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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..4a56ab9 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #53622 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/53622) diff --git a/old/53622-8.txt b/old/53622-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5eb81ac..0000000 --- a/old/53622-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10328 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's What Nietzsche Taught, by Willard Huntington Wright - -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'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: What Nietzsche Taught - -Author: Willard Huntington Wright - -Release Date: November 28, 2016 [EBook #53622] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT NIETZSCHE TAUGHT *** - - - - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (online soon -in an extended version, also linking to free sources for -education worldwide ... MOOC's, educational materials,...) -Images generously made available by the Internet Archive. - - - - - - -WHAT NIETZSCHE TAUGHT - -By - -WILLARD HUNTINGTON WRIGHT - - -I am writing for a race of men which -does not yet exist: for "the lords of the -earth." _The Will to Power_ - - -NEW YORK - -B. W. HUEBSCH - -1915 - - - -TO - -H. L. MENCKEN -the critic who has given the greatest impetus -to the study of Nietzsche in America - - - - - CONTENTS - - PORTRAIT BUST OF NIETZSCHE BY PROFESSOR - KARL DONNDORF, STUTTGART _Frontispiece_ - - INTRODUCTION - I BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH - II "HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN," VOLS. I AND II - III "THE DAWN OF DAY" - IV "THE JOYFUL WISDOM" - V "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA" - VI "THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE" - VII "BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL" - VIII "THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS" - IX "THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS" - X "THE ANTICHRIST" - XI "THE WILL TO POWER," VOL. I - XII "THE WILL TO POWER," VOL. II - BIBLIOGRAPHY - - - - -INTRODUCTION - - -It is no longer possible to ignore the teachings of Friedrich -Nietzsche, or to consider the trend of modern thought without giving -the philosopher of the superman a prominent place in the list of -thinkers who contributed to the store of present-day knowledge. His -powerful and ruthless mind has had an influence on contemporary -thought which even now, in the face of all the scholarly books of -appreciation he has called forth, one is inclined to underestimate. -No philosopher since Kant has left so undeniable an imprint on modern -thought. Even Schopenhauer, whose influence coloured the greater part -of Europe, made no such widespread impression. Nietzsche has penetrated -into both England and America, two countries strangely impervious -to rigorous philosophic ideals. Not only in ethics and literature -do we find the moulding hand of Nietzsche at work, invigorating and -solidifying; but in pedagogics and in art, in politics and religion, -the influence of his doctrines is to be encountered. The books and -essays in German elucidating his philosophy constitute a miniature -library. Nearly as many books and articles have appeared in France, -and the list of authors of these appreciations include many of -the most noted modern scholars. Spain and Italy, likewise, have -contributed works to an inquiry into his teachings; and in England -and America numerous volumes dealing with the philosophy of the -superman have appeared in recent years. In M. A. Mügge's excellent -biography, "Friedrich Nietzsche: His Life and Work," there is appended -a bibliography containing 850 titles, and this list by no means -includes all the books and articles devoted to a consideration of this -philosopher's doctrines. - -In this regard one should note that this interest is not the result of -a temporary popularity, such as that which has met the philosophical -pieties of Henri Bergson. To the contrary, Nietzsche's renown is -gaining ground daily among serious-minded scholars, and his adherents -have already reached the dimensions of a small army. But despite this -appreciation there is still current an enormous amount of ignorance -concerning his teachings. The very manner in which he wrote tended to -bring about misunderstandings. Viewed casually and without studious -consideration, his books offer many apparent contradictions. His style, -always elliptic and aphoristic, lends itself easily to quotation, and -because of the startling and revolutionary nature of his utterances, -many excerpts from his earlier works were widely circulated through the -mediums of magazines and newspapers. These quotations, robbed of their -context, very often gave rise to immature and erroneous judgments, with -the result that the true meaning of his philosophy was often turned -into false channels. Many of his best-known aphorisms have taken on -strange and unearthly meanings, and often the reverse of his gospel has -gained currency and masqueraded as the original canon. - -To a great extent this misunderstanding has been unavoidable. -Systematisers, ever eager to bend a philosopher's statements to their -own ends, have found in Nietzsche's writings much material which, when -carefully isolated, substantiated their own conclusions. On the other -hand, the Christian moralists, sensing in Nietzsche a powerful and -effective opponent, have attempted to disqualify his ethical system by -presenting garbled portions of his attacks on Christianity, omitting -all the qualifying passages. It is impossible, however, to understand -any of Nietzsche's doctrines unless we consider them in their relation -to the whole of his teachings. - -Contrary to the general belief, Nietzsche was not simply a destructive -critic and a formulator of impossible and romantic concepts. His -doctrine of the superman, which seems to be the principal stumbling -block in the way of a rationalistic interpretation of his philosophy, -is no vague dream unrelated to present humanity. Nor was his chief -concern with future generations. Nietzsche devoted his research to -immediate conditions and to the origin of those conditions. And--what -is of greater importance--he left behind him a very positive and -consistent system of ethics--a workable and entirely comprehensible -code of conduct to meet present-day needs. This system was not -formulated with the precision which no doubt would have attached to -it in its final form had he been able to complete the plans he had -outlined. Yet there are few points in his code of ethics--and they -are of minor importance--which cannot be found, clearly conceived -and concisely stated, in the main body of his works. This system of -conduct embraces every stage of society; and for the rulers to-day--the -people for whom Nietzsche directly voiced his teachings--he outlines a -method of outer conduct and a set of inner ideals which meet with every -modern condition. His proposed ethical routine is not based on abstract -reasoning and speculative conclusions. It is a practical code which has -its foundation implanted in the dominating instincts of the organic -and inorganic world. It is directly opposed to the prevailing code, -and has for its ideal the fulness of life itself--life intensified -to the highest degree, life charged with a maximum of beauty, power, -enthusiasm, virility, wealth and intoxication. It is the code of -strength and courage. Its goal is a race which will possess the hardier -virtues of strength, confidence, exuberance and affirmation. - -This ideal has been the source of many misunderstandings, and it is -the errors which have arisen from the vicious and inept dissemination -of his teachings, that I have striven to rectify in the present book. -I have hoped to accomplish this by presenting the whole of Nietzsche's -philosophy, as far as possible, in his own words. This has not been so -difficult a matter. His writings, more than those of any other modern -philosopher, offer opportunities for such treatment. There is no point -in his entire system not susceptible to brief and clear quotation. -Furthermore, his thought developed consistently and logically in -straight-away, chronological order, so that at the conclusion of each -book we find ourselves just so much further along the route of his -thinking. Beginning with "Human, All-Too-Human," his first destructive -volume, we can trace the gradual and concise pyramiding of his -teachings, down to the last statement of his cardinal doctrine of will -as set forth in the notes which comprise the second volume of "The Will -to Power." Each one of the intervening books embodies new material: it -is a distinct, yet co-ordinated, division in the great structure of his -life's work. These books overlap one another in many instances, and -develop points raised speculatively in former books, but they organise -each other and lead one surely, if at times circuitously, to the -crowning doctrines of his thought. - -The majority of critics have chosen to systematise Nietzsche's -teachings by separating the ideas in his different books, and by -drawing together under specific captions (such as "religion," "the -state," "education," etc.,) all the scattered material which relates -to these different subjects. In many cases they have succeeded in -offering a very coherent and consistent résumé of his thought. But -Nietzsche's doctrines were inherently opposed to such arbitrary -dividing and arranging, because beneath the various sociological -points which fell under his consideration, were two or three general -motivating principles which unified the whole of his thought. He did -not work from modern institutions back to his doctrines; but, by -analysing the conditions out of which these institutions grew, he -arrived at the conclusions which he afterward used in formulating -new methods of operation. It was the change in conditions and needs -between ancient and modern times that made him voice the necessity of -change between ancient and modern institutions. In other words, his -advocacy of new methods for dealing with modern affairs was evolved -from his researches into the origin and history of current methods. For -instance, his remarks on religion, society, the state, the individual, -etc., were the outcome of fundamental postulates which he described -and elucidated in terms of human institutions. Therefore an attempt to -reach an explanation of the basic doctrines of his philosophy through -his _applied_ teachings unconsciously gives rise to the very errors -which the serious critics have sought to overcome: this method focuses -attention on the _application_ of his doctrines rather than on the -doctrines themselves. - -Therefore I have taken his writings chronologically, beginning with his -first purely philosophical work--"Human, All-Too-Human"--and have -set down, in his own words, every important conclusion throughout his -entire works. In this way one may follow Nietzsche throughout every -step in the development of his teachings--not only in his abstract -theories but also in his application of them. There is not a single -important point in the entire sweep of his thought not contained in -these pages. Naturally I have been unable to give any of the arguments -which led to these conclusions. The quotations are in every instance -no longer than has been necessary to make clear the idea: for the -processes of thought by which these conclusions were reached the -reader must go direct to the books from which the excerpts are made. -Also I have omitted Nietzsche's brilliant analogies and such desultory -critical judgments, literary and artistic, as have no direct bearing on -his philosophy; and have contented myself with setting down only those -bare, unelaborated utterances which embody the positive points in his -thought. By thus letting Nietzsche himself state his doctrines I have -attempted to make it impossible for anybody who goes carefully through -these pages to misunderstand those points which now seem clouded in -error. - -In order to facilitate further the research of the student and to make -clear certain of the more obscure selections, I have preceded each -chapter with a short account of the book and its contents. In these -brief essays, I have reviewed the entire contents of each book, set -down the circumstances under which it was written, and attempted to -weigh its individual importance in relation to the others. Furthermore, -I have attempted to state briefly certain of the doctrines which -did not permit of entirely self-explanatory quotation. And where -Nietzsche indulged in research, such as in tracing the origin of -certain motives, or in explaining the steps which led to the acceptance -of certain doctrines, I have included in these essays an abridged -exposition of his theories. In short, I have embodied in each chapter -such critical material as I thought would assist the reader to a clear -understanding of each book's contents and relative significance. - -This book is frankly for the beginner--for the student who desires a -survey of Nietzsche's philosophy before entering upon a closer and more -careful study of it. In this respect it is meant also as a guide; and I -have given the exact location of every quotation so that the reader may -refer at once to the main body of Nietzsche's works and ascertain the -premises and syllogisms which underlie the quoted conclusion. - -In the opening biographical sketch I have refrained from going into -Nietzsche's personality and character, adhering throughout to the -external facts of his life. His personality will be found in the racy, -vigorous and stimulating utterances I have chosen for quotation, and -no comments of mine could add colour to the impression thus received. -It is difficult to divorce Nietzsche from his work: the man and his -teachings are inseparable. His style, as well as his philosophy, is -a direct outgrowth of his personality. This is why his gospel is so -personal and intimate a one, and so closely bound up in the instincts -of humanity. There are several good biographies of Nietzsche in -existence, and a brief account of the best ones in English will be -found in the bibliography at the end of this volume. - -It must not be thought that this book is intended as a final, or -even complete, commentary on Nietzsche's doctrines. It was written -and compiled for the purpose of supplying an introductory study, -and, with that end in view, I have refrained from all technical or -purely philosophical nomenclature. The object throughout has been to -stimulate the reader to further study, and if this book does not send -the reader sooner or later to the original volumes from which these -quotations have been made, I shall feel that I have failed somewhat in -my enterprise. - -The volumes of Nietzsche's philosophy from which the quotations in this -book are taken, comprise the first complete and authorised edition of -the works of Nietzsche in English. To the courageous energy of Dr. -Oscar Levy do we owe the fact that Nietzsche's entire writings are -now obtainable in English. The translations of these books have, in -every instance, been made by competent scholars, and each volume is -introduced by an illuminating preface. As this edition now stands, -it is the most complete and voluminous translation of any foreign -philosopher in the English language. The edition is in eighteen -volumes, and is published in England by T. N. Foulis, and in America by -the Macmillan Company. The volumes and their contents are given below. - - I. "The Birth of Tragedy," translated by William A. - Haussmann, B.A., Ph.D., with a biographical introduction - by the author's sister; a portrait of Nietzsche, and a - facsimile of his manuscript. - - II. "Early Greek Philosophy and Other Essays," translated by - Maximilian A. Mügge, Ph.D. Contents: "The Greek State," "The - Greek Woman," "On Music and Words," "Homer's Contest," "The - Relation of Schopenhauer's Philosophy to a German Culture," - "Philosophy During the Tragic Age of the Greeks" and "On - Truth and Falsity in Their Ultramoral Sense." - - III. "The Future of Our Educational Institutions," - translated by J. M. Kennedy. Besides the titular essay, this - volume contains "Homer and Classical Philology." - - IV. "Thoughts Out of Season," Vol. I., translated by Anthony - M. Ludovici. Contents: "David Strauss, the Confessor and the - Writer" and "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth." - - V. "Thoughts Out of Season," Vol. II., translated with - introduction by Adrian Collins, M.A. Contents: "The Use and - Abuse of History" and "Schopenhauer as Educator." - - VI. "Human, All-Too-Human," Vol. I., translated by Helen - Zimmern, with introduction by J. M. Kennedy. - - VII. "Human, All-Too-Human," Vol. IL, translated, with - introduction, by Paul V. Cohn, B.A. - - VIII. "The Case of Wagner," translated by Anthony M. - Ludovici and J. M. Kennedy, with introductions by the - translators. Contents: "The Case of Wagner," "Nietzche - _contra_ Wagner," "Selected Aphorisms" and "We Philologists." - - IX. "The Dawn of Day," translated, with introduction, by J. - M. Kennedy. - - X. "The Joyful Wisdom," translated, with introduction, by - Thomas Common. The poetry which appears in the appendix - under the caption of "Songs of Prince Free-As-A-Bird," is - translated by Paul V. Cohn and Maude D. Petre. - - XI. "Thus Spake Zarathustra," revised introduction by Thomas - Common, with introduction by Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, and - commentary by A. M. Ludovici. - - XII. "Beyond Good and Evil," translated by Helen Zimmern, - with introduction by Thomas Common. - - XIII. "The Genealogy of Morals," translated by Horace - B. Samuel, M.A., with introductory note. "People and - Countries," an added section to this book, is translated by - J. M. Kennedy with an editor's note by Dr. Oscar Levy. - - XIV. "The Will to Power," Vol. I., translated, with an - introduction, by A. M. Ludovici. - - XV. "The Will to Power," Vol. IL, translated, with an - introduction, by A. M. Ludovici. - - XVI. "The Twilight of the Idols," translated, with an - introduction, by A. M. Ludovici. Contents: "The Twilight - of the Idols," "The Antichrist," "Eternal Recurrence," and - "Explanatory Notes to 'Thus Spake Zarathustra.'" - - XVII. "Ecce Homo," translated by A. M. Ludovici. Various - poetry and epigrams translated by Paul V. Cohn, Herman - Scheffauer, Francis Bickley and Dr. G. T. Wrench. In - addition this volume contains the music of Nietzsche's "Hymn - to Life"--words by Lou Salomé--with an introduction by A. - M. Ludovici. - - XVIII. "Index to Complete Works," compiled by Robert Guppy, - with vocabulary of foreign quotations occurring in the - works of Nietzsche translated by Paul V. Cohn, B.A., and an - introductory essay, "The Nietzsche Movement in England (A - Retrospect--A Confession--A Prospect)," by Dr. Oscar Levy. - -There are in the present volume no quotations from Nietzsche's -_"Ecce Homo"_ or from the pamphlets dealing with Wagner. The former -work is an autobiography which, while it throws light on both -Nietzsche's character and his work, is nevertheless outside his purely -philosophical writings. And the Wagner documents, though interesting, -have little to do with the Nietzschean doctrines, except as showing -perhaps the result of their application. I have therefore left -them intact for the student who wishes to go more deeply into the -philosopher's character than I have here attempted. - -W. H. W. - - - - -WHAT NIETZSCHE TAUGHT - - - -I - - -Biographical Sketch - - -Nietzsche liked to believe that he was of Polish descent. He had a -greater admiration for the Poles than for the Germans, and went so far -as to instigate an investigation by which he hoped to prove beyond -a shadow of a doubt that he was not only Polish but was descended -from the Polish nobility. His efforts, his sister tells us, were not -entirely successful, although some evidence was turned up which pointed -to the truth of this theory. Several of the dates in the report, -however, did not accurately tally, and since many of Nietzsche's -papers containing the results of his genealogical research were lost -in Turin after his breakdown, the hypothesis of his Polish descent -consequently remains somewhat mythical. Nietzsche's theory was that his -great-great-grandfather was a nobleman named Nicki who fled from Poland -during the religious wars, as a fugitive under sentence of death, and -took with him a young son who afterward changed his name to Nietzsche. -There is a romance in this belief which appealed strongly to the -philosopher. He saw a genuine grandeur in the fact that his ancestor -had become a fugitive for his religious and political opinions. This -belief in time became a conviction with him, and in the later years of -his life we find him definitely asserting the truth of this family -tradition. - -The matter, however, one way or the other, is of little consequence, -for Nietzsche's mind embodied universal traits: it was uncommonly free -from distinctly national characteristics. All the important facts of -his life and of his immediate ancestry are known to us. He was born at -Röcken, a little village in the Prussian province of Saxony, on October -15, 1844. The day was the anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Wilhelm -IV, King of Prussia, and Nietzsche was christened Friedrich Wilhelm in -honour of the event. The coincidence was all the more marked by the -fact that Nietzsche's father, three years previous, had been tutor to -the Altenburg Princesses, in which capacity he had met the sovereign -and made so favourable an impression that it was by the royal favour he -was living at Röcken. There were two other children in the Nietzsche -household--a girl born in 1846, and a son born in 1850. The girl -was named Therese Elizabeth Alexandra after the Duke of Altenburg's -three daughters who had come under her father's tutorship. Afterward -she became the philosopher's closest companion and guardian and his -most voluminous biographer. The boy Joseph, named after the Duke of -Altenburg himself, did not survive his first year. - -The longevity and hardiness which marked the stock of Nietzsche's -ancestors does away with the theory, often advanced, that his sickness -and final mental breakdown were the outcome of hereditary causes. -Out of his eight great-parents only two failed to reach the age of -seventy-five, while one reached the age of eighty-six and another -did not die until ninety. Both of his grand-fathers attained to -the age of seventy, and his maternal grandmother lived until she -was past eighty-two. Furthermore, the Nietzsche families for three -generations had been very large and in every instance healthy and -robust. Nietzsche's grandmother Nietzsche had twelve children, and his -grandmother Oehler had eleven children--both families being strong and -free from sickness. Nietzsche himself, so his sister tells us in her -biography, was strong and healthy from his earliest childhood until -maturity. He participated in outdoor sports such as swimming, skating -and ball playing, and was characterised by a ruddy complexion which -in his school days often called forth remarks concerning his evident -splendid health. It seems that only one physical defect marked the -whole of his younger life--a myopia inherited from his father. This -impediment, though slight at first, became rapidly aggravated by the -constant use to which he put his eyes in his sedulous application to -study. - -Nietzsche, the most terrible and devastating critic of Christianity -and its ideals, was the culmination of two long collateral lines of -theologians. His grandfather Nietzsche was a man of many scholarly -attainments, who, because of his ecclesiastical writings, had received -the degree of Doctor of Divinity. His second wife, the mother of -Nietzsche's father, came from a whole family of pastors by the name -of Krause. Her favourite brother was a preacher in the Cathedral at -Naumburg; and of the other two one was a Doctor of Divinity and one -a country clergyman. The father of Nietzsche's mother was also a -pastor by the name of Oehler, and had a parsonage in Pobles. Likewise -Nietzsche's father, Karl-Ludwig Nietzsche, was a pastor in the -Lutheran church; but he possessed a greater culture than we are wont -to associate with the average country clergyman, and was a man looked -up to and revered by all those who knew him. In fact, his appointment -to the post at Röcken was an expression of appreciation paid his -talents by the Prussian King. He was thirty-one years of age and had -been married only a year when his son Friedrich was born. Though in -perfect health, he was not destined to live more than five years after -this event, for in 1848 he fell down a flight of stone stairs, and died -after a year's invalidism, as a result of concussion of the brain. - -The event cast a decided influence on the Nietzsche household and -altered completely its plans. After lingering eight months at the -parsonage, the family left Röcken and moved to Naumburg-on-the-Saale, -there establishing a new domicile in the home of the pastor's mother. -The household was composed of the two children, Friedrich and -Elizabeth, their mother, then only twenty-four, their grandmother -Nietzsche, and two maiden sisters of the dead father. This -establishment was run on strict and puritanical lines. All the women -were of strong theological inclinations. One of the maiden aunts, -Rosalie, devoted herself to Christian benevolent institutions. The -other aunt, Augusta, was not unlike the paternal grandmother--pious -and God-fearing and constantly busied with her duties to others. The -widowed mother carried on the Christian tradition of the family, and -never forgot that she was once the wife of a Lutheran pastor. Daily -prayers and Biblical readings were fixed practices. The young Friedrich -was the pet of the household, and there were secret hopes held by all -that he would grow up in the footsteps of his father and become an -honoured and respected light in the church. To the realisation of this -hope, all the efforts and influences of the four women were given. -Such was the atmosphere in which the early youth of the author of "The -Antichrist" was nurtured. - -Soon after the family's arrival at Naumburg, Friedrich, then only six -years old, was sent to a local Municipal Boys' School, in accordance -with the educational theories of his grandmother, who believed in -gregarious education for the very young. But she had failed to count -upon the unusual character of her grandson, and the attempt to educate -him at a municipal institution resulted in failure. His upbringing had -made him somewhat priggish and hypersensitive. He was ridiculed by the -other boys who taunted him with the epithet of "the little minister." -He refused to mingle with the riff-raff which composed the larger part -of the pupils, and held himself isolated and aloof. Consequently, -before the year was up, he was withdrawn from the school and entered in -a private educational institution which prepared the younger students -for the Cathedral Grammar School. Here he was in more congenial -surroundings. He had for schoolmates two youths whose families were -friends of the Nietzsche household--young Wilhelm Pinder and Gustav -Krug, who later were to influence his youth. Nietzsche remained at this -school for three years. - -As a boy Nietzsche was always thoughtful and studious. He was a -taciturn child and took long walks in the country alone, preferring -solitude to companionship. He was sensitive to a marked degree, -polite, solicitous of all about him, and inclined to moodiness. As -soon as he could write he started a diary in which he included not -only the external events of his life but his thoughts and ideas and -opinions. The pages of this diary, partially preserved, make unique -and interesting reading. At a very early age he began writing poetry. -His verses, though conventional in both theme and metre, reflected a -knowledge of contemporary prosody unusual in a boy of his years. He had -ample opportunity in his home of hearing good music, and he manifested -a great love for it in very early youth. He devoted much time to -studying the piano, and not infrequently tried his hand at composing. -Later in his life we still find him writing music, and also publishing -it. In deportment Nietzsche was a model child. He was thoroughly -imbued with the religious atmosphere of his surroundings, and was -far more pious than the average youth of his own age. For a long -while he gave every indication of fulfilling the ecclesiastical hopes -which his family harboured for him. Consequently there was no lack of -encouragement on the part of his guardians toward his first literary -efforts which reflected the piety of his nature. - -After a few years in the Naumburg school, where he distinguished -himself as a model student and incidentally impressed the visiting -inspectors by his quickness and brilliance in answering test -questions, Nietzsche took the entrance examinations for the -well-known Landes-Schule at Pforta, an institution then noted for -its fostering and promotion of scientific studies. The vacancy at -Pforta had been offered Nietzsche's mother by the Rector who had heard -rumours concerning the intellectual gifts of the young "Fritz." The -examinations were passed successfully, and in October, 1858, after a -tearful leave-taking, he entered the Lower Fourth Form. Pforta, at that -time, was an institution of considerable eminence, with a tradition -attaching to it not unlike that of Eton. It was a hot-bed of academic -culture, and the professors were among the most learned in the country. -The school had been founded as a monastery in the twelfth century by -the Cistercian monks. In the sixteenth century it had fallen under -the rule of the Duke Moritz of Saxony, who turned it into a secular -educational academy, making way for the advance of the newer ideals. - -The life at Pforta in Nietzsche's day was strict, and we learn that -the young philosopher chafed somewhat under the stringent discipline. -But in time he accustomed himself to the regulations, and it was not -long before we find him actively and interestedly participating in -the school life. However, new ideas were fomenting. If outwardly he -acquiesced to the routine, inwardly he was in a state of revolt. He had -already begun to indulge in original thinking, and he felt the lack -of freedom in communicating his ideas to others. His only confidante -during these days was his sister whom he always saw during the holidays -and on brief leaves of absence. His spare moments were devoted to music -and literature other than that prescribed by the school curriculum. -He resented the fact that one had to think of particular themes -at specified times, and no doubt caused his good tutor, Professor -Buddensieg, much uneasiness, for, to judge from his diary, he did not -keep to himself the resentment he felt toward the enforcement of the -irksome and repressive calendar of studies. - -This resentment doubtlessly had much to do with the inauguration of -a society which was called the Germania Club. Wilhelm Pinder and -Gustav Krug, Nietzsche's former school companions at Naumburg, were -participants in its formation; and on the highest ledge of the watch -tower, overlooking the Saale valley, its object was discussed and -its inception dedicated and solemnised with a bottle of red wine. -This society, while bearing many of the ear-marks of mere youthful -enthusiasm, formed an important turning point in Nietzsche's life. It -acted, at a psychological moment, as a safety-valve for the heretical -ideas and aspirations which, up to that time, he had confided only to -his sister and his diary. The purpose of the club can best be stated -in Nietzsche's own words: "We resolved to found a kind of small club -which would consist of ourselves and a few friends, and the object of -which would be to provide us with a stable and binding organisation, -directing and adding interest to our creative impulses in art and -literature; or to put it more plainly, each of us would be pledged to -present an original piece of work to the club once a month, either a -poem, a treatise, an architectural design, or a musical composition, -upon which each of the others, in a friendly spirit, would have to -pass free and unrestricted criticism. We thus hoped by means of mutual -correction to be able both to stimulate and to chasten our creative -impulses." It was during one of his lectures before this group of -youthful individualists that Nietzsche first expressed his true views -on Christianity--views, which, could they have been overheard by his -devoted family, would have brought sorrow to their pious hearts. The -list of Nietzsche's contributions to this synod numbered thirty-four, -and included musical compositions, poems, political orations and -various literary works. - -Nietzsche remained at Pforta until 1864. He had been confirmed at -Easter, 1861, and to all outward manifestations retained his religious -principles. His final report states that "he showed an active and -lively interest in the Christian doctrine." In religion he was given -the grade of "excellent." During his later years at Pforta he -manifested an interest in the works of Emerson and Shakespeare and -especially in the Greek and Latin authors. His dislike for mathematics -increased steadily, and his love for Sophocles, Æschylus, Plato and -the Greek lyricists "grew by leaps and bounds." His final paper--the -departing thesis which was compulsory for all graduating students--was -a Latin essay on Theognis of Megara, _"De Theognide Megarensi"_ Between -Nietzsche and that ancient aristocrat, with his fine contempt for -democracy, there existed many temperamental affinities; and this final -essay was no less than a foundation on which the young Dionysian later -built his philosophy of aristocracy. On the 7th of September he left -Pforta. - -After resting at Naumburg until the middle of October, Nietzsche set -forth for the University of Bonn. It was here that he came under -the guidance of Professor Ritschl, who later was to exert a great -influence over him. Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl was not only the -foremost philologist of his time, but a scholar deeply versed in -classical literature and rhetoric. It was he who founded the science -of historical literary criticism as we know it to-day. When he first -met Nietzsche his interest in the young man at once became very great, -and the relationship between them rapidly developed into the warmest -of friendships. To Ritschl Nietzsche owed many things. It was at the -former's house that he became acquainted with many of the leading -learned men of the day. And it would be unfair not to credit Ritschl -with much of the future philosopher's ardent and lasting interest in -ancient cultures. - -At Bonn Nietzsche entered the collegiate life with unusual zest. He -became a member of the Franconia Student Corps, and participated -freely in the drinking bouts which, from what we can learn from his -letters home, constituted one of the main duties attached to his -membership. But this phase of the student life was foreign to his -tastes, and after brief activities in the rôle of "good fellow," he -found a more spontaneous recreation in attending concerts and the -better class theatres. He privately studied Schumann, and during 1864 -and 1865 his life bore a marked musical stamp. - -It was during Nietzsche's days at Bonn that a decided change came over -his religious views. His critical studies in the literature and culture -of the ancients had done much toward weaning him from the formal and -almost literal theological beliefs of his family. The first open breach -between his newer ideals and the established prejudices of his mother -came at Easter-time about midway of his course at Bonn. He was home -for the holidays, and when the good people were preparing to attend -communion, he suddenly informed them of his decision not to accompany -them. Arguments were unavailing. An animated discussion arose in which -he firmly defended his attitude; and from that time on there was never -a reconciliation between his religious standpoint and the one held by -his family. Two learned ecclesiastics were called into consultation, -but they were unable to meet the disquieting arguments of the young -heretic, and his case was dismissed for the moment on his Aunt -Rosalie's theory that even in the lives of the devoutest Christians -there often come periods of doubt, and that during such periods it is -best to leave the backslider to his own conscience. Nietzsche, however, -never again entered the fold. - -Curiously enough it was at this same period that came his revulsion -toward the dissipations of student life. He went so far as to attempt -an imposition of his moral theories on the members of the Franconia, -but this attempt at reformation resulted only in his own unpopularity. -In his attitude toward duelling--a pastime somewhat over-emphasised at -Bonn--Nietzsche was consistent with his other beliefs. The chivalrous -side of it appealed to him, although he detested the spirit of it -from the standpoint of the student body. However, he took heroic, if -unconventional, means to involve himself in a duel lest his position -be misconstrued as cowardice. He selected an adversary he thought -worthy of him, and pleasantly demanded a combat on the field of honour, -ending his request: "Let us waive all the usual preliminaries." -The other agreed, and the duel was fought. But the incident merely -resulted in emphasising Nietzsche's disgust for student life. Says -his sister, "The circumstances which above all aroused my brother's -wrath was the detestable 'beer materialism' with which he met on -all sides, and owing to these early experiences in Bonn he for ever -retained a very deep dislike for smoking, drinking, and the whole of -so-called 'beer-conviviality.'" His decision to leave Bonn and enter -the University of Leipzig was due to his fondness for Ritschl. In the -dispute which arose between the two Professors, Jahn and Ritschl, -Nietzsche's friendship for the latter made him a partisan, although he -held Jahn in the highest respect; and when Ritschl decided to transfer -himself to Leipzig, the young philosopher, along with several of the -other students, followed him. This was in the autumn of 1865. Nietzsche -reached Leipzig on the 17th of October, and the next day he presented -himself to the Academic Board. It was the centennial anniversary -of the day when Goethe had entered his name on the register, and -the University was celebrating the event. The coincidence delighted -Nietzsche greatly, who regarded it as a good omen for his future at the -new institution. - -It was during his residence at Leipzig that there came into his life -two events which were to have a profound and lasting influence on his -future. One of these was his acquaintance with Wagner--an acquaintance -which several years later developed into the strongest friendship of -his life. The other event (in many ways more important than the first) -was his discovery of Schopenhauer. This discovery is characteristically -described in a letter to his sister: "One day I came across this book -at old Rohn's curiosity shop, and taking it up very gingerly I turned -over its pages. I know not what demon whispered to me: 'Take this -book home with thee.' At all events, contrary to my habit not to be -hasty in my purchase of books, I took it home. Once in my room I threw -myself into the corner of the sofa with my booty, and began to allow -that energetic and gloomy genius to work upon my mind. In this book, -in which every line cried out renunciation, denial, and resignation, I -saw a mirror in which I espied the whole world, life and my own mind -depicted in frightful grandeur. In this volume the full celestial eye -of art gazed at me; here I saw illness and recovery, banishment and -refuge, heaven and hell. The need of knowing myself, yea, even of -gnawing at myself, forcibly seized me." This book went far in arousing -the philosophic faculties of the young philologist, and later he -wrote many essays, long and short, both in praise and in refutation -of the great pessimist. That he should at first have subscribed to -all of Schopenhauer's teachings is natural. Nietzsche was vital and -susceptible to enthusiasms. It was in accord with his youthful nature, -full of courage and strength, that he should have been seduced to -pessimism. - -At Leipzig Nietzsche accomplished an enormous amount of work: and his -nature developed in proportion. The life was freer than it had been -at Pforta or at Bonn. Far from being hampered in the voicings of his -inner beliefs, he found his environment particularly congenial to -self-expression. He made numerous friends, principal among them being -Erwin Rohde, who crossed his later life at many points. He showed -a great interest in political, as well as in literary and musical, -events; and the war between Prussia and Austria fanned his youthful -ardour to an almost extravagant degree. Twice he offered himself to -the authorities, hoping to be permitted to serve as a soldier, but was -rejected both times on account of his shortsightedness. His interest -in his studies, however, was in no wise diminished. He read widely in -English, French, Greek and Latin, and devoted much scholarly research -to Theognis, Diogenes Laertius, and Democritus. His essay on the -subject, _"De Fontibus Diogenis Laertii"_ won the first university -prize, and was later published, with other of his essays on philology, -in the _Rheinisches Museum._ - -At this time the Prussian army found itself in sore need of men, and -although Nietzsche had been exempt from military duties and had failed -to secure enlistment, he suddenly found himself, in the autumn of 1867, -called upon for compulsory training. A new army regulation had just -been passed requiring all young men, if otherwise physically sound, -to enter military service even though their eyesight was partially -impaired. As a consequence Nietzsche had to leave Leipzig and go into -training. He made an effort to enlist in a Berlin Guard Regiment, but -was finally compelled to join the horse artillery at Naumburg. Although -he had previously volunteered for service, he now found that the life -of a soldier was far more irksome and far less romantic than he had -imagined. He was unhappy and disconsolate, and deplored the slavery -attached to the life of a mounted artilleryman. He was not destined, -however, to fulfil his arduous military duties to the full term of his -proscription. Barely a year had gone by when he was thrown from his -horse and received what at first was thought a slight strain, but what -later turned out to be a serious injury. The pommel of his saddle had -compressed his chest, and the inflammation which set in necessitated -his permanent withdrawal from service. - -For a long time Nietzsche was under the care of the famous specialist, -Volkmann, to whom the military doctors had turned him over when -they had begun to despair of his recovery. During convalescence, he -busied himself with preparations for his coming university year and -assisted in some intricate indexing for members of the faculty. In -October, 1868, he was able to return to Leipzig and resume his work. -But another unexpected event--this one of an advantageous nature and -destined to alter his whole future--came in the form of an inquiry -from the University of Bale in Switzerland. The members of that -institution's educational board, attracted by Nietzsche's essays in -the _Rheinisches Museum,_ wrote to Ritschl for information regarding -the young philologist. Ritschl replied that Nietzsche was a genius and -could do whatever he put his mind to. Thus it happened that, although -only 24, he was offered the vacant post of Classical Philology at Bâle, -without even being put through the formalities of an examination. -However, he was straightway granted a Doctor's degree by the University -of Leipzig, and on the 13th of April, 1869, he left Naumburg to assume -the duties of his new appointment. His departure marked the passing -of the Nietzsche household. His grandmother and both the maiden aunts -were dead, and because, no doubt, of religious differences, he and his -mother became estranged. Of that intimately welded family circle, only -the deep friendship between Nietzsche and his sister remained. - -On May 28, Nietzsche delivered his inaugural address at Bâle, using -the personality of Homer as his subject. The hall was crowded, and the -address made a decided impression on both students and faculty. The -lecture was an unusual one and well off the conventional track. It -created riot a little mild excitement among the professors at Leipzig, -and the cut-and-dried philologists of that institution were frankly -scandalised by its boldness. The address, however, was an index to -Nietzsche's character, and, in looking back on it, we can see that it -unmistakably pointed the way along which the future development of -his mind was to take place. At Bâle, the young philologist, despite -the people's kindly disposition toward him, suffered from solitude. -His classes were small. Although he had made an impassioned plea for -his particular science, the interest in philology was slight, and -his morning lectures were attended by only eight students. Nietzsche -was without a companion with whom he might exchange his ideas and -personal thoughts. His only diversion came in the form of occasional -trips to neighbouring parts of the country; and the letters he wrote -to his sister and his former friends were tinged with melancholy. -But he was conscientious in his work, and a year later he was given a -professorship. - -Before he could accept this later appointment it had been necessary -for him to become a naturalised subject of Switzerland, so that when -the Franco-German War of 1870 broke out, he could not serve as a -combatant--a fact which caused him keen disappointment. He was able, -however, to secure service as an ambulance attendant in the Hospital -Corps, and set forth upon his patriotic duties with a glad heart. -Having been granted the leave he asked for at the University, he went -to Erlangen, where he entered for a course of surgery and medicine at -the Red Cross Society. After a brief training as a nurse, in which line -of work he showed remarkable adaptability, he was sent to the seat of -war at the head of an ambulance corps. He was untiring in his energies -and laboured day and night in the midst of the battlefields. But the -overwork proved too much for him, and he soon reached the limit of -his endurance. One day, after long exposure in a cattle truck filled -with severely wounded and diseased men, he began to show signs of -serious illness, and when, after great difficulty, he managed to reach -Erlangen, it was discovered that he was suffering from diphtheria and -severe dysentery. Though he had seen but a few weeks' hospital service, -it was now necessary for him to discontinue his duties entirely. His -sister tells us that this illness greatly undermined his health, and -was the first cause of his subsequent condition. To make matters worse, -the slight medical education which he had received in preparation -for his ambulance service led him to pursue a fateful course of -self-doctoring--a practice which he continued to his own detriment -throughout the remainder of his life. Nietzsche did not even wait -until he was well before resuming his duties at the University, and -this new strain imposed on his already depleted system had much to do -with bringing on his final breakdown. - -As a result of the Philistinism which broke out all over Germany at -the end of the war, Nietzsche delivered a course of lectures at Bonn, -which he entitled "On the Future of Our Educational Institutions." -Germany had insisted that her victory was due not only to physical -bravery but also in a large measure to the superiority of Germanic -culture and Teutonic ideals. Nietzsche beheld in this snobbish attitude -a very grave danger for his country, and endeavoured in a small way to -rectify this attitude by a series of lectures. He severely criticised -the German educational institutions of the day and went so far as to -deny them the great culture which they so ardently claimed. While these -lectures in no wise stemmed, even locally, the tide of Philistinism -at which they were aimed, the criticisms contained in them are of the -greatest importance in reviewing the development of the philosopher -himself. The lectures contained, perhaps unconsciously but none the -less clearly, many of the elements of that philosophy which later was -to have so tremendous an influence not only on Germany but on the whole -civilised world. - -In the same year, 1872, Nietzsche's first important book appeared. This -work, dedicated to Richard Wagner, had been begun in 1869, and was -first called "The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music." When the -third edition appeared in 1886 the title was changed to "The Birth of -Tragedy, or Hellenism and Pessimism," and a preface called "An Attempt -at Self-Criticism" was added. In a large measure this book was a -tribute to Wagner, and was written by Nietzsche in an effort to be of -immediate benefit to the musician who at that time was passing through -a period of despondency. Wagner was then living at Tribschen, not far -from Bâle, and Nietzsche's visits to him were frequent. It was during -these years that the great friendship between the two men developed. -"The Birth of Tragedy," however, was not well received by the public. -Musicians were pleased with it, but philologists in particular -deplored its utterances. They looked upon its author as a traitor to -their science for having dared to venture beyond the narrow bounds of -academic formalism. One well-known philologist, Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, -attacked Nietzsche in an ill-humoured pamphlet; and although Erwin -Rohde answered it adequately with another pamphlet, the attack proved -detrimental to Nietzsche's standing at Bale. During the following -winter term the young philologist was entirely without pupils. - -His mind, however, was now undergoing decided and important changes. He -was becoming bolder and surer of himself. New ideals were taking the -place of old ones, and in 1873 he began a series of famous pamphlets -which later were put into book form under the title of "Thoughts Out -of Season." His first attack was upon David Strauss; the second was -directed towards the German historians of the day; the third was aimed -at Schopenhauer; and the fourth was the famous panegyric, "Richard -Wagner in Bayreuth." These essays, together with his work at Bâle, -occupied him until 1876. Nietzsche was now suffering severely from -the malady he carried to his grave, catarrh of the stomach. This was -accompanied by severe headaches, and during his holidays he alternated -between Switzerland and Italy in an endeavour to recover his health. -In the former place he was with Wagner. In Italy, at Sorrento, he met -Dr. Paul Rée, who, if we are to believe Max Nordau, was the father -of all Nietzsche's ideas. Credence, however, cannot be given to this -accusation, for the nucleus of all of his later ideas was undeniably -contained in his writings previous to his meeting with Rée. That Rée -influenced him to some small extent no one will deny, for it was he who -turned the young philosopher's attention to the latter day scientists -of both England and France; and it was shortly after this meeting that -Nietzsche began his first independent philosophical work, "Human, -All-Too-Human." - -It was in the year 1876 that his famous friendship with Wagner began -to cool. Nietzsche had gone to Bayreuth to witness the performance -of _"Der Ring des Nibelungen."_ Already he had begun to question -his own high opinion of the composer, and Bayreuth solidified his -doubts. It had been two years since he had seen Wagner, and after a -brief conversation, Nietzsche became bitter and disgusted. When he -finally went away his revulsion was complete, and one of the greatest -of historic friendships was at an end. Whatever were the individual -merits in the quarrel between these two great contemporaneous men, -Nietzsche's attitude was at least consistent with his innermost ideals. -He had admired in Wagner certain definite, revolutionary qualities, -and when he was convinced, as he had every reason to be, that Wagner -was compromising his art for the purpose of popularity, the ideal -was broken. He could no longer remain true to himself and also to -his friendship for the great composer. "Parsifal" was undoubtedly -a decadent work, viewed from the standpoint of Wagner's previous -performances. Decadence is simply the inability to create new tissue; -and when Wagner forswore modern ideas and reverted to the past, it -attested to an entire change of mental attitude: and no purely æsthetic -doctrine can controvert the fact. Had Cézanne in later life essayed the -painting of conventionally posed saints--no matter what his technical -means might have been--his art would have contained the elements of -decadence, for an artist's mental attitude cannot be dissevered from -his product. This, I believe, was Nietzsche's theory in regard to -Wagner. That the breaking off of this friendship was a great blow to -the philosopher we know from his diary and from his letters. In fact, -his affection for Wagner, the man, was so great that it was not until -ten years had passed that he could bring himself to write the essay -which he had long had in mind, "The Fall of Wagner." - -The year after the appearance of "Human, All-Too-Human," Nietzsche's -ill-health compelled him to resign his professorship at Bâle. He had a -small income which, together with the three thousand francs retiring -allowance granted him by the University, permitted him now to travel -moderately and to devote his entire time to his literary labours. He -first went to Berne, where he stayed a few weeks. Later he visited -Zürich and then St. Moritz. It was a brief holiday, but the change of -_locale,_ coupled with the relaxation from work, improved him both in -physical health and in spirits. The winter of 1879-80 he spent with his -mother at Naumburg, his old home; but the climate and the uncongenial -surroundings dragged down his health once more, and it was not until -toward the following spring, when he went to Venice, that he regained -even a semblance of his normal condition. Here he was in company with -Paul Rée and his life-long friend and disciple, Heinrich Köselitz, -commonly known as Peter Gast. Nietzsche stayed at Venice until October, -when he went to Genoa. The following year appeared "The Dawn of Day," -his first book of constructive thinking. - -The remainder of Nietzsche's life up to the time of his final breakdown -in January, 1889, was spent in a fruitless endeavour to regain his -undermined health. For eight years, during all of which time he was -busily engaged in writing, he sought a climate that would revive -him. His summers were spent for the most part in the quiet solitude -of Sils-Maria, a little Swiss village to which the tourist rarely -ventured. In 1882 he visited Genoa and, with Paul Rée as companion, -made a trip to Monaco. This journey ended disastrously for his health, -and by his physician's order he made a trip to Messina. Soon after he -settled at Grunewald, near Berlin; but the place depressed him, and -we find him later in Tautenburg. Again Genoa claimed him for several -months, and then, addicted to chloral, and despondent, he sought relief -at Rome. But he could not stand the hot weather, and again he visited -Sils-Maria, where, it seems, he was for the time greatly improved. -In 1884, we find him again at Naumburg, and a little later at Nice -and Venice. In the autumn of the same year, he spent several weeks -travelling with his sister in Germany, but at the approach of winter, -he proceeded to Mentone. In 1885 he again sought the company of Peter -Gast at Venice, and spent the larger part of that year and the next -at Venice and Nice. The lonely philosopher then paid a short visit to -Leipzig to be once again with his old friend Rohde. But the years had -estranged them; their views were now at opposites. Another of his few -friends thus lost to him, he immediately returned to Nice. The year -1886 found him at the Riviera, and in 1887 he was again at Sils-Maria. -Here he laboured incessantly, travelling to both Venice and Nice in the -meantime. In the spring of 1888 he changed his plans and went to Turin. -Then after his usual summer visit to Sils-Maria, he returned to Turin, -where he remained until the fatal winter of 1888-89. Nietzsche was -rarely happy during his travels. He was constantly ill and for the most -part alone, and this perturbed and restless period of his life resolved -itself into a continuous struggle against melancholy and physical -suffering. - -During these eight years of solitary labour and futile seeking for -health, Nietzsche had written "Thus Spake Zarathustra," "The Joyful -Wisdom," "Beyond Good and Evil," "The Genealogy of Morals," "The Case -of Wagner," "The Twilight of the Idols," "The Antichrist," _"Ecce -Homo"_ "Nietzsche _contra_ Wagner," and an enormous number of notes -which were to constitute his final and great philosophical work, "The -Will to Power." The cold reception with which his books met tended to -discourage him and to retard his physical recovery. His "Zarathustra" -was as greatly misunderstood by the critics as had been his earlier -volumes. With the exception of Burckhardt and Taine, the critics were -unfavourable to "Beyond Good and Evil." "The Genealogy of Morals" met -with scarcely more friendly a reception, and "The Case of Wagner," -while arousing the ire of the Wagnerians, caused no comment of any kind -in any other quarter. "The Twilight of the Idols" appeared about the -time of his breakdown, and "The Antichrist" and _"Ecce Homo"_ were not -published until long after his death. The notes on "The Will to Power" -have only recently been put together and issued. - -The events during this period of Nietzsche's career were few. Perhaps -the most important was his meeting with Miss Lou Salomé. But even this -episode had small bearing on his life, and has been unduly emphasised -by biographers because of its isolation in an existence outwardly drab -and uneventful. It was while Nietzsche was at Tautenburg that Paul -Rée and another friend, Malvida von Mysenburg, hearing that he was in -need of a secretary, sent to him Miss Salomé, a young Russian Jewess. -That it would have been difficult to find a person less suited to the -philosopher's needs was borne out by subsequent events. According to -some accounts Nietzsche fell mildly in love with her, and was upset -and irritated by her aloofness. But such a hypothesis is substantiated -only by the flimsiest of evidence, and, when we take into consideration -the temperamental gulf between these two people, it is highly -incredible that Nietzsche had any desire to form an alliance with his -amanuensis. The truth of the matter probably is that the philosopher -was sadly disappointed in his secretary--if not indeed disgusted with -her--and, in showing his regret, piqued her to retaliation. In fact, -we have a letter from Nietzsche to the young lady which bears out this -contention. In any event, we know that their companionship lasted but -a short time and that Miss Salomé wrote a most inept and unreliable -book on Nietzsche, _"Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken"_ published -in Vienna in 1894. The affair had other painful results. Rée defended -his protegée, and he and Nietzsche became bitter enemies. Nietzsche's -sister also was dragged into the episode, and quarrelled with both Rée -and Miss Salomé. - -Shortly after this unpleasant event, Nietzsche, urged by his sister, -made a half-hearted attempt to secure a professorship at the -University of Leipzig, but negotiations for the post fell through, -due largely to Nietzsche's own indifference in the matter. Soon after -this the philosopher became estranged from his sister because of -her intention to marry Dr. Förster. Nietzsche's opposition to the -marriage--an opposition which was supported by his mother--was due -to several reasons. First, it would necessitate his sister leaving -him and accompanying her husband to Paraguay. Secondly, it had been -rumoured that Dr. Förster had severely criticised his books. And -thirdly, Nietzsche had small respect for Dr. Förster himself, who -was an impractical idealist and an anti-Semite. However, despite all -the family protestations, the marriage took place. Nietzsche was -disappointed and brooded over the event, but a year later he became -reconciled with his sister, and she remained, to the end of his life, -his closest friend and companion. - -In January, 1889, an apoplectic fit, which rendered Nietzsche -unconscious for two days, marked the beginning of the end. His manner -suddenly became alarming. He exhibited numerous eccentricities, so -grave as to mean but one thing: his mind was seriously affected. -There has long been a theory extant that his insanity was of gradual -growth. Nordau holds that he was unbalanced from birth. But there -is no evidence to substantiate these two theories. For seven years -Nietzsche's physical condition had been improving, and his mind up to -the end of 1888 was perfectly clear and gave no indication of what -his end would be. During this period his books were thought out in -his most clarified manner; in all his intercourse with his friends he -was restrained and normal; and his voluminous correspondence showed -no change either in sentiment or in tone. The theory advanced in some -quarters that his books, and especially his later ones, were the work -of a madman, is entirely without foundation. His insanity was sudden; -it came without warning; and it is puerile to point to his state of -mind during the last years of his life as a criticism of his work. His -books must stand or fall on internal evidence--and on nothing else. -Judged from that standpoint they are scrupulously sane. - -The direct cause of Nietzsche's mental breakdown is not known. As a -matter of fact, there was probably no direct cause. It was due to a -number of influences--his excessive use of chloral which he took for -insomnia, the tremendous strain to which he put his intellect, his -constant disappointments and deprivations, his mental solitude, his -prolonged physical suffering. We know little of his last days before he -went insane. He was living alone in Turin and working desperately. Then -suddenly to Professor Burckhardt at Bâle he wrote a letter which was -obviously the work of a madman. "I am Ferdinand de Lesseps," he wrote. -"I am Prado. I am Schambige.[1] I have been buried twice this autumn." -This was the first indication of his insanity. Immediately after he -wrote a similar letter to his old friend, Professor Overbeck. Other of -Nietzsche's friends received disquieting and indecipherable notes. To -Georg Brandes he sent a letter signed "The Crucified." To Peter Gast -he wrote, "Sing me a new song. The world is clear and all the skies -rejoice." To Cosima Wagner: "Ariadne, I love you." - -There was now no doubt of his condition. Overbeck went immediately -to Turin. He found the philosopher playing wildly on the piano, and -crying blasphemies to the empty room. Nietzsche was taken back to Bâle, -and then placed in a private psychiatric institution at Jena. Here he -stayed until the following spring when he was permitted to be taken -to the home of his mother at Naumburg. It was three years later that -his sister returned from Paraguay, where her husband had died, and -Nietzsche was sufficiently recovered to meet her when she arrived. But -though he lived for another seven years, his mind was irretrievably -ruined. When his mother died in 1897, his sister removed him to a -villa at Weimar. There on a great veranda, overlooking the hills and -the river valley, he remained until the end, receiving a few of his -friends and taking his old delight in music. His sister watched over -him tenderly, and though he was never strong enough to resume work, -he would often talk of his books. When shown a portrait of Wagner, he -said, "Him I loved dearly." He was all tenderness toward the end. The -mighty yea-sayer had become as a little child. "Elizabeth," he would -say, "do not cry. Are we not happy?" - -Nietzsche died on the 25th of August, 1900, and was buried at Röcken, -his native village. - - -[Footnote 1: Schambige and Prado were two assassins whose exploits were -then occupying the French journals.] - - - - -II - - -"Human, All-Too-Human" - -Volumes I and II - - -"Human, All-Too-Human" (_"Menschliches Allzu Menschliches"_) was -first published in 1878. Previous to this time Nietzsche had devoted -himself to a sedulous study of the French philosophers--Pascal, -La Rochefoucauld, Vanergues, Montaigne and others--and these men -influenced him in his selection of the aphoristic style as a medium -for his thoughts. His serious illness at the time made it impossible -for him to attempt any large and co-ordinated philosophical task which -would have required sustained thinking and continual physical labour, -and the detached manner of writing employed by the French thinkers -fitted in with the intermittent manner in which he was necessitated to -work. "Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions," the second part of "Human, -All-Too-Human," appeared the following year; and "The Wanderer and his -Shadow," the third section, was made public in 1880. Six years later -these three parts were put together in two volumes under the caption of -the original book, and were subtitled "A Book of Free Spirits." - -At that time Nietzsche already had numerous writings to his credit. -"The Birth of Tragedy" (_"Die Geburt der Tragödie"_) was composed -between 1869 and 1871, and issued in January, 1872. It was a treatise -on pessimism and Hellenism, and in it Nietzsche endeavoured to -ascertain the origin of Greek tragedy. In his research he passed over -many of the lesser philological discussions which were then occupying -the minds of his academic confrères, and, mild as was this first -published work of his, he suddenly found himself the centre of a -discussion which augured ill for his future at the University of Bâle. -In this book he undertook to explain the constant conflict between the -Apollonian and Dionysian ideals, and defined the differences underlying -these two great influences in Greek art. Later in his writings we find -him applying the theories stated in "The Birth of Tragedy" to all human -transactions. - -"On the Future of our Educational Institutions" and "Homer and -Classical Philology," contained in one volume, were addresses -delivered during Nietzsche's professorship of classical philology -at Bâle University. In these lectures he pointed out the necessity -of protecting the man of genius, and denied the existence of actual -culture in the educational institutions of modern Germany, holding that -true culture is only for the higher type of man. He made a plea for an -institution where genuine culture, founded on the ideals of ancient -Greece, would be harboured for the few who would devote their lives -to it. Here unquestionably was the faint beginning of his conception -of the superman. While these lectures dealt only with the educational -institutions of Germany, the criticisms in them may nevertheless be -applied in a broader sense to the general principles underlying all -schools. This book is the first visible step in the development of his -thought. - -More evidences of what was to come later are found in a series of -essays written during the early seventies, which are now published -under the general caption of "Early Greek Philosophy and Other Essays." -The seven essays contained in this volume are: "The Greek State" -(1871), in which he attacked the modern conception of labour, and -advanced a brief for slavery based on the assumption that without it -true culture cannot exist; "The Greek Woman" (1871), an outline of -Nietzsche's ideal of woman; "On Music and Words" (1871), an analysis -of the origins of music and language and a statement of the functions -of each; "Homer's Contest" (1872), a comparison of the ancient and -modern individualistic strife, in which was pointed out the necessity -of competition in any successful commonwealth; "The Relation of -Schopenhauer's Philosophy to a German Culture" (1872), a gay attack -upon certain phases of German philistinism, with the suggestion that -Schopenhauer's philosophy would prove an excellent counter-irritant; -"Philosophy During the Tragic Age of the Greeks" (1873), a brilliant -account and exposition of those Greek thinkers who preceded Socrates; -and "On Truth and Falsity in their Ultramoral Sense" (1873), a -rhapsodic refutation of the theory of absolute truth, in which we find -many denials of the values attached to current conventions. These -denials we are constantly meeting in the major part of Nietzsche's -later work. - -In Volume I of "Thoughts Out of Season" we find two essays: "David -Strauss, the Confessor and Writer" (written in 1873), and "Richard -Wagner at Bayreuth" (written during the close of 1875 and at the -beginning of 1876). The first essay is an attack upon an ex-clerical -who set up a philosopher's shop in Nietzsche's day and succeeded in -sufficiently inflaming the popular mind to secure for himself a wide -and ardent following. Nietzsche, angered by the effect that Strauss's -sophistries had upon the German mind, undertook to answer them and -show up their spuriousness. In the essay on Richard Wagner, Nietzsche -praised the composer in no uncertain terms, hailing him as a saviour -of mankind through the medium of the drama. Nietzsche thought he saw -in Wagner a kindred spirit, a man free from the narrow dictates of his -time, one capable of establishing a new order of things in the realm of -art. Subsequently the philosopher turned against Wagner and denounced -him bitterly for his anti-Hellenic tendencies. - -Volume II of "Thoughts out of Season" contains "The Use and Abuse of -History" and "Schopenhauer as Educator," both written in 1874. In the -first of these essays Nietzsche attacked the study of history which was -then the foremost educational fad in Germany. He denied it a place in -the curriculum of culture unless it had for its foundation a profound -knowledge of the causes of history. Also in this essay he made a plea -for the individualistic interpretation of history, arguing that the -events founded on the activities of majorities are useless to a true -understanding of the fundamentals of racial development. Here again -we encounter the foreshadowing of the philosophy of the superman. -Nietzsche paid high tribute to Schopenhauer in his essay "Schopenhauer -as Educator." Without subscribing unqualifiedly to all the doctrines -of the great pessimist, he nevertheless allied himself philosophically -with Schopenhauer's theory that all logic is an outgrowth of the law of -self-preservation. - -In the autumn of 1874 Nietzsche wrote a series of brief comments -dealing with the subject of education. These paragraphs contain -about 20,000 words, and were to have constituted, when completed, -the fifth part of "Thoughts Out of Season." He never finished them, -however, and they were not published until after his death. These -fragments appear, under the caption of "We Philologists," at the end -of the volume entitled "The Case of Wagner." "We Philologists" is a -protest against the manner in which classical culture was promulgated -in the universities. It offers a stinging criticism of those German -professors, the philologists, to whom was entrusted the duty of -disseminating Greek cultural ideals, and in addition presents a concise -outline of what genuine Hellenic culture should consist. Nietzsche -protests against the filtering of pagan antiquity through Christian -doctrines--the method of teaching then in vogue--and insists that such -a form of education entirely misses its aim. Although "We Philologists" -is comparatively of small value to the student of Nietzsche's later -philosophy, it is interesting to note that as early as 1874, his -anti-Christian spirit was already well defined. - -The four essays contained in the two volumes of "Thoughts out of -Season" and "We Philologists" were the first of an intended series -of pamphlets to be called _"Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen"_[1] but the -series was never finished. However, the Nietzschean philosophical -ideas had unquestionably begun to take definite form. Already there -had been attempts at idealistic and moralistic valuations. There had -also been a considerable amount of that preliminary analysis which was -to form a foundation for the destructive and constructive thoughts of -later years. In these essays Nietzsche had already begun to strike his -bearings, and while they cannot be taken as a part of his philosophical -scheme, they nevertheless form an excellent introduction for those -students who care to go behind the final expression of his ideas and -behold them in embryo. - -"Human, All-Too-Human," following two years later, came as a distinct -surprise even to Nietzsche's most intimate friends: Wagner especially -was horrified at the heresies contained in it. There had not been -sufficient indications in his earlier writings for one to predict so -devastating an arraignment of modern life as was contained in this -work. It was a departure, not only in thought but also in manner, from -all else he had written. The conventional essay form had been set aside -for an aphoristic style. Here we find a series of paragraphs varying in -length from a few lines to a page or more, each dealing with a separate -and syllogistically detached idea. The epigram, which was to play -such an important part in all of Nietzsche's writings, is also found -in abundance. The form in which these two volumes are cast gives the -effect of a man felling a giant tree with a thousand blows of an axe, -as distinguished from the method of the man who saws it down gradually -and continuously. - -Despite its muscular and incisive qualities, the manner of this work -is calm. As a whole it is an excellent example of those writings which -Nietzsche himself has called Apollonian. At times one even feels a -tentativeness in its utterances not unlike that which attaches to -the steps a man takes in a region he knows to be full of quicksands. -In this regard it is interesting to note how a certain insecurity at -the beginning of the work, which manifests itself in ultra-obscure -passages, later gives way to a clarity and humour indicative of almost -wanton temerity. In this book Nietzsche passes from the academician -to the iconoclast. He bridges the chasm from the doctor of philology -to the independent thinker. It is the record of the psychological -transition of his mind; and this record is evident in both his outlook -and his habits of expression. - -Nietzsche, at his birth as a thinker, presents himself as an -arch-nihilist. He realised the necessity of destroying the universe -before an understanding of it was possible, and so the two volumes of -"Human, All-Too-Human" are almost entirely destructive. In this work -we have Nietzsche the trail-blazer, the incendiary, the idol-smasher, -the pessimist, the devastator. One by one the doctrines and tenets, -strengthened by the accumulative acceptance of centuries, go down -before his bludgeon. Piece by piece the universe of reality is -neutralised by his analyses. Every human transaction, every phase of -human hope and aspiration, is reduced to negation. Ancient and modern -cultures are dissected unsparingly. Political systems are stripped -of their integuments and their origins exposed. New valuations are -attached to the great artists and writers. Many of Nietzsche's most -famous definitions grow out of the ruthless inquests he makes in this -work. - -This uncompassionate clearing away of accepted values prepared the -way for the books which were to come. Once having ascertained the -foundation on which human actions are built, the path was clear for -reconstruction and reorganisation. "Human, All-Too-Human," then, was -the first indirect voicing of Nietzsche's philosophy. All else had -been mere skirmishing with ideas. Only vaguely and desultorily had -his opinions been heretofore voiced. His analysis of history, his -criticisms of ancient and modern thought, had actually pried away the -superficial manifestations of existence and given him that insight -into the undercurrents of causation which was later to inspire him -in his work. For this reason we are more conscious of the man than of -the philosopher when reading the series of aphorisms which constitute -the main body of this document. "Human, All-Too-Human" is in the main -an inquiry into the fundamental reasons for human conduct. Nietzsche -devotes his efforts to showing that ideals, when pushed to their -final analysis, reveal a basis in human need. Especially does he -concern himself with the causes underlying current moral doctrines. -He points out that there is no static and absolute morality, but that -all moral codes are systems of deportment founded on human conditions -in accordance with the environmental needs of a people. From this -he states the corollary that all morality is subject to alteration, -amendment and abrogation. He asserts the relativity of the terms "good" -and "evil," and denies the justice of any final criticism of right and -wrong as applied to any human action. - -From this Nietzsche deduces the formula which is at the bottom of all -individualistic philosophy, namely: that what is immoral for one man -is moral for another, and that the application of any moral code is -undesirable for the reason that no system of conduct can apply alike -to all men. Thus any attempt on the part of any one man to direct the -actions of any other man is in itself an immorality, because it is an -attempt to hinder and retard the development of the individual. It -must not be thought that Nietzsche's arrival at this conclusion is a -direct and simple affair based on superficial observation. Nor is it in -itself the end for which he strives. To the contrary, the conclusion -is stated mainly by inference. The work he lays out for himself is one -of analysis, and under his critical scalpel fall religions, political -institutions and nations, as well as individuals. Wherever he finds -a belief whose origin is considered divine, he tears away its surface -characteristics and inquires into it. In every instance he finds a -human ground for it. Going still further, he points out that all -institutions, in order to meet the constantly fluctuating conditions of -society, must subject themselves to change. - -A multiplicity of themes comes under Nietzsche's observation in this -work. Not only is there a great deal of abstract reasoning but also -a vast amount of brilliant and penetrating criticism of men and -art. Ancient and modern philosophers, novelists, poets, musicians, -dramatists, as well as theories of art, literature and music, here come -under his careful and acute analysis. There are passages of startling -poetry interpolated between paragraphs of cynical and destructive -research. Nietzsche reveals himself as a scholar, the philologist, the -historian and the scientist, as well as the thinker. The amount of -general knowledge he displays in nearly every line of human endeavour -is astonishing. In his most elaborate processes of ratiocination he is -always capable of adhering to authenticated facts. He never side-steps -into the purely metaphysical or denies the existence of corporeality -once it has been assumed as a hypothesis. He breaks once and for all -with the metaphysicians and word-jugglers. Denying all reason in the -Kantian sense, he is always scrupulously reasonable. - -Although no direct philosophical doctrines are propounded in "Human, -All-Too-Human," Nietzsche had undoubtedly outlined in his mind the -constructive works which were to come later. However, in reading -this work one finds but little indication--and that only obscurely -hinted at--of the transvaluation of values which was to follow the -devaluation. We have no hint, for instance, of the doctrine of the -superman other than an implied ideal of an intellectual aristocracy -which will permit of the highest development; of the individual. -Evolution beyond the present is mentioned but indirectly. The -future, to this destructive Nietzsche, is non-existent. His eyes are -continually turned toward the past and they shift no further than the -present. Only through implication is the Hellenic ideal voiced, and -then it is with a certain degree of speculation as to its efficacy in -meeting the demands of the modern man. Greek culture is used largely as -a means of comparison, or as an arbitrary premise of his dialectic. The -doctrine of eternal recurrence, which was to form one of the bases of -"Thus Spake Zarathustra," is not even suggested. The "will to power," -the anti-Schopenhauerian doctrine, which is the framework on which all -of Nietzsche's constructive thinking is hung, was, at the time of his -writing "Human, All-Too-Human," a hypothesis, vague and undeveloped. - -"Human, All-Too-Human" is the first work of Nietzsche one should read. -In reality it is an elaborate introduction to his later works. In his -following book, "The Dawn of Day," comes the birth of his philosophy; -it is the first real battle in his righteous warfare, the first great -blasphemous assault upon the accepted order of things. But it cannot be -readily understood or appreciated unless we have prepared ourselves for -it. - -The selection of the passages from the present two volumes has been -extremely difficult, due to their multiplicity of themes and to -the heterogeneity of their treatment. It is impossible to create a -convincing effect of a razed forest by presenting a picture of an -occasional fallen tree. Herein has lain my chief difficulty. I have -been able to show only sections of the destruction of human values -which Nietzsche here accomplishes. Furthermore, it has been impossible -to give any very adequate idea of the vast amount of brilliant -criticism of men and art which is to be encountered in these two -volumes. All this must be got direct. It has been possible only to -suggest it here. Those portions of the books which I have been able to -comprehend in these excerpts are necessarily limited to Nietzsche's -more important destructive conclusions. - - -[Footnote 1: "Inopportune Speculations."] - - -EXCERPTS FROM "HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN" - -Everything _essential_ in human development happened in pre-historic -times, long before those four thousand years which we know something -of.... 1, 15 - -Everything has evolved; there are _no eternal facts,_ as there are -likewise no absolute truths. 1, 15 - -It is probable that the objects of religious, moral, æsthetic and -logical sentiment likewise belong only to the surface of things, while -man willingly believes that here, at least, he has touched the heart of -the world.... 1, 17 - -Nothing could be said of the metaphysical world but that it would be -a different condition, a condition inaccessible and incomprehensible -to us; it would be a thing of negative qualities. Were the existence -of such a world ever so well proved, the fact would nevertheless -remain that it would be precisely the most irrelevant of all forms of -knowledge.... 1, 21-22 - -Belief in the freedom of the will is an original error of everything -organic, as old as the existence of the awakenings of logic in it; the -belief in unconditioned substances and similar things is equally a -primordial as well as an old error of everything organic. 1, 33 - -A degree of culture, and assuredly a very high one, is attained when -man rises above superstitious and religious notions and fears, and, -for instance, no longer believes in guardian angels or in original -sin, and has also ceased to talk of the salvation of his soul,--if he -has attained to this degree of freedom, he has still also to overcome -metaphysics with the greatest exertion of his intelligence. 1, 35 - -Away with those wearisomely hackneyed terms Optimism and Pessimism!... -We must get rid of both the calumniating and the glorifying conception -of the world. 1, 43-44 - -_Error_ has made man so deep, sensitive, and inventive that he has put -forth such blossoms as religions and arts. Pure knowledge could not -have been capable of it. 1, 44-45 - -The usual false conclusions of mankind are these: a thing exists, -therefore it has a right to exist. Here there is inference from the -ability to live to its suitability; from its suitability to its -rightfulness. Then: an opinion brings happiness; therefore it is the -true opinion. Its effect is good; therefore it is itself good and true. -1, 45 - -Every belief in the value and worthiness of life is based on vitiated -thought; it is only possible through the fact that sympathy for the -general life and suffering of mankind is very weakly developed in the -individual. 1, 47-48 - -Science ... has no consideration for ultimate purposes, any more than -Nature has, but just as the latter occasionally achieves things of the -greatest suitableness without intending to do so, so also true science, -as the _imitator of nature in ideas,_ will occasionally and in many -ways further the usefulness and welfare of man,--_but also without -intending to do so._ 1, 58 - -All single actions are called good or bad without any regard to their -motives, but only on account of the useful or injurious consequences -which result for the community. But soon the origin of these -distinctions is forgotten, and it is deemed that the qualities "good" -or "bad" are contained in the action itself without regard to its -consequences.... 1, 59 - -The hierarchy of possessions ... is not fixed and equal at all times; -if any one prefers vengeance to justice he is moral according to the -standard of an earlier civilisation, but immoral according to the -present one. 1, 63 - -People who are cruel nowadays must be accounted for by us as the grades -of earlier civilisations which have survived.... 1, 63 - -Certainly we should _exhibit_ pity, but take good care not to _feel_ -it, for the unfortunate are so _stupid_ that to them the exhibition of -pity is the greatest good in the world. 1, 68 - -The thirst for pity is the thirst for self-gratification.... 1, 69 - -There must be self-deception in order that this and that may _produce_ -great _effects._ For men believe in the truth of everything that is -visibly, strongly believed in. 1, 71 - -One of the commonest mistakes is this: because some one is truthful and -honest towards us, he must speak the truth. 1, 71 - -Why do people mostly speak the truth in daily life?... Because ... the -path of compulsion and authority is surer than that of cunning. 1,72 - -One may promise actions, but no sentiments, for these are involuntary. -1,76 - -Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like -rascals. 1,79 - -Every virtue has its privileges; for example, that of contributing its -own little fagot to the scaffold of every condemned man. 1, 80 - -Why do we over-estimate love to the disadvantage of justice, and say -the most beautiful things about it, as if it were something very much -higher than the latter? Is it not visibly more stupid than justice? -Certainly, but precisely for that reason all the _pleasanter_ for every -one. 1, 81 - -Hope,--in reality ... is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs -the torments of man. 1, 82 - -One will seldom go wrong if one attributes extreme actions to vanity, -average ones to habit, and petty ones to fear. 1, 83 - -Religion is rich in excuses to reply to the demand for suicide, and -thus it ingratiates itself with those who wish to cling to life. 1, -85-86 - -The injustice of the powerful, which, more than anything else, rouses -indignation in history, is by no means so great as it appears.... One -unconsciously takes it for granted that doer and sufferer think and -feel alike, and according to this supposition we measure the guilt of -the one by the pain of the other. 1, 86-87 - -When virtue has slept, it will arise again all the fresher. 1, 87 - -What a great deal of pleasure morality gives! Only think what a sea of -pleasant tears has been shed over descriptions of noble and unselfish -deeds! This charm of life would vanish if the belief in absolute -irresponsibility Were to obtain supremacy. 1, 90 - -Justice (equity) has its origin amongst powers which are fairly -equal.... The character of _exchange_ is the primary character of -justice.... Because man, according to his intellectual custom, has -_forgotten_ the original purpose of so-called just and reasonable -actions, and particularly because for hundreds of years children have -been taught to admire and imitate such actions, the idea has gradually -arisen that such an action is un-egoistic; upon this idea, however, is -based the high estimation in which it is held.... 1, 90-91 - -The feeling of pleasure on the basis of human relations generally makes -man better; joy in common, pleasure enjoyed together is increased, it -gives the individual security, makes him good-tempered, and dispels -mistrust and envy, for we feel ourselves at ease and see others at -ease. _Similar manifestations of pleasure_ awaken the idea of the same -sensations, the feeling of being like something; a like effect is -produced by common sufferings, the same bad weather, dangers, enemies. -Upon this foundation is based the oldest alliance, the object of which -is the mutual obviating and averting of a threatening danger for the -benefit of each individual. And thus the social instinct grows out of -pleasure. 1, 97 - -The aim of malice is _not_ the suffering of others in itself, but our -own enjoyment.... 1, 102 - -If self-defence is allowed to pass as moral, then almost all -manifestations of the so-called immoral egoism must also stand.... -1, 104 - -He who is punished does not deserve the punishment, he is only used as -a means of henceforth warning away from certain actions; equally so, he -who is rewarded does not merit this reward, he could not act otherwise -than he did. 1, 105 - -Between good and evil actions there is no difference of species, but at -most of degree. Good actions are sublimated evil ones; evil actions are -vulgarised and stupefied good ones. 1, 108 - -The religious cult is based upon the representations of sorcery between -man and man.... 1, 121 - -Christianity ... oppressed man and crushed him utterly, sinking him -as if in deep mire; then into the feeling of absolute depravity it -suddenly threw the light of divine mercy, so that the surprised man, -dazzled by forgiveness, gave a cry of joy and for a moment believed -that he bore all heaven within himself. 1, 124 - -People to whom their daily life appears too empty and monotonous easily -grow religious; this is comprehensible and excusable, only they have no -right to demand religious sentiments from those whose daily life is not -empty and monotonous. 1, 125 - -No man _ever_ did a thing which was done only for others and without -any personal motive.... 1, 134 - -In every ascetic morality man worships one part of himself as a God, -and is obliged, therefore, to diabolise the other parts. 1, 140 - -What is it that we long for at the sight of beauty? We long to be -beautiful, we fancy it must bring much happiness with it. But that is a -mistake. 1, 156 - -There is an art of the ugly soul side by side with the art of the -beautiful soul.... 1, 157 - -Artists of representation are especially held to be possessed of -genius, but not scientific men. In reality, however, the former -valuation and the latter under-valuation are only puerilities of -reason. 1, 166-167 - -A good author possesses not only his own intellect, but also that of -his friends. 1, 178 - -To look upon writing as a regular profession should justly be regarded -as a form of madness. 1, 181 - -A conversation with a friend will only bear good fruit of knowledge -when both think only of the matter under consideration and forget that -they are friends. 1, 183 - -Complete praise has a weakening effect. 1, 184 - -There will always be a need of bad authors; for they meet the taste of -readers of an undeveloped, immature age.... 1, 185 - -The born aristocrats of the mind are not in too much of a hurry; their -creations appear and fall from the tree on some quiet autumn evening, -without being rashly desired, instigated, or pushed aside by new -matter. The unceasing desire to create is vulgar, and betrays envy, -jealousy, and ambition. If a man _is_ something, it is not really -necessary for him to do anything--and yet he does a great deal. There -is a human species higher even than the "productive" man.... 1, 189 - -Deviating natures are of the utmost importance wherever there is to -be progress. Every wholesale progress must be preceded by a partial -weakening. The strongest natures _retain_ the type, the weaker ones -help it to _develop_. 1, 208 - -In the knowledge of truth, what really matters is the _possession_ of -it, not the impulse under which it was sought, the way in which it was -found. 1, 210 - -The fettered spirit does not take up his position from conviction, -but from habit; he is a Christian, for instance, not because he -had a comprehension of different creeds and could take his choice; -he is an Englishman, not because he decided for England, but he -found Christianity and England ready-made and accepted them without -any reason, just as one who is born in a wine-country becomes a -wine-drinker. 1, 211 - -The restriction of views, which habit has made instinct, leads to what -is called strength of character. 