his cars, -for an old psychologist and Pied Piper like myself in whose presence -precisely that which would fain be silent, _must betray itself._ - -Even this treatise--as its title shows--is above all a recreation, -a ray of sunshine, a leap sideways of a psychologist in his leisure -moments. Maybe, too, a new war? And are we again cross-examining new -idols? This little work is a great declaration of war; and with regard -to the cross-examining of idols, this time it is not the idols of the -age but eternal idols which are here struck with a hammer as with -a tuning fork,--there are certainly no idols which are older, more -convinced, and more inflated. Neither are there any more hollow. This -does not alter the fact that they are believed in more than any others, -besides they are never called idols,--at least, not the most exalted -among their number. - -FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. - -TURIN, the 30th _September_ 1888. - on the day when the first - book of the Transvaluation - of all Values was finished. - - - - -MAXIMS AND MISSILES - - -1 - -Idleness is the parent of all psychology. What? Is psychology then -a--vice? - - -2 - -Even the pluckiest among us has but seldom the courage of what he -really knows. - - -3 - -Aristotle says that in order to live alone, a man must be either an -animal or a god. The third alternative is lacking: a man must be -both--a _philosopher._ - - -4 - -"All truth is simple."--Is not this a double lie? - - -5 Once for all I wish to be blind to many things.--Wisdom sets bounds -even to knowledge. - - -6 - -A man recovers best from his exceptional nature--his -intellectuality--by giving his animal instincts a chance. - - -7 - -Which is it? Is man only a blunder of God? Or is God only a blunder of -man? - - -8 - -_From the military school of life._--That which does not kill me, makes -me stronger. - - -9 - -Help thyself, then everyone will help thee. A principle of -neighbour-love. - - -10 - -A man should not play the coward to his deeds. He should not repudiate -them once he has performed them. Pangs of conscience are indecent. - - -11 - -Can a donkey be tragic?--To perish beneath a load that one can neither -bear nor throw off? This is the case of the Philosopher. - - -12 - -If a man knows the wherefore of his existence, then the manner of it -can take care of itself. Man does not aspire to happiness; only the -Englishman does that. - - -13 - -Man created woman--out of what? Out of a rib of his god,--of his -"ideal." - - -14 - -What? Art thou looking for something? Thou wouldst fain multiply -thyself tenfold, a hundredfold? Thou seekest followers? Seek ciphers! - - -15 - -Posthumous men, like myself, are not so well understood as men who -reflect their age, but they are heard with more respect. In plain -English: we are never understood--hence our authority. - - -16 - -_Among women._--"Truth? Oh, you do not know truth! Is it not an outrage -on all our _pudeurs?_"-- - - -17 - -There is an artist after my own heart, modest in his needs: he really -wants only two things, his bread and his art--_panem et Circem._ - - -18 - -He who knows not how to plant his will in things, at least endows them -with some meaning: that is to say, he believes that a will is already -present in them. (A principle of faith.) - - -19 - -What? Ye chose virtue and the heaving breast, and at the same time -ye squint covetously at the advantages of the unscrupulous.--But -with virtue ye renounce all "advantages" ... (to be nailed to an -Antisemite's door). - - -20 - -The perfect woman perpetrates literature as if it were a petty vice: as -an experiment, _en passant,_ and looking about her all the while to -see whether anybody is noticing her, hoping that somebody _is_ noticing -her. - - -21 - -One should adopt only those situations in which one is in no need of -sham virtues, but rather, like the tight-rope dancer on his tight rope, -in which one must either fall or stand--or escape. - - -22 - -"Evil men have no songs."[1]--How is it that the Russians have songs? - - -23 - -"German intellect"; for eighteen years this has been a _contradictio in -adjecto._ - - -24 - -By seeking the beginnings of things, a man becomes a crab. The -historian looks backwards: in the end he also _believes_ backwards. - - -25 - -Contentment preserves one even from catching cold. Has a woman who knew -that she was well-dressed ever caught cold?--No, not even when she had -scarcely a rag to her back. - - -26 - -I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. The will to a system, -shows a lack of honesty. - - -27 - -Man thinks woman profound--why? Because he can never fathom her depths. -Woman is not even shallow. - - -28 - -When woman possesses masculine virtues, she is enough to make you run -away. When she possesses no masculine virtues, she herself runs away. - -29 - -"How often conscience had to bite in times gone by! What good teeth it -must have had! And to-day, what is amiss?"--A dentist's question. - - -30 - -Errors of haste are seldom committed singly. The first time a man -always docs too much. And precisely on that account he commits a second -error, and then he does too little. - - -31 - -The trodden worm curls up. This testifies to its caution. It thus -reduces its chances of being trodden upon again. In the language of -morality: Humility.-- - - -32 - -There is such a thing as a hatred of lies and dissimulation, which is -the outcome of a delicate sense of humour; there is also the selfsame -hatred but as the result of cowardice, in so far as falsehood is -forbidden by Divine law. Too cowardly to lie.... - - -33 - -What trifles constitute happiness! The sound of a bagpipe. Without -music life would be a mistake. The German imagines even God as a -songster. - - -34 - -_On ne peut penser et écrire qu'assis_ (G. Flaubert). Here I have got -you, you nihilist! A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy -Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value. - - -35 - -There are times when we psychologists are like horses, and grow -fretful. We see our own shadow rise and fall before us. The -psychologist must look away from himself if he wishes to see anything -at all. - - -36 - -Do we immoralists injure virtue in any way? Just as little as the -anarchists injure royalty. Only since they have been shot at do princes -sit firmly on their thrones once more. Moral: _morality must be shot -at._ - - -37 - -Thou runnest _ahead?_--Dost thou do so as a shepherd or as an -exception? A third alternative would be the fugitive.... First question -of conscience. - - -38 - -Art thou genuine or art thou only an actor? Art thou a representative -or the thing represented, itself? Finally, art thou perhaps simply a -copy of an actor? ... Second question of conscience. - - -39 - -_The disappointed man speaks:_--I sought for great men, but all I found -were the apes of their ideal. - - -40 - -Art thou one who looks on, or one who puts his own shoulder to the -wheel?--Or art thou one who looks away, or who turns aside?... Third -question of conscience. - - -41 - -Wilt thou go in company, or lead, or go by thyself?... A man should -know what he desires, and that he desires something.--Fourth question -of conscience. - - -42 - -They were but rungs in my ladder, on them I made my ascent:--to that -end I had to go beyond them. But they imagined that I wanted to lay -myself to rest upon them. - - -43 - -What matters it whether I am acknowledged to be right! I am much too -right. And he who laughs best to-day, will also laugh last. - - -44 - -The formula of my happiness: a Yea, a Nay, a straight line, _goal...._ - - -[1] This is a reference to Seume's poem "_Die Gesänge"_ the first verse -of which is:-- - - _"Wo man singet, lass dich ruhig nieder,_ - _Ohne Furcht, was man im Lande glaubt_; - _Wo man singet, wird kein Mensch beraubt_: - _Bösewichter haben keine Lieder_." - -(Wherever people sing thou canst safely settle down without a qualm -as to what the general faith of the land may be Wherever people sing, -no man is ever robbed; _rascals_ have no songs.) Popular tradition, -however, renders the lines thus:-- - -_"Wo man singt, da lass dich ruhig nieder;_ _Base Menschen_ [evil men] -_haben keine Lieder."_ - - - - -THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES - - - -1 - -In all ages the wisest have always agreed in their V judgment of -life: _it is no good._ At all times and places the same words have -been on their lips,--words full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of -weariness of life, full of hostility to life. Even Socrates' dying -words were:--"To live--means to be ill a long while: I owe a cock to -the god Æsculapius." Even Socrates had had enough of it. What does that -prove? What does it point to? Formerly people would have said (--oh, -it has been said, and loudly enough too; by our Pessimists loudest of -all!): "In any case there must be some truth in this! The _consensus -sapientium_ is a proof of truth."--Shall we say the same to-day? _May_ -we do so? "In any case there must be some sickness here," we make -reply. These great sages of all periods should first be examined more -closely! Is it possible that they were, everyone of them, a little -shaky on their legs, effete, rocky, decadent? Does wisdom perhaps -appear on earth after the manner of a crow attracted by a slight smell -of carrion? - - -2 - -This irreverent belief that the great sages were decadent types, first -occurred to me precisely in regard to that case concerning which both -learned and vulgar prejudice was most opposed to my view I recognised -Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decline, as instruments in the -disintegration of Hellas, as pseudo-Greek, as anti-Greek ("The Birth -of Tragedy," 1872). That _consensus sapientium,_ as I perceived ever -more and more clearly, did not in the least prove that they were right -in the matter on which they agreed. It proved rather that these sages -themselves must have been alike in some physiological particular, in -order to assume the same negative attitude towards life--in order to -be bound to assume that attitude. After all, judgments and valuations -of life, whether for or against, cannot be true: their only value lies -in the fact that they are symptoms; they can be considered only as -symptoms,--_per se_ such judgments are nonsense. You must therefore -endeavour by all means to reach out and try to grasp this astonishingly -subtle axiom, _that the value of life cannot be estimated._ A living -man cannot do so, because he is a contending party, or rather the very -object in the dispute, and not a judge; nor can a dead man estimate -it--for other reasons. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value -of life, is almost an objection against him, a note of interrogation -set against his wisdom--a lack of wisdom. What? Is it possible that all -these great sages were not only decadents, but that they were not even -wise? Let me however return to the problem of Socrates. - - -3 - -To judge from his origin, Socrates belonged to the lowest of the low: -Socrates was mob. You know, and you can still see it for yourself, -how ugly he was. But ugliness, which in itself is an objection, was -almost a refutation among the Greeks. Was Socrates really a Greek? -Ugliness is not infrequently the expression of thwarted development, -or of development arrested by crossing. In other cases it appears -as a decadent development. The anthropologists among the criminal -specialists declare that I the typical criminal is ugly: _monstrum -in fronte, monstrum in animo._ But the criminal is a decadent?[1] -Was Socrates a typical criminal?--At all events this would not clash -with that famous physiognomist's judgment which was so repugnant to -Socrates' friends. While on his way through Athens a certain foreigner -who was no fool at judging by looks, told Socrates to his face that -he was a monster, that his body harboured all the worst vices and -passions. And Socrates replied simply: "You know me, sir!"-- - - -4 - -Not only are the acknowledged wildness and anarchy of Socrates' -instincts indicative of decadence, but also that preponderance of the -logical faculties and that malignity of the misshapen which was his -special characteristic. Neither should we forget those aural delusions -which were religiously interpreted as "the demon of Socrates." -Everything in him is exaggerated, _buffo,_ caricature, his nature is -also full of concealment, of ulterior motives, and of underground -currents. I try to understand the idiosyncrasy from which the Socratic -equation:--Reason = Virtue = Happiness, could have arisen: the -weirdest equation ever seen, and one which was essentially opposed to -all the instincts of the older Hellenes. - - -5 - -With Socrates Greek taste veers round in favour of dialectics: what -actually occurs? In the first place a noble taste is vanquished: -with dialectics the mob comes to the top. Before Socrates' time, -dialectical manners were avoided in good society: they were regarded -as bad manners, they were compromising. Young men were cautioned -against them. All such proffering of one's reasons was looked upon with -suspicion. Honest things like honest men do not carry their reasons -on their sleeve in such fashion. It is not good form to make a show -of everything. That which needs to be proved cannot be worth much. -Wherever authority still belongs to good usage, wherever men do not -prove but command, the dialectician is regarded as a sort of clown. -People laugh at him, they do not take him seriously. Socrates was a -clown who succeeded in making men take him seriously: what then was the -matter? - - -6 - -A man resorts to dialectics only when he has no other means to hand. -People know that they excite suspicion with it and that it is not -very convincing. Nothing is more easily dispelled than a dialectical -effect: this is proved by the experience of every gathering in which -discussions are held. It can be only the last defence of those who have -no other weapons. One must require to extort one's right, otherwise one -makes no use of it. That is why the Jews were dialecticians. Reynard -the Fox was a dialectician: what?--and was Socrates one as well? - - -7 - -Is the Socratic irony an expression of revolt, of mob resentment? -Does Socrates, as a creature suffering under oppression, enjoy his -innate ferocity in the knife-thrusts of the syllogism? Does he wreak -his revenge on the noblemen he fascinates?--As a dialectician a man -has a merciless instrument to wield; he can play the tyrant with it: -he compromises when he conquers with it The dialectician leaves it to -his opponent to prove that he is no idiot: he infuriates, he likewise -paralyses. The dialectician cripples the intellect of his opponent. Can -it be that dialectics was only a form of revenge in Socrates? - - -8 - -I have given you to understand in what way Socrates was able to repel: -now it is all the more necessary to explain how he fascinated.--One -reason is that he discovered a new kind of _Agon,_ and that he was the -first fencing-master in the best circles in Athens. He fascinated by -appealing to the combative instinct of the Greeks,--he introduced a -variation into the contests between men and youths. Socrates was also a -great erotic. - - -9 - -But Socrates divined still more. He saw right through his noble -Athenians; he perceived that his case, his peculiar case, was no -exception even in his time. The same kind of degeneracy was silently -preparing itself everywhere: ancient Athens was dying out. And Socrates -understood that the whole world needed him,--his means, his remedy, his -special artifice for self-preservation. Everywhere the instincts were -in a state of anarchy; everywhere people were within an ace of excess: -the _monstrum in animo_ was the general danger. "The instincts would -play the tyrant; we must discover a counter-tyrant who is stronger than -they." On the occasion when that physiognomist had unmasked Socrates, -and had told him what he was, a crater full of evil desires, the great -Master of Irony let fall one or two words more, which provide the key -to his nature. "This is true," he said, "but I overcame them all." How -did Socrates succeed in mastering himself? His case was at bottom only -the extreme and most apparent example of a state of distress which -was beginning to be general: that state in which no one was able to -master himself and in which the instincts turned one against the other. -As the extreme example of this state, he fascinated--his terrifying -ugliness made him conspicuous to every eye: it is quite obvious that he -fascinated still more as a reply, as a solution, as an apparent cure of -this case. - - -10 - -When a man finds it necessary, as Socrates did, to create a tyrant out -of reason, there is no small danger that something else wishes to play -the tyrant. Reason was then discovered as a saviour; neither Socrates -nor his "patients" were at liberty to be rational or not, as they -pleased; at that time it was _de rigueur,_ it had become a last shift. -The fanaticism with which the whole of Greek thought plunges into -reason, betrays a critical condition of things: men were in danger; -there were only two alternatives: either perish or else be absurdly -rational. The moral bias of Greek philosophy from Plato onward, is the -outcome of a pathological condition, as is also its appreciation of -dialectics. Reason = Virtue = Happiness, simply means: we must imitate -Socrates, and confront the dark passions permanently with the light -of day--the light of reason. We must at all costs be clever, precise, -clear: all yielding to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads -downwards. - - -11 - -I have now explained how Socrates fascinated: he seemed to be a -doctor, a Saviour. Is it necessary to expose the errors which lay in -his faith in "reason at any price"?--It is a piece of self-deception -on the part of philosophers and moralists to suppose that they can -extricate themselves from degeneration by merely waging war upon it. -They cannot thus extricate themselves; that which they choose as a -means, as the road to salvation, is in itself again only an expression -of degeneration--they only modify its mode of manifesting itself: -they do not abolish it Socrates was a misunderstanding. _The whole -of the morality of amelioration--that of Christianity as well--was -a misunderstanding._ The most blinding light of day: reason at any -price; life made clear, cold, cautious, conscious, without instincts, -opposed to the instincts, was in itself only a disease, another kind -of disease--and by no means a return to "virtue," to "health," and to -happiness. To be obliged to fight the instincts--this is the formula of -degeneration: as long as life is in the ascending line, happiness is -the same as instinct. - - -12 - ---Did he understand this himself, this most intelligent of -self-deceivers? Did he confess this to himself in the end, in the -wisdom of his courage before death. Socrates wished to die. Not Athens, -but his own hand gave him the draught of hemlock; he drove Athens to -the poisoned cup. "Socrates is not a doctor," he whispered to himself, -"death alone can be a doctor here.... Socrates himself has only been ill -a long while." - - -[1] It should be borne in mind that Nietzsche recognised two types of -criminals,--the criminal from strength, and the criminal from weakness. -This passage alludes to the latter, Aphorism 45, p. 103, alludes to the -former.--TR. - - - - -"REASON" IN PHILOSOPHY - - - -1 - -You ask me what all idiosyncrasy is in philosophers? ... For instance -their lack of the historical sense, their hatred even of the idea of -Becoming, their Egyptianism. They imagine that they do honour to a -thing by divorcing it from history _sub specie æterni,--_when they -make a mummy of it. All the ideas that philosophers have treated for -thousands of years, have been mummied concepts; nothing real has ever -come out of their hands alive. These idolaters of concepts merely -kill and stuff things when they worship,--they threaten the life of -everything they adore. Death, change, age, as well as procreation and -growth, are in their opinion objections,--even refutations. That which -is cannot evolve; that which evolves _is_ not. Now all of them believe, -and even with desperation, in Being. But, as they cannot lay hold of -it, they try to discover reasons why this privilege is withheld from -them. "Some merely apparent quality, some deception must be the cause -of our not being able to ascertain the nature of Being: where is the -deceiver?" "We have him," they cry rejoicing, "it is sensuality!" These -senses, _which in other things are so immoral,_ cheat us concerning the -true world. Moral: we must get rid of the deception of the senses, of -Becoming, of history, of falsehood.--History is nothing more than the -belief in the senses, the belief in falsehood. Moral: we must say "no" -to everything in which the senses believet to all the rest of mankind: -all that belongs to the "people." Let us be philosophers, mummies, -monotono-theists, grave-diggers!--And above all, away with the _body,_ -this wretched _idée fixe_ of the senses, infected with all the faults -of logic that exist, refuted, even impossible, although it be impudent -enough to pose as if it were real! - - -2 - -With a feeling of great reverence I except the name of _Heraclitus._ -If the rest of the philosophic gang rejected the evidences of the -senses, because the latter revealed a state of multifariousness and -change, he rejected the same evidence because it revealed things as if -they possessed permanence and unity. Even Heraclitus did an injustice -to the senses. The latter lie neither as the Eleatics believed them -to lie, nor as he believed them to lie,--they do not He at all. The -interpretations we give to their evidence is what first introduces -falsehood into it; for instance the He of unity, the lie of matter, -of substance and of permanence. Reason is the cause of our falsifying -the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show us a state -of Becoming, of transiency, and of change, they do not lie. But in -declaring that Being was an empty illusion, Heraclitus will remain -eternally right The "apparent" world is the only world: the "true -world" is no more than a false adjunct thereto. - - -3 - -And what delicate instruments of observation we have in our senses! -This human nose, for instance, of which no philosopher has yet spoken -with reverence and gratitude, is, for the present, the most finely -adjusted instrument at our disposal: it is able to register even such -slight changes of movement as the spectroscope would be unable to -record. Our scientific triumphs at the present day extend precisely -so far as we have accepted the evidence of our senses,--as we have -sharpened and armed them, and learned to follow them up to the -end. What remains is abortive and not yet science--that is to say, -metaphysics, theology, psychology, epistemology, or formal science, or -a doctrine of symbols, like logic and its applied form mathematics. -In all these things reality does not come into consideration at all, -even as a problem; just as little as does the question concerning the -general value of such a convention of symbols as logic. - - -4 - -The other idiosyncrasy of philosophers is no less dangerous; it -consists in confusing the last and the first things. They place that -which makes its appearance last--unfortunately! for it ought not -to appear at all!--the "highest concept," that is to say, the most -general, the emptiest, the last cloudy streak of evaporating reality, -at the beginning as the beginning. This again is only their manner of -expressing their veneration: the highest thing must not have grown out -of the lowest, it must not have grown at all.... Moral: everything -of the first rank must be _causa sui._ To have been derived from -something else, is as good as an objection, it sets the value of a -thing in question. All superior values are of the first rank, all the -highest concepts--that of Being, of the Absolute, of Goodness, of -Truth, and of Perfection; all these things cannot have been evolved, -they must therefore be _causa sui._ All these things cannot however be -unlike one another, they cannot be opposed to one another. Thus they -attain to their stupendous concept "God." The last, most attenuated and -emptiest thing is postulated as the first thing, as the absolute cause, -as _ens realissimum._ Fancy humanity having to take the brain diseases -of morbid cobweb-spinners seriously!--And it has paid dearly for having -done so. - - -5 - ---Against this let us set the different manner in which we (--you -observe that I am courteous enough to say "we") conceive the problem of -the error and deceptiveness of things. Formerly people regarded change -and evolution in general as the proof of appearance, as a sign of the -fact that something must be there that leads us astray. To-day, on -the other hand, we realise that precisely as far as the rational bias -forces us to postulate unity, identity, permanence, substance, cause, -materiality and being, we are in a measure involved in error, driven -necessarily to error; however certain we may feel, as the result of a -strict examination of the matter, that the error lies here. It is just -the same here as with the motion of the sun: In its case it was our -eyes that were wrong; in the matter of the concepts above mentioned it -is our language itself that pleads most constantly in their favour. -In its origin language belongs to an age of the most rudimentary -forms of psychology: if we try to conceive of the first conditions of -the metaphysics of language, _i.e._ in plain English, of reason, we -immediately find ourselves in the midst of a system of fetichism. For -here, the doer and his deed are seen in all circumstances, will is -believed in as a cause in general; the ego is taken for granted, the -ego as Being, and as substance, and the faith in the ego as substance -is projected into all things--in this way, alone, the concept "thing" -is created. Being is thought into and insinuated into everything as -cause; from the concept "ego," alone, can the concept "Being" proceed. -At the beginning stands the tremendously fatal error of supposing the -will to be something that actuates,--a faculty. Now we know that it -is only a word.[1] Very much later, in a world a thousand times more -enlightened, the assurance, the subjective certitude, in the handling -of the categories of reason came into the minds of philosophers as a -surprise. They concluded that these categories could not be derived -from experience,--on the contrary, the whole of experience rather -contradicts them. _Whence do they come therefore?_ In India, as in -Greece, the same mistake was made: "we must already once have lived -in a higher world (--instead of in a much lower one, which would have -been the truth!), we must have been divine, for we possess reason!" -... Nothing indeed has exercised a more simple power of persuasion -hitherto than the error of Being, as it was formulated by the Eleatics -for instance: in its favour are every word and every sentence that we -utter!--Even the opponents of the Eleatics succumbed to the seductive -powers of their concept of Being. Among others there was Democritus in -his discovery of the atom. "Reason" in language!--oh what a deceptive -old witch it has been! I fear we shall never be rid of God, so long as -we still believe in grammar. - - -6 - -People will feel grateful to me if I condense a point of view, which -is at once so important and so new, into four theses: by this means -I shall facilitate comprehension, and shall likewise challenge -contradiction. - -_Proposition One._ The reasons upon which the apparent nature of "this" -world have been based, rather tend to prove its reality,--any other -kind of reality defies demonstration. - -_Proposition Two._ The characteristics with which man has endowed -the "true Being" of things, are the characteristics of non-Being, of -_nonentity._ The "true world" has been erected upon a contradiction of -the real world; and it is indeed an apparent world, seeing that it is -merely a _moralo-optical_ delusion. - -_Proposition Three._ There is no sense in spinning yarns about another -world, provided, of course, that we do not possess a mighty instinct -which urges us to slander, belittle, and cast suspicion upon this life: -in this case we should be avenging ourselves on this life with the -phantasmagoria of "another," of a "better" life. - -_Proposition Four._ To divide the world into a "true" and an "apparent" -world, whether after the manner of Christianity or of Kant (after all -a Christian in disguise), is only a sign of decadence,--a symptom of -_degenerating_ life. The fact that the artist esteems the appearance -of a thing higher than reality, is no objection to this statement For -"appearance" signifies once more reality here, but in a selected, -strengthened and corrected form. The tragic artist is no pessimist,--he -says _Yea_ to everything questionable and terrible, he is Dionysian. - - -[1] Nietzsche here refers to the concept "free will" of the Christians; -this does not mean that there is no such thing as will--that is to say -a powerful determining force from within.--TR. - - -HOW THE "TRUE WORLD" ULTIMATELY BECAME A FABLE - -THE HISTORY OF AN ERROR - -1. The true world, attainable to the sage, the pious man and the man of -virtue,--he lives in it, _he is it._ - - (The most ancient form of the idea was relatively clever, - simple, convincing. It was a paraphrase of the proposition - "I, Plato, am the truth.") - - -2. The true world which is unattainable for the moment, is promised to -the sage, to the pious man and to the man of virtue ("to the sinner who -repents"). - - (Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, more - insidious, more evasive,--It _becomes a woman,_ it becomes - Christian.) - - -3. The true world is unattainable, it cannot be proved, it cannot -promise anything; but even as a thought, alone, it is a comfort, an -obligation, a command. - - (At bottom this is still the old sun; but seen through mist - and scepticism: the idea has become sublime, pale, northern, - Königsbergian.)[1] - - -4. The true world--is it unattainable? At all events it is unattained. -And as unattained it is also _unknown._ Consequently it no longer -comforts, nor saves, nor constrains: what could something unknown -constrain us to? - - (The grey of dawn. Reason stretches itself and yawns for the - first time. The cock-crow of positivism.) - - -5. The "true world"--an idea that no longer serves any purpose, that -no longer constrains one to anything,--a useless idea that has become -quite superfluous, consequently an exploded idea: let us abolish it! - - (Bright daylight; breakfast; the return of common sense - and of cheerfulness; Plato blushes for shame and all - free-spirits kick up a shindy.) - - -6. We have suppressed the true world: what world survives? the apparent -world perhaps?... Certainly not! _In abolishing the true world we have -also abolished the world of appearance!_ - - (Noon; the moment of the shortest shadows; the end of the - longest error; mankind's zenith; _Incipit Zarathustra._) - - -[1] Kant was a native of Königsberg and lived there all his life. Did -Nietzsche know that Kant was simply a Scotch Puritan, whose family had -settled in Germany? - - - - -MORALITY AS THE ENEMY OF NATURE - - - -1 - -There is a time when all passions are simply fatal in their action, -when they wreck their victims with the weight of their folly,--and -there is a later period, a very much later period, when they marry with -the spirit, when they "spiritualise" themselves. Formerly, owing to the -stupidity inherent in passion, men waged war against passion itself: -men pledged themselves to annihilate it,--all ancient moral-mongers -were unanimous on this point, "_il faut tuer les passions._" The -most famous formula for this stands in the New Testament, in that -Sermon on the Mount, where, let it be said incidentally, things are -by no means regarded _from a height._ It is said there, for instance, -with an application to sexuality: "if thy eye offend thee, pluck it -out": fortunately no Christian acts in obedience to this precept. -To annihilate the passions and desires, simply on account of their -stupidity, and to obviate the unpleasant consequences of their -stupidity, seems to us to-day merely an aggravated form of stupidity. -We no longer admire those dentists who extract teeth simply in order -that they may not ache again. On the other hand, it will be admitted -with some reason, that on the soil from which Christianity grew, the -idea of the "spiritualisation of passion" could not possibly have been -conceived. The early Church, as everyone knows, certainly did wage war -against the "intelligent," in favour of the "poor in spirit" In these -circumstances how could the passions be combated intelligently? The -Church combats passion by means of excision of all kinds: its practice, -its "remedy," is _castration._ It never inquires "how can a desire -be spiritualised, beautified, deified?"--In all ages it has laid the -weight of discipline in the process of extirpation (the extirpation -of sensuality, pride, lust of dominion, lust of property, and -revenge).--But to attack the passions at their roots, means attacking -life itself at its source: the method of the Church is hostile to life. - - -2 - -The same means, castration and extirpation, are instinctively chosen -for waging war against a passion, by those who are too weak of will, -too degenerate, to impose some sort of moderation upon it; by those -natures who, to speak in metaphor (--and without metaphor), need -_la Trappe,_ or some kind of ultimatum of war, a _gulf_ set between -themselves and a passion. Only degenerates find radical methods -indispensable: weakness of will, or more strictly speaking, the -inability not to react to a stimulus, is in itself simply another form -of degeneracy. Radical and mortal hostility to sensuality, remains a -suspicious symptom: it justifies one in being suspicious of the general -state of one who goes to such extremes. Moreover, that hostility and -hatred reach their height only when such natures no longer possess -enough strength of character to adopt the radical remedy, to renounce -their inner "Satan." Look at the whole history of the priests, the -philosophers, and the artists as well: the most poisonous diatribes -against the senses have not been said by the impotent, nor by the -ascetics; but by those impossible ascetics, by those who found it -necessary to be ascetics. - - -3 - -The spiritualisation of sensuality is called _love:_ it is a great -triumph over Christianity. Another triumph is our spiritualisation of -hostility. It consists in the fact that we are beginning to realise -very profoundly the value of having enemies: in short that with them -we are forced to do and to conclude precisely the reverse of what -we previously did and concluded. In all ages the Church wished to -annihilate its enemies: we, the immoralists and Antichrists, see our -advantage in the survival of the Church. Even in political life, -hostility has now become more spiritual,--much more cautious, much -more thoughtful, and much more moderate. Almost every party sees its -self-preservative interests in preventing the Opposition from going -to pieces; and the same applies to politics on a grand scale. A new -creation, more particularly, like the new Empire, has more need -of enemies than friends: only as a contrast does it begin to feel -necessary, only as a contrast does it _become_ necessary. And we behave -in precisely the same way to the "inner enemy": in this quarter too we -have spiritualised enmity, in this quarter too we have understood its -value. A man is productive only in so far as he is rich in contrasted -instincts; he can remain young only on condition that his soul does -not begin to take things easy and to yearn for peace. Nothing has -grown more alien to us than that old desire--the "peace of the soul," -which is the aim of Christianity. Nothing could make us less envious -than the moral cow and the plump happiness of a clean conscience. The -man who has renounced war has renounced a grand life. In many cases, -of course, "peace of the soul" is merely a misunderstanding,--it is -something _very different_ which has failed to find a more honest name -for itself. Without either circumlocution or prejudice I will suggest a -few cases. "Peace of the soul" may for instance be the sweet effulgence -of rich animality in the realm of morality (or religion). Or the first -presage of weariness, the first shadow that evening, every kind of -evening, is wont to cast. Or a sign that the air is moist, and that -winds are blowing up from the south. Or unconscious gratitude for a -good digestion (sometimes called "brotherly love"). Or the serenity -of the convalescent, on whose lips all things have a new taste, and -who bides his time. Or the condition which follows upon a thorough -gratification of our strongest passion, the well-being of unaccustomed -satiety. Or the senility of our will, of our desires, and of our vices. -Or laziness, coaxed by vanity into togging itself out in a moral garb. -Or the ending of a state of long suspense and of agonising uncertainty, -by a state of certainty, of even terrible certainty. Or the expression -of ripeness and mastery in the midst of a task, of a creative work, of -a production, of a thing willed, the calm breathing that denotes that -"freedom of will" has been attained. Who knows?--maybe _The Twilight -of the Idols_ is only a sort of "peace of the soul." - - -4 - -I will formulate a principle. All naturalism in morality--that is to -say, every sound morality is ruled by a life instinct,--any one of -the laws of life is fulfilled by the definite canon "thou shalt," -"thou shalt not," and any sort of obstacle or hostile element in the -road of life is thus cleared away. Conversely, the morality which is -antagonistic to nature--that is to say, almost every morality that has -been taught, honoured and preached hitherto, is directed precisely -against the life-instincts,--it is a condemnation, now secret, now -blatant and impudent, of these very instincts. Inasmuch as it says "God -sees into the heart of man," it says Nay to the profoundest and most -superior desires of life and takes God as the enemy of life. The saint -in whom God is well pleased, is the ideal eunuch. Life terminates where -the "Kingdom of God" begins. - - -5 - -Admitting that you have understood the villainy of such a mutiny -against life as that which has become almost sacrosanct in Christian -morality, you have fortunately understood something besides; and that -is the futility, the fictitiousness, the absurdity and the falseness -of such a mutiny. For the condemnation of life by a living creature is -after all but the symptom of a definite kind of life: the question as -to whether the condemnation is justified or the reverse is not even -raised. In order even to approach the problem of the value of life, -a man would need to be placed outside life, and moreover know it as -well as one, as many, as all in fact, who have lived it These are -reasons enough to prove to us that this problem is an inaccessible one -to us. When we speak of values, we speak under the inspiration, and -through the optics of life: life itself urges us to determine values: -life itself values through us when we determine values. From which it -follows that even that morality which is antagonistic to life, and -which conceives God as the opposite and the condemnation of life, is -only a valuation of life--of what life? of what kind of life? But I -have already answered this question: it is the valuation of declining, -of enfeebled, of exhausted and of condemned life. Morality, as it has -been understood hitherto--as it was finally formulated by Schopenhauer -in the words "The Denial of the Will to Life," is the instinct of -degeneration itself, which converts itself into an imperative: it says: -"Perish!" It is the death sentence of men who are already doomed. - - -6 - -Let us at last consider how exceedingly simple it is on our part to -say: "Man should be thus and thus!" Reality shows us a marvellous -wealth of types, and a luxuriant variety of forms and changes: and yet -the first wretch of a moral loafer that comes along cries "No! Man -should be different!" He even knows what man should be like, does this -sanctimonious prig: he draws his own face on the wall and declares: -"_ecce homo!_" But even when the moralist addresses himself only to the -individual and says "thus and thus shouldst thou be!" he still makes -an ass of himself. The individual in his past and future is a piece of -fate, one law the more, one necessity the more for all that is to come -and is to be. To say to him "change thyself," is tantamount to saying -that everything should change, even backwards as well. Truly these have -been consistent moralists, they wished man to be different, _i.e._, -virtuous; they wished him to be after their own image,--that is to say -sanctimonious humbugs. And to this end they denied the world! No slight -form of insanity! No modest form of immodesty! Morality, in so far it -condemns _per se,_ and _not_ out of any aim, consideration or motive of -life, is a specific error, for which no one should feel any mercy, a -degenerate idiosyncrasy, that has done an unutterable amount of harm. -We others, we immoralists, on the contrary, have opened our hearts -wide to all kinds of comprehension, understanding and approbation.[1] -We do not deny readily, we glory in saying yea to things. Our eyes -have opened ever wider and wider to that economy which still employs -and knows how to use to its own advantage all that which the sacred -craziness of priests and the morbid reason in priests, rejects; to -that economy in the law of life which draws its own advantage even out -of the repulsive race of bigots, the priests and the virtuous,--what -advantage?--But we ourselves, we immoralists, are the reply to this -question. - -[1] _Cf._ Spinoza, who says in the _Tractatus politico_ (1677), Chap. -I, § 4: "_Sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere, non tugert, -negue detestari, sed intelligere"_ ("I have carefully endeavoured not -to deride, or deplore, or detest human actions, but to understand -them.").--TR. - - - - -THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS - - - -1 - -_The error of the confusion of cause and effect.--_There is no more -dangerous error than to confound the effect with the cause: I call -this error the intrinsic perversion of reason. Nevertheless this error -is one of the most ancient and most recent habits of mankind. In one -part of the world it has even been canonised; and it bears the name of -"Religion" and "Morality." Every postulate formulated by religion and -morality contains it Priests and the promulgators of moral laws are the -promoters of this perversion of reason.--Let me give you an example. -Everybody knows the book of the famous Cornaro, in which he recommends -his slender diet as the recipe for a long, happy and also virtuous -life. Few books have been so widely read, and to this day many thousand -copies of it are still printed annually in England. I do not doubt that -there is scarcely a single book (the Bible of course excepted) that -has worked more mischief, shortened more lives, than this well-meant -curiosity. The reason of this is the confusion of effect and cause. -This worthy Italian saw the cause of his long life in his diet: whereas -the prerequisites of long life, which are exceptional slowness of -molecular change, and a low rate of expenditure in energy, were the -cause of his meagre diet He was not at liberty to eat a small or a -great amount. His frugality was not the result of free choice, he would -have been ill had he eaten more. He who does not happen to be a carp, -however, is not only wise to eat well, but is also compelled to do so. -A scholar of the present day, with his rapid consumption of nervous -energy, would soon go to the dogs on Cornaro's diet _Crede experto._-- - - -2 - -The most general principle lying at the root of every religion and -morality, is this: "Do this and that and avoid this and that--and -thou wilt be happy. Otherwise----." Every morality and every -religion is this Imperative--I call it the great original sin of -reason,--_immortal unreason._ In my mouth this principle is converted -into its opposite--first example of my "Transvaluation of all Values": -a well-constituted man, a man who is one of "Nature's lucky strokes," -_must_ perform certain actions and instinctively fear other actions; -he introduces the element of order, of which he is the physiological -manifestation, into his relations with men and things. In a formula: -his virtue is the consequence of his good constitution. Longevity -and plentiful offspring are not the reward of virtue, virtue itself -is on the contrary that retardation of the metabolic process which, -among other things, results in a long life and in plentiful offspring, -in short in _Cornarism._ The Church and morality say: "A race, a -people perish through vice and luxury." My reinstated reason says: -when a people are going to the dogs, when they are degenerating -physiologically, vice and luxury (that is to say, the need of ever -stronger and more frequent stimuli such as all exhausted natures are -acquainted with) are bound to result Such and such a young man grows -pale and withered prematurely. His friends say this or that illness -is the cause of it I say: the fact that he became ill, the fact that -he did not resist illness, was in itself already the outcome of -impoverished life, of hereditary exhaustion. The newspaper reader says: -such and such a party by committing such an error will meet its death. -My superior politics say: a party that can make such mistakes, is in -its last agony--it no longer possesses any certainty of instinct. Every -mistake is in every sense the sequel to degeneration of the instincts, -to disintegration of the will. This is almost the definition of evil, -Everything valuable is instinct--and consequently easy, necessary, -free. Exertion is an objection, the god is characteristically different -from the hero (in my language: light feet are the first attribute of -divinity). - - -3 - -_The error of false causality._ In all ages men have believed that -they knew what a cause was: but whence did we derive this knowledge, -or more accurately, this faith in the fact that we know? Out of the -realm of the famous "inner facts of consciousness," not one of which -has yet proved itself to be a fact We believed ourselves to be causes -even in the action of the will; we thought that in this matter at -least we caught causality red-handed. No one doubted that all the -_antecedentia_ of an action were to be sought in consciousness, and -could be discovered there--as "motive"--if only they were sought. -Otherwise we should not be free to perform them, we should not have -been responsible for them. Finally who would have questioned that a -thought is caused? that the ego causes the thought? Of these three -"facts of inner consciousness" by means of which causality seemed to -be guaranteed, the first and most convincing is that of the will as -cause; the conception of consciousness ("spirit") as a cause, and -subsequently that of the ego (the "subject") as a cause, were merely -born afterwards, once the causality of the will stood established -as "given," as a fact of experience. Meanwhile we have come to our -senses. To-day we no longer believe a word of all this. The "inner -world" is full of phantoms and will-o'-the-wisps: the will is one of -these. The will no longer actuates, consequently it no longer explains -anything--all it does is to accompany processes; it may even be absent. -The so-called "motive" is another error. It is merely a ripple on -the surface of consciousness, a side issue of the action, which is -much more likely to conceal than to reveal the _antecedentia_ of the -latter. And as for the ego! It has become legendary, fictional, a -play upon words: it has ceased utterly and completely from thinking, -feeling, and willing! What is the result of it all? There are no such -things as spiritual causes. The whole of popular experience on this -subject went to the devil! That is the result of it all. For we had -blissfully abused that experience, we had built the world upon it as a -world of causes, as a world of will, as a world of spirit. The most -antiquated and most traditional psychology has been at work here, it -has done nothing else: all phenomena were deeds in the light of this -psychology, and all deeds were the result of will; according to it the -world was a complex mechanism of agents, an agent (a "subject") lay -at the root of all things. Man projected his three "inner facts of -consciousness," the will, the spirit, and the ego in which he believed -most firmly, outside himself. He first deduced the concept Being out -of the concept Ego, he supposed "things" to exist as he did himself, -according to his notion of the ego as cause. Was it to be wondered at -that later on he always found in things only that which he had laid -in them?--The thing itself, I repeat, the concept thing was merely a -reflex of the belief in the ego as cause. And even your atom, my dear -good Mechanists and Physicists, what an amount of error, of rudimentary -psychology still adheres to it!--Not to speak of the "thing-in-itself," -of the _horrendum pudendum_ of the metaphysicians! The error of spirit -regarded as a cause, confounded with reality! And made the measure of -reality! And called _God!_ - - -4 - -_The Error of imaginary Causes._ Starting out from dreamland, we -find that to any definite sensation, like that produced by a distant -cannon shot for instance, we are wont to ascribe a cause after the -fact (very often quite a little romance in which the dreamer himself -is, of course, the hero). Meanwhile the sensation becomes protracted -like a sort of continuous echo, until, as it were, the instinct of -causality allows it to come to the front rank, no longer however as a -chance occurrence, but as a thing which has some meaning. The cannon -shot presents itself in a _causal_ manner, by means of an apparent -reversal in the order of time. That which occurs last, the motivation, -is experienced first, often with a hundred details which flash past -like lightning, and the shot is the _result._ What has happened? The -ideas suggested by a particular state of our senses, are misinterpreted -as the cause of that state. As a matter of fact we proceed in precisely -the same manner when we are awake. The greater number of our general -sensations--every kind of obstacle, pressure, tension, explosion in -the interplay of the organs, and more particularly the condition of -the _nervus sympathies_--stimulate our instinct of causality: we will -have a reason which will account for our feeling thus or thus,--for -feeling ill or well. We are never satisfied by merely ascertaining -the fact that we feel thus or thus: we admit this fact--we become -conscious of it--only when we have attributed it to some kind of -motivation. Memory, which, in such circumstances unconsciously becomes -active, adduces former conditions of a like kind, together with the -causal interpretations with which they are associated,--but not their -real cause. The belief that the ideas, the accompanying processes -of consciousness, have been the causes, is certainly produced by -the agency of memory. And in this way we become _accustomed_ to a -particular interpretation of causes which, truth to tell, actually -hinders and even utterly prevents the investigation of the proper -cause. - - -5 - -_The Psychological Explanation of the above Fact._ To trace something -unfamiliar back to something familiar, is at once a relief, a comfort -and a satisfaction, while it also produces a feeling of power. The -unfamiliar involves danger, anxiety and care,--the fundamental instinct -is to get rid of these painful circumstances. First principle: any -explanation is better than none at all. Since, at bottom, it is -only a question of shaking one's self free from certain oppressive -ideas, the means employed to this end are not selected with overmuch -punctiliousness: the first idea by means of which the unfamiliar is -revealed as familiar, produces a feeling of such comfort that it is -"held to be true." The proof of happiness ("of power") as the criterion -of truth. The instinct of causality is therefore conditioned and -stimulated by the feeling of fear. Whenever possible, the question -"why?" should not only educe the cause as cause, but rather a certain -kind of cause--a comforting, liberating and reassuring cause. The first -result of this need is that something known or already experienced, and -recorded in the memory, is posited as the cause. The new factor, that -which has not been experienced and which is unfamiliar, is excluded -from the sphere of causes. Not only do we try to find a certain kind -of explanation as the cause, but those kinds of explanations are -selected and preferred which dissipate most rapidly the sensation of -strangeness, novelty and unfamiliarity,--in fact the most ordinary -explanations. And the result is that a certain manner of postulating -causes tends to predominate ever more and more, becomes concentrated -into a system, and finally reigns supreme, to the complete exclusion -of all other causes and explanations. The banker thinks immediately of -business, the Christian of "sin," and the girl of her love affair. - - -6 - -_The whole Domain of Morality and Religion may be classified under the -Rubric "Imaginary Causes."_ The "explanation" of general unpleasant -sensations. These sensations are dependent upon certain creatures who -are hostile to us (evil spirits: the most famous example of this--the -mistaking of hysterical women for witches). These sensations are -dependent upon actions which are reprehensible (the feeling of "sin," -"sinfulness" is a manner of accounting for a certain physiological -disorder--people always find reasons for being dissatisfied with -themselves). These sensations depend upon punishment, upon compensation -for something which we ought not to have done, which we ought not -to have been (this idea was generalised in a more impudent form by -Schopenhauer, into that principle in which morality appears in its real -colours,--that is to say, as a veritable poisoner and slanderer of -life: "all great suffering, whether mental or physical, reveals what -we deserve: for it could not visit us if we did not deserve it," "The -World as Will and Idea," vol. 2, p. 666). These sensations are the -outcome of ill-considered actions, having evil consequences, (--the -passions, the senses, postulated as causes, as guilty. By means of -other calamities distressing physiological conditions are interpreted -as "merited").--The "explanation" of pleasant sensations. These -sensations are dependent upon a trust in God. They may depend upon -our consciousness of having done one or two good actions (a so-called -"good conscience" is a physiological condition, which may be the -outcome of good digestion). They may depend upon the happy issue of -certain undertakings (--an ingenuous mistake: the happy issue of an -undertaking certainly does not give a hypochondriac or a Pascal any -general sensation of pleasure). They may depend upon faith, love and -hope,--the Christian virtues. As a matter of fact all these pretended -explanations are but the results of certain states, and as it were -translations of feelings of pleasure and pain into a false dialect: a -man is in a condition of hopefulness because the dominant physiological -sensation of his being is again one of strength and wealth; he trusts -in God because the feeling of abundance and power gives him a peaceful -state of mind. Morality and religion are completely and utterly parts -of the psychology of error: in every particular case cause and effect -are confounded; as truth is confounded with the effect of that which is -believed to be true; or a certain state of consciousness is confounded -with the chain of causes which brought it about. - - -7 - -_The Error of Free-Will._ At present we no longer have any mercy upon -the concept "free-will": we know only too well what it is--the most -egregious theological trick that has ever existed for the purpose of -making mankind "responsible" in a theological manner,--that is to -say, to make mankind dependent upon theologians. I will now explain -to you only the psychology of the whole process of inculcating the -sense of responsibility. Wherever men try to trace responsibility -home to anyone, it is the instinct of punishment and of the desire -to judge which is active. Becoming is robbed of its innocence when -any particular condition of things is traced to a will, to intentions -and to responsible actions. The doctrine of the will was invented -principally for the purpose of punishment,--that is to say, with -the intention of tracing guilt. The whole of ancient psychology, -or the psychology of the will, is the outcome of the fact that its -originators, who were the priests at the head of ancient communities, -wanted to create for themselves a right to administer punishments--or -the right for God to do so. Men were thought of as "free" in order that -they might be judged and punished--in order that they might be held -guilty: consequently every action had to be regarded as voluntary, -and the origin of every action had to be imagined as lying in -consciousness(--inthis way the most fundamentally fraudulent character -of psychology was established as the very principle of psychology -itself). Now that we have entered upon the opposite movement, now that -we immoralists are trying with all our power to eliminate the concepts -of guilt and punishment from the world once more, and to cleanse -psychology, history, nature and all social institutions and customs -of all signs of those two concepts, we recognise no more radical -opponents than the theologians, who with their notion of "a moral order -of things," still continue to pollute the innocence of Becoming with -punishment and guilt Christianity is the metaphysics of the hangman. - - -8 - -What then, alone, can our teaching be?--That no one gives man his -qualities, neither God, society, his parents, his ancestors, nor -himself (--this nonsensical idea which is at last refuted here, was -taught as "intelligible freedom" by Kant, and perhaps even as early -as Plato himself). No one is responsible for the fact that he exists -at all, that he is constituted as he is, and that he happens to be in -certain circumstances and in a particular environment. The fatality of -his being cannot be divorced from the fatality of all that which has -been and will be. This is not the result of an individual intention, -of a will, of an aim, there is no attempt at attaining to any "ideal -man," or "ideal happiness" or "ideal morality" with him,--it is absurd -to wish him to be careering towards some sort of purpose. _We_ invented -the concept "purpose"; in reality purpose is altogether lacking. One -is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is -in the whole,--there is nothing that could judge, measure, compare, -and condemn our existence, for that would mean judging, measuring, -comparing and condemning the whole. _But there is nothing outside the -whole!_ The fact that no one shall any longer be made responsible, that -the nature of existence may not be traced to a _causa prima_, that the -world is an entity neither as a sensorium nor as a spirit--_this alone -is the great deliverance_,--thus alone is the innocence of Becoming -restored.... The concept "God" has been the greatest objection to -existence hitherto.... We deny God, we deny responsibility in God: thus -alone do we save the world.-- - - - - -THE "IMPROVERS" OF MANKIND - - - -1 - - -You are aware of my demand upon philosophers, that they should take -up a stand Beyond Good and Evil,--that they should have the illusion -of the moral judgment beneath them. This demand is the result of a -point of view which I was the first to formulate: _that there are no -such things as moral facts._ Moral judgment has this in common with -the religious one, that it believes in realities which are not real. -Morality is only an interpretation of certain phenomena: or, more -strictly speaking, a misinterpretation of them. Moral judgment, like -the religious one, belongs to a stage of ignorance in which even the -concept of reality, the distinction between real and imagined things, -is still lacking: so that truth, at such a stage, is applied to a host -of things which to-day we call "imaginary." That is why the moral -judgment must never be taken quite literally: as such it is sheer -nonsense. As a sign code, however, it is invaluable: to him at least -who knows, it reveals the most valuable facts concerning cultures and -inner conditions, which did not know enough to "understand" themselves. -Morality is merely a sign-language, simply symptomatology: one must -already know what it is all about in order to turn it to any use. - - -2 - -Let me give you one example, quite provisionally. In all ages there -have been people who wished to "improve" mankind: this above all -is what was called morality. But the most different tendencies -are concealed beneath the same word. Both the taming of the beast -man, and the rearing of a particular type of man, have been called -"improvement": these zoological _termini,_ alone, represent real -things--real things of which the typical "improver," the priest, -naturally knows nothing, and will know nothing. To call the taming -of an animal "improving" it, sounds to our ears almost like a joke. -He who knows what goes on in menageries, doubts very much whether an -animal is improved in such places. It is certainly weakened, it is -made less dangerous, and by means of the depressing influence of fear, -pain, wounds, and hunger, it is converted into a sick animal. And the -same holds good of the tamed man whom the priest has "improved." In -the early years of the Middle Ages, during which the Church was most -distinctly and above all a menagerie, the most beautiful examples of -the "blond beast" were hunted down in all directions,--the noble -Germans, for instance, were "improved." But what did this "improved" -German, who had been lured to the monastery look like after the -process? He looked like a caricature of man, like an abortion: he had -become a "sinner," he was caged up, he had been imprisoned behind a -host of apparling notions. He now lay there, sick, wretched, malevolent -even toward himself: full of hate for the instincts of life, full of -suspicion in regard to all that is still strong and happy. In short a -"Christian." In physiological terms: in a fight with an animal, the -only way of making it weak may be to make it sick. The Church undersood -this: it ruined man, it made him weak,--but it laid claim to having -"improved" him. - - -3 - -Now let us consider the other case which is called morality, the -case of the rearing of a particular race and species. The most -magnificent example of this is offered by Indian morality, and is -sanctioned religiously as the "Law of Manu." In this book the task -is set of rearing no less than four races at once: a priestly race, -a warrior race, a merchant and agricultural race, and finally a race -of servants--the Sudras. It is quite obvious that we are no longer -in a circus watching tamers of wild animals in this book. To have -conceived even the plan of such a breeding scheme, presupposes the -existence of a man who is a hundred times milder and more reasonable -than the mere lion-tamer. One breathes more freely, after stepping out -of the Christian atmosphere of hospitals and prisons, into this more -salubrious, loftier and more spacious world. What a wretched thing the -New Testament is beside Manu, what an evil odour hangs around it!--But -even this organisation found it necessary to be terrible,--not this -time in a struggle with the animal-man, but with his opposite, the -non-caste man, the hotch-potch man, the Chandala. And once again it -had no other means of making him weak and harmless, than by making -him sick,--it was the struggle with the greatest "number." Nothing -perhaps is more offensive to our feelings than these measures of -security on the part of Indian morality. The third edict, for instance -(Avadana-Sastra I.), which treats "of impure vegetables," ordains that -the only nourishment that the Chandala should be allowed must consist -of garlic and onions, as the holy scriptures forbid their being given -corn or grain-bearing fruit, water and fire. The same edict declares -that the water which they need must be drawn neither out of rivers, -wells or ponds, but only out of the ditches leading to swamps and out -of the holes left by the footprints of animals. They are likewise -forbidden to wash either their linen or themselves since the water -which is graciously granted to them must only be used for quenching -their thirst. Finally Sudra women are forbidden to assist Chandala -women at their confinements, while Chandala women are also forbidden to -assist each other at such times. The results of sanitary regulations of -this kind could not fail to make themselves felt; deadly epidemics and -the most ghastly venereal diseases soon appeared, and in consequence -of these again "the Law of the Knife,"--that is to say circumcision, -was prescribed for male children and the removal of the small labia -from the females. Manu himself says: "the Chandala are the fruit of -adultery, incest, and crime (--this is the necessary consequence of the -idea of breeding). Their clothes shall consist only of the rags torn -from corpses, their vessels shall be the fragments of broken pottery, -their ornaments shall be made of old iron, and their religion shall be -the worship of evil spirits; without rest they shall wander from place -to place. They are forbidden to write from left to right or to use -their right hand in writing: the use of the right hand and writing from -left to right are reserved to people of virtue, to people of race." - - -4 - -These regulations are instructive enough: we can see in them the -absolutely pure and primeval humanity of the Aryans,--we learn that -the notion "pure blood," is the reverse of harmless. On the other hand -it becomes clear among which people the hatred, the Chandala hatred -of this humanity has been immortalised, among which people it has -become religion and genius. From this point of view the gospels are -documents of the highest value; and the Book of Enoch is still more -so. Christianity as sprung from Jewish roots and comprehensible only -as grown upon this soil, represents the counter-movement against that -morality of breeding, of race and of privilege:--it is essentially an -anti-Aryan religion: Christianity is the transvaluation of all Aryan -values, the triumph of Chandala values, the proclaimed gospel of the -poor and of the low, the general insurrection of all the down-trodden, -the wretched, the bungled and the botched, against the "race,"--the -immortal revenge of the Chandala as the _religion of love._ - - -5 - -The morality of breeding and the morality of taming, in the means which -they adopt in order to prevail, are quite worthy of each other: we may -lay down as a leading principle that in order to create morality a -man must have the absolute will to immorality. This is the great and -strange problem with which I have so long been occupied: the psychology -of the "Improvers" of mankind. A small, and at bottom perfectly -insignificant fact, known as the _"pia fraus,"_ first gave me access -to this problem: the _pia fraus,_ the heirloom of all philosophers and -priests who "improve" mankind. Neither Manu, nor Plato, nor Confucius, -nor the teachers of Judaism and Christianity, have ever doubted their -right to falsehood. They have never doubted their right to quite a -number of other things To express oneself in a formula, one might -say:--all means which have been used heretofore with the object of -making man moral, were through and through immoral. - - - - -THINGS THE GERMANS LACK - - - -1 - -Among Germans at the present day it does not suffice to have intellect; -one is actually forced to appropriate it, to lay claim to it. - -Maybe I know the Germans, perhaps I may tell them a few home-truths. -Modern Germany represents such an enormous store of inherited and -acquired capacity, that for some time it might spend this accumulated -treasure even with some prodigality. It is no superior culture that has -ultimately become prevalent with this modern tendency, nor is it by any -means delicate taste, or noble beauty of the instincts; but rather a -number of virtues more manly than any that other European countries can -show. An amount of good spirits and self-respect, plenty of firmness -in human relations and in the reciprocity of duties; much industry and -much perseverance--and a certain inherited soberness which is much more -in need of a spur than of a brake. Let me add that in this country -people still obey without feeling that obedience humiliates. And no one -despises his opponent. - -You observe that it is my desire to be fair to the Germans: and in this -respect I should not like to be untrue to myself,--I must therefore -also state my objections to them. It costs a good deal to attain to a -position of power; for power _stultifies._ The Germans--they were once -called a people of thinkers: do they really think at all at present? -Nowadays the Germans are bored by intellect, they mistrust intellect; -politics have swallowed up all earnestness for really intellectual -things--"Germany, Germany above all."[1] I fear this was the death-blow -to German philosophy. "Are there any German philosophers? Are there any -German poets? Are there any good German books?" people ask me abroad. I -blush; but with that pluck which is peculiar to me, even in moments of -desperation, I reply: "Yes, Bismarck!"--Could I have dared to confess -what books _are_ read to-day? Cursed instinct of mediocrity!-- - - -2 - -What might not German intellect have been!--who has not thought sadly -upon this question! But this nation has deliberately stultified itself -for almost a thousand years: nowhere else have the two great European -narcotics, alcohol and Christianity, been so viciously abused as in -Germany. Recently a third opiate was added to the list, one which in -itself alone would have sufficed to complete the ruin of all subtle -and daring intellectual animation, I speak of music, our costive and -constipating German music. How much peevish ponderousness, paralysis, -dampness, dressing-gown languor, and beer is there not in German -intelligence! - -How is it really possible that young men who consecrate their whole -lives to the pursuit of intellectual ends, should not feel within them -the first instinct of intellectuality, the _self-preservative instinct -of the intellect_--and should drink beer? The alcoholism of learned -youths does not incapacitate them for becoming scholars--a man quite -devoid of intellect may be a great scholar,--but it is a problem in -every other respect. Where can that soft degeneracy not be found, which -is produced in the intellect by beer! I once laid my finger upon a case -of this sort, which became almost famous,--the degeneration of our -leading German free-spirit, the _clever_ David Strauss, into the author -of a suburban gospel and New Faith. Not in vain had he sung the praises -of "the dear old brown liquor" in verse--true unto death. - - -3 - -I have spoken of German intellect. I have said that it is becoming -coarser and shallower. Is that enough?--In reality something very -different frightens me, and that is the ever steady decline of -German earnestness, German profundity, and German passion in things -intellectual. Not only intellectuality, but also pathos has altered. -From time to time I come in touch with German universities; what -an extraordinary atmosphere prevails among their scholars! what -barrenness! and what self-satisfied and lukewarm intellectuality! For -any one to point to German science as an argument against me would show -that he grossly misunderstood my meaning, while it would also prove -that he had not read a word of my writings. For seventeen years I -have done little else than expose the de-intellectualising influence -of our modern scientific studies. The severe slavery to which every -individual nowadays is condemned by the enormous range covered by the -sciences, is the chief reason why fuller, richer and profounder natures -can find no education or educators that are fit for them. Nothing -is more deleterious to this age than the superfluity of pretentious -loafers and fragmentary human beings; our universities are really -the involuntary forcing houses for this kind of withering-up of the -instincts of intellectuality. And the whole of Europe is beginning -to know this--politics on a large scale deceive no one. Germany is -becoming ever more and more the Flat-land of Europe. I am still in -search of a German with whom I could be serious after my own fashion. -And how much more am I in search of one with whom I could be cheerful -_--The Twilight of the Idols:_ ah! what man to-day would be capable -of understanding the kind of seriousness from which a philosopher is -recovering in this work! It is our cheerfulness that people understand -least. - - -4 - -Let us examine another aspect of the question: it is not only obvious -that German culture is declining, but adequate reasons for this decline -are not lacking. After all, nobody can spend more than he has:--this -is true of individuals, it is also true of nations. If you spend -your strength in acquiring power, or in politics on a large scale, -or in economy, or in universal commerce, or in parliamentarism, or -in military interests--if you dissipate the modicum of reason, of -earnestness, of will, and of self-control that constitutes your nature -in one particular fashion, you cannot dissipate it in another. Culture -and the state--let no one be deceived on this point--are antagonists: -A "culture-state "[2] is merely a modern idea. The one lives upon -the other, the one flourishes at the expense of the other. All great -periods of culture have been periods of political decline; that which -is great from the standpoint of culture, was always unpolitical--even -anti-political. Goethe's heart opened at the coming of Napoleon--it -closed at the thought of the "Wars of Liberation." At the very moment -when Germany arose as a great power in the world of politics, France -won new importance as a force in the world of culture. Even at this -moment a large amount of fresh intellectual earnestness and passion -has emigrated to Paris; the question of pessimism, for instance, -and the question of Wagner; in France almost all psychological and -artistic questions are considered with incomparably more subtlety and -thoroughness than they are in Germany,--the Germans are even incapable -of this kind of earnestness. In the history of European culture the -rise of the Empire signifies, above all, a displacement of the centre -of gravity. Everywhere people are already aware of this: in things that -really matter--and these after all constitute culture,--the Germans -are no longer worth considering. I ask you, can you show me one single -man of brains who could be mentioned in the same breath with other -European thinkers, like your Goethe, your Hegel, your Heinrich Heine, -and your Schopenhauer?--The fact that there is no longer a single -German philosopher worth mentioning is an increasing wonder. - - -5 - -Everything that matters has been lost sight of by the whole of the -higher educational system of Germany: the end quite as much as the -means to that end. People forget that education, the process of -cultivation itself, is the end--and not "the Empire"--they forget that -the _educator_ is required for this end--and not the public-school -teacher and university scholar. Educators are needed who are themselves -educated, superior and noble intellects, who can prove that they are -thus qualified, that they are ripe and mellow products of culture -at every moment of their lives, in word and in gesture;--not the -learned louts who, like "superior wet-nurses," are now thrust upon the -youth of the land by public schools and universities. With but rare -exceptions, that which is lacking in Germany is the first prerequisite -of education--that is to say, the educators; hence the decline of -German culture. One of those rarest exceptions is my highly respected -friend Jacob Burckhardt of Bâle: to him above all is Bâle indebted -for its foremost position in human culture What the higher schools -of Germany really do accomplish is this, they brutally train a vast -crowd of young men, in the smallest amount of time possible, to become -useful and exploitable servants of the state. "Higher education" -and a vast crowd--these terms contradict each other from the start -All superior education can only concern the exception: a man must be -privileged in order to have a right to such a great privilege. All -great and beautiful things cannot be a common possession: _pulchrum -est paucorum hominum._--What is it that brings about the decline of -German culture? The fact that "higher education" is no longer a special -privilege--the democracy of a process of cultivation that has become -"general," _common._ Nor must it be forgotten that the privileges of -the military profession by urging many too many to attend the higher -schools, involve the downfall of the latter. In modern Germany nobody -is at liberty to give his children a noble education: in regard to -their teachers, their curricula, and their educational aims, our higher -schools are one and all established upon a fundamentally doubtful -mediocre basis. Everywhere, too, a hastiness which is unbecoming rules -supreme; just as if something would be forfeited if the young man were -not "finished" at the age of twenty-three, or did not know how to -reply to the most essential question, "which calling to choose?"--The -superior kind of man, if you please, does not like "callings," -precisely because he knows himself to be called. He has time, he takes -time, he cannot possibly think of becoming "finished,"--in the matter -of higher culture, a man of thirty years is a beginner, a child. Our -overcrowded public-schools, our accumulation of foolishly manufactured -public-school masters, are a scandal: maybe there are very serious -_motives_ for defending this state of affairs, as was shown quite -recently by the professors of Heidelberg; but there can be no reasons -for doing so. - - -6 - -In order to be true to my nature, which is affirmative and which -concerns itself with contradictions and criticism only indirectly -and with reluctance, let me state at once what the three objects -are for which we need educators. People must learn to see; they -must learn to think, and they must learn to speak and to write: the -object of all three of these pursuits is a noble culture. To learn -to see--to accustom the eye to calmness, to patience, and to allow -things to come up to it; to defer judgment, and to acquire the habit -of approaching and grasping an individual case from all sides. This -is the first preparatory schooling of intellectuality. One must not -respond immediately to a stimulus; one must acquire a command of the -obstructing and isolating instincts. To learn to see, as I understand -this matter, amounts almost to that which in popular language is -called "strength of will": its essential feature is precisely _not_ -to _wish_ to see, to be able to postpone one's decision. All lack of -intellectuality, all vulgarity, arises out of the inability to resist -a stimulus:--one must respond or react, every impulse is indulged. In -many cases such necessary action is already a sign of morbidity, of -decline, and a symptom of exhaustion. Almost everything that coarse -popular language characterises as vicious, is merely that physiological -inability to refrain from reacting.--As an instance of what it means -to have learnt to see, let me state that a man thus trained will as a -learner have become generally slow, suspicious, and refractory. With -hostile calm he will first allow every kind of strange and _new_ thing -to come right up to him,--he will draw back his hand at its approach. -To stand with all the doors of one's soul wide open, to He slavishly -in the dust before every trivial fact, at all times of the day to be -strained ready for the leap, in order to deposit one's self, to plunge -one's self, into other souls and other things, in short, the famous -"objectivity" of modern times, is bad taste, it is essentially vulgar -and cheap. - - -7 - -As to learning how to think--our schools no longer have any notion -of such a thing. Even at the universities, among the actual scholars -in philosophy, logic as a theory, as a practical pursuit, and as a -business, is beginning to die out. Turn to any German book: you will -not find the remotest trace of a realisation that there is such a -thing as a technique, a plan of study, a will to mastery, in the -matter of thinking,--that thinking insists upon being learnt, just -as dancing insists upon being learnt, and that thinking insists upon -being learnt as a form of dancing. What single German can still say he -knows from experience that delicate shudder which _light footfalls_ -in matters intellectual cause to pervade his whole body and limbs! -Stiff awkwardness in intellectual attitudes, and the clumsy fist in -grasping--these things are so essentially German, that outside Germany -they are absolutely confounded with the German spirit. The German -has no fingers for delicate _nuances. _ The fact that the people of -Germany have actually tolerated their philosophers, more particularly -that most deformed cripple of ideas that has ever existed--the great -Kant, gives one no inadequate notion of their native elegance. For, -truth to tell, dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the -curriculum of all noble education: dancing with the feet, with ideas, -with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with -the pen--that one must learn how to write?--But at this stage I should -become utterly enigmatical to German readers. - - - -[1] The German national hymn: "_Deutschland, Deutschland über -alles.--_" TR. - -[2] The word _Kultur-Staat_ "culture-state" has become a standard -expression in the German language, and is applied to the leading -European States.--TR. - - - - -SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE - - - -1 - -_My Impossible People._--Seneca, or the toreador of virtue---Rousseau, -or the return to nature, _in impuris naturalibus._--Schiller, or the -Moral-Trumpeter of Sackingen.--Dante, or the hyæna that writes poetry -in tombs.--Kant, or _cant_ as an intelligible character.--Victor -Hugo, or the lighthouse on the sea of nonsense.--Liszt, or the -school of racing--after women.--George Sand, or _lactea ubertas,_ -in plain English: the cow with plenty of beautiful milk.--Michelet, -or enthusiasm in its shirt sleeves.--Carlyle, or Pessimism after -undigested meals.--John Stuart Mill, or offensive lucidity.--The -brothers Goncourt, or the two Ajaxes fighting with Homer. Music by -Offenbach.--Zola, or the love of stinking. - - -2 - -_Renan._--Theology, or the corruption of reason by original sin -(Christianity). Proof of this,--Renan who, even in those rare cases -where he ventures to say either Yes or No on a general question, -invariably misses the point with painful regularity. For in stance, -he would fain associate science and nobility: but surely it must be -obvious that science is democratic. He seems to be actuated by a -strong desire to represent an aristocracy of intellect: but, at the -same time he grovels on his knees, and not only on his knees, before -the opposite doctrine, the gospel of the humble. What is the good of -all free-spiritedness, modernity, mockery and acrobatic suppleness, -if in one's belly one is still a Christian, a Catholic, and even a -priest! Renan's forte, precisely like that of a Jesuit and Father -Confessor, lies in his seductiveness. His intellectuality is not -devoid of that unctuous complacency of a parson,--like all priests, he -becomes dangerous only when he loves. He is second to none in the art -of skilfully worshipping a dangerous thing. This intellect of Renan's, -which in its action is enervating, is one calamity the more, for poor, -sick France with her will-power all going to pieces. - - -3 - -_Sainte-Beuve._--There is naught of man in him; he is full of petty -spite towards all virile spirits. He wanders erratically; he is subtle, -inquisitive, a little bored, for ever with his ear to key-holes,--at -bottom a woman, with all woman's revengefulness and sensuality. As a -psychologist he is a genius of slander; inexhaustively rich in means -to this end; no one understands better than he how to introduce a -little poison into praise. In his fundamental instincts he is plebeian -and next of kin to Rousseau's resentful spirit: consequently he is -a Romanticist--for beneath all romanticism Rousseau's instinct for -revenge grunts and frets. He is a revolutionary, but kept within -bounds by "funk." He is embarrassed in the face of everything that is -strong (public opinion, the Academy, the court, even Port Royal). He -is embittered against everything great in men and things, against -everything that believes in itself. Enough of a poet and of a female to -be able to feel greatness as power; he is always turning and twisting, -because, like the proverbial worm, he constantly feels that he is -being trodden upon. As a critic he has no standard of judgment, no -guiding principle, no backbone. Although he possesses the tongue of -the Cosmopolitan libertine which can chatter about a thousand things, -he has not the courage even to acknowledge his _libertinage._ As a -historian he has no philosophy, and lacks the power of philosophical -vision,--hence his refusal to act the part of a judge, and his adoption -of the mask of "objectivity" in all important matters. His attitude -is better in regard to all those things in which subtle and effete -taste is the highest tribunal: in these things he really does have -the courage of his own personality--he really does enjoy his own -nature--he actually is a _master,_--In some respects he is a prototype -of Baudelaire. - - -4 - -"_The Imitation of Christ_" is one of those books which I cannot even -take hold of without physical loathing: it exhales a perfume of the -eternally feminine, which to appreciate fully one must be a Frenchman -or a Wagnerite. This saint has a way of speaking about love which -makes even Parisiennes feel a little curious.--I am told that that -_most intelligent_ of Jesuits, Auguste Comte, who wished to lead his -compatriots back to Rome by the circuitous route of science, drew his -inspiration from this book. And I believe it: "The religion of the -heart. - - -5 - -_G. Eliot._--They are rid of the Christian God and therefore -think it all the more incumbent upon them to hold tight to Christian -morality: this is an English way of reasoning; but let us not take it -ill in moral females _à la_ Eliot. In England, every man who indulges -in any trifling emancipation from theology, must retrieve his honour -in the most terrifying manner by becoming a moral fanatic. That is how -they do penance in that country.--As for us, we act differently. When -we renounce the Christian faith, we abandon all right to Christian -morality. This is not by any means self-evident and in defiance of -English shallow-pates the point must be made ever more and more plain. -Christianity is a system, a complete outlook upon the world, conceived -as a whole. If its leading concept, the belief in God, is wrenched -from it, the whole is destroyed; nothing vital remains in our grasp. -Christianity presupposes that man does not and cannot know what is -good or bad for him: the Christian believes in God who, alone, can -know these things. Christian morality is a command, its origin is -transcendental. It is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; -it is true only on condition that God is truth,--it stands or falls -with the belief in God. If the English really believe that they know -intuitively, and of their own accord, what is good and evil; if, -therefore, they assert that they no longer need Christianity as a -guarantee of morality, this in itself is simply the outcome of the -dominion of Christian valuations, and a proof of the strength and -profundity of this dominion. It only shows that the origin of English -morality has been forgotten, and that its exceedingly relative right to -exist is no longer felt. For Englishmen morality is not yet a problem. - - -6 - -_George Sand._--I have been reading the first "_Lettres d'un -Voyageur_:" like everything that springs from Rousseau's influence -it is false, made-up, blown out, and exaggerated! I cannot endure -this bright wall-paper style, any more than I can bear the vulgar -striving after generous feelings. The worst feature about it is -certainly the coquettish adoption of male attributes by this female, -after the manner of ill-bred schoolboys. And how cold she must have -been inwardly all the while, this insufferable artist! She wound -herself up like a clock--and wrote. As cold as Hugo and Balzac, as -cold as all Romanticists are as soon as they begin to write! And how -self-complacently she must have lain there, this prolific ink-yielding -cow. For she had something German in her (German in the bad sense), -just as Rousseau, her master, had;--something which could only have -been possible when French taste was declining!--and Renan adores her!... - - -7 - -_A Moral for Psychologists._ Do not go in for any note-book psychology! -Never observe for the sake of observing! Such things lead to a false -point of view, to a squint, to something forced and exaggerated. -To experience things on purpose--this is not a bit of good. In the -midst of an experience a man should not turn his eyes upon himself; -in such cases any eye becomes the "evil eye." A born psychologist -instinctively avoids seeing for the sake of seeing. And the same holds -good of the born painter. Such a man never works "from nature,"--he -leaves it to his instinct, to his _camera obscura_ to sift and to -define the "fact," "nature," the "experience." The general idea, -the conclusion, the result, is the only thing that reaches his -consciousness. He knows nothing of that wilful process of deducing -from particular cases. What is the result when a man sets about this -matter differently?--when, for instance, after the manner of Parisian -novelists, he goes in for note-book psychology on a large and small -scale? Such a man is constantly spying on reality, and every evening -he bears home a handful of fresh curios.... But look at the result!--a -mass of daubs, at best a piece of mosaic, in any case something heaped -together, restless and garish. The Goncourts are the greatest sinners -in this respect: they cannot put three sentences together which are not -absolutely painful to the eye--the eye of the psychologist. From an -artistic standpoint, nature is no model. It exaggerates, distorts, and -leaves gaps. Nature is the _accident._ To study "from nature" seems to -me a bad sign: it betrays submission, weakness, fatalism--this lying -in the dust before trivial facts is unworthy of a thorough artist. To -see _what is_--is the function of another order of intellects, the -_anti-artistic,_ the matter-of-fact One must know _who_ one is. - - -8 - -_Concerning the psychology of the artist_ For art to be possible at -all--that is to say, in order that an æsthetic mode of action and of -observation may exist, a certain preliminary physiological state is -indispensable _ecstasy._[1] This state of ecstasy must first have -intensified the susceptibility of the whole machine otherwise, no art -is possible. All kinds of ecstasy, however differently produced, have -this power to create art, and above all the state dependent upon sexual -excitement--this most venerable and primitive form of ecstasy. The same -applies to that ecstasy which is the outcome of all great desires, -all strong passions; the ecstasy of the feast, of the arena, of the -act of bravery, of victory, of all extreme action; the ecstasy of -cruelty; the ecstasy of destruction; the ecstasy following upon certain -meteorological influences, as for instance that of spring-time, or upon -the use of narcotics; and finally the ecstasy of will, that ecstasy -which results from accumulated and surging will-power.--The essential -feature of ecstasy is the feeling of increased strength and abundance. -Actuated by this feeling a man gives of himself to things, _he -forces_ them to partake of his riches, he does violence to them--this -proceeding is called _idealising._ Let us rid ourselves of a prejudice -here: idealising does not consist, as is generally believed, in a -suppression or an elimination of detail or of unessential features. -A stupendous _accentuation_ of the principal characteristics is by -far the most decisive factor at work, and in consequence the minor -characteristics vanish. - - -9 - -In this state a man enriches everything from out his own abundance: -what he sees, what he wills, he sees distended, compressed, strong, -overladen with power. He transfigures things until they reflect his -power,--until they are stamped with his perfection. This compulsion -to transfigure into the beautiful is--Art Everything--even that which -he is not,--is nevertheless to such a man a means of rejoicing over -himself; in Art man rejoices over himself as perfection.--It is -possible to imagine a contrary state, a specifically anti-artistic -state of the instincts,--a state in which a man impoverishes, -attenuates, and draws the blood from everything. And, truth to tell, -history is full of such anti-artists, of such creatures of low -vitality who have no choice but to appropriate everything they see -and to suck its blood and make it thinner. This is the case with the -genuine Christian, Pascal for instance. There is no such thing as a -Christian who is also an artist ... Let no one be so childish as to -suggest Raphael or any homeopathic Christian of the nineteenth century -as an objection to this statement: Raphael said Yea, Raphael _did_ -Yea,--consequently Raphael was no Christian. - - -10 - -What is the meaning of the antithetical concepts _Apollonian_ and -_Dionysian_ which I have introduced into the vocabulary of Æsthetic, as -representing two distinct modes of ecstasy?--Apollonian ecstasy acts -above all as a force stimulating the eye, so that it acquires the power -of vision. The painter, the sculptor, the epic poet are essentially -visionaries. In the Dionysian state, on the other hand, the whole -system of passions is stimulated and intensified, so What it discharges -itself by all the means of expression at once, and vents all its power -of representation, of imitation, of transfiguration, of transformation, -together with every kind of mimicry and histrionic display at the same -time. The essential feature remains the facility in transforming, -the inability to refrain from reaction (--a similar state to that of -certain hysterical patients, who at the slightest hint assume any -rôle). It is impossible for the Dionysian artist not to understand any -suggestion; _I_ no outward sign of emotion escapes him, he possesses -the instinct of comprehension and of divination in the highest degree, -just as he is capable of the most perfect art of communication. He -enters into every skin, into every passion: he is continually changing -himself. Music as we understand it to-day is likewise a general -excitation and discharge of the emotions; but, notwithstanding this, it -is only the remnant of a much richer world of emotional expression, a -mere residuum of Dionysian histrionism. For music to be made possible -as a special art, quite a number of senses, and particularly the -muscular sense, had to be paralysed (at least relatively: for all -rhythm still appeals to our muscles to a certain extent):. and thus man -no longer imitates and represents physically everything he feels, as -soon as he feels it Nevertheless that is the normal Dionysian state, -and in any case its primitive state. Music is the slowly attained -specialisatio of this state at the cost of kindred capacities. - - -11 - -The actor, the mime, the dancer, the musician, and the lyricist, are -in their instincts fundamentally related; but they have gradually -specialised in their particular branch, and become separated--even -to the point of contradiction. The lyricist remained united with the -musician for the longest period of time; and the actor with the dancer. -The architect manifests neither a Dionysian nor an Apollonian state: In -his case it is the great act of will, the will that moveth mountains, -the ecstasy of the great will which aspires to art The most powerful -men have always inspired architects; the architect has always been -under the suggestion of power. In the architectural structure, man's -pride, man's triumph over gravitation, man's will to power, assume -a visible form. Architecture is a sort of oratory of power by means -of forms. Now it is persuasive, even flattering, and at other times -merely commanding. The highest sensation of power and security finds -expression in grandeur of style. That power which no longer requires to -be proved, which scorns to please; which responds only with difficulty; -which feels no witnesses around it; which is oblivious of the fact -that it is being opposed; which relies on itself fatalistically, and -is a law among laws:--such power expresses itself quite naturally in -grandeur of style. - - -12 - -I have been reading the life of Thomas Carlyle, that unconscious and -involuntary farce, that heroico-moral interpretation of dyspeptic -moods.--Carlyle, a man of strong words and attitudes, a rhetorician by -necessity, who seems ever to be tormented by the desire of finding some -kind of strong faith, and by his inability to do so (--in this respect -a typical Romanticist!). To yearn for a strong faith is not the proof -of a strong faith, but rather the reverse. If a man have a strong faith -he can indulge in the luxury of scepticism; he is strong enough, firm -enough, well-knit enough for such a luxury. Carlyle stupefies something -in himself by means of the _fortissimo_ of his reverence for men of a -strong faith, and his rage over those who are less foolish: he is in -sore need of noise. An attitude of constant and passionate dishonesty -towards himself--this is his _proprium;_ by virtue of this he is and -remains interesting.--Of course, in England he is admired precisely -on account of his honesty. Well, that is English; and in view of the -fact that the English are the nation of consummate cant, it is not only -comprehensible but also very natural. At bottom, Carlyle is an English -atheist who makes it a point of honour not to be one. - - -13 - -_Emerson._--He is much more enlightened, much broader, more versatile, -and more subtle than Carlyle; but above all, he is happier. He is one -who instinctively lives on ambrosia and who leaves the indigestible -parts of things on his plate. Compared with Carlyle he is a man of -taste.--Carlyle, who was very fond of him, nevertheless declared that -"he does not give us enough to chew." This is perfectly true but -it is not unfavourable to Emerson.--Emerson possesses that kindly -intellectual cheerfulness which deprecates overmuch seriousness; he -has absolutely no idea of how old he is already, and how young he will -yet be,--he could have said of himself, in Lope de Vega's words: "_yo -me sucedo a mi mismo._" His mind is always finding reasons for being -contented and even thankful; and at times he gets preciously near to -that serene superiority of the worthy bourgeois who returning from an -amorous rendezvous _tamquam re bene gesta,_ said gratefully "_Ut desint -vires, tamen est laudanda voluptas._"-- - - -14 - -_Anti-Darwin._--As to the famous "struggle for existence," it seems to -me, for the present, to be more of an assumption than a fact. It does -occur, but as an exception. The general condition of life! is not one -of want or famine, but rather of riches, of lavish luxuriance, and even -of absurd prodigality,--where there is a struggle, it is a struggle -for power. We should not confound Malthus with nature.--Supposing, -however, that this struggle exists,--and it does indeed occur,--its -result is unfortunately the very reverse of that which the Darwinian -school seems to desire, and of that which in agreement with them we -also might desire: that is to say, it is always to the disadvantage -of the strong, the privileged, and the happy exceptions. Species -do not evolve towards perfection: the weak always prevail over the -strong--simply because they are the majority, and because they are also -the more crafty. Darwin forgot the intellect (--that is English!), the -weak have more intellect. In order to acquire intellect, one must be in -need of it. One loses it when one no longer needs it. He who possesses -strength flings intellect to the deuce (--"let it go hence!"[2] -say the Germans of the present day, "the _Empire_ will remain"). -As you perceive, intellect to me means caution, patience, craft, -dissimulation, great self-control, and everything related to mimicry -(what is praised nowadays as virtue is very closely related the latter). - - -15 - -_Casuistry of a Psychologist._--This man knows mankind: to what purpose -does he study his fellows? He wants to derive some small or even -great advantages from them,--he is a politician!... That man yonder -is also well versed in human nature: and ye tell me that he wishes to -draw no personal profit from his knowledge, that he is a thoroughly -disinterested person? Examine him a little more closely! Maybe he -wishes to derive a more wicked advantage from his possession; namely, -to feel superior to men, to be able to look down upon them, no longer -to feel one of them. This "disinterested person" is a despiser of -mankind; and the former is of a more humane type, whatever appearances -may seem to say to the contrary. At least he considers himself the -equal of those about him, at least he classifies himself with them. - - -16 - -_The psychological tact_ of Germans seems to me to have been set in -doubt by a whole series of cases which my modesty forbids me to -enumerate. In one case at least I shall not let the occasion slip -for substantiating my contention: I bear the Germans a grudge for -having made a mistake about Kant and his "backstairs philosophy," as -I call it. Such a man was not the type of intellectual uprightness. -Another thing I hate to hear is a certain infamous "and": the Germans -say, "Goethe _and_ Schiller,"--I even fear that they say, "Schiller -and Goethe." ... Has nobody found Schiller out yet?--But there are -other "ands" which are even more egregious. With my own ears I have -heard--only among University professors, it is true!--men speak of -"Schopenhauer _and_ Hartmann." ...[3] - - -17 - -The most intellectual men, provided they are also the most courageous, -experience the most excruciating tragedies: but on that very account -they honour life, because it confronts them with its most formidable -antagonism. - - -18 - -Concerning "_the Conscience of the Intellect_" Nothing seems to me -more uncommon to-day than genuine hypocrisy. I strongly suspect that -this growth is unable to flourish in the mild climate of our culture. -Hypocrisy belongs to an age of strong faith,--one in which one does -not lose one's own faith in spite of the fact that one has to make -an outward show of holding another faith. Nowadays a man gives it -up; or, what is still more common, he acquires a second faith,--in -any case, however, he remains honest. Without a doubt it is possible -to have a much larger number of convictions at present, than it was -formerly: _possible_--that is to say, allowable,--that is to say, -_harmless._ From this there arises an attitude of toleration towards -one's self. Toleration towards one's self allows of a greater number -of convictions: the latter live comfortably side by side, and they -take jolly good care, as all the world does to-day, not to compromise -themselves. How does a man compromise himself to-day? When he is -consistent; when he pursues a straight course; when he has anything -less than five faces; when he is genuine.... I very greatly fear that -modern man is much too fond of comfort for certain vices; and the -consequence is that the latter are dying out. Everything evil which -is the outcome of strength of will--and maybe there is nothing evil -without the strengh of will,--degenerates, in our muggy atmosphere, -into virtue. The few hypocrites I have known only imitated hypocrisy: -like almost every tenth man to-day, they were actors.-- - - -19 - -_Beautiful and Ugly:_--Nothing is more relative, let us say, more -restricted, than our sense of the beautiful. He who would try to -divorce it from the delight man finds in his fellows, would immediately -lose his footing. "Beauty in itself," is simply a word, it is not even -a concept. In the beautiful, man postulates himself as the standard of -perfection; in exceptional cases he worships himself as that standard. -A species has no other alternative than to say "yea" to itself alone, -in this way. Its lowest instinct, the instinct of self-preservation and -self-expansion, still radiates in such sublimities. Man imagines the -world itself to be overflowing with beauty,--he forgets that he is the -cause of it all. He alone has endowed it with beauty. Alas! and only -with human all-too-human beauty! Truth to tell man reflects himself in -things, he thinks everything beautiful that throws his own image back -at him. The judgment "beautiful" is the "vanity of his species." ... -A little demon of suspicion may well whisper into the sceptic's ear: -is the world really beautified simply because man thinks it beautiful? -He has only humanised it--that is all. But nothing, absolutely nothing -proves to us that it is precisely man who is the proper model of -beauty. Who knows what sort of figure he would cut in the eyes of a -higher judge of taste? He might seem a little _outré_? perhaps even -somewhat amusing? perhaps a trifle arbitrary? "O Dionysus, thou divine -one, why dost thou pull mine ears?" Ariadne asks on one occasion of -her philosophic lover, during one of those famous conversations on the -island of Naxos. "I find a sort of humour in thine ears, Ariadne: why -are they not a little longer?" - - -20 - -Nothing is beautiful; man alone is beautiful: all æsthetic rests on -this piece of ingenuousness, it is the first axiom of this science. -And now let us straightway add the second to it: nothing is ugly save -the degenerate man,--within these two first principles the realm of -æsthetic judgments is confined. From the physiological standpoint, -everything ugly weakens and depresses man. It reminds him of decay, -danger, impotence; he literally loses strength in its presence. The -effect of ugliness may be gauged by the dynamometer. Whenever man's -spirits are downcast, it is a sign that he scents the proximity of -something "ugly." His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage -and his pride--these things collapse at the sight of what is ugly, and -rise at the sight of what is beautiful. In both cases an inference is -drawn; the premises to which are stored with extra ordinary abundance -in the instincts. Ugliness is understood to signify a hint and a -symptom of degeneration: that which reminds us however remotely of -degeneracy, impels us to the judgment "ugly." Every sign of exhaustion, -of gravity, of age, of fatigue; every kind of constraint, such as -cramp, or paralysis; and above all the smells, colours and forms -associated with decomposition and putrefaction, however much they may -have been attenuated into symbols,--all these things provoke the same -reaction which is the judgment "ugly." A certain hatred expresses -itself here: what is it that man hates? Without a doubt it is the -_decline of his type._ In this regard his hatred springs from the -deepest instincts of the race: there is horror, caution, profundity and -far-reaching vision in this hatred,--it is the most profound hatred -that exists. On its account alone Art is profound. - - -21 - -_Schopenhauer._--Schopenhauer, the last German who is to be reckoned -with (--who is a European event like Goethe, Hegel, or Heinrich Heine, -and who is not merely local, national), is for a psychologist a case -of the first rank: I mean as a malicious though masterly attempt to -enlist on the side of a general nihilistic depreciation of life, the -very forces which are opposed to such a movement,--that is to say, the -great self-affirming powers of the "will to live," the exuberant forms -of life itself. He interpreted Art, heroism, genius, beauty, great -sympathy, knowledge, the will to truth, and tragedy, one after the -other, as the results of the denial, or of the need of the denial, of -the "will"--the greatest forgery, Christianity always excepted, which -history has to show. Examined more carefully, he is in this respect -simply the heir of the Christian interpretation; except that he knew -how to approve in a Christian fashion (_i.e._, nihilistically) even -of the great facts of human culture, which Christianity completely -repudiates. (He approved of them as paths to "salvation," as -preliminary stages to "salvation," as _appetisers_ calculated to arouse -the desire for "salvation.") - - -22 - -Let me point to one single instance. Schopenhauer speaks of beauty with -melancholy ardour,--why in sooth does he do this? Because in beauty -he sees a bridge on which one can travel further, or which stimulates -one's desire to travel further. According to him it constitutes a -momentary emancipation from the "will"--it lures to eternal salvation. -He values it more particularly as a deliverance from the "burning core -of the will" which is sexuality,--in beauty he recognises the negation -of the procreative instinct. Singular Saint! Some one contradicts thee; -I fear it is Nature. Why is there beauty of tone, colour, aroma, and -of rhythmic movement in Nature at all? What is it forces beauty to the -fore? Fortunately, too, a certain philosopher contradicts him. No less -an authority than the divine Plato himself (thus does Schopenhauer -call him), upholds another proposition: that all beauty lures to -procreation,--that this precisely is the chief characteristic of its -effect, from the lowest sensuality to the highest spirituality. - - -23 - -Plato goes further. With an innocence for which a man must be Greek -and not "Christian," he says that there would be no such thing as -Platonic philosophy if there were not such beautiful boys in Athens: -it was the sight of them alone that set the soul of the philosopher -reeling with erotic passion, and allowed it no rest until it had -planted the seeds of all lofty things in a soil so beautiful. He -was also a singular saint!--One scarcely believes one's ears, even -supposing one believes Plato. At least one realises that philosophy was -pursued differently in Athens; above all, publicly. Nothing is less -Greek than the cobweb-spinning with concepts by an anchorite, _amor -intellectualis dei_ after the fashion of Spinoza. Philosophy according -to Plato's style might be defined rather as an erotic competition, as a -continuation and a spiritualisation of the old agonal gymnastics and -the conditions on which they depend.... What was the ultimate outcome -of this philosophic eroticism of Plato's? A new art-form of the Greek -_Agon,_ dialectics.--In opposition to Schopenhauer and to the honour of -Plato, I would remind you that all the higher culture and literature of -classical France, as well, grew up on the soil of sexual interests. In -all its manifestations you may look for gallantry, the senses, sexual -competition, and "woman," and you will not look in vain. - - -24 - -_L'Art pour l'Art._--The struggle against a purpose in art is always a -struggle against the moral tendency in art, against its subordination -to morality. _L'art pour l'art_ means, "let morality go to the devil!" ---But even this hostility betrays the preponderating power of the moral -prejudice. If art is deprived of the purpose of preaching morality -and of improving mankind, it does not by any means follow that art is -absolutely pointless, purposeless, senseless, in short _l'art pour -l'art_--a snake which bites its own tail. "No purpose at all is better -than a moral purpose!"--thus does pure passion speak. A psychologist, -on the other hand, puts the question: what does all art do? does it -not praise? does it not glorify? does it not select? does it not -bring things into prominence? In all this it strengthens or weakens -certain valuations. Is this only a secondary matter? an accident? -something in which the artist's instinct has no share? Or is it not -rather the very prerequisite which enables the artist to accomplish -something?... Is his most fundamental instinct concerned with art? -Is it not rather concerned with the purpose of art, with life? with -a certain desirable kind of life? Art is the great stimulus to life; -how can it be regarded as purpose less, as pointless, as _l'art pour -l'art?_--There still remains one question to be answered: Art also -reveals much that is ugly, hard and questionable in life,--does it -not thus seem to make life intolerable?--And, as a matter of fact, -there have been philosophers who have ascribed this function to art. -According to Schopenhauer's doctrine, the general object of art was to -"free one from the Will"; and what he honoured as the great utility -of tragedy, was that it "made people more resigned."--But this, as -I have already shown, is a pessimistic standpoint; it is the "evil -eye": the artist himself must be appealed to. What is it that the soul -of the tragic artist communicates to others? Is it not precisely his -fearless attitude towards that which is terrible and questionable? -This attitude is in itself a highly desirable one; he who has once, -experienced it honours it above everything else. He communicates it. He -must communicate, provided he is an artist and a genius in the art of -communication A courageous and free spirit, in the presence of a mighty -foe, in the presence of a sublime misfortune, and face to face with a -problem that inspires horror--this is the triumphant attitude which -the tragic artist selects and which he glorifies. The martial elements -in our soul celebrate their Saturnalia in tragedy; he who is used to -suffering, he who looks out for suffering, the heroic man, extols his -existence by means of tragedy,--to him alone does the tragic artist -offer this cup of sweetest cruelty.-- - - -25 - -To associate in an amiable fashion with anybody; to keep the house of -one's heart open to all, is certainly liberal: but it is nothing else. -One can recognise the hearts that are capable of noble hospitality, by -their wealth of screened windows and closed shutters: they keep their -best rooms empty. Whatever for?--Because they are expecting guests who -are somebodies. - - -26 - -We no longer value ourselves sufficiently highly when we communicate -our soul's content. Our real experiences are not at all garrulous. They -could not communicate themselves even if they wished to. They are at a -loss to find words for such confidences. Those things for which we find -words, are things wehave already overcome. In all speech there lies -an element of contempt. Speech, it would seem, was only invented for -average, mediocre and communicable things.--Every spoken word proclaims -the speaker vulgarised--(Extract from a moral code for deaf-and-dumb -people and other philosophers.) - - -27 - -"This picture is perfectly beautiful!"[4] The dissatisfied and -exasperated literary woman with a desert in her heart and in her belly, -listening with agonised curiosity every instant to the imperative -which whispers to her from the very depths of her being: _aut liberi, -aut libri:_ the literary woman, sufficiently educated to understand the -voice of nature, even when nature speaks Latin, and moreover enough -of a peacock and a goose to speak even French with herself in secret -"_Je me verrai, je me lirai, je m'extasierai et je dirai: Possible, que -j'aie eu tant d'esprit?_" ... - - -28 - -The objective ones speak.--"Nothing comes more easily to us, than to -be wise, patient, superior. We are soaked in the oil of indulgence and -of sympathy, we are absurdly just we forgive everything. Precisely on -that account we should be severe with ourselves; for that very reason -we ought from time to time to go in for a little emotion, a little -emotional vice. It may seem bitter to us; and between ourselves we may -even laugh at the figure which it makes us cut But what does it matter? -We have no other kind of self-control left. This is our asceticism, our -manner of performing penance." _To become personal_--the virtues of the -"impersonal and objective one." - - -29 - -_Extract from a doctor's examination paper.--_"What is the task of all -higher schooling?"--To make man into a machine. "What are the means -employed?"--He must learn how to be bored. "How is this achieved?"--By -means of the concept duty. "What example of duty has he before his -eyes?"--The philologist: it is he who teaches people how to swat. -"Who is the perfect man?"--The Government official. "Which philosophy -furnishes the highest formula for the Government official?"--Kant's -philosophy: the Government official as thing-in-itself made judge over -the Government official as appearance. - - -30 - -_The right to Stupidity._--The worn-out worker, whose breath is -slow, whose look is good-natured, and who lets things slide just as -they please: this typical figure which in this age of labour (and -of "Empire!") is to be met with in all classes of society, has now -begun to appropriate even Art, including the book, above all the -newspaper,--and how much more so beautiful nature, Italy! This man -of the evening, with his "savage instincts lulled," as Faust has it; -needs his summer holiday, his sea-baths, his glacier, his Bayreuth. -In such ages Art has the right to be _purely foolish,_--as a sort of -vacation for spirit, wit and sentiment. Wagner understood this. Pure -foolishness[5] is a pick-me-up.... - - -31 - -_Yet another problem of diet._--The means with which Julius Cæsar -preserved himself against sickness and headaches: heavy marches, -the simplest mode of living, uninterrupted sojourns in the open -air, continual hardships,--generally speaking these are the -self-preservative and self-defensive measures against the extreme -vulnerability of those subtle machines working at the highest -pressure, which are called geniuses. - - -32 - -_The Immoralist speaks._--Nothing is more distasteful to true -philosophers than man when he begins to wish.... If they see man only -at his deeds; if they see this bravest, craftiest and most enduring -of animals even inextricably entangled in disaster, how admirable he -then appears to them! They even encourage him.... But true philosophers -despise the man who wishes, as also the "desirable" man--and all the -desiderata and _ideals_ of man in general. If a philosopher could be a -nihilist, he would be one; for he finds only nonentity behind all human -ideals. Or, not even nonentity, but vileness, absurdity, sickness, -cowardice, fatigue and all sorts of dregs from out the quaffed goblets -of his life.... How is it that man, who as a reality is so estimable, -ceases from deserving respect the moment he begins to desire? Must he -pay for being so perfect as a reality? Must he make up for his deeds, -for the tension of spirit and will which underlies all his deeds, by an -eclipse of his powers in matters of the imagination and in absurdity? -Hitherto the history of his desires has been the _partie honteuse_ of -mankind: one should take care not to read too deeply in this history. -That which justifies man is his reality,--it will justify him to all -eternity. How much more valuable is a real man than any other man -who is merely the phantom of desires, of dreams of stinks and of -lies?--than any kind of ideal man? ... And the ideal man, alone, is -what the philosopher cannot abide. - - -33 - -_The Natural Value of Egoism._--Selfishness has as much value as the -physiological value of him who practises it: its worth may be great, -or it may be worthless and contemptible. Every individual may be -classified according to whether he represents the ascending or the -descending line of life. When this is decided, a canon is obtained -by means of which the value of his selfishness may be determined. -If he represent the ascending line of life, his value is of course -extraordinary--and for the sake of the collective life which in him -makes one step _forward,_ the concern about his maintenance, about -procuring his _optimum_ of conditions may even be extreme. The human -unit, the "individual," as the people and the philosopher have always -understood him, is certainly an error: he is nothing in himself, no -atom, no "link in the chain," no mere heritage from the past,--he -represents the whole direct line of mankind up to his own life.... -If he represent declining development, decay, chronic degeneration, -sickness (--illnesses are on the whole already the outcome of decline, -and not the cause thereof), he is of little worth, and the purest -equity would have him _take away_ as little as possible from those who -are lucky strokes of nature. He is then only a parasite upon them.... - - -34 - -_The Christian and the Anarchist._--When the anarchist, as the -mouthpiece of the decaying strata of society, raises his voice in -splendid indignation for "right," "justice," "equal rights," he -is only groaning under the burden of his ignorance, which cannot -understand _why_ he actually suffers,--what his poverty consists -of--the poverty of life. An instinct of causality is active in -him: someone must be responsible for his being so ill at ease. His -"splendid indignation" alone relieves him somewhat, it is a pleasure -for all poor devils to grumble--it gives them a little intoxicating -sensation of power. The very act of complaining, the mere fact that one -bewails one's lot, may lend such a charm to life that on that account -alone, one is ready to endure it. There is a small dose of revenge in -every lamentation. One casts one's afflictions, and, under certain -circumstances, even one's baseness, in the teeth of those who are -different, as if their condition were an injustice, an _iniquitous_ -privilege. "Since I am _a blackguard_ you ought to be one too." It is -upon such reasoning that revolutions are based.--To bewail one's lot -is always despicable: it is always the outcome of weakness. Whether -one ascribes one's afflictions to others or to _one's self,_ it is all -the same. The socialist does the former, the Christian, for instance, -does the latter. That which is common to both attitudes, or rather -that which is equally ignoble in them both, is the fact that somebody -must be to _blame_ if one suffers--in short that the sufferer drugs -himself with the honey of revenge to allay his anguish. The objects -towards which this lust of vengeance, like a lust of pleasure, are -directed, are purely accidental causes. In all directions the sufferer -finds reasons for cooling his petty passion for revenge. If he is a -Christian, I repeat, he finds these reasons in himself. The Christian -and the Anarchist--both are decadents. But even when the Christian -condemns, slanders, and sullies the world, he is actuated by precisely -the same instinct as that which leads the socialistic workman to curse, -calumniate and cast dirt at society. The last "Judgment" itself is -still the sweetest solace to revenge--revolution, as the socialistic -workman expects it, only thought of as a little more remote.... The -notion of a "Beyond," as well--why a Beyond, if it be not a means of -splashing mud over a "Here," over this world? ... - - -35 - -_A Criticism of the Morality of Decadence._--An "altruistic" -morality, a morality under which selfishness withers, is in all -circumstances a bad sign. This is true of individuals and above -all of nations. The best are lacking when selfishness begins to be -lacking. Instinctively to select that which is harmful to one, to be -_lured_ by "disinterested" motives,--these things almost provide the -formula for decadence. "Not to have one's own interests at heart" ---this is simply a moral fig-leaf concealing a very different fact, a -physiological one, to wit:--"I no longer know how to find what is to my -interest."... Disintegration of the instincts!--All is up with man when -he becomes altruistic.--Instead of saying ingenuously "I am no longer -any good," the lie of morality in the decadent's mouth says: "Nothing -is any good,--life is no good."--A judgment of this kind ultimately -becomes a great danger; for it is infectious, and it soon flourishes -on the polluted soil of society with tropical luxuriance, now as a -religion (Christianity), anon as a philosophy (Schopenhauerism). In -certain circumstances the mere effluvia of such a venomous vegetation, -springing as it does out of the very heart of putrefaction, can poison -life for thousands and thousands of years. - - -36 - -_A moral for doctors._--The sick man is a parasite of society. In -certain cases it is indecent to go on living. To continue to vegetate -in a state of cowardly dependence upon doctors and special treatments, -once the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost, ought to -be regarded with the greatest contempt by society. The doctors, for -their part, should be the agents for imparting this contempt,--they -should no longer prepare prescriptions, but should every day administer -a fresh dose of _disgust_ to their patients. A new responsibility -should be created, that of the doctor--the responsibility of ruthlessly -suppressing and eliminating _degenerate_ life, in all cases in which -the highest interests of life itself, of ascending life, demand such -a course--for instance in favour of the right of procreation, in -favour of the right of being born, in favour of the right to live. -One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. -Death should be chosen freely,--death at the right time, faced clearly -and joyfully and embraced while one is surrounded by one's children -and other witnesses. It should be affected in such a way that a proper -farewell is still possible, that he who is about to take leave of us -is still _himself,_ and really capable not only of valuing what he -has achieved and willed in life, but also of _summing-up_ the value -of life itself. Everything precisely the opposite of the ghastly -comedy which Christianity has made of the hour of death. We should -never forgive Christianity for having so abused the weakness of the -dying man as to do violence to his conscience, or for having used -his manner of dying as a means of valuing both man and his past--In -spite of all cowardly prejudices, it is our duty, in this respect, -above all to reinstate the proper--that is to say, the physiological, -aspect of so-called _natural_ death, which after all is perfectly -"unnatural" and nothing else than suicide. One never perishes through -anybody's fault but one's own. The only thing is that the death which -takes place in the most contemptible circumstances, the death that -is not free, the death which occurs at the wrong time, is the death -of a coward. Out of the very love one bears to life, one should wish -death to be different from this--that is to say, free, deliberate, and -neither a matter of chance nor of surprise. Finally let me whisper a -word of advice to our friends the pessimists and all other decadents. -We have not the power to prevent ourselves from being born: but this -error--for sometimes it is an error--can be rectified if we choose. The -man who does away with himself, performs the most estimable of deeds: -he almost deserves to live for having done so. Society--nay, life -itself, derives more profit from such a deed than from any sort of life -spent in renunciation, anæmia and other virtues,--at least the suicide -frees others from the sight of him, at least he removes one objection -against life. Pessimism _pur et vert,_ can _be proved only_ by the -self-refutation of the pessimists themselves: one should go a step -further in one's consistency; one should not merely deny life with -"The World as Will and Idea," as Schopenhauer did; one should in the -first place _deny Schopenhauer._ ... Incidentally, Pessimism, however -infectious it may be, does not increase the morbidness of an age or of -a whole species; it is rather the expression of that morbidness. One -falls a victim to it in the same way as one falls a victim to cholera; -one must already be predisposed to the disease. Pessimism in itself -does not increase the number of the world's _decadents_ by a single -unit. Let me remind you of the statistical fact that in those years in -which cholera rages, the total number of deaths does not exceed that of -other years. - - -37 - -_Have we become more moral?_--As might have been expected, the whole -_ferocity_ of moral stultification, which, as is well known, passes -for morality itself in Germany, hurled itself against my concept -"Beyond Good and Evil." I could tell you some nice tales about this. -Above all, people tried to make me see the "incontestable superiority" -of our age in regard to moral sentiment, and the _progress_ we had -made in these matters. Compared with us, a Cæsar Borgia was by no -means to be represented as "higher man," the sort of _Superman,_ -which I declared him to be. The editor of the Swiss paper the _Bund_ -went so far as not only to express his admiration for the courage -displayed by my enterprise, but also to pretend to "understand" that -the intended purpose of my work was to abolish all decent feeling. -Much obliged!--In reply, I venture to raise the following question: -_have we really become more moral?_ The fact that everybody believes -that we have is already an objection to the belief. We modern men, -so extremely delicate and susceptible, full of consideration one for -the other, actually dare to suppose that the pampering fellow-feeling -which we all display, this unanimity which we have at last acquired -in sparing and helping and trusting one another marks a definite step -forward, and shows us to be far ahead of the man of the Renaissance. -But every age thinks the same, it is _bound_ to think the same. This -at least, is certain, that we should not dare to stand amid the -conditions which prevailed at the Renaissance, we should not even dare -to imagine ourselves in those conditions: our nerves could not endure -that reality, not to speak of our muscles. The inability to do this -however does not denote any progress; but simply the different and -more senile quality of our particular nature, its greater weakness, -delicateness, and susceptibility, out of which a morality _more rich -in consideration_ was bound to arise. If we imagine our delicateness -and senility, our physiological decrepitude as non-existent, our -morality of "humanisation" would immediately lose all value--no -morality has any value _per se_--it would even fill us with scorn. On -the other hand, do not let us doubt that we moderns, wrapped as we are -in the thick cotton wool of our humanitarianism which would shrink -even from grazing a stone, would present a comedy to Cæsar Borgia's -contemporaries which would literally make them die of laughter. We are -indeed, without knowing it, exceedingly ridiculous with our modern -"virtues." ... The decline of the instincts of hostility and of -those instincts that arouse suspicion,--for this if anything is what -constitutes our progress--is only one of the results manifested by -the general decline in _vitality_: it requires a hundred times more -trouble and caution to live such a dependent and senile existence. -In such circumstances everybody gives everybody else a helping hand, -and, to a certain extent, everybody is either an invalid or an -invalid's attendant. This is then called "virtue": among those men -who knew a different life--that is to say, a fuller, more prodigal, -more superabundant sort of life, it might have been called by another -name,--possibly "cowardice," or "vileness," or "old woman's morality." -... Our mollification of morals--this is my cry; this it you will is -my _innovation_--is the outcome of our decline; conversely hardness -and terribleness in morals may be the result of a surplus of life. -When the latter state prevails, much is dared, much is challenged, -and much is also _squandered_. That which formerly was simply the -salt of life, would now be our _poison_. To be indifferent--even this -is a form of strength--for that, likewise, we are too senile, too -decrepit: our morality of fellow-feeling, against which I was the -first to raise a finger of warning, that which might be called _moral -impressionism_, is one symptom the more of the excessive physiological -irritability which is peculiar to everything decadent. That movement -which attempted to introduce itself in a scientific manner on the -shoulders of Schopenhauer's morality of pity--a very sad attempt!--is -in its essence the movement of decadence in morality, and as such -it is intimately related to Christian morality. Strong ages and -noble cultures see something contemptible in pity, in the "love of -one's neighbour," and in a lack of egoism and of self-esteem.--Ages -should be measured according to their _positive forces_;--valued -by this standard that prodigal and fateful age of the Renaissance, -appears as the last _great_ age, while we moderns with our anxious -care of ourselves and love of our neighbours, with all our unassuming -virtues of industry, equity, and scientific method--with our lust of -collection, of economy and of mechanism--represent a _weak_ age.... -Our virtues are necessarily determined, and are even stimulated, by our -weakness. "Equality," a certain definite process of making everybody -uniform, which only finds its expression in the theory of equal rights, -is essentially bound up with a declining culture: the chasm between -man and man, class and class, the multiplicity of types, the will to -be one's self, and to distinguish one's self--that, in fact, which I -call the _pathos of distance_ is proper to all _strong_ ages. The force -of tension,--nay, the tension itself, between extremes grows slighter -every day,--the extremes themselves are tending to become obliterated -to the point of becoming identical. All our political theories and -state constitutions, not by any means excepting "The German Empire," -are the logical consequences, the necessary consequences of decline; -the unconscious effect of _decadence_ has begun to dominate even the -ideals of the various sciences. My objection to the whole of English -and French sociology still continues to be this, that it knows only -the _decadent form_ of society from experience, and with perfectly -childlike innocence takes the instincts of decline as the norm, the -standard, of sociological valuations. _Descending_ life, the decay -of all organising power--that is to say, of all that power which -separates, cleaves gulfs, and establishes rank above and below, -formulated itself in modern sociology as _the_ ideal. Our socialists -are decadents: but Herbert Spencer was also a _decadent,_--he saw -something to be desired in the triumph of altruism!... - - -38 - -_My Concept of Freedom._--Sometimes the value of a thing does not lie -in that which it helps us to achieve, but in the amount we have to -pay for it,--what it _costs_ us. For instance, liberal institutions -straightway cease from being liberal, the moment they are soundly -established: once this is attained no more grievous and more thorough -enemies of freedom exist than liberal institutions! One knows, of -course, what they bring about: they undermine the Will to Power, -they are the levelling of mountain and valley exalted to a morality, -they make people small, cowardly and pleasure-loving,--by means of -them the gregarious animal invariably triumphs. Liberalism, or, in -plain English, the _transformation of mankind into cattle._ The -same institutions, so long as they are fought for, produce quite -other results; then indeed they promote the cause of freedom quite -powerfully. Regarded more closely, it is war which produces these -results, war in favour of liberal institutions, which, as war, allows -the illiberal instincts to subsist. For war trains men to be free. -What in sooth is freedom? Freedom is the will to be responsible -for ourselves. It is to preserve the distance which separates us -from other men. To grow more indifferent to hardship, to severity, -to privation, and even to life itself. To be ready to sacrifice -men for one's cause, one's self included. Freedom denotes that the -virile instincts which rejoice in war and in victory, prevail over -other instincts; for instance, over the instincts of "happiness." -The man who has won his freedom, and how much more so, therefore, -the spirit that has won its freedom, tramples ruthlessly upon that -contemptible kind of comfort which tea-grocers, Christians, cows, -women, Englishmen and other democrats worship in their dreams. The -free man is a _warrior._--How is freedom measured in individuals -as well as in nations? According to the resistance which has to be -overcome, according to the pains which it costs to remain _uppermost._ -The highest type of free man would have to be sought where the -greatest resistance has continually to be overcome: five paces away -from tyranny, on the very threshold of the danger of thraldom. This -is psychologically true if, by the word "Tyrants" we mean inexorable -and terrible instincts which challenge the _maximum_ amount of -authority and discipline to oppose them--the finest example of this -is Julius Cæsar; it is also true politically: just examine the course -of history. The nations which were worth anything, which _got to -be_ worth anything, never attained to that condition under liberal -institutions: _great danger_ made out of them something which deserves -reverence, that danger which alone can make us aware of our resources, -our virtues, our means of defence, our weapons, our _genius,_--which -_compels_ us to be strong _First_ principle: a man must need to be -strong, otherwise he will never attain it.--Those great forcing-houses -of the strong, of the strongest kind of men that have ever existed on -earth, the aristocratic communities like those of Rome and Venice, -understood freedom precisely as I understand the word: as something -that one has and that one has _not,_ as something that one _will_ have -and that one _seizes by force._ - - -39 - -_A Criticism of Modernity._--Our institutions are no longer any good; -on this point we are all agreed. But the fault does not lie with -them; but with _us._ Now that we have lost all the instincts out -of which institutions grow, the latter on their part are beginning -to disappear from our midst because we are no longer fit for them. -Democracy has always been the death agony of the power of organisation: -already in "Human All-too-Human," Part I., Aph. 472, I pointed out -that modern democracy, together with its half-measures, of which the -"German Empire" is an example, was a decaying form of the State. For -institutions to be possible there must exist a sort of will, instinct, -imperative, which cannot be otherwise than antiliberal to the point of -wickedness: the will to tradition, to authority, to responsibility -for centuries to come, to _solidarity_ in long family lines forwards -and backwards _in infinitum._ If this will is present, something is -founded which resembles the _imperium Romanum;_ or Russia, the _only_ -great nation to-day that has some lasting power and grit in her, that -can bide her time, that can still promise something.--Russia the -opposite of all wretched European petty-statism and neurasthenia, -which the foundation of the German Empire has brought to a crisis. The -whole of the Occident no longer possesses those instincts from which -institutions spring, out of which a _future_ grows: maybe nothing is -more opposed to its "modern spirit" than these things. People live -for the present, the live at top speed,--they certainly live without -any sense of responsibility; and this is precisely what they call -"freedom." Everything in institutions which makes them institutions, -is scorned, loathed and repudiated: everybody is in mortal fear of a -new slavery, wherever the word "authority" is so much as whispered. -The decadence of the valuing instinct, both in our politicians and in -our political parties, goes so far, that they instinctively prefer -that which acts as a solvent, that which precipitates the final -catastrophe.... As an example of this behold _modern_ marriage. All -reason has obviously been divorced from modern marriage: but this is -no objection to matrimony itself but to modernity. The rational basis -of marriage--it lay in the exclusive legal responsibility of the man: -by this means some ballast was laid in the ship of matrimony, whereas -nowadays it has a list, now on this side, now on that The rational -basis of marriage--it lay in its absolute indissolubleness: in this way -it was given a gravity which knew how to make its influence felt, in -the face of the accident of sentiment, passion and momentary impulse: -it lay also in the fact that the responsibility of choosing the parties -to the contract, lay with the families. By showing ever more and more -favour to love-marriages, the very foundation of matrimony, that which -alone makes it an institution, has been undermined. No institution -ever has been nor ever will be built upon an idiosyncrasy; as I say, -marriage cannot be based upon "love." It can be based upon sexual -desire; upon the instinct of property (wife and child as possessions); -upon the instinct of dominion, which constantly organises for itself -the smallest form of dominion,--the family which _requires_ children -and heirs in order to hold fast, also in the physiological sense, to -a certain quantum of acquired power, influence and wealth, so as to -prepare for lasting tasks, and for solidarity in the instincts from -one century to another. Marriage as an institution presupposes the -affirmation of the greatest and most permanent form of organisation; if -society cannot as a whole _stand security_ for itself into the remotest -generations, marriage has no meaning whatsoever.--Modern marriage _has -lost_ its meaning; consequently it is being abolished. - - -40 - -_The question of the Working-man._--The mere fact that there is such -a thing as the question of the working-man is due to stupidity, or at -bottom to degenerate instincts which are the cause of all the stupidity -of modern times. Concerning certain things _no questions ought to be -put:_ the first imperative principle of instinct For the life of me -I cannot see what people want to do with the working-man of Europe, -now that they have made a question of him. He is far too comfortable -to cease from questioning ever more and more, and with ever less -modesty. After all, he has the majority on his side. There is now -not the slightest hope that an unassuming and contented sort of man, -after the style of the Chinaman, will come into being in this quarter: -and this would have been the reasonable course, it was even a dire -necessity. What has been done? Everything has been done with the view -of nipping the very pre-requisite of this accomplishment in the bud, ---with the most frivolous thoughtlessness those selfsame instincts by -means of which a working-class becomes possible, and _tolerable even_ -to its members themselves, have been destroyed root and branch. The -working-man has been declared fit for military service; he has been -granted the right of combination, and of voting: can it be wondered at -that he already regards his condition as one of distress (expressed -morally, as an injustice)? But, again I ask, what do people want? If -they desire a certain end, then they should desire the means thereto. -If they will have slaves, then it is madness to educate them to be -masters. - - -41 - - -"The kind of freedom I do _not_ mean...."[6]--In an age like the -present, it simply adds to one's perils to be left to one's instincts. -The instincts contra diet, disturb, and destroy each other; I have -already defined modernism as physiological self-contradiction. A -reasonable system of education would insist upon at least one of -these instinct-systems being _paralysed_ beneath an iron pressure, in -order to allow others to assert their power, to grow strong, and to -dominate. At present, the only conceivable way of making the individual -possible would be to _prune_ him:--of making him possible--that is to -say, _whole._ The very reverse occurs. Independence, free development, -and _laisser aller_ are clamoured for most violently precisely by -those for whom no restraint _could be too severe_--this is true _in -politics,_ it is true in Art. But this is a symptom of decadence: our -modern notion of "freedom" is one proof the more of the degeneration of -instinct. - - -42 - -_Where faith is necessary._--Nothing is more rare among moralists and -saints than uprightness; maybe they say the reverse is true, maybe -they even believe it. For, when faith is more useful, more effective, -more convincing than _conscious_ hypocrisy, by instinct that hypocrisy -forthwith becomes _innocent:_ first principle towards the understanding -of great saints. The same holds good of philosophers, that other order -of saints; their whole business compels them to concede only certain -truths--that is to say, those by means of which their particular trade -receives the _public_ sanction,--to speak "Kantingly": the truths of -_practical_ reason. They know what they _must_ prove; in this respect -they are practical,--they recognise each other by the fact that -they agree upon "certain truths."--"Thou shalt not lie"--in plain -English:--_Beware,_ Mr Philosopher, of speaking the truth.... - - -43 - -_A quiet hint to Conservatives._--That which we did not know -formerly, and know now, or might know if we chose,--is the fact that -a _retrograde formation,_ a reversion in any sense or degree, is -absolutely impossible. We physiologists, at least, are aware of this. -But all priests and moralists have believed in it,--they wished to -drag and screw man back to a former standard of virtue. Morality has -always been a Procrustean bed. Even the politicians have imitated -the preachers of virtue in this matter. There are parties at the -present day whose one aim and dream is to make all things adopt the -_crab-march._ But not everyone can be a crab. It cannot be helped: we -must go forward,--that is to say step by step further and further into -decadence (--this is my definition of modern "progress"). We can hinder -this development, and by so doing dam up and accumulate degeneration -itself and render it more convulsive, more _volcanic:_ we cannot do -more. - - -44 - -_My concept of Genius._--Great men, like great ages, are explosive -material, in which a stupendous amount of power is accumulated; -the first conditions of their existence are always historical and -physiological; they are the outcome of the fact that for long ages -energy has been collected, hoarded up, saved up and preserved for their -use, and that no explosion has taken place. When, the tension in the -bulk has become sufficiently excessive, the most fortuitous stimulus -suffices in order to call "genius," "great deeds," and momentous -fate-into the world. What then is the good of all environment, -historical periods, "_Zeitgeist_" (Spirit of the age) and "public -opinion"?--Take the case of Napoleon. France of the Revolution, -and still more of the period preceding the Revolution, would have -brought forward a type which was the very reverse of Napoleon: it -actually _did_ produce such a type. And because Napoleon was something -different, the heir of a stronger, more lasting and older civilisation -than that which in France was being smashed to atoms he became master -there, he was the only master there. Great men are necessary, the age -in which they appear is a matter of chance; the fact that they almost -invariably master their age is accounted for simply by the fact that -they are stronger, that they are older, and that power has been stored -longer for them. The relation of a genius to his age is that which -exists between strength and weakness and between maturity and youth: -the age is relatively always very much younger, thinner, less mature, -less resolute and more childish. The fact that the general opinion in -France at the present day, is utterly different on this very point (in -Germany too, but that is of no consequence); the fact that in that -country the theory of environment--a regular neuropathic notion--has -become sacrosanct and almost scientific, and finds acceptance even -among the physiologists, is a very bad, and exceedingly depressing -sign. In England too the same belief prevails: but nobody will be -surprised at that. The Englishman knows only two ways of understanding -the genius and the "great man": either _democratically_ in the style -of Buckle, or religiously after the manner of Carlyle.--The danger -which great men and great ages represent, is simply extraordinary; -every kind of exhaustion and of sterility follows in their wake. The -great man is an end; the great age--the Renaissance for instance,--is -an end. The genius--in work and in deed,--is necessarily a squanderer: -the fact that he spends himself constitutes his greatness. The instinct -of self-preservation is as it were suspended in him; the overpowering -pressure of out-flowing energy in him forbids any such protection and -prudence. People call this "self-sacrifice," they praise his "heroism," -his indifference to his own well-being, his utter devotion to an idea, -a great cause, a father-land: All misunderstandings.... He flows out, -he flows over, he consumes himself, he does not spare himself,--and -does all this with fateful necessity, irrevocably, involuntarily, just -as a river involuntarily bursts its dams. But, owing to the fact that -humanity has been much indebted to such explosives, it has endowed them -with many things, for instance, with a kind of _higher morality_.... -This is indeed the sort of gratitude that humanity is capable of: it -_misunderstands_ its benefactors. - - -45 - -_The criminal and his like._--The criminal type is the type of the -strong man amid unfavourable conditions, a strong man made sick. He -lacks the wild and savage state, a form of nature and existence which -is freer and more dangerous, in which everything that constitutes -the shield and the sword in the instinct of the strong man, takes -a place by right. Society puts a ban upon his virtues; the most -spirited instincts inherent in him immediately become involved with -the depressing passions, with suspicion, fear and dishonour. But this -is almost the recipe for physiological degeneration. When a man has -to do that which he is best suited to do, which he is most fond of -doing, not only clandestinely, but also with long suspense, caution and -ruse, he becomes anæmic; and inasmuch as he is always having to pay -for his instincts in the form of danger, persecution and fatalities, -even his feelings begin to turn against these instincts--he begins to -regard them as fatal. It is society, our tame, mediocre, castrated -society, in which an untutored son of nature who comes to us from his -mountains or from his adventures at sea, must necessarily degenerate -into a criminal. Or almost necessarily: for there are cases in which -such a man shows himself to be stronger than society: the Corsican -Napoleon is the most celebrated case of this. Concerning the problem -before us, Dostoiewsky's testimony is of importance--Dostoiewsky who, -incidentally, was the only psychologist from whom I had anything -to learn: he belongs to the happiest windfalls of my life, happier -even than the discovery of Stendhal. This profound man, who was -right ten times over in esteeming the superficial Germans low, found -the Siberian convicts among whom he lived for many years,--those -thoroughly hopeless criminals for whom no road back to society stood -open--very different from what even he had expected,--that is to say -carved from about the best, hardest and most valuable material that -grows on Russian soil.[7] Let us generalise the case of the criminal; -let us imagine creatures who for some reason or other fail to meet -with public approval, who know that they are regarded neither as -beneficent nor useful,--the feeling of the Chandala, who are aware -that they are not looked upon as equal, but as proscribed, unworthy, -polluted. The thoughts and actions of all such natures are tainted -with a subterranean mouldiness; everything in them is of a paler hue -than in those on whose existence the sun shines. But almost all those -creatures whom, nowadays, we honour and respect, formerly lived in this -semi-sepulchral atmosphere: the man of science, the artist, the genius, -the free spirit, the actor, the business man, and the great explorer. -As long as the _priest_ represented the highest type of man, every -valuable kind of man was depreciated.... The time is coming--this I -guarantee--when he will pass as the _lowest_ type, as our Chandala, as -the falsest and most disreputable kind of man.... I call your attention -to the fact that even now, under the sway of the mildest customs and -usages which have ever ruled on earth or at least in Europe, every -form of standing aside, every kind of prolonged, excessively prolonged -concealment, every unaccustomed and obscure form of existence tends to -approximate to that type which the criminal exemplifies to perfection. -All pioneers of the spirit have, for a while, the grey and fatalistic -mark of the Chandala on their brows: _not_ because they are regarded as -Chandala, but because they themselves feel the terrible chasm which -separates them from all that is traditional and honourable. Almost -every genius knows the "Catilinarian life" as one of the stages in his -development, a feeling of hate, revenge and revolt against everything -that exists, that has ceased to evolve.... Catiline--the early stage of -every Cæsar. - - -46 - -_Here the outlook is free._--When a philosopher holds his tongue it may -be the sign of the loftiness of his soul: when he contradicts himself -it may be love; and the very courtesy of a knight of knowledge may -force him to lie. It has been said, and not without subtlety:--_il -est indigne des grands cœurs de répandre le trouble qu'ils -ressentent[8]:_ but it is necessary to add that there may also be -_grandeur de cœur_ in not shrinking _from the most undignified -proceeding._ A woman who loves sacrifices her honour; a knight of -knowledge who "loves," sacrifices perhaps his humanity; a God who -loved, became a Jew.... - - -47 - -_Beauty no accident_--Even the beauty of a race or of a family, -the charm and perfection of all its movements, is attained with -pains: like genius it is the final result of the accumulated work -of generations. Great sacrifices must have been made on the altar -ol good taste, for its sake many things must have been done, and -much must have been left undone--the seventeenth century in France -is admirable for both of these things,--in this century there must -have been a principle of selection in respect to company, locality, -clothing, the gratification of the instinct of sex; beauty must have -been preferred to profit, to habit, to opinion and to indolence. The -first rule of all:--nobody must "let himself go," not even when he is -alone.--Good things are exceedingly costly:; and in all cases the law -obtains that he who possesses them is a different person from him who -is _acquiring_ them. Everything good is an inheritance: that which is -not inherited is imperfect, it is simply a beginning. In Athens at -the time of Cicero--who expresses his surprise at the fact--the men -and youths were by far superior in beauty to the women: but what hard -work and exertions the male sex had for centuries imposed upon itself -in the service of beauty! We must not be mistaken in regard to the -method employed here: the mere discipline of feelings and thoughts -is little better than nil (--it is in this that the great error of -German culture, which is quite illusory, lies): the _body_ must be -persuaded first. The strict maintenance of a distinguished and tasteful -demeanour, the obligation of frequenting only those who do not "let -themselves go," is amply sufficient to render one distinguished and -tasteful: in two or three generations everything has already _taken -deep root._ The fate of a people and of humanity is decided according -to whether they begin culture at the _right place--not_ at the "soul" -(as the fatal superstition of the priests and half-priests would have -it): the right place is the body, demeanour, diet, physiology--the rest -follows as the night the day.... That is why the Greeks remain the -_first event in culture_--they knew and they _did_ what was needful. -Christianity with its contempt of the body is the greatest mishap that -has ever befallen mankind. - - -48 - -_Progress in my sense._--I also speak of a "return to nature," although -it is not a process of going back but of going up--up into lofty, free -and even terrible nature and naturalness; such a nature as can play -with great tasks and _may_ play with them.... To speak in a _parable._ -Napoleon was an example of a "return to nature," as I understand it -(for instance _in rebus tacticis,_ and still more, as military experts -know, in strategy). But Rousseau--whither did he want to return? -Rousseau this first modern man, idealist and _canaille_ in one person; -who was in need of moral "dignity," in order even to endure the sight -of his own person,--ill with unbridled vanity and wanton self-contempt; -this abortion, who planted his tent on the threshold of modernity, -also wanted a "return to nature"; but, I ask once more, whither did -he wish to return? I hate Rousseau, even _in_ the Revolution itself: -the latter was the historical expression of this hybrid of idealist -and _canaille._ The bloody farce which this Revolution ultimately -became, its "immorality," concerns me but slightly; what I loathe -however is its Rousseauesque _morality_--the so-called "truths" of the -Revolution, by means of which it still exercises power and draws all -flat and mediocre things over to its side. The doctrine of equality! -... But there is no more deadly poison than this; for it _seems_ to -proceed from the very lips of justice, whereas in reality it draws -the curtain down on all justice.... "To equals equality, to unequals -inequality"--that would be the real speech of justice and that which -follows from it "Never make unequal things equal." The fact that so -much horror and blood are associated with this doctrine of equality, -has lent this "modern idea" _par excellence_ such a halo of fire and -glory, that the Revolution as a drama has misled even the most noble -minds.--That after all is no reason for honouring it the more.--I can -see only one who regarded it as it should be regarded--that is to say, -with _loathing;_ I speak of Goethe. - - -49 - -_Goethe_.--No mere German, but a European event: a magnificent attempt -to overcome the eighteenth century by means of a return to nature, by -means of an ascent to the naturalness of the Renaissance, a kind of -self-overcoming on the part of the century in question.--He bore the -strongest instincts of this century in his breast: its sentimentality, -and idolatry of nature, its anti-historic, idealistic, unreal, and -revolutionary spirit (--the latter is only a form of the unreal). He -enlisted history, natural science, antiquity, as well as Spinoza, and -above all practical activity, in his service. He drew a host of very -definite horizons around him; far from liberating himself from life, he -plunged right into it; he did not give in; he took as much as he could -on his own shoulders, and into his heart. That to which he aspired was -_totality_; he was opposed to the sundering of reason, sensuality, -feeling and will (as preached with most repulsive scholasticism -by Kant, the antipodes of Goethe); he disciplined himself into a -harmonious whole, he _created_ himself. Goethe in the midst of an age -of unreal sentiment, was a convinced realist: he said yea to everything -that was like him in this regard,--there was no greater event in his -life than that _ens realissimum_, surnamed Napoleon. Goethe conceived -a strong, highly-cultured man, skilful in all bodily accomplishments, -able to keep himself in check, having a feeling of reverence for -himself, and so constituted as to be able to risk the full enjoyment -of naturalness in all its rich profusion and be strong enough for this -freedom; a man of tolerance, not out of weakness but out of strength, -because he knows how to turn to his own profit that which would ruin -the mediocre nature; a man unto whom nothing is any longer forbidden, -unless it be weakness either as a vice or as a virtue. Such a spirit, -_become free_, appears in the middle of the universe with a feeling -of cheerful and confident fatalism; he believes that only individual -things are bad, and that as a whole the universe justifies and, affirms -itself--_He no longer denies_.... But such a faith is the highest Of -all faiths: I christened it wit! the name of Dionysus. - - -50 - -It might be said that, in a certain sense, the nineteenth century -also strove after all that Goethe himself aspired to: catholicity in -understanding, in approving; a certain reserve towards everything, -daring realism, and a reverence for every fact. How is it that -the total result of this is not a Goethe, but a state of chaos, a -nihilistic groan, an inability to discover where one is, an instinct -of fatigue which _in praxi_ is persistently driving Europe _to hark -back to the eighteenth century_? (--For instance in the form of maudlin -romanticism, altruism, hyper-sentimentality, pessimism in taste, -and socialism in politics). Is not the nineteenth century, at least -in its closing years, merely an accentuated, brutalised eighteenth -century,--that is to say a century of decadence? And has not Goethe -been--not alone for Germany, but also for the whole of Europe,--merely -an episode, a beautiful "in vain"? But great men are misunderstood when -they are regarded from the wretched standpoint of public utility. The -fact that no advantage can be derived from them--_this in itself may -perhaps be peculiar to greatness._ - - -51 - -Goethe is the last German whom I respect: he had understood three -things as I understand them. We also agree as to the "cross."[9] People -often ask me why on earth I write in _German:_ nowhere am I less read -than in the Fatherland. But who knows whether I even _desire_ to be -read at present?--To create things on which time may try its teeth in -vain; to be concerned both in the form and the substance of my writing, -about a certain degree of immortality--never have I been modest enough -to demand less of myself. The aphorism, the sentence, in both of -which I, as the first among Germans, am a master, are the forms of -"eternity"; it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone -else says in a whole book,--what everyone else does _not_ say in a -whole book. - -I have given mankind the deepest book it possesses, my _Zarathustra;_ -before long I shall give it the most independent one. - - -[1] The German word _Rausch_ as used by Nietzsche here, suggests a -blend of our two English words "intoxication" and "elation."--TR. - -[2] An allusion to a verse in Luther's hymn: "_Lass fahren dahin_ ... -_das Reich muss uns doch bleiben,_" which Nietzsche applies to the -German Empire.--TR. - -[3] A disciple of Schopenhauer who blunted the sharpness of his -master's Pessimism and who watered it down for modern requirements.--TR. - -[4] Quotation from the Libretto of Mozart's "Magic Flute" Act I, Sc. -3.--TR. - -[5] This alludes to Parsifal. See my note on p. 96, vol. i., "The Will -to Power."--TR. - -[6] This is a playful adaptation of Max von Schenkendorfs poem -"_Freiheit_" The proper line reads: "_Freiheit die ich meine_" (The -freedom that I do mean).--TR. - -[7] See "Memoirs of a House of the Dead," by Dostoiewsky (translation -by Marie von Thilo: "Buried Alive").--TR. - -[8] Clothilde de Veaux.--TR. - -[9] See my note on p. 147 of Vol. I. of the _Will to Power._--TR. - - - - -THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS - - - -1 - -In conclusion I will just say a word concerning that world to which I -have sought new means of access, to which I may perhaps have found a -new passage--the ancient world. My taste, which is perhaps the reverse -of tolerant, is very far from saying yea through and through even to -this world: on the whole it is not over eager to say _Yea,_ it would -prefer to say _Nay,_ and better still nothing whatever.... This is true -of whole cultures; it is true of books,--it is also true of places -and of landscapes. Truth to tell, the number of ancient books that -count for something in my life is but small; and the most famous are -not of that number. My sense of style, for the epigram as style, was -awakened almost spontaneously upon my acquaintance with Sallust I have -not forgotten the astonishment of my respected teacher Corssen, when -he was forced to give his worst Latin pupil the highest marks,--at one -stroke I had learned all there was to learn. Condensed, severe, with as -much substance as possible in the background, and with cold but roguish -hostility towards all "beautiful words" and "beautiful feelings"--in -these things I found my own particular bent. In my writings up to my -"Zarathustra," there will be found a very earnest ambition to attain -to the _Roman_ style, to the "_ære perennius_" in style.--The same -thing happened on my first acquaintance with Horace. Up to the present -no poet has given me the same artistic raptures as those which from -the first I received from an Horatian ode. In certain languages it -would be absurd even to aspire to what is accomplished by this poet. -This mosaic of words, in which every unit spreads its power to the -left and to the right over the whole, by its sound, by its place in -the sentence, and by its meaning, this _minimum_ in the compass and -number of the signs, and the _maximum_ of energy in the signs which is -thereby achieved--all this is Roman, and, if you will believe me, noble -_par excellence._ By the side of this all the rest of poetry becomes -something popular,--nothing more than senseless sentimental twaddle. - - -2 - -I am not indebted to the Greeks for anything like such strong -impressions; and, to speak frankly, they cannot be to us what the -Romans are. One cannot _learn_ from the Greeks--their style is too -strange, it is also too fluid, to be imperative or to have the effect -of a classic. Who would ever have learnt writing from a Greek! Who -would ever have learned it without the Romans!... Do not let anyone -suggest Plato to me. In regard to Plato I am a thorough sceptic, and -have never been able to agree to the admiration of Plato the _artist,_ -which is traditional among scholars. And after all, in this matter, -the most refined judges of taste in antiquity are on my side. In my -opinion Plato bundles all the forms of style pell-mell together, -in this respect he is one of the first decadents of style: he has -something similar on his conscience to that which the Cynics had -who invented the _satura Menippea._ For the Platonic dialogue--this -revoltingly self-complacent and childish kind of dialectics--to -exercise any charm over you, you must never have read any good French -authors,--Fontenelle for instance. Plato is boring. In reality my -distrust of Plato is fundamental. I find him so very much astray -from all the deepest instincts of the Hellenes, so steeped in moral -prejudices, so pre-existently Christian--the concept "good" is already -the highest value with him,--that rather than use any other expression -I would prefer to designate the whole phenomenon Plato with the hard -word "superior bunkum," or, if you would like it better, "idealism." -Humanity has had to pay dearly for this Athenian having gone to school -among the Egyptians (--or among the Jews in Egypt?...) In the great -fatality of Christianity, Plato is that double-faced fascination -called the "ideal," which made it possible for the more noble natures -of antiquity to misunderstand themselves and to tread the _bridge_ -which led to the "cross." And what an amount of Plato is still to be -found in the concept "church," and in the construction, the system -and the practice of the church!--My recreation, my predilection, my -cure, after all Platonism, has always been Thucydides. Thucydides and -perhaps Machiavelli's _principe_ are most closely related to me owing -to the absolute determination which they show of refusing to deceive -themselves and of seeing reason in _reality,_--not in "rationality," -and still less in "morality." There is no more radical cure than -Thucydides for the lamentably rose-coloured idealisation of the -Greeks which the "classically-cultured" stripling bears with him into -life, as a reward for his public school training. His writings must be -carefully studied line by line, and his unuttered thoughts must be read -as distinctly as what he actually says. There are few thinkers so rich -in unuttered thoughts. In him the culture "of the Sophists"--that is to -say, the culture of realism, receives its most perfect expression: this -inestimable movement in the midst of the moral and idealistic knavery -of the Socratic Schools which was then breaking out in all directions. -Greek philosophy is the decadence of the Greek instinct: Thucydides is -the great summing up, the final manifestation of that strong, severe -positivism which lay in the instincts of the ancient Hellene. After -all, it is courage in the face of reality that distinguishes such -natures as Thucydides from Plato: Plato is a coward I in the face of -reality--consequently he takes refuge in the ideal: Thucydides is -master of himself,--consequently he is able to master life. - - -3 - -To rout up cases of "beautiful souls," "golden means" and other -perfections among the Greeks, to admire, say, their calm grandeur, -their ideal attitude of mind, their exalted simplicity--from this -"exalted simplicity," which after all is a piece of _niaiserie -allemande,_ I was preserved by the psychologist within me. I saw their -strongest instinct, the Will to Power, I saw them quivering with the -fierce violence of this instinct,--I saw all their institutions grow -out of measures of security calculated to preserve each member of -their society from the inner _explosive material_ that lay in his -neighbour's breast This enormous internal tension thus discharged -itself in terrible and reckless hostility outside the state: the -various states mutually tore each other to bits, in order that each -individual state could remain at peace with itself. It was then -necessary to be strong; for danger lay close at hand,--it lurked in -ambush everywhere. The superb suppleness of their bodies, the daring -realism and immorality which is peculiar to the Hellenes, was a -necessity not an inherent quality. It was a result, it had not been -there from the beginning. Even their festivals and their arts were but -means in producing a feeling of superiority, and of showing it: they -are measures of self-glorification; and in certain circumstances of -making one's self terrible.... Fancy judging the Greeks in the German -style, from their philosophers; fancy using the suburban respectability -of the Socratic schools as a key to what is fundamentally Hellenic!... -The philosophers are of course the decadents of Hellas, the -counter-movement directed against the old and noble taste--(against the -agonal instinct, against the _Polls,_ against the value of the race, -against the authority of tradition), Socratic virtues were preached to -the Greeks, _because_ the Greeks had lost virtue: irritable, cowardly, -unsteady, and all turned to play-actors, they had more than sufficient -reason to submit to having morality preached to them. Not that it -helped them in any way; but great words and attitudes are so becoming -to decadents. - - -4 - -I was the first who, in order to understand the ancient, still rich and -even superabundant Hellenic instinct, took that marvellous phenomenon, -which bears the name of Dionysus, seriously: it can be explained only -as a manifestation of excessive energy. Whoever had studied the Greeks, -as that most profound of modern connoisseurs of their culture, Jakob -Burckhardt of Bâle, had done, knew at once that something had been -achieved by means of this interpretation. And in his "_Cultur der -Griechen_" Burckhardt inserted a special chapter on the phenomenon -in question. If you would like a glimpse of the other side, you have -only to refer to the almost laughable poverty of instinct among German -philologists when they approach the Dionysian question. The celebrated -Lobeck, especially, who with the venerable assurance of a worm dried up -between books, crawled into this world of mysterious states, succeeded -inconvincing himself that he was scientific, whereas he was simply -revoltingly superficial and childish,--Lobeck, with all the pomp of -profound erudition, gave us to understand that, as a matter of fact, -there was nothing at all in all these curiosities. Truth to tell, the -priests may well have communicated not a few things of value to the -participators in such orgies; for instance, the fact that wine provokes -desire, that man in certain circumstances lives on fruit, that plants -bloom in the spring and fade in the autumn. As regards the astounding -wealth of rites, symbols and myths which take their origin in the orgy, -and with which the world of antiquity is literally smothered, Lobeck -finds that it prompts him to a feat of even greater ingenuity than -the foregoing phenomenon did. "The Greeks," he says, (_Aglaophamus,_ -I. p. 672), "when they had nothing better to do, laughed, sprang and -romped about, or, inasmuch as men also like a change at times, they -would sit down, weep and bewail their lot Others then came up who tried -to discover some reason for this strange behaviour; and thus, as an -explanation of these habits, there arose an incalculable number of -festivals, legends, and myths. On the other hand it was believed that -the _farcical performances_ which then perchance began to take place -on festival days, necessarily formed part of the celebrations, and -they were retained as an indispensable part of the ritual."--This is -contemptible nonsense, and no one will take a man like Lobeck seriously -for a moment We are very differently affected when we examine the -notion "Hellenic," as Winckelmann and Goethe conceived it, and find it -incompatible with that element out of which Dionysian art springs--I -speak of orgiasm. In reality I do not doubt that Goethe would have -completely excluded any such thing from the potentialities of the Greek -soul. _Consequently Goethe did not understand the Greeks._ For it is -only in the Dionysian mysteries, in the psychology of the Dionysian -state, that the _fundamental fact_ of the Hellenic instinct--its "will -to life"--is expressed. What did the Hellene secure himself with these -mysteries? _Eternal_ life, the eternal recurrence of life; the future -promised and hallowed in the past; the triumphant Yea to life despite -death and change; real life conceived as the collective prolongation -of life through procreation, through the mysteries of sexuality. -To the Greeks, the symbol of sex was the most venerated of symbols, -the really deep significance of all the piety of antiquity. All the -details of the act of procreation, pregnancy and birth gave rise to -the loftiest and most solemn feelings. In the doctrine of mysteries, -_pain_ was pronounced holy: the "pains of childbirth" sanctify pain in -general,--all becoming and all growth, everything that guarantees the -future _involves_ pain.... In order that there may be eternal joy in -creating, in order that the will to life may say Yea to itself in all -eternity, the "pains of childbirth" must also be eternal. All this is -what the word Dionysus signifies: I know of no higher symbolism than -this Greek symbolism, this symbolism of the Dionysian phenomenon. In -it the profoundest instinct of life, the instinct that guarantees the -future of life and life eternal, is understood religiously,--the road -to life itself, procreation, is pronounced _holy,_ ... It was only -Christianity which, with its fundamental resentment against life, made -something impure out of sexuality: it flung _filth_ at the very basis, -the very first condition of our life. - - -5 - -The psychology of orgiasm conceived as the feeling of a superabundance -of vitality and strength, within the scope of which even pain _acts -as a stimulus,_ gave me the key to the concept _tragic_ feeling, -which has been misunderstood not only by Aristotle, but also even -more by our pessimists. Tragedy is so far from proving anything in -regard to the pessimism of the Greeks, as Schopenhauer maintains, -that it ought rather to be considered as the categorical repudiation -and _condemnation_ thereof. The saying of Yea to life, including -even its most strange and most terrible problems, the will to life -rejoicing over its own inexhaustibleness in the _sacrifice_ of its -highest types--this is what I called Dionysian, this is what I -divined as the bridge leading to the psychology of the _tragic_ poet -Not in order to escape from terror and pity, not to purify one's self -of a dangerous passion by discharging it with vehemence--this is how -Aristotle understood it--but to be far beyond terror and pity and to -be the eternal lust of Becoming itself--that lust which also involves -the _lust of destruction._ And with this I once more come into touch -with the spot from which I once set out---the "Birth of Tragedy" was -my first transvaluation of all values: with this I again take my stand -upon the soil from out of which my will and my capacity spring--I, the -last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus,--I, the prophet of eternal -recurrence. - - -THE END. - - - - -THE HAMMER SPEAKETH - - - -"Why so hard!"--said the diamond once unto the charcoal; "are we then -not next of kin?" - -"Why so soft? O my brethren; this is my question to you. For are ye -not--my brothers? - -"Why so soft, so servile and yielding? Why are your hearts so fond of -denial and self-denial? How is it that so little fate looketh out from -your eyes? - -"And if ye will not be men of fate and inexorable, how can ye hope one -day to conquer with me? - -"And if your hardness will not sparkle, cut and divide, how can ye hope -one day to create with me? - -"For all creators are hard. And it must seem to you blessed to stamp -your hand upon millenniums as upon wax,-- - ---Blessed to write upon the will of millenniums as upon brass,--harder -than brass, nobler than brass.--Hard through and through is only the -noblest. - -This new table of values, O my brethren, I set over your heads: Become -hard." - ---"Thus Spake Zarathustra, - -III., 29. - - - - -THE ANTICHRIST - -An Attempted Criticism of Christianity - - - - -PREFACE - - -This book belongs to the very few. Maybe not one of them is yet alive; -unless he be of those who understand my Zarathustra. How _can_ I -confound myself with those who to-day already find a hearing?--Only the -day after to-morrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously. - -I am only too well aware of the conditions under which a man -understands me, and then _necessarily_ understands. He must be -intellectually upright to the point of hardness, in order even to -endure my seriousness and my passion. He must be used to living on -mountain-tops,--and to feeling the wretched gabble of politics and -national egotism _beneath_ him. He must have become indifferent; he -must never inquire whether truth is profitable or whether it may -prove fatal.... Possessing from strength a predilection for questions -for which no one has enough courage nowadays; the courage for the -_forbidden;_ his predestination must be the labyrinth. The experience -of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for the most -remote things. A new conscience for truths which hitherto have -remained dumb. And the will to economy on a large scale: to husband -his strength and his enthusiasm.... He must honour himself, he must -love himself; he must be absolutely free with regard to himself.... -Very well then! Such men alone are my readers, my proper readers, -my preordained readers: of what account are the rest?--the rest are -simply--humanity.--One must be superior to humanity in power, in -loftiness of soul,--in contempt. - -FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE. - - -1 - -Let us look each other in the face. We are hyperboreans,--we know -well enough how far outside the crowd we stand. "Thou wilt find the -way to the Hyperboreans neither by land nor by water": Pindar already -knew this much about us. Beyond the north, the ice, and death--_our -life, our happiness...._ We discovered happiness; we know the way; we -found the way out of thousands of years of labyrinth. Who _else_ would -have found it?--Not the modern man, surely?--"I do not know where I -am or what I am to do; I am everything that knows not where it is or -what to do,"--sighs the modern man. We were made quite ill by _this_ -modernity,--with its indolent peace, its cowardly compromise, and the -whole of the virtuous filth of its Yea and Nay. This tolerance and -_largeur de cœur_ which "forgives" everything because it "understands" -everything, is a Sirocco for us. We prefer to live amid ice than to -be breathed upon by modern virtues and other southerly winds!... We -were brave enough; we spared neither ourselves nor others: but we -were very far from knowing whither to direct our bravery. We were -becoming gloomy; people called us fatalists. _Our_ fate--it was the -abundance, the tension and the storing up of power. We thirsted for -thunderbolts and great deeds; we kept at the most respectful distance -from the joy of the weakling, from "resignation." ... Thunder was in -our air, that part of nature which we are, became overcast--_for we had -no direction._ The formula of our happiness: a Yea, a Nay, a straight -line, a goal. - - -2 - -What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to -Power, and power itself in man. What is bad?--All that proceeds -from weakness. What is happiness?--The feeling that power is -_increasing,_--that resistance has been overcome. - -Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not -virtue, but efficiency[1] (virtue in the Renaissance sense, _virtu,_ -free from all moralic acid). The weak and the botched shall perish: -first principle of our humanity. And they ought even to be helped to -perish. - -What is more harmful than any vice?--Practical sympathy with all the -botched and the weak--Christianity. - - -3 - -The problem I set in this work is not what will replace mankind in the -order of living being! (--Man is an _end_--); but, what type of man -must be _reared,_ must be _willed,_ as having the higher value, as -being the most worthy of life and the surest guarantee of the future. - -This more valuable type has appeared often enough already: but as a -happy accident, as an exception, never as _willed._ He has rather been -precisely the most feared; hitherto he has been almost the terrible in -itself;--and from out the very fear he provoked there arose the will -to rear the type which has how been reared, _attained:_ the domestic -animal, the gregarious animal, the sick animal man,--the Christian. - - -4 - -Mankind does _not_ represent a development towards a better, stronger -or higher type, in the sense in which this is supposed to occur to-day. -"Progress" is merely a modern idea--that is to say, a false idea.[2] -The modern European is still far below the European of the Renaissance -in value. The process of evolution does not by any means imply -elevation, enhancement and increasing strength. - -On the other hand isolated and individual cases are continually -succeeding in different places on earth, as the outcome of the most -different cultures, and in these a _higher type_ certainly manifests -itself: something which by the side of mankind in general, represents a -kind of superman. Such lucky strokes of great success have always been -possible and will perhaps always be possible. And even whole races, -tribes and nations may in certain circumstances represent such _lucky -strokes._ - - -5 - -We must not deck out and adorn Christianity: it has waged a deadly -war upon this _higher_ type of man, it has set a ban upon all the -fundamental instincts of this type, and has distilled evil and the -devil himself out of these instincts:--the strong man as the typical -pariah, the villain. Christianity has sided with everything weak, low, -and botched; it has made an ideal out of _antagonism_ towards all the -self-preservative instincts of strong life: it has corrupted even the -reason of the strongest intellects, by teaching that the highest values -of intellectuality are sinful, misleading and full of temptations. -The most lamentable example of this was the corruption of Pascal, who -believed in the perversion of his reason through original sin, whereas -it had only been perverted by his Christianity. - - -6 - -A painful and ghastly spectacle has just risen before my eyes. I tore -down the curtain which concealed mankind's _corruption._ This word in -my mouth is at least secure from the suspicion that it contains a moral -charge against mankind. It is--I would fain emphasise this again--free -from moralic acid: to such an extent is this so, that I am most -thoroughly conscious of the corruption in question precisely in those -quarters in which hitherto people have aspired with most determination -to "virtue" and to "godliness." As you have already surmised, I -understand corruption in the sense of _decadence._ What I maintain is -this, that all the values upon which mankind builds its highest hopes -and desires are _decadent_ values. - -I call an animal, a species, an individual corrupt, when it loses its -instincts, when it selects and _prefers_ that which is detrimental to -it. A history of the "higher feelings," of "human ideals"--and it is -not impossible that I shall have to write it--would almost explain why -man is so corrupt. Life itself, to my mind, is nothing more nor less -than the instinct of growth, of permanence, of accumulating forces, -of power: where the will to power is lacking, degeneration sets in. -My contention is that all the highest values of mankind _lack_ this -will,--that the values of decline and of _nihilism_ are exercising the -sovereign power under the cover of the holiest names. - - -7 - -Christianity is called the religion of _pity._--Pity is opposed to -the tonic passions which enhance the energy of the feeling of life: -its action is depressing. A man loses power when he pities. By -means of pity the drain on strength which suffering itself already -introduces into the world is multiplied a thousandfold. Through pity, -suffering itself becomes infectious; in certain circumstances it may -lead to a total loss of life and vital energy, which is absurdly -put of proportion to the magnitude of the cause (--the case of the -death of the Nazarene). This is the first standpoint; but there is a -still more important one. Supposing one measures pity according to -the value of the reactions it usually stimulates, its danger to life -appears in a much more telling light On the whole, pity thwarts the -law of development which is the law of selection. It preserves that -which is ripe for death, it fights in favour of the disinherited and -the condemned of life; thanks to the multitude of abortions of all -kinds which it maintains in life, it lends life itself a sombre and -questionable aspect. People have dared to call pity a virtue (--in -every _noble_ culture it is considered as a weakness--); people went -still further, they exalted it to _the_ virtue, the root and origin -of all virtues,--but, of course, what must never be forgotten is the -fact that this was done from the standpoint of a philosophy which -was nihilistic, and on whose shield the device _The Denial of Life_ -was inscribed. Schopenhauer was right in this respect: by means of -pity, life is denied and made _more worthy of denial,_--pity is -the _praxis_ of Nihilism. I repeat, this depressing and infectious -instinct thwarts those instincts which aim at the preservation and -enhancement of the value life: by _multiplying_ misery quite as much -as by preserving all that is miserable, it is the principal agent in -promoting decadence,--pity exhorts people to nothing, to _nonentity!_ -But they do not say "_nonentity_" they say "Beyond," or "God," or "the -true life"; or Nirvana, or Salvation, or Blessedness, instead. This -innocent rhetoric, which belongs to the realm of the religio-moral -idiosyncrasy, immediately appears to be _very much less innocent_ if -one realises what the tendency is which here tries to drape itself in -the mantle of sublime expressions--the tendency of hostility to life. -Schopenhauer was hostile to life: that is why he elevated pity to a -virtue.... Aristotle, as you know, recognised in pity a morbid and -dangerous state, of which it was wise to rid one's self from time to -time by a purgative: he regarded tragedy as a purgative. For the sake -of the instinct of life, it would certainly seem necessary to find some -means of lancing any such morbid and dangerous accumulation of pity, as -that which possessed Schopenhauer (and unfortunately the whole of our -literary and artistic decadence as well, from St Petersburg to Paris, -from Tolstoi to Wagner), if only to make it _burst...._ Nothing is -more unhealthy in the midst of our unhealthy modernity, than Christian -pity. To be doctors _here,_ to be inexorable _here,_ to wield the knife -effectively _here,--_ all this is our business, all this is _our_ -kind of love to our fellows, this is what makes _us_ philosophers, us -hyperboreans!-- - - -8 - -It is necessary to state whom we regard as our antithesis:--the -theologians, and all those who have the blood of theologians in their -veins--the whole of our philosophy.... A man must have had his very -nose upon this fatality, or better still he must have experienced it -in his own soul; he must almost have perished through it, in order -to be unable to treat this matter lightly (--the free-spiritedness -of our friends the naturalists and physiologists is, in my opinion, -a _joke,_--what they lack in these questions is passion, what they -lack is having suffered from these questions--). This poisoning -extends much further than people think: I unearthed the "arrogant" -instinct of the theologian, wherever nowadays people feel themselves -idealists,--wherever, thanks to superior antecedents, they claim the -right to rise above reality and to regard it with suspicion.... Like -the priest the idealist has every grandiloquent concept in his hand -(--and not only in his hand!), he wields them all with kindly contempt -against the "understanding," the "senses," "honours," "decent living," -"science"; he regards such things as _beneath_ him, as detrimental and -seductive forces, upon the face of which, "the Spirit" moves in pure -absoluteness:--as if humility, chastity, poverty, in a word _holiness,_ -had not done incalculably more harm to life hitherto, than any sort of -horror and vice.... Pure spirit is pure falsehood.... As long as the -priest, the _professional_ denier, calumniator and poisoner of life, is -considered as the _highest_ kind of man, there can be no answer to the -question, what _is_ truth? Truth has already been turned topsy-turvy, -when the conscious advocate of nonentity and of denial passes as the -representative of "truth." - - -9 - -It is upon this theological instinct that I wage war. I find traces -of it everywhere. Whoever has the blood of theologians in his veins, -stands from the start in a false and dishonest position to all things. -The pathos which grows out of this state, is called _Faith:_ that is -to say, to shut one's eyes once and for all, in order not to suffer -at the sight of incurable falsity. People convert this faulty view of -all things into a moral, a virtue, a thing of holiness. They endow -their distorted vision with a good conscience,--they claim that no -_other_ point of view is any longer of value, once theirs has been -made sacrosanct with the names "God," "Salvation," "Eternity." I -unearthed the instinct of the theologian everywhere: it is the most -universal, and actually the most subterranean form of falsity on earth. -That which a theologian considers true, _must_ of necessity be false: -this furnishes almost the criterion of truth. It is his most profound -self-preservative instinct which forbids reality ever to attain to -honour in any way, or even to raise its voice. Whithersoever the -influence of the theologian extends, _valuations_ are topsy-turvy, -and the concepts "true" and "false" have necessarily changed places: -that which is most deleterious to life, is here called "true," that -which enhances it, elevates it, says Yea to it, justifies it and -renders it triumphant, is called "false." ... If it should happen that -theologians, _via_ the "conscience" either of princes or of the people, -stretch out their hand for power, let us not be in any doubt as to -what results therefrom each time, namely:--the will to the end, the -_nihilistic_ will to power.... - - -10 - -Among Germans I am immediately understood when I say, that philosophy -is ruined by the blood of theologians. The Protestant minister is -the grand-father of German philosophy, Protestantism itself is the -latter's _peccatum originale._ Definition of Protestantism: the -partial paralysis of Christianity--and of reason.... One needs only to -pronounce the words "Tübingen Seminary," in order to understand what -German philosophy really is at bottom, theology _in disguise_.... The -Swabians are the best liars in Germany, they lie innocently.... Whence -came all the rejoicing with which the appearance of Kant was greeted -by the scholastic world of Germany, three-quarters of which consist of -clergymen's and schoolmasters' sons? Whence came the German conviction, -which finds an echo even now, that Kant inaugurated a change for the -_better?_ The theologian's instinct in the German scholar divined what -had once again been made possible.... A back-staircase leading into -the old ideal was discovered, the concept "true world," the concept -morality as the _essence_ of the world (--those two most vicious errors -that have ever existed!), were, thanks to a subtle and wily scepticism, -once again, if not demonstrable, at least no longer _refutable...._ -Reason, the _prerogative_ of reason, does not extend so far.... Out of -reality they had made "appearance"; and an absolutely false world--that -of being--had been declared to be reality. Kant's success is merely a -theologian's success. Like Luther, and like Leibniz, Kant was one brake -the more upon the already squeaky wheel of German uprightness. - - -11 - -One word more against Kant as a _moralist._ A virtue _must_ be _our_ -invention, our most personal defence and need: in every other sense it -is merely a danger. That which does not constitute a condition of our -life, is merely harmful to it: to possess a virtue merely because one -happens to respect the concept "virtue," as Kant would have us do, is -pernicious. "Virtue," "Duty," "Goodness in itself," goodness stamped -with the character of impersonality and universal validity--these -things are mere mental hallucinations, in which decline the final -devitalisation of life and Königsbergian Chinadom find expression. The -most fundamental laws of preservation and growth, demand precisely the -reverse, namely:--that each should discover _his_ own virtue, his own -Categorical Imperative. A nation goes to the dogs when it confounds -its concept of duty with the general concept of duty. Nothing is more -profoundly, more thoroughly pernicious, than every impersonal feeling -of duty, than every sacrifice to the Moloch of abstraction.--Fancy no -one's having thought Kant's Categorical Imperative _dangerous to life!_ -... The instinct of the theologist alone took it under its wing!--An -action stimulated by the instinct of life, is proved to be a proper -action by the happiness that accompanies it: and that nihilist with the -bowels of a Christian dogmatist regarded happiness as an _objection -..._. What is there that destroys a man more speedily than to work, -think, feel, as an automaton of "duty," without internal promptings, -without a profound personal predilection, without joy? This is the -recipe _par excellence_ of decadence and even of idiocy.... Kant became -an idiot--And he was the contemporary of Goethe! This fatal spider was -regarded as _the_ German philosopher,--is still regarded as such!... I -refrain from saying what I think of the Germans.... Did Kant not see in -the French Revolution the transition of the State from the inorganic to -the _organic_ form? Did he not ask himself whether there was a single -event on record which could be explained otherwise than as a moral -faculty of mankind; so that by means of it, "mankind's tendency towards -good," might be _proved_ once and for all? Kant's reply: "that is the -Revolution." Instinct at fault in anything and everything, hostility to -nature as an instinct, German decadence made into philosophy_--that is -Kant!_ - - -12 - -Except for a few sceptics, the respectable type in the history of -philosophy, the rest do not know the very first pre-requisite of -intellectual uprightness. They all behave like females, do these great -enthusiasts and animal prodigies,--they regard "beautiful feelings" -themselves as arguments, the "heaving breast" as the bellows of -divinity, and conviction as the _criterion_ of truth. In the end, -even Kant, with "Teutonic" innocence, tried to dress this lack of -intellectual conscience up in a scientific garb by means of the concept -"practical reason." He deliberately invented a kind of reason which -at times would allow one to dispense with reason, that is to say when -"morality," when the sublime command "thou shalt," makes itself heard. -When one remembers that in almost all nations the philosopher is only a -further development of the priestly type, this heirloom of priesthood, -this _fraud towards one's self,_ no longer surprises one. When a man -has a holy life-task, as for instance to improve, save, or deliver -mankind, when a man bears God in his breast, and is the mouthpiece of -imperatives from another world,--with such a mission he stands beyond -the pale of all merely reasonable valuations. He is even sanctified by -such a taste, and is already the type of a higher order! What does a -priest care about science! He stands too high for that!--And until now -the priest has _ruled!_--He it was who determined the concept "true -and false." - - -13 - -Do not let us undervalue the fact that we _ourselves,_ we free spirits, -are already a "transvaluation of all values," an incarnate declaration -of war against all the old concepts "true" and "untrue" and of a -triumph over them. The most valuable standpoints are always the last -to be found: but the most valuable standpoints are the methods. AH the -methods and the first principles of our modern scientific procedure, -had for years to encounter the profoundest contempt: association -with them meant exclusion from the society of decent people--one was -regarded as an "enemy of God," as a scoffer at truth and as "one -possessed." With one's scientific nature, one belonged to the Chandala. -We have had the whole feeling of mankind against us; hitherto their -notion of that which ought to be truth, of that which ought to serve -the purpose of truth: every "thou shalt," has been directed against -us.... Our objects, our practices, our calm, cautious distrustful -manner--everything about us seemed to them absolutely despicable and -beneath contempt After all, it might be asked with some justice, -whether the thing which kept mankind blindfold so long, were not an -æsthetic taste: what they demanded of truth was a _picturesque_ effect, -and from the man of science what they expected was that he should make -a forcible appeal to their senses. It was our _modesty_ which ran -counter to their taste so long ... And oh! how well they guessed this, -did these divine turkey-cocks!-- - - -14 - -We have altered our standpoint. In every respect we have become -more modest We no longer derive man from the "spirit," and from the -"godhead"; we have thrust him back among the beasts. We regard him as -the strongest animal, because he is the craftiest: one of the results -thereof is his intellectuality. On the other hand we guard against the -vain pretension, which even here would fain assert itself: that man is -the great _arrière pensée_ of organic evolution! He is by no means the -crown of creation, beside him, every other creature stands at the same -stage of perfection.... And even in asserting this we go a little too -far; for, relatively speaking, man is the most botched and diseased -of animals, and he has wandered furthest from his instincts. Be all -this as it may, he is certainly the most _interesting!_ As regards -animals, Descartes was the first, with really admirable daring, to -venture the thought that the beast was _machina,_ and the whole of -our physiology is endeavouring to prove this proposition. Moreover, -logically we do not set man apart, as Descartes did: the extent -to which man is understood to-day goes only so far as he has been -understood mechanistically. Formerly man was given "free will," as his -dowry from a higher sphere; nowadays we have robbed him even of will, -in view of the fact that no such faculty is any longer known. The only -purpose served by the old word "will," is to designate a result, a -sort of individual reaction which necessarily follows upon a host of -partly discordant and partly harmonious stimuli:--the will no longer -"effects" or "moves" anything.... Formerly people thought that man's -consciousness, his "spirit," was a proof of his lofty origin, of his -divinity. With the idea of perfecting man, he was conjured to draw his -senses inside himself, after the manner of the tortoise, to cut off all -relations with terrestrial things, and to divest himself of his mortal -shell. Then the most important thing about him, the "pure spirit," -would remain over. Even concerning these things we have improved our -standpoint Consciousness, "spirit," now seems to us rather a symptom of -relative imperfection in the organism, as an experiment, a groping, a -misapprehension, an affliction which absorbs an unnecessary quantity of -nervous energy. We deny that anything can be done perfectly so long as -it is done consciously. "Pure spirit" is a piece of "pure stupidity": -if we discount the nervous system, the senses and the "mortal shell," -we have miscalculated--that it is all!... - - -15 - -In Christianity neither morality nor religion comes in touch at all -with reality. Nothing but imaginary _causes_ (God, the soul, the ego, -spirit, free will--or even non-free will); nothing but imaginary -_effects_ (sin, salvation, grace, punishment, forgiveness of sins). -Imaginary beings are supposed to have intercourse (God, spirits, -souls); imaginary Natural History (anthropocentric: total lack of -the notion "natural causes"); an imaginary _psychology_ (nothing -but misunderstandings of self, interpretations of pleasant or -unpleasant general feelings; for instance of the states of the _nervus -sympathicus,_ with the help of the sign language of a religio-moral -idiosyncrasy,--repentance, pangs of conscience, the temptation of -the devil, the presence of God); an imaginary teleology (the Kingdom -of God, the Last Judgment, Everlasting Life).--This purely fictitious -world distinguishes itself very unfavourably from the world of -dreams: the latter _reflects_ reality, whereas the former falsifies, -depreciates and denies it Once the concept "nature" was taken to mean -the opposite of the concept God, the word "natural" had to acquire the -meaning of abominable,--the whole of that fictitious world takes its -root in the hatred of nature (--reality!--), it is the expression of -profound discomfiture in the presence of reality.... _But this explains -everything._ What is the only kind of man who has reasons for wriggling -out of reality by lies? The man who suffers from reality. But in -order to suffer from reality one must be a bungled portion of it. The -preponderance of pain over pleasure is the _cause_ of that fictitious -morality and religion: but any such preponderance furnishes the formula -for decadence. - - -16 - -A criticism of the Christian concept of God inevitably leads to the -same conclusion.--A nation that still believes in itself, also has -its own God. In him it honours the conditions which enable it to -remain uppermost,--that is to say, its virtues. It projects its joy -over itself, its feeling of power, into a being, to whom it can be -thankful for such things. He who is rich, will give of his riches: a -proud people requires a God, unto whom it can _sacrifice_ things.... -Religion, when restricted to these principles, is a form of gratitude. -A man is grateful for his own existence; for this he must have a -God.--Such a God must be able to benefit and to injure him, he must be -able to act the friend and the foe. He must be esteemed for his good -as well as for his evil qualities. The monstrous castration of a God -by making him a God only of goodness, would lie beyond the pale of the -desires of such a community. The evil God is just as urgently needed -as the good God: for a people in such a form of society certainly does -not owe its existence to toleration and humaneness.... What would be -the good of a God who knew nothing of anger, revenge, envy, scorn, -craft, and violence?--who had perhaps never experienced the rapturous -_ardeurs_ of victory and of annihilation? No one would understand such -a God: why should one possess him?--Of course, when a people is on -the road to ruin; when it feels its belief in a future, its hope of -freedom vanishing for ever; when it becomes conscious of submission -as the most useful quality, and of the virtues of the submissive as -self-preservative measures, then its God must also modify himself. -He then becomes a tremulous and unassuming sneak; he counsels "peace -of the soul," the cessation of all hatred, leniency and "love" even -towards friend and foe. He is for ever moralising, he crawls into -the heart of every private virtue, becomes a God for everybody, he -retires from active service and becomes a Cosmopolitan.... Formerly -he represented a people, the strength of a people, everything -aggressive and desirous of power lying concealed in the heart of a -nation: now he is merely the good God.... In very truth Gods have no -other alternative, they are _either_ the Will to Power--in which case -they are always the Gods of whole nations,--or, on the other hand, the -incapacity for power--in which case they necessarily become good. - - - -17 - -Wherever the Will to Power, no matter in what form, begins to decline, -a physiological retrogression, decadence, always supervenes. The -godhead of _decadence,_ shorn of its masculine virtues and passions -is perforce converted into the God of the physiologically degraded, -of the weak. Of course they do not call themselves the weak, they -call themselves "the good." ... No hint will be necessary to help you -to understand at what moment in history the dualistic fiction of a -good and an evil God first became possible. With the same instinct by -which the subjugated reduce their God to "Goodness in itself," they -also cancel the good qualities from their conqueror's God; they avenge -themselves on their masters by diabolising the latter's God.--The _good -God_ and the devil as well:--both the abortions of decadence.--How -is it possible that we are still so indulgent towards the simplicity -of Christian theologians to-day, as to declare with them that the -evolution of the concept God, from the "God of Israel," the God of -a people, to the Christian God, the quintessence of all goodness, -marks a _step forward?_--But even Renan does this. As if Renan had -a right to simplicity! Why the very contrary stares one in the face. -When the pre-requisites of _ascending_ life, when everything strong, -plucky, masterful and proud has been eliminated from the concept -of God, and step by step he has sunk down to the symbol of a staff -for the weary, of a last straw for all those who are drowning; when -he becomes the pauper's God, the sinner's God, the sick man's God -_par excellence,_ and the attribute "Saviour," "Redeemer," remains -_over_ as the one essential attribute of divinity: what does such a -metamorphosis, such an abasement of the godhead imply?--Undoubtedly, -"the kingdom of God" has thus become larger. Formerly all he had was -his people, his "chosen" people. Since then he has gone travelling -over foreign lands, just as his people have done; since then he has -never rested anywhere: until one day he felt at home everywhere, the -Great Cosmopolitan,--until he got the "greatest number," and half the -world on his side. But the God of the "greatest number," the democrat -among gods, did not become a proud heathen god notwithstanding: he -remained a Jew, he remained the God of the back streets, the God of -all dark corners and hovels, of all the unwholesome quarters of the -world!... His universal empire is now as ever a netherworld empire, -an infirmary, a subterranean empire, a ghetto-empire.... And he -himself is so pale, so weak, so decadent ... Even the palest of the -pale were able to master him--our friends the metaphysicians, those -albinos of thought. They spun their webs around him so long that -ultimately he was hypnotised by their movements and himself became a -spider, a metaphysician. Thenceforward he once more began spinning the -world out of his inner being--_sub specie Spinozæ,_--thenceforward -he transfigured himself into something ever thinner and ever more -anæmic, became "ideal," became "pure spirit," became _"absotutum"_ and -"thing-in-itself." ... _The decline and fall of a god:_ God became the -"thing-in-itself." - - -18 - -The Christian concept of God--God as the deity of the sick, God as a -spider, God as spirit--is one of the most corrupt concepts of God that -has ever been attained on earth. Maybe it represents the low-water -mark in the evolutionary ebb of the godlike type God degenerated into -the _contradiction of life,_ instead of being its transfiguration and -eternal Yea! With God war is declared on life, nature, and the will to -life! God is the formula for every calumny of this world and for every -lie concerning a beyond! In God, nonentity is deified, and the will to -nonentity is declared holy! - - -19 - -The fact that the strong races of Northern Europe did not repudiate -the Christian God, certainly does not do any credit to their religious -power, not to speak of their taste They ought to have been able -successfully to cope with such a morbid and decrepit offshoot of -decadence. And a curse lies on their heads; because they were unable to -cope with him: they made illness, decrepitude and contradiction a part -of all their instincts,--since then they have not _created_ any other -God! Two thousand years have passed and not a single new God! But still -there exists, and as if by right,--like an _ultimum_ and _maximum_ of -god-creating power,--the _creator spiritus_ in man, this miserable God -of Christian monotono-theism! This hybrid creature of decay, nonentity, -concept and contradiction, in which all the instincts of decadence, all -the cowardices and languors of the soul find their sanction!---- - - -20 - -With my condemnation of Christianity I should not like to have done -an injustice to a religion which is related to it and the number of -whose followers is even greater; I refer to Buddhism. As nihilistic -religions, they are akin,--they are religions of decadence,--while -each is separated from the other in the most extraordinary fashion. -For being able to compare them at all, the critic of Christianity is -profoundly grateful to Indian scholars.--Buddhism is a hundred times -more realistic than Christianity,--it is part of its constitutional -heritage to be able to face problems objectively and coolly, it is -the outcome of centuries of lasting philosophical activity. The -concept "God" was already exploded when it appeared. Buddhism is -the only really _positive_ religion to be found in history, even -in its epistemology (which is strict phenomenalism)--it no longer -speaks of the "struggle with _sin_" but fully recognising the true -nature of reality it speaks of the "struggle with _pain._" It already -has--and this distinguishes it fundamentally from Christianity,--the -self-deception of moral concepts beneath it,--to use my own -phraseology, it stands _Beyond Good and Evil._ The two physiological -facts upon which it rests and upon which it bestows its attention -are: in the first place excessive irritability of feeling, which -manifests itself as a refined susceptibility to pain, _and also_ as -super-spiritualisation, an all-too-lengthy sojourn amid concepts and -logical procedures, under the influence of which the personal instinct -has suffered in favour of the "impersonal." (--Both of these states -will be known to a few of my readers, the objective ones, who, like -myself, will know them from experience.) Thanks to these physiological -conditions, a state of depression set in, which Buddha sought to combat -by means of hygiene. Against it, he prescribes life in the open, a life -of travel; moderation and careful choice in food; caution in regard to -all intoxicating liquor, as also in regard to all the passions which -tend to create bile and to heat the blood; and he deprecates care -either on one's own or on other people's account He recommends ideas -that bring one either peace or good cheer,--he invents means whereby -the habit of contrary ideas may be lost He understands goodness--being -good--as promoting health. _Prayer_ is out of the question, as is -also _asceticism;_ there is neither a Categorical Imperative nor any -discipline whatsoever, even within the walls of a monastery (--it is -always possible to leave it if one wants to). All these things would -have been only a means of accentuating the excessive irritability -already referred to. Precisely on this account he does not exhort his -followers to wage war upon those who do not share their views; nothing -is more abhorred in his doctrine than the feeling of revenge, of -aversion, and of resentment (--"not through hostility doth hostility -end": the touching refrain of the whole of Buddhism....) And in this -he was right; for it is precisely these passions which are thoroughly -unhealthy in view of the principal dietetic object The mental fatigue -which he finds already existent and which expresses itself in -excessive "objectivity" (_i.e._, the enfeeblement of the individual's -interest--loss of ballast and of "egoism"), he combats by leading -the spiritual interests as well imperatively back to the individual -In Buddha's doctrine egoism is a duty: the thing which is above all -necessary, _i.e.,_ "how canst thou be rid of suffering" regulates -and defines the whole of the spiritual diet (--let anyone but think -of that Athenian who also declared war upon pure "scientificality," -Socrates, who made a morality out of personal egoism even in the realm -of problems). - - -21 - -The pre-requisites for Buddhism are a very mild climate, great -gentleness and liberality in the customs of a people and _no_ -militarism. The movement must also originate among the higher and -even learned classes. Cheerfulness, peace and absence of desire, are -the highest of inspirations, and they are _realised._ Buddhism is not -a religion in which perfection is merely aspired to: perfection is -the normal case. In Christianity all the instincts of the subjugated -and oppressed come to the fore: it is the lowest classes who seek -their salvation in this religion. Here the pastime, the manner of -killing time is to practise the casuistry of sin, self-criticism, and -conscience inquisition. Here the ecstasy in the presence of a _powerful -being,_ called "god," is constantly maintained by means of prayer; -while the highest thing is regarded as unattainable, as a gift, as an -act of "grace" Here plain dealing is also entirely lacking: concealment -and the darkened room are Christian. Here the body is despised, hygiene -is repudiated as sensual; the church repudiates even cleanliness (--the -first Christian measure after the banishment of the Moors was the -closing of the public baths, of which Cordova alone possessed 270). -A certain spirit of cruelty towards one's self and others is also -Christian: hatred of all those who do not share one's views; the will -to persecute Sombre and exciting ideas are in the foreground; the most -coveted states and those which are endowed with the finest names, are -really epileptic in their nature; diet is selected in such a way as -to favour morbid symptoms and to over-excite the nerves. Christian, -too, is the mortal hatred of the earth's rulers,--the "noble,"--and -at the same time a sort of concealed and secret competition with them -(the subjugated leave the "body" to their master--all they want is -the "soul"). Christian is the hatred of the intellect, of pride, of -courage, freedom, intellectual _libertinage;_ Christian is the hatred -of the _senses,_ of the joys of the senses, of joy in general. - - -22 - -When Christianity departed from its native soil, which consisted of the -lowest classes, the _submerged masses_ of the ancient world, and set -forth in quest of power among barbaric nations, it no longer met with -exhausted men but inwardly savage and self-lacerating men--the strong -but bungled men. Here, dissatisfaction with one's self, suffering -through one's self, is not as in the case of Buddhism, excessive -irritability and susceptibility to pain, but rather, conversely, it -is an inordinate desire for inflicting pain, for a discharge of the -inner tension in hostile deeds and ideas. Christianity was in need of -_barbaric_ ideas and values, in order to be able to master barbarians: -such are for instance, the sacrifice of the first-born, the drinking -of blood at communion, the contempt of the intellect and of culture; -torture in all its forms, sensual and non-sensual; the great pomp of -the cult Buddhism is a religion for _senile_ men, for races which -have become kind, gentle, and over-spiritual, and which feel pain too -easily (--Europe is not nearly ripe for it yet--); it calls them back -to peace and cheerfulness, to a regimen for the intellect, to a certain -hardening of the body. Christianity aims at mastering _beasts of prey_; -its expedient is to make them _ill,_--to render feeble is the Christian -recipe for taming, for "civilisation." Buddhism is a religion for the -close and exhaustion of civilisation; Christianity does not even find -civilisation at hand when it appears, in certain circumstances it lays -the foundation of civilisation. - - -23 - -Buddhism, I repeat, is a hundred times colder, more truthful, -more objective. It no longer requires to justify pain and its -susceptibility to suffering by the interpretation of sin,--it simply -says what it thinks, "I suffer." To the barbarian, on the other hand, -suffering in itself is not a respectable thing: in order to acknowledge -to himself that he suffers, what he requires, in the first place, is -an explanation (his instinct directs him more readily to deny his -suffering, or to endure it in silence). In his case, the word "devil" -was a blessing: man had an almighty and terrible enemy,--he had no -reason to be ashamed of suffering at the hands of such an enemy.