1, 212-213 - -The highest intelligence and the warmest heart cannot exist together -in one person, and the wise man who passes judgment upon life looks -beyond goodness and only regards it as something which is not without -value in the general summing-up of life. The wise man must _oppose_ -those digressive wishes of unintelligent goodness, because he has an -interest in the continuance of his type and in the eventual appearance -of the highest intellect; at least, he will not advance the founding of -the "perfect State," inasmuch as there is only room in it for wearied -individuals. 1, 218-219 - -Interest in Education will acquire great strength only from the moment -when belief in a God and His care is renounced.... An education that no -longer believes in miracles must pay attention to three things: first, -how much energy is inherited? secondly, by what means can new energy -be aroused? thirdly, how can the individual be adapted to so many and -manifold claims of culture without being disquieted and destroying his -personality,--in short, how can the individual be initiated into the -counterpoint of private and public culture, how can he lead the melody -and at the same time accompany it. 1, 224-225 - -A higher culture must give man a double brain, two brain-chambers, so -to speak, one to feel science and the other to feel non-science, which -can lie side by side, without confusion, divisible, exclusive; this -is a necessity of health. In one part lies the source of strength, -in the other lies the regulator; it must be heated with illusions, -onesidednesses, passions; and the malicious and dangerous consequences -of overheating must be averted by the help of conscious Science. 1, 232 - -Simultaneous things hold together, it is said. A relative dies far -away, and at the same time we dream about him,--Consequently! But -countless relatives die and we do not dream about them.... This species -of superstition is found again in a refined form in historians and -delineators of culture, who usually have a kind of hydrophobic horror -of all that senseless mixture, in which individual and national life is -so rich. 1, 235 - -It is true that in the spheres of higher culture there must always be -a supremacy, but henceforth this supremacy lies in the hands of the -_oligarchs of the mind._ In spite of local and political separation -they form a cohesive society, whose members _recognise and acknowledge_ -each other, whatever public opinion and the verdicts of review and -newspaper writers who influence the masses may circulate in favour -of or against them. Mental superiority, which formerly divided and -embittered, nowadays generally _unites._ ... Oligarchs are necessary -to each other, they are each other's best joy, they understand their -signs, but each is nevertheless free, he fights and conquers in _his_ -place and perishes rather than submit. 1, 243 - -The greatest advance that men have made lies in their acquisition of -the art to _reason rightly._ 1, 249-250 - -The strength and weakness of mental productiveness depend far less on -inherited talents than on the accompanying amount of _elasticity._ -1, 250 - -Whoever, in the present day, still derives his development from -religious sentiments, and perhaps lives for some length of time -afterwards in metaphysics and art, has assuredly gone back a -considerable distance and begins his race with other modern men -under unfavourable conditions; he apparently loses time and space. -But because he stays in those domains where ardour and energy are -liberated and force flows continuously as a volcanic stream out of an -inexhaustible source, he goes forward all the more quickly as soon as -he has freed himself at the right moment from those dominators.... -1, 252 - -Whoever wishes to reap happiness and comfort in life should always -avoid higher culture. 1, 255-250 - -All mankind is divided, as it was at all times and is still, into -slaves and freemen; for whoever has not two-thirds of his day for -himself is a slave.... 1, 259 - -If idleness is really the _beginning_ of all vice, it finds itself, -therefore, at least in near neighbourhood of all the virtues; the idle -man is still a better man than the active. You do not suppose that in -speaking of idleness and idlers I am alluding to you, you sluggards? -1, 260 - -I believe that every one must have his own opinion about everything -concerning which opinions are possible, because he himself is a -peculiar, unique thing, which assumes towards all other things a new -and never hitherto existing attitude. 1, 260-261 - -Whoever earnestly desires to be free will therewith and without any -compulsion lose all inclination for faults and vices; he will also be -more rarely overcome by anger and vexation. 1, 261-262 - -You must have loved religion and art as you loved mother and -nurse,--otherwise you cannot be wise. But you must be able to see -beyond them, to outgrow them; if you remain under their ban you do not -understand them. 1, 264 - -The rage for equality may so manifest itself that we seek either to -draw all others down to ourselves (by belittling, disregarding, and -tripping up), or ourselves and all others upwards (by recognition, -assistance, and congratulation). 1, 268 - -We set no special value on the possession of a virtue until we perceive -that it is entirely lacking in our adversary. 1, 269 - -We forget our pretensions when we are always conscious of being amongst -meritorious people; being alone implants presumption in us. The young -are pretentious, for they associate with their equals, who are all -ciphers but would fain have a great significance. 1, 271 - -In warring against stupidity, the most just and gentle of men at last -become brutal. They are thereby, perhaps, taking the proper course for -defence; for the most appropriate argument for a stupid brain is the -clenched fist. But because, as has been said, their character is just -and gentle, they suffer more by this means of protection than they -injure their opponents by it. 1, 284 - -The perfect woman is a higher type of humanity than the perfect man, -and also something much rarer. 1, 295 - -Every one bears within him an image of woman, inherited from his -mother: it determines his attitude towards woman as a whole, whether to -honour, despise, or remain generally indifferent to them. 1, 295-296 - -Mothers are readily jealous of the friends of sons who are particularly -successful. As a rule mother loves _herself_ in her son more than the -son. 1, 296 - -If married couples did not live together, happy marriages would be more -frequent. 1, 298 - -As a rule women love a distinguished man to the extent that they wish -to possess him exclusively. They would gladly keep him under lock and -key, if their vanity did not forbid, but vanity demands that he should -also appear distinguished before others. 1, 299 - -Those girls who mean to trust exclusively to their youthful charms -for their provision in life, and whose cunning is further prompted by -worldly mothers, have just the same aims as courtesans, only they are -wiser and less honest. 1, 300 - -For goodness' sake let us not give our classical education to girls! -1, 301 - -The intellect of woman manifests itself as perfect mastery, presence -of mind, and utilisation of all advantages. They transmit it as a -fundamental quality to their children, and the father adds thereto the -darker background of the will. His influence determines as it were -the rhythm and harmony with which the new life is to be performed; -but its melody is derived from the mother. For those who know how to -put a thing properly: women have intelligence, men have character and -passion. This does not contradict the fact that men actually achieve -so much more with their intelligence: they have deeper and more -powerful impulses; and it is these which carry their understanding (in -itself something passive) to such an extent. Women are often silently -surprised at the great respect men pay to their character. When, -therefore, in the choice of a partner men seek specially for a being -of deep and strong character, and women for a being of intelligence, -brilliancy, and presence of mind, it is plain that at bottom men seek -for the ideal man, and women for the ideal woman,--consequently not -for the complement but for the completion of their own excellence. -1, 302-303. - -It is a sign of women's wisdom that they have almost always known how -to get themselves supported, like drones in a bee-hive. Let us just -consider what this meant originally, and why men do not depend upon -women for their support. Of a truth it is because masculine vanity and -reverence are greater than feminine wisdom; for women have known how to -secure for themselves by their subordination the greatest advantage, -in fact, the upper hand. Even the care of children may originally -have been used by the wisdom of women as an excuse for withdrawing -themselves as much as possible from work. And at present they still -understand when they are really active (as housekeepers, for instance) -how to make a bewildering fuss about it, so that the merit of their -activity is usually ten times over-estimated by men. 1, 303 - -Marriage is a necessary institution for the twenties; a useful, but not -necessary, institution for the thirties; for later life it is often -harmful, and promotes the mental deterioration of the man. 1, 308 - -Marriage regarded in its highest aspect, as the spiritual friendship -of two persons of opposite sexes, and accordingly such as is hoped for -in future, contracted for the purpose of producing and educating a new -generation,--such marriage, which only makes use of the sensual, so to -speak, as a rare and occasional means to a higher purpose, will, it is -to be feared, probably need a natural auxiliary, namely, _concubinage._ -For if, on the grounds of his health, the wife is also to serve, for -the sole satisfaction of the man's sexual needs, a wrong perspective, -opposed to the aims indicated, will have most influence in the choice -of a wife. The aims referred to: the production of descendants, will be -accidental, and their successful education highly improbable. 1, 309 - -We always lose through too familiar association with women and friends; -and sometimes we lose the pearl of of our life thereby. 1, 312 - -Women always intrigue privately against the higher souls of their -husbands; they want to cheat them out of their future for the sake of a -painless and comfortable present. 1, 315 - -It is laughable when a company of paupers decree the abolition of the -right of inheritance, and it is not less laughable when childless -persons labour for the practical law-giving of a country: they have -not enough ballast in their ship to sail safely over the ocean of the -future. But it seems equally senseless if a man who has chosen for his -mission the widest knowledge and estimation of universal existence, -burdens himself with personal considerations of a family, with the -support, protection, and care of wife and child, and in front of his -telescope hangs that gloomy veil through which hardly a ray from the -distant firmament can penetrate. Thus 1, too, agree with the opinion -that in matters of the highest philosophy all married men are to be -suspected. 1, 316 - -A higher culture can only originate where there are two distinct castes -of society: that of the working class, and that of the leisured class -who are capable of true leisure; or, more strongly expressed, the caste -of compulsory labour and the caste of free labour. 1, 319 - -Against war it may be said that it makes the victor stupid and the -vanquished revengeful. In favour of war it may be said that it -barbarises in both its above-named results, and thereby makes more -natural; it is the sleep or the winter period of culture; man emerges -from it with greater strength for good and for evil. 1, 322 - -As regards Socialism, in the eyes of those who always consider higher -utility, if it is _really_ a rising against their oppressors of -those who for centuries have been oppressed and downtrodden, there -is no problem of _right_ involved (notwithstanding the ridiculous, -effeminate question, "How far _ought_ we to grant its demands?") but -only a problem of _power_ ("How far _can_ we make use of its demands?") -1, 322 - -Well may noble (if not exactly very intelligent) representatives of -the governing classes asseverate: "We will treat men equally and grant -them equal rights"; so far a socialistic mode of thought which is based -on _justice_ is possible; but, as has been said, only within the ranks -of the governing class, which in this case _practises_ justice with -sacrifices and abnegations. On the other hand, to _demand_ equality of -rights, as do the Socialists of the subject caste, is by no means the -outcome of justice, but of covetousness. If you expose bloody pieces of -flesh to a beast, and withdraw them again, until it finally begins to -roar, do you think that roaring implies justice? 1, 326-327 - -When the Socialists point out that the division of property at the -present day is the consequence of countless deeds of injustice and -violence, and, _in summa,_ repudiate obligation to anything with -so unrighteous a basis, they only perceive something isolated. The -entire past of ancient civilisation is built up on violence, slavery, -deception, and error; we, however, cannot annul ourselves, the heirs of -all these conditions, nay, the concrescences of all this past, and are -not entitled to demand the withdrawal of a single fragment thereof. -1, 327 - -Those who are bent on revolutionising society may be divided into -those who seek something for themselves thereby and those who seek -something for their children and grandchildren. The latter are the -more dangerous, for they have the belief and the good conscience of -disinterestedness. 1, 329 - -The fact that we regard the gratification of vanity as of more account -than all other forms of well-being (security, position, and pleasures -of all sorts), is shown to a ludicrous extent by every one wishing for -the abolition of slavery and utterly abhorring to put any one into -this position.... We protest in the name of the "dignity of man"; but, -expressed more simply, that is just our darling vanity which feels -non-equality, and inferiority in public estimation, to be the hardest -lot of all. 1, 330 - -In all institutions into which the sharp breeze of public criticism -does not penetrate an innocent corruption grows up like a fungus (for -instance, in learned bodies and senates). 1, 336 - -The belief in a divine regulation of political affairs, in a mystery -in the existence of the State, is of religious origin: if religion -disappears, the State will inevitably lose its old veil of Isis, and -will no longer arouse veneration. The sovereignty of the people, -looked at closely, serves also to dispel the final fascination and -superstition in the realm of these sentiments; modern democracy is the -historical form of the _decay of the State._ 1, 342 - -Socialism is the fantastic younger brother of almost decrepit -despotism, which it wants to succeed; its efforts are, therefore, -in the deepest sense reactionary. For it desires such an amount of -State Power as only despotism has possessed,--indeed, it outdoes -all the past, in that it aims at the complete annihilation of the -individual, whom it deems an unauthorised luxury of nature, which -is to be improved by it into an appropriate _organ of the general -community._ Owing to its relationship, it always appears in proximity -to excessive developments of power, like the old typical socialist, -Plato, at the court of the Sicilian tyrant; it desires (and under -certain circumstances furthers) the Cæsarian despotism of this century, -because, as has been said, it would like to become its heir. But even -this inheritance would not suffice for its objects, it requires the -most submissive prostration of all citizens before the absolute State, -such as has never yet been realised, and as it can no longer even count -upon the old religious piety towards the State, but must rather strive -involuntarily and continuously for the abolition thereof,--because -it strives for the abolition of all existing _States,_--it can only -hope for existence occasionally, here and there for short periods, by -means of the extremest terrorism. It is therefore silently preparing -itself for reigns of terror, and drives the word "justice" like a nail -into the heads of the half-cultured masses in order to deprive them -completely of their understanding (after they had already suffered -seriously from the half-culture), and to provide them with a good -conscience for the bad game they are to play. Socialism may serve to -teach, very brutally and impressively, the danger of all accumulations -of State power, and may serve so far to inspire distrust of the State -itself. 1, 343-344 - -It is nothing but fanaticism and beautiful soulism to expect very much -(or even, much only) from humanity when it has forgotten how to wage -war. 1, 349 - -Wealth necessarily creates an aristocracy of race, for it permits the -choice of the most beautiful women and the engagement of the best -teachers; it allows a man cleanliness, time for physical exercises, -and, above all, immunity from dulling physical labour. 1, 351 - -Public opinion--private laziness. 1, 354 - -Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. 1, 355 - -The unreasonableness of a thing is no argument against its existence, -but rather a condition thereof. 1, 361 - -People who talk about their importance to mankind have a feeble -conscience for common bourgeois rectitude, keeping of contracts, -promises, etc. 1, 363 - -The demand to be loved is the greatest of presumptions. 1, 363 - -When a man roars with laughter he surpasses all the animals by his -vulgarity. 1, 369 - -The first opinion that occurs to us when we are suddenly asked about -anything is not usually our own, but only the current opinion belonging -to our caste, position, or family; our own opinions seldom float on the -surface. 1, 372 - -Nobody talks more passionately of his rights than he who, in the depths -of his soul, is doubtful about them. 1, 380. - -Unconsciously we seek the principles and opinions which are suited to -our temperament, so that at last it seems as if these principles and -opinions had formed our character and given it support and stability, -whereas exactly the contrary has taken place. Our thoughts and -judgments are, apparently, to be taken subsequently as the causes of -our nature, but as a matter of fact _our_ nature is the cause of our so -thinking and judging. 1, 384 - -The man of unpleasant character, full of distrust, envious of the -success of fellow-competitors and neighbours, violent and enraged -at divergent opinions, shows that he belongs to an earlier grade of -culture, and is, therefore, an atavism; for the way in which he behaves -to people was right and suitable only for an age of club-law; he is -an _atavist._ The man of a different character, rich in sympathy, -winning friends everywhere, finding all that is growing and becoming -amiable, rejoicing at the honours and successes of others and claiming -no privilege of solely knowing the truth, but full of a modest -distrust,--he is a forerunner who presses upwards towards a higher -human culture. 1, 388 - -He who has not passed through different phases of conviction, but -sticks to the faith in whose net he was first caught, is, under -all circumstances, just on account of this unchangeableness, a -representative of _atavistic_ culture.... 1, 400 - -Opinions evolve out of _passions; indolence of intellect_ allows those -to congeal into _convictions_. 1, 404 - -He who has attained intellectual emancipation to any extent cannot, for -a long time, regard himself otherwise than as a wanderer on the face -of the earth--and not even as a traveller _towards_ a final goal, for -there is no such thing. 1, 405 - -If we make it clear to any one that, strictly, he can never speak -of truth, but only of probability and of its degrees, we generally -discover, from the undisguised joy of our pupil, how greatly men prefer -the uncertainty of their intellectual horizon, and how in their heart -of hearts they hate truth because of its definiteness. 2, 15 - -With all that enthusiasts say in favour of their gospel or their master -they are defending themselves, however much they comport themselves as -the judges and not the accused: because they are involuntarily reminded -almost at every moment that they are exceptions and have to assert -their legitimacy. 2, 18 - -The belief in truth begins with the doubt of all truths in which one -has previously believed. 2, 20 - -Philosophic brains will ... be distinguished from others by their -disbelief in the metaphysical significance of morality. 2, 29 - -You hold that sacrifice is the hallmark of moral action?--Just consider -whether in every action that is done with deliberation, in the best as -in the worst, there be not a sacrifice. 2, 30 - -It is more convenient to follow one's conscience than one's -intelligence, for at every failure conscience finds an excuse and an -encouragement in itself. That is why there are so many conscientious -and so few intelligent people. 2, 33 - -All moralists are shy, because they know they are confounded with spies -and traitors, so soon as their penchant is noticed. Besides, they are -generally conscious of being impotent in action, for in the midst of -work the motives of their activity almost withdraw their attention from -the work. 2, 42 - -No one accuses without an underlying notion of punishment and revenge, -even when he accuses his fate or himself. All complaint is accusation, -all self-congratulation is praise. Whether we do one or the other, we -always make some one responsible. 2, 44 - -We must know how to emerge cleaner from unclean conditions, and, if -necessary, how to wash ourselves even with dirty water. 2, 44 - -The origin of morality may be traced to two ideas: "The community is -of more value than the individual," and "The permanent interest is -to be preferred to the temporary." The conclusion drawn is that the -permanent interest of the community is unconditionally to be set above -the temporary interest of the individual, especially his momentary -well-being, but also his permanent interest and even the prolongation -of his existence. 2, 46-47 - -We should not shrink from treading the road to a virtue, even when we -see clearly that nothing but egotism, and accordingly utility, personal -comfort, fear, considerations of health, reputation, or glory, are -the impelling motives. These motives are styled ignoble and selfish. -Very well, but if they stimulate us to some virtue--for example, -self-denial, dutifulness, order, thrift, measure, and moderation--let -us listen to them, whatever their epithets may be! 2, 48 - -The tendency of a talent towards moral subjects, characters, motives, -towards the "beautiful soul" of the work of art, is often only a glass -eye put on by the artist who lacks a beautiful soul. 2, 78 - -Art is above all and meant to embellish life, to make us ourselves -endurable and if possible agreeable in the eyes of others. With this -task in view, art moderates us and holds us in restraint, creates -forms of intercourse, binds over the uneducated to laws of decency, -cleanliness, politeness, well-timed speech and silence. Hence art must -conceal or transfigure everything that is ugly--the painful, terrible, -and disgusting elements which in spite of every effort will always -break out afresh in accordance with the very origin of human nature. -Art has to perform this duty especially in regard to the passions and -spiritual agonies and anxieties, and to cause the significant factor -to shine through unavoidable or unconquerable ugliness. To this great, -super-great task the so-called art proper, that of works of art, is a -mere accessory. A man who feels within himself a surplus of such powers -of embellishment, concealment, and transfiguration will finally seek to -unburden himself of this surplus in works of art. The same holds good, -under special circumstances, of a whole nation. 2, 01-92 - -On great minds is bestowed the terrifying all-too-human of their -natures, their blindnesses, deformities, and extravagances, so -that their more powerful, easily all-too-powerful influence may be -continually held within bounds through the distrust aroused by such -qualities. 2, 100 - -Original minds are distinguished not by being the first to see a new -thing, but by seeing the old, well-known thing, which is seen and -overlooked by every one, as something new. The first discoverer is -usually that quite ordinary and unintellectual visionary--chance. 2, 105 - -The obvious satisfaction of the individual with his own form excites -imitation and gradually creates the form of the many--that is, fashion. -2, 107 - -Who of us could dare to call himself a "free spirit" if he could not -render homage after his fashion, by taking on his own shoulders a -portion of that burden of public dislike and abuse, to men to whom this -name is attached as a reproach? 2, 108 - -Immediate self-observation is not enough, by a long way, to enable us -to learn to know ourselves. We need history, for the past continues to -flow through us in a hundred channels. We ourselves are, after all, -nothing but our own sensation at every moment of this continued flow. -2, 117 - -To young and fresh barbarian nations ... Christianity is a poison. -2, 120 - -Faith, indeed, has up to the present not been able to move real -mountains, although I do not know who assumed that it could. But it can -put mountains where there was none. 2, 121 - -Among travellers we may distinguish five grades. The first and -lowest grade is of those who travel and are seen--they become really -travelled and are, as it were, blind. Next come those who really see -the world. The third class experience the results of their seeing. The -fourth weave their experience into their life and carry it with them -henceforth. Lastly, there are some men of the highest strength who, -as soon as they have returned home, must finally and necessarily work -out in their lives and productions all the things seen that they have -experienced and incorporated in themselves.--Like these five species -of travellers, all mankind goes through the whole pilgrimage of life, -the lowest as purely passive, the highest as those who act and live out -their lives without keeping back any residue of inner experiences. -2, 125 - -To treat all men with equal good-humour, and to be kind without -distinctions of persons, may arise as much from a profound contempt for -mankind as from an in-grained love of humanity. 2, 127 - -Towards science women and self-seeking artists entertain a feeling that -is composed of envy and sentimentality. 2, 134 - -The intellectual strength of a woman is best proved by the fact that -she offers her own intellect as a sacrifice out of love for a man and -his intellect, and that nevertheless in the new domain, which was -previously foreign to her nature, a second intellect at once arises as -an aftergrowth, to which the man's mind impels her. 2, 136 - -By women Nature shows how far she has hitherto achieved her task of -fashioning humanity, by man she shows what she has had overcome, and -what she still proposes to do for humanity. 2, 137 - -Whence arises the sudden passion of a man for a woman, a passion so -deep, so vital? Least of all from sensuality only: but when a man finds -weakness, need of help, and high spirits united in the same creature, -he suffers a sort of overflowing of soul, and is touched and offended -at the same moment. At this point arises the source of great love. -2, 140 - -Profundity of thought belongs to youth, clarity of thought to old age. -2, 140 - -The only remedy against Socialism that still lies in your power is to -avoid provoking Socialism--in other words, to live in moderation and -contentment, to prevent as far as possible all lavish display, and to -aid the State as far as possible in its taxing of all superfluities and -luxuries. 2, 145 - -Only a man of intellect should hold property: otherwise property is -dangerous to the community. For the owner, not knowing how to make use -of the leisure which his possessions might secure to him, will continue -to strive after more property.... It excites envy in the poor and -uncultured--who at bottom always envy culture and see no mask in the -mask--and gradually paves the way for a social revolution. 2, 147-148 - -Only up to a certain point does possession make men feel freer and -more independent; one step farther, and possession becomes lord, the -possessor a slave. 2, 149 - -The governments of the great States have two instruments for keeping -the people independent, in fear and obedience: a coarser, the army, and -a more refined, the school. 2, 152 - -To call a thing good not a day longer than it appears to us good, and -above all not a day earlier--that is the only way to keep joy pure. -2, 158 - -To honour and acknowledge even the bad, when it _pleases_ one, and -to have no conception of how one could be ashamed of being pleased -thereat, is the mark of sovereignty in things great and small. -2, 158-159 - -When life has treated us in true robber fashion, and has taken away all -that it could of honour, joys, connections, health, and property of -every kind, we perhaps discover in the end, after the first shock, that -we are richer than before. For now we know for the first time what is -so peculiarly ours that no robber hand can touch it, and perhaps, after -all the plunder and devastation, we come forward with the airs of a -mighty real estate owner. 2, 162 - -You rank far below others when you try to establish the exception and -they the rule. 2, 167 - -The most senile thought ever conceived about men lies in the famous -saying, "The ego is always hateful," the most childish in the still -more famous saying, "Love thy neighbour as thyself."--With the one -knowledge of men has ceased, with the other it has not yet begun. 2, 172 - -You find your burden of life too heavy? Then you must increase the -burden of your life. 2, 176 - -That the world is _not_ the abstract essence of an eternal -reasonableness is sufficiently proved by the fact that that _bit of the -world_ which we know--I mean our human reason--is none too reasonable. -And if _this_ is not eternally and wholly wise and reasonable, the rest -of the world will not be so either. 2, 184 - -There exists a simulated contempt for all things that mankind actually -holds most important, for all everyday matters. For instance, we say -"we only eat to live"--an abominable _lie,_ like that which speaks -of the procreation of children as the real purpose of all sexual -pleasure. Conversely, the reverence for "the most important things" is -hardly ever quite genuine. 2, 185 - -The doctrine of free will is an invention of the ruling classes. 2, 190 - -If a God created the world, he created man to be his ape, as a -perpetual source of amusement in the midst of his rather tedious -eternities. 2, 193 - -The robber and the man of power who promises to protect a community -from robbers are perhaps at bottom beings of the same mould, save that -the latter attains his ends by other means than the former--that is -to say, through regular imposts paid to him by the community, and no -longer through forced contributions. 2, 200 - -The sting of conscience, like the gnawing of a dog at a stone, is mere -foolishness. 2, 217 - -Rights may be traced to traditions, traditions to momentary agreements. -2, 217 - -Morality is primarily a means of preserving the community and saving it -from destruction. Next it is a means of maintaining the community on a -certain plane and in a certain degree of benevolence. Its motives are -fear and hope, and these in a more coarse, rough, and powerful form, -the more the propensity towards the perverse, one-sided, and personal -still persists. 2, 221 - -Moral prohibitions, like those of the Decalogue, are only suited to -ages when reason lies vanquished. 2, 223 - -It is difficult to explain why pity is so highly prized, just as we -need to explain why the unselfish man, who is originally despised or -feared as being artful, is praised. 2, 224 - -The sum-total of our conscience is all that has regularly been demanded -of us, without reason, in the days of our childhood, by people whom we -respected or feared. 2, 224 - -Every word is a preconceived judgment. 2, 225 - -The fatalism of the Turk has this fundamental defect, that it contrasts -man and fate as two distinct things. Man, says this doctrine, may -struggle against fate and try to baffle it, but in the end fate will -always gain the victory. Hence the most rational course is to resign -oneself or to live as one pleases. As a matter of fact, every man is -himself a piece of fate. When he thinks that he is struggling against -fate in this way, fate is accomplishing its ends even in that struggle. -The combat is a fantasy, but so is the resignation in fate--all these -fantasies are included in fate.--The fear felt by most people of the -doctrine that denies the freedom of the will is a fear of the fatalism -of the Turk. They imagine that man will become weakly resigned and -will stand before the future with folded hands, because he cannot -alter anything of the future. Or that he will give a free rein to his -caprices, because the predestined cannot be made worse by that course. -The follies of men are as much a piece of fate as are his wise actions, -and even that fear of belief in fate is a fatality. You yourself, you -poor timid creature, are that indomitable _Moira,_ which rules even the -Gods; whatever may happen, you are a curse or a blessing, and in any -case the fetters wherein the strongest lies bound: in you the whole -future of the human world is predestined, and it is no use for you to -be frightened of yourself. 2, 228-229 - -In the first era of the higher humanity courage is accounted the most -noble virtue, in the next justice, in the third temperance, in the -fourth wisdom. 2, 230 - -Superficial, inexact observation sees contrasts everywhere in nature -(for instance, "hot and cold"), where there are no contrasts, only -differences of degree. 2, 231 - -On two hypotheses alone is there any sense in prayer, that not quite -extinct custom of olden times. It would have to be possible either -to fix or alter the will of the godhead, and the devotee would have -to know best himself what he needs and should really desire. Both -hypotheses, axiomatic and traditional in all other religions, are -denied by Christianity. 2, 235-233 - -Distrust is the touchstone for the gold of certainty. 2, 266 - -Wrath and punishment are our inheritance from the animals. Man does -not become of age until he has restored to the animals this gift of -the cradle.--Herein lies buried one of the mightiest ideas that men -can have, the idea of a progress of all progresses.--Let us go forward -together a few millenniums, my friends! There is still reserved for -mankind a great deal of joy, the very scent of which has not yet been -wafted to the men of our day! Indeed, we may promise ourselves this -joy, nay summon and conjure it up as a necessary thing, so long as the -development of human reason does not stand still. Some day we shall no -longer be reconciled to the logical sin that lurks in all wrath and -punishment, whether exercised by the individual or by society--some -day, when head and heart have learnt to live as near together as they -now are far apart. That they no longer stand so far apart as they did -originally is fairly palpable from a glance at the whole course of -humanity. The individual who can review a life of introspective work -will become conscious of the _rapprochement_ arrived at, with a proud -delight at the distance he has bridged, in order that he may thereupon -venture upon more ample hopes. 2, 284-285 - -Natural death is independent of all reason and is really an irrational -death, in which the pitiable substance of the shell determines how long -the kernel is to exist.... 2, 286 - -The more fully and thoroughly we live, the more ready we are to -sacrifice life for a single pleasurable emotion. 2, 288 - -All intellectual movements whereby the great may hope to rob and the -small to save, are sure to prosper. 2, 311-312 - -The desire for victory and pre-eminence is an ineradicable trait of -human nature, older and more primitive than any respect of or joy in -equality. 2, 312 - -If all alms were given only out of compassion, the whole tribe of -beggars would long since have died of starvation.... The greatest of -almsgivers is cowardice. 2, 317 - -The exertion of power is laborious and demands courage. That is why so -many do not assert their most valid rights, because their rights are a -kind of power, and they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise them. -_Indulgence_ and _patience_ are the names given to the virtues that -cloak these faults. 2, 319-320 - -"Stupid as a man," say the women; "Cowardly as a woman," say the men. -Stupidity in a woman is unfeminine. 2, 328 - -All political work, even with great statesmen, is an improvisation that -trusts to luck. 2, 332 - -The so-called armed peace that prevails at present in all countries is -a sign of a bellicose disposition, of a disposition that trusts neither -itself nor its neighbour, and, partly from hate, partly from fear, -refuses to lay down its weapons. Better to perish than to hate and -fear, and twice as far better to perish than to make oneself hated and -feared--this must some day become the supreme maxim of every political -community!... 2, 236 - -In order that property may henceforth inspire more confidence and -become more moral, we should keep open all the paths of work for small -fortunes, but should prevent the effortless and sudden acquisition of -wealth. Accordingly, we should take all the branches of transport and -trade which favour the accumulation of large fortunes--especially, -therefore, the money market--out of the hands of private persons or -private companies, and look upon those who own too much, just as upon -those who own nothing, as types fraught with danger to the community. -2, 340 - -If we try to determine the value of labour by the amount of time, -industry, good or bad will, constraint, inventiveness or laziness, -honesty or make-believe bestowed upon it, the valuation can never be a -just one. For the whole personality would have to be thrown into the -scale, and this is impossible. 2, 340 - -The _exploitation_ of the worker was, as we now understand, a piece -of folly, a robbery at the expense of the future, a jeopardisation of -society. We almost have the war now, and in any case the expense of -maintaining peace, of concluding treaties and winning confidence, will -henceforth be very great, because the folly of the exploiters was very -great and long-lasting. 2, 341 - -The masses are as far as possible removed from Socialism as a -doctrine of altering the acquisition of property. If once they get the -steering-wheel into their hands, through great majorities in their -Parliaments, they will attack with progressive taxation the whole -dominant system of capitalists, merchants, and financiers, and will in -fact slowly create a middle class which may forget Socialism like a -disease that has been overcome. 2, 343 - -The Two Principles of the New Life.--_First Principle:_ to arrange -one's life on the most secure and tangible basis, not as hitherto -upon the most distant, undetermined, and cloudy foundation. _Second -Principle:_ to establish the rank of the nearest and nearer things, and -of the more and less secure, before one arranges one's life and directs -it to a final end. 2, 351 - -Through the certain prospect of death a precious, fragrant drop of -frivolity might be mixed with every day life--and now, you singular -druggist-souls, you have made of death a drop of poison, unpleasant to -taste, which makes the whole of life hideous. 2, 355 - -We speak of Nature, and, in doing so, forget ourselves: we ourselves -are Nature, _quand même_. 2, 356-357 - -We should not let ourselves be burnt for our opinions--we are not so -certain of them as all that. But we might let ourselves be burnt for -the right of possessing and changing our opinions. 2, 358 - -Man has been bound with many chains, in order that he may forget to -comport himself like an animal. And indeed he has become more gentle, -more intellectual, more joyous, more meditative than any animal. -But now he still suffers from having carried his chains so long, -from having been so long without pure air and free movement--these -chains, however, are, as I repeat again and again, the ponderous -and significant errors of moral, religious, and metaphysical ideas. -Only when the disease of chains is overcome is the first great goal -reached--the separation of man from the brute. 2, 362-363 - - - - -III - - -"The Dawn of Day" - - -The first work to follow the transitional and preparatory -criticism and comment of "Human, All-Too-Human" was "The Dawn of -Day" ("_Morgen-röte_"). Such a treatise dealing with Nietzsche's -constructive and analytical thinking, was no doubt expected. No -man could so effectively rattle the bones of the older gods, could -so wantonly trample down the tenets strengthened by the teachings -of centuries, could so ruthlessly annihilate the accepted ethical -standards and religious formulæ, unless there existed back of his -bludgeon a positivity of will which implied creation and construction. -Nietzsche realised the significance of this new book, and at its -completion, early in 1881, sent an urgent letter to his publisher -requesting its immediate printing. The publisher, however, failing to -attach any importance to the document, delayed its issuance until late -in the summer, at which time its appearance caused no excitement and -but little comment. - -"The Dawn of Day" nevertheless ranks among Nietzsche's best works. Its -title, frankly symbolic, reflects the nature of its contents. It was -the beginning of Nietzsche's positive philosophy. In it he begins his -actual work of reconstruction. Many of its passages form the foundation -of those later books wherein he augmented and developed his theories. -However, there is here no radical change in his thought. The passages -are logical sequences to that simple nihilism of prevailing customs -which occupied him in his former essays. In his earliest beginnings -we can see evidences of the direction his teachings were to take. His -books up to the last were mainly developments and elaborations of the -thoughts which were in his mind from the first. Though often vaguely -conceived and unco-ordinated, these thoughts were the undeniable -property of his own thinking. Although there have been many attempts -to trace eclectic influences to the men of his time, and especially to -Schopenhauer, the results of such critical endeavours have been easily -controverted by the plainest of internal evidence. The philosophical -Nietzsche has his roots firmly implanted in the scholastic Nietzsche; -and though in superficial and non-important phases of his thought he -changed from time to time, the most diligent research fails to reveal -direct contradictions in any of his fundamental doctrines. - -In "The Dawn of Day" Nietzsche goes again into the origin of morality. -He carries his analyses further and supports them by additional -enquiries and by more complicated processes of reasoning. Having -ascertained the place which morals assume in the human scale and -determined their relation to racial necessities, he points out that -their application as permanent and unalterable mandates works havoc in -any environment save that in which they were conceived. Inasmuch as -all morality is at bottom but an expression of expediency, it follows -that, since the means of expediency change under varying conditions, -morality must change to meet the constantly metamorphosing conditions -of society. And since the conditions of life are never the same in all -nations, moral codes must likewise adapt themselves to geography in -order to fulfil their function. The existing code of morals, namely: -the Christian doctrine, grew out of conditions which were not only -different from those in which we live to-day, but in many instances -diametrically opposed to them. Nietzsche saw a grave danger in adhering -to an ethical system which was not relative to the modern man, and -argues that the result of such a morality would produce effects which -would have no intelligent bearing on the racial problems of the present -day. Knowing the deep-rooted superstition in man regarding the "divine" -origin of moral laws, he undertakes the task of relating all ancient -codes to the racial conditions existent at their inception, thus -constructing a human origin for them. - -Christianity, being the greatest moral force of the day, attracted -Nietzsche's attention the most, and in "The Dawn of Day" much space is -devoted to a consideration of it. While in tone these paragraphs are -milder than those which followed in "The Antichrist," they nevertheless -are among the profoundest criticisms which Nietzsche made of Nazarene -morality. Though only a portion of the aphorisms contained in this work -are devoted to an evaluation of theological modes of conduct, stumbling -blocks are thrown in the path of an acceptance of Jewish ethics which -the most sapient of modern ecclesiastics have been unable to remove. -Out of certain aphorisms found here grew "The Antichrist" which is the -most terrible and effective excoriation that Christianity has ever -called forth. Beginning on page 66 of "The Dawn of Day" there appears -one of Nietzsche's most fundamental passages dealing with Christianity. -It is called "The First Christian," and is an analysis of the Apostle -Paul. No theological dialectician has been able to answer it. Here is -an aphorism so illuminating, so profound, yet so brief, as to dazzle -completely the lay mind. - -However, Christianity is but one of the subjects dealt with in "The -Dawn of Day." The book covers the whole field of modern morality. Says -Nietzsche in his introduction; "In this book we find a 'subterrestrial' -at work, digging, mining, undermining.... I went down into the deepest -depths; I tunnelled to the very bottom; I started to investigate and -unearth an old _faith_ which for thousands of years we philosophers -used to build on as the safest of all foundations.... I began to -undermine our _faith in morals."_ It is true that from the beginning -of history there has existed a ruling scale of values determining the -acts of humanity. Morality implies the domination of certain classes -which, in order to inspire reverence in arbitrary dictates, have -invested their codes with an authority other than a human one. Thus -has criticism been stifled. Morality has had the means of intimidation -on its side, and has discouraged investigation by exercising severe -penalties. Consequently morality has accumulated and grown, gathered -power and swept on without its thinkers, its philosophers or its -analysts. Of all the sciences, the science of conduct has been the last -to attract investigators. - -The vogue of that style of philosophy which was founded on the -tradition of speculation and honeycombed with presuppositions, did -not pass out until the advent of Darwin's evolutionism. But even the -inauguration of biology and sociology did not entirely eliminate the -metaphysical assumption from constructive thinking. The scientists -themselves, not excluding Darwin, hesitated to acknowledge the laws of -natural selection and of the survival of the fit. Neo-Lamarckism was -but one of the reactions against this tough and unpleasant theory. -Alfred Russel Wallace and, to take an even more significant figure, -Herbert Spencer, endeavoured to refute the possibility of a biological -basis in thought and thus to avoid an acquiescence to the Darwinian -research. John Fiske, an avowed evolutionist, indirectly repudiated -the scientific origin of philosophy; and likewise most of the lesser -thinkers, following the exposition of Darwin's theories, refused to -apply to man the biological laws governing the animal kingdom. Balfour -and Huxley sensed the incongruities and variances in this new mode -of thinking, and strove to bridge the chasm between natural science -and human conduct, and to construct a system of ethics which would -possess a logical and naturalistic foundation. But in both cases the -question was begged. We find Balfour building up a moral system which, -while it did not deny Darwinism, had for its end the destruction, or -at least the alteration, of natural laws. And Huxley defines human -progress as an overcoming of biological principles. Thus, even in the -most materialistic of physio-psychologists, the subjugation of natural -laws was the primary thesis. Biology, therefore, instead of being used -as a basis to further philosophy, was considered an obstacle which -philosophy had to overcome. - -Nietzsche saw that a science of conduct based on natural and -physiological laws was a possible and logical thing. And in him, for -the first time in the history of philosophical thought, do we find a -scholarly and at the same time an intellectual critic of authorised -standards. The biological point of view was never lost sight of by him. -If at times he seemed to abandon it, it was but for a brief period; he -ever came back to it. Even his most abstract passages have their feet -implanted in the fact that all phenomena are answerable to the law -of vital fitness. Before the tribunal of biology Nietzsche arraigns -and tries every phase of his thought, whether it deals with physical -phenomena, ethical conduct or with abstract reasoning. Philosophy, -for centuries divorced from science, is here clothed in the garments -of scientific experimentation; a relationship is established between -these two planes of rationalism and empiricism which have always been -considered by other thinkers as detached and unrelated. Nor does -Nietzsche ally himself, either consciously or unconsciously, with such -philosophers as Bruno and Plato (who stood between the scientific -thinkers on the one hand and the abstract dialecticians on the other), -and attempt a formulation of a system of thought founded on intuitive -processes. Such poetic conceptions had no fascination for him except -as they were directly applicable to the problem of the universe. Those -men who busied themselves with the mere theory of knowledge he held as -supererogatory cobweb-spinners; and even in the realm of metaphysicians -such as Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, he dallied but casually. His -aim was to relate all thought to determinable values of life. - -In his introduction Nietzsche calls morality the Circe of philosophies, -and adds: "For, to what is it due that, from Plato onwards, all the -philosophic architects in Europe have built in vain?" Later beneath -his analysis--which never assumes the negative qualities of the -metaphysical--the moral phenomenon goes to pieces, not by a few simple -strokes, nor yet by the effrontery of cynicism or pessimism, but -by the most careful and intricate surgery. He points out the great -heretics of history as examples of the men who, looked at through the -eyes of contemporaries, were "wicked" men, but who, under different -environmental circumstances, were considered "good." He denies the -static hypothesis on which morality is built, and postulates the -theory that immorality is not without its place in the development -of the reason. He is constantly attempting to translate the existing -moral values into terms of their true nature, not necessarily into -immoralities, but into natural unmoralities. The accepted virtues, -such as pity, honesty, faith, obedience, service, loyalty and -self-sacrifice, are questioned in their relation to racial needs; and -modern attitudes toward all human activities are traced to their causes -and judged as to their influence. - -The research work in the present book differs from that contained in -previous volumes. Heretofore Nietzsche indulged in inquiry without -speculation; he dealt mainly with generalities. His analyses were along -broad lines of human conduct. He confined himself for the most part -to principles. But in "The Dawn of Day" these principles are balanced -with existent morality. Specific modes of moral and ethical endeavour -are weighed against expediency. Nietzsche presents a diagnosis of the -fundamental nature of society to-day, and discovers many contradictions -and inconsistencies between modern social needs and those virtues held -in the highest reverence. He finds that deportmental means made use of -by weak and subjugated peoples of ancient times to protect themselves -against hostile invaders, are retained and practised to-day by nations -whose position has been reversed to one of domination. In short, he -points out that certain moralities have, by the alteration of national -and racial conditions, become irrelevancies. Consequently there is -often a compromise between ethical beliefs and ethical practices--a -compromise made necessary by the demands of social intercourse. Even -when the practice of these ancient moralities is conscientiously -indulged in, Nietzsche denies their adequacy in coping with modern -conditions, pointing out specific instances in which necessity and -habit are constantly impinging. For instance, the softer virtues of -a democratic and socialistic morality are shown to be desirable only -in weakened nations where the hardier virtues of egotism, cruelty, -efficiency, hard-mindedness, selfishness and retaliation would work -directly against preservation. - -Out of these conclusions grows a plea for individualism, and out of -this individualism the superman can be seen rearing his head above -the horizon of present-day humanity. The qualities of this man of the -future are defined, and a finger is pointed along the necessary lines -of racial culture. Nietzsche's first definite voicing of marriage -ideals follows in the train of the superman's appearance, and the first -comments of this philosopher in his criticism of woman are set down. -In this latter regard Nietzsche has been unfairly interpreted by those -who have considered his attitude toward woman superficially or without -relating it to his general theories. It would be well therefore for -the student to withhold judgment in this particular until the various -elements of Nietzsche's philosophical system have been co-ordinated and -understood. Woman plays an important, if small, part in his writings, -and his passages dealing with women should be carefully weighed in -conjunction with his theory of the superman. - -In "The Dawn of Day" Nietzsche's conception of class distinction is -defined and related to his later teachings. Throughout his analyses -runs a subtle undercurrent of his doctrine, of social segregation -which finds definite expression toward the end of the volume where -modern socialism, with its altruism and philanthropy, is traced to -its birth in Nazarene morality. In place of this present popular form -of ethics Nietzsche proposes a social régime in which aristocratic -culture will be set apart from mere utilitarian culture by very -definite boundaries. He argues that not only is this disassociation -in accord with the instincts of mankind, but that, as a workable -theorem, it adequately answers the needs of present conditions. The -slave-morality and the master-morality which he develops in his later -works are defined tentatively and suggested by inference in many of -the aphorisms. Out of this conception grew his dominant principle of -the "will to power," and in "The Dawn of Day" we find this principle -set forth in adequate definition for the first time, although the -development of the idea is left till later. However, Nietzsche makes -clear its point of divergence from the Schopenhauerian theory of the -"will to live" as well as from the Darwinian theory of the survival of -the fittest. - -But it is not alone abstract theory that occupies the pages of this -book. Nietzsche is never the mere metaphysician battling in an unreal -world. There are few dark closets and secret passageways in his -thought. Beyond a metaphysical hypothesis he does not go. He adheres to -demonstrable formulas, and reasons along lines of strictest reality. -The practical man he holds in high esteem, and constantly praises -the advance of science. He devotes pages to the blowing to pieces of -metaphysical air-castles. But, as I have previously pointed out, he is -in no sense of the word a materialist; nor is his assumption of the -world that of the realists. Life to Nietzsche is an eternal struggle -toward--no goal. The lessons the world has to teach are as so much -false doctrine. The meaning of life--the so-called absolute truth--is -but a chimera. Intelligence is a process, not an ultimatum. The truth -is mobile and dual, dependent on varying causes. In accepting the -material world, Nietzsche does not grant it. In assuming natural laws, -he denies them. In his adherence to logic and to the processes of cause -and effect, he is accepting phantoms and inconsistencies, and yet it is -along these lines that the race progresses. - -In "The Dawn of Day" Nietzsche makes use of the same aphoristic style -as that employed in "Human, All-Too-Human." (This broken, staccato -form he uses throughout the remainder of his works, except in certain -parts of "Thus Spake Zarathustra.") Each paragraph is captioned and -deals with a specific phase of morality or with a definite critical -attitude toward human conduct. Some of these paragraphs are scarcely -a line in length--mere definitions or similes. Others extend over -several pages. But they always pertain to a single idea. Occasionally -they are in the form of a brief conversation; at other times they -are short queries. One of these aphorisms is entitled "The Battle -Dispensary of the Soul," and this is what follows: "What is the most -efficacious remedy? Victory." That is all--brief, and perhaps, on first -reading, inconsequent. But study it a moment, and you will find in -it the nucleus of a great revolutionary doctrine. On the other hand, -turn to aphorism 142, called "Sympathy," and you will discover several -pages of flashing commentary. Out of the chaos of his style springs -a feeling of plastic form. These brief paragraphs are not detached -and desultory. They are pyramided on one another, and beneath them -runs an undercurrent of unified thinking. When the end of the book -is reached we have a carefully fabricated edifice, and we realise -that each paragraph has been some necessary beam or decoration in its -construction. - - -EXCERPTS FROM "THE DAWN OF DAY" - -Morality is nothing else (and, above all, nothing more) than obedience -to customs, of whatsoever nature they may be. But customs are simply -the traditional way of acting and valuing. Where there is no tradition -there is no morality; and the less life is governed by tradition, the -narrower the circle of morality. The free man is immoral, because it -is his _will_ to depend upon himself and not upon tradition: in all -the primitive states of humanity "evil" is equivalent to "individual," -"free," "arbitrary," "unaccustomed," "unforeseen," "incalculable." In -such primitive conditions, always measured by this standard, any action -performed--_not_ because tradition commands it, but for other reasons -_(e.g.,_ on account of its individual utility), even for the same -reasons as had been formerly established by custom--is termed immoral, -and is felt to be so even by the very man who performs it, for it has -not been done out of obedience to tradition. 14-15 - -Popular medicines and popular morals are closely related, and should -not be considered and valued, as is still customary, in so different a -way: both are most dangerous and make-believe sciences. 19 - -All those superior men, who felt themselves irresistibly urged -on to throw off the yoke of some morality or other, had no other -resource--_if they were not really mad--_than to feign madness, or -actually to become insane. And this holds good for innovators in every -department of life, and not only in religion and politics. 21 - -Every one who has hitherto overthrown a law of established morality -has always at first been considered as a _wicked man:_ but when it -was afterwards found impossible to re-establish the law, and people -gradually became accustomed to the change, the epithet was changed by -slow degrees. History deals almost exclusively with these _wicked men,_ -who later on came to be recognised as _good men._ 28 - -A man who is under the influence of the morality of custom comes -to despise causes first of all, secondly consequences, and thirdly -reality, and weaves all his higher feelings (reverence, sublimity, -pride, gratitude, love) _into an imaginary world:_ the so-called higher -world. And even to-day we can see the consequences of this: wherever, -and in whatever fashion, man's feelings are raised, that imaginary -world is in evidence. 40 - -The history of the moral feelings is entirely different from the -history of moral conceptions. The first-mentioned are powerful before -the action, and the latter especially after it, in view of the -necessity for making one's self clear in regard to them. 41 - -Trusting in our feelings simply means obeying our grandfather and -grandmother more than the gods within _ourselves:_ our reason and -experience. 41 - -The same impulse, under the impression of the blame cast upon it by -custom, develops into the painful feeling of cowardice, or else the -pleasurable feeling of _humility,_ in case a morality, like that of -Christianity, has taken it to its heart and called it _good._ 43 - -_The origin becomes of less significance in proportion as we acquire -insight into it;_ whilst things nearest to ourselves, around and -within us, gradually begin to manifest their wealth of colours, -beauties, enigmas, and diversity of meaning, of which earlier humanity -never dreamed. 52 - -Only when man shall have acquired a knowledge of all things will he be -able to know himself. For things are but the boundaries of man. 53 - -To whatever height mankind may have developed--and perhaps in the end -it will not be so high as when they began!--there is as little prospect -of their attaining to a higher order as there is for the ant and the -earwig to enter into kinship with God and eternity at the end of their -career on earth. What is to come will drag behind it that which has -passed: why should any little star, or even any little species on -that star, form an exception to that eternal drama? Away with such -sentimentalities! 54 - -Those earnest, able, and just men of profound feelings, who are still -Christians at heart, owe it to themselves to make one attempt to live -for a certain space of time without Christianity! They owe it to -_their faith_ that they should thus for once take up their abode "in -the wilderness"--if for no other reason than that of being able to -pronounce on the question as to whether Christianity is needful. 63 - -Christianity has the instinct of a hunter for finding out all those who -may by hook or by crook be driven to despair--only a very small number -of men can be brought to this despair. Christianity lies in wait for -such as those, and pursues them. 65 - -The "demon" Eros becomes an object of greater interest to mankind -than all the angels and saints put together, thanks to the mysterious -Mumbo-Jumboism of the Church in all things erotic: it is due to the -Church that love stories, even in our own time, have become the one -common interest which appeals to all classes of people--with an -exaggeration which would be incomprehensible to antiquity, and which -will not fail to provoke roars of laughter in coming generations. 78 - -It is only those who never--or always--attend church that underestimate -the dishonesty with which this subject is still dealt in Protestant -pulpits; in what a clumsy fashion the preacher takes advantage of his -security from interruption; how the Bible is pinched and squeezed; and -how the people are made acquainted with every form of _the art of false -reading._ 85 - -Christianity wants blindness and frenzy and an eternal swan-song above -the waves under which reason has been drowned!... 90 - -What if God were not exactly truth, and if this were proved? And if he -were instead of vanity, the desire for power, the ambitious, the fear, -and the enraptured and terrified folly of mankind?... 93 - -One Becomes Moral--but not because one is moral! Submission to morals -may be due to slavishness or vanity, egoism or resignation, dismal -fanaticism or thoughtlessness. It may, again, be an act of despair, -such as submission to the authority of a ruler; but there is nothing -moral about it _per se._ 97 - -Morals are constantly undergoing changes and transformations, -occasioned by successful crimes. 97 - -I deny morality in the same way as I deny alchemy, _i.e.,_ I deny its -hypotheses; but I do not deny that there have been alchemists who -believed in these hypotheses and based their actions upon them. I also -deny immorality--not that innumerable people feel immoral, but that -there is any true reason why they should feel so, should not, of -course, deny--unless I were a fool--that many actions which are called -immoral should be avoided and resisted; and in the same way that many -which are called moral should be performed and encouraged; but I hold -that in both cases these actions should be performed from motives other -than those which have prevailed up to the present time. We must learn -anew in order that at last, perhaps very late in the day, we may be -able to do something more: feel anew. 100 - -It is a prejudice to think that morality is more favourable to the -development of the reason than immorality. It is erroneous to suppose -that the unconscious aim in the development of every conscious being -(namely, animal, man, humanity, etc.) is its "great happiness"; on -the contrary, there is a particular and incomparable happiness to be -attained at every stage of our development, one that is neither high -nor low, but quite an individual happiness. Evolution does not make -happiness its goal; it aims merely at evolution, and nothing else. It -is only if humanity had a universally recognised goal that we could -propose to do this or that: for the time being there is no such goal. -It follows that the pretensions of morality should not be brought -into any relationship with mankind: this would be merely childish and -irrational. It is quite another thing to recommend a goal to mankind: -this goal would then be something that would depend upon our own will -and pleasure. Provided that mankind in general agreed to adopt such a -goal, it could then impose a moral law upon itself, a law which would, -at all events, be imposed by their own free will. 105 - -Our duties are the claims which others have upon us. How did they -acquire these claims? By the fact that they considered us as capable of -making and holding agreements and contracts, by assuming that we were -their like and equals, and by consequently entrusting something to us, -bringing us up, educating us, and supporting us. 110 - -My rights consist of that part of my power which others have not only -conceded to me, but which they wish to maintain for me. 111 - -The desire for distinction is the desire to subject one's neighbor.... -113 - -On this mirror--and our intellect is a mirror--something is going on -that indicates regularity: a certain thing is each time followed by -another certain thing. When we perceive this and wish to give it a -name, we call it cause and effect,--fools that we are! as if in this -we had understood or could understand anything! For, of course, we -have seen nothing but the images of causes and effects, and it is just -this figurativeness which renders it impossible for us to see a more -substantial relation than that of sequence!... 129 - -Pity, in so far as it actually gives rise to suffering--and this -must be our only point of view here--is a weakness, like every other -indulgence in an injurious emotion. It increases suffering throughout -the world, and although here and there a certain amount of suffering -may be indirectly diminished or removed altogether as a consequence of -pity, we must not bring forward these occasional consequences, which -are on the whole insignificant, to justify the nature of pity which, as -has already been stated, is prejudicial. Supposing that it prevailed, -even if only for one day, it would bring humanity to utter ruin. In -itself the nature of pity is no better than that of any other craving; -it is only where it is called for and praised--and this happens when -people do not understand what is injurious in it, but find in it -a sort of joy--that a good conscience becomes attached to it; it -is only then that we willingly yield to it, and do not shrink from -acknowledging it. In other circumstances where it is understood to be -dangerous, it is looked upon as a weakness; or, as in the case of the -Greeks, as an unhealthy periodical emotion the danger of which might be -removed by temporary and voluntary discharges. 144-145 - -You say that the morality of pity is a higher morality than that of -stoicism? Prove it! But take care not to measure the "higher" and -"lower" degrees of morality once more by moral yardsticks; for there -are no absolute morals. So take your yardstick from somewhere else, and -be on your guard!... 149 - -If, in accordance with the present definition, only those actions are -moral which are done for the sake of others, and for their sake only, -then there are no moral actions at all! If, in accordance with another -definition, only those actions are moral which spring from our own free -will, then there are no moral actions in this case either! What is it, -then, that we designate thus, which certainly exists and wishes as a -consequence to be explained? It is the result of a few intellectual -blunders; and supposing that we were able to free ourselves from these -errors, what would then become of "moral actions"? It is due to these -errors that we have up to the present attributed to certain actions a -value superior to what was theirs in reality: we separated them from -"egoistic" and "non-free" actions. When we now set them once more -in the latter categories, as we must do, we certainly reduce their -value (their own estimate of value) even below its reasonable level, -because "egoistic" and "non-free" actions have up to the present been -undervalued owing to that alleged profound and essential difference. -158-159 - -If I were a god, and a benevolent god, the marriages of men would cause -me more displeasure than anything else. 162 - -We ought publicly to declare invalid the vows of lovers, and to refuse -them permission to marry: and this because we should treat marriage -itself much more seriously, so that in cases where it is now contracted -it would not usually be allowed in future! Are not the majority of -marriages such that we should not care to have them witnessed by a -third party? And yet this third party is scarcely ever lacking--the -child--and he is more than the witness; he is the whipping-boy and -scapegoat. 163 - -Shame! You wish to form part of a system in which you must be a wheel, -fully and completely, or risk being crushed by wheels! where it is -understood that each one will be that which his superiors make of -him! where the seeking for "connections" will form a part of one's -natural duties! where no one feels himself offended when he has his -attention drawn to some one with the remark, "He may be useful to you -some time"; where people do not feel ashamed of paying a visit to ask -for somebody's intercession, and where they do not even suspect that -by such a voluntary submission to these morals, they are once and for -all stamped as the common pottery of nature, which others can employ -or break up of their free will without feeling in any way responsible -for doing so,--just as if one were to say, "People of my type will -never be lacking, therefore, do what you will with me! Do not stand on -ceremony!" 169 - -In the glorification of "work" and the never-ceasing talk about the -"blessing of labour," I see the same secret _arrière-pensée_ as I do -in the praise bestowed on impersonal acts of a general interest, viz., -a fear of everything individual. 176 - -Behind the principle of the present moral fashion: "Moral actions -are actions performed out of sympathy for others," I see the social -instinct of fear, which thus assumes an intellectual disguise.... 177 - -Whatever may be the influence in high politics of utilitarianism and -the vanity of individuals and nations, the sharpest spur which urges -them onwards is their need for the feeling of power--a need which rises -not only in the souls of princes and rulers, but also gushes forth from -time to time from inexhaustible sources in the people. 186 - -As the aristocrat is able to preserve the appearance of being possessed -of a superior physical force which never leaves him, he likewise wishes -by his aspect of constant serenity and civility of disposition, even in -the most trying circumstances, to convey the impression that his mind -and soul are equal to all dangers and surprises.... - -This indisputable happiness of aristocratic culture, based as it -is on the feeling of superiority, is now beginning to rise to ever -higher levels; for now, thanks to the free spirits, it is henceforth -permissible and not dishonourable for people who have been born and -reared in aristocratic circles to enter the domain of knowledge, where -they may secure more intellectual consecrations and learn chivalric -services even higher than those of former times, and where they may -look up to that ideal of victorious wisdom which as yet no age has been -able to set before itself with so good a conscience as the period which -is about to dawn. 203-205 - -What induces one man to use false weights, another to set his house -on fire after having insured it for more than its value, a third to -take part in counterfeiting, while three-fourths of our upper classes -indulge in legalised fraud, and suffer from the pangs of conscience -that follow speculation and dealings on the Stock Exchange: what gives -rise to all this? It is not real want,--for their existence is by -no means precarious; perhaps they have even enough to eat and drink -without worrying--but they are urged on day and night by a terrible -impatience at seeing their wealth pile up so slowly, and by an equally -terrible longing and love for these heaps of gold. In this impatience -and love, however, we see re-appear once more that fanaticism of the -desire for power which was stimulated in former times by the belief -that we were in the possession of truth, a fanaticism which bore such -beautiful names that we could dare to be inhuman with a good conscience -(burning Jews, heretics, and good books, and exterminating entire -cultures superior to ours, such as those of Peru and Mexico). The means -of this desire for power are changed in our day, but the same volcano -is still smouldering, impatience and intemperate love call for their -victims, and what was once done "for the love of God" is now done -for the love of money, _i.e.,_ for the love of that which at present -affords us the highest feeling of power and a good conscience. 209-210 - -"Enthusiastic sacrifice," "self-immolation"--these are the catch-words -of your morality.... In reality ... you only _appear_ to sacrifice -yourselves; for your imagination turns you into gods and you enjoy -yourselves as such. 226-227 - -Ceremonies, official robes and court dresses, grave countenances, -solemn aspects, the slow pace, involved speech--everything, in short, -known as dignity--are all pretences adopted by those who are timid at -heart: they wish to make themselves feared (themselves or the things -they represent). The fearless (_i.e.,_ originally those who naturally -inspire others with awe) have no need of dignity and ceremonies.... 230 - -A strange thing, this punishment of ours! It does not purify the -criminal; it is not a form of expiation; but, on the contrary, it is -even more defiling than the crime itself. 235 - -When a vigorous nature has not an inclination towards cruelty, and is -not always preoccupied with itself, it involuntarily strives after -gentleness--this is its distinctive characteristic. Weak natures, on -the other hand, have a tendency towards harsh judgments.... 236 - -Kindness has been best developed by the long dissimulation which -endeavoured to appear as kindness: wherever great power existed -the necessity for dissimulation of this nature was recognised--it -inspires security and confidence, and multiplies the actual sum of -our physical power. Falsehood, if not actually the mother, is at all -events the nurse of kindness. In the same way, honesty has been brought -to maturity by the need for a semblance of honesty and integrity: -in hereditary aristocracies. The persistent exercise of such a -dissimulation ends by bringing about the actual nature of the thing -itself: the dissimulation in the long run suppresses itself, and organs -and instincts are the unexpected fruits in this garden of hypocrisy. 242 - -Neither necessity nor desire, but the love of power, is the demon of -mankind. You may give men everything possible--health, food, shelter, -enjoyment--but they are and remain unhappy and capricious, for the -demon waits and waits; and must be satisfied. 243 - -It is probable that there are no pure races, but only races which have -become purified, and even these are extremely rare. 253 - -How many married men have some morning awakened to the fact that their -young wife is dull, although she thinks quite the contrary! not to -speak of those wives whose flesh is willing but whose intellect is -weak! 255 - -Could there be anything more repugnant than the sentimentality which -is shown to plants and animals--and this on the part of a creature who -from the very beginning has made such ravages among them as their most -ferocious enemy--and who ends by even claiming affectionate feelings -from his weakened and mutilated victims! Before this kind of "nature" -man must above all be serious, if he is any sort of a thinking being. -258 - -Among cowards it is thought bad form to say anything against bravery, -for any expression of this kind would give rise to some contempt; and -unfeeling people are irritated when anything is said against pity. 259 - -It is the most sensual men who find it necessary to avoid women and to -torture their bodies. 261 - -A young man can be most surely corrupted when he is taught to value the -like-minded more highly than the differently minded. 262 - -The general knowledge of mankind has been furthered to a greater extent -by fear than by love. 267 - -The sum-total of those internal movements which come naturally to men, -and which they can consequently set in motion readily and gracefully, -is called the soul--men are looked upon as void of soul when they let -it be seen that their inward emotions are difficult and painful to -them. 268 - -All rules have this effect: they distract our attention from the -fundamental aim of the rule, and make us more thoughtless. 273 - -We are most certain to find idealistic theories among unscrupulously -practical men; for such men stand in need of the lustre of these -theories for the sake of their reputation. They adopt them -instinctively without by any means feeling hypocritical in doing so--no -more hypocritical than Englishmen with their Christianity and their -Sabbath-keeping. 277 - -It is not sufficient to prove a case, we must also tempt or raise men -to it. 278 - -Asceticism is the proper mode of thinking for those who must extirpate -their carnal instincts, because these are ferocious beasts,--but only -for such people! 278 - -You refuse to be dissatisfied with yourselves or to suffer from -yourselves, and this you call your moral tendency! Very well; another -may perhaps call it your cowardice! One thing, however, is certain, -and that is, that you will never take a trip round the world (and you -yourselves are this world), and you will always remain in yourselves an -accident and a clod on the face of the earth! 282 - -The first effect of happiness is the feeling of power, and this -feeling longs to manifest itself, whether towards ourselves or other -men, or towards ideas and imaginary beings. Its most common modes of -manifestation are making presents, derision, and destruction--all three -being due to a common fundamental instinct. 286 - -We approve of marriage in the first place because we are not yet -acquainted with it, in the second place because we have accustomed -ourselves to it, and in the third place because we have contracted -it--that is to say, in most cases. And yet nothing has been proved -thereby in favour of the value of marriage in general. 287 - -The criminal who has been found out does not suffer because of the -crime he has committed, but because of the shame and annoyance caused -him either by some blunder which he has made or by being deprived of -his habitual element. 289 - -Where our deficiencies are, there also is our enthusiasm. The -enthusiastic principle "love your enemies" had to be invented by the -Jews, the best haters that ever existed; and the finest glorifications -of chastity have been written by those who in their youth led dissolute -and licentious lives. 293 - -Women turn pale at the thought that their lover may not be worthy of -them; Men turn pale at the thought that they may not be worthy of the -women they love. I speak of perfect women, perfect men. 300-301 - -You wish to bid farewell to your passion? Very well, but do so without -hatred against it! Otherwise you have a second passion.--The soul -of the Christian who has freed himself from sin is generally ruined -afterwards by the hatred for sin. Just look at the faces of the great -Christians! they are the faces of great haters. 302 - -Men have become suffering creatures in consequence of their morals, -and the sum-total of what they have obtained by those morals is simply -the feeling that they are far too good and great for this world, and -that they are enjoying merely a transitory existence on it. As yet the -"proud sufferer" is the highest type of mankind. 309-310 - -Rights can only be conferred by one who is in full possession of power. -317 - -"The rule always appears to me to be more interesting than the -exception"--whoever thinks thus has made considerable progress in -knowledge, and is one of the initiated. 319 - -Through our love we have become dire offenders against truth, and even -habitual dissimulators and thieves, who give out more things as true -than seem to us to be true. 337-333 - -All the great excellencies of ancient humanity owed their stability to -the fact that man was standing side by side with man, and that no woman -was allowed to put forward the claim of being the nearest and highest, -nay even sole object of his love, as the feeling of passion would -teach. 351 - -Even if we were mad enough to consider all our opinions as truth, we -should nevertheless not wish them alone to exist. I cannot see why we -should ask for an autocracy and omnipotence of truth: it is sufficient -for me to know that it is a great power. Truth, however, must meet with -opposition and be able to fight, and we must be able to rest from it at -times in falsehood--otherwise truth will grow tiresome, powerless, and -insipid, and will render us equally so. 352-353. - -To hear every day what is said about us, or even to endeavour to -discover what people think about us, will in the end kill even the -strongest man. Our neighbours permit us to live only that they may -exercise a daily claim upon us! They certainly would not tolerate us -if we wished to claim rights over them, and still less if we wished to -be right! In short, let us offer up a sacrifice to the general peace, -let us not listen when they speak of us, when they praise us, blame us, -wish for us, or hope for us--nay, let us not even think of it. 357 - -How many really individual actions are left undone merely because -before performing them we perceive or suspect that they will be -misunderstood!--those actions, for example, which have some intrinsic -value, both in good and evil. The more highly an age or a nation values -its individuals, therefore, and the more right and ascendency we accord -them, the more will actions of this kind venture to make themselves -known, 359-360. - -Love wishes to spare the other to whom it devotes itself any feeling -of strangeness: as a consequence it is permeated with disguise and -simulation; it keeps on deceiving continuously, and feigns an equality -which in reality does not exist. And all this is done so instinctively -that women who love deny this simulation and constant tender trickery, -and have even the audacity to assert that love equalises (in other -words that it performs a miracle)! 361 - -Truth in itself is no power at all.... Truth must either attract power -to its side, or else side with power, for otherwise it will perish -again and again. 363 - -We should ... take the greatest precautions in regard to everything -connected with old age and its judgment upon life.... The reverence -which we feel for an old man, especially if he is an old thinker and -sage, easily blinds us to the deterioration of his intellect. 368 - -We must not make passion an argument for truth. 372 - -Have you experienced history within yourselves, commotions, -earthquakes, long and profound sadness, and sudden flashes of -happiness? Have you acted foolishly with great and little fools? Have -you really undergone the delusions and woe of the good people? and also -the woe and the peculiar happiness of the most evil? Then you may speak -to me of morality, but not otherwise! 376 - -"What do I matter?" is written over the door of the thinker of the -future. 379 - -The great man ever remains invisible in the greatest thing that claims -worship, like some distant star: his victory over power remains without -witnesses, and hence also without songs and singers. The hierarchy of -the great men in all the past history of the human race has not yet -been determined. 380 - -Whether what we are looking forward to is a thought or a deed, our -relationship to every essential achievement is none other than that -of pregnancy, and all our vainglorious boasting about "willing" and -"creating" should be cast to the winds! True and ideal selfishness -consists in always watching over and restraining the soul, so that our -productiveness may come to a beautiful termination. ... Still, these -pregnant ones are funny people! Let us therefore dare to be funny also, -and not reproach others if they must be the same. 384-385 - -Honest towards ourselves, and to all and everything friendly to us; -brave in the face of our enemy; generous towards the vanquished; polite -at all times: such do the four cardinal virtues wish us to be. 387 - -There is no "eternal justice" which requires that every fault shall -be atoned and paid for,--the belief that such a justice existed was a -terrible delusion, and useful only to a limited extent; just as it is -also a delusion that everything is guilt which is felt as such. It is -not the things themselves, but the opinions about things that do not -exist, which have been such a source of trouble to mankind. 391 - -What is the most efficacious remedy?--Victory. 393 - -The snake that cannot cast its skin perishes. So too with those minds -which are prevented from changing their views: they cease to be minds. -394 - - - - -IV - - -"The Joyful Wisdom" - - -In 1882 Nietzsche wrote and published "The Joyful Wisdom" ("_La Gay -a Scienza_"). Although originally intended as a supplement to "The -Dawn of Day," under which title it was to have been issued in a later -edition of this earlier work, it differs greatly, not only from "The -Dawn of Day," but from everything else Nietzsche ever wrote. The -destructive spirit of "Human, All-Too-Human" is nowhere to be found in -it. The revolutionary doctrines of "The Dawn of Day" are but vaguely -echoed. It is a book which shows Nietzsche in a unique and isolated -mood--a mood which, throughout his whole life did not return to him. -Temperamentally "The Joyful Wisdom" comes nearer being a parallel to -"Thus Spake Zarathustra" than to any of his other writings. But even -this comparison goes to pieces when pushed beyond the most superficial -aspects of the two books. Nietzsche was at Naumburg at the time of -writing this work. A long-standing stomach malady had suddenly shown -signs of leaving him, and the period during which he wrote "The Joyful -Wisdom" was one of the happiest of his life. Heretofore a sombre -seriousness had marked both his thoughts and the expression of them. In -the two volumes of "Human, All-Too-Human" he had attempted a complete -devastation of all codes and ideals. In "The Dawn of Day" he waged a -bitter and serious warfare on modern moral standards and made attempts -at supplanting them with new dogma. In "The Joyful Wisdom" he revealed -an entirely new phase of his character--a lenient, jovial, almost -buoyant attitude toward the world. - -Although "The Joyful Wisdom" may be considered in the light of an -interpolation into Nietzsche's philosophical works, the book is -nevertheless among the most interesting of his output--not so much -because it gives us any additions to the sum of his thinking, but -because it throws a light on the philosopher himself. It may be lifted -bodily out of his works without leaving a gap in the development of -his doctrines, but it cannot be set aside without closing up a very -important and significant facet in the man's nature. Unfortunately -Nietzsche is looked upon as a man who was entirely consumed with -rancour and hatred--a man unconscious of the comic side of existence--a -thinker with whom pessimism was chronic. But this is only a half -truth, a conclusion founded on partial evidence. Nietzsche's very -earnestness at times defeated his own ends. "The Joyful Wisdom" is one -of the most fundamentally hilarious books ever written. It deals with -life as a supreme bit of humour. Yet there is little in it to provoke -laughter. Nietzsche's humour is deeper than the externals. One finds -no superficial jesting here, no smartness, no transient buffoonery. -The book is a glorification of that subtle joy which accompanies the -experiencing of knowledge. In order to catch its spirit it is necessary -that one be familiar with the serious and formulating Nietzsche, for -on his most serious doctrines is founded that attitude which makes -"The Joyful Wisdom" hilarious. Once familiar with Nietzsche's earlier -writings one may read the present book with a feeling of exhilaration -unlike that produced by his more manifestly solemn writings. - -However, despite the buoyancy of this document, it is, beneath the -surface, as serious as anything Nietzsche has ever written. His -conception of the world and his assumption of the underlying aspects of -existence are founded on deeply conceived formulas. It must be borne -in mind that Nietzsche's thought is in a large measure personal, that -the development of his doctrines is due to very definite biographical -causes and to the flux and reflux of his own emotions. His system is -not a spontaneous and complete conception, the sudden fruit of his -entire research given to the world in a unified body. To the contrary, -it is an amassing of data, a constant building up of ideas. No one book -contains his entire teachings, logically thought out and carefully -organised. Rather is his philosophy an intricate structure which begins -with his earliest essays and does not reach completion until the end -of "The Will to Power." Each book has some specific place in his -thought: each book assumes a position relative to all the rest. Thus in -"The Joyful Wisdom" we have the turning point between the denying and -destructive Nietzsche and the asserting and fashioning Nietzsche. Says -he in the fourth and most important section called "Sanctus Januarius": -_"Amor fati:[1]_ let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage -war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to -accuse the accusers. _Looking aside,_ let that be my sole negation! -And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a -yea-sayer!" - -In "The Joyful Wisdom" begins Nietzsche's almost fanatical joy in -life. Here, too, we encounter for the first time the symbol of the -dance. Nietzsche constantly makes use of this figure in his later -writings. Especially in "Thus Spake Zarathustra" does he exhort his -readers to indulge themselves in dancing. The blasphemies and hatreds -characteristic of the philosopher in his more solemn moods are -nowhere discernible in this new book. It is therefore of considerable -importance to the student in forming a just estimate of Nietzsche. Here -the hater has departed; the idol-smasher has laid down his weapons; -the analyst has become the satyr; the logician has turned poet; the -blasphemer has become the child. Only occasionally does the pendulum -swing toward the sombre Apollonian pole: the Dionysian ideal of joy is -dominant. The month of January inspired the book, and Nietzsche says -in his _Ecce Homo_ that it was the most wonderful month of January he -had ever spent. This spirit of gaiety was to remain with him in some -degree throughout the remainder of his life. He realised that his -preparatory work was completed. He saw his way clear to forge ahead -as his doctrines led him; and his exuberance no doubt grew out of the -satisfaction he took in this prospect. - -Although the contents of "The Joyful Wisdom" are not inherently a -part of Nietzsche's philosophy, but only detached applications of his -theories--ideas which floated to the surface of his doctrines--the -material encountered here is of wide and varied interest. There are -criticisms of German and Southern culture; valuations of modern -authors; views on the developments of art; theories of music; analyses -of Schopenhauer and an explanation of his vogue; judgments of the -ancient and the modern theatre; excursions into philological fields; -arraignments of contemporary classicism; doctrines of creative -artistry; personal paragraphs on mental culture, politics and commerce. -... The book is, in fact, more critical than philosophical. - -Nietzsche never entirely dissevered himself from his time and -from the habits, both of thought and action, which characterised -his contemporaries. From his first academic essays to his last -transvaluation of values, he remained the patient and analytical -observer of the life about him. For this reason it has been argued -among disciples of "pure" thinking that he was not, in the strictest -sense of the word, a "philosopher," but rather a critically -intellectual force. This diagnosis might carry weight had not -Nietzsche avowedly built his philosophical structure on a repudiation -of abstract thinking. This misunderstanding of him arose from the -adherents of rational thinking overlooking the fact that, where the -older philosophers had detached themselves from reality because of the -instability of natural hypotheses, Nietzsche re-established human bases -on which he founded his syllogisms. Therefore one should not attempt -to divorce the purely critical from the purely philosophical in his -writings. Even in a book so frankly critical as "The Joyful Wisdom" -there is a directing force of theoretical unity. - -This is especially true of the third section. This division is made up -almost entirely of comments on men and affairs, short analyses of human -attitudes, desultory excursions into the sociological, brief remarks on -man's emotional nature, apothegms dealing with human attributes, bits -of racy philosophical gossip, religious and scientific maxims, and the -like. Sometimes these observations are cynical, sometimes gracious, -sometimes bitter, sometimes buoyant, sometimes merely witty. But all -of them are welded together by a profound conception of humanity. - -The most stimulating division of the book is the fourth, in which -Nietzsche's good humour is at its height. This section is a -glorification of victory and of all those hardy qualities which go -into the perfecting of the individual. Nietzsche reverses Schiller's -famous doctrine expressed in "_Die Braut von Messina_": "Life is not of -all good the highest." He sees no good over and beyond that of human -relationships. The normal instincts to him are the ones which affirm -life; the abnormal instincts are those which deny it. The former are -summed up in the ethics of Greece under the sway of Dionysus; the -latter are epitomised in the Christian religion. - -The fifth book, called "We Fearless Ones," and the appendix of "Songs -of Prince Free-as-a-Bird" were written four years later than the other -material and added with an introduction in a later edition of the book. -These addenda, while less specific and of a more dialectic nature than -the preceding parts, are in spirit manifestly the same as the rest of -the book. - -In "The Joyful Wisdom" we have again an aphoristic style of writing, -although it has become keener and more sure of itself since "Human, -All-Too-Human" and "The Dawn of Day." In making selections from this -book I have chosen those passages which are more general in tone. The -connection between the various aphorisms is here even slighter than -is Nietzsche's wont, and for that reason no attempt has been made to -present a continuous perception of the work. However, the excerpts -which follow, though of a less popular nature, are more intimately -related to his thoughts than the ones omitted, and consequently are of -more interest to the student. - - -[Footnote 1: Love of (one's) destiny.] - - -EXCERPTS FROM "THE JOYFUL WISDOM" - -Whether I look with a good or an evil eye upon men, I find them always -at one problem, each and all of them: to do that which conduces to the -conservation of the human species. 