-- - -At bottom there are in Christianity one or two subtleties which belong -to the Orient In the first place it knows that it is a matter of -indifference whether a thing be true or not; but that it is of the -highest importance that it should be believed to be true. Truth and -the belief that something is true: two totally separate worlds of -interest, almost _opposite worlds,_ the road to the one and the road to -the other lie absolutely apart To be initiated into this fact almost -constitutes one a sage in the Orient: the Brahmins understood it thus, -so did Plato, and so does every disciple of esoteric wisdom. If for -example it give anyone pleasure to believe himself delivered from sin, -it is _not_ a necessary prerequisite thereto that he should be sinful, -but only that he should _feel_ sinful. If, however, _faith_ is above -all necessary, then reason, knowledge, and scientific research must be -brought into evil repute: the road to truth becomes the _forbidden_ -road.--Strong _hope_ is a much greater stimulant of life than any -single realised joy could be. Sufferers must be sustained by a hope -which no actuality can contradict,--and which cannot ever be realised: -the hope of another world. (Precisely on account of this power that -hope has of making the unhappy linger on, the Greeks regarded it as -the evil of evils, as the most _mischievous_ evil: it remained behind -in Pandora's box.) In order that _love_ may be possible, God must be a -person. In order that the lowest instincts may also make their voices -heard God must be young. For the ardour of the women a beautiful saint, -and for the ardour of the men a Virgin Mary has to be pressed into the -foreground. All this on condition that Christianity wishes to rule -over a certain soil, on which Aphrodisiac or Adonis cults had already -determined the _notion_ of a cult. To insist upon _chastity_ only -intensifies the vehemence and profundity of the religious instinct--it -makes the cult warmer, more enthusiastic, more soulful.--Love is the -state in which man sees things most widely different from what they -are. The force of illusion reaches its zenith here, as likewise the -sweetening and transfiguring power. When a man is in love he endures -more than at other times; he submits to everything. The thing was to -discover a religion in which it was possible to love: by this means -the worst in life is overcome--it is no longer even seen.--So much -for three Christian virtues Faith, Hope, and Charity: I call them the -three Christian _precautionary measures._--Buddhism is too full of aged -wisdom, too positivistic to be shrewd in this way. - - -24 - -Here I only touch upon the problem of the origin of Christianity. -The first principle of its solution reads: Christianity can be -understood only in relation to the soil out of which it grew,--it is -not a counter-movement against the Jewish instinct, it is the rational -outcome of the latter, one step further in its appalling logic. In -the formula of the Saviour: "for Salvation is of the Jews."--The -second principle is: the psychological type of the Galilean is still -recognisable, but it was only in a state of utter degeneration (which -is at once a distortion and an overloading with foreign features) that -he was able to serve the purpose for which he has been used,--namely, -as the type of a Redeemer of mankind. - -The Jews are the most remarkable people in the history of the world, -because when they were confronted with the question of Being or -non-Being, with simply uncanny deliberateness, they preferred Being -_at any price:_ this price was the fundamental _falsification_ of all -Nature, all the naturalness and all the reality, of the inner quite -as much as of the outer world. They hedged themselves in behind all -those conditions under which hitherto a people has been able to live, -has been allowed to live; of themselves they created an idea which was -the reverse of _natural_ conditions,--each in turn, they twisted first -religion, then the cult, then morality, history and psychology, about -in a manner so perfectly hopeless that they were made _to contradict -their natural value._ We meet with the same phenomena again, and -exaggerated to an incalculable degree, although only as a copy:--the -Christian Church as compared with the "chosen people," lacks all -claim to originality. Precisely on this account the Jews are the most -_fatal_ people in the history of the world: their ultimate influence -has falsified mankind to such an extent, that even to this day the -Christian can be anti-Semitic in spirit, without comprehending that he -himself is the _final consequence of Judaism._ - -It was in my "Genealogy of Morals" that I first gave a -psychological exposition of the idea of the antithesis noble and -_resentment-morality,_ the latter having arisen out of an attitude -of negation to the former: but this is Judæo-Christian morality -heart and soul. In order to be able to say Nay to everything that -represents the ascending movement of life, prosperity, power, -beauty, and self-affirmation on earth, the instinct of resentment, -become genius, bad to invent _another_ world, from the standpoint -of which that _Yea-saying_ to life appeared as _the_ most evil and -most abominable thing. From the psychological standpoint the Jewish -people are possessed of the toughest vitality. Transplanted amid -impossible conditions, with profound self-preservative intelligence, -it voluntarily took the side of all the instincts of decadence,--_not_ -as though dominated by them, but because it detected a power in them -by means of which it could assert itself _against_ "the world." The -Jews are the opposite of all _decadents_: they have been forced to -represent them to the point of illusion, and with a _non plus ultra_ of -histrionic genius, they have known how to set themselves at the head -of all decadent movements (St Paul and Christianity for instance), in -order to create something from them which is stronger than every party -_saying Yea to life._ For the category of men which aspires to power in -Judaism and Christianity,--that is to say, for the sacerdotal class, -decadence is but a _means;_ this category of men has a vital interest -in making men sick, and in turning the notions "good" and "bad," "true" -and "false," upside down in a manner which is not only dangerous to -life, but also slanders it. - - -25 - -The history of Israel is invaluable as the typical history of every -_denaturalization_ of natural values: let me point to five facts -which relate thereto. Originally, and above all in the period of -the kings, even Israel's attitude to all things was the _right_ one ---that is to say, the natural one. Its Jehovah was the expression of -its consciousness of power, of its joy over itself, of its hope for -itself: victory and salvation were expected from him, through him it -was confident that Nature would give what a people requires--above -all rain. Jehovah is the God of Israel, and _consequently_ the God -of justice: this is the reasoning of every people which is in the -position of power, and which has a good conscience in that position. In -the solemn cult both sides of this self-affirmation of a people find -expression: it is grateful for the great strokes of fate by means of -which it became uppermost; it is grateful for the regularity in the -succession of the seasons and for all good fortune in the rearing of -cattle and in the tilling of the soil.--This state of affairs remained -the ideal for some considerable time, even after it had been swept away -in a deplorable manner by anarchy from within and the Assyrians from -without But the people still retained, as their highest desideratum, -that vision of a king who was a good soldier and a severe judge; -and he who retained it most of all was that typical prophet (--that -is to say, critic and satirist of the age), Isaiah.--But all hopes -remained unrealised. The old God was no longer able to do what he had -done formerly. He ought to have been dropped. What happened? The idea -of him was changed,--the idea of him was denaturalised: this was the -price they paid for retaining him.--Jehovah, the God of "Justice,"--is -no longer one with Israel, no longer the expression of a people's -sense of dignity: he is only a god on certain conditions.... The -idea of him becomes a weapon in the hands of priestly agitators who -henceforth interpret all happiness as a reward, all unhappiness as a -punishment for disobedience to God, for "sin": that most fraudulent -method of interpretation which arrives at a so-called "moral order -of the Universe," by means of which the concept "cause" and "effect" -is turned upside down. Once natural causation has been swept out of -the world by reward and punishment, a causation _hostile to nature_ -becomes necessary; whereupon all the forms of unnaturalness follow. -A God who _demands,_--in the place of a God who helps, who advises, -who is at bottom only a name for every happy inspiration of courage -and of self-reliance.... Morality is no longer the expression of the -conditions of life and growth, no longer the most fundamental instinct -of life, but it has become abstract, it has become the opposite of -life,--Morality as the fundamental perversion of the imagination, -as the "evil eye" for all things. What is Jewish morality, what is -Christian morality? Chance robbed of its innocence; unhappiness -polluted with the idea of "sin"; well-being interpreted as a danger, as -a "temptation"; physiological indisposition poisoned by means of the -canker-worm of conscience.... - - -26 - -The concept of God falsified; the concept of morality falsified: but -the Jewish priesthood did not stop at this. No use could be made of -the whole _history_ of Israel, therefore it must go! These priests -accomplished that miracle of falsification, of which the greater part -of the Bible is the document: with unparalleled contempt and in the -teeth of all tradition and historical facts, they interpreted their own -people's past in a religious manner,--that is to say, they converted -it into a ridiculous mechanical process of salvation, on the principle -that all sin against Jehovah led to punishment, and that all pious -worship of Jehovah led to reward. We would feel this shameful act of -historical falsification far more poignantly if the ecclesiastical -interpretation of history through millenniums had not blunted almost -all our sense for the demands of uprightness _in historicis._ And -the church is seconded by the philosophers: _the_ of "a moral order -of the universe" permeates the whole development even of more modern -philosophy. What does a "moral order of the universe" mean? That once -and for all there is such a thing as a will of God which determines -what man has to do and what he has to leave undone; that the value -of a people or of an individual is measured according to how much or -how little the one or the other obeys the will of God; that in the -destinies of a people or of an individual, the will of God shows -itself dominant, that is to say it punishes or rewards according to -the degree of obedience. In the place of this miserable falsehood, -_reality_ says: a parasitical type of man, who can flourish only at the -cost of all the healthy elements of life, the priest abuses the name -of God: he calls that state of affairs in which the priest determines -the value of things "the Kingdom of God"; he calls the means whereby -such a state of affairs is attained or maintained, "the Will of God"; -with cold-blooded cynicism he measures peoples, ages and individuals -according to whether they favour or oppose the ascendancy of the -priesthood. Watch him at work: in the hands of the Jewish priesthood -the Augustan Age in the history of Israel became an age of decline; -the exile, the protracted misfortune transformed itself into eternal -_punishment_ for the Augustan Age--that age in which the priest did not -yet exist Out of the mighty and thoroughly free-born figures of the -history of Israel, they made, according to their requirements, either -wretched bigots and hypocrites, or "godless ones": they simplified -the psychology of every great event to the idiotic formula "obedient -or disobedient to God."--A step further: the "Will of God," that is -to say the self-preservative measures of the priesthood, must be -known--to this end a "revelation" is necessary. In plain English: a -stupendous literary fraud becomes necessary, "holy scriptures" are -discovered,--and they are published abroad with all hieratic pomp, -with days of penance and lamentations over the long state Of "sin." -The "Will of God" has long stood firm: the whole of the trouble -lies in the fact that the "Holy Scriptures" have been discarded.... -Moses was already the "Will of God" revealed.... What had happened? -With severity and pedantry, the priest had formulated once and for -all--even to the largest and smallest contributions that were to be -paid to him (--not forgetting the daintiest portions of meat; for the -priest is a consumer of beef-steaks)--_what he wanted,_ "what the Will -of God was." ... Hence-forward everything became so arranged that the -priests were _indispensable everywhere._ At all the natural events of -life, at birth, at marriage, at the sick-bed, at death,--not to speak -of the sacrifice ("the meal"),--the holy parasite appears in order -to denaturalise, or in his language, to "sanctify," everything.... -For this should be understood: every natural custom, every natural -institution (the State, the administration of justice, marriage, the -care of the sick and the poor), every demand inspired by the instinct -of life, in short everything that has a value in itself, is rendered -absolutely worthless and even dangerous through the parasitism of the -priest (or of the "moral order of the universe"): a sanction after -the fact is required,--a _power which imparts value_ is necessary, -which in so doing says, Nay to nature, and which by this means alone -_creates_ a valuation.... The priest depreciates and desecrates nature: -it is only at this price that he exists at all.--Disobedience to God, -that is to say, to the priest, to the "law," now receives the name of -"sin"; the means of "reconciling one's self with God" are of course -of a nature which render subordination to the priesthood all the -more fundamental: the priest alone is able to "save." ... From the -psychological standpoint, in every society organised upon a hieratic -basis, "sins" are indispensable: they are the actual weapons of power, -the priest _lives_ upon sins, it is necessary for him that people -should "sin." ... Supreme axiom: "God forgiveth him that repenteth"--in -plain English: _him that submitteth himself to the priest._ - - -27 - -Christianity grew out of an utterly _false_ soil, in which all nature, -every natural value, every _reality_ had the deepest instincts of the -ruling class against it; it was a form of deadly hostility to reality -which has never been surpassed. The "holy people" which had retained -only priestly values and priestly names for all things, and which, with -a logical consistency that is terrifying, had divorced itself from -everything still powerful on earth as if it were "unholy," "worldly," -"sinful,"--this people created a final formula for its instinct which -was consistent to the point of self-suppression; as _Christianity_ it -denied even the last form of reality, the "holy people," the "chosen -people," _Jewish_ reality itself. The case is of supreme interest: -the small insurrectionary movement christened with the name of Jesus -of Nazareth, is the Jewish instinct _over again,_--in other words, -it is the sacerdotal instinct which can no longer endure the priest -as a fact; it is the discovery of a kind of life even more fantastic -than the one previously conceived, a vision of life which is even -more unreal than that which the organisation of a church stipulates. -Christianity denies the church.[3] - -I fail to see against whom was directed the insurrection of which -rightly or _wrongly_ Jesus is understood to have been the promoter, -if it were not directed against the Jewish church,--the word "church" -being used here in precisely the same sense in which it is used to-day. -It was an insurrection against the "good and the just," against -the "prophets of Israel," against the hierarchy of society--not -against the latter's corruption, but against caste, privilege, order, -formality. It was the lack of faith in "higher men," it was a "Nay" -uttered against everything that was tinctured with the blood of priests -and theologians. But the hierarchy which was set in question if only -temporarily by this movement, formed the construction of piles upon -which, alone, the Jewish people was able to subsist in the midst of the -"waters"; it was that people's _last_ chance of survival wrested from -the world at enormous pains, the _residuum_ of its political autonomy: -to attack this construction was tantamount to attacking the most -profound popular instinct, the most tenacious national will to live -that has ever existed on earth. This saintly anarchist who called the -lowest of the low, the outcasts and "sinners," the Chandala of Judaism, -to revolt against the established order of things (and in language -which, if the gospels are to be trusted, would get one sent to Siberia -even to-day)--this man was a political criminal in so far as political -criminals were possible in a community so absurdly non-political. This -brought him to the cross: the proof of this is the inscription found -thereon. He died for _his_ sins--and no matter how often the contrary -has been asserted there is absolutely nothing to show that he died for -the sins of others. - - -28 - -As to whether he was conscious of this contrast, or whether he was -merely _regarded_ as such, is quite another question. And here, alone, -do I touch upon the problem of the psychology of the Saviour.--I -confess there are few books which I have as much difficulty in reading -as the gospels. These difficulties are quite different from those which -allowed the learned curiosity of the German, mind to celebrate one -of its most memorable triumphs. Many years have now elapsed since I, -like every young scholar, with the sage conscientiousness of a refined -philologist, relished the work of the incomparable Strauss. I was then -twenty years of age; now I am too serious for that sort of thing. What -do I care about the contradictions of "tradition"? How can saintly -legends be called "tradition" at all! The stories of saints constitute -the most ambiguous literature on earth: to apply the scientific method -to them, _when there are no other documents to hand,_ seems to me to be -a fatal procedure from the start--simply learned fooling. - - -29 - -The point that concerns me is the psychological type of the Saviour. -This type might be contained in the gospels, in spite of the gospels, -and however much it may have been mutilated, or overladen with -foreign features: just as that of Francis of Assisi is contained -in his legends in spite of his legends. It is _not_ a question of -the truth concerning what he has done, what he has said, and how he -actually died; but whether his type may still be conceived in any way, -whether it has been handed down to us at all?--The attempts which -to my knowledge have been made to read the _history_ of a "soul" out -of the gospels, seem to me to point only to disreputable levity in -psychological matters. M. Renan, that buffoon _in psychologies,_ has -contributed the two most monstrous ideas imaginable to the explanation -of the type of Jesus: the idea of the _genius_ and the idea of the -_hero_ ("_héros_"). But if there is anything thoroughly unevangelical -surely it is the idea of the hero. It is precisely the reverse of all -struggle, of all consciousness of taking part in the fight, that has -become instinctive here: the inability to resist is here converted into -a morality ("resist not evil," the profoundest sentence in the whole of -the gospels, their key in a certain sense), the blessedness of peace, -of gentleness, of not _being able_ to be an enemy. What is the meaning -of "glad tidings"?--True life, eternal life has been found--it is not -promised, it is actually here, it is in _you;_ it is life in love, in -love free from all selection or exclusion, free from all distance. -Everybody is the child of God--Jesus does not by any means claim -anything for himself alone,--as the child of God everybody is equal to -everybody else.... Fancy making Jesus a _hero!_--And what a tremendous -misunderstanding the word "genius" is! Our whole idea of "spirit," -which is a civilised idea, could have had no meaning whatever in the -world in which Jesus lived. In the strict terms of the physiologist, a -very different word ought to be used here.... We know of a condition of -morbid irritability of the sense of _touch,_ which recoils shuddering -from every kind of contact, and from every attempt at grasping a solid -object. Any such physiological _habitus_ reduced to its ultimate -logical conclusion, becomes an instinctive hatred of all reality, a -flight into the "intangible," into the "incomprehensible"; a repugnance -to all formulæ, to every notion of time and space, to everything that -is established such as customs, institutions, the church; a feeling -at one's ease in a world in which no sign of reality is any longer -visible, a merely "inner" world, a "true" world, an "eternal" world.... -"The Kingdom of God is within you"... - - -30 - -_The instinctive hatred of reality_ is the outcome of an extreme -susceptibility to pain and to irritation, which can no longer endure to -be "touched" at all, because every sensation strikes too deep. - -_The instinctive exclusion of all aversion, of all hostility, of all -boundaries and distances in feeling,_ is the outcome of an extreme -susceptibility to pain and to irritation, which regards all resistance, -all compulsory resistance as insufferable _anguish_(--that is to say, -as harmful, as _deprecated_ by the self-preservative instinct), and -which knows blessedness (happiness) only when it is no longer obliged -to offer resistance to anybody, either evil or detrimental,--love as -the Only ultimate possibility of life.... - -These are the two _physiological realities_ upon which and out of which -the doctrine of salvation has grown. I call them a sublime further -development of hedonism, upon a thoroughly morbid soil. Epicureanism, -the pagan theory of salvation, even though it possessed a large -proportion of Greek vitality and nervous energy, remains the most -closely related to the above. Epicurus was a _typical_ decadent: and I -was the first to recognise him as such.--The terror of pain, even of -infinitely slight pain--such a state cannot possibly help culminating -in a _religion_ of love.... - - -31 - -I have given my reply to the problem in advance. The prerequisite -thereto was the admission of the fact that the type of the Saviour has -reached us only in a very distorted form. This distortion in itself -is extremely feasible: for many reasons a type of that kind could not -be pure, whole, and free from additions. The environment in which -this strange figure moved, must have left its mark upon him, and the -history, the _destiny_ of the first Christian communities must have -done so to a still greater degree. Thanks to that destiny, the type -must have been enriched retrospectively with features which can be -interpreted only as serving the purposes of war and of propaganda -That strange and morbid world into which the gospels lead us--a -world which seems to have been drawn from a Russian novel, where -the scum and dross of society, diseases of the nerves and "childish" -imbecility seem to have given each other rendezvous--must in any case -have _coarsened_ the type: the first disciples especially must have -translated an existence conceived entirely in symbols and abstractions -into their own crudities, in order at least to be able to understand -something about it,--for them the type existed only after it had -been cast in a more familiar mould.... The prophet, the Messiah, the -future judge, the teacher of morals, the thaumaturgist, John the -Baptist--all these were but so many opportunities of misunderstanding -the type.... Finally, let us not under-rate the _proprium_ of all great -and especially sectarian veneration: very often it effaces from the -venerated object, all the original and frequently painfully un-familiar -traits and idiosyncrasies--_it does not even see them._ It is greatly -to be deplored that no Dostoiewsky lived in the neighbourhood of this -most interesting decadent,--I mean someone who would have known how to -feel the poignant charm of such a mixture of the sublime, the morbid, -and the childlike. Finally, the type, as an example of decadence, may -actually have been extraordinarily multifarious and contradictory: -this, as a possible alternative, is not to be altogether ignored. -Albeit, everything seems to point away from it; for, precisely in this -case, tradition would necessarily have been particularly true and -objective: whereas we have reasons for assuming the reverse. Meanwhile -a yawning chasm of contradiction separates the mountain, lake, and -pastoral preacher, who strikes us as a Buddha on a soil only very -slightly Hindu, from that combative fanatic, the mortal enemy of -theologians and priests, whom Renan's malice has glorified as "_le -grand maître en ironie._" For my part, I do not doubt but what the -greater part of this venom (and even of _esprit_) was inoculated into -the type of the Master only as the outcome of the agitated condition -of Christian propaganda. For we have ample reasons for knowing the -unscrupulousness of all sectarians when they wish to contrive their own -_apology_ out of the person of their master. When the first Christian -community required a discerning, wrangling, quarrelsome, malicious and -hair-splitting theologian, to oppose other theologians, it created its -"God" according to its needs; just as it did not hesitate to put upon -his lips those utterly unevangelical ideas of "his second coming," the -"last judgment,"--ideas with which it could not then dispense,--and -every kind of expectation and promise which happened to be current. - - -32 - -I can only repeat that I am opposed to the importation of the fanatic -into the type of the Saviour: the word "_impérieux,_" which Renan -uses, in itself annuls the type. The "glad tidings" are simply that -there are no longer any contradictions, that the Kingdom of Heaven is -for the _children;_ the faith which raises its voice here is not a -faith that has been won by a struggle,--it is to hand, it was there -from the beginning, it is a sort of spiritual return to childishness. -The case of delayed and undeveloped puberty in the organism, as the -result of degeneration is at least familiar to physiologists. A faith -of this sort does not show anger, it does not blame, neither does it -defend itself: it does not bring "the sword,"--it has no inkling of -how it will one day establish feuds between man and man. It does not -demonstrate itself, either by miracles, or by reward and promises, or -yet "through the scriptures": it is in itself at every moment its own -miracle, its own reward, its own proof, its own "Kingdom of God." This -faith cannot be formulated--it lives, it guards against formulas. The -accident of environment, of speech, of preparatory culture, certainly -determines a particular series of conceptions: early Christianity deals -only in Judæo-Semitic conceptions (--the eating and drinking at the -last supper form part of these,--this idea which like everything Jewish -has been abused so maliciously by the church). But one should guard -against seeing anything more than a language of signs, semiotics, an -opportunity for parables in all this. The very fact that no word is to -be taken literally, is the only condition on which this Anti-realist -is able to speak at all. Among Indians he would have made use of the -ideas of Sankhyara, among Chinese, those of Lao-tze--and would not -have been aware of any difference. With a little terminological laxity -Jesus might be called a "free spirit"--he cares not a jot for anything -that is established: the word _killeth,_ everything fixed _killtth._ -The idea, _experience,_ "life" as he alone knows it, is, according to -him, opposed to every kind of word, formula, law, faith and dogma. He -speaks only of the innermost things: "life" or "truth," or "light," is -his expression for the innermost thing,--everything else, the whole of -reality, the whole of nature, language even, has only the value of a -sign, of a simile for him.--It is of paramount importance not to make -any mistake at this point, however great may be the temptation thereto -that lies in Christian--I mean to say, ecclesiastical prejudice. Any -such essential symbolism stands beyond the pale of all religion, all -notions of cult, all history, all natural science, all experience of -the world, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology, all books and -all Art--for his "wisdom" is precisely the complete ignorance[4] of the -existence of such things. He has not even heard speak of _culture,_ he -does not require to oppose it,--he does not deny it.... The same holds -good of the state, of the whole of civil and social order, of work -and of war--he never had any reason to deny the world, he had not the -vaguest notion of the ecclesiastical concept "the world." ... Denying -is precisely what was quite impossible to him.--Dialectic is also -quite absent, as likewise the idea that any faith, any "truth" can be -proved by argument (--his proofs are inner "lights," inward feelings of -happiness and self-affirmation, a host of "proofs of power"--). Neither -can such a doctrine contradict, it does not even realise the fact that -there are or can be other doctrines, it is absolutely incapable of -imagining a contrary judgment.... Wherever it encounters such things, -from a feeling of profound sympathy it bemoans such "blindness,"--for -it sees the "light,"--but it raises no objections. - - -33 - -The whole psychology of the "gospels" lacks the concept of guilt and -punishment, as also that of reward. "Sin," any sort of aloofness -between God and man, is done away with,--_this is precisely what -constitutes the "glad tidings"._ Eternal bliss is not promised, it is -not bound up with certain conditions; it is the only reality--the rest -consists only of signs wherewith to speak about it.... - -The results of such a state project themselves into a new practice -of life, the actual evangelical practice. It is not a "faith" which -distinguishes the Christians: the Christian acts, he distinguishes -himself by means of a _different_ mode of action. He does not resist -his enemy either by words or in his heart He draws no distinction -between foreigners and natives, between Jews and Gentiles ("the -neighbour" really means the co-religionist, the Jew). He is angry with -no one, he despises no one. He neither shows himself at the tribunals -nor does he acknowledge any of their claims ("Swear not at all"). -He never under any circumstances divorces his wife, even when her -infidelity has been proved.--All this is at bottom one principle, it is -all the outcome of one instinct-- - -The life of the Saviour was naught else than this practice,--neither -was his death. He no longer required any formulæ, any rites for his -relations with God--not even prayer. He has done with all the Jewish -teaching of repentance and of atonement; he alone knows the _mode_ -of life which makes one feel "divine," "saved," "evangelical," and -at all times a "child of God." _Not_ "repentance," _not_ "prayer and -forgiveness" are the roads to God: the _evangelical mode of life -alone_ leads to God, it _is_ "God."--That which the gospels abolished -was the Judaism of the concepts "sin," "forgiveness of sin," "faith," -"salvation through faith,"--the whole doctrine of the Jewish church was -denied by the "glad tidings." - -The profound instinct of how one must live in order to feel "in -Heaven," in order to feel "eternal," while in every other respect -one feels by _no_ means "in Heaven": this alone is the psychological -reality of "Salvation."--A new life and _not_ a new faith.... - - -34 - -If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist, it is -this that he regarded only _inner_ facts as facts, as "truths,"--that -he understood the rest, everything natural, temporal, material -and historical, only as signs, as opportunities for parables. The -concept "the Son of Man," is not a concrete personality belonging to -history, anything individual and isolated, but an "eternal" fact, -a psychological symbol divorced from the concept of time. The same -is true, and in the highest degree, of the _God_ of this typical -symbolist, of the "Kingdom of God," of the "Kingdom of Heaven," and -of the "Sonship of God." Nothing is more un-Christlike than the -_ecclesiastical crudity_ of a personal God, of a Kingdom of God that -is coming, of a "Kingdom of Heaven" beyond, of a "Son of God" as the -second person of the Trinity. All this, if I may be forgiven the -expression, is as fitting as a square peg in a round hole--and oh! -what a hole!--the gospels: a _world-historic_ cynicism in the scorn -of symbols.... But what is meant by the signs "Father" and "Son," is -of course obvious--not to everybody, I admit: with the word "Son," -_entrance_ into the feeling of the general transfiguration of all -things (beatitude) is expressed, with the word "Father," _this feeling -itself_ the feeling of eternity and of perfection.--I blush to have to -remind you of what the Church has done with this symbolism: has it not -set an Amphitryon story at the threshold of the Christian "faith"? And -a dogma of immaculate conception into the bargain?... _But by so doing -it defiled conception._---- - -The "Kingdom of Heaven" is a state of the heart--not something -which exists "beyond this earth" or comes to you "after death." The -whole idea of natural death is lacking in the gospels. Death is not -a bridge, not a means of access: it is absent because it belongs to -quite a different and merely apparent world the only use of which is -to furnish signs, similes. The "hour of death" is not a Christian -idea--the "hour," time in general, physical life and its crises do not -exist for the messenger of "glad tidings." ... The "Kingdom of God" is -not some thing that is expected; it has no yesterday nor any day after -to-morrow, it is not going to come in a "thousand years"--it is an -experience of a human heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere.... - - -35 - -This "messenger of glad tidings" died as he lived and as he -taught--_not_ in order "to save mankind," but in order to show how one -ought to live. It was a mode of life that he bequeathed to mankind: his -behaviour before his judges, his attitude towards his executioners, -his accusers, and all kinds of calumny and scorn,--his demeanour on -the _cross._ He offers no resistance; he does not defend his rights; -he takes no step to ward off the most extreme consequences, he does -more,--he provokes them. And he prays, suffers and loves with those, in -those, who treat him ill.... _Not_ to defend one's self, _not_ to show -anger, not to hold anyone responsible.... But to refrain from resisting -even the evil one,--to _love_ him.... - - -36 - ---Only we spirits that have _become free,_ possess the necessary -condition for understanding something which nineteen centuries have -misunderstood,--that honesty which has become an instinct and a passion -in us, and which wages war upon the "holy lie" with even more vigour -than upon every other lie.... Mankind was unspeakably far from our -beneficent and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the mind, -which, alone, renders the solution of such strange and subtle things -possible: at all times, with shameless egoism, all that people sought -was their _own_ advantage in these matters, the Church was built up out -of contradiction to the gospel.... - -Whoever might seek for signs pointing to the guiding fingers of an -ironical deity behind the great comedy of existence, would find no -small argument in the _huge note of interrogation_ that is called -Christianity. The fact that mankind is on its knees before the reverse -of that which formed the origin, the meaning and the _rights_ of -the gospel; the fact that, in the idea "Church," precisely that is -pronounced holy which the "messenger of glad tidings" regarded as -_beneath_ him, as _behind_ him--one might seek in vain for a more -egregious example _of world-historic_ irony--- - - -37 - ---Our age is proud of its historical sense: how could it allow -itself to be convinced of the nonsensical idea that at the beginning -Christianity consisted only of the _clumsy fable of the thaumaturgist -and of the Saviour,_ and that all its spiritual and symbolic -side was only developed later? On the contrary: the history of -Christianity--from the death on the cross onwards--is the history of -a gradual and ever coarser misunderstanding of an original symbolism. -With every extension of Christianity over ever larger and ruder -masses, who were ever less able to grasp its first principles, the -need of _vulgarising and barbarising it_ increased proportionately--it -absorbed the teachings and rites of all the _subterranean_ cults of the -_imperium Romanum,_ as well as the nonsense of every kind of morbid -reasoning. The fatal feature of Christianity lies in the necessary -fact that its faith had to become as morbid, base and vulgar as the -needs to which it had to minister were morbid, base and vulgar. _Morbid -barbarism_ at last braces itself together for power in the form of the -Church--the Church, this deadly hostility to all honesty, to all -loftiness of the soul, to all discipline of the mind, to all frank and -kindly humanity.--_Christian_ and _noble_ values: only we spirits _who -have become free have_ re-established this contrast in values which is -the greatest that has ever existed on earth!-- - - -38 - ---I cannot, at this point, stifle a sigh. There are days when I -am visited by a feeling blacker than the blackest melancholy--the -_contempt of man._ And in order that I may leave you in no doubt as -to what I despise, _whom_ I despise: I declare that it is the man of -to-day, the man with whom I am fatally contemporaneous. The man of -to-day, I am asphyxiated by his foul breath.... Towards the past, like -all knights of knowledge, I am profoundly tolerant,--that is to say, -I exercise a sort of _generous_ self-control: with gloomy caution I -pass through whole millennia of this mad-house world, and whether it -be called "Christianity," "Christian Faith," or "Christian Church," I -take care not to hold mankind responsible for its mental disorders. -But my feeling suddenly changes, and vents itself the moment I enter -the modern age, _our_ age. Our age _knows...._ That which formerly -was merely morbid, is now positively indecent It is indecent nowadays -to be a Christian. _And it is here that my loathing begins._ I look -about me: not a word of what was formerly known as "truth" has remained -standing; we can no longer endure to hear a priest even pronounce the -word "truth." Even he who makes but the most modest claims upon truth, -_must_ know at present, that a theologian, a priest, or a pope, not -only errs but actually _ties,_ with every word that he utters,--and -that he is no longer able to lie from "innocence," from "ignorance." -Even the priest knows quite as well as everybody else does that there -is no longer any "God," any "sinner" or any "Saviour," and that "free -will," and "a moral order of the universe" are _lies._ Seriousness, -the profound self-conquest of the spirit no longer allows anyone to -be _ignorant_ about this.... All the concepts of the Church have been -revealed in their true colours--that is to say, as the most vicious -frauds on earth, calculated to _depreciate_ nature and all natural -values. The priest himself has been recognised as what he is--that is -to say, as the most dangerous kind of parasite, as the actual venomous -spider of existence.... At present we know, our _conscience_ knows, -the real value of the gruesome inventions which the priests and the -Church have made, _and what end they served._ By means of them that -state of self-profanation on the part of man has been attained, the -sight of which makes one heave. The concepts "Beyond," "Last Judgment," -"Immortality of the Soul," the "soul" itself, are merely so many -instruments of torture, so many systems of cruelty, on the strength -of which the priest became and remained master.... Everybody knows -this, _and nevertheless everything remains as it was._ Whither has -the last shred of decency, of self-respect gone, if nowadays even -our statesmen--a body of men who are otherwise so unembarrassed, and -such thorough anti-Christians in deed--still declare themselves -Christians and still flock to communion?[5].... Fancy a prince at the -head of his legions, magnificent as the expression of the egoism and -self-exaltation of his people,--but _shameless_ enough to acknowledge -himself a Christian!... What then does Christianity deny? What does -it call "world"? "The world" to Christianity means that a man is a -soldier, a judge, a patriot, that he defends himself, that he values -his honour, that he desires his own advantage, that he is _proud._ -... The conduct of every moment, every instinct, every valuation that -leads to a deed, is at present anti-Christian: what an _abortion of -falsehood_ modern man must be, in order to be able _without a blush_ -still to call himself a Christian!---- - - -39 - ---I will retrace my steps, and will tell you the _genuine_ -history of Christianity.--The very word "Christianity" is a -misunderstanding,--truth to tell, there never was more than one -Christian, and he _died_ on the Cross. The "gospel" _died_ on the -cross. That which thenceforward was called "gospel" was the reverse -of that "gospel" that Christ had lived: it was "evil tidings," a -_dysangel_ It is false to the point of nonsense to see in "faith," -in the faith in salvation through Christ, the distinguishing trait -of the Christian: the only thing that is Christian is the Christian -mode of existence, a life such as he led who died on the Cross.... To -this day a life of this kind is still possible; for certain men, it -is even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity will be possible -in all ages.... _Not_ a faith, but a course of action, above all a -course of inaction, non-interference, and a different life.... States -of consciousness, any sort of faith, a holding of certain things -for true, as every psychologist knows, are indeed of absolutely no -consequence, and are only of fifth-rate importance compared with the -value of the instincts: more exactly, the whole concept of intellectual -causality is false. To reduce the fact of being a Christian, or of -Christianity, to a holding of something for true, to a mere phenomenon -of consciousness, is tantamount to denying Christianity. _In fact -there have never been any Christians._ The "Christian," he who for two -thousand years has been called a Christian, is merely a psychological -misunderstanding of self. Looked at more closely, there ruled in -him, _notwithstanding_ all his faith, only instincts--and _what -instincts!_--"Faith" in all ages, as for instance in the case of -Luther, has always been merely a cloak, a pretext, a _screen,_ behind -which the instincts played their game,--a prudent form of _blindness_ -in regard to the dominion of _certain_ instincts. "Faith" I have -already characterised as a piece of really Christian cleverness; for -people have always spoken of "faith" and acted according to their -instincts.... In the Christian's world of ideas there is nothing which -even touches reality: but I have already recognised in the instinctive -hatred of reality the actual motive force, the only driving power at -the root of Christianity. What follows therefrom? That here, even -_in psychologicis_, error is fundamental,--that is to say capable -of determining the spirit of things,--that is to say, _substance._ -Take one idea away from the whole, and put one realistic fact in its -stead,--and the whole of Christianity tumbles into nonentity!--Surveyed -from above, this strangest of all facts,-a religion not only dependent -upon error, but inventive and showing signs of genius only in those -errors which are dangerous and which poison life and the human -heart--remains a _spectacle for gods,_ for those gods who are at the -same time philosophers and whom I met for instance in those celebrated -dialogues on the island of Naxos. At the moment when they get rid -of their _loathing (--and we do as well!_), they will be thankful -for the spectacle the Christians have offered: the wretched little -planet called Earth perhaps deserves on account of _this_ curious -case alone, a divine glance, and divine interest.... Let us not -therefore underestimate the Christians: the Christian, false _to the -point of innocence in falsity,_ is far above the apes,--in regard to -the Christians a certain well-known theory of Descent becomes a mere -good-natured compliment. - - -40 - ---The fate of the gospel was decided at the moment of the death,--it -hung on the "cross." ... It was only death, this unexpected and -ignominious death; it was only the cross which as a rule was reserved -simply for the _canaille,_--only this appalling paradox which -confronted the disciples with the actual riddle: _Who was that? what -was that?_--The state produced by the excited and profoundly wounded -feelings of these men, the suspicion that such a death might imply the -_refutation_ of their cause, and the terrible note of interrogation: -"why precisely thus?" will be understood only too well. In this case -everything _must_ be necessary, everything must have meaning, a reason, -the highest reason. The love of a disciple admits of no such thing as -accident. Only then did the chasm yawn: "who has killed him?" "who was -his natural enemy?"--this question rent the firmament like a flash of -lightning. Reply: _dominant_ Judaism, its ruling class. Thenceforward -the disciple felt himself in revolt _against_ established order; he -understood Jesus, after the fact, as one in _revolt against established -order._ Heretofore this warlike, this nay-saying and nay-doing feature -in Christ had been lacking; nay more, he was its contradiction. The -small primitive community had obviously understood _nothing_ of the -principal factor of all, which was the example of freedom and of -superiority to every form of _resentment_ which lay in this way of -dying. And this shows how little they understood him altogether! At -bottom Jesus could not have desired anything else by his death than to -give the strongest public _example_ and _proof_ of his doctrine.... -But his disciples were very far from _forgiving this_ death--though if -they had done so it would have been in the highest sense evangelical -on their part,--neither were they prepared, with a gentle and serene -calmness of heart, to _offer_ themselves for a similar death.... -Precisely the most unevangelical feeling, _revenge,_ became once more -ascendant. It was impossible for the cause to end with this death: -"compensation" and "judgment" were required (--and forsooth, what could -be more unevangelical than "compensation," "punishment," "judgment"!) -The popular expectation of a Messiah once more became prominent; -attention was fixed upon one historical moment: the "Kingdom of God" -descends to sit in judgment upon his enemies. But this proves that -everything was misunderstood: the "Kingdom of God" regarded as the last -scene of the last act, as a promise! But the Gospel had clearly been -the living, the fulfilment, the _reality_ of this "Kingdom of God." -It was precisely a death such as Christ's that was this "Kingdom of -God." It was only now that all the contempt for the Pharisees and the -theologians, and all bitter feelings towards them, were introduced -into the character of the Master,--and by this means he himself was -converted into a Pharisee and a theologian! On the other hand, the -savage veneration of these completely unhinged souls could no longer -endure that evangelical right of every man to be the child of God, -which Jesus had taught: their revenge consisted in _elevating_ Jesus in -a manner devoid of all reason, and in separating him from themselves: -just as, formerly, the Jews, with the view of revenging themselves on -their enemies, separated themselves from their God, and placed him high -above them. The Only God, and the Only Son of God:--both were products -of resentment. - - -41 - ---And from this time forward an absurd problem rose into prominence: -"how _could_ God allow it to happen?" To this question the disordered -minds of the small community found a reply which in its absurdity -was literally terrifying: God gave his Son as a _sacrifice_ for the -forgiveness of sins. Alas! how prompt and sudden was the end of -the gospel! Expiatory sacrifice for guilt, and indeed in its most -repulsive and barbaric form,--the sacrifice of the _innocent_ for -the sins of the guilty! What appalling Paganism!--For Jesus himself -had done away with the concept "guilt,"--he denied any gulf between -God and man, he _lived_ this unity between God and man, it was this -that constituted _his_ "glad tidings." ... And he did _not_ teach it -as a privilege!--Thenceforward there was gradually imported into the -type of the Saviour the doctrine of the Last Judgment, and of the -"second coming," the doctrine of sacrificial death, and the doctrine -of _Resurrection,_ by means of which the whole concept "blessedness," -the entire and only reality of the gospel, is conjured away--in favour -of a state _after_ death!... St Paul, with that rabbinic impudence -which characterises all his doings, rationalised this conception, this -prostitution of a conception, as follows: "if Christ did not rise from -the dead, our faith is vain."--And, in a trice, the most contemptible -of all unrealisable promises, the _impudent_ doctrine of personal -immortality, was woven out of the gospel.... St Paul even preached this -immortality as a reward. - - -42 - -You now realise what it was that came to an end with the death on the -cross: a new and thoroughly original effort towards a Buddhistic -movement of peace, towards real and _not_ merely promised _happiness -on earth._ For, as I have already pointed out, this remains the -fundamental difference between the two religions _of decadence:_ -Buddhism promises little but fulfils more, Christianity promises -everything but fulfils nothing.--The "glad tidings" were followed -closely by the absolutely _worst_ tidings--those of St Paul. Paul is -the incarnation of a type which is the reverse of that of the Saviour; -he is the genius in hatred, in the standpoint of hatred, and in the -relentless logic of hatred. And alas what did this dysangelist not -sacrifice to his hatred! Above all the Saviour himself: he nailed him -to _his_ cross. Christ's life, his example, his doctrine and death, -the sense and the right of the gospel--not a vestige of alt this -was left, once this forger, prompted by his hatred, had understood -in it only that which could serve his purpose. _Not_ reality: _not_ -historical truth! ... And once more, the sacerdotal instinct of -the Jew, perpetrated the same great crime against history,--he -simply cancelled the yesterday, and the day before that, out of -Christianity; he _contrived of his own accord a history of the birth -of Christianity._ He did more: he once more falsified the history of -Israel, so as to make it appear as a prologue to _his_ mission: all the -prophets had referred to _his_ "Saviour." ... Later on the Church even -distorted the history of mankind so as to convert it into a prelude to -Christianity.... The type of the Saviour, his teaching, his life, his -death, the meaning of his death, even the sequel to his death--nothing -remained untouched, nothing was left which even remotely resembled -reality. St Paul simply transferred the centre of gravity of the whole -of that great life, to a place _behind_ this life,--in the _lie_ of -the "resuscitated" Christ. At bottom, he had no possible use for the -life of the Saviour,--he needed the death on the cross, _and_ something -more. To regard as honest a man like St Paul (a man whose home was the -very headquarters of Stoical enlightenment) when he devises a proof -of the continued existence of the Saviour out of a hallucination; or -even to believe him when he declares that he had this hallucination, -would amount to foolishness on the part of a psychologist: St Paul -desired the end, consequently he also desired the means.... Even what -he himself did not believe, was believed in by the idiots among whom -he spread _his_ doctrine.--What he wanted was power; with St Paul the -priest again aspired to power,--he could make use only of concepts, -doctrines, symbols with which masses may be tyrannised over, and -with which herds are formed. What was the only part of Christianity -which was subsequently borrowed by Muhamed? St Paul's invention, his -expedient for priestly tyranny and to the formation of herds: the -belief in immortality--_that is to say, the doctrine of the "Last -Judgment." ..._ - - -43 - -When the centre of gravity of life is laid, _not_ in life, but in a -beyond--_in nonentity,_--life is utterly robbed of its balance. The -great lie of personal immortality destroys all reason, all nature in -the instincts,--everything in the instincts that is beneficent, that -promotes life and that is a guarantee of the future, henceforward -aroused suspicion. The very meaning of life is now construed as the -effort to live in such a way that life no longer has any point.... Why -show any public spirit? Why be grateful for one's origin and one's -forebears? Why collaborate with one's fellows, and be confident? Why -be concerned about the general weal or strive after it?... All these -things are merely so many "temptations," so many deviations from the -"straight path." "One thing only is necessary." ... That everybody, as -an "immortal soul," should have equal rank, that in the totality of -beings, the "salvation" of each individual may lay claim to eternal -importance, that insignificant bigots and three-quarter-lunatics may -have the right to suppose that the laws of nature may be persistently -_broken_ on their account,--any such magnification of every kind -of selfishness to infinity, to _insolence,_ cannot be branded with -sufficient contempt And yet it is to this miserable flattery of -personal vanity that Christianity owes its _triumph,_--by this means -it lured all the bungled and the botched, all revolting and revolted -people, all abortions, the whole of the refuse and offal of humanity, -over to its side. The "salvation of the soul"--in plain English: "the -world revolves around me" ... The poison of the doctrine "_equal_ -rights for all"--has been dispensed with the greatest thoroughness by -Christianity: Christianity, prompted by the most secret recesses of -bad instincts, has waged a deadly war upon all feeling of reverence -and distance between man and man--that is to say, the _prerequisite_ -of all elevation, of every growth in culture; out of the resentment -of the masses it wrought its _principal weapons_ against us, against -everything noble, joyful, exalted on earth, against our happiness on -earth.... To grant "immortality" to every St Peter and St Paul, was -the greatest, the most vicious outrage upon _noble_ humanity that has -ever been perpetrated.--And do not let us underestimate the fatal -influence which, springing from Christianity, has insinuated itself -even into politics! Nowadays no one has the courage of special rights, -of rights of t dominion, of a feeling of self-respect and of respect -for his equals,--of _pathos of distance._ Our politics are diseased -with this lack of courage!--The aristocratic attitude of mind has been -most thoroughly undermined by the lie of the equality of souls; and if -the belief in the "privilege of the greatest number" creates and will -continue _to create revolutions,_--it is Christianity, let there be no -doubt about it, and Christian values, which convert every revolution -into blood and crime! Christianity is the revolt of all things that -crawl on their bellies against everything that is lofty: the gospel of -the "lowly" _lowers...._ - - -44 - ---The Gospels are invaluable as a testimony of the corruption which -was already persistent _within_ the first Christian communities. That -which St Paul, with the logician's cynicism of a Rabbi, carried to its -logical conclusion, was nevertheless merely the process of decay which -began with the death of the Saviour.--These gospels cannot be read -too cautiously; difficulties lurk behind every word they contain. I -confess, and people will not take this amiss, that they are precisely -on that account a joy of the first rank for a psychologist,--as the -reverse of all naive perversity, as refinement _par excellence,_ as -a masterpiece of art in psychological corruption. The gospels stand -alone. Altogether the Bible allows of no comparison. The _first_ thing -to be remembered if we do not wish to lose the scent here, is, that -we are among Jews. The dissembling of holiness which, here, literally -amounts to genius, and which has never been even approximately achieved -elsewhere either by books or by men, this fraud in word and pose -which in this book is elevated to an _Art,_ is not the accident of -any individual gift, of any exceptional nature. These qualities are -a matter of _race._ With Christianity, the art of telling holy lies, -which constitutes the whole of Judaism, reaches its final mastership, -thanks to many centuries of Jewish and most thoroughly serious training -and practice. The Christian, this _ultima ratio_ of falsehood, is the -Jew over again--he is even three times a Jew.... The fundamental will -only to make use of concepts, symbols and poses, which are demonstrated -by the practice of the priests, the instinctive repudiation of every -other kind of practice, every other standpoint of valuation and of -utility--all this is not only tradition, it is _hereditary;_ only as -an inheritance is it able to work like nature. The whole of mankind, -the best brains, and even the best ages--(one man only excepted who -is perhaps only a monster)--have allowed themselves to be deceived. -The gospels were read as the _book of innocence ..._ this is no -insignificant sign of the virtuosity with which deception has been -practised here.--Of course, if we could only succeed in seeing all -these amazing bigots and pretended saints, even for a moment, all -would be at an end--and it is precisely because _I_ can read no -single word of theirs, without seeing their pretentious poses, _that -I have made an end of them_.... I cannot endure a certain way they -have of casting their eyes heavenwards.--Fortunately for Christianity, -books are for the greatest number, merely literature. We must not let -ourselves be led away: "judge not!" they say, but they dispatch all -those to hell who stand in their way. Inasmuch as they let God do the -judging, they themselves, judge; inasmuch as they glorify God, they -glorify themselves; inasmuch as they exact those virtues of which -they themselves happen to be capable--nay more, of which they are in -need in order to be able to remain on top at all;--they assume the -grand airs of struggling for virtue, of struggling for the dominion of -virtue. "We live, we die, we sacrifice ourselves for the good" (--"the -Truth," "the Light," "the Kingdom of God"): as a matter of fact they -do only what they cannot help doing. Like sneaks they have to play a -humble part; sit away in corners, and remain obscurely in the shade, -and they make all this appear a duty; their humble life now appears as -a duty, and their humility is one proof the more of their piety!... -Oh, what a humble, chaste and compassionate kind of falsity! "Virtue -itself shall bear us testimony." ... Only read the gospels as books -calculated to seduce by means of morality: morality is appropriated by -these petty people,--they know what morality can do! The best way of -leading mankind by the nose is with morality! The fact is that the most -conscious _conceit_ of people who believe themselves to be _chosen,_ -here simulates modesty: in this way they, the Christian community, the -"good and the just" place themselves once and for all on a certain -side, the side "of Truth"--and the rest of mankind, "the world" on -the other.... This was the most fatal kind of megalomania that had -ever yet existed on earth: insignificant little abortions of bigots -and liars began to lay sole claim to the concepts "God," "Truth," -"Light," "Spirit," "Love," "Wisdom," "Life," as if these things were, -so to speak, synonyms of themselves, in order to fence themselves off -from "the world"; little ultra-Jews, ripe for every kind of madhouse, -twisted values round in order to suit themselves, just as if the -Christian, alone, were the meaning, the salt, the standard and even the -"_ultimate tribunal_" of all the rest of mankind.... The whole fatality -was rendered possible only because a kind of megalomania, akin to this -one and allied to it in race,--the Jewish kind--was already to hand in -the world: the very moment the gulf between Jews and Judæo-Christians -was opened, the latter had no alternative left, but to adopt the same -self-preservative measures as the Jewish instinct suggested, even -_against_ the Jews themselves, whereas the Jews, theretofore, had -employed these same measures only against the Gentiles. The Christian -is nothing more than an anarchical Jew. - - -45 - ---Let me give you a few examples of what these paltry people have -stuffed into their heads, what they have laid _on the lips of their -Master_: quite a host of confessions from "beautiful souls."-- - -"And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart -thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against -them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom -and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city." (Mark vi. -11.)--_How evangelical!..._ - -"And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in -me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, -and he were cast into the sea." (Mark ix. 42.)--How _evangelical!..._ - -"And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it fa better for thee to -enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be -cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not -quenched." (Mark ix. 47, 48.)--The eye is not precisely what is meant -in this passage.... - -"Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, -which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God -come with power." (Mark ix. 1.)--Well _lied,_ lion![6] ... - -"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his -cross, and follow me. _For_ ..." (_A psychologist's comment._ Christian -morality is refuted by its "For's": its "reasons" refute,--this is -Christian.) (Mark viii. 34.) - -"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, -ye shall be judged." (Matthew vii. I, 2.)--What a strange notion of -justice on the part of a "just" judge!... - -"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even -the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye -more _than others?_ do not even the publicans so?" (Matthew v. 46, 47.) -The principle of "Christian love": it insists upon being _well paid_.... - -"But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father -forgive your trespasses." (Matthew vi. 15.)--Very compromising for the -"Father" in question. - -"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all -these things shall be added unto you." (Matthew vi. 33)--"All these -things"--that is to say, food, clothing, all the necessities of life. -To use a moderate expression, this is an _error ..._. Shortly before -this God appears as a tailor, at least in certain cases.... - -"Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward -_is_ great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto -the prophets." (Luke vi. 23.)--_Impudent_ rabble! They dare to compare -themselves with the prophets.... - -"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and _that_ the Spirit of God -dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, _him shall God -destroy;_ for the temple of God is holy, which _temple ye are._" (St -Paul, I Corinthians iii. 16, 17.)--One cannot have too much contempt -for this sort of thing.... - -"Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world -shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?" -(St Paul, I Corinthians vi. 2.)--Unfortunately this is not merely the -speech of a lunatic.... This _appalling impostor_ proceeds thus: "Know -ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to -this life?" - -"Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in -the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by -the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe ... not many -wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble _are called;_ -But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the -wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound -the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things -which are despised, hath God chosen; _yea,_ and things which are not, -to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in -his presence." (St Paul, I Corinthians i. 20 _et seq._)--In order to -_understand_ this passage, which is of the highest importance as an -example of the psychology of every Chandala morality, the reader should -refer to my _Genealogy of Morals:_ in this book, the contrast between -a _noble_ and a Chandala morality born of _resentment_ and impotent -revengefulness, is brought to light for the first time. St Paul was the -greatest of all the apostles of revenge.... - - -46 - -_What follows from this?_ That one does well to put on one's gloves -when reading the New Testament The proximity of so much pitch almost -defiles one. We should feel just as little inclined to hobnob with -"the first Christians" as with Polish Jews: not that we need explain -our objections.... They simply smell bad.--In vain have I sought for a -single sympathetic feature in the New Testament; there is not a trace -of freedom, kindliness, open-heartedness and honesty to be found in -it. Humaneness has not even made a start in this book, while _cleanly_ -instincts are entirely absent from it.... Only evil instincts are to be -found in the New Testament, it shows no sign of courage, these people -lack even the courage of their evil instincts. All is cowardice, all is -a closing of one's eyes and self-deception. Every book becomes clean, -after one has just read the New Testament: for instance, immediately -after laying down St Paul, I read with particular delight that most -charming and most wanton of scoffers, Petronius, of whom someone might -say what Domenico Boccaccio wrote to the Duke of Parma about Cæsar -Borgia: "_è tutto festo_"--immortally healthy, immortally cheerful -and well-constituted. ... These petty bigots err in their calculations -and in the most important thing of all. They certainly attack; but -everything they assail is, by that very fact alone, _distinguished._ -He whom a "primitive Christian" attacks, is _not_ thereby sullied.... -Conversely it is an honour to be opposed by "primitive Christians." -One cannot read the New Testament without feeling a preference for -everything in it which is the subject of abuse--not to speak of the -"wisdom of this world," which an impudent windbag tries in vain to -confound "by the foolishness of preaching." Even the Pharisees and the -Scribes derive advantage from such opposition: they must certainly -have been worth something in order to have been hated in such a -disreputable way. Hypocrisy--as if this were a reproach which the -"first Christians" _were at liberty_ to make!--After all the Scribes -and Pharisees were the _privileged ones;_ this was quite enough, the -hatred of the Chandala requires no other reasons. I very much fear -that the "first Christian"--as also the "_last Christian" whom I may -yet be able to meet,--_ is in his deepest instincts a rebel against -everything privileged; he lives and struggles unremittingly for "equal -rights"!... Regarded more closely, he has no alternative.... If one's -desire be personally to represent "one of the chosen of God"--or a -"temple of God," or "a judge of angels,"--then every _other_ principle -of selection, for instance that based upon a standard of honesty, -intellect, manliness and pride, or upon beauty and freedom of heart, -becomes the "world,"--_evil in itself._ Moral: every word on the lips -of a "first Christian" is a lie, every action he does is an instinctive -falsehood,--all his values, all his aims are pernicious; but the man -he, hates, _the thing_ he hates, _has value._ ... The Christian, more -particularly the Christian priest, is a _criterion of values_--Do I -require to add that in the whole of the New Testament only _one_ figure -appears which we cannot help respecting? Pilate, the Roman Governor. To -take a Jewish quarrel _seriously_ was a thing he could not get himself -to do. One Jew more or less--what did it matter?... The noble scorn -of a Roman, in whose presence the word "truth" had been shamelessly -abused, has enriched the New Testament with the only saying which _is -of value,_--and this saying is not only the criticism, but actually the -shattering of that Testament: "What is truth!"... - - -47 - ---That which separates us from other people is not the fact that -we can discover no God, either in history, or in nature, or behind -nature,--but that we regard what has been revered as "God," not as -"divine," but as wretched, absurd, pernicious; not as an error, but as -a _crime against life._ ... We deny God as God.... If the existence -of this Christian God were _proved_ to us, we should feel even less -able to believe in him.--In a formula: _deus qualem Paulus creavit, -dei negatio._--A religion such as Christianity which never once comes -in touch with reality, and which collapses the very moment reality -asserts its rights even on one single point, must naturally be a mortal -enemy of the "wisdom of this world"--that is to say, _science._ It -will call all those means good with which mental discipline, lucidity -and severity in intellectual matters, nobility and freedom of the -intellect may be poisoned, calumniated and _decried_. "Faith" as an -imperative is a _veto_ against science,--_in praxi,_ it means lies -at any price. St Paul _understood_ that falsehood--that "faith" was -necessary; subsequently the Church understood St Paul.--That "God" -which St Paul invented for himself, a God who "confounds" the "wisdom -of this world" (in a narrower sense, the two great opponents of all -superstition, philology and medicine), means, in very truth, simply St -Paul's firm _resolve_ to do so: to call his own will "God", _thora,_ -that is arch-Jewish. St Paul insists upon confounding the "wisdom of -this world": his enemies are the _good old_ philologists and doctors of -the Alexandrine schools; it is on them that he wages war. As a matter -of fact no one is either a philologist or a doctor, who is not also an -_Antichrist._ As a philologist, for instance, a man sees _behind_ the -"holy books," as a doctor he sees _behind_ the physiological rottenness -of the typical Christian. The doctor says "incurable," the philologist -says "forgery." - - -48 - ---Has anybody ever really understood the celebrated story which stands -at the beginning of the Bible,--concerning God's deadly panic over -_science?_ ... Nobody has understood it This essentially sacerdotal -book naturally begins with the great inner difficulty of the priest: -_he_ knows only one great danger, _consequently_ "God" has only one -great danger.-- - -The old God, entirely "spirit," a high-priest through and through, and -wholly perfect, is wandering in a leisurely fashion round his garden; -but he is bored. Against boredom even the gods themselves struggle in -vain.[7] What does he do? He invents man,--man is entertaining.... But, -behold, even man begins to be bored. God's compassion for the only -form of misery which is peculiar to all paradises, exceeds all bounds: -so forthwith he creates yet other animals. God's _first_ mistake: man -did not think animals entertaining,--he dominated them, he did not even -wish to be an "animal." Consequently God created woman. And boredom did -indeed cease from that moment,--but many other things ceased as well! -Woman was God's _second_ mistake.--"Woman in her innermost nature is a -serpent, Heva"--every priest knows this: "all evil came into this world -through woman,"--every priest knows this too. "_Consequently science_ -also comes from woman." ... Only through woman did man learn to taste -of the tree of knowledge.--What had happened? Panic had seized the -old God Man himself had been his _greatest_ mistake, he had created -a rival for himself, science makes you _equal to God,_--it is all up -with priests and gods when man becomes scientific!--Moral: science is -the most prohibited thing of all,--it alone, is forbidden. Science is -the _first,_ the germ of all sins, the original sin. _This alone is -morality._--"Thou shalt _not_ know":--the rest follows as a matter of -course, God's panic did not deprive him of his intelligence. How can -one _guard_ against science? For ages this was his principal problem. -Reply: man must be kicked out of paradise! Happiness, leisure leads to -thinking,--all thoughts are bad thoughts.... Man _must_ not think.--And -the "priest-per-se" proceeds to invent distress, death, the vital -danger of pregnancy, every kind of misery, decrepitude, and affliction, -and above all _disease,_--all these are but weapons employed in the -struggle with science! Trouble prevents man from thinking.... And -notwithstanding all these precautions! Oh, horror! the work of science -towers aloft, it storms heaven itself, it rings the death-knell of the -gods,--what's to be done?--The old God invents _war;_ he separates the -nations, and contrives to make men destroy each other mutually (--the -priests have always been in need of war....) War, among other things, -is a great disturber of science!--Incredible! Knowledge, _the rejection -of the sacerdotal yoke,_ nevertheless increases.--So the old God -arrives at this final decision: "Man has become scientific,--_there is -no help for it, he must be drowned!_" ... - - -49 - -You have understood me The beginning of the Bible contains the whole -psychology of the priest--The priest knows only one great danger, and -that is science,--the healthy concept of cause and effect But, on the -whole, science flourishes onlyunder happy conditions,--a man must -have time, he must also have superfluous mental energy in order to -"pursue knowledge" ... "_Consequently_ man must be made unhappy,"--this -has been the argument of the priest of all ages.--You have already -divined what, in accordance with such a manner of arguing, must -first have come into the world:--"sin." ... The notion of guilt and -punishment, the whole "moral order of the universe," was invented -against science,--against the deliverance of man from the priest.... -Man must _not_ cast his glance upon the outer world, he must turn it -inwards into himself; he must not as a learner look cleverly and -cautiously _into_ things; he must not see at all: he must _suffer._ -... And he must suffer, so that he may be in need of the priest every -minute.--Away with doctors! What is needed is a Saviour!--The notion of -guilt and punishment, including the doctrine of "grace," of "salvation" -and of "forgiveness"--all _lies_ through and through without a shred -of psychological reality--were invented in order to destroy man's -_sense of causality:_ they are an attack on the concept of cause and -effect!--And _not_ an attack with the fist, with the knife, with -honesty in hate and love! But one actuated by the most cowardly, most -crafty, and most ignoble instincts! A _priests_ attack! A _parasite's_ -attack! A vampyrism of pale subterranean leeches!--... When the natural -consequences of an act are no longer "natural," but are thought to -be conjured up by phantom concepts of superstition, by "God," by -"spirits," and by "souls," as merely moral consequences, in the form -of rewards, punishments, hints, and educational means,--then the whole -basis of knowledge is destroyed,--_then the greatest crime against man -has been perpetrated._--Sin, I repeat, this form of self-pollution _par -excellence_ on the part of man, was invented in order to make science, -culture and every elevation and noble trait in man quite impossible; by -means of the invention of sin the priest is able to _rule._ - - -50 - ---I cannot here dispense with a psychology of "faith" and of the -"faithful," which will naturally be to the advantage of the "faithful." -If to-day there are still many who do not know how very _indecent_ it -is to be a "believer"--_or_ to what extent such a state is the sign -of decadence, and of the broken will to Life,--they will know it no -later than to-morrow. My voice can make even those hear who are hard -of hearing.--If perchance my ears have not deceived me, it seems that -among Christians there is such a thing as a kind of criterion of truth, -which is called "the proof of power." "Faith saveth; _therefore_ it -is true."--It might be objected here that it is precisely salvation -which is not proved but only _promised:_ salvation is bound up with -the condition "faith,"--one _shall_ be saved, _because_ one has -faith.... But how prove _that_ that which the priest promises to the -faithful really will take place, to wit: the "Beyond" which defies -all demonstration?--The assumed "proof of power" is at bottom once -again only a belief in the fact that the effect which faith promises -will not fail to take place. In a formula: "I believe that faith -saveth;--_consequently_ it is true."--But with this we are at the end -of our tether. This "consequently" would be the _absurdum_ itself as -a criterion of truth.--Let us be indulgent enough to assume, however, -that salvation is proved by faith (--_not_ only desired, and _not_ -merely promised by the somewhat suspicious lips of a priest): could -salvation--or, in technical terminology, _happiness_--ever be a proof -of truth? So little is it so that, when pleasurable sensations make -their influence felt in replying to the question "what is true," they -furnish almost the contradiction of truth, or at any rate they make -it in the highest degree suspicious. The proof through "happiness," -is a proof of happiness--and nothing else; why in the world should -we take it for granted that _true_ judgments cause more pleasure than -false ones, and that in accordance with a pre-established harmony, they -necessarily bring pleasant feelings in their wake?--The experience of -all strict and profound minds teaches the _reverse._ Every inch of -truth has been conquered only after a struggle, almost everything to -which our heart, our love and our trust in life cleaves, has had to be -sacrificed for it Greatness of soul is necessary for this: the service -of truth is the hardest of all services.--What then is meant by honesty -in things intellectual? It means that a man is severe towards his own -heart, that he scorns "beautiful feelings," and that he makes a matter -of conscience out of every Yea and Nay!---Faith saveth: _consequently_ -it lies.... - - -51 - -The fact that faith may in certain circumstances save, the fact that -salvation as the result of an _idée fixe_ does not constitute a true -idea, the fact that faith moves _no_ mountains, but may very readily -raise them where previously they did not exist--all these things are -made sufficiently clear by a mere casual stroll through a _lunatic -asylum._ Of course _no_ priest would find this sufficient: for he -instinctively denies that illness is illness or that lunatic asylums -are lunatic asylums. Christianity is in _need_ of illness, just as -Ancient Greece was in need of a superabundance of health. The actual -ulterior motive of the whole of the Church's system of salvation -is to _make people ill._ And is not the Church itself the Catholic -madhouse as an ultimate ideal?--The earth as a whole converted into a -madhouse?--The kind of religious man which the Church aims at producing -is a typical _decadent_ The moment of time at which a religious crisis -attains the ascendancy over a people, is always characterised by -nerve-epidemics; the "inner world" of the religious man is ridiculously -like the "inner world" of over-irritable and exhausted people; the -"highest" states which Christianity holds up to mankind as the value -of values, are epileptic in character,--the Church has pronounced only -madmen _or_ great swindlers _in majorem dei honorem_ holy. Once I -ventured to characterise the whole of the Christian training of penance -and salvation (which nowadays is best studied in England) as a _folie -circulaire_ methodically generated upon a soil which, of course, is -already prepared for it,--that is to say, which is thoroughly morbid. -Not every one who likes can be a Christian: no man is "converted" -to Christianity,--he must be sick enough for it ... We others who -possess enough courage both for health and for contempt, how rightly -_we_ may despise a religion which taught men to misunderstand the -body I which would not rid itself of the superstitions of the soul! -which made a virtue of taking inadequate nourishment! which in health -combats a sort of enemy, devil, temptation! which persuaded itself that -it was possible to bear a perfect soul about in a cadaverous body, -and which, to this end, had to make up for itself a new concept of -"perfection," a pale, sickly, idiotically gushing ideal,--so-called -"holiness,"--holiness, which in itself is simply a symptom of an -impoverished, enervated and incurably deteriorated body!... The -movement of Christianity, as a European movement, was from first to -last, a general accumulation of the ruck and scum of all sorts and -kinds (--and these, by means of Christianity, aspire to power). It -does _not_ express the downfall of a race, it is rather a conglomerate -assembly of all the decadent elements from everywhere which seek each -other and crowd together. It was not, as some believe, the corruption -of antiquity, of _noble_ antiquity, which made Christianity possible: -the learned idiocy which nowadays tries to support such a notion cannot -be too severely contradicted. At the time when the morbid and corrupted -Chandala classes became Christianised in the whole of the _imperium,_ -the very _contrary type,_ nobility, was extant in its finest and -maturest forms. The greatest number became master; the democracy of -Christian instincts triumphed.... Christianity was not "national," it -was not determined by race,--it appealed to all the disinherited forms -of life, it had its allies everywhere. Christianity is built upon the -rancour of the sick; its instinct is directed _against_ the sound, -against health. Everything well-constituted, proud, high-spirited, -and beautiful is offensive to its ears and eyes. Again I remind you -of St Paul's priceless words: "And God hath chosen the _weak_ things -of the world, the _foolish_ things of the world; and _base_ things of -the world, and things which are _despised"_: this was the formula, _in -hoc signo_ decadence triumphed.--_God on the Cross_--does no one yet -understand the terrible ulterior motive of this symbol?--Everything -that suffers, everything that hangs on the cross, is _divine...._ All -of us hang on the cross, consequently we are _divine ..._. We alone are -divine.... Christianity was a victory; a _nobler_ type of character -perished through it,--Christianity has been humanity's greatest -misfortune hitherto.---- - - -52 - -Christianity also stands opposed to everything happily constituted -in the _mind,_--it can make use only of morbid reason as Christian -reason; it takes the side of everything idiotic, it utters a curse -upon "intellect," upon the _superbia_ of the healthy intellect. Since -illness belongs to the essence of Christianity, the typically Christian -state, "faith," _must_ also be a form of illness, and all straight, -honest and scientific roads to knowledge must be repudiated by the -Church as forbidden.... Doubt in itself is already a sin.... The total -lack of psychological cleanliness in the priest, which reveals itself -in his look, is a _result_ of decadence. Hysterical women, as also -children with scrofulous constitutions, should be observed as a proof -of how invariably instinctive falsity, the love of lying for the sake -of lying, and the in ability either to look or to walk straight, are -the expression of decadence. "Faith" simply means the refusal to know -what is true. The pious person, the priest of both sexes, is false -because he is ill: his instinct _demands_ that truth should not assert -its right anywhere. "That which makes ill is good: that which proceeds -from abundance, from superabundance and from power, is evil": that -is the view of the faithful. The _constraint to lie_--that is the -sign by which I recognise every predetermined theologian.--Another -characteristic of the theologian is his lack of _capacity_ for -_philology._ What I mean here by the word philology is, in a general -sense to be understood as the art of reading well, of being able to -take account of facts _without_ falsifying them by interpretation, -without losing either caution, patience or subtlety owing to one's -desire to understand. Philology as _ephexis_[8] in interpretation, -whether one be dealing with books, newspaper reports, human destinies -or meteorological records,--not to speak of the "salvation of the -soul." ... The manner in which a theologian, whether in Berlin or in -Rome, interprets a verse from the "Scriptures," or an experience, or -the triumph of his nation's army for instance, under the superior -guiding light of David's Psalms, is always so exceedingly _daring,_ -that it is enough to make a philologist's hair stand on end. And what -is he to do, when pietists and other cows from Swabia explain their -miserable every-day lives in their smoky hovels by means of the "Finger -of God," a miracle of "grace," of "Providence," of experiences of -"salvation"! The most modest effort of the intellect, not to speak of -decent feeling, ought at least to lead these interpreters to convince -themselves of the absolute childishness and unworthiness of any such -abuse of the dexterity of God's fingers. However small an amount of -loving piety we might possess, a god who cured us in time of a cold in -the nose, or who arranged for us to enter a carriage just at the moment -when a cloud burst over our heads, would be such an absurd God, that he -would have to be abolished, even if he existed.[9] God as a domestic -servant, as a postman, as a general provider,--in short, merely a word -for the most foolish kind of accidents.... "Divine Providence," as it -is believed in to-day by almost every third man in "cultured Germany," -would be an argument against God, in fact it would be the strongest -argument against God that could be Imagined. And in any case it is an -argument against the Germans. - - -53 - ---The notion that martyrs prove anything at all in favour of a thing, -is so exceedingly doubtful, that I would fain deny that there has ever -yet existed a martyr who had anything to do with truth. In the very -manner in which a martyr flings his little parcel of truth at the -head of the world, such a low degree of intellectual honesty and such -obtuseness in regard to the question "truth" makes itself felt, that -one never requires to refute a martyr. Truth is not a thing which one -might have and another be without: only peasants or peasant-apostles, -after the style of Luther, can think like this about truth. You may be -quite sure, that the greater a man's degree of conscientiousness may -be in matters intellectual, the more modest he will show himself on -this point To _know_ about five things, and with a subtle wave of the -hand to refuse to know _others._ ... "Truth" as it is understood by -every prophet, every sectarian, every free thinker, every socialist and -every church-man, is an absolute proof of the fact that these people -haven't even begun that discipline of the mind and that process of -self-mastery, which is necessary for the discovery of any small, even -exceedingly small truth.--Incidentally, the deaths of martyrs have -been a great misfortune in the history of the world: they led people -astray.... The conclusion which all idiots, women and common people -come to, that there must be something in a cause for which someone lays -down his life (or which, as in the case of primitive Christianity, -provokes an epidemic of sacrifices),--this conclusion put a tremendous -check upon all investigation, upon the spirit of investigation and of -caution. Martyrs have _harmed_ the cause of truth. ... Even to this day -it only requires the crude fact of persecution, in order to create an -honourable name for any obscure sect who does not matter in the least -What? is a cause actually changed in any way by the fact that some -one has laid down his life for it? An error which becomes honourable, -is simply an error that possesses one seductive charm the more: do -you suppose, dear theologians, that we shall give you the chance of -acting the martyrs for your lies?--A thing is refuted by being laid -respectfully on ice, and theologians are refuted in the same way. This -was precisely the world-historic foolishness of all persecutors; they -lent the thing they combated a semblance of honour by conferring the -fascination of martyrdom upon it.... Women still lie prostrate before -an error to-day, because they have been told that some one died on the -cross for it _Is the cross then an argument?_--But concerning all these -things, one person alone has said what mankind has been in need of for -thousands of years,--_Zarathustra._ - -"Letters of blood did they write on the way they went, and their folly -taught that truth is proved by blood. - -"But blood is the very worst testimony of truth; blood poisoneth even -the purest teaching, and turneth it into delusion and into blood feuds. - -"And when a man goeth through fire for his teaching--what does that -prove? Verily, it is more when out of one's own burning springeth one's -own teaching."[10] - - -54 - -Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: great minds are sceptical. -Zarathustra is a sceptic. Strength and the _freedom_ which proceeds -from the power and excessive power of the mind, _manifests_ itself -through scepticism. Men of conviction are of no account whatever -in regard to any principles of value or of non-value. Convictions -are prisons. They never see far enough, they do not look down from -a sufficient height: but in order to have any say in questions of -value and non-value, a man must see five hundred convictions _beneath_ -him,--_behind_ him.... A spirit who desires great things, and who also -desires the means thereto, is necessarily a sceptic. Freedom from every -kind of conviction _belongs_ to strength, to the _ability_ to open -one's eyes freely.... The great passion of a sceptic, the basis and -power of his being, which is more enlightened and more despotic than he -is himself, enlists all his intellect into its service; it makes him -unscrupulous; it even gives him the courage to employ unholy means; -in certain circumstances it even allows him convictions. Conviction -as a _means:_ much is achieved merely by means of a conviction. Great -passion makes use of and consumes convictions, it does not submit to -them--it knows that it is a sovereign power. Conversely; the need of -faith, of anything either absolutely affirmative or negative, Carlylism -(if I may be allowed this expression), is the need of _weakness._ -The man of beliefs, the "believer" of every sort and condition, is -necessarily a dependent man;--he is one who cannot regard _himself_ as -an aim, who cannot postulate aims from the promptings of his own heart -The "believer" does not belong to himself, he can be only a means, -he must be _used up,_ he is in need of someone who uses him up. His -instinct accords the highest honour to a morality of self-abnegation: -everything in him, his prudence, his experience, his vanity, persuade -him to adopt this morality. Every sort of belief is in itself an -expression of self-denial, of self-estrangement. ... If one considers -how necessary a regulating code of conduct is to the majority of -people, a code of conduct which constrains them and fixes them from -outside; and how control, or in a higher sense, _slavery,_ is the only -and ultimate condition under which the weak-willed man, and especially -woman, flourish; one also understands conviction, "faith." The man -of conviction finds in the latter his _backbone._ To be _blind_ to -many things, to be impartial about nothing, to belong always to a -particular side, to hold a strict and necessary point of view in all -matters of values--these are the only conditions under which such a man -can survive at all. But all this is the reverse of, the _antagonist_ -of, the truthful man,--of truth.... The believer is not at liberty to -have a conscience for the question "true" and "untrue": to be upright -on _this_ point would mean his immediate downfall. The pathological -limitations of his standpoint convert the convinced man into the -fanatic--Savonarola, Luther Rousseau, Robespierre, Saint-Simon,--these -are the reverse type of the strong spirit that has become _free._ But -the grandiose poses of these _morbid_ spirits, of these epileptics -of ideas, exercise an influence over the masses,--fanatics are -picturesque, mankind prefers to look at poses than to listen to reason. - - -55 - -One step further in the psychology of conviction of "faith." It -is already some time since I first thought of considering whether -convictions were not perhaps more dangerous enemies of truth than lies -("Human All-too-Human," Part I, Aphs. 54 and 483). Now I would fain put -the decisive question: is there any difference at all between a lie -and a conviction?--All the world believes that there is, but what in -Heaven's name does not all the world believe! Every conviction has its -history, its preliminary stages, its period of groping and of mistakes: -it becomes a conviction only after it has _not_ been one for a long -time, only after it has _scarcely_ been one for a long time. What? -might not falsehood be the embryonic form of conviction?--At times -all that is required is a change of personality: very often what was -a lie in the father becomes a conviction in the son.--I call a lie, -to refuse to see something that one sees, to refuse to see it exactly -_as_ one sees it: whether a lie is perpetrated before witnesses or not -is beside the point.--The most common sort of lie is the one uttered -to one's self; to lie to others is relatively exceptional. Now this -refusal to see what one sees, this refusal to see a thing exactly as -one sees it, is almost the first condition for all those who belong -to a _party_ in any sense whatsoever: the man who belongs to a party -perforce becomes a liar. German historians, for instance, are convinced -that Rome stood for despotism, whereas the Teutons introduced the -spirit of freedom into the world: what difference is there between -this conviction and a lie? After this is it to be wondered at, that -all parties, including German historians, instinctively adopt the -grandiloquent phraseology of morality,--that morality almost owes -its _survival_ to the fact that the man who belongs to a party, no -matter what it may be, is in need of morality every moment?--"This -is our conviction: we confess it to the whole world, we live and die -for it,--let us respect every thing that has a conviction!"--I have -actually heard antisemites speak in this way. On the contrary, my dear -sirs! An antisemite does not become the least bit more respectable -because he lies on principle.... Priests, who in such matters are -more subtle, and who perfectly understand the objection to which the -idea of a conviction lies open--that is to say of a falsehood which -is perpetrated on principle _because_ it serves a purpose, borrowed -from the Jews the prudent measure of setting the concept "God," "Will -of God," "Revelation of God," at this place. Kant, too, with his -categorical imperative, was on the same road: this was his _practical_ -reason.--There are some questions in which it is _not_ given to man -to decide between true and false; all the principal questions, all -the principal problems of value, stand beyond human reason.... To -comprehend the limits of reason--this alone is genuine philosophy. For -what purpose did God give man revelation? Would God have done anything -superfluous? Man cannot of his own accord know what is good and what is -evil, that is why God taught man his will.... Moral: the priest does -_not_ lie, such questions as "truth" or "falseness" have nothing to do -with the things concerning which the priest speaks; such things do not -allow of lying. For, in order to lie, it would be necessary to know -_what_ is true in this respect. But that is precisely what man cannot -know: hence the priest is only the mouthpiece of God.--This sort of -sacerdotal syllogism is by no means exclusively Judaic or Christian; -the right to lie and the _prudent measure_ of "revelation" belongs -to the priestly type, whether of decadent periods or of Pagan times -(--Pagans are all those who say yea to life, and to whom "God" is the -word for the great yea to all things). The "law," the "will of God," -the "holy book," and inspiration.--All these things are merely words -for the conditions under which the priest attains to power, and with -which he maintains his power,--these concepts are to be found at the -base of all sacerdotal organisations, of all priestly or philosophical -and ecclesiastical governments. The "holy lie," which is common to -Confucius, to the law-book of Manu, to Muhamed, and to the Christian -church, is not even absent in Plato. "Truth is here"; this phrase -means, wherever it is uttered: _the priest lies...._ - - -56 - -After all, the question is, to what _end_ are falsehoods perpetrated? -The fact that, in Christianity, "holy" ends are entirely absent, -constitutes _my_ objection to the means it employs. Its ends are only -_bad_ ends: the poisoning, the calumniation and the denial of life, -the contempt of the body, the degradation and self-pollution of man by -virtue of the concept sin,--consequently its means are bad as well.--My -feelings are quite the reverse when I read the law-book of _Manu, an_ -incomparably superior and more intellectual work, which it would be -a sin against the _spirit_ even to _mention_ in the same breath with -the Bible. You will guess immediately why: it has a genuine philosophy -behind it, _in_ it, not merely an evil-smelling Jewish distillation -of Rabbinism and superstition,--it gives something to chew even -to the most fastidious psychologist. And, _not_ to forget the most -important point of all, it is fundamentally different from every kind -of Bible: by means of it the _noble classes,_ the philosophers and the -warriors guard and guide the masses; it is replete with noble values, -it is filled with a feeling of perfection, with a saying of yea to -life, and a triumphant sense of well-being in regard to itself and to -life,--the sun shines upon the whole book.--All those things which -Christianity smothers with its bottomless vulgarity: procreation, -woman, marriage, are here treated with earnestness, with revere nee, -with love and confidence. How can one possibly place in the hands of -children and women, a book that contains those vile words: "to avoid -fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman -have her own husband ... it is better to marry than to burn."[11] -And is it decent to be a Christian so long as the very origin of -man is Christianised,--that is to say, befouled, by the idea of the -_immaculata conceptio?_ ... I know of no book in which so many delicate -and kindly things are said to woman, as in the Law-Rook of Manu; these -old grey-beards and saints have a manner of being gallant to women -which, perhaps, cannot be surpassed. "The mouth of a woman," says Manu -on one occasion, "the breast of a maiden, the prayer of a child, and -the smoke of the sacrifice, are always pure." Elsewhere he says: "there -is nothing purer than the light of the sun, the shadow cast by a cow, -air, water, fire and the breath of a maiden." And finally--perhaps this -is also a holy lie:--"all the openings of the body above the navel are -pure, all those below the navel are impure. Only in a maiden is the -whole body pure." - - -57 - -The unholiness of Christian means is caught _in flagranti,_ if only -the end aspired to by Christianity be compared with that of the -Law-Book of Manu; if only these two utterly opposed aims be put under -a strong light The critic of Christianity simply cannot avoid making -Christianity _contemptible._--A Law-Book like that of Manu comes into -being like every good law-book: it epitomises the experience, the -precautionary measures, and the experimental morality of long ages, -it settles things definitely, it no longer creates. The prerequisite -for a codification of this kind, is the recognition of the fact that -the means which procure authority for a _truth_ to which it has cost -both time and great pains to attain, are fundamentally different from -those with which that same truth would be proved. A law-book never -relates the utility, the reasons, the preliminary casuistry, of a -law: for it would be precisely in this way that it would forfeit its -imperative tone, the "thou shalt," the first condition of its being -obeyed. The problem lies exactly in this.--At a certain stage in the -development of a people, the most far-seeing class within it (that is -to say, the class that sees farthest backwards and forwards), declares -the experience of how its fellow-creatures ought to live--_can_ -live--to be finally settled. Its object is, to reap as rich and as -complete a harvest as possible, in return for the ages of experiment -and _terrible_ experience it has traversed. Consequently, that which -has to be avoided, above all, is any further experimentation, the -continuation of the state when values are still fluid, the testing, -choosing, and criticising of values _in infinitum. _ Against all this a -double wall is built up: in the first place, _Revelation,_ which is the -assumption that the rationale of every law is not human in its origin, -that it was not sought and found after ages of error, but that it is -divine in its origin, completely and utterly without a history, gift, a -miracle, a mere communication.... And secondly, _tradition,_ which is -the assumption that the law has obtained since the most primeval times, -that it is impious and a crime against one's ancestors to attempt to -doubt it. The authority of law is established on the principles: God -_gave_ it, the ancestors _lived_ it.--The superior reason of such a -procedure lies in the intention to draw consciousness off step by step -from that mode of life which has been recognised as correct (_i.e., -proved_ after enormous and carefully examined experience), so that -perfect automatism of the instincts may be attained,--this being the -only possible basis of all mastery of every kind of perfection in -the Art of Life. To draw up a law-book like Manu's, is tantamount -to granting a people mastership for the future, perfection for the -future,--the right to aspire to the highest Art of Life. _To that -end it must be made unconscious;_ this is the object of every holy -lie.--_The order of castes,_ the highest, the dominating law, is only -the sanction of a _natural order,_ of a natural legislation of the -first rank, over which no arbitrary innovation, no "modern idea" has -any power. Every healthy society falls into three distinct types, which -reciprocally condition one another and which gravitate differently in -the physiological sense; and each of these has its own hygiene, its -own sphere of work, its own special feeling of perfection, and its -own mastership. It is Nature, not Manu, that separates from the rest, -those individuals preponderating in intellectual power, those excelling -in muscular strength and temperament, and the third class which is -distinguished neither in one way nor the other, the mediocre,--the -latter as the greatest number, the former as the _élite._ The superior -caste--I call them the _fewest,_--has, as the perfect caste, the -privileges of the fewest: it devolves upon them to represent happiness, -beauty and goodness on earth. Only the most intellectual men have -the right to beauty, to the beautiful: only in them is goodness not -weakness. _Pulchrum est paucorum hominum:_ goodness is a privilege. -On the other hand there is nothing which they should be more strictly -forbidden than repulsive manners or a pessimistic look, a look that -makes everything _seem ugly,_--or even indignation at the general -aspect of things. Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala, and so -is pessimism. "_The world is perfect_"--that is what the instinct of -the most intellectual says, the yea-saying instinct; "imperfection, -every kind of _inferiority_ to us, distance, the pathos of distance, -even the Chandala belongs to this perfection." The most intellectual -men, as the _strongest_ find their happiness where others meet -with their ruin: in the labyrinth, in hardness towards themselves -and others, in endeavour; their delight is self-mastery: with them -asceticism becomes a second nature, a need, an instinct They regard -a difficult task as their privilege; to play with burdens which crush -their fellows is to them a _recreation...._ Knowledge, a form of -asceticism.--They are the most honourable kind of men: but that does -not prevent them from being the most cheerful and most gracious. They -rule, not because they will, but because they _are;_ they are not at -liberty to take a second place.--The second in rank are the guardians -of the law, the custodians of order and of security, the noble -warriors, the king, above all, as the highest formula of the warrior, -the judge, and keeper of the law. The second in rank are the executive -of the most intellectual, the nearest to them in duty, relieving them -of all that is _coarse_ in the work of ruling,--their retinue, their -right hand, their best disciples. In all this, I repeat, there is -nothing arbitrary, nothing "artificial," that which is _otherwise_ is -artificial,--by that which is otherwise, nature is put to shame.... The -order of castes, and the order of rank merely formulates the supreme -law of life itself; the differentiation of the three types is necessary -for the maintenance of society, and for enabling higher and highest -types to be reared,--the _inequality_ of rights is the only condition -of there being rights at all.--A right is a privilege. And in his -way, each has his privilege. Let us not underestimate the privileges -of the _mediocre._ Life always gets harder towards the summit,--the -cold increases, responsibility increases. A high civilisation is a -pyramid: it can stand only upon a broad base, its first prerequisite is -a strongly and soundly consolidated mediocrity. Handicraft, commerce, -agriculture, science, the greater part of art,--in a word, the whole -range of professional and business callings, is compatible only with -mediocre ability and ambition; such pursuits would be out of place -among exceptions, the instinct pertaining thereto would oppose not -only aristocracy but anarchy as well. The fact that one is publicly -useful, a wheel, a function, presupposes a certain natural destiny: it -is not _society,_ but the only kind of _happiness_ of which the great -majority are capable, that makes them intelligent machines. For the -mediocre it is a joy to be mediocre; in them mastery in one thing, a -speciality, is a natural instinct. It would be absolutely unworthy of -a profound thinker to see any objection in mediocrity _per se._ For -in itself it is the first essential condition under which exceptions -are possible; a high culture is determined by it. When the exceptional -man treats the mediocre with more tender care than he does himself or -his equals, this is not mere courtesy of heart on his part--but simply -his _duty._ ... Whom do I hate most among the rabble of the present -day? The socialistic rabble, the Chandala apostles, who undermine the -working man's instinct, his happiness and his feeling of contentedness -with his insignificant existence,--who make him envious, and who teach -him revenge. ... The wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies in the -claim to equal rights. What is _bad?_ But I have already replied to -this: Everything that proceeds from weakness, envy and _revenge._--The -anarchist and the Christian are offspring of the same womb.... - - -58 - -In point of fact, it matters greatly to what end one lies: whether one -preserves or _destroys_ by means of falsehood. It is quite justifiable -to bracket the _Christian_ and the _Anarchist_ together: their object, -their instinct, is concerned only with destruction. The proof of this -proposition can be read quite plainly from history: history spells it -with appalling distinctness. Whereas we have just seen a religious -legislation, whose object was to render the highest possible means of -making life _flourish,_ and of making a grand organisation of society, -eternal,--Christianity found its mission in putting an end to such an -organisation, _precisely because life flourishes through it._ In the -one case, the net profit to the credit of reason, acquired through -long ages of experiment and of insecurity, is applied usefully to the -most remote ends, and the harvest, which is as large, as rich and -as complete as possible, is reaped and garnered: in the other case, -on the contrary, the harvest is _blighted_ in a single night That -which stood there, _ære perennius,_ the _imperium Romanum,_ the most -magnificent form of organisation, under difficult conditions, that has -ever been achieved, and compared with which everything that preceded, -and everything which followed it, is mere patchwork, gimcrackery, -and dilettantism,--those holy anarchists made it their "piety," to -destroy "the world"--that is to say, the _imperium Romanum,_ until -no two stones were left standing one on the other,--until even the -Teutons and other clodhoppers were able to become master of it The -Christian and the anarchist are both decadents; they are both incapable -of acting in any other way than disintegratingly, poisonously and -witheringly, like _blood-suckers;_ they are both actuated by an -instinct of _mortal hatred_ of everything that stands erect, that is -great, that is lasting, and that is a guarantee of the future.... -Christianity was the vampire of the _imperium Romanum,_--in a night -it shattered the stupendous achievement of the Romans, which was to -acquire the territory for a vast civilisation which could _bide its -time._--Does no one understand this yet? The _imperium Romanum_ that -we know, and which the history of the Roman province teaches us to -know ever more thoroughly, this most admirable work of art on a grand -scale, was the beginning, its construction was calculated _to prove_ -its worth by millenniums,--unto this day nothing has ever again been -built in this fashion, nor have men even dreamt since of building on -this scale _sub specie aterni!_--This organisation was sufficiently -firm to withstand bad emperors: the accident of personalities must -have nothing to do with such matters--the _first_ principle of all -great architecture. But it was not sufficiently firm to resist the -_corruptest_ form of corruption, to resist the Christians.... These -stealthy canker-worms, which under the shadow of night, mist and -duplicity, insinuated themselves into the company of every individual, -and proceeded to drain him of all seriousness for _real_ things, -of all his instinct for _realities;_ this cowardly, effeminate and -sugary gang have step by step alienated all "souls" from this colossal -edifice,--those valuable, virile and noble natures who felt that -the cause of Rome was their own personal cause, their own personal -seriousness, their own personal _pride._ The stealth of the bigot, -the secrecy of the conventicle, concepts as black as hell such as -the sacrifice of the innocent, the _unto mystica_ in the drinking -of blood, above all the slowly kindled fire of revenge, of Chandala -revenge--such things became master of Rome, the same kind of religion -on the pre-existent form of which Epicurus had waged war. One has -only to read Lucretius in order to understand what Epicurus combated, -_not_ Paganism, but "Christianity," that is to say the corruption of -souls through the concept of guilt, through the concept of punishment -and immortality. He combated the _subterranean_ cults, the whole of -latent Christianity--to deny immortality was at that time a genuine -_deliverance._--And Epicurus had triumphed, every respectable thinker -in the Roman Empire was an Epicurean: _then St Paul appeared_ ... St -Paul, the Chandala hatred against Rome, against "the world," the Jew, -the eternal Jew _par excellence,_ become flesh and genius. ... What -he divined was, how, by the help of the small sectarian Christian -movement, independent of Judaism, a universal conflagration could be -kindled; how, with the symbol of the "God on the Cross," everything -submerged, everything secretly insurrectionary, the whole offspring -of anarchical intrigues could be gathered together to constitute an -enormous power. "For salvation is of the Jews."--Christianity is -the formula for the supersession, _and_ epitomising of all kinds of -subterranean cults, that of Osiris, of the Great Mother, of Mithras for -example: St Paul's genius consisted in his discovery of this. In this -matter his instinct was so certain, that, regardless of doing violence -to truth, he laid the ideas by means of which those Chandala religions -fascinated, upon the very lips of the "Saviour" he had invented, and -not only upon his lips,--that he _made_ out of him something which even -a Mithras priest could understand.... This was his moment of Damascus: -he saw that he had _need of_ the belief in immortality in order to -depreciate "the world," that the notion of "hell" would become master -of Rome, that with a "Beyond" _this life_ can be killed. ... Nihilist -and Christian,--they rhyme in German, and they do not only rhyme. - - -59 - -The whole labour of the ancient world _in vain:_ I am at a loss for a -word which could express my feelings at something so atrocious.--And -in view of the fact that its labour was only preparatory, that with -adamantine self-consciousness it laid the substructure, alone, to -a work which was to last millenniums, the whole _significance_ of -the ancient world was certainly in vain!... What was the use of the -Greeks? what was the use of the Romans?--All the prerequisites of a -learned culture, all the scientific methods already existed, the great -and peerless art of reading well had already been established--that -indispensable condition to tradition, to culture and to scientific -unity; natural science hand in hand with mathematics and mechanics -was on the best possible road,--the sense for facts, the last and -most valuable of all senses, had its schools, and its tradition was -already centuries old! Is this understood? Everything _essential_ had -been discovered to make it possible for work to be begun:--methods, -and this cannot be said too often, are the essential thing, also the -most difficult thing, while they moreover have to wage the longest war -against custom and indolence. That which to-day we have successfully -reconquered for ourselves, by dint of unspeakable self-discipline--for -in some way or other all of us still have the bad instincts, the -Christian instincts, in our body,--the impartial eye for reality, -the cautious hand, patience and seriousness in the smallest details, -complete _uprightness_ in knowledge,--all this was already there; it -had been there over two thousand years before! And in addition to this -there was also that excellent and subtle tact and taste! _Not_ in the -form of brain drilling! _Not_ in the form of "German" culture with the -manners of a boor! But incarnate, manifesting itself in men's bearing -and in their instinct,--in short constituting reality.... _All this -in vain!_ In one night it became merely a memory!--The Greeks! The -Romans! Instinctive nobility, instinctive taste, methodic research, -the genius of organisation and administration, faith, the _will_ to -the future of mankind, the great _yea_ to all things materialised -in the _imperium Romanum,_ become visible to all the senses, grand -style no longer manifested in mere art, but in reality, in truth, -in _life._--And buried in a night, not by a natural catastrophe! -Not stamped to death by Teutons and other heavy-footed vandals! -But destroyed by crafty, stealthy, invisible anæmic vampires! Not -conquered,--but only drained of blood!... The concealed lust of -revenge, miserable envy become _master!_ Everything wretched, inwardly -ailing, and full of ignoble feelings, the whole Ghetto-world of souls, -was in a trice _uppermost!_--One only needs to read any one of the -Christian agitators--St Augustine, for instance,--in order to realise, -in order to _smell,_ what filthy fellows came to the top in this -movement. You would deceive yourselves utterly if you supposed that the -leaders of the Christian agitation showed any lack of understanding ---Ah! they were shrewd, shrewd to the point of holiness were these -dear old Fathers of the Church I What they lack is something quite -different. Nature neglected them,--it forgot to give them a modest -dowry of decent, of respectable and of _cleanly_ instincts.... Between -ourselves, they are not even men. If Islam despises Christianity, it is -justified a thousand times over; for Islam presupposes men. - - -60 - -Christianity destroyed the harvest we might have reaped from the -culture of antiquity, later it also destroyed our harvest of the -culture of Islam. The wonderful Moorish world of Spanish culture, which -in its essence is more closely related to _us,_ and which appeals -more to our sense and taste than Rome and Greece, was _trampled to -death_(--I do not say by what kind of feet), why?--because it owed -its origin to noble, to manly instincts, because it said yea to life, -even that life so full of the rare and refined luxuries of the Moors! -... Later on the Crusaders waged war upon something before which it -would have been more seemly in them to grovel in the dust,--a culture, -beside which even our Nineteenth Century would seem very poor and -very "senile."--Of course they wanted booty: the Orient was rich.... -For goodness' sake let us forget our prejudices! Crusades--superior -piracy, that is all! German nobility--that is to say, a Viking nobility -at bottom, was in its element in such wars: the Church was only too -well aware of how German nobility is to be won.... German nobility -was always the "Swiss Guard" of the Church, always at the service of -all the bad instincts of the Church; but it was _well paid for it -all...._ Fancy the Church having waged its deadly war upon everything -noble on earth, precisely with the help of German swords, German blood -and courage! A host of painful _questions_ might be raised on this -point German nobility scarcely takes a place in the history of higher -culture: the reason of this is obvious; Christianity, alcohol--the two -_great_ means of corruption. As a matter of fact choice ought to be -just as much out of the question between Islam and Christianity, as -between an Arab and a Jew. The decision is already self-evident; nobody -is at liberty to exercise a choice in this matter. A man is either of -the Chandala or he is _not ..._ "War with Rome to the knife! Peace -and friendship with Islam": this is what that great free spirit, that -genius among German emperors,--Frederick the Second, not only felt -but also _did._ What? Must a German in the first place be a genius, a -free-spirit, in order to have _decent_ feelings? I cannot understand -how a German was ever able to have _Christian_ feelings. - -Here it is necessary to revive a memory which will be a hundred times -more painful to Germans. The Germans have destroyed the last great -harvest of culture which was to be garnered for Europe,--it destroyed -the _Renaissance._ Does anybody at last understand, _will_ anybody -understand what the Renaissance was? _The transvaluation of Christian -values,_ the attempt undertaken with all means, all instincts and all -genius to make the _opposite_ values, the _noble_ values triumph,... -Hitherto there has been only _this_ great war: there has never yet -been a more decisive question than the Renaissance,--_my_ question -is the question of the Renaissance:--there has never been a more -fundamental, a more direct and a more severe _attack,_ delivered with -a whole front upon the centre of the foe. To attack at the decisive -quarter, at the very seat of Christianity, and there to place _noble_ -values on the throne,--that is to say, to _introduce_ them into the -instincts, into the most fundamental needs and desires of those -sitting there.... I see before me a possibility perfectly magic in -its charm and glorious colouring--it seems to me to scintillate -with all the quivering grandeur of refined beauty, that there is -an art at work within it which is so divine, so infernally divine, -that one might seek through millenniums in vain for another such -possibility; I see a spectacle so rich in meaning and so wonderfully -paradoxical to boot, that it would be enough to make all the gods of -Olympus rock with immortal laughter,--_Cæsar Borgia as Pope._ ... -Do you understand me? ... Very well then, this would have been the -triumph which I alone am longing for to-day:--this would have _swept_ -Christianity _away!_--What happened? A German monk, Luther, came to -Rome. This monk, with all the vindictive instincts of an abortive -priest in his body, foamed with rage over the Renaissance in Rome.... -Instead of, with the profoundest gratitude, understanding the vast -miracle that had taken place, the overcoming of Christianity at its -_headquarters,_--the fire of his hate knew only how to draw fresh fuel -from this spectacle. A religious man thinks only of himself.--Luther -saw the corruption of the Papacy when the very reverse stared him in -the face: the old corruption, the _peceatum originate,_ Christianity -_no_ longer sat upon the Papal chair! But Life! The triumph of -Life! The great yea to all lofty, beautiful and daring things!... -And Luther reinstated the Church; he attacked it The Renaissance -thus became an event without meaning, a great _in vain!_--Ah these -Germans, what have they not cost us already! In vain--this has always -been the achievement of the Germans.--The Reformation, Leibniz, -Kant and so-called German philosophy, the Wars of Liberation, the -Empire--in each case are in vain for something which had already -existed, for something which _cannot be recovered._ ... I confess it, -these Germans are my enemies: I despise every sort of uncleanliness -in concepts and valuations in them, every kind of cowardice in the -face of every honest yea or nay. For almost one thousand years, now, -they have tangled and confused everything they have laid their hands -on; they have on their conscience all the half-measures, all the -three-eighth measures of which Europe is sick; they also have the -most unclean, the most incurable, and the most irrefutable kind of -Christianity--Protestantism--on their conscience.... If we shall never -be able to get rid of Christianity, the _Germans_ will be to blame. - - -62 - ---With this I will now conclude and pronounce my judgment. I _condemn_ -Christianity and confront it with the most terrible accusation that -an accuser has ever had in his mouth. To my mind it is the greatest -of all conceivable corruptions, it has had the will to the last -imaginable corruption. The Christian Church allowed nothing to escape -from its corruption; it converted every value into its opposite, every -truth into a He, and every honest impulse into an ignominy of the -soul. Let anyone dare to speak to me of its humanitarian blessings! -To _abolish_ any sort of distress was opposed to its profoundest -interests; its very existence depended on states of distress; it -created states of distress in order to make itself immortal.... The -cancer germ of sin, for instance: the Church was the first to enrich -mankind with this misery!--The "equality of souls before God," this -falsehood, this _pretext_ for the _rancunes_ of all the base-minded, -this anarchist bomb of a concept, which has ultimately become the -revolution, the modern idea, the principle of decay of the whole of -social order,--this is _Christian_ dynamite ... The "humanitarian" -blessings of Christianity! To breed a self-contradiction, an art of -self-profanation, a will to lie at any price, an aversion, a contempt -of all good and honest instincts out of _humanitas!_ Is this what you -call the blessings of Christianity?--Parasitism as the only method of -the Church; sucking all the blood, all the love, all the hope of life -out of mankind with anæmic and sacred ideals. A "Beyond" as the will to -deny all reality; the cross as the trade-mark of the most subterranean -form of conspiracy that has ever existed,--against health, beauty, -well-constitutedness, bravery, intellect, kindliness of soul, _against -Life itself...._ - -This eternal accusation against Christianity I would fain write on all -walls, wherever there are walls,--I have letters with which I can make -even the blind see.... I call Christianity the one great curse, the one -enormous and innermost perversion, the one great instinct of revenge, -for which no means are too venomous, too underhand, too underground and -too _petty,_--I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind.... - -And _time_ is reckoned from the _dies nefastus_ upon which this -fatality came into being--from the first day of Christianity!--_why -not rather from its last day?--From to-day?_--Transvaluation of all -Values!... - - -[1] The German "_Tüchtigkeit_" has a nobler ring than our word -"efficiency."--TR. - -[2] _Cf._ Disraeli: "But enlightened Europe is not happy. Its existence -is a fever which it calls progress. Progress to what?" ("Tancred," Book -III., Chap, vii.).--TR. - -[3] It will be seen from this that in spite of Nietzsche's ruthless -criticism of the priests, he draws a sharp distinction between -Christianity and the Church. As the latter still contained elements -of order, it was more to his taste than the denial of authority -characteristic of real Christianity.--TR. - -[4] "_reine Thorheit_" in the German text, referring once again to -Parsifal.--Tr. - -[5] This applies apparently to Bismarck, the forger of the Ems telegram -and a sincere Christian.--Tr. - -[6] An adaptation of Shakespeare's "Well roared, lion" (_Mid. N. D.,_ -Act 5, Sc. i.), the lion, as is well known, being the symbol for St -Mark in Christian literature and Art--TR. - -[7] A parody on a line in Schiller's _"Jungfrau von Orleans"_ (Act 3, -Sc. vi.): "_Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens._" (With -stupidity even the gods themselves struggle in vain).--TR. - -[8] ἒφεξις = Lat. Retentio, Inhibitio (Stephanus, Thesaurus Græcæ -Linguæ); therefore: reserve, caution. The Greek Sceptics were also -called Ephectics owing to their caution in judging and in concluding -from facts.--TR. - -[9] The following passage from Multatuti will throw light on this -passage:-- - -"Father:--'Behold, my son, how wisely Providence has arranged -everything! This bird lays its eggs in its nest and the young will be -hatched just about the time when there will be worms and flies with -which to feed them. Then they will sing a song of praise in honour of -the Creator who overwhelms his creatures with blessings.'-- - -"Son:--'Will the worms join in the song, Dad?'".--TR. - -[10] "Thus Spake Zarathustra." The Priests.--TR. - -[11] I Corinthians vii. 2, 9.--TR. - - - - -THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE - -AND - -EXPLANATORY NOTES TO "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA." - - -TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE - - -The notes concerning the Eternal Recurrence, in this volume, are said -by Mrs Foerster-Nietzsche to have been the first that Nietzsche ever -wrote on the subject of his great doctrine. This being so, they must -have been composed towards the autumn of the year 1881. - -I have already pointed out elsewhere (_Will to Power,_ vol. ii., -Translator's Preface) how much importance Nietzsche himself ascribed -to this doctrine, and how, until the end, he regarded it as the -inspiration which had led to his chief work, _Thus Spake Zarathustra._ -For the details relating to its inception, however, I would refer the -reader to Mrs Foerster-Nietzsche's Introduction to her brother's chief -work, which was translated for the eleventh volume of this Edition of -the Complete Works. - -In reading these notes it would be well to refer to Nietzsche's other -utterances on the subject which are to be found at the end of vol. -ii. of the _Will to Power,_ and also, if possible, to have recourse -to the original German text. Despite the greatest care, I confess -that in some instances, I have felt a little doubt as to the precise -English equivalent for the thoughts expressed under the heading -_Eternal Recurrence;_ and, though I have attributed this difficulty to -the extreme novelty of the manner in which the subject is presented, -it is well that the reader should be aware that such doubt has been -entertained. For I disbelieve utterly in mere verbal translation, -however accurate, and would question anybody's right to convert a -German sentence into English--even though he were so perfect in -both languages as to be almost absolutely bilingual,--if he did not -completely grasp the thought behind the sentence. - -The writing of the collected Explanatory Notes to _Thus Spake -Zarathustra_, cannot be given any exact date. Some of them consist of -comments, written down by Nietzsche after the completion of the book, -and kept as the nucleus of an actual commentary to Zarathustra, which -it seems to have been his intention, one day, to write; while others -are merely memoranda and rough sketches, probably written before the -completion of the work, and which served the purpose of a draft of his -original plan. The reader who knows _Thus Spake Zarathustra_ will be -able to tell wherein the book ultimately differed from the plan visible -in these preliminary notes. - -As an authoritative, though alas! all too fragmentary elucidation of a -few of the more obscure passages of Zarathustra, some of these notes -are of the greatest value; and, in paragraph 73, for instance, there -is an interpretation of the Fourth and Last Part, which I myself would -have welcomed with great enthusiasm, at the time when I was having my -first struggles with the spirit of this great German sage's life work. - -ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI. - - - - -I. ETERNAL RECURRENCE - - -1. THE DOCTRINE EXPOUNDED AND SUBSTANTIATED. - - -1. - -The extent of universal energy is limited; it is not "infinite": we -should beware of such excesses in our concepts! Consequently the number -of states, changes, combinations, and evolutions of this energy, -although it may be enormous and practically incalculable, is at any -rate definite and not unlimited. The time, however, in which this -universal energy works its changes is infinite--that is to say, energy -remains eternally the same and is eternally active:--at this moment an -infinity has already elapsed, that is to say, every possible evolution -must already have taken place. Consequently the present process of -evolution must be a repetition, as was also the one before it, as will -also be the one which will follow. And so on forwards and backwards! -Inasmuch as the entire state of all forces continually returns, -everything has existed an infinite number of times. Whether, apart from -this, anything exactly like something that formerly existed has ever -appeared, is completely beyond proof. It would seem that each complete -state of energy forms all qualities afresh even to the smallest -degree, so that two different complete states could have nothing in -common. Is it to be supposed that in one and the same complete states -two precisely similar things could appear--for instance two leaves? -I doubt it: it would take for granted that they had both had an -absolutely similar origin, and in that case we should have to assume -that right back in infinity two similar things had also existed despite -all the changes in the complete states and their creation of new -qualities--an impossible assumption. - - -2 - -Formerly it was thought that unlimited energy was a necessary corollary -to unlimited activity in time, and that this energy could be exhausted -by no form of consumption. Now it is thought that energy remains -constant and docs not require to be infinite. It is eternally active -but it is no longer able eternally to create new forms, it must repeat -itself: that is my conclusion. - - -3 - -An incalculable number of complete states of energy have existed, -but these have not been infinitely different: for if they had been, -unlimited energy would have been necessary. The energy of the universe -can only have a given number of possible qualities. - - -4 - -The endless evolution of new forms is a contradiction, for it would -imply eternally increasing energy. But whence would it grow? Whence -would it derive its nourishment and its surplus of nourishment? The -assumption that the universe is an organism contradicts the very -essence of the organic. - - -5 - -In what principle and belief is that decisive turning point in -philosophical thought best expressed which has come into being thanks -to the preponderance of the scientific spirit over the religious and -God-creating one? We insist upon the fact that the world as a sum of -energy must not be regarded as unlimited--we forbid ourselves the -concept infinite energy, because it seems incompatible with the concept -energy. - - -6 - -An unlimited number of new changes and states on the part of limited -energy is a contradiction, however extensive one may imagine it to be, -and however economical the changes may be, provided it is infinite. -We are therefore forced to conclude: (1) either that the universe -began its activity at a given moment of time and will end in a similar -fashion,--but the beginning of activity is absurd; if a state of -equilibrium had been reached it would have persisted to all eternity; -(2) Or there is no such thing as an endless number of changes, but -a circle consisting of a definite number of them which continually -recurs: activity is eternal, the number of the products and states of -energy is limited. - - -7 - -If all the possible combinations and relations of forces had not -already been exhausted, then an infinity would not yet lie behind -us. Now since infinite time must be assumed, no fresh possibility -can exist and everything must have appeared already, and moreover an -infinite number of times. - - -8 - -The present world of forces leads back to a state of greatest -simplicity in these forces: it likewise leads forwards to such a -state,--cannot and must not _both_ states be identical? No incalculable -number of states can evolve out of a system of limited forces, that -is to say, out of a given quantity of energy which may be precisely -measured. Only when we falsely assume that space is unlimited, and that -therefore energy gradually becomes dissipated, can the final state be -an unproductive and lifeless one. - - -9 - -First principles.--The last physical state of energy which we can -imagine must necessarily be the first also. The absorption of energy -in latent energy must be the cause of the production of the most vital -energy. For a highly positive state must follow a negative state Space -like matter is a subjective form, time is not. The notion of space -first arose from the assumption that space could be empty. But there is -no such thing as empty space. Everything is energy. - -We cannot think of that which moves and that which is moved together, -but both these things constitute matter and space. We isolate. - - -10 - -Concerning the resurrection of the world.--Out of two negatives, when -they are forces, a positive arises. (Darkness comes of light opposed to -light, cold arises from warmth opposed to warmth, &c, &c.) - - -11 - -An uncertain state of equilibrium occurs just as seldom in nature as -two absolutely equal triangles. Consequently anything like a static -state of energy in general is impossible. If stability were possible it -would already have been reached. - - -12 - -Either complete equilibrium must in itself be an impossibility, or -the changes of energy introduce themselves in the circular process -before that equilibrium which is in itself possible has appeared.--But -it would be madness to ascribe a feeling of self-preservation to -existence! And the same applies to the conception of a contest of pain -and pleasure among atoms. - - -13 - -Physics supposes that energy may be divided up: but every one of its -possibilities must first be adjusted to reality. There can therefore -be no question of dividing energy into equal parts; in every one of -its states it manifests a certain quality, and qualities cannot be -subdivided: hence a state of equilibrium in energy is impossible. - - -14 - -If energy had ever reached a stage of equilibrium that stage would -have persisted: it has therefore never reached such a stage. The -present condition of things contradicts this assumption. If we assume -that there has ever been a state absolutely like the present one this -assumption is in no wise refuted by the present state. For, among -all the endless possibilities, this case must already have occurred, -as an infinity is already behind us. If equilibrium were possible it -would already have been reached.--And if this momentary state has -already existed then that which bore it and the previous one also would -likewise have existed and so on backwards,--and from this it follows -that it has already existed not only twice but three times,--just as it -will exist again not only twice but three times,--in fact an infinite -number of times backwards and forwards. That is to say, the whole -process of Becoming consists of a repetition of a definite number of -precisely similar states.--Clearly the human brain cannot be left to -imagine the whole series of possibilities: but in any case, quite apart -from our ability to judge or our inability to conceive the whole range -of possibilities, the present state at least is a possible one--because -it is a real one. We should therefore say: in the event of the number -of possibilities not being infinite, and assuming that in the course of -unlimited time a limited number of these must appear, all real states -must have been preceded by similar states? Because from every given -moment a whole infinity is to be calculated backwards? The stability of -forces and their equilibrium is a possible alternative: but it has not -been reached; consequently the number of possibilities is greater than -the number of real states. The fact that nothing similar recurs could -not be explained by appealing to accident, but only by supposing that a -certain intention, that no similar things should recur, were actually -inherent in the essence of energy: for, if we grant that the number of -cases is enormous, the occurrence of like cases is more probable than -absolute disparity. - - -15 - -Let us think backwards a moment If the world had a goal, this goal -must have been reached: if a certain (unintentional) final state -existed for the world, this state also would have been reached. If -it were in any way capable of a stationary or stable condition, and -if in the whole course of its existence only one second of Being, in -the strict sense of the word, had been possible, then there could -no longer be such a process as evolution, and therefore no thinking -and no observing of such a process. If on the other hand the world -were something which continually renovated itself, it would then be -understood to be something miraculous and free to create itself--in -fact something divine. Eternal renovation presupposes that energy -voluntarily increases itself, that it not only has the intention, but -also the power, to avoid repeating itself or to avoid returning into a -previous form, and that every instant it adjusts itself in every one of -its movements to prevent such a contingency,--or that it was incapable -of returning to a state it had already passed through. That would -mean that the whole sum of energy was not constant, any more than its -attributes were But a sum of energy which would be inconstant and which -would fluctuate is quite unthinkable Let us not indulge our fancy -any longer with unthinkable things in order to fall once more before -the concept of a Creator (multiplication out of nothing, reduction -out of nothing, absolute arbitrariness and freedom in growth and in -qualities):-- - - -16 - -He who does not believe in the circular process of the universe must -pin his faith to an arbitrary God--thus my doctrine becomes necessary -as opposed to all that has been said hitherto in matters of Theism. - - -17 - -The hypothesis which I would oppose to that of the eternal circular -process:--Would it be just as possible to explain the laws of the -mechanical world as exceptions and seemingly as accidents among the -things of the universe, as one possibility only among an incalculable -number of possibilities? Would it be possible to regard ourselves -as accidentally thrust into this corner of the mechanical universal -arrangement?--That all chemical philosophy is likewise an exception -and an accident in the world's economy, and finally that organic life -is a mere exception and accident in the chemical world? Should we have -to assume as the most general form of existence a world which was -not yet mechanical, which was outside all mechanical laws (although -accessible to them)?--and that as a matter of fact this world would -be the most general now and for evermore, so that the origin of the -mechanical world would be a lawless game which would ultimately acquire -such consistency as the organic laws seem to have now from our point -of view? So that all our mechanical laws would be not eternal, but -evolved, and would have survived innumerable different mechanical -laws, or that they had attained supremacy in isolated corners of the -world and not in others?--It would seem that we need caprice, actual -lawlessness, and only a capacity for law, a primeval state of stupidity -which is not even able to concern itself with mechanics? The origin of -qualities presupposes the existence of quantities, and these, for their -part, might arise from a thousand kinds of mechanical processes. - -Is not the existence of some sort of irregularity and incomplete -circular form in the world about us, a sufficient refutation of -the regular circularity of everything that exists? Whence comes -this variety within the circular process? Is not everything far too -complicated to have been the outcome of unity? And are not the many -chemical laws and likewise the organic species and forms inexplicable -as the result of homogeneity? or of duality?--Supposing there were -such a thing as a regular contracting energy in all the centres of -force in the universe, the question would be, whence could the most -insignificant difference spring? For then the whole world would have -to be resolved into innumerable completely equal rings and spheres of -existence and we should have an incalculable number of exactly equal -worlds side by side. Is it necessary for me to assume this? Must I -suppose that an eternal sequence of like worlds also involves eternal -juxta-position of like worlds? But the multifariousness and disorder -in the world which we have known hitherto contradicts this; no such -universal similarity has existed in evolution, for in that case even -for our part of the cosmos a regular spherical form must have been -formed. Should the production of qualities not be subject to any strict -laws? Can it be possible that different things have been derived from -"energy"? Arbitrarily? Is the conformity to law which we observe -perhaps only a deception? Is it possible that it is not a primeval law? -Is it possible that the multifariousness of qualities even in our part -of the world is the result of the absolute occurrence of arbitrary -characteristics? But that these characteristics no longer appear in our -corner of the globe? Or that our corner of existence has adopted a rule -which we call cause and effect when all the while it is no such thing -(an arbitrary phenomenon become a rule, as for instance oxygen and -hydrogen in chemistry)??? Is this rule simply a protracted kind of mood? - - -18 - -If the universe had been able to become an organism it would have -become one already. _As_ a whole we must try and regard it in the -light of a thing _as_ remote _as possible_ from the organic. I believe -that even our chemical affinity and coherence may be perhaps recently -evolved and that these appearances only occur in certain corners of -the universe at certain epochs. Let us believe in absolute necessity -in the universe but let us guard against postulating any sort of law, -even if it be a primitive and mechanical one of our own experience, -as ruling over the whole and constituting one of its eternal -characteristics.--All chemical qualities might have been evolved and -might disappear and return. Innumerable characteristics might have been -developed which for us,--from our limited point of view in time and -space, defy observation. The transformation of a chemical quality may -perhaps now be taking place, but so slowly that it escapes our most -delicate calculations. - - -19 - -Inorganic matter, even though in most cases it may once have -been organic, can have stored up no experience,--it is always -without a pastl If the reverse were the case a repetition would be -impossible--for then matter would for ever be producing new qualities -with new pasts. - - -20 - -We must guard against ascribing any aspiration or any goal to this -circular process: Likewise we must not, from the point of view of our -own needs, regard it as either monotonous or foolish, &c. We may grant -that the greatest possible irrationality, as also its reverse, may be -an essential feature of it: but we must not value it according to this -hypothesis. Rationality or irrationality cannot stand as attributes of -the universe.--We must not think of the law of this circular process as -a thing evolved, by drawing false analogies with the circular motions -occurring _within_ the circle. There was no primitive chaos followed -gradually by a more harmonious and finally definite circular motion of -all forces: On the contrary everything is eternal and unevolved. If -there ever was a chaos of forces, then that chaos itself was eternal -and was repeated at its particular moment of time in the turn of the -world wheel. The circular process is not the outcome of evolution, it -is a primitive principle like the quantum of energy, and allows of no -exception or violation. All Becoming takes place within the circular -process and the quantum of energy which constitutes it: therefore we -must not apply ephemeral processes like those for instance of heavenly -bodies, of the ebb and flow of tides, of day and night, of the seasons, -to the drawing of analogies for characterising the eternal circular -process. - - -21 - -The "chaos of the universe," inasmuch as it excludes any aspiration to -a goal, does not oppose the thought of the circular process: the latter -is simply an irrational necessity, absolutely free from any formal -ethical or æsthetical significance. Arbitrariness in small things as in -great is completely lacking here. - - -22 - -Let us guard against believing that the universe has a tendency to -attain to certain forms, or that it aims at becoming more beautiful, -more perfect, more complicated! All that is anthropomorphism! Anarchy, -ugliness, form--are unrelated concepts. There is no such thing as -imperfection in the realm of mechanics. - -Everything has returned: Sirius, and the spider, and thy thoughts at -this moment, and this last thought of thine that all these things will -return. - - -23 - -Our whole world consists of the ashes of an incalculable number of -living creatures: and even if living matter is ever so little compared -with the whole, everything has already been transformed into life once -before and thus the process goes on. If we grant eternal time we must -assume the eternal change of matter. - - -24 - -Whoever thou mayest be, beloved stranger, whom I meet here for the -first time, avail thyself of this happy hour and of the stillness -around us, and above us, and let me tell thee something of the thought -which has suddenly risen before me like a star which would fain shed -down its rays upon thee and every one, as befits the nature of light-- - - -25 - -The world of energy suffers no diminution: otherwise with eternal -time it would have grown weak and finally have perished altogether. -The world of energy suffers no stationary state, otherwise this would -already have been reached, and the clock of the universe would be at -a standstill. The world of energy does not therefore reach a state of -equilibrium; for no instant in its career has it had rest; its energy -and its movement have been the same for all time. Whatever state this -world could have reached must ere now have been attained, and not -only once but an incalculable number of times. This applies to this -very moment It has already been here once before, and several times, -and will recur in the same way, with all forces distributed as they -are to-day: and the same holds good of the moment of time which bore -the present and of that which shall be the child of the present. -Fellow-man! Your whole life, like a sandglass, will always be reversed -and will ever run out again,--a long minute of time will elapse until -all those conditions out of which you were evolved return in the wheel -of the cosmic process. And then you will find every pain and every -pleasure, every friend and every enemy, every hope and every error, -every blade of grass and every ray of sunshine once more, and the whole -fabric of things that makes up your life. This ring in which you are -but a grain will glitter afresh for ever. And in every one of these -cycles of human life there will be one hour where for the first time -one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty thought of the eternal -recurrence of all things:--and for mankind this is always the hour of -Noon. - - - -2. THE EFFECTS OF THE DOCTRINE UPON MANKIND - - -26 - -How can we give weight to our inner life without making it evil and -fanatical towards people who think otherwise. Religious belief is -declining and man is beginning to regard himself as ephemeral and -unessential, a point of view which is making him weak; he does not -exercise so much effort in striving or enduring. What he wants is -momentary enjoyment He would make things light for himself,--and a good -deal of his spirit gets squandered in this endeavour. - - -27 - -The political mania at which I smile just as merrily as my -contemporaries smile at the religious mania of former times is above -all Materialism, a belief in the world, and in the repudiation of a -"Beyond," of a "back-world." The object of those who believe in the -latter is the well-being of the ephemeral individual: that is why -Socialism is its fruit; for with Socialism ephemeral individuals wish -to secure their happiness by means of socialisation. They have no -reason to wait, as those men had who believed in eternal souls, in -eternal development and eternal amelioration. My doctrine is: Live -so that thou mayest desire to live again,--that is thy duty,--for in -any case thou wilt live again He unto whom striving is the greatest -happiness, let him strive; he unto whom peace is the greatest -happiness, let him rest; he unto whom subordination, following, -obedience, is the greatest happiness, let him obey. All that is -necessary is that he should know what it is that gives him the highest -happiness, and to fight shy of no means! Eternity is at stake! - - -28 - -"But if everything is necessary, what control have I over my actions?" -Thought and faith are a form of ballast which burden thee in addition -to other burdens thou mayest have, and which are even more weighty than -the latter. Sayest thou that nutrition, the land of thy birth, air, and -society change thee and determine thee? Well, thy opinions do this to -a much greater degree, for they even prescribe thy nourishment, thy -land of adoption, thy atmosphere, and thy society for thee.--If thou -ever assimilatest the thought of thoughts it will also alter thee. The -question which thou wilt have to answer before every deed that thou -doest: "is this such a deed as I am prepared to perform an incalculable -number of times?" is the best ballast. - - -29 - -The mightiest of all thoughts absorbs a good deal of energy which -formerly stood at the disposal of other aspirations, and in this way -it exercises a modifying influence; it creates new laws of motion in -energy, though no new energy. But it is precisely in this respect that -there lies some possibility of determining new emotions and new desires -in men. - - -30 - -Let us try and discover how the thought that something gets repeated -has affected mankind hitherto (the year, for instance, or periodical -illnesses, waking and sleeping, &c). Even supposing the recurrence of -the cycle is only a probability or a possibility, even a thought, even -a possibility, can shatter us and transform us. It is not only feelings -and definite expectations that do this! See what effect the thought of -eternal damnation has had! - - -31 - -From the moment when this thought begins to prevail all colours will -change their hue and a new history will begin. - - -32 - -The history of the future: this thought will tend to triumph ever more -and more, and those who disbelieve in it will be forced, according to -their nature, ultimately to die out. - -He, alone, who will regard his existence as capable of eternal -recurrence will remain over: but among such as these a state will be -possible of which the imagination of no utopist has ever dreamt! - - -33 - -Ye fancy that ye will have a long rest ere your second birth takes -place,--but do not deceive yourselves! 'Twixt your last moment of -consciousness and the first ray of the dawn of your new life no time -will elapse,--as a flash of lightning will the space go by, even though -living creatures think it is billions of years, and are not even able -to reckon it. Timelessness and immediate re-birth are compatible, once -intellect is eliminated! - - -34 - -Thou feelest that thou must soon take thy leave perhaps--and the sunset -glow of this feeling pierces through thy happiness. Give heed to this -sign: it means that thou lovest life and thyself, and life as it has -hitherto affected thee and moulded thee,--and that thou cravest for its -eternity--_Non alia sed hac vita sempiterna!_ - -Know also, that transiency singeth its short song for ever afresh and -that at the sound of the first verse thou wilt almost die of longing -when thou thinkest that it might be for the last time. - - -35 - -Let us stamp the impress of eternity upon our lives! This thought -contains more than all the religions which taught us to contemn this -life as a thing ephemeral, which bade us squint upwards to another and -indefinite existence.-- - - -36 - -We must not strive after distant and unknown states of bliss and -blessings and acts of grace, but we must live so that we would fain -live again and live for ever so, to all eternity!--Our duty is present -with us every instant. - - -37 - -The leading tendencies: (1) We must implant the love of life, the -love of every man's own life in every conceivable way! However each -individual may understand this love of self his neighbour will -acquiesce, and will have to learn great tolerance towards it: however -much it may often run counter to his taste,--provided the individual in -question really helps to increase his joy in his own life! - -(2) We must all be one in our hostility towards everything and -everybody who tends to cast a slur upon the value of life: towards -all gloomy, dissatisfied and brooding natures. We must prevent these -from procreating! But our hostility itself must be a means to our joy! -Thus we shall laugh; we shall mock and we shall exterminate without -bitterness I Let this be our mortal combat - -This life is thy eternal life! - - -38 - -What was the cause of the downfall of the Alexandrian culture? With all -its useful discoveries and its desire to investigate the nature of this -world, it did not know how to lend this life its ultimate importance, -the thought of a Beyond was more important to it! To teach anew in -this regard is still the most important thing of all:--perhaps if -metaphysics are applied to this life in the most emphatic way,--as in -the case of my doctrine! - - -39 - -This doctrine is lenient towards those who do not believe in it It -speaks of no hells and it contains no threats. He who does not believe -in it has but a fleeting life in his consciousness. - - -40 - -It would be terrible if we still believed in sin, but whatever we may -do, however often we may repeat it, it is all innocent. If the thought -of the eternal recurrence of all things does not overwhelm thee, then -it is not thy fault: and if it does overwhelm thee, this does not stand -to thy merit either.--We think more leniently of our forebears than -they themselves thought of themselves; we mourn over the errors which -were to them constitutional; but we do not mourn over their evil. - - -41 - -Let us guard against teaching such a doctrine as if it were a suddenly -discovered religion! It must percolate through slowly, and whole -generations must build on it and become fruitful through it,--in order -that it may grow into a large tree which will shelter all posterity. -What are the two thousand years in which Christianity has maintained -its sway? For the mightiest thought of all many millenniums will be -necessary,--long, long, long will it have to remain puny and weak! - - -42 - -For this thought we do not require thirty years of glory with drums -and fifes, and thirty years of grave-digging followed by an eternity -of macaberesque stillness, as is the case with so many other famous -thoughts. - -Simple and well-nigh arid as it is, this thought must not even require -eloquence to uphold it. - - -43 - -Are ye now prepared? Ye must have experienced every form of -scepticism and ye must have wallowed with voluptuousness in ice-cold -baths,--otherwise ye have no right to this thought; I wish to protect -myself against those who are over-ready to believe, likewise against -those who gush over anything! I would defend my doctrine in advance. -It must be the religion of the freest, most cheerful and most sublime -souls, a delightful pastureland somewhere between golden ice and a pure -heaven! - - - - -EXPLANATORY NOTES TO "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA" - - -1 - -All goals have been annihilated: valuations are turning against each -other: - -People call him good who hearkens to the dictates of his own heart, but -they also call him good who merely does his duty; - -People call the mild and conciliating man good, but they also call him -good who is brave, inflexible and severe; - -People call him good who does not do violence to himself, but they also -call the heroes of self-mastery good; - -People call the absolute friend of truth good-, but they also call him -good who is pious and a transfigurer of things; - -People call him good who can obey his own voice, but they also call the -devout man good; - -People call the noble and the haughty man good, but also him who does -not despise and who does not assume condescending airs. - -People call him good who is kindhearted and who steps out of the way of -broils, but he who thirsts for fight and triumph is also called good; - -People call him good who always wishes to be first, but they also call -him good who does not wish to be ahead of anybody in anything. - - -2 - -We possess a powerful store of moral _feelings,_ but we have no goal -for them all. They mutually contradict each other: they have their -origin in different tables of values. - -There is a wonderful amount of moral power, but there is no longer any -goal towards which all this power can be directed. - - -3 - -All goals have been annihilated, mankind must give themselves a fresh -goal. It is an error to suppose that they had one: they gave themselves -all the goals they ever had. But the prerequisites of all previous -goals have been annihilated. - -Science traces the course of things but points to no goal: what it does -give consists of the fundamental facts upon which the new goal must be -based. - - -4 - -The profound sterility of the nineteenth century. I have not -encountered a single man who really had a new ideal to bring -forward. The character of German music kept me hoping longest, but -in vain. A stronger type in which all our powers are synthetically -correlated--this constitutes my faith. - -Apparently everything is decadence. We should so direct this movement -of decline that it may provide the strongest with a new form of -existence. - - -5 - -The dissolution of morality, in its practical consequences, leads -to the atomistic individual, and further to the subdivision of the -individual into a quantity of parts--absolute liquefaction. - -That is why a goal is now more than ever necessary; and love, but a new -love. - - -6 - -I say: "As long as your morality hung over me I breathed like one -asphyxiated. That is why I throttled this snake. I wished to live, -consequently it had to die." - - -7 - -As long as people are still _forced to_ act, that is to say as long as -commands are given, synthesis (the suppression of the moral man) will -not be realised To be unable to be otherwise: instincts and commanding -reason extending beyond any immediate object: the ability to enjoy -one's own nature in action. - - -8 - -None of them wish to bear the burden of the commander; but they will -perform the most strenuous task if only thou commandest them. - - -9 - -We must overcome the past in ourselves: we must combine the instincts -afresh and direct the whole together to one goal:--an extremely -difficult undertaking! It is not only the evil instincts which have to -be overcome,--the so-called good instincts must be conquered also and -consecrated anew! - - -10 - -No leaps must be made in virtue! But everyone must be given a different -path! Not leading to the highest development of each! Yet everyone may -be a bridge and an example for others. - - -11 - -To help, to pity, to submit and to renounce personal attacks with a -good will,--these things may make even insignificant and superficial -men tolerable to the eye: such men must not be contradicted in their -belief that this good will is "virtue in itself." - - -12 - -Man makes a deed valuable: but how might a deed make man valuable? - - -13 - -Morality is the concern of those who cannot free themselves from -it: for such people morality therefore belongs to the conditions of -existence. It is impossible to refute conditions of existence: the only -thing one can do is not to have them. - - -14 - -If it were true that life did not deserve to be welcomed, the moral -man, precisely on account of his self-denial and obligingness, would -then be guilty of misusing his fellow to his own personal advantage. - - -15 - -"Love thy neighbour"--this would mean first and foremost: "Let thy -neighbour go his own way"--and it is precisely this kind of virtue that -is the most difficult! - - -16 - -The bad man as the parasite. We must not be merely feasters and -gourmets of life: this is ignoble. - - -17 - -It is a noble sense which forbids our being only feasters and gourmets -of life--this sense revolts against hedonism--: we want to perform -something in return!--But the fundamental feeling of the masses is that -one must live for nothing,--that is their vulgarity. - - -18 - -The converse valuations hold good for the lower among men: in their -case therefore it is necessary to implant virtues. They must be -elevated above their lives, by means of absolute commands and terrible -taskmasters. - - -19 - -What is required: the new law must be made practicable--and out of its -fulfilment, the overcoming of this law, and higher law, must evolve -Zarathustra defines the attitude towards law, inasmuch as he suppresses -the law of laws which is morality. - -Laws as the backbone They must be worked at and created, by being -fulfilled. The slavish attitude which has reigned hitherto towards law! - - -20 - -The self-overcoming of Zarathustra as the prototype of mankind's -self-overcoming for the benefit of Superman. To this end the overcoming -of morality is necessary. - - -21 - -The type of the lawgiver, his development and his suffering. What is -the purpose of giving laws at all? - -Zarathustra is the herald who calls forth many lawgivers. - - -22 - -_Individual instruments._ - -1. The Commanders, the mighty--who do not love, unless it be that they -love the images according to which they create. The rich in vitality, -the versatile, the free, who overcome that which is extant - -2. The obedient, the "emancipated"--love and reverence constitute their -happiness, they have a sense of what is higher (their deficiencies are -made whole by the sight of the lofty). - -3. The slaves, the order of "henchmen"--: they must be made -comfortable, they must cultivate pity for one another. - - -23 - -The giver, the creator, the teacher--these are preludes of the ruler. - - -24 - -All virtue and all self-mastery has only one purpose: that of preparing -for the rule! - - -25 - -Every sacrifice that the ruler makes is rewarded a hundredfold. - - -26 - -How much does not the warrior, the prince, the man who is responsible -for himself, sacrifice!--this should be highly honoured. - - -27 - -The terrible task of the ruler who educates himself:--the kind of man -and people over which he will rule must be forecast in him: it is in -himself therefore that he must first have become a ruler! - - -28 - -The great educator like nature must elevate obstacles in order that -these may be overcome. - - -29 - -The new teachers as preparatory stages for the highest Architect (they -must impose their type on things). - - -30 - -Institutions may be regarded as the after effects of great individuals -and the means of giving great individuals root and soil--until the -fruit ultimately appears. - - -31 - -As a matter of fact mankind is continually trying to be able to -dispense with great individuals by means of corporations, &c But they -are utterly dependent upon such great individuals for their ideal. - - -32 - -The eudæmonistic and social ideals lead men backwards,--it may be that -they aim at a very useful working class,--they are creating the ideal -slave of the future, the lower caste which must on no account be -lacking! - - -33 - -Equal rights for all!--this is the most extraordinary form of -injustice, for with it the highest men do not get their due. - - -34 - -It is not a matter of the rights of the stronger, for strong and weak -are alike in this, that they all extend their power as far as they can. - - -35 - -A new form of estimating man: above all the question: - -How much power has he got? - -How manifold are his instincts? - -How great is his capacity for communication and assimilation? - -The ruler as the highest type. - - -36 - -Zarathustra rejoices that the war of the classes is at last over, -and that now at length the time is ripe for an order of rank among -individuals. His hatred of the democratic system of levelling is only -a blind; as a matter of fact he is very pleased that this has gone so -far. Now he can perform his task.-- - -Hitherto his doctrines had been directed only at the ruling caste of -the future. These lords of the earth must now take the place of God, -and must create for themselves the profound and absolute confidence -of those they rule. Their new holiness, their renunciation of -happiness and ease, must be their first principle. To the lowest they -grant the heirloom of happiness, not to themselves. They deliver the -physiologically botched by teaching them the doctrine of "swift death." -They offer religions and philosophical systems to each according to his -rank. - - -37 - -"The conflict in the heart of the ruler is the contest between the love -which is in his heart for him who is most remote, and the love which he -feels for his neighbour." - -To be a creator and to be capable of goodness are not at all things -which exclude one another. They are rather one and the same thing; but -the creator is farsighted and the good man nearsighted. - - -38 - -The feeling of power. The strife of all egos to discover that thought -which will remain poised above men like a star.--The ego is a _primum -mobile._ - - -39 - -The struggle for the application of the power which mankind now -represents! Zarathustra calls to the gladiators of this struggle. - - -40 - -We must make our ideals prevail:--We must strive for power in such a -way as our ideal commands. - - -41 - -The doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence is the turning point of history. - - -42 - -Suddenly the terrible chamber of truth is opened, an unconscious -self-protectiveness, caution, ambush, defence keeps us from the gravest -knowledge. Thus have I lived heretofore. I suppress something; but the -restless babbling and rolling down of stones has rendered my instinct -over-powerful. Now I am rolling my last stone, the most appalling truth -stands close to my hand. - -Truth has been exorcised out of its grave:--we created it, we waked it: -the highest expression of courage and of the feeling of power. Scorn of -all pessimism that has existed hitherto! - -We fight with it,--we find out that our only means of enduring it is -to create a creature who is able to endure it:--unless, of course, we -voluntarily dazzle ourselves afresh and blind ourselves in regard to it -But this we are no longer able to do! - -We it was who created the gravest thought,--let us now create a being -unto whom it will be not only light but blessed. - -In order to be able to create we must allow ourselves greater freedom -than has ever been vouch-safed us before; to this end we must be -emancipated from morality, and we must be relieved by means of feasts -(Premonitions of the future! We must celebrate the future and no longer -the past! We must compose the myth poetry of the future! We must live -in hopes!) Blessed moments I And then we must once again pull down the -curtain and turn our thoughts to the next unswerving purpose. - - -43 - -Mankind must set its goal above itself--not in a false world, however, -but in one which would be a continuation of humanity. - - -44 - -The half-way house is always present when the will to the future -arises: the greatest event stands immediately before it. - - -45 - -Our very essence is to create a being higher than ourselves. We must -create beyond ourselves. That is the instinct of procreation, that is -the instinct of action and of work.--Just as all willing presupposes a -purpose, so does mankind presuppose a creature which is not yet formed -but which provides the aim of life. This is the freedom of all will. -Love, reverence, yearning for perfection, longing, all these things are -inherent in a purpose. - - -46 - -My desire: to bring forth creatures which stand sublimely above the -whole species man: and to sacrifice "one's neighbours" and oneself to -this end. - -The morality which has existed hitherto was limited within the confines -of the species: all moralities that have existed hitherto have been -useful in the first place in order to give unconditional stability to -this species: once this has been achieved the aim can be elevated. - -One movement is absolute; it is nothing more than the levelling down of -mankind, great ant-organisations, &c. - -The other movement, my movement, is conversely the accentuation of all -contrasts and gulfs, and the elimination of equality, together with the -creation of supremely powerful creatures. - -The first movement brings forth the last man, my movement brings forth -the Superman. It is by no means the goal to regard the latter as the -master of the first: two races ought to exist side by side,--separated -as far asunder as possible; the one, like the Epicurean gods, not -concerning themselves in the least with the others. - - -47 - -The opposite of the Superman is the last man: I created him -simultaneously with the former. - - -48 - -The more an individual is free and firm, the more exacting becomes his -love: at last he yearns for Superman, because nothing else is able to -appease his love, - - -49 - -Half-way round the course Superman arises. - - -50 - -Among men I was frightened: among men I desired a host of things and -nothing satisfied me. It was then that I went into solitude and created -Superman. And when I had created him I draped him in the great veil of -Becoming and let the light of midday shine upon him. - - -51 - -"We wish to create a Being," we all wish to have a hand in it, to love -it. We all want to be pregnant--and to honour and respect ourselves on -that account. - -We must have a goal in view of which we may all love each other! All -other goals are only fit for the scrap heap. - - -52 - -The strongest in body and soul are the best--Zarathustra's fundamental -proposition--; from them is generated that higher morality of the -creator. Man must be regenerated after his own image: this is what he -wants, this is his honesty. - - -53 - -Genius to Zarathustra seems like the incarnation of his thought. - - -54 - -Loneliness for a certain time is necessary in order that a creature -may become completely permeated with his own soul--cured and hard. A -new form of community would be one in which we should assert ourselves -martially. Otherwise the spirit becomes tame. No Epicurean "gardens" -and mere "retirement from the masses." War (but without powder) between -different thoughts and the hosts who support them I - -A new nobility, the result of breeding. Feasts celebrating the -foundation of families. - -The day divided up afresh; bodily exercise for all ages. Ἀγών -as a principle. - -The love of the sexes as a contest around the principle in becoming and -coming.--Ruling will be taught and practised, its hardness as well as -its mildness. As soon as one faculty is acquired in a masterly manner -another one must be striven after. - -We must let ourselves be taught by the evil, and allow them an -opportunity of a contest. We must make use of the degenerate--The right -of punishment will consist in this, that the offender may be used as -an experimental subject (in dietetics): this is the consecration of -punishment, that one man be used for the highest needs of a future -being. - -We protect our new community because it is the bridge to our ideal of -the future And for it we work and let others work. - - -55 - -The measure and mean must be found in striving to attain to something -beyond mankind: the highest and strongest kind of man must be -discovered! The highest tendency must be represented continually -in small things:--perfection, maturity, rosy-cheeked health, mild -discharges of power. Just as an artist works, must we apply ourselves -to our daily task and bring ourselves to perfection in everything we -do. We must be honest in acknowledging our real motives to ourselves, -as is becoming in the mighty man. - - -56 - -No impatience! Superman is our next stage and to this end, to this -limit, moderation and manliness are necessary. - -Mankind must surpass itself, as the Greeks did--and no fleshless -fantasies must be indulged. The higher mind which is associated with a -sickly and nervous character must be suppressed. The goal: the higher -culture of the whole body and not only of the brain. - - -57 - -"Man is something that must be surpassed":--it is a matter of tempo: -the Greeks were wonderful, there was no haste about them.--My -predecessors: Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, Goethe. - - -58 - -1. Dissatisfaction with ourselves. An antidote to repentance. -The transformation of temperament (_e.g.,_ by means of inorganic -substances). Good will to this dissatisfaction. We should wait for our -thirst and let it become great in order to discover its source. - -2. Death must be transformed into a means of victory and triumph. - -3. The attitude towards disease. Freedom where death is concerned. - -4. The love of the sexes is a means to an ideal (it is the striving of -a being to perish through his opposite). The love for a suffering deity. - -5. Procreation is the holiest of all things. Pregnancy, the creation of -a woman and a man, who wish to enjoy their unity, and erect a monument -to it by means of a child. - -6. Pity as a danger. Circumstances must be created which enable -everyone to be able to help himself, and which leave him to choose -whether he would be helped. - -7. Education must be directed at making men evil, at developing their -inner devil. - -8. Inner war as "development" - -9. "The maintenance of the species," and the thought of eternal -recurrence. - - -59 - -Principal doctrine. We must strive to make every stage one of -perfection, and rejoice therein,--we must make no leaps! - -In the first place, the promulgation of laws. After the Superman the -doctrine of eternal recurrence will strike us with horror: Now it is -endurable. - - -60 - -Life itself created this thought which is the most oppressive for life. -Life wishes to get beyond its greatest obstacle I - -We must desire to perish in order to arise afresh,--from one day to -the other. Wander through a hundred souls,--let that be thy life and -thy fate! And then finally: desire to go through the whole process once -more! - - -61 - -The highest thing of all would be for us to be able to endure our -immortality. - - -62 - -The moment in which I begot recurrence is immortal, for the sake of -that moment alone I will endure recurrence. - - -63 - -The teaching of eternal recurrence--it is at first oppressive to the -more noble souls and apparently a means of weeding them out,--then the -inferior and less sensitive natures would remain over! "This doctrine -must be suppressed and Zarathustra killed." - - -64 - -The hesitation of the disciples. "We are already able to bear with this -doctrine, but we should destroy the many by means of it!" - -Zarathustra laughs: "Ye shall be the hammer: I laid this hammer in your -hands." - - -65 - -I do not speak to you as I speak to the people. The highest thing for -them would be to despise and to annihilate themselves: the next highest -thing would be for them to despise and annihilate each other. - - -66 - -"My will to do good compels me to remain silent. But my will to the -Superman bids me speak and sacrifice even my friends." - -"I would fain form and transform you, how could I endure things -otherwise!" - - -67 - -The history of higher man. The rearing of the better man is -incalculably more painful. The ideal of the necessary sacrifice which -it involves, as in the case of Zarathustra, should be demonstrated: A -man should leave his home, his family and his native land. Live under -the scorn of the prevailing morality. The anguish of experiments and -errors. The solution of all the joys offered by the older ideals (they -are now felt to be partly hostile and partly strange). - - -68 - -What is it which gives a meaning, a value, an importance to things? -It is the creative heart which yearns and which created out of this -yearning. It created joy and woe. It wanted to sate itself also with -woe. Every kind of pain that man or beast has suffered, we must take -upon ourselves and bless, and have a goal whereby such suffering would -acquire some meaning. - - -69 - -Principal doctrine: the transfiguration of pain into a blessing, and of -poison into food, lies in our power. The will to suffering. - - -70 - -Concerning heroic greatness as the only state of pioneers. (A yearning -for utter ruin as a means of enduring one's existence.) - -We must not desire one state only; we must rather desire to be -periodical creatures--like existence. - -Absolute indifference to other people's opinions (because we know their -weights and measures), but their opinions of themselves should be the -subject of pity. - - -71 - -Disciples must unite three qualities in themselves: they must be -true, they must be able and willing to be communicative, they must -have profound insight into each other. - - -72 - -All kinds of higher men and their oppression and blighting (as a case -in point, Duhring, who was ruined by isolation)--on the whole, this -is the fate of higher men to-day, they seem to be a species that is -condemned to die out: this fact seems to come to Zarathustra's ears -like a great cry for help. All kinds of insane degenerations of higher -natures seem to approach him (nihilism for instance). - - -73 - -_Higher Men who come to Zarathustra in Despair._ - -Temptations to return prematurely to the world--thanks to the -provocation of one's sympathies. - -1. The rolling stone, the homeless one, the wanderer:--he who has -unlearned the love of his people because he has learned to love many -peoples,--the good European. - -2. The gloomy, ambitious son of the people, shy, lonely, and ready for -anything,--who chooses rather to be alone than to be a destroyer,--he -offers himself as an instrument. - -3. The ugliest man, who is obliged to adorn himself (historical sense) -and who is always in search of a new garment: he desires to make his -appearance becoming, and finally retires into solitude in order not to -be seen, he is ashamed of himself. - -4. He who honours facts ("the brain of a leech"), the most subtle -intellectual conscience, and because he has it in excess, a guilty -conscience,--he wants to get rid of himself. - -5. The poet, who at bottom thirsts, for savage freedom,--he chooses -loneliness and the severity of knowledge. - -6. The discoverer of new intoxicants,--the musician, the sorcerer, who -finally drops on his knees before a loving heart and says: "Not to me -do I wish to lead you but yonder to him." - -Those who are sober to excess and who have a yearning for intoxication -which they do not gratify. The Supersobersides. - -7. Genius (as an attack of insanity), becoming frozen through lack of -love: "I am neither a genius nor a god." Great tenderness: "people must -show him more love!" - -8. The rich man who has given everything away and who asks everybody: -"Have you anything you do not want? give me some of it!" as a beggar. - -9. The Kings who renounce dominion: "we seek him who is more worthy -to rule"--against "equality": the great man is lacking, consequently -reverence is lacking too. - -10. The actor of happiness. - -11. The pessimistic soothsayer who detects fatigue everywhere. - -12. The fool of the big city. - -13. The youth from the mount - -14. The woman (seeks the man). - -15. The envious emaciated toiler and _arriviste. - -16. The good, } and their mad fancy: - -17. The pious, } "For God" that - -18. The self-centred and } means "For me." - saints, - - -74 - -"I gave you the most weighty thought: maybe mankind will perish through -it, perhaps also mankind will be elevated through it inasmuch as by -its means the elements which are hostile to life will be overcome and -eliminated." "Ye must not chide Life, but yourselves!"--The destiny -of higher man is to be a creator. The organisation of higher men, the -education of the future ruler. "YE must rejoice in your superior power -when ye rule and when ye form anew." "Not only man but Superman will -recur eternally!" - - -75 - -The typical suffering of the reformer and also his consolations. The -seven solitudes. - -He lives as though he were beyond all ages: his loftiness allows him to -have intercourse with the anchorites and the misunderstood of every age. - -Only his beauty is his defence. He lays his hands on the next thousand -years. - -His love increases as he sees the impossibility of avoiding the -affliction of pain with it. - - -76 - -Zarathustra's mood is not one of mad impatience for Superman! It is -peaceful, it can wait: but all action has derived some purpose from -being the road and means thither,--and must be done well and perfectly. - -The repose of the great stream! Consecration of the smallest thing. -All unrest, and violent longing, all loathing should be presented in -the third part and be overcome! The gentleness, and mildness, &c, in -the first and second parts are both signs of a power which is not yet -self-reliant! - -With the recovery of Zarathustra, Cæsar stands there inexorable -and kind:--the gulf separating creation, goodness, and wisdom is -annihilated. - -Clearness, peace, no exaggerated craving, happiness in the moment which -is properly occupied and immortalised! - - -77 - -Zarathustra, Part III.: "I myself am happy."--When he had taken leave -of mankind he returned unto himself. Like a cloud it vanishes from him. -The manner in which Superman must live: like an Epicurean God. - -Divine suffering is the substance of the third part of Zarathustra. The -human state of the legislator is only brought forward as an example. - -His intense love for his friends seems to him a disease,--once more he -becomes peaceful. - -When the invitations come he gently evades them. - - -78 - -In the fourth part it is necessary to say precisely why it is that the -time of the great noon has come: It is really a description of the age -given by means of visits, but interpreted by Zarathustra. - -In the fourth part it is necessary to say precisely why "a chosen -people" has first to be created:--they are the lucky cases of nature -as opposed to the unlucky (exemplified by the visitors): only to them ---the lucky cases--is Zarathustra able to express himself concerning -ultimate problems, them alone is he able to inspire with activity on -behalf of this theory. They are strong, healthy, hard and above all -noble enough for him to give them the hammer with which to remould the -whole world. - - -79 - -The unity in power of the creator, the lover and the knight of -knowledge. - - -80 - -Love alone shall judge--(the creative love which forgets itself in its -work). - - -81 - -Zarathustra can only dispense happiness once the order of rank is -established. Therefore this doctrine must be taught first. - -The order of rank develops into a system of earthly dominion: the lords -of the earth come last, a new ruling caste. Here and there there arises -from them a perfectly Epicurean God, a Superman, a transfigurer of -existence. - -The Superhuman's notion of the world. Dionysus. Returning from these -most strange of all pursuits Zarathustra comes back with love to the -narrowest and smallest things,--he blesses all his experiences and dies -with a blessing on his lips. - - -82 - -From people who merely pray we must become people who bless. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Twilight of the Idols - The -Antichrist, by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS *** - -***** This file should be named 52263-0.txt or 52263-0.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/2/6/52263/ - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org -(Images generouly made available by the Hathi Trust.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org/license - - -Title: The Twilight of the Idols - The Antichrist - Complete Works, Volume Sixteen - -Author: Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - -Editor: Oscar Levy - -Translator: Anthony M. Ludovici - -Release Date: June 7, 2016 [EBook #52263] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS *** - - - - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org -(Images generouly made available by the Hathi Trust.) - - - - - - -</pre> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/cover.png" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> -<h1>THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS</h1> - -<h3>BY</h3> - -<h2>FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE</h2> - -<h4>Or, How to Philosophise with the Hammer</h4> - - -<h4>THE ANTICHRIST</h4> - -<h4><i>NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA, AND ETERNAL RECURRENCE</i></h4> - - -<h4>TRANSLATED BY</h4> - -<h4>ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI</h4> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 175px;"> -<img src="images/ill_niet.jpg" width="175" alt="" /> -</div> -<h4>The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche</h4> - -<h5>The First Complete and Authorised English Translation</h5> - -<h4>Edited by Dr Oscar Levy</h4> - -<h4>Volume Sixteen</h4> - -<h5>T.N. FOULIS</h5> - -<h5>13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET</h5> - -<h5>EDINBURGH: AND LONDON</h5> - -<h5>1911</h5> -<hr class="full" /> - - - -<p style="font-size: 0.8em;" > -CONTENTS<br /> -<br /> -TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS<br /> -<br /> -<a href="#TRANSLATORS_PREFACE">TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE</a><br /> -<a href="#PREFACE">PREFACE</a><br /> -<a href="#MAXIMS_AND_MISSILES">MAXIMS AND MISSILES</a><br /> -<a href="#THE_PROBLEM_OF_SOCRATES">THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES</a><br /> -<a href="#REASON_IN_PHILOSOPHY">"REASON" IN PHILOSOPHY</a><br /> -<a href="#MORALITY_AS_THE_ENEMY_OF_NATURE">MORALITY AS THE ENEMY OF NATURE</a><br /> -<a href="#THE_FOUR_GREAT_ERRORS">THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS</a><br /> -<a href="#THE_IMPROVERS_OF_MANKIND">THE "IMPROVERS" OF MANKIND</a><br /> -<a href="#THINGS_THE_GERMANS_LACK">THINGS THE GERMANS LACK</a><br /> -<a href="#SKIRMISHES_IN_A_WAR_WITH_THE_AGE">SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE</a><br /> -<a href="#THINGS_I_OWE_TO_THE_ANCIENTS">THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS</a><br /> -<br /> -<a href="#THE_ANTICHRIST">THE ANTICHRIST</a><br /> -<br /> -<a href="#THE_ETERNAL_RECURRENCE">THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE</a><br /> -<br /> -<a href="#THUS_SPAKE_ZARATHUSTRA">NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA</a></p> -<hr class="chap" /> -<p> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span> -</p> - - - - -<h4><a name="TRANSLATORS_PREFACE" id="TRANSLATORS_PREFACE">TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE</a></h4> - - -<p><i>The Twilight of the Idols</i> was written towards the end of the summer -of 1888, its composition seems to have occupied only a few days,—so -few indeed that, in <i>Ecce Homo</i> (p. 118), Nietzsche says he hesitates -to give their number; but, in any case, we know it was completed on the -3rd of September in Sils Maria. The manuscript which was dispatched to -the printers on the 7th of September bore the title: "<i>Idle Hours of a -Psychologist</i>"; this, however, was abandoned in favour of the present -title, while the work was going through the press. During September -and the early part of October 1888, Nietzsche added to the original -contents of the book by inserting the whole section entitled "Things -the Germans Lack," and aphorisms 32-43 of "Skirmishes in a War with the -Age"; and the book, as it now stands, represents exactly the form in -which Nietzsche intended to publish it in the course of the year 1889. -Unfortunately its author was already stricken down with illness when -the work first appeared at the end of January 1889, and he was denied -the joy of seeing it run into nine editions, of one thousand each, -before his death in 1900.</p> - -<p>Of <i>The Twilight of the Idols,</i> Nietzsche says in <i>Ecce Homo</i> (p. -118):—"If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how -everything before my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span> time was standing on its head, he should begin -reading me in this book. That which is called 'Idols' on the title-page -is simply the old truth that has been believed in hitherto. In plain -English, <i>The Twilight of the Idols</i> means that the old truth is on its -last legs."</p> - -<p>Certain it is that, for a rapid survey of the whole of Nietzsche's -doctrine, no book, save perhaps the section entitled "Of Old and New -Tables" in <i>Thus Spake Zarathustra,</i> could be of more real value than -<i>The Twilight of the Idols.</i> Here Nietzsche is quite at his best. He -is ripe for the marvellous feat of the transvaluation of all values. -Nowhere is his language—that marvellous weapon which in his hand -became at once so supple and so murderous—more forcible and more -condensed. Nowhere are his thoughts more profound. But all this does -not by any means imply that this book is the easiest of Nietzsche's -works. On the contrary, I very much fear that, unless the reader is -well prepared, not only in Nietzscheism, but also in the habit of -grappling with uncommon and elusive problems, a good deal of the -contents of this work will tend rather to confuse than to enlighten -him in regard to what Nietzsche actually wishes to make clear in these -pages.</p> - -<p>How much prejudice, for instance, how many traditional and deep-seated -opinions, must be uprooted, if we are to see even so much as an -important note of interrogation in the section entitled "The Problem -of Socrates"—not to speak of such sections as "Morality as the Enemy -of Nature," "The Four Great Errors," &c. The errors exposed in these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span> -sections have a tradition of two thousand years behind them; and only a -fantastic dreamer could expect them to be eradicated by a mere casual -study of these pages. Indeed, Nietzsche himself looked forward only to -a gradual change in the general view of the questions he discussed; he -knew only too well what the conversion of "light heads" was worth, and -what kind of man would probably be the first to rush into his arms; -and, grand psychologist that he was, he guarded himself beforehand -against bad company by means of his famous warning:—"The first -adherents of a creed do not prove anything against it."</p> - -<p>To the aspiring student of Nietzsche, however, it ought not to be -necessary to become an immediate convert in order to be interested in -the treasure of thought which Nietzsche here lavishes upon us. For -such a man it will be quite difficult enough to regard the questions -raised in this work as actual problems. Once, however, he has succeeded -in doing this, and has given his imagination time to play round these -questions <i>as</i> problems, the particular turn or twist that Nietzsche -gives to their elucidation, may then perhaps strike him, not only as -valuable, but as absolutely necessary.</p> - -<p>With regard to the substance of <i>The Twilight of the Idols,</i> Nietzsche -says in <i>Ecce Homo</i> (p. 119):—"There is the waste of an all-too-rich -autumn in this book: you trip over truths. You even crush some to -death, there are too many of them."</p> - -<p>And what are these truths? They are things that are not yet held to -be true. They are the utterances of a man who, as a single exception, -escaped for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span> while the general insanity of Europe, with its blind -idealism in the midst of squalor, with its unscrupulous praise of -so-called "Progress" while it stood knee-deep in the belittlement -of "Man," and with its vulgar levity in the face of effeminacy and -decay;—they are the utterances of one who voiced the hopes, the -aims, and the realities of another world, not of an ideal world, not -of a world beyond, but of a real world, of <i>this</i> world regenerated -and reorganised upon a sounder, a more virile, and a more orderly -basis,—in fact, of a perfectly <i>possible</i> world, one that has already -existed in the past, and could exist again, if only the stupendous -revolution of a transvaluation of all values were made possible.</p> - -<p>This then is the nature of the truths uttered by this one sane man in -the whole of Europe at the end of last century; and when, owing to his -unequal struggle against the overwhelming hostile forces of his time, -his highly sensitive personality was at last forced to surrender itself -to the enemy and become one with them—that is to say, insane!—at -least the record of his sanity had been safely stored away, beyond the -reach of time and change, in the volumes which constitute his life-work.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Nietzsche must have started upon the "Antichrist," immediately after -having dispatched the "Idle Hours of a Psychologist" to the printers, -and the work appears to have been finished at the end of September -1888. It was intended by Nietzsche to form the first book of a large -work entitled "The Transvaluation of all Values"; but, though this work -was never completed, we can form some idea<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span> from the substance of the -"Antichrist" and from the titles of the remaining three books, which -alas! were never written, of what its contents would have been. These -titles are:—Book II. The Free Spirit. A Criticism of Philosophy as a -Nihilistic Movement. Book III. The Immoralist. A Criticism of the most -Fatal Kind of Ignorance,—Morality. Book IV. Dionysus. The Philosophy -of Eternal Recurrence.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche calls this book "An Attempted Criticism of Christianity." -Modest as this sub-title is, it will probably seem not quite modest -enough to those who think that Nietzsche fell far short of doing -justice to their Holy Creed. Be this as it may, there is the solution -of a certain profound problem in this book, which, while it is the key -to all Nietzscheism, is also the justification and the sanctification -of Nietzsche's cause. The problem stated quite plainly is this: "<i>To -what end</i> did Christianity avail itself of falsehood?"</p> - -<p>Many readers of this amazing little work, who happen to be acquainted -with Nietzsche's doctrine of Art and of Ruling, will probably feel -slightly confused at the constant deprecation of falsehood, of -deception, and of arbitrary make-believe, which seems to run through -this book like a litany in praise of a certain Absolute Truth.</p> - -<p>Remembering Nietzsche's utterance in volume ii. (p. 26) of the <i>Will -to Power,</i> to wit:—"The prerequisite of all living things and of -their lives is: that there should be a large amount of faith, that -it should be possible to pass definite judgments on things, and -that there should be no doubt at all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span> concerning values. Thus it is -necessary that something should be assumed to be true, <i>not</i> that it -is true;"—remembering these words, as I say, the reader may stand -somewhat aghast before all those passages in the second half of this -volume, where the very falsehoods of Christianity, its assumptions, its -unwarrantable claims to Truth, are declared to be pernicious, base and -corrupt.</p> - -<p>Again and again, if we commit the error of supposing that Nietzsche -believed in a truth that was absolute, we shall find throughout his -works reasons for charging him with apparently the very same crimes -that he here lays at the door of Christianity. What then is the -explanation of his seeming inconsistency?</p> - -<p>It is simple enough. Nietzsche's charge of falsehood against -Christianity is not a moral one,—in fact it may be taken as a general -rule that Nietzsche scrupulously avoids making moral charges, and that -he emains throughout faithful to his position Beyond Good and Evil -(see, for instance <a href="#Page_130">Aph. 6</a>(Antichrist) where he repudiates all moral -prejudice in charging humanity with corruption). A man who maintained -that "truth is that form of error which enables a particular species to -prevail," could not make a <i>moral</i> charge of falsehood against any one, -or any institution; but he could do so from another standpoint He could -well say, for instance, "falsehood is that kind of error which causes a -particular species to degenerate and to decay."</p> - -<p>Thus the fact that Christianity "lied" becomes a subject of alarm -to Nietzsche, not owing to the fact that it is immoral to lie, but -because in this particular<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span> instance, the lie was harmful, hostile to -life, and dangerous to humanity; for "a belief might be false and yet -life-preserving" (<i>Beyond Good and Evil,</i> pp. 8, 9).</p> - -<p>Suppose, therefore, we say with Nietzsche that there is no absolute -truth, but that all that has been true in the past which has been -the means of making the "plant man flourish best"—or, since the -meaning of "best" is open to some debate, let us say, flourish in a -Nietzschean sense, that is to say, thanks to a mastery of life, and -to a preponderance of all those qualities which say yea to existence, -and which suggest no flight from this world and all its pleasure and -pain. And suppose we add that, wherever we may find the plant man -flourishing, in this sense, we should there suspect the existence of -truth?—I If we say this with Nietzsche, any sort of assumption or -arbitrary valuation which aims at a reverse order of things, becomes a -dangerous lie in a super-moral and purely physiological sense.</p> - -<p>With these preparatory remarks we are now prepared to read -<a href="#Page_215">aphorism 56</a> with a complete understanding of what Nietzsche means, and -to recognise in this particular aphorism the key to the whole of -Nietzsche's attitude towards Christianity. It is at once a solution of -our problem, and a justification of its author's position. Naturally, -it still remains open to Nietzsche's opponents to argue, if they -choose, that man has flourished best under the sway of nihilistic -religions—religions which deny life,—and that consequently the -falsehoods of Christianity are not only warrantable but also in the -highest degree blessed; but, in any case, the aphorism in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xiv" id="Page_xiv">[Pg xiv]</a></span> question -completely exonerates Nietzsche from a charge of inconsistency in the -use of the terms "truth" and "falsehood" throughout his works, and -it moreover settles once and for all the exact altitude from which -our author looked down upon the religions of the world, not only to -criticise them, but also to <i>place</i> them in the order of their merit as -disciplinary systems aiming at the cultivation of particular types of -men.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche says in <a href="#Page_215">aphorism 56</a>:—"After all, the question is, to what -end are falsehoods perpetrated? The fact that, in Christianity, 'holy' -ends are entirely absent, constitutes <i>my</i> objection to the means it -employs. Its ends are only <i>bad</i> ends: the poisoning, the calumniation -and the denial of life, the contempt of the body, the degradation and -self-pollution of man by virtue of the concept sin,—consequently its -means are bad as well."</p> - -<p>Thus, to repeat it once more, it is not because Christianity availed -itself of all kinds of lies that Nietzsche condemns it; for the Book -of Manu—which he admires—is just as full of falsehood as the Semitic -Book of Laws; but, in the Book of Manu the lies are calculated to -preserve and to create a strong and noble type of man, whereas in -Christianity the opposite type was the aim,—an aim which has been -achieved in a manner far exceeding even the expectations of the -faithful.</p> - -<p>This then is the main argument of the book and its conclusion; but, in -the course of the general elaboration of this argument, many important -side-issues are touched upon and developed, wherein Nietzsche reveals -himself as something very much<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[Pg xv]</a></span> more valuable than a mere iconoclast. -Of course, on every page of his philosophy,—whatever his enemies may -maintain to the contrary,—he never once ceases to construct, since he -is incessantly enumerating and emphasising those qualities and types -which he fain would rear, as against those he fain would see destroyed; -but it is in <a href="#Page_216">aphorism 57</a> of this book that Nietzsche makes the -plainest and most complete statement of his actual taste in Sociology, -and it is upon this aphorism that all his followers and disciples will -ultimately have to build, if Nietzscheism is ever to become something -more than a merely intellectual movement.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 65%; font-size: 0.8em;">ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[Pg xvii]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE">PREFACE</a></h4> - - -<p>To maintain a cheerful attitude of mind in the midst of a gloomy and -exceedingly responsible task, is no slight artistic feat. And yet, what -could be more necessary than cheerfulness? Nothing ever succeeds which -exuberant spirits have not helped to produce. Surplus power, alone, -is the proof of power.—A <i>transvaluation of all values,</i>—this note -of interrogation which is so black, so huge, that it casts a shadow -even upon him who affixes it,—is a task of such fatal import, that -he who undertakes it is compelled every now and then to rush out into -the sunlight in order to shake himself free from an earnestness that -becomes crushing, far too crushing. This end justifies every means, -every event on the road to it is a windfall. Above all <i>war.</i> War has -always been the great policy of all spirits who have penetrated too -far into themselves or who have grown too deep; a wound stimulates the -recuperative powers. For many years, a maxim, the origin of which I -withhold from learned curiosity, has been my motto:</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 10%;"> -<i>increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus.</i><br /> -</p> - -<p>At other times another means of recovery which is even more to my -taste, is to cross-examine idols. There are more idols than realities -in the world:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xviii" id="Page_xviii">[Pg xviii]</a></span> this constitutes my "evil eye" for this world: it is -also my "evil ear." To put questions in this quarter with a hammer, and -to hear perchance that well-known hollow sound which tells of blown-out -frogs,—what a joy this is for one who has cars even behind his cars, -for an old psychologist and Pied Piper like myself in whose presence -precisely that which would fain be silent, <i>must betray itself.</i></p> - -<p>Even this treatise—as its title shows—is above all a recreation, -a ray of sunshine, a leap sideways of a psychologist in his leisure -moments. Maybe, too, a new war? And are we again cross-examining new -idols? This little work is a great declaration of war; and with regard -to the cross-examining of idols, this time it is not the idols of the -age but eternal idols which are here struck with a hammer as with -a tuning fork,—there are certainly no idols which are older, more -convinced, and more inflated. Neither are there any more hollow. This -does not alter the fact that they are believed in more than any others, -besides they are never called idols,—at least, not the most exalted -among their number.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 65%; font-size: 0.8em;">FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 5%; font-size: 0.8em;">TURIN, the 30th <i>September</i> 1888.</p> - - -<p style="margin-left: 5%; font-size: 0.8em;">on the day when the first<br /> book of the Transvaluation<br /> of all Values was -finished.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="MAXIMS_AND_MISSILES" id="MAXIMS_AND_MISSILES">MAXIMS AND MISSILES</a></h4> - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>Idleness is the parent of all psychology. What? Is psychology then -a—vice?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>Even the pluckiest among us has but seldom the courage of what he -really knows.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>Aristotle says that in order to live alone, a man must be either an -animal or a god. The third alternative is lacking: a man must be -both—a <i>philosopher.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>"All truth is simple."—Is not this a double lie?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>Once for all I wish to be blind to many things.—Wisdom sets bounds -even to knowledge.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>A man recovers best from his exceptional nature—his -intellectuality—by giving his animal instincts a chance.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p>Which is it? Is man only a blunder of God? Or is God only a blunder of -man?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p><i>From the military school of life.</i>—That which does not kill me, makes -me stronger.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">9</p> - -<p>Help thyself, then everyone will help thee. A principle of -neighbour-love.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">10</p> - -<p>A man should not play the coward to his deeds. He should not repudiate -them once he has performed them. Pangs of conscience are indecent.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">11</p> - -<p>Can a donkey be tragic?—To perish beneath a load that one can neither -bear nor throw off? This is the case of the Philosopher.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">12</p> - -<p>If a man knows the wherefore of his existence, then the manner of it -can take care of itself. Man does not aspire to happiness; only the -Englishman does that.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">13</p> - -<p>Man created woman—out of what? Out of a rib of his god,—of his -"ideal."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">14</p> - -<p>What? Art thou looking for something? Thou<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> wouldst fain multiply -thyself tenfold, a hundredfold? Thou seekest followers? Seek ciphers!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">15</p> - -<p>Posthumous men, like myself, are not so well understood as men who -reflect their age, but they are heard with more respect. In plain -English: we are never understood—hence our authority.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">16</p> - -<p><i>Among women.</i>—"Truth? Oh, you do not know truth! Is it not an outrage -on all our <i>pudeurs?</i>"—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">17</p> - -<p>There is an artist after my own heart, modest in his needs: he really -wants only two things, his bread and his art—<i>panem et Circem.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">18</p> - -<p>He who knows not how to plant his will in things, at least endows them -with some meaning: that is to say, he believes that a will is already -present in them. (A principle of faith.)</p> - - -<p class="parnum">19</p> - -<p>What? Ye chose virtue and the heaving breast, and at the same time -ye squint covetously at the advantages of the unscrupulous.—But -with virtue ye renounce all "advantages" ... (to be nailed to an -Antisemite's door).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">20</p> - -<p>The perfect woman perpetrates literature as if it were a petty vice: as -an experiment, <i>en passant,</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> and looking about her all the while to -see whether anybody is noticing her, hoping that somebody <i>is</i> noticing -her.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">21</p> - -<p>One should adopt only those situations in which one is in no need of -sham virtues, but rather, like the tight-rope dancer on his tight rope, -in which one must either fall or stand—or escape.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">22</p> - -<p>"Evil men have no songs."<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a>—How is it that the Russians have songs?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">23</p> - -<p>"German intellect"; for eighteen years this has been a <i>contradictio in -adjecto.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">24</p> - -<p>By seeking the beginnings of things, a man becomes a crab. The -historian looks backwards: in the end he also <i>believes</i> backwards.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">25</p> - -<p>Contentment preserves one even from catching cold. Has a woman who knew -that she was well-dressed ever caught cold?—No, not even when she had -scarcely a rag to her back.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">26</p> - -<p>I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. The will to a system, -shows a lack of honesty.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">27</p> - -<p>Man thinks woman profound—why? Because he can never fathom her depths. -Woman is not even shallow.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">28</p> - -<p>When woman possesses masculine virtues, she is enough to make you run -away. When she possesses no masculine virtues, she herself runs away.</p> - -<p class="parnum">29</p> - -<p>"How often conscience had to bite in times gone by! What good teeth it -must have had! And to-day, what is amiss?"—A dentist's question.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">30</p> - -<p>Errors of haste are seldom committed singly. The first time a man -always docs too much. And precisely on that account he commits a second -error, and then he does too little.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">31</p> - -<p>The trodden worm curls up. This testifies to its caution. It thus -reduces its chances of being trodden<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span> upon again. In the language of -morality: Humility.—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">32</p> - -<p>There is such a thing as a hatred of lies and dissimulation, which is -the outcome of a delicate sense of humour; there is also the selfsame -hatred but as the result of cowardice, in so far as falsehood is -forbidden by Divine law. Too cowardly to lie....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">33</p> - -<p>What trifles constitute happiness! The sound of a bagpipe. Without -music life would be a mistake. The German imagines even God as a -songster.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">34</p> - -<p><i>On ne peut penser et écrire qu'assis</i> (G. Flaubert). Here I have got -you, you nihilist! A sedentary life is the real sin against the Holy -Spirit. Only those thoughts that come by walking have any value.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">35</p> - -<p>There are times when we psychologists are like horses, and grow -fretful. We see our own shadow rise and fall before us. The -psychologist must look away from himself if he wishes to see anything -at all.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">36</p> - -<p>Do we immoralists injure virtue in any way? Just as little as the -anarchists injure royalty. Only since they have been shot at do princes -sit firmly on their thrones once more. Moral: <i>morality must be shot -at.</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">37</p> - -<p>Thou runnest <i>ahead?</i>—Dost thou do so as a shepherd or as an -exception? A third alternative would be the fugitive.... First question -of conscience.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">38</p> - -<p>Art thou genuine or art thou only an actor? Art thou a representative -or the thing represented, itself? Finally, art thou perhaps simply a -copy of an actor?... Second question of conscience.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">39</p> - -<p><i>The disappointed man speaks:</i>—I sought for great men, but all I found -were the apes of their ideal.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">40</p> - -<p>Art thou one who looks on, or one who puts his own shoulder to the -wheel?—Or art thou one who looks away, or who turns aside?... Third -question of conscience.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">41</p> - -<p>Wilt thou go in company, or lead, or go by thyself?... A man should -know what he desires, and that he desires something.—Fourth question -of conscience.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">42</p> - -<p>They were but rungs in my ladder, on them I made my ascent:—to that -end I had to go beyond them. But they imagined that I wanted to lay -myself to rest upon them.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">43</p> - -<p>What matters it whether I am acknowledged to be right! I am much too -right. And he who laughs best to-day, will also laugh last.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">44</p> - -<p>The formula of my happiness: a Yea, a Nay, a straight line, <i>goal....</i></p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> This is a reference to Seume's poem "<i>Die Gesänge"</i> the -first verse of which is:— -</p><p> -<i>"Wo man singet, lass dich ruhig nieder,</i><br /> -<i>Ohne Furcht, was man im Lande glaubt</i>;<br /> -<i>Wo man singet, wird kein Mensch beraubt</i>:<br /> -<i>Bösewichter haben keine Lieder</i>."<br /> -</p> -<p> -(Wherever people sing thou canst safely settle down without a qualm -as to what the general faith of the land may be Wherever people sing, -no man is ever robbed; <i>rascals</i> have no songs.) Popular tradition, -however, renders the lines thus:— -</p> -<p> -<i>"Wo man singt, da lass dich ruhig nieder;</i> <i>Base Menschen</i> [evil men] -<i>haben keine Lieder."</i></p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="THE_PROBLEM_OF_SOCRATES" id="THE_PROBLEM_OF_SOCRATES">THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>In all ages the wisest have always agreed in their V judgment of -life: <i>it is no good.</i> At all times and places the same words have -been on their lips,—words full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of -weariness of life, full of hostility to life. Even Socrates' dying -words were:—"To live—means to be ill a long while: I owe a cock to -the god Æsculapius." Even Socrates had had enough of it. What does that -prove? What does it point to? Formerly people would have said (—oh, -it has been said, and loudly enough too; by our Pessimists loudest of -all!): "In any case there must be some truth in this! The <i>consensus -sapientium</i> is a proof of truth."—Shall we say the same to-day? <i>May</i> -we do so? "In any case there must be some sickness here," we make -reply. These great sages of all periods should first be examined more -closely! Is it possible that they were, everyone of them, a little -shaky on their legs, effete, rocky, decadent? Does wisdom perhaps -appear on earth after the manner of a crow attracted by a slight smell -of carrion?