31 - -To laugh at oneself as one would have to laugh in order to laugh _out -of the veriest truth,_--to do this the best have not hitherto had -enough of the sense of truth, and the most endowed have had far too -little genius! There is perhaps still a future even for laughter! 32 - -The ignoble nature is distinguished by the fact that it keeps its -advantage steadily in view, and that this thought of the end and -advantage is even stronger than its strongest impulse: not to be -tempted to inexpedient activities by its impulses--that is its -wisdom and inspiration. In comparison with the ignoble nature the -higher nature is more irrational:--for the noble, magnanimous, and -self-sacrificing person succumbs in fact to his impulses, and in his -best moments his reason _lapses_ altogether. 37 - -The strongest and most evil spirits have hitherto advanced mankind the -most: they always rekindled the sleeping passions--all orderly arranged -society lulls the passions to sleep. 39 - -The lust of property and love: what different associations each of -these ideas evokes!--and yet it might be the same impulse twice named. -51 - -The poison by which the weaker nature is destroyed is strengthening to -the strong individual--and he does not call it poison. 56-57 - -The virtues of a man are called _good,_ not in respect of the results -they have for himself, but in respect of the results which we expect -therefrom for ourselves and for society.... The praise of the virtues -is the praise of something which is privately injurious to the -individual; it is praise of impulses which deprive man of his noblest -self-love, and the power to take the best care of himself.... The -"neighbour" praises unselfishness because _he profits by it!_ If the -neighbour were "unselfishly" disposed himself, he would reject that -destruction of power, that injury for _his advantage,_ he would thwart -such inclinations in their origin, and above all he would manifest his -unselfishness just by _not giving it a good name!_ 58-60 - -Living--that is to be cruel and inexorable towards all that becomes -weak and old in ourselves, and not only in ourselves. 68 - -It is probable that the manufacturers and great magnates of commerce -have hitherto lacked too much all those forms and attributes of a -_superior race,_ which alone make persons interesting; if they had -had the nobility of the newly-born in their looks and bearing, there -would perhaps have been no socialism in the masses of the people. For -these are really ready for _slavery_ of every kind, provided that -the superior class above them constantly shows itself legitimately -superior, and _born_ to command--by its noble presence! 78 - -When one continually prohibits the expression of the passions as -something to be left to the "vulgar," to coarser, bourgeois, and -peasant natures--that is, when one does not want to suppress the -passions themselves, but only their language and demeanour, one -nevertheless realises _therewith_ just what one does not want: the -suppression of the passions themselves, or at least their weakening and -alteration.... 83 - -In magnanimity there is the same amount of egoism as in revenge.... -86-87 - -Where bad eyesight can no longer see the evil impulse as such, -on account of its refinement,--there man sets up the kingdom of -goodness.... 88 - -To become the advocate of the rule--that may perhaps be the ultimate -form and refinement in which nobility of character will reveal itself -on earth. 90 - -Women are all skilful in exaggerating their weaknesses, indeed they are -inventive in weaknesses, so as to seem quite fragile ornaments to which -even a grain of dust does harm; their existence is meant to bring home -to man's mind his coarseness, and to appeal to his conscience. 101 - -There is something quite astonishing and extraordinary in the education -of women of the higher class; indeed, there is perhaps nothing more -paradoxical. All the world is agreed to educate them with as much -ignorance as possible _in erotics,_ and to inspire their soul with a -profound shame of such things, and the extremest impatience and horror -at the suggestion of them. It is really here only that all the "honour" -of women is at stake; what would one not forgive in them in other -respects! But here they are intended to remain ignorant to the very -backbone:--they are intended to have neither eyes, ears, words, nor -thoughts for this, their "wickedness"; indeed knowledge here is already -evil. And then! To be hurled as with an awful thunderbolt into reality -and knowledge with marriage--and indeed by him whom they most love and -esteem: to have to encounter love and shame in contradiction, yea, to -have to feel rapture, abandonment, duty, sympathy, and fright at the -unexpected proximity of God and animal, and whatever else besides! all -at once!--There, in fact, a psychic entanglement has been effected -which is quite unequalled! Even the sympathetic curiosity of the wisest -discerner of men does not suffice to divine how this or that woman -gets along with the solution of this enigma and the enigma of this -solution; what dreadful, far-reaching suspicions must awaken thereby -in the poor unhinged soul; and forsooth, how the ultimate philosophy -and scepticism of the woman casts anchor at this point!--Afterwards the -same profound silence as before: and often even a silence to herself, -a shutting of her eyes to herself.--Young wives on that account make -great efforts to appear superficial and thoughtless; the most ingenious -of them simulate a kind of impudence.--Wives easily feel their husbands -as a question-mark to their honour, and their children as an apology or -atonement,--they require children, and wish for them in quite another -spirit than a husband wishes for them.--In short, one cannot be gentle -enough towards women! 104-105 - -Of what consequence is all our art in artistic products, if that higher -art, the art of the festival, be lost by us? 124 - -The best thing I could say in honour of Shakespeare, _the man,_ is that -he believed in Brutus and cast not a shadow of suspicion on the kind of -virtue which Brutus represents! 131 - -We must rest from ourselves occasionally by contemplating and looking -down upon ourselves, and by laughing or weeping _over_ ourselves from -an artistic remoteness: we must discover the _hero,_ and likewise the -_fool,_ that is hidden in our passion for knowledge; we must now and -then be joyful in our folly, that we may continue to be joyful in our -wisdom! And just because we are heavy and serious men in our ultimate -depth, and are rather weights than men, there is nothing that does us -so much good as the _fool's cap and bells:_ we need them in presence of -ourselves--we need all arrogant, soaring, dancing, mocking, childish -and blessed Art, in order not to lose the _free dominion over things_ -which our ideal demands of us. 146 - -The general character of the world ... is to all eternity chaos; -not by the absence of necessity, but in the sense of the absence of -order, structure, form, beauty, wisdom, and whatever else our æsthetic -humanities are called. Judged by our reason, the unlucky casts are far -oftenest the rule, the exceptions are not the secret purpose; and the -whole musical box repeats eternally its air, which can never be called -a melody,--and finally the very expression, "unlucky cast" is already -an anthropomorphising which involves blame. But how could we presume to -blame or praise the universe! Let us be on our guard against ascribing -to it heartlessness and unreason, or their opposites; it is neither -perfect, nor beautiful, nor noble; nor does it seek to be anything of -the kind, it does not at all attempt to imitate man! It is altogether -unaffected by our æsthetic and moral judgments! Neither has it any -self-preservative instinct, nor instinct at all; it also knows no law. -Let us be on our guard against saying that there are laws in nature. -There are only necessities: there is no one who commands, no one who -obeys, no one who transgresses. When you know that there is no design, -you know also that there is no chance: for it is only where there is a -world of design that the word "chance" has a meaning. Let us be on our -guard against saying that death is contrary to life. The living being -is only a species of dead being, and a very rare species.--Let us be on -our guard against thinking that the world eternally creates the new. -There are no eternally enduring substances; matter is just another such -error as the God of the Eleatics. 152-153. - -Man has been reared by his errors: firstly, he saw himself always -imperfect; secondly, he attributed to himself imaginary qualities; -thirdly, he felt himself in a false position in relation to the animals -and nature; fourthly, he always devised new tables of values, and -accepted them for a time as eternal and unconditioned, so that at one -time this, and at another time that human impulse or state stood first, -and was ennobled in consequence. When one has deducted the effect of -these four errors, one has also deducted humanity, humaneness, and -"human dignity." 160 - -Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual. 161 - -There is no such thing as health in itself, and all attempts to define -a thing in that way have lamentably failed. It is necessary to know thy -aim, thy horizon, thy powers, thy impulses, thy errors, and especially -the ideals and fantasies of thy soul, in order to determine _what_ -health implies even for thy _body._ 163 - -Mystical explanations are regarded as profound; the truth is that they -do not even go the length of being superficial. 169 - -I set the following propositions against those of Schopenhauer ---Firstly, in order that Will may arise, an idea of pleasure and pain -is necessary. Secondly, that a vigorous excitation may be felt as -pleasure or pain, is the affair of the interpreting intellect, which, -to be sure, operates thereby for the most part unconsciously to us, -and one and the same excitation _may_ be interpreted as pleasure -or pain. Thirdly, it is only in an intellectual being that there is -pleasure, displeasure and Will; the immense majority of organisms have -nothing of the kind. 171 - -Prayer has been devised for such men as have never any thoughts of -their own, and to whom an elevation of the soul is unknown, or passes -unnoticed. 171 - -Sin, as it is at present felt wherever Christianity prevails or has -prevailed, is a Jewish feeling and a Jewish invention. 174 - -A Jesus Christ was only possible in a Jewish landscape--I mean in one -over which the gloomy and sublime thunder-cloud of the angry Jehovah -hung continually. 176 - -Where there is ruling there are masses: where there are masses there is -need of slavery. Where there is slavery the individuals are but few, -and have the instincts and conscience of the herd opposed to them. 183 - -We love the _grandeur_ of Nature and have discovered it; that is -because human grandeur is lacking in our minds. 186 - -Egoism is the _perspective_ law of our sentiment, according to which -the near appears large and momentous, while in the distance the -magnitude and importance of all things diminish. 187 - -He who knows that he is profound strives for clearness; he who would -like to appear profound to the multitude strives for obscurity. The -multitude thinks everything profound of which it cannot see the bottom; -it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water. 190 - -Thoughts are the shadows of our sentiments--always, however, obscurer, -emptier, and simpler. 192 - -**To laugh means to love mischief, but with a good conscience. 196 - -Virtue gives happiness and a state of blessedness only to those who -have a strong faith in their virtue:--not, however, to the more refined -souls whose virtue consists of a profound distrust of themselves and -of all virtue. After all, therefore, it is "faith that saves" here -also!--and be it well observed, not _virtue_! 198 - -Although the most intelligent judges of the witches, and even the -witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchcraft, the -guilt, nevertheless, was not there. So it is with all guilt. 205 - -It makes me happy to see that men do not want to think at all of the -idea of death! I would fain do something to make the idea of life even -a hundred times _more worthy of their attention._ 215-216 - -I greet all the signs indicating that a more manly and warlike age is -commencing, which will, above all, bring heroism again into honour! -For it has to prepare the way for a yet higher age, and gather the -force which the latter will one day require,--the age which will carry -heroism into knowledge, and _wage war_ for the sake of ideas and their -consequences. 218-219 - -They are disagreeable to me, those men in whom every natural -inclination forthwith becomes a disease, something disfiguring, or -even disgraceful. _They_ have seduced us to the opinion that the -inclinations and impulses of men are evil; _they_ are the cause of our -great injustice to our own nature, and to all nature! There are enough -of men who _may_ yield to their impulses gracefully and carelessly: but -they do not do so, for fear of that imaginary "evil thing" in nature! -_That is the cause_ why there is so little nobility to be found among -men: the indication of which will always be to have no fear of oneself, -to expect nothing disgraceful from oneself, to fly without hesitation -whithersoever we are impelled--we free-born birds! Wherever we come, -there will always be freedom and sunshine around us. 229 - -Every one knows at present that the ability to endure contradiction is -a high indication of culture. Some people even know that the higher man -courts opposition, and provokes it, so as to get a cue to his hitherto -unknown partiality. But the _ability_ to contradict, the attainment of -_good_ conscience in hostility to the accustomed, the traditional and -the hallowed,--that is more than both the above-named abilities, and is -the really great, new and astonishing thing in our culture, the step of -all steps of the emancipated intellect: who knows that? 232 - -In the main all those moral systems are distasteful to me which say: -"Do not do this! Renounce! Overcome thyself!" On the other hand I am -favourable to those moral systems which stimulate me to do something, -and to do it again from morning till evening, and dream of it at -night, and think of nothing else but to do it _well,_ as well as it is -possible for _me_ alone!... 238 - -In pain there is as much wisdom as in pleasure: like the latter it -is one of the best self-preservatives of a species. Were it not so, -pain would long ago have been done away with; that it is hurtful is no -argument against it, for to be hurtful is its very essence. 247 - -One form of honesty has always been lacking among founders of religions -and their kin:--they have never made their experiences a matter of the -intellectual conscience. ... But we who are different, who are thirsty -for reason, want to look as carefully into our experiences, as in the -case of a scientific experiment, hour by hour, day by day! We ourselves -want to be our own experiments, and our own subjects of experiment. 248 - -Let us no longer think so much about punishing, blaming, improving! -We shall seldom be able to alter an individual, and if we should -succeed in doing so, something else may also succeed, perhaps unawares: -_we_ may have been altered by him! Let us rather see to it that our -own influence on _all that is to come_ outweighs and overweighs his -influence! Let us not struggle in direct conflict!--all blaming, -punishing, and desire to improve comes under this category. 249 - -Who could know how to laugh well and live well, who did not first -understand the full meaning of war and victory? 250 - -That delightful animal, man, seems to lose his good-humour whenever he -thinks well; he becomes "serious"! And "where there is laughing and -gaiety, thinking cannot be worth anything:"--so speaks the prejudice of -this serious animal against all "Joyful Wisdom." 252-253 - -If you had thought more acutely, observed more accurately, and had -learned more, you would no longer under all circumstances call this -and that your "duty" and your "conscience": the knowledge _how moral -judgments have in general always originated,_ would make you tired of -these pathetic words.... 261 - -We _would seek to become what we are,_--the new, the unique, the -incomparable, making laws for ourselves and creating ourselves! And for -this purpose we must become the best students and discoverers of all -the laws and necessities in the world. We must be _physicists_ in order -to be _creators_ in that sense,--whereas hitherto all appreciations and -ideals have been based on _ignorance_ of physics, or in _contradiction_ -to it. 203 - -Our "benefactors" lower our value and volition more than our enemies. -265 - -It is always a _metaphysical belief_ on which our belief in science -rests,--and that even we knowing ones of to-day, the godless and -anti-metaphysical, still take _our_ fire from the conflagration kindled -by a belief a millennium old, the Christian belief, which was also the -belief of Plato, that God is truth, that the truth is divine. 279 - -Belief is always most desired, most pressingly needed where there -is a lack of will: for the will, as emotion of command, is the -distinguishing characteristic of sovereignty and power. That is to say, -the less a person knows how to command, the more urgent is his desire -for one who commands, who commands sternly,--a God, a prince, a caste, -a physician, a confessor, a dogma, a party conscience. 286 - -To seek self-preservation merely, is the expression of a state of -distress, or of limitation of the true, fundamental instinct of life, -which aims at the _extension of power,_ and with this in view often -enough calls in question self-preservation and sacrifices it. 289 - -The subtlety and strength of consciousness are always in proportion -to the _capacity for communication_ of a man (or an animal), the -capacity for communication in its turn being in proportion to the -_necessity for_ communication. ... _Consciousness generally has only -been developed under the pressure of the necessity for communication,_ ---that from the first it has been necessary and useful only between man -and man (especially between those commanding and those obeying), and -has only developed in proportion to its utility. 296-297 - -The Church is under all circumstances a _nobler_ institution than the -State. 314 - -It seems to me one of my most essential steps and advances that I have -learned to distinguish the cause of the action generally from the -cause of action in a particular manner, say, in this direction, with -this aim. The first kind of cause is a quantum of stored-up force, -which waits to be used in some manner, for some purpose; the second -kind of cause, on the contrary, is something quite unimportant in -comparison with the first, an insignificant hazard for the most part, -in conformity with which the quantum of force in question "discharges" -itself in some unique and definite manner: the lucifer-match in -relation to the barrel of gunpowder. 317 - -I will never admit that we should speak of _equal_ rights in the love -of man and woman: there are no such equal rights. The reason is that -man and woman understand something different by the term love,--and it -belongs to the conditions of love in both sexes that the one sex does -_not_ presuppose the same feeling, the same conception of "love," in -the other sex. What woman understands by love is clear enough: complete -surrender (not merely devotion) of soul and body, without any motive, -without any reservation, rather with shame and terror at the thought -of a devotion restricted by clauses or associated with conditions. In -this absence of conditions her love is precisely a _faith:_ woman has -no other.--Man, when he loves a woman, _wants_ precisely this love from -her; he is consequently, as regards himself, furthest removed from the -prerequisites of feminine love; granted, however, that there should -also be men to whom on their side the demand for complete devotion is -not unfamiliar,--well, they are really--not men. A man who loves like -a woman becomes thereby a slave: a woman, however, who loves like a -woman becomes thereby a _more perfect_ woman.... Woman wants to be -taken and accepted as a possession, she wishes to be merged in the -conceptions of "possession" and "possessed"; consequently she wants -one who _takes,_ who does not offer and give himself away, but who -reversely is rather to be made richer in "himself"--by the increase -of power, happiness and faith which the woman herself gives to him. -Woman gives herself, man takes her.--I do not think one will get over -this natural contrast by any social contract, or with the very best -will to do justice, however desirable it may be to avoid bringing the -severe, frightful, enigmatical, and unmoral elements of this antagonism -constantly before our eyes. For love, regarded as complete, great, -and full, is nature, and as nature, is to all eternity something -"unmoral."--_Fidelity_ is accordingly included in woman's love, it -follows from the definition thereof; with man fidelity _may_ readily -result in consequence of his love, perhaps as gratitude or idiosyncrasy -of taste, and so-called elective affinity, but it does not belong -to the _essence_ of his love--and indeed so little, that one might -almost be entitled to speak of a natural opposition between love and -fidelity in man, whose love is just a desire to possess, and _not_ a -renunciation and giving away; the desire to possess, however, comes to -an end every time with the possession. 321-323 - -Everything that is thought, versified, painted and composed, yea, even -built and moulded, belongs either to monologic art, or to art before -witnesses. Under the latter there is also to be included the apparently -monologic art which involves the belief in God, the whole lyric of -prayer; because for a pious man there is no solitude,--we, the godless, -have been the first to devise this invention. 328 - -A "scientific" interpretation of the world as you understand it might -consequently still be one of the _stupidest,_ that is to say, the most -destitute of significance, of all possible world-interpretations.... -An essentially mechanical world would be an essentially _meaningless -World!_ 339-340 - -We, the new, the nameless, the hard-to-understand, we firstlings of a -yet untried future--we require for a new end also a new means, namely, -a new healthiness, stronger, sharper, tougher, bolder and merrier than -any healthiness hitherto. 351 - -Another ideal runs on before us, a strange, tempting ideal, full of -danger, to which we should not like to persuade any one, because we -do not so readily acknowledge any one's _right thereto:_ the ideal -of a spirit who plays naively (that is to say involuntarily and from -overflowing abundance and power) with everything that has hitherto been -called holy, good, inviolable, divine; to whom the loftiest conception -which the people have reasonably made their measure of value, would -already imply danger, ruin, abasement, or at least relaxation, -blindness, or temporary self-forgetfulness; the ideal of a humanly -superhuman welfare and benevolence, which may often enough appear -_inhuman._ ... 352-353 - - - - -V - - -"Thus Spake Zarathustra" - - -He student of Nietzsche can well afford to leave the reading of "Thus -Spake Zarathustra" _("Also Sprach Zarathustra")_ until he has prepared -himself for the task by studying Nietzsche's other and less obscure -books. In both its conception and execution it differs markedly from -all the works which preceded and followed it. It is written in an -archaic and poetical style, and in many places is purposely obscure. -Nietzsche did not intend it for the general public, and the fourth part -was not published until seven years after its completion. It would -have been better had "Zarathustra" been withheld from the presses -until Nietzsche's other works had gained a wider recognition, for -it unfortunately lays itself open to all manner of misunderstanding -and misinterpretation. In fact, it is impossible to read "Thus Spake -Zarathustra" comprehendingly until several of the other books of this -philosopher, such as "The Dawn of Day," "The Genealogy of Morals" and -"Beyond Good and Evil," have been consumed and assimilated. - -Unfortunately this book, because of the attractive medium of its -style, was one of the first to fall into the hands of English speaking -people. For many years it was the principal source of the many -false accusations against Nietzsche which gained wide circulation. -The figures of speech contained in it and the numerous parables -which are used to set forth its ideas lend themselves all too -easily to falsities of judgment and erroneous evaluations. Reading -the book unpreparedly one may find what appear to be unexplainable -contradictions and ethical sophistries. Above all, one may wrongly -sense the absence of that higher ethical virtue which is denied -Nietzsche in quarters where he is least understood, but which every -close student of his works knows to form the basis of his thought. - -Nietzsche began the writing of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" early in the -year 1883, and he did not finish it until the middle of February, -1885. The actual conception of the book came much before this time -even, as far back as the summer of 1881. This is when the idea of -eternal recurrence first took possession of him. At once he began -making notes, using this idea as the basis of Zarathustra's teachings. -At this time Nietzsche was just recovering from a siege of ill health -which had extended over many years, and no doubt the buoyant and -rhapsodic form in which he conceived this work was due to his sudden -acquisition of bodily health. The first part was written in ten days, -the second part a few months later, and the third part in the autumn of -the same year. But it was not until after a lapse of eighteen months -that the fourth and last section was completed. Because of this long -interval we see a radical difference between the first three parts of -the book and the last part. The language remains very much the same -throughout--spectacular, poetic and symbolic--but the form is changed. -The epigrammatic and non-sequacious mandates give way to a long -connected parable. The psalmodie brevity of the utterances of the first -three sections is supplanted by description and narrative. A story -runs through the entire fourth part; and it is in the obscurities of -this fable, rather than in any specific statements, that we must seek -the gist of Nietzsche's doctrines. This would be an impossible task -were we not more or less familiar with his other books. Yet, once we -understand the general trend of his thought, we can penetrate at once -to the meanings hidden in the fantastic divagations of his story and -can understand the dithyrambic utterances of both Zarathustra and the -"higher men" in the cave. - -"Thus Spake Zarathustra" is unique for the reason that there are few -points in Nietzsche's system of ethic--and for the most part they are -the unimportant ones--which we cannot find somewhere in its pages. But -do not think that one can grasp an idea of the sweep of his entire -thought merely by reading this book. Even in the most simply worded and -most lucidly phrased passages one would find difficulty in following -the steps in his philosophy, unless there had been considerable -preparatory study. To be sure, there are numerous isolated epigrams -and bits of observation which are easily understood, but their mere -isolation very often robs them of the true meaning they hold when -related to the other precepts. The very literalness with which these -passages have been taken by those who have read "Zarathustra" before -studying any of the other works of Nietzsche, accounts in a large -measure for the ignorance in which he is held even by those who profess -to have read him and understood him. A philosophy such as his, the -outposts of which are so far removed from the routine of our present -social life, is naturally hampered by the restricted connotation of -current words--even those technical words used to express abstract and -infinite things. For this reason it is inevitable that false meanings -should attach to many of his statements, and that misunderstandings -should arise in quarters where there does not exist a previous general -knowledge of the co-ordinated structure of his teachings. This general -knowledge cannot be gained from "Thus Spake Zarathustra." Many of its -pages are entirely without significance to the reader not already -acquainted with Nietzsche's thought. And much of its nomenclature is -meaningless without the explanations to be found in the main body of -his work. - -For the reader, however, who picks up this book after having equipped -himself for an understanding of it, there is much of fascination and -stimulation. Nietzsche regarded it as his most intimate and personal, -and therefore his most important, work. He even had plans for two -more parts which were to be included in it. But these were never -finished. The indifference with which the book was received, even -by those on whose sympathy and understanding he had most counted, -reacted unfavourably upon him. It is nevertheless, just as it stands, -one of the most remarkable pieces of philosophic literature of modern -times. Its form alone makes it unique. Instead of stating his beliefs -directly and without circumlocution, as was always his method both -before and after the writing of this book, Nietzsche chose for his -mouthpiece a poet and philosopher borrowed from the Persians, namely: -Zoroaster. This sage of the ancients was used as a symbol of the higher -man. Into his mouth were put Nietzsche's own ideas in the form of -parables, admonitions, exhortations and discourses. The wanderings and -experiences of this Zoroaster are chronicled, and each event in his -life embodies a meaning in direct accord with the Nietzschean system of -conduct. - -Because of the Persian origin of Zoroaster one might imagine that -influences of Persian philosophy would be discoverable in the teachings -of this nomadic poet. But with the name all similarity between the -spokesman and his doctrines ends. Nietzsche's choice of Zoroaster -as his mouthpiece grew out of his early admiration for the Persians -who, he declared, "were the first to take a broad and comprehensive -view of history." As we see Zoroaster in this book we recognise him -at once as none other than Nietzsche himself; and the experiences -through which he goes in his wanderings are but picturesquely stated -accounts of Nietzsche's own sufferings, raptures, aspirations and -disappointments. To those familiar with Nietzsche's life, many of the -characters introduced in the book will be recognised as portraitures of -men whose lives crossed that of the philosopher. Likewise, many of the -parables and fables are thinly disguised accounts of the incidents in -his own life. In the last part of the book we find Nietzsche creating -a fantastic poet to represent Wagner, and holding him up to severe and -uncompromising criticism. - -Zoroaster, as he appears in this book, is an itinerant law-giver -and prophet who seeks the waste places of the earth, the mountains, -plains and sea shores, avoiding mankind and carrying with him two -symbolic animals, an eagle and a snake. At the end of his wanderings -he discovers a lion which is for him the sign that his journey is -drawing to a close, for this lion represents all that is best and -most powerful in nature. The book is comprised of the discourses and -sermons which Zoroaster delivers from day to day to the occasional -disciples and unbelievers who cross the path of his wanderings. There -are conversations between him and his accompanying animals; and in the -last part of the book he gathers together in his cave a number of men -representing types of the higher man and talks with them. In all his -discourses he makes use of a rhapsodic and poetic style, not unlike -that found in the Psalms of David. The text telling of Zoroaster's -wanderings and experiences is cast in the manner of the early religious -books of the Orientals. - -"Thus Spake Zarathustra" was the first book to follow "Human, -All-Too-Human," "The Dawn of Day" and "The Joyful Wisdom," and many of -Nietzsche's constructive ideas are presented here for the first time. -Part I is more lucid and can be more easily understood than the parts -which follow. In it Nietzsche designates the classes of humanity and -differentiates between them. His three famous metamorphoses of the -spirit--symbolised by the camel, the lion and the child--are stated -and explained. Here we find the philosopher's most widely quoted -passages pertaining to marriage and child-bearing; his doctrine of -war and peace; and those passages wherein he reverses the beatitudes. -The passions and preferences of the individual are criticised in -their relation to the higher man, and the more obvious instincts are -analysed. Nietzsche outlines methods of conduct, and dissects the -actions and attitudes of his disciples, praising them or blaming them -in accordance with his own values. He presents an illuminating analysis -of charity, and outlines in his chapter, "The Bestowing Virtue," the -conditions under which it may become a means to existence. He poses -the problem of relative morality, and suggests the lines along which -his thesis will be developed at a later date. The superman is defined -briefly but with a completeness sufficient for us to sense his relation -to the philosophical scheme of which he is a part. The conception of -the superman was founded on Darwin's doctrine of organic evolution, -and Nietzsche seeks to bring this superman about by the application -of the law of natural selection and by giving the law of the survival -of the fittest an open field for operation. Here, too, we have the -statement of Nietzsche's racial ideal: the highest exemplars of the -race, and not a standardized goal, is the aim of his philosophy. - -In Part II the doctrine of the will to power is clearly set forth in -its framework. The chapter wherein this appears--"Self-Surpassing"--is -merely a brief exposition founded on observation. The development of -this idea is not to be found until toward the end of Nietzsche's life; -but that the theory was clearly conceived in his mind is evidenced by -the fact that it is constantly being applied throughout the remainder -of his works. In its present form it is no more than a statement, but -so clearly is it presented that one is able to grasp its significance -and to determine in just what manner it differed from the Darwinian -and Spencerian doctrines. In this same section are contained many -personal chapters, including an excoriation of his early critics, a -comparison between himself and Schopenhauer, an account of his early -anti-scholastic warfare, a criticism of modern scientific methods, a -reference to his friendship with Wagner, and an expression of regret at -the misunderstanding which greeted his earlier works. One of the final -chapters offers a definition of "profundity" which goes deep into the -very undercurrents of his philosophy. - -The most important material to be found in the book is encountered -in Part III. Under the caption, "The Old and the New Tables," we -have an important summing up of the principal teachings in the -Nietzschean philosophical scheme. Here also we meet the doctrine of -eternal recurrence which, as I have said, generated the conception -of this book. Its present statement is limited to a few tentative -speculations; later on it was developed and set forth with greater -force and certainty. But despite the fact that in his autobiography -Nietzsche calls this speculative philosophic doctrine "the highest of -all possible formulæ of a Yea-saying philosophy," too much importance -must not be attached to it in its relation to his writings. In the -first place it was by no means new with him: he himself reconnoitred -a bit in one of his early essays looking for its possible origin. And -in the second place it had little influence on his main doctrine of -the superman. Although he spent considerable time and space in its -elucidation, it never became an integral part of any of his teachings. -Rather was it something superimposed on his other formulæ--a condition -introduced into the actualities of his conception of the universe. I am -inclined to think that he flirted with this idea of recurrence largely -because it was the most disheartening obstacle he could conceive in -the path of the superman; and as no obstacle was too great to be faced -triumphantly by this man of the future, he imposed this condition of -eternal recurrence upon him as an ultimate test of fortitude. This idea -would have added the final touch of futility to ambition, and Nietzsche -could not conceive of true greatness in man unless futility was at -the bottom of all ambitions. However, it is possible to eliminate -the entire idea of eternal recurrence from Nietzsche's work without -altering fundamentally any of his main teachings, for it is, in his -very conception of it, a deputy condition of existence. - -Part IV, the narrative section, answers the query often raised: For -whom is Nietzsche's philosophy intended? It does away once and for all -with the assumption of certain critics that his writings were for all -classes. In fact, this assumption, constantly posited by scholars--even -those who claim to possess an intimate knowledge of Nietzsche's -work--is nowhere borne out in his text. As far back as "Thoughts out of -Season" the reverse of this supposition was inferentially stated; and -in "The Antichrist" and "The Will to Power" we have definite denials -that his doctrines were intended for every one. Yet one is constantly -encountering critical refutations of his philosophy based on the theory -that he addressed his teachings to all men. Nothing could be further -from the truth. He held no vision of a race of supermen: a millennium -founded on the exertion of power was neither his aim nor his hope. -His philosophy was entirely aristocratic. It was a system of ethics -designed for the masters of the race; and his books were gifts for -the intelligent man alone. Locke, Rousseau and Hume are often brought -forward by critics as answers to his attempts at transvaluation; but -a close inspection of Nietzsche's definition of slave-morality, which -was an important factor in his ethical scheme, will show that it is -possible to accept the philosophy of the superman without abrogating -the softer ethics of these three other thinkers. Nietzsche's stand in -regard to his audience is made obvious in the fable of Zarathustra. The -poet-philosopher experiences the instinct for pity, but on going out -into the world, he recognises this instinct as pertaining only to the -"higher men." When he finds numerous of these men in danger from the -ignorance of the populace and from the restrictions of environment, -he leads them to his cave, and there, isolated from the inferior man, -discourses with them on the problems of life and points out to them -the course they must take in order to bring about the superman. - -Because of the nature of the book it is extremely difficult to select -detached passages from it which will give an entirely adequate idea of -its contents. Often a single philosophical point will be contained in -a long parable, and the only way to present that point in Nietzsche's -own words would have been to embody the whole parable in this chapter. -That, of course, would have been impossible. Therefore, many of the -ideas set forth in the book have not been included in the following -excerpts. Part IV does not lend itself at all to mutilation, and I have -been unable to take anything save a few general passages from this -section. However, "Thus Spake Zarathustra" is not a book to which one -should go to become familiar with Nietzsche's teachings. When one sits -down to read it, my advice is that the notes of Mr. Anthony M. Ludovici -which are to be found in the appendix of the standard English edition, -be followed closely. - - -EXCERPTS FROM "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA" - -_I teach you the Superman.._. Man is something that is to be surpassed. -6 - -What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just -the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of -shame. 6 - -Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is -still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than -any of the apes. 7 - -I conjure you, my brethren, _remain true to the earth._ and believe not -those who speak unto you of super-earthly hopes! Poisoners are they, -whether they know it or not. 7 - -To blaspheme the earth is now the dreadfulest sin.... 7 - -Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman--a rope -over an abyss. 9 - -What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.... 9 - -I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a -dancing star.... 12 - -Three metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit -becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child. - -Many heavy things are there for the spirit, the strong load-bearing -spirit in which reverence dwelleth: for the heavy and the heaviest -longeth its strength. - -What is heavy? so asketh the load-bearing spirit; then kneeleth it down -like the camel, and wanteth to be well laden. - -What is the heaviest thing, ye heroes? asketh the load-bearing spirit, -that I may take it upon me and rejoice in my strength. - -Is it not this: To humiliate oneself in order to mortify one's pride? -To exhibit one's folly in order to mock at one's wisdom? - -Or is it this: To desert our cause when it celebrateth its triumph? To -ascend high mountains to tempt the tempter? - -Or is it this: To feed on the acorns and grass of knowledge, and for -the sake of truth to suffer hunger of soul? - -Or is it this: To be sick and dismiss comforters, and make friends of -the deaf, who never hear thy requests? - -Or is it this: To go into foul water when it is the water of truth, and -not disclaim cold frogs and hot toads? - -Or is it this: To love those who despise us, and give one's hand to the -phantom when it is going to frighten us? - -All these heaviest things the load-bearing spirit taketh upon itself: -and like the camel, which, when laden, hasteneth into the wilderness, -so hasteneth the spirit into its wilderness. - -But in the loneliest wilderness happeneth the second metamorphosis: -here the spirit becometh a lion; freedom will it capture, and lordship -in its own wilderness. - -Its last Lord it here seeketh: hostile will it be to him, and to its -last God; for victory will it struggle with the great dragon. - -What is the great dragon which the spirit is no longer inclined to call -Lord and God? "Thou shalt," is the great dragon called. But the spirit -of the lion saith, "I will." - -"Thou shalt," lieth in its path, sparkling with gold--a scale-covered -beast; and on every scale glittereth golden, "Thou shalt!" - -The values of a thousand years glitter on those scales, and -thus speaketh the mightiest of all dragons: "All the values of -things--glitter on me." - -"All values have already been created, and all created values--do I -represent. Verily, there shall be no 'I will' any more." Thus speaketh -the dragon. - -My brethren, wherefore is there need of the lion in the spirit? Why -sufficeth not the beast of burden, which renounceth and is reverent? - -To create new values--that, even the lion cannot yet accomplish: but to -create itself freedom for new creating--that can the might of the lion -do. - -To create itself freedom, and give a holy Nay even unto duty: for -that, my brethren, there is need of the lion. - -To assume the right to new values--that is the most formidable -assumption for a load-bearing and reverent spirit. Verily, unto such a -spirit it is preying, and the work of a beast of prey. - -As its holiest, it once loved "Thou shalt": now is it forced to find -illusion and arbitrariness even in the holiest things, that it may -capture freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this capture. - -But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion -could not do? Why hath the preying lion still to become a child? - -Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a -self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea. - -Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea -unto life: _its own_ will, willeth now the spirit; _his own_ world -winneth the world's outcast. - -Three metamorphoses of the spirit have I designated to you: how the -spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child. -25-27 - -A new pride ... teach I unto men: no longer to thrust the head into the -sand of celestial things, but to carry it freely, a terrestrial head, -which giveth meaning to the earth! - -A new will teach I unto men: to choose that path which man hath -followed blindly, and to approve of it--and no longer to slink aside -from it, like the sick and perishing! - -The sick and perishing--it was they who despised the body and the -earth, and invented the heavenly world, and the redeeming blood-drops; -but even those sweet and sad poisons they borrowed from the body and -the earth! 33-34 - -The awakened one, the knowing one, saith: "Body am I entirely, and -nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body." 35 - -The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a -peace, a flock and a shepherd. - -An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother, -which thou callest "spirit"--a little instrument and plaything of thy -big sagacity. - -Instruments and playthings are sense and spirit: behind them there -is still the Self. The Self seeketh with the eyes of the senses, it -hearkeneth also with the ears of the spirit. 36 - -Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, -an unknown sage--it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy -body. 36 - -When thou hast a virtue, and it is thine own virtue, thou hast it in -common with no one. 38 - -If thou be fortunate, then wilt thou have one virtue and no more: thus -goest thou easier over the bridge. 39 - -"Enemy" shall ye say but not "villain," "invalid" shall ye say but not -"wretch," "fool" shall ye say but not "sinner." 41 - -Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his -blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit. 43 - -Ye look aloft when ye long for exaltation; and I look downward because -I am exalted. - -Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted? - -He who climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic plays -and tragic realities. - -Courageous, unconcerned, scornful, coercive--so wisdom wisheth us; she -is a woman, and ever loveth a warrior. 44 - -It is true we love life; not because we are wont to live, but because -we are wont to love. 44 - -I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance. 45 - -Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit -of gravity! 45 - -Full is the earth of the superfluous; marred is life by the -many-too-many. May they be decoyed out of this life by the "life -eternal"! 49 - -Ye are not great enough not to know of hatred and envy. Then be great -enough not to be ashamed of them! 51 - -Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars--and the short peace more -than the long. - -You I advise not to work, but to fight. You, I advise not to peace, but -to victory. Let your work be a fight, let your peace be a victory! 52 - -Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto you: -it is the good war which halloweth every cause. 52 - -"What is good?" ye ask. To be brave is good. 52 - -Ye shall only have enemies to be hated, but not enemies to be despised. -Ye must be proud of your enemies; then, the successes of your enemies -are also your successes. 53 - -A state is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly lieth it -also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: "I, the state, am the -people." 54 - -Just see these superfluous ones! They steal the works of the inventors -and the treasures of the wise. Culture, they call their theft--and -everything becometh sickness and trouble unto them! 56 - -Around the devisers of new values revolveth the world:--invisibly it -revolveth. But around the actors revolve the people and the glory: such -is the course of things. 58 - -Would that ye were perfect--at least as animals! But to animals -belongeth innocence. 61 - -Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many almost a vice. 61 - -To whom chastity is difficult, it is to be dissuaded: lest it become -the road to hell--to filth and lust of soul. 62 - -If one would have a friend, then must one also be willing to wage war -for him: and in order to wage war, one must be _capable_ of being an -enemy. 63 - -In one's friend one shall have one's best enemy. Thou shalt be closest -unto him with thy heart when thou withstandest him. 63 - -Art thou a slave? Then thou canst not be a friend. Art thou a tyrant? -Then thou canst not have friends. - -Far too long hath there been a slave and a tyrant concealed in woman. -On that account woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knoweth -only love. - -In woman's love there is injustice and blindness to all she doth -not love. And even in woman's conscious love, there is still always -surprise and lightning and night, along with the light. 65 - -Values did man only assign to things in order to maintain himself--he -created only the significance of things, a human significance! -Therefore, calleth he himself "man," that is, the valuator. 67 - -A thousand goals have there been hitherto, for a thousand peoples have -there been. Only the fetter for the thousand necks is still lacking; -there is lacking the one goal. As yet humanity hath not a goal. 69 - -Do I advise you to neighbour-love? Rather do I advise you to -neighbour-flight and to furthest love! - -Higher than love to your neighbour is love to the furthest and future -ones; higher still than love to men, is love to things and phantoms. - -The phantom that runneth on before thee, my brother, is fairer than -thou; why dost thou not give unto it thy flesh and thy bones?... 69 - -Art thou one _entitled_ to escape from a yoke? Many a one hath cast -away his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude. - -Free from what? What doth that matter to Zarathustra! Clearly, however, -shall thine eye show unto me: free _for what?_ 71 - -Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one -solution--it is called pregnancy. - -Man is for woman, a means: the purpose is always the child. But what is -woman for man? - -Two different things wanteth the true man: danger and diversion. -Therefore wanteth he woman, as the most dangerous plaything. - -Man shall be trained for war, and woman for the recreation of the -warrior: all else is folly. - -Two sweet fruits--these the warrior liketh not. Therefore liketh he -woman;--bitter is ever the sweetest woman. - -Better than man doth woman understand children, but man is more -childish than woman. - -In the true man there is a child hidden: it wanteth to play. Up then, -ye women, and discover the child in man! - -A plaything let woman be, pure and fine like the precious stone, -illumined with the virtues of a world not yet come. - -Let the beam of a star shine in your love! Let your hope say: "May I -bear the Superman!" - -In your love let there be valour! With your love shall ye assail him -who inspireth you with fear! - -In your love be your honour! Little doth woman understand otherwise -about honour. But let this be your honour: always to love more than ye -are loved, and never be the second. - -Let man fear woman when she loveth: then maketh she every sacrifice, -and everything else she regardeth as worthless. - -Let man fear woman when she hateth: for man in his innermost soul is -merely evil; woman, however, is mean. - -Whom hateth woman most?--Thus spake the iron to the loadstone: "I hate -thee most, because thou attractest, but art too weak to draw unto thee." - -The happiness of man is, "I will." The happiness of woman is, "He -will." 76 - -Thou goest to women? Do not forget thy whip! 77 - -When ... ye have an enemy, then return him not good for evil: for that -would abash him. But prove that he hath done something good to you. - -And rather be angry than abash any one! And when ye are cursed, it -pleaseth me not that ye should then desire to bless. Rather curse a -little also! 78 - -Tell me: where find we justice, which is love with seeing eyes? 78 - -Thou art young, and desirest child and marriage. But I ask thee: Art -thou a man entitled to desire a child? Art thou the victorious one, the -self-conqueror, the ruler of thy passions, the master of thy virtues? -Thus do I ask thee. - -Or doth the animal speak in thy wish, and necessity? Or isolation? Or -discord in thee? - -I would have thy victory and freedom long for a child. Living monuments -shalt thou build to thy victory and emancipation. - -Beyond thyself shalt thou build. But first of all must thou be built -thyself, rectangular in body and soul. 79 - -Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is -more than those who created it. 80 - -That which the many-too-many call marriage, those superfluous ones--ah, -what shall I call it? - -Ah, the poverty of soul in the twain! Ah, the filth of soul in the -twain! Ah, the pitiable self-complacency in the twain! - -Marriage they call it all; and they say their marriages are made in -heaven. - -Well, I do not like it, that heaven of the superfluous; No, I do not -like them, those animals tangled in the heavenly toils! - -Far from me also be the God who limpeth thither to bless what he hath -not matched! - -Laugh not at such marriages! What child hath not had reason to weep -over its parents? 80 - -Every one regardeth dying as a great matter: but as yet death is not -a festival. Not yet have people learned to inaugurate the finest -festivals. 82 - -My death, praise I unto you, the voluntary death, which cometh unto me -because I want it. - -And when shall I want it?--He that hath a goal and an heir, wanteth -death at the right time for the goal and the heir. 83 - -It is your thirst to become sacrifices and gifts yourselves: and -therefore have ye the thirst to accumulate all riches in your soul. - -Insatiably striveth your soul for treasures and jewels, because your -virtue is insatiable in desiring to bestow. - -Ye constrain all things to flow towards you and into you, so that they -shall flow back again out of your fountain as the gifts of your love. - -Verily, an appropriator of all values must such bestowing love become; -but healthy and holy, call I this selfishness. 86 - -When ye are exalted above praise and blame, and your will would command -all things, as a loving one's will: there is the origin of your virtue. -87 - -Remain true to the earth, my brethren, with the power of your virtue! -Let your bestowing love and your knowledge be devoted to be the meaning -of the earth! Thus do I pray and conjure you. - -Let it not fly away from the earthly and beat against eternal walls -with its wings! 88 - -The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but -also to hate his friends. 90 - -Once did people say God, when they looked out upon distant seas; now, -however, have I taught you to say, Superman. 98 - -Could ye _conceive_ a God?--But let this mean Will to Truth unto you, -that everything be transformed into the humanly conceivable, the -humanly visible, the humanly sensible! Your own discernment shall ye -follow out to the end! 99 - -Creating--that is the great salvation from suffering, and life's -alleviation. But for the creator to appear, suffering itself is needed, -and much transformation. 100 - -What would there be to create if there were--? Gods! 101 - -Man himself is to the discerning one: the animal with red cheeks. 102 - -Verily, I like them not, the merciful ones, whose bliss is in their -pity: too destitute are they of bashfulness. - -If I must be pitiful, I dislike to be called so; and if I be so, it is -preferably at a distance. 102 - -Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: -that alone, my brethren, is our original sin! 103 - -Great obligations do not make grateful, but revengeful; and when a -small kindness is not forgotten, it becometh a gnawing worm. 103 - -The sting of conscience teacheth one to sting. 103 - -Ah, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the -pitiful? And what in the world hath caused more suffering than the -follies of the pitiful? - -Woe unto all loving ones who have not an elevation which is above their -pity! - -Thus spake the devil unto me, once a time: "Even God hath his hell: it -is his love for man." 105 - -All great love is above all its pity: for it seeketh--to create what is -loved! - -"Myself do I offer unto my love, _and my neighbour as myself"_--such is -the language of all creators. 105 - -"Here are priests: but although they are mine enemies, pass them -quietly and with sleeping swords!" - -Even among them there are heroes; many of them have suffered too -much:--so they want to make others suffer. - -Bad enemies are they: nothing is more revengeful than their meekness. -106 - -When a person goeth through fire for his teaching--what doth that -prove! It is more, verily, when out of one's own burning cometh one's -own teaching! 108 - -That _your_ very Self be in your action, as the mother is in the child: -let that be _your_ formula of virtue! 112 - -Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all -fountains are poisoned. 113 - -Ye who make the soul giddy, ye preachers of _equality!_ Tarantulas are -ye unto me, and secretly revengeful ones! 116 - -Ye preachers of equality, the tyrant-frenzy of impotence crieth thus -in you for "equality": your most secret tyrant-longings disguise -themselves thus in virtue-words! - -Fretted conceit and suppressed envy--perhaps your fathers' conceit and -envy: in you break they forth as flame and frenzy of vengeance. 117 - -Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful! - -They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer -the hangman and the sleuth-hound. - -Distrust all those who talk much of their justice! Verily, in their -souls not only honey is lacking. - -And when they call themselves "the good and just," forget not, that for -them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but--power! 118 - -With these preachers of equality will I not be mixed up and confounded. -For thus speaketh justice _unto me:_ "Men are not equal." - -And neither shall they become so! 118 - -Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and low, and all names of -values: weapons shall they be, and sounding signs, that life must again -and again surpass itself! 119 - -Steadfast and beautiful, let us also be enemies, my friends I Divinely -will we strive _against_ one another! 120 - -Hungry, fierce, lonesome, God-forsaken: so doth the lion-will wish -itself. - -Free from the happiness of slaves, redeemed from Deities and -adorations, fearless and fear-inspiring, grand and lonesome: so is the -will of the conscientious. 122 - -Wherever I found a living thing, there found I Will to Power; and even -in the will of the servant found I the will to be master. - -That to the stronger the weaker shall serve--thereto persuadeth he his -will who would be master over a still weaker one. That delight alone he -is unwilling to forego. - -And as the lesser surrendereth himself to the greater that he may have -delight and power over the least of all, so doth even the greatest -surrender himself, and staketh--life, for the sake of power. - -It is the surrender of the greatest to run risk and danger, and play -dice for death. 136 - -Good and evil which would be everlasting--it doth not exist! Of its own -accord must it ever surpass itself anew. 137 - -He who hath to be a creator in good and evil--verily, he hath first to -be a destroyer, and break values in pieces. 138 - -Ye tell me, friends, that there is to be no dispute about taste and -tasting? But all life is a dispute about taste and tasting. - -Taste: that is weight at the same time, and scales and weigher; and -alas for every living thing that would live without dispute about -weight and scales and weigher! 139 - -Alien to me, and a mockery, are the present-day men, to whom of late my -heart impelled me; and exiled am I from fatherlands and motherlands. - -Thus do I love only my _children's land,_ the undiscovered in the -remotest sea: for it do I bid my sails search and search. - -Unto my children will I make amends for being the child of my fathers: -and unto all the future--for _this_ present-day! 145 - -Where is innocence? Where there is will to procreation. And he who -seeketh to create beyond himself, hath for me the purest will. - -Where is beauty? Where I _must will_ with my whole Will; where I will -love and perish, that an image may not remain merely an image. - -Loving and perishing: these have rhymed from eternity. Will to love: -that is to be ready also for death. 147 - -Dare only to believe in yourselves--in yourselves and in your inward -parts! He who doth not believe in himself always lieth. 147 - -All Gods are poets-symbolisations, poet-sophistications! 153 - -"Freedom" ye all roar most eagerly: but I have unlearned the belief in -"great events," when there is much roaring and smoke about them. - -And believe me, friend Hollaballoo! The greatest events--are not our -noisiest, but our stillest hours. - -Not around the inventors of new noise, but around the inventors of new -values, doth the world revolve: _inaudibly_ it revolveth. 158 - -To redeem what is past, and to transform every "It was" into "Thus -would have it!"--that only do I call redemption! 168 - -_The spirit of revenge:_ my friends, that hath hitherto been man's best -contemplation; and where there was suffering, it was claimed there was -always penalty. - -"Penalty," so calleth itself revenge. With a lying word it feigneth a -good conscience. 169 - -This is my first manly prudence, that I allow myself to be deceived, -so as not to be on my guard against deceivers. 172 - -He who would not languish amongst men, must learn to drink out of all -glasses; and he who would keep clean amongst men, must know how to wash -himself even with dirty water. 172 - -Verily, there is still a future even for evil! And the warmest south is -still undiscovered by man. - -How many things are now called the worst wickedness, which are only -twelve feet broad and three months long! Some day, however, will -greater dragons come into the world. - -For that the Superman may not lack his dragon, the superdragon that -is worthy of him, there must still much warm sun glow on moist virgin -forests! - -Out of your wild cats must tigers have evolved, and out of your -poison-toads, crocodiles: for the good hunter shall have a good hunt! - -And verily, ye good and just! In you there is much to be laughed at, -and especially your fear of what hath hitherto been called "the devil"! - -So alien are ye in your souls to what is great, that to you the -Superman would be _frightful_ in his goodness! - -And ye wise and knowing ones, ye would flee from the solar-glow of the -wisdom in which the Superman joyfully batheth his nakedness! - -Ye highest men who have come within my ken! this is my doubt of you, -and my secret laughter: I suspect ye would call my Superman--a devil! - -Ah, I became tired of those highest and best ones: from their "height" -did I long to be up, out, and away to the Superman! - -A horror came over me when I saw those best ones naked: then there grew -for me the pinions to soar away into distant futures. - -Into more distant futures, into more southern souths than ever artist -dreamed of: thither, where Gods are ashamed of all clothes! - -But disguised do I want to see _you,_ ye neighbours and fellowmen, and -well-attired and vain and estimable, as "the good and just";-- - -And disguised will I myself sit amongst you--that I may _mistake_ you -and myself: for that is my last manly prudence. 174-175 - -He who would become a child must surmount even his youth. 178 - -Thou goest the way to thy greatness: here shall no one steal after -thee! Thy foot itself hath effaced the path behind thee, and over it -standeth written: Impossibility. 184 - -From the gateway, This Moment, there runneth a long eternal lane -_backwards:_ behind us lieth an eternity. - -Must not whatever _can_ run its course of all things, have already run -along that lane? Must not whatever _can_ happen of all things have -already happened, resulted, and gone by? - -And if everything have already existed, what thinkest thou, dwarf, of -This Moment? Must not this gateway also--have already existed? - -And are not all things closely bound together in such wise that This -Moment draweth all coming things after it? _Consequently_--itself also? - -For whatever _can_ run its course of all things, also in this long lane -_outward--must_ it once more run!-- - -And this slow spider which creepeth in the moonlight, and this -moonlight itself, and thou and I in this gateway whispering together, -whispering of eternal things--must we not all have already existed? 186 - -And must we not return and run in that other lane out before us, that -long weird lane--must we not eternally return? 190-191 - -All things are baptised at the font of eternity, and beyond good and -evil; good and evil themselves, however, are but fugitive shadows and -damp afflictions and passing clouds. - -Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy when I teach that "above -all things there standeth, the heaven of chance, the heaven of -innocence, the heaven of hazard, the heaven of wantonness." - -"Of Hazard"--that is the oldest nobility in the world; that gave I back -to all things; I emancipated them from bondage under purpose. - -This freedom and celestial serenity did I put like an azure bell above -all things, when I taught that over them and through them, no "eternal -will"--willeth. - -This wantonness and folly did I put in place of that will, when I -taught that "In everything there is one thing impossible--rationality!" -201 - -I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open: they do not forgive -me for not envying their virtues. - -They bite at me, because I say unto them that for small people, small -virtues are necessary--and because it is hard for me to understand that -small people are _necessary!_ 203 - -Only he who is man enough, will--_save the woman_ in woman. 205 - -So much kindness, so much weakness do I see. So much justice and pity, -so much weakness. - -Round, fair, and considerate are they to one another, as grains of sand -are round, fair, and considerate to grains of sand. - -Modestly to embrace a small happiness--that do they call "submission"! -and at the same time they peer modestly after a new small happiness. - -In their hearts they want simply one thing most of all: that no one -hurt them. Thus do they anticipate every one's wishes and do well unto -every one. - -That, however, is _cowardice,_ though it be called "virtue." - -And when they chance to speak harshly, those small people, then do _I_ -hear therein only their hoarseness--every draught of air maketh them -hoarse. - -Shrewd indeed are they, their virtues have shrewd fingers. But they -lack fists: their fingers do not know how to creep behind fists. - -Virtue for them is what maketh modest and tame: therewith have they -made the wolf a dog, and man himself man's best domestic animal. - -"We set our chair in the _midst_"--so saith their smirking unto -me--"and as far from dying gladiators as from satisfied swine." - -That, however, is--_mediocrity,_ though it be called moderation. 206 - -Those teachers of submission! Wherever there is aught puny, or -sickly, or scabby, there do they creep like lice; and only my disgust -preventeth me from cracking them. 207 - -Too tender, too yielding: so is your soil! But for a tree to become -_great,_ it seeketh to twine hard roots around hard rocks! 208 - -Do ever what ye will--but first be such as _can will._ 208 - -Love ever your neighbour as yourselves--but first be such as _love -themselves._ 208 - -Out of love alone shall my contempt and my warning bird take wing; but -not out of the swamp! 216 - -In indulging and pitying lay ever my greatest danger; and all human -hubbub wisheth to be indulged and tolerated. 226 - -He who liveth amongst the good--pity teacheth him to lie. Pity maketh -stifling air for all free souls. For the stupidity of the good is -unfathomable. 227 - -Voluptuousness: to free hearts, a thing innocent and free, the -garden-happiness of the earth, all the future's thanks overflow to the -present. - -Voluptuousness: only to the withered a sweet poison; to the -lion-willed, however, the great cordial, and the reverently saved wine -of wines. - -Voluptuousness: the great symbolic happiness of a higher happiness and -highest hope. For to many is marriage promised, and more than marriage. - -To many that are more unknown to each other than man and woman:--and -who hath fully understood _have unknown_ to each other are man and -woman! - -Voluptuousness:--but I will have hedges around my thoughts, and even -around my words, lest swine and libertine should break into my gardens! -230 - -Passion for power: the earthquake which breaketh and upbreaketh all -that is rotten and hollow; the rolling, rumbling, punitive demolisher -of whited sepulchres; the flashing interrogative-sign beside premature -answers. - -Passion for power: before whose glance man creepeth and croucheth and -drudgeth, and becometh lower than the serpent and the swine:--until at -last great contempt crieth out of him,-- - -Passion for power: the terrible teacher of great contempt, which -preacheth to their face to cities and empires: "Away with thee!"--until -a voice crieth out of themselves: "Away with _me!_" - -Passion for power: which; however, mounteth alluringly even to the pure -and lonesome, and up to self-satisfied elevations, glowing like a love -that painteth purple felicities alluringly on earthly heavens. - -Passion for power: but who would call it _passion,_ when the height -longeth to stoop for power! Verily, nothing sick or diseased is there -in such longing and descending! - -That the lonesome height may not for ever remain lonesome and -self-sufficing: that the mountains may come to the valleys and the -winds of the heights to the plains: - -Oh, who could find the right prenomen and honouring name for such -longing! "Bestowing virtue"--thus did Zarathustra once name the -unnamable. - -And then it happened also,--and verily, it happened for the first -time!--that his word blessed _selfishness,_ the wholesome, healthy -selfishness, that springeth from the powerful soul:-- - -From the powerful soul, to which the high body appertaineth, the -handsome, triumphing, refreshing body, around which everything becometh -a mirror: - -The pliant, persuasive body, the dancer, whose symbol and epitome is -the self-enjoying soul. Of such bodies and souls the self-enjoyment -calleth itself "virtue." 232 - -He who wisheth to become light, and be a bird, must love himself:--thus -do I teach. - -Not, to be sure, with the love of the sick and infected, for with them -stinketh even self-love! - -One must learn to love oneself--thus do I teach--with a wholesome and -healthy love: that one may endure to be with oneself, and not go roving -about. - -Such roving about christeneth itself "brotherly love"; with these words -hath there hitherto been the best lying and dissembling, and especially -by those who have been burdensome to every one. - -And verily, it is no commandment for to-day and to-morrow to _learn_ to -love oneself. Rather is it of all arts the finest, subtlest, last and -patientest. 235 - -_No one yet knoweth_ what is good and bad:--unless it be the creating -one! - -It is he however createth man's goal, and giveth to the earth its -meaning and its future: he only _effecteth_ it _that_ aught is good and -bad. 240 - -Man is a bridge and not a goal. 241 - -_Be not considerate of thy neighbour!_ Man is something that must be -surpassed. 243 - -He who cannot command himself shall obey. And many a one _can_ command -himself, but still sorely lacketh self-obedience! 243 - -He who is of the populace wisheth to live gratuitously; we others, -however, to whom life hath given itself--we are ever considering -_what_ we can best give _in return!_ 243 - -One should not wish to enjoy where one doth not contribute to the -enjoyment. And one should not _wish_ to enjoy! 243 - -"Thou shalt not rob! Thou shalt not slay!"--such precepts were once -called holy; before them did one bow the knee and the head, and took -off one's shoes. - -But I ask you: Where have there ever been better robbers and slayers in -the world than such holy precepts? - -Is there not even in all life--robbing and slaying? And for such -precepts to be called holy, was not _truth_ itself thereby--slain? 246 - -Let it not be your honour henceforth whence ye come, but whither ye go! -Your Will and your feet which seek to surpass you--let these be your -new honour! 248 - -The best shall rule, the best also _willeth_ to rule! And where the -teaching is different, there--the best _is lacking._ 257 - -Thus would I have man and woman: fit for war, the one, fit for -maternity, the other; both, however, fit for dancing with head and legs. - -And lost be the day to us in which a measure hath not been danced. And -false be every truth which hath not had laughter along with it! 257 - -The stupidity of the good is unfathomably wise. - -The good _must_ crucify him who deviseth his own virtue! That _is_ the -truth! - -The second one, however, who discovered their country--the country, -heart and soil of the good and just,--it was he who asked: "Whom do -they hate most?" - -The _creator,_ hate they most, him who breaketh the tables and old -values, the breaker,--him they call the law-breaker. - -For the good--they _cannot_ create; they are always the beginning of -the end:-- - -They crucify him who writeth new values on new tables, they sacrifice -_unto themselves_ the future--they crucify the whole human future! 260 - -This new table, O my brethren, put I up over you: _Become hard!_ 262 - -Everything goeth, everything returneth; eternally rolleth the wheel -of existence. Everything dieth, everything blossometh forth again; -eternally runneth on the year of existence. - -Everything breaketh, everything is integrated anew; eternally buildeth -itself the same house of existence. All things separate, all things -again greet one another; eternally true to itself remaineth the ring of -existence. - -Every moment beginneth existence, around every "Here" rolleth the ball -"There." The middle is everywhere. 266 - -For man his baddest is necessary for his best. - -That all that is baddest is the best _power,_ and the hardest stone for -the highest creator; and that man must become better _and_ badder:--267 - -The plexus of causes returneth in which I am intertwined,--it will -again create me! I myself pertain to the causes of the eternal return. - -I come again with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this -serpent--_not_ to a new life, or a better life, or a similar life: - -I come again eternally to this identical and selfsame life, in its -greatest and its smallest, to teach again the eternal return of all -things,-- - -To speak again the word of the great noontide of earth and man, to -announce again to man the Superman. 270-271 - -"Ye higher men,"--so blinketh the populace--"there are no higher men, -we are all equal; man is man, before God--we are all equal!" - -Before God!--Now, however, this God hath died. Before the populace, -however, we will not be equal. Ye higher men, away from the -market-place! 351 - -Have a good distrust to-day, ye higher men, ye enheartened ones! Ye -open-hearted ones! And keep your reasons secret! For this to-day is -that of the populace. - -What the populace once learned to believe without reasons, who -could--refute it to them by means of reasons? - -And on the market-place one convinceth with gestures. But reasons make -the populace distrustful. - -And when truth hath once triumphed there, then ask yourselves with good -distrust: "What strong error hath fought for it?" 355 - -Unlearn, I pray you, this "for," ye creating ones: your very virtue -wisheth you to have naught to do with "for" and "on account of" and -"because." Against these false little words shall ye stop your ears. - -"For one's neighbour," is the virtue only of the petty people: there it -is said "like and like" and "hand washeth hand":--they have neither the -right nor the power for _your_ self-seeking! 356-357 - -What hath hitherto been the greatest sin here on earth? Was it not the -word of him who said: "Woe unto them that laugh now!" - -Did he himself find no cause for laughter on the earth? Then he sought -badly. A child even findeth cause for it. 359-360 - - - - -VI - - -"The Eternal Recurrence" - - -He following excerpts from Nietzsche's notes relating to eternal -recurrence are set down here merely as supplementary passages to "Thus -Spake Zarathustra," in which book this doctrine of the eternally -recurring irrationality of all things first made its appearance. -Nietzsche's notations on this subject were undoubtedly written in the -latter part of 1881, when the idea of Zarathustra first came to him. -They were not published, however, until years later, and now form a -section of Volume XVI of Nietzsche's complete works in English, along -with "The Twilight of the Idols," "The Antichrist" and some explanatory -notes on "Thus Spake Zarathustra." This is the only material in -Nietzsche's writings which I have not put in chronological order, -and my reason for placing these extracts here, and not between "The -Dawn of Day" and "The Joyful Wisdom," is due to the fact that after -conceiving this doctrine and making notes pertaining to it, Nietzsche -put the idea aside and wrote "The Joyful Wisdom" in which this doctrine -was not embodied. Not until "Thus Spake Zarathustra" appeared did he -make use of this principle of recurrence, and inasmuch as this was the -first published statement of it, I have placed that book first and have -followed it with these explanatory notes. - -Another section of Nietzsche's works also deals with eternal -recurrence, namely: the last part of the second volume of "The Will to -Power." But here too we find but fragmentary jottings which contain -no material not found in the present quotations. It is true that -Nietzsche intended to elaborate these notes, but even had he done so I -doubt if this doctrine would have assumed a different aspect from the -one it at present possesses, or would have become more closely allied -with the main structure of his thought; for, even though it is not -fully elucidated in its present form, it at least is complete in its -conclusions. - -In my introduction to the quotations from "Thus Spake Zarathustra" -in the preceding chapter will be found a statement relating to this -doctrine, in which I have endeavoured to point out just what influence -it had on Nietzsche's philosophy, and to offer an explanation for its -appearance in his thought. - -A reading of the following notes is not at all necessary for an -understanding of the Nietzschean ethic, and I have placed these -passages here solely for the student to whom every phase of Nietzsche's -philosophy is of interest. - - -EXCERPTS FROM "THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE" - -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. 237 - -Energy remains constant and does 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. 238 - -The energy of the universe can only have a given number of possible -qualities. 238 - -The assumption that the universe is an organism contradicts the very -essence of the organic. 239 - -We are 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 them which -continually recurs: activity is eternal, the number of the products and -states of energy is limited. 239 - -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. 240 - -Anything like a static state of energy in general is impossible. If -stability were possible it would already have been reached. 241 - -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. 241 - -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. 242 - -Imaginic matter, even though in most cases it may once have -been organic, can have stored up no experience as it is always -without a past! If the reverse were the case a repetition would be -impossible--for then matter would for ever be producing new qualities -with new pasts. 247 - -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! 248 - -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. 249 - -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. 249 - -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. 251 - -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. 252 - -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 millions of years.... 253 - -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 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! 