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>This irreverent belief that the great sages were decadent types, first -occurred to me precisely in regard to that case concerning which both -learned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> and vulgar prejudice was most opposed to my view I recognised -Socrates and Plato as symptoms of decline, as instruments in the -disintegration of Hellas, as pseudo-Greek, as anti-Greek ("The Birth -of Tragedy," 1872). That <i>consensus sapientium,</i> as I perceived ever -more and more clearly, did not in the least prove that they were right -in the matter on which they agreed. It proved rather that these sages -themselves must have been alike in some physiological particular, in -order to assume the same negative attitude towards life—in order to -be bound to assume that attitude. After all, judgments and valuations -of life, whether for or against, cannot be true: their only value lies -in the fact that they are symptoms; they can be considered only as -symptoms,—<i>per se</i> such judgments are nonsense. You must therefore -endeavour by all means to reach out and try to grasp this astonishingly -subtle axiom, <i>that the value of life cannot be estimated.</i> A living -man cannot do so, because he is a contending party, or rather the very -object in the dispute, and not a judge; nor can a dead man estimate -it—for other reasons. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value -of life, is almost an objection against him, a note of interrogation -set against his wisdom—a lack of wisdom. What? Is it possible that all -these great sages were not only decadents, but that they were not even -wise? Let me however return to the problem of Socrates.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>To judge from his origin, Socrates belonged to the lowest of the low: -Socrates was mob. You know, and you can still see it for yourself, -how ugly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> he was. But ugliness, which in itself is an objection, was -almost a refutation among the Greeks. Was Socrates really a Greek? -Ugliness is not infrequently the expression of thwarted development, -or of development arrested by crossing. In other cases it appears -as a decadent development. The anthropologists among the criminal -specialists declare that I the typical criminal is ugly: <i>monstrum -in fronte, monstrum in animo.</i> But the criminal is a decadent?<a name="FNanchor_1_2" id="FNanchor_1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_2" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> -Was Socrates a typical criminal?—At all events this would not clash -with that famous physiognomist's judgment which was so repugnant to -Socrates' friends. While on his way through Athens a certain foreigner -who was no fool at judging by looks, told Socrates to his face that -he was a monster, that his body harboured all the worst vices and -passions. And Socrates replied simply: "You know me, sir!"—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>Not only are the acknowledged wildness and anarchy of Socrates' -instincts indicative of decadence, but also that preponderance of the -logical faculties and that malignity of the misshapen which was his -special characteristic. Neither should we forget those aural delusions -which were religiously interpreted as "the demon of Socrates." -Everything in him is exaggerated, <i>buffo,</i> caricature, his nature is -also full of concealment, of ulterior motives, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> of underground -currents. I try to understand the idiosyncrasy from which the Socratic -equation:—Reason = Virtue = Happiness, could have arisen: the -weirdest equation ever seen, and one which was essentially opposed to -all the instincts of the older Hellenes.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>With Socrates Greek taste veers round in favour of dialectics: what -actually occurs? In the first place a noble taste is vanquished: -with dialectics the mob comes to the top. Before Socrates' time, -dialectical manners were avoided in good society: they were regarded -as bad manners, they were compromising. Young men were cautioned -against them. All such proffering of one's reasons was looked upon with -suspicion. Honest things like honest men do not carry their reasons -on their sleeve in such fashion. It is not good form to make a show -of everything. That which needs to be proved cannot be worth much. -Wherever authority still belongs to good usage, wherever men do not -prove but command, the dialectician is regarded as a sort of clown. -People laugh at him, they do not take him seriously. Socrates was a -clown who succeeded in making men take him seriously: what then was the -matter?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>A man resorts to dialectics only when he has no other means to hand. -People know that they excite suspicion with it and that it is not -very convincing. Nothing is more easily dispelled than a dialectical -effect: this is proved by the experience of every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> gathering in which -discussions are held. It can be only the last defence of those who have -no other weapons. One must require to extort one's right, otherwise one -makes no use of it. That is why the Jews were dialecticians. Reynard -the Fox was a dialectician: what?—and was Socrates one as well?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p>Is the Socratic irony an expression of revolt, of mob resentment? -Does Socrates, as a creature suffering under oppression, enjoy his -innate ferocity in the knife-thrusts of the syllogism? Does he wreak -his revenge on the noblemen he fascinates?—As a dialectician a man -has a merciless instrument to wield; he can play the tyrant with it: -he compromises when he conquers with it The dialectician leaves it to -his opponent to prove that he is no idiot: he infuriates, he likewise -paralyses. The dialectician cripples the intellect of his opponent. Can -it be that dialectics was only a form of revenge in Socrates?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p>I have given you to understand in what way Socrates was able to repel: -now it is all the more necessary to explain how he fascinated.—One -reason is that he discovered a new kind of <i>Agon,</i> and that he was the -first fencing-master in the best circles in Athens. He fascinated by -appealing to the combative instinct of the Greeks,—he introduced a -variation into the contests between men and youths. Socrates was also a -great erotic.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">9</p> - -<p>But Socrates divined still more. He saw right through his noble -Athenians; he perceived that his case, his peculiar case, was no -exception even in his time. The same kind of degeneracy was silently -preparing itself everywhere: ancient Athens was dying out. And Socrates -understood that the whole world needed him,—his means, his remedy, his -special artifice for self-preservation. Everywhere the instincts were -in a state of anarchy; everywhere people were within an ace of excess: -the <i>monstrum in animo</i> was the general danger. "The instincts would -play the tyrant; we must discover a counter-tyrant who is stronger than -they." On the occasion when that physiognomist had unmasked Socrates, -and had told him what he was, a crater full of evil desires, the great -Master of Irony let fall one or two words more, which provide the key -to his nature. "This is true," he said, "but I overcame them all." How -did Socrates succeed in mastering himself? His case was at bottom only -the extreme and most apparent example of a state of distress which -was beginning to be general: that state in which no one was able to -master himself and in which the instincts turned one against the other. -As the extreme example of this state, he fascinated—his terrifying -ugliness made him conspicuous to every eye: it is quite obvious that he -fascinated still more as a reply, as a solution, as an apparent cure of -this case.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">10</p> - -<p>When a man finds it necessary, as Socrates did, to create a tyrant out -of reason, there is no small<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> danger that something else wishes to play -the tyrant. Reason was then discovered as a saviour; neither Socrates -nor his "patients" were at liberty to be rational or not, as they -pleased; at that time it was <i>de rigueur,</i> it had become a last shift. -The fanaticism with which the whole of Greek thought plunges into -reason, betrays a critical condition of things: men were in danger; -there were only two alternatives: either perish or else be absurdly -rational. The moral bias of Greek philosophy from Plato onward, is the -outcome of a pathological condition, as is also its appreciation of -dialectics. Reason = Virtue = Happiness, simply means: we must imitate -Socrates, and confront the dark passions permanently with the light -of day—the light of reason. We must at all costs be clever, precise, -clear: all yielding to the instincts, to the unconscious, leads -downwards.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">11</p> - -<p>I have now explained how Socrates fascinated: he seemed to be a -doctor, a Saviour. Is it necessary to expose the errors which lay in -his faith in "reason at any price"?—It is a piece of self-deception -on the part of philosophers and moralists to suppose that they can -extricate themselves from degeneration by merely waging war upon it. -They cannot thus extricate themselves; that which they choose as a -means, as the road to salvation, is in itself again only an expression -of degeneration—they only modify its mode of manifesting itself: -they do not abolish it Socrates was a misunderstanding. <i>The whole -of the morality of amelioration—that of Christianity as well—was -a misunderstanding.</i> The most blinding light<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> of day: reason at any -price; life made clear, cold, cautious, conscious, without instincts, -opposed to the instincts, was in itself only a disease, another kind -of disease—and by no means a return to "virtue," to "health," and to -happiness. To be obliged to fight the instincts—this is the formula of -degeneration: as long as life is in the ascending line, happiness is -the same as instinct.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">12</p> - -<p>—Did he understand this himself, this most intelligent of -self-deceivers? Did he confess this to himself in the end, in the -wisdom of his courage before death. Socrates wished to die. Not Athens, -but his own hand gave him the draught of hemlock; he drove Athens to -the poisoned cup. "Socrates is not a doctor," he whispered to himself, -"death alone can be a doctor here.... Socrates himself has only been ill -a long while."</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_2" id="Footnote_1_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_2"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> It should be borne in mind that Nietzsche recognised two -types of criminals,—the criminal from strength, and the criminal from -weakness. This passage alludes to the latter, Aphorism 45, <a href="#Page_103">p. 103</a>,** -alludes to the former.—TR.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="REASON_IN_PHILOSOPHY" id="REASON_IN_PHILOSOPHY">"REASON" IN PHILOSOPHY</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>You ask me what all idiosyncrasy is in philosophers? ... For instance -their lack of the historical sense, their hatred even of the idea of -Becoming, their Egyptianism. They imagine that they do honour to a -thing by divorcing it from history <i>sub specie æterni,—</i>when they -make a mummy of it. All the ideas that philosophers have treated for -thousands of years, have been mummied concepts; nothing real has ever -come out of their hands alive. These idolaters of concepts merely -kill and stuff things when they worship,—they threaten the life of -everything they adore. Death, change, age, as well as procreation and -growth, are in their opinion objections,—even refutations. That which -is cannot evolve; that which evolves <i>is</i> not. Now all of them believe, -and even with desperation, in Being. But, as they cannot lay hold of -it, they try to discover reasons why this privilege is withheld from -them. "Some merely apparent quality, some deception must be the cause -of our not being able to ascertain the nature of Being: where is the -deceiver?" "We have him," they cry rejoicing, "it is sensuality!" These -senses, <i>which in other things are so immoral,</i> cheat us concerning the -true world. Moral: we must get rid of the deception of the senses, of -Becoming, of history, of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> falsehood.—History is nothing more than the -belief in the senses, the belief in falsehood. Moral: we must say "no" -to everything in which the senses believet to all the rest of mankind: -all that belongs to the "people." Let us be philosophers, mummies, -monotono-theists, grave-diggers!—And above all, away with the <i>body,</i> -this wretched <i>idée fixe</i> of the senses, infected with all the faults -of logic that exist, refuted, even impossible, although it be impudent -enough to pose as if it were real!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>With a feeling of great reverence I except the name of <i>Heraclitus.</i> -If the rest of the philosophic gang rejected the evidences of the -senses, because the latter revealed a state of multifariousness and -change, he rejected the same evidence because it revealed things as if -they possessed permanence and unity. Even Heraclitus did an injustice -to the senses. The latter lie neither as the Eleatics believed them -to lie, nor as he believed them to lie,—they do not He at all. The -interpretations we give to their evidence is what first introduces -falsehood into it; for instance the He of unity, the lie of matter, -of substance and of permanence. Reason is the cause of our falsifying -the evidence of the senses. In so far as the senses show us a state -of Becoming, of transiency, and of change, they do not lie. But in -declaring that Being was an empty illusion, Heraclitus will remain -eternally right The "apparent" world is the only world: the "true -world" is no more than a false adjunct thereto.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>And what delicate instruments of observation we have in our senses! -This human nose, for instance, of which no philosopher has yet spoken -with reverence and gratitude, is, for the present, the most finely -adjusted instrument at our disposal: it is able to register even such -slight changes of movement as the spectroscope would be unable to -record. Our scientific triumphs at the present day extend precisely -so far as we have accepted the evidence of our senses,—as we have -sharpened and armed them, and learned to follow them up to the -end. What remains is abortive and not yet science—that is to say, -metaphysics, theology, psychology, epistemology, or formal science, or -a doctrine of symbols, like logic and its applied form mathematics. -In all these things reality does not come into consideration at all, -even as a problem; just as little as does the question concerning the -general value of such a convention of symbols as logic.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>The other idiosyncrasy of philosophers is no less dangerous; it -consists in confusing the last and the first things. They place that -which makes its appearance last—unfortunately! for it ought not -to appear at all!—the "highest concept," that is to say, the most -general, the emptiest, the last cloudy streak of evaporating reality, -at the beginning as the beginning. This again is only their manner of -expressing their veneration: the highest thing must not have grown out -of the lowest, it must not have grown at all.... Moral: everything -of the first rank must be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> <i>causa sui.</i> To have been derived from -something else, is as good as an objection, it sets the value of a -thing in question. All superior values are of the first rank, all the -highest concepts—that of Being, of the Absolute, of Goodness, of -Truth, and of Perfection; all these things cannot have been evolved, -they must therefore be <i>causa sui.</i> All these things cannot however be -unlike one another, they cannot be opposed to one another. Thus they -attain to their stupendous concept "God." The last, most attenuated and -emptiest thing is postulated as the first thing, as the absolute cause, -as <i>ens realissimum.</i> Fancy humanity having to take the brain diseases -of morbid cobweb-spinners seriously!—And it has paid dearly for having -done so.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>—Against this let us set the different manner in which we (—you -observe that I am courteous enough to say "we") conceive the problem of -the error and deceptiveness of things. Formerly people regarded change -and evolution in general as the proof of appearance, as a sign of the -fact that something must be there that leads us astray. To-day, on -the other hand, we realise that precisely as far as the rational bias -forces us to postulate unity, identity, permanence, substance, cause, -materiality and being, we are in a measure involved in error, driven -necessarily to error; however certain we may feel, as the result of a -strict examination of the matter, that the error lies here. It is just -the same here as with the motion of the sun: In its case it was our -eyes that were wrong; in the matter of the concepts above mentioned it -is our language itself that pleads<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> most constantly in their favour. -In its origin language belongs to an age of the most rudimentary -forms of psychology: if we try to conceive of the first conditions of -the metaphysics of language, <i>i.e.</i> in plain English, of reason, we -immediately find ourselves in the midst of a system of fetichism. For -here, the doer and his deed are seen in all circumstances, will is -believed in as a cause in general; the ego is taken for granted, the -ego as Being, and as substance, and the faith in the ego as substance -is projected into all things—in this way, alone, the concept "thing" -is created. Being is thought into and insinuated into everything as -cause; from the concept "ego," alone, can the concept "Being" proceed. -At the beginning stands the tremendously fatal error of supposing the -will to be something that actuates,—a faculty. Now we know that it -is only a word.<a name="FNanchor_1_3" id="FNanchor_1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_3" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Very much later, in a world a thousand times more -enlightened, the assurance, the subjective certitude, in the handling -of the categories of reason came into the minds of philosophers as a -surprise. They concluded that these categories could not be derived -from experience,—on the contrary, the whole of experience rather -contradicts them. <i>Whence do they come therefore?</i> In India, as in -Greece, the same mistake was made: "we must already once have lived -in a higher world (—instead of in a much lower one, which would have -been the truth!), we must have been divine, for we possess<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> reason!" -... Nothing indeed has exercised a more simple power of persuasion -hitherto than the error of Being, as it was formulated by the Eleatics -for instance: in its favour are every word and every sentence that we -utter!—Even the opponents of the Eleatics succumbed to the seductive -powers of their concept of Being. Among others there was Democritus in -his discovery of the atom. "Reason" in language!—oh what a deceptive -old witch it has been! I fear we shall never be rid of God, so long as -we still believe in grammar.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>People will feel grateful to me if I condense a point of view, which -is at once so important and so new, into four theses: by this means -I shall facilitate comprehension, and shall likewise challenge -contradiction.</p> - -<p><i>Proposition One.</i> The reasons upon which the apparent nature of "this" -world have been based, rather tend to prove its reality,—any other -kind of reality defies demonstration.</p> - -<p><i>Proposition Two.</i> The characteristics with which man has endowed -the "true Being" of things, are the characteristics of non-Being, of -<i>nonentity.</i> The "true world" has been erected upon a contradiction of -the real world; and it is indeed an apparent world, seeing that it is -merely a <i>moralo-optical</i> delusion.</p> - -<p><i>Proposition Three.</i> There is no sense in spinning yarns about another -world, provided, of course, that we do not possess a mighty instinct -which urges us to slander, belittle, and cast suspicion upon this life: -in this case we should be avenging ourselves on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> this life with the -phantasmagoria of "another," of a "better" life.</p> - -<p><i>Proposition Four.</i> To divide the world into a "true" and an "apparent" -world, whether after the manner of Christianity or of Kant (after all -a Christian in disguise), is only a sign of decadence,—a symptom of -<i>degenerating</i> life. The fact that the artist esteems the appearance -of a thing higher than reality, is no objection to this statement For -"appearance" signifies once more reality here, but in a selected, -strengthened and corrected form. The tragic artist is no pessimist,—he -says <i>Yea</i> to everything questionable and terrible, he is Dionysian.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_3" id="Footnote_1_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_3"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Nietzsche here refers to the concept "free will" of -the Christians; this does not mean that there is no such thing as -will—that is to say a powerful determining force from within.—TR.</p></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span></p> - - -<h5>HOW THE "TRUE WORLD" ULTIMATELY BECAME A FABLE</h5> - -<h5>THE HISTORY OF AN ERROR</h5> - - - -<p>1. The true world, attainable to the sage, the pious man and the man of -virtue,—he lives in it, <i>he is it.</i></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(The most ancient form of the idea was relatively clever, -simple, convincing. It was a paraphrase of the proposition -"I, Plato, am the truth.")</p></blockquote> - - -<p>2. The true world which is unattainable for the moment, is promised to -the sage, to the pious man and to the man of virtue ("to the sinner who -repents").</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(Progress of the idea: it becomes more subtle, more -insidious, more evasive,—It <i>becomes a woman,</i> it becomes -Christian.)</p></blockquote> - - -<p>3. The true world is unattainable, it cannot be proved, it cannot -promise anything; but even as a thought, alone, it is a comfort, an -obligation, a command.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(At bottom this is still the old sun; but seen through mist -and scepticism: the idea has become sublime, pale, northern, -Königsbergian.)<a name="FNanchor_1_4" id="FNanchor_1_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_4" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p></blockquote> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p> - - -<p>4. The true world—is it unattainable? At all events it is unattained. -And as unattained it is also <i>unknown.</i> Consequently it no longer -comforts, nor saves, nor constrains: what could something unknown -constrain us to?</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(The grey of dawn. Reason stretches itself and yawns for the -first time. The cock-crow of positivism.)</p></blockquote> - - -<p>5. The "true world"—an idea that no longer serves any purpose, that -no longer constrains one to anything,—a useless idea that has become -quite superfluous, consequently an exploded idea: let us abolish it!</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(Bright daylight; breakfast; the return of common sense -and of cheerfulness; Plato blushes for shame and all -free-spirits kick up a shindy.)</p></blockquote> - - -<p>6. We have suppressed the true world: what world survives? the apparent -world perhaps?... Certainly not! <i>In abolishing the true world we have -also abolished the world of appearance!</i></p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(Noon; the moment of the shortest shadows; the end of the -longest error; mankind's zenith; <i>Incipit Zarathustra.</i>)</p></blockquote> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_4" id="Footnote_1_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_4"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Kant was a native of Königsberg and lived there all his -life. Did Nietzsche know that Kant was simply a Scotch Puritan, whose -family had settled in Germany?</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="MORALITY_AS_THE_ENEMY_OF_NATURE" id="MORALITY_AS_THE_ENEMY_OF_NATURE">MORALITY AS THE ENEMY OF NATURE</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>There is a time when all passions are simply fatal in their action, -when they wreck their victims with the weight of their folly,—and -there is a later period, a very much later period, when they marry with -the spirit, when they "spiritualise" themselves. Formerly, owing to the -stupidity inherent in passion, men waged war against passion itself: -men pledged themselves to annihilate it,—all ancient moral-mongers -were unanimous on this point, "<i>il faut tuer les passions.</i>" The -most famous formula for this stands in the New Testament, in that -Sermon on the Mount, where, let it be said incidentally, things are -by no means regarded <i>from a height.</i> It is said there, for instance, -with an application to sexuality: "if thy eye offend thee, pluck it -out": fortunately no Christian acts in obedience to this precept. -To annihilate the passions and desires, simply on account of their -stupidity, and to obviate the unpleasant consequences of their -stupidity, seems to us to-day merely an aggravated form of stupidity. -We no longer admire those dentists who extract teeth simply in order -that they may not ache again. On the other hand, it will be admitted -with some reason, that on the soil from which Christianity grew, the -idea of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> the "spiritualisation of passion" could not possibly have been -conceived. The early Church, as everyone knows, certainly did wage war -against the "intelligent," in favour of the "poor in spirit" In these -circumstances how could the passions be combated intelligently? The -Church combats passion by means of excision of all kinds: its practice, -its "remedy," is <i>castration.</i> It never inquires "how can a desire -be spiritualised, beautified, deified?"—In all ages it has laid the -weight of discipline in the process of extirpation (the extirpation -of sensuality, pride, lust of dominion, lust of property, and -revenge).—But to attack the passions at their roots, means attacking -life itself at its source: the method of the Church is hostile to life.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>The same means, castration and extirpation, are instinctively chosen -for waging war against a passion, by those who are too weak of will, -too degenerate, to impose some sort of moderation upon it; by those -natures who, to speak in metaphor (—and without metaphor), need -<i>la Trappe,</i> or some kind of ultimatum of war, a <i>gulf</i> set between -themselves and a passion. Only degenerates find radical methods -indispensable: weakness of will, or more strictly speaking, the -inability not to react to a stimulus, is in itself simply another form -of degeneracy. Radical and mortal hostility to sensuality, remains a -suspicious symptom: it justifies one in being suspicious of the general -state of one who goes to such extremes. Moreover, that hostility and -hatred reach their height only when such natures no longer possess -enough strength of character to adopt the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> radical remedy, to renounce -their inner "Satan." Look at the whole history of the priests, the -philosophers, and the artists as well: the most poisonous diatribes -against the senses have not been said by the impotent, nor by the -ascetics; but by those impossible ascetics, by those who found it -necessary to be ascetics.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>The spiritualisation of sensuality is called <i>love:</i> it is a great -triumph over Christianity. Another triumph is our spiritualisation of -hostility. It consists in the fact that we are beginning to realise -very profoundly the value of having enemies: in short that with them -we are forced to do and to conclude precisely the reverse of what -we previously did and concluded. In all ages the Church wished to -annihilate its enemies: we, the immoralists and Antichrists, see our -advantage in the survival of the Church. Even in political life, -hostility has now become more spiritual,—much more cautious, much -more thoughtful, and much more moderate. Almost every party sees its -self-preservative interests in preventing the Opposition from going -to pieces; and the same applies to politics on a grand scale. A new -creation, more particularly, like the new Empire, has more need -of enemies than friends: only as a contrast does it begin to feel -necessary, only as a contrast does it <i>become</i> necessary. And we behave -in precisely the same way to the "inner enemy": in this quarter too we -have spiritualised enmity, in this quarter too we have understood its -value. A man is productive only in so far as he is rich in contrasted -instincts; he can remain young only on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> condition that his soul does -not begin to take things easy and to yearn for peace. Nothing has -grown more alien to us than that old desire—the "peace of the soul," -which is the aim of Christianity. Nothing could make us less envious -than the moral cow and the plump happiness of a clean conscience. The -man who has renounced war has renounced a grand life. In many cases, -of course, "peace of the soul" is merely a misunderstanding,—it is -something <i>very different</i> which has failed to find a more honest name -for itself. Without either circumlocution or prejudice I will suggest a -few cases. "Peace of the soul" may for instance be the sweet effulgence -of rich animality in the realm of morality (or religion). Or the first -presage of weariness, the first shadow that evening, every kind of -evening, is wont to cast. Or a sign that the air is moist, and that -winds are blowing up from the south. Or unconscious gratitude for a -good digestion (sometimes called "brotherly love"). Or the serenity -of the convalescent, on whose lips all things have a new taste, and -who bides his time. Or the condition which follows upon a thorough -gratification of our strongest passion, the well-being of unaccustomed -satiety. Or the senility of our will, of our desires, and of our vices. -Or laziness, coaxed by vanity into togging itself out in a moral garb. -Or the ending of a state of long suspense and of agonising uncertainty, -by a state of certainty, of even terrible certainty. Or the expression -of ripeness and mastery in the midst of a task, of a creative work, of -a production, of a thing willed, the calm breathing that denotes that -"freedom of will" has been attained.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> Who knows?—maybe <i>The Twilight -of the Idols</i> is only a sort of "peace of the soul."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>I will formulate a principle. All naturalism in morality—that is to -say, every sound morality is ruled by a life instinct,—any one of -the laws of life is fulfilled by the definite canon "thou shalt," -"thou shalt not," and any sort of obstacle or hostile element in the -road of life is thus cleared away. Conversely, the morality which is -antagonistic to nature—that is to say, almost every morality that has -been taught, honoured and preached hitherto, is directed precisely -against the life-instincts,—it is a condemnation, now secret, now -blatant and impudent, of these very instincts. Inasmuch as it says "God -sees into the heart of man," it says Nay to the profoundest and most -superior desires of life and takes God as the enemy of life. The saint -in whom God is well pleased, is the ideal eunuch. Life terminates where -the "Kingdom of God" begins.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>Admitting that you have understood the villainy of such a mutiny -against life as that which has become almost sacrosanct in Christian -morality, you have fortunately understood something besides; and that -is the futility, the fictitiousness, the absurdity and the falseness -of such a mutiny. For the condemnation of life by a living creature is -after all but the symptom of a definite kind of life: the question as -to whether the condemnation is justified or the reverse is not even -raised. In order even to approach the problem of the value of life, -a man would need<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> to be placed outside life, and moreover know it as -well as one, as many, as all in fact, who have lived it These are -reasons enough to prove to us that this problem is an inaccessible one -to us. When we speak of values, we speak under the inspiration, and -through the optics of life: life itself urges us to determine values: -life itself values through us when we determine values. From which it -follows that even that morality which is antagonistic to life, and -which conceives God as the opposite and the condemnation of life, is -only a valuation of life—of what life? of what kind of life? But I -have already answered this question: it is the valuation of declining, -of enfeebled, of exhausted and of condemned life. Morality, as it has -been understood hitherto—as it was finally formulated by Schopenhauer -in the words "The Denial of the Will to Life," is the instinct of -degeneration itself, which converts itself into an imperative: it says: -"Perish!" It is the death sentence of men who are already doomed.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>Let us at last consider how exceedingly simple it is on our part to -say: "Man should be thus and thus!" Reality shows us a marvellous -wealth of types, and a luxuriant variety of forms and changes: and yet -the first wretch of a moral loafer that comes along cries "No! Man -should be different!" He even knows what man should be like, does this -sanctimonious prig: he draws his own face on the wall and declares: -"<i>ecce homo!</i>" But even when the moralist addresses himself only to the -individual and says "thus and thus shouldst thou be!" he still makes<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> -an ass of himself. The individual in his past and future is a piece of -fate, one law the more, one necessity the more for all that is to come -and is to be. To say to him "change thyself," is tantamount to saying -that everything should change, even backwards as well. Truly these have -been consistent moralists, they wished man to be different, <i>i.e.</i>, -virtuous; they wished him to be after their own image,—that is to say -sanctimonious humbugs. And to this end they denied the world! No slight -form of insanity! No modest form of immodesty! Morality, in so far it -condemns <i>per se,</i> and <i>not</i> out of any aim, consideration or motive of -life, is a specific error, for which no one should feel any mercy, a -degenerate idiosyncrasy, that has done an unutterable amount of harm. -We others, we immoralists, on the contrary, have opened our hearts -wide to all kinds of comprehension, understanding and approbation.<a name="FNanchor_1_5" id="FNanchor_1_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_5" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> -We do not deny readily, we glory in saying yea to things. Our eyes -have opened ever wider and wider to that economy which still employs -and knows how to use to its own advantage all that which the sacred -craziness of priests and the morbid reason in priests, rejects; to -that economy in the law of life which draws its own advantage even out -of the repulsive race of bigots, the priests and the virtuous,—what -advantage?—But we ourselves, we immoralists, are the reply to this -question.</p> -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_5" id="Footnote_1_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_5"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> Spinoza, who says in the <i>Tractatus politico</i> -(1677), Chap. I, § 4: "<i>Sedulo curavi, humanas actiones non ridere, -non tugert, negue detestari, sed intelligere"</i> ("I have carefully -endeavoured not to deride, or deplore, or detest human actions, but to -understand them.").—TR.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="THE_FOUR_GREAT_ERRORS" id="THE_FOUR_GREAT_ERRORS">THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p><i>The error of the confusion of cause and effect.—</i>There is no more -dangerous error than to confound the effect with the cause: I call -this error the intrinsic perversion of reason. Nevertheless this error -is one of the most ancient and most recent habits of mankind. In one -part of the world it has even been canonised; and it bears the name of -"Religion" and "Morality." Every postulate formulated by religion and -morality contains it Priests and the promulgators of moral laws are the -promoters of this perversion of reason.—Let me give you an example. -Everybody knows the book of the famous Cornaro, in which he recommends -his slender diet as the recipe for a long, happy and also virtuous -life. Few books have been so widely read, and to this day many thousand -copies of it are still printed annually in England. I do not doubt that -there is scarcely a single book (the Bible of course excepted) that -has worked more mischief, shortened more lives, than this well-meant -curiosity. The reason of this is the confusion of effect and cause. -This worthy Italian saw the cause of his long life in his diet: whereas -the prerequisites of long life, which are exceptional slowness of -molecular change, and a low rate of expenditure in energy, were the -cause of his meagre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> diet He was not at liberty to eat a small or a -great amount. His frugality was not the result of free choice, he would -have been ill had he eaten more. He who does not happen to be a carp, -however, is not only wise to eat well, but is also compelled to do so. -A scholar of the present day, with his rapid consumption of nervous -energy, would soon go to the dogs on Cornaro's diet <i>Crede experto.</i>—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>The most general principle lying at the root of every religion and -morality, is this: "Do this and that and avoid this and that—and -thou wilt be happy. Otherwise——." Every morality and every -religion is this Imperative—I call it the great original sin of -reason,—<i>immortal unreason.</i> In my mouth this principle is converted -into its opposite—first example of my "Transvaluation of all Values": -a well-constituted man, a man who is one of "Nature's lucky strokes," -<i>must</i> perform certain actions and instinctively fear other actions; -he introduces the element of order, of which he is the physiological -manifestation, into his relations with men and things. In a formula: -his virtue is the consequence of his good constitution. Longevity -and plentiful offspring are not the reward of virtue, virtue itself -is on the contrary that retardation of the metabolic process which, -among other things, results in a long life and in plentiful offspring, -in short in <i>Cornarism.</i> The Church and morality say: "A race, a -people perish through vice and luxury." My reinstated reason says: -when a people are going to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> the dogs, when they are degenerating -physiologically, vice and luxury (that is to say, the need of ever -stronger and more frequent stimuli such as all exhausted natures are -acquainted with) are bound to result Such and such a young man grows -pale and withered prematurely. His friends say this or that illness -is the cause of it I say: the fact that he became ill, the fact that -he did not resist illness, was in itself already the outcome of -impoverished life, of hereditary exhaustion. The newspaper reader says: -such and such a party by committing such an error will meet its death. -My superior politics say: a party that can make such mistakes, is in -its last agony—it no longer possesses any certainty of instinct. Every -mistake is in every sense the sequel to degeneration of the instincts, -to disintegration of the will. This is almost the definition of evil, -Everything valuable is instinct—and consequently easy, necessary, -free. Exertion is an objection, the god is characteristically different -from the hero (in my language: light feet are the first attribute of -divinity).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p><i>The error of false causality.</i> In all ages men have believed that -they knew what a cause was: but whence did we derive this knowledge, -or more accurately, this faith in the fact that we know? Out of the -realm of the famous "inner facts of consciousness," not one of which -has yet proved itself to be a fact We believed ourselves to be causes -even in the action of the will; we thought that in this matter at -least we caught causality red-handed. No one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> doubted that all the -<i>antecedentia</i> of an action were to be sought in consciousness, and -could be discovered there—as "motive"—if only they were sought. -Otherwise we should not be free to perform them, we should not have -been responsible for them. Finally who would have questioned that a -thought is caused? that the ego causes the thought? Of these three -"facts of inner consciousness" by means of which causality seemed to -be guaranteed, the first and most convincing is that of the will as -cause; the conception of consciousness ("spirit") as a cause, and -subsequently that of the ego (the "subject") as a cause, were merely -born afterwards, once the causality of the will stood established -as "given," as a fact of experience. Meanwhile we have come to our -senses. To-day we no longer believe a word of all this. The "inner -world" is full of phantoms and will-o'-the-wisps: the will is one of -these. The will no longer actuates, consequently it no longer explains -anything—all it does is to accompany processes; it may even be absent. -The so-called "motive" is another error. It is merely a ripple on -the surface of consciousness, a side issue of the action, which is -much more likely to conceal than to reveal the <i>antecedentia</i> of the -latter. And as for the ego! It has become legendary, fictional, a -play upon words: it has ceased utterly and completely from thinking, -feeling, and willing! What is the result of it all? There are no such -things as spiritual causes. The whole of popular experience on this -subject went to the devil! That is the result of it all. For we had -blissfully abused that experience, we had built the world upon it as a -world of causes, as a world<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> of will, as a world of spirit. The most -antiquated and most traditional psychology has been at work here, it -has done nothing else: all phenomena were deeds in the light of this -psychology, and all deeds were the result of will; according to it the -world was a complex mechanism of agents, an agent (a "subject") lay -at the root of all things. Man projected his three "inner facts of -consciousness," the will, the spirit, and the ego in which he believed -most firmly, outside himself. He first deduced the concept Being out -of the concept Ego, he supposed "things" to exist as he did himself, -according to his notion of the ego as cause. Was it to be wondered at -that later on he always found in things only that which he had laid -in them?—The thing itself, I repeat, the concept thing was merely a -reflex of the belief in the ego as cause. And even your atom, my dear -good Mechanists and Physicists, what an amount of error, of rudimentary -psychology still adheres to it!—Not to speak of the "thing-in-itself," -of the <i>horrendum pudendum</i> of the metaphysicians! The error of spirit -regarded as a cause, confounded with reality! And made the measure of -reality! And called <i>God!</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p><i>The Error of imaginary Causes.</i> Starting out from dreamland, we -find that to any definite sensation, like that produced by a distant -cannon shot for instance, we are wont to ascribe a cause after the -fact (very often quite a little romance in which the dreamer himself -is, of course, the hero). Meanwhile the sensation becomes protracted -like a sort of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> continuous echo, until, as it were, the instinct of -causality allows it to come to the front rank, no longer however as a -chance occurrence, but as a thing which has some meaning. The cannon -shot presents itself in a <i>causal</i> manner, by means of an apparent -reversal in the order of time. That which occurs last, the motivation, -is experienced first, often with a hundred details which flash past -like lightning, and the shot is the <i>result.</i> What has happened? The -ideas suggested by a particular state of our senses, are misinterpreted -as the cause of that state. As a matter of fact we proceed in precisely -the same manner when we are awake. The greater number of our general -sensations—every kind of obstacle, pressure, tension, explosion in -the interplay of the organs, and more particularly the condition of -the <i>nervus sympathies</i>—stimulate our instinct of causality: we will -have a reason which will account for our feeling thus or thus,—for -feeling ill or well. We are never satisfied by merely ascertaining -the fact that we feel thus or thus: we admit this fact—we become -conscious of it—only when we have attributed it to some kind of -motivation. Memory, which, in such circumstances unconsciously becomes -active, adduces former conditions of a like kind, together with the -causal interpretations with which they are associated,—but not their -real cause. The belief that the ideas, the accompanying processes -of consciousness, have been the causes, is certainly produced by -the agency of memory. And in this way we become <i>accustomed</i> to a -particular interpretation of causes which, truth to tell, actually -hinders and even utterly prevents the investigation of the proper -cause.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p><i>The Psychological Explanation of the above Fact.</i> To trace something -unfamiliar back to something familiar, is at once a relief, a comfort -and a satisfaction, while it also produces a feeling of power. The -unfamiliar involves danger, anxiety and care,—the fundamental instinct -is to get rid of these painful circumstances. First principle: any -explanation is better than none at all. Since, at bottom, it is -only a question of shaking one's self free from certain oppressive -ideas, the means employed to this end are not selected with overmuch -punctiliousness: the first idea by means of which the unfamiliar is -revealed as familiar, produces a feeling of such comfort that it is -"held to be true." The proof of happiness ("of power") as the criterion -of truth. The instinct of causality is therefore conditioned and -stimulated by the feeling of fear. Whenever possible, the question -"why?" should not only educe the cause as cause, but rather a certain -kind of cause—a comforting, liberating and reassuring cause. The first -result of this need is that something known or already experienced, and -recorded in the memory, is posited as the cause. The new factor, that -which has not been experienced and which is unfamiliar, is excluded -from the sphere of causes. Not only do we try to find a certain kind -of explanation as the cause, but those kinds of explanations are -selected and preferred which dissipate most rapidly the sensation of -strangeness, novelty and unfamiliarity,—in fact the most ordinary -explanations. And the result is that a certain manner of postulating -causes tends to predominate ever more and more, becomes concentrated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> -into a system, and finally reigns supreme, to the complete exclusion -of all other causes and explanations. The banker thinks immediately of -business, the Christian of "sin," and the girl of her love affair.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p><i>The whole Domain of Morality and Religion may be classified under the -Rubric "Imaginary Causes."</i> The "explanation" of general unpleasant -sensations. These sensations are dependent upon certain creatures who -are hostile to us (evil spirits: the most famous example of this—the -mistaking of hysterical women for witches). These sensations are -dependent upon actions which are reprehensible (the feeling of "sin," -"sinfulness" is a manner of accounting for a certain physiological -disorder—people always find reasons for being dissatisfied with -themselves). These sensations depend upon punishment, upon compensation -for something which we ought not to have done, which we ought not -to have been (this idea was generalised in a more impudent form by -Schopenhauer, into that principle in which morality appears in its real -colours,—that is to say, as a veritable poisoner and slanderer of -life: "all great suffering, whether mental or physical, reveals what -we deserve: for it could not visit us if we did not deserve it," "The -World as Will and Idea," vol. 2, p. 666). These sensations are the -outcome of ill-considered actions, having evil consequences, (—the -passions, the senses, postulated as causes, as guilty. By means of -other calamities distressing physiological conditions are interpreted -as "merited").—The "explanation" of pleasant sensations. These -sensations are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> dependent upon a trust in God. They may depend upon -our consciousness of having done one or two good actions (a so-called -"good conscience" is a physiological condition, which may be the -outcome of good digestion). They may depend upon the happy issue of -certain undertakings (—an ingenuous mistake: the happy issue of an -undertaking certainly does not give a hypochondriac or a Pascal any -general sensation of pleasure). They may depend upon faith, love and -hope,—the Christian virtues. As a matter of fact all these pretended -explanations are but the results of certain states, and as it were -translations of feelings of pleasure and pain into a false dialect: a -man is in a condition of hopefulness because the dominant physiological -sensation of his being is again one of strength and wealth; he trusts -in God because the feeling of abundance and power gives him a peaceful -state of mind. Morality and religion are completely and utterly parts -of the psychology of error: in every particular case cause and effect -are confounded; as truth is confounded with the effect of that which is -believed to be true; or a certain state of consciousness is confounded -with the chain of causes which brought it about.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p><i>The Error of Free-Will.</i> At present we no longer have any mercy upon -the concept "free-will": we know only too well what it is—the most -egregious theological trick that has ever existed for the purpose of -making mankind "responsible" in a theological manner,—that is to -say, to make mankind dependent upon theologians. I will now explain -to you only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> the psychology of the whole process of inculcating the -sense of responsibility. Wherever men try to trace responsibility -home to anyone, it is the instinct of punishment and of the desire -to judge which is active. Becoming is robbed of its innocence when -any particular condition of things is traced to a will, to intentions -and to responsible actions. The doctrine of the will was invented -principally for the purpose of punishment,—that is to say, with -the intention of tracing guilt. The whole of ancient psychology, -or the psychology of the will, is the outcome of the fact that its -originators, who were the priests at the head of ancient communities, -wanted to create for themselves a right to administer punishments—or -the right for God to do so. Men were thought of as "free" in order that -they might be judged and punished—in order that they might be held -guilty: consequently every action had to be regarded as voluntary, -and the origin of every action had to be imagined as lying in -consciousness(—inthis way the most fundamentally fraudulent character -of psychology was established as the very principle of psychology -itself). Now that we have entered upon the opposite movement, now that -we immoralists are trying with all our power to eliminate the concepts -of guilt and punishment from the world once more, and to cleanse -psychology, history, nature and all social institutions and customs -of all signs of those two concepts, we recognise no more radical -opponents than the theologians, who with their notion of "a moral order -of things," still continue to pollute the innocence of Becoming with -punishment and guilt Christianity is the metaphysics of the hangman.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p>What then, alone, can our teaching be?—That no one gives man his -qualities, neither God, society, his parents, his ancestors, nor -himself (—this non-sensical idea which is at last refuted here, was -taught as "intelligible freedom" by Kant, and perhaps even as early -as Plato himself). No one is responsible for the fact that he exists -at all, that he is constituted as he is, and that he happens to be in -certain circumstances and in a particular environment. The fatality of -his being cannot be divorced from the fatality of all that which has -been and will be. This is not the result of an individual intention, -of a will, of an aim, there is no attempt at attaining to any "ideal -man," or "ideal happiness" or "ideal morality" with him,—it is absurd -to wish him to be careering towards some sort of purpose. <i>We</i> invented -the concept "purpose"; in reality purpose is altogether lacking. One -is necessary, one is a piece of fate, one belongs to the whole, one is -in the whole,—there is nothing that could judge, measure, compare, -and condemn our existence, for that would mean judging, measuring, -comparing and condemning the whole. <i>But there is nothing outside the -whole!</i> The fact that no one shall any longer be made responsible, that -the nature of existence may not be traced to a <i>causa prima</i>, that the -world is an entity neither as a sensorium nor as a spirit—<i>this alone -is the great deliverance</i>,—thus alone is the innocence of Becoming -restored.... The concept "God" has been the greatest objection to -existence hitherto.... We deny God, we deny responsibility in God: thus -alone do we save the world.—</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="THE_IMPROVERS_OF_MANKIND" id="THE_IMPROVERS_OF_MANKIND">THE "IMPROVERS" OF MANKIND</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - - -<p>You are aware of my demand upon philosophers, that they should take -up a stand Beyond Good and Evil,—that they should have the illusion -of the moral judgment beneath them. This demand is the result of a -point of view which I was the first to formulate: <i>that there are no -such things as moral facts.</i> Moral judgment has this in common with -the religious one, that it believes in realities which are not real. -Morality is only an interpretation of certain phenomena: or, more -strictly speaking, a misinterpretation of them. Moral judgment, like -the religious one, belongs to a stage of ignorance in which even the -concept of reality, the distinction between real and imagined things, -is still lacking: so that truth, at such a stage, is applied to a host -of things which to-day we call "imaginary." That is why the moral -judgment must never be taken quite literally: as such it is sheer -nonsense. As a sign code, however, it is invaluable: to him at least -who knows, it reveals the most valuable facts concerning cultures and -inner conditions, which did not know enough to "understand" themselves. -Morality is merely a sign-language, simply symptomatology: one must -already know what it is all about in order to turn it to any use.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>Let me give you one example, quite provisionally. In all ages there -have been people who wished to "improve" mankind: this above all -is what was called morality. But the most different tendencies -are concealed beneath the same word. Both the taming of the beast -man, and the rearing of a particular type of man, have been called -"improvement": these zoological <i>termini,</i> alone, represent real -things—real things of which the typical "improver," the priest, -naturally knows nothing, and will know nothing. To call the taming -of an animal "improving" it, sounds to our ears almost like a joke. -He who knows what goes on in menageries, doubts very much whether an -animal is improved in such places. It is certainly weakened, it is -made less dangerous, and by means of the depressing influence of fear, -pain, wounds, and hunger, it is converted into a sick animal. And the -same holds good of the tamed man whom the priest has "improved." In -the early years of the Middle Ages, during which the Church was most -distinctly and above all a menagerie, the most beautiful examples of -the "blond beast" were hunted down in all directions,—the noble -Germans, for instance, were "improved." But what did this "improved" -German, who had been lured to the monastery look like after the -process? He looked like a caricature of man, like an abortion: he had -become a "sinner," he was caged up, he had been imprisoned behind a -host of apparling notions. He now lay there, sick, wretched, malevolent -even toward himself: full of hate for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> instincts of life, full of -suspicion in regard to all that is still strong and happy. In short a -"Christian." In physiological terms: in a fight with an animal, the -only way of making it weak may be to make it sick. The Church undersood -this: it ruined man, it made him weak,—but it laid claim to having -"improved" him.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>Now let us consider the other case which is called morality, the -case of the rearing of a particular race and species. The most -magnificent example of this is offered by Indian morality, and is -sanctioned religiously as the "Law of Manu." In this book the task -is set of rearing no less than four races at once: a priestly race, -a warrior race, a merchant and agricultural race, and finally a race -of servants—the Sudras. It is quite obvious that we are no longer -in a circus watching tamers of wild animals in this book. To have -conceived even the plan of such a breeding scheme, presupposes the -existence of a man who is a hundred times milder and more reasonable -than the mere lion-tamer. One breathes more freely, after stepping out -of the Christian atmosphere of hospitals and prisons, into this more -salubrious, loftier and more spacious world. What a wretched thing the -New Testament is beside Manu, what an evil odour hangs around it!—But -even this organisation found it necessary to be terrible,—not this -time in a struggle with the animal-man, but with his opposite, the -non-caste man, the hotch-potch man, the Chandala. And once again it -had no other means of making him weak and harmless, than by making -him sick,—it was the struggle with the greatest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> "number." Nothing -perhaps is more offensive to our feelings than these measures of -security on the part of Indian morality. The third edict, for instance -(Avadana-Sastra I.), which treats "of impure vegetables," ordains that -the only nourishment that the Chandala should be allowed must consist -of garlic and onions, as the holy scriptures forbid their being given -corn or grain-bearing fruit, water and fire. The same edict declares -that the water which they need must be drawn neither out of rivers, -wells or ponds, but only out of the ditches leading to swamps and out -of the holes left by the footprints of animals. They are likewise -forbidden to wash either their linen or themselves since the water -which is graciously granted to them must only be used for quenching -their thirst. Finally Sudra women are forbidden to assist Chandala -women at their confinements, while Chandala women are also forbidden to -assist each other at such times. The results of sanitary regulations of -this kind could not fail to make themselves felt; deadly epidemics and -the most ghastly venereal diseases soon appeared, and in consequence -of these again "the Law of the Knife,"—that is to say circumcision, -was prescribed for male children and the removal of the small labia -from the females. Manu himself says: "the Chandala are the fruit of -adultery, incest, and crime (—this is the necessary consequence of the -idea of breeding). Their clothes shall consist only of the rags torn -from corpses, their vessels shall be the fragments of broken pottery, -their ornaments shall be made of old iron, and their religion shall be -the worship of evil spirits; without rest they shall wander from place -to place.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> They are forbidden to write from left to right or to use -their right hand in writing: the use of the right hand and writing from -left to right are reserved to people of virtue, to people of race."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>These regulations are instructive enough: we can see in them the -absolutely pure and primeval humanity of the Aryans,—we learn that -the notion "pure blood," is the reverse of harmless. On the other hand -it becomes clear among which people the hatred, the Chandala hatred -of this humanity has been immortalised, among which people it has -become religion and genius. From this point of view the gospels are -documents of the highest value; and the Book of Enoch is still more -so. Christianity as sprung from Jewish roots and comprehensible only -as grown upon this soil, represents the counter-movement against that -morality of breeding, of race and of privilege:—it is essentially an -anti-Aryan religion: Christianity is the transvaluation of all Aryan -values, the triumph of Chandala values, the proclaimed gospel of the -poor and of the low, the general insurrection of all the down-trodden, -the wretched, the bungled and the botched, against the "race,"—the -immortal revenge of the Chandala as the <i>religion of love.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>The morality of breeding and the morality of taming, in the means which -they adopt in order to prevail, are quite worthy of each other: we may -lay down as a leading principle that in order to create morality a -man must have the absolute will to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> immorality. This is the great and -strange problem with which I have so long been occupied: the psychology -of the "Improvers" of mankind. A small, and at bottom perfectly -insignificant fact, known as the <i>"pia fraus,"</i> first gave me access -to this problem: the <i>pia fraus,</i> the heirloom of all philosophers and -priests who "improve" mankind. Neither Manu, nor Plato, nor Confucius, -nor the teachers of Judaism and Christianity, have ever doubted their -right to falsehood. They have never doubted their right to quite a -number of other things To express oneself in a formula, one might -say:—all means which have been used heretofore with the object of -making man moral, were through and through immoral.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="THINGS_THE_GERMANS_LACK" id="THINGS_THE_GERMANS_LACK">THINGS THE GERMANS LACK</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>Among Germans at the present day it does not suffice to have intellect; -one is actually forced to appropriate it, to lay claim to it.</p> - -<p>Maybe I know the Germans, perhaps I may tell them a few home-truths. -Modern Germany represents such an enormous store of inherited and -acquired capacity, that for some time it might spend this accumulated -treasure even with some prodigality. It is no superior culture that has -ultimately become prevalent with this modern tendency, nor is it by any -means delicate taste, or noble beauty of the instincts; but rather a -number of virtues more manly than any that other European countries can -show. An amount of good spirits and self-respect, plenty of firmness -in human relations and in the reciprocity of duties; much industry and -much perseverance—and a certain inherited soberness which is much more -in need of a spur than of a brake. Let me add that in this country -people still obey without feeling that obedience humiliates. And no one -despises his opponent.</p> - -<p>You observe that it is my desire to be fair to the Germans: and in this -respect I should not like to be untrue to myself,—I must therefore -also state my objections to them. It costs a good deal to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> attain to a -position of power; for power <i>stultifies.</i> The Germans—they were once -called a people of thinkers: do they really think at all at present? -Nowadays the Germans are bored by intellect, they mistrust intellect; -politics have swallowed up all earnestness for really intellectual -things—"Germany, Germany above all."<a name="FNanchor_1_6" id="FNanchor_1_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_6" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> I fear this was the death-blow -to German philosophy. "Are there any German philosophers? Are there any -German poets? Are there any good German books?" people ask me abroad. I -blush; but with that pluck which is peculiar to me, even in moments of -desperation, I reply: "Yes, Bismarck!"—Could I have dared to confess -what books <i>are</i> read to-day? Cursed instinct of mediocrity!—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>What might not German intellect have been!—who has not thought sadly -upon this question! But this nation has deliberately stultified itself -for almost a thousand years: nowhere else have the two great European -narcotics, alcohol and Christianity, been so viciously abused as in -Germany. Recently a third opiate was added to the list, one which in -itself alone would have sufficed to complete the ruin of all subtle -and daring intellectual animation, I speak of music, our costive and -constipating German music. How much peevish ponderousness, paralysis, -dampness, dressing-gown languor, and beer is there not in German -intelligence!</p> - -<p>How is it really possible that young men who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> consecrate their whole -lives to the pursuit of intellectual ends, should not feel within them -the first instinct of intellectuality, the <i>self-preservative instinct -of the intellect</i>—and should drink beer? The alcoholism of learned -youths does not incapacitate them for becoming scholars—a man quite -devoid of intellect may be a great scholar,—but it is a problem in -every other respect. Where can that soft degeneracy not be found, which -is produced in the intellect by beer! I once laid my finger upon a case -of this sort, which became almost famous,—the degeneration of our -leading German free-spirit, the <i>clever</i> David Strauss, into the author -of a suburban gospel and New Faith. Not in vain had he sung the praises -of "the dear old brown liquor" in verse—true unto death.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>I have spoken of German intellect. I have said that it is becoming -coarser and shallower. Is that enough?—In reality something very -different frightens me, and that is the ever steady decline of -German earnestness, German profundity, and German passion in things -intellectual. Not only intellectuality, but also pathos has altered. -From time to time I come in touch with German universities; what -an extraordinary atmosphere prevails among their scholars! what -barrenness! and what self-satisfied and lukewarm intellectuality! For -any one to point to German science as an argument against me would show -that he grossly misunderstood my meaning, while it would also prove -that he had not read a word of my writings. For seventeen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> years I -have done little else than expose the de-intellectualising influence -of our modern scientific studies. The severe slavery to which every -individual nowadays is condemned by the enormous range covered by the -sciences, is the chief reason why fuller, richer and profounder natures -can find no education or educators that are fit for them. Nothing -is more deleterious to this age than the superfluity of pretentious -loafers and fragmentary human beings; our universities are really -the involuntary forcing houses for this kind of withering-up of the -instincts of intellectuality. And the whole of Europe is beginning -to know this—politics on a large scale deceive no one. Germany is -becoming ever more and more the Flat-land of Europe. I am still in -search of a German with whom I could be serious after my own fashion. -And how much more am I in search of one with whom I could be cheerful -<i>—The Twilight of the Idols:</i> ah! what man to-day would be capable -of understanding the kind of seriousness from which a philosopher is -recovering in this work! It is our cheerfulness that people understand -least.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>Let us examine another aspect of the question: it is not only obvious -that German culture is declining, but adequate reasons for this decline -are not lacking. After all, nobody can spend more than he has:—this -is true of individuals, it is also true of nations. If you spend -your strength in acquiring power, or in politics on a large scale, -or in economy, or in universal commerce, or in parliamentarism, or -in military interests—if you dissipate the modicum<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> of reason, of -earnestness, of will, and of self-control that constitutes your nature -in one particular fashion, you cannot dissipate it in another. Culture -and the state—let no one be deceived on this point—are antagonists: -A "culture-state "<a name="FNanchor_2_7" id="FNanchor_2_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_7" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> is merely a modern idea. The one lives upon -the other, the one flourishes at the expense of the other. All great -periods of culture have been periods of political decline; that which -is great from the standpoint of culture, was always unpolitical—even -anti-political. Goethe's heart opened at the coming of Napoleon—it -closed at the thought of the "Wars of Liberation." At the very moment -when Germany arose as a great power in the world of politics, France -won new importance as a force in the world of culture. Even at this -moment a large amount of fresh intellectual earnestness and passion -has emigrated to Paris; the question of pessimism, for instance, -and the question of Wagner; in France almost all psychological and -artistic questions are considered with incomparably more subtlety and -thoroughness than they are in Germany,—the Germans are even incapable -of this kind of earnestness. In the history of European culture the -rise of the Empire signifies, above all, a displacement of the centre -of gravity. Everywhere people are already aware of this: in things that -really matter—and these after all constitute culture,—the Germans -are no longer worth considering. I ask you, can you show me one single -man of brains who could be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> mentioned in the same breath with other -European thinkers, like your Goethe, your Hegel, your Heinrich Heine, -and your Schopenhauer?—The fact that there is no longer a single -German philosopher worth mentioning is an increasing wonder.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>Everything that matters has been lost sight of by the whole of the -higher educational system of Germany: the end quite as much as the -means to that end. People forget that education, the process of -cultivation itself, is the end—and not "the Empire"—they forget that -the <i>educator</i> is required for this end—and not the public-school -teacher and university scholar. Educators are needed who are themselves -educated, superior and noble intellects, who can prove that they are -thus qualified, that they are ripe and mellow products of culture -at every moment of their lives, in word and in gesture;—not the -learned louts who, like "superior wet-nurses," are now thrust upon the -youth of the land by public schools and universities. With but rare -exceptions, that which is lacking in Germany is the first prerequisite -of education—that is to say, the educators; hence the decline of -German culture. One of those rarest exceptions is my highly respected -friend Jacob Burckhardt of Bâle: to him above all is Bâle indebted -for its foremost position in human culture What the higher schools -of Germany really do accomplish is this, they brutally train a vast -crowd of young men, in the smallest amount of time possible, to become -useful and exploitable servants of the state.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> "Higher education" -and a vast crowd—these terms contradict each other from the start -All superior education can only concern the exception: a man must be -privileged in order to have a right to such a great privilege. All -great and beautiful things cannot be a common possession: <i>pulchrum -est paucorum hominum.</i>—What is it that brings about the decline of -German culture? The fact that "higher education" is no longer a special -privilege—the democracy of a process of cultivation that has become -"general," <i>common.</i> Nor must it be forgotten that the privileges of -the military profession by urging many too many to attend the higher -schools, involve the downfall of the latter. In modern Germany nobody -is at liberty to give his children a noble education: in regard to -their teachers, their curricula, and their educational aims, our higher -schools are one and all established upon a fundamentally doubtful -mediocre basis. Everywhere, too, a hastiness which is unbecoming rules -supreme; just as if something would be forfeited if the young man were -not "finished" at the age of twenty-three, or did not know how to -reply to the most essential question, "which calling to choose?"—The -superior kind of man, if you please, does not like "callings," -precisely because he knows himself to be called. He has time, he takes -time, he cannot possibly think of becoming "finished,"—in the matter -of higher culture, a man of thirty years is a beginner, a child. Our -overcrowded public-schools, our accumulation of foolishly manufactured -public-school masters, are a scandal: maybe there are very serious -<i>motives</i> for defending this state of affairs, as was shown quite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> -recently by the professors of Heidelberg; but there can be no reasons -for doing so.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>In order to be true to my nature, which is affirmative and which -concerns itself with contradictions and criticism only indirectly -and with reluctance, let me state at once what the three objects -are for which we need educators. People must learn to see; they -must learn to think, and they must learn to speak and to write: the -object of all three of these pursuits is a noble culture. To learn -to see—to accustom the eye to calmness, to patience, and to allow -things to come up to it; to defer judgment, and to acquire the habit -of approaching and grasping an individual case from all sides. This -is the first preparatory schooling of intellectuality. One must not -respond immediately to a stimulus; one must acquire a command of the -obstructing and isolating instincts. To learn to see, as I understand -this matter, amounts almost to that which in popular language is -called "strength of will": its essential feature is precisely <i>not</i> -to <i>wish</i> to see, to be able to postpone one's decision. All lack of -intellectuality, all vulgarity, arises out of the inability to resist -a stimulus:—one must respond or react, every impulse is indulged. In -many cases such necessary action is already a sign of morbidity, of -decline, and a symptom of exhaustion. Almost everything that coarse -popular language characterises as vicious, is merely that physiological -inability to refrain from reacting.—As an instance of what it means -to have learnt to see, let me state that a man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> thus trained will as a -learner have become generally slow, suspicious, and refractory. With -hostile calm he will first allow every kind of strange and <i>new</i> thing -to come right up to him,—he will draw back his hand at its approach. -To stand with all the doors of one's soul wide open, to He slavishly -in the dust before every trivial fact, at all times of the day to be -strained ready for the leap, in order to deposit one's self, to plunge -one's self, into other souls and other things, in short, the famous -"objectivity" of modern times, is bad taste, it is essentially vulgar -and cheap.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p>As to learning how to think—our schools no longer have any notion -of such a thing. Even at the universities, among the actual scholars -in philosophy, logic as a theory, as a practical pursuit, and as a -business, is beginning to die out. Turn to any German book: you will -not find the remotest trace of a realisation that there is such a -thing as a technique, a plan of study, a will to mastery, in the -matter of thinking,—that thinking insists upon being learnt, just -as dancing insists upon being learnt, and that thinking insists upon -being learnt as a form of dancing. What single German can still say he -knows from experience that delicate shudder which <i>light footfalls</i> -in matters intellectual cause to pervade his whole body and limbs! -Stiff awkwardness in intellectual attitudes, and the clumsy fist in -grasping—these things are so essentially German, that outside Germany -they are absolutely confounded with the German spirit. The German -has no fingers for delicate <i>nuances. </i> The fact that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> the people of -Germany have actually tolerated their philosophers, more particularly -that most deformed cripple of ideas that has ever existed—the great -Kant, gives one no inadequate notion of their native elegance. For, -truth to tell, dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the -curriculum of all noble education: dancing with the feet, with ideas, -with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with -the pen—that one must learn how to write?—But at this stage I should -become utterly enigmatical to German readers.</p> - - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_6" id="Footnote_1_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_6"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The German national hymn: "<i>Deutschland, Deutschland über -alles.—</i>" TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_7" id="Footnote_2_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_7"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> The word <i>Kultur-Staat</i> "culture-state" has become a -standard expression in the German language, and is applied to the -leading European States.—TR.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="SKIRMISHES_IN_A_WAR_WITH_THE_AGE" id="SKIRMISHES_IN_A_WAR_WITH_THE_AGE">SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p><i>My Impossible People.</i>—Seneca, or the toreador of virtue—-Rousseau, -or the return to nature, <i>in impuris naturalibus.</i>—Schiller, or the -Moral-Trumpeter of Sackingen.—Dante, or the hyæna that writes poetry -in tombs.—Kant, or <i>cant</i> as an intelligible character.—Victor -Hugo, or the lighthouse on the sea of nonsense.—Liszt, or the -school of racing—after women.—George Sand, or <i>lactea ubertas,</i> -in plain English: the cow with plenty of beautiful milk.—Michelet, -or enthusiasm in its shirt sleeves.—Carlyle, or Pessimism after -undigested meals.—John Stuart Mill, or offensive lucidity.—The -brothers Goncourt, or the two Ajaxes fighting with Homer. Music by -Offenbach.—Zola, or the love of stinking.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p><i>Renan.</i>—Theology, or the corruption of reason by original sin -(Christianity). Proof of this,—Renan who, even in those rare cases -where he ventures to say either Yes or No on a general question, -invariably misses the point with painful regularity. For in stance, -he would fain associate science and nobility: but surely it must be -obvious that science is democratic. He seems to be actuated by a -strong desire to represent an aristocracy of intellect: but, at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> -same time he grovels on his knees, and not only on his knees, before -the opposite doctrine, the gospel of the humble. What is the good of -all free-spiritedness, modernity, mockery and acrobatic suppleness, -if in one's belly one is still a Christian, a Catholic, and even a -priest! Renan's forte, precisely like that of a Jesuit and Father -Confessor, lies in his seductiveness. His intellectuality is not -devoid of that unctuous complacency of a parson,—like all priests, he -becomes dangerous only when he loves. He is second to none in the art -of skilfully worshipping a dangerous thing. This intellect of Renan's, -which in its action is enervating, is one calamity the more, for poor, -sick France with her will-power all going to pieces.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p><i>Sainte-Beuve.</i>—There is naught of man in him; he is full of petty -spite towards all virile spirits. He wanders erratically; he is subtle, -inquisitive, a little bored, for ever with his ear to key-holes,—at -bottom a woman, with all woman's revengefulness and sensuality. As a -psychologist he is a genius of slander; inexhaustively rich in means -to this end; no one understands better than he how to introduce a -little poison into praise. In his fundamental instincts he is plebeian -and next of kin to Rousseau's resentful spirit: consequently he is -a Romanticist—for beneath all romanticism Rousseau's instinct for -revenge grunts and frets. He is a revolutionary, but kept within -bounds by "funk." He is embarrassed in the face of everything that is -strong (public opinion, the Academy, the court, even Port Royal). He -is embittered against everything great in men<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> and things, against -everything that believes in itself. Enough of a poet and of a female to -be able to feel greatness as power; he is always turning and twisting, -because, like the proverbial worm, he constantly feels that he is -being trodden upon. As a critic he has no standard of judgment, no -guiding principle, no backbone. Although he possesses the tongue of -the Cosmopolitan libertine which can chatter about a thousand things, -he has not the courage even to acknowledge his <i>libertinage.</i> As a -historian he has no philosophy, and lacks the power of philosophical -vision,—hence his refusal to act the part of a judge, and his adoption -of the mask of "objectivity" in all important matters. His attitude -is better in regard to all those things in which subtle and effete -taste is the highest tribunal: in these things he really does have -the courage of his own personality—he really does enjoy his own -nature—he actually is a <i>master,</i>—In some respects he is a prototype -of Baudelaire.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>"<i>The Imitation of Christ</i>" is one of those books which I cannot even -take hold of without physical loathing: it exhales a perfume of the -eternally feminine, which to appreciate fully one must be a Frenchman -or a Wagnerite. This saint has a way of speaking about love which -makes even Parisiennes feel a little curious.—I am told that that -<i>most intelligent</i> of Jesuits, Auguste Comte, who wished to lead his -compatriots back to Rome by the circuitous route of science, drew his -inspiration from this book. And I believe it: "The religion of the -heart"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span> <i>G. Eliot.</i>—They are rid of the Christian God and therefore -think it all the more incumbent upon them to hold tight to Christian -morality: this is an English way of reasoning; but let us not take it -ill in moral females <i>à la</i> Eliot. In England, every man who indulges -in any trifling emancipation from theology, must retrieve his honour -in the most terrifying manner by becoming a moral fanatic. That is how -they do penance in that country.—As for us, we act differently. When -we renounce the Christian faith, we abandon all right to Christian -morality. This is not by any means self-evident and in defiance of -English shallow-pates the point must be made ever more and more plain. -Christianity is a system, a complete outlook upon the world, conceived -as a whole. If its leading concept, the belief in God, is wrenched -from it, the whole is destroyed; nothing vital remains in our grasp. -Christianity presupposes that man does not and cannot know what is -good or bad for him: the Christian believes in God who, alone, can -know these things. Christian morality is a command, its origin is -transcendental. It is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; -it is true only on condition that God is truth,—it stands or falls -with the belief in God. If the English really believe that they know -intuitively, and of their own accord, what is good and evil; if, -therefore, they assert that they no longer need Christianity as a -guarantee of morality, this in itself is simply the outcome of the -dominion of Christian valuations, and a proof of the strength and -profundity of this dominion. It only shows that the origin of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> English -morality has been forgotten, and that its exceedingly relative right to -exist is no longer felt. For Englishmen morality is not yet a problem.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p><i>George Sand.</i>—I have been reading the first "<i>Lettres d'un -Voyageur</i>:" like everything that springs from Rousseau's influence -it is false, made-up, blown out, and exaggerated! I cannot endure -this bright wall-paper style, any more than I can bear the vulgar -striving after generous feelings. The worst feature about it is -certainly the coquettish adoption of male attributes by this female, -after the manner of ill-bred schoolboys. And how cold she must have -been inwardly all the while, this insufferable artist! She wound -herself up like a clock—and wrote. As cold as Hugo and Balzac, as -cold as all Romanticists are as soon as they begin to write! And how -self-complacently she must have lain there, this prolific ink-yielding -cow. For she had something German in her (German in the bad sense), -just as Rousseau, her master, had;—something which could only have -been possible when French taste was declining!—and Renan adores her!...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p><i>A Moral for Psychologists.</i> Do not go in for any note-book psychology! -Never observe for the sake of observing! Such things lead to a false -point of view, to a squint, to something forced and exaggerated. -To experience things on purpose—this is not a bit of good. In the -midst of an experience a man should not turn his eyes upon himself; -in such cases<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> any eye becomes the "evil eye." A born psychologist -instinctively avoids seeing for the sake of seeing. And the same holds -good of the born painter. Such a man never works "from nature,"—he -leaves it to his instinct, to his <i>camera obscura</i> to sift and to -define the "fact," "nature," the "experience." The general idea, -the conclusion, the result, is the only thing that reaches his -consciousness. He knows nothing of that wilful process of deducing -from particular cases. What is the result when a man sets about this -matter differently?—when, for instance, after the manner of Parisian -novelists, he goes in for note-book psychology on a large and small -scale? Such a man is constantly spying on reality, and every evening -he bears home a handful of fresh curios.... But look at the result!—a -mass of daubs, at best a piece of mosaic, in any case something heaped -together, restless and garish. The Goncourts are the greatest sinners -in this respect: they cannot put three sentences together which are not -absolutely painful to the eye—the eye of the psychologist. From an -artistic standpoint, nature is no model. It exaggerates, distorts, and -leaves gaps. Nature is the <i>accident.</i> To study "from nature" seems to -me a bad sign: it betrays submission, weakness, fatalism—this lying -in the dust before trivial facts is unworthy of a thorough artist. To -see <i>what is</i>—is the function of another order of intellects, the -<i>anti-artistic,</i> the matter-of-fact One must know <i>who</i> one is.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p><i>Concerning the psychology of the artist</i> For art to be possible at -all—that is to say, in order that an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span> æsthetic mode of action and of -observation may exist, a certain preliminary physiological state is -indispensable <i>ecstasy.</i><a name="FNanchor_1_8" id="FNanchor_1_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_8" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> This state of ecstasy must first have -intensified the susceptibility of the whole machine otherwise, no art -is possible. All kinds of ecstasy, however differently produced, have -this power to create art, and above all the state dependent upon sexual -excitement—this most venerable and primitive form of ecstasy. The same -applies to that ecstasy which is the outcome of all great desires, -all strong passions; the ecstasy of the feast, of the arena, of the -act of bravery, of victory, of all extreme action; the ecstasy of -cruelty; the ecstasy of destruction; the ecstasy following upon certain -meteorological influences, as for instance that of spring-time, or upon -the use of narcotics; and finally the ecstasy of will, that ecstasy -which results from accumulated and surging will-power.—The essential -feature of ecstasy is the feeling of increased strength and abundance. -Actuated by this feeling a man gives of himself to things, <i>he -forces</i> them to partake of his riches, he does violence to them—this -proceeding is called <i>idealising.</i> Let us rid ourselves of a prejudice -here: idealising does not consist, as is generally believed, in a -suppression or an elimination of detail or of unessential features. -A stupendous <i>accentuation</i> of the principal characteristics is by -far the most decisive factor at work, and in consequence the minor -characteristics vanish.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">9</p> - -<p>In this state a man enriches everything from out his own abundance: -what he sees, what he wills, he sees distended, compressed, strong, -overladen with power. He transfigures things until they reflect his -power,—until they are stamped with his perfection. This compulsion -to transfigure into the beautiful is—Art Everything—even that which -he is not,—is nevertheless to such a man a means of rejoicing over -himself; in Art man rejoices over himself as perfection.—It is -possible to imagine a contrary state, a specifically anti-artistic -state of the instincts,—a state in which a man impoverishes, -attenuates, and draws the blood from everything. And, truth to tell, -history is full of such anti-artists, of such creatures of low -vitality who have no choice but to appropriate everything they see -and to suck its blood and make it thinner. This is the case with the -genuine Christian, Pascal for instance. There is no such thing as a -Christian who is also an artist ... Let no one be so childish as to -suggest Raphael or any homeopathic Christian of the nineteenth century -as an objection to this statement: Raphael said Yea, Raphael <i>did</i> -Yea,—consequently Raphael was no Christian.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">10</p> - -<p>What is the meaning of the antithetical concepts <i>Apollonian</i> and -<i>Dionysian</i> which I have introduced into the vocabulary of Æsthetic, as -representing two distinct modes of ecstasy?—Apollonian ecstasy acts -above all as a force stimulating the eye, so that it acquires the power -of vision. The painter, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> sculptor, the epic poet are essentially -visionaries. In the Dionysian state, on the other hand, the whole -system of passions is stimulated and intensified, so What it discharges -itself by all the means of expression at once, and vents all its power -of representation, of imitation, of transfiguration, of transformation, -together with every kind of mimicry and histrionic display at the same -time. The essential feature remains the facility in transforming, -the inability to refrain from reaction (—a similar state to that of -certain hysterical patients, who at the slightest hint assume any -rôle). It is impossible for the Dionysian artist not to understand any -suggestion; <i>I</i> no outward sign of emotion escapes him, he possesses -the instinct of comprehension and of divination in the highest degree, -just as he is capable of the most perfect art of communication. He -enters into every skin, into every passion: he is continually changing -himself. Music as we understand it to-day is likewise a general -excitation and discharge of the emotions; but, notwithstanding this, it -is only the remnant of a much richer world of emotional expression, a -mere residuum of Dionysian histrionism. For music to be made possible -as a special art, quite a number of senses, and particularly the -muscular sense, had to be paralysed (at least relatively: for all -rhythm still appeals to our muscles to a certain extent):. and thus man -no longer imitates and represents physically everything he feels, as -soon as he feels it Nevertheless that is the normal Dionysian state, -and in any case its primitive state. Music is the slowly attained -specialisatio of this state at the cost of kindred capacities.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">11</p> - -<p>The actor, the mime, the dancer, the musician, and the lyricist, are -in their instincts fundamentally related; but they have gradually -specialised in their particular branch, and become separated—even -to the point of contradiction. The lyricist remained united with the -musician for the longest period of time; and the actor with the dancer. -The architect manifests neither a Dionysian nor an Apollonian state: In -his case it is the great act of will, the will that moveth mountains, -the ecstasy of the great will which aspires to art The most powerful -men have always inspired architects; the architect has always been -under the suggestion of power. In the architectural structure, man's -pride, man's triumph over gravitation, man's will to power, assume -a visible form. Architecture is a sort of oratory of power by means -of forms. Now it is persuasive, even flattering, and at other times -merely commanding. The highest sensation of power and security finds -expression in grandeur of style. That power which no longer requires to -be proved, which scorns to please; which responds only with difficulty; -which feels no witnesses around it; which is oblivious of the fact -that it is being opposed; which relies on itself fatalistically, and -is a law among laws:—such power expresses itself quite naturally in -grandeur of style.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">12</p> - -<p>I have been reading the life of Thomas Carlyle, that unconscious and -involuntary farce, that heroico-moral interpretation of dyspeptic -moods.—Carlyle, a man of strong words and attitudes, a rhetorician<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span> by -necessity, who seems ever to be tormented by the desire of finding some -kind of strong faith, and by his inability to do so (—in this respect -a typical Romanticist!). To yearn for a strong faith is not the proof -of a strong faith, but rather the reverse. If a man have a strong faith -he can indulge in the luxury of scepticism; he is strong enough, firm -enough, well-knit enough for such a luxury. Carlyle stupefies something -in himself by means of the <i>fortissimo</i> of his reverence for men of a -strong faith, and his rage over those who are less foolish: he is in -sore need of noise. An attitude of constant and passionate dishonesty -towards himself—this is his <i>proprium;</i> by virtue of this he is and -remains interesting.—Of course, in England he is admired precisely -on account of his honesty. Well, that is English; and in view of the -fact that the English are the nation of consummate cant, it is not only -comprehensible but also very natural. At bottom, Carlyle is an English -atheist who makes it a point of honour not to be one.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">13</p> - -<p><i>Emerson.</i>—He is much more enlightened, much broader, more versatile, -and more subtle than Carlyle; but above all, he is happier. He is one -who instinctively lives on ambrosia and who leaves the indigestible -parts of things on his plate. Compared with Carlyle he is a man of -taste.—Carlyle, who was very fond of him, nevertheless declared that -"he does not give us enough to chew." This is perfectly true but -it is not unfavourable to Emerson.—Emerson possesses that kindly -intellectual cheerfulness which deprecates overmuch seriousness; he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> -has absolutely no idea of how old he is already, and how young he will -yet be,—he could have said of himself, in Lope de Vega's words: "<i>yo -me sucedo a mi mismo.</i>" His mind is always finding reasons for being -contented and even thankful; and at times he gets preciously near to -that serene superiority of the worthy bourgeois who returning from an -amorous rendezvous <i>tamquam re bene gesta,</i> said gratefully "<i>Ut desint -vires, tamen est laudanda voluptas.</i>"—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">14</p> - -<p><i>Anti-Darwin.</i>—As to the famous "struggle for existence," it seems to -me, for the present, to be more of an assumption than a fact. It does -occur, but as an exception. The general condition of life! is not one -of want or famine, but rather of riches, of lavish luxuriance, and even -of absurd prodigality,—where there is a struggle, it is a struggle -for power. We should not confound Malthus with nature.—Supposing, -however, that this struggle exists,—and it does indeed occur,—its -result is unfortunately the very reverse of that which the Darwinian -school seems to desire, and of that which in agreement with them we -also might desire: that is to say, it is always to the disadvantage -of the strong, the privileged, and the happy exceptions. Species -do not evolve towards perfection: the weak always prevail over the -strong—simply because they are the majority, and because they are also -the more crafty. Darwin forgot the intellect (—that is English!), the -weak have more intellect. In order to acquire intellect, one must be in -need of it. One loses it when one no longer needs it. He who possesses -strength<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span> flings intellect to the deuce (—"let it go hence!"<a name="FNanchor_2_9" id="FNanchor_2_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_9" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> -say the Germans of the present day, "the <i>Empire</i> will remain"). -As you perceive, intellect to me means caution, patience, craft, -dissimulation, great self-control, and everything related to mimicry -(what is praised nowadays as virtue is very closely related the latter).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">15</p> - -<p><i>Casuistry of a Psychologist.</i>—This man knows mankind: to what purpose -does he study his fellows? He wants to derive some small or even -great advantages from them,—he is a politician!... That man yonder -is also well versed in human nature: and ye tell me that he wishes to -draw no personal profit from his knowledge, that he is a thoroughly -disinterested person? Examine him a little more closely! Maybe he -wishes to derive a more wicked advantage from his possession; namely, -to feel superior to men, to be able to look down upon them, no longer -to feel one of them. This "disinterested person" is a despiser of -mankind; and the former is of a more humane type, whatever appearances -may seem to say to the contrary. At least he considers himself the -equal of those about him, at least he classifies himself with them.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">16</p> - -<p><i>The psychological tact</i> of Germans seems to me to have been set in -doubt by a whole series of cases<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> which my modesty forbids me to -enumerate. In one case at least I shall not let the occasion slip -for substantiating my contention: I bear the Germans a grudge for -having made a mistake about Kant and his "backstairs philosophy," as -I call it. Such a man was not the type of intellectual uprightness. -Another thing I hate to hear is a certain infamous "and": the Germans -say, "Goethe <i>and</i> Schiller,"—I even fear that they say, "Schiller -and Goethe." ... Has nobody found Schiller out yet?—But there are -other "ands" which are even more egregious. With my own ears I have -heard—only among University professors, it is true!—men speak of -"Schopenhauer <i>and</i> Hartmann." ...<a name="FNanchor_3_10" id="FNanchor_3_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_10" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> - - -<p class="parnum">17</p> - -<p>The most intellectual men, provided they are also the most courageous, -experience the most excruciating tragedies: but on that very account -they honour life, because it confronts them with its most formidable -antagonism.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">18</p> - -<p>Concerning "<i>the Conscience of the Intellect</i>" Nothing seems to me -more uncommon to-day than genuine hypocrisy. I strongly suspect that -this growth is unable to flourish in the mild climate of our culture. -Hypocrisy belongs to an age of strong faith,—one in which one does -not lose one's own faith in spite of the fact that one has to make -an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> outward show of holding another faith. Nowadays a man gives it -up; or, what is still more common, he acquires a second faith,—in -any case, however, he remains honest. Without a doubt it is possible -to have a much larger number of convictions at present, than it was -formerly: <i>possible</i>—that is to say, allowable,—that is to say, -<i>harmless.</i> From this there arises an attitude of toleration towards -one's self. Toleration towards one's self allows of a greater number -of convictions: the latter live comfortably side by side, and they -take jolly good care, as all the world does to-day, not to compromise -themselves. How does a man compromise himself to-day? When he is -consistent; when he pursues a straight course; when he has anything -less than five faces; when he is genuine.... I very greatly fear that -modern man is much too fond of comfort for certain vices; and the -consequence is that the latter are dying out. Everything evil which -is the outcome of strength of will—and maybe there is nothing evil -without the strengh of will,—degenerates, in our muggy atmosphere, -into virtue. The few hypocrites I have known only imitated hypocrisy: -like almost every tenth man to-day, they were actors.—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">19</p> - -<p><i>Beautiful and Ugly:</i>—Nothing is more relative, let us say, more -restricted, than our sense of the beautiful. He who would try to -divorce it from the delight man finds in his fellows, would immediately -lose his footing. "Beauty in itself," is simply a word, it is not even -a concept. In the beautiful, man postulates himself as the standard of -perfection;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> in exceptional cases he worships himself as that standard. -A species has no other alternative than to say "yea" to itself alone, -in this way. Its lowest instinct, the instinct of self-preservation and -self-expansion, still radiates in such sublimities. Man imagines the -world itself to be overflowing with beauty,—he forgets that he is the -cause of it all. He alone has endowed it with beauty. Alas! and only -with human all-too-human beauty! Truth to tell man reflects himself in -things, he thinks everything beautiful that throws his own image back -at him. The judgment "beautiful" is the "vanity of his species." ... -A little demon of suspicion may well whisper into the sceptic's ear: -is the world really beautified simply because man thinks it beautiful? -He has only humanised it—that is all. But nothing, absolutely nothing -proves to us that it is precisely man who is the proper model of -beauty. Who knows what sort of figure he would cut in the eyes of a -higher judge of taste? He might seem a little <i>outré</i>? perhaps even -somewhat amusing? perhaps a trifle arbitrary? "O Dionysus, thou divine -one, why dost thou pull mine ears?" Ariadne asks on one occasion of -her philosophic lover, during one of those famous conversations on the -island of Naxos. "I find a sort of humour in thine ears, Ariadne: why -are they not a little longer?"</p> - - -<p class="parnum">20</p> - -<p>Nothing is beautiful; man alone is beautiful: all æsthetic rests on -this piece of ingenuousness, it is the first axiom of this science. -And now let us straightway add the second to it: nothing is ugly save -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> degenerate man,—within these two first principles the realm of -æsthetic judgments is confined. From the physiological standpoint, -everything ugly weakens and depresses man. It reminds him of decay, -danger, impotence; he literally loses strength in its presence. The -effect of ugliness may be gauged by the dynamometer. Whenever man's -spirits are downcast, it is a sign that he scents the proximity of -something "ugly." His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage -and his pride—these things collapse at the sight of what is ugly, and -rise at the sight of what is beautiful. In both cases an inference is -drawn; the premises to which are stored with extra ordinary abundance -in the instincts. Ugliness is understood to signify a hint and a -symptom of degeneration: that which reminds us however remotely of -degeneracy, impels us to the judgment "ugly." Every sign of exhaustion, -of gravity, of age, of fatigue; every kind of constraint, such as -cramp, or paralysis; and above all the smells, colours and forms -associated with decomposition and putrefaction, however much they may -have been attenuated into symbols,—all these things provoke the same -reaction which is the judgment "ugly." A certain hatred expresses -itself here: what is it that man hates? Without a doubt it is the -<i>decline of his type.</i> In this regard his hatred springs from the -deepest instincts of the race: there is horror, caution, profundity and -far-reaching vision in this hatred,—it is the most profound hatred -that exists. On its account alone Art is profound.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">21</p> - -<p><i>Schopenhauer.</i>—Schopenhauer, the last German who is to be reckoned -with (—who is a European event like Goethe, Hegel, or Heinrich Heine, -and who is not merely local, national), is for a psychologist a case -of the first rank: I mean as a malicious though masterly attempt to -enlist on the side of a general nihilistic depreciation of life, the -very forces which are opposed to such a movement,—that is to say, the -great self-affirming powers of the "will to live," the exuberant forms -of life itself. He interpreted Art, heroism, genius, beauty, great -sympathy, knowledge, the will to truth, and tragedy, one after the -other, as the results of the denial, or of the need of the denial, of -the "will"—the greatest forgery, Christianity always excepted, which -history has to show. Examined more carefully, he is in this respect -simply the heir of the Christian interpretation; except that he knew -how to approve in a Christian fashion (<i>i.e.</i>, nihilistically) even -of the great facts of human culture, which Christianity completely -repudiates. (He approved of them as paths to "salvation," as -preliminary stages to "salvation," as <i>appetisers</i> calculated to arouse -the desire for "salvation.")</p> - - -<p class="parnum">22</p> - -<p>Let me point to one single instance. Schopenhauer speaks of beauty with -melancholy ardour,—why in sooth does he do this? Because in beauty -he sees a bridge on which one can travel further, or which stimulates -one's desire to travel further. According to him it constitutes a -momentary emancipation from<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> the "will"—it lures to eternal salvation. -He values it more particularly as a deliverance from the "burning core -of the will" which is sexuality,—in beauty he recognises the negation -of the procreative instinct. Singular Saint! Some one contradicts thee; -I fear it is Nature. Why is there beauty of tone, colour, aroma, and -of rhythmic movement in Nature at all? What is it forces beauty to the -fore? Fortunately, too, a certain philosopher contradicts him. No less -an authority than the divine Plato himself (thus does Schopenhauer -call him), upholds another proposition: that all beauty lures to -procreation,—that this precisely is the chief characteristic of its -effect, from the lowest sensuality to the highest spirituality.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">23</p> - -<p>Plato goes further. With an innocence for which a man must be Greek -and not "Christian," he says that there would be no such thing as -Platonic philosophy if there were not such beautiful boys in Athens: -it was the sight of them alone that set the soul of the philosopher -reeling with erotic passion, and allowed it no rest until it had -planted the seeds of all lofty things in a soil so beautiful. He -was also a singular saint!—One scarcely believes one's ears, even -supposing one believes Plato. At least one realises that philosophy was -pursued differently in Athens; above all, publicly. Nothing is less -Greek than the cobweb-spinning with concepts by an anchorite, <i>amor -intellectualis dei</i> after the fashion of Spinoza. Philosophy according -to Plato's style might be defined rather as an erotic competition, as a -continuation and a spiritualisation of the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span> agonal gymnastics and -the conditions on which they depend.... What was the ultimate outcome -of this philosophic eroticism of Plato's? A new art-form of the Greek -<i>Agon,</i> dialectics.—In opposition to Schopenhauer and to the honour of -Plato, I would remind you that all the higher culture and literature of -classical France, as well, grew up on the soil of sexual interests. In -all its manifestations you may look for gallantry, the senses, sexual -competition, and "woman," and you will not look in vain.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">24</p> - -<p><i>L'Art pour l'Art.</i>—The struggle against a purpose in art is always a -struggle against the moral tendency in art, against its subordination -to morality. <i>L'art pour l'art</i> means, "let morality go to the devil!" -—But even this hostility betrays the preponderating power of the moral -prejudice. If art is deprived of the purpose of preaching morality -and of improving mankind, it does not by any means follow that art is -absolutely pointless, purposeless, senseless, in short <i>l'art pour -l'art</i>—a snake which bites its own tail. "No purpose at all is better -than a moral purpose!"—thus does pure passion speak. A psychologist, -on the other hand, puts the question: what does all art do? does it -not praise? does it not glorify? does it not select? does it not -bring things into prominence? In all this it strengthens or weakens -certain valuations. Is this only a secondary matter? an accident? -something in which the artist's instinct has no share? Or is it not -rather the very prerequisite which enables the artist to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> accomplish -something?... Is his most fundamental instinct concerned with art? -Is it not rather concerned with the purpose of art, with life? with -a certain desirable kind of life? Art is the great stimulus to life; -how can it be regarded as purpose less, as pointless, as <i>l'art pour -l'art?</i>—There still remains one question to be answered: Art also -reveals much that is ugly, hard and questionable in life,—does it -not thus seem to make life intolerable?—And, as a matter of fact, -there have been philosophers who have ascribed this function to art. -According to Schopenhauer's doctrine, the general object of art was to -"free one from the Will"; and what he honoured as the great utility -of tragedy, was that it "made people more resigned."—But this, as -I have already shown, is a pessimistic standpoint; it is the "evil -eye": the artist himself must be appealed to. What is it that the soul -of the tragic artist communicates to others? Is it not precisely his -fearless attitude towards that which is terrible and questionable? -This attitude is in itself a highly desirable one; he who has once, -experienced it honours it above everything else. He communicates it. He -must communicate, provided he is an artist and a genius in the art of -communication A courageous and free spirit, in the presence of a mighty -foe, in the presence of a sublime misfortune, and face to face with a -problem that inspires horror—this is the triumphant attitude which -the tragic artist selects and which he glorifies. The martial elements -in our soul celebrate their Saturnalia in tragedy; he who is used to -suffering, he who looks out for suffering, the heroic man, extols his -existence<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> by means of tragedy,—to him alone does the tragic artist -offer this cup of sweetest cruelty.—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">25</p> - -<p>To associate in an amiable fashion with anybody; to keep the house of -one's heart open to all, is certainly liberal: but it is nothing else. -One can recognise the hearts that are capable of noble hospitality, by -their wealth of screened windows and closed shutters: they keep their -best rooms empty. Whatever for?—Because they are expecting guests who -are somebodies.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">26</p> - -<p>We no longer value ourselves sufficiently highly when we communicate -our soul's content. Our real experiences are not at all garrulous. They -could not communicate themselves even if they wished to. They are at a -loss to find words for such confidences. Those things for which we find -words, are things wehave already overcome. In all speech there lies -an element of contempt. Speech, it would seem, was only invented for -average, mediocre and communicable things.—Every spoken word proclaims -the speaker vulgarised—(Extract from a moral code for deaf-and-dumb -people and other philosophers.)</p> - - -<p class="parnum">27</p> - -<p>"This picture is perfectly beautiful!"<a name="FNanchor_4_11" id="FNanchor_4_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_11" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> The dissatisfied and -exasperated literary woman with a desert in her heart and in her belly, -listening with<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> agonised curiosity every instant to the imperative -which whispers to her from the very depths of her being: <i>aut liberi, -aut libri:</i> the literary woman, sufficiently educated to understand the -voice of nature, even when nature speaks Latin, and moreover enough -of a peacock and a goose to speak even French with herself in secret -"<i>Je me verrai, je me lirai, je m'extasierai et je dirai: Possible, que -j'aie eu tant d'esprit?</i>" ...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">28</p> - -<p>The objective ones speak.—"Nothing comes more easily to us, than to -be wise, patient, superior. We are soaked in the oil of indulgence and -of sympathy, we are absurdly just we forgive everything. Precisely on -that account we should be severe with ourselves; for that very reason -we ought from time to time to go in for a little emotion, a little -emotional vice. It may seem bitter to us; and between ourselves we may -even laugh at the figure which it makes us cut But what does it matter? -We have no other kind of self-control left. This is our asceticism, our -manner of performing penance." <i>To become personal</i>—the virtues of the -"impersonal and objective one."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">29</p> - -<p><i>Extract from a doctor's examination paper.—</i>"What is the task of all -higher schooling?"—To make man into a machine. "What are the means -employed?"—He must learn how to be bored. "How is this achieved?"—By -means of the concept duty. "What example of duty has he before his -eyes?"—The philologist: it is he who teaches people<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span> how to swat. -"Who is the perfect man?"—The Government official. "Which philosophy -furnishes the highest formula for the Government official?"—Kant's -philosophy: the Government official as thing-in-itself made judge over -the Government official as appearance.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">30</p> - -<p><i>The right to Stupidity.</i>—The worn-out worker, whose breath is -slow, whose look is good-natured, and who lets things slide just as -they please: this typical figure which in this age of labour (and -of "Empire!") is to be met with in all classes of society, has now -begun to appropriate even Art, including the book, above all the -newspaper,—and how much more so beautiful nature, Italy! This man -of the evening, with his "savage instincts lulled," as Faust has it; -needs his summer holiday, his sea-baths, his glacier, his Bayreuth. -In such ages Art has the right to be <i>purely foolish,</i>—as a sort of -vacation for spirit, wit and sentiment. Wagner understood this. Pure -foolishness<a name="FNanchor_5_12" id="FNanchor_5_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_12" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> is a pick-me-up....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">31</p> - -<p><i>Yet another problem of diet.</i>—The means with which Julius Cæsar -preserved himself against sickness and headaches: heavy marches, -the simplest mode of living, uninterrupted sojourns in the open -air, continual hardships,—generally speaking these are the -self-preservative and self-defensive measures against the extreme -vulnerability of those subtle<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> machines working at the highest -pressure, which are called geniuses.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">32</p> - -<p><i>The Immoralist speaks.</i>—Nothing is more distasteful to true -philosophers than man when he begins to wish.... If they see man only -at his deeds; if they see this bravest, craftiest and most enduring -of animals even inextricably entangled in disaster, how admirable he -then appears to them! They even encourage him.... But true philosophers -despise the man who wishes, as also the "desirable" man—and all the -desiderata and <i>ideals</i> of man in general. If a philosopher could be a -nihilist, he would be one; for he finds only nonentity behind all human -ideals. Or, not even nonentity, but vileness, absurdity, sickness, -cowardice, fatigue and all sorts of dregs from out the quaffed goblets -of his life.... How is it that man, who as a reality is so estimable, -ceases from deserving respect the moment he begins to desire? Must he -pay for being so perfect as a reality? Must he make up for his deeds, -for the tension of spirit and will which underlies all his deeds, by an -eclipse of his powers in matters of the imagination and in absurdity? -Hitherto the history of his desires has been the <i>partie honteuse</i> of -mankind: one should take care not to read too deeply in this history. -That which justifies man is his reality,—it will justify him to all -eternity. How much more valuable is a real man than any other man -who is merely the phantom of desires, of dreams of stinks and of -lies?—than any kind of ideal man? ... And the ideal man, alone, is -what the philosopher cannot abide.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">33</p> - -<p><i>The Natural Value of Egoism.</i>—Selfishness has as much value as the -physiological value of him who practises it: its worth may be great, -or it may be worthless and contemptible. Every individual may be -classified according to whether he represents the ascending or the -descending line of life. When this is decided, a canon is obtained -by means of which the value of his selfishness may be determined. -If he represent the ascending line of life, his value is of course -extraordinary—and for the sake of the collective life which in him -makes one step <i>forward,</i> the concern about his maintenance, about -procuring his <i>optimum</i> of conditions may even be extreme. The human -unit, the "individual," as the people and the philosopher have always -understood him, is certainly an error: he is nothing in himself, no -atom, no "link in the chain," no mere heritage from the past,—he -represents the whole direct line of mankind up to his own life.... -If he represent declining development, decay, chronic degeneration, -sickness (—illnesses are on the whole already the outcome of decline, -and not the cause thereof), he is of little worth, and the purest -equity would have him <i>take away</i> as little as possible from those who -are lucky strokes of nature. He is then only a parasite upon them....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">34</p> - -<p><i>The Christian and the Anarchist.</i>—When the anarchist, as the -mouthpiece of the decaying strata of society, raises his voice in -splendid indignation for "right," "justice," "equal rights," he -is only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span> groaning under the burden of his ignorance, which cannot -understand <i>why</i> he actually suffers,—what his poverty consists -of—the poverty of life. An instinct of causality is active in -him: someone must be responsible for his being so ill at ease. His -"splendid indignation" alone relieves him somewhat, it is a pleasure -for all poor devils to grumble—it gives them a little intoxicating -sensation of power. The very act of complaining, the mere fact that one -bewails one's lot, may lend such a charm to life that on that account -alone, one is ready to endure it. There is a small dose of revenge in -every lamentation. One casts one's afflictions, and, under certain -circumstances, even one's baseness, in the teeth of those who are -different, as if their condition were an injustice, an <i>iniquitous</i> -privilege. "Since I am <i>a blackguard</i> you ought to be one too." It is -upon such reasoning that revolutions are based.—To bewail one's lot -is always despicable: it is always the outcome of weakness. Whether -one ascribes one's afflictions to others or to <i>one's self,</i> it is all -the same. The socialist does the former, the Christian, for instance, -does the latter. That which is common to both attitudes, or rather -that which is equally ignoble in them both, is the fact that somebody -must be to <i>blame</i> if one suffers—in short that the sufferer drugs -himself with the honey of revenge to allay his anguish. The objects -towards which this lust of vengeance, like a lust of pleasure, are -directed, are purely accidental causes. In all directions the sufferer -finds reasons for cooling his petty passion for revenge. If he is a -Christian, I repeat, he finds these reasons in himself. The Christian -and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> Anarchist—both are decadents. But even when the Christian -condemns, slanders, and sullies the world, he is actuated by precisely -the same instinct as that which leads the socialistic workman to curse, -calumniate and cast dirt at society. The last "Judgment" itself is -still the sweetest solace to revenge—revolution, as the socialistic -workman expects it, only thought of as a little more remote.... The -notion of a "Beyond," as well—why a Beyond, if it be not a means of -splashing mud over a "Here," over this world? ...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">35</p> - -<p><i>A Criticism of the Morality of Decadence.</i>—An "altruistic" -morality, a morality under which selfishness withers, is in all -circumstances a bad sign. This is true of individuals and above -all of nations. The best are lacking when selfishness begins to be -lacking. Instinctively to select that which is harmful to one, to be -<i>lured</i> by "disinterested" motives,—these things almost provide the -formula for decadence. "Not to have one's own interests at heart" -—this is simply a moral fig-leaf concealing a very different fact, a -physiological one, to wit:—"I no longer know how to find what is to my -interest."... Disintegration of the instincts!—All is up with man when -he becomes altruistic.—Instead of saying ingenuously "I am no longer -any good," the lie of morality in the decadent's mouth says: "Nothing -is any good,—life is no good."—A judgment of this kind ultimately -becomes a great danger; for it is infectious, and it soon flourishes -on the polluted soil of society with tropical luxuriance, now as a -religion (Christianity), anon as a philosophy (Schopenhauerism).<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> In -certain circumstances the mere effluvia of such a venomous vegetation, -springing as it does out of the very heart of putrefaction, can poison -life for thousands and thousands of years.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">36</p> - -<p><i>A moral for doctors.</i>—The sick man is a parasite of society. In -certain cases it is indecent to go on living. To continue to vegetate -in a state of cowardly dependence upon doctors and special treatments, -once the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost, ought to -be regarded with the greatest contempt by society. The doctors, for -their part, should be the agents for imparting this contempt,—they -should no longer prepare prescriptions, but should every day administer -a fresh dose of <i>disgust</i> to their patients. A new responsibility -should be created, that of the doctor—the responsibility of ruthlessly -suppressing and eliminating <i>degenerate</i> life, in all cases in which -the highest interests of life itself, of ascending life, demand such -a course—for instance in favour of the right of procreation, in -favour of the right of being born, in favour of the right to live. -One should die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. -Death should be chosen freely,—death at the right time, faced clearly -and joyfully and embraced while one is surrounded by one's children -and other witnesses. It should be affected in such a way that a proper -farewell is still possible, that he who is about to take leave of us -is still <i>himself,</i> and really capable not only of valuing what he -has achieved and willed in life, but also of <i>summing-up</i> the value -of life itself. Everything<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> precisely the opposite of the ghastly -comedy which Christianity has made of the hour of death. We should -never forgive Christianity for having so abused the weakness of the -dying man as to do violence to his conscience, or for having used -his manner of dying as a means of valuing both man and his past—In -spite of all cowardly prejudices, it is our duty, in this respect, -above all to reinstate the proper—that is to say, the physiological, -aspect of so-called <i>natural</i> death, which after all is perfectly -"unnatural" and nothing else than suicide. One never perishes through -anybody's fault but one's own. The only thing is that the death which -takes place in the most contemptible circumstances, the death that -is not free, the death which occurs at the wrong time, is the death -of a coward. Out of the very love one bears to life, one should wish -death to be different from this—that is to say, free, deliberate, and -neither a matter of chance nor of surprise. Finally let me whisper a -word of advice to our friends the pessimists and all other decadents. -We have not the power to prevent ourselves from being born: but this -error—for sometimes it is an error—can be rectified if we choose. The -man who does away with himself, performs the most estimable of deeds: -he almost deserves to live for having done so. Society—nay, life -itself, derives more profit from such a deed than from any sort of life -spent in renunciation, anæmia and other virtues,—at least the suicide -frees others from the sight of him, at least he removes one objection -against life. Pessimism <i>pur et vert,</i> can <i>be proved only</i> by the -self-refutation of the pessimists themselves: one should go a step -further in one's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> consistency; one should not merely deny life with -"The World as Will and Idea," as Schopenhauer did; one should in the -first place <i>deny Schopenhauer.</i> ... Incidentally, Pessimism, however -infectious it may be, does not increase the morbidness of an age or of -a whole species; it is rather the expression of that morbidness. One -falls a victim to it in the same way as one falls a victim to cholera; -one must already be predisposed to the disease. Pessimism in itself -does not increase the number of the world's <i>decadents</i> by a single -unit. Let me remind you of the statistical fact that in those years in -which cholera rages, the total number of deaths does not exceed that of -other years.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">37</p> - -<p><i>Have we become more moral?</i>—As might have been expected, the whole -<i>ferocity</i> of moral stultification, which, as is well known, passes -for morality itself in Germany, hurled itself against my concept -"Beyond Good and Evil." I could tell you some nice tales about this. -Above all, people tried to make me see the "incontestable superiority" -of our age in regard to moral sentiment, and the <i>progress</i> we had -made in these matters. Compared with us, a Cæsar Borgia was by no -means to be represented as "higher man," the sort of <i>Superman,</i> -which I declared him to be. The editor of the Swiss paper the <i>Bund</i> -went so far as not only to express his admiration for the courage -displayed by my enterprise, but also to pretend to "understand" that -the intended purpose of my work was to abolish all decent feeling. -Much obliged!—In reply, I venture to raise the following question:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> -<i>have we really become more moral?</i> The fact that everybody believes -that we have is already an objection to the belief. We modern men, -so extremely delicate and susceptible, full of consideration one for -the other, actually dare to suppose that the pampering fellow-feeling -which we all display, this unanimity which we have at last acquired -in sparing and helping and trusting one another marks a definite step -forward, and shows us to be far ahead of the man of the Renaissance. -But every age thinks the same, it is <i>bound</i> to think the same. This -at least, is certain, that we should not dare to stand amid the -conditions which prevailed at the Renaissance, we should not even dare -to imagine ourselves in those conditions: our nerves could not endure -that reality, not to speak of our muscles. The inability to do this -however does not denote any progress; but simply the different and -more senile quality of our particular nature, its greater weakness, -delicateness, and susceptibility, out of which a morality <i>more rich -in consideration</i> was bound to arise. If we imagine our delicateness -and senility, our physiological decrepitude as non-existent, our -morality of "humanisation" would immediately lose all value—no -morality has any value <i>per se</i>—it would even fill us with scorn. On -the other hand, do not let us doubt that we moderns, wrapped as we are -in the thick cotton wool of our humanitarianism which would shrink -even from grazing a stone, would present a comedy to Cæsar Borgia's -contemporaries which would literally make them die of laughter. We are -indeed, without knowing it, exceedingly ridiculous with our modern -"virtues." ... The decline of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> instincts of hostility and of -those instincts that arouse suspicion,—for this if anything is what -constitutes our progress—is only one of the results manifested by -the general decline in <i>vitality</i>: it requires a hundred times more -trouble and caution to live such a dependent and senile existence. -In such circumstances everybody gives everybody else a helping hand, -and, to a certain extent, everybody is either an invalid or an -invalid's attendant. This is then called "virtue": among those men -who knew a different life—that is to say, a fuller, more prodigal, -more superabundant sort of life, it might have been called by another -name,—possibly "cowardice," or "vileness," or "old woman's morality." -... Our mollification of morals—this is my cry; this it you will is -my <i>innovation</i>—is the outcome of our decline; conversely hardness -and terribleness in morals may be the result of a surplus of life. -When the latter state prevails, much is dared, much is challenged, -and much is also <i>squandered</i>. That which formerly was simply the -salt of life, would now be our <i>poison</i>. To be indifferent—even this -is a form of strength—for that, likewise, we are too senile, too -decrepit: our morality of fellow-feeling, against which I was the -first to raise a finger of warning, that which might be called <i>moral -impressionism</i>, is one symptom the more of the excessive physiological -irritability which is peculiar to everything decadent. That movement -which attempted to introduce itself in a scientific manner on the -shoulders of Schopenhauer's morality of pity—a very sad attempt!—is -in its essence the movement of decadence in morality, and as such -it is intimately related to Christian morality. Strong<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> ages and -noble cultures see something contemptible in pity, in the "love of -one's neighbour," and in a lack of egoism and of self-esteem.—Ages -should be measured according to their <i>positive forces</i>;—valued -by this standard that prodigal and fateful age of the Renaissance, -appears as the last <i>great</i> age, while we moderns with our anxious -care of ourselves and love of our neighbours, with all our unassuming -virtues of industry, equity, and scientific method—with our lust of -collection, of economy and of mechanism—represent a <i>weak</i> age.... -Our virtues are necessarily determined, and are even stimulated, by our -weakness. "Equality," a certain definite process of making everybody -uniform, which only finds its expression in the theory of equal rights, -is essentially bound up with a declining culture: the chasm between -man and man, class and class, the multiplicity of types, the will to -be one's self, and to distinguish one's self—that, in fact, which I -call the <i>pathos of distance</i> is proper to all <i>strong</i> ages. The force -of tension,—nay, the tension itself, between extremes grows slighter -every day,—the extremes themselves are tending to become obliterated -to the point of becoming identical. All our political theories and -state constitutions, not by any means excepting "The German Empire," -are the logical consequences, the necessary consequences of decline; -the unconscious effect of <i>decadence</i> has begun to dominate even the -ideals of the various sciences. My objection to the whole of English -and French sociology still continues to be this, that it knows only -the <i>decadent form</i> of society from experience, and with perfectly -childlike innocence takes the instincts of decline as the norm,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> the -standard, of sociological valuations. <i>Descending</i> life, the decay -of all organising power—that is to say, of all that power which -separates, cleaves gulfs, and establishes rank above and below, -formulated itself in modern sociology as <i>the</i> ideal. Our socialists -are decadents: but Herbert Spencer was also a <i>decadent,</i>—he saw -something to be desired in the triumph of altruism!...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">38</p> - -<p><i>My Concept of Freedom.</i>—Sometimes the value of a thing does not lie -in that which it helps us to achieve, but in the amount we have to -pay for it,—what it <i>costs</i> us. For instance, liberal institutions -straightway cease from being liberal, the moment they are soundly -established: once this is attained no more grievous and more thorough -enemies of freedom exist than liberal institutions! One knows, of -course, what they bring about: they undermine the Will to Power, -they are the levelling of mountain and valley exalted to a morality, -they make people small, cowardly and pleasure-loving,—by means of -them the gregarious animal invariably triumphs. Liberalism, or, in -plain English, the <i>transformation of mankind into cattle.</i> The -same institutions, so long as they are fought for, produce quite -other results; then indeed they promote the cause of freedom quite -powerfully. Regarded more closely, it is war which produces these -results, war in favour of liberal institutions, which, as war, allows -the illiberal instincts to subsist. For war trains men to be free. -What in sooth is freedom? Freedom is the will to be responsible -for ourselves. It is to preserve the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> distance which separates us -from other men. To grow more indifferent to hardship, to severity, -to privation, and even to life itself. To be ready to sacrifice -men for one's cause, one's self included. Freedom denotes that the -virile instincts which rejoice in war and in victory, prevail over -other instincts; for instance, over the instincts of "happiness." -The man who has won his freedom, and how much more so, therefore, -the spirit that has won its freedom, tramples ruthlessly upon that -contemptible kind of comfort which tea-grocers, Christians, cows, -women, Englishmen and other democrats worship in their dreams. The -free man is a <i>warrior.</i>—How is freedom measured in individuals -as well as in nations? According to the resistance which has to be -overcome, according to the pains which it costs to remain <i>uppermost.</i> -The highest type of free man would have to be sought where the -greatest resistance has continually to be overcome: five paces away -from tyranny, on the very threshold of the danger of thraldom. This -is psychologically true if, by the word "Tyrants" we mean inexorable -and terrible instincts which challenge the <i>maximum</i> amount of -authority and discipline to oppose them—the finest example of this -is Julius Cæsar; it is also true politically: just examine the course -of history. The nations which were worth anything, which <i>got to -be</i> worth anything, never attained to that condition under liberal -institutions: <i>great danger</i> made out of them something which deserves -reverence, that danger which alone can make us aware of our resources, -our virtues, our means of defence, our weapons, our <i>genius,</i>—which -<i>compels</i> us to be strong<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> <i>First</i> principle: a man must need to be -strong, otherwise he will never attain it.—Those great forcing-houses -of the strong, of the strongest kind of men that have ever existed on -earth, the aristocratic communities like those of Rome and Venice, -understood freedom precisely as I understand the word: as something -that one has and that one has <i>not,</i> as something that one <i>will</i> have -and that one <i>seizes by force.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">39</p> - -<p><i>A Criticism of Modernity.</i>—Our institutions are no longer any good; -on this point we are all agreed. But the fault does not lie with -them; but with <i>us.</i> Now that we have lost all the instincts out -of which institutions grow, the latter on their part are beginning -to disappear from our midst because we are no longer fit for them. -Democracy has always been the death agony of the power of organisation: -already in "Human All-too-Human," Part I., Aph. 472, I pointed out -that modern democracy, together with its half-measures, of which the -"German Empire" is an example, was a decaying form of the State. For -institutions to be possible there must exist a sort of will, instinct, -imperative, which cannot be otherwise than antiliberal to the point of -wickedness: the will to tradition, to authority, to responsibility -for centuries to come, to <i>solidarity</i> in long family lines forwards -and backwards <i>in infinitum.</i> If this will is present, something is -founded which resembles the <i>imperium Romanum;</i> or Russia, the <i>only</i> -great nation to-day that has some lasting power and grit in her, that -can bide her time, that can still promise something.—Russia the -opposite of all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> wretched European petty-statism and neurasthenia, -which the foundation of the German Empire has brought to a crisis. The -whole of the Occident no longer possesses those instincts from which -institutions spring, out of which a <i>future</i> grows: maybe nothing is -more opposed to its "modern spirit" than these things. People live -for the present, the live at top speed,—they certainly live without -any sense of responsibility; and this is precisely what they call -"freedom." Everything in institutions which makes them institutions, -is scorned, loathed and repudiated: everybody is in mortal fear of a -new slavery, wherever the word "authority" is so much as whispered. -The decadence of the valuing instinct, both in our politicians and in -our political parties, goes so far, that they instinctively prefer -that which acts as a solvent, that which precipitates the final -catastrophe.... As an example of this behold <i>modern</i> marriage. All -reason has obviously been divorced from modern marriage: but this is -no objection to matrimony itself but to modernity. The rational basis -of marriage—it lay in the exclusive legal responsibility of the man: -by this means some ballast was laid in the ship of matrimony, whereas -nowadays it has a list, now on this side, now on that The rational -basis of marriage—it lay in its absolute indissolubleness: in this way -it was given a gravity which knew how to make its influence felt, in -the face of the accident of sentiment, passion and momentary impulse: -it lay also in the fact that the responsibility of choosing the parties -to the contract, lay with the families. By showing ever more and more -favour to love-marriages, the very foundation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> of matrimony, that which -alone makes it an institution, has been undermined. No institution -ever has been nor ever will be built upon an idiosyncrasy; as I say, -marriage cannot be based upon "love." It can be based upon sexual -desire; upon the instinct of property (wife and child as possessions); -upon the instinct of dominion, which constantly organises for itself -the smallest form of dominion,—the family which <i>requires</i> children -and heirs in order to hold fast, also in the physiological sense, to -a certain quantum of acquired power, influence and wealth, so as to -prepare for lasting tasks, and for solidarity in the instincts from -one century to another. Marriage as an institution presupposes the -affirmation of the greatest and most permanent form of organisation; if -society cannot as a whole <i>stand security</i> for itself into the remotest -generations, marriage has no meaning whatsoever.—Modern marriage <i>has -lost</i> its meaning; consequently it is being abolished.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">40</p> - -<p><i>The question of the Working-man.</i>—The mere fact that there is such -a thing as the question of the working-man is due to stupidity, or at -bottom to degenerate instincts which are the cause of all the stupidity -of modern times. Concerning certain things <i>no questions ought to be -put:</i> the first imperative principle of instinct For the life of me -I cannot see what people want to do with the working-man of Europe, -now that they have made a question of him. He is far too comfortable -to cease from questioning ever more and more, and with ever less -modesty. After all, he has the majority on his side.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> There is now -not the slightest hope that an unassuming and contented sort of man, -after the style of the Chinaman, will come into being in this quarter: -and this would have been the reasonable course, it was even a dire -necessity. What has been done? Everything has been done with the view -of nipping the very pre-requisite of this accomplishment in the bud, -—with the most frivolous thoughtlessness those selfsame instincts by -means of which a working-class becomes possible, and <i>tolerable even</i> -to its members themselves, have been destroyed root and branch. The -working-man has been declared fit for military service; he has been -granted the right of combination, and of voting: can it be wondered at -that he already regards his condition as one of distress (expressed -morally, as an injustice)? But, again I ask, what do people want? If -they desire a certain end, then they should desire the means thereto. -If they will have slaves, then it is madness to educate them to be -masters.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">41</p> - - -<p>"The kind of freedom I do <i>not</i> mean...."<a name="FNanchor_6_13" id="FNanchor_6_13"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_13" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>—In an age like the -present, it simply adds to one's perils to be left to one's instincts. -The instincts contra diet, disturb, and destroy each other; I have -already defined modernism as physiological self-contradiction. A -reasonable system of education would insist upon at least one of -these instinct-systems being <i>paralysed</i> beneath an iron pressure, in -order to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> allow others to assert their power, to grow strong, and to -dominate. At present, the only conceivable way of making the individual -possible would be to <i>prune</i> him:—of making him possible—that is to -say, <i>whole.</i> The very reverse occurs. Independence, free development, -and <i>laisser aller</i> are clamoured for most violently precisely by -those for whom no restraint <i>could be too severe</i>—this is true <i>in -politics,</i> it is true in Art. But this is a symptom of decadence: our -modern notion of "freedom" is one proof the more of the degeneration of -instinct.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">42</p> - -<p><i>Where faith is necessary.</i>—Nothing is more rare among moralists and -saints than uprightness; maybe they say the reverse is true, maybe -they even believe it. For, when faith is more useful, more effective, -more convincing than <i>conscious</i> hypocrisy, by instinct that hypocrisy -forthwith becomes <i>innocent:</i> first principle towards the understanding -of great saints. The same holds good of philosophers, that other order -of saints; their whole business compels them to concede only certain -truths—that is to say, those by means of which their particular trade -receives the <i>public</i> sanction,—to speak "Kantingly": the truths of -<i>practical</i> reason. They know what they <i>must</i> prove; in this respect -they are practical,—they recognise each other by the fact that -they agree upon "certain truths."—"Thou shalt not lie"—in plain -English:—<i>Beware,</i> Mr Philosopher, of speaking the truth....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">43</p> - -<p><i>A quiet hint to Conservatives.</i>—That which we did not know -formerly, and know now, or might know if we chose,—is the fact that -a <i>retrograde formation,</i> a reversion in any sense or degree, is -absolutely impossible. We physiologists, at least, are aware of this. -But all priests and moralists have believed in it,—they wished to -drag and screw man back to a former standard of virtue. Morality has -always been a Procrustean bed. Even the politicians have imitated -the preachers of virtue in this matter. There are parties at the -present day whose one aim and dream is to make all things adopt the -<i>crab-march.</i> But not everyone can be a crab. It cannot be helped: we -must go forward,—that is to say step by step further and further into -decadence (—this is my definition of modern "progress"). We can hinder -this development, and by so doing dam up and accumulate degeneration -itself and render it more convulsive, more <i>volcanic:</i> we cannot do -more.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">44</p> - -<p><i>My concept of Genius.</i>—Great men, like great ages, are explosive -material, in which a stupendous amount of power is accumulated; -the first conditions of their existence are always historical and -physiological; they are the outcome of the fact that for long ages -energy has been collected, hoarded up, saved up and preserved for their -use, and that no explosion has taken place. When, the tension in the -bulk has become sufficiently excessive, the most fortuitous stimulus -suffices in order to call "genius,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> "great deeds," and momentous -fate-into the world. What then is the good of all environment, -historical periods, "<i>Zeitgeist</i>" (Spirit of the age) and "public -opinion"?—Take the case of Napoleon. France of the Revolution, -and still more of the period preceding the Revolution, would have -brought forward a type which was the very reverse of Napoleon: it -actually <i>did</i> produce such a type. And because Napoleon was something -different, the heir of a stronger, more lasting and older civilisation -than that which in France was being smashed to atoms he became master -there, he was the only master there. Great men are necessary, the age -in which they appear is a matter of chance; the fact that they almost -invariably master their age is accounted for simply by the fact that -they are stronger, that they are older, and that power has been stored -longer for them. The relation of a genius to his age is that which -exists between strength and weakness and between maturity and youth: -the age is relatively always very much younger, thinner, less mature, -less resolute and more childish. The fact that the general opinion in -France at the present day, is utterly different on this very point (in -Germany too, but that is of no consequence); the fact that in that -country the theory of environment—a regular neuropathic notion—has -become sacrosanct and almost scientific, and finds acceptance even -among the physiologists, is a very bad, and exceedingly depressing -sign. In England too the same belief prevails: but nobody will be -surprised at that. The Englishman knows only two ways of understanding -the genius and the "great man": either <i>democratically</i> in the style -of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> Buckle, or religiously after the manner of Carlyle.—The danger -which great men and great ages represent, is simply extraordinary; -every kind of exhaustion and of sterility follows in their wake. The -great man is an end; the great age—the Renaissance for instance,—is -an end. The genius—in work and in deed,—is necessarily a squanderer: -the fact that he spends himself constitutes his greatness. The instinct -of self-preservation is as it were suspended in him; the overpowering -pressure of out-flowing energy in him forbids any such protection and -prudence. People call this "self-sacrifice," they praise his "heroism," -his indifference to his own well-being, his utter devotion to an idea, -a great cause, a father-land: All misunderstandings.... He flows out, -he flows over, he consumes himself, he does not spare himself,—and -does all this with fateful necessity, irrevocably, involuntarily, just -as a river involuntarily bursts its dams. But, owing to the fact that -humanity has been much indebted to such explosives, it has endowed them -with many things, for instance, with a kind of <i>higher morality</i>.... -This is indeed the sort of gratitude that humanity is capable of: it -<i>misunderstands</i> its benefactors.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">45</p> - -<p><i>The criminal and his like.</i>—The criminal type is the type of the -strong man amid unfavourable conditions, a strong man made sick. He -lacks the wild and savage state, a form of nature and existence which -is freer and more dangerous, in which everything that constitutes -the shield and the sword in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> the instinct of the strong man, takes -a place by right. Society puts a ban upon his virtues; the most -spirited instincts inherent in him immediately become involved with -the depressing passions, with suspicion, fear and dishonour. But this -is almost the recipe for physiological degeneration. When a man has -to do that which he is best suited to do, which he is most fond of -doing, not only clandestinely, but also with long suspense, caution and -ruse, he becomes anæmic; and inasmuch as he is always having to pay -for his instincts in the form of danger, persecution and fatalities, -even his feelings begin to turn against these instincts—he begins to -regard them as fatal. It is society, our tame, mediocre, castrated -society, in which an untutored son of nature who comes to us from his -mountains or from his adventures at sea, must necessarily degenerate -into a criminal. Or almost necessarily: for there are cases in which -such a man shows himself to be stronger than society: the Corsican -Napoleon is the most celebrated case of this. Concerning the problem -before us, Dostoiewsky's testimony is of importance—Dostoiewsky who, -incidentally, was the only psychologist from whom I had anything -to learn: he belongs to the happiest windfalls of my life, happier -even than the discovery of Stendhal. This profound man, who was -right ten times over in esteeming the superficial Germans low, found -the Siberian convicts among whom he lived for many years,—those -thoroughly hopeless criminals for whom no road back to society stood -open—very different from what even he had expected,—that is to say -carved from about the best, hardest and most<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> valuable material that -grows on Russian soil.<a name="FNanchor_7_14" id="FNanchor_7_14"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_14" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Let us generalise the case of the criminal; -let us imagine creatures who for some reason or other fail to meet -with public approval, who know that they are regarded neither as -beneficent nor useful,—the feeling of the Chandala, who are aware -that they are not looked upon as equal, but as proscribed, unworthy, -polluted. The thoughts and actions of all such natures are tainted -with a subterranean mouldiness; everything in them is of a paler hue -than in those on whose existence the sun shines. But almost all those -creatures whom, nowadays, we honour and respect, formerly lived in this -semi-sepulchral atmosphere: the man of science, the artist, the genius, -the free spirit, the actor, the business man, and the great explorer. -As long as the <i>priest</i> represented the highest type of man, every -valuable kind of man was depreciated.... The time is coming—this I -guarantee—when he will pass as the <i>lowest</i> type, as our Chandala, as -the falsest and most disreputable kind of man.... I call your attention -to the fact that even now, under the sway of the mildest customs and -usages which have ever ruled on earth or at least in Europe, every -form of standing aside, every kind of prolonged, excessively prolonged -concealment, every unaccustomed and obscure form of existence tends to -approximate to that type which the criminal exemplifies to perfection. -All pioneers of the spirit have, for a while, the grey and fatalistic -mark of the Chandala on their brows: <i>not</i> because they are regarded as -Chandala, but because they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> themselves feel the terrible chasm which -separates them from all that is traditional and honourable. Almost -every genius knows the "Catilinarian life" as one of the stages in his -development, a feeling of hate, revenge and revolt against everything -that exists, that has ceased to evolve.... Catiline—the early stage of -every Cæsar.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">46</p> - - -<p><i>Here the outlook is free.</i>—When a philosopher holds his tongue it may -be the sign of the loftiness of his soul: when he contradicts himself -it may be love; and the very courtesy of a knight of knowledge may -force him to lie. It has been said, and not without subtlety:—<i>il -est indigne des grands cœurs de répandre le trouble qu'ils -ressentent<a name="FNanchor_8_15" id="FNanchor_8_15"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_15" class="fnanchor">[8]</a>:</i> but it is necessary to add that there may also be -<i>grandeur de cœur</i> in not shrinking <i>from the most undignified -proceeding.</i> A woman who loves sacrifices her honour; a knight of -knowledge who "loves," sacrifices perhaps his humanity; a God who -loved, became a Jew....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">47</p> - -<p><i>Beauty no accident</i>—Even the beauty of a race or of a family, -the charm and perfection of all its movements, is attained with -pains: like genius it is the final result of the accumulated work -of generations. Great sacrifices must have been made on the altar -ol good taste, for its sake many things must have been done, and -much must have been left undone—the seventeenth century in France -is admirable for both of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span> these things,—in this century there must -have been a principle of selection in respect to company, locality, -clothing, the gratification of the instinct of sex; beauty must have -been preferred to profit, to habit, to opinion and to indolence. The -first rule of all:—nobody must "let himself go," not even when he is -alone.—Good things are exceedingly costly:; and in all cases the law -obtains that he who possesses them is a different person from him who -is <i>acquiring</i> them. Everything good is an inheritance: that which is -not inherited is imperfect, it is simply a beginning. In Athens at -the time of Cicero—who expresses his surprise at the fact—the men -and youths were by far superior in beauty to the women: but what hard -work and exertions the male sex had for centuries imposed upon itself -in the service of beauty! We must not be mistaken in regard to the -method employed here: the mere discipline of feelings and thoughts -is little better than nil (—it is in this that the great error of -German culture, which is quite illusory, lies): the <i>body</i> must be -persuaded first. The strict maintenance of a distinguished and tasteful -demeanour, the obligation of frequenting only those who do not "let -themselves go," is amply sufficient to render one distinguished and -tasteful: in two or three generations everything has already <i>taken -deep root.</i> The fate of a people and of humanity is decided according -to whether they begin culture at the <i>right place—not</i> at the "soul" -(as the fatal superstition of the priests and half-priests would have -it): the right place is the body, demeanour, diet, physiology—the rest -follows as the night the day.... That is why the Greeks remain the -<i>first event in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span> culture</i>—they knew and they <i>did</i> what was needful. -Christianity with its contempt of the body is the greatest mishap that -has ever befallen mankind.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">48</p> - -<p><i>Progress in my sense.</i>—I also speak of a "return to nature," although -it is not a process of going back but of going up—up into lofty, free -and even terrible nature and naturalness; such a nature as can play -with great tasks and <i>may</i> play with them.... To speak in a <i>parable.</i> -Napoleon was an example of a "return to nature," as I understand it -(for instance <i>in rebus tacticis,</i> and still more, as military experts -know, in strategy). But Rousseau—whither did he want to return? -Rousseau this first modern man, idealist and <i>canaille</i> in one person; -who was in need of moral "dignity," in order even to endure the sight -of his own person,—ill with unbridled vanity and wanton self-contempt; -this abortion, who planted his tent on the threshold of modernity, -also wanted a "return to nature"; but, I ask once more, whither did -he wish to return? I hate Rousseau, even <i>in</i> the Revolution itself: -the latter was the historical expression of this hybrid of idealist -and <i>canaille.</i> The bloody farce which this Revolution ultimately -became, its "immorality," concerns me but slightly; what I loathe -however is its Rousseauesque <i>morality</i>—the so-called "truths" of the -Revolution, by means of which it still exercises power and draws all -flat and mediocre things over to its side. The doctrine of equality! -... But there is no more deadly poison than this; for it <i>seems</i> to -proceed from the very lips of justice, whereas in reality it draws -the curtain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> down on all justice.... "To equals equality, to unequals -inequality"—that would be the real speech of justice and that which -follows from it "Never make unequal things equal." The fact that so -much horror and blood are associated with this doctrine of equality, -has lent this "modern idea" <i>par excellence</i> such a halo of fire and -glory, that the Revolution as a drama has misled even the most noble -minds.—That after all is no reason for honouring it the more.—I can -see only one who regarded it as it should be regarded—that is to say, -with <i>loathing;</i> I speak of Goethe.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">49</p> - - -<p><i>Goethe</i>.—No mere German, but a European event: a magnificent attempt -to overcome the eighteenth century by means of a return to nature, by -means of an ascent to the naturalness of the Renaissance, a kind of -self-overcoming on the part of the century in question.—He bore the -strongest instincts of this century in his breast: its sentimentality, -and idolatry of nature, its anti-historic, idealistic, unreal, and -revolutionary spirit (—the latter is only a form of the unreal). He -enlisted history, natural science, antiquity, as well as Spinoza, and -above all practical activity, in his service. He drew a host of very -definite horizons around him; far from liberating himself from life, he -plunged right into it; he did not give in; he took as much as he could -on his own shoulders, and into his heart. That to which he aspired was -<i>totality</i>; he was opposed to the sundering of reason, sensuality, -feeling and will (as preached with most repulsive scholasticism -by Kant, the antipodes of Goethe); he disciplined himself into a -harmonious whole, he <i>created</i> himself. Goethe in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> midst of an age -of unreal sentiment, was a convinced realist: he said yea to everything -that was like him in this regard,—there was no greater event in his -life than that <i>ens realissimum</i>, surnamed Napoleon. Goethe conceived -a strong, highly-cultured man, skilful in all bodily accomplishments, -able to keep himself in check, having a feeling of reverence for -himself, and so constituted as to be able to risk the full enjoyment -of naturalness in all its rich profusion and be strong enough for this -freedom; a man of tolerance, not out of weakness but out of strength, -because he knows how to turn to his own profit that which would ruin -the mediocre nature; a man unto whom nothing is any longer forbidden, -unless it be weakness either as a vice or as a virtue. Such a spirit, -<i>become free</i>, appears in the middle of the universe with a feeling -of cheerful and confident fatalism; he believes that only individual -things are bad, and that as a whole the universe justifies and, affirms -itself—<i>He no longer denies</i>.... But such a faith is the highest Of -all faiths: I christened it wit! the name of Dionysus.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">50</p> - -<p>It might be said that, in a certain sense, the nineteenth century -also strove after all that Goethe himself aspired to: catholicity in -understanding, in approving; a certain reserve towards everything, -daring realism, and a reverence for every fact. How is it that -the total result of this is not a Goethe, but a state of chaos, a -nihilistic groan, an inability to discover where one is, an instinct -of fatigue which <i>in praxi</i> is persistently driving Europe <i>to hark -back to the eighteenth century</i>? (—For instance in the form of maudlin -romanticism, altruism, hyper-sentimentality,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> pessimism in taste, -and socialism in politics). Is not the nineteenth century, at least -in its closing years, merely an accentuated, brutalised eighteenth -century,—that is to say a century of decadence? And has not Goethe -been—not alone for Germany, but also for the whole of Europe,—merely -an episode, a beautiful "in vain"? But great men are misunderstood when -they are regarded from the wretched standpoint of public utility. The -fact that no advantage can be derived from them—<i>this in itself may -perhaps be peculiar to greatness.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">51</p> - -<p>Goethe is the last German whom I respect: he had understood three -things as I understand them. We also agree as to the "cross."<a name="FNanchor_9_16" id="FNanchor_9_16"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_16" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> People -often ask me why on earth I write in <i>German:</i> nowhere am I less read -than in the Fatherland. But who knows whether I even <i>desire</i> to be -read at present?—To create things on which time may try its teeth in -vain; to be concerned both in the form and the substance of my writing, -about a certain degree of immortality—never have I been modest enough -to demand less of myself. The aphorism, the sentence, in both of -which I, as the first among Germans, am a master, are the forms of -"eternity"; it is my ambition to say in ten sentences what everyone -else says in a whole book,—what everyone else does <i>not</i> say in a -whole book.</p> - -<p>I have given mankind the deepest book it possesses, my <i>Zarathustra;</i> -before long I shall give it the most independent one.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_8" id="Footnote_1_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_8"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The German word <i>Rausch</i> as used by Nietzsche here, -suggests a blend of our two English words "intoxication" and -"elation."—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_9" id="Footnote_2_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_9"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> An allusion to a verse in Luther's hymn: "<i>Lass fahren -dahin</i> ... <i>das Reich muss uns doch bleiben,</i>" which Nietzsche applies -to the German Empire.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_10" id="Footnote_3_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_10"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> A disciple of Schopenhauer who blunted the sharpness -of his master's Pessimism and who watered it down for modern -requirements.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_11" id="Footnote_4_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_11"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Quotation from the Libretto of Mozart's "Magic Flute" Act -I, Sc. 3.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5_12" id="Footnote_5_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_12"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> This alludes to Parsifal. See my note on p. 96, vol. i., -"The Will to Power."—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6_13" id="Footnote_6_13"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_13"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> This is a playful adaptation of Max von Schenkendorfs poem -"<i>Freiheit</i>" The proper line reads: "<i>Freiheit die ich meine</i>" (The -freedom that I do mean).—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7_14" id="Footnote_7_14"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_14"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> See "Memoirs of a House of the Dead," by Dostoiewsky -(translation by Marie von Thilo: "Buried Alive").—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8_15" id="Footnote_8_15"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_15"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> Clothilde de Veaux.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9_16" id="Footnote_9_16"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_16"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> See my note on p. 147 of Vol. I. of the <i>Will to -Power.</i>—TR.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="THINGS_I_OWE_TO_THE_ANCIENTS" id="THINGS_I_OWE_TO_THE_ANCIENTS">THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>In conclusion I will just say a word concerning that world to which I -have sought new means of access, to which I may perhaps have found a -new passage—the ancient world. My taste, which is perhaps the reverse -of tolerant, is very far from saying yea through and through even to -this world: on the whole it is not over eager to say <i>Yea,</i> it would -prefer to say <i>Nay,</i> and better still nothing whatever.... This is true -of whole cultures; it is true of books,—it is also true of places -and of landscapes. Truth to tell, the number of ancient books that -count for something in my life is but small; and the most famous are -not of that number. My sense of style, for the epigram as style, was -awakened almost spontaneously upon my acquaintance with Sallust I have -not forgotten the astonishment of my respected teacher Corssen, when -he was forced to give his worst Latin pupil the highest marks,—at one -stroke I had learned all there was to learn. Condensed, severe, with as -much substance as possible in the background, and with cold but roguish -hostility towards all "beautiful words" and "beautiful feelings"—in -these things I found my own particular bent. In my writings up to my -"Zarathustra," there will be found a very earnest ambition to attain -to the <i>Roman</i> style, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span> the "<i>ære perennius</i>" in style.—The same -thing happened on my first acquaintance with Horace. Up to the present -no poet has given me the same artistic raptures as those which from -the first I received from an Horatian ode. In certain languages it -would be absurd even to aspire to what is accomplished by this poet. -This mosaic of words, in which every unit spreads its power to the -left and to the right over the whole, by its sound, by its place in -the sentence, and by its meaning, this <i>minimum</i> in the compass and -number of the signs, and the <i>maximum</i> of energy in the signs which is -thereby achieved—all this is Roman, and, if you will believe me, noble -<i>par excellence.</i> By the side of this all the rest of poetry becomes -something popular,—nothing more than senseless sentimental twaddle.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>I am not indebted to the Greeks for anything like such strong -impressions; and, to speak frankly, they cannot be to us what the -Romans are. One cannot <i>learn</i> from the Greeks—their style is too -strange, it is also too fluid, to be imperative or to have the effect -of a classic. Who would ever have learnt writing from a Greek! Who -would ever have learned it without the Romans!... Do not let anyone -suggest Plato to me. In regard to Plato I am a thorough sceptic, and -have never been able to agree to the admiration of Plato the <i>artist,</i> -which is traditional among scholars. And after all, in this matter, -the most refined judges of taste in antiquity are on my side. In my -opinion Plato bundles all the forms of style pell-mell together, -in this respect he is one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> of the first decadents of style: he has -something similar on his conscience to that which the Cynics had -who invented the <i>satura Menippea.</i> For the Platonic dialogue—this -revoltingly self-complacent and childish kind of dialectics—to -exercise any charm over you, you must never have read any good French -authors,—Fontenelle for instance. Plato is boring. In reality my -distrust of Plato is fundamental. I find him so very much astray -from all the deepest instincts of the Hellenes, so steeped in moral -prejudices, so pre-existently Christian—the concept "good" is already -the highest value with him,—that rather than use any other expression -I would prefer to designate the whole phenomenon Plato with the hard -word "superior bunkum," or, if you would like it better, "idealism." -Humanity has had to pay dearly for this Athenian having gone to school -among the Egyptians (—or among the Jews in Egypt?...) In the great -fatality of Christianity, Plato is that double-faced fascination -called the "ideal," which made it possible for the more noble natures -of antiquity to misunderstand themselves and to tread the <i>bridge</i> -which led to the "cross." And what an amount of Plato is still to be -found in the concept "church," and in the construction, the system -and the practice of the church!—My recreation, my predilection, my -cure, after all Platonism, has always been Thucydides. Thucydides and -perhaps Machiavelli's <i>principe</i> are most closely related to me owing -to the absolute determination which they show of refusing to deceive -themselves and of seeing reason in <i>reality,</i>—not in "rationality," -and still less in "morality." There is no more radical cure than -Thucydides for the lamentably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> rose-coloured idealisation of the -Greeks which the "classically-cultured" stripling bears with him into -life, as a reward for his public school training. His writings must be -carefully studied line by line, and his unuttered thoughts must be read -as distinctly as what he actually says. There are few thinkers so rich -in unuttered thoughts. In him the culture "of the Sophists"—that is to -say, the culture of realism, receives its most perfect expression: this -inestimable movement in the midst of the moral and idealistic knavery -of the Socratic Schools which was then breaking out in all directions. -Greek philosophy is the decadence of the Greek instinct: Thucydides is -the great summing up, the final manifestation of that strong, severe -positivism which lay in the instincts of the ancient Hellene. After -all, it is courage in the face of reality that distinguishes such -natures as Thucydides from Plato: Plato is a coward I in the face of -reality—consequently he takes refuge in the ideal: Thucydides is -master of himself,—consequently he is able to master life.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>To rout up cases of "beautiful souls," "golden means" and other -perfections among the Greeks, to admire, say, their calm grandeur, -their ideal attitude of mind, their exalted simplicity—from this -"exalted simplicity," which after all is a piece of <i>niaiserie -allemande,</i> I was preserved by the psychologist within me. I saw their -strongest instinct, the Will to Power, I saw them quivering with the -fierce violence of this instinct,—I saw all their institutions grow -out of measures of security calculated to preserve<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> each member of -their society from the inner <i>explosive material</i> that lay in his -neighbour's breast. This enormous internal tension thus discharged -itself in terrible and reckless hostility outside the state: the -various states mutually tore each other to bits, in order that each -individual state could remain at peace with itself. It was then -necessary to be strong; for danger lay close at hand,—it lurked in -ambush everywhere. The superb suppleness of their bodies, the daring -realism and immorality which is peculiar to the Hellenes, was a -necessity not an inherent quality. It was a result, it had not been -there from the beginning. Even their festivals and their arts were but -means in producing a feeling of superiority, and of showing it: they -are measures of self-glorification; and in certain circumstances of -making one's self terrible.... Fancy judging the Greeks in the German -style, from their philosophers; fancy using the suburban respectability -of the Socratic schools as a key to what is fundamentally Hellenic!... -The philosophers are of course the decadents of Hellas, the -counter-movement directed against the old and noble taste(—against the -agonal instinct, against the <i>Polls,</i> against the value of the race, -against the authority of tradition), Socratic virtues were preached to -the Greeks, <i>because</i> the Greeks had lost virtue: irritable, cowardly, -unsteady, and all turned to play-actors, they had more than sufficient -reason to submit to having morality preached to them. Not that it -helped them in any way; but great words and attitudes are so becoming -to decadents.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>I was the first who, in order to understand the ancient, still rich and -even superabundant Hellenic instinct, took that marvellous phenomenon, -which bears the name of Dionysus, seriously: it can be explained only -as a manifestation of excessive energy. Whoever had studied the Greeks, -as that most profound of modern connoisseurs of their culture, Jakob -Burckhardt of Bâle, had done, knew at once that something had been -achieved by means of this interpretation. And in his "<i>Cultur der -Griechen</i>" Burckhardt inserted a special chapter on the phenomenon -in question. If you would like a glimpse of the other side, you have -only to refer to the almost laughable poverty of instinct among German -philologists when they approach the Dionysian question. The celebrated -Lobeck, especially, who with the venerable assurance of a worm dried up -between books, crawled into this world of mysterious states, succeeded -inconvincing himself that he was scientific, whereas he was simply -revoltingly superficial and childish,—Lobeck, with all the pomp of -profound erudition, gave us to understand that, as a matter of fact, -there was nothing at all in all these curiosities. Truth to tell, the -priests may well have communicated not a few things of value to the -participators in such orgies; for instance, the fact that wine provokes -desire, that man in certain circumstances lives on fruit, that plants -bloom in the spring and fade in the autumn. As regards the astounding -wealth of rites, symbols and myths which take their origin in the orgy, -and with which the world of antiquity<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> is literally smothered, Lobeck -finds that it prompts him to a feat of even greater ingenuity than -the foregoing phenomenon did. "The Greeks," he says, (<i>Aglaophamus,</i> -I. p. 672), "when they had nothing better to do, laughed, sprang and -romped about, or, inasmuch as men also like a change at times, they -would sit down, weep and bewail their lot. Others then came up who tried -to discover some reason for this strange behaviour; and thus, as an -explanation of these habits, there arose an incalculable number of -festivals, legends, and myths. On the other hand it was believed that -the <i>farcical performances</i> which then perchance began to take place -on festival days, necessarily formed part of the celebrations, and -they were retained as an indispensable part of the ritual."—This is -contemptible nonsense, and no one will take a man like Lobeck seriously -for a moment We are very differently affected when we examine the -notion "Hellenic," as Winckelmann and Goethe conceived it, and find it -incompatible with that element out of which Dionysian art springs—I -speak of orgiasm. In reality I do not doubt that Goethe would have -completely excluded any such thing from the potentialities of the Greek -soul. <i>Consequently Goethe did not understand the Greeks.</i> For it is -only in the Dionysian mysteries, in the psychology of the Dionysian -state, that the <i>fundamental fact</i> of the Hellenic instinct—its "will -to life"—is expressed. What did the Hellene secure himself with these -mysteries? <i>Eternal</i> life, the eternal recurrence of life; the future -promised and hallowed in the past; the triumphant Yea to life despite -death and change; real life conceived as the collective prolongation -of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> life through procreation, through the mysteries of sexuality. -To the Greeks, the symbol of sex was the most venerated of symbols, -the really deep significance of all the piety of antiquity. All the -details of the act of procreation, pregnancy and birth gave rise to -the loftiest and most solemn feelings. In the doctrine of mysteries, -<i>pain</i> was pronounced holy: the "pains of childbirth" sanctify pain in -general,—all becoming and all growth, everything that guarantees the -future <i>involves</i> pain.... In order that there may be eternal joy in -creating, in order that the will to life may say Yea to itself in all -eternity, the "pains of childbirth" must also be eternal. All this is -what the word Dionysus signifies: I know of no higher symbolism than -this Greek symbolism, this symbolism of the Dionysian phenomenon. In -it the profoundest instinct of life, the instinct that guarantees the -future of life and life eternal, is understood religiously,—the road -to life itself, procreation, is pronounced <i>holy,</i> ... It was only -Christianity which, with its fundamental resentment against life, made -something impure out of sexuality: it flung <i>filth</i> at the very basis, -the very first condition of our life.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>The psychology of orgiasm conceived as the feeling of a superabundance -of vitality and strength, within the scope of which even pain <i>acts -as a stimulus,</i> gave me the key to the concept <i>tragic</i> feeling, -which has been misunderstood not only by Aristotle, but also even -more by our pessimists. Tragedy is so far from proving anything in -regard to the pessimism of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> the Greeks, as Schopenhauer maintains, -that it ought rather to be considered as the categorical repudiation -and <i>condemnation</i> thereof. The saying of Yea to life, including -even its most strange and most terrible problems, the will to life -rejoicing over its own inexhaustibleness in the <i>sacrifice</i> of its -highest types—this is what I called Dionysian, this is what I -divined as the bridge leading to the psychology of the <i>tragic</i> poet -Not in order to escape from terror and pity, not to purify one's self -of a dangerous passion by discharging it with vehemence—this is how -Aristotle understood it—but to be far beyond terror and pity and to -be the eternal lust of Becoming itself—that lust which also involves -the <i>lust of destruction.</i> And with this I once more come into touch -with the spot from which I once set out—-the "Birth of Tragedy" was -my first transvaluation of all values: with this I again take my stand -upon the soil from out of which my will and my capacity spring—I, the -last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus,—I, the prophet of eternal -recurrence.</p> - - -<h5>THE END.</h5> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="THE_HAMMER_SPEAKETH" id="THE_HAMMER_SPEAKETH">THE HAMMER SPEAKETH</a></h4> - - - -<p>"Why so hard!"—said the diamond once unto the charcoal; "are we then -not next of kin?"</p> - -<p>"Why so soft? O my brethren; this is my question to you. For are ye -not—my brothers?</p> - -<p>"Why so soft, so servile and yielding? Why are your hearts so fond of -denial and self-denial? How is it that so little fate looketh out from -your eyes?</p> - -<p>"And if ye will not be men of fate and inexorable, how can ye hope one -day to conquer with me?</p> - -<p>"And if your hardness will not sparkle, cut and divide, how can ye hope -one day to create with me?</p> - -<p>"For all creators are hard. And it must seem to you blessed to stamp -your hand upon millenniums as upon wax,—</p> - -<p>—Blessed to write upon the will of millenniums as upon brass,—harder -than brass, nobler than brass.—Hard through and through is only the -noblest.</p> - -<p>This new table of values, O my brethren, I set over your heads: Become -hard."</p> - -<p>—"Thus Spake Zarathustra,</p> - -<p>III., 29.</p> - - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h3><a name="THE_ANTICHRIST" id="THE_ANTICHRIST">THE ANTICHRIST</a></h3> - -<p>An Attempted Criticism of Christianity</p> - - - - -<h4><a name="PREFACE2" id="PREFACE2">PREFACE</a></h4> - - -<p>This book belongs to the very few. Maybe not one of them is yet alive; -unless he be of those who understand my Zarathustra. How <i>can</i> I -confound myself with those who to-day already find a hearing?—Only the -day after to-morrow belongs to me. Some are born posthumously.</p> - -<p>I am only too well aware of the conditions under which a man -understands me, and then <i>necessarily</i> understands. He must be -intellectually upright to the point of hardness, in order even to -endure my seriousness and my passion. He must be used to living on -mountain-tops,—and to feeling the wretched gabble of politics and -national egotism <i>beneath</i> him. He must have become indifferent; he -must never inquire whether truth is profitable or whether it may -prove fatal.... Possessing from strength a predilection for questions -for which no one has enough courage nowadays; the courage for the -<i>forbidden;</i> his predestination must be the labyrinth. The experience -of seven solitudes. New ears for new music. New eyes for the most -remote things. A new conscience for truths which hitherto have -remained dumb. And the will to economy on a large scale: to husband -his strength and his enthusiasm.... He must honour himself, he must -love himself; he must be absolutely free with regard<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> to himself.... -Very well then! Such men alone are my readers, my proper readers, -my preordained readers: of what account are the rest?—the rest are -simply—humanity.—One must be superior to humanity in power, in -loftiness of soul,—in contempt.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 65%; font-size: 0.8em;">FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>Let us look each other in the face. We are hyperboreans,—we know -well enough how far outside the crowd we stand. "Thou wilt find the -way to the Hyperboreans neither by land nor by water": Pindar already -knew this much about us. Beyond the north, the ice, and death—<i>our -life, our happiness....</i> We discovered happiness; we know the way; we -found the way out of thousands of years of labyrinth. Who <i>else</i> would -have found it?—Not the modern man, surely?—"I do not know where I -am or what I am to do; I am everything that knows not where it is or -what to do,"—sighs the modern man. We were made quite ill by <i>this</i> -modernity,—with its indolent peace, its cowardly compromise, and the -whole of the virtuous filth of its Yea and Nay. This tolerance and -<i>largeur de cœur</i> which "forgives" everything because it "understands" -everything, is a Sirocco for us. We prefer to live amid ice than to -be breathed upon by modern virtues and other southerly winds!... We -were brave enough; we spared neither ourselves nor others: but we -were very far from knowing whither to direct our bravery. We were -becoming gloomy; people called us fatalists. <i>Our</i> fate—it was the -abundance, the tension<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> and the storing up of power. We thirsted for -thunderbolts and great deeds; we kept at the most respectful distance -from the joy of the weakling, from "resignation." ... Thunder was in -our air, that part of nature which we are, became overcast—<i>for we had -no direction.</i> The formula of our happiness: a Yea, a Nay, a straight -line, a goal.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to -Power, and power itself in man. What is bad?—All that proceeds -from weakness. What is happiness?—The feeling that power is -<i>increasing,</i>—that resistance has been overcome.</p> - -<p>Not contentment, but more power; not peace at any price, but war; not -virtue, but efficiency<a name="FNanchor_1_17" id="FNanchor_1_17"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_17" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> (virtue in the Renaissance sense, <i>virtu,</i> -free from all moralic acid). The weak and the botched shall perish: -first principle of our humanity. And they ought even to be helped to -perish.</p> - -<p>What is more harmful than any vice?—Practical sympathy with all the -botched and the weak—Christianity.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>The problem I set in this work is not what will replace mankind in the -order of living being! (—Man is an <i>end</i>—); but, what type of man -must be <i>reared,</i> must be <i>willed,</i> as having the higher value, as -being the most worthy of life and the surest guarantee of the future.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> - -<p>This more valuable type has appeared often enough already: but as a -happy accident, as an exception, never as <i>willed.</i> He has rather been -precisely the most feared; hitherto he has been almost the terrible in -itself;—and from out the very fear he provoked there arose the will -to rear the type which has how been reared, <i>attained:</i> the domestic -animal, the gregarious animal, the sick animal man,—the Christian.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>Mankind does <i>not</i> represent a development towards a better, stronger -or higher type, in the sense in which this is supposed to occur to-day. -"Progress" is merely a modern idea—that is to say, a false idea.<a name="FNanchor_2_18" id="FNanchor_2_18"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_18" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> -The modern European is still far below the European of the Renaissance -in value. The process of evolution does not by any means imply -elevation, enhancement and increasing strength.</p> - -<p>On the other hand isolated and individual cases are continually -succeeding in different places on earth, as the outcome of the most -different cultures, and in these a <i>higher type</i> certainly manifests -itself: something which by the side of mankind in general, represents a -kind of superman. Such lucky strokes of great success have always been -possible and will perhaps always be possible. And even whole races, -tribes and nations may in certain circumstances represent such <i>lucky -strokes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>We must not deck out and adorn Christianity: it has waged a deadly -war upon this <i>higher</i> type of man, it has set a ban upon all the -fundamental instincts of this type, and has distilled evil and the -devil himself out of these instincts:—the strong man as the typical -pariah, the villain. Christianity has sided with everything weak, low, -and botched; it has made an ideal out of <i>antagonism</i> towards all the -self-preservative instincts of strong life: it has corrupted even the -reason of the strongest intellects, by teaching that the highest values -of intellectuality are sinful, misleading and full of temptations. -The most lamentable example of this was the corruption of Pascal, who -believed in the perversion of his reason through original sin, whereas -it had only been perverted by his Christianity.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>A painful and ghastly spectacle has just risen before my eyes. I tore -down the curtain which concealed mankind's <i>corruption.</i> This word in -my mouth is at least secure from the suspicion that it contains a moral -charge against mankind. It is—I would fain emphasise this again—free -from moralic acid: to such an extent is this so, that I am most -thoroughly conscious of the corruption in question precisely in those -quarters in which hitherto people have aspired with most determination -to "virtue" and to "godliness." As you have already surmised, I -understand corruption in the sense of <i>decadence.</i> What I maintain is -this, that all the values upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> which mankind builds its highest hopes -and desires are <i>decadent</i> values.</p> - -<p>I call an animal, a species, an individual corrupt, when it loses its -instincts, when it selects and <i>prefers</i> that which is detrimental to -it. A history of the "higher feelings," of "human ideals"—and it is -not impossible that I shall have to write it—would almost explain why -man is so corrupt. Life itself, to my mind, is nothing more nor less -than the instinct of growth, of permanence, of accumulating forces, -of power: where the will to power is lacking, degeneration sets in. -My contention is that all the highest values of mankind <i>lack</i> this -will,—that the values of decline and of <i>nihilism</i> are exercising the -sovereign power under the cover of the holiest names.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p>Christianity is called the religion of <i>pity.</i>—Pity is opposed to -the tonic passions which enhance the energy of the feeling of life: -its action is depressing. A man loses power when he pities. By -means of pity the drain on strength which suffering itself already -introduces into the world is multiplied a thousandfold. Through pity, -suffering itself becomes infectious; in certain circumstances it may -lead to a total loss of life and vital energy, which is absurdly -put of proportion to the magnitude of the cause (—the case of the -death of the Nazarene). This is the first standpoint; but there is a -still more important one. Supposing one measures pity according to -the value of the reactions it usually stimulates, its danger to life -appears in a much more telling light On the whole, pity thwarts the -law<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> of development which is the law of selection. It preserves that -which is ripe for death, it fights in favour of the disinherited and -the condemned of life; thanks to the multitude of abortions of all -kinds which it maintains in life, it lends life itself a sombre and -questionable aspect. People have dared to call pity a virtue (—in -every <i>noble</i> culture it is considered as a weakness—); people went -still further, they exalted it to <i>the</i> virtue, the root and origin -of all virtues,—but, of course, what must never be forgotten is the -fact that this was done from the standpoint of a philosophy which -was nihilistic, and on whose shield the device <i>The Denial of Life</i> -was inscribed. Schopenhauer was right in this respect: by means of -pity, life is denied and made <i>more worthy of denial,</i>—pity is -the <i>praxis</i> of Nihilism. I repeat, this depressing and infectious -instinct thwarts those instincts which aim at the preservation and -enhancement of the value life: by <i>multiplying</i> misery quite as much -as by preserving all that is miserable, it is the principal agent in -promoting decadence,—pity exhorts people to nothing, to <i>nonentity!</i> -But they do not say "<i>nonentity</i>" they say "Beyond," or "God," or "the -true life"; or Nirvana, or Salvation, or Blessedness, instead. This -innocent rhetoric, which belongs to the realm of the religio-moral -idiosyncrasy, immediately appears to be <i>very much less innocent</i> if -one realises what the tendency is which here tries to drape itself in -the mantle of sublime expressions—the tendency of hostility to life. -Schopenhauer was hostile to life: that is why he elevated pity to a -virtue.... Aristotle, as you know, recognised in pity a morbid and -dangerous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span> state, of which it was wise to rid one's self from time to -time by a purgative: he regarded tragedy as a purgative. For the sake -of the instinct of life, it would certainly seem necessary to find some -means of lancing any such morbid and dangerous accumulation of pity, as -that which possessed Schopenhauer (and unfortunately the whole of our -literary and artistic decadence as well, from St Petersburg to Paris, -from Tolstoi to Wagner), if only to make it <i>burst....</i> Nothing is -more unhealthy in the midst of our unhealthy modernity, than Christian -pity. To be doctors <i>here,</i> to be inexorable <i>here,</i> to wield the knife -effectively <i>here,—</i> all this is our business, all this is <i>our</i> -kind of love to our fellows, this is what makes <i>us</i> philosophers, us -hyperboreans!—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p>It is necessary to state whom we regard as our antithesis:—the -theologians, and all those who have the blood of theologians in their -veins—the whole of our philosophy.... A man must have had his very -nose upon this fatality, or better still he must have experienced it -in his own soul; he must almost have perished through it, in order -to be unable to treat this matter lightly (—the free-spiritedness -of our friends the naturalists and physiologists is, in my opinion, -a <i>joke,</i>—what they lack in these questions is passion, what they -lack is having suffered from these questions—). This poisoning -extends much further than people think: I unearthed the "arrogant" -instinct of the theologian, wherever nowadays people feel themselves -idealists,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>—wherever, thanks to superior antecedents, they claim the -right to rise above reality and to regard it with suspicion.... Like -the priest the idealist has every grandiloquent concept in his hand -(—and not only in his hand!), he wields them all with kindly contempt -against the "understanding," the "senses," "honours," "decent living," -"science"; he regards such things as <i>beneath</i> him, as detrimental and -seductive forces, upon the face of which, "the Spirit" moves in pure -absoluteness:—as if humility, chastity, poverty, in a word <i>holiness,</i> -had not done incalculably more harm to life hitherto, than any sort of -horror and vice.... Pure spirit is pure falsehood.... As long as the -priest, the <i>professional</i> denier, calumniator and poisoner of life, is -considered as the <i>highest</i> kind of man, there can be no answer to the -question, what <i>is</i> truth? Truth has already been turned topsy-turvy, -when the conscious advocate of nonentity and of denial passes as the -representative of "truth."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">9</p> - -<p>It is upon this theological instinct that I wage war. I find traces -of it everywhere. Whoever has the blood of theologians in his veins, -stands from the start in a false and dishonest position to all things. -The pathos which grows out of this state, is called <i>Faith:</i> that is -to say, to shut one's eyes once and for all, in order not to suffer -at the sight of incurable falsity. People convert this faulty view of -all things into a moral, a virtue, a thing of holiness. They endow -their distorted vision with a good conscience,—they claim that no -<i>other</i> point of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> view is any longer of value, once theirs has been -made sacrosanct with the names "God," "Salvation," "Eternity." I -unearthed the instinct of the theologian everywhere: it is the most -universal, and actually the most subterranean form of falsity on earth. -That which a theologian considers true, <i>must</i> of necessity be false: -this furnishes almost the criterion of truth. It is his most profound -self-preservative instinct which forbids reality ever to attain to -honour in any way, or even to raise its voice. Whithersoever the -influence of the theologian extends, <i>valuations</i> are topsy-turvy, -and the concepts "true" and "false" have necessarily changed places: -that which is most deleterious to life, is here called "true," that -which enhances it, elevates it, says Yea to it, justifies it and -renders it triumphant, is called "false." ... If it should happen that -theologians, <i>via</i> the "conscience" either of princes or of the people, -stretch out their hand for power, let us not be in any doubt as to -what results therefrom each time, namely:—the will to the end, the -<i>nihilistic</i> will to power....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">10</p> - -<p>Among Germans I am immediately understood when I say, that philosophy -is ruined by the blood of theologians. The Protestant minister is -the grand-father of German philosophy, Protestantism itself is the -latter's <i>peccatum originale.</i> Definition of Protestantism: the -partial paralysis of Christianity—and of reason.... One needs only to -pronounce the words "Tübingen Seminary," in order to understand what -German philosophy really is at bottom,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> theology <i>in disguise</i>.... The -Swabians are the best liars in Germany, they lie innocently.... Whence -came all the rejoicing with which the appearance of Kant was greeted -by the scholastic world of Germany, three-quarters of which consist of -clergymen's and schoolmasters' sons? Whence came the German conviction, -which finds an echo even now, that Kant inaugurated a change for the -<i>better?</i> The theologian's instinct in the German scholar divined what -had once again been made possible.... A back-staircase leading into -the old ideal was discovered, the concept "true world," the concept -morality as the <i>essence</i> of the world (—those two most vicious errors -that have ever existed!), were, thanks to a subtle and wily scepticism, -once again, if not demonstrable, at least no longer <i>refutable....</i> -Reason, the <i>prerogative</i> of reason, does not extend so far.... Out of -reality they had made "appearance"; and an absolutely false world—that -of being—had been declared to be reality. Kant's success is merely a -theologian's success. Like Luther, and like Leibniz, Kant was one brake -the more upon the already squeaky wheel of German uprightness.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">11</p> - -<p>One word more against Kant as a <i>moralist.</i> A virtue <i>must</i> be <i>our</i> -invention, our most personal defence and need: in every other sense it -is merely a danger. That which does not constitute a condition of our -life, is merely harmful to it: to possess a virtue merely because one -happens to respect the concept "virtue," as Kant would have us do, is -pernicious. "Virtue," "Duty," "Goodness in itself,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> goodness stamped -with the character of impersonality and universal validity—these -things are mere mental hallucinations, in which decline the final -devitalisation of life and Königsbergian Chinadom find expression. The -most fundamental laws of preservation and growth, demand precisely the -reverse, namely:—that each should discover <i>his</i> own virtue, his own -Categorical Imperative. A nation goes to the dogs when it confounds -its concept of duty with the general concept of duty. Nothing is more -profoundly, more thoroughly pernicious, than every impersonal feeling -of duty, than every sacrifice to the Moloch of abstraction.—Fancy no -one's having thought Kant's Categorical Imperative <i>dangerous to life!</i> -... The instinct of the theologist alone took it under its wing!—An -action stimulated by the instinct of life, is proved to be a proper -action by the happiness that accompanies it: and that nihilist with the -bowels of a Christian dogmatist regarded happiness as an <i>objection -...</i>. What is there that destroys a man more speedily than to work, -think, feel, as an automaton of "duty," without internal promptings, -without a profound personal predilection, without joy? This is the -recipe <i>par excellence</i> of decadence and even of idiocy.... Kant became -an idiot—And he was the contemporary of Goethe! This fatal spider was -regarded as <i>the</i> German philosopher,—is still regarded as such!... I -refrain from saying what I think of the Germans.... Did Kant not see in -the French Revolution the transition of the State from the inorganic to -the <i>organic</i> form? Did he not ask himself whether there was a single -event on record which could be explained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> otherwise than as a moral -faculty of mankind; so that by means of it, "mankind's tendency towards -good," might be <i>proved</i> once and for all? Kant's reply: "that is the -Revolution." Instinct at fault in anything and everything, hostility to -nature as an instinct, German decadence made into philosophy<i>—that is -Kant!</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">12</p> - -<p>Except for a few sceptics, the respectable type in the history of -philosophy, the rest do not know the very first pre-requisite of -intellectual uprightness. They all behave like females, do these great -enthusiasts and animal prodigies,—they regard "beautiful feelings" -themselves as arguments, the "heaving breast" as the bellows of -divinity, and conviction as the <i>criterion</i> of truth. In the end, -even Kant, with "Teutonic" innocence, tried to dress this lack of -intellectual conscience up in a scientific garb by means of the concept -"practical reason." He deliberately invented a kind of reason which -at times would allow one to dispense with reason, that is to say when -"morality," when the sublime command "thou shalt," makes itself heard. -When one remembers that in almost all nations the philosopher is only a -further development of the priestly type, this heirloom of priesthood, -this <i>fraud towards one's self,</i> no longer surprises one. When a man -has a holy life-task, as for instance to improve, save, or deliver -mankind, when a man bears God in his breast, and is the mouthpiece of -imperatives from another world,—with such a mission he stands beyond -the pale of all merely reasonable valuations. He is even sanctified by -such a taste,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> and is already the type of a higher order! What does a -priest care about science! He stands too high for that!—And until now -the priest has <i>ruled!</i>—He it was who determined the concept "true -and false."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">13</p> - -<p>Do not let us undervalue the fact that we <i>ourselves,</i> we free spirits, -are already a "transvaluation of all values," an incarnate declaration -of war against all the old concepts "true" and "untrue" and of a -triumph over them. The most valuable standpoints are always the last -to be found: but the most valuable standpoints are the methods. AH the -methods and the first principles of our modern scientific procedure, -had for years to encounter the profoundest contempt: association -with them meant exclusion from the society of decent people—one was -regarded as an "enemy of God," as a scoffer at truth and as "one -possessed." With one's scientific nature, one belonged to the Chandala. -We have had the whole feeling of mankind against us; hitherto their -notion of that which ought to be truth, of that which ought to serve -the purpose of truth: every "thou shalt," has been directed against -us.... Our objects, our practices, our calm, cautious distrustful -manner—everything about us seemed to them absolutely despicable and -beneath contempt After all, it might be asked with some justice, -whether the thing which kept mankind blindfold so long, were not an -æsthetic taste: what they demanded of truth was a <i>picturesque</i> effect, -and from the man of science what they expected was that he should make -a forcible appeal to their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> senses. It was our <i>modesty</i> which ran -counter to their taste so long ... And oh! how well they guessed this, -did these divine turkey-cocks!—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">14</p> - -<p>We have altered our standpoint. In every respect we have become -more modest We no longer derive man from the "spirit," and from the -"godhead"; we have thrust him back among the beasts. We regard him as -the strongest animal, because he is the craftiest: one of the results -thereof is his intellectuality. On the other hand we guard against the -vain pretension, which even here would fain assert itself: that man is -the great <i>arrière pensée</i> of organic evolution! He is by no means the -crown of creation, beside him, every other creature stands at the same -stage of perfection.... And even in asserting this we go a little too -far; for, relatively speaking, man is the most botched and diseased -of animals, and he has wandered furthest from his instincts. Be all -this as it may, he is certainly the most <i>interesting!</i> As regards -animals, Descartes was the first, with really admirable daring, to -venture the thought that the beast was <i>machina,</i> and the whole of -our physiology is endeavouring to prove this proposition. Moreover, -logically we do not set man apart, as Descartes did: the extent -to which man is understood to-day goes only so far as he has been -understood mechanistically. Formerly man was given "free will," as his -dowry from a higher sphere; nowadays we have robbed him even of will, -in view of the fact that no such faculty is any longer known. The only -purpose served by the old word<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> "will," is to designate a result, a -sort of individual reaction which necessarily follows upon a host of -partly discordant and partly harmonious stimuli:—the will no longer -"effects" or "moves" anything.... Formerly people thought that man's -consciousness, his "spirit," was a proof of his lofty origin, of his -divinity. With the idea of perfecting man, he was conjured to draw his -senses inside himself, after the manner of the tortoise, to cut off all -relations with terrestrial things, and to divest himself of his mortal -shell. Then the most important thing about him, the "pure spirit," -would remain over. Even concerning these things we have improved our -standpoint Consciousness, "spirit," now seems to us rather a symptom of -relative imperfection in the organism, as an experiment, a groping, a -misapprehension, an affliction which absorbs an unnecessary quantity of -nervous energy. We deny that anything can be done perfectly so long as -it is done consciously. "Pure spirit" is a piece of "pure stupidity": -if we discount the nervous system, the senses and the "mortal shell," -we have miscalculated—that it is all!...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">15</p> - -<p>In Christianity neither morality nor religion comes in touch at all -with reality. Nothing but imaginary <i>causes</i> (God, the soul, the ego, -spirit, free will—or even non-free will); nothing but imaginary -<i>effects</i> (sin, salvation, grace, punishment, forgiveness of sins). -Imaginary beings are supposed to have intercourse (God, spirits, -souls); imaginary Natural History (anthropocentric: total lack of -the notion "natural causes"); an imaginary <i>psychology</i> (nothing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> -but misunderstandings of self, interpretations of pleasant or -unpleasant general feelings; for instance of the states of the <i>nervus -sympathicus,</i> with the help of the sign language of a religio-moral -idiosyncrasy,—repentance, pangs of conscience, the temptation of -the devil, the presence of God); an imaginary teleology (the Kingdom -of God, the Last Judgment, Everlasting Life).—This purely fictitious -world distinguishes itself very unfavourably from the world of -dreams: the latter <i>reflects</i> reality, whereas the former falsifies, -depreciates and denies it Once the concept "nature" was taken to mean -the opposite of the concept God, the word "natural" had to acquire the -meaning of abominable,—the whole of that fictitious world takes its -root in the hatred of nature (—reality!—), it is the expression of -profound discomfiture in the presence of reality.... <i>But this explains -everything.</i> What is the only kind of man who has reasons for wriggling -out of reality by lies? The man who suffers from reality. But in -order to suffer from reality one must be a bungled portion of it. The -preponderance of pain over pleasure is the <i>cause</i> of that fictitious -morality and religion: but any such preponderance furnishes the formula -for decadence.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">16</p> - -<p>A criticism of the Christian concept of God inevitably leads to the -same conclusion.—A nation that still believes in itself, also has -its own God. In him it honours the conditions which enable it to -remain uppermost,—that is to say, its virtues. It projects its joy -over itself, its feeling of power, into a being, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> whom it can be -thankful for such things. He who is rich, will give of his riches: a -proud people requires a God, unto whom it can <i>sacrifice</i> things.... -Religion, when restricted to these principles, is a form of gratitude. -A man is grateful for his own existence; for this he must have a -God.—Such a God must be able to benefit and to injure him, he must be -able to act the friend and the foe. He must be esteemed for his good -as well as for his evil qualities. The monstrous castration of a God -by making him a God only of goodness, would lie beyond the pale of the -desires of such a community. The evil God is just as urgently needed -as the good God: for a people in such a form of society certainly does -not owe its existence to toleration and humaneness.... What would be -the good of a God who knew nothing of anger, revenge, envy, scorn, -craft, and violence?—who had perhaps never experienced the rapturous -<i>ardeurs</i> of victory and of annihilation? No one would understand such -a God: why should one possess him?—Of course, when a people is on -the road to ruin; when it feels its belief in a future, its hope of -freedom vanishing for ever; when it becomes conscious of submission -as the most useful quality, and of the virtues of the submissive as -self-preservative measures, then its God must also modify himself. -He then becomes a tremulous and unassuming sneak; he counsels "peace -of the soul," the cessation of all hatred, leniency and "love" even -towards friend and foe. He is for ever moralising, he crawls into -the heart of every private virtue, becomes a God for everybody, he -retires from active service and becomes a Cosmopolitan.... Formerly -he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span> represented a people, the strength of a people, everything -aggressive and desirous of power lying concealed in the heart of a -nation: now he is merely the good God.... In very truth Gods have no -other alternative, they are <i>either</i> the Will to Power—in which case -they are always the Gods of whole nations,—or, on the other hand, the -incapacity for power—in which case they necessarily become good.</p> - - - -<p class="parnum">17</p> - -<p>Wherever the Will to Power, no matter in what form, begins to decline, -a physiological retrogression, decadence, always supervenes. The -godhead of <i>decadence,</i> shorn of its masculine virtues and passions -is perforce converted into the God of the physiologically degraded, -of the weak. Of course they do not call themselves the weak, they -call themselves "the good." ... No hint will be necessary to help you -to understand at what moment in history the dualistic fiction of a -good and an evil God first became possible. With the same instinct by -which the subjugated reduce their God to "Goodness in itself," they -also cancel the good qualities from their conqueror's God; they avenge -themselves on their masters by diabolising the latter's God.—The <i>good -God</i> and the devil as well:—both the abortions of decadence.—How -is it possible that we are still so indulgent towards the simplicity -of Christian theologians to-day, as to declare with them that the -evolution of the concept God, from the "God of Israel," the God of -a people, to the Christian God, the quintessence of all goodness, -marks a <i>step forward?</i>—But even Renan does this. As if Renan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> had -a right to simplicity! Why the very contrary stares one in the face. -When the pre-requisites of <i>ascending</i> life, when everything strong, -plucky, masterful and proud has been eliminated from the concept -of God, and step by step he has sunk down to the symbol of a staff -for the weary, of a last straw for all those who are drowning; when -he becomes the pauper's God, the sinner's God, the sick man's God -<i>par excellence,</i> and the attribute "Saviour," "Redeemer," remains -<i>over</i> as the one essential attribute of divinity: what does such a -metamorphosis, such an abasement of the godhead imply?—Undoubtedly, -"the kingdom of God" has thus become larger. Formerly all he had was -his people, his "chosen" people. Since then he has gone travelling -over foreign lands, just as his people have done; since then he has -never rested anywhere: until one day he felt at home everywhere, the -Great Cosmopolitan,—until he got the "greatest number," and half the -world on his side. But the God of the "greatest number," the democrat -among gods, did not become a proud heathen god notwithstanding: he -remained a Jew, he remained the God of the back streets, the God of -all dark corners and hovels, of all the unwholesome quarters of the -world!... His universal empire is now as ever a netherworld empire, -an infirmary, a subterranean empire, a ghetto-empire.... And he -himself is so pale, so weak, so decadent ... Even the palest of the -pale were able to master him—our friends the metaphysicians, those -albinos of thought. They spun their webs around him so long that -ultimately he was hypnotised by their movements and himself<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> became a -spider, a metaphysician. Thenceforward he once more began spinning the -world out of his inner being—<i>sub specie Spinozæ,</i>—thenceforward -he transfigured himself into something ever thinner and ever more -anæmic, became "ideal," became "pure spirit," became <i>"absotutum"</i> and -"thing-in-itself." ... <i>The decline and fall of a god:</i> God became the -"thing-in-itself."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">18</p> - -<p>The Christian concept of God—God as the deity of the sick, God as a -spider, God as spirit—is one of the most corrupt concepts of God that -has ever been attained on earth. Maybe it represents the low-water -mark in the evolutionary ebb of the godlike type God degenerated into -the <i>contradiction of life,</i> instead of being its transfiguration and -eternal Yea! With God war is declared on life, nature, and the will to -life! God is the formula for every calumny of this world and for every -lie concerning a beyond! In God, nonentity is deified, and the will to -nonentity is declared holy!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">19</p> - -<p>The fact that the strong races of Northern Europe did not repudiate -the Christian God, certainly does not do any credit to their religious -power, not to speak of their taste They ought to have been able -successfully to cope with such a morbid and decrepit offshoot of -decadence. And a curse lies on their heads; because they were unable to -cope with him: they made illness, decrepitude and contradiction a part -of all their instincts,—since then they have not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span> <i>created</i> any other -God! Two thousand years have passed and not a single new God! But still -there exists, and as if by right,—like an <i>ultimum</i> and <i>maximum</i> of -god-creating power,—the <i>creator spiritus</i> in man, this miserable God -of Christian monotono-theism! This hybrid creature of decay, nonentity, -concept and contradiction, in which all the instincts of decadence, all -the cowardices and languors of the soul find their sanction!——</p> - - -<p class="parnum">20</p> - -<p>With my condemnation of Christianity I should not like to have done -an injustice to a religion which is related to it and the number of -whose followers is even greater; I refer to Buddhism. As nihilistic -religions, they are akin,—they are religions of decadence,—while -each is separated from the other in the most extraordinary fashion. -For being able to compare them at all, the critic of Christianity is -profoundly grateful to Indian scholars.—Buddhism is a hundred times -more realistic than Christianity,—it is part of its constitutional -heritage to be able to face problems objectively and coolly, it is -the outcome of centuries of lasting philosophical activity. The -concept "God" was already exploded when it appeared. Buddhism is -the only really <i>positive</i> religion to be found in history, even -in its epistemology (which is strict phenomenalism)—it no longer -speaks of the "struggle with <i>sin</i>" but fully recognising the true -nature of reality it speaks of the "struggle with <i>pain.</i>" It already -has—and this distinguishes it fundamentally from Christianity,—the -self-deception of moral concepts beneath it,—to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> use my own -phraseology, it stands <i>Beyond Good and Evil.</i> The two physiological -facts upon which it rests and upon which it bestows its attention -are: in the first place excessive irritability of feeling, which -manifests itself as a refined susceptibility to pain, <i>and also</i> as -super-spiritualisation, an all-too-lengthy sojourn amid concepts and -logical procedures, under the influence of which the personal instinct -has suffered in favour of the "impersonal." (—Both of these states -will be known to a few of my readers, the objective ones, who, like -myself, will know them from experience.) Thanks to these physiological -conditions, a state of depression set in, which Buddha sought to combat -by means of hygiene. Against it, he prescribes life in the open, a life -of travel; moderation and careful choice in food; caution in regard to -all intoxicating liquor, as also in regard to all the passions which -tend to create bile and to heat the blood; and he deprecates care -either on one's own or on other people's account He recommends ideas -that bring one either peace or good cheer,—he invents means whereby -the habit of contrary ideas may be lost He understands goodness—being -good—as promoting health. <i>Prayer</i> is out of the question, as is -also <i>asceticism;</i> there is neither a Categorical Imperative nor any -discipline whatsoever, even within the walls of a monastery (—it is -always possible to leave it if one wants to). All these things would -have been only a means of accentuating the excessive irritability -already referred to. Precisely on this account he does not exhort his -followers to wage war upon those who do not share their views; nothing -is more abhorred<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> in his doctrine than the feeling of revenge, of -aversion, and of resentment (—"not through hostility doth hostility -end": the touching refrain of the whole of Buddhism....) And in this -he was right; for it is precisely these passions which are thoroughly -unhealthy in view of the principal dietetic object The mental fatigue -which he finds already existent and which expresses itself in -excessive "objectivity" (<i>i.e.</i>, the enfeeblement of the individual's -interest—loss of ballast and of "egoism"), he combats by leading -the spiritual interests as well imperatively back to the individual -In Buddha's doctrine egoism is a duty: the thing which is above all -necessary, <i>i.e.,</i> "how canst thou be rid of suffering" regulates -and defines the whole of the spiritual diet (—let anyone but think -of that Athenian who also declared war upon pure "scientificality," -Socrates, who made a morality out of personal egoism even in the realm -of problems).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">21</p> - -<p>The pre-requisites for Buddhism are a very mild climate, great -gentleness and liberality in the customs of a people and <i>no</i> -militarism. The movement must also originate among the higher and -even learned classes. Cheerfulness, peace and absence of desire, are -the highest of inspirations, and they are <i>realised.</i> Buddhism is not -a religion in which perfection is merely aspired to: perfection is -the normal case. In Christianity all the instincts of the subjugated -and oppressed come to the fore: it is the lowest classes who seek -their salvation in this religion. Here the pastime, the manner of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span> -killing time is to practise the casuistry of sin, self-criticism, and -conscience inquisition. Here the ecstasy in the presence of a <i>powerful -being,</i> called "god," is constantly maintained by means of prayer; -while the highest thing is regarded as unattainable, as a gift, as an -act of "grace" Here plain dealing is also entirely lacking: concealment -and the darkened room are Christian. Here the body is despised, hygiene -is repudiated as sensual; the church repudiates even cleanliness (—the -first Christian measure after the banishment of the Moors was the -closing of the public baths, of which Cordova alone possessed 270). -A certain spirit of cruelty towards one's self and others is also -Christian: hatred of all those who do not share one's views; the will -to persecute Sombre and exciting ideas are in the foreground; the most -coveted states and those which are endowed with the finest names, are -really epileptic in their nature; diet is selected in such a way as -to favour morbid symptoms and to over-excite the nerves. Christian, -too, is the mortal hatred of the earth's rulers,—the "noble,"—and -at the same time a sort of concealed and secret competition with them -(the subjugated leave the "body" to their master—all they want is -the "soul"). Christian is the hatred of the intellect, of pride, of -courage, freedom, intellectual <i>libertinage;</i> Christian is the hatred -of the <i>senses,</i> of the joys of the senses, of joy in general.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">22</p> - -<p>When Christianity departed from its native soil, which consisted of the -lowest classes, the <i>submerged<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> masses</i> of the ancient world, and set -forth in quest of power among barbaric nations, it no longer met with -exhausted men but inwardly savage and self-lacerating men—the strong -but bungled men. Here, dissatisfaction with one's self, suffering -through one's self, is not as in the case of Buddhism, excessive -irritability and susceptibility to pain, but rather, conversely, it -is an inordinate desire for inflicting pain, for a discharge of the -inner tension in hostile deeds and ideas. Christianity was in need of -<i>barbaric</i> ideas and values, in order to be able to master barbarians: -such are for instance, the sacrifice of the first-born, the drinking -of blood at communion, the contempt of the intellect and of culture; -torture in all its forms, sensual and non-sensual; the great pomp of -the cult Buddhism is a religion for <i>senile</i> men, for races which -have become kind, gentle, and over-spiritual, and which feel pain too -easily (—Europe is not nearly ripe for it yet—); it calls them back -to peace and cheerfulness, to a regimen for the intellect, to a certain -hardening of the body. Christianity aims at mastering <i>beasts of prey</i>; -its expedient is to make them <i>ill,</i>—to render feeble is the Christian -recipe for taming, for "civilisation." Buddhism is a religion for the -close and exhaustion of civilisation; Christianity does not even find -civilisation at hand when it appears, in certain circumstances it lays -the foundation of civilisation.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">23</p> - -<p>Buddhism, I repeat, is a hundred times colder, more truthful, -more objective. It no longer requires<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span> to justify pain and its -susceptibility to suffering by the interpretation of sin,—it simply -says what it thinks, "I suffer." To the barbarian, on the other hand, -suffering in itself is not a respectable thing: in order to acknowledge -to himself that he suffers, what he requires, in the first place, is -an explanation (his instinct directs him more readily to deny his -suffering, or to endure it in silence). In his case, the word "devil" -was a blessing: man had an almighty and terrible enemy,—he had no -reason to be ashamed of suffering at the hands of such an enemy.—</p> - -<p>At bottom there are in Christianity one or two subtleties which belong -to the Orient In the first place it knows that it is a matter of -indifference whether a thing be true or not; but that it is of the -highest importance that it should be believed to be true. Truth and -the belief that something is true: two totally separate worlds of -interest, almost <i>opposite worlds,</i> the road to the one and the road to -the other lie absolutely apart To be initiated into this fact almost -constitutes one a sage in the Orient: the Brahmins understood it thus, -so did Plato, and so does every disciple of esoteric wisdom. If for -example it give anyone pleasure to believe himself delivered from sin, -it is <i>not</i> a necessary prerequisite thereto that he should be sinful, -but only that he should <i>feel</i> sinful. If, however, <i>faith</i> is above -all necessary, then reason, knowledge, and scientific research must be -brought into evil repute: the road to truth becomes the <i>forbidden</i> -road.—Strong <i>hope</i> is a much greater stimulant of life than any -single realised joy could be. Sufferers must be sustained<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span> by a hope -which no actuality can contradict,—and which cannot ever be realised: -the hope of another world. (Precisely on account of this power that -hope has of making the unhappy linger on, the Greeks regarded it as -the evil of evils, as the most <i>mischievous</i> evil: it remained behind -in Pandora's box.) In order that <i>love</i> may be possible, God must be a -person. In order that the lowest instincts may also make their voices -heard God must be young. For the ardour of the women a beautiful saint, -and for the ardour of the men a Virgin Mary has to be pressed into the -foreground. All this on condition that Christianity wishes to rule -over a certain soil, on which Aphrodisiac or Adonis cults had already -determined the <i>notion</i> of a cult. To insist upon <i>chastity</i> only -intensifies the vehemence and profundity of the religious instinct—it -makes the cult warmer, more enthusiastic, more soulful.—Love is the -state in which man sees things most widely different from what they -are. The force of illusion reaches its zenith here, as likewise the -sweetening and transfiguring power. When a man is in love he endures -more than at other times; he submits to everything. The thing was to -discover a religion in which it was possible to love: by this means -the worst in life is overcome—it is no longer even seen.—So much -for three Christian virtues Faith, Hope, and Charity: I call them the -three Christian <i>precautionary measures.</i>—Buddhism is too full of aged -wisdom, too positivistic to be shrewd in this way.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">24</p> - -<p>Here I only touch upon the problem of the origin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span> of Christianity. -The first principle of its solution reads: Christianity can be -understood only in relation to the soil out of which it grew,—it is -not a counter-movement against the Jewish instinct, it is the rational -outcome of the latter, one step further in its appalling logic. In -the formula of the Saviour: "for Salvation is of the Jews."—The -second principle is: the psychological type of the Galilean is still -recognisable, but it was only in a state of utter degeneration (which -is at once a distortion and an overloading with foreign features) that -he was able to serve the purpose for which he has been used,—namely, -as the type of a Redeemer of mankind.</p> - -<p>The Jews are the most remarkable people in the history of the world, -because when they were confronted with the question of Being or -non-Being, with simply uncanny deliberateness, they preferred Being -<i>at any price:</i> this price was the fundamental <i>falsification</i> of all -Nature, all the naturalness and all the reality, of the inner quite -as much as of the outer world. They hedged themselves in behind all -those conditions under which hitherto a people has been able to live, -has been allowed to live; of themselves they created an idea which was -the reverse of <i>natural</i> conditions,—each in turn, they twisted first -religion, then the cult, then morality, history and psychology, about -in a manner so perfectly hopeless that they were made <i>to contradict -their natural value.</i> We meet with the same phenomena again, and -exaggerated to an incalculable degree, although only as a copy:—the -Christian Church as compared with the "chosen people," lacks all -claim to originality. Precisely on this account the Jews are the most -<i>fatal</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span> people in the history of the world: their ultimate influence -has falsified mankind to such an extent, that even to this day the -Christian can be anti-Semitic in spirit, without comprehending that he -himself is the <i>final consequence of Judaism.</i></p> - -<p>It was in my "Genealogy of Morals" that I first gave a -psychological exposition of the idea of the antithesis noble and -<i>resentment-morality,</i> the latter having arisen out of an attitude -of negation to the former: but this is Judæo-Christian morality -heart and soul. In order to be able to say Nay to everything that -represents the ascending movement of life, prosperity, power, -beauty, and self-affirmation on earth, the instinct of resentment, -become genius, bad to invent <i>another</i> world, from the standpoint -of which that <i>Yea-saying</i> to life appeared as <i>the</i> most evil and -most abominable thing. From the psychological standpoint the Jewish -people are possessed of the toughest vitality. Transplanted amid -impossible conditions, with profound self-preservative intelligence, -it voluntarily took the side of all the instincts of decadence,—<i>not</i> -as though dominated by them, but because it detected a power in them -by means of which it could assert itself <i>against</i> "the world." The -Jews are the opposite of all <i>decadents</i>: they have been forced to -represent them to the point of illusion, and with a <i>non plus ultra</i> of -histrionic genius, they have known how to set themselves at the head -of all decadent movements (St Paul and Christianity for instance), in -order to create something from them which is stronger than every party -<i>saying Yea to life.</i> For the category of men which aspires to power in -Judaism and Christianity,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>—that is to say, for the sacerdotal class, -decadence is but a <i>means;</i> this category of men has a vital interest -in making men sick, and in turning the notions "good" and "bad," "true" -and "false," upside down in a manner which is not only dangerous to -life, but also slanders it.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">25</p> - -<p>The history of Israel is invaluable as the typical history of every -<i>denaturalization</i> of natural values: let me point to five facts -which relate thereto. Originally, and above all in the period of -the kings, even Israel's attitude to all things was the <i>right</i> one -—that is to say, the natural one. Its Jehovah was the expression of -its consciousness of power, of its joy over itself, of its hope for -itself: victory and salvation were expected from him, through him it -was confident that Nature would give what a people requires—above -all rain. Jehovah is the God of Israel, and <i>consequently</i> the God -of justice: this is the reasoning of every people which is in the -position of power, and which has a good conscience in that position. In -the solemn cult both sides of this self-affirmation of a people find -expression: it is grateful for the great strokes of fate by means of -which it became uppermost; it is grateful for the regularity in the -succession of the seasons and for all good fortune in the rearing of -cattle and in the tilling of the soil.—This state of affairs remained -the ideal for some considerable time, even after it had been swept away -in a deplorable manner by anarchy from within and the Assyrians from -without But the people still retained, as their highest desideratum, -that vision<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span> of a king who was a good soldier and a severe judge; -and he who retained it most of all was that typical prophet (—that -is to say, critic and satirist of the age), Isaiah.—But all hopes -remained unrealised. The old God was no longer able to do what he had -done formerly. He ought to have been dropped. What happened? The idea -of him was changed,—the idea of him was denaturalised: this was the -price they paid for retaining him.—Jehovah, the God of "Justice,"—is -no longer one with Israel, no longer the expression of a people's -sense of dignity: he is only a god on certain conditions.... The -idea of him becomes a weapon in the hands of priestly agitators who -henceforth interpret all happiness as a reward, all unhappiness as a -punishment for disobedience to God, for "sin": that most fraudulent -method of interpretation which arrives at a so-called "moral order -of the Universe," by means of which the concept "cause" and "effect" -is turned upside down. Once natural causation has been swept out of -the world by reward and punishment, a causation <i>hostile to nature</i> -becomes necessary; whereupon all the forms of unnaturalness follow. -A God who <i>demands,</i>—in the place of a God who helps, who advises, -who is at bottom only a name for every happy inspiration of courage -and of self-reliance.... Morality is no longer the expression of the -conditions of life and growth, no longer the most fundamental instinct -of life, but it has become abstract, it has become the opposite of -life,—Morality as the fundamental perversion of the imagination, -as the "evil eye" for all things. What is Jewish morality, what is -Christian morality? Chance robbed of its innocence; unhappiness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> -polluted with the idea of "sin"; well-being interpreted as a danger, as -a "temptation"; physiological indisposition poisoned by means of the -canker-worm of conscience....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">26</p> - -<p>The concept of God falsified; the concept of morality falsified: but -the Jewish priesthood did not stop at this. No use could be made of -the whole <i>history</i> of Israel, therefore it must go! These priests -accomplished that miracle of falsification, of which the greater part -of the Bible is the document: with unparalleled contempt and in the -teeth of all tradition and historical facts, they interpreted their own -people's past in a religious manner,—that is to say, they converted -it into a ridiculous mechanical process of salvation, on the principle -that all sin against Jehovah led to punishment, and that all pious -worship of Jehovah led to reward. We would feel this shameful act of -historical falsification far more poignantly if the ecclesiastical -interpretation of history through millenniums had not blunted almost -all our sense for the demands of uprightness <i>in historicis.</i> And -the church is seconded by the philosophers: <i>the</i> of "a moral order -of the universe" permeates the whole development even of more modern -philosophy. What does a "moral order of the universe" mean? That once -and for all there is such a thing as a will of God which determines -what man has to do and what he has to leave undone; that the value -of a people or of an individual is measured according to how much or -how little the one or the other obeys the will of God; that in the -destinies<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span> of a people or of an individual, the will of God shows -itself dominant, that is to say it punishes or rewards according to -the degree of obedience. In the place of this miserable falsehood, -<i>reality</i> says: a parasitical type of man, who can flourish only at the -cost of all the healthy elements of life, the priest abuses the name -of God: he calls that state of affairs in which the priest determines -the value of things "the Kingdom of God"; he calls the means whereby -such a state of affairs is attained or maintained, "the Will of God"; -with cold-blooded cynicism he measures peoples, ages and individuals -according to whether they favour or oppose the ascendancy of the -priesthood. Watch him at work: in the hands of the Jewish priesthood -the Augustan Age in the history of Israel became an age of decline; -the exile, the protracted misfortune transformed itself into eternal -<i>punishment</i> for the Augustan Age—that age in which the priest did not -yet exist Out of the mighty and thoroughly free-born figures of the -history of Israel, they made, according to their requirements, either -wretched bigots and hypocrites, or "godless ones": they simplified -the psychology of every great event to the idiotic formula "obedient -or disobedient to God."—A step further: the "Will of God," that is -to say the self-preservative measures of the priesthood, must be -known—to this end a "revelation" is necessary. In plain English: a -stupendous literary fraud becomes necessary, "holy scriptures" are -discovered,—and they are published abroad with all hieratic pomp, -with days of penance and lamentations over the long state Of "sin." -The "Will of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> God" has long stood firm: the whole of the trouble -lies in the fact that the "Holy Scriptures" have been discarded.... -Moses was already the "Will of God" revealed.... What had happened? -With severity and pedantry, the priest had formulated once and for -all—even to the largest and smallest contributions that were to be -paid to him (—not forgetting the daintiest portions of meat; for the -priest is a consumer of beef-steaks)—<i>what he wanted,</i> "what the Will -of God was." ... Hence-forward everything became so arranged that the -priests were <i>indispensable everywhere.</i> At all the natural events of -life, at birth, at marriage, at the sick-bed, at death,—not to speak -of the sacrifice ("the meal"),—the holy parasite appears in order -to denaturalise, or in his language, to "sanctify," everything.... -For this should be understood: every natural custom, every natural -institution (the State, the administration of justice, marriage, the -care of the sick and the poor), every demand inspired by the instinct -of life, in short everything that has a value in itself, is rendered -absolutely worthless and even dangerous through the parasitism of the -priest (or of the "moral order of the universe"): a sanction after -the fact is required,—a <i>power which imparts value</i> is necessary, -which in so doing says, Nay to nature, and which by this means alone -<i>creates</i> a valuation.... The priest depreciates and desecrates nature: -it is only at this price that he exists at all.—Disobedience to God, -that is to say, to the priest, to the "law," now receives the name of -"sin"; the means of "reconciling one's self with God" are of course -of a nature which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> render subordination to the priesthood all the -more fundamental: the priest alone is able to "save." ... From the -psychological standpoint, in every society organised upon a hieratic -basis, "sins" are indispensable: they are the actual weapons of power, -the priest <i>lives</i> upon sins, it is necessary for him that people -should "sin." ... Supreme axiom: "God forgiveth him that repenteth"—in -plain English: <i>him that submitteth himself to the priest.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">27</p> - -<p>Christianity grew out of an utterly <i>false</i> soil, in which all nature, -every natural value, every <i>reality</i> had the deepest instincts of the -ruling class against it; it was a form of deadly hostility to reality -which has never been surpassed. The "holy people" which had retained -only priestly values and priestly names for all things, and which, with -a logical consistency that is terrifying, had divorced itself from -everything still powerful on earth as if it were "unholy," "worldly," -"sinful,"—this people created a final formula for its instinct which -was consistent to the point of self-suppression; as <i>Christianity</i> it -denied even the last form of reality, the "holy people," the "chosen -people," <i>Jewish</i> reality itself. The case is of supreme interest: -the small insurrectionary movement christened with the name of Jesus -of Nazareth, is the Jewish instinct <i>over again,</i>—in other words, -it is the sacerdotal instinct which can no longer endure the priest -as a fact; it is the discovery of a kind of life even more fantastic -than the one previously conceived, a vision of life which is even -more unreal than that which the organisation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> of a church stipulates. -Christianity denies the church.<a name="FNanchor_3_19" id="FNanchor_3_19"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_19" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p> - -<p>I fail to see against whom was directed the insurrection of which -rightly or <i>wrongly</i> Jesus is understood to have been the promoter, -if it were not directed against the Jewish church,—the word "church" -being used here in precisely the same sense in which it is used to-day. -It was an insurrection against the "good and the just," against -the "prophets of Israel," against the hierarchy of society—not -against the latter's corruption, but against caste, privilege, order, -formality. It was the lack of faith in "higher men," it was a "Nay" -uttered against everything that was tinctured with the blood of priests -and theologians. But the hierarchy which was set in question if only -temporarily by this movement, formed the construction of piles upon -which, alone, the Jewish people was able to subsist in the midst of the -"waters"; it was that people's <i>last</i> chance of survival wrested from -the world at enormous pains, the <i>residuum</i> of its political autonomy: -to attack this construction was tantamount to attacking the most -profound popular instinct, the most tenacious national will to live -that has ever existed on earth. This saintly anarchist who called the -lowest of the low, the outcasts and "sinners," the Chandala of Judaism, -to revolt against the established order of things (and in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span> language -which, if the gospels are to be trusted, would get one sent to Siberia -even to-day)—this man was a political criminal in so far as political -criminals were possible in a community so absurdly non-political. This -brought him to the cross: the proof of this is the inscription found -thereon. He died for <i>his</i> sins—and no matter how often the contrary -has been asserted there is absolutely nothing to show that he died for -the sins of others.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">28</p> - -<p>As to whether he was conscious of this contrast, or whether he was -merely <i>regarded</i> as such, is quite another question. And here, alone, -do I touch upon the problem of the psychology of the Saviour.—I -confess there are few books which I have as much difficulty in reading -as the gospels. These difficulties are quite different from those which -allowed the learned curiosity of the German, mind to celebrate one -of its most memorable triumphs. Many years have now elapsed since I, -like every young scholar, with the sage conscientiousness of a refined -philologist, relished the work of the incomparable Strauss. I was then -twenty years of age; now I am too serious for that sort of thing. What -do I care about the contradictions of "tradition"? How can saintly -legends be called "tradition" at all! The stories of saints constitute -the most ambiguous literature on earth: to apply the scientific method -to them, <i>when there are no other documents to hand,</i> seems to me to be -a fatal procedure from the start—simply learned fooling.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">29</p> - -<p>The point that concerns me is the psychological type of the Saviour. -This type might be contained in the gospels, in spite of the gospels, -and however much it may have been mutilated, or overladen with -foreign features: just as that of Francis of Assisi is contained -in his legends in spite of his legends. It is <i>not</i> a question of -the truth concerning what he has done, what he has said, and how he -actually died; but whether his type may still be conceived in any way, -whether it has been handed down to us at all?—The attempts which -to my knowledge have been made to read the <i>history</i> of a "soul" out -of the gospels, seem to me to point only to disreputable levity in -psychological matters. M. Renan, that buffoon <i>in psychologies,</i> has -contributed the two most monstrous ideas imaginable to the explanation -of the type of Jesus: the idea of the <i>genius</i> and the idea of the -<i>hero</i> ("<i>héros</i>"). But if there is anything thoroughly unevangelical -surely it is the idea of the hero. It is precisely the reverse of all -struggle, of all consciousness of taking part in the fight, that has -become instinctive here: the inability to resist is here converted into -a morality ("resist not evil," the profoundest sentence in the whole of -the gospels, their key in a certain sense), the blessedness of peace, -of gentleness, of not <i>being able</i> to be an enemy. What is the meaning -of "glad tidings"?—True life, eternal life has been found—it is not -promised, it is actually here, it is in <i>you;</i> it is life in love, in -love free from all selection or exclusion, free from all distance. -Everybody is the child of God—Jesus does not by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span> any means claim -anything for himself alone,—as the child of God everybody is equal to -everybody else.... Fancy making Jesus a <i>hero!</i>—And what a tremendous -misunderstanding the word "genius" is! Our whole idea of "spirit," -which is a civilised idea, could have had no meaning whatever in the -world in which Jesus lived. In the strict terms of the physiologist, a -very different word ought to be used here.... We know of a condition of -morbid irritability of the sense of <i>touch,</i> which recoils shuddering -from every kind of contact, and from every attempt at grasping a solid -object. Any such physiological <i>habitus</i> reduced to its ultimate -logical conclusion, becomes an instinctive hatred of all reality, a -flight into the "intangible," into the "incomprehensible"; a repugnance -to all formulæ, to every notion of time and space, to everything that -is established such as customs, institutions, the church; a feeling -at one's ease in a world in which no sign of reality is any longer -visible, a merely "inner" world, a "true" world, an "eternal" world.... -"The Kingdom of God is within you"...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">30</p> - -<p><i>The instinctive hatred of reality</i> is the outcome of an extreme -susceptibility to pain and to irritation, which can no longer endure to -be "touched" at all, because every sensation strikes too deep.</p> - -<p><i>The instinctive exclusion of all aversion, of all hostility, of all -boundaries and distances in feeling,</i> is the outcome of an extreme -susceptibility to pain and to irritation, which regards all resistance, -all compulsory resistance as insufferable <i>anguish</i>(—that is to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> say, -as harmful, as <i>deprecated</i> by the self-preservative instinct), and -which knows blessedness (happiness) only when it is no longer obliged -to offer resistance to anybody, either evil or detrimental,—love as -the Only ultimate possibility of life....</p> - -<p>These are the two <i>physiological realities</i> upon which and out of which -the doctrine of salvation has grown. I call them a sublime further -development of hedonism, upon a thoroughly morbid soil. Epicureanism, -the pagan theory of salvation, even though it possessed a large -proportion of Greek vitality and nervous energy, remains the most -closely related to the above. Epicurus was a <i>typical</i> decadent: and I -was the first to recognise him as such.—The terror of pain, even of -infinitely slight pain—such a state cannot possibly help culminating -in a <i>religion</i> of love....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">31</p> - -<p>I have given my reply to the problem in advance. The prerequisite -thereto was the admission of the fact that the type of the Saviour has -reached us only in a very distorted form. This distortion in itself -is extremely feasible: for many reasons a type of that kind could not -be pure, whole, and free from additions. The environment in which -this strange figure moved, must have left its mark upon him, and the -history, the <i>destiny</i> of the first Christian communities must have -done so to a still greater degree. Thanks to that destiny, the type -must have been enriched retrospectively with features which can be -interpreted only as serving the purposes of war and of propaganda -That strange and morbid world into which the gospels lead us—a -world which seems to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> have been drawn from a Russian novel, where -the scum and dross of society, diseases of the nerves and "childish" -imbecility seem to have given each other rendezvous—must in any case -have <i>coarsened</i> the type: the first disciples especially must have -translated an existence conceived entirely in symbols and abstractions -into their own crudities, in order at least to be able to understand -something about it,—for them the type existed only after it had -been cast in a more familiar mould.... The prophet, the Messiah, the -future judge, the teacher of morals, the thaumaturgist, John the -Baptist—all these were but so many opportunities of misunderstanding -the type.... Finally, let us not under-rate the <i>proprium</i> of all great -and especially sectarian veneration: very often it effaces from the -venerated object, all the original and frequently painfully un-familiar -traits and idiosyncrasies—<i>it does not even see them.</i> It is greatly -to be deplored that no Dostoiewsky lived in the neighbourhood of this -most interesting decadent,—I mean someone who would have known how to -feel the poignant charm of such a mixture of the sublime, the morbid, -and the childlike. Finally, the type, as an example of decadence, may -actually have been extraordinarily multifarious and contradictory: -this, as a possible alternative, is not to be altogether ignored. -Albeit, everything seems to point away from it; for, precisely in this -case, tradition would necessarily have been particularly true and -objective: whereas we have reasons for assuming the reverse. Meanwhile -a yawning chasm of contradiction separates the mountain, lake, and -pastoral preacher, who strikes us as a Buddha<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> on a soil only very -slightly Hindu, from that combative fanatic, the mortal enemy of -theologians and priests, whom Renan's malice has glorified as "<i>le -grand maître en ironie.</i>" For my part, I do not doubt but what the -greater part of this venom (and even of <i>esprit</i>) was inoculated into -the type of the Master only as the outcome of the agitated condition -of Christian propaganda. For we have ample reasons for knowing the -unscrupulousness of all sectarians when they wish to contrive their own -<i>apology</i> out of the person of their master. When the first Christian -community required a discerning, wrangling, quarrelsome, malicious and -hair-splitting theologian, to oppose other theologians, it created its -"God" according to its needs; just as it did not hesitate to put upon -his lips those utterly unevangelical ideas of "his second coming," the -"last judgment,"—ideas with which it could not then dispense,—and -every kind of expectation and promise which happened to be current.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">32</p> - -<p>I can only repeat that I am opposed to the importation of the fanatic -into the type of the Saviour: the word "<i>impérieux,</i>" which Renan -uses, in itself annuls the type. The "glad tidings" are simply that -there are no longer any contradictions, that the Kingdom of Heaven is -for the <i>children;</i> the faith which raises its voice here is not a -faith that has been won by a struggle,—it is to hand, it was there -from the beginning, it is a sort of spiritual return to childishness. -The case of delayed and undeveloped puberty in the organism, as the -result<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> of degeneration is at least familiar to physiologists. A faith -of this sort does not show anger, it does not blame, neither does it -defend itself: it does not bring "the sword,"—it has no inkling of -how it will one day establish feuds between man and man. It does not -demonstrate itself, either by miracles, or by reward and promises, or -yet "through the scriptures": it is in itself at every moment its own -miracle, its own reward, its own proof, its own "Kingdom of God." This -faith cannot be formulated—it lives, it guards against formulas. The -accident of environment, of speech, of preparatory culture, certainly -determines a particular series of conceptions: early Christianity deals -only in Judæo-Semitic conceptions (—the eating and drinking at the -last supper form part of these,—this idea which like everything Jewish -has been abused so maliciously by the church). But one should guard -against seeing anything more than a language of signs, semiotics, an -opportunity for parables in all this. The very fact that no word is to -be taken literally, is the only condition on which this Anti-realist -is able to speak at all. Among Indians he would have made use of the -ideas of Sankhyara, among Chinese, those of Lao-tze—and would not -have been aware of any difference. With a little terminological laxity -Jesus might be called a "free spirit"—he cares not a jot for anything -that is established: the word <i>killeth,</i> everything fixed <i>killtth.</i> -The idea, <i>experience,</i> "life" as he alone knows it, is, according to -him, opposed to every kind of word, formula, law, faith and dogma. He -speaks only of the innermost things: "life" or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span> "truth," or "light," is -his expression for the innermost thing,—everything else, the whole of -reality, the whole of nature, language even, has only the value of a -sign, of a simile for him.—It is of paramount importance not to make -any mistake at this point, however great may be the temptation thereto -that lies in Christian—I mean to say, ecclesiastical prejudice. Any -such essential symbolism stands beyond the pale of all religion, all -notions of cult, all history, all natural science, all experience of -the world, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology, all books and -all Art—for his "wisdom" is precisely the complete ignorance<a name="FNanchor_4_20" id="FNanchor_4_20"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_20" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> of the -existence of such things. He has not even heard speak of <i>culture,</i> he -does not require to oppose it,—he does not deny it.... The same holds -good of the state, of the whole of civil and social order, of work -and of war—he never had any reason to deny the world, he had not the -vaguest notion of the ecclesiastical concept "the world." ... Denying -is precisely what was quite impossible to him.—Dialectic is also -quite absent, as likewise the idea that any faith, any "truth" can be -proved by argument (—his proofs are inner "lights," inward feelings of -happiness and self-affirmation, a host of "proofs of power"—). Neither -can such a doctrine contradict, it does not even realise the fact that -there are or can be other doctrines, it is absolutely incapable of -imagining a contrary judgment.... Wherever it encounters such things, -from a feeling of profound sympathy it<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span> bemoans such "blindness,"—for -it sees the "light,"—but it raises no objections.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">33</p> - -<p>The whole psychology of the "gospels" lacks the concept of guilt and -punishment, as also that of reward. "Sin," any sort of aloofness -between God and man, is done away with,—<i>this is precisely what -constitutes the "glad tidings".</i> Eternal bliss is not promised, it is -not bound up with certain conditions; it is the only reality—the rest -consists only of signs wherewith to speak about it....</p> - -<p>The results of such a state project themselves into a new practice -of life, the actual evangelical practice. It is not a "faith" which -distinguishes the Christians: the Christian acts, he distinguishes -himself by means of a <i>different</i> mode of action. He does not resist -his enemy either by words or in his heart He draws no distinction -between foreigners and natives, between Jews and Gentiles ("the -neighbour" really means the co-religionist, the Jew). He is angry with -no one, he despises no one. He neither shows himself at the tribunals -nor does he acknowledge any of their claims ("Swear not at all"). -He never under any circumstances divorces his wife, even when her -infidelity has been proved.—All this is at bottom one principle, it is -all the outcome of one instinct—</p> - -<p>The life of the Saviour was naught else than this practice,—neither -was his death. He no longer required any formulæ, any rites for his -relations with God—not even prayer. He has done with all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> the Jewish -teaching of repentance and of atonement; he alone knows the <i>mode</i> -of life which makes one feel "divine," "saved," "evangelical," and -at all times a "child of God." <i>Not</i> "repentance," <i>not</i> "prayer and -forgiveness" are the roads to God: the <i>evangelical mode of life -alone</i> leads to God, it <i>is</i> "God."—That which the gospels abolished -was the Judaism of the concepts "sin," "forgiveness of sin," "faith," -"salvation through faith,"—the whole doctrine of the Jewish church was -denied by the "glad tidings."</p> - -<p>The profound instinct of how one must live in order to feel "in -Heaven," in order to feel "eternal," while in every other respect -one feels by <i>no</i> means "in Heaven": this alone is the psychological -reality of "Salvation."—A new life and <i>not</i> a new faith....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">34</p> - -<p>If I understand anything at all about this great symbolist, it is -this that he regarded only <i>inner</i> facts as facts, as "truths,"—that -he understood the rest, everything natural, temporal, material -and historical, only as signs, as opportunities for parables. The -concept "the Son of Man," is not a concrete personality belonging to -history, anything individual and isolated, but an "eternal" fact, -a psychological symbol divorced from the concept of time. The same -is true, and in the highest degree, of the <i>God</i> of this typical -symbolist, of the "Kingdom of God," of the "Kingdom of Heaven," and -of the "Sonship of God." Nothing is more un-Christlike than the -<i>ecclesiastical crudity</i> of a personal God, of a Kingdom<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> of God that -is coming, of a "Kingdom of Heaven" beyond, of a "Son of God" as the -second person of the Trinity. All this, if I may be forgiven the -expression, is as fitting as a square peg in a round hole—and oh! -what a hole!—the gospels: a <i>world-historic</i> cynicism in the scorn -of symbols.... But what is meant by the signs "Father" and "Son," is -of course obvious—not to everybody, I admit: with the word "Son," -<i>entrance</i> into the feeling of the general transfiguration of all -things (beatitude) is expressed, with the word "Father," <i>this feeling -itself</i> the feeling of eternity and of perfection.—I blush to have to -remind you of what the Church has done with this symbolism: has it not -set an Amphitryon story at the threshold of the Christian "faith"? And -a dogma of immaculate conception into the bargain?... <i>But by so doing -it defiled conception.</i>——</p> - -<p>The "Kingdom of Heaven" is a state of the heart—not something -which exists "beyond this earth" or comes to you "after death." The -whole idea of natural death is lacking in the gospels. Death is not -a bridge, not a means of access: it is absent because it belongs to -quite a different and merely apparent world the only use of which is -to furnish signs, similes. The "hour of death" is not a Christian -idea—the "hour," time in general, physical life and its crises do not -exist for the messenger of "glad tidings." ... The "Kingdom of God" is -not some thing that is expected; it has no yesterday nor any day after -to-morrow, it is not going to come in a "thousand years"—it is an -experience of a human heart; it is everywhere, it is nowhere....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">35</p> - -<p>This "messenger of glad tidings" died as he lived and as he -taught—<i>not</i> in order "to save mankind," but in order to show how one -ought to live. It was a mode of life that he bequeathed to mankind: his -behaviour before his judges, his attitude towards his executioners, -his accusers, and all kinds of calumny and scorn,—his demeanour on -the <i>cross.</i> He offers no resistance; he does not defend his rights; -he takes no step to ward off the most extreme consequences, he does -more,—he provokes them. And he prays, suffers and loves with those, in -those, who treat him ill.... <i>Not</i> to defend one's self, <i>not</i> to show -anger, not to hold anyone responsible.... But to refrain from resisting -even the evil one,—to <i>love</i> him....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">36</p> - -<p>—Only we spirits that have <i>become free,</i> possess the necessary -condition for understanding something which nineteen centuries have -misunderstood,—that honesty which has become an instinct and a passion -in us, and which wages war upon the "holy lie" with even more vigour -than upon every other lie.... Mankind was unspeakably far from our -beneficent and cautious neutrality, from that discipline of the mind, -which, alone, renders the solution of such strange and subtle things -possible: at all times, with shameless egoism, all that people sought -was their <i>own</i> advantage in these matters, the Church was built up out -of contradiction to the gospel....</p> - -<p>Whoever might seek for signs pointing to the guiding fingers of an -ironical deity behind the great<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> comedy of existence, would find no -small argument in the <i>huge note of interrogation</i> that is called -Christianity. The fact that mankind is on its knees before the reverse -of that which formed the origin, the meaning and the <i>rights</i> of -the gospel; the fact that, in the idea "Church," precisely that is -pronounced holy which the "messenger of glad tidings" regarded as -<i>beneath</i> him, as <i>behind</i> him—one might seek in vain for a more -egregious example <i>of world-historic</i> irony—-</p> - - -<p class="parnum">37</p> - -<p>—Our age is proud of its historical sense: how could it allow -itself to be convinced of the nonsensical idea that at the beginning -Christianity consisted only of the <i>clumsy fable of the thaumaturgist -and of the Saviour,</i> and that all its spiritual and symbolic -side was only developed later? On the contrary: the history of -Christianity—from the death on the cross onwards—is the history of -a gradual and ever coarser misunderstanding of an original symbolism. -With every extension of Christianity over ever larger and ruder -masses, who were ever less able to grasp its first principles, the -need of <i>vulgarising and barbarising it</i> increased proportionately—it -absorbed the teachings and rites of all the <i>subterranean</i> cults of the -<i>imperium Romanum,</i> as well as the nonsense of every kind of morbid -reasoning. The fatal feature of Christianity lies in the necessary -fact that its faith had to become as morbid, base and vulgar as the -needs to which it had to minister were morbid, base and vulgar. <i>Morbid -barbarism</i> at last braces itself together for power in the form of the -Church<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>—the Church, this deadly hostility to all honesty, to all -loftiness of the soul, to all discipline of the mind, to all frank and -kindly humanity.—<i>Christian</i> and <i>noble</i> values: only we spirits <i>who -have become free have</i> re-established this contrast in values which is -the greatest that has ever existed on earth!—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">38</p> - -<p>—I cannot, at this point, stifle a sigh. There are days when I -am visited by a feeling blacker than the blackest melancholy—the -<i>contempt of man.</i> And in order that I may leave you in no doubt as -to what I despise, <i>whom</i> I despise: I declare that it is the man of -to-day, the man with whom I am fatally contemporaneous. The man of -to-day, I am asphyxiated by his foul breath.... Towards the past, like -all knights of knowledge, I am profoundly tolerant,—that is to say, -I exercise a sort of <i>generous</i> self-control: with gloomy caution I -pass through whole millennia of this mad-house world, and whether it -be called "Christianity," "Christian Faith," or "Christian Church," I -take care not to hold mankind responsible for its mental disorders. -But my feeling suddenly changes, and vents itself the moment I enter -the modern age, <i>our</i> age. Our age <i>knows....</i> That which formerly -was merely morbid, is now positively indecent It is indecent nowadays -to be a Christian. <i>And it is here that my loathing begins.</i> I look -about me: not a word of what was formerly known as "truth" has remained -standing; we can no longer endure to hear a priest even pronounce the -word "truth." Even he who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> makes but the most modest claims upon truth, -<i>must</i> know at present, that a theologian, a priest, or a pope, not -only errs but actually <i>ties,</i> with every word that he utters,—and -that he is no longer able to lie from "innocence," from "ignorance." -Even the priest knows quite as well as everybody else does that there -is no longer any "God," any "sinner" or any "Saviour," and that "free -will," and "a moral order of the universe" are <i>lies.</i> Seriousness, -the profound self-conquest of the spirit no longer allows anyone to -be <i>ignorant</i> about this.... All the concepts of the Church have been -revealed in their true colours—that is to say, as the most vicious -frauds on earth, calculated to <i>depreciate</i> nature and all natural -values. The priest himself has been recognised as what he is—that is -to say, as the most dangerous kind of parasite, as the actual venomous -spider of existence.... At present we know, our <i>conscience</i> knows, -the real value of the gruesome inventions which the priests and the -Church have made, <i>and what end they served.</i> By means of them that -state of self-profanation on the part of man has been attained, the -sight of which makes one heave. The concepts "Beyond," "Last Judgment," -"Immortality of the Soul," the "soul" itself, are merely so many -instruments of torture, so many systems of cruelty, on the strength -of which the priest became and remained master.... Everybody knows -this, <i>and nevertheless everything remains as it was.</i> Whither has -the last shred of decency, of self-respect gone, if nowadays even -our statesmen—a body of men who are otherwise so unembarrassed, and -such thorough anti-Christians in deed—still declare themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> -Christians and still flock to communion?<a name="FNanchor_5_21" id="FNanchor_5_21"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_21" class="fnanchor">[5]</a>.... Fancy a prince at the -head of his legions, magnificent as the expression of the egoism and -self-exaltation of his people,—but <i>shameless</i> enough to acknowledge -himself a Christian!... What then does Christianity deny? What does -it call "world"? "The world" to Christianity means that a man is a -soldier, a judge, a patriot, that he defends himself, that he values -his honour, that he desires his own advantage, that he is <i>proud.</i> -... The conduct of every moment, every instinct, every valuation that -leads to a deed, is at present anti-Christian: what an <i>abortion of -falsehood</i> modern man must be, in order to be able <i>without a blush</i> -still to call himself a Christian!——</p> - - -<p class="parnum">39</p> - -<p>—I will retrace my steps, and will tell you the <i>genuine</i> -history of Christianity.—The very word "Christianity" is a -misunderstanding,—truth to tell, there never was more than one -Christian, and he <i>died</i> on the Cross. The "gospel" <i>died</i> on the -cross. That which thenceforward was called "gospel" was the reverse -of that "gospel" that Christ had lived: it was "evil tidings," a -<i>dysangel</i> It is false to the point of nonsense to see in "faith," -in the faith in salvation through Christ, the distinguishing trait -of the Christian: the only thing that is Christian is the Christian -mode of existence, a life such as he led who died on the Cross.... To -this day a life of this kind is still possible; for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> certain men, it -is even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity will be possible -in all ages.... <i>Not</i> a faith, but a course of action, above all a -course of inaction, non-interference, and a different life.... States -of consciousness, any sort of faith, a holding of certain things -for true, as every psychologist knows, are indeed of absolutely no -consequence, and are only of fifth-rate importance compared with the -value of the instincts: more exactly, the whole concept of intellectual -causality is false. To reduce the fact of being a Christian, or of -Christianity, to a holding of something for true, to a mere phenomenon -of consciousness, is tantamount to denying Christianity. <i>In fact -there have never been any Christians.</i> The "Christian," he who for two -thousand years has been called a Christian, is merely a psychological -misunderstanding of self. Looked at more closely, there ruled in -him, <i>notwithstanding</i> all his faith, only instincts—and <i>what -instincts!</i>—"Faith" in all ages, as for instance in the case of -Luther, has always been merely a cloak, a pretext, a <i>screen,</i> behind -which the instincts played their game,—a prudent form of <i>blindness</i> -in regard to the dominion of <i>certain</i> instincts. "Faith" I have -already characterised as a piece of really Christian cleverness; for -people have always spoken of "faith" and acted according to their -instincts.... In the Christian's world of ideas there is nothing which -even touches reality: but I have already recognised in the instinctive -hatred of reality the actual motive force, the only driving power at -the root of Christianity. What follows therefrom? That here, even -<i>in psychologicis</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> error is fundamental,—that is to say capable -of determining the spirit of things,—that is to say, <i>substance.</i> -Take one idea away from the whole, and put one realistic fact in its -stead,—and the whole of Christianity tumbles into nonentity!—Surveyed -from above, this strangest of all facts,-a religion not only dependent -upon error, but inventive and showing signs of genius only in those -errors which are dangerous and which poison life and the human -heart—remains a <i>spectacle for gods,</i> for those gods who are at the -same time philosophers and whom I met for instance in those celebrated -dialogues on the island of Naxos. At the moment when they get rid -of their <i>loathing (—and we do as well!</i>), they will be thankful -for the spectacle the Christians have offered: the wretched little -planet called Earth perhaps deserves on account of <i>this</i> curious -case alone, a divine glance, and divine interest.... Let us not -therefore underestimate the Christians: the Christian, false <i>to the -point of innocence in falsity,</i> is far above the apes,—in regard to -the Christians a certain well-known theory of Descent becomes a mere -good-natured compliment.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">40</p> - -<p>—The fate of the gospel was decided at the moment of the death,—it -hung on the "cross." ... It was only death, this unexpected and -ignominious death; it was only the cross which as a rule was reserved -simply for the <i>canaille,</i>—only this appalling paradox which -confronted the disciples with the actual riddle: <i>Who was that? what -was that?</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>—The state produced by the excited and profoundly wounded -feelings of these men, the suspicion that such a death might imply the -<i>refutation</i> of their cause, and the terrible note of interrogation: -"why precisely thus?" will be understood only too well. In this case -everything <i>must</i> be necessary, everything must have meaning, a reason, -the highest reason. The love of a disciple admits of no such thing as -accident. Only then did the chasm yawn: "who has killed him?" "who was -his natural enemy?"—this question rent the firmament like a flash of -lightning. Reply: <i>dominant</i> Judaism, its ruling class. Thenceforward -the disciple felt himself in revolt <i>against</i> established order; he -understood Jesus, after the fact, as one in <i>revolt against established -order.</i> Heretofore this warlike, this nay-saying and nay-doing feature -in Christ had been lacking; nay more, he was its contradiction. The -small primitive community had obviously understood <i>nothing</i> of the -principal factor of all, which was the example of freedom and of -superiority to every form of <i>resentment</i> which lay in this way of -dying. And this shows how little they understood him altogether! At -bottom Jesus could not have desired anything else by his death than to -give the strongest public <i>example</i> and <i>proof</i> of his doctrine.... -But his disciples were very far from <i>forgiving this</i> death—though if -they had done so it would have been in the highest sense evangelical -on their part,—neither were they prepared, with a gentle and serene -calmness of heart, to <i>offer</i> themselves for a similar death.... -Precisely the most unevangelical feeling, <i>revenge,</i> became once more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> -ascendant. It was impossible for the cause to end with this death: -"compensation" and "judgment" were required (—and forsooth, what could -be more unevangelical than "compensation," "punishment," "judgment"!) -The popular expectation of a Messiah once more became prominent; -attention was fixed upon one historical moment: the "Kingdom of God" -descends to sit in judgment upon his enemies. But this proves that -everything was misunderstood: the "Kingdom of God" regarded as the last -scene of the last act, as a promise! But the Gospel had clearly been -the living, the fulfilment, the <i>reality</i> of this "Kingdom of God." -It was precisely a death such as Christ's that was this "Kingdom of -God." It was only now that all the contempt for the Pharisees and the -theologians, and all bitter feelings towards them, were introduced -into the character of the Master,—and by this means he himself was -converted into a Pharisee and a theologian! On the other hand, the -savage veneration of these completely unhinged souls could no longer -endure that evangelical right of every man to be the child of God, -which Jesus had taught: their revenge consisted in <i>elevating</i> Jesus in -a manner devoid of all reason, and in separating him from themselves: -just as, formerly, the Jews, with the view of revenging themselves on -their enemies, separated themselves from their God, and placed him high -above them. The Only God, and the Only Son of God:—both were products -of resentment.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">41</p> - -<p>—And from this time forward an absurd problem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> rose into prominence: -"how <i>could</i> God allow it to happen?" To this question the disordered -minds of the small community found a reply which in its absurdity -was literally terrifying: God gave his Son as a <i>sacrifice</i> for the -forgiveness of sins. Alas! how prompt and sudden was the end of -the gospel! Expiatory sacrifice for guilt, and indeed in its most -repulsive and barbaric form,—the sacrifice of the <i>innocent</i> for -the sins of the guilty! What appalling Paganism!—For Jesus himself -had done away with the concept "guilt,"—he denied any gulf between -God and man, he <i>lived</i> this unity between God and man, it was this -that constituted <i>his</i> "glad tidings." ... And he did <i>not</i> teach it -as a privilege!—Thenceforward there was gradually imported into the -type of the Saviour the doctrine of the Last Judgment, and of the -"second coming," the doctrine of sacrificial death, and the doctrine -of <i>Resurrection,</i> by means of which the whole concept "blessedness," -the entire and only reality of the gospel, is conjured away—in favour -of a state <i>after</i> death!... St Paul, with that rabbinic impudence -which characterises all his doings, rationalised this conception, this -prostitution of a conception, as follows: "if Christ did not rise from -the dead, our faith is vain."—And, in a trice, the most contemptible -of all unrealisable promises, the <i>impudent</i> doctrine of personal -immortality, was woven out of the gospel.... St Paul even preached this -immortality as a reward.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">42</p> - -<p>You now realise what it was that came to an end with the death on the -cross: a new and thoroughly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> original effort towards a Buddhistic -movement of peace, towards real and <i>not</i> merely promised <i>happiness -on earth.</i> For, as I have already pointed out, this remains the -fundamental difference between the two religions <i>of decadence:</i> -Buddhism promises little but fulfils more, Christianity promises -everything but fulfils nothing.—The "glad tidings" were followed -closely by the absolutely <i>worst</i> tidings—those of St Paul. Paul is -the incarnation of a type which is the reverse of that of the Saviour; -he is the genius in hatred, in the standpoint of hatred, and in the -relentless logic of hatred. And alas what did this dysangelist not -sacrifice to his hatred! Above all the Saviour himself: he nailed him -to <i>his</i> cross. Christ's life, his example, his doctrine and death, -the sense and the right of the gospel—not a vestige of alt this -was left, once this forger, prompted by his hatred, had understood -in it only that which could serve his purpose. <i>Not</i> reality: <i>not</i> -historical truth! ... And once more, the sacerdotal instinct of -the Jew, perpetrated the same great crime against history,—he -simply cancelled the yesterday, and the day before that, out of -Christianity; he <i>contrived of his own accord a history of the birth -of Christianity.</i> He did more: he once more falsified the history of -Israel, so as to make it appear as a prologue to <i>his</i> mission: all the -prophets had referred to <i>his</i> "Saviour." ... Later on the Church even -distorted the history of mankind so as to convert it into a prelude to -Christianity.... The type of the Saviour, his teaching, his life, his -death, the meaning of his death, even the sequel to his death—nothing -remained untouched, nothing was left which even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> remotely resembled -reality. St Paul simply transferred the centre of gravity of the whole -of that great life, to a place <i>behind</i> this life,—in the <i>lie</i> of -the "resuscitated" Christ. At bottom, he had no possible use for the -life of the Saviour,—he needed the death on the cross, <i>and</i> something -more. To regard as honest a man like St Paul (a man whose home was the -very headquarters of Stoical enlightenment) when he devises a proof -of the continued existence of the Saviour out of a hallucination; or -even to believe him when he declares that he had this hallucination, -would amount to foolishness on the part of a psychologist: St Paul -desired the end, consequently he also desired the means.... Even what -he himself did not believe, was believed in by the idiots among whom -he spread <i>his</i> doctrine.—What he wanted was power; with St Paul the -priest again aspired to power,—he could make use only of concepts, -doctrines, symbols with which masses may be tyrannised over, and -with which herds are formed. What was the only part of Christianity -which was subsequently borrowed by Muhamed? St Paul's invention, his -expedient for priestly tyranny and to the formation of herds: the -belief in immortality—<i>that is to say, the doctrine of the "Last -Judgment." ...</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">43</p> - -<p>When the centre of gravity of life is laid, <i>not</i> in life, but in a -beyond—<i>in nonentity,</i>—life is utterly robbed of its balance. The -great lie of personal immortality destroys all reason, all nature in -the instincts,—everything in the instincts that is beneficent, that -promotes life and that is a guarantee<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> of the future, henceforward -aroused suspicion. The very meaning of life is now construed as the -effort to live in such a way that life no longer has any point.... Why -show any public spirit? Why be grateful for one's origin and one's -forebears? Why collaborate with one's fellows, and be confident? Why -be concerned about the general weal or strive after it?... All these -things are merely so many "temptations," so many deviations from the -"straight path." "One thing only is necessary." ... That everybody, as -an "immortal soul," should have equal rank, that in the totality of -beings, the "salvation" of each individual may lay claim to eternal -importance, that insignificant bigots and three-quarter-lunatics may -have the right to suppose that the laws of nature may be persistently -<i>broken</i> on their account,—any such magnification of every kind -of selfishness to infinity, to <i>insolence,</i> cannot be branded with -sufficient contempt And yet it is to this miserable flattery of -personal vanity that Christianity owes its <i>triumph,</i>—by this means -it lured all the bungled and the botched, all revolting and revolted -people, all abortions, the whole of the refuse and offal of humanity, -over to its side. The "salvation of the soul"—in plain English: "the -world revolves around me" ... The poison of the doctrine "<i>equal</i> -rights for all"—has been dispensed with the greatest thoroughness by -Christianity: Christianity, prompted by the most secret recesses of -bad instincts, has waged a deadly war upon all feeling of reverence -and distance between man and man—that is to say, the <i>prerequisite</i> -of all elevation, of every growth in culture; out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> the resentment -of the masses it wrought its <i>principal weapons</i> against us, against -everything noble, joyful, exalted on earth, against our happiness on -earth.... To grant "immortality" to every St Peter and St Paul, was -the greatest, the most vicious outrage upon <i>noble</i> humanity that has -ever been perpetrated.—And do not let us underestimate the fatal -influence which, springing from Christianity, has insinuated itself -even into politics! Nowadays no one has the courage of special rights, -of rights of t dominion, of a feeling of self-respect and of respect -for his equals,—of <i>pathos of distance.</i> Our politics are diseased -with this lack of courage!—The aristocratic attitude of mind has been -most thoroughly undermined by the lie of the equality of souls; and if -the belief in the "privilege of the greatest number" creates and will -continue <i>to create revolutions,</i>—it is Christianity, let there be no -doubt about it, and Christian values, which convert every revolution -into blood and crime! Christianity is the revolt of all things that -crawl on their bellies against everything that is lofty: the gospel of -the "lowly" <i>lowers....</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">44</p> - -<p>—The Gospels are invaluable as a testimony of the corruption which -was already persistent <i>within</i> the first Christian communities. That -which St Paul, with the logician's cynicism of a Rabbi, carried to its -logical conclusion, was nevertheless merely the process of decay which -began with the death of the Saviour.—These gospels cannot be read -too cautiously; difficulties lurk behind every word they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> contain. I -confess, and people will not take this amiss, that they are precisely -on that account a joy of the first rank for a psychologist,—as the -reverse of all naive perversity, as refinement <i>par excellence,</i> as -a masterpiece of art in psychological corruption. The gospels stand -alone. Altogether the Bible allows of no comparison. The <i>first</i> thing -to be remembered if we do not wish to lose the scent here, is, that -we are among Jews. The dissembling of holiness which, here, literally -amounts to genius, and which has never been even approximately achieved -elsewhere either by books or by men, this fraud in word and pose -which in this book is elevated to an <i>Art,</i> is not the accident of -any individual gift, of any exceptional nature. These qualities are -a matter of <i>race.</i> With Christianity, the art of telling holy lies, -which constitutes the whole of Judaism, reaches its final mastership, -thanks to many centuries of Jewish and most thoroughly serious training -and practice. The Christian, this <i>ultima ratio</i> of falsehood, is the -Jew over again—he is even three times a Jew.... The fundamental will -only to make use of concepts, symbols and poses, which are demonstrated -by the practice of the priests, the instinctive repudiation of every -other kind of practice, every other standpoint of valuation and of -utility—all this is not only tradition, it is <i>hereditary;</i> only as -an inheritance is it able to work like nature. The whole of mankind, -the best brains, and even the best ages—(one man only excepted who -is perhaps only a monster)—have allowed themselves to be deceived. -The gospels were read as the <i>book of innocence ...</i> this is no -insignificant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> sign of the virtuosity with which deception has been -practised here.—Of course, if we could only succeed in seeing all -these amazing bigots and pretended saints, even for a moment, all -would be at an end—and it is precisely because <i>I</i> can read no -single word of theirs, without seeing their pretentious poses, <i>that -I have made an end of them</i>.... I cannot endure a certain way they -have of casting their eyes heavenwards.—Fortunately for Christianity, -books are for the greatest number, merely literature. We must not let -ourselves be led away: "judge not!" they say, but they dispatch all -those to hell who stand in their way. Inasmuch as they let God do the -judging, they themselves, judge; inasmuch as they glorify God, they -glorify themselves; inasmuch as they exact those virtues of which -they themselves happen to be capable—nay more, of which they are in -need in order to be able to remain on top at all;—they assume the -grand airs of struggling for virtue, of struggling for the dominion of -virtue. "We live, we die, we sacrifice ourselves for the good" (—"the -Truth," "the Light," "the Kingdom of God"): as a matter of fact they -do only what they cannot help doing. Like sneaks they have to play a -humble part; sit away in corners, and remain obscurely in the shade, -and they make all this appear a duty; their humble life now appears as -a duty, and their humility is one proof the more of their piety!... -Oh, what a humble, chaste and compassionate kind of falsity! "Virtue -itself shall bear us testimony." ... Only read the gospels as books -calculated to seduce by means of morality: morality is appropriated by -these petty people,—they know<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> what morality can do! The best way of -leading mankind by the nose is with morality! The fact is that the most -conscious <i>conceit</i> of people who believe themselves to be <i>chosen,</i> -here simulates modesty: in this way they, the Christian community, the -"good and the just" place themselves once and for all on a certain -side, the side "of Truth"—and the rest of mankind, "the world" on -the other.... This was the most fatal kind of megalomania that had -ever yet existed on earth: insignificant little abortions of bigots -and liars began to lay sole claim to the concepts "God," "Truth," -"Light," "Spirit," "Love," "Wisdom," "Life," as if these things were, -so to speak, synonyms of themselves, in order to fence themselves off -from "the world"; little ultra-Jews, ripe for every kind of madhouse, -twisted values round in order to suit themselves, just as if the -Christian, alone, were the meaning, the salt, the standard and even the -"<i>ultimate tribunal</i>" of all the rest of mankind.... The whole fatality -was rendered possible only because a kind of megalomania, akin to this -one and allied to it in race,—the Jewish kind—was already to hand in -the world: the very moment the gulf between Jews and Judæo-Christians -was opened, the latter had no alternative left, but to adopt the same -self-preservative measures as the Jewish instinct suggested, even -<i>against</i> the Jews themselves, whereas the Jews, theretofore, had -employed these same measures only against the Gentiles. The Christian -is nothing more than an anarchical Jew.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">45</p> - -<p>—Let me give you a few examples of what these<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> paltry people have -stuffed into their heads, what they have laid <i>on the lips of their -Master</i>: quite a host of confessions from "beautiful souls."—</p> - -<p>"And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear you, when ye depart -thence, shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against -them. Verily I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable for Sodom -and Gomorrah in the day of judgment, than for that city." (Mark vi. -11.)—<i>How evangelical!...</i></p> - -<p>"And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in -me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, -and he were cast into the sea." (Mark ix. 42.)—How <i>evangelical!...</i></p> - -<p>"And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it fa better for thee to -enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be -cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not -quenched." (Mark ix. 47, 48.)—The eye is not precisely what is meant -in this passage....</p> - -<p>"Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, -which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God -come with power." (Mark ix. 1.)—Well <i>lied,</i> lion!<a name="FNanchor_6_22" id="FNanchor_6_22"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_22" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> ...</p> - -<p>"Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his -cross, and follow me. <i>For</i> ..." (<i>A psychologist's comment.</i> Christian -morality is refuted by its "For's": its "reasons" refute,—this is -Christian.) (Mark viii. 34.)</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, -ye shall be judged." (Matthew vii. I, 2.)—What a strange notion of -justice on the part of a "just" judge!...</p> - -<p>"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even -the publicans the same? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye -more <i>than others?</i> do not even the publicans so?" (Matthew v. 46, 47.) -The principle of "Christian love": it insists upon being <i>well paid</i>....</p> - -<p>"But if ye forgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father -forgive your trespasses." (Matthew vi. 15.)—Very compromising for the -"Father" in question.</p> - -<p>"But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all -these things shall be added unto you." (Matthew vi. 33)—"All these -things"—that is to say, food, clothing, all the necessities of life. -To use a moderate expression, this is an <i>error ...</i>. Shortly before -this God appears as a tailor, at least in certain cases....</p> - -<p>"Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward -<i>is</i> great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto -the prophets." (Luke vi. 23.)—<i>Impudent</i> rabble! They dare to compare -themselves with the prophets....</p> - -<p>"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God and <i>that</i> the Spirit of God -dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, <i>him shall God -destroy;</i> for the temple of God is holy, which <i>temple ye are.</i>" (St -Paul, I Corinthians iii. 16, 17.)—One cannot have too much contempt -for this sort of thing....</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p> - -<p>"Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world -shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?" -(St Paul, I Corinthians vi. 2.)—Unfortunately this is not merely the -speech of a lunatic.... This <i>appalling impostor</i> proceeds thus: "Know -ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to -this life?"</p> - -<p>"Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in -the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by -the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe ... not many -wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble <i>are called;</i> -But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the -wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound -the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things -which are despised, hath God chosen; <i>yea,</i> and things which are not, -to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in -his presence." (St Paul, I Corinthians i. 20 <i>et seq.</i>)—In order to -<i>understand</i> this passage, which is of the highest importance as an -example of the psychology of every Chandala morality, the reader should -refer to my <i>Genealogy of Morals:</i> in this book, the contrast between -a <i>noble</i> and a Chandala morality born of <i>resentment</i> and impotent -revengefulness, is brought to light for the first time. St Paul was the -greatest of all the apostles of revenge....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">46</p> - -<p><i>What follows from this?</i> That one does well to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> put on one's gloves -when reading the New Testament The proximity of so much pitch almost -defiles one. We should feel just as little inclined to hobnob with -"the first Christians" as with Polish Jews: not that we need explain -our objections.... They simply smell bad.—In vain have I sought for a -single sympathetic feature in the New Testament; there is not a trace -of freedom, kindliness, open-heartedness and honesty to be found in -it. Humaneness has not even made a start in this book, while <i>cleanly</i> -instincts are entirely absent from it.... Only evil instincts are to be -found in the New Testament, it shows no sign of courage, these people -lack even the courage of their evil instincts. All is cowardice, all is -a closing of one's eyes and self-deception. Every book becomes clean, -after one has just read the New Testament: for instance, immediately -after laying down St Paul, I read with particular delight that most -charming and most wanton of scoffers, Petronius, of whom someone might -say what Domenico Boccaccio wrote to the Duke of Parma about Cæsar -Borgia: "<i>è tutto festo</i>"—immortally healthy, immortally cheerful -and well-constituted. ... These petty bigots err in their calculations -and in the most important thing of all. They certainly attack; but -everything they assail is, by that very fact alone, <i>distinguished.</i> -He whom a "primitive Christian" attacks, is <i>not</i> thereby sullied.... -Conversely it is an honour to be opposed by "primitive Christians." -One cannot read the New Testament without feeling a preference for -everything in it which is the subject of abuse—not to speak of the -"wisdom of this world,"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> which an impudent windbag tries in vain to -confound "by the foolishness of preaching." Even the Pharisees and the -Scribes derive advantage from such opposition: they must certainly -have been worth something in order to have been hated in such a -disreputable way. Hypocrisy—as if this were a reproach which the -"first Christians" <i>were at liberty</i> to make!—After all the Scribes -and Pharisees were the <i>privileged ones;</i> this was quite enough, the -hatred of the Chandala requires no other reasons. I very much fear -that the "first Christian"—as also the "<i>last Christian" whom I may -yet be able to meet,—</i> is in his deepest instincts a rebel against -everything privileged; he lives and struggles unremittingly for "equal -rights"!... Regarded more closely, he has no alternative.... If one's -desire be personally to represent "one of the chosen of God"—or a -"temple of God," or "a judge of angels,"—then every <i>other</i> principle -of selection, for instance that based upon a standard of honesty, -intellect, manliness and pride, or upon beauty and freedom of heart, -becomes the "world,"—<i>evil in itself.</i> Moral: every word on the lips -of a "first Christian" is a lie, every action he does is an instinctive -falsehood,—all his values, all his aims are pernicious; but the man -he, hates, <i>the thing</i> he hates, <i>has value.</i> ... The Christian, more -particularly the Christian priest, is a <i>criterion of values</i>—Do I -require to add that in the whole of the New Testament only <i>one</i> figure -appears which we cannot help respecting? Pilate, the Roman Governor. To -take a Jewish quarrel <i>seriously</i> was a thing he could not get himself -to do. One Jew more or less—what did it matter?... The noble<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> scorn -of a Roman, in whose presence the word "truth" had been shamelessly -abused, has enriched the New Testament with the only saying which <i>is -of value,</i>—and this saying is not only the criticism, but actually the -shattering of that Testament: "What is truth!"...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">47</p> - -<p>—That which separates us from other people is not the fact that -we can discover no God, either in history, or in nature, or behind -nature,—but that we regard what has been revered as "God," not as -"divine," but as wretched, absurd, pernicious; not as an error, but as -a <i>crime against life.</i> ... We deny God as God.... If the existence -of this Christian God were <i>proved</i> to us, we should feel even less -able to believe in him.—In a formula: <i>deus qualem Paulus creavit, -dei negatio.</i>—A religion such as Christianity which never once comes -in touch with reality, and which collapses the very moment reality -asserts its rights even on one single point, must naturally be a mortal -enemy of the "wisdom of this world"—that is to say, <i>science.</i> It -will call all those means good with which mental discipline, lucidity -and severity in intellectual matters, nobility and freedom of the -intellect may be poisoned, calumniated and <i>decried</i>. "Faith" as an -imperative is a <i>veto</i> against science,—<i>in praxi,</i> it means lies -at any price. St Paul <i>understood</i> that falsehood—that "faith" was -necessary; subsequently the Church understood St Paul.—That "God" -which St Paul invented for himself, a God who "confounds" the "wisdom -of this world" (in a narrower sense, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> two great opponents of all -superstition, philology and medicine), means, in very truth, simply St -Paul's firm <i>resolve</i> to do so: to call his own will "God", <i>thora,</i> -that is arch-Jewish. St Paul insists upon confounding the "wisdom of -this world": his enemies are the <i>good old</i> philologists and doctors of -the Alexandrine schools; it is on them that he wages war. As a matter -of fact no one is either a philologist or a doctor, who is not also an -<i>Antichrist.</i> As a philologist, for instance, a man sees <i>behind</i> the -"holy books," as a doctor he sees <i>behind</i> the physiological rottenness -of the typical Christian. The doctor says "incurable," the philologist -says "forgery."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">48</p> - -<p>—Has anybody ever really understood the celebrated story which stands -at the beginning of the Bible,—concerning God's deadly panic over -<i>science?</i> ... Nobody has understood it This essentially sacerdotal -book naturally begins with the great inner difficulty of the priest: -<i>he</i> knows only one great danger, <i>consequently</i> "God" has only one -great danger.—</p> - -<p>The old God, entirely "spirit," a high-priest through and through, and -wholly perfect, is wandering in a leisurely fashion round his garden; -but he is bored. Against boredom even the gods themselves struggle in -vain.<a name="FNanchor_7_23" id="FNanchor_7_23"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_23" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> What does he do? He invents man,—man is entertaining.... But, -behold,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> even man begins to be bored. God's compassion for the only -form of misery which is peculiar to all paradises, exceeds all bounds: -so forthwith he creates yet other animals. God's <i>first</i> mistake: man -did not think animals entertaining,—he dominated them, he did not even -wish to be an "animal." Consequently God created woman. And boredom did -indeed cease from that moment,—but many other things ceased as well! -Woman was God's <i>second</i> mistake.—"Woman in her innermost nature is a -serpent, Heva"—every priest knows this: "all evil came into this world -through woman,"—every priest knows this too. "<i>Consequently science</i> -also comes from woman." ... Only through woman did man learn to taste -of the tree of knowledge.—What had happened? Panic had seized the -old God Man himself had been his <i>greatest</i> mistake, he had created -a rival for himself, science makes you <i>equal to God,</i>—it is all up -with priests and gods when man becomes scientific!—Moral: science is -the most prohibited thing of all,—it alone, is forbidden. Science is -the <i>first,</i> the germ of all sins, the original sin. <i>This alone is -morality.</i>—"Thou shalt <i>not</i> know":—the rest follows as a matter of -course, God's panic did not deprive him of his intelligence. How can -one <i>guard</i> against science? For ages this was his principal problem. -Reply: man must be kicked out of paradise! Happiness, leisure leads to -thinking,—all thoughts are bad thoughts.... Man <i>must</i> not think.—And -the "priest-per-se" proceeds to invent distress, death, the vital -danger of pregnancy, every kind of misery, decrepitude, and affliction, -and above all <i>disease,</i>—all these are but weapons<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> employed in the -struggle with science! Trouble prevents man from thinking.... And -notwithstanding all these precautions! Oh, horror! the work of science -towers aloft, it storms heaven itself, it rings the death-knell of the -gods,—what's to be done?—The old God invents <i>war;</i> he separates the -nations, and contrives to make men destroy each other mutually (—the -priests have always been in need of war....) War, among other things, -is a great disturber of science!—Incredible! Knowledge, <i>the rejection -of the sacerdotal yoke,</i> nevertheless increases.—So the old God -arrives at this final decision: "Man has become scientific,—<i>there is -no help for it, he must be drowned!</i>" ...</p> - - -<p class="parnum">49</p> - -<p>You have understood me The beginning of the Bible contains the whole -psychology of the priest—The priest knows only one great danger, and -that is science,—the healthy concept of cause and effect But, on the -whole, science flourishes onlyunder happy conditions,—a man must -have time, he must also have superfluous mental energy in order to -"pursue knowledge" ... "<i>Consequently</i> man must be made unhappy,"—this -has been the argument of the priest of all ages.—You have already -divined what, in accordance with such a manner of arguing, must -first have come into the world:—"sin." ... The notion of guilt and -punishment, the whole "moral order of the universe," was invented -against science,—against the deliverance of man from the priest.... -Man must <i>not</i> cast his glance upon the outer world, he must turn it -inwards into himself; he must not as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> a learner look cleverly and -cautiously <i>into</i> things; he must not see at all: he must <i>suffer.</i> -... And he must suffer, so that he may be in need of the priest every -minute.—Away with doctors! What is needed is a Saviour!—The notion of -guilt and punishment, including the doctrine of "grace," of "salvation" -and of "forgiveness"—all <i>lies</i> through and through without a shred -of psychological reality—were invented in order to destroy man's -<i>sense of causality:</i> they are an attack on the concept of cause and -effect!—And <i>not</i> an attack with the fist, with the knife, with -honesty in hate and love! But one actuated by the most cowardly, most -crafty, and most ignoble instincts! A <i>priests</i> attack! A <i>parasite's</i> -attack! A vampyrism of pale subterranean leeches!—... When the natural -consequences of an act are no longer "natural," but are thought to -be conjured up by phantom concepts of superstition, by "God," by -"spirits," and by "souls," as merely moral consequences, in the form -of rewards, punishments, hints, and educational means,—then the whole -basis of knowledge is destroyed,—<i>then the greatest crime against man -has been perpetrated.</i>—Sin, I repeat, this form of self-pollution <i>par -excellence</i> on the part of man, was invented in order to make science, -culture and every elevation and noble trait in man quite impossible; by -means of the invention of sin the priest is able to <i>rule.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">50</p> - -<p>—I cannot here dispense with a psychology of "faith" and of the -"faithful," which will naturally be to the advantage of the "faithful." -If to-day there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> are still many who do not know how very <i>indecent</i> it -is to be a "believer"—<i>or</i> to what extent such a state is the sign -of decadence, and of the broken will to Life,—they will know it no -later than to-morrow. My voice can make even those hear who are hard -of hearing.—If perchance my ears have not deceived me, it seems that -among Christians there is such a thing as a kind of criterion of truth, -which is called "the proof of power." "Faith saveth; <i>therefore</i> it -is true."—It might be objected here that it is precisely salvation -which is not proved but only <i>promised:</i> salvation is bound up with -the condition "faith,"—one <i>shall</i> be saved, <i>because</i> one has -faith.... But how prove <i>that</i> that which the priest promises to the -faithful really will take place, to wit: the "Beyond" which defies -all demonstration?—The assumed "proof of power" is at bottom once -again only a belief in the fact that the effect which faith promises -will not fail to take place. In a formula: "I believe that faith -saveth;—<i>consequently</i> it is true."—But with this we are at the end -of our tether. This "consequently" would be the <i>absurdum</i> itself as -a criterion of truth.—Let us be indulgent enough to assume, however, -that salvation is proved by faith (—<i>not</i> only desired, and <i>not</i> -merely promised by the somewhat suspicious lips of a priest): could -salvation—or, in technical terminology, <i>happiness</i>—ever be a proof -of truth? So little is it so that, when pleasurable sensations make -their influence felt in replying to the question "what is true," they -furnish almost the contradiction of truth, or at any rate they make -it in the highest degree suspicious. The proof through "happiness," -is a proof of happiness—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> nothing else; why in the world should -we take it for granted that <i>true</i> judgments cause more pleasure than -false ones, and that in accordance with a pre-established harmony, they -necessarily bring pleasant feelings in their wake?—The experience of -all strict and profound minds teaches the <i>reverse.</i> Every inch of -truth has been conquered only after a struggle, almost everything to -which our heart, our love and our trust in life cleaves, has had to be -sacrificed for it Greatness of soul is necessary for this: the service -of truth is the hardest of all services.—What then is meant by honesty -in things intellectual? It means that a man is severe towards his own -heart, that he scorns "beautiful feelings," and that he makes a matter -of conscience out of every Yea and Nay!—-Faith saveth: <i>consequently</i> -it lies....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">51</p> - -<p>The fact that faith may in certain circumstances save, the fact that -salvation as the result of an <i>idée fixe</i> does not constitute a true -idea, the fact that faith moves <i>no</i> mountains, but may very readily -raise them where previously they did not exist—all these things are -made sufficiently clear by a mere casual stroll through a <i>lunatic -asylum.</i> Of course <i>no</i> priest would find this sufficient: for he -instinctively denies that illness is illness or that lunatic asylums -are lunatic asylums. Christianity is in <i>need</i> of illness, just as -Ancient Greece was in need of a superabundance of health. The actual -ulterior motive of the whole of the Church's system of salvation -is to <i>make people ill.</i> And is not the Church itself the Catholic -madhouse as an ultimate<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> ideal?—The earth as a whole converted into a -madhouse?—The kind of religious man which the Church aims at producing -is a typical <i>decadent</i> The moment of time at which a religious crisis -attains the ascendancy over a people, is always characterised by -nerve-epidemics; the "inner world" of the religious man is ridiculously -like the "inner world" of over-irritable and exhausted people; the -"highest" states which Christianity holds up to mankind as the value -of values, are epileptic in character,—the Church has pronounced only -madmen <i>or</i> great swindlers <i>in majorem dei honorem</i> holy. Once I -ventured to characterise the whole of the Christian training of penance -and salvation (which nowadays is best studied in England) as a <i>folie -circulaire</i> methodically generated upon a soil which, of course, is -already prepared for it,—that is to say, which is thoroughly morbid. -Not every one who likes can be a Christian: no man is "converted" -to Christianity,—he must be sick enough for it ... We others who -possess enough courage both for health and for contempt, how rightly -<i>we</i> may despise a religion which taught men to misunderstand the -body I which would not rid itself of the superstitions of the soul! -which made a virtue of taking inadequate nourishment! which in health -combats a sort of enemy, devil, temptation! which persuaded itself that -it was possible to bear a perfect soul about in a cadaverous body, -and which, to this end, had to make up for itself a new concept of -"perfection," a pale, sickly, idiotically gushing ideal,—so-called -"holiness,"—holiness, which in itself is simply a symptom of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> an -impoverished, enervated and incurably deteriorated body!... The -movement of Christianity, as a European movement, was from first to -last, a general accumulation of the ruck and scum of all sorts and -kinds (—and these, by means of Christianity, aspire to power). It -does <i>not</i> express the downfall of a race, it is rather a conglomerate -assembly of all the decadent elements from everywhere which seek each -other and crowd together. It was not, as some believe, the corruption -of antiquity, of <i>noble</i> antiquity, which made Christianity possible: -the learned idiocy which nowadays tries to support such a notion cannot -be too severely contradicted. At the time when the morbid and corrupted -Chandala classes became Christianised in the whole of the <i>imperium,</i> -the very <i>contrary type,</i> nobility, was extant in its finest and -maturest forms. The greatest number became master; the democracy of -Christian instincts triumphed.... Christianity was not "national," it -was not determined by race,—it appealed to all the disinherited forms -of life, it had its allies everywhere. Christianity is built upon the -rancour of the sick; its instinct is directed <i>against</i> the sound, -against health. Everything well-constituted, proud, high-spirited, -and beautiful is offensive to its ears and eyes. Again I remind you -of St Paul's priceless words: "And God hath chosen the <i>weak</i> things -of the world, the <i>foolish</i> things of the world; and <i>base</i> things of -the world, and things which are <i>despised"</i>: this was the formula, <i>in -hoc signo</i> decadence triumphed.—<i>God on the Cross</i>—does no one yet -understand the terrible ulterior motive of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> symbol?—Everything -that suffers, everything that hangs on the cross, is <i>divine....</i> All -of us hang on the cross, consequently we are <i>divine ...</i>. We alone are -divine.... Christianity was a victory; a <i>nobler</i> type of character -perished through it,—Christianity has been humanity's greatest -misfortune hitherto.——</p> - - -<p class="parnum">52</p> - -<p>Christianity also stands opposed to everything happily constituted -in the <i>mind,</i>—it can make use only of morbid reason as Christian -reason; it takes the side of everything idiotic, it utters a curse -upon "intellect," upon the <i>superbia</i> of the healthy intellect. Since -illness belongs to the essence of Christianity, the typically Christian -state, "faith," <i>must</i> also be a form of illness, and all straight, -honest and scientific roads to knowledge must be repudiated by the -Church as forbidden.... Doubt in itself is already a sin.... The total -lack of psychological cleanliness in the priest, which reveals itself -in his look, is a <i>result</i> of decadence. Hysterical women, as also -children with scrofulous constitutions, should be observed as a proof -of how invariably instinctive falsity, the love of lying for the sake -of lying, and the in ability either to look or to walk straight, are -the expression of decadence. "Faith" simply means the refusal to know -what is true. The pious person, the priest of both sexes, is false -because he is ill: his instinct <i>demands</i> that truth should not assert -its right anywhere. "That which makes ill is good: that which proceeds -from abundance, from superabundance and from power, is evil": that -is the view of the faithful. The <i>constraint to lie</i>—that is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> the -sign by which I recognise every predetermined theologian.—Another -characteristic of the theologian is his lack of <i>capacity</i> for -<i>philology.</i> What I mean here by the word philology is, in a general -sense to be understood as the art of reading well, of being able to -take account of facts <i>without</i> falsifying them by interpretation, -without losing either caution, patience or subtlety owing to one's -desire to understand. Philology as <i>ephexis</i><a name="FNanchor_8_24" id="FNanchor_8_24"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_24" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> in interpretation, -whether one be dealing with books, newspaper reports, human destinies -or meteorological records,—not to speak of the "salvation of the -soul." ... The manner in which a theologian, whether in Berlin or in -Rome, interprets a verse from the "Scriptures," or an experience, or -the triumph of his nation's army for instance, under the superior -guiding light of David's Psalms, is always so exceedingly <i>daring,</i> -that it is enough to make a philologist's hair stand on end. And what -is he to do, when pietists and other cows from Swabia explain their -miserable every-day lives in their smoky hovels by means of the "Finger -of God," a miracle of "grace," of "Providence," of experiences of -"salvation"! The most modest effort of the intellect, not to speak of -decent feeling, ought at least to lead these interpreters to convince -themselves of the absolute childishness and unworthiness of any such -abuse of the dexterity of God's fingers. However small an amount of -loving piety we might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> possess, a god who cured us in time of a cold in -the nose, or who arranged for us to enter a carriage just at the moment -when a cloud burst over our heads, would be such an absurd God, that he -would have to be abolished, even if he existed.<a name="FNanchor_9_25" id="FNanchor_9_25"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_25" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> God as a domestic -servant, as a postman, as a general provider,—in short, merely a word -for the most foolish kind of accidents.... "Divine Providence," as it -is believed in to-day by almost every third man in "cultured Germany," -would be an argument against God, in fact it would be the strongest -argument against God that could be Imagined. And in any case it is an -argument against the Germans.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">53</p> - -<p>—The notion that martyrs prove anything at all in favour of a thing, -is so exceedingly doubtful, that I would fain deny that there has ever -yet existed a martyr who had anything to do with truth. In the very -manner in which a martyr flings his little parcel of truth at the -head of the world, such a low degree of intellectual honesty and such -obtuseness in regard to the question "truth" makes itself felt, that -one never requires to refute a martyr. Truth is not a thing which one -might have and another be without:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> only peasants or peasant-apostles, -after the style of Luther, can think like this about truth. You may be -quite sure, that the greater a man's degree of conscientiousness may -be in matters intellectual, the more modest he will show himself on -this point To <i>know</i> about five things, and with a subtle wave of the -hand to refuse to know <i>others.</i> ... "Truth" as it is understood by -every prophet, every sectarian, every free thinker, every socialist and -every church-man, is an absolute proof of the fact that these people -haven't even begun that discipline of the mind and that process of -self-mastery, which is necessary for the discovery of any small, even -exceedingly small truth.—Incidentally, the deaths of martyrs have -been a great misfortune in the history of the world: they led people -astray.... The conclusion which all idiots, women and common people -come to, that there must be something in a cause for which someone lays -down his life (or which, as in the case of primitive Christianity, -provokes an epidemic of sacrifices),—this conclusion put a tremendous -check upon all investigation, upon the spirit of investigation and of -caution. Martyrs have <i>harmed</i> the cause of truth. ... Even to this day -it only requires the crude fact of persecution, in order to create an -honourable name for any obscure sect who does not matter in the least -What? is a cause actually changed in any way by the fact that some -one has laid down his life for it? An error which becomes honourable, -is simply an error that possesses one seductive charm the more: do -you suppose, dear theologians, that we shall give you the chance of -acting the martyrs for your lies?—A thing is refuted by being laid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> -respectfully on ice, and theologians are refuted in the same way. This -was precisely the world-historic foolishness of all persecutors; they -lent the thing they combated a semblance of honour by conferring the -fascination of martyrdom upon it.... Women still lie prostrate before -an error to-day, because they have been told that some one died on the -cross for it <i>Is the cross then an argument?</i>—But concerning all these -things, one person alone has said what mankind has been in need of for -thousands of years,—<i>Zarathustra.</i></p> - -<p>"Letters of blood did they write on the way they went, and their folly -taught that truth is proved by blood.</p> - -<p>"But blood is the very worst testimony of truth; blood poisoneth even -the purest teaching, and turneth it into delusion and into blood feuds.</p> - -<p>"And when a man goeth through fire for his teaching—what does that -prove? Verily, it is more when out of one's own burning springeth one's -own teaching."<a name="FNanchor_10_26" id="FNanchor_10_26"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_26" class="fnanchor">[10]</a></p> - - -<p class="parnum">54</p> - -<p>Do not allow yourselves to be deceived: great minds are sceptical. -Zarathustra is a sceptic. Strength and the <i>freedom</i> which proceeds -from the power and excessive power of the mind, <i>manifests</i> itself -through scepticism. Men of conviction are of no account whatever -in regard to any principles of value or of non-value. Convictions -are prisons. They never see far enough, they do not look down from -a sufficient height: but in order to have any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> say in questions of -value and non-value, a man must see five hundred convictions <i>beneath</i> -him,—<i>behind</i> him.... A spirit who desires great things, and who also -desires the means thereto, is necessarily a sceptic. Freedom from every -kind of conviction <i>belongs</i> to strength, to the <i>ability</i> to open -one's eyes freely.... The great passion of a sceptic, the basis and -power of his being, which is more enlightened and more despotic than he -is himself, enlists all his intellect into its service; it makes him -unscrupulous; it even gives him the courage to employ unholy means; -in certain circumstances it even allows him convictions. Conviction -as a <i>means:</i> much is achieved merely by means of a conviction. Great -passion makes use of and consumes convictions, it does not submit to -them—it knows that it is a sovereign power. Conversely; the need of -faith, of anything either absolutely affirmative or negative, Carlylism -(if I may be allowed this expression), is the need of <i>weakness.</i> -The man of beliefs, the "believer" of every sort and condition, is -necessarily a dependent man;—he is one who cannot regard <i>himself</i> as -an aim, who cannot postulate aims from the promptings of his own heart -The "believer" does not belong to himself, he can be only a means, -he must be <i>used up,</i> he is in need of someone who uses him up. His -instinct accords the highest honour to a morality of self-abnegation: -everything in him, his prudence, his experience, his vanity, persuade -him to adopt this morality. Every sort of belief is in itself an -expression of self-denial, of self-estrangement. ... If one considers -how necessary a regulating code of conduct is to the majority of -people, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> code of conduct which constrains them and fixes them from -outside; and how control, or in a higher sense, <i>slavery,</i> is the only -and ultimate condition under which the weak-willed man, and especially -woman, flourish; one also understands conviction, "faith." The man -of conviction finds in the latter his <i>backbone.</i> To be <i>blind</i> to -many things, to be impartial about nothing, to belong always to a -particular side, to hold a strict and necessary point of view in all -matters of values—these are the only conditions under which such a man -can survive at all. But all this is the reverse of, the <i>antagonist</i> -of, the truthful man,—of truth.... The believer is not at liberty to -have a conscience for the question "true" and "untrue": to be upright -on <i>this</i> point would mean his immediate downfall. The pathological -limitations of his standpoint convert the convinced man into the -fanatic—Savonarola, Luther Rousseau, Robespierre, Saint-Simon,—these -are the reverse type of the strong spirit that has become <i>free.</i> But -the grandiose poses of these <i>morbid</i> spirits, of these epileptics -of ideas, exercise an influence over the masses,—fanatics are -picturesque, mankind prefers to look at poses than to listen to reason.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">55</p> - -<p>One step further in the psychology of conviction of "faith." It -is already some time since I first thought of considering whether -convictions were not perhaps more dangerous enemies of truth than lies -("Human All-too-Human," Part I, Aphs. 54 and 483). Now I would fain put -the decisive question:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> is there any difference at all between a lie -and a conviction?—All the world believes that there is, but what in -Heaven's name does not all the world believe! Every conviction has its -history, its preliminary stages, its period of groping and of mistakes: -it becomes a conviction only after it has <i>not</i> been one for a long -time, only after it has <i>scarcely</i> been one for a long time. What? -might not falsehood be the embryonic form of conviction?—At times -all that is required is a change of personality: very often what was -a lie in the father becomes a conviction in the son.—I call a lie, -to refuse to see something that one sees, to refuse to see it exactly -<i>as</i> one sees it: whether a lie is perpetrated before witnesses or not -is beside the point.—The most common sort of lie is the one uttered -to one's self; to lie to others is relatively exceptional. Now this -refusal to see what one sees, this refusal to see a thing exactly as -one sees it, is almost the first condition for all those who belong -to a <i>party</i> in any sense whatsoever: the man who belongs to a party -perforce becomes a liar. German historians, for instance, are convinced -that Rome stood for despotism, whereas the Teutons introduced the -spirit of freedom into the world: what difference is there between -this conviction and a lie? After this is it to be wondered at, that -all parties, including German historians, instinctively adopt the -grandiloquent phraseology of morality,—that morality almost owes -its <i>survival</i> to the fact that the man who belongs to a party, no -matter what it may be, is in need of morality every moment?—"This -is our conviction: we confess it to the whole<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> world, we live and die -for it,—let us respect every thing that has a conviction!"—I have -actually heard antisemites speak in this way. On the contrary, my dear -sirs! An antisemite does not become the least bit more respectable -because he lies on principle.... Priests, who in such matters are -more subtle, and who perfectly understand the objection to which the -idea of a conviction lies open—that is to say of a falsehood which -is perpetrated on principle <i>because</i> it serves a purpose, borrowed -from the Jews the prudent measure of setting the concept "God," "Will -of God," "Revelation of God," at this place. Kant, too, with his -categorical imperative, was on the same road: this was his <i>practical</i> -reason.—There are some questions in which it is <i>not</i> given to man -to decide between true and false; all the principal questions, all -the principal problems of value, stand beyond human reason.... To -comprehend the limits of reason—this alone is genuine philosophy. For -what purpose did God give man revelation? Would God have done anything -superfluous? Man cannot of his own accord know what is good and what is -evil, that is why God taught man his will.... Moral: the priest does -<i>not</i> lie, such questions as "truth" or "falseness" have nothing to do -with the things concerning which the priest speaks; such things do not -allow of lying. For, in order to lie, it would be necessary to know -<i>what</i> is true in this respect. But that is precisely what man cannot -know: hence the priest is only the mouthpiece of God.—This sort of -sacerdotal syllogism is by no means exclusively Judaic or Christian; -the right<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> to lie and the <i>prudent measure</i> of "revelation" belongs -to the priestly type, whether of decadent periods or of Pagan times -(—Pagans are all those who say yea to life, and to whom "God" is the -word for the great yea to all things). The "law," the "will of God," -the "holy book," and inspiration.—All these things are merely words -for the conditions under which the priest attains to power, and with -which he maintains his power,—these concepts are to be found at the -base of all sacerdotal organisations, of all priestly or philosophical -and ecclesiastical governments. The "holy lie," which is common to -Confucius, to the law-book of Manu, to Muhamed, and to the Christian -church, is not even absent in Plato. "Truth is here"; this phrase -means, wherever it is uttered: <i>the priest lies....</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">56</p> - -<p>After all, the question is, to what <i>end</i> are falsehoods perpetrated? -The fact that, in Christianity, "holy" ends are entirely absent, -constitutes <i>my</i> objection to the means it employs. Its ends are only -<i>bad</i> ends: the poisoning, the calumniation and the denial of life, -the contempt of the body, the degradation and self-pollution of man by -virtue of the concept sin,—consequently its means are bad as well.—My -feelings are quite the reverse when I read the law-book of <i>Manu, an</i> -incomparably superior and more intellectual work, which it would be -a sin against the <i>spirit</i> even to <i>mention</i> in the same breath with -the Bible. You will guess immediately why: it has a genuine philosophy -behind it, <i>in</i> it, not merely an evil-smelling Jewish distillation -of Rabbinism and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> superstition,—it gives something to chew even -to the most fastidious psychologist. And, <i>not</i> to forget the most -important point of all, it is fundamentally different from every kind -of Bible: by means of it the <i>noble classes,</i> the philosophers and the -warriors guard and guide the masses; it is replete with noble values, -it is filled with a feeling of perfection, with a saying of yea to -life, and a triumphant sense of well-being in regard to itself and to -life,—the sun shines upon the whole book.—All those things which -Christianity smothers with its bottomless vulgarity: procreation, -woman, marriage, are here treated with earnestness, with revere nee, -with love and confidence. How can one possibly place in the hands of -children and women, a book that contains those vile words: "to avoid -fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman -have her own husband ... it is better to marry than to burn."<a name="FNanchor_11_27" id="FNanchor_11_27"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_27" class="fnanchor">[11]</a> -And is it decent to be a Christian so long as the very origin of -man is Christianised,—that is to say, befouled, by the idea of the -<i>immaculata conceptio?</i> ... I know of no book in which so many delicate -and kindly things are said to woman, as in the Law-Rook of Manu; these -old grey-beards and saints have a manner of being gallant to women -which, perhaps, cannot be surpassed. "The mouth of a woman," says Manu -on one occasion, "the breast of a maiden, the prayer of a child, and -the smoke of the sacrifice, are always pure." Elsewhere he says: "there -is nothing purer than the light of the sun, the shadow cast by a cow, -air, water, fire and the breath of a maiden." And finally—perhaps this -is also a holy lie:—"all the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> openings of the body above the navel are -pure, all those below the navel are impure. Only in a maiden is the -whole body pure."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">57</p> - -<p>The unholiness of Christian means is caught <i>in flagranti,</i> if only -the end aspired to by Christianity be compared with that of the -Law-Book of Manu; if only these two utterly opposed aims be put under -a strong light The critic of Christianity simply cannot avoid making -Christianity <i>contemptible.</i>—A Law-Book like that of Manu comes into -being like every good law-book: it epitomises the experience, the -precautionary measures, and the experimental morality of long ages, -it settles things definitely, it no longer creates. The prerequisite -for a codification of this kind, is the recognition of the fact that -the means which procure authority for a <i>truth</i> to which it has cost -both time and great pains to attain, are fundamentally different from -those with which that same truth would be proved. A law-book never -relates the utility, the reasons, the preliminary casuistry, of a -law: for it would be precisely in this way that it would forfeit its -imperative tone, the "thou shalt," the first condition of its being -obeyed. The problem lies exactly in this.—At a certain stage in the -development of a people, the most far-seeing class within it (that is -to say, the class that sees farthest backwards and forwards), declares -the experience of how its fellow-creatures ought to live—<i>can</i> -live—to be finally settled. Its object is, to reap as rich and as -complete a harvest as possible, in return for the ages of experiment -and <i>terrible</i> experience it has traversed. Consequently, that which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> -has to be avoided, above all, is any further experimentation, the -continuation of the state when values are still fluid, the testing, -choosing, and criticising of values <i>in infinitum. </i> Against all this a -double wall is built up: in the first place, <i>Revelation,</i> which is the -assumption that the rationale of every law is not human in its origin, -that it was not sought and found after ages of error, but that it is -divine in its origin, completely and utterly without a history, gift, a -miracle, a mere communication.... And secondly, <i>tradition,</i> which is -the assumption that the law has obtained since the most primeval times, -that it is impious and a crime against one's ancestors to attempt to -doubt it. The authority of law is established on the principles: God -<i>gave</i> it, the ancestors <i>lived</i> it.—The superior reason of such a -procedure lies in the intention to draw consciousness off step by step -from that mode of life which has been recognised as correct (<i>i.e., -proved</i> after enormous and carefully examined experience), so that -perfect automatism of the instincts may be attained,—this being the -only possible basis of all mastery of every kind of perfection in -the Art of Life. To draw up a law-book like Manu's, is tantamount -to granting a people mastership for the future, perfection for the -future,—the right to aspire to the highest Art of Life. <i>To that -end it must be made unconscious;</i> this is the object of every holy -lie.—<i>The order of castes,</i> the highest, the dominating law, is only -the sanction of a <i>natural order,</i> of a natural legislation of the -first rank, over which no arbitrary innovation, no "modern idea" has -any power. Every healthy society falls into three distinct types, which -reciprocally<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span> condition one another and which gravitate differently in -the physiological sense; and each of these has its own hygiene, its -own sphere of work, its own special feeling of perfection, and its -own mastership. It is Nature, not Manu, that separates from the rest, -those individuals preponderating in intellectual power, those excelling -in muscular strength and temperament, and the third class which is -distinguished neither in one way nor the other, the mediocre,—the -latter as the greatest number, the former as the <i>élite.</i> The superior -caste—I call them the <i>fewest,</i>—has, as the perfect caste, the -privileges of the fewest: it devolves upon them to represent happiness, -beauty and goodness on earth. Only the most intellectual men have -the right to beauty, to the beautiful: only in them is goodness not -weakness. <i>Pulchrum est paucorum hominum:</i> goodness is a privilege. -On the other hand there is nothing which they should be more strictly -forbidden than repulsive manners or a pessimistic look, a look that -makes everything <i>seem ugly,</i>—or even indignation at the general -aspect of things. Indignation is the privilege of the Chandala, and so -is pessimism. "<i>The world is perfect</i>"—that is what the instinct of -the most intellectual says, the yea-saying instinct; "imperfection, -every kind of <i>inferiority</i> to us, distance, the pathos of distance, -even the Chandala belongs to this perfection." The most intellectual -men, as the <i>strongest</i> find their happiness where others meet -with their ruin: in the labyrinth, in hardness towards themselves -and others, in endeavour; their delight is self-mastery: with them -asceticism becomes a second nature, a need, an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> instinct They regard -a difficult task as their privilege; to play with burdens which crush -their fellows is to them a <i>recreation....</i> Knowledge, a form of -asceticism.—They are the most honourable kind of men: but that does -not prevent them from being the most cheerful and most gracious. They -rule, not because they will, but because they <i>are;</i> they are not at -liberty to take a second place.—The second in rank are the guardians -of the law, the custodians of order and of security, the noble -warriors, the king, above all, as the highest formula of the warrior, -the judge, and keeper of the law. The second in rank are the executive -of the most intellectual, the nearest to them in duty, relieving them -of all that is <i>coarse</i> in the work of ruling,—their retinue, their -right hand, their best disciples. In all this, I repeat, there is -nothing arbitrary, nothing "artificial," that which is <i>otherwise</i> is -artificial,—by that which is otherwise, nature is put to shame.... The -order of castes, and the order of rank merely formulates the supreme -law of life itself; the differentiation of the three types is necessary -for the maintenance of society, and for enabling higher and highest -types to be reared,—the <i>inequality</i> of rights is the only condition -of there being rights at all.—A right is a privilege. And in his -way, each has his privilege. Let us not underestimate the privileges -of the <i>mediocre.</i> Life always gets harder towards the summit,—the -cold increases, responsibility increases. A high civilisation is a -pyramid: it can stand only upon a broad base, its first prerequisite is -a strongly and soundly consolidated mediocrity. Handicraft, commerce, -agriculture, science, the greater part of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> art,—in a word, the whole -range of professional and business callings, is compatible only with -mediocre ability and ambition; such pursuits would be out of place -among exceptions, the instinct pertaining thereto would oppose not -only aristocracy but anarchy as well. The fact that one is publicly -useful, a wheel, a function, presupposes a certain natural destiny: it -is not <i>society,</i> but the only kind of <i>happiness</i> of which the great -majority are capable, that makes them intelligent machines. For the -mediocre it is a joy to be mediocre; in them mastery in one thing, a -speciality, is a natural instinct. It would be absolutely unworthy of -a profound thinker to see any objection in mediocrity <i>per se.</i> For -in itself it is the first essential condition under which exceptions -are possible; a high culture is determined by it. When the exceptional -man treats the mediocre with more tender care than he does himself or -his equals, this is not mere courtesy of heart on his part—but simply -his <i>duty.</i> ... Whom do I hate most among the rabble of the present -day? The socialistic rabble, the Chandala apostles, who undermine the -working man's instinct, his happiness and his feeling of contentedness -with his insignificant existence,—who make him envious, and who teach -him revenge. ... The wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies in the -claim to equal rights. What is <i>bad?</i> But I have already replied to -this: Everything that proceeds from weakness, envy and <i>revenge.</i>—The -anarchist and the Christian are offspring of the same womb....</p> - - -<p class="parnum">58</p> - -<p>In point of fact, it matters greatly to what end<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> one lies: whether one -preserves or <i>destroys</i> by means of falsehood. It is quite justifiable -to bracket the <i>Christian</i> and the <i>Anarchist</i> together: their object, -their instinct, is concerned only with destruction. The proof of this -proposition can be read quite plainly from history: history spells it -with appalling distinctness. Whereas we have just seen a religious -legislation, whose object was to render the highest possible means of -making life <i>flourish,</i> and of making a grand organisation of society, -eternal,—Christianity found its mission in putting an end to such an -organisation, <i>precisely because life flourishes through it.</i> In the -one case, the net profit to the credit of reason, acquired through -long ages of experiment and of insecurity, is applied usefully to the -most remote ends, and the harvest, which is as large, as rich and -as complete as possible, is reaped and garnered: in the other case, -on the contrary, the harvest is <i>blighted</i> in a single night That -which stood there, <i>ære perennius,</i> the <i>imperium Romanum,</i> the most -magnificent form of organisation, under difficult conditions, that has -ever been achieved, and compared with which everything that preceded, -and everything which followed it, is mere patchwork, gimcrackery, -and dilettantism,—those holy anarchists made it their "piety," to -destroy "the world"—that is to say, the <i>imperium Romanum,</i> until -no two stones were left standing one on the other,—until even the -Teutons and other clodhoppers were able to become master of it The -Christian and the anarchist are both decadents; they are both incapable -of acting in any other way than disintegratingly, poisonously and -witheringly,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> like <i>blood-suckers;</i> they are both actuated by an -instinct of <i>mortal hatred</i> of everything that stands erect, that is -great, that is lasting, and that is a guarantee of the future.... -Christianity was the vampire of the <i>imperium Romanum,</i>—in a night -it shattered the stupendous achievement of the Romans, which was to -acquire the territory for a vast civilisation which could <i>bide its -time.</i>—Does no one understand this yet? The <i>imperium Romanum</i> that -we know, and which the history of the Roman province teaches us to -know ever more thoroughly, this most admirable work of art on a grand -scale, was the beginning, its construction was calculated <i>to prove</i> -its worth by millenniums,—unto this day nothing has ever again been -built in this fashion, nor have men even dreamt since of building on -this scale <i>sub specie aterni!</i>—This organisation was sufficiently -firm to withstand bad emperors: the accident of personalities must -have nothing to do with such matters—the <i>first</i> principle of all -great architecture. But it was not sufficiently firm to resist the -<i>corruptest</i> form of corruption, to resist the Christians.... These -stealthy canker-worms, which under the shadow of night, mist and -duplicity, insinuated themselves into the company of every individual, -and proceeded to drain him of all seriousness for <i>real</i> things, -of all his instinct for <i>realities;</i> this cowardly, effeminate and -sugary gang have step by step alienated all "souls" from this colossal -edifice,—those valuable, virile and noble natures who felt that -the cause of Rome was their own personal cause, their own personal -seriousness, their own personal <i>pride.</i> The stealth of the bigot, -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> secrecy of the conventicle, concepts as black as hell such as -the sacrifice of the innocent, the <i>unto mystica</i> in the drinking -of blood, above all the slowly kindled fire of revenge, of Chandala -revenge—such things became master of Rome, the same kind of religion -on the pre-existent form of which Epicurus had waged war. One has -only to read Lucretius in order to understand what Epicurus combated, -<i>not</i> Paganism, but "Christianity," that is to say the corruption of -souls through the concept of guilt, through the concept of punishment -and immortality. He combated the <i>subterranean</i> cults, the whole of -latent Christianity—to deny immortality was at that time a genuine -<i>deliverance.</i>—And Epicurus had triumphed, every respectable thinker -in the Roman Empire was an Epicurean: <i>then St Paul appeared</i> ... St -Paul, the Chandala hatred against Rome, against "the world," the Jew, -the eternal Jew <i>par excellence,</i> become flesh and genius. ... What -he divined was, how, by the help of the small sectarian Christian -movement, independent of Judaism, a universal conflagration could be -kindled; how, with the symbol of the "God on the Cross," everything -submerged, everything secretly insurrectionary, the whole offspring -of anarchical intrigues could be gathered together to constitute an -enormous power. "For salvation is of the Jews."—Christianity is -the formula for the supersession, <i>and</i> epitomising of all kinds of -subterranean cults, that of Osiris, of the Great Mother, of Mithras for -example: St Paul's genius consisted in his discovery of this. In this -matter his instinct was so certain, that, regardless of doing violence -to truth, he laid the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> ideas by means of which those Chandala religions -fascinated, upon the very lips of the "Saviour" he had invented, and -not only upon his lips,—that he <i>made</i> out of him something which even -a Mithras priest could understand.... This was his moment of Damascus: -he saw that he had <i>need of</i> the belief in immortality in order to -depreciate "the world," that the notion of "hell" would become master -of Rome, that with a "Beyond" <i>this life</i> can be killed. ... Nihilist -and Christian,—they rhyme in German, and they do not only rhyme.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">59</p> - -<p>The whole labour of the ancient world <i>in vain:</i> I am at a loss for a -word which could express my feelings at something so atrocious.—And -in view of the fact that its labour was only preparatory, that with -adamantine self-consciousness it laid the substructure, alone, to -a work which was to last millenniums, the whole <i>significance</i> of -the ancient world was certainly in vain!... What was the use of the -Greeks? what was the use of the Romans?—All the prerequisites of a -learned culture, all the scientific methods already existed, the great -and peerless art of reading well had already been established—that -indispensable condition to tradition, to culture and to scientific -unity; natural science hand in hand with mathematics and mechanics -was on the best possible road,—the sense for facts, the last and -most valuable of all senses, had its schools, and its tradition was -already centuries old! Is this understood? Everything <i>essential</i> had -been discovered to make it possible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> for work to be begun:—methods, -and this cannot be said too often, are the essential thing, also the -most difficult thing, while they moreover have to wage the longest war -against custom and indolence. That which to-day we have successfully -reconquered for ourselves, by dint of unspeakable self-discipline—for -in some way or other all of us still have the bad instincts, the -Christian instincts, in our body,—the impartial eye for reality, -the cautious hand, patience and seriousness in the smallest details, -complete <i>uprightness</i> in knowledge,—all this was already there; it -had been there over two thousand years before! And in addition to this -there was also that excellent and subtle tact and taste! <i>Not</i> in the -form of brain drilling! <i>Not</i> in the form of "German" culture with the -manners of a boor! But incarnate, manifesting itself in men's bearing -and in their instinct,—in short constituting reality.... <i>All this -in vain!</i> In one night it became merely a memory!—The Greeks! The -Romans! Instinctive nobility, instinctive taste, methodic research, -the genius of organisation and administration, faith, the <i>will</i> to -the future of mankind, the great <i>yea</i> to all things materialised -in the <i>imperium Romanum,</i> become visible to all the senses, grand -style no longer manifested in mere art, but in reality, in truth, -in <i>life.</i>—And buried in a night, not by a natural catastrophe! -Not stamped to death by Teutons and other heavy-footed vandals! -But destroyed by crafty, stealthy, invisible anæmic vampires! Not -conquered,—but only drained of blood!... The concealed lust of -revenge, miserable envy<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> become <i>master!</i> Everything wretched, inwardly -ailing, and full of ignoble feelings, the whole Ghetto-world of souls, -was in a trice <i>uppermost!</i>—One only needs to read any one of the -Christian agitators—St Augustine, for instance,—in order to realise, -in order to <i>smell,</i> what filthy fellows came to the top in this -movement. You would deceive yourselves utterly if you supposed that the -leaders of the Christian agitation showed any lack of understanding -—Ah! they were shrewd, shrewd to the point of holiness were these -dear old Fathers of the Church I What they lack is something quite -different. Nature neglected them,—it forgot to give them a modest -dowry of decent, of respectable and of <i>cleanly</i> instincts.... Between -ourselves, they are not even men. If Islam despises Christianity, it is -justified a thousand times over; for Islam presupposes men.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">60</p> - -<p>Christianity destroyed the harvest we might have reaped from the -culture of antiquity, later it also destroyed our harvest of the -culture of Islam. The wonderful Moorish world of Spanish culture, which -in its essence is more closely related to <i>us,</i> and which appeals -more to our sense and taste than Rome and Greece, was <i>trampled to -death</i>(—I do not say by what kind of feet), why?—because it owed -its origin to noble, to manly instincts, because it said yea to life, -even that life so full of the rare and refined luxuries of the Moors! -... Later on the Crusaders waged war upon something before which it -would have been more seemly in them to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> grovel in the dust,—a culture, -beside which even our Nineteenth Century would seem very poor and -very "senile."—Of course they wanted booty: the Orient was rich.... -For goodness' sake let us forget our prejudices! Crusades—superior -piracy, that is all! German nobility—that is to say, a Viking nobility -at bottom, was in its element in such wars: the Church was only too -well aware of how German nobility is to be won.... German nobility -was always the "Swiss Guard" of the Church, always at the service of -all the bad instincts of the Church; but it was <i>well paid for it -all....</i> Fancy the Church having waged its deadly war upon everything -noble on earth, precisely with the help of German swords, German blood -and courage! A host of painful <i>questions</i> might be raised on this -point German nobility scarcely takes a place in the history of higher -culture: the reason of this is obvious; Christianity, alcohol—the two -<i>great</i> means of corruption. As a matter of fact choice ought to be -just as much out of the question between Islam and Christianity, as -between an Arab and a Jew. The decision is already self-evident; nobody -is at liberty to exercise a choice in this matter. A man is either of -the Chandala or he is <i>not ...</i> "War with Rome to the knife! Peace -and friendship with Islam": this is what that great free spirit, that -genius among German emperors,—Frederick the Second, not only felt -but also <i>did.</i> What? Must a German in the first place be a genius, a -free-spirit, in order to have <i>decent</i> feelings? I cannot understand -how a German was ever able to have <i>Christian</i> feelings.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">61</p> - -<p>Here it is necessary to revive a memory which will be a hundred times -more painful to Germans. The Germans have destroyed the last great -harvest of culture which was to be garnered for Europe,—it destroyed -the <i>Renaissance.</i> Does anybody at last understand, <i>will</i> anybody -understand what the Renaissance was? <i>The transvaluation of Christian -values,</i> the attempt undertaken with all means, all instincts and all -genius to make the <i>opposite</i> values, the <i>noble</i> values triumph,... -Hitherto there has been only <i>this</i> great war: there has never yet -been a more decisive question than the Renaissance,—<i>my</i> question -is the question of the Renaissance:—there has never been a more -fundamental, a more direct and a more severe <i>attack,</i> delivered with -a whole front upon the centre of the foe. To attack at the decisive -quarter, at the very seat of Christianity, and there to place <i>noble</i> -values on the throne,—that is to say, to <i>introduce</i> them into the -instincts, into the most fundamental needs and desires of those -sitting there.... I see before me a possibility perfectly magic in -its charm and glorious colouring—it seems to me to scintillate -with all the quivering grandeur of refined beauty, that there is -an art at work within it which is so divine, so infernally divine, -that one might seek through millenniums in vain for another such -possibility; I see a spectacle so rich in meaning and so wonderfully -paradoxical to boot, that it would be enough to make all the gods of -Olympus rock with immortal laughter,—<i>Cæsar Borgia as Pope.</i> ... -Do you understand me?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> ... Very well then, this would have been the -triumph which I alone am longing for to-day:—this would have <i>swept</i> -Christianity <i>away!</i>—What happened? A German monk, Luther, came to -Rome. This monk, with all the vindictive instincts of an abortive -priest in his body, foamed with rage over the Renaissance in Rome.... -Instead of, with the profoundest gratitude, understanding the vast -miracle that had taken place, the overcoming of Christianity at its -<i>headquarters,</i>—the fire of his hate knew only how to draw fresh fuel -from this spectacle. A religious man thinks only of himself.—Luther -saw the corruption of the Papacy when the very reverse stared him in -the face: the old corruption, the <i>peceatum originate,</i> Christianity -<i>no</i> longer sat upon the Papal chair! But Life! The triumph of -Life! The great yea to all lofty, beautiful and daring things!... -And Luther reinstated the Church; he attacked it The Renaissance -thus became an event without meaning, a great <i>in vain!</i>—Ah these -Germans, what have they not cost us already! In vain—this has always -been the achievement of the Germans.—The Reformation, Leibniz, -Kant and so-called German philosophy, the Wars of Liberation, the -Empire—in each case are in vain for something which had already -existed, for something which <i>cannot be recovered.</i> ... I confess it, -these Germans are my enemies: I despise every sort of uncleanliness -in concepts and valuations in them, every kind of cowardice in the -face of every honest yea or nay. For almost one thousand years, now, -they have tangled and confused everything they have laid their hands -on; they have on their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> conscience all the half-measures, all the -three-eighth measures of which Europe is sick; they also have the -most unclean, the most incurable, and the most irrefutable kind of -Christianity—Protestantism—on their conscience.... If we shall never -be able to get rid of Christianity, the <i>Germans</i> will be to blame.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">62</p> - -<p>—With this I will now conclude and pronounce my judgment. I <i>condemn</i> -Christianity and confront it with the most terrible accusation that -an accuser has ever had in his mouth. To my mind it is the greatest -of all conceivable corruptions, it has had the will to the last -imaginable corruption. The Christian Church allowed nothing to escape -from its corruption; it converted every value into its opposite, every -truth into a He, and every honest impulse into an ignominy of the -soul. Let anyone dare to speak to me of its humanitarian blessings! -To <i>abolish</i> any sort of distress was opposed to its profoundest -interests; its very existence depended on states of distress; it -created states of distress in order to make itself immortal.... The -cancer germ of sin, for instance: the Church was the first to enrich -mankind with this misery!—The "equality of souls before God," this -falsehood, this <i>pretext</i> for the <i>rancunes</i> of all the base-minded, -this anarchist bomb of a concept, which has ultimately become the -revolution, the modern idea, the principle of decay of the whole of -social order,—this is <i>Christian</i> dynamite ... The "humanitarian" -blessings of Christianity! To breed a self-contradiction, an art of -self-profanation, a will to lie at any price, an aversion,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> a contempt -of all good and honest instincts out of <i>humanitas!</i> Is this what you -call the blessings of Christianity?—Parasitism as the only method of -the Church; sucking all the blood, all the love, all the hope of life -out of mankind with anæmic and sacred ideals. A "Beyond" as the will to -deny all reality; the cross as the trade-mark of the most subterranean -form of conspiracy that has ever existed,—against health, beauty, -well-constitutedness, bravery, intellect, kindliness of soul, <i>against -Life itself....</i></p> - -<p>This eternal accusation against Christianity I would fain write on all -walls, wherever there are walls,—I have letters with which I can make -even the blind see.... I call Christianity the one great curse, the one -enormous and innermost perversion, the one great instinct of revenge, -for which no means are too venomous, too underhand, too underground and -too <i>petty,</i>—I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind....</p> - -<p>And <i>time</i> is reckoned from the <i>dies nefastus</i> upon which this -fatality came into being—from the first day of Christianity!—<i>why -not rather from its last day?—From to-day?</i>—Transvaluation of all -Values!...</p> -<hr class="r5" /> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_1_17" id="Footnote_1_17"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_17"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The German "<i>Tüchtigkeit</i>" has a nobler ring than our word -"efficiency."—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_2_18" id="Footnote_2_18"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_18"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> <i>Cf.</i> Disraeli: "But enlightened Europe is not happy. -Its existence is a fever which it calls progress. Progress to what?" -("Tancred," Book III., Chap, vii.).—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_3_19" id="Footnote_3_19"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_19"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> It will be seen from this that in spite of Nietzsche's -ruthless criticism of the priests, he draws a sharp distinction between -Christianity and the Church. As the latter still contained elements -of order, it was more to his taste than the denial of authority -characteristic of real Christianity.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_4_20" id="Footnote_4_20"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_20"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> "<i>reine Thorheit</i>" in the German text, referring once -again to Parsifal.—Tr.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_5_21" id="Footnote_5_21"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_21"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> This applies apparently to Bismarck, the forger of the Ems -telegram and a sincere Christian.—Tr.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_6_22" id="Footnote_6_22"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_22"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> An adaptation of Shakespeare's "Well roared, lion" (<i>Mid. -N. D.,</i> Act 5, Sc. i.), the lion, as is well known, being the symbol -for St Mark in Christian literature and Art—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_7_23" id="Footnote_7_23"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_23"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> A parody on a line in Schiller's <i>"Jungfrau von Orleans"</i> -(Act 3, Sc. vi.): "<i>Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.</i>" -(With stupidity even the gods themselves struggle in vain).—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_8_24" id="Footnote_8_24"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_24"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> ἒφεξις = Lat. Retentio, Inhibitio (Stephanus, Thesaurus -Græcæ Linguæ); therefore: reserve, caution. The Greek Sceptics were -also called Ephectics owing to their caution in judging and in -concluding from facts.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_9_25" id="Footnote_9_25"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_25"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> The following passage from Multatuti will throw light on -this passage:— -</p> -<p> -"Father:—'Behold, my son, how wisely Providence has arranged -everything! This bird lays its eggs in its nest and the young will be -hatched just about the time when there will be worms and flies with -which to feed them. Then they will sing a song of praise in honour of -the Creator who overwhelms his creatures with blessings.'— -</p> -<p> -"Son:—'Will the worms join in the song, Dad?'".—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_10_26" id="Footnote_10_26"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_26"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> "Thus Spake Zarathustra." The Priests.—TR.</p></div> - -<div class="footnote"> - -<p><a name="Footnote_11_27" id="Footnote_11_27"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_27"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> I Corinthians vii. 2, 9.—TR.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h3><a name="THE_ETERNAL_RECURRENCE" id="THE_ETERNAL_RECURRENCE">THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE</a></h3> - -<h5>AND</h5> - -<h3>EXPLANATORY NOTES TO "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA."</h3> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p> - - -<h4>TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE</h4> - - -<p>The notes concerning the Eternal Recurrence, in this volume, are said -by Mrs Foerster-Nietzsche to have been the first that Nietzsche ever -wrote on the subject of his great doctrine. This being so, they must -have been composed towards the autumn of the year 1881.</p> - -<p>I have already pointed out elsewhere (<i>Will to Power,</i> vol. ii., -Translator's Preface) how much importance Nietzsche himself ascribed -to this doctrine, and how, until the end, he regarded it as the -inspiration which had led to his chief work, <i>Thus Spake Zarathustra.</i> -For the details relating to its inception, however, I would refer the -reader to Mrs Foerster-Nietzsche's Introduction to her brother's chief -work, which was translated for the eleventh volume of this Edition of -the Complete Works.</p> - -<p>In reading these notes it would be well to refer to Nietzsche's other -utterances on the subject which are to be found at the end of vol. -ii. of the <i>Will to Power,</i> and also, if possible, to have recourse -to the original German text. Despite the greatest care, I confess -that in some instances, I have felt a little doubt as to the precise -English equivalent for the thoughts expressed under the heading -<i>Eternal Recurrence;</i> and, though I have attributed this difficulty to -the extreme novelty of the manner in which the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> subject is presented, -it is well that the reader should be aware that such doubt has been -entertained. For I disbelieve utterly in mere verbal translation, -however accurate, and would question anybody's right to convert a -German sentence into English—even though he were so perfect in -both languages as to be almost absolutely bilingual,—if he did not -completely grasp the thought behind the sentence.</p> - -<p>The writing of the collected Explanatory Notes to <i>Thus Spake -Zarathustra</i>, cannot be given any exact date. Some of them consist of -comments, written down by Nietzsche after the completion of the book, -and kept as the nucleus of an actual commentary to Zarathustra, which -it seems to have been his intention, one day, to write; while others -are merely memoranda and rough sketches, probably written before the -completion of the work, and which served the purpose of a draft of his -original plan. The reader who knows <i>Thus Spake Zarathustra</i> will be -able to tell wherein the book ultimately differed from the plan visible -in these preliminary notes.</p> - -<p>As an authoritative, though alas! all too fragmentary elucidation of a -few of the more obscure passages of Zarathustra, some of these notes -are of the greatest value; and, in paragraph 73, for instance, there -is an interpretation of the Fourth and Last Part, which I myself would -have welcomed with great enthusiasm, at the time when I was having my -first struggles with the spirit of this great German sage's life work.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 65%; font-size: 0.8em;">ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="I_ETERNAL_RECURRENCE" id="I_ETERNAL_RECURRENCE">I. ETERNAL RECURRENCE</a></h4> - - -<h5>1. THE DOCTRINE EXPOUNDED AND SUBSTANTIATED.</h5> - - -<p class="parnum">1.</p> - -<p>The extent of universal energy is limited; it is not "infinite": we -should beware of such excesses in our concepts! Consequently the number -of states, changes, combinations, and evolutions of this energy, -although it may be enormous and practically incalculable, is at any -rate definite and not unlimited. The time, however, in which this -universal energy works its changes is infinite—that is to say, energy -remains eternally the same and is eternally active:—at this moment an -infinity has already elapsed, that is to say, every possible evolution -must already have taken place. Consequently the present process of -evolution must be a repetition, as was also the one before it, as will -also be the one which will follow. And so on forwards and backwards! -Inasmuch as the entire state of all forces continually returns, -everything has existed an infinite number of times. Whether, apart from -this, anything exactly like something that formerly existed has ever -appeared, is completely beyond proof. It would seem that each complete -state of energy forms all qualities afresh even to the smallest -degree, so that two different complete states could have nothing in -common.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> Is it to be supposed that in one and the same complete states -two precisely similar things could appear—for instance two leaves? -I doubt it: it would take for granted that they had both had an -absolutely similar origin, and in that case we should have to assume -that right back in infinity two similar things had also existed despite -all the changes in the complete states and their creation of new -qualities—an impossible assumption.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>Formerly it was thought that unlimited energy was a necessary corollary -to unlimited activity in time, and that this energy could be exhausted -by no form of consumption. Now it is thought that energy remains -constant and docs not require to be infinite. It is eternally active -but it is no longer able eternally to create new forms, it must repeat -itself: that is my conclusion.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>An incalculable number of complete states of energy have existed, -but these have not been infinitely different: for if they had been, -unlimited energy would have been necessary. The energy of the universe -can only have a given number of possible qualities.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>The endless evolution of new forms is a contradiction, for it would -imply eternally increasing energy. But whence would it grow? Whence -would it derive its nourishment and its surplus of nourishment?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> The -assumption that the universe is an organism contradicts the very -essence of the organic.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>In what principle and belief is that decisive turning point in -philosophical thought best expressed which has come into being thanks -to the preponderance of the scientific spirit over the religious and -God-creating one? We insist upon the fact that the world as a sum of -energy must not be regarded as unlimited—we forbid ourselves the -concept infinite energy, because it seems incompatible with the concept -energy.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p>An unlimited number of new changes and states on the part of limited -energy is a contradiction, however extensive one may imagine it to be, -and however economical the changes may be, provided it is infinite. -We are therefore forced to conclude: (1) either that the universe -began its activity at a given moment of time and will end in a similar -fashion,—but the beginning of activity is absurd; if a state of -equilibrium had been reached it would have persisted to all eternity; -(2) Or there is no such thing as an endless number of changes, but -a circle consisting of a definite number of them which continually -recurs: activity is eternal, the number of the products and states of -energy is limited.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p>If all the possible combinations and relations of forces had not -already been exhausted, then an infinity would not yet lie behind -us. Now since<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> infinite time must be assumed, no fresh possibility -can exist and everything must have appeared already, and moreover an -infinite number of times.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p>The present world of forces leads back to a state of greatest -simplicity in these forces: it likewise leads forwards to such a -state,—cannot and must not <i>both</i> states be identical? No incalculable -number of states can evolve out of a system of limited forces, that -is to say, out of a given quantity of energy which may be precisely -measured. Only when we falsely assume that space is unlimited, and that -therefore energy gradually becomes dissipated, can the final state be -an unproductive and lifeless one.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">9</p> - -<p>First principles.—The last physical state of energy which we can -imagine must necessarily be the first also. The absorption of energy -in latent energy must be the cause of the production of the most vital -energy. For a highly positive state must follow a negative state Space -like matter is a subjective form, time is not. The notion of space -first arose from the assumption that space could be empty. But there is -no such thing as empty space. Everything is energy.</p> - -<p>We cannot think of that which moves and that which is moved together, -but both these things constitute matter and space. We isolate.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">10</p> - -<p>Concerning the resurrection of the world.—Out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span> of two negatives, when -they are forces, a positive arises. (Darkness comes of light opposed to -light, cold arises from warmth opposed to warmth, &c., &c.)</p> - - -<p class="parnum">11</p> - -<p>An uncertain state of equilibrium occurs just as seldom in nature as -two absolutely equal triangles. Consequently anything like a static -state of energy in general is impossible. If stability were possible it -would already have been reached.</p> - - - -<p class="parnum">12</p> - - -<p>Either complete equilibrium must in itself be an impossibility, or -the changes of energy introduce themselves in the circular process -before that equilibrium which is in itself possible has appeared.—But -it would be madness to ascribe a feeling of self-preservation to -existence! And the same applies to the conception of a contest of pain -and pleasure among atoms.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">13</p> - -<p>Physics supposes that energy may be divided up: but every one of its -possibilities must first be adjusted to reality. There can therefore -be no question of dividing energy into equal parts; in every one of -its states it manifests a certain quality, and qualities cannot be -subdivided: hence a state of equilibrium in energy is impossible.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">14</p> - -<p>If energy had ever reached a stage of equilibrium that stage would -have persisted: it has therefore<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> never reached such a stage. The -present condition of things contradicts this assumption. If we assume -that there has ever been a state absolutely like the present one this -assumption is in no wise refuted by the present state. For, among -all the endless possibilities, this case must already have occurred, -as an infinity is already behind us. If equilibrium were possible it -would already have been reached.—And if this momentary state has -already existed then that which bore it and the previous one also would -likewise have existed and so on backwards,—and from this it follows -that it has already existed not only twice but three times,—just as it -will exist again not only twice but three times,—in fact an infinite -number of times backwards and forwards. That is to say, the whole -process of Becoming consists of a repetition of a definite number of -precisely similar states.—Clearly the human brain cannot be left to -imagine the whole series of possibilities: but in any case, quite apart -from our ability to judge or our inability to conceive the whole range -of possibilities, the present state at least is a possible one—because -it is a real one. We should therefore say: in the event of the number -of possibilities not being infinite, and assuming that in the course of -unlimited time a limited number of these must appear, all real states -must have been preceded by similar states? Because from every given -moment a whole infinity is to be calculated backwards? The stability of -forces and their equilibrium is a possible alternative: but it has not -been reached; consequently the number of possibilities is greater than -the number of real states. The fact that nothing similar recurs could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> -not be explained by appealing to accident, but only by supposing that a -certain intention, that no similar things should recur, were actually -inherent in the essence of energy: for, if we grant that the number of -cases is enormous, the occurrence of like cases is more probable than -absolute disparity.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">15</p> - -<p>Let us think backwards a moment If the world had a goal, this goal -must have been reached: if a certain (unintentional) final state -existed for the world, this state also would have been reached. If -it were in any way capable of a stationary or stable condition, and -if in the whole course of its existence only one second of Being, in -the strict sense of the word, had been possible, then there could -no longer be such a process as evolution, and therefore no thinking -and no observing of such a process. If on the other hand the world -were something which continually renovated itself, it would then be -understood to be something miraculous and free to create itself—in -fact something divine. Eternal renovation presupposes that energy -voluntarily increases itself, that it not only has the intention, but -also the power, to avoid repeating itself or to avoid returning into a -previous form, and that every instant it adjusts itself in every one of -its movements to prevent such a contingency,—or that it was incapable -of returning to a state it had already passed through. That would -mean that the whole sum of energy was not constant, any more than its -attributes were But a sum of energy which would be inconstant and which -would fluctuate is quite unthinkable Let us not indulge<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> our fancy -any longer with unthinkable things in order to fall once more before -the concept of a Creator (multiplication out of nothing, reduction -out of nothing, absolute arbitrariness and freedom in growth and in -qualities):—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">16</p> - -<p>He who does not believe in the circular process of the universe must -pin his faith to an arbitrary God—thus my doctrine becomes necessary -as opposed to all that has been said hitherto in matters of Theism.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">17</p> - -<p>The hypothesis which I would oppose to that of the eternal circular -process:—Would it be just as possible to explain the laws of the -mechanical world as exceptions and seemingly as accidents among the -things of the universe, as one possibility only among an incalculable -number of possibilities? Would it be possible to regard ourselves -as accidentally thrust into this corner of the mechanical universal -arrangement?—That all chemical philosophy is likewise an exception -and an accident in the world's economy, and finally that organic life -is a mere exception and accident in the chemical world? Should we have -to assume as the most general form of existence a world which was -not yet mechanical, which was outside all mechanical laws (although -accessible to them)?—and that as a matter of fact this world would -be the most general now and for evermore, so that the origin of the -mechanical world would be a lawless game which would ultimately acquire -such consistency as the organic laws seem to have now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> from our point -of view? So that all our mechanical laws would be not eternal, but -evolved, and would have survived innumerable different mechanical -laws, or that they had attained supremacy in isolated corners of the -world and not in others?—It would seem that we need caprice, actual -lawlessness, and only a capacity for law, a primeval state of stupidity -which is not even able to concern itself with mechanics? The origin of -qualities presupposes the existence of quantities, and these, for their -part, might arise from a thousand kinds of mechanical processes.</p> - -<p>Is not the existence of some sort of irregularity and incomplete -circular form in the world about us, a sufficient refutation of -the regular circularity of everything that exists? Whence comes -this variety within the circular process? Is not everything far too -complicated to have been the outcome of unity? And are not the many -chemical laws and likewise the organic species and forms inexplicable -as the result of homogeneity? or of duality?—Supposing there were -such a thing as a regular contracting energy in all the centres of -force in the universe, the question would be, whence could the most -insignificant difference spring? For then the whole world would have -to be resolved into innumerable completely equal rings and spheres of -existence and we should have an incalculable number of exactly equal -worlds side by side. Is it necessary for me to assume this? Must I -suppose that an eternal sequence of like worlds also involves eternal -juxta-position of like worlds? But the multifariousness and disorder -in the world which we have known<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> hitherto contradicts this; no such -universal similarity has existed in evolution, for in that case even -for our part of the cosmos a regular spherical form must have been -formed. Should the production of qualities not be subject to any strict -laws? Can it be possible that different things have been derived from -"energy"? Arbitrarily? Is the conformity to law which we observe -perhaps only a deception? Is it possible that it is not a primeval law? -Is it possible that the multifariousness of qualities even in our part -of the world is the result of the absolute occurrence of arbitrary -characteristics? But that these characteristics no longer appear in our -corner of the globe? Or that our corner of existence has adopted a rule -which we call cause and effect when all the while it is no such thing -(an arbitrary phenomenon become a rule, as for instance oxygen and -hydrogen in chemistry)??? Is this rule simply a protracted kind of mood?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">18</p> - -<p>If the universe had been able to become an organism it would have -become one already. <i>As</i> a whole we must try and regard it in the -light of a thing <i>as</i> remote <i>as possible</i> from the organic. I believe -that even our chemical affinity and coherence may be perhaps recently -evolved and that these appearances only occur in certain corners of -the universe at certain epochs. Let us believe in absolute necessity -in the universe but let us guard against postulating any sort of law, -even if it be a primitive and mechanical one of our own experience, -as ruling over the whole and constituting one of its eternal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> -characteristics.—All chemical qualities might have been evolved and -might disappear and return. Innumerable characteristics might have been -developed which for us,—from our limited point of view in time and -space, defy observation. The transformation of a chemical quality may -perhaps now be taking place, but so slowly that it escapes our most -delicate calculations.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">19</p> - -<p>Inorganic matter, even though in most cases it may once have -been organic, can have stored up no experience,—it is always -without a pastl If the reverse were the case a repetition would be -impossible—for then matter would for ever be producing new qualities -with new pasts.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">20</p> - -<p>We must guard against ascribing any aspiration or any goal to this -circular process: Likewise we must not, from the point of view of our -own needs, regard it as either monotonous or foolish, &c. We may grant -that the greatest possible irrationality, as also its reverse, may be -an essential feature of it: but we must not value it according to this -hypothesis. Rationality or irrationality cannot stand as attributes of -the universe.—We must not think of the law of this circular process as -a thing evolved, by drawing false analogies with the circular motions -occurring <i>within</i> the circle. There was no primitive chaos followed -gradually by a more harmonious and finally definite circular motion of -all forces: On the contrary everything is eternal and unevolved. If -there ever was a chaos of forces, then that chaos<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> itself was eternal -and was repeated at its particular moment of time in the turn of the -world wheel. The circular process is not the outcome of evolution, it -is a primitive principle like the quantum of energy, and allows of no -exception or violation. All Becoming takes place within the circular -process and the quantum of energy which constitutes it: therefore we -must not apply ephemeral processes like those for instance of heavenly -bodies, of the ebb and flow of tides, of day and night, of the seasons, -to the drawing of analogies for characterising the eternal circular -process.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">21</p> - -<p>The "chaos of the universe," inasmuch as it excludes any aspiration to -a goal, does not oppose the thought of the circular process: the latter -is simply an irrational necessity, absolutely free from any formal -ethical or æsthetical significance. Arbitrariness in small things as in -great is completely lacking here.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">22</p> - -<p>Let us guard against believing that the universe has a tendency to -attain to certain forms, or that it aims at becoming more beautiful, -more perfect, more complicated! All that is anthropomorphism! Anarchy, -ugliness, form—are unrelated concepts. There is no such thing as -imperfection in the realm of mechanics.</p> - -<p>Everything has returned: Sirius, and the spider, and thy thoughts at -this moment, and this last thought of thine that all these things will -return.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">23</p> - -<p>Our whole world consists of the ashes of an incalculable number of -living creatures: and even if living matter is ever so little compared -with the whole, everything has already been transformed into life once -before and thus the process goes on. If we grant eternal time we must -assume the eternal change of matter.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">24</p> - -<p>Whoever thou mayest be, beloved stranger, whom I meet here for the -first time, avail thyself of this happy hour and of the stillness -around us, and above us, and let me tell thee something of the thought -which has suddenly risen before me like a star which would fain shed -down its rays upon thee and every one, as befits the nature of light—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">25</p> - -<p>The world of energy suffers no diminution: otherwise with eternal -time it would have grown weak and finally have perished altogether. -The world of energy suffers no stationary state, otherwise this would -already have been reached, and the clock of the universe would be at -a standstill. The world of energy does not therefore reach a state of -equilibrium; for no instant in its career has it had rest; its energy -and its movement have been the same for all time. Whatever state this -world could have reached must ere now have been attained, and not -only once but an incalculable number of times. This applies to this -very moment It has already been here once before, and several times, -and will recur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> in the same way, with all forces distributed as they -are to-day: and the same holds good of the moment of time which bore -the present and of that which shall be the child of the present. -Fellow-man! Your whole life, like a sandglass, will always be reversed -and will ever run out again,—a long minute of time will elapse until -all those conditions out of which you were evolved return in the wheel -of the cosmic process. And then you will find every pain and every -pleasure, every friend and every enemy, every hope and every error, -every blade of grass and every ray of sunshine once more, and the whole -fabric of things that makes up your life. This ring in which you are -but a grain will glitter afresh for ever. And in every one of these -cycles of human life there will be one hour where for the first time -one man, and then many, will perceive the mighty thought of the eternal -recurrence of all things:—and for mankind this is always the hour of -Noon.</p> - - - -<h5>2. THE EFFECTS OF THE DOCTRINE UPON MANKIND</h5> - - -<p class="parnum">26</p> - -<p>How can we give weight to our inner life without making it evil and -fanatical towards people who think otherwise. Religious belief is -declining and man is beginning to regard himself as ephemeral and -unessential, a point of view which is making him weak; he does not -exercise so much effort in striving or enduring. What he wants is -momentary enjoyment He would make things light for himself,—and a good -deal of his spirit gets squandered in this endeavour.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">27</p> - -<p>The political mania at which I smile just as merrily as my -contemporaries smile at the religious mania of former times is above -all Materialism, a belief in the world, and in the repudiation of a -"Beyond," of a "back-world." The object of those who believe in the -latter is the well-being of the ephemeral individual: that is why -Socialism is its fruit; for with Socialism ephemeral individuals wish -to secure their happiness by means of socialisation. They have no -reason to wait, as those men had who believed in eternal souls, in -eternal development and eternal amelioration. My doctrine is: Live -so that thou mayest desire to live again,—that is thy duty,—for in -any case thou wilt live again He unto whom striving is the greatest -happiness, let him strive; he unto whom peace is the greatest -happiness, let him rest; he unto whom subordination, following, -obedience, is the greatest happiness, let him obey. All that is -necessary is that he should know what it is that gives him the highest -happiness, and to fight shy of no means! Eternity is at stake!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">28</p> - -<p>"But if everything is necessary, what control have I over my actions?" -Thought and faith are a form of ballast which burden thee in addition -to other burdens thou mayest have, and which are even more weighty than -the latter. Sayest thou that nutrition, the land of thy birth, air, and -society change thee and determine thee? Well, thy opinions do this to -a much greater degree, for they even prescribe<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> thy nourishment, thy -land of adoption, thy atmosphere, and thy society for thee.—If thou -ever assimilatest the thought of thoughts it will also alter thee. The -question which thou wilt have to answer before every deed that thou -doest: "is this such a deed as I am prepared to perform an incalculable -number of times?" is the best ballast.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">29</p> - -<p>The mightiest of all thoughts absorbs a good deal of energy which -formerly stood at the disposal of other aspirations, and in this way -it exercises a modifying influence; it creates new laws of motion in -energy, though no new energy. But it is precisely in this respect that -there lies some possibility of determining new emotions and new desires -in men.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">30</p> - -<p>Let us try and discover how the thought that something gets repeated -has affected mankind hitherto (the year, for instance, or periodical -illnesses, waking and sleeping, &). Even supposing the recurrence of -the cycle is only a probability or a possibility, even a thought, even -a possibility, can shatter us and transform us. It is not only feelings -and definite expectations that do this! See what effect the thought of -eternal damnation has had!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">31</p> - -<p>From the moment when this thought begins to prevail all colours will -change their hue and a new history will begin.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">32</p> - -<p>The history of the future: this thought will tend to triumph ever more -and more, and those who disbelieve in it will be forced, according to -their nature, ultimately to die out.</p> - -<p>He, alone, who will regard his existence as capable of eternal -recurrence will remain over: but among such as these a state will be -possible of which the imagination of no utopist has ever dreamt!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">33</p> - -<p>Ye fancy that ye will have a long rest ere your second birth takes -place,—but do not deceive yourselves! 'Twixt your last moment of -consciousness and the first ray of the dawn of your new life no time -will elapse,—as a flash of lightning will the space go by, even though -living creatures think it is billions of years, and are not even able -to reckon it. Timelessness and immediate re-birth are compatible, once -intellect is eliminated!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">34</p> - -<p>Thou feelest that thou must soon take thy leave perhaps—and the sunset -glow of this feeling pierces through thy happiness. Give heed to this -sign: it means that thou lovest life and thyself, and life as it has -hitherto affected thee and moulded thee,—and that thou cravest for its -eternity—<i>Non alia sed hac vita sempiterna!</i></p> - -<p>Know also, that transiency singeth its short song for ever afresh and -that at the sound of the first verse thou wilt almost die of longing -when thou thinkest that it might be for the last time.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">35</p> - -<p>Let us stamp the impress of eternity upon our lives! This thought -contains more than all the religions which taught us to contemn this -life as a thing ephemeral, which bade us squint upwards to another and -indefinite existence.—</p> - - -<p class="parnum">36</p> - -<p>We must not strive after distant and unknown states of bliss and -blessings and acts of grace, but we must live so that we would fain -live again and live for ever so, to all eternity!—Our duty is present -with us every instant.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">37</p> - -<p>The leading tendencies: (1) We must implant the love of life, the -love of every man's own life in every conceivable way! However each -individual may understand this love of self his neighbour will -acquiesce, and will have to learn great tolerance towards it: however -much it may often run counter to his taste,—provided the individual in -question really helps to increase his joy in his own life!</p> - -<p>(2) We must all be one in our hostility towards everything and -everybody who tends to cast a slur upon the value of life: towards -all gloomy, dissatisfied and brooding natures. We must prevent these -from procreating! But our hostility itself must be a means to our joy! -Thus we shall laugh; we shall mock and we shall exterminate without -bitterness I Let this be our mortal combat</p> - -<p>This life is thy eternal life!</p> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">38</p> - -<p>What was the cause of the downfall of the Alexandrian culture? With all -its useful discoveries and its desire to investigate the nature of this -world, it did not know how to lend this life its ultimate importance, -the thought of a Beyond was more important to it! To teach anew in -this regard is still the most important thing of all:—perhaps if -metaphysics are applied to this life in the most emphatic way,—as in -the case of my doctrine!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">39</p> - -<p>This doctrine is lenient towards those who do not believe in it It -speaks of no hells and it contains no threats. He who does not believe -in it has but a fleeting life in his consciousness.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">40</p> - -<p>It would be terrible if we still believed in sin, but whatever we may -do, however often we may repeat it, it is all innocent. If the thought -of the eternal recurrence of all things does not overwhelm thee, then -it is not thy fault: and if it does overwhelm thee, this does not stand -to thy merit either.—We think more leniently of our forebears than -they themselves thought of themselves; we mourn over the errors which -were to them constitutional; but we do not mourn over their evil.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">41</p> - -<p>Let us guard against teaching such a doctrine as if it were a suddenly -discovered religion! It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> must percolate through slowly, and whole -generations must build on it and become fruitful through it,—in order -that it may grow into a large tree which will shelter all posterity. -What are the two thousand years in which Christianity has maintained -its sway? For the mightiest thought of all many millenniums will be -necessary,—long, long, long will it have to remain puny and weak!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">42</p> - -<p>For this thought we do not require thirty years of glory with drums -and fifes, and thirty years of grave-digging followed by an eternity -of macaberesque stillness, as is the case with so many other famous -thoughts.</p> - -<p>Simple and well-nigh arid as it is, this thought must not even require -eloquence to uphold it.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">43</p> - -<p>Are ye now prepared? Ye must have experienced every form of -scepticism and ye must have wallowed with voluptuousness in ice-cold -baths,—otherwise ye have no right to this thought; I wish to protect -myself against those who are over-ready to believe, likewise against -those who gush over anything! I would defend my doctrine in advance. -It must be the religion of the freest, most cheerful and most sublime -souls, a delightful pastureland somewhere between golden ice and a pure -heaven!</p> - - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p> -<h4><a name="THUS_SPAKE_ZARATHUSTRA" id="THUS_SPAKE_ZARATHUSTRA">EXPLANATORY NOTES TO "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA"</a></h4> - - - -<p class="parnum">1</p> - -<p>All goals have been annihilated: valuations are turning against each -other:</p> - -<p>People call him good who hearkens to the dictates of his own heart, but -they also call him good who merely does his duty;</p> - -<p>People call the mild and conciliating man good, but they also call him -good who is brave, inflexible and severe;</p> - -<p>People call him good who does not do violence to himself, but they also -call the heroes of self-mastery good;</p> - -<p>People call the absolute friend of truth good-, but they also call him -good who is pious and a transfigurer of things;</p> - -<p>People call him good who can obey his own voice, but they also call the -devout man good;</p> - -<p>People call the noble and the haughty man good, but also him who does -not despise and who does not assume condescending airs.</p> - -<p>People call him good who is kindhearted and who steps out of the way of -broils, but he who thirsts for fight and triumph is also called good;</p> - -<p>People call him good who always wishes to be first, but they also call -him good who does not wish to be ahead of anybody in anything.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span></p> -<p class="parnum">2</p> - -<p>We possess a powerful store of moral <i>feelings,</i> but we have no goal -for them all. They mutually contradict each other: they have their -origin in different tables of values.</p> - -<p>There is a wonderful amount of moral power, but there is no longer any -goal towards which all this power can be directed.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">3</p> - -<p>All goals have been annihilated, mankind must give themselves a fresh -goal. It is an error to suppose that they had one: they gave themselves -all the goals they ever had. But the prerequisites of all previous -goals have been annihilated.</p> - -<p>Science traces the course of things but points to no goal: what it does -give consists of the fundamental facts upon which the new goal must be -based.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">4</p> - -<p>The profound sterility of the nineteenth century. I have not -encountered a single man who really had a new ideal to bring -forward. The character of German music kept me hoping longest, but -in vain. A stronger type in which all our powers are synthetically -correlated—this constitutes my faith.</p> - -<p>Apparently everything is decadence. We should so direct this movement -of decline that it may provide the strongest with a new form of -existence.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">5</p> - -<p>The dissolution of morality, in its practical consequences, leads -to the atomistic individual, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> further to the subdivision of the -individual into a quantity of parts—absolute liquefaction.</p> - -<p>That is why a goal is now more than ever necessary; and love, but a new -love.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">6</p> - -<p class="parnum">I say: "As long as your morality hung over me I breathed like one -asphyxiated. That is why I throttled this snake. I wished to live, -consequently it had to die."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">7</p> - -<p>As long as people are still <i>forced to</i> act, that is to say as long as -commands are given, synthesis (the suppression of the moral man) will -not be realised To be unable to be otherwise: instincts and commanding -reason extending beyond any immediate object: the ability to enjoy -one's own nature in action.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">8</p> - -<p>None of them wish to bear the burden of the commander; but they will -perform the most strenuous task if only thou commandest them.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">9</p> - -<p>We must overcome the past in ourselves: we must combine the instincts -afresh and direct the whole together to one goal:—an extremely -difficult undertaking! It is not only the evil instincts which have to -be overcome,—the so-called good instincts must be conquered also and -consecrated anew!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">10</p> - -<p>No leaps must be made in virtue! But everyone must be given a different -path! Not leading to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> highest development of each! Yet everyone may -be a bridge and an example for others.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">11</p> - -<p>To help, to pity, to submit and to renounce personal attacks with a -good will,—these things may make even insignificant and superficial -men tolerable to the eye: such men must not be contradicted in their -belief that this good will is "virtue in itself."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">12</p> - -<p>Man makes a deed valuable: but how might a deed make man valuable?</p> - - -<p class="parnum">13</p> - -<p>Morality is the concern of those who cannot free themselves from -it: for such people morality therefore belongs to the conditions of -existence. It is impossible to refute conditions of existence: the only -thing one can do is not to have them.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">14</p> - -<p>If it were true that life did not deserve to be welcomed, the moral -man, precisely on account of his self-denial and obligingness, would -then be guilty of misusing his fellow to his own personal advantage.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">15</p> - -<p>"Love thy neighbour"—this would mean first and foremost: "Let thy -neighbour go his own way"—and it is precisely this kind of virtue that -is the most difficult!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">16</p> - -<p>The bad man as the parasite. We must not be merely feasters and -gourmets of life: this is ignoble.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">17</p> - -<p>It is a noble sense which forbids our being only feasters and gourmets -of life—this sense revolts against hedonism—: we want to perform -something in return!—But the fundamental feeling of the masses is that -one must live for nothing,—that is their vulgarity.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">18</p> - -<p>The converse valuations hold good for the lower among men: in their -case therefore it is necessary to implant virtues. They must be -elevated above their lives, by means of absolute commands and terrible -taskmasters.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">19</p> - -<p>What is required: the new law must be made practicable—and out of its -fulfilment, the overcoming of this law, and higher law, must evolve -Zarathustra defines the attitude towards law, inasmuch as he suppresses -the law of laws which is morality.</p> - -<p>Laws as the backbone They must be worked at and created, by being -fulfilled. The slavish attitude which has reigned hitherto towards law!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">20</p> - -<p>The self-overcoming of Zarathustra as the prototype of mankind's -self-overcoming for the benefit of Superman. To this end the overcoming -of morality is necessary.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">21</p> - -<p>The type of the lawgiver, his development and his suffering. What is -the purpose of giving laws at all?</p> - -<p>Zarathustra is the herald who calls forth many lawgivers.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">22</p> - -<p><i>Individual instruments.</i></p> - -<p>1. The Commanders, the mighty—who do not love, unless it be that they -love the images according to which they create. The rich in vitality, -the versatile, the free, who overcome that which is extant</p> - -<p>2. The obedient, the "emancipated"—love and reverence constitute their -happiness, they have a sense of what is higher (their deficiencies are -made whole by the sight of the lofty).</p> - -<p>3. The slaves, the order of "henchmen"—: they must be made -comfortable, they must cultivate pity for one another.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">23</p> - -<p>The giver, the creator, the teacher—these are preludes of the ruler.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">24</p> - -<p>All virtue and all self-mastery has only one purpose: that of preparing -for the rule!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">25</p> - -<p>Every sacrifice that the ruler makes is rewarded a hundredfold.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">26</p> - -<p>How much does not the warrior, the prince, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span> man who is responsible -for himself, sacrifice!—this should be highly honoured.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">27</p> - -<p>The terrible task of the ruler who educates himself:—the kind of man -and people over which he will rule must be forecast in him: it is in -himself therefore that he must first have become a ruler!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">28</p> - -<p>The great educator like nature must elevate obstacles in order that -these may be overcome.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">29</p> - -<p>The new teachers as preparatory stages for the highest Architect (they -must impose their type on things).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">30</p> - -<p>Institutions may be regarded as the after effects of great individuals -and the means of giving great individuals root and soil—until the -fruit ultimately appears.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">31</p> - -<p>As a matter of fact mankind is continually trying to be able to -dispense with great individuals by means of corporations, &c. But they -are utterly dependent upon such great individuals for their ideal.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">32</p> - -<p>The eudæmonistic and social ideals lead men backwards,—it may be that -they aim at a very useful working class,—they are creating the ideal -slave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> of the future, the lower caste which must on no account be -lacking!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">33</p> - -<p>Equal rights for all!—this is the most extraordinary form of -injustice, for with it the highest men do not get their due.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">34</p> - -<p>It is not a matter of the rights of the stronger, for strong and weak -are alike in this, that they all extend their power as far as they can.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">35</p> - -<p>A new form of estimating man: above all the question:</p> - -<p>How much power has he got?</p> - -<p>How manifold are his instincts?</p> - -<p>How great is his capacity for communication and assimilation?</p> - -<p>The ruler as the highest type.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">36</p> - -<p>Zarathustra rejoices that the war of the classes is at last over, -and that now at length the time is ripe for an order of rank among -individuals. His hatred of the democratic system of levelling is only -a blind; as a matter of fact he is very pleased that this has gone so -far. Now he can perform his task.—</p> - -<p>Hitherto his doctrines had been directed only at the ruling caste of -the future. These lords of the earth must now take the place of God, -and must create for themselves the profound and absolute confidence -of those they rule. Their new holiness, their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> renunciation of -happiness and ease, must be their first principle. To the lowest they -grant the heirloom of happiness, not to themselves. They deliver the -physiologically botched by teaching them the doctrine of "swift death." -They offer religions and philosophical systems to each according to his -rank.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">37</p> - -<p>"The conflict in the heart of the ruler is the contest between the love -which is in his heart for him who is most remote, and the love which he -feels for his neighbour."</p> - -<p>To be a creator and to be capable of goodness are not at all things -which exclude one another. They are rather one and the same thing; but -the creator is farsighted and the good man nearsighted.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">38</p> - -<p>The feeling of power. The strife of all egos to discover that thought -which will remain poised above men like a star.—The ego is a <i>primum -mobile.</i></p> - - -<p class="parnum">39</p> - -<p>The struggle for the application of the power which mankind now -represents! Zarathustra calls to the gladiators of this struggle.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">40</p> - -<p>We must make our ideals prevail:—We must strive for power in such a -way as our ideal commands.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">41</p> - -<p>The doctrine of the Eternal Recurrence is the turning point of history.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">42</p> - -<p>Suddenly the terrible chamber of truth is opened, an unconscious -self-protectiveness, caution, ambush, defence keeps us from the gravest -knowledge. Thus have I lived heretofore. I suppress something; but the -restless babbling and rolling down of stones has rendered my instinct -over-powerful. Now I am rolling my last stone, the most appalling truth -stands close to my hand.</p> - -<p>Truth has been exorcised out of its grave:—we created it, we waked it: -the highest expression of courage and of the feeling of power. Scorn of -all pessimism that has existed hitherto!</p> - -<p>We fight with it,—we find out that our only means of enduring it is -to create a creature who is able to endure it:—unless, of course, we -voluntarily dazzle ourselves afresh and blind ourselves in regard to it -But this we are no longer able to do!</p> - -<p>We it was who created the gravest thought,—let us now create a being -unto whom it will be not only light but blessed.</p> - -<p>In order to be able to create we must allow ourselves greater freedom -than has ever been vouch-safed us before; to this end we must be -emancipated from morality, and we must be relieved by means of feasts -(Premonitions of the future! We must celebrate the future and no longer -the past! We must compose the myth poetry of the future! We must live -in hopes!) Blessed moments I And then we must once again pull down the -curtain and turn our thoughts to the next unswerving purpose.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">43</p> - -<p>Mankind must set its goal above itself—not in a false world, however, -but in one which would be a continuation of humanity.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">44</p> - -<p>The half-way house is always present when the will to the future -arises: the greatest event stands immediately before it.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">45</p> - -<p>Our very essence is to create a being higher than ourselves. We must -create beyond ourselves. That is the instinct of procreation, that is -the instinct of action and of work.—Just as all willing presupposes a -purpose, so does mankind presuppose a creature which is not yet formed -but which provides the aim of life. This is the freedom of all will. -Love, reverence, yearning for perfection, longing, all these things are -inherent in a purpose.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">46</p> - -<p>My desire: to bring forth creatures which stand sublimely above the -whole species man: and to sacrifice "one's neighbours" and oneself to -this end.</p> - -<p>The morality which has existed hitherto was limited within the confines -of the species: all moralities that have existed hitherto have been -useful in the first place in order to give unconditional stability to -this species: once this has been achieved the aim can be elevated.</p> - -<p>One movement is absolute; it is nothing more than the levelling down of -mankind, great ant-organisations, &c.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> - -<p>The other movement, my movement, is conversely the accentuation of all -contrasts and gulfs, and the elimination of equality, together with the -creation of supremely powerful creatures.</p> - -<p>The first movement brings forth the last man, my movement brings forth -the Superman. It is by no means the goal to regard the latter as the -master of the first: two races ought to exist side by side,—separated -as far asunder as possible; the one, like the Epicurean gods, not -concerning themselves in the least with the others.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">47</p> - -<p>The opposite of the Superman is the last man: I created him -simultaneously with the former.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">48</p> - -<p>The more an individual is free and firm, the more exacting becomes his -love: at last he yearns for Superman, because nothing else is able to -appease his love,</p> - - -<p class="parnum">49</p> - -<p>Half-way round the course Superman arises.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">50</p> - -<p>Among men I was frightened: among men I desired a host of things and -nothing satisfied me. It was then that I went into solitude and created -Superman. And when I had created him I draped him in the great veil of -Becoming and let the light of midday shine upon him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">51</p> - -<p>"We wish to create a Being," we all wish to have a hand in it, to love -it. We all want to be pregnant—and to honour and respect ourselves on -that account.</p> - -<p>We must have a goal in view of which we may all love each other! All -other goals are only fit for the scrap heap.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">52</p> - -<p>The strongest in body and soul are the best—Zarathustra's fundamental -proposition—; from them is generated that higher morality of the -creator. Man must be regenerated after his own image: this is what he -wants, this is his honesty.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">53</p> - -<p>Genius to Zarathustra seems like the incarnation of his thought.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">54</p> - -<p>Loneliness for a certain time is necessary in order that a creature -may become completely permeated with his own soul—cured and hard. A -new form of community would be one in which we should assert ourselves -martially. Otherwise the spirit becomes tame. No Epicurean "gardens" -and mere "retirement from the masses." War (but without powder) between -different thoughts and the hosts who support them I</p> - -<p>A new nobility, the result of breeding. Feasts celebrating the -foundation of families.</p> - -<p>The day divided up afresh; bodily exercise for all ages. Ἀγών -as a principle.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span></p> - -<p>The love of the sexes as a contest around the principle in becoming and -coming.—Ruling will be taught and practised, its hardness as well as -its mildness. As soon as one faculty is acquired in a masterly manner -another one must be striven after.</p> - -<p>We must let ourselves be taught by the evil, and allow them an -opportunity of a contest. We must make use of the degenerate—The right -of punishment will consist in this, that the offender may be used as -an experimental subject (in dietetics): this is the consecration of -punishment, that one man be used for the highest needs of a future -being.</p> - -<p>We protect our new community because it is the bridge to our ideal of -the future And for it we work and let others work.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">55</p> - -<p>The measure and mean must be found in striving to attain to something -beyond mankind: the highest and strongest kind of man must be -discovered! The highest tendency must be represented continually -in small things:—perfection, maturity, rosy-cheeked health, mild -discharges of power. Just as an artist works, must we apply ourselves -to our daily task and bring ourselves to perfection in everything we -do. We must be honest in acknowledging our real motives to ourselves, -as is becoming in the mighty man.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">56</p> - -<p>No impatience! Superman is our next stage and to this end, to this -limit, moderation and manliness are necessary.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span></p> - -<p>Mankind must surpass itself, as the Greeks did—and no fleshless -fantasies must be indulged. The higher mind which is associated with a -sickly and nervous character must be suppressed. The goal: the higher -culture of the whole body and not only of the brain.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">57</p> - -<p>"Man is something that must be surpassed":—it is a matter of tempo: -the Greeks were wonderful, there was no haste about them.—My -predecessors: Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, Goethe.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">58</p> - -<p>1. Dissatisfaction with ourselves. An antidote to repentance. -The transformation of temperament (<i>e.g.,</i> by means of inorganic -substances). Good will to this dissatisfaction. We should wait for our -thirst and let it become great in order to discover its source.</p> - -<p>2. Death must be transformed into a means of victory and triumph.</p> - -<p>3. The attitude towards disease. Freedom where death is concerned.</p> - -<p>4. The love of the sexes is a means to an ideal (it is the striving of -a being to perish through his opposite). The love for a suffering deity.</p> - -<p>5. Procreation is the holiest of all things. Pregnancy, the creation of -a woman and a man, who wish to enjoy their unity, and erect a monument -to it by means of a child.</p> - -<p>6. Pity as a danger. Circumstances must be created which enable -everyone to be able to help<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> himself, and which leave him to choose -whether he would be helped.</p> - -<p>7. Education must be directed at making men evil, at developing their -inner devil.</p> - -<p>8. Inner war as "development"</p> - -<p>9. "The maintenance of the species," and the thought of eternal -recurrence.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">59</p> - -<p>Principal doctrine. We must strive to make every stage one of -perfection, and rejoice therein,—we must make no leaps!</p> - -<p>In the first place, the promulgation of laws. After the Superman the -doctrine of eternal recurrence will strike us with horror: Now it is -endurable.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">60</p> - -<p>Life itself created this thought which is the most oppressive for life. -Life wishes to get beyond its greatest obstacle I</p> - -<p>We must desire to perish in order to arise afresh,—from one day to -the other. Wander through a hundred souls,—let that be thy life and -thy fate! And then finally: desire to go through the whole process once -more!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">61</p> - -<p>The highest thing of all would be for us to be able to endure our -immortality.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">62</p> - -<p>The moment in which I begot recurrence is immortal, for the sake of -that moment alone I will endure recurrence.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">63</p> - -<p>The teaching of eternal recurrence—it is at first oppressive to the -more noble souls and apparently a means of weeding them out,—then the -inferior and less sensitive natures would remain over! "This doctrine -must be suppressed and Zarathustra killed."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">64</p> - -<p>The hesitation of the disciples. "We are already able to bear with this -doctrine, but we should destroy the many by means of it!"</p> - -<p>Zarathustra laughs: "Ye shall be the hammer: I laid this hammer in your -hands."</p> - - -<p class="parnum">65</p> - -<p>I do not speak to you as I speak to the people. The highest thing for -them would be to despise and to annihilate themselves: the next highest -thing would be for them to despise and annihilate each other.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">66</p> - -<p>"My will to do good compels me to remain silent. But my will to the -Superman bids me speak and sacrifice even my friends."</p> - -<p>"I would fain form and transform you, how could I endure things -otherwise!"</p> - - -<p class="parnum">67</p> - -<p>The history of higher man. The rearing of the better man is -incalculably more painful. The ideal of the necessary sacrifice which -it involves, as in the case of Zarathustra, should be demonstrated: A -man should leave his home, his family and his native<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> land. Live under -the scorn of the prevailing morality. The anguish of experiments and -errors. The solution of all the joys offered by the older ideals (they -are now felt to be partly hostile and partly strange).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">68</p> - -<p>What is it which gives a meaning, a value, an importance to things? -It is the creative heart which yearns and which created out of this -yearning. It created joy and woe. It wanted to sate itself also with -woe. Every kind of pain that man or beast has suffered, we must take -upon ourselves and bless, and have a goal whereby such suffering would -acquire some meaning.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">69</p> - -<p>Principal doctrine: the transfiguration of pain into a blessing, and of -poison into food, lies in our power. The will to suffering.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">70</p> - -<p>Concerning heroic greatness as the only state of pioneers. (A yearning -for utter ruin as a means of enduring one's existence.)</p> - -<p>We must not desire one state only; we must rather desire to be -periodical creatures—like existence.</p> - -<p>Absolute indifference to other people's opinions (because we know their -weights and measures), but their opinions of themselves should be the -subject of pity.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">71</p> - -<p>Disciples must unite three qualities in themselves: they must be -true, they must be able and willing to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> be communicative, they must -have profound insight into each other.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">72</p> - -<p>All kinds of higher men and their oppression and blighting (as a case -in point, Duhring, who was ruined by isolation)—on the whole, this -is the fate of higher men to-day, they seem to be a species that is -condemned to die out: this fact seems to come to Zarathustra's ears -like a great cry for help. All kinds of insane degenerations of higher -natures seem to approach him (nihilism for instance).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">73</p> - -<p><i>Higher Men who come to Zarathustra in Despair.</i></p> - -<p>Temptations to return prematurely to the world—thanks to the -provocation of one's sympathies.</p> - -<p>1. The rolling stone, the homeless one, the wanderer:—he who has -unlearned the love of his people because he has learned to love many -peoples,—the good European.</p> - -<p>2. The gloomy, ambitious son of the people, shy, lonely, and ready for -anything,—who chooses rather to be alone than to be a destroyer,—he -offers himself as an instrument.</p> - -<p>3. The ugliest man, who is obliged to adorn himself (historical sense) -and who is always in search of a new garment: he desires to make his -appearance becoming, and finally retires into solitude in order not to -be seen, he is ashamed of himself.</p> - -<p>4. He who honours facts ("the brain of a leech"), the most subtle -intellectual conscience, and because he has it in excess, a guilty -conscience,—he wants to get rid of himself.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p> - -<p>5. The poet, who at bottom thirsts, for savage freedom,—he chooses -loneliness and the severity of knowledge.</p> - -<p>6. The discoverer of new intoxicants,—the musician, the sorcerer, who -finally drops on his knees before a loving heart and says: "Not to me -do I wish to lead you but yonder to him."</p> - -<p>Those who are sober to excess and who have a yearning for intoxication -which they do not gratify. The Supersobersides.</p> - -<p>7. Genius (as an attack of insanity), becoming frozen through lack of -love: "I am neither a genius nor a god." Great tenderness: "people must -show him more love!"</p> - -<p>8. The rich man who has given everything away and who asks everybody: -"Have you anything you do not want? give me some of it!" as a beggar.</p> - -<p>9. The Kings who renounce dominion: "we seek him who is more worthy -to rule"—against "equality": the great man is lacking, consequently -reverence is lacking too.</p> - -<p>10. The actor of happiness.</p> - -<p>11. The pessimistic soothsayer who detects fatigue everywhere.</p> - -<p>12. The fool of the big city.</p> - -<p>13. The youth from the mount</p> - -<p>14. The woman (seeks the man).</p> - -<p>15. The envious emaciated toiler and <i>arriviste.</i></p> - -<p>16. The good, } and their mad fancy:</p> - -<p>17. The pious, }"For God" that</p> - -<p>18. The self-centred and } means "For me."<br /> - and saints,</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span></p> - - -<p class="parnum">74</p> - -<p>"I gave you the most weighty thought: maybe mankind will perish through -it, perhaps also mankind will be elevated through it inasmuch as by -its means the elements which are hostile to life will be overcome and -eliminated." "Ye must not chide Life, but yourselves!"—The destiny -of higher man is to be a creator. The organisation of higher men, the -education of the future ruler. "YE must rejoice in your superior power -when ye rule and when ye form anew." "Not only man but Superman will -recur eternally!"</p> - - -<p class="parnum">75</p> - -<p>The typical suffering of the reformer and also his consolations. The -seven solitudes.</p> - -<p>He lives as though he were beyond all ages: his loftiness allows him to -have intercourse with the anchorites and the misunderstood of every age.</p> - -<p>Only his beauty is his defence. He lays his hands on the next thousand -years.</p> - -<p>His love increases as he sees the impossibility of avoiding the -affliction of pain with it.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">76</p> - -<p>Zarathustra's mood is not one of mad impatience for Superman! It is -peaceful, it can wait: but all action has derived some purpose from -being the road and means thither,—and must be done well and perfectly.</p> - -<p>The repose of the great stream! Consecration of the smallest thing. -All unrest, and violent longing, all loathing should be presented in -the third part<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> and be overcome! The gentleness, and mildness, &c., in -the first and second parts are both signs of a power which is not yet -self-reliant!</p> - -<p>With the recovery of Zarathustra, Cæsar stands there inexorable -and kind:—the gulf separating creation, goodness, and wisdom is -annihilated.</p> - -<p>Clearness, peace, no exaggerated craving, happiness in the moment which -is properly occupied and immortalised!</p> - - -<p class="parnum">77</p> - -<p>Zarathustra, Part III.: "I myself am happy."—When he had taken leave -of mankind he returned unto himself. Like a cloud it vanishes from him. -The manner in which Superman must live: like an Epicurean God.</p> - -<p>Divine suffering is the substance of the third part of Zarathustra. The -human state of the legislator is only brought forward as an example.</p> - -<p>His intense love for his friends seems to him a disease,—once more he -becomes peaceful.</p> - -<p>When the invitations come he gently evades them.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">78</p> - -<p>In the fourth part it is necessary to say precisely why it is that the -time of the great noon has come: It is really a description of the age -given by means of visits, but interpreted by Zarathustra.</p> - -<p>In the fourth part it is necessary to say precisely why "a chosen -people" has first to be created:—they are the lucky cases of nature -as opposed to the unlucky (exemplified by the visitors): only to them -—the lucky cases—is Zarathustra able to express himself concerning -ultimate problems, them alone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> is he able to inspire with activity on -behalf of this theory. They are strong, healthy, hard and above all -noble enough for him to give them the hammer with which to remould the -whole world.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">79</p> - -<p>The unity in power of the creator, the lover and the knight of -knowledge.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">80</p> - -<p>Love alone shall judge—(the creative love which forgets itself in its -work).</p> - - -<p class="parnum">81</p> - -<p>Zarathustra can only dispense happiness once the order of rank is -established. Therefore this doctrine must be taught first.</p> - -<p>The order of rank develops into a system of earthly dominion: the lords -of the earth come last, a new ruling caste. Here and there there arises -from them a perfectly Epicurean God, a Superman, a transfigurer of -existence.</p> - -<p>The Superhuman's notion of the world. Dionysus. Returning from these -most strange of all pursuits Zarathustra comes back with love to the -narrowest and smallest things,—he blesses all his experiences and dies -with a blessing on his lips.</p> - - -<p class="parnum">82</p> - -<p>From people who merely pray we must become people who bless.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Twilight of the Idols - The -Antichrist, by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS *** - -***** This file should be named 52263-h.htm or 52263-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/2/2/6/52263/ - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org -(Images generouly made available by the Hathi Trust.) - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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