256 - - - - -VII - - -"Beyond Good and Evil" - - -Double purpose animated Nietzsche in his writing of "Beyond Good and -Evil" _("Jenseits von Gut und Böse")._ It is at once an explanation -and an elucidation of "Thus Spake Zarathustra," and a preparatory book -for his greatest and most important work, "The Will to Power." In it -Nietzsche attempts to define the relative terms of "good" and "evil," -and to draw a line of distinction between immorality and unmorality. -He saw the inconsistencies evolved in the attempt to harmonise an -ancient moral code with the needs of modern life, and recognised the -compromises which were constantly being made between moral theory and -social practice. His object was to establish a relationship between -morality and necessity, and to formulate a workable basis for human -conduct. Consequently "Beyond Good and Evil" is one of his most -important contributions to a new system of ethics, and touches on many -of the deepest principles of his philosophy. As it stands, it is by -no means a complete expression of Nietzsche's doctrines, but it is -sufficiently profound and suggestive to be of valuable service in an -understanding of his later works. The book was begun in the summer of -1885 and finished the following winter. Again there was difficulty with -publishers, and finally the book was issued at the author's own expense -in the autumn of 1886. - -Nietzsche opens "Beyond Good and Evil" with a long chapter headed -"Prejudices of Philosophers," in which he outlines the course to be -taken by his dialectic. The exposition is accomplished by two methods: -first, by an analysis and a refutation of the systems of thinking -made use of by antecedent doctrinaires, and secondly, by defining the -hypotheses on which his own philosophy is built. This chapter is a -most important one, setting forth, as it does, the _rationale_ of his -doctrine of the will to power. It has been impossible to make extracts -of any unified sequence from this chapter because of its intricate and -compact reasoning, and the student would do well to read it in its -entirety. It establishes Nietzsche's philosophic position and presents -a closely knit explanation of the course pursued in the following -chapters. The relativity of all truth--the hypothesis so often assumed -in his previous work--Nietzsche here defends by analogy and argument. -Using other leading forms of philosophy as a ground for exploration, he -questions the absolutism of truth and shows wherein lies the difficulty -of a final definition. Here we become conscious of that plasticity -of mind which was the dominating quality of his thinking. It is not, -however, that form of plasticity which on inspection resolves itself -into amorphic and unstable reasoning, but a logical, almost scientific, -method of valuing. The mercurial habits of the metaphysicians who deny -absolutism are nowhere discernible in Nietzsche's thought. His mind is -definite without being static. The basis of his argumentation is what -one might call floating. It rises and falls with the human tide of -causation; yet the structure built upon it remains at all times upright -and unchanged. - -Nietzsche points out that the numerous "logical" conclusions of -philosophers have been for the most part _a priori_ propositions, the -results of prejudices or desires, and that the syllogistic structures -reared to them came as explanations and defences, rather than as -dialectic preambles. In their adopting a hypothetical truth as a -premise, he sees only the advocacy for a point of view, arguing that -in order to erect a system of logic the initial thesis must be proved. -Therefore he questions the fundamental worth of certainty as opposed -to uncertainty, and of truth as opposed to falsity, thus striking at -the very foundations reared by those philosophers who have assumed, -without substantiation, that only certainty and truth are valuable. -Nietzsche calls these absolutists astute defenders of prejudices, and -characterises the verbalistic prestidigitation of Kant as a highly -developed form of prejudice-defending. Spinoza, with his mathematical -system of reasoning, likewise falls in the category of those thinkers -who first assume conclusions and then prepare explanations for them -by a process of inverted reasoning. Nietzsche proceeds to pose the -instinctive functions against conscious thinking. He asserts that the -channels taken by thought are defined by the thinker's nature, and that -even logic is influenced by physiological considerations. The whole -fabric of philosophic thought is held up to the light of immediate -necessity. - -Going further, he inquires into the "impulse to knowledge." He finds -that a specific purpose has always been the actuating force of any -philosophy, and that consequently philosophy, even in its most abstract -form, has had a residuum of autobiography in it. In fine, that -philosophy, far from being a search, has been an aim toward a definite -preconceived result. The moral or ethical impulse, being always -imperious, has not infrequently resulted in philosophising, and in all -such cases knowledge has been used as an instrument. Thus knowledge -which led to a philosophical conclusion has been the outgrowth of -a personal instinct. In those cases where an impersonal "impulse -to knowledge" may have existed, it has led, not into philosophical -channels, but into practical and often commercial activities. The -scholar has ever remained personal in his quest for philosophical -formulas. In Kant's "Table of Categories," wherein that philosopher -claimed to have found the faculty of synthetic judgment _a priori,_ -Nietzsche finds only a circle of reasoning which begins and ends in -personal instinct. And in Kant's discovery of a new moral faculty, -Nietzsche sees only sophistical invention, and accounts for its -widespread acceptance by the moral state of the Germans at that period. -Ignoring the _possibility_ of synthetic judgments _a priori,_ Nietzsche -advances the query as to their _necessity,_ and lays stress on the -impracticability of truth without _belief._ The inherent falsity or -truth of a proposition has no bearing on philosophical doctrines so -long as a contrary belief is present, a belief such as we exert toward -the illusions of the world of reality when we make practical use of -that world's perspective. - -The schemes of personal philosophy, such, for instance, as we find in -Schopenhauer, are dealt with by Nietzsche in a single paragraph: "When -I analyse the process that is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I -find a whole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of -which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: for instance, that it is -I who think, that there must necessarily be something that thinks, -that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who -is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally, that -it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking--that I -_know_ what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself -what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is -just happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? In short, the -assertion 'I think,' assumes that I _compare_ my state at the present -moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to determine -what it is: on account of this retrospective connection with further -'knowledge,' it has at any rate no immediate certainty for me." Thus -the smug materialistic philosopher finds himself necessitated to fall -back on purely metaphysical explanations for answers to the questions -arising out of his definition of truth. - -Locke falls under a critical survey in this chapter. In answer to -this thinker's theory regarding the origin of ideas, Nietzsche names -the great cycles of philosophical systems and calls attention to the -similarity of processes in such cycles. Furthermore, he shows that the -foundations of all previous philosophies are discoverable in the new -styles of contemporaneous thought. And in those national schools of -philosophy conceived in languages which stem from the same origin, he -finds an undeniable resemblance. All of which leads to a conclusion -incompatible with Locke's theory. Nietzsche attacks the conclusions -of the physicists, denying them any place in philosophy because -their research consists solely in interpretations of natural laws in -accordance with their own prejudices and beliefs. The theories which -might be deduced from natural phenomena are not discoverable in their -doctrines; their activities have consisted in twisting natural events -to suit preconceived valuations. - -Finally Nietzsche inquires into the habits and practices of -psychologists. Not even among these workers does he find a basis for -philosophy. Psychology, he argues, has been guided, not by a detached -and lofty desire to ascertain truth in its relation to the human -mind, but by prejudices and fears grounded in moral considerations. -He finds a constant desire on the part of experimenters to account -for "good" impulses as distinguished from "bad" ones. And in this -desire lies the superimposing of moral prejudices on a science which, -more than all others, deals with problems farthest removed from -moral influences. These prejudices in psychology, as well as in all -branches of philosophy, are the obstacles which stand in the way of any -deep penetration into the motives beneath human conduct. Nietzsche, -in his analyses and criticisms, is not solely destructive: he is -subterraneously constructing his own philosophical system founded -on the will to power. This phrase is used many times in the careful -research of the first chapter. As the book proceeds, this doctrine -develops. - -Nietzsche's best definition of what he calls the "free spirit," namely: -the thinking man, the intellectual aristocrat, the philosopher and -ruler, is contained in the twenty-six pages of the second chapter of -"Beyond Good and Evil." In a series of paragraphs--longer than is -Nietzsche's wont--the leading characteristics of this superior man -are described. The "free spirit," however, must not be confused with -the superman. The former is the "bridge" which the present-day man -must cross in the process of surpassing himself. In the delineation -and analysis of him, as presented to us here, we can glimpse his most -salient mental features. Heretofore, as in "Thus Spake Zarathustra," -he has been but partially and provisionally defined. Now his instincts -and desires, his habits and activities are outlined. Furthermore, we -are given an explanation of his relation to the inferior man and to -the organisms of his environment. The chapter is an important one, -for at many points it is a subtle elucidation of many of Nietzsche's -dominant philosophic principles. By inference, the differences of class -distinction are strictly drawn. The slave-morality _(sklavmoral)_ and -the master-morality (_herrenmoral_), though as yet undefined, are -balanced against each other; and the deportmental standards of the -masters and slaves are defined by way of differentiating between these -two opposing human factions. While the serving class is constantly -manifesting its need of a guiding dogma, the ruling class is constantly -approaching the state wherein the arbitrary moral mandates are denied. -Nietzsche sees a new order of philosophers appearing--men who will -stand beyond good and evil, who will be not only free spirits, "but -something more, higher, greater, and fundamentally different." In -describing these men of the future, of which the present free men are -the heralds and forerunners, Nietzsche establishes an individualistic -ideal which he develops fully in later chapters. - -A keen and far-reaching analysis of the various aspects assumed by -religious faith constitutes a third section of "Beyond Good and Evil." -Though touching upon various influences of Christianity, this section -is more general in its religious scope than even "The Antichrist," -many indications of which are to be found here. This chapter has to -do with the numerous inner experiences of man, which are directly -or indirectly attributable to religious doctrines. The origin of the -instinct for faith itself is sought, and the results of this faith are -balanced against the needs of the individuals and of the race. The -relation between religious ecstasy and sensuality; the attempt on the -part of religious practitioners to arrive at a negation of the will; -the transition from religious gratitude to fear; the psychology at the -bottom of saint-worship;--to problems such as these Nietzsche devotes -his energies in his inquiry of the religious mood. The geographical -considerations which enter into the character and intensity of -religious faith form an important basis for study; and the differences -between Comte's sociology and Sainte-Beuve's anti-Jesuit utterances are -explained from a standpoint of national influences. Nietzsche examines -the many phases of atheism and the principal anti-Christian tendencies -of all philosophy since Descartes. There is an illuminating exposition -of the important stages in religious cruelty and of the motives -underlying the various forms of religious sacrifices. Again we run upon -the doctrine of eternal recurrence, but here, as elsewhere, it may be -regarded, not as a basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical scheme, -but as a by-product of his thought. Nietzsche emphasises the necessity -of idleness in all religious lives, and shows how the adherence to the -religious mood works against the activities, both of mind and of body, -which make for the highest efficiency. - -A very important phase of Nietzsche's teaching is contained in this -criticism of the religious life. The detractors of the Nietzschean -doctrine, almost without exception, base their judgments on the -assumption that the universal acceptation of his theories would result -in social chaos. As I have pointed out before, Nietzsche desired -no such general adoption of his beliefs. In his bitterest diatribes -against Christianity, his object was not to shake the faith of the -great majority of mankind in their idols. He sought merely to free -the strong men from the restrictions of a religion which fitted the -needs of only the weaker members of society. He neither hoped nor -desired to wean the mass of humanity from Christianity or any similar -dogmatic comfort. On the contrary, he denounced those superficial -atheists who endeavoured to weaken the foundations of religion. He -saw the positive necessity of such religions as a basis for his slave -morality, and in the present chapter he exhorts the rulers to preserve -the religious faith of the serving classes, and to use it as a means -of government--as an instrument in the work of disciplining and -educating. In paragraph 61 he says: "The selecting and disciplining -influence--destructive as well as creative and fashioning--which can -be exercised by means of religion is manifold and varied, according to -the sort of people placed under its spell and protection." Not only is -this an expression of the utilitarian value of religious formulas, but -a definite voicing of one of the main factors in his philosophy. His -entire system of ethics is built on the complete disseverance of the -dominating class and the serving class; and his doctrine of "beyond -good and evil" should be considered only as it pertains to the superior -man. To apply it to all classes would be to reduce Nietzsche's whole -system of ethics to impracticability, and therefore to an absurdity. - -Passing from a consideration of the religious mood, Nietzsche enters a -broader sphere of ethical research, and endeavours to trace the history -and development of morals. He accuses the philosophers of having -avoided the real problem of morality, namely: the testing of the faith -and motives which lie beneath moral beliefs. This is the task he sets -for himself, and in his chapter, "The Natural History of Morals," he -makes an examination of moral origins--an examination which is extended -into an exhaustive treatise in "The Genealogy of Morals." However, his -dissection here is carried out on a broader and far more general scale -than in his previous books, such as "Human, All-Too-Human" and "The -Dawn of Day." Heretofore he had confined himself to codes and systems, -to _acts_ of morality and immorality, to judgments of conducts. In -"Beyond Good and Evil" he treats of moral prejudices as forces working -hand in hand with human progress. In addition, there is a definite -attitude of constructive thinking here which is absent from his earlier -work. He outlines the course to be taken by the men of the future, and -points to the results which have accrued from the moralities of modern -nations. He offers the will to power in place of the older "will to -belief," and characterises the foundations of acceptance for all moral -codes as "fictions" and "premature hypotheses." He defines the racial -ideals which have grown up out of moral influences, and, applying them -to the needs of the present day, finds them inadequate and dangerous. -The conclusion to which his observations and analyses point is that, -unless the rulers of the race take a stand beyond the outposts of good -and evil and govern on a basis of expediency divorced from all moral -influences, the individual is in constant danger of being lowered to -the level of the gregarious conscience. - -In the chapter, "We Scholars," Nietzsche continues his definition -of the philosopher, whom he holds to be the highest type of man. -Besides being a mere description of the intellectual traits of this -"free spirit," the chapter is also an exposition of the shortcomings -of those modern men who pose as philosophers. In the path of these -new thinkers Nietzsche sees many difficulties both from within and -from without, and points out methods whereby these obstacles may be -overcome. Also the man of science and the man of genius are analyzed -and weighed as to their relative importance in the community. In -fact, we have here Nietzsche's most concise and complete definition -of the individuals upon whom rests the burden of progress. These -valuations of the intellectual leaders are important to the student, -for by one's understanding them, along with the reasons for such -valuations, a comprehension of the ensuing volumes is facilitated. -Nietzsche hereby establishes the qualities of those entitled to the -master-morality code; and, by thus drawing the line of demarcation in -humanity, he defines at the same time that class whose constitutions -and predispositions demand the slave-morality. In addition, he affixes, -according to his philosophical formula, a scale of values to such -mental attributes as objectivity, power to will, scepticism, positivity -and constraint. - -Important material touching on many of the fundamental points of -Nietzsche's philosophy is embodied in the chapter entitled "Our -Virtues." The more general inquiries into conduct and the research -along the broader lines of ethics are supplanted by inquiries into -specific moral attributes. The current virtues are questioned, and -their historical significance is determined. The value of such virtues -is tested in their relation to different types of men. Sacrifice, -sympathy, brotherly love, service, loyalty, altruism and similar ideals -of conduct are examined, and the results of such virtues are shown -to be incompatible with the demands of modern social intercourse. -Nietzsche poses against these virtues the sterner and more rigid -forms of conduct, pointing out wherein they meet with the present -requirements of human progress. The chapter is a preparation for his -establishment of a new morality and also an explanation of the dual -ethical code which is one of the main pillars in his philosophical -structure. Before presenting his precept of a dual morality, Nietzsche -endeavours to determine woman's place in the political and social -scheme, and points out the necessity, not only of individual feminine -functioning, but of the preservation of a distinct polarity in sexual -relationship. - -In the final chapter many of Nietzsche's philosophical ideas take -definite shape. The doctrine of slave-morality and master-morality, -prepared for and partially defined in preceding chapters, is here -directly set forth, and those virtues and attitudes which constitute -the "nobility" of the master class are specifically defined. Nietzsche -designates the duty of his aristocracy, and segregates the human -attributes according to the rank of individuals. The Dionysian ideal, -which underlies all the books that follow "Beyond Good and Evil," -receives its first direct exposition and application. The hardier -human traits such as egotism, cruelty, arrogance, retaliation and -appropriation are given ascendency over the softer virtues such -as sympathy, charity, forgiveness, loyalty and humility, and are -pronounced necessary constituents in the moral code of a natural -aristocracy. At this point is begun the transvaluation of values which -was to have been completed in "The Will to Power." The student should -read carefully this chapter, for it is an introduction as well as an -explanation for what follows, and was written with that purpose in -view. - - -EXCERPTS FROM "BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL" - -_To recognise untruth as a condition of life:_ that is certainly to -impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a -philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself -beyond good and evil. 9 - -Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the -instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic -being. A living thing seeks above all to _discharge its strength_--life -itself is _Will to Power;_ self-preservation is only one of the -indirect and most frequent _results_ thereof. 20 - -It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is the -privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best -right, but without being _obliged_ to do so, proves that he is probably -not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. 43 - -The virtues of the common man would perhaps mean vice and weakness in a -philosopher; it might be possible for a highly developed man, supposing -him to degenerate and go to ruin, to acquire qualities thereby alone, -for the sake of which he would have to be honoured as a saint in the -lower world into which he had sunk. 44 - -Books for the general reader are always ill-smelling books, the odour -of paltry people clings to them. Where the populace eat and drink, and -even where they reverence, it is accustomed to stink. One should not go -into churches if one wishes to breathe pure air. 44 - -"Will" can naturally only operate on "will"--and not on "matter" -(not on "nerves," for instance): in short, the hypothesis must be -hazarded, whether will does not operate on will wherever "effects" are -recognised--and whether all mechanical action, inasmuch as a power -operates therein, is not just the power of will, the effect of will. -Granted, finally, that we succeed in explaining our entire instinctive -life as the development and ramification of one fundamental form of -will--namely, the Will to Power, as _my_ thesis puts it; granted that -all organic functions could be traced back to this Will to Power, and -that the solution of the problem of generation and nutrition--it is one -problem--could also be found therein: one would thus have acquired the -right to define _all_ active force unequivocally as _Will to Power._ -The world seen from within, the world defined and designated according -to its "intelligible character"--it would simply be "Will to Power," -and nothing else. 52 - -Happiness and virtue are no arguments. It is willingly forgotten, -however, even on the part of thoughtful minds, that to make unhappy -and to make bad are just as little counter-arguments. A thing could be -_true,_ although it were in the highest degree injurious and dangerous; -indeed, the fundamental constitution of existence might be such that -one succumbed by a full knowledge of it--so that the strength of a mind -might be measured by the amount of "truth" it could endure--or to speak -more plainly, by the extent to which it _required_ truth attenuated, -veiled, sweetened, damped, and falsified. 53-54 - -Everything that is profound loves the mask; the profoundest things have -a hatred even of figure and likeness. Should not the _contrary_ only be -the right disguise for the shame of a God to go about in? 54-55 - -One must renounce the bad taste of wishing to agree with many people. -"Good" is no longer good when one's neighbour takes it into his mouth. -And how could there be a "common good." The expression contradicts -itself; that which can be common is always of small value. In the end -things must be as they are and have always been--the great things -remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and -thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for -the rare. 57-58 - -In every country of Europe, and the same in America, there is at -present ... a very narrow, prepossessed, enchained class of spirits.... -Briefly and regrettably, they belong to the _levellers,_ these wrongly -named "free spirits"--as glib-tongued and scribe-fingered slaves of -the democratic taste and its "modern ideas"; all of them men without -solitude, without personal solitude, blunt honest fellows to whom -neither courage nor honourable conduct ought to be denied; only, they -are not free, and are ludicrously superficial, especially in their -innate partiality for seeing the cause of almost _all_ human misery -and failure in the old forms in which society has hitherto existed--a -notion which happily inverts the truth entirely. 53-59 - -We believe that severity, violence, slavery, danger in the street and -in the heart, secrecy, stoicism, tempter's art and revelry of every -kind,--that everything wicked, terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and -serpentine in man, serves as well for the elevation of the human -species as its opposite.... 59 - -The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice: the sacrifice of -all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit; it is at the -same time subjection, self-derision, and self-mutilation. 65 - -The mightiest men have hitherto always bowed reverently before -the saint, as the enigma of self-subjugation and utter voluntary -privation.--Why did they thus bow? They divined in him--and as it were -behind the questionableness of his frail and wretched appearance--the -superior force which wished to test itself by such a subjugation; the -strength and love of power, and knew how to honour it: they honoured -something in themselves when they honoured the saint.... The mighty -ones of the world learned to have a new fear before him, they divined -a new power, a strange, still unconquered enemy:--it was the "Will to -Power" which obliged them to halt before the saint. 70-71 - -Perhaps the most solemn conceptions that have caused the most fighting -and suffering, the conceptions "God" and "sin," will one day seem to us -of no more importance than a child's plaything or a child's pain seems -to an old man.... 75 - -To love mankind _for God's sake_--this has so far been the noblest and -remotest sentiment to which mankind has attained. 79 - -For those who are strong and independent, destined and trained -to command, in whom the judgment and skill of a ruling race is -incorporated, religion is an additional means for overcoming, betraying -and surrendering to the former the conscience of the latter, their -inmost heart, which would fain escape obedience. 80 - -Asceticism and Puritanism are almost indispensable means of educating -and ennobling a race which seeks to rise above its hereditary baseness -and work itself upward to future supremacy. And finally, to ordinary -men, to the majority of the people, who exist for service and general -utility, and are only so far entitled to exist, religion gives -invaluable contentedness with their lot and condition, peace of heart, -ennoblement of obedience, additional social happiness and sympathy, -with something of transfiguration and embellishment, something of -justification of all the commonplaceness, all the meanness, all the -semi-animal poverty of their souls. 81 - -"Knowledge for its own sake"--that is the last snare laid by morality: -we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more. 85 - -He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it. 86 - -Sympathy for all--would be harshness and tyranny for _thee,_ my good -neighbour! 88 - -To be ashamed of one's immorality is a step on the ladder at the end of -which one is ashamed also of one's morality. 89 - -A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the -animalisation of God. 90 - -Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love, prevents -the Christians of to-day--burning us. 91 - -There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral -interpretation of phenomena. 91 - -The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he extenuates and -maligns it. 91 - -The great epochs of our life are at the points when we gain courage to -rebaptise our badness as the best in us. 92 - -It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn -author--and that he did not learn it better. 93 - -Even concubinage has been corrupted--by marriage. 93 - -A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or seven great -men--Yes, and then to get round them. 94 - -From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all good conscience, all -evidence of truth. 95 - -Our vanity would like what we do best to pass precisely for what is -most difficult to us.--Concerning the origin of many systems of morals. -96 - -When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally something -wrong with her sexual nature. Barrenness itself conduces to a certain -virility of taste; man, indeed, if I may say so, is "the barren -animal." 96 - -That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of -what was formerly considered good--the atavism of an old ideal. 97 - -What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. 98 - -Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of -health; everything absolute belongs to pathology. 98 - -The Jews---a people "born for slavery," as Tacitus and the whole -ancient world say of them; "the chosen people among the nations," as -they themselves say and believe--the Jews performed the miracle of the -inversion of valuations, by means of which life on earth obtained a -new and dangerous charm for a couple of millenniums. Their prophets -fused into one the expressions "rich," "godless," "wicked," "violent," -"sensual," and for the first time coined the word "world" as a term of -reproach. In this inversion of valuations (in which is also included -the use of the word "poor" as synonymous with "saint" and "friend") the -significance of the Jewish people is to be found; it is with _them_ -that the _slave-insurrection in morals_ commences. 117 - -The beast of prey and the man of prey (for instance, Cæsar Borgia) are -fundamentally misunderstood, "nature" is misunderstood, so long as one -seeks a "morbidness" in the constitution of these healthiest of all -tropical monsters and growths.... 118 - -All the systems of morals which address themselves to individuals -with a view to their "happiness," as it is called--what else are they -but suggestions for behaviour adapted to the degree of _danger_ from -themselves in which the individuals live; recipes for their passions, -their good and bad propensities in so far as such have the Will to -Power and would like to play the master; small and great expediencies -and elaborations, permeated with the musty odour of old family -medicines and old-wife wisdom; all of them grotesque and absurd in -their form--because they address themselves to "all," because they -generalise where generalisation is not authorised; all of them speaking -unconditionally, and taking themselves unconditionally; all of them -flavoured not merely with one grain of salt, but rather endurable only, -and sometimes even seductive, when they are over-spiced and begin to -smell dangerously, especially of "the other world." 118-119 - -In view ... of the fact that obedience has been most practised and -fostered among mankind hitherto, one may reasonably suppose that, -generally speaking, the need thereof is now innate in every one, as a -kind of _formal conscience._... 120 - -The history of the influence of Napoleon is almost the history of -the higher happiness to which the entire century has attained in its -worthiest individuals and periods. 121 - -As long as the utility which determines moral estimates is only -gregarious utility, as long as the preservation of the community is -only kept in view, and the immoral is sought precisely and exclusively -in what seems dangerous to the maintenance of the community, there can -be no "morality of love to one's neighbour." 123 - -"Love of our neighbour," is always a secondary matter, partly -conventional and arbitrarily manifested in relation to our _fear of our -neighbour._ 123 - -Everything that elevates the individual above the herd, and is a -source of fear to the neighbour, is henceforth called _evil;_ the -tolerant, unassuming, self-adapting, self-equalising disposition, the -_mediocrity_ of desires, attains to moral distinction and honour. 125 - -The _democratic_ movement is the inheritance of the Christian movement. -127 - -We, who regard the democratic movement, not only as a degenerating -form of political organisation, but as equivalent to a degenerating, -a waning type of man, as involving his mediocrising and depreciation: -where have _we_ to fix our hopes? In _new philosophers_--there is no -other alternative: in minds strong and original enough to initiate -opposite estimates of value, to transvalue and invert "eternal -valuations"; in forerunners, in men of the future, who in the present -shall fix the constraints and fasten the knots which will compel -millenniums to take _new_ paths. To teach men the future of humanity -as his _will,_ as depending on human will, and to make preparation -for vast hazardous enterprises and collective attempts in rearing and -educating, in order thereby to put an end to the frightful rule of -folly and chance which has hitherto gone by the name of "history" (the -folly of the "greatest number" is only its last form)--for that purpose -a new type of philosophers and commanders will some time or other be -needed, at the very idea of which everything that has existed in the -way of occult, terrible, and benevolent beings might look pale and -dwarfed. 128-129 - -The _universal degeneracy of mankind_ to the level of the "man of the -future"--as idealised by the socialistic fools and shallow-pates--this -degeneracy and dwarfing of man to an absolutely gregarious animal (or -as they call it, to a man of "free society"), this brutalising of man -into a pigmy with equal rights and claims, is undoubtedly _possible!_ -He who has thought out this possibility to its ultimate conclusion -knows _another_ loathing unknown to the rest of mankind--and perhaps -also a new _mission!_ 130-131 - -Supposing ... that in the picture of the philosophers of the future, -some trait suggests the question whether they must not perhaps be -sceptics in the last-mentioned sense, something in them would only -be designated thereby--and _not_ they themselves. With equal right -they might call themselves critics; and assuredly they will be men of -experiments.... They will be _sterner_ (and perhaps not always towards -themselves only) ... they will not deal with the "truth" in order that -it may "please" them, or "elevate" and "inspire" them--they will rather -have little faith in _"truth"_ bringing with it such revels for the -feelings. They will smile, those rigorous spirits, when any one says in -their presence: "that thought elevates me, why should it not be true?" -or; "that artist enlarges me, why should he not be great?" Perhaps they -will not only have a smile, but a genuine disgust for all that is thus -rapturous, idealistic, feminine and hermaphroditic; and if any one -could look into their inmost heart, he would not easily find therein -the intention to reconcile "Christian sentiments" with "antique taste," -or even with "modern parliamentarism" (the kind of reconciliation -necessarily found even amongst philosophers in our very uncertain and -consequently very conciliatory century). Critical discipline, and every -habit that conduces to purity and rigour in intellectual matters, -will not only be demanded from themselves by these philosophers of -the future; they may even make a display thereof as their special -adornment--nevertheless they will not want to be called critics on -that account. It will seem to them no small indignity to philosophy to -have it decreed, as is so welcome nowadays, that "philosophy itself is -criticism and critical science--and nothing else whatever!" 149-151 - -_The real philosophers ... are commanders and law-givers;_ they say: -"Thus _shall_ it be." They determine first the Whither and the Why of -mankind, and thereby set aside the previous labour of all philosophical -workers, and all subjugators of the past--they grasp at the future with -a creative hand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a -means, an instrument, and a hammer. Their "knowing" is _creating,_ -their creating is a law-giving, their will to truth is--_Will to -Tower._... 52 - -At present ... when throughout Europe the herding animal alone -attains to honours, and dispenses honours, when "equality of right" -can too readily be transformed into equality in wrong: I mean to say -into general war against everything rare, strange, and privileged, -against the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher -responsibility, the creative plenipotence and lordliness--at present -it belongs to the conception of "greatness" to be noble, to wish to be -apart, to be capable of being different, to stand alone, to have to -live by personal initiative; and the philosopher will betray something -of his own ideal when he asserts: "He shall be the greatest who can -be the most solitary, the most concealed, the most divergent, the man -beyond good and evil, the master of his virtues, and of superabundance -of will; precisely this shall be called _greatness:_ as diversified as -can be entire, as ample as can be full." 154-155 - -Morality as attitude is opposed to our taste nowadays. This is _also_ -an advance, as it was an advance in our fathers that religion as an -attitude finally became opposed to their taste.... 161 - -The practice of judging and condemning morally is the favourite revenge -of the intellectually shallow on those who are less so.... 162 - -Whoever has really offered sacrifice knows that he wanted and obtained -something for it--perhaps something from himself for something from -himself; that he relinquished here in order to have more there, perhaps -in general to be more, or even feel himself "more." 164 - -Wherever sympathy (fellow-suffering) is preached nowadays ... let the -psychologist have his ears open: through all the vanity, through all -the noise which is natural to these preachers (as to all preachers), he -will hear a hoarse, groaning, genuine note of _self-contempt._ 65 - -We are prepared as no other age has ever been for a carnival in the -grand style, for the most spiritual festival-laughter and arrogance, -for the transcendental height of supreme folly and Aristophanic -ridicule of the world. Perhaps we are still discovering the domain -of our _invention_ just here, the domain where even we can still be -original, probably as parodists of the world's history and as God's -Merry-Andrews,--perhaps, though nothing else of the present have a -future, our _laughter_ itself may have a future! 168 - -The discipline of suffering, of _great_ suffering--know ye not that -it is only _this_ discipline that has produced all the elevations of -humanity hitherto? 171 - -It is desirable that as few people as possible should reflect upon -morals, and consequently it is _very_ desirable that morals should not -some day become interesting! 174 - -Not one of those ponderous, conscience-stricken herding-animals (who -undertake to advocate the cause of egoism as conducive to the general -welfare) wants to have any knowledge or inkling of the facts that the -"general welfare" is no ideal, no goal, no notion that can be at all -grasped, but is only a nostrum,--that what is fair to one _may not_ -at all be fair to another, that the requirement of one morality for -all is really a detriment to higher men, in short, that there is a -_distinction of rank_ between man and man, and consequently between -morality and morality. 175 - -That which constitutes the painful delight of tragedy is cruelty; that -which operates agreeably in so-called tragic sympathy, and at the basis -even of everything sublime, up to the highest and most delicate thrills -of metaphysics, obtains its sweetness solely from the intermingled -ingredient of cruelty. 177 - -Enlightenment hitherto has fortunately been men's affair, men's -gift--we remained therewith "among ourselves"; and in the end, -in view of all that women write about "woman," we may well have -considerable doubt as to whether woman really _desires_ enlightenment -about herself--and _can_ desire it. If woman does not thereby seek a -new _ornament_ for herself--I believe ornamentation belongs to the -eternally feminine?--why, then, she wishes to make herself feared; -perhaps she thereby wishes to get the mastery. But she does not _want_ -truth--what does woman care for truth. From the very first nothing is -more foreign, more repugnant, or more hostile to woman than truth--her -great art is falsehood, her chief concern is appearance and beauty. 183 - -It betrays corruption of the instincts--apart from the fact that it -betrays bad taste--when a woman refers to Madame Roland, or Madame -de Staël, or Monsieur George Sand, as though something were proved -thereby in _favour_ of "woman as she is." Among men, these are the -three _comical_ women as they are--nothing more--and just the best -involuntary _counter-arguments_ against feminine emancipation and -autonomy. 184 - -Stupidity in the kitchen; woman as cook; the terrible thoughtlessness -with which the feeding of the family and the master of the house is -managed. Woman does not understand what food _means,_ and she insists -on being cook. If woman had been a thinking creature, she should -certainly, as cook for thousands of years, have discovered the most -important physiological facts, and should likewise have got possession -of the healing art. Through bad female cooks--through the entire lack -of reason in the kitchen--the development of mankind has been longest -retarded and most interfered with. 184-185 - -To be mistaken in the fundamental problem of "man and woman," to deny -here the profoundest antagonism and the necessity for an eternally -hostile tension, to dream here perhaps of equal rights, equal -training, equal claims and obligations: that is a _typical_ sign of -shallow-mindedness; and a thinker who has proved himself shallow at -this dangerous spot--shallow in instinct--may generally be regarded -as suspicious, nay more, as betrayed, as discovered: he will probably -prove too "short" for all fundamental questions of life, future as well -as present, and will be unable to descend into _any_ of the depths. On -the other hand, a man who has depth of spirit as well as of desires, -and has also the depth of benevolence which is capable of severity and -harshness, and easily confounded with them, can only think of woman as -Orientals do: he must conceive of her as a possession, as confinable -property, as a being predestined for service and accomplishing her -mission therein.... 186-187 - -The weaker sex has in no previous age been treated with so much respect -by men as at present--this belongs to the tendency and fundamental -taste of democracy, in the same way as disrespectfulness to old -age--what wonder is it that abuse should be immediately made of this -respect? They want more, they learn to make claims, the tribute of -respect is at last felt to be well-nigh galling.... 187 - -Wherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military -and aristocratic spirit, woman strives for the economic and legal -independence of a clerk: "woman as clerkess" is inscribed on the portal -of the modern society which is in course of formation. While she -thus appropriates new rights, aspires to be "master," and inscribes -"progress" of woman on her flags and banners, the very opposite -realises itself with terrible obviousness: _woman retrogrades._ Since -the French Revolution the influence of woman in Europe has _declined_ -in proportion as she has increased her rights and claims; and the -"emancipation of woman," in so far as it is desired and demanded by -women themselves (and not only by masculine shallow-pates), thus proves -to be a remarkable symptom of the increased weakening and deadening of -the most womanly instincts. There is _stupidity_ in this movement, an -almost masculine stupidity, of which a well-reared woman--who is always -a sensible woman--might be heartily ashamed. 187-188 - -Every elevation of the type "man," has hitherto been the work of an -aristocratic society--and so will it always be--a society believing in -a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human -beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. 223 - -The essential thing ... in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it -should _not_ regard itself as a function either of the kingship or -the commonwealth, but as the _significance_ and highest justification -thereof--that it should therefore accept with a good conscience the -sacrifice of a legion of individuals, who, _for its sake,_ must be -suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. -Its fundamental belief must be precisely that society is _not_ allowed -to exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation and scaffolding, -by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate -themselves to their higher duties, and in general to a higher -_existence._... 225 - -Life itself is _essentially_ appropriation, injury, conquest of the -strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, -incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation.... -226 - -People now rave everywhere, even under the guise of science, about -coming conditions of society in which "the exploiting character" is to -be absent:--that sounds to my ears as if they promised to invent a mode -of life which should refrain from all organic functions. "Exploitation" -does not belong to a depraved, or imperfect and primitive society; -it belongs to the _nature_ of the living being as a primary organic -function; it is a consequence of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is -precisely the Will to Life. 226 - -In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have -hitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain -traits recurring regularly together and connected with one another, -until finally two primary types revealed themselves to me, and a -radical distinction was brought to light. There is _master-morality_ -and _slave-morality;_--I would at once add, however, that in all higher -and mixed civilisations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation -of the two moralities; but one finds still oftener the confusion -and mutual misunderstanding of them, indeed, sometimes their close -juxtaposition--even in the same man, within one soul. 227 - -The noble type of man regards _himself_ as a determiner of values; -he does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: "What -is injurious to me is injurious in itself"; he knows that it is he -himself only who confers honour on things; he is a _creator_ of -values. He honours whatever he recognises in himself: such morality -is self-glorification. In the foreground there is the feeling of -plenitude, of power, which seeks to overflow, the happiness of high -tension, the conscientiousness of a wealth which would fain give -and bestow:--the noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not--or -scarcely--out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the -superabundance of power. The noble man honours in himself the powerful -one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and -how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to -severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and -hard. 229 - -A morality of the ruling class ... is ... especially foreign and -irritating to present-day taste in the sternness of its principle -that one has duties only to one's equals; that one may act towards -beings of a lower rank, towards all that is foreign, just as seems -good to one, or "as the heart desires," and in any case "beyond good -and evil": it is here that sympathy and similar sentiments can have a -place. The ability and obligation to exercise prolonged gratitude and -prolonged revenge--both only within the circle of equals,--artfulness -in retaliation, _raffinement_ of the idea in friendship, a certain -necessity to have enemies as outlets for the emotions of envy, -quarrelsomeness, arrogance--in fact, in order to be a good _friend:_ -all these are typical characteristics of the noble morality. 229-230 - -Slave-morality is essentially the morality of utility. Here is the seat -of the origin of the famous antithesis "good" and "_evil":_--power -and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil, a certain -dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of being -despised. According to slave-morality, therefore, the "evil" man -arouses fear; according to master-morality, it is precisely the "good" -man who arouses fear and seeks to arouse it, while the bad man is -regarded as the despicable being. The contrast attains its maximum -when, in accordance with the logical consequences of slave-morality, -a shade of depreciation--it may be slight and well-intentioned--at -last attaches itself even to the "good" man of this morality; because, -according to the servile mode of thought, the good man must in any -case be the _safe_ man: he is good-natured, easily deceived, perhaps a -little stupid, _un bonhomme._ Everywhere that slave-morality gains the -ascendency, language shows a tendency to approximate the significations -of the words "good" and "stupid."--A last fundamental difference: the -desire for _freedom,_ the instinct for happiness and the refinements -of the feeling of liberty belong as necessarily to slave-morals and -morality, as artifice and enthusiasm in reverence and devotion are the -regular symptoms of an aristocratic mode of thinking and estimating. -231 - -A _species_ originates, and a type becomes established and strong in -the long struggle with essentially constant _unfavourable_ conditions. -On the other hand, it is known by the experience of breeders that -species which receive superabundant nourishment, and in general a -surplus of protection and care, immediately tend in the most marked way -to develop variations, and are fertile in prodigies and monstrosities -(also in monstrous vices). 234 - -I submit that egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul, I mean -the unalterable belief that to a being such as "we," other beings must -naturally be in subjection, and have to sacrifice themselves. 240 - -Woman would like to believe that love can do _everything_--it is the -_superstition_ peculiar to her. Alas, he who knows the heart finds -out how poor, helpless, pretentious, and blundering even the best and -deepest love is--he finds that it rather _destroys_ than saves! 246 - -Signs of nobility: never to think of lowering our duties to the rank -of duties for everybody; to be unwilling to renounce or to share our -responsibilities; to count our prerogatives, and the exercise of them, -among our _duties._ 249 - -A man strives after great things, looks upon every one whom he -encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a delay and -hindrance--or as a temporary resting-place. 249 - -If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the same time a -noble self-control, to praise only where one _does not_ agree.... 254 - -All society makes one somehow, somewhere, or sometimes--"commonplace." -254-255 - -_The noble soul has reverence for itself._ 256 - -A man who can conduct a case, carry out a resolution, remain true to -an opinion, keep hold of a woman, punish and overthrow insolence; a -man who has his indignation and his sword, and to whom the weak, the -suffering, the oppressed, and even the animals willingly submit and -naturally belong; in short, a man who is a _master_ by nature--when -such a man has sympathy, well, _that_ sympathy has value! 259 - -I would even allow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality -of their laughing--up to those who are capable of _golden_ laughter. -260 - - - - -VIII - - -"The Genealogy of Morals" - - -("_Zur Genealogie der Moral_") was written by Nietzsche primarily as an -elaboration and elucidation of the philosophic points which were merely -sketched in "Beyond Good and Evil." This former work had met with small -success, and the critics, failing to understand its doctrines, read -converse meanings in it. One critic hailed Nietzsche at once as an -anarchist, and this review went far in actuating him in drawing up the -three essays which comprise the present book. As will be remembered, -several of Nietzsche's most important principles were stated and -outlined in "Beyond Good and Evil," especially his doctrine of -slave-morality and master-morality. Now he undertakes to develop this -proposition, as well as many others which he set forth provisionally -in his earlier work. This new polemic may be looked upon both as a -completing of former works and as a further preparation for "The Will -to Power." The book, a comparatively brief one (it contains barely -40,000 words), was written in a period of about two weeks during the -early part of 1887. In July the manuscript was sent to the publisher, -but was recalled for revisions and addenda; and most of Nietzsche's -summer was devoted to correcting it. Later that same year the book -appeared; and thereby its author acquired another friendly reader, -Georg Brandes, to whom, more than to any other critic, Nietzsche owes -his early recognition. - -The style of "The Genealogy of Morals" is less aphoristic than any -of the books which immediately preceded or followed it. Few new -doctrines are propounded in it; and since it was for the most part -an analytic commentary on what had gone before, its expositional -needs were best met by Nietzsche's earlier style of writing. I have -spoken before of the desultory and sporadic manner in which Nietzsche -was necessitated to present his philosophy. Nowhere is his method -of work better exemplified than in this new work. Nearly every one -of his books overlaps another. Propositions are sketchily stated in -one essay, which receive elucidation only in future volumes. "Beyond -Good and Evil" was a commentary on "Thus Spake Zarathustra"; "The -Genealogy of Morals" is a commentary on the newly propounded theses in -"Beyond Good and Evil" and is in addition an elaboration of many of -the ideas which took birth as far back as "Human, All-Too-Human." Out -of "The Genealogy of Morals" in turn grew "The Antichrist" which dealt -specifically with the theological phase of the former's discussion -of general morals. And all of these books were but preparations for -"The Will to Power." For this reason it is difficult to acquire a -complete understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy unless one follows -it consecutively and chronologically. The book at present under -discussion is a most valuable one from an academic standpoint, for, -while it may not set forth any new and important doctrines, it goes -deep into the origins and history of moral concepts, and explains many -of the important conclusions in Nietzsche's moral code. It brings more -and more into prominence the main pillars of his ethical system and -explains at length the steps in the syllogism which led to his doctrine -of master-morality. It ascertains the origin of the concept of sin, and -describes the racial deterioration which has followed in the train of -Christian ideals. - -In many ways this book is the profoundest of all the writings Nietzsche -left us. For the first time he separates theological and moral -prejudices and traces them to different origins. This is one of the -most important steps taken by him. By so doing he became an explorer -of entirely new fields. The moral historians and psychologists who -preceded him had considered moral precepts and Christian injunctions -as stemming from the same source: their genealogies had led them to -the same common spring. Nietzsche entered the search with new methods. -He applied the philologie test to all moral values. He brought to his -task, in addition to a historical sense, what he calls "an innate -faculty of psychological discrimination _par excellence._" He posed the -following questions, and endeavoured to answer them by inquiring into -the minutest aspects of historical conditions: "Under what conditions -did Man invent for himself those judgments of value, 'good' and 'evil'? -_And what intrinsic value do they possess in themselves?_ Have they -up to the present hindered or advanced human well-being"? Are they a -symptom of the distress, impoverishment, and degeneration of Human -Life? Or, conversely, is it in them that is manifested the fulness, the -strength, and the will of Life, its courage, its self-confidence, its -future?" In his research, Nietzsche first questioned the value of pity. -He found it to be a symptom of modern civilisation--a quality held in -contempt by the older philosophers, even by such widely dissimilar -minds as Plato, Spinoza, La Rochefoucauld and Kant--but a quality -given high place by the more modern thinkers. Despite the seemingly -apparent isolation of the problem of pity-morality, Nietzsche saw that -in truth it was a question which underlay all other moral propositions; -and, using it as a ground-work for his research, he began to question -the utility of all those values held as "good," to apply the qualities -of the "good man" to the needs of civilisation, and to inquire into the -results left upon the race by the "bad man." - -So great was the misunderstanding which attached to his phrase, "beyond -good and evil," and so persistently was this phrase interpreted in -its narrow sense of "beyond good and bad," that he felt the necessity -of drawing the line of distinction between these two diametrically -opposed conceptions and of explaining the origin of each. His first -essay in "The Genealogy of Morals" is devoted to this task. At the -outset he devotes considerable space criticising the methods and -conclusions of former genealogists of morals, especially of the English -psychologists who attribute an _intrinsic_ merit to altruism because -at one time altruism possessed a utilitarian value. Herbert Spencer's -theory that "good" is the same as "purposive" brings from Nietzsche a -protest founded on the contention that because a thing was at one time -useful, and therefore "good," it does not follow that the thing is good -_in itself._ By the etymology of the descriptive words of morality, -Nietzsche traces the history of modern moral attributes through class -distinctions to their origin in the instincts of the "nobles" and the -"vulgarians." He shows the relationship between the Latin _bonus_ and -the "warrior," by deriving _bonus_ from _duonus. Bellum,_ he shows, -equals _duellum_ which equals _duen-lum,_ in which word _duonus_ -is contained. Likewise, he points out the aristocratic origin of -"happiness"--a quality arising from an abundance of energy and the -consciousness of power. - -"Good and evil," according to Nietzsche, is a sign of slave-morality; -while "good and bad" represents the qualities in the master-morality. -The one stands for the adopted qualities of the subservient races; the -other embodies the natural functioning of dominating races. The origin -of the "good" in these two instances is by no means the same. In the -strong man "good" represented an entirely different condition than the -"good" in the resentful and weak man; and these two "goods" arose out -of different causes. The one was spontaneous and natural--inherent in -the individual of strength: the other was a manufactured condition, an -optional selection of qualities to soften and ameliorate the conditions -of existence. "Evil" and "bad," by the same token, became attributes -originating in widely separated sources. The "evil" of the weak man was -any condition which worked against the manufactured ideals of goodness, -which brought about unhappiness--it was the beginning of the conception -of a slave-morality, a term applied to all enemies. The "bad" of the -strong man was the concept which grew directly out of his feeling for -"good," and which had no application to another individual. Thus the -ideas of "good" and "bad" are directly inherited from the nobles of the -race, and these ideas included within themselves the tendency toward -establishing social distinctions. - -The second section of "The Genealogy of Morals," called "'Guilt,' 'Bad -Conscience,' and the Like," is another important document, the reading -of which is almost imperative for the student who would understand the -processes of thought which led to Nietzsche's philosophic conclusions. -In this essay Nietzsche traces the origin of sin to debt, thereby -disagreeing with all the genealogists of morals who preceded him. He -starts with the birth of memory in man and with the corresponding will -to forgetfulness, showing that out of these two mental qualities was -born responsibility. Out of responsibility in turn grew the function of -promising and the accepting of promises, which at once made possible -between individuals the relationship of "debtor" and "creditor." As -soon as this relationship was established, one man had rights over -another. The creditor could exact payment from the debtor, either in -the form of material equivalent or by inflicting an injury in which -was contained the sensation of satisfaction. Thus the creditor had the -right to punish in cases where actual repayment was impossible. And in -this idea of punishment began not only class distinction but primitive -law. Later, when the power to punish was transferred into the hands -of the community, the law of contract came into existence. Here, says -Nietzsche, we find the cradle of the whole moral world of the ideas of -"guilt," "conscience," and "duty"; and adds, "Their commencement, like -the commencement of all great things in the world, is thoroughly and -continuously saturated in blood." - -Carrying out the principle underlying the relationship of debtor and -creditor we arrive at the formation of the community. In return for -protection and for communal advantages the individual pledged his good -behaviour. When he violated this contract with the community, the -community, in the guise of the defrauded creditor, took its revenge, or -exacted its payment, from the debtor, the criminal. And, as was the -case in early history, the community deprived the violator of future -advantages and protection. The debtor was divested of all rights, even -of mercy, for then there were no degrees in law-breaking. Primitive law -was martial law. Says Nietzsche, "This shows why war itself (counting -the sacrificial cult of war) has produced all the forms under which -punishment has manifested itself in history." Later, as the community -gathered strength, the offences of the individual debtors were looked -upon as less serious. Out of its security grew leniency toward the -offender: the penal code became mitigated, and, as in all powerful -nations to-day, the criminal was protected. Only when there was a -consciousness of weakness in a community did the acts of individual -offenders take on an exaggerated seriousness, and under such conditions -the law was consequently harshest. Thus, justice and the infliction of -legal penalties are direct outgrowths of the primitive relation of debt -between individuals. Herein we have the origin of guilt. - -Nietzsche attempts an elaborate analysis of the history of punishment, -in an effort to ascertain its true meaning, its relation to guilt -and to the community, and its final effects on both the individual -and society. It has been impossible to present the sequence of this -analysis by direct excerpts from his own words, due to the close, -synthetic manner in which he has made his research. Therefore I offer -the following brief exposition of pages 88 to 99 inclusive, in which he -examines the causes and effects of punishment. To begin with, Nietzsche -disassociates the "origin" and the "end" of punishment, and regards -them as two separate and distinct problems. He argues that the final -utility of a thing, in the sense that revenge and deterrence are the -final utilities of punishment, is in all cases opposed to the origin of -that thing; that every force or principle is constantly being put to -new purposes by forces greater than itself, thus making it impossible -to determine its inception by the end for which it is used. Therefore -the "function" of punishing was not conceived with a view to punishing, -but may have been employed for any number of ends, according as a will -to power has overcome that function and made use of it for its own -purpose: in short; punishment, like any organ or custom or "thing," -has passed through a series of new interpretations and adjustments and -meanings--and is _not_ a direct and logical _progress as_ to an end. - -Having established this point, Nietzsche endeavours to determine -the utilisation to which the custom of punishment has been put--to -ascertain the meaning which has been interpreted into it. He finds -that even in modern times not one but many uses have been made of -punishment, and that in ancient times so diverse have been the -utilisations of punishment that it is impossible to define them all. -In fact, one cannot determine the _precise reason_ for punishment. To -emphasise this point, Nietzsche gives a long list of possible meanings. -Taking up the more popular _supposed_ utilities of punishment at the -present time--such as creating in the wrong-doer the consciousness of -guilt, which is supposed to evolve into conscience and remorse--he -shows wherein punishment fails in its object. Against this theory -of the creation of remorse, he advances psychology and shows that, -to the contrary, punishment numbs and hardens. He argues also that -punishment for the purpose of making the wrong-doer conscious of the -intrinsic reprehensibility of his crime, fails because the very act for -which he is chastened is practised in the service of justice and is -called "good." Eliminating thus the _supposed_ effects of punishment, -Nietzsche arrives at the conclusion (included in the excerpts at -the end of this chapter) that punishment makes only for caution and -secrecy, and is therefore detrimental. - -In his analysis of the origin of the "bad conscience," Nietzsche lends -himself to quotation. Therefore I have been able to present in his own -words a fair _resume_ of the course pursued by him in his examination -of the history of conscience. This particular branch of his research -is carried into the formation of the "State" which, according to him, -grew out of "a herd of blonde beasts." The older theory of the state, -namely: that it originated in the adoption of a contract, is set aside -as untenable when dealing with a peoples who possessed conquerors or -masters. These masters, argues Nietzsche, had no need of contracts. -By using the "bad conscience" as a ground for inquiry, the causes for -the existence of altruism are shown to be included in the self-cruelty -which followed in the wake of the instinct for freedom. (This last -point is developed fully in the discussion of ascetic ideals which -is found at the end of the book now under consideration.) Nietzsche -traces the birth of deities back along the lines of credit and debt. -First came the fear of ancestors. Then followed the obligation to -ancestors. At length the sacrifice to ancestors marked the beginning -of a conception of duty (debt) to the supernatural. The ancestors of -powerful nations in time became heroes, and finally evolved into gods. -Later monotheism came as a natural consequence, and God became the -creditor. In the expiation of sin, as symbolised in the crucifixion -of Christianity, we have this same relationship of debtor and -creditor carried out into a more complex form through the avenues of -self-torture. - -The most important essay in "The Genealogy of Morals" is the last, -called "What is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals?" Nietzsche examines -this question in relation to the artist, to the philosopher, to the -priest, and to the race generally. In his examination of the problem in -regard to artists he uses Wagner as a basis of inquiry, comparing the -two phases of Wagner's art--the Parsifalian and the ante-Parsifalian. -Artists, asserts Nietzsche, need a support of constituted authority; -they are unable to stand alone--"standing alone is opposed to their -deepest instincts"--and so they make use of asceticism as a rampart, -as building material, to give their work authority. In his application -of the ascetic ideal to philosophers, Nietzsche presents the cases -of Schopenhauer and Kant, and concludes that asceticism in such -instances is used as an escape from torture--a means to recreation -and happiness. With the philosopher the ideal of asceticism is not -a denial of existence. Rather is it an affirmation of existence. It -permits him freedom of the intellect. It relieves him of the numerous -obligations of life. Furthermore, the philosophic spirit, in order to -establish itself, found it necessary to disguise itself as "one of the -_previously fixed_ types of the contemplative man," as a priest or -soothsayer. Only in such a religious masquerade was philosophy taken -with any seriousness or reverence. - -The history of asceticism in the priest I have been able to set forth -with a certain degree of completeness in Nietzsche's own words. -The priest was the sick physician who administered to the needs of -a sick populace. His was the mission of mitigating suffering and -of performing every kind of consolation. Wherein he failed, says -Nietzsche, was in not going to the source, the cause, of suffering, but -in dealing merely with its manifestations. These manifestations were -the result of physiological depressions which prevailed at intervals -among portions of the population. These depressions were the outgrowth -of diverse causes, such as long wars, emigration to unsuitable -climates, wrong diet, miscegenation on a large scale, disease, etc. -According to Nietzsche the cure for such physiological phenomena can -be found only in the realm of moral psychology, for here the origin -is considered and administered to by disciplinary systems grounded in -true knowledge. But the method employed by the priest was far from -scientific. He combated these depressions by reducing the consciousness -of life itself to the lowest possible degree--that is, by a doctrine -of asceticism, of self-abnegation, equanimity, self-hypnotism. By -thus minimising the consciousness of life, these depressions took on -more and more the aspect of normality. The effects of this treatment, -however, were transient, for the starving of the physical desires and -the abstinence from exercising the physical impulses paved the way for -all manner of mental disorders, excesses and insanity. Herein lies -Nietzsche's explanation for religious ecstasies, hallucinations, and -sensual outbursts. - -Another form of treatment devised by the ascetic priests for a -depressed people gave birth to the "blessedness" which, under the -Christian code, attaches to work. These priests attempted to turn the -attention of the people from their suffering by the establishment of -mechanical activity, namely: work, routine and obedience. The sick man -forgot himself in the labour which had received sanctification. The -priests also combated depression by permitting pleasure through the -creation and production of joy. That is, they set men to helping and -comforting each other, by instilling in them the notion of brotherly -love. Thereby the community mutually strengthened itself, and at the -same time it reaped the joy of service which had been sanctioned by the -priests. Out of this last method sprang many of the Christian virtues, -especially those which benefit others rather than oneself. - -Such methods as these--devitalisation, labour, brotherly love--are -called by Nietzsche the "innocent" prescriptions in the fight against -depression. The "guilty" ones are far different, and are embodied in -the one method: the production of emotional excess. This, the priests -understood, was the most efficacious manner in overcoming protracted -depression and pain. Confronted by the query: By what means can this -emotional excess be produced? they made use of "the whole pack of -hounds that rage in the human kennel"--rage, fear, lust, revenge, hope, -despair, cruelty and the like. And once these emotional excesses became -established, the priests, when asked by the "patients" for a "cause" of -their suffering, declared it to be within the man himself, in his own -guiltiness. Thus was the sick man turned into a sinner. Here originated -also the conception of suffering as a _state of punishment,_ the fear -of retribution, the iniquitous conscience, and the hope of redemption. -Nietzsche goes further, and shows the racial and individual decadence -which has followed in the train of this system of treatment. Dr. Oscar -Levy says with justice that this last essay, considered in the light -which it throws upon the attitude of the ecclesiast to the man of -resentment and misfortune, "is one of the most valuable contributions -to sacerdotal psychology." - - -EXCERPTS FROM "THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS" - -The pathos of nobility and distance,... the chronic and despotic -_esprit de corps_ and fundamental instinct of a higher dominant race -coming into association with a meaner race, an "under race," this is -the origin of the antitheses of good and bad. 20 - -The knightly-aristocratic "values" are based on a careful cult of the -physical, on a flowering, rich, and even effervescing healthiness, -that goes considerably beyond what is necessary for maintaining life, -on war, adventure, the chase, the dance, the tourney--on everything, -in fact, which is contained in strong, free, and joyous action. The -priestly aristocratic mode of valuation is--we have seen--based on -other hypotheses: it is bad enough for this class when it is a question -of war! Yet the priests are, as is notorious, _the worst enemies_--why? -Because they are the weakest. 29 - -The slave-morality requires as the condition of its existence an -external and objective world, to employ physiological terminology, -it requires objective stimuli to be of action at all--its action is -fundamentally a reaction. The contrary is the case when we come to the -aristocrat's system of values: it acts and grows spontaneously, it -merely seeks its antithesis in order to pronounce a more grateful and -exultant "yes" to its own self.... 35 - -The aristocratic man conceives the root idea "good" spontaneously and -straight away, that is to say, out of himself, and from that material -then creates for himself a concept of "bad"! This "bad" of aristocratic -origin and that "evil" out of the cauldron of unsatisfied hatred--the -former an imitation, an "extra," an additional nuance; the latter, on -the other hand, the original, the beginning, the essential act in the -conception of a slave-morality--these two words "bad" and "evil," how -great a difference do they mark in spite of the fact that they have an -identical contrary in the idea "good." 39 - -It is impossible not to recognise at the core of all these aristocratic -races the beast of prey; the magnificent _blonde brute,_ avidly -rampant for spoil and victory; this hidden core needed an outlet from -time to time, the beast must get loose again, must return into the -wilderness--the Roman, Arabic, German, and Japanese nobility, the -Homeric heroes, the Scandinavian Vikings, are all alike in this need. -It is the aristocratic races who have left the idea "Barbarian" on all -the tracks in which they have marched; nay, a consciousness of this -very barbarianism, and even a pride in it, manifests itself even in -their highest civilisation. 40 - -What produces to-day our repulsion towards "man"?--for we _suffer_ -from "man," there is no doubt about it. It is not fear; it is rather -that we have nothing more to fear from men; it is that the worm "man" -is in the foreground and pullulates; it is that the "tame man," the -wretched mediocre and unedifying creature, has learnt to consider -himself a goal and a pinnacle, an inner meaning, an historic principle, -a "higher man." ... 42-43 - -In the dwarfing and levelling of the European man lurks _our_ greatest -peril, for it is this outlook which fatigues--we see to-day nothing -which wishes to be greater, we surmise that the process is always -still backwards, still backwards towards something more attenuated, -more inoffensive, more cunning, more comfortable, more mediocre, more -indifferent, more Chinese, more Christian. 44 - -To require of strength that it should _not_ express itself as strength, -that it should not be a wish to overpower, a wish to overthrow, a wish -to become master, a thirst for enemies and antagonisms and triumphs, is -just as absurd as to require of weakness that it should express itself -as strength. A quantum of force is just such a quantum of movement, -will, action. 45 - -The impotence which requites not, is turned to "goodness," craven -baseness to meekness, submission to those whom one hates, to obedience -(namely, obedience to one of whom they say that he ordered this -submission--they call him God). The inoffensive character of the weak, -the very cowardice in which he is rich, his standing at the door, his -forced necessity of waiting, gain here fine names, such as "patience," -which is also called "virtue"; not being able to avenge one's self, is -called not wishing to avenge one's self, perhaps even forgiveness. 48 - -They are miserable, there is no doubt about it, all these whisperers -and counterfeiters in the corners, although they try to get warm by -crouching close to each other, but they tell me that their misery is -a favour and distinction given to them by God, just as one beats the -dogs one likes best; that perhaps this misery is also a preparation, a -probation, a training; that perhaps it is still more something which -will one day be compensated and paid back with a tremendous interest in -gold, nay in happiness. This they call "Blessedness." 45-49 - -The two _opposing values_ "good and bad," "good and evil," have fought -a dreadful, thousand-year fight in the world, and though indubitably -the second value has been for a long time in the preponderance, there -are not wanting places where the fortune of the fight is still -undecisive. It can almost be said that in the meanwhile the fight -reaches a higher and higher level, and that in the meanwhile it has -become more and more intense, and always more and more psychological; -so that nowadays there is perhaps no more decisive mark of the _higher -nature,_ of the more psychological nature, than to be in that sense -self-contradictory, and to be actually still a battle-ground for those -two opposites. The symbol of this fight, written in a writing which -has remained worthy of perusal throughout the course of history up to -the present time, is called "Rome against Judæa, Judæa against Rome." -Hitherto there has been no greater event than _that_ fight, the putting -of _that_ question, _that_ deadly antagonism. Rome found in the Jew -the incarnation of the unnatural, as though it were its diametrically -opposed monstrosity, and in Rome the Jew was held to be _convicted of -hatred_ of the whole human race: and rightly so, in so far as it is -right to link the well-being and the future of the human race to the -unconditional mastery of the aristocratic values, of the Roman values. -What, conversely, did the Jews feel against Rome? One can surmise it -from a thousand symptoms, but it is sufficient to carry one's mind -back to the Johannian Apocalypse, that most obscene of all the written -outbursts, which has revenge on its conscience. 53-54 - -_Beyond Good and Evil_--at any rate that is not the same as "Beyond -Good and Bad." 57 - -The proud knowledge of the extraordinary privilege of _responsibility,_ -the consciousness of this rare freedom, of this power over himself and -over fate, has sunk right down to his innermost depths, and has become -an instinct, a dominating instinct--what name will he give to it, to -this dominating instinct if he needs to have a word for it? But there -is no doubt about it--the sovereign man calls it his _conscience._ 65 - -Have these current genealogists of morals ever allowed themselves to -have even the vaguest notion, for instance, that the cardinal moral -idea of "ought" originates from the very material idea of "owe"? Or -that punishment developed as a _retaliation_ absolutely independently -of any preliminary hypothesis of the freedom or determination of the -will?--And this to such an extent, that a _high_ degree of civilisation -was always first necessary for the animal man to begin to make those -much more primitive distinctions of "intentional," "negligent," -"accidental," "responsible," and their contraries, and apply them -in the assessing of punishment. That idea--"the wrong-doer deserves -punishment _because_ he might have acted otherwise," in spite of the -fact that it is nowadays so cheap, obvious, natural, and inevitable, -and that it has had to serve as an illustration of the way in which -the sentiment of justice appeared on earth is in point of fact -an exceedingly late, and even refined form of human judgment and -inference; the placing of this idea back at the beginning of the world -is simply a clumsy violation of the principles of primitive psychology. -69 - -The sight of suffering does one good, the infliction of suffering does -one more good--this is a hard maxim, but none the less a fundamental -maxim, old, powerful, and "human, all-too-human"; one, moreover, to -which perhaps even the apes as well would subscribe: for it is said -that in inventing bizarre cruelties they are giving abundant proof -of their future humanity, to which, as it were, they are playing -the prelude. Without cruelty, no feast: so teaches the oldest and -longest history of man--and in punishment too is there so much of the -_festive._ 75 - -The darkening of the heavens over man has always increased in -proportion to the growth of man's shame _before man._The tired -pessimistic outlook, the mistrust of the riddle of life, the icy -negation of disgusted ennui, all those are not the signs of the _most -evil_ age of the human race: much rather do they come first to the -light of day, as the swamp-flowers, which they are, when the swamp to -which they belong comes into existence--I mean the diseased refinement -and moralisation, thanks to which the "animal man" has at last learnt -to be ashamed of all his instincts. 75 - -The curve of human sensibilities to pain seems indeed to sink in an -extraordinary and almost sudden fashion, as soon as one has passed the -upper ten thousand or ten millions of over-civilised humanity, and I -personally have no doubt that, by comparison with one painful night -passed by one single hysterical chit of a cultured woman, the suffering -of all the animals taken together who have been put to the question of -the knife, so as to give scientific answers, are simply negligible. -76-77 - -Man ... arrived at the great generalisation "everything has its price, -_all_ can be paid for," the oldest and most naïve moral canon of -_justice_ the beginning of all "kindness," of all "equity," of all -"goodwill," of all "objectivity" in the world. 80 - -The self-destruction of Justice! we know the pretty name it calls -itself--_Grace!_ it remains, as is obvious, the privilege of the -strongest, better still, their super-law. 83-84 - -The aggressive man has at all times enjoyed the stronger, bolder, more -aristocratic, and also _freer_ outlook, the _better_ conscience. On -the other hand, we already surmise who it really is that has on his -conscience the invention of the "bad conscience,"--the resentful man! 86 - -To talk of intrinsic right and intrinsic wrong is absolutely -nonsensical; intrinsically, an injury, an oppression, an exploitation, -an annihilation can be nothing wrong, inasmuch as life is _essentially_ -(that is, in its cardinal functions) something which functions by -injuring, oppressing, exploiting, and annihilating, and is absolutely -inconceivable without such a character. 88 - -Evildoers have throughout thousands of years felt when overtaken by -punishment _exactly like Spinoza,_ on the subject of their "offence": -"here is something which went wrong contrary to my anticipation, -_not_ I ought not to have done this."--They submitted themselves -to punishment, just as one submits one's self to a disease, to a -misfortune, or to death, with that stubborn and resigned fatalism which -gives the Russians, for instance, even nowadays, the advantage over -us Westerners, in the handling of life. If at that period there was -a critique of action, the criterion was prudence: the real _effect_ -of punishment is unquestionably chiefly to be found in a sharpening -of the sense of prudence, in a lengthening of the memory, in a will -to adopt more of a policy of caution, suspicion, and secrecy; in the -recognition that there are many things which are unquestionably beyond -one's capacity; in a kind of improvement in self-criticism. The broad -effects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast, are the -increase of fear, the sharpening of the sense of cunning, the mastery -of the desires: so it is that punishment _tames_ man, but does not make -him "better"--it would be more correct even to go so far as to assert -the contrary. 99 - -All instincts which do not find a vent without, _turn inwards_--this is -what I mean by the growing "internalisation" of man: consequently we -have the first growth in man, of what subsequently was called his soul. -The whole inner world, originally as thin as if it had been stretched -between two layers of skin, burst apart and expanded proportionately, -and obtained depth, breadth, and height, when man's external outlet -became _obstructed._ These terrible bulwarks, with which the social -organisation protected itself against the old instincts of freedom -(punishments belong pre-eminently to these bulwarks), brought it -about that all those instincts of wild, free, prowling man became -turned backwards _against man himself._ Enmity, cruelty, the delight -in persecution, in surprises, change, destruction--the turning all -these instincts against their own possessors: this is the origin of -the "bad conscience." It was man, who, lacking external enemies and -obstacles, and imprisoned as he was in the oppressive narrowness and -monotony of custom, in his own impatience lacerated, persecuted, -gnawed, frightened, and ill-treated himself; it was this animal in the -hands of the tamer, which beat itself against the bars of its cage; it -was this being who, pining and yearning for that desert home of which -it had been deprived, was compelled to create out of its own self, an -adventure, a torture-chamber, a hazardous and perilous desert--it was -this fool, this homesick and desperate prisoner--who invented the "bad -conscience." 100-101 - -A herd of blonde beasts of prey, a race of conquerors and masters, -which with all its warlike organisation and all its organising power -pounces with its terrible claws on a population, in numbers possibly -tremendously superior, but as yet formless, as yet nomad. Such is -the origin of the "State." That fantastic theory that makes it -begin with a contract is, I think, disposed of. He who can command, -he who is a master by "nature," he who comes on the scene forceful -in deed and gesture--what has he to do with contracts? Such beings -defy calculation, they come like fate, without cause, reason, notice, -excuse, they are there like the lightning is there, too terrible, too -sudden, too convincing, too "different," to be personally even hated. -Their work is an instinctive creating and impressing of forms, they are -the most involuntary, unconscious artists that there are.... 103 - -It is only the bad conscience, only the will for self-abuse, that -provides the necessary conditions for the existence of altruism as a -_value._ 105 - -The feeling of owing a debt to the deity has grown continuously for -several centuries, always in the same proportion in which the idea -of God and the consciousness of God have grown and become exalted -among mankind. (The whole history of ethnic fights, victories, -reconciliations, amalgamations, everything, in fact, which precedes -the eventual classing of all the social elements in each great race -synthesis, are mirrored in the hotch-potch genealogy of their gods, in -the legends of their fights, victories, and reconciliations, Progress -towards universal empires invariably means progress towards universal -deities; despotism, with its subjugation of the independent nobility, -always paves the way for some system or other of monotheism.) The -appearance of the Christian god, as the record god up to this time, has -for that very reason brought equally into the world the record amount -of guilt consciousness. 109 - -This is a kind of madness of the will in the sphere of psychological -cruelty which is absolutely unparalleled:--man's _will_ to find -himself guilty and blameworthy to the point of inexpiability, his -_will_ to think of himself as punished, without the punishment ever -being able to balance the guilt, his _will_ to infect and to poison -the fundamental basis of the universe with the problem of punishment -and guilt, in order to cut off once and for all any escape out of this -labyrinth of "fixed ideas," his will for rearing an ideal--that of the -"holy God"--face to face with which he can have tangible proof of his -own unworthiness. Alas for this mad melancholy beast man! 112-113 - -What is the meaning of ascetic ideals? In artists, nothing, or too -much; in philosophers and scholars, a kind of "flair" and instinct for -the conditions most favourable to advanced intellectualism; in women, -at best an _additional_ seductive fascination, a little _morbidezza_ -on a fine piece of flesh, the angelhood of a fat, pretty animal; in -physiological failures and whiners (in the _majority_ of mortals), -an attempt to pose as "too good" for this world, a holy form of -debauchery, their chief weapon, in the battle with lingering pain and -ennui; in priests, the actual priestly faith, their best engine of -power, and also the supreme authority for power; in saints, finally a -pretext for hibernation, their _novissima gloria cupido,_ their peace -in nothingness ("God"), their form of madness. 121 - -All good things were once bad things; from every original sin has grown -an original virtue. Marriage, for example, seemed for a long time a sin -against the rights of the community; a man formerly paid a fine for the -insolence of claiming one woman to himself. 144-145 - -The soft, benevolent yielding, sympathetic feelings--eventually valued -so highly that they almost become "intrinsic values," were for a very -long time actually despised by their possessors; gentleness was then a -subject for shame, just as hardness is now. 145 - -_The ascetic ideal springs from the prophylactic and self-preservative -instincts which mark a decadent life,_ which seeks by every means in -its power to maintain its position and fight for its existence; it -points to a partial physiological depression and exhaustion, against -which the most profound and intact life-instincts fight ceaselessly -with new weapons and discoveries. The ascetic ideal is such a weapon: -its position is consequently exactly the reverse of that which the -worshippers of the ideal imagine--life struggles in it and through it -with death and _against_ death; the ascetic ideal is a dodge for the -_preservation_ of life. 154 - -The ascetic priest is the incarnate wish for an existence of another -kind, an existence on another plane,--he is, in fact, the highest -point of this wish, its official ecstasy and passion: but it is the -very _power_ of this wish which is the fetter that binds him here; it -is just that which makes him into a tool that must labour to create -more favourable conditions for earthly existence, for existence on the -human plane--it is with this very _power_ that he keeps the whole herd -of failures, distortions, abortions, unfortunates, _sufferers from -themselves_ of every kind, fast to existence, while he as the herdsman -goes instinctively on in front. 154-155 - -The _sick_ are the great danger of man, _not_ the evil, _not_ the -"beasts of prey." They who are from the outset botched, oppressed, -broken, those are they, the weakest are they, who most undermine the -life beneath the feet of man, who instil the most dangerous venom and -scepticism into our trust in life, in man, in ourselves. 157 - -Preventing the sick making the healthy sick ... this ought to be our -supreme object in the world--but for this it is above all essential -that the healthy should remain _separated_ from the sick, that they -should even guard themselves from the look of the sick, that they -should not even associate with the sick. Or may it, perchance, be their -mission to be nurses or doctors? But they could not mistake or disown -_their_ mission more grossly--the higher _must_ not degrade itself to -be the tool of the lower, the pathos of distance must to all eternity -keep their missions also separate. The right of the happy to existence, -the right of bells with a full tone over the discordant cracked bells, -is verily a thousand times greater: they alone are the _sureties_ of -the future, they alone are _bound_ to man's future. 160-161 - -The ascetic priest must be accepted by us as the predestined saviour, -herdsman, and champion of the sick herd: thereby do we first understand -his awful historic mission. 162 - -"I suffer: it must be somebody's fault"--so thinks every sick sheep. -But his herdsman, the ascetic priest, says to him, "Quite so, my sheep, -it must be the fault of some one; but thou thyself art that some one, -it is all the fault of thyself alone--_it is the fault of thyself alone -against thyself":_ that is bold enough, false enough, but one thing is -at least attained; thereby, as I have said, the course of resentment -is--_diverted_. 165 - -All sick and diseased people strive instinctively after a -herd-organisation, out of a desire to shake off their sense of -oppressive discomfort and weakness; the ascetic priest divines this -instinct and promotes it; wherever a herd exists it is the instinct -of weakness which has wished for the herd, and the cleverness of the -priests which has organised it, for, mark this: by an equally natural -necessity the strong strive as much for _isolation_ as the weak for -_union:_ when the former bind themselves it is only with a view to an -aggressive joint action and joint satisfaction of their Will for Power, -much against the wishes of their individual consciences; the latter, -on the contrary, range themselves together with positive _delight_ in -such a muster--their instincts are as much gratified thereby as the -instincts of the "born master" (that is the solitary beast-of-prey -species of man) are disturbed and wounded to the quick by organisation. -176-177 - -The keynote by which the ascetic priest was enabled to get every kind -of agonising and ecstatic music to play on the fibres of the human -soul--was, as every one knows, the exploitation of the feeling of -_"guilt."_ 182 - -The ascetic ideal and its sublime moral cult, this most ingenious, -reckless, and perilous systématisation of all methods of emotional -excess, is writ large in a dreadful and unforgettable fashion on the -whole history of man, and unfortunately not only on history. I was -scarcely able to put forward any other element which attacked the -_health_ and race efficiency of Europeans with more destructive power -than did this ideal; it can be dubbed, without exaggeration, _the real -fatality_ in the history of the health of the European man. 186-187 - -The ascetic ideal has corrupted not only health and taste, there are -also third, fourth, fifth, and sixth things which it has corrupted--I -shall take care not to go through the catalogue (when should I get to -the end?). 190 - -The periods in a nation in which the learned man comes into prominence; -they are the periods of exhaustion, often of sunset, of decay--the -effervescing strength, the confidence of life, the confidence in the -future are no more. The preponderance of the mandarins never signifies -any good, any more than does the advent of democracy, or arbitration -instead of war, equal rights for women, the religion of pity, and all -the other symptoms of declining life. 200 - -The ascetic ideal simply means this: that something _was lacking,_ -that a tremendous _void_ encircled man--he did not know how to justify -himself, to explain himself, to affirm himself, he _suffered_ from the -problem of his own meaning. He suffered also in other ways, he was -in the main a _diseased_ animal; but his problem was not suffering -itself, but the lack of an answer to that crying question, "_To what -purpose_ do we suffer?" Man, the bravest animal and the one most inured -to suffering, does _not_ repudiate suffering in itself: he _wills_ it, -he even seeks it out, provided that he is shown a meaning for it, a -_purpose_ of suffering was the curse which till then lay spread over -humanity--_and the ascetic ideal gave it a meaning!_ It was up till -then the only meaning; but any meaning is better than no meaning; -the ascetic ideal was in that connection the _"faute de mieux" par -excellence_ that existed at that time. In that ideal suffering _found -an explanation;_ the tremendous gap seemed filled; the door to all -suicidal Nihilism was closed. The explanation--there is no doubt about -it--brought in its train new suffering, deeper, more penetrating, more -venomous, gnawing more brutally into life: it brought all suffering -under the perspective of _guilt;_ but in spite of all that--man was -_saved_ thereby, he had _a meaning,_ and from henceforth was no more -like a leaf in the wind, a shuttlecock, of chance, of nonsense, he -could now "will" something--absolutely immaterial to what end, to what -purpose, with that means he wished: _the will itself was saved._ It -is absolutely impossible to disguise _what_ in point of fact is made -clear by every complete will that has taken its direction from the -ascetic ideal: this hate of the human, and even more of the animal, -and more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason -itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this desire to get right -away from all illusion, change, growth, death, wishing and even -desiring--all this means--let us have the courage to grasp it--a will -for Nothingness, a will opposed to life, a repudiation of the most -fundamental conditions of life, but it is and remains _a will!_--and -to say at the end that which I said at the beginning--man will wish -_Nothingness_ rather than not wish _at all._ 210-211 - - - - -IX - - -"The Twilight of the Idols" - - -Nietzsche followed "The Genealogy of Morals" with "The Case of Wagner," -that famous pamphlet in which he excoriated the creator of Parsifal. -Immediately after the publication of this attack, he began work on -what was to be still another preparatory book for "The Will to Power." -For its title he first chose "Idle Hours of a Psychologist." The book, -a brief one, was already on the presses when he changed the caption -to _"Götzendämmerung"_--"The Twilight of the Idols"--a titular -parody on Wagner's _"Götterdämmerung"_ For a subtitle he appended a -characteristically Nietzschean phrase--"How to Philosophise with the -Hammer." The writing of this work was done with great rapidity: it was -accomplished in but a few days during August, 1888. In September it -was sent to the publisher, but during its printing Nietzsche added a -chapter headed "What the Germans Lack," and several aphorisms to the -section called "Skirmishes in a War with the Age." In January, 1889, -the book appeared. - -Nietzsche was then stricken with his fatal illness, and this was the -last book of his to appear during his lifetime. "The Antichrist" was -already finished, having been written in the fall of 1888 immediately -after the completion of "The Twilight of the Idols." _"Ecce Homo"_ -his autobiography, was written in October, 1888; and during December -Nietzsche again gave his attention to Wagner, drafting "Nietzsche -_contra_ Wagner," a pamphlet made up entirely of excerpts from his -earlier writings. This work, intended to supplement "The Case of -Wagner," was not published until 1895, although it had been printed -and corrected before the author's final breakdown. "The Antichrist" -appeared at the same time as this second Wagner document, while _"Ecce -Homo"_ was withheld from publication until 1908. "The Twilight of the -Idols" sold 9,000 copies, but Nietzsche's mind was too clouded to -know or care that at last he was coming into his own, that the public -which had denied him so long had finally begun to open its eyes to his -greatness. - -In many ways "The Twilight of the Idols" is one of Nietzsche's most -brilliant books. Being more compact, it consequently possesses a -greater degree of precision and clarity than is found in his more -analytical writings. It is not, however, a treatise to which one may -go without considerable preparation. With the exception of "Thus -Spake Zarathustra," it demands more on the part of the reader than -any of Nietzsche's other books. It is, for the most part, composed -of conclusions and comments which grow directly out of the laborious -ethical research of his preceding volumes, and presupposes in the -student an enormous amount of reading, not only of Nietzsche's own -writings but of philosophical works in general. But once equipped with -this preparation, one will find more of contemporary interest in it -than in the closely organised books such as "Beyond Good and Evil" -and "The Genealogy of Morals." There are few points in Nietzsche's -philosophy not found here. For a compact expression of his entire -teaching I know of no better book to which one might turn. Nietzsche -himself, to judge from a passage in his _"Ecce Homo"_ intended this -book as a statement of his whole ethical system. He probably meant -that it should present _in toto_ the principal data of his foregoing -studies, in order that the reader might be familiar with all the steps -in his philosophy before setting forth upon the formidable doctrines -of "The Will to Power." Obviously, therefore, it is not a book for -beginners. Being expositional rather than argumentative, it is open -to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. It contains apparent -contradictions which might confuse the student who has not followed -Nietzsche in the successive points which led to his conclusions, and -who is unfamiliar with the exact definitions attached to certain words -relating to human conduct. - -Other qualities of a misleading nature are to be encountered in this -book. Many of the paragraphs have about them an air of mere cleverness, -although in reality they embody profound concepts. The reader ignorant -of the inner seriousness of Nietzsche will accept these passages only -at their surface value. Of the forty-four short epigrams which comprise -the opening chapter, I have appended but three, for fear they would be -judged solely by their superficial characteristics. Many of the other -aphorisms throughout the book lend themselves all too easily to the -same narrow judgment. - -Again, "The Problem of Socrates," the second division of the book, -because of its profundity, presents many difficulties to the unprepared -student. Here is a criticism of the Socratic ideals which requires, -in order that it be intelligently grasped, not only a wide general -knowledge, but also a specific training in the uprooting of prejudices -and of traditional ethical conceptions--such a training as can be -acquired only by a close study of Nietzsche's own destructive works. -The explanation of Socrates's power, the condemnation of that ancient -philosopher's subtle glorification of the _canaille,_ the reasons -for his secret fascination, and the interpretation of his whole -mental progress culminating in his death--all this is profound and -categorical criticism which has its roots in the very fundamentals of -Nietzsche's philosophy. But because it is so deep-rooted, it therefore -presents a wide and all-inclusive vista of that philosophy from which -it stems. Furthermore, this criticism of Socrates poses a specific -problem which can be answered only by resorting to the doctrines which -underlie Nietzsche's entire thought. In like manner the chapter, -"Reason in Philosophy," is understandable only in the light of those -investigations set forth in "Beyond Good and Evil." - -Under the caption, "The Four Great Errors," Nietzsche uproots a series -of correlated beliefs which have the accumulated impetus of centuries -of acceptance behind them. These "errors," as stated, are (1) the -error of the confusion of cause and effect, (2) the error of false -causality, (3) the error of imaginary causes, and (4) the error of -free will. The eradication of these errors is necessary for a complete -acceptance of Nietzsche's philosophy. But unless one is familiar with -the vast amount of criticism which has led up to the present discussion -of them, one will experience difficulty in following the subtly drawn -arguments and analogies presented against them. To demonstrate briefly -the specific application of the first error, namely: the confusion of -cause and effect, I offer an analogy stated in the passage. We know -that Christian morality teaches us that a people perish through vice -and luxury--that is to say, that these two conditions are _causes_ of -racial degeneration. Nietzsche's contention to the contrary is that -when a nation is approaching physiological degeneration, vice and -luxury result in the guise of stimuli adopted by exhausted natures. -By this it can be seen how the Christian conscience is developed by -a misunderstanding of causes; and it can also be seen how this error -may affect the very foundation on which morality is built. I am here -stating merely the conclusion: for the reasons leading up to this -conclusion one must go to the book direct. - -Nietzsche denies the embodiment of the motive of an action in the -"inner facts of consciousness" where, so we have been taught by -psychologists and physicists, the responsibilities of conduct are -contained. The will itself, he argues, is not a motivating force; -rather is it an effect of other deeper causes. This is what he -discusses in his paragraphs dealing with the second error of false -causality. In his criticism of the third error relating to imaginary -causes, he points to the comfort we obtain by attributing a certain -unexplained fact to a familiar cause--by tracing it to a commonplace -source--thereby doing away with its seeming mystery. Thus ordinary -maladies or afflictions, or, to carry the case into moral regions, -misfortunes and unaccountable strokes of fate, are explained by finding -trite and plausible reasons for their existence. As a consequence -the habit of postulating causes becomes a fixed mental habit. In the -great majority of cases, and especially in the domain of morality and -religion, the causes are false, inasmuch as the operation of finding -them depends on the mental characteristics of the searcher. The error -of free will Nietzsche attributes to the theologians' attempt to make -mankind responsible for its acts and therefore amenable to punishment. -I have been able to present his own words in explanation of this -error, and they will be found at the end of this chapter--41-42 and 43. - -In "Skirmishes in a War with the Age," the longest section in the -book, Nietzsche gives us much brilliant and incisive criticism of men, -art and human attributes. He is here at his best, both in clarity of -mind and in his manner of expression. This passage, one of the last -things to come from his pen, contains the full ripeness of his nature, -and is a portion of his work which no student can afford to overlook. -It contains the whole of the Nietzschean philosophy applied to the -conditions of his age. Because it is not a direct voicing of his -doctrines it does not lend itself to mutilation except where it touches -on principles of conduct and abstract aspects of morality. Many of the -most widely read passages of all of Nietzsche's work are contained in -it. But here again, as in the case of "Thus Spake Zarathustra," one -regrets that the surface brilliance of its style attracted readers in -England and America before these nations were acquainted with the books -which came before. The casual reader, unfamiliar with the principles -underlying Nietzsche's ethic, will see only a bold and satanic -flippancy in his definition of Zola--"the love of stinking," or in his -characterisation of George Sand as "the cow with plenty of beautiful -milk," or in his bracketing of "tea-grocers, Christians, cows, women, -Englishmen and other democrats." Yet it is significant that Nietzsche -did not venture upon these remarks until he had the great bulk of his -life's work behind him. - -In this chapter are discussions of Renan, Sainte-Beuve, George Eliot, -George Sand, Emerson, Carlyle, Darwin, Schopenhauer, Goethe and other -famous men and women. In the short essays devoted to these writers -we have, however, more than mere detached valuations. Beneath all the -criticisms is a _rationale_ of judgment based on definite philosophical -doctrines. This same basis of appreciation is present in the discussion -of art and artists, to which subjects many pages are devoted. In fact, -"The Twilight of the Idols" contains most of the art theories and -æsthetic doctrines which Nietzsche advanced. He defines the psychology -of the artist, and draws the line between the two concepts, Apollonian -and Dionysian, as applied to art. He analyses the meaning of beauty -and ugliness, and endeavours to show in what manner the conceptions of -these qualities are related to the racial instincts. He also inquires -into the doctrine of _"l'art pour l'art"_ and points out wherein it -fails in its purpose. A valuable explanation of "genius" is put forth -in the theory that the accumulative power of generations breaks forth -in the great men of a nation, and that these great men mark the end of -an age, as in the case of the Renaissance. - -The most significant brief essay in this section is an answer made -to certain critics who, in reviewing "Beyond Good and Evil," claimed -a superiority for the present age over the older civilisations. -Nietzsche calls this essay "Have We Become Moral?" and proceeds to make -comparisons of contemporaneous virtues with those of the ancients. -He denies that to-day, without our decrepit humanitarianism and our -doctrines of weakness, we would be able to withstand, either nervously -or muscularly, the conditions that prevailed during the Renaissance. -He points out that our morals are those of senility, and that we -have deteriorated, physically as well as mentally, as a result of -an adherence to a code of morality invented to meet the needs of a -weak and impoverished people. Our virtues, he says, are determined -and stimulated by our weakness, so that we have come to admire the -moralities of the slave, the most prominent among which is the doctrine -of equality. In the decline of all the positive forces of life -Nietzsche sees only racial decadence. In this regard it is important -to take note of one of the passages relative to the discussion of this -decadence, namely: the one wherein he characterises the anarchist as -"the mouthpiece of the decaying strata of society." The appellation of -"anarchist" has not infrequently been applied to Nietzsche himself by -those who have read him superficially or whose acquaintance with him -has been the result of distorted hearsay. I know of no better analysis -of anarchistic motives or of no keener dissection of anarchistic -weakness than is set forth here. Nor do I know of any better answer to -those critics who have accused Nietzsche of anarchy, than the criticism -contained in this passage. - -In a final chapter, under the caption of "Things I Owe to the -Ancients," Nietzsche outlines the inspirational source of many of his -doctrines and literary habits. This chapter is important only to the -student who wishes to go to the remoter influences in Nietzsche's -writings, and for that reason I have omitted from the following -excerpts any quotation from it. - - -EXCERPTS FROM "THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS" - -Man thinks woman profound--why? Because he can never fathom her depths. -Woman is not even shallow. 5 - -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. 5-6 - -The Church combats passion by means of excision of all kinds: its -practise, 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. -27 - -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. 27 - -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. 28-29 - -All naturalism is 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.... 30 - -Morality, as it has been understood hitherto, 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. 31 - -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. 32 - -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. 35 - -Morality and religion are completely and utterly parts of the -psychology of error: in every particular case cause and effect are -confounded. 41 - -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. 41 - -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 held guilty.... 42 - -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. 43 - -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.... -44 - -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 appalling 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 -understood this: it ruined man, it made him weak,--but it laid claim to -having "improved" him. 45-46 - -All means which have been used heretofore with the object of making man -moral, were through and through immoral. 49 - -_My impossible people_--Seneca, or the toreador of virtue.--Rousseau, -or the return to nature, _in impuris naturalibus._--Schiller, or -the Moral Trumpeter of Säckingen.--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 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. 60 - -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. 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 springtime, or upon the use of narcotics; and finally -the ecstasy of will, that ecstasy which results from accumulated and -surging will-power. 68-68 - -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. 67-68 - -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. 71 - -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 more formidable -antagonism. 73 - -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. 86 - -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. -86 - -Why a Beyond, if it be not a means of splashing mud over a "Here," over -this world? 87 - -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. 87 - -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. 88-89 - -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." 91-92 - -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. 93 - -Liberalism, or, in plain English, the _transformation of mankind into -cattle._ 94 - -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 his 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._ 94-95 - -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." -97-98 - -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 self-same 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 franchise: 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. 98-99 - -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. 101-102 - -The criminal type is the type of the strong man and 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. 103-104 - -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. 105 - -Everything good is an inheritance: that which is not inherited is -imperfect, it is simply a beginning. 107 - -Christianity with its contempt of the body is the greatest mishap that -has ever befallen mankind. 108 - -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. 108 - -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. 108-109 - - - - -X - - -"The Antichrist" ("_Der Antichrist_") was written in September, 1888, -work evidently having been begun on it as soon as "The Twilight of the -Idols" had been sent to the publisher. Its composition could not have -occupied more than a few weeks at most, for the former book was not -despatched until September 7, and the present work was completed before -October. At this time Nietzsche was working at high pressure. He must -have had some presentiment of his impending breakdown for he filled in -every available minute with ardent and rapid writing. The fall of 1888 -was the most prolific period of his life. No less than four books "The -Twilight of the Idols," "The Antichrist," "Nietzsche _contra_ Wagner" -and _"Ecce Homo"_--were completed by him between the late summer and -the first of the year; and in addition to this he made many notes for -his future volumes and read and corrected a considerable amount of -proofs. "The Antichrist," however, though completed in 1888, was not -published until the end of 1894, six years after he had laid aside his -work forever, and at a time when his mind was too darkened to know or -care about the circumstances of its issuance. It appeared in Vol. XIII -of _Nietzsches Werke_ which, although published at the close of 1894, -bore the date of the following year. - -"The Antichrist" which, like "Beyond Good and Evil," "The Genealogy of -Morals" and "The Twilight of the Idols," forms a part of Nietzsche's -final philosophic scheme, was intended--to judge from the evidence -contained in his notebooks--as the first division of a work to be -entitled "The Trans valuation of All Values" ("_Die Umwertung Aller -Werte_"). In fact this title and also "The Will to Power" were -considered alternately for his _magnum opus_ which he intended writing -after the completion of "The Transvaluation of All Values." He finally -decided on the latter title for his great work, although he used the -former caption as a subtitle. The complete outline for the volumes -which were to be called "The Transvaluation of All Values" and which -were to be incorporated in his final general plan, is as follows: - -1. "The Antichrist. An Attempted Criticism of Christianity." ("_Der -Antichrist: Versuch einer Kritik des Christenthums._") - -2. "The Free Spirit. A Criticism of Philosophy as a Nihilistic -Movement." ("_Der freie Geist: Kritik der Philosophie als einer -nihilistischen Bewegung_") - -3. "The Immoralist. A Criticism of the Most Fatal Species of Ignorance, -Morality." ("_Der Immoralist: Kritik der verhängnissvollsten Art von -Unwissenheit, der Moral_") - -4. "Dionysus, the Philosophy of Eternal Recurrence." ("_Dionysus, -Philosophie der ewigen Wiederkunft_") - -But Nietzsche did not finish this task, although "The Antichrist" is -in the form in which he intended it to be published. Nevertheless, it -must be considered merely as a fragment of a much more extensive plan. -Though Nietzsche was far from being the first, he yet was the most -effective critic who ever waged war against Christianity. This was due -to the fact that he went about his destructive work from an entirely -new angle. Before him there had been many competent anti-Christian -writers and scientists. Even during his own time there was a large and -loud school of atheists at work undermining the foundations of Nazarene -morality. With the methods of his predecessors and contemporaries, -however, he had nothing in common. He saw that, despite the scientific -denial of the miracles of Christianity and the biological opposition -to the origin of Christian history, the theologian was always able to -reply to the denial of Christian truth with the counter-argument of -Christian practicability. Thus, while the reasoning of such men as -Darwin, Huxley and Spencer held good so far as the scientific aspects -of Christianity went, the results of Christianity were not involved. -The church, meeting the onslaughts of the "higher criticism," denied -the necessity of a literal belief in the Gospels, and asserted that, -while all the anti-Christian critics might be accurate in their purely -scientific and logical conclusions, Christianity itself as a workable -code was still efficient and deserving of consideration as the most -perfect system of conduct the world had ever known. Nietzsche therefore -did not go into the field already ploughed by Voltaire, Hume, Huxley, -Spencer, Paine and a host of lesser "free thinkers." The preliminary -battles in the great warfare against Christianity had already been won, -and he saw the futility of proceeding along historical and scientific -lines. Consequently he turned his attention to a consideration of -the _effects_ of Christian morality upon the race, to an inquiry -into the _causes_ of pity-morality, and to a comparison of moral -codes in their relation to the needs of humanity. Whether or not the -origins of Christianity conformed to biological laws did not concern -him, although he assumed as his hypothesis the conclusions of the -scientific investigators. The only way of determining the merits and -demerits of the Christian code, he argued, was to ascertain the actual -results of its application, and to compare these with the results which -had accrued from the application of hardier and healthier codes. To -this investigation Nietzsche devotes practically the whole of "The -Antichrist," although there are a few analytical passages relating to -the early dissemination of Jewish ethics. But with these passages the -student need not seriously concern himself. They are speculative and -non-essential. - -Nietzsche's criticism of the effects of Christian virtues, however, -did not begin in "The Antichrist," although this book is the final -flowering of those anti-Christian ideas which cropped up continually -throughout his entire work. This religious antipathy was present even -in his early academic essays, and in "Human, All-Too-Human" we find him -well launched upon his campaign. No book of his, with the exception of -his unfinished pamphlet, "The Eternal Recurrence," is free from this -criticism. But one will find all his earlier conclusions and arguments -drawn together in a compact and complete whole in the present volume. - -Nietzsche's accusation against Christianity, reduced to a few words, -is that it works against the higher development of the individual; -that, being a religion of weakness, it fails to meet the requirements -of the modern man; in short, that it is _dangerous._ This conclusion -is founded on the principle of biological monism. Nietzsche assumes -Darwin's law of the struggle for existence, and argues that the -Christian virtues oppose not only this law but the law of natural -selection as well. By this opposition the race has been weakened, -for self-sacrifice, the basis of Christian morality, detracts from -the power of the individual and consequently lessens his chances for -existence. Furthermore, the Christian ideal in itself is opposed to -progress and all that progress entails, such as science and research. -Knowledge of any kind tends to make man more independent, and thereby -reduces his need for theological supervision. As a result of the -passing over of power from the strong to the weak, in accordance with -the morality of Christianity, the strength of the race as a whole is -depleted. Furthermore, such a procedure is in direct opposition to -the laws of nature, and so long as man lives in a natural environment -the only way to insure progress is to conform to the conditions of -that environment. Nietzsche therefore makes a plea for the adoption -of other than Christian standards--standards compatible with the laws -of existence. He points out that already the race has been almost -irremediably weakened by its adherence to anti-natural doctrines, -that each day of Christian activity is another step in the complete -degeneration of man. And he asserts that the only reason the race -has maintained its power as long as it has is because the stronger -members of society, despite their voiced belief, do not live up to the -Christian code, but are continually compromising with it. - -The problem of the origin of Christianity interests Nietzsche, because -he sees in it an explanation of the results which it wished to -accomplish. Christianity, says he, can be understood only in relation -to the soil out of which it grew. When the Jewish people, subjugated -and in a position of slavery, were confronted with the danger of -extermination at the hands of a stronger people, they invented a system -of conduct which would insure their continued existence. They realised -that the adherence to such virtues as retaliation, aggressiveness, -initiative, cruelty, arrogance and the like would mean death; the -stronger nations would not have countenanced such qualities in a weak -and depleted nation. As a result the Jews replaced retaliation with -"long suffering," aggressiveness with peacefulness, cruelty with -kindness, and arrogance with humility. These _negative_ virtues took -the place of positive virtues, and were turned into "beatitudes." -By thus "turning the other cheek" and "forgiving one's enemies," -instead of resenting persecution and attempting to avenge the wrongs -perpetrated against them, they were able to prolong life. This system -of conduct, says Nietzsche, was a direct falsification of all natural -conditions and a perversion of all healthy instincts. It was the -morality of an impoverished and subservient people, and was adopted by -the Jews only when they had been stripped of their power. - -Nietzsche presents a psychological history of Israel as an example of -the process by which natural values were denaturalised. The God of -Israel was Jehovah. He was the expression of the nation's consciousness -of power, of joy and of hope. Victory and salvation were expected -from him: he was the God of justice. The Assyrians and internal -anarchy changed the conditions of Israel. Jehovah was no longer able -to bring victory to his people, and consequently the nature of this -God was changed. In the hands of the priest he became a weapon, and -unhappiness was interpreted as punishment for "sins." Jehovah became a -moral dictator, and consequently morality among the Israelites ceased -to be an expression of the conditions of life and became an abstract -theory opposed to life. Nor did the Jewish priesthood stop at this. It -interpreted the whole of history with a view to showing that all sin -against Jehovah led to punishment and that all pious worship of Jehovah -resulted in reward. A moral order of the universe was thus substituted -for a natural one. To bolster up this theory a "revelation" became -necessary. Accordingly a "stupendous literary fraud" was perpetrated, -and the "holy scriptures" were "discovered" and foisted upon the -people. The priests, avid for power, made themselves indispensable -by attributing to the will of God all those acts they desired of the -people. Repentance, namely: submission to the priests, was inaugurated. -Thus Christianity, hostile to all reality and power, gained its footing. - -The psychology of Christ, as set forth in "The Antichrist," and the -use made of his doctrines by those who directly followed him, form an -important part of Nietzsche's argument against Christian morality. -Christ's doctrine, according to Nietzsche, was one of immediacy. It -was a mode of conduct and not, according to the present Christian -conception, a preparation for a future world. Christ was a simple -heretic in his rebellion against the existing political order. He -represented a reactionary mode of existence---a system of conduct which -said Nay to life, a code of inaction and non-interference. His death on -the cross was meant as a supreme example and proof of this doctrine. -It remained for his disciples to attach other meanings to it. Loving -Christ as they did, and consequently blinded by that love, they were -unable to forgive his execution at the hands of the State. At the same -time they were unprepared to follow his example and to give their -own lives to the cause of his teachings. A feeling of revenge sprang -up in them, and they endeavoured to find an excuse for his death. To -what was it attributable? And the answer they found, says Nietzsche, -was "dominant Judaism, its ruling class." For the moment they failed -to realise that the "Kingdom of God," as preached by Christ, was an -earthly thing, something contained within the individual; and after the -crucifixion it was necessary for them either to follow Christ's example -or to interpret his death, a voluntary one, as a promise of future -happiness, that is, to translate his _practical_ doctrine into symbolic -terms. They unhesitatingly chose the latter. - -In their search for an explanation as to how God could have allowed -his "son" to be executed, they fell upon the theory that Christ's -death was a sacrifice for their sins, an expiation for their guilt. -From that time on, says Nietzsche, "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 then rationalised the conception by -introducing into it the doctrine of personal immortality by means of -having Christ rise from the dead; and he preached this immortality as -a reward for virtue. Thus, asserts Nietzsche, Christ's effort toward a -Buddhistic movement of peace, "toward real and _not_ merely promised -_happiness on earth"_ was controverted by his posterity. Nothing of -Christ's original doctrine remained, once Paul, the forger, set to work -to twist it to his own ends. Paul went further and by changing and -falsifying it turned all Jewish history into a _prophecy_ for his own -teachings. Thus the whole doctrine of Christ, the true meaning of his -death and the realities which he taught, were altered and distorted. In -short, Christ's life was used as a means for furthering the religion of -Paul, who gave to it the name of Christianity. - -A most important part of "The Antichrist" is that passage wherein -Nietzsche defines his order of castes. Every healthy society, says he, -falls naturally into three separate and distinct types. These classes -condition one another and "gravitate differently in the psychological -sense." Each type has its own work, its own duties, its own emotions, -its own compensations and mastership. The first class, comprising the -rulers, is distinguished by its intellectual superiority. It devolves -upon this class "to represent happiness, beauty and goodness on earth." -The members of this superior class are in the minority, but they are -nevertheless the creators of values. "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."_ They are at once the -most honourable, cheerful and gracious of all men. The second class -is composed of those who relieve the first class of their duties and -execute the will of the rulers. They are the guardians of the law, the -merchants and professional men, the warriors and the judges. In brief, -they are the executors of the race. The third class is made up of -the workers, the lowest order of man--those destined for menial and -disagreeable tasks. "The fact," says Nietzsche, "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 -specialty, is a natural instinct." The conception of these classes -contains the nucleus of Nietzsche's doctrine. It embodies his whole -idea of a natural aristocracy as opposed to the spurious European -aristocracy of the present day, wherein the rulers are in reality -merely members of the second class. - -The charge is constantly brought against Nietzsche by the ecclesiastic -dialecticians that his criticism of Christianity is fraught with the -very nihilism against which he so eloquently argues. There is perhaps -a slight basis for such a contention if we confine ourselves strictly -to those of his utterances against the Jewish morality which appear in -his previous books. But in "The Antichrist" this does not hold true -even in the slightest manner. Nietzsche is constantly supplanting modes -of action for every Christian virtue he denies. He is as constructive -as he is destructive. "The Antichrist" contains, not only a complete -denial of all Christian morality, but a statement of a new and -consistent system of ethics based on the research of all his works. - - -EXCERPTS FROM "THE ANTICHRIST" - -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 (virtue in the Renaissance sense, _virtu,_ -free from all moralic acid). The weak and 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. 128 - -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_ against 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. 130 - -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. 131 - -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. 131 - -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. 131 - -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. 131-132 - -This depressing and infectious instinct thwarts those instincts -which aim at the preservation and enhancement of the value of life: -by _multiplying_ misery quite as much as by preserving all that is -miserable, it is the principal agent in promoting decadence. 132 - -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." 135 - -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. 137 - -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). 141-142 - -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 profit 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. 143 - -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. 143 - -The Christian concept of God--God as the deity of the sick, God as a -spider, God as a 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! 146 - -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." 151 - -If _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._ 152-153 - -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 cankerworm of conscience. 157-158 - -What does a "moral order of the universe" mean? That once and for all -there is such a thing as 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 ascendency of the priesthood. 158-159 - -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. 162 - -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. 162-163 - -_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. 166 - -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 _killeth._ 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 things,--everything else the whole of reality, the whole -of nature, language even, has only the value of a sign, of a simile for -him. 169-170 - -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 himself by means of a _different_ mode of action.... 171 - -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.... 171-172 - -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._ 174 - -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. 175 - -"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! 178 - -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. -173-179 - -To regard a man like St.-Paul as honest (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. 185 - -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 owed 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. 185-186 - -With Christianity, the art of feeling 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. -188 - -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. 189-190 - -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, openheartedness -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 these -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. 193-194 - -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!" 195-196 - -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." 197 - -The priest knows only one great danger, and that is science,--the -healthy concept of cause and effect. But, on the whole, science -flourishes only in 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. 199 - -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 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 _priest's_ -attack! A _parasite's_ attack! A vampyrism of pale subterranean -leeches! 200 - -"Faith saveth; _therefore_ it is true."--It might be objected here that -it is precisely salvation which is not probed 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. 201 - -Holiness in itself is simply a symptom of an impoverished, enervated -and incurably deteriorated body! 203-204 - -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. 204 - -"Faith" simply means the refusal to know what is true. 205 - -The conclusion which all idiots, women and common people come to, that -there must be something in a cause for which some one 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. 208 - -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. 209-210 - -Whom do I hate most among the 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. 220 - -The Christian and the anarchist are both decadents; they are both -incapable of acting in any other way than disintegratingly, poisonously -and witheringly, like _bloodsuckers;_ 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. 221-222 - -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 race, and refined luxuries of the Moors! 226 - -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 lie, and every honest impulse -into an ignominy of the soul. Let any one 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.... 230-231 - - - - -XI - - -"The Will to Power" - -Volume I - - -All the evidences of what was to be Nietzsche's final and complete -philosophical work in four volumes, are contained in two volumes -of desultory and often highly condensed notes which were recently -issued under the single caption of "The Will to Power" _("Die Wille -zur Macht")._ On this culminating work Nietzsche had laboured from -1883 until his final breakdown. He made two plans for "The Will to -Power"--one in 1886 and the other in 1887. As the 1887 plan was the -one ultimately adhered to, there seems no reason to hesitate about -accepting it as the right one. The titles of the four books which -comprised this final work as it stands to-day are "European Nihilism," -"A Criticism of the Highest Values that Have Prevailed Hitherto," -"The Principles of a New Valuation" and "Discipline and Breeding." -These headings are according to the last plan made at Nice in 1887, -and although, as I stated in the preceding chapter, there was some -hesitation between the general title of "The Will to Power" and "The -Transvaluation of All Values," "The Antichrist," which fell under the -latter heading, must not be considered as forming a part of "The Will -to Power." However, "The Antichrist" and also "Beyond Good and Evil," -"The Genealogy of Morals" and "The Twilight of the Idols," are closely -related in thought to "The Will to Power." This fact is borne out not -only by internal evidence, by the manner in which the books overlap, -and by the constant redistribution of titles which sometimes prove -the unity of the last phase of his thought, but also by the testimony -of those who had Nietzsche's confidence and could watch him at close -quarters. - -Nietzsche intended to embody in the four books of "The Will to Power" -the entire sweep of his philosophical teachings. This work was to be -a summary, not only in statement but also in analysis, of his ethical -system. His preceding books had been replete in repetitions, and lacked -both organisation and sequence. His health was such that he could -work only sporadically and in short shifts, with the result that he -was constantly trying to crowd an enormous amount of material into a -short space. He was able to deal with but one point at a time, and, as -his working period was frequently too short to develop that point as -fully as he desired, we find him constantly going back over old ground, -altering his syllogisms, making addenda, interpolating analogies, and -in numerous other ways changing and clarifying what he had previously -written. "The Will to Power" was to be, then, a colossal organisation -of all his writings, with every step intact, and every conclusion in -its place. And throughout the four volumes emphasis was to be put on -his motivating doctrine, the will to power, an oppositional theory to -Darwin's theory of struggle for mere existence. But although we have -two large volumes of notes, these jottings lack in a large degree the -co-ordination which would have characterised them had Nietzsche been -able to carry out his plan. - -The notes of these two books are the work of many years, and the -putting together of them for publication has been done without any -attempt to alter their original text. They are just as Nietzsche -left them--in some cases completed and closely argued paragraphs, in -others mere notations and memoranda, elliptic and unelaborated. It is -possible, however, to gain a very adequate idea of what was to be the -contents of this final work, due to the copiousness of the material -at hand. From the time of finishing "Thus Spake Zarathustra" to 1889, -Nietzsche was constantly making notes for his great work, and there -is no phase of his thought which is not touched upon in these two -remaining volumes. By following their pages closely, in the light -of his foregoing works, one gets a very definite impression of the -synthesis of his thoughts. Especially true is this of the second volume -of "The Will to Power," for it is here that his cardinal doctrine is -most strongly and consistently emphasised and its relationship to all -human relationships most concisely drawn. Because of this fact I have -chosen to consider the two volumes separately. The first volume is full -of material more or less familiar to those who have followed Nietzsche -in his earlier works. The notes are, in the majority of cases, -elaborations and explanations of doctrines contained in those books -which followed "Thus Spake Zarathustra." As such they are important. - -The first volume is divided into two sections--"European Nihilism" and -"A Criticism of the Highest Values that Have Prevailed Hitherto." Two -subdivisions are found under section one--"Nihilism" and "Concerning -the History of European Nihilism." In this first subdivision Nietzsche -defines Nihilism and attempts to trace its origin. He states that it -is an outcome of the valuations and interpretations of existence -which have formerly prevailed, namely: the result of the doctrines of -Christianity. For our adherence to Christian morality, Nietzsche says, -we must pay dearly: by this adherence we are losing our equilibrium -and are on the verge of adopting opposite valuations--those consisting -of Nihilistic elements. He defines the Nihilistic movement as an -expression of decadence, and declares that this decadence is spreading -throughout all our modern institutions. Under his second subdivision, -he explains that modern gloominess is a result of the "slow advance -and rise of the middle and lower classes," and asserts that this -gloominess is accompanied by moral hypocrisy and the decadent virtues -of sympathy and pity. In this connection he denies that the nineteenth -century shows an improvement over the sixteenth. No better analysis -of the effects of Christian morality on modern man is to be found in -any of Nietzsche's writings than in this treatise of Nihilism; and a -close study of this analysis will greatly help one in grasping the full -significance of the doctrine of the will to power. Although the notes -in this book are the least satisfactory of all the portions of "The -Will to Power," being both tentative and incomplete, I have been able -to select enough definite statements from them to give an adequate idea -of both Nietzsche's theories and conclusions in regard to Nihilism. - -In the second section of Volume I, "A Criticism of the Highest Values -That Have Prevailed Hitherto," the notes are fuller and more closely -organised. This is due to the fact that the ground covered by them -is in the main the same ground covered by "The Antichrist," "The -Genealogy of Morals" and "Beyond Good and Evil." In fact, there is -in these notes much repetition of passages to be found in the three -previous volumes. The first subdivision of this second section is -called "Criticism of Religion," and there is little material in it -which does not appear in "The Antichrist." Even in the manner of -expression there exists so strong a similarity that I am inclined to -think Nietzsche used these notes in composing his famous philippic -against Christianity. Consequently I have made but few quotations from -this division, choosing in each instance only such passages as do not -possess a direct parallel in his earlier work. We find here the same -inquiry into the origin of religions, the same analysis of Christian -ideals, the same history of Christian doctrines, and the same argument -against the dissemination of Christian faiths as are contained in "The -Antichrist." However, these present notes are sufficiently different -from this previous book to interest the thorough student, and there -are occasional speculations advanced which are not to be encountered -elsewhere in Nietzsche's writings. For the casual reader, however, -there is little of new interest in this subdivision. - -The same criticism holds true to a large extent when we come to the -second subdivision of the second section "A Criticism of Morality." In -"The Genealogy of Morals" we have a discussion of practically all the -subjects considered in the present notes, such as the origin of moral -valuations, the basis of conscience, the influence of the herd, the -dominance of virtue, the slander of the so-called evil man, and the -significance of such words as "improving" and "elevating." However, -there is sufficient new material in these notes to warrant a reading, -for although, despite a few exceptions, there are no new issues posed, -certain points which were put forth only in a speculative and abridged -manner in earlier books, are here enlarged upon. This is especially -true in regard to the doctrine of rank. Nietzsche has been accused of -advocating only an individualistic morality. But the truth is that he -advanced two codes. He preached a morality for the herd, a definite -system which suited the needs of the serving classes. For the superior -individuals, on the other hand, he taught another code, one which -fitted and met the needs of the rulers. The herd morality has always -sought to create and maintain a single type of mediocre man. Nietzsche -preached the necessity of the superior, as well as the inferior, type -of man; and in his present notes he goes into this doctrine more fully -than heretofore. Furthermore, he makes clear his stand in regard to -the weak. On page 291 he states, "I have declared war against the -anæmic Christian ideal (together with what is closely related to it), -not because I want to annihilate it, but only to put an end to its -_tyranny_ and clear the way for other _ideals,_ for _more robust_ -ideals." It has been stated, even in quarters where we have a right -to look for more intelligent criticism, that Nietzsche favoured the -complete elimination of the weak and incompetent. No such advocacy is -to be found in his teachings. To the contrary, as will be seen from the -above quotation, he preached only against the _dominance_ of the weak. -He resented their supremacy over the intelligent man. Their existence, -he maintained, was a most necessary thing. This belief is insisted upon -in many places, and one should bear the point in mind when reading the -criticisms of socialism to be found throughout the present volume. - -Another new point to be found in these notes relates to the immoral -methods used by the disseminators of morals. From the passages in -which these new points are raised I have taken the quotations which -follow at the end of this chapter. - -In the third and last subdivision of this second section, "Criticism -of Philosophy," we have an extension of Chapter I in "Beyond Good -and Evil," "Prejudices of Philosophers," and of the two chapters in -"The Twilight of the Idols"--"The Problem of Socrates" and "Reason -in Philosophy." The notes (excepting a few pages of general remarks) -occupy themselves with a criticism of Greek philosophy and with -an analysis of philosophical truths and errors. These notes touch -only indirectly on Nietzsche's doctrines, and may be looked upon as -explanations of his intellectual methods. - -Despite their fragmentariness, the notes in this volume, as I have -said, permit one to gain an adequate idea of Nietzsche's purpose. In -making my excerpts from this book, I have chosen those passages which -will throw new light upon his philosophy rather than those statements -of conclusions which have been previously encountered. - - -EXCERPTS FROM "THE WILL TO POWER" volume I - -What does Nihilism mean?--_That the highest values are losing their -value._ 8 - -Thorough Nihilism is the conviction that life is absurd, in the -light of the highest values already discovered; it also includes the -view that we have not the smallest right to assume the existence of -transcendental objects or things in themselves, which would be either -divine or morality incarnate. - -This view is the result of fully developed "truthfulness": therefore a -consequence of the belief in morality. 8 - -_Moral valuations are condemnations, negations; morality is the -abdication of the will to live._ 12 - -All values with which we have tried, hitherto, to lend the world -some worth, from our point of view, and with which we have therefore -_deprived it of all worth_ (once these values have been shown to be -inapplicable)--all these values, are, psychologically, the results of -certain views of utility, established for the purpose of maintaining -and increasing the dominion of certain communities: but falsely -projected into the nature of things. It is always man's _exaggerated -ingenuousness_ to regard himself as the sense and measure of all -things. 15 - -Every purely _moral_ valuation (as, for instance, the Buddhistic) -_terminates in Nihilism:_ Europe must expect the same thing! It is -supposed that one can get along with a morality bereft of a religious -background; but in this direction the road to Nihilism is opened. 19 - -Nihilism is not only a meditating over the "in vain"--not only the -belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one's -shoulder to the plough; _one destroys._ 22 - -The time is coming when we shall have to pay for having been -_Christians_ for two thousand years: we are losing the equilibrium -which enables us to live--for a long while we shall not know in what -direction we are travelling. We are hurling ourselves headlong into the -_opposite_ valuations, with that degree of energy which could only have -been engendered in man by an _overvaluation_ of himself. - -Now, everything is false from the root, words and nothing but words, -confused, feeble, or overstrained. 25 - -Modern Pessimism is an expression of the uselessness only of the -_modern_ world, not of the world and existence as such. 29 - -The "preponderance of _pain over pleasure_" or the reverse (Hedonism); -both of these doctrines are already signposts to Nihilism.... - -For here, in both cases, no other final purpose is sought than the -phenomenon pleasure or pain. 29 - -"Life is not worth living"; "Resignation"; "what is the good of -tears?"--this is a feeble and sentimental attitude of mind. 29-30 - -People have not yet seen what is so terribly obvious--namely, that -Pessimism is not a problem but a _symptom,_--that the term ought to be -replaced by "Nihilism,"--that the question, "to be or not to be," is -itself an illness, a sign of degeneracy, an idiosyncrasy. - -The Nihilistic movement is only an expression of physiological -decadence. 32 - -_Decay, decline,_ and _waste,_ are, _per se,_ in no way open to -objection; they are the natural consequences of life and vital growth. -The phenomenon of decadence is just as necessary to life as advance or -progress is: we are not in a position which enables us to _suppress_ -it. On the contrary, reason _would have it retain its rights._ - -It is disgraceful on the part of socialist-theorists to argue that -circumstances and social combinations could be devised which would put -an end to all vice, illness, crime, prostitution, and poverty.... But -that is tantamount to condemning _Life._ 33 - -Decadence itself is not a thing _that can be withstood:_ it is -absolutely necessary and is proper to all ages and all peoples. -That which must be withstood, and by all means in our power, is the -spreading of the contagion among the sound parts of the organism. 33-34 - -All those things which heretofore have been regarded as the _causes of -degeneration,_ are really its effects. 34 - -If Nature have no pity on the degenerate, it is not therefore immoral: -the growth of physiological and moral evils in the human race, is -rather the _result of morbid and unnatural morality._ 44 - -The whole of our sociology knows no other instinct than that of the -herd, _i.e.,_ of a _multitude of mere ciphers_--of which every cipher -has "equal rights," and where it is a virtue to be--naught. 45 - -Nihilism is a sign that the botched and bungled have no longer any -consolation, that they destroy in order to be destroyed, that, having -been deprived of morality, they no longer have any reason to "resign -themselves," that they take up their stand on the territory of the -opposite principle, and _will also exercise power_ themselves, by -compelling the powerful to become their hangmen. 52 - -Our age, with its indiscriminate endeavours to mitigate distress, to -honour it, and to wage war in advance with unpleasant possibilities, is -an age of the _poor._ 57 - -Overwork, curiosity and sympathy--our _modern vices._ 64 - -Christianity, revolution, the abolition of slavery, equal rights, -philanthropy, love of peace, justice, truth: all these big words are -only valuable in a struggle, as banners: not as realities, but as -_showwords,_ for something quite different (yea, even quite opposed to -what they mean!). 68 - -The nineteenth century shows no advance whatever on the sixteenth: -and the German spirit of 1888 is an example of a backward movement -when compared with that of 1788.... Mankind does not advance, it does -not even exist. The aspect of the whole is much more like that of a -huge experimenting workshop where some things in all ages succeed, -while an incalculable number of things fail; where all order, logic, -co-ordination, and responsibility is lacking. How dare we blink the -fact that the rise of Christianity is a decadent movement?--that the -German Reformation was a recrudescence of Christian barbarism?--that -the Revolution destroyed the instinct for an organisation of society on -a large scale?... Man is not an example of progress as compared with -animals: the tender son of culture is an abortion compared with the -Arab or the Corsican; the Chinaman is a more successful type--that is -to say, richer in sustaining power than the European. 72-73 - -I know best why man is the only animal that laughs: he alone suffers -so excruciatingly that he was _compelled_ to invent laughter. The -unhappiest and most melancholy animal is, as might have been expected, -the most cheerful. 74 - -Socialism--or the _tyranny_ of the meanest and the most -brainless,--that is to say, the superficial, the envious, and the -mummers, brought to its zenith,--is, as a matter of fact, the logical -conclusion of "modern ideas" and their latent anarchy: but in the -genial atmosphere of democratic well-being the capacity for forming -resolutions or even for coming _to an end_ at all, is paralysed. Men -will follow--but no longer their reason. That is why socialism is on -the whole a hopelessly bitter affair: and there is nothing more amusing -than to observe the discord between the poisonous and desperate faces -of present-day socialists--and what wretched and nonsensical feelings -does not their style reveal to us!--and the childish lamblike happiness -of their hopes and desires. 102 - -This is the teaching which life itself preaches to all living things: -the morality of Development. To have and to wish to have more, in a -word, Growth--that is life itself. In the teaching of socialism "a will -to the denial of life" is but poorly concealed: botched men and races -they must be who have devised a teaching of this sort. 102 - -_Spiritual enlightenment_ is an unfailing means of making men -uncertain, weak of will, and needful of succour and support; in short, -of developing the herding instincts in them. 105 - -When the _feeling of power_ suddenly seizes and overwhelms a man,--and -this takes place in the case of all the great passions,--a doubt arises -in him concerning his own person: he dare not think himself the cause -of this astonishing sensation--and thus he posits a stronger person, a -Godhead as its cause, 114-115 - -Religion has lowered the concept "man"; its ultimate conclusion is -that all goodness, greatness, and truth are superhuman, and are only -obtainable by the grace of God. 116 - -_In short:_ what is the price paid for the _improvement_ supposed to -be due to morality?--The unhinging of _reason,_ the reduction of all -motives to fear and hope (punishment and reward); _dependence_ upon the -tutelage of priests, and upon a formulary exactitude which is supposed -to express a divine will; the implantation of a "conscience" which -establishes a false science in the place of experience and experiment: -as though all one had to do or had not to do were predetermined--a kind -of contraction of the seeking and striving spirit;--_in short:_ the -worst _mutilation_ of man that can be imagined, and it is pretended -that "the good man" is the result. 122-123 - -Paganism is that which says yea to all that is natural, it is -innocence in being natural, "naturalness." _Christianity_ is that which -says no to all that is natural, it is a certain lack of dignity in -being natural; hostility to Nature. 127 - -_Christianity_ is a degenerative movement, consisting of all kinds of -decaying and excremental elements: it is _not_ the expression of the -downfall of a race, it is, from the root, an agglomeration of all the -morbid elements which are mutually attractive and which gravitate to -one another. - -It is therefore _not_ a national religion, _not_ determined by race: it -appeals to the disinherited everywhere; it consists of a foundation of -resentment against all that is successful and dominant: it is in need -of a symbol which represents the damnation of everything successful and -dominant. It is opposed to every form of _intellectual_ movement, to -all philosophy: it takes up the cudgels for idiots, and utters a curse -upon all intellect. Resentment against those who are gifted, learned, -intellectually independent: in all these it suspects the element of -success and domination. 130 - -All Christian "truth," is idle falsehood and deception, and is -precisely the reverse of that which was at the bottom of the first -Christian movement. 133 - -To be really Christian would mean to be absolutely indifferent to -dogmas, cults, priests, church, and theology. 133 - -A God who died for our sins, salvation through faith, resurrection -after death--all these things are the counterfeit coins of -real-Christianity, for which that pernicious blockhead Paul must be -held responsible. 138 - -Christianity has, from the first, always transformed the symbolical -into crude realities: - -(1) The antitheses "true life" and "false life" were misunderstood and -changed into "life here" and "life beyond." - -(2) The notion "eternal life," as opposed to the personal life which is -ephemeral, is translated into "personal immortality"; - -(3) The process of fraternising by means of sharing the same food and -drink, after the Hebrew-Arabian manner, is interpreted as the "miracle -of transubstantiation." - -(4) "Resurrection" which was intended to mean the entrance to the "true -life," in the sense of being intellectually "born again," becomes an -historical contingency, supposed to take place at some moment after -death; - -(5) The teaching of the Son of man as the "Son of God,"--that is to -say, the life-relationship between man and God,--becomes the "second -person of the Trinity," and thus the filial relationship of every -man--even the lowest--to God, is _done away with;_ - -(6) Salvation through faith (that is to say, that there is no other way -to this filial relationship to God save through the _practice of life_ -taught by Christ) becomes transformed into the belief that there is a -miraculous way of _atoning_ for all _sin;_ though not through our own -endeavours, but by means of Christ: - -For all these purposes, "Christ on the Cross" had to be interpreted -afresh. The _death_ itself would certainly not be the principal feature -of the event ... it was only another sign pointing to the way in which -one should behave towards the authorities and the laws of the world -_--that one was not to defend oneself--this was the exemplary life._ -139-140 - -The Gospel is the announcement that the road to happiness lies open for -the lowly and the poor--that all one has to do is to emancipate one's -self from all institutions, traditions, and the tutelage of the higher -classes. Thus Christianity is no more than the _typical teaching of -Socialists._ - -Property, acquisitions, mother-country, status and rank, tribunals, -the police, the State, the Church, Education, Art, militarism: all -these are so many obstacles in the way of happiness, so many mistakes, -snares, and devil's artifices, on which the Gospel passes sentence--all -this is typical of socialistic doctrines. - -Behind all this there is the outburst, the explosion of a concentrated -loathing of the "masters"--the instinct which discerns the happiness of -freedom after such long oppression. 173-174 - -Christianity is a denaturalisation of gregarious morality: under the -power of the most complete misapprehensions and self-deceptions. -Democracy is a more natural form of it, and less sown with falsehood. -It is a fact that the oppressed, the low, and whole mob of slaves and -half-castes, _will prevail._ - -First step: they make themselves free--they detach themselves, at -first in fancy only; they recognise each other; they make themselves -paramount. - -Second step: they enter the lists, they demand acknowledgment, equal -rights, "Justice." - -Third step: they demand privileges (they draw the representatives of -power over to their side). - -Fourth step: they _alone_ want all power, and they _have_ it. 177 - -When and where has any man, _of any note at all,_ resembled the -Christian ideal?--at least in the eyes of those who are psychologists -and triers of the heart and reins. Look at all Plutarch's heroes! 180 - -The _higher_ man distinguishes himself from the _lower_ by his -fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune: it is a -sign of _degeneration_ when eudemonistic values begin to prevail -(physiological fatigue and enfeeblement of will-power). Christianity, -with its prospect of "blessedness," is the typical attitude of mind of -a suffering and impoverished species of man. Abundant strength will be -active, will suffer, and will go under. 182 - -All ideals are dangerous; because they lower and brand realities; they -are all poisons. 183 - -These "conditions of salvation" of which the Christian is conscious are -merely variations of the same diseased state--the interpretation of an -attack of epilepsy by means of a particular formula which is provided, -_not_ by science, but by religious mania. 190 - -_A pang of conscience_ in a man is a sign that his character is not -yet equal to his _deed._ There is such a thing as a pang of conscience -after _good deeds:_ in this case it is their unfamiliarity, their -incompatibility with an old environment. 192 - -We immoralists prefer to disbelieve in "faults." We believe that all -deeds, of what kind soever, are identically the same at root; just as -deeds which turn _against_ us may be useful from an economical point -of view, and even _generally desirable._ In certain individual cases, -we admit that we might well have been _spared_ a given action; the -circumstances alone predisposed us in its favour. Which of us, if -_favoured_ by circumstances, would not already have committed every -possible crime? ... That is why, one should never say: "Thou shouldst -never have done such and such a thing," but only: "How strange it -is that I have not done such and such a thing hundreds of times -already!"--As a matter of fact, only a very small number of acts are -_typical_ acts and real epitomes of a personality, and seeing what a -small number of people really are personalities, a single act very -rarely characterises a man. Acts are mostly dictated by circumstances; -they are superficial or merely reflex movements performed in response -to a stimulus, long before the depths of our beings are affected or -consulted in the matter. 192-193. - -Experience teaches us that, in every case in which a man has elevated -himself to any great extent above the average of his fellows, every -high degree of _power_ always involves a corresponding degree of -_freedom_ from Good and Evil as also from "true" and "false," and -cannot take into account what goodness dictates. 200 - -What is Christian "virtue" and "love of men," if not precisely this -mutual assistance with a view to survival, this solidarity of the weak, -this thwarting of selection? What is Christian altruism, if it is not -the mob-egotism of the weak which divines that, if everybody looks -after everybody else, every individual will be preserved for a longer -period of time?... He who does not consider this attitude of mind -as _immoral,_ as a crime against life, himself belongs to the sickly -crowd, and also shares their instincts.... Genuine love of mankind -exacts sacrifice for the good of the species--it is hard, full of -self-control, because it needs human sacrifices. 203 - -What deserves the most rigorous condemnation, is the ambiguous and -cowardly infirmity of purpose of a religion like _Christianity,_--or -rather like the _Church,--_which, instead of recommending death and -self-destruction, actually protects all the botched and bungled, and -encourages them to propagate their kind. 204 - -Let us see what the "genuine Christian" does of all the things which -his instincts forbid him to do:--he covers beauty, pride, riches, -self-reliance, brilliancy, knowledge, and power with suspicion and -_mud_--in short, _all culture:_ his object is to deprive the latter of -its _clean conscience._ 200 - -What is it we combat in Christianity? That it aims at destroying -the strong, at breaking their spirit, at exploiting their moments -of weariness and debility, at converting their proud assurance -into anxiety and conscience-trouble; that it knows how to poison -the noblest instincts and to infect them with disease, until their -strength, their will to power, turns inwards, against themselves--until -the strong perish through their excessive self-contempt and -self-immolation. 209 - -All virtues should be looked upon as physiological _conditions._ 213 - -Formerly it was said of every form of morality, "Ye shall know them by -their fruits." I say of every form of morality: "It is a fruit, and -from it I learn the _Soil_ out of which it grew." 214 - -My leading doctrine is this: _there are no moral phenomena, but only a -moral interpretation of phenomena. The origin of this interpretation -itself lies beyond the pale of morality._ 214 - -The whole of morality of Europe is based upon the values _which are -useful to the herd._ 228 - -The herd regards the _exception,_ whether it be above or beneath its -general level, as something which is antagonistic and dangerous to -itself. Their trick in dealing with the exceptions above them, the -strong, the mighty, the wise, and the fruitful, is to persuade them to -become guardians, herdsmen, and watchmen--in fact, to become their -_head-servants:_ thus they convert a danger into a thing which is -useful. 231 - -My teaching is this, that the herd seeks to maintain and preserve one -type of man, and that it defends itself on two sides--that is to say, -against those which are decadents from its ranks (criminals, etc.), and -against those who rise superior to its dead level. 236 - -My philosophy aims at a new _order of rank: not_ at an individualistic -morality. The spirit of the herd should rule within the herd--but not -beyond it: the leaders of the herd require a fundamentally different -valuation for their actions. 237 - -Conscience condemns an action because that action has been condemned -for a long period of time: all conscience does is to imitate: it -does not create values. That which first led to the condemnation of -certain actions, was _not_ conscience: but the knowledge of (or the -prejudice against) its consequences.... The approbation of conscience, -the feeling of well-being, of "inner peace," is of the same order of -emotions as the artist's joy over his work--it proves nothing. 242 - -_By what means does a virtue attain to power?_--With precisely the same -means as a political party: slander, suspicion, the undermining of -opposing virtues that happen to be already in power, the changing of -their names, systematic persecution and scorn; in short, _by means of -acts of general "immorality."_ 252 - -Cruelty has become transformed and elevated into tragic pity, so that -we no longer recognise it as such. The same has happened to the love -of the sexes which has become amour-passion; the slavish attitude of -mind appears as Christian obedience; wretchedness becomes humility; the -disease of the _nervus sympathicus,_ for instance, is eulogised as -Pessimism, Pascalism, or Carlylism, etc. 253 - -The qualities which constitute the strength of an _opposing race_ or -class are declared to be the most evil and pernicious things it has: -for by means of them it may be harmful to us. 255 - -I recognise virtue in that: (1) it does not insist upon being -recognised; (2) it does not presuppose the existence of virtue -everywhere, but precisely something else; (3) it does _not suffer_ -from the absence of virtue, but regards it rather as a relation of -perspective which throws virtue into relief: it does not proclaim -itself; (4) it makes no propaganda; (5) it allows no one to pose as -judge because it is always a personal virtue; (6) it does precisely -what is generally _forbidden:_ virtue as I understand it is the actual -_vetitum_ within all gregarious legislation; (7) in short, I recognise -virtue in that it is in the Renaissance style--_virtu_--free from all -moralic acid. 258 - -Lust of property, lust of power, laziness, simplicity, fear; all these -things are interested in virtue; that is why it stands so securely. 261 - -Vice is a somewhat arbitrary epitome of certain effects resulting -from physiological degeneracy. A general proposition such as that -which Christianity teaches, namely, "Man is evil," would be justified -provided one were justified in regarding a given type of degenerate -man as normal. But this may be an exaggeration. Of course, wherever -Christianity prospers and prevails, the proposition holds good: for -then the existence of an unhealthy soil--of a degenerate territory--is -demonstrated. 269 - -It is difficult to have sufficient respect for man, when one sees how -he understands the art of fighting his way, of enduring, of turning -circumstances to his own advantage, and of overthrowing opponents; but -when he is seen in the light of his _desires,_ he is the most absurd of -all animals. 269 - -As to the whole socialistic ideal: it is nothing but a blockheaded -misunderstanding of the Christian moral ideal. 275 - -An ideal which is striving to prevail or to assert itself endeavours to -further its purpose (a) by laying claim to a _spurious_ origin; (b) by -assuming a relationship between itself and the powerful ideals already -existing; (c) by means of the thrill produced by mystery, as though an -unquestionable power were manifesting itself; (d) by the slander of -its opponents' ideals; (e) by a lying teaching of the advantages which -follow in its wake, for instance: happiness, spiritual peace, general -peace, or even the assistance of a mighty God. 278 - -My view: all the forces and instincts which are the source of life -are lying beneath the _ban of morality:_ morality is the life-denying -instinct. Morality must be annihilated if life is to be emancipated. 278 - -Every one's desire is that there should be no other teaching and -valuation of things than those by means of which he himself succeeds. -Thus the _fundamental tendency_ of the _weak_ and _mediocre_ of all -times, has been to _enfeeble the strong and to reduce them to the -level of the weak: their chief weapon in this process_ was the _moral -principle._ The attitude of the strong towards the weak is branded as -evil; the highest states of the strong become bad bywords. 279 - -Every small community (or individual), finding itself involved in -a struggle, strives to convince itself of this: "Good taste, good -judgment, and virtue are ours." War urges people to this exaggerated -self-esteem. 281 - -Whatever kind of eccentric ideal one may have (whether as a -"Christian," a "free-spirit," an "immoralist," or a German -Imperialist), one should try to avoid insisting upon its being _the_ -ideal; for, by so doing, it is deprived of all its privileged nature. -One should have an ideal as a distinction; one should not propagate it, -and thus level one's self down to the rest of mankind. 281 - -Real heroism consists, _not_ in fighting under the banner of -self-sacrifice, submission and disinterestedness, but in _not fighting -at all_.... "I am thus: I will be thus--and you can go to the devil!" -282 - -Modest, industrious, benevolent, and temperate: thus you would that -men were?--that _good men_ were? But such men I can only conceive as -slaves, the slaves of the future. 289 - -Industry, modesty, benevolence, temperance, are just so many -_obstacles_ in the way of _sovereign sentiments,_ of great _ingenuity,_ -of an heroic purpose, of noble existence for one's self. 290 - -I have declared war against the anæmic Christian ideal (together with -what is closely related to it), not because I want to annihilate it, -but only to put an end to its _tyranny_ and clear the way for other -_ideals,_ for _more robust_ ideals. 291 - -If one does good merely out of pity, it is one's self and not one's -neighbour that one is succouring. 294 - -"One is continually promoting the interests of one's _'ego'_ at the -cost of other people"; "Living consists in living at the cost of -others"--he who has not grasped this fact, has not taken the first step -towards truth to himself. 294 - -A morality and a religion of "love," the _curbing_ of the -self-affirming spirit, and a doctrine encouraging patience, -resignation, helpfulness, and co-operation in word and deed may be of -the highest value within the confines of such classes, even in the -eyes of their rulers: for it restrains the feelings of rivalry, of -resentment, and of envy,--feelings which are only too natural in the -bungled and the botched,--and it even deifies them under the ideal of -humility, of obedience, of slave-life, of being-ruled, of poverty, -of illness, and of lowliness. This explains why the ruling classes -(or races) and individuals of all ages have always upheld the cult of -unselfishness, the gospel of the lowly and of "God on the Cross." 296 - -The _hatred of egoism,_ whether it be one's own (as in the case of the -Socialists) appears as a valuation reached under the predominance of -revenge; and also as an act of prudence on the part of the preservative -instinct of the suffering, in the form of an increase in their feelings -of co-operation and unity.... At bottom, the discharge of resentment -which takes place in the act of judging, rejecting, and punishing -egoism (one's own or that of others) is still a self-preservative -measure on the part of the bungled and the botched. In short: the cult -of altruism is merely a particular form of egoism, which regularly -appears under certain definite physiological circumstances. - -When the Socialist, with righteous indignation, cries for "justice," -"rights," "equal rights," it only shows that he is oppressed by his -inadequate culture, and is unable to understand why he suffers: he -also finds pleasure in crying;--if he were more at ease he would take -jolly good care not to cry in that way: in that case he would seek his -pleasure elsewhere. The same holds good of the Christian: he curses, -condemns, and slanders the "world"--and does not even except himself. -But that is no reason for taking him seriously. In both cases we are -in the presence of invalids who feel better for crying, and who find -relief in slander. 298 - -I value a man according to the _quantum of power and fulness of his -will;_ not according to the enfeeblement and moribund state thereof. I -consider that a philosophy which _teaches_ the denial of will is both -defamatory and slanderous.... I test the _power_ of a _will_ according -to the amount of resistance it can offer and the amount of pain and -torture it can endure and know how to turn to its own advantage; I -do not point to the evil and pain of existence with the finger of -reproach, but rather entertain the hope that life may one day be more -evil and more full of suffering than it has ever been. 304 - -My ultimate conclusion is, that the real man represents a much higher -value than the "desirable" man of any ideal that has ever existed -hitherto; that all "desiderata" in regard to mankind have been -absurd and dangerous dissipations by means of which a particular -kind of man has sought to establish his measures of preservation -and of growth as a law for all; that every "desideratum" of this -kind which has been made to dominate has _reduced_ man's worth, his -strength, and his trust in the future; that the indigence and mediocre -intellectuality of man becomes most apparent, even to-day, when he -reveals a _desire;_ that man's ability to fix values has hitherto been -developed too inadequately to do justice to the actual, not merely to -the "desirable," _worth of man;_ that, up to the present, ideals have -really been the power which has most slandered man and power, the -poisonous fumes which have hung over reality, and which have _seduced -men to yearn for nonentity_.... 311 - -One must be very immoral in order to _make people moral by deeds._ The -moralist's means are the most terrible that have ever been used; he -who has not the courage to be an immoralist in deeds may be fit for -anything else, but not for the duties of a moralist. 314 - -The priests of all ages have always pretended that they wished to -"improve."... But we, of another persuasion, would laugh if a -lion-tamer ever wished to speak to us of his "improved" animals. As a -rule, the taming of a beast is only achieved by deteriorating it: even -the moral man is not a better man; he is rather a weaker member of his -species. 319 - -Up to the present, morality has developed at the _cost_ of: the -ruling classes and their specific instincts, the well-constituted and -_beautiful_ natures, the independent and privileged classes in all -respects. - -Morality, then, is a sort of counter-movement opposing Nature's -endeavours to arrive at a _higher type._ Its effects are: mistrust -of life in general (in so far as its tendencies are felt to be -immoral),--hostility towards the senses (inasmuch as the highest values -are felt to be opposed to the higher instincts).--Degeneration and -self-destruction of "higher natures," because it is precisely in them -that the conflict becomes _conscious._321 - -Suppose the _strong_ were masters in all respects, even in valuing: -let us try and think what their attitude would be towards illness, -suffering, and sacrifice. Self-contempt on the part of the weak would -be the result: they would do their utmost to disappear and to extirpate -their kind. And would this be desirable?--should we really like a world -in which the subtlety, the consideration, the intellectuality, the -_plasticity_--in fact, the whole influence of the weak--was lacking? -... 323 - -Under "Spiritual freedom" I understand something very definite: it is -a state in which one is a hundred times superior to philosophers and -other disciples of "truth" in one's severity towards one's self, in -one's uprightness, in one's courage, and in one's absolute will to say -nay even when it is dangerous to say nay. I regard the philosophers -that have appeared heretofore as _contemptible libertines_ hiding -behind the petticoats of the female "Truth." 384 - - - - -XII - - -"The Will to Power" - -Volume II - - -The second volume of "The Will to Power," even in its present -fragmentary form, is the most important of Nietzsche's works. It -draws together under one cover many of the leading doctrines voiced -in his principal constructive books, and in addition states them in -terms of his fundamental postulate--the will to power. In Volume I -of this work we had the application of this doctrine to morality, -religion and philosophy. In the present book it is applied to science, -nature, society, breeding and art. The notes are more analytical than -in the former volume; and the subject-matter is in itself of greater -importance, being more directly concerned with the exposition of -Nietzsche's main theory. Volume II is also fuller and more homogeneous, -and contains much new material. So compact is its organisation that -one is able to gain a very adequate idea of the purpose which animated -Nietzsche at the time of making these notes. - -The will to power, the principle which Nietzsche held to be the -elementary expression of life, must be understood in order for one to -comprehend the Nietzschean system of ethics. Throughout all the books -which followed "The Joyful Wisdom" we have indirect references to it -and conclusions based on its assumption as a hypothesis. And, although -it was never definitely and finally defined until the publication of -the notes comprising "The Will to Power," it nevertheless was the -actuating motive in all Nietzsche's constructive writings. Simply -stated, the will to power is the biological instinct to maintenance, -persistence and development. Nietzsche holds that Darwin's universal -law of the instinct to mere survival is a misinterpretation of the -forces at work in life. He points out that existence is a condition--a -medium of action--and by no means an end. It is true that only the -fittest survive in nature as a result of the tendency to exist; but -this theory does not account for the activities which take place after -existence has been assured. In order to explain these activities -Nietzsche advances the theory of the will to power and tests all -actions by it. It will be seen that by this theory the universal law -of Darwin is by no means abrogated, but rather is it explained and -developed. - -In the operation of Darwin's biological law there are many forces -at work. That is to say, once the fact of existence is established, -numerous forces can be found at work within the limits of existence. -We know that the forces of nature--acting within the medium of -existence which is an _a priori_ condition--are rarely unified and -directed toward the same result. In short, they are not reciprocal. -To the contrary, they work more often against each other--they are -antagonistic. Immediately a war of forces takes place; and it is this -war that constitutes all action in nature. A force in nature directed -at another force calls forth a resistance and counter-force; and this -instinct to act and to resist is in itself a will to act. Otherwise, -inertia would be the condition of life, once mere existence was assured -by the fittest. But life is not inert. Even when certain organisms -have accomplished the victory for existence, and are no longer moved by -a necessity to struggle for mere being, the will to action persists; -and this will to action, according to Nietzsche, is the will for power, -for in every clash of forces, there is an attempt on the part of each -force to overcome and resist the antagonistic one. The greater the -action, the greater the antagonism. Hence, this tendency in all forces -to _persist_ is at bottom a tendency of self-assertion, of overcoming -counter-forces, of augmenting individual power. Wherever this will to -persist is found, Nietzsche argues that the will to act is present; and -there can be no will to act without a will to power, because the very -desire for existence and development is a desire for power. - -This, in brief, is Nietzsche's doctrine applied to the organic and -inorganic world. In its application to the ideological world, the -reasoning is not changed. In ideas Nietzsche finds this same will to -power. But in them it is the reflection of the principle inherent -in the material world. There is no will inherent in ideas. This -assumption of a reflected will to power in the ideological world is -one of Nietzsche's most important concepts, for it makes all ideas the -outgrowth of ourselves, and therefore dependent on natural laws. It -does away with the conception of supernatural power and with the old -philosophical belief that ideas are superior forces to those of the -organic and inorganic world. Nietzsche once and for all disposes of the -theory that there is anything more powerful than force, and by thus -doing away with this belief, he rationalises all ideas and puts thought -on a tangible and stable basis. In the opening section of the present -book where he applies the will to power to scientific research, the -whole of this new theory is made clear, and I advise the student to -read well this section, for I have been unable to present as clear and -complete an expositional statement of it in Nietzsche's own words as I -would have liked to do, owing to the close and interrelated manner in -which these notes were written. - -Volume II of "The Will to Power" is in two books. The first is called -"The Principles of a New Valuation"; the second, "Discipline and -Breeding." The first book is divided into four sections--"The Will -to Power in Science," "The Will to Power in Nature," "The Will to -Power as Exemplified in Society and in the Individual" and "The Will -to Power in Art." The second book has three divisions--"The Order of -Rank," "Dionysus" and "Eternal Recurrence." Of the first section of -Book One, "The Will to Power in Science," I have already spoken. In -this section Nietzsche shows how arbitrary a thing science is, and how -closely related are its conclusions to the instinct of the scientists, -namely: the instinct of the will to power. Scientists, he holds, are -confronted by the necessity of translating all phenomena into terms -compatible with the struggle for persistence and maintenance. A fact -in nature unaccounted for is a danger, an obstacle to the complete -mastery of natural conditions. Consequently the scientist, directed -and influenced by his will to power, invents explanations which will -bring all facts under his jurisdiction and control, and will thereby -increase his feeling of power. As a result, the great facts of life -are looked upon as of secondary importance to their explanations, and -science becomes, not an intelligent search for knowledge, but a system -of interpretations tending to increase the feeling of mastery in the -men directly connected with it. Thus the law of the will to power, as -manifest in the organic and inorganic world, becomes the dominating -instinct in the ideological world as well. - -It is well to speak here of truth as Nietzsche conceived it. We have -seen how he denied its absolutism and declared it to be relative. But -in his present work he goes further and contends that the feeling of -the increase of power is the determining factor in truth. If, as we -have seen, the "truths" of science are merely those interpretations -which grow out of the scientists' will to power, then truth itself must -be the outgrowth of this instinct. That which makes for the growth and -development of the individual--or in other words, that which increases -the feeling of strength--is necessarily the truth. From this it is easy -to deduce the conclusion that in many instances truth is a reversal of -facts, for preservation very often consists in an adherence to actual -falsity. Thus, the false causality of certain phenomena--the outcome of -logic engendered by a will to power--has not infrequently masqueraded -as truth. Nietzsche holds that this doctrine contains the only possible -definition of truth; and in this doctrine we find an explanation for -many of the apparent paradoxes in his teachings when the matter of -truth and falsity are under discussion. - -The second part of the first book relates to the will to power in -nature, and contains the most complete and lucid explanation of -Nietzsche's basic theory to be found anywhere in his writings. -This section opens with an argument against a purely mechanical -interpretation of the world, and a refutation of the physicists' -concept of "energy." The chemical and physical laws, the atomic -theory and the mechanical concept of movement, he characterises as -"inventions" on the part of scientists and researchers for the purpose -of understanding natural phenomena and therefore of increasing their -feeling of power. The apparent sequence of phenomena which constitutes -"law" is, according to Nietzsche, only a "relation of power between -two or more forces"--a matter of interdependence, a process wherein -the "procession of moments do _not_ determine each other after the -manner of cause and effect." In these observations we see the process -of reasoning with which Nietzsche refutes the current methods of -ascertaining facts and the manner in which he introduces the principle -of will to power into the phenomena of nature. - -It is in this section that Nietzsche discusses at length the points -of divergence between his life principle and that of Darwin. And it -is here also that he treats of the psychology of pleasure and pain in -their relation to the will to power. This latter statement is of great -importance in an understanding of the instincts of life as he taught -them, for it denies both pleasure and pain a place in the determining -of acts. They are both, according to him, but accompanying factors, -never causes, and are but second-rate valuations derived from a -dominating value. He denies that man struggles for happiness. To the -contrary, he holds that all expansion and growth and resistance--in -short, all movement--is related to states of pain, and that, although -the modern man is master of the forces of nature and of himself, he -is no happier than the primeval man. Why, then, does man struggle for -knowledge and growth, knowing that it does not bring happiness? Not for -existence, because existence is already assured him. But for power, -for the feeling of increased mastery. Thus Nietzsche answers the two -common explanations of man's will to action--the need for being and -the desire for happiness--by his doctrine of the will to power. - -The entire teaching of Nietzsche in regard to classes and to the -necessity of divergent moral codes to meet the needs of higher and -lower castes, is contained in the third part of the first book. Here -again he emphasises the need of two codes and makes clear his stand -in relation to the superior individual. As I have pointed out in -preceding chapters, Nietzsche did not attempt to do away with the -morality of the inferior classes. He saw that some such religious -belief as Christianity was imperative for them. His fight was against -its application to all classes, against its dominance. I mention this -point again because it is the basis of the greatest misunderstanding -of Nietzsche's philosophy. Part III is written for the higher man, and -if this viewpoint is assumed on the part of the reader, there will -be no confusion as to doctrines encountered. The statements in this -section are in effect similar to those to be found in Nietzsche's -previous works, but in every instance in the present case they are -directly related to the will to power. Because of this they possess a -significance which does not attach to them in antecedent volumes. - -The whole of Nietzsche's art theories are to be found in Part IV, -"The Will to Power in Art." It is not merely a system of æsthetics -that occupies the pages under this section, for Nietzsche never -divorces art from life itself; and the artist, according to him, is -the superior type, the creator of values. The concepts of beauty and -ugliness are the outgrowths of an overflow of Dionysian power; and -it is to the great artists of the past, the instinctive higher men, -that we owe our current concepts. The principle here is the dominant -one in Nietzsche's philosophy in relation to valuing:--_to the few -individuals of the race are we indebted for the world of values._ To -the student who wishes to go deeply into Nietzsche's ideas of art and -his conception of the artist, and to know in just what manner the -Dionysian and Apollonian figure in his theories, I unhesitatingly -recommend Anthony M. Ludovici's book, "Nietzsche and Art." - -The first section of the second book in this volume contains some of -Nietzsche's finest writing. Its title, "The Order of Rank," explains in -a large measure what material comprises it. It is a description of the -various degrees of man, and a statement of the attributes which belong -to each. No better definition of the different classes of men is to -be found anywhere in this philosopher's writings. One part is devoted -to a consideration of the strong and the weak, and the way in which -they react on one another; another part deals with "the noble man" -and contains (in Aphorism 943) a list of the characteristics of the -noble man, unfortunately too long a list to be quoted in the present -chapter; another part defines "the lords of the earth"; another part -delineates "the great man," and enumerates his specific qualities; -and still another part treats of "the highest man as law-giver of the -future." This section, however, is not a mere series of detached and -isolated definitions, but an important summary of the ethical code -which Nietzsche advanced as a result of his application of the doctrine -of the will to power to the order of individual rank. - -The two remaining sections--"Dionysus" and "Eternal Recurrence"--are -short, and fail to touch on new ground. There are a few robust and -heroic passages in the former section which summarise Nietzsche's -definitions of Apollonian and Dionysian; but in the latter section -there is nothing not found in the pamphlet called "The Eternal -Recurrence" and in "Thus Spake Zarathustra." I do not doubt that -Nietzsche had every intention of elaborating this last section, for -he considered the principle of recurrence a most important one in his -philosophy. But, as it stands, it is but a few pages in length and in -no way touches upon his other philosophical doctrines. If importance it -had in the philosophy of the superman, that importance was never shown -either by Nietzsche or by his critics. - -However, let us not overlook the importance of the doctrine of the -will to power either in its relation to Nietzsche's writings or in its -application to ourselves. By this doctrine the philosopher wished to -make mankind realise its great dormant power. The insistence on the -human basis of all things was no more than a call to arms--an attempt -to instil courage in men who had attributed all great phenomena to -supernatural forces and had therefore acquiesced before them instead -of having endeavoured to conquer them. Nietzsche's object was to make -man surer of himself, to infuse him with pride, to imbue him with more -daring, to awaken him to a full realisation of his possibilities. -This, in brief, is the teaching of the will to power reduced to its -immediate influences. In this doctrine is preached a new virility. -Not the sedentary virility of compromise, but the virility which is -born of struggle and suffering, which is a sign of one's great love -of living. Nietzsche offered a new set of vital ideals to supplant -the decadent ones which now govern us. Resolute faith, the power of -affirmation, initiative, pride, courage and fearlessness--these are the -rewards in the exercise of the will to power. The strength of great -love and the vitality of great deeds, as well as the possibility of -rare and vigorous growth, lie within this doctrine of will. Its object -is to give back to us the life we have lost--the life of beauty and -plenitude, of strength and exuberance. - - -EXCERPTS FROM "THE WILL TO POWER" volume II - -For hundreds of years, pleasure and pain have been represented as the -_motives_ for every action. Upon reflection, however, we are bound to -concede that everything would have proceeded in exactly the same way, -according to precisely the same sequence of cause and effect, if the -states "pleasure" and "pain" had been entirely absent. 8-9 - -The _measure_ of the desire for knowledge depends upon the extent to -which _the Will to Power_ grows in a certain species: a species gets a -grasp of a given amount of reality, _in order to master it, in order to -enlist that amount in its service._ 12 - -It is our needs that _interpret the world;_ our instincts and their -impulses for and against. Every instinct is a sort of thirst for -power.... 13 - -That a belief, however useful it may be for the preservation of a -species, has nothing to do with the truth, may be seen from the fact -that we _must_ believe in time, space, and motion, without feeling -ourselves compelled to regard them as absolute realities. 16 - -_Truth is that hind of error_ without which a certain species of living -being cannot exist. 20 - -In the formation of reason, logic, and the categories, it was a _need_ -in us that was the determining power: not the need "to know," but -to classify, to schematise, for the purpose of intelligibility and -calculation. 29 - -Logic is the attempt on our part to understand the actual world -according to a scheme of Being devised by ourselves; or, more exactly, -it is our attempt at making the actual world more calculable and more -susceptible to formulation, for our own purposes.... 33 - -"Truth" is the will to be master over the manifold sensations that -reach consciousness; it is the will to _classify_ phenomena according -to definite categories. In this way we start out with a belief in the -"true nature" of things (we regard phenomena as real). - -The character of the world in the process of Becoming _is not -susceptible of formulation;_ it is "false" and "contradicts itself." -_Knowledge_ and the process of evolution exclude each other. -_Consequently,_ knowledge must be something else; it must be preceded -by a will to make things knowable, a kind of Becoming in itself must -create the _impression_ of _Being._ 33-34. - -_The chief error of psychologists:_ they regard the indistinct idea -as of a lower _kind_ than the _distinct;_ but that which keeps at a -distance from our consciousness and which is therefore _obscure, may_ -on that very account be quite clear in itself. _The fact that a thing -becomes obscure is a question of the perspective of consciousness._ 42 - -The criterion of truth lies in the enhancement of the feeling of power. -49 - -Logic was intended to be a method of facilitating thought: _a means of -expression,_--not truth.... Later on it got to _act_ like truth.... 50 - -In a world which was essentially false, truthfulness would be an -_anti-natural tendency:_ its only purpose would be to provide a means -of attaining to a _higher degree of falsity._ 51 - -We have absolutely no experience concerning _cause;_ viewed -psychologically we derive the whole concept from the subjective -conviction, that _we_ ourselves are causes. 55 - -"Truth" is not something which is present and which has to be found and -discovered; it is something _which has to be created_ and which _gives_ -its name _to a process,_ or, better still, to the Will to overpower, -which in itself has no purpose.... 60 - -The absolute is even an absurd concept: an "absolute mode of existence" -is nonsense, the concept "being," "thing," is always _relative_ to us. - -The trouble is that, owing to the old antithesis "apparent" and "real," -the correlative valuations "little value" and "absolute value" have -been spread abroad. 83 - -Man seeks "the truth": a world that does not contradict itself, that -does not deceive, that does not change, a _real_ world--a world in -which there is no suffering: contradiction, deception, variability--the -causes of suffering. He does not doubt that there is such a thing as a -world as it ought to be; he would fain find a road to it.... Obviously, -the will to truth is _merely_ the longing for a _stable world._ - -The senses deceive; reason corrects the errors: _therefore,_ it was -concluded, reason is the road to a static state; the most _spiritual_ -ideas must be nearest to the "real world." 88 - -The degree of a man's will-power may be measured from the extent to -which he can dispense with the meaning in things, from the extent to -which he is able to endure a world without meaning: _because he himself -arranges a small portion of it._ 90 - -There is no such thing as an established fact, everything fluctuates, -everything is intangible, yielding; after all, the most lasting of all -things are our opinions. 103 - -That the _worth of the world_ lies in our interpretations (that perhaps -yet other interpretations are possible somewhere, besides mankind's); -that the interpretations made hitherto were perspective valuations, -by means of which we were able to survive in life, _i. e._ in the Will -to Power and in the growth of power; that every _elevation of man_ -involves the overcoming of narrower interpretations; that every higher -degree of strength or power attained, brings new views in its train, -and teaches a belief in new horizons--these doctrines lie scattered -through all my works. 107 - -The triumphant concept _"energy"_ with which our physicists created God -and the world, needs yet to be completer: it must be given an inner -will which I characterise as the "Will to Power"--that is to say, as an -insatiable desire to manifest power; or the application and exercise of -power as a creative instinct, etc.... 110 - -The unalterable sequence of certain phenomena does not prove any "law," -but a relation of power between two or more forces. 115 - -A quantum of power is characterised by the effect it produces and -the influence it resists. The adiaphoric state which would be -thinkable in itself, is entirely lacking. It is essentially a will to -violence and a will to defend one's self against violence. It is not -self-preservation: every atom exercises its influence over the whole of -existence--it is thought out of existence if one thinks this radiation -of will-power away. That is why I call it a quantum of "Will to Power." -... 117-118 - -My idea is that every specific body strives to become master of all -space, and to extend its power (its will to power), and to thrust -back everything that resists it. But inasmuch as it is continually -meeting the same endeavours on the part of other bodies, it concludes -by coming to terms with those (by "combining" with those) which are -sufficiently related to it--_and thus they conspire together for -power._ And the process continues. 121 - -The influence of "environment" is nonsensically _over-rated_ in Darwin: -the essential factor in the process of life is precisely the tremendous -inner power to shape and to create forms, which merely _uses, exploits_ -"environment." 127 - -The _feeling of being surcharged,_ the feeling accompanying an -_increase in strength,_ quite apart from the utility of the struggle, -is the actual _progress:_ from these feelings the will to war is first -derived. 128 - -A living thing seeks above all to _discharge_ its strength: -_"self-preservation"_ is only one of the results thereof.... 128 - -The most fundamental and most primeval activity of a protoplasm cannot -be ascribed to a will to self-preservation, for it absorbs an amount -of material which is absurdly out of proportion with the needs of its -preservation: and what is more, it does _not_ "preserve itself" in the -process, but actually falls to _pieces ..._. The instinct which rules -here, must account for this total absence in the organism of a desire -to preserve itself. - -The will to power can manifest itself only against _obstacles:_ it -therefore goes in search of what resists it--this is the primitive -tendency of the protoplasm when it extends its _pseudopodia_ and feels -about it. The act of appropriation and assimilation is, above all, -the result of an additional building and rebuilding, until at last -the subjected creature has become completely a part of the superior -creature's sphere of power, and has increased the latter.... 130 - -Why is all _activity,_ even that of a _sense,_ associated with -pleasure? Because, before the activity was possible, an obstacle or a -burden was done away with. Or, rather, because all action is a process -of overcoming, of becoming master of, and of _increasing_ the _feeling -of power?_ 135 - -Man is _not_ only an individual, but the continuation of collective -organic life in one definite line. The fact that _man_ survives, -proves that a certain species of interpretations (even though it still -be added to) has also survived; that, as a system, this method of -interpreting has not changed. 152 - -The fundamental phenomena: _innumerable individuals are sacrificed for -the sake of a few,_ in order to make the few possible.--One must not -allow one's self to be deceived; the case is the same with _peoples_ -and _races:_ they produce the "body" for the generation of isolated and -valuable _individuals,_ who continue the great process. 153 - -Life is _not_ the continuous adjustment of internal relations to -external relations, but will to power, which, proceeding from inside, -subjugates and incorporates an ever-increasing quantity of "external" -phenomena. 153-154 - -Man as a species is not progressing. Higher specimens are indeed -attained; but they do not survive. The general level of the species is -not raised.... Man as a species does not represent any sort of progress -compared with any other animal. 157 - -The domestication (culture) of man does not sink very deep. When it -does sink far below the skin it immediately becomes degeneration (type: -the Christian). The "wild" man (or, in moral terminology, the _evil_ -man) is a reversion to Nature--and, in a certain sense, he represents a -recovery, a _cure_ from the effects of "culture."... 158 - -The strong always have to be upheld against the weak; and the -well-constituted against the ill-constituted, the healthy against -the sick and physiologically botched. If we drew our morals from -reality, they would read thus: the mediocre are more valuable than the -exceptional creatures, and the decadent than the mediocre; the will to -nonentity prevails over the will to life.... 159 - -That species show an ascending tendency, is the most nonsensical -assertion that has ever been made: until now they have only manifested -a dead level. There is nothing whatever to prove that the higher -organisms have developed from the lower. 160 - -Man as he has appeared up to the present is the embryo of the man -of the future; _all_ the formative powers which are to produce the -latter, already lie in the former: and owing to the fact that they are -enormous, the more _promising for the future_ the modern individual -happens to be, the more _suffering_ falls to his lot. 161 - -The will to power is the primitive motive force out of which all other -motives have been derived. 162 - -From a psychological point of view the idea of "cause" is our feeling -of power in the act which is called willing--our concept "effect" is -the superstition that this feeling of power is itself the force which -moves things.... 163 - -Life as an individual case (a hypothesis which may be applied to -existence in general) strives after the maximum feeling of power; life -is essentially a striving after more power; striving itself is only a -straining after more power; the most fundamental and innermost thing -of all is this will. 165 - -Man does not seek happiness and does not avoid unhappiness. Everybody -knows the famous prejudices I here contradict. Pleasure and pain are -mere results, mere accompanying phenomena--that which every man, which -every tiny particle of a living organism will have, is an increase of -power. In striving after this, pleasure and pain are encountered; it is -owing to that will that the organism seeks opposition and requires that -which stands in its way.... Pain as the hindrance of its will to power -is therefore a normal feature, a natural ingredient of every organic -phenomenon; man does not avoid it; on the contrary, he is constantly -in need of it; every triumph, every feeling of pleasure, every event -presupposes an obstacle overcome. 172 - -Man is now master of the forces of nature, and master too of his own -wild and unbridled feelings (the passions have followed suit, and have -learned to become useful)--in comparison with primeval man, the man of -to-day represents an enormous quantum of power, but not an increase -in happiness. How can one maintain, then, that he has striven after -happiness? 174 - -"God" is the culminating moment: life is an eternal process of deifying -and undeifying. _But withal there is no zenith of values,_ but only a -zenith of _power._ 181 - -Man has one terrible and fundamental wish; he desires power, and this -impulse, which is called freedom, must be the longest restrained. Hence -ethics has instinctively aimed at such an education as shall restrain -the desire for power; thus our morality slanders the would-be tyrant, -and glorifies charity, patriotism, and the ambition of the herd. 186 - -When the instincts of a society ultimately make it give up war and -renounce conquest, it is decadent: it is ripe for democracy and the -rule of shopkeepers. 189 - -The maintenance of the military State is the last means of adhering to -the great tradition of the past; or, where it has been lost, to revive -it. By means of it the superior or strong type of man is preserved, and -all institutions and ideas which perpetuate enmity and order of rank in -States such as national feeling, protective tariffs, etc., may on that -account seem justified. 190 - -_Concerning the future of marriage._--A supertax on inherited property, -a longer term of military service for bachelors of a certain minimum -age within the community. - -Privileges of all sorts for fathers who lavish boys upon the world, and -perhaps plural votes as well. - -A medical certificate as a condition of any marriage, endorsed by the -parochial authorities, in which a series of questions addressed to the -parties and the medical officers must be answered ("family histories"). - -As a counter-agent to prostitution, or as its ennoblement, I would -recommend leasehold marriages (to last for a term of years or months), -with adequate provision for the children. - -Every marriage to be warranted and sanctioned by a certain number of -good men and true, of the parish, as a parochial obligation. 193 - -Society ... should in many cases actually prevent the act of -procreation, and may, without any regard for rank, descent, or -intellect, hold in readiness the most rigorous forms of compulsion -and restriction, and, under certain circumstances, have recourse to -castration. 194 - -The idea of punishment ought to be reduced to the concept of the -suppression of revolt, a weapon against the vanquished (by means of -long or short terms of imprisonment). But punishment should not be -associated in any way with contempt. A criminal is at all events a man -who has set his life, his honour, his freedom at stake; he is therefore -a man of courage. Neither should punishment be regarded as penance or -retribution, as though there were some recognised rate of exchange -between crime and punishment. Punishment does not purify, simply -because crime does not sully. 198 - -Should not the punishment fit the crime? 200 - -"The will to power" is so loathed in democratic ages that the whole of -the psychology of these ages seems directed towards its belittlement -and slander. 205 - -I am opposed to Socialism because it dreams ingenuously of "goodness, -truth, beauty, and equal rights" (anarchy pursues the same ideal, but -in a more brutal fashion). - -I am opposed to parliamentary government and the power of the press, -because they are the means whereby cattle become masters. 206 - -The idea of a higher order of man is hated much more profoundly than -monarchs themselves. Hatred of aristocracy always uses hatred of -monarchy as a mask. 207 - -Utility and pleasure are slave theories of life. "The blessing of work" -is an ennobling phrase for slaves. Incapacity for leisure. 208 - -There is no such thing as a right to live, a right to work, or a right -to be happy: in this respect man is no different from the meanest worm. -208 - -_Fundamental errors:_ to regard the herd as an aim instead of the -individual! The herd is only a means and nothing _more! _ But -nowadays people are trying to understand _the herd_ as they would an -individual, and to confer higher rights upon it than upon isolated -personalities. In addition to this, all that makes for gregariousness, -_e.g.,_ sympathy, is regarded as the _more valuable_ side of our -natures. 214-215 - -_The will to power_ appears:-- - - (a) Among the oppressed and slaves of all kinds, in the form - of will to _"freedom":_ the mere fact of breaking loose from - something seems to be an end in itself (in a religio-moral - sense: "One is only answerable to one's own conscience"; - "evangelical freedom," etc., etc.). - - (b) In the case of a stronger species, ascending to power, - in the form of the will to overpower. If this fails, then - it shrinks to the "will to justice"--that is to say, to - the will to the same measure of rights as the ruling caste - possesses. - - (c) In the case of the strongest, richest, most independent, - and most courageous, in the form of "love of humanity," of - "love of the people," of the "gospel," of "truth," of "God," - of "pity," of "self-sacrifice," etc., etc.; in the form of - overpowering, of deeds of capture, of imposing service on - some one, of an instinctive reckoning of one's self as part - of a great mass of power to which one attempts to give a - direction: the hero, the prophet, the Cæsar, the Saviour, - the bell-wether. 220-221 - -_Individualism_ is a modest and still unconscious form of will to -power; with it a single human unit seems to think it sufficient to free -himself from the preponderating power of society (or of the State or -Church). He does not set himself up in opposition as a _personality,_ -but merely as a unit; he represents the rights of all other individuals -as against the whole. That is to say, he instinctively places himself -on a level with every other unit: what he combats he does not combat as -a person, but as a representative of units against a mass. 227 - -There are no such things as moral actions: they are purely imaginary. -Not only is it impossible to demonstrate their existence (a fact -which Kant and Christianity, for instance, both acknowledge)--but -they are not even possible. Owing to psychological misunderstanding, -man invented an _opposite_ to the instinctive impulses of life, and -believed that a new species of instinct was thereby discovered: a -_primum mobile_ was postulated which does not exist at all. According -to the valuation which gave rise to the antithesis "moral" and -"immoral," one should say: _There is nothing else on earth but immoral -intentions and actions._ - -The whole differentiation, "moral" and "immoral," arises from the -assumption that both moral and immoral actions are the result of a -spontaneous will--in short, that such a will exists; or in other words, -that moral judgments can only hold good with regard to intuitions and -actions _that are free._ But this whole order of actions and intentions -is purely imaginary: the only world to which the moral standard could -be applied does not exist at all: _there is no such thing as a moral or -an immoral action._ 230-231 - -There are two conditions in which art manifests itself in man even as -a force of nature, and disposes of him whether he consent or not: it -may be as a constraint to visionary states, or it may be an orgiastic -impulse. 240 - -_Sexuality, intoxication, cruelty;_ all these belong to the oldest -_festal joys_ of mankind, they also preponderate in budding artists. 243 - -The desire for art and beauty is an indirect longing for the ecstasy -of sexual desire, which gets communicated to the brain. 248 - -All art works as a _tonic;_ it increases strength, it kindles desire -(_i.e.,_ the feeling of strength), it excites all the more subtle -recollections of intoxication.... 252 - -The inartistic states are: objectivity, reflection, suspension of the -will.... The inartistic states are: those which impoverish, which -subtract, which bleach, under which life suffers--the Christian. 257 - -Would any link be missing in the whole chain of science and art, if -woman, if woman's work, were excluded from it? Let us acknowledge the -exception--it proves the rule--that woman is capable of perfection in -everything which does not constitute a work: in letters, in memoirs, in -the most intricate handiwork--in short, in everything which is not a -craft.... 260-261 - -A man is an artist to the extent to which he regards everything -that inartistic people call "form" as the actual substance, as the -"principal" thing. 261 - -The essential feature in art is its power of perfecting existence, -its production of perfection and plenitude; art is essentially the -affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence.... 263 - -The greatness of an artist is not to be measured by the beautiful -feelings which he evokes: let this belief be left to the girls. It -should be measured according to the extent to which he approaches the -grand style, according to the extent to which he is capable of the -grand style. This style and great passion have this in common--that -they scorn to please; that they forget to persuade: that they command; -that they will.... To become master of the chaos which is in one; to -compel one's inner chaos to assume form; to become consistent, simple, -unequivocal, mathematical, law--this is the great ambition here. 277 - -A preference for questionable and terrible things is a symptom of -strength; whereas the taste for pretty and charming trifles is -characteristic of the weak and the delicate. 287 - -Art is the great means of making life possible, the great seducer to -life, the great stimulus of life. - -Art is the only superior counter-agent to all will to the denial of -life; it is _par excellence_ the anti-Christian, the anti-Buddhistic, -the anti-Nihilistic force. 290 - -Quanta of power alone determine rank and distinguish rank: nothing else -does. 295 - -It is necessary for _higher_ men to declare war upon the masses! In -all directions mediocre people are joining hands in order to make -themselves masters. Everything that pampers, that softens, and that -brings the "people" or "woman" to the front, operates in favour of -universal suffrage--that is to say, the dominion of _inferior_ men. 297 - -Woman has always conspired with decadent types,--the priests, for -instance,--against the "mighty," against the "strong," against _men._ -Women avail themselves of children for the cult of piety, pity, and -love:--the _mother_ stands as the symbol of _convincing_ altruism. 300 - -It is _necessary_ to show _that a counter-movement is inevitably -associated_ with any increasingly economical consumption of men -and mankind, and with an ever more closely involved "machinery" of -interests and services. I call this counter-movement the _separation -of the luxurious surplus of mankind:_ by means of it a stronger kind, -a higher type, must come to light, which has other conditions for its -origin and for its maintenance than the average man. My concept, my -metaphor for this type is, as you know, the word "Superman." 305 - -Readers are beginning to see what I am combating--namely, _economic_ -optimism: as if the general welfare of everybody must necessarily -increase with the growing self-sacrifice of everybody. The very reverse -seems to me to be the case, _the self-sacrifice of everybody amounts to -a collective loss;_ man becomes _inferior_--so that nobody knows what -end this monstrous purpose has served. 306-307 - -_The root of all evil:_ that the slave morality of modesty, chastity, -selfishness, and absolute obedience should have triumphed. Dominating -natures were thus condemned (1) to hypocrisy, (2) to qualms of -conscience,--creative natures regarded themselves as rebels against -God, uncertain and hemmed in by eternal values. 309 - -That which _men of power and will are able to demand of themselves_ -gives them the standard for what they may also allow themselves. Such -natures are the very opposite of the _vicious_ and the _unbridled:_ -although under certain circumstances they may perpetrate deeds for -which an inferior man would be convicted of vice and intemperance. - -In this respect the concept, _"all men are equal before God"_ does -an extraordinary amount of harm; actions and attitudes of mind were -forbidden which belonged to the prerogative of the strong alone, just -as if they were in themselves unworthy of man. All the tendencies of -strong men were brought into disrepute by the fact that the defensive -weapons of the most weak (even of those who were weakest towards -themselves) were established as a standard of valuation. 311 - -_The degeneration of the ruler and of the ruling classes_ has been the -cause of all the great disorders in history! 312 - -The solitary type should not be valued from the standpoint of the -gregarious type, or _vice versa._ 320 - -Who would dare to disgust the mediocre of their mediocrity! As -you observe, I do precisely the reverse: every step away from -mediocrity--thus do I teach--leads to _immorality._ 324 - -What I combat: that an exceptional form should make war upon the -rule--instead of understanding that the continued existence of the rule -is the first condition of the value of the exception. 325 - -One should not suppose the mission of a higher species to be the -_leading_ of inferior men (as Comte does, for instance); but the -inferior should be regarded as the _foundation_ upon which a higher -species may live their higher life--upon which alone they _can stand._ -329 - -My consolation is, that the nature of man is _evil,_ and this -guarantees his _strength!_ 332 - -There is no true scholar who has not the instincts of a true soldier -in his veins. To be able to command and to be able to obey in a proud -fashion; to keep one's place in rank and file, and yet to be ready at -any moment to lead; to prefer danger to comfort; not to weigh what is -permitted and what is forbidden in a tradesman's balance; to be more -hostile to pettiness, slyness, and parasitism than to wickedness. What -is it that one _learns_ in a hard school?--to _obey_ and to _command._ -335 - -_The means by which a strong species maintains itself:--_ - -It grants itself the right of exceptional actions, as a test of the -power of self-control and of freedom. - -It abandons itself to states in which a man is not allowed to be -anything else than a barbarian. - -It tries to acquire strength of will by every kind of asceticism. - -It is not expansive; it practises silence; it is cautious in regard to -all charms. - -It learns to obey in such a way that obedience provides a test of -self-maintenance. Casuistry is carried to its highest pitch in regard -to points of honour. - -It never argues, "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the -gander"--but conversely! it regards reward, and the ability to repay, -as a privilege, as a distinction. - -It does not covet _other_ people's virtues. 341 - -The _blind yielding_ to a passion, whether it be generosity, pity, or -hostility, is the cause of the greatest evil. Greatness of character -does not consist in not possessing these passions--on the contrary, a -man should possess them to a terrible degree: but he should lead them -by the bridle.... 346 - -Education: essentially a means of _ruining_ exceptions in favour of the -rule. Culture: essentially the means of directing taste against the -exceptions in favour of the mediocre. 349 - -_What is noble?_--The fact that one is constantly forced to be playing -a part. That one is constantly searching for situations in which one -is forced to put on airs. That one leaves happiness to the _greatest -number:_ the happiness which consists of inner peacefulness, of virtue, -of comfort, and of Anglo-angelic-back-parlour-smugness, à la Spencer. -That one instinctively seeks for heavy responsibilities. That one knows -how to create enemies everywhere, at a pinch even in one's self. That -one contradicts the _greatest number,_ not in words at all, but by -continually behaving differently from them. 357 - -The first thing that must be done is to rear a _new kind_ of man in -whom the duration of the necessary will and the necessary instincts -is guaranteed for many generations. This must be a new kind of ruling -species and caste--this ought to be quite as clear as the somewhat -lengthy and not easily expressed consequences of this thought. The aim -should be to prepare a _transvaluation of values_ for a particularly -strong kind of man, most highly gifted in intellect and will, and, -to his end, slowly and cautiously to liberate in him a whole host of -slandered instincts hitherto held in check.... 363-364 - -The revolution, confusion, and distress of whole peoples is in my -opinion of less importance than _the misfortunes which attend great -individuals in their development._ We must not allow ourselves to be -deceived: the many misfortunes of all these small folk do not together -constitute a sum-total, except in the feelings of _mighty_ men. 369 - -The greatest men may also perhaps have great virtues, but then they -also have the opposites of these virtues. I believe that it is -precisely out of the presence of these opposites and of the feelings -they suscitate, that the great man arises,--for the great man is the -broad arch which spans two banks lying far apart. 370 - -In _great men_ we find the specific qualities of life in their highest -manifestation: injustice, falsehood, exploitation. But inasmuch as -their effect has always been _overwhelming,_ their essential nature has -been most thoroughly misunderstood, and interpreted as goodness. 370-371 - -We must _not_ make men "better," we must _not_ talk to them about -morality in any form as if "morality in itself," or an ideal kind -of man in general, could be taken for granted; but we must _create -circumstances_ in which _stronger men are necessary,_ such as for -their part will require a morality (or, better still: a bodily and -spiritual discipline) which makes men strong, and upon which they will -consequently insist! 379 - -We must not separate greatness of soul from intellectual greatness. -For the former involves _independence;_ but without intellectual -greatness independence should not be allowed; all it does is to create -disasters even in its lust of well-doing and of practising "justice." -Inferior spirits _must_ obey, consequently they cannot be possessed of -greatness. 380 - -I teach that there are higher and lower men, and that a single -individual may under certain circumstances justify whole millenniums of -existence--that is to say, a wealthier, more gifted, greater, and more -complete man, as compared with innumerable imperfect and fragmentary -men. 386 - -He who _determines_ values and leads the will of millenniums, and does -this by leading the highest natures--he _is the highest man._ 386 - -We should attain to such a height, to such a lofty eagle's ledge, in -our observation, as to be able to understand that everything happens, -_just as it ought to happen:_ and that all "imperfection," and the pain -it brings, belong to all that which is most eminently desirable. 389 - -_Pleasure_ appears with the feeling of power. - -_Happiness_ means that power and triumph have entered into our -consciousness. - -_Progress_ is the strengthening of the type, the ability to exercise -great will-power: everything else is a misunderstanding and a danger. -403 - -Man is a combination of the _beast and the superbeast:_ higher man a -combination of the monster and the superman: these opposites belong -to each other. With every degree of a man's growth towards greatness -and loftiness, he also grows downwards into the depths and into the -terrible:... 405 - -The word _"Dionysian"_ expresses: a constraint to unity, a soaring -above personality, the commonplace, society, reality, and above the -abyss of the _ephemeral;_ the passionately painful sensation of -superabundance, in darker, fuller, and more fluctuating conditions; -an ecstatic saying of yea to the collective character of existence, -as that which remains the same, and equally mighty and blissful -throughout all change; the great pantheistic sympathy with pleasure -and pain, which declares even the most terrible and most questionable -qualities of existence good, and sanctifies them; the eternal will to -procreation, to fruitfulness, and to recurrence; the feeling of unity -in regard to the necessity of creating and annihilating. 415-416 - -At this point I set up the Dionysus of the Greeks: the religious -affirmation of Life, of the whole of Life, not of denied and partial -Life.... 420 - -God on the Cross is a curse upon Life, a signpost directing people to -deliver themselves from it;--Dionysus cut into pieces is a promise of -Life: it will be for ever born anew, and rise afresh from destruction. -421 - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY - - -In the following list no attempt has been made at completion. I have -set down only the important and more useful works concerning Nietzsche -and his philosophy, and have further limited myself to such volumes -as are in English. I have omitted entirely the large number of essays -on Nietzsche which have appeared in magazines, as well as those books -which embody only the various Nietzschean ideas. - - -EXPOSITIONAL BOOKS - -THE PHILOSOPHY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, by H. L. Mencken. A brilliantly -written and extensive exposition of Nietzsche's thought, including an -account of the philosopher's life, a discussion of his origins, a reply -to his critics, and a chapter on how to study him. Mr. Mencken's book, -though untechnical, is comprehensive, concise and admirably conceived. -It constitutes one of the most valuable Nietzschean commentaries in -English. - -FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE: HIS LIFE AND WORK, by M. A. Mügge. A large and -scholarly treatise of special value to the philosophical student. This -work, a pioneer one, is somewhat ponderous and uninteresting, but none -the less exhaustive; and contains a bibliography consisting of 850 -titles. - -THE PHILOSOPHY OF NIETZSCHE, by Georges H. Chatterton-Hill. A -suggestive, academic study of the main points in the Nietzschean -ethic. This book is too technical in places to appeal strongly to the -beginner, but is invaluable as supplementary reading. - -THE QUINTESSENCE OF NIETZSCHE, by J. M. Kennedy. An interesting and -unassuming survey of Nietzsche's work, abounding with quotations. - -NIETZSCHE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS, by Anthony M. Ludovici. Mr. Ludovici -is the translator of many of Nietzsche's works into English, and has -contributed to Dr. Levy's edition several prefaces and many explanatory -notes. His book is complete and authoritative. - -Other adequate commentaries are: THE GOSPEL OF SUPERMAN, by Henri -Lichtenberger, translated from the French by J. M. Kennedy; FRIEDRICH -NIETZSCHE, by A. R. Orage; NIETZSCHE AS CRITIC, PHILOSOPHER, POET AND -PROPHET, by Thomas Common; THE PHILOSOPHY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, -by Grace Neal Dolson; and FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, by Georg Brandes, -translated by A. G. Chater. - - -BIOGRAPHIES - -THE LIFE OF NIETZSCHE, by Frau Förster-Nietzsche. This work, in two -volumes, is the standard biography of Nietzsche, written by his sister. -Though elaborate in detail and replete in personal correspondence and -papers, it is not all that might be hoped for. One's devoted sister -does not always make the most penetrating biographer. - -THE LIFE OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, by Daniel Halévy, translated from the -French by J. M. Hone. M. Halévy has founded his work on that of Frau -Förster-Nietzsche; and while his version improves on its model at many -points, it is in places supposititious and over-drawn, and is conceived -in too ironical a vein. - -Unfortunately there is no adequate biography of Nietzsche in -existence. Nor is there likely to be one, inasmuch as all the papers -and data necessary for such an undertaking are in the possession of -Nietzsche's sister. - - -BOOKS OF SELECTIONS - -THE GIST OF NIETZSCHE, by H. L. Mencken. - -NIETZSCHE IN OUTLINE AND APHORISM, by A. R. Orage. - -NIETZSCHE: HIS MAXIMS, by J. M. Kennedy. - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's What Nietzsche Taught, by Willard Huntington Wright - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT NIETZSCHE TAUGHT *** - -***** This file should be named 53622-8.txt or 53622-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/6/2/53622/ - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (online soon -in an extended version, also linking to free sources for -education worldwide ... 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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. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - -Title: What Nietzsche Taught - -Author: Willard Huntington Wright - -Release Date: November 28, 2016 [EBook #53622] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT NIETZSCHE TAUGHT *** - - - - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (online soon -in an extended version, also linking to free sources for -education worldwide ... MOOC's, educational materials,...) -Images generously made available by the Internet Archive. - - - - - - -</pre> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 500px;"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="500" alt="" /> -</div> -<h1>What Nietzsche Taught</h1> - -<h3>By</h3> - -<h2>Willard Huntington Wright</h2> - - -<p class="center">I am writing for a race of men which<br /> -does not yet exist: for "the lords<br /> of the -earth."<br /> <i>The Will to Power</i></p> - - -<h5>New York</h5> - -<h5>B. W. Huebsch</h5> - -<h5>1915</h5> - -<hr class="full" /> - -<p class="center"><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">TO</span><br /> - -H. L. MENCKEN<br /> - - -<span style="font-size: 0.9em;">the critic who has given the greatest impetus</span><br /> -<span style="font-size: 0.9em;">to the study of Nietzsche in America</span><br /> -</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> -<img src="images/niet.jpg" width="400" alt="" /> -<p class="center" style="font-size: 0.8em;">Portrait Bust of Nietzsche by<br /> Professor -Karl Donndorf, Stuttgart</p></div> -<hr class="r5" /> - -<p class="caption" style="text-align: center; font-size: 0.8em;">CONTENTS</p> - -<div class="center" style="font-size: 0.8em;"> -<table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="left"></td><td align="left"><a href="#INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">I </td><td align="left"><a href="#I">BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">II </td><td align="left"><a href="#II">"HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN," VOLS. I AND II</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">III </td><td align="left"><a href="#III">"THE DAWN OF DAY"</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">IV </td><td align="left"><a href="#IV">"THE JOYFUL WISDOM"</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">V </td><td align="left"><a href="#V">"THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA"</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">VI </td><td align="left"><a href="#VI">"THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE"</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">VII </td><td align="left"><a href="#VII">"BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL"</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">VIII </td><td align="left"><a href="#VIII">"THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS"</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">IX </td><td align="left"><a href="#IX">"THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS"</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">X </td><td align="left"><a href="#X">"THE ANTICHRIST"</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XI </td><td align="left"><a href="#XI">"THE WILL TO POWER," VOL. I</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="right">XII </td><td align="left"><a href="#XII">"THE WILL TO POWER," VOL. II</a></td></tr> -<tr><td align="left"></td><td align="left"></td><td align="left"><a href="#BIBLIOGRAPHY">BIBLIOGRAPHY</a></td></tr> -</table></div> - - -<hr class="chap" /> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span></p> -<h4><a name="INTRODUCTION" id="INTRODUCTION">INTRODUCTION</a></h4> - - -<p>It is no longer possible to ignore the teachings of Friedrich -Nietzsche, or to consider the trend of modern thought without giving -the philosopher of the superman a prominent place in the list of -thinkers who contributed to the store of present-day knowledge. His -powerful and ruthless mind has had an influence on contemporary -thought which even now, in the face of all the scholarly books of -appreciation he has called forth, one is inclined to underestimate. -No philosopher since Kant has left so undeniable an imprint on modern -thought. Even Schopenhauer, whose influence coloured the greater part -of Europe, made no such widespread impression. Nietzsche has penetrated -into both England and America, two countries strangely impervious -to rigorous philosophic ideals. Not only in ethics and literature -do we find the moulding hand of Nietzsche at work, invigorating and -solidifying; but in pedagogics and in art, in politics and religion, -the influence of his doctrines is to be encountered. The books and -essays in German elucidating his philosophy constitute a miniature -library. Nearly as many books and articles have appeared in France, -and the list of authors of these appreciations include many of -the most noted modern scholars. Spain and Italy, likewise, have -contributed works to an inquiry into his teachings; and in England -and America numerous volumes dealing with the philosophy of the -superman have appeared in recent years. In M. A. Mügge's excellent -biography, "Friedrich Nietzsche: His Life and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> Work," there is appended -a bibliography containing 850 titles, and this list by no means -includes all the books and articles devoted to a consideration of this -philosopher's doctrines.</p> - -<p>In this regard one should note that this interest is not the result of -a temporary popularity, such as that which has met the philosophical -pieties of Henri Bergson. To the contrary, Nietzsche's renown is -gaining ground daily among serious-minded scholars, and his adherents -have already reached the dimensions of a small army. But despite this -appreciation there is still current an enormous amount of ignorance -concerning his teachings. The very manner in which he wrote tended to -bring about misunderstandings. Viewed casually and without studious -consideration, his books offer many apparent contradictions. His style, -always elliptic and aphoristic, lends itself easily to quotation, and -because of the startling and revolutionary nature of his utterances, -many excerpts from his earlier works were widely circulated through the -mediums of magazines and newspapers. These quotations, robbed of their -context, very often gave rise to immature and erroneous judgments, with -the result that the true meaning of his philosophy was often turned -into false channels. Many of his best-known aphorisms have taken on -strange and unearthly meanings, and often the reverse of his gospel has -gained currency and masqueraded as the original canon.</p> - -<p>To a great extent this misunderstanding has been unavoidable. -Systematisers, ever eager to bend a philosopher's statements to their -own ends, have found in Nietzsche's writings much material which, when -carefully isolated, substantiated their own conclusions. On the other -hand, the Christian moralists, sensing in Nietzsche<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span> a powerful and -effective opponent, have attempted to disqualify his ethical system by -presenting garbled portions of his attacks on Christianity, omitting -all the qualifying passages. It is impossible, however, to understand -any of Nietzsche's doctrines unless we consider them in their relation -to the whole of his teachings.</p> - -<p>Contrary to the general belief, Nietzsche was not simply a destructive -critic and a formulator of impossible and romantic concepts. His -doctrine of the superman, which seems to be the principal stumbling -block in the way of a rationalistic interpretation of his philosophy, -is no vague dream unrelated to present humanity. Nor was his chief -concern with future generations. Nietzsche devoted his research to -immediate conditions and to the origin of those conditions. And—what -is of greater importance—he left behind him a very positive and -consistent system of ethics—a workable and entirely comprehensible -code of conduct to meet present-day needs. This system was not -formulated with the precision which no doubt would have attached to -it in its final form had he been able to complete the plans he had -outlined. Yet there are few points in his code of ethics—and they -are of minor importance—which cannot be found, clearly conceived -and concisely stated, in the main body of his works. This system of -conduct embraces every stage of society; and for the rulers to-day—the -people for whom Nietzsche directly voiced his teachings—he outlines a -method of outer conduct and a set of inner ideals which meet with every -modern condition. His proposed ethical routine is not based on abstract -reasoning and speculative conclusions. It is a practical code which has -its foundation implanted in the dominating instincts of the organic -and inorganic world. It is directly opposed to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span> prevailing code, -and has for its ideal the fulness of life itself—life intensified -to the highest degree, life charged with a maximum of beauty, power, -enthusiasm, virility, wealth and intoxication. It is the code of -strength and courage. Its goal is a race which will possess the hardier -virtues of strength, confidence, exuberance and affirmation.</p> - -<p>This ideal has been the source of many misunderstandings, and it is -the errors which have arisen from the vicious and inept dissemination -of his teachings, that I have striven to rectify in the present book. -I have hoped to accomplish this by presenting the whole of Nietzsche's -philosophy, as far as possible, in his own words. This has not been so -difficult a matter. His writings, more than those of any other modern -philosopher, offer opportunities for such treatment. There is no point -in his entire system not susceptible to brief and clear quotation. -Furthermore, his thought developed consistently and logically in -straight-away, chronological order, so that at the conclusion of each -book we find ourselves just so much further along the route of his -thinking. Beginning with "Human, All-Too-Human," his first destructive -volume, we can trace the gradual and concise pyramiding of his -teachings, down to the last statement of his cardinal doctrine of will -as set forth in the notes which comprise the second volume of "The Will -to Power." Each one of the intervening books embodies new material: it -is a distinct, yet co-ordinated, division in the great structure of his -life's work. These books overlap one another in many instances, and -develop points raised speculatively in former books, but they organise -each other and lead one surely, if at times circuitously, to the -crowning doctrines of his thought.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span></p> - -<p>The majority of critics have chosen to systematise Nietzsche's -teachings by separating the ideas in his different books, and by -drawing together under specific captions (such as "religion," "the -state," "education," etc.,) all the scattered material which relates -to these different subjects. In many cases they have succeeded in -offering a very coherent and consistent résumé of his thought. But -Nietzsche's doctrines were inherently opposed to such arbitrary -dividing and arranging, because beneath the various sociological -points which fell under his consideration, were two or three general -motivating principles which unified the whole of his thought. He did -not work from modern institutions back to his doctrines; but, by -analysing the conditions out of which these institutions grew, he -arrived at the conclusions which he afterward used in formulating -new methods of operation. It was the change in conditions and needs -between ancient and modern times that made him voice the necessity of -change between ancient and modern institutions. In other words, his -advocacy of new methods for dealing with modern affairs was evolved -from his researches into the origin and history of current methods. For -instance, his remarks on religion, society, the state, the individual, -etc., were the outcome of fundamental postulates which he described -and elucidated in terms of human institutions. Therefore an attempt to -reach an explanation of the basic doctrines of his philosophy through -his <i>applied</i> teachings unconsciously gives rise to the very errors -which the serious critics have sought to overcome: this method focuses -attention on the <i>application</i> of his doctrines rather than on the -doctrines themselves.</p> - -<p>Therefore I have taken his writings chronologically, beginning with his -first purely philosophical work—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>"Human, All-Too-Human"—and have -set down, in his own words, every important conclusion throughout his -entire works. In this way one may follow Nietzsche throughout every -step in the development of his teachings—not only in his abstract -theories but also in his application of them. There is not a single -important point in the entire sweep of his thought not contained in -these pages. Naturally I have been unable to give any of the arguments -which led to these conclusions. The quotations are in every instance -no longer than has been necessary to make clear the idea: for the -processes of thought by which these conclusions were reached the -reader must go direct to the books from which the excerpts are made. -Also I have omitted Nietzsche's brilliant analogies and such desultory -critical judgments, literary and artistic, as have no direct bearing on -his philosophy; and have contented myself with setting down only those -bare, unelaborated utterances which embody the positive points in his -thought. By thus letting Nietzsche himself state his doctrines I have -attempted to make it impossible for anybody who goes carefully through -these pages to misunderstand those points which now seem clouded in -error.</p> - -<p>In order to facilitate further the research of the student and to make -clear certain of the more obscure selections, I have preceded each -chapter with a short account of the book and its contents. In these -brief essays, I have reviewed the entire contents of each book, set -down the circumstances under which it was written, and attempted to -weigh its individual importance in relation to the others. Furthermore, -I have attempted to state briefly certain of the doctrines which -did not permit of entirely self-explanatory quotation. And where -Nietzsche indulged in research, such as in tracing the origin<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> of -certain motives, or in explaining the steps which led to the acceptance -of certain doctrines, I have included in these essays an abridged -exposition of his theories. In short, I have embodied in each chapter -such critical material as I thought would assist the reader to a clear -understanding of each book's contents and relative significance.</p> - -<p>This book is frankly for the beginner—for the student who desires a -survey of Nietzsche's philosophy before entering upon a closer and more -careful study of it. In this respect it is meant also as a guide; and I -have given the exact location of every quotation so that the reader may -refer at once to the main body of Nietzsche's works and ascertain the -premises and syllogisms which underlie the quoted conclusion.</p> - -<p>In the opening biographical sketch I have refrained from going into -Nietzsche's personality and character, adhering throughout to the -external facts of his life. His personality will be found in the racy, -vigorous and stimulating utterances I have chosen for quotation, and -no comments of mine could add colour to the impression thus received. -It is difficult to divorce Nietzsche from his work: the man and his -teachings are inseparable. His style, as well as his philosophy, is -a direct outgrowth of his personality. This is why his gospel is so -personal and intimate a one, and so closely bound up in the instincts -of humanity. There are several good biographies of Nietzsche in -existence, and a brief account of the best ones in English will be -found in the bibliography at the end of this volume.</p> - -<p>It must not be thought that this book is intended as a final, or -even complete, commentary on Nietzsche's doctrines. It was written -and compiled for the purpose of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> supplying an introductory study, -and, with that end in view, I have refrained from all technical or -purely philosophical nomenclature. The object throughout has been to -stimulate the reader to further study, and if this book does not send -the reader sooner or later to the original volumes from which these -quotations have been made, I shall feel that I have failed somewhat in -my enterprise.</p> - -<p>The volumes of Nietzsche's philosophy from which the quotations in this -book are taken, comprise the first complete and authorised edition of -the works of Nietzsche in English. To the courageous energy of Dr. -Oscar Levy do we owe the fact that Nietzsche's entire writings are -now obtainable in English. The translations of these books have, in -every instance, been made by competent scholars, and each volume is -introduced by an illuminating preface. As this edition now stands, -it is the most complete and voluminous translation of any foreign -philosopher in the English language. The edition is in eighteen -volumes, and is published in England by T. N. Foulis, and in America by -the Macmillan Company. The volumes and their contents are given below.</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>I. "The Birth of Tragedy," translated by William A. -Haussmann, B.A., Ph.D., with a biographical introduction -by the author's sister; a portrait of Nietzsche, and a -facsimile of his manuscript.</p> - -<p>II. "Early Greek Philosophy and Other Essays," translated by -Maximilian A. Mügge, Ph.D. Contents: "The Greek State," "The -Greek Woman," "On Music and Words," "Homer's Contest," "The -Relation of Schopenhauer's Philosophy to a German Culture," -"Philosophy During the Tragic Age of the Greeks" and "On -Truth and Falsity in Their Ultramoral Sense."</p> - -<p>III. "The Future of Our Educational Institutions," -translated by J. M. Kennedy. Besides the titular essay, this -volume contains "Homer and Classical Philology."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p> - -<p>IV. "Thoughts Out of Season," Vol. I., translated by Anthony -M. Ludovici. Contents: "David Strauss, the Confessor and the -Writer" and "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth."</p> - -<p>V. "Thoughts Out of Season," Vol. II., translated with -introduction by Adrian Collins, M.A. Contents: "The Use and -Abuse of History" and "Schopenhauer as Educator."</p> - -<p>VI. "Human, All-Too-Human," Vol. I., translated by Helen -Zimmern, with introduction by J. M. Kennedy.</p> - -<p>VII. "Human, All-Too-Human," Vol. IL, translated, with -introduction, by Paul V. Cohn, B.A.</p> - -<p>VIII. "The Case of Wagner," translated by Anthony M. -Ludovici and J. M. Kennedy, with introductions by the -translators. Contents: "The Case of Wagner," "Nietzche -<i>contra</i> Wagner," "Selected Aphorisms" and "We Philologists."</p> - -<p>IX. "The Dawn of Day," translated, with introduction, by J. -M. Kennedy.</p> - -<p>X. "The Joyful Wisdom," translated, with introduction, by -Thomas Common. The poetry which appears in the appendix -under the caption of "Songs of Prince Free-As-A-Bird," is -translated by Paul V. Cohn and Maude D. Petre.</p> - -<p>XI. "Thus Spake Zarathustra," revised introduction by Thomas -Common, with introduction by Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, and -commentary by A. M. Ludovici.</p> - -<p>XII. "Beyond Good and Evil," translated by Helen Zimmern, -with introduction by Thomas Common.</p> - -<p>XIII. "The Genealogy of Morals," translated by Horace -B. Samuel, M.A., with introductory note. "People and -Countries," an added section to this book, is translated by -J. M. Kennedy with an editor's note by Dr. Oscar Levy.</p> - -<p>XIV. "The Will to Power," Vol. I., translated, with an -introduction, by A. M. Ludovici.</p> - -<p>XV. "The Will to Power," Vol. IL, translated, with an -introduction, by A. M. Ludovici.</p> - -<p>XVI. "The Twilight of the Idols," translated, with an -introduction, by A. M. Ludovici. Contents: "The Twilight -of the Idols," "The Antichrist," "Eternal Recurrence," and -"Explanatory Notes to 'Thus Spake Zarathustra.'"</p> - -<p>XVII. "Ecce Homo," translated by A. M. Ludovici. Various -poetry and epigrams translated by Paul V. Cohn, Herman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> -Scheffauer, Francis Bickley and Dr. G. T. Wrench. In -addition this volume contains the music of Nietzsche's "Hymn -to Life"—words by Lou Salomé—with an introduction by A. -M. Ludovici.</p> - -<p>XVIII. "Index to Complete Works," compiled by Robert Guppy, -with vocabulary of foreign quotations occurring in the -works of Nietzsche translated by Paul V. Cohn, B.A., and an -introductory essay, "The Nietzsche Movement in England (A -Retrospect—A Confession—A Prospect)," by Dr. Oscar Levy.</p></blockquote> - -<p>There are in the present volume no quotations from Nietzsche's -<i>"Ecce Homo"</i> or from the pamphlets dealing with Wagner. The former -work is an autobiography which, while it throws light on both -Nietzsche's character and his work, is nevertheless outside his purely -philosophical writings. And the Wagner documents, though interesting, -have little to do with the Nietzschean doctrines, except as showing -perhaps the result of their application. I have therefore left -them intact for the student who wishes to go more deeply into the -philosopher's character than I have here attempted.</p> - -<p style="margin-left: 75%; font-size: 0.8em;">W. H. W.</p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h3>WHAT NIETZSCHE TAUGHT</h3> - - - -<h4><a id="I"></a>I</h4> - - -<h3>Biographical Sketch</h3> - - -<p>Nietzsche liked to believe that he was of Polish descent. He had a -greater admiration for the Poles than for the Germans, and went so far -as to instigate an investigation by which he hoped to prove beyond -a shadow of a doubt that he was not only Polish but was descended -from the Polish nobility. His efforts, his sister tells us, were not -entirely successful, although some evidence was turned up which pointed -to the truth of this theory. Several of the dates in the report, -however, did not accurately tally, and since many of Nietzsche's -papers containing the results of his genealogical research were lost -in Turin after his breakdown, the hypothesis of his Polish descent -consequently remains somewhat mythical. Nietzsche's theory was that his -great-great-grandfather was a nobleman named Nicki who fled from Poland -during the religious wars, as a fugitive under sentence of death, and -took with him a young son who afterward changed his name to Nietzsche. -There is a romance in this belief which appealed strongly to the -philosopher. He saw a genuine grandeur in the fact that his ancestor -had become a fugitive for his religious and political opinions. This -belief in time became a conviction with him, and in the later years of -his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> life we find him definitely asserting the truth of this family -tradition.</p> - -<p>The matter, however, one way or the other, is of little consequence, -for Nietzsche's mind embodied universal traits: it was uncommonly free -from distinctly national characteristics. All the important facts of -his life and of his immediate ancestry are known to us. He was born at -Röcken, a little village in the Prussian province of Saxony, on October -15, 1844. The day was the anniversary of the birth of Friedrich Wilhelm -IV, King of Prussia, and Nietzsche was christened Friedrich Wilhelm in -honour of the event. The coincidence was all the more marked by the -fact that Nietzsche's father, three years previous, had been tutor to -the Altenburg Princesses, in which capacity he had met the sovereign -and made so favourable an impression that it was by the royal favour he -was living at Röcken. There were two other children in the Nietzsche -household—a girl born in 1846, and a son born in 1850. The girl -was named Therese Elizabeth Alexandra after the Duke of Altenburg's -three daughters who had come under her father's tutorship. Afterward -she became the philosopher's closest companion and guardian and his -most voluminous biographer. The boy Joseph, named after the Duke of -Altenburg himself, did not survive his first year.</p> - -<p>The longevity and hardiness which marked the stock of Nietzsche's -ancestors does away with the theory, often advanced, that his sickness -and final mental breakdown were the outcome of hereditary causes. -Out of his eight great-parents only two failed to reach the age of -seventy-five, while one reached the age of eighty-six and another -did not die until ninety. Both of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> grand-fathers attained to -the age of seventy, and his maternal grandmother lived until she -was past eighty-two. Furthermore, the Nietzsche families for three -generations had been very large and in every instance healthy and -robust. Nietzsche's grandmother Nietzsche had twelve children, and his -grandmother Oehler had eleven children—both families being strong and -free from sickness. Nietzsche himself, so his sister tells us in her -biography, was strong and healthy from his earliest childhood until -maturity. He participated in outdoor sports such as swimming, skating -and ball playing, and was characterised by a ruddy complexion which -in his school days often called forth remarks concerning his evident -splendid health. It seems that only one physical defect marked the -whole of his younger life—a myopia inherited from his father. This -impediment, though slight at first, became rapidly aggravated by the -constant use to which he put his eyes in his sedulous application to -study.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche, the most terrible and devastating critic of Christianity -and its ideals, was the culmination of two long collateral lines of -theologians. His grandfather Nietzsche was a man of many scholarly -attainments, who, because of his ecclesiastical writings, had received -the degree of Doctor of Divinity. His second wife, the mother of -Nietzsche's father, came from a whole family of pastors by the name -of Krause. Her favourite brother was a preacher in the Cathedral at -Naumburg; and of the other two one was a Doctor of Divinity and one -a country clergyman. The father of Nietzsche's mother was also a -pastor by the name of Oehler, and had a parsonage in Pobles. Likewise -Nietzsche's father, Karl-Ludwig Nietzsche, was a pastor in the -Lutheran<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> church; but he possessed a greater culture than we are wont -to associate with the average country clergyman, and was a man looked -up to and revered by all those who knew him. In fact, his appointment -to the post at Röcken was an expression of appreciation paid his -talents by the Prussian King. He was thirty-one years of age and had -been married only a year when his son Friedrich was born. Though in -perfect health, he was not destined to live more than five years after -this event, for in 1848 he fell down a flight of stone stairs, and died -after a year's invalidism, as a result of concussion of the brain.</p> - -<p>The event cast a decided influence on the Nietzsche household and -altered completely its plans. After lingering eight months at the -parsonage, the family left Röcken and moved to Naumburg-on-the-Saale, -there establishing a new domicile in the home of the pastor's mother. -The household was composed of the two children, Friedrich and -Elizabeth, their mother, then only twenty-four, their grandmother -Nietzsche, and two maiden sisters of the dead father. This -establishment was run on strict and puritanical lines. All the women -were of strong theological inclinations. One of the maiden aunts, -Rosalie, devoted herself to Christian benevolent institutions. The -other aunt, Augusta, was not unlike the paternal grandmother—pious -and God-fearing and constantly busied with her duties to others. The -widowed mother carried on the Christian tradition of the family, and -never forgot that she was once the wife of a Lutheran pastor. Daily -prayers and Biblical readings were fixed practices. The young Friedrich -was the pet of the household, and there were secret hopes held by all -that he would grow up in the footsteps of his father and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> become an -honoured and respected light in the church. To the realisation of this -hope, all the efforts and influences of the four women were given. -Such was the atmosphere in which the early youth of the author of "The -Antichrist" was nurtured.</p> - -<p>Soon after the family's arrival at Naumburg, Friedrich, then only six -years old, was sent to a local Municipal Boys' School, in accordance -with the educational theories of his grandmother, who believed in -gregarious education for the very young. But she had failed to count -upon the unusual character of her grandson, and the attempt to educate -him at a municipal institution resulted in failure. His upbringing had -made him somewhat priggish and hypersensitive. He was ridiculed by the -other boys who taunted him with the epithet of "the little minister." -He refused to mingle with the riff-raff which composed the larger part -of the pupils, and held himself isolated and aloof. Consequently, -before the year was up, he was withdrawn from the school and entered in -a private educational institution which prepared the younger students -for the Cathedral Grammar School. Here he was in more congenial -surroundings. He had for schoolmates two youths whose families were -friends of the Nietzsche household—young Wilhelm Pinder and Gustav -Krug, who later were to influence his youth. Nietzsche remained at this -school for three years.</p> - -<p>As a boy Nietzsche was always thoughtful and studious. He was a -taciturn child and took long walks in the country alone, preferring -solitude to companionship. He was sensitive to a marked degree, -polite, solicitous of all about him, and inclined to moodiness. As -soon as he could write he started a diary in which he included not -only the external events of his life but his thoughts and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> ideas and -opinions. The pages of this diary, partially preserved, make unique -and interesting reading. At a very early age he began writing poetry. -His verses, though conventional in both theme and metre, reflected a -knowledge of contemporary prosody unusual in a boy of his years. He had -ample opportunity in his home of hearing good music, and he manifested -a great love for it in very early youth. He devoted much time to -studying the piano, and not infrequently tried his hand at composing. -Later in his life we still find him writing music, and also publishing -it. In deportment Nietzsche was a model child. He was thoroughly -imbued with the religious atmosphere of his surroundings, and was -far more pious than the average youth of his own age. For a long -while he gave every indication of fulfilling the ecclesiastical hopes -which his family harboured for him. Consequently there was no lack of -encouragement on the part of his guardians toward his first literary -efforts which reflected the piety of his nature.</p> - -<p>After a few years in the Naumburg school, where he distinguished -himself as a model student and incidentally impressed the visiting -inspectors by his quickness and brilliance in answering test -questions, Nietzsche took the entrance examinations for the -well-known Landes-Schule at Pforta, an institution then noted for -its fostering and promotion of scientific studies. The vacancy at -Pforta had been offered Nietzsche's mother by the Rector who had heard -rumours concerning the intellectual gifts of the young "Fritz." The -examinations were passed successfully, and in October, 1858, after a -tearful leave-taking, he entered the Lower Fourth Form. Pforta, at that -time, was an institution of considerable eminence, with a tradition -attaching to it not unlike that of Eton. It was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span> a hot-bed of academic -culture, and the professors were among the most learned in the country. -The school had been founded as a monastery in the twelfth century by -the Cistercian monks. In the sixteenth century it had fallen under -the rule of the Duke Moritz of Saxony, who turned it into a secular -educational academy, making way for the advance of the newer ideals.</p> - -<p>The life at Pforta in Nietzsche's day was strict, and we learn that -the young philosopher chafed somewhat under the stringent discipline. -But in time he accustomed himself to the regulations, and it was not -long before we find him actively and interestedly participating in -the school life. However, new ideas were fomenting. If outwardly he -acquiesced to the routine, inwardly he was in a state of revolt. He had -already begun to indulge in original thinking, and he felt the lack -of freedom in communicating his ideas to others. His only confidante -during these days was his sister whom he always saw during the holidays -and on brief leaves of absence. His spare moments were devoted to music -and literature other than that prescribed by the school curriculum. -He resented the fact that one had to think of particular themes -at specified times, and no doubt caused his good tutor, Professor -Buddensieg, much uneasiness, for, to judge from his diary, he did not -keep to himself the resentment he felt toward the enforcement of the -irksome and repressive calendar of studies.</p> - -<p>This resentment doubtlessly had much to do with the inauguration of -a society which was called the Germania Club. Wilhelm Pinder and -Gustav Krug, Nietzsche's former school companions at Naumburg, were -participants in its formation; and on the highest ledge of the watch -tower, overlooking the Saale valley, its object was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span> discussed and -its inception dedicated and solemnised with a bottle of red wine. -This society, while bearing many of the ear-marks of mere youthful -enthusiasm, formed an important turning point in Nietzsche's life. It -acted, at a psychological moment, as a safety-valve for the heretical -ideas and aspirations which, up to that time, he had confided only to -his sister and his diary. The purpose of the club can best be stated -in Nietzsche's own words: "We resolved to found a kind of small club -which would consist of ourselves and a few friends, and the object of -which would be to provide us with a stable and binding organisation, -directing and adding interest to our creative impulses in art and -literature; or to put it more plainly, each of us would be pledged to -present an original piece of work to the club once a month, either a -poem, a treatise, an architectural design, or a musical composition, -upon which each of the others, in a friendly spirit, would have to -pass free and unrestricted criticism. We thus hoped by means of mutual -correction to be able both to stimulate and to chasten our creative -impulses." It was during one of his lectures before this group of -youthful individualists that Nietzsche first expressed his true views -on Christianity—views, which, could they have been overheard by his -devoted family, would have brought sorrow to their pious hearts. The -list of Nietzsche's contributions to this synod numbered thirty-four, -and included musical compositions, poems, political orations and -various literary works.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche remained at Pforta until 1864. He had been confirmed at -Easter, 1861, and to all outward manifestations retained his religious -principles. His final report states that "he showed an active and -lively interest in the Christian doctrine." In religion he was given -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> grade of "excellent." During his later years at Pforta he -manifested an interest in the works of Emerson and Shakespeare and -especially in the Greek and Latin authors. His dislike for mathematics -increased steadily, and his love for Sophocles, Æschylus, Plato and -the Greek lyricists "grew by leaps and bounds." His final paper—the -departing thesis which was compulsory for all graduating students—was -a Latin essay on Theognis of Megara, <i>"De Theognide Megarensi"</i> Between -Nietzsche and that ancient aristocrat, with his fine contempt for -democracy, there existed many temperamental affinities; and this final -essay was no less than a foundation on which the young Dionysian later -built his philosophy of aristocracy. On the 7th of September he left -Pforta.</p> - -<p>After resting at Naumburg until the middle of October, Nietzsche set -forth for the University of Bonn. It was here that he came under -the guidance of Professor Ritschl, who later was to exert a great -influence over him. Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl was not only the -foremost philologist of his time, but a scholar deeply versed in -classical literature and rhetoric. It was he who founded the science -of historical literary criticism as we know it to-day. When he first -met Nietzsche his interest in the young man at once became very great, -and the relationship between them rapidly developed into the warmest -of friendships. To Ritschl Nietzsche owed many things. It was at the -former's house that he became acquainted with many of the leading -learned men of the day. And it would be unfair not to credit Ritschl -with much of the future philosopher's ardent and lasting interest in -ancient cultures.</p> - -<p>At Bonn Nietzsche entered the collegiate life with unusual zest. He -became a member of the Franconia<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span> Student Corps, and participated -freely in the drinking bouts which, from what we can learn from his -letters home, constituted one of the main duties attached to his -membership. But this phase of the student life was foreign to his -tastes, and after brief activities in the rôle of "good fellow," he -found a more spontaneous recreation in attending concerts and the -better class theatres. He privately studied Schumann, and during 1864 -and 1865 his life bore a marked musical stamp.</p> - -<p>It was during Nietzsche's days at Bonn that a decided change came over -his religious views. His critical studies in the literature and culture -of the ancients had done much toward weaning him from the formal and -almost literal theological beliefs of his family. The first open breach -between his newer ideals and the established prejudices of his mother -came at Easter-time about midway of his course at Bonn. He was home -for the holidays, and when the good people were preparing to attend -communion, he suddenly informed them of his decision not to accompany -them. Arguments were unavailing. An animated discussion arose in which -he firmly defended his attitude; and from that time on there was never -a reconciliation between his religious standpoint and the one held by -his family. Two learned ecclesiastics were called into consultation, -but they were unable to meet the disquieting arguments of the young -heretic, and his case was dismissed for the moment on his Aunt -Rosalie's theory that even in the lives of the devoutest Christians -there often come periods of doubt, and that during such periods it is -best to leave the backslider to his own conscience. Nietzsche, however, -never again entered the fold.</p> - -<p>Curiously enough it was at this same period that came<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> his revulsion -toward the dissipations of student life. He went so far as to attempt -an imposition of his moral theories on the members of the Franconia, -but this attempt at reformation resulted only in his own unpopularity. -In his attitude toward duelling—a pastime somewhat over-emphasised at -Bonn—Nietzsche was consistent with his other beliefs. The chivalrous -side of it appealed to him, although he detested the spirit of it -from the standpoint of the student body. However, he took heroic, if -unconventional, means to involve himself in a duel lest his position -be misconstrued as cowardice. He selected an adversary he thought -worthy of him, and pleasantly demanded a combat on the field of honour, -ending his request: "Let us waive all the usual preliminaries." -The other agreed, and the duel was fought. But the incident merely -resulted in emphasising Nietzsche's disgust for student life. Says -his sister, "The circumstances which above all aroused my brother's -wrath was the detestable 'beer materialism' with which he met on -all sides, and owing to these early experiences in Bonn he for ever -retained a very deep dislike for smoking, drinking, and the whole of -so-called 'beer-conviviality.'" His decision to leave Bonn and enter -the University of Leipzig was due to his fondness for Ritschl. In the -dispute which arose between the two Professors, Jahn and Ritschl, -Nietzsche's friendship for the latter made him a partisan, although he -held Jahn in the highest respect; and when Ritschl decided to transfer -himself to Leipzig, the young philosopher, along with several of the -other students, followed him. This was in the autumn of 1865. Nietzsche -reached Leipzig on the 17th of October, and the next day he presented -himself to the Academic Board. It was the centennial anniversary -of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> the day when Goethe had entered his name on the register, and -the University was celebrating the event. The coincidence delighted -Nietzsche greatly, who regarded it as a good omen for his future at the -new institution.</p> - -<p>It was during his residence at Leipzig that there came into his life -two events which were to have a profound and lasting influence on his -future. One of these was his acquaintance with Wagner—an acquaintance -which several years later developed into the strongest friendship of -his life. The other event (in many ways more important than the first) -was his discovery of Schopenhauer. This discovery is characteristically -described in a letter to his sister: "One day I came across this book -at old Rohn's curiosity shop, and taking it up very gingerly I turned -over its pages. I know not what demon whispered to me: 'Take this -book home with thee.' At all events, contrary to my habit not to be -hasty in my purchase of books, I took it home. Once in my room I threw -myself into the corner of the sofa with my booty, and began to allow -that energetic and gloomy genius to work upon my mind. In this book, -in which every line cried out renunciation, denial, and resignation, I -saw a mirror in which I espied the whole world, life and my own mind -depicted in frightful grandeur. In this volume the full celestial eye -of art gazed at me; here I saw illness and recovery, banishment and -refuge, heaven and hell. The need of knowing myself, yea, even of -gnawing at myself, forcibly seized me." This book went far in arousing -the philosophic faculties of the young philologist, and later he -wrote many essays, long and short, both in praise and in refutation -of the great pessimist. That he should at first have subscribed to -all of Schopenhauer's teachings is natural. Nietzsche was vital and -susceptible to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> enthusiasms. It was in accord with his youthful nature, -full of courage and strength, that he should have been seduced to -pessimism.</p> - -<p>At Leipzig Nietzsche accomplished an enormous amount of work: and his -nature developed in proportion. The life was freer than it had been -at Pforta or at Bonn. Far from being hampered in the voicings of his -inner beliefs, he found his environment particularly congenial to -self-expression. He made numerous friends, principal among them being -Erwin Rohde, who crossed his later life at many points. He showed -a great interest in political, as well as in literary and musical, -events; and the war between Prussia and Austria fanned his youthful -ardour to an almost extravagant degree. Twice he offered himself to -the authorities, hoping to be permitted to serve as a soldier, but was -rejected both times on account of his shortsightedness. His interest -in his studies, however, was in no wise diminished. He read widely in -English, French, Greek and Latin, and devoted much scholarly research -to Theognis, Diogenes Laertius, and Democritus. His essay on the -subject, <i>"De Fontibus Diogenis Laertii"</i> won the first university -prize, and was later published, with other of his essays on philology, -in the <i>Rheinisches Museum.</i></p> - -<p>At this time the Prussian army found itself in sore need of men, and -although Nietzsche had been exempt from military duties and had failed -to secure enlistment, he suddenly found himself, in the autumn of 1867, -called upon for compulsory training. A new army regulation had just -been passed requiring all young men, if otherwise physically sound, -to enter military service even though their eyesight was partially -impaired. As a consequence Nietzsche had to leave Leipzig and go into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> -training. He made an effort to enlist in a Berlin Guard Regiment, but -was finally compelled to join the horse artillery at Naumburg. Although -he had previously volunteered for service, he now found that the life -of a soldier was far more irksome and far less romantic than he had -imagined. He was unhappy and disconsolate, and deplored the slavery -attached to the life of a mounted artilleryman. He was not destined, -however, to fulfil his arduous military duties to the full term of his -proscription. Barely a year had gone by when he was thrown from his -horse and received what at first was thought a slight strain, but what -later turned out to be a serious injury. The pommel of his saddle had -compressed his chest, and the inflammation which set in necessitated -his permanent withdrawal from service.</p> - -<p>For a long time Nietzsche was under the care of the famous specialist, -Volkmann, to whom the military doctors had turned him over when -they had begun to despair of his recovery. During convalescence, he -busied himself with preparations for his coming university year and -assisted in some intricate indexing for members of the faculty. In -October, 1868, he was able to return to Leipzig and resume his work. -But another unexpected event—this one of an advantageous nature and -destined to alter his whole future—came in the form of an inquiry -from the University of Bale in Switzerland. The members of that -institution's educational board, attracted by Nietzsche's essays in -the <i>Rheinisches Museum,</i> wrote to Ritschl for information regarding -the young philologist. Ritschl replied that Nietzsche was a genius and -could do whatever he put his mind to. Thus it happened that, although -only 24, he was offered the vacant post of Classical Philology at Bâle, -without even being<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> put through the formalities of an examination. -However, he was straightway granted a Doctor's degree by the University -of Leipzig, and on the 13th of April, 1869, he left Naumburg to assume -the duties of his new appointment. His departure marked the passing -of the Nietzsche household. His grandmother and both the maiden aunts -were dead, and because, no doubt, of religious differences, he and his -mother became estranged. Of that intimately welded family circle, only -the deep friendship between Nietzsche and his sister remained.</p> - -<p>On May 28, Nietzsche delivered his inaugural address at Bâle, using -the personality of Homer as his subject. The hall was crowded, and the -address made a decided impression on both students and faculty. The -lecture was an unusual one and well off the conventional track. It -created riot a little mild excitement among the professors at Leipzig, -and the cut-and-dried philologists of that institution were frankly -scandalised by its boldness. The address, however, was an index to -Nietzsche's character, and, in looking back on it, we can see that it -unmistakably pointed the way along which the future development of -his mind was to take place. At Bâle, the young philologist, despite -the people's kindly disposition toward him, suffered from solitude. -His classes were small. Although he had made an impassioned plea for -his particular science, the interest in philology was slight, and -his morning lectures were attended by only eight students. Nietzsche -was without a companion with whom he might exchange his ideas and -personal thoughts. His only diversion came in the form of occasional -trips to neighbouring parts of the country; and the letters he wrote -to his sister and his former friends were tinged with melancholy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> -But he was conscientious in his work, and a year later he was given a -professorship.</p> - -<p>Before he could accept this later appointment it had been necessary -for him to become a naturalised subject of Switzerland, so that when -the Franco-German War of 1870 broke out, he could not serve as a -combatant—a fact which caused him keen disappointment. He was able, -however, to secure service as an ambulance attendant in the Hospital -Corps, and set forth upon his patriotic duties with a glad heart. -Having been granted the leave he asked for at the University, he went -to Erlangen, where he entered for a course of surgery and medicine at -the Red Cross Society. After a brief training as a nurse, in which line -of work he showed remarkable adaptability, he was sent to the seat of -war at the head of an ambulance corps. He was untiring in his energies -and laboured day and night in the midst of the battlefields. But the -overwork proved too much for him, and he soon reached the limit of -his endurance. One day, after long exposure in a cattle truck filled -with severely wounded and diseased men, he began to show signs of -serious illness, and when, after great difficulty, he managed to reach -Erlangen, it was discovered that he was suffering from diphtheria and -severe dysentery. Though he had seen but a few weeks' hospital service, -it was now necessary for him to discontinue his duties entirely. His -sister tells us that this illness greatly undermined his health, and -was the first cause of his subsequent condition. To make matters worse, -the slight medical education which he had received in preparation -for his ambulance service led him to pursue a fateful course of -self-doctoring—a practice which he continued to his own detriment -throughout the remainder of his life.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> Nietzsche did not even wait -until he was well before resuming his duties at the University, and -this new strain imposed on his already depleted system had much to do -with bringing on his final breakdown.</p> - -<p>As a result of the Philistinism which broke out all over Germany at -the end of the war, Nietzsche delivered a course of lectures at Bonn, -which he entitled "On the Future of Our Educational Institutions." -Germany had insisted that her victory was due not only to physical -bravery but also in a large measure to the superiority of Germanic -culture and Teutonic ideals. Nietzsche beheld in this snobbish attitude -a very grave danger for his country, and endeavoured in a small way to -rectify this attitude by a series of lectures. He severely criticised -the German educational institutions of the day and went so far as to -deny them the great culture which they so ardently claimed. While these -lectures in no wise stemmed, even locally, the tide of Philistinism -at which they were aimed, the criticisms contained in them are of the -greatest importance in reviewing the development of the philosopher -himself. The lectures contained, perhaps unconsciously but none the -less clearly, many of the elements of that philosophy which later was -to have so tremendous an influence not only on Germany but on the whole -civilised world.</p> - -<p>In the same year, 1872, Nietzsche's first important book appeared. This -work, dedicated to Richard Wagner, had been begun in 1869, and was -first called "The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music." When the -third edition appeared in 1886 the title was changed to "The Birth of -Tragedy, or Hellenism and Pessimism," and a preface called "An Attempt -at Self-Criticism" was added. In a large measure this book was a -tribute to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span> Wagner, and was written by Nietzsche in an effort to be of -immediate benefit to the musician who at that time was passing through -a period of despondency. Wagner was then living at Tribschen, not far -from Bâle, and Nietzsche's visits to him were frequent. It was during -these years that the great friendship between the two men developed. -"The Birth of Tragedy," however, was not well received by the public. -Musicians were pleased with it, but philologists in particular -deplored its utterances. They looked upon its author as a traitor to -their science for having dared to venture beyond the narrow bounds of -academic formalism. One well-known philologist, Wilamowitz-Moellendorf, -attacked Nietzsche in an ill-humoured pamphlet; and although Erwin -Rohde answered it adequately with another pamphlet, the attack proved -detrimental to Nietzsche's standing at Bale. During the following -winter term the young philologist was entirely without pupils.</p> - -<p>His mind, however, was now undergoing decided and important changes. He -was becoming bolder and surer of himself. New ideals were taking the -place of old ones, and in 1873 he began a series of famous pamphlets -which later were put into book form under the title of "Thoughts Out -of Season." His first attack was upon David Strauss; the second was -directed towards the German historians of the day; the third was aimed -at Schopenhauer; and the fourth was the famous panegyric, "Richard -Wagner in Bayreuth." These essays, together with his work at Bâle, -occupied him until 1876. Nietzsche was now suffering severely from -the malady he carried to his grave, catarrh of the stomach. This was -accompanied by severe headaches, and during his holidays he alternated -between Switzerland and Italy in an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> endeavour to recover his health. -In the former place he was with Wagner. In Italy, at Sorrento, he met -Dr. Paul Rée, who, if we are to believe Max Nordau, was the father -of all Nietzsche's ideas. Credence, however, cannot be given to this -accusation, for the nucleus of all of his later ideas was undeniably -contained in his writings previous to his meeting with Rée. That Rée -influenced him to some small extent no one will deny, for it was he who -turned the young philosopher's attention to the latter day scientists -of both England and France; and it was shortly after this meeting that -Nietzsche began his first independent philosophical work, "Human, -All-Too-Human."</p> - -<p>It was in the year 1876 that his famous friendship with Wagner began -to cool. Nietzsche had gone to Bayreuth to witness the performance -of <i>"Der Ring des Nibelungen"</i> Already he had begun to question -his own high opinion of the composer, and Bayreuth solidified his -doubts. It had been two years since he had seen Wagner, and after a -brief conversation, Nietzsche became bitter and disgusted. When he -finally went away his revulsion was complete, and one of the greatest -of historic friendships was at an end. Whatever were the individual -merits in the quarrel between these two great contemporaneous men, -Nietzsche's attitude was at least consistent with his innermost ideals. -He had admired in Wagner certain definite, revolutionary qualities, -and when he was convinced, as he had every reason to be, that Wagner -was compromising his art for the purpose of popularity, the ideal -was broken. He could no longer remain true to himself and also to -his friendship for the great composer. "Parsifal" was undoubtedly -a decadent work, viewed from the standpoint of Wagner's previous -performances.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span> Decadence is simply the inability to create new tissue; -and when Wagner forswore modern ideas and reverted to the past, it -attested to an entire change of mental attitude: and no purely æsthetic -doctrine can controvert the fact. Had Cézanne in later life essayed the -painting of conventionally posed saints—no matter what his technical -means might have been—his art would have contained the elements of -decadence, for an artist's mental attitude cannot be dissevered from -his product. This, I believe, was Nietzsche's theory in regard to -Wagner. That the breaking off of this friendship was a great blow to -the philosopher we know from his diary and from his letters. In fact, -his affection for Wagner, the man, was so great that it was not until -ten years had passed that he could bring himself to write the essay -which he had long had in mind, "The Fall of Wagner."</p> - -<p>The year after the appearance of "Human, All-Too-Human," Nietzsche's -ill-health compelled him to resign his professorship at Bâle. He had a -small income which, together with the three thousand francs retiring -allowance granted him by the University, permitted him now to travel -moderately and to devote his entire time to his literary labours. He -first went to Berne, where he stayed a few weeks. Later he visited -Zürich and then St. Moritz. It was a brief holiday, but the change of -<i>locale,</i> coupled with the relaxation from work, improved him both in -physical health and in spirits. The winter of 1879-80 he spent with his -mother at Naumburg, his old home; but the climate and the uncongenial -surroundings dragged down his health once more, and it was not until -toward the following spring, when he went to Venice, that he regained -even a semblance of his normal condition. Here he was in company with -Paul Rée and his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> life-long friend and disciple, Heinrich Köselitz, -commonly known as Peter Gast. Nietzsche stayed at Venice until October, -when he went to Genoa. The following year appeared "The Dawn of Day," -his first book of constructive thinking.</p> - -<p>The remainder of Nietzsche's life up to the time of his final breakdown -in January, 1889, was spent in a fruitless endeavour to regain his -undermined health. For eight years, during all of which time he was -busily engaged in writing, he sought a climate that would revive -him. His summers were spent for the most part in the quiet solitude -of Sils-Maria, a little Swiss village to which the tourist rarely -ventured. In 1882 he visited Genoa and, with Paul Rée as companion, -made a trip to Monaco. This journey ended disastrously for his health, -and by his physician's order he made a trip to Messina. Soon after he -settled at Grunewald, near Berlin; but the place depressed him, and -we find him later in Tautenburg. Again Genoa claimed him for several -months, and then, addicted to chloral, and despondent, he sought relief -at Rome. But he could not stand the hot weather, and again he visited -Sils-Maria, where, it seems, he was for the time greatly improved. -In 1884, we find him again at Naumburg, and a little later at Nice -and Venice. In the autumn of the same year, he spent several weeks -travelling with his sister in Germany, but at the approach of winter, -he proceeded to Mentone. In 1885 he again sought the company of Peter -Gast at Venice, and spent the larger part of that year and the next -at Venice and Nice. The lonely philosopher then paid a short visit to -Leipzig to be once again with his old friend Rohde. But the years had -estranged them; their views were now at opposites. Another of his few -friends thus lost to him,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> he immediately returned to Nice. The year -1886 found him at the Riviera, and in 1887 he was again at Sils-Maria. -Here he laboured incessantly, travelling to both Venice and Nice in the -meantime. In the spring of 1888 he changed his plans and went to Turin. -Then after his usual summer visit to Sils-Maria, he returned to Turin, -where he remained until the fatal winter of 1888-89. Nietzsche was -rarely happy during his travels. He was constantly ill and for the most -part alone, and this perturbed and restless period of his life resolved -itself into a continuous struggle against melancholy and physical -suffering.</p> - -<p>During these eight years of solitary labour and futile seeking for -health, Nietzsche had written "Thus Spake Zarathustra," "The Joyful -Wisdom," "Beyond Good and Evil," "The Genealogy of Morals," "The Case -of Wagner," "The Twilight of the Idols," "The Antichrist," <i>"Ecce -Homo"</i> "Nietzsche <i>contra</i> Wagner," and an enormous number of notes -which were to constitute his final and great philosophical work, "The -Will to Power." The cold reception with which his books met tended to -discourage him and to retard his physical recovery. His "Zarathustra" -was as greatly misunderstood by the critics as had been his earlier -volumes. With the exception of Burckhardt and Taine, the critics were -unfavourable to "Beyond Good and Evil." "The Genealogy of Morals" met -with scarcely more friendly a reception, and "The Case of Wagner," -while arousing the ire of the Wagnerians, caused no comment of any kind -in any other quarter. "The Twilight of the Idols" appeared about the -time of his breakdown, and "The Antichrist" and <i>"Ecce Homo"</i> were not -published until long after his death. The notes on "The Will to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span> Power" -have only recently been put together and issued.</p> - -<p>The events during this period of Nietzsche's career were few. Perhaps -the most important was his meeting with Miss Lou Salomé. But even this -episode had small bearing on his life, and has been unduly emphasised -by biographers because of its isolation in an existence outwardly drab -and uneventful. It was while Nietzsche was at Tautenburg that Paul -Rée and another friend, Malvida von Mysenburg, hearing that he was in -need of a secretary, sent to him Miss Salomé, a young Russian Jewess. -That it would have been difficult to find a person less suited to the -philosopher's needs was borne out by subsequent events. According to -some accounts Nietzsche fell mildly in love with her, and was upset -and irritated by her aloofness. But such a hypothesis is substantiated -only by the flimsiest of evidence, and, when we take into consideration -the temperamental gulf between these two people, it is highly -incredible that Nietzsche had any desire to form an alliance with his -amanuensis. The truth of the matter probably is that the philosopher -was sadly disappointed in his secretary—if not indeed disgusted with -her—and, in showing his regret, piqued her to retaliation. In fact, -we have a letter from Nietzsche to the young lady which bears out this -contention. In any event, we know that their companionship lasted but -a short time and that Miss Salomé wrote a most inept and unreliable -book on Nietzsche, <i>"Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken"</i> published -in Vienna in 1894. The affair had other painful results. Rée defended -his protegée, and he and Nietzsche became bitter enemies. Nietzsche's -sister also was dragged into the episode, and quarrelled with both Rée -and Miss Salomé.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span></p> - -<p>Shortly after this unpleasant event, Nietzsche, urged by his sister, -made a half-hearted attempt to secure a professorship at the -University of Leipzig, but negotiations for the post fell through, -due largely to Nietzsche's own indifference in the matter. Soon after -this the philosopher became estranged from his sister because of -her intention to marry Dr. Förster. Nietzsche's opposition to the -marriage—an opposition which was supported by his mother—was due -to several reasons. First, it would necessitate his sister leaving -him and accompanying her husband to Paraguay. Secondly, it had been -rumoured that Dr. Förster had severely criticised his books. And -thirdly, Nietzsche had small respect for Dr. Förster himself, who -was an impractical idealist and an anti-Semite. However, despite all -the family protestations, the marriage took place. Nietzsche was -disappointed and brooded over the event, but a year later he became -reconciled with his sister, and she remained, to the end of his life, -his closest friend and companion.</p> - -<p>In January, 1889, an apoplectic fit, which rendered Nietzsche -unconscious for two days, marked the beginning of the end. His manner -suddenly became alarming. He exhibited numerous eccentricities, so -grave as to mean but one thing: his mind was seriously affected. -There has long been a theory extant that his insanity was of gradual -growth. Nordau holds that he was unbalanced from birth. But there -is no evidence to substantiate these two theories. For seven years -Nietzsche's physical condition had been improving, and his mind up to -the end of 1888 was perfectly clear and gave no indication of what -his end would be. During this period his books were thought out in -his most clarified manner; in all his intercourse with his friends he -was restrained and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> normal; and his voluminous correspondence showed -no change either in sentiment or in tone. The theory advanced in some -quarters that his books, and especially his later ones, were the work -of a madman, is entirely without foundation. His insanity was sudden; -it came without warning; and it is puerile to point to his state of -mind during the last years of his life as a criticism of his work. His -books must stand or fall on internal evidence—and on nothing else. -Judged from that standpoint they are scrupulously sane.</p> - -<p>The direct cause of Nietzsche's mental breakdown is not known. As a -matter of fact, there was probably no direct cause. It was due to a -number of influences—his excessive use of chloral which he took for -insomnia, the tremendous strain to which he put his intellect, his -constant disappointments and deprivations, his mental solitude, his -prolonged physical suffering. We know little of his last days before he -went insane. He was living alone in Turin and working desperately. Then -suddenly to Professor Burckhardt at Bale he wrote a letter which was -obviously the work of a madman. "I am Ferdinand de Lesseps," he wrote. -"I am Prado. I am Schambige.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> I have been buried twice this autumn." -This was the first indication of his insanity. Immediately after he -wrote a similar letter to his old friend, Professor Overbeck. Other of -Nietzsche's friends received disquieting and indecipherable notes. To -Georg Brandes he sent a letter signed "The Crucified." To Peter Gast -he wrote, "Sing me a new song. The world is clear and all the skies -rejoice." To Cosima Wagner: "Ariadne, I love you."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span></p> - -<p>There was now no doubt of his condition. Overbeck went immediately -to Turin. He found the philosopher playing wildly on the piano, and -crying blasphemies to the empty room. Nietzsche was taken back to Bâle, -and then placed in a private psychiatric institution at Jena. Here he -stayed until the following spring when he was permitted to be taken -to the home of his mother at Naumburg. It was three years later that -his sister returned from Paraguay, where her husband had died, and -Nietzsche was sufficiently recovered to meet her when she arrived. But -though he lived for another seven years, his mind was irretrievably -ruined. When his mother died in 1897, his sister removed him to a -villa at Weimar. There on a great veranda, overlooking the hills and -the river valley, he remained until the end, receiving a few of his -friends and taking his old delight in music. His sister watched over -him tenderly, and though he was never strong enough to resume work, -he would often talk of his books. When shown a portrait of Wagner, he -said, "Him I loved dearly." He was all tenderness toward the end. The -mighty yea-sayer had become as a little child. "Elizabeth," he would -say, "do not cry. Are we not happy?"</p> - -<p>Nietzsche died on the 25th of August, 1900, and was buried at Röcken, -his native village.</p> - - -<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> Schambige and Prado were two assassins whose exploits were -then occupying the French journals.</p></div> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="II" id="II">II</a></h4> - - -<h3>"Human, All-Too-Human"</h3> - -<h4>Volumes I and II</h4> - - -<p>"Human, All-Too-Human" (<i>"Menschliches Allzu Menschliches"</i>) was -first published in 1878. Previous to this time Nietzsche had devoted -himself to a sedulous study of the French philosophers—Pascal, -La Rochefoucauld, Vanergues, Montaigne and others—and these men -influenced him in his selection of the aphoristic style as a medium -for his thoughts. His serious illness at the time made it impossible -for him to attempt any large and co-ordinated philosophical task which -would have required sustained thinking and continual physical labour, -and the detached manner of writing employed by the French thinkers -fitted in with the intermittent manner in which he was necessitated to -work. "Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions," the second part of "Human, -All-Too-Human," appeared the following year; and "The Wanderer and his -Shadow," the third section, was made public in 1880. Six years later -these three parts were put together in two volumes under the caption of -the original book, and were subtitled "A Book of Free Spirits."</p> - -<p>At that time Nietzsche already had numerous writings to his credit. -"The Birth of Tragedy" (<i>"Die Geburt der Tragödie"</i>) was composed -between 1869 and 1871, and issued in January, 1872. It was a treatise -on pessimism<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span> and Hellenism, and in it Nietzsche endeavoured to -ascertain the origin of Greek tragedy. In his research he passed over -many of the lesser philological discussions which were then occupying -the minds of his academic confrères, and, mild as was this first -published work of his, he suddenly found himself the centre of a -discussion which augured ill for his future at the University of Bâle. -In this book he undertook to explain the constant conflict between the -Apollonian and Dionysian ideals, and defined the differences underlying -these two great influences in Greek art. Later in his writings we find -him applying the theories stated in "The Birth of Tragedy" to all human -transactions.</p> - -<p>"On the Future of our Educational Institutions" and "Homer and -Classical Philology," contained in one volume, were addresses -delivered during Nietzsche's professorship of classical philology -at Bâle University. In these lectures he pointed out the necessity -of protecting the man of genius, and denied the existence of actual -culture in the educational institutions of modern Germany, holding that -true culture is only for the higher type of man. He made a plea for an -institution where genuine culture, founded on the ideals of ancient -Greece, would be harboured for the few who would devote their lives -to it. Here unquestionably was the faint beginning of his conception -of the superman. While these lectures dealt only with the educational -institutions of Germany, the criticisms in them may nevertheless be -applied in a broader sense to the general principles underlying all -schools. This book is the first visible step in the development of his -thought.</p> - -<p>More evidences of what was to come later are found in a series of -essays written during the early seventies, which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> are now published -under the general caption of "Early Greek Philosophy and Other Essays." -The seven essays contained in this volume are: "The Greek State" -(1871), in which he attacked the modern conception of labour, and -advanced a brief for slavery based on the assumption that without it -true culture cannot exist; "The Greek Woman" (1871), an outline of -Nietzsche's ideal of woman; "On Music and Words" (1871), an analysis -of the origins of music and language and a statement of the functions -of each; "Homer's Contest" (1872), a comparison of the ancient and -modern individualistic strife, in which was pointed out the necessity -of competition in any successful commonwealth; "The Relation of -Schopenhauer's Philosophy to a German Culture" (1872), a gay attack -upon certain phases of German philistinism, with the suggestion that -Schopenhauer's philosophy would prove an excellent counter-irritant; -"Philosophy During the Tragic Age of the Greeks" (1873), a brilliant -account and exposition of those Greek thinkers who preceded Socrates; -and "On Truth and Falsity in their Ultramoral Sense" (1873), a -rhapsodic refutation of the theory of absolute truth, in which we find -many denials of the values attached to current conventions. These -denials we are constantly meeting in the major part of Nietzsche's -later work.</p> - -<p>In Volume I of "Thoughts Out of Season" we find two essays: "David -Strauss, the Confessor and Writer" (written in 1873), and "Richard -Wagner at Bayreuth" (written during the close of 1875 and at the -beginning of 1876). The first essay is an attack upon an ex-clerical -who set up a philosopher's shop in Nietzsche's day and succeeded in -sufficiently inflaming the popular mind to secure for himself a wide -and ardent following.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span> Nietzsche, angered by the effect that Strauss's -sophistries had upon the German mind, undertook to answer them and -show up their spuriousness. In the essay on Richard Wagner, Nietzsche -praised the composer in no uncertain terms, hailing him as a saviour -of mankind through the medium of the drama. Nietzsche thought he saw -in Wagner a kindred spirit, a man free from the narrow dictates of his -time, one capable of establishing a new order of things in the realm of -art. Subsequently the philosopher turned against Wagner and denounced -him bitterly for his anti-Hellenic tendencies.</p> - -<p>Volume II of "Thoughts out of Season" contains "The Use and Abuse of -History" and "Schopenhauer as Educator," both written in 1874. In the -first of these essays Nietzsche attacked the study of history which was -then the foremost educational fad in Germany. He denied it a place in -the curriculum of culture unless it had for its foundation a profound -knowledge of the causes of history. Also in this essay he made a plea -for the individualistic interpretation of history, arguing that the -events founded on the activities of majorities are useless to a true -understanding of the fundamentals of racial development. Here again -we encounter the foreshadowing of the philosophy of the superman. -Nietzsche paid high tribute to Schopenhauer in his essay "Schopenhauer -as Educator." Without subscribing unqualifiedly to all the doctrines -of the great pessimist, he nevertheless allied himself philosophically -with Schopenhauer's theory that all logic is an outgrowth of the law of -self-preservation.</p> - -<p>In the autumn of 1874 Nietzsche wrote a series of brief comments -dealing with the subject of education. These paragraphs contain -about 20,000 words, and were to have constituted, when completed, -the fifth part of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> "Thoughts Out of Season." He never finished them, -however, and they were not published until after his death. These -fragments appear, under the caption of "We Philologists," at the end -of the volume entitled "The Case of Wagner." "We Philologists" is a -protest against the manner in which classical culture was promulgated -in the universities. It offers a stinging criticism of those German -professors, the philologists, to whom was entrusted the duty of -disseminating Greek cultural ideals, and in addition presents a concise -outline of what genuine Hellenic culture should consist. Nietzsche -protests against the filtering of pagan antiquity through Christian -doctrines—the method of teaching then in vogue—and insists that such -a form of education entirely misses its aim. Although "We Philologists" -is comparatively of small value to the student of Nietzsche's later -philosophy, it is interesting to note that as early as 1874, his -anti-Christian spirit was already well defined.</p> - -<p>The four essays contained in the two volumes of "Thoughts out of -Season" and "We Philologists" were the first of an intended series -of pamphlets to be called <i>"Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen"</i><a name="FNanchor_1_2" id="FNanchor_1_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_2" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> but the -series was never finished. However, the Nietzschean philosophical -ideas had unquestionably begun to take definite form. Already there -had been attempts at idealistic and moralistic valuations. There had -also been a considerable amount of that preliminary analysis which was -to form a foundation for the destructive and constructive thoughts of -later years. In these essays Nietzsche had already begun to strike his -bearings, and while they cannot be taken as a part of his philosophical -scheme, they nevertheless form an excellent introduction for those -students who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span> care to go behind the final expression of his ideas and -behold them in embryo.</p> - -<p>"Human, All-Too-Human," following two years later, came as a distinct -surprise even to Nietzsche's most intimate friends: Wagner especially -was horrified at the heresies contained in it. There had not been -sufficient indications in his earlier writings for one to predict so -devastating an arraignment of modern life as was contained in this -work. It was a departure, not only in thought but also in manner, from -all else he had written. The conventional essay form had been set aside -for an aphoristic style. Here we find a series of paragraphs varying in -length from a few lines to a page or more, each dealing with a separate -and syllogistically detached idea. The epigram, which was to play -such an important part in all of Nietzsche's writings, is also found -in abundance. The form in which these two volumes are cast gives the -effect of a man felling a giant tree with a thousand blows of an axe, -as distinguished from the method of the man who saws it down gradually -and continuously.</p> - -<p>Despite its muscular and incisive qualities, the manner of this work -is calm. As a whole it is an excellent example of those writings which -Nietzsche himself has called Apollonian. At times one even feels a -tentativeness in its utterances not unlike that which attaches to -the steps a man takes in a region he knows to be full of quicksands. -In this regard it is interesting to note how a certain insecurity at -the beginning of the work, which manifests itself in ultra-obscure -passages, later gives way to a clarity and humour indicative of almost -wanton temerity. In this book Nietzsche passes from the academician -to the iconoclast. He bridges the chasm from the doctor of philology -to the independent thinker. It is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> the record of the psychological -transition of his mind; and this record is evident in both his outlook -and his habits of expression.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche, at his birth as a thinker, presents himself as an -arch-nihilist. He realised the necessity of destroying the universe -before an understanding of it was possible, and so the two volumes of -"Human, All-Too-Human" are almost entirely destructive. In this work -we have Nietzsche the trail-blazer, the incendiary, the idol-smasher, -the pessimist, the devastator. One by one the doctrines and tenets, -strengthened by the accumulative acceptance of centuries, go down -before his bludgeon. Piece by piece the universe of reality is -neutralised by his analyses. Every human transaction, every phase of -human hope and aspiration, is reduced to negation. Ancient and modern -cultures are dissected unsparingly. Political systems are stripped -of their integuments and their origins exposed. New valuations are -attached to the great artists and writers. Many of Nietzsche's most -famous definitions grow out of the ruthless inquests he makes in this -work.</p> - -<p>This uncompassionate clearing away of accepted values prepared the -way for the books which were to come. Once having ascertained the -foundation on which human actions are built, the path was clear for -reconstruction and reorganisation. "Human, All-Too-Human," then, was -the first indirect voicing of Nietzsche's philosophy. All else had -been mere skirmishing with ideas. Only vaguely and desultorily had -his opinions been heretofore voiced. His analysis of history, his -criticisms of ancient and modern thought, had actually pried away the -superficial manifestations of existence and given him that insight -into the undercurrents of causation which was later<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span> to inspire him -in his work. For this reason we are more conscious of the man than of -the philosopher when reading the series of aphorisms which constitute -the main body of this document. "Human, All-Too-Human" is in the main -an inquiry into the fundamental reasons for human conduct. Nietzsche -devotes his efforts to showing that ideals, when pushed to their -final analysis, reveal a basis in human need. Especially does he -concern himself with the causes underlying current moral doctrines. -He points out that there is no static and absolute morality, but that -all moral codes are systems of deportment founded on human conditions -in accordance with the environmental needs of a people. From this -he states the corollary that all morality is subject to alteration, -amendment and abrogation. He asserts the relativity of the terms "good" -and "evil," and denies the justice of any final criticism of right and -wrong as applied to any human action.</p> - -<p>From this Nietzsche deduces the formula which is at the bottom of all -individualistic philosophy, namely: that what is immoral for one man -is moral for another, and that the application of any moral code is -undesirable for the reason that no system of conduct can apply alike -to all men. Thus any attempt on the part of any one man to direct the -actions of any other man is in itself an immorality, because it is an -attempt to hinder and retard the development of the individual. It -must not be thought that Nietzsche's arrival at this conclusion is a -direct and simple affair based on superficial observation. Nor is it in -itself the end for which he strives. To the contrary, the conclusion -is stated mainly by inference. The work he lays out for himself is one -of analysis, and under his critical scalpel fall religions, political -institutions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> and nations, as well as individuals. Wherever he finds -a belief whose origin is considered divine, he tears away its surface -characteristics and inquires into it. In every instance he finds a -human ground for it. Going still further, he points out that all -institutions, in order to meet the constantly fluctuating conditions of -society, must subject themselves to change.</p> - -<p>A multiplicity of themes comes under Nietzsche's observation in this -work. Not only is there a great deal of abstract reasoning but also -a vast amount of brilliant and penetrating criticism of men and -art. Ancient and modern philosophers, novelists, poets, musicians, -dramatists, as well as theories of art, literature and music, here come -under his careful and acute analysis. There are passages of startling -poetry interpolated between paragraphs of cynical and destructive -research. Nietzsche reveals himself as a scholar, the philologist, the -historian and the scientist, as well as the thinker. The amount of -general knowledge he displays in nearly every line of human endeavour -is astonishing. In his most elaborate processes of ratiocination he is -always capable of adhering to authenticated facts. He never side-steps -into the purely metaphysical or denies the existence of corporeality -once it has been assumed as a hypothesis. He breaks once and for all -with the metaphysicians and word-jugglers. Denying all reason in the -Kantian sense, he is always scrupulously reasonable.</p> - -<p>Although no direct philosophical doctrines are propounded in "Human, -All-Too-Human," Nietzsche had undoubtedly outlined in his mind the -constructive works which were to come later. However, in reading -this work one finds but little indication—and that only obscurely -hinted at—of the transvaluation of values which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span> was to follow the -devaluation. We have no hint, for instance, of the doctrine of the -superman other than an implied ideal of an intellectual aristocracy -which will permit of the highest development; of the individual. -Evolution beyond the present is mentioned but indirectly. The -future, to this destructive Nietzsche, is non-existent. His eyes are -continually turned toward the past and they shift no further than the -present. Only through implication is the Hellenic ideal voiced, and -then it is with a certain degree of speculation as to its efficacy in -meeting the demands of the modern man. Greek culture is used largely as -a means of comparison, or as an arbitrary premise of his dialectic. The -doctrine of eternal recurrence, which was to form one of the bases of -"Thus Spake Zarathustra," is not even suggested. The "will to power," -the anti-Schopenhauerian doctrine, which is the framework on which all -of Nietzsche's constructive thinking is hung, was, at the time of his -writing "Human, All-Too-Human," a hypothesis, vague and undeveloped.</p> - -<p>"Human, All-Too-Human" is the first work of Nietzsche one should read. -In reality it is an elaborate introduction to his later works. In his -following book, "The Dawn of Day," comes the birth of his philosophy; -it is the first real battle in his righteous warfare, the first great -blasphemous assault upon the accepted order of things. But it cannot be -readily understood or appreciated unless we have prepared ourselves for -it.</p> - -<p>The selection of the passages from the present two volumes has been -extremely difficult, due to their multiplicity of themes and to -the heterogeneity of their treatment. It is impossible to create a -convincing effect of a razed forest by presenting a picture of an -occasional<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> fallen tree. Herein has lain my chief difficulty. I have -been able to show only sections of the destruction of human values -which Nietzsche here accomplishes. Furthermore, it has been impossible -to give any very adequate idea of the vast amount of brilliant -criticism of men and art which is to be encountered in these two -volumes. All this must be got direct. It has been possible only to -suggest it here. Those portions of the books which I have been able to -comprehend in these excerpts are necessarily limited to Nietzsche's -more important destructive conclusions.</p> - - -<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> "Inopportune Speculations."</p></div> - -<hr class="5" /> -<p class="center">EXCERPTS FROM "HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN"</p> - -<p>Everything <i>essential</i> in human development happened in pre-historic -times, long before those four thousand years which we know something -of.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">15</span></p> - -<p>Everything has evolved; there are <i>no eternal facts,</i> as there are -likewise no absolute truths. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">15</span></p> - -<p>It is probable that the objects of religious, moral, æsthetic and -logical sentiment likewise belong only to the surface of things, while -man willingly believes that here, at least, he has touched the heart of -the world.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">17</span></p> - -<p>Nothing could be said of the metaphysical world but that it would be -a different condition, a condition inaccessible and incomprehensible -to us; it would be a thing of negative qualities. Were the existence -of such a world ever so well proved, the fact would nevertheless -remain that it would be precisely the most irrelevant of all forms of -knowledge.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">21</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">22</span></p> - -<p>Belief in the freedom of the will is an original error of everything -organic, as old as the existence of the awakenings of logic in it; the -belief in unconditioned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span> substances and similar things is equally a -primordial as well as an old error of everything organic. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">33</span></p> - -<p>A degree of culture, and assuredly a very high one, is attained when -man rises above superstitious and religious notions and fears, and, -for instance, no longer believes in guardian angels or in original -sin, and has also ceased to talk of the salvation of his soul,—if he -has attained to this degree of freedom, he has still also to overcome -metaphysics with the greatest exertion of his intelligence. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">35</span></p> - -<p>Away with those wearisomely hackneyed terms Optimism and Pessimism!... -We must get rid of both the calumniating and the glorifying conception -of the world. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">43</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">44</span></p> - -<p><i>Error</i> has made man so deep, sensitive, and inventive that he has put -forth such blossoms as religions and arts. Pure knowledge could not -have been capable of it. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">44</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">45</span></p> - -<p>The usual false conclusions of mankind are these: a thing exists, -therefore it has a right to exist. Here there is inference from the -ability to live to its suitability; from its suitability to its -rightfulness. Then: an opinion brings happiness; therefore it is the -true opinion. Its effect is good; therefore it is itself good and true. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">45</span></p> - -<p>Every belief in the value and worthiness of life is based on vitiated -thought; it is only possible through the fact that sympathy for the -general life and suffering of mankind is very weakly developed in the -individual. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">47</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">48</span></p> - -<p>Science ... has no consideration for ultimate purposes, any more than -Nature has, but just as the latter occasionally achieves things of the -greatest suitableness without intending to do so, so also true science, -as the <i>imitator of nature in ideas,</i> will occasionally and in many -ways further the usefulness and welfare of man,—<i>but also without -intending to do so.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">58</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span></p> - -<p>All single actions are called good or bad without any regard to their -motives, but only on account of the useful or injurious consequences -which result for the community. But soon the origin of these -distinctions is forgotten, and it is deemed that the qualities "good" -or "bad" are contained in the action itself without regard to its -consequences.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">59</span></p> - -<p>The hierarchy of possessions ... is not fixed and equal at all times; -if any one prefers vengeance to justice he is moral according to the -standard of an earlier civilisation, but immoral according to the -present one. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">63</span></p> - -<p>People who are cruel nowadays must be accounted for by us as the grades -of earlier civilisations which have survived.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">63</span></p> - -<p>Certainly we should <i>exhibit</i> pity, but take good care not to <i>feel</i> -it, for the unfortunate are so <i>stupid</i> that to them the exhibition of -pity is the greatest good in the world. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">68</span></p> - -<p>The thirst for pity is the thirst for self-gratification.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">69</span></p> - -<p>There must be self-deception in order that this and that may <i>produce</i> -great <i>effects.</i> For men believe in the truth of everything that is -visibly, strongly believed in. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">71</span></p> - -<p>One of the commonest mistakes is this: because some one is truthful and -honest towards us, he must speak the truth. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">71</span></p> - -<p>Why do people mostly speak the truth in daily life?... Because ... the -path of compulsion and authority is surer than that of cunning. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>,<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">7</span>2</p> - -<p>One may promise actions, but no sentiments, for these are involuntary. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">76</span></p> - -<p>Our crime against criminals lies in the fact that we treat them like -rascals. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>,<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">7</span>9</p> - -<p>Every virtue has its privileges; for example, that of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span> contributing its -own little fagot to the scaffold of every condemned man. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">80</span></p> - -<p>Why do we over-estimate love to the disadvantage of justice, and say -the most beautiful things about it, as if it were something very much -higher than the latter? Is it not visibly more stupid than justice? -Certainly, but precisely for that reason all the <i>pleasanter</i> for every -one. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">81</span></p> - -<p>Hope,—in reality ... is the worst of all evils, because it prolongs -the torments of man. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">82</span></p> - -<p>One will seldom go wrong if one attributes extreme actions to vanity, -average ones to habit, and petty ones to fear. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">83</span></p> - -<p>Religion is rich in excuses to reply to the demand for suicide, and -thus it ingratiates itself with those who wish to cling to life. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">85</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">86</span></p> - -<p>The injustice of the powerful, which, more than anything else, rouses -indignation in history, is by no means so great as it appears.... One -unconsciously takes it for granted that doer and sufferer think and -feel alike, and according to this supposition we measure the guilt of -the one by the pain of the other. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">86</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">87</span></p> - -<p>When virtue has slept, it will arise again all the fresher. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">87</span></p> - -<p>What a great deal of pleasure morality gives! Only think what a sea of -pleasant tears has been shed over descriptions of noble and unselfish -deeds! This charm of life would vanish if the belief in absolute -irresponsibility Were to obtain supremacy. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">90</span></p> - -<p>Justice (equity) has its origin amongst powers which are fairly -equal.... The character of <i>exchange</i> is the primary character of -justice.... Because man, according to his intellectual custom, has -<i>forgotten</i> the original<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> purpose of so-called just and reasonable -actions, and particularly because for hundreds of years children have -been taught to admire and imitate such actions, the idea has gradually -arisen that such an action is un-egoistic; upon this idea, however, is -based the high estimation in which it is held.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">90</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">91</span></p> - -<p>The feeling of pleasure on the basis of human relations generally makes -man better; joy in common, pleasure enjoyed together is increased, it -gives the individual security, makes him good-tempered, and dispels -mistrust and envy, for we feel ourselves at ease and see others at -ease. <i>Similar manifestations of pleasure</i> awaken the idea of the same -sensations, the feeling of being like something; a like effect is -produced by common sufferings, the same bad weather, dangers, enemies. -Upon this foundation is based the oldest alliance, the object of which -is the mutual obviating and averting of a threatening danger for the -benefit of each individual. And thus the social instinct grows out of -pleasure. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">97</span></p> - -<p>The aim of malice is <i>not</i> the suffering of others in itself, but our -own enjoyment.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">102</span></p> - -<p>If self-defence is allowed to pass as moral, then almost all -manifestations of the so-called immoral egoism must also stand.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">104</span></p> - -<p>He who is punished does not deserve the punishment, he is only used as -a means of henceforth warning away from certain actions; equally so, he -who is rewarded does not merit this reward, he could not act otherwise -than he did. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">105</span></p> - -<p>Between good and evil actions there is no difference of species, but at -most of degree. Good actions are sublimated evil ones; evil actions are -vulgarised and stupefied good ones. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">108</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p> - -<p>The religious cult is based upon the representations of sorcery between -man and man.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">121</span></p> - -<p>Christianity ... oppressed man and crushed him utterly, sinking him -as if in deep mire; then into the feeling of absolute depravity it -suddenly threw the light of divine mercy, so that the surprised man, -dazzled by forgiveness, gave a cry of joy and for a moment believed -that he bore all heaven within himself. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">124</span></p> - -<p>People to whom their daily life appears too empty and monotonous easily -grow religious; this is comprehensible and excusable, only they have no -right to demand religious sentiments from those whose daily life is not -empty and monotonous. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">125</span></p> - -<p>No man <i>ever</i> did a thing which was done only for others and without -any personal motive.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">134</span></p> - -<p>In every ascetic morality man worships one part of himself as a God, -and is obliged, therefore, to diabolise the other parts. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">140</span></p> - -<p>What is it that we long for at the sight of beauty? We long to be -beautiful, we fancy it must bring much happiness with it. But that is a -mistake. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">156</span></p> - -<p>There is an art of the ugly soul side by side with the art of the -beautiful soul.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">157</span></p> - -<p>Artists of representation are especially held to be possessed of -genius, but not scientific men. In reality, however, the former -valuation and the latter under-valuation are only puerilities of -reason. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">166</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">167</span></p> - -<p>A good author possesses not only his own intellect, but also that of -his friends. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">178</span></p> - -<p>To look upon writing as a regular profession should justly be regarded -as a form of madness. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">181</span></p> - -<p>A conversation with a friend will only bear good fruit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span> of knowledge -when both think only of the matter under consideration and forget that -they are friends. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">183</span></p> - -<p>Complete praise has a weakening effect. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">184</span></p> - -<p>There will always be a need of bad authors; for they meet the taste of -readers of an undeveloped, immature age.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">185</span></p> - -<p>The born aristocrats of the mind are not in too much of a hurry; their -creations appear and fall from the tree on some quiet autumn evening, -without being rashly desired, instigated, or pushed aside by new -matter. The unceasing desire to create is vulgar, and betrays envy, -jealousy, and ambition. If a man <i>is</i> something, it is not really -necessary for him to do anything—and yet he does a great deal. There -is a human species higher even than the "productive" man.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">189</span></p> - -<p>Deviating natures are of the utmost importance wherever there is to -be progress. Every wholesale progress must be preceded by a partial -weakening. The strongest natures <i>retain</i> the type, the weaker ones -help it to <i>develop</i>. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">208</span></p> - -<p>In the knowledge of truth, what really matters is the <i>possession</i> of -it, not the impulse under which it was sought, the way in which it was -found. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">210</span></p> - -<p>The fettered spirit does not take up his position from conviction, -but from habit; he is a Christian, for instance, not because he -had a comprehension of different creeds and could take his choice; -he is an Englishman, not because he decided for England, but he -found Christianity and England ready-made and accepted them without -any reason, just as one who is born in a wine-country becomes a -wine-drinker. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">211</span></p> - -<p>The restriction of views, which habit has made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span> instinct, leads to what -is called strength of character. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">212</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">213</span></p> - -<p>The highest intelligence and the warmest heart cannot exist together -in one person, and the wise man who passes judgment upon life looks -beyond goodness and only regards it as something which is not without -value in the general summing-up of life. The wise man must <i>oppose</i> -those digressive wishes of unintelligent goodness, because he has an -interest in the continuance of his type and in the eventual appearance -of the highest intellect; at least, he will not advance the founding of -the "perfect State," inasmuch as there is only room in it for wearied -individuals. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">218</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">219</span></p> - -<p>Interest in Education will acquire great strength only from the moment -when belief in a God and His care is renounced.... An education that no -longer believes in miracles must pay attention to three things: first, -how much energy is inherited? secondly, by what means can new energy -be aroused? thirdly, how can the individual be adapted to so many and -manifold claims of culture without being disquieted and destroying his -personality,—in short, how can the individual be initiated into the -counterpoint of private and public culture, how can he lead the melody -and at the same time accompany it. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">224</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">225</span></p> - -<p>A higher culture must give man a double brain, two brain-chambers, so -to speak, one to feel science and the other to feel non-science, which -can lie side by side, without confusion, divisible, exclusive; this -is a necessity of health. In one part lies the source of strength, -in the other lies the regulator; it must be heated with illusions, -onesidednesses, passions; and the malicious and dangerous consequences -of overheating must be averted by the help of conscious Science. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">232</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span></p> - -<p>Simultaneous things hold together, it is said. A relative dies far -away, and at the same time we dream about him,—Consequently! But -countless relatives die and we do not dream about them.... This species -of superstition is found again in a refined form in historians and -delineators of culture, who usually have a kind of hydrophobic horror -of all that senseless mixture, in which individual and national life is -so rich. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">235</span></p> - -<p>It is true that in the spheres of higher culture there must always be -a supremacy, but henceforth this supremacy lies in the hands of the -<i>oligarchs of the mind.</i> In spite of local and political separation -they form a cohesive society, whose members <i>recognise and acknowledge</i> -each other, whatever public opinion and the verdicts of review and -newspaper writers who influence the masses may circulate in favour -of or against them. Mental superiority, which formerly divided and -embittered, nowadays generally <i>unites.</i> ... Oligarchs are necessary -to each other, they are each other's best joy, they understand their -signs, but each is nevertheless free, he fights and conquers in <i>his</i> -place and perishes rather than submit. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">243</span></p> - -<p>The greatest advance that men have made lies in their acquisition of -the art to <i>reason rightly.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">249</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">250</span></p> - -<p>The strength and weakness of mental productiveness depend far less on -inherited talents than on the accompanying amount of <i>elasticity.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">250</span></p> - -<p>Whoever, in the present day, still derives his development from -religious sentiments, and perhaps lives for some length of time -afterwards in metaphysics and art, has assuredly gone back a -considerable distance and begins his race with other modern men -under unfavourable conditions; he apparently loses time and space. -But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> because he stays in those domains where ardour and energy are -liberated and force flows continuously as a volcanic stream out of an -inexhaustible source, he goes forward all the more quickly as soon as -he has freed himself at the right moment from those dominators.... -<i><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>,</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">252</span></p> - -<p>Whoever wishes to reap happiness and comfort in life should always -avoid higher culture. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">255</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">250</span></p> - -<p>All mankind is divided, as it was at all times and is still, into -slaves and freemen; for whoever has not two-thirds of his day for -himself is a slave.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">259</span></p> - -<p>If idleness is really the <i>beginning</i> of all vice, it finds itself, -therefore, at least in near neighbourhood of all the virtues; the idle -man is still a better man than the active. You do not suppose that in -speaking of idleness and idlers I am alluding to you, you sluggards? -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">260</span></p> - -<p>I believe that every one must have his own opinion about everything -concerning which opinions are possible, because he himself is a -peculiar, unique thing, which assumes towards all other things a new -and never hitherto existing attitude. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">260</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">261</span></p> - -<p>Whoever earnestly desires to be free will therewith and without any -compulsion lose all inclination for faults and vices; he will also be -more rarely overcome by anger and vexation. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">261</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">262</span></p> - -<p>You must have loved religion and art as you loved mother and -nurse,—otherwise you cannot be wise. But you must be able to see -beyond them, to outgrow them; if you remain under their ban you do not -understand them. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">264</span></p> - -<p>The rage for equality may so manifest itself that we seek either to -draw all others down to ourselves (by belittling, disregarding, and -tripping up), or ourselves and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span> all others upwards (by recognition, -assistance, and congratulation). <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">268</span></p> - -<p>We set no special value on the possession of a virtue until we perceive -that it is entirely lacking in our adversary. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">269</span></p> - -<p>We forget our pretensions when we are always conscious of being amongst -meritorious people; being alone implants presumption in us. The young -are pretentious, for they associate with their equals, who are all -ciphers but would fain have a great significance. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">271</span></p> - -<p>In warring against stupidity, the most just and gentle of men at last -become brutal. They are thereby, perhaps, taking the proper course for -defence; for the most appropriate argument for a stupid brain is the -clenched fist. But because, as has been said, their character is just -and gentle, they suffer more by this means of protection than they -injure their opponents by it. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">284</span></p> - -<p>The perfect woman is a higher type of humanity than the perfect man, -and also something much rarer. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">295</span></p> - -<p>Every one bears within him an image of woman, inherited from his -mother: it determines his attitude towards woman as a whole, whether to -honour, despise, or remain generally indifferent to them. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">295</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">296</span></p> - -<p>Mothers are readily jealous of the friends of sons who are particularly -successful. As a rule mother loves <i>herself</i> in her son more than the -son. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">296</span></p> - -<p>If married couples did not live together, happy marriages would be more -frequent. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">298</span></p> - -<p>As a rule women love a distinguished man to the extent that they wish -to possess him exclusively. They would gladly keep him under lock and -key, if their vanity did not forbid, but vanity demands that he should -also appear distinguished before others. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">299</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p> - -<p>Those girls who mean to trust exclusively to their youthful charms -for their provision in life, and whose cunning is further prompted by -worldly mothers, have just the same aims as courtesans, only they are -wiser and less honest. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">300</span></p> - -<p>For goodness' sake let us not give our classical education to girls! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">301</span></p> - -<p>The intellect of woman manifests itself as perfect mastery, presence -of mind, and utilisation of all advantages. They transmit it as a -fundamental quality to their children, and the father adds thereto the -darker background of the will. His influence determines as it were -the rhythm and harmony with which the new life is to be performed; -but its melody is derived from the mother. For those who know how to -put a thing properly: women have intelligence, men have character and -passion. This does not contradict the fact that men actually achieve -so much more with their intelligence: they have deeper and more -powerful impulses; and it is these which carry their understanding (in -itself something passive) to such an extent. Women are often silently -surprised at the great respect men pay to their character. When, -therefore, in the choice of a partner men seek specially for a being -of deep and strong character, and women for a being of intelligence, -brilliancy, and presence of mind, it is plain that at bottom men seek -for the ideal man, and women for the ideal woman,—consequently not -for the complement but for the completion of their own excellence. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">302</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">303</span>.</p> - -<p>It is a sign of women's wisdom that they have almost always known how -to get themselves supported, like drones in a bee-hive. Let us just -consider what this meant originally, and why men do not depend upon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> -women for their support. Of a truth it is because masculine vanity and -reverence are greater than feminine wisdom; for women have known how to -secure for themselves by their subordination the greatest advantage, -in fact, the upper hand. Even the care of children may originally -have been used by the wisdom of women as an excuse for withdrawing -themselves as much as possible from work. And at present they still -understand when they are really active (as housekeepers, for instance) -how to make a bewildering fuss about it, so that the merit of their -activity is usually ten times over-estimated by men. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">303</span></p> - -<p>Marriage is a necessary institution for the twenties; a useful, but not -necessary, institution for the thirties; for later life it is often -harmful, and promotes the mental deterioration of the man. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">308</span></p> - -<p>Marriage regarded in its highest aspect, as the spiritual friendship -of two persons of opposite sexes, and accordingly such as is hoped for -in future, contracted for the purpose of producing and educating a new -generation,—such marriage, which only makes use of the sensual, so to -speak, as a rare and occasional means to a higher purpose, will, it is -to be feared, probably need a natural auxiliary, namely, <i>concubinage.</i> -For if, on the grounds of his health, the wife is also to serve, for -the sole satisfaction of the man's sexual needs, a wrong perspective, -opposed to the aims indicated, will have most influence in the choice -of a wife. The aims referred to: the production of descendants, will be -accidental, and their successful education highly improbable. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">309</span></p> - -<p>We always lose through too familiar association with women and friends; -and sometimes we lose the pearl of of our life thereby. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">312</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span></p> - -<p>Women always intrigue privately against the higher souls of their -husbands; they want to cheat them out of their future for the sake of a -painless and comfortable present. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">315</span></p> - -<p>It is laughable when a company of paupers decree the abolition of the -right of inheritance, and it is not less laughable when childless -persons labour for the practical law-giving of a country: they have -not enough ballast in their ship to sail safely over the ocean of the -future. But it seems equally senseless if a man who has chosen for his -mission the widest knowledge and estimation of universal existence, -burdens himself with personal considerations of a family, with the -support, protection, and care of wife and child, and in front of his -telescope hangs that gloomy veil through which hardly a ray from the -distant firmament can penetrate. Thus 1, too, agree with the opinion -that in matters of the highest philosophy all married men are to be -suspected. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">316</span></p> - -<p>A higher culture can only originate where there are two distinct castes -of society: that of the working class, and that of the leisured class -who are capable of true leisure; or, more strongly expressed, the caste -of compulsory labour and the caste of free labour. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">319</span></p> - -<p>Against war it may be said that it makes the victor stupid and the -vanquished revengeful. In favour of war it may be said that it -barbarises in both its above-named results, and thereby makes more -natural; it is the sleep or the winter period of culture; man emerges -from it with greater strength for good and for evil. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">322</span></p> - -<p>As regards Socialism, in the eyes of those who always consider higher -utility, if it is <i>really</i> a rising against their oppressors of -those who for centuries have been oppressed and downtrodden, there -is no problem of <i>right</i> involved<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> (notwithstanding the ridiculous, -effeminate question, "How far <i>ought</i> we to grant its demands?") but -only a problem of <i>power</i> ("How far <i>can</i> we make use of its demands?") -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">322</span></p> - -<p>Well may noble (if not exactly very intelligent) representatives of -the governing classes asseverate: "We will treat men equally and grant -them equal rights"; so far a socialistic mode of thought which is based -on <i>justice</i> is possible; but, as has been said, only within the ranks -of the governing class, which in this case <i>practises</i> justice with -sacrifices and abnegations. On the other hand, to <i>demand</i> equality of -rights, as do the Socialists of the subject caste, is by no means the -outcome of justice, but of covetousness. If you expose bloody pieces of -flesh to a beast, and withdraw them again, until it finally begins to -roar, do you think that roaring implies justice? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">326</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">327</span></p> - -<p>When the Socialists point out that the division of property at the -present day is the consequence of countless deeds of injustice and -violence, and, <i>in summa,</i> repudiate obligation to anything with -so unrighteous a basis, they only perceive something isolated. The -entire past of ancient civilisation is built up on violence, slavery, -deception, and error; we, however, cannot annul ourselves, the heirs of -all these conditions, nay, the concrescences of all this past, and are -not entitled to demand the withdrawal of a single fragment thereof. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">327</span></p> - -<p>Those who are bent on revolutionising society may be divided into -those who seek something for themselves thereby and those who seek -something for their children and grandchildren. The latter are the -more dangerous, for they have the belief and the good conscience of -disinterestedness. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">329</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p> - -<p>The fact that we regard the gratification of vanity as of more account -than all other forms of well-being (security, position, and pleasures -of all sorts), is shown to a ludicrous extent by every one wishing for -the abolition of slavery and utterly abhorring to put any one into -this position.... We protest in the name of the "dignity of man"; but, -expressed more simply, that is just our darling vanity which feels -non-equality, and inferiority in public estimation, to be the hardest -lot of all. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">330</span></p> - -<p>In all institutions into which the sharp breeze of public criticism -does not penetrate an innocent corruption grows up like a fungus (for -instance, in learned bodies and senates). <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">336</span></p> - -<p>The belief in a divine regulation of political affairs, in a mystery -in the existence of the State, is of religious origin: if religion -disappears, the State will inevitably lose its old veil of Isis, and -will no longer arouse veneration. The sovereignty of the people, -looked at closely, serves also to dispel the final fascination and -superstition in the realm of these sentiments; modern democracy is the -historical form of the <i>decay of the State.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">342</span></p> - -<p>Socialism is the fantastic younger brother of almost decrepit -despotism, which it wants to succeed; its efforts are, therefore, -in the deepest sense reactionary. For it desires such an amount of -State Power as only despotism has possessed,—indeed, it outdoes -all the past, in that it aims at the complete annihilation of the -individual, whom it deems an unauthorised luxury of nature, which -is to be improved by it into an appropriate <i>organ of the general -community.</i> Owing to its relationship, it always appears in proximity -to excessive developments of power, like the old typical socialist, -Plato, at the court<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span> of the Sicilian tyrant; it desires (and under -certain circumstances furthers) the Cæsarian despotism of this century, -because, as has been said, it would like to become its heir. But even -this inheritance would not suffice for its objects, it requires the -most submissive prostration of all citizens before the absolute State, -such as has never yet been realised, and as it can no longer even count -upon the old religious piety towards the State, but must rather strive -involuntarily and continuously for the abolition thereof,—because -it strives for the abolition of all existing <i>States,</i>—it can only -hope for existence occasionally, here and there for short periods, by -means of the extremest terrorism. It is therefore silently preparing -itself for reigns of terror, and drives the word "justice" like a nail -into the heads of the half-cultured masses in order to deprive them -completely of their understanding (after they had already suffered -seriously from the half-culture), and to provide them with a good -conscience for the bad game they are to play. Socialism may serve to -teach, very brutally and impressively, the danger of all accumulations -of State power, and may serve so far to inspire distrust of the State -itself. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">343</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">344</span></p> - -<p>It is nothing but fanaticism and beautiful soulism to expect very much -(or even, much only) from humanity when it has forgotten how to wage -war. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">349</span></p> - -<p>Wealth necessarily creates an aristocracy of race, for it permits the -choice of the most beautiful women and the engagement of the best -teachers; it allows a man cleanliness, time for physical exercises, -and, above all, immunity from dulling physical labour. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">351</span></p> - -<p>Public opinion—private laziness. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">354</span></p> - -<p>Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">355</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p> - -<p>The unreasonableness of a thing is no argument against its existence, -but rather a condition thereof. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">361</span></p> - -<p>People who talk about their importance to mankind have a feeble -conscience for common bourgeois rectitude, keeping of contracts, -promises, etc. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">363</span></p> - -<p>The demand to be loved is the greatest of presumptions. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">363</span></p> - -<p>When a man roars with laughter he surpasses all the animals by his -vulgarity. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">369</span></p> - -<p>The first opinion that occurs to us when we are suddenly asked about -anything is not usually our own, but only the current opinion belonging -to our caste, position, or family; our own opinions seldom float on the -surface. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">372</span></p> - -<p>Nobody talks more passionately of his rights than he who, in the depths -of his soul, is doubtful about them. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">380</span>.</p> - -<p>Unconsciously we seek the principles and opinions which are suited to -our temperament, so that at last it seems as if these principles and -opinions had formed our character and given it support and stability, -whereas exactly the contrary has taken place. Our thoughts and -judgments are, apparently, to be taken subsequently as the causes of -our nature, but as a matter of fact <i>our</i> nature is the cause of our so -thinking and judging. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">384</span></p> - -<p>The man of unpleasant character, full of distrust, envious of the -success of fellow-competitors and neighbours, violent and enraged -at divergent opinions, shows that he belongs to an earlier grade of -culture, and is, therefore, an atavism; for the way in which he behaves -to people was right and suitable only for an age of club-law; he is -an <i>atavist.</i> The man of a different character,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span> rich in sympathy, -winning friends everywhere, finding all that is growing and becoming -amiable, rejoicing at the honours and successes of others and claiming -no privilege of solely knowing the truth, but full of a modest -distrust,—he is a forerunner who presses upwards towards a higher -human culture. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">388</span></p> - -<p>He who has not passed through different phases of conviction, but -sticks to the faith in whose net he was first caught, is, under -all circumstances, just on account of this unchangeableness, a -representative of <i>atavistic</i> culture.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">400</span></p> - -<p>Opinions evolve out of <i>passions; indolence of intellect</i> allows those -to congeal into <i>convictions</i>. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">404</span></p> - -<p>He who has attained intellectual emancipation to any extent cannot, for -a long time, regard himself otherwise than as a wanderer on the face -of the earth—and not even as a traveller <i>towards</i> a final goal, for -there is no such thing. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">1</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">405</span></p> - -<p>If we make it clear to any one that, strictly, he can never speak -of truth, but only of probability and of its degrees, we generally -discover, from the undisguised joy of our pupil, how greatly men prefer -the uncertainty of their intellectual horizon, and how in their heart -of hearts they hate truth because of its definiteness. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">15</span></p> - -<p>With all that enthusiasts say in favour of their gospel or their master -they are defending themselves, however much they comport themselves as -the judges and not the accused: because they are involuntarily reminded -almost at every moment that they are exceptions and have to assert -their legitimacy. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">18</span></p> - -<p>The belief in truth begins with the doubt of all truths in which one -has previously believed. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, 20</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></p> - -<p>Philosophic brains will ... be distinguished from others by their -disbelief in the metaphysical significance of morality. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">29</span></p> - -<p>You hold that sacrifice is the hallmark of moral action?—Just consider -whether in every action that is done with deliberation, in the best as -in the worst, there be not a sacrifice. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">30</span></p> - -<p>It is more convenient to follow one's conscience than one's -intelligence, for at every failure conscience finds an excuse and an -encouragement in itself. That is why there are so many conscientious -and so few intelligent people. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">33</span></p> - -<p>All moralists are shy, because they know they are confounded with spies -and traitors, so soon as their penchant is noticed. Besides, they are -generally conscious of being impotent in action, for in the midst of -work the motives of their activity almost withdraw their attention from -the work. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">42</span></p> - -<p>No one accuses without an underlying notion of punishment and revenge, -even when he accuses his fate or himself. All complaint is accusation, -all self-congratulation is praise. Whether we do one or the other, we -always make some one responsible. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">44</span></p> - -<p>We must know how to emerge cleaner from unclean conditions, and, if -necessary, how to wash ourselves even with dirty water. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">44</span></p> - -<p>The origin of morality may be traced to two ideas: "The community is -of more value than the individual," and "The permanent interest is -to be preferred to the temporary." The conclusion drawn is that the -permanent interest of the community is unconditionally to be set above -the temporary interest of the individual, especially his momentary -well-being, but also his permanent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span> interest and even the prolongation -of his existence. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">46</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">47</span></p> - -<p>We should not shrink from treading the road to a virtue, even when we -see clearly that nothing but egotism, and accordingly utility, personal -comfort, fear, considerations of health, reputation, or glory, are -the impelling motives. These motives are styled ignoble and selfish. -Very well, but if they stimulate us to some virtue—for example, -self-denial, dutifulness, order, thrift, measure, and moderation—let -us listen to them, whatever their epithets may be! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">48</span></p> - -<p>The tendency of a talent towards moral subjects, characters, motives, -towards the "beautiful soul" of the work of art, is often only a glass -eye put on by the artist who lacks a beautiful soul. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">78</span></p> - -<p>Art is above all and meant to embellish life, to make us ourselves -endurable and if possible agreeable in the eyes of others. With this -task in view, art moderates us and holds us in restraint, creates -forms of intercourse, binds over the uneducated to laws of decency, -cleanliness, politeness, well-timed speech and silence. Hence art must -conceal or transfigure everything that is ugly—the painful, terrible, -and disgusting elements which in spite of every effort will always -break out afresh in accordance with the very origin of human nature. -Art has to perform this duty especially in regard to the passions and -spiritual agonies and anxieties, and to cause the significant factor -to shine through unavoidable or unconquerable ugliness. To this great, -super-great task the so-called art proper, that of works of art, is a -mere accessory. A man who feels within himself a surplus of such powers -of embellishment, concealment, and transfiguration will finally seek to -unburden himself of this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> surplus in works of art. The same holds good, -under special circumstances, of a whole nation. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">01</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">92</span></p> - -<p>On great minds is bestowed the terrifying all-too-human of their -natures, their blindnesses, deformities, and extravagances, so -that their more powerful, easily all-too-powerful influence may be -continually held within bounds through the distrust aroused by such -qualities. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">100</span></p> - -<p>Original minds are distinguished not by being the first to see a new -thing, but by seeing the old, well-known thing, which is seen and -overlooked by every one, as something new. The first discoverer is -usually that quite ordinary and unintellectual visionary—chance. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">105</span></p> - -<p>The obvious satisfaction of the individual with his own form excites -imitation and gradually creates the form of the many—that is, fashion. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">107</span></p> - -<p>Who of us could dare to call himself a "free spirit" if he could not -render homage after his fashion, by taking on his own shoulders a -portion of that burden of public dislike and abuse, to men to whom this -name is attached as a reproach? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">108</span></p> - -<p>Immediate self-observation is not enough, by a long way, to enable us -to learn to know ourselves. We need history, for the past continues to -flow through us in a hundred channels. We ourselves are, after all, -nothing but our own sensation at every moment of this continued flow. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">117</span></p> - -<p>To young and fresh barbarian nations ... Christianity is a poison. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">120</span></p> - -<p>Faith, indeed, has up to the present not been able to move real -mountains, although I do not know who assumed that it could. But it can -put mountains where there was none. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">121</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span></p> - -<p>Among travellers we may distinguish five grades. The first and -lowest grade is of those who travel and are seen—they become really -travelled and are, as it were, blind. Next come those who really see -the world. The third class experience the results of their seeing. The -fourth weave their experience into their life and carry it with them -henceforth. Lastly, there are some men of the highest strength who, -as soon as they have returned home, must finally and necessarily work -out in their lives and productions all the things seen that they have -experienced and incorporated in themselves.—Like these five species -of travellers, all mankind goes through the whole pilgrimage of life, -the lowest as purely passive, the highest as those who act and live out -their lives without keeping back any residue of inner experiences. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">125</span></p> - -<p>To treat all men with equal good-humour, and to be kind without -distinctions of persons, may arise as much from a profound contempt for -mankind as from an in-grained love of humanity. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">127</span></p> - -<p>Towards science women and self-seeking artists entertain a feeling that -is composed of envy and sentimentality. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">134</span></p> - -<p>The intellectual strength of a woman is best proved by the fact that -she offers her own intellect as a sacrifice out of love for a man and -his intellect, and that nevertheless in the new domain, which was -previously foreign to her nature, a second intellect at once arises as -an aftergrowth, to which the man's mind impels her. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">136</span></p> - -<p>By women Nature shows how far she has hitherto achieved her task of -fashioning humanity, by man she shows what she has had overcome, and -what she still proposes to do for humanity. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">137</span></p> - -<p>Whence arises the sudden passion of a man for a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> woman, a passion so -deep, so vital? Least of all from sensuality only: but when a man finds -weakness, need of help, and high spirits united in the same creature, -he suffers a sort of overflowing of soul, and is touched and offended -at the same moment. At this point arises the source of great love. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">140</span></p> - -<p>Profundity of thought belongs to youth, clarity of thought to old age. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">140</span></p> - -<p>The only remedy against Socialism that still lies in your power is to -avoid provoking Socialism—in other words, to live in moderation and -contentment, to prevent as far as possible all lavish display, and to -aid the State as far as possible in its taxing of all superfluities and -luxuries. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">145</span></p> - -<p>Only a man of intellect should hold property: otherwise property is -dangerous to the community. For the owner, not knowing how to make use -of the leisure which his possessions might secure to him, will continue -to strive after more property.... It excites envy in the poor and -uncultured—who at bottom always envy culture and see no mask in the -mask—and gradually paves the way for a social revolution. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">147</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">148</span></p> - -<p>Only up to a certain point does possession make men feel freer and -more independent; one step farther, and possession becomes lord, the -possessor a slave. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">149</span></p> - -<p>The governments of the great States have two instruments for keeping -the people independent, in fear and obedience: a coarser, the army, and -a more refined, the school. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">152</span></p> - -<p>To call a thing good not a day longer than it appears to us good, and -above all not a day earlier—that is the only way to keep joy pure. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">158</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p> - -<p>To honour and acknowledge even the bad, when it <i>pleases</i> one, and -to have no conception of how one could be ashamed of being pleased -thereat, is the mark of sovereignty in things great and small. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">158</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">159</span></p> - -<p>When life has treated us in true robber fashion, and has taken away all -that it could of honour, joys, connections, health, and property of -every kind, we perhaps discover in the end, after the first shock, that -we are richer than before. For now we know for the first time what is -so peculiarly ours that no robber hand can touch it, and perhaps, after -all the plunder and devastation, we come forward with the airs of a -mighty real estate owner. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">162</span></p> - -<p>You rank far below others when you try to establish the exception and -they the rule. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">167</span></p> - -<p>The most senile thought ever conceived about men lies in the famous -saying, "The ego is always hateful," the most childish in the still -more famous saying, "Love thy neighbour as thyself."—With the one -knowledge of men has ceased, with the other it has not yet begun. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">172</span></p> - -<p>You find your burden of life too heavy? Then you must increase the -burden of your life. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">176</span></p> - -<p>That the world is <i>not</i> the abstract essence of an eternal -reasonableness is sufficiently proved by the fact that that <i>bit of the -world</i> which we know—I mean our human reason—is none too reasonable. -And if <i>this</i> is not eternally and wholly wise and reasonable, the rest -of the world will not be so either. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">184</span></p> - -<p>There exists a simulated contempt for all things that mankind actually -holds most important, for all everyday matters. For instance, we say -"we only eat to live"—an abominable <i>lie,</i> like that which speaks -of the procreation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span> of children as the real purpose of all sexual -pleasure. Conversely, the reverence for "the most important things" is -hardly ever quite genuine. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">185</span></p> - -<p>The doctrine of free will is an invention of the ruling classes. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">190</span></p> - -<p>If a God created the world, he created man to be his ape, as a -perpetual source of amusement in the midst of his rather tedious -eternities. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">193</span></p> - -<p>The robber and the man of power who promises to protect a community -from robbers are perhaps at bottom beings of the same mould, save that -the latter attains his ends by other means than the former—that is -to say, through regular imposts paid to him by the community, and no -longer through forced contributions. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">200</span></p> - -<p>The sting of conscience, like the gnawing of a dog at a stone, is mere -foolishness. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">217</span></p> - -<p>Rights may be traced to traditions, traditions to momentary agreements. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">217</span></p> - -<p>Morality is primarily a means of preserving the community and saving it -from destruction. Next it is a means of maintaining the community on a -certain plane and in a certain degree of benevolence. Its motives are -fear and hope, and these in a more coarse, rough, and powerful form, -the more the propensity towards the perverse, one-sided, and personal -still persists. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">221</span></p> - -<p>Moral prohibitions, like those of the Decalogue, are only suited to -ages when reason lies vanquished. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">223</span></p> - -<p>It is difficult to explain why pity is so highly prized, just as we -need to explain why the unselfish man, who is originally despised or -feared as being artful, is praised.</p> - -<p><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">224</span></p> - -<p>The sum-total of our conscience is all that has regularly been demanded -of us, without reason, in the days of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> our childhood, by people whom we -respected or feared. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">224</span></p> - -<p>Every word is a preconceived judgment. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">225</span></p> - -<p>The fatalism of the Turk has this fundamental defect, that it contrasts -man and fate as two distinct things. Man, says this doctrine, may -struggle against fate and try to baffle it, but in the end fate will -always gain the victory. Hence the most rational course is to resign -oneself or to live as one pleases. As a matter of fact, every man is -himself a piece of fate. When he thinks that he is struggling against -fate in this way, fate is accomplishing its ends even in that struggle. -The combat is a fantasy, but so is the resignation in fate—all these -fantasies are included in fate.—The fear felt by most people of the -doctrine that denies the freedom of the will is a fear of the fatalism -of the Turk. They imagine that man will become weakly resigned and -will stand before the future with folded hands, because he cannot -alter anything of the future. Or that he will give a free rein to his -caprices, because the predestined cannot be made worse by that course. -The follies of men are as much a piece of fate as are his wise actions, -and even that fear of belief in fate is a fatality. You yourself, you -poor timid creature, are that indomitable <i>Moira,</i> which rules even the -Gods; whatever may happen, you are a curse or a blessing, and in any -case the fetters wherein the strongest lies bound: in you the whole -future of the human world is predestined, and it is no use for you to -be frightened of yourself. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">228</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">229</span></p> - -<p>In the first era of the higher humanity courage is accounted the most -noble virtue, in the next justice, in the third temperance, in the -fourth wisdom. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">230</span></p> - -<p>Superficial, inexact observation sees contrasts<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span> everywhere in nature -(for instance, "hot and cold"), where there are no contrasts, only -differences of degree. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">231</span></p> - -<p>On two hypotheses alone is there any sense in prayer, that not quite -extinct custom of olden times. It would have to be possible either -to fix or alter the will of the godhead, and the devotee would have -to know best himself what he needs and should really desire. Both -hypotheses, axiomatic and traditional in all other religions, are -denied by Christianity. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">235</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">233</span></p> - -<p>Distrust is the touchstone for the gold of certainty. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">266</span></p> - -<p>Wrath and punishment are our inheritance from the animals. Man does -not become of age until he has restored to the animals this gift of -the cradle.—Herein lies buried one of the mightiest ideas that men -can have, the idea of a progress of all progresses.—Let us go forward -together a few millenniums, my friends! There is still reserved for -mankind a great deal of joy, the very scent of which has not yet been -wafted to the men of our day! Indeed, we may promise ourselves this -joy, nay summon and conjure it up as a necessary thing, so long as the -development of human reason does not stand still. Some day we shall no -longer be reconciled to the logical sin that lurks in all wrath and -punishment, whether exercised by the individual or by society—some -day, when head and heart have learnt to live as near together as they -now are far apart. That they no longer stand so far apart as they did -originally is fairly palpable from a glance at the whole course of -humanity. The individual who can review a life of introspective work -will become conscious of the <i>rapprochement</i> arrived at, with a proud -delight at the distance he has bridged, in order that he may thereupon -venture upon more ample hopes. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">284</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">285</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p> - -<p>Natural death is independent of all reason and is really an irrational -death, in which the pitiable substance of the shell determines how long -the kernel is to exist.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">286</span></p> - -<p>The more fully and thoroughly we live, the more ready we are to -sacrifice life for a single pleasurable emotion. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">288</span></p> - -<p>All intellectual movements whereby the great may hope to rob and the -small to save, are sure to prosper.</p> - -<p><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">311</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">312</span></p> - -<p>The desire for victory and pre-eminence is an ineradicable trait of -human nature, older and more primitive than any respect of or joy in -equality. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">312</span></p> - -<p>If all alms were given only out of compassion, the whole tribe of -beggars would long since have died of starvation.... The greatest of -almsgivers is cowardice. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">317</span></p> - -<p>The exertion of power is laborious and demands courage. That is why so -many do not assert their most valid rights, because their rights are a -kind of power, and they are too lazy or too cowardly to exercise them. -<i>Indulgence</i> and <i>patience</i> are the names given to the virtues that -cloak these faults. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">319</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">320</span></p> - -<p>"Stupid as a man," say the women; "Cowardly as a woman," say the men. -Stupidity in a woman is unfeminine. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">328</span></p> - -<p>All political work, even with great statesmen, is an improvisation that -trusts to luck. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">332</span></p> - -<p>The so-called armed peace that prevails at present in all countries is -a sign of a bellicose disposition, of a disposition that trusts neither -itself nor its neighbour, and, partly from hate, partly from fear, -refuses to lay down its weapons. Better to perish than to hate and -fear, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> twice as far better to perish than to make oneself hated and -feared—this must some day become the supreme maxim of every political -community!... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">236</span></p> - -<p>In order that property may henceforth inspire more confidence and -become more moral, we should keep open all the paths of work for small -fortunes, but should prevent the effortless and sudden acquisition of -wealth. Accordingly, we should take all the branches of transport and -trade which favour the accumulation of large fortunes—especially, -therefore, the money market—out of the hands of private persons or -private companies, and look upon those who own too much, just as upon -those who own nothing, as types fraught with danger to the community. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">340</span></p> - -<p>If we try to determine the value of labour by the amount of time, -industry, good or bad will, constraint, inventiveness or laziness, -honesty or make-believe bestowed upon it, the valuation can never be a -just one. For the whole personality would have to be thrown into the -scale, and this is impossible. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">340</span></p> - -<p>The <i>exploitation</i> of the worker was, as we now understand, a piece -of folly, a robbery at the expense of the future, a jeopardisation of -society. We almost have the war now, and in any case the expense of -maintaining peace, of concluding treaties and winning confidence, will -henceforth be very great, because the folly of the exploiters was very -great and long-lasting. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">341</span></p> - -<p>The masses are as far as possible removed from Socialism as a -doctrine of altering the acquisition of property. If once they get the -steering-wheel into their hands, through great majorities in their -Parliaments, they will attack with progressive taxation the whole -dominant system of capitalists, merchants, and financiers, and will in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span> -fact slowly create a middle class which may forget Socialism like a -disease that has been overcome. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">343</span></p> - -<p>The Two Principles of the New Life.—<i>First Principle:</i> to arrange -one's life on the most secure and tangible basis, not as hitherto -upon the most distant, undetermined, and cloudy foundation. <i>Second -Principle:</i> to establish the rank of the nearest and nearer things, and -of the more and less secure, before one arranges one's life and directs -it to a final end. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">351</span></p> - -<p>Through the certain prospect of death a precious, fragrant drop of -frivolity might be mixed with every day life—and now, you singular -druggist-souls, you have made of death a drop of poison, unpleasant to -taste, which makes the whole of life hideous. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">355</span></p> - -<p>We speak of Nature, and, in doing so, forget ourselves: we ourselves -are Nature, <i>quand même</i>. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">356</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">357</span></p> - -<p>We should not let ourselves be burnt for our opinions—we are not so -certain of them as all that. But we might let ourselves be burnt for -the right of possessing and changing our opinions. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">358</span></p> - -<p>Man has been bound with many chains, in order that he may forget to -comport himself like an animal. And indeed he has become more gentle, -more intellectual, more joyous, more meditative than any animal. -But now he still suffers from having carried his chains so long, -from having been so long without pure air and free movement—these -chains, however, are, as I repeat again and again, the ponderous -and significant errors of moral, religious, and metaphysical ideas. -Only when the disease of chains is overcome is the first great goal -reached—the separation of man from the brute. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>,<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">362</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">363</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="III" id="III">III</a></h4> - - -<h3>"The Dawn of Day"</h3> - - -<p>The first work to follow the transitional and preparatory -criticism and comment of "Human, All-Too-Human" was "The Dawn of -Day" ("<i>Morgen-röte</i>"). Such a treatise dealing with Nietzsche's -constructive and analytical thinking, was no doubt expected. No -man could so effectively rattle the bones of the older gods, could -so wantonly trample down the tenets strengthened by the teachings -of centuries, could so ruthlessly annihilate the accepted ethical -standards and religious formulæ, unless there existed back of his -bludgeon a positivity of will which implied creation and construction. -Nietzsche realised the significance of this new book, and at its -completion, early in 1881, sent an urgent letter to his publisher -requesting its immediate printing. The publisher, however, failing to -attach any importance to the document, delayed its issuance until late -in the summer, at which time its appearance caused no excitement and -but little comment.</p> - -<p>"The Dawn of Day" nevertheless ranks among Nietzsche's best works. Its -title, frankly symbolic, reflects the nature of its contents. It was -the beginning of Nietzsche's positive philosophy. In it he begins his -actual work of reconstruction. Many of its passages form the foundation -of those later books wherein he augmented and developed his theories. -However, there is here no radical change in his thought. The passages -are logical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> sequences to that simple nihilism of prevailing customs -which occupied him in his former essays. In his earliest beginnings -we can see evidences of the direction his teachings were to take. His -books up to the last were mainly developments and elaborations of the -thoughts which were in his mind from the first. Though often vaguely -conceived and unco-ordinated, these thoughts were the undeniable -property of his own thinking. Although there have been many attempts -to trace eclectic influences to the men of his time, and especially to -Schopenhauer, the results of such critical endeavours have been easily -controverted by the plainest of internal evidence. The philosophical -Nietzsche has his roots firmly implanted in the scholastic Nietzsche; -and though in superficial and non-important phases of his thought he -changed from time to time, the most diligent research fails to reveal -direct contradictions in any of his fundamental doctrines.</p> - -<p>In "The Dawn of Day" Nietzsche goes again into the origin of morality. -He carries his analyses further and supports them by additional -enquiries and by more complicated processes of reasoning. Having -ascertained the place which morals assume in the human scale and -determined their relation to racial necessities, he points out that -their application as permanent and unalterable mandates works havoc in -any environment save that in which they were conceived. Inasmuch as -all morality is at bottom but an expression of expediency, it follows -that, since the means of expediency change under varying conditions, -morality must change to meet the constantly metamorphosing conditions -of society. And since the conditions of life are never the same in all -nations, moral codes must likewise adapt themselves to geography in -order to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> fulfil their function. The existing code of morals, namely: -the Christian doctrine, grew out of conditions which were not only -different from those in which we live to-day, but in many instances -diametrically opposed to them. Nietzsche saw a grave danger in adhering -to an ethical system which was not relative to the modern man, and -argues that the result of such a morality would produce effects which -would have no intelligent bearing on the racial problems of the present -day. Knowing the deep-rooted superstition in man regarding the "divine" -origin of moral laws, he undertakes the task of relating all ancient -codes to the racial conditions existent at their inception, thus -constructing a human origin for them.</p> - -<p>Christianity, being the greatest moral force of the day, attracted -Nietzsche's attention the most, and in "The Dawn of Day" much space is -devoted to a consideration of it. While in tone these paragraphs are -milder than those which followed in "The Antichrist," they nevertheless -are among the profoundest criticisms which Nietzsche made of Nazarene -morality. Though only a portion of the aphorisms contained in this work -are devoted to an evaluation of theological modes of conduct, stumbling -blocks are thrown in the path of an acceptance of Jewish ethics which -the most sapient of modern ecclesiastics have been unable to remove. -Out of certain aphorisms found here grew "The Antichrist" which is the -most terrible and effective excoriation that Christianity has ever -called forth. Beginning on page 66 of "The Dawn of Day" there appears -one of Nietzsche's most fundamental passages dealing with Christianity. -It is called "The First Christian," and is an analysis of the Apostle -Paul. No theological dialectician has been able to answer it. Here is -an aphorism so illuminating, so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> profound, yet so brief, as to dazzle -completely the lay mind.</p> - -<p>However, Christianity is but one of the subjects dealt with in "The -Dawn of Day." The book covers the whole field of modern morality. Says -Nietzsche in his introduction; "In this book we find a 'subterrestrial' -at work, digging, mining, undermining.... I went down into the deepest -depths; I tunnelled to the very bottom; I started to investigate and -unearth an old <i>faith</i> which for thousands of years we philosophers -used to build on as the safest of all foundations.... I began to -undermine our <i>faith in morals."</i> It is true that from the beginning -of history there has existed a ruling scale of values determining the -acts of humanity. Morality implies the domination of certain classes -which, in order to inspire reverence in arbitrary dictates, have -invested their codes with an authority other than a human one. Thus -has criticism been stifled. Morality has had the means of intimidation -on its side, and has discouraged investigation by exercising severe -penalties. Consequently morality has accumulated and grown, gathered -power and swept on without its thinkers, its philosophers or its -analysts. Of all the sciences, the science of conduct has been the last -to attract investigators.</p> - -<p>The vogue of that style of philosophy which was founded on the -tradition of speculation and honeycombed with presuppositions, did -not pass out until the advent of Darwin's evolutionism. But even the -inauguration of biology and sociology did not entirely eliminate the -metaphysical assumption from constructive thinking. The scientists -themselves, not excluding Darwin, hesitated to acknowledge the laws of -natural selection and of the survival of the fit. Neo-Lamarckism was -but one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span> of the reactions against this tough and unpleasant theory. -Alfred Russel Wallace and, to take an even more significant figure, -Herbert Spencer, endeavoured to refute the possibility of a biological -basis in thought and thus to avoid an acquiescence to the Darwinian -research. John Fiske, an avowed evolutionist, indirectly repudiated -the scientific origin of philosophy; and likewise most of the lesser -thinkers, following the exposition of Darwin's theories, refused to -apply to man the biological laws governing the animal kingdom. Balfour -and Huxley sensed the incongruities and variances in this new mode -of thinking, and strove to bridge the chasm between natural science -and human conduct, and to construct a system of ethics which would -possess a logical and naturalistic foundation. But in both cases the -question was begged. We find Balfour building up a moral system which, -while it did not deny Darwinism, had for its end the destruction, or -at least the alteration, of natural laws. And Huxley defines human -progress as an overcoming of biological principles. Thus, even in the -most materialistic of physio-psychologists, the subjugation of natural -laws was the primary thesis. Biology, therefore, instead of being used -as a basis to further philosophy, was considered an obstacle which -philosophy had to overcome.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche saw that a science of conduct based on natural and -physiological laws was a possible and logical thing. And in him, for -the first time in the history of philosophical thought, do we find a -scholarly and at the same time an intellectual critic of authorised -standards. The biological point of view was never lost sight of by him. -If at times he seemed to abandon it, it was but for a brief period; he -ever came back to it. Even his most abstract passages have their feet -implanted in the fact<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> that all phenomena are answerable to the law -of vital fitness. Before the tribunal of biology Nietzsche arraigns -and tries every phase of his thought, whether it deals with physical -phenomena, ethical conduct or with abstract reasoning. Philosophy, -for centuries divorced from science, is here clothed in the garments -of scientific experimentation; a relationship is established between -these two planes of rationalism and empiricism which have always been -considered by other thinkers as detached and unrelated. Nor does -Nietzsche ally himself, either consciously or unconsciously, with such -philosophers as Bruno and Plato (who stood between the scientific -thinkers on the one hand and the abstract dialecticians on the other), -and attempt a formulation of a system of thought founded on intuitive -processes. Such poetic conceptions had no fascination for him except -as they were directly applicable to the problem of the universe. Those -men who busied themselves with the mere theory of knowledge he held as -supererogatory cobweb-spinners; and even in the realm of metaphysicians -such as Descartes, Spinoza and Leibniz, he dallied but casually. His -aim was to relate all thought to determinable values of life.</p> - -<p>In his introduction Nietzsche calls morality the Circe of philosophies, -and adds: "For, to what is it due that, from Plato onwards, all the -philosophic architects in Europe have built in vain?" Later beneath -his analysis—which never assumes the negative qualities of the -metaphysical—the moral phenomenon goes to pieces, not by a few simple -strokes, nor yet by the effrontery of cynicism or pessimism, but -by the most careful and intricate surgery. He points out the great -heretics of history as examples of the men who, looked at through<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span> the -eyes of contemporaries, were "wicked" men, but who, under different -environmental circumstances, were considered "good." He denies the -static hypothesis on which morality is built, and postulates the -theory that immorality is not without its place in the development -of the reason. He is constantly attempting to translate the existing -moral values into terms of their true nature, not necessarily into -immoralities, but into natural unmoralities. The accepted virtues, -such as pity, honesty, faith, obedience, service, loyalty and -self-sacrifice, are questioned in their relation to racial needs; and -modern attitudes toward all human activities are traced to their causes -and judged as to their influence.</p> - -<p>The research work in the present book differs from that contained in -previous volumes. Heretofore Nietzsche indulged in inquiry without -speculation; he dealt mainly with generalities. His analyses were along -broad lines of human conduct. He confined himself for the most part -to principles. But in "The Dawn of Day" these principles are balanced -with existent morality. Specific modes of moral and ethical endeavour -are weighed against expediency. Nietzsche presents a diagnosis of the -fundamental nature of society to-day, and discovers many contradictions -and inconsistencies between modern social needs and those virtues held -in the highest reverence. He finds that deportmental means made use of -by weak and subjugated peoples of ancient times to protect themselves -against hostile invaders, are retained and practised to-day by nations -whose position has been reversed to one of domination. In short, he -points out that certain moralities have, by the alteration of national -and racial conditions, become irrelevancies. Consequently there is -often a compromise between ethical<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span> beliefs and ethical practices—a -compromise made necessary by the demands of social intercourse. Even -when the practice of these ancient moralities is conscientiously -indulged in, Nietzsche denies their adequacy in coping with modern -conditions, pointing out specific instances in which necessity and -habit are constantly impinging. For instance, the softer virtues of -a democratic and socialistic morality are shown to be desirable only -in weakened nations where the hardier virtues of egotism, cruelty, -efficiency, hard-mindedness, selfishness and retaliation would work -directly against preservation.</p> - -<p>Out of these conclusions grows a plea for individualism, and out of -this individualism the superman can be seen rearing his head above -the horizon of present-day humanity. The qualities of this man of the -future are defined, and a finger is pointed along the necessary lines -of racial culture. Nietzsche's first definite voicing of marriage -ideals follows in the train of the superman's appearance, and the first -comments of this philosopher in his criticism of woman are set down. -In this latter regard Nietzsche has been unfairly interpreted by those -who have considered his attitude toward woman superficially or without -relating it to his general theories. It would be well therefore for -the student to withhold judgment in this particular until the various -elements of Nietzsche's philosophical system have been co-ordinated and -understood. Woman plays an important, if small, part in his writings, -and his passages dealing with women should be carefully weighed in -conjunction with his theory of the superman.</p> - -<p>In "The Dawn of Day" Nietzsche's conception of class distinction is -defined and related to his later teachings. Throughout his analyses -runs a subtle undercurrent<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span> of his doctrine, of social segregation -which finds definite expression toward the end of the volume where -modern socialism, with its altruism and philanthropy, is traced to -its birth in Nazarene morality. In place of this present popular form -of ethics Nietzsche proposes a social régime in which aristocratic -culture will be set apart from mere utilitarian culture by very -definite boundaries. He argues that not only is this disassociation -in accord with the instincts of mankind, but that, as a workable -theorem, it adequately answers the needs of present conditions. The -slave-morality and the master-morality which he develops in his later -works are defined tentatively and suggested by inference in many of -the aphorisms. Out of this conception grew his dominant principle of -the "will to power," and in "The Dawn of Day" we find this principle -set forth in adequate definition for the first time, although the -development of the idea is left till later. However, Nietzsche makes -clear its point of divergence from the Schopenhauerian theory of the -"will to live" as well as from the Darwinian theory of the survival of -the fittest.</p> - -<p>But it is not alone abstract theory that occupies the pages of this -book. Nietzsche is never the mere metaphysician battling in an unreal -world. There are few dark closets and secret passageways in his -thought. Beyond a metaphysical hypothesis he does not go. He adheres to -demonstrable formulas, and reasons along lines of strictest reality. -The practical man he holds in high esteem, and constantly praises -the advance of science. He devotes pages to the blowing to pieces of -metaphysical air-castles. But, as I have previously pointed out, he is -in no sense of the word a materialist; nor is his assumption of the -world that of the realists. Life to Nietzsche<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span> is an eternal struggle -toward—no goal. The lessons the world has to teach are as so much -false doctrine. The meaning of life—the so-called absolute truth—is -but a chimera. Intelligence is a process, not an ultimatum. The truth -is mobile and dual, dependent on varying causes. In accepting the -material world, Nietzsche does not grant it. In assuming natural laws, -he denies them. In his adherence to logic and to the processes of cause -and effect, he is accepting phantoms and inconsistencies, and yet it is -along these lines that the race progresses.</p> - -<p>In "The Dawn of Day" Nietzsche makes use of the same aphoristic style -as that employed in "Human, All-Too-Human." (This broken, staccato -form he uses throughout the remainder of his works, except in certain -parts of "Thus Spake Zarathustra.") Each paragraph is captioned and -deals with a specific phase of morality or with a definite critical -attitude toward human conduct. Some of these paragraphs are scarcely -a line in length—mere definitions or similes. Others extend over -several pages. But they always pertain to a single idea. Occasionally -they are in the form of a brief conversation; at other times they -are short queries. One of these aphorisms is entitled "The Battle -Dispensary of the Soul," and this is what follows: "What is the most -efficacious remedy? Victory." That is all—brief, and perhaps, on first -reading, inconsequent. But study it a moment, and you will find in -it the nucleus of a great revolutionary doctrine. On the other hand, -turn to aphorism 142, called "Sympathy," and you will discover several -pages of flashing commentary. Out of the chaos of his style springs -a feeling of plastic form. These brief paragraphs are not detached -and desultory. They are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> pyramided on one another, and beneath them -runs an undercurrent of unified thinking. When the end of the book -is reached we have a carefully fabricated edifice, and we realise -that each paragraph has been some necessary beam or decoration in its -construction.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center">EXCERPTS FROM "THE DAWN OF DAY"</p> - -<p>Morality is nothing else (and, above all, nothing more) than obedience -to customs, of whatsoever nature they may be. But customs are simply -the traditional way of acting and valuing. Where there is no tradition -there is no morality; and the less life is governed by tradition, the -narrower the circle of morality. The free man is immoral, because it -is his <i>will</i> to depend upon himself and not upon tradition: in all -the primitive states of humanity "evil" is equivalent to "individual," -"free," "arbitrary," "unaccustomed," "unforeseen," "incalculable." In -such primitive conditions, always measured by this standard, any action -performed—<i>not</i> because tradition commands it, but for other reasons -<i>(e.g.,</i> on account of its individual utility), even for the same -reasons as had been formerly established by custom—is termed immoral, -and is felt to be so even by the very man who performs it, for it has -not been done out of obedience to tradition. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">14</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">15</span></p> - -<p>Popular medicines and popular morals are closely related, and should -not be considered and valued, as is still customary, in so different a -way: both are most dangerous and make-believe sciences. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">19</span></p> - -<p>All those superior men, who felt themselves irresistibly urged -on to throw off the yoke of some morality or other, had no other -resource—<i>if they were not really mad—</i>than to feign madness, or -actually to become insane.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> And this holds good for innovators in every -department of life, and not only in religion and politics. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">21</span></p> - -<p>Every one who has hitherto overthrown a law of established morality -has always at first been considered as a <i>wicked man:</i> but when it -was afterwards found impossible to re-establish the law, and people -gradually became accustomed to the change, the epithet was changed by -slow degrees. History deals almost exclusively with these <i>wicked men,</i> -who later on came to be recognised as <i>good men.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">28</span></p> - -<p>A man who is under the influence of the morality of custom comes -to despise causes first of all, secondly consequences, and thirdly -reality, and weaves all his higher feelings (reverence, sublimity, -pride, gratitude, love) <i>into an imaginary world:</i> the so-called higher -world. And even to-day we can see the consequences of this: wherever, -and in whatever fashion, man's feelings are raised, that imaginary -world is in evidence. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">40</span></p> - -<p>The history of the moral feelings is entirely different from the -history of moral conceptions. The first-mentioned are powerful before -the action, and the latter especially after it, in view of the -necessity for making one's self clear in regard to them. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">41</span></p> - -<p>Trusting in our feelings simply means obeying our grandfather and -grandmother more than the gods within <i>ourselves:</i> our reason and -experience. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">41</span></p> - -<p>The same impulse, under the impression of the blame cast upon it by -custom, develops into the painful feeling of cowardice, or else the -pleasurable feeling of <i>humility,</i> in case a morality, like that of -Christianity, has taken it to its heart and called it <i>good.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">43</span></p> - -<p><i>The origin becomes of less significance in proportion as we acquire -insight into it;</i> whilst things nearest to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> ourselves, around and -within us, gradually begin to manifest their wealth of colours, -beauties, enigmas, and diversity of meaning, of which earlier humanity -never dreamed. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">52</span></p> - -<p>Only when man shall have acquired a knowledge of all things will he be -able to know himself. For things are but the boundaries of man. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">53</span></p> - -<p>To whatever height mankind may have developed—and perhaps in the end -it will not be so high as when they began!—there is as little prospect -of their attaining to a higher order as there is for the ant and the -earwig to enter into kinship with God and eternity at the end of their -career on earth. What is to come will drag behind it that which has -passed: why should any little star, or even any little species on -that star, form an exception to that eternal drama? Away with such -sentimentalities! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">54</span></p> - -<p>Those earnest, able, and just men of profound feelings, who are still -Christians at heart, owe it to themselves to make one attempt to live -for a certain space of time without Christianity! They owe it to -<i>their faith</i> that they should thus for once take up their abode "in -the wilderness"—if for no other reason than that of being able to -pronounce on the question as to whether Christianity is needful. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">63</span></p> - -<p>Christianity has the instinct of a hunter for finding out all those who -may by hook or by crook be driven to despair—only a very small number -of men can be brought to this despair. Christianity lies in wait for -such as those, and pursues them. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">65</span></p> - -<p>The "demon" Eros becomes an object of greater interest to mankind -than all the angels and saints put together, thanks to the mysterious -Mumbo-Jumboism of the Church in all things erotic: it is due to the -Church that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> love stories, even in our own time, have become the one -common interest which appeals to all classes of people—with an -exaggeration which would be incomprehensible to antiquity, and which -will not fail to provoke roars of laughter in coming generations. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">78</span></p> - -<p>It is only those who never—or always—attend church that underestimate -the dishonesty with which this subject is still dealt in Protestant -pulpits; in what a clumsy fashion the preacher takes advantage of his -security from interruption; how the Bible is pinched and squeezed; and -how the people are made acquainted with every form of <i>the art of false -reading.</i><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">85</span></p> - -<p>Christianity wants blindness and frenzy and an eternal swan-song above -the waves under which reason has been drowned!... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">90</span></p> - -<p>What if God were not exactly truth, and if this were proved? And if he -were instead of vanity, the desire for power, the ambitious, the fear, -and the enraptured and terrified folly of mankind?... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">93</span></p> - -<p>One Becomes Moral—but not because one is moral! Submission to morals -may be due to slavishness or vanity, egoism or resignation, dismal -fanaticism or thoughtlessness. It may, again, be an act of despair, -such as submission to the authority of a ruler; but there is nothing -moral about it <i>per se.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">97</span></p> - -<p>Morals are constantly undergoing changes and transformations, -occasioned by successful crimes. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">97</span></p> - -<p>I deny morality in the same way as I deny alchemy, <i>i.e.,</i> I deny its -hypotheses; but I do not deny that there have been alchemists who -believed in these hypotheses and based their actions upon them. I also -deny immorality—not that innumerable people feel immoral, but that -there is any true reason why they should feel so,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span> should not, of -course, deny—unless I were a fool—that many actions which are called -immoral should be avoided and resisted; and in the same way that many -which are called moral should be performed and encouraged; but I hold -that in both cases these actions should be performed from motives other -than those which have prevailed up to the present time. We must learn -anew in order that at last, perhaps very late in the day, we may be -able to do something more: feel anew. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">100</span></p> - -<p>It is a prejudice to think that morality is more favourable to the -development of the reason than immorality. It is erroneous to suppose -that the unconscious aim in the development of every conscious being -(namely, animal, man, humanity, etc.) is its "great happiness"; on -the contrary, there is a particular and incomparable happiness to be -attained at every stage of our development, one that is neither high -nor low, but quite an individual happiness. Evolution does not make -happiness its goal; it aims merely at evolution, and nothing else. It -is only if humanity had a universally recognised goal that we could -propose to do this or that: for the time being there is no such goal. -It follows that the pretensions of morality should not be brought -into any relationship with mankind: this would be merely childish and -irrational. It is quite another thing to recommend a goal to mankind: -this goal would then be something that would depend upon our own will -and pleasure. Provided that mankind in general agreed to adopt such a -goal, it could then impose a moral law upon itself, a law which would, -at all events, be imposed by their own free will. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">105</span></p> - -<p>Our duties are the claims which others have upon us. How did they -acquire these claims? By the fact that they considered us as capable of -making and holding<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> agreements and contracts, by assuming that we were -their like and equals, and by consequently entrusting something to us, -bringing us up, educating us, and supporting us. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">110</span></p> - -<p>My rights consist of that part of my power which others have not only -conceded to me, but which they wish to maintain for me. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">111</span></p> - -<p>The desire for distinction is the desire to subject one's neighbor.... -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">113</span></p> - -<p>On this mirror—and our intellect is a mirror—something is going on -that indicates regularity: a certain thing is each time followed by -another certain thing. When we perceive this and wish to give it a -name, we call it cause and effect,—fools that we are! as if in this -we had understood or could understand anything! For, of course, we -have seen nothing but the images of causes and effects, and it is just -this figurativeness which renders it impossible for us to see a more -substantial relation than that of sequence!... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">129</span></p> - -<p>Pity, in so far as it actually gives rise to suffering—and this -must be our only point of view here—is a weakness, like every other -indulgence in an injurious emotion. It increases suffering throughout -the world, and although here and there a certain amount of suffering -may be indirectly diminished or removed altogether as a consequence of -pity, we must not bring forward these occasional consequences, which -are on the whole insignificant, to justify the nature of pity which, as -has already been stated, is prejudicial. Supposing that it prevailed, -even if only for one day, it would bring humanity to utter ruin. In -itself the nature of pity is no better than that of any other craving; -it is only where it is called for and praised—and this happens when -people do not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> understand what is injurious in it, but find in it -a sort of joy—that a good conscience becomes attached to it; it -is only then that we willingly yield to it, and do not shrink from -acknowledging it. In other circumstances where it is understood to be -dangerous, it is looked upon as a weakness; or, as in the case of the -Greeks, as an unhealthy periodical emotion the danger of which might be -removed by temporary and voluntary discharges. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">144</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">145</span></p> - -<p>You say that the morality of pity is a higher morality than that of -stoicism? Prove it! But take care not to measure the "higher" and -"lower" degrees of morality once more by moral yardsticks; for there -are no absolute morals. So take your yardstick from somewhere else, and -be on your guard!... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">149</span></p> - -<p>If, in accordance with the present definition, only those actions are -moral which are done for the sake of others, and for their sake only, -then there are no moral actions at all! If, in accordance with another -definition, only those actions are moral which spring from our own free -will, then there are no moral actions in this case either! What is it, -then, that we designate thus, which certainly exists and wishes as a -consequence to be explained? It is the result of a few intellectual -blunders; and supposing that we were able to free ourselves from these -errors, what would then become of "moral actions"? It is due to these -errors that we have up to the present attributed to certain actions a -value superior to what was theirs in reality: we separated them from -"egoistic" and "non-free" actions. When we now set them once more -in the latter categories, as we must do, we certainly reduce their -value (their own estimate of value) even below its reasonable level, -because "egoistic" and "non-free" actions have up to the present been<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span> -undervalued owing to that alleged profound and essential difference. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">158</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">159</span></p> - -<p>If I were a god, and a benevolent god, the marriages of men would cause -me more displeasure than anything else. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">162</span></p> - -<p>We ought publicly to declare invalid the vows of lovers, and to refuse -them permission to marry: and this because we should treat marriage -itself much more seriously, so that in cases where it is now contracted -it would not usually be allowed in future! Are not the majority of -marriages such that we should not care to have them witnessed by a -third party? And yet this third party is scarcely ever lacking—the -child—and he is more than the witness; he is the whipping-boy and -scapegoat. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">163</span></p> - -<p>Shame! You wish to form part of a system in which you must be a wheel, -fully and completely, or risk being crushed by wheels! where it is -understood that each one will be that which his superiors make of -him! where the seeking for "connections" will form a part of one's -natural duties! where no one feels himself offended when he has his -attention drawn to some one with the remark, "He may be useful to you -some time"; where people do not feel ashamed of paying a visit to ask -for somebody's intercession, and where they do not even suspect that -by such a voluntary submission to these morals, they are once and for -all stamped as the common pottery of nature, which others can employ -or break up of their free will without feeling in any way responsible -for doing so,—just as if one were to say, "People of my type will -never be lacking, therefore, do what you will with me! Do not stand on -ceremony!" <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">169</span></p> - -<p>In the glorification of "work" and the never-ceasing talk about the -"blessing of labour," I see the same secret<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span> <i>arrière-pensée</i> as I do -in the praise bestowed on impersonal acts of a general interest, viz., -a fear of everything individual. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">176</span></p> - -<p>Behind the principle of the present moral fashion: "Moral actions -are actions performed out of sympathy for others," I see the social -instinct of fear, which thus assumes an intellectual disguise.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">177</span></p> - -<p>Whatever may be the influence in high politics of utilitarianism and -the vanity of individuals and nations, the sharpest spur which urges -them onwards is their need for the feeling of power—a need which rises -not only in the souls of princes and rulers, but also gushes forth from -time to time from inexhaustible sources in the people. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">186</span></p> - -<p>As the aristocrat is able to preserve the appearance of being possessed -of a superior physical force which never leaves him, he likewise wishes -by his aspect of constant serenity and civility of disposition, even in -the most trying circumstances, to convey the impression that his mind -and soul are equal to all dangers and surprises....</p> - -<p>This indisputable happiness of aristocratic culture, based as it -is on the feeling of superiority, is now beginning to rise to ever -higher levels; for now, thanks to the free spirits, it is henceforth -permissible and not dishonourable for people who have been born and -reared in aristocratic circles to enter the domain of knowledge, where -they may secure more intellectual consecrations and learn chivalric -services even higher than those of former times, and where they may -look up to that ideal of victorious wisdom which as yet no age has been -able to set before itself with so good a conscience as the period which -is about to dawn. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">203</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">205</span></p> - -<p>What induces one man to use false weights, another<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span> to set his house -on fire after having insured it for more than its value, a third to -take part in counterfeiting, while three-fourths of our upper classes -indulge in legalised fraud, and suffer from the pangs of conscience -that follow speculation and dealings on the Stock Exchange: what gives -rise to all this? It is not real want,—for their existence is by -no means precarious; perhaps they have even enough to eat and drink -without worrying—but they are urged on day and night by a terrible -impatience at seeing their wealth pile up so slowly, and by an equally -terrible longing and love for these heaps of gold. In this impatience -and love, however, we see re-appear once more that fanaticism of the -desire for power which was stimulated in former times by the belief -that we were in the possession of truth, a fanaticism which bore such -beautiful names that we could dare to be inhuman with a good conscience -(burning Jews, heretics, and good books, and exterminating entire -cultures superior to ours, such as those of Peru and Mexico). The means -of this desire for power are changed in our day, but the same volcano -is still smouldering, impatience and intemperate love call for their -victims, and what was once done "for the love of God" is now done -for the love of money, <i>i.e.,</i> for the love of that which at present -affords us the highest feeling of power and a good conscience. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">209</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">210</span></p> - -<p>"Enthusiastic sacrifice," "self-immolation"—these are the catch-words -of your morality.... In reality ... you only <i>appear</i> to sacrifice -yourselves; for your imagination turns you into gods and you enjoy -yourselves as such. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">226</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">227</span></p> - -<p>Ceremonies, official robes and court dresses, grave countenances, -solemn aspects, the slow pace, involved speech—everything, in short, -known as dignity—are all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> pretences adopted by those who are timid at -heart: they wish to make themselves feared (themselves or the things -they represent). The fearless (<i>i.e.,</i> originally those who naturally -inspire others with awe) have no need of dignity and ceremonies.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">230</span></p> - -<p>A strange thing, this punishment of ours! It does not purify the -criminal; it is not a form of expiation; but, on the contrary, it is -even more defiling than the crime itself. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">235</span></p> - -<p>When a vigorous nature has not an inclination towards cruelty, and is -not always preoccupied with itself, it involuntarily strives after -gentleness—this is its distinctive characteristic. Weak natures, on -the other hand, have a tendency towards harsh judgments.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">236</span></p> - -<p>Kindness has been best developed by the long dissimulation which -endeavoured to appear as kindness: wherever great power existed -the necessity for dissimulation of this nature was recognised—it -inspires security and confidence, and multiplies the actual sum of -our physical power. Falsehood, if not actually the mother, is at all -events the nurse of kindness. In the same way, honesty has been brought -to maturity by the need for a semblance of honesty and integrity: -in hereditary aristocracies. The persistent exercise of such a -dissimulation ends by bringing about the actual nature of the thing -itself: the dissimulation in the long run suppresses itself, and organs -and instincts are the unexpected fruits in this garden of hypocrisy. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">242</span></p> - -<p>Neither necessity nor desire, but the love of power, is the demon of -mankind. You may give men everything possible—health, food, shelter, -enjoyment—but they are and remain unhappy and capricious, for the -demon waits and waits; and must be satisfied. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">243</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p> - -<p>It is probable that there are no pure races, but only races which have -become purified, and even these are extremely rare. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">253</span></p> - -<p>How many married men have some morning awakened to the fact that their -young wife is dull, although she thinks quite the contrary! not to -speak of those wives whose flesh is willing but whose intellect is -weak! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">255</span></p> - -<p>Could there be anything more repugnant than the sentimentality which -is shown to plants and animals—and this on the part of a creature who -from the very beginning has made such ravages among them as their most -ferocious enemy—and who ends by even claiming affectionate feelings -from his weakened and mutilated victims! Before this kind of "nature" -man must above all be serious, if he is any sort of a thinking being. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">258</span></p> - -<p>Among cowards it is thought bad form to say anything against bravery, -for any expression of this kind would give rise to some contempt; and -unfeeling people are irritated when anything is said against pity. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">259</span></p> - -<p>It is the most sensual men who find it necessary to avoid women and to -torture their bodies. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">261</span></p> - -<p>A young man can be most surely corrupted when he is taught to value the -like-minded more highly than the differently minded. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">262</span></p> - -<p>The general knowledge of mankind has been furthered to a greater extent -by fear than by love. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">267</span></p> - -<p>The sum-total of those internal movements which come naturally to men, -and which they can consequently set in motion readily and gracefully, -is called the soul—men are looked upon as void of soul when they let -it be seen that their inward emotions are difficult and painful to -them. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">268</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p> - -<p>All rules have this effect: they distract our attention from the -fundamental aim of the rule, and make us more thoughtless. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">273</span></p> - -<p>We are most certain to find idealistic theories among unscrupulously -practical men; for such men stand in need of the lustre of these -theories for the sake of their reputation. They adopt them -instinctively without by any means feeling hypocritical in doing so—no -more hypocritical than Englishmen with their Christianity and their -Sabbath-keeping. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">277</span></p> - -<p>It is not sufficient to prove a case, we must also tempt or raise men -to it. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">278</span></p> - -<p>Asceticism is the proper mode of thinking for those who must extirpate -their carnal instincts, because these are ferocious beasts,—but only -for such people! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">278</span></p> - -<p>You refuse to be dissatisfied with yourselves or to suffer from -yourselves, and this you call your moral tendency! Very well; another -may perhaps call it your cowardice! One thing, however, is certain, -and that is, that you will never take a trip round the world (and you -yourselves are this world), and you will always remain in yourselves an -accident and a clod on the face of the earth! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">282</span></p> - -<p>The first effect of happiness is the feeling of power, and this -feeling longs to manifest itself, whether towards ourselves or other -men, or towards ideas and imaginary beings. Its most common modes of -manifestation are making presents, derision, and destruction—all three -being due to a common fundamental instinct. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">286</span></p> - -<p>We approve of marriage in the first place because we are not yet -acquainted with it, in the second place because we have accustomed -ourselves to it, and in the third place because we have contracted -it—that is to say, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> most cases. And yet nothing has been proved -thereby in favour of the value of marriage in general. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">287</span></p> - -<p>The criminal who has been found out does not suffer because of the -crime he has committed, but because of the shame and annoyance caused -him either by some blunder which he has made or by being deprived of -his habitual element. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">289</span></p> - -<p>Where our deficiencies are, there also is our enthusiasm. The -enthusiastic principle "love your enemies" had to be invented by the -Jews, the best haters that ever existed; and the finest glorifications -of chastity have been written by those who in their youth led dissolute -and licentious lives. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">293</span></p> - -<p>Women turn pale at the thought that their lover may not be worthy of -them; Men turn pale at the thought that they may not be worthy of the -women they love. I speak of perfect women, perfect men. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">300</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">301</span></p> - -<p>You wish to bid farewell to your passion? Very well, but do so without -hatred against it! Otherwise you have a second passion.—The soul -of the Christian who has freed himself from sin is generally ruined -afterwards by the hatred for sin. Just look at the faces of the great -Christians! they are the faces of great haters. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">302</span></p> - -<p>Men have become suffering creatures in consequence of their morals, -and the sum-total of what they have obtained by those morals is simply -the feeling that they are far too good and great for this world, and -that they are enjoying merely a transitory existence on it. As yet the -"proud sufferer" is the highest type of mankind. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">309</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">310</span></p> - -<p>Rights can only be conferred by one who is in full possession of power. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">317</span></p> - -<p>"The rule always appears to me to be more interesting than the -exception"—whoever thinks thus has made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span> considerable progress in -knowledge, and is one of the initiated. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">319</span></p> - -<p>Through our love we have become dire offenders against truth, and even -habitual dissimulators and thieves, who give out more things as true -than seem to us to be true. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">337</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">333</span></p> - -<p>All the great excellencies of ancient humanity owed their stability to -the fact that man was standing side by side with man, and that no woman -was allowed to put forward the claim of being the nearest and highest, -nay even sole object of his love, as the feeling of passion would -teach. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">351</span></p> - -<p>Even if we were mad enough to consider all our opinions as truth, we -should nevertheless not wish them alone to exist. I cannot see why we -should ask for an autocracy and omnipotence of truth: it is sufficient -for me to know that it is a great power. Truth, however, must meet with -opposition and be able to fight, and we must be able to rest from it at -times in falsehood—otherwise truth will grow tiresome, powerless, and -insipid, and will render us equally so. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">352</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">353</span>.</p> - -<p>To hear every day what is said about us, or even to endeavour to -discover what people think about us, will in the end kill even the -strongest man. Our neighbours permit us to live only that they may -exercise a daily claim upon us! They certainly would not tolerate us -if we wished to claim rights over them, and still less if we wished to -be right! In short, let us offer up a sacrifice to the general peace, -let us not listen when they speak of us, when they praise us, blame us, -wish for us, or hope for us—nay, let us not even think of it. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">357</span></p> - -<p>How many really individual actions are left undone merely because -before performing them we perceive or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> suspect that they will be -misunderstood!—those actions, for example, which have some intrinsic -value, both in good and evil. The more highly an age or a nation values -its individuals, therefore, and the more right and ascendency we accord -them, the more will actions of this kind venture to make themselves -known, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">359</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">360</span>.</p> - -<p>Love wishes to spare the other to whom it devotes itself any feeling -of strangeness: as a consequence it is permeated with disguise and -simulation; it keeps on deceiving continuously, and feigns an equality -which in reality does not exist. And all this is done so instinctively -that women who love deny this simulation and constant tender trickery, -and have even the audacity to assert that love equalises (in other -words that it performs a miracle)! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">361</span></p> - -<p>Truth in itself is no power at all.... Truth must either attract power -to its side, or else side with power, for otherwise it will perish -again and again. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">363</span></p> - -<p>We should ... take the greatest precautions in regard to everything -connected with old age and its judgment upon life.... The reverence -which we feel for an old man, especially if he is an old thinker and -sage, easily blinds us to the deterioration of his intellect. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">368</span></p> - -<p>We must not make passion an argument for truth. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">372</span></p> - -<p>Have you experienced history within yourselves, commotions, -earthquakes, long and profound sadness, and sudden flashes of -happiness? Have you acted foolishly with great and little fools? Have -you really undergone the delusions and woe of the good people? and also -the woe and the peculiar happiness of the most evil? Then you may speak -to me of morality, but not otherwise! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">876</span></p> - -<p>"What do I matter?" is written over the door of the thinker of the -future. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">379</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span></p> - -<p>The great man ever remains invisible in the greatest thing that claims -worship, like some distant star: his victory over power remains without -witnesses, and hence also without songs and singers. The hierarchy of -the great men in all the past history of the human race has not yet -been determined. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">380</span></p> - -<p>Whether what we are looking forward to is a thought or a deed, our -relationship to every essential achievement is none other than that -of pregnancy, and all our vainglorious boasting about "willing" and -"creating" should be cast to the winds! True and ideal selfishness -consists in always watching over and restraining the soul, so that our -productiveness may come to a beautiful termination.... Still, these -pregnant ones are funny people! Let us therefore dare to be funny also, -and not reproach others if they must be the same. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">384</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">385</span></p> - -<p>Honest towards ourselves, and to all and everything friendly to us; -brave in the face of our enemy; generous towards the vanquished; polite -at all times: such do the four cardinal virtues wish us to be. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">387</span></p> - -<p>There is no "eternal justice" which requires that every fault shall -be atoned and paid for,—the belief that such a justice existed was a -terrible delusion, and useful only to a limited extent; just as it is -also a delusion that everything is guilt which is felt as such. It is -not the things themselves, but the opinions about things that do not -exist, which have been such a source of trouble to mankind. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">391</span></p> - -<p>What is the most efficacious remedy?—Victory. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">393</span></p> - -<p>The snake that cannot cast its skin perishes. So too with those minds -which are prevented from changing their views: they cease to be minds. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">394</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="IV" id="IV">IV</a></h4> - - -<h3>"The Joyful Wisdom"</h3> - - -<p>In 1882 Nietzsche wrote and published "The Joyful Wisdom" ("<i>La Gay -a Scienza</i>"). Although originally intended as a supplement to "The -Dawn of Day," under which title it was to have been issued in a later -edition of this earlier work, it differs greatly, not only from "The -Dawn of Day," but from everything else Nietzsche ever wrote. The -destructive spirit of "Human, All-Too-Human" is nowhere to be found in -it. The revolutionary doctrines of "The Dawn of Day" are but vaguely -echoed. It is a book which shows Nietzsche in a unique and isolated -mood—a mood which, throughout his whole life did not return to him. -Temperamentally "The Joyful Wisdom" comes nearer being a parallel to -"Thus Spake Zarathustra" than to any of his other writings. But even -this comparison goes to pieces when pushed beyond the most superficial -aspects of the two books. Nietzsche was at Naumburg at the time of -writing this work. A long-standing stomach malady had suddenly shown -signs of leaving him, and the period during which he wrote "The Joyful -Wisdom" was one of the happiest of his life. Heretofore a sombre -seriousness had marked both his thoughts and the expression of them. In -the two volumes of "Human, All-Too-Human" he had attempted a complete -devastation of all codes and ideals. In "The Dawn of Day" he waged a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> -bitter and serious warfare on modern moral standards and made attempts -at supplanting them with new dogma. In "The Joyful Wisdom" he revealed -an entirely new phase of his character—a lenient, jovial, almost -buoyant attitude toward the world.</p> - -<p>Although "The Joyful Wisdom" may be considered in the light of an -interpolation into Nietzsche's philosophical works, the book is -nevertheless among the most interesting of his output—not so much -because it gives us any additions to the sum of his thinking, but -because it throws a light on the philosopher himself. It may be lifted -bodily out of his works without leaving a gap in the development of -his doctrines, but it cannot be set aside without closing up a very -important and significant facet in the man's nature. Unfortunately -Nietzsche is looked upon as a man who was entirely consumed with -rancour and hatred—a man unconscious of the comic side of existence—a -thinker with whom pessimism was chronic. But this is only a half -truth, a conclusion founded on partial evidence. Nietzsche's very -earnestness at times defeated his own ends. "The Joyful Wisdom" is one -of the most fundamentally hilarious books ever written. It deals with -life as a supreme bit of humour. Yet there is little in it to provoke -laughter. Nietzsche's humour is deeper than the externals. One finds -no superficial jesting here, no smartness, no transient buffoonery. -The book is a glorification of that subtle joy which accompanies the -experiencing of knowledge. In order to catch its spirit it is necessary -that one be familiar with the serious and formulating Nietzsche, for -on his most serious doctrines is founded that attitude which makes -"The Joyful Wisdom" hilarious. Once familiar with Nietzsche's earlier -writings one may read<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> the present book with a feeling of exhilaration -unlike that produced by his more manifestly solemn writings.</p> - -<p>However, despite the buoyancy of this document, it is, beneath the -surface, as serious as anything Nietzsche has ever written. His -conception of the world and his assumption of the underlying aspects of -existence are founded on deeply conceived formulas. It must be borne -in mind that Nietzsche's thought is in a large measure personal, that -the development of his doctrines is due to very definite biographical -causes and to the flux and reflux of his own emotions. His system is -not a spontaneous and complete conception, the sudden fruit of his -entire research given to the world in a unified body. To the contrary, -it is an amassing of data, a constant building up of ideas. No one book -contains his entire teachings, logically thought out and carefully -organised. Rather is his philosophy an intricate structure which begins -with his earliest essays and does not reach completion until the end -of "The Will to Power." Each book has some specific place in his -thought: each book assumes a position relative to all the rest. Thus in -"The Joyful Wisdom" we have the turning point between the denying and -destructive Nietzsche and the asserting and fashioning Nietzsche. Says -he in the fourth and most important section called "Sanctus Januarius": -<i>"Amor fati:<a name="FNanchor_1_3" id="FNanchor_1_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_3" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></i> let that henceforth be my love! I do not want to wage -war with the ugly. I do not want to accuse, I do not want even to -accuse the accusers. <i>Looking aside,</i> let that be my sole negation! -And all in all, to sum up: I wish to be at any time hereafter only a -yea-sayer!"</p> - -<p>In "The Joyful Wisdom" begins Nietzsche's almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> fanatical joy in -life. Here, too, we encounter for the first time the symbol of the -dance. Nietzsche constantly makes use of this figure in his later -writings. Especially in "Thus Spake Zarathustra" does he exhort his -readers to indulge themselves in dancing. The blasphemies and hatreds -characteristic of the philosopher in his more solemn moods are -nowhere discernible in this new book. It is therefore of considerable -importance to the student in forming a just estimate of Nietzsche. Here -the hater has departed; the idol-smasher has laid down his weapons; -the analyst has become the satyr; the logician has turned poet; the -blasphemer has become the child. Only occasionally does the pendulum -swing toward the sombre Apollonian pole: the Dionysian ideal of joy is -dominant. The month of January inspired the book, and Nietzsche says -in his <i>Ecce Homo</i> that it was the most wonderful month of January he -had ever spent. This spirit of gaiety was to remain with him in some -degree throughout the remainder of his life. He realised that his -preparatory work was completed. He saw his way clear to forge ahead -as his doctrines led him; and his exuberance no doubt grew out of the -satisfaction he took in this prospect.</p> - -<p>Although the contents of "The Joyful Wisdom" are not inherently a -part of Nietzsche's philosophy, but only detached applications of his -theories—ideas which floated to the surface of his doctrines—the -material encountered here is of wide and varied interest. There are -criticisms of German and Southern culture; valuations of modern -authors; views on the developments of art; theories of music; analyses -of Schopenhauer and an explanation of his vogue; judgments of the -ancient and the modern theatre; excursions into philological fields; -arraignments of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> contemporary classicism; doctrines of creative -artistry; personal paragraphs on mental culture, politics and commerce. -... The book is, in fact, more critical than philosophical.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche never entirely dissevered himself from his time and -from the habits, both of thought and action, which characterised -his contemporaries. From his first academic essays to his last -transvaluation of values, he remained the patient and analytical -observer of the life about him. For this reason it has been argued -among disciples of "pure" thinking that he was not, in the strictest -sense of the word, a "philosopher," but rather a critically -intellectual force. This diagnosis might carry weight had not -Nietzsche avowedly built his philosophical structure on a repudiation -of abstract thinking. This misunderstanding of him arose from the -adherents of rational thinking overlooking the fact that, where the -older philosophers had detached themselves from reality because of the -instability of natural hypotheses, Nietzsche re-established human bases -on which he founded his syllogisms. Therefore one should not attempt -to divorce the purely critical from the purely philosophical in his -writings. Even in a book so frankly critical as "The Joyful Wisdom" -there is a directing force of theoretical unity.</p> - -<p>This is especially true of the third section. This division is made up -almost entirely of comments on men and affairs, short analyses of human -attitudes, desultory excursions into the sociological, brief remarks on -man's emotional nature, apothegms dealing with human attributes, bits -of racy philosophical gossip, religious and scientific maxims, and the -like. Sometimes these observations are cynical, sometimes gracious, -sometimes bitter,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> sometimes buoyant, sometimes merely witty. But all -of them are welded together by a profound conception of humanity.</p> - -<p>The most stimulating division of the book is the fourth, in which -Nietzsche's good humour is at its height. This section is a -glorification of victory and of all those hardy qualities which go -into the perfecting of the individual. Nietzsche reverses Schiller's -famous doctrine expressed in "<i>Die Braut von Messina</i>": "Life is not of -all good the highest." He sees no good over and beyond that of human -relationships. The normal instincts to him are the ones which affirm -life; the abnormal instincts are those which deny it. The former are -summed up in the ethics of Greece under the sway of Dionysus; the -latter are epitomised in the Christian religion.</p> - -<p>The fifth book, called "We Fearless Ones," and the appendix of "Songs -of Prince Free-as-a-Bird" were written four years later than the other -material and added with an introduction in a later edition of the book. -These addenda, while less specific and of a more dialectic nature than -the preceding parts, are in spirit manifestly the same as the rest of -the book.</p> - -<p>In "The Joyful Wisdom" we have again an aphoristic style of writing, -although it has become keener and more sure of itself since "Human, -All-Too-Human" and "The Dawn of Day." In making selections from this -book I have chosen those passages which are more general in tone. The -connection between the various aphorisms is here even slighter than -is Nietzsche's wont, and for that reason no attempt has been made to -present a continuous perception of the work. However, the excerpts -which follow, though of a less popular nature, are more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> intimately -related to his thoughts than the ones omitted, and consequently are of -more interest to the student.</p> - - -<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> Love of (one's) destiny.</p></div> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center">EXCERPTS FROM "THE JOYFUL WISDOM"</p> - -<p>Whether I look with a good or an evil eye upon men, I find them always -at one problem, each and all of them: to do that which conduces to the -conservation of the human species. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">31</span></p> - -<p>To laugh at oneself as one would have to laugh in order to laugh <i>out -of the veriest truth,</i>—to do this the best have not hitherto had -enough of the sense of truth, and the most endowed have had far too -little genius! There is perhaps still a future even for laughter! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">32</span></p> - -<p>The ignoble nature is distinguished by the fact that it keeps its -advantage steadily in view, and that this thought of the end and -advantage is even stronger than its strongest impulse: not to be -tempted to inexpedient activities by its impulses—that is its -wisdom and inspiration. In comparison with the ignoble nature the -higher nature is more irrational:—for the noble, magnanimous, and -self-sacrificing person succumbs in fact to his impulses, and in his -best moments his reason <i>lapses</i> altogether. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">37</span></p> - -<p>The strongest and most evil spirits have hitherto advanced mankind the -most: they always rekindled the sleeping passions—all orderly arranged -society lulls the passions to sleep. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">39</span></p> - -<p>The lust of property and love: what different associations each of -these ideas evokes!—and yet it might be the same impulse twice named. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">51</span></p> - -<p>The poison by which the weaker nature is destroyed is strengthening to -the strong individual—and he does not call it poison. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">56</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">57</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p> - -<p>The virtues of a man are called <i>good,</i> not in respect of the results -they have for himself, but in respect of the results which we expect -therefrom for ourselves and for society.... The praise of the virtues -is the praise of something which is privately injurious to the -individual; it is praise of impulses which deprive man of his noblest -self-love, and the power to take the best care of himself.... The -"neighbour" praises unselfishness because <i>he profits by it!</i> If the -neighbour were "unselfishly" disposed himself, he would reject that -destruction of power, that injury for <i>his advantage,</i> he would thwart -such inclinations in their origin, and above all he would manifest his -unselfishness just by <i>not giving it a good name!</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">58</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">60</span></p> - -<p>Living—that is to be cruel and inexorable towards all that becomes -weak and old in ourselves, and not only in ourselves. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">68</span></p> - -<p>It is probable that the manufacturers and great magnates of commerce -have hitherto lacked too much all those forms and attributes of a -<i>superior race,</i> which alone make persons interesting; if they had -had the nobility of the newly-born in their looks and bearing, there -would perhaps have been no socialism in the masses of the people. For -these are really ready for <i>slavery</i> of every kind, provided that -the superior class above them constantly shows itself legitimately -superior, and <i>born</i> to command—by its noble presence! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">78</span></p> - -<p>When one continually prohibits the expression of the passions as -something to be left to the "vulgar," to coarser, bourgeois, and -peasant natures—that is, when one does not want to suppress the -passions themselves, but only their language and demeanour, one -nevertheless realises <i>therewith</i> just what one does not want: the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> -suppression of the passions themselves, or at least their weakening and -alteration.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">83</span></p> - -<p>In magnanimity there is the same amount of egoism as in revenge.... -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">86</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">87</span></p> - -<p>Where bad eyesight can no longer see the evil impulse as such, -on account of its refinement,—there man sets up the kingdom of -goodness.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">88</span></p> - -<p>To become the advocate of the rule—that may perhaps be the ultimate -form and refinement in which nobility of character will reveal itself -on earth. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">90</span></p> - -<p>Women are all skilful in exaggerating their weaknesses, indeed they are -inventive in weaknesses, so as to seem quite fragile ornaments to which -even a grain of dust does harm; their existence is meant to bring home -to man's mind his coarseness, and to appeal to his conscience. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">101</span></p> - -<p>There is something quite astonishing and extraordinary in the education -of women of the higher class; indeed, there is perhaps nothing more -paradoxical. All the world is agreed to educate them with as much -ignorance as possible <i>in erotics,</i> and to inspire their soul with a -profound shame of such things, and the extremest impatience and horror -at the suggestion of them. It is really here only that all the "honour" -of women is at stake; what would one not forgive in them in other -respects! But here they are intended to remain ignorant to the very -backbone:—they are intended to have neither eyes, ears, words, nor -thoughts for this, their "wickedness"; indeed knowledge here is already -evil. And then! To be hurled as with an awful thunderbolt into reality -and knowledge with marriage—and indeed by him whom they most love and -esteem: to have to encounter love and shame in contradiction, yea, to -have to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span> feel rapture, abandonment, duty, sympathy, and fright at the -unexpected proximity of God and animal, and whatever else besides! all -at once!—There, in fact, a psychic entanglement has been effected -which is quite unequalled! Even the sympathetic curiosity of the wisest -discerner of men does not suffice to divine how this or that woman -gets along with the solution of this enigma and the enigma of this -solution; what dreadful, far-reaching suspicions must awaken thereby -in the poor unhinged soul; and forsooth, how the ultimate philosophy -and scepticism of the woman casts anchor at this point!—Afterwards the -same profound silence as before: and often even a silence to herself, -a shutting of her eyes to herself.—Young wives on that account make -great efforts to appear superficial and thoughtless; the most ingenious -of them simulate a kind of impudence.—Wives easily feel their husbands -as a question-mark to their honour, and their children as an apology or -atonement,—they require children, and wish for them in quite another -spirit than a husband wishes for them.—In short, one cannot be gentle -enough towards women! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">104</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">105</span></p> - -<p>Of what consequence is all our art in artistic products, if that higher -art, the art of the festival, be lost by us? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">124</span></p> - -<p>The best thing I could say in honour of Shakespeare, <i>the man,</i> is that -he believed in Brutus and cast not a shadow of suspicion on the kind of -virtue which Brutus represents! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">131</span></p> - -<p>We must rest from ourselves occasionally by contemplating and looking -down upon ourselves, and by laughing or weeping <i>over</i> ourselves from -an artistic remoteness: we must discover the <i>hero,</i> and likewise the -<i>fool,</i> that is hidden in our passion for knowledge; we must now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> and -then be joyful in our folly, that we may continue to be joyful in our -wisdom! And just because we are heavy and serious men in our ultimate -depth, and are rather weights than men, there is nothing that does us -so much good as the <i>fool's cap and bells:</i> we need them in presence of -ourselves—we need all arrogant, soaring, dancing, mocking, childish -and blessed Art, in order not to lose the <i>free dominion over things</i> -which our ideal demands of us. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">146</span></p> - -<p>The general character of the world ... is to all eternity chaos; -not by the absence of necessity, but in the sense of the absence of -order, structure, form, beauty, wisdom, and whatever else our æsthetic -humanities are called. Judged by our reason, the unlucky casts are far -oftenest the rule, the exceptions are not the secret purpose; and the -whole musical box repeats eternally its air, which can never be called -a melody,—and finally the very expression, "unlucky cast" is already -an anthropomorphising which involves blame. But how could we presume to -blame or praise the universe! Let us be on our guard against ascribing -to it heartlessness and unreason, or their opposites; it is neither -perfect, nor beautiful, nor noble; nor does it seek to be anything of -the kind, it does not at all attempt to imitate man! It is altogether -unaffected by our æsthetic and moral judgments! Neither has it any -self-preservative instinct, nor instinct at all; it also knows no law. -Let us be on our guard against saying that there are laws in nature. -There are only necessities: there is no one who commands, no one who -obeys, no one who transgresses. When you know that there is no design, -you know also that there is no chance: for it is only where there is a -world of design that the word "chance" has a meaning.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> Let us be on our -guard against saying that death is contrary to life. The living being -is only a species of dead being, and a very rare species.—Let us be on -our guard against thinking that the world eternally creates the new. -There are no eternally enduring substances; matter is just another such -error as the God of the Eleatics. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">152</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">153</span>.</p> - -<p>Man has been reared by his errors: firstly, he saw himself always -imperfect; secondly, he attributed to himself imaginary qualities; -thirdly, he felt himself in a false position in relation to the animals -and nature; fourthly, he always devised new tables of values, and -accepted them for a time as eternal and unconditioned, so that at one -time this, and at another time that human impulse or state stood first, -and was ennobled in consequence. When one has deducted the effect of -these four errors, one has also deducted humanity, humaneness, and -"human dignity." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">160</span></p> - -<p>Morality is the herd-instinct in the individual. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">161</span></p> - -<p>There is no such thing as health in itself, and all attempts to define -a thing in that way have lamentably failed. It is necessary to know thy -aim, thy horizon, thy powers, thy impulses, thy errors, and especially -the ideals and fantasies of thy soul, in order to determine <i>what</i> -health implies even for thy <i>body.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">163</span></p> - -<p>Mystical explanations are regarded as profound; the truth is that they -do not even go the length of being superficial. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">169</span></p> - -<p>I set the following propositions against those of Schopenhauer -—Firstly, in order that Will may arise, an idea of pleasure and pain -is necessary. Secondly, that a vigorous excitation may be felt as -pleasure or pain, is the affair of the interpreting intellect, which, -to be sure, operates thereby for the most part unconsciously to us, -and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span> one and the same excitation <i>may</i> be interpreted as pleasure -or pain. Thirdly, it is only in an intellectual being that there is -pleasure, displeasure and Will; the immense majority of organisms have -nothing of the kind. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">171</span></p> - -<p>Prayer has been devised for such men as have never any thoughts of -their own, and to whom an elevation of the soul is unknown, or passes -unnoticed. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">171</span></p> - -<p>Sin, as it is at present felt wherever Christianity prevails or has -prevailed, is a Jewish feeling and a Jewish invention. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">174</span></p> - -<p>A Jesus Christ was only possible in a Jewish landscape—I mean in one -over which the gloomy and sublime thunder-cloud of the angry Jehovah -hung continually. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">176</span></p> - -<p>Where there is ruling there are masses: where there are masses there is -need of slavery. Where there is slavery the individuals are but few, -and have the instincts and conscience of the herd opposed to them. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">183</span></p> - -<p>We love the <i>grandeur</i> of Nature and have discovered it; that is -because human grandeur is lacking in our minds. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">186</span></p> - -<p>Egoism is the <i>perspective</i> law of our sentiment, according to which -the near appears large and momentous, while in the distance the -magnitude and importance of all things diminish. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">187</span></p> - -<p>He who knows that he is profound strives for clearness; he who would -like to appear profound to the multitude strives for obscurity. The -multitude thinks everything profound of which it cannot see the bottom; -it is so timid and goes so unwillingly into the water. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">190</span></p> - -<p>Thoughts are the shadows of our sentiments—always, however, obscurer, -emptier, and simpler. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">192</span></p> - -<p>To laugh means to love mischief, but with a good conscience. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">196</span></p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span> -Virtue gives happiness and a state of blessedness only to those who have a -strong faith in their virtue:—not, however, to the more refined souls -whose virtue consists of a profound distrust of themselves and of all -virtue. After all, therefore, it is "faith that saves" here also!—and -be it well observed, not <i>virtue</i>! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">198</span></p> - -<p>Although the most intelligent judges of the witches, and even the -witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchcraft, the -guilt, nevertheless, was not there. So it is with all guilt. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">205</span></p> - -<p>It makes me happy to see that men do not want to think at all of the -idea of death! I would fain do something to make the idea of life even -a hundred times <i>more worthy of their attention.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">215</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">216</span></p> - -<p>I greet all the signs indicating that a more manly and warlike age is -commencing, which will, above all, bring heroism again into honour! -For it has to prepare the way for a yet higher age, and gather the -force which the latter will one day require,—the age which will carry -heroism into knowledge, and <i>wage war</i> for the sake of ideas and their -consequences. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">218</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">219</span></p> - -<p>They are disagreeable to me, those men in whom every natural -inclination forthwith becomes a disease, something disfiguring, or -even disgraceful. <i>They</i> have seduced us to the opinion that the -inclinations and impulses of men are evil; <i>they</i> are the cause of our -great injustice to our own nature, and to all nature! There are enough -of men who <i>may</i> yield to their impulses gracefully and carelessly: but -they do not do so, for fear of that imaginary "evil thing" in nature! -<i>That is the cause</i> why there is so little nobility to be found among -men: the indication of which will always be to have no fear of oneself, -to expect nothing disgraceful from oneself, to fly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span> without hesitation -whithersoever we are impelled—we free-born birds! Wherever we come, -there will always be freedom and sunshine around us. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">229</span></p> - -<p>Every one knows at present that the ability to endure contradiction is -a high indication of culture. Some people even know that the higher man -courts opposition, and provokes it, so as to get a cue to his hitherto -unknown partiality. But the <i>ability</i> to contradict, the attainment of -<i>good</i> conscience in hostility to the accustomed, the traditional and -the hallowed,—that is more than both the above-named abilities, and is -the really great, new and astonishing thing in our culture, the step of -all steps of the emancipated intellect: who knows that? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">232</span></p> - -<p>In the main all those moral systems are distasteful to me which say: -"Do not do this! Renounce! Overcome thyself!" On the other hand I am -favourable to those moral systems which stimulate me to do something, -and to do it again from morning till evening, and dream of it at -night, and think of nothing else but to do it <i>well,</i> as well as it is -possible for <i>me</i> alone!... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">238</span></p> - -<p>In pain there is as much wisdom as in pleasure: like the latter it -is one of the best self-preservatives of a species. Were it not so, -pain would long ago have been done away with; that it is hurtful is no -argument against it, for to be hurtful is its very essence. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">247</span></p> - -<p>One form of honesty has always been lacking among founders of religions -and their kin:—they have never made their experiences a matter of the -intellectual conscience.... But we who are different, who are thirsty -for reason, want to look as carefully into our experiences, as in the -case of a scientific experiment, hour by hour, day by day! We ourselves -want to be our own experiments, and our own subjects of experiment. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">248</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span></p> - -<p>Let us no longer think so much about punishing, blaming, improving! -We shall seldom be able to alter an individual, and if we should -succeed in doing so, something else may also succeed, perhaps unawares: -<i>we</i> may have been altered by him! Let us rather see to it that our -own influence on <i>all that is to come</i> outweighs and overweighs his -influence! Let us not struggle in direct conflict!—all blaming, -punishing, and desire to improve comes under this category. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">249</span></p> - -<p>Who could know how to laugh well and live well, who did not first -understand the full meaning of war and victory? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">250</span></p> - -<p>That delightful animal, man, seems to lose his good-humour whenever he -thinks well; he becomes "serious"! And "where there is laughing and -gaiety, thinking cannot be worth anything:"—so speaks the prejudice of -this serious animal against all "Joyful Wisdom." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">252</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">253</span></p> - -<p>If you had thought more acutely, observed more accurately, and had -learned more, you would no longer under all circumstances call this -and that your "duty" and your "conscience": the knowledge <i>how moral -judgments have in general always originated,</i> would make you tired of -these pathetic words.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">261</span></p> - -<p>We <i>would seek to become what we are,</i>—the new, the unique, the -incomparable, making laws for ourselves and creating ourselves! And for -this purpose we must become the best students and discoverers of all -the laws and necessities in the world. We must be <i>physicists</i> in order -to be <i>creators</i> in that sense,—whereas hitherto all appreciations and -ideals have been based on <i>ignorance</i> of physics, or in <i>contradiction</i> -to it. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">203</span></p> - -<p>Our "benefactors" lower our value and volition more than our enemies. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">265</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span></p> - -<p>It is always a <i>metaphysical belief</i> on which our belief in science -rests,—and that even we knowing ones of to-day, the godless and -anti-metaphysical, still take <i>our</i> fire from the conflagration kindled -by a belief a millennium old, the Christian belief, which was also the -belief of Plato, that God is truth, that the truth is divine. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">279</span></p> - -<p>Belief is always most desired, most pressingly needed where there -is a lack of will: for the will, as emotion of command, is the -distinguishing characteristic of sovereignty and power. That is to say, -the less a person knows how to command, the more urgent is his desire -for one who commands, who commands sternly,—a God, a prince, a caste, -a physician, a confessor, a dogma, a party conscience. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">286</span></p> - -<p>To seek self-preservation merely, is the expression of a state of -distress, or of limitation of the true, fundamental instinct of life, -which aims at the <i>extension of power,</i> and with this in view often -enough calls in question self-preservation and sacrifices it. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">289</span></p> - -<p>The subtlety and strength of consciousness are always in proportion -to the <i>capacity for communication</i> of a man (or an animal), the -capacity for communication in its turn being in proportion to the -<i>necessity for</i> communication.... <i>Consciousness generally has only -been developed under the pressure of the necessity for communication,</i> -—that from the first it has been necessary and useful only between man -and man (especially between those commanding and those obeying), and -has only developed in proportion to its utility. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">296</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">297</span></p> - -<p>The Church is under all circumstances a <i>nobler</i> institution than the -State. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">314</span></p> - -<p>It seems to me one of my most essential steps and advances that I have -learned to distinguish the cause of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> the action generally from the -cause of action in a particular manner, say, in this direction, with -this aim. The first kind of cause is a quantum of stored-up force, -which waits to be used in some manner, for some purpose; the second -kind of cause, on the contrary, is something quite unimportant in -comparison with the first, an insignificant hazard for the most part, -in conformity with which the quantum of force in question "discharges" -itself in some unique and definite manner: the lucifer-match in -relation to the barrel of gunpowder. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">317</span></p> - -<p>I will never admit that we should speak of <i>equal</i> rights in the love -of man and woman: there are no such equal rights. The reason is that -man and woman understand something different by the term love,—and it -belongs to the conditions of love in both sexes that the one sex does -<i>not</i> presuppose the same feeling, the same conception of "love," in -the other sex. What woman understands by love is clear enough: complete -surrender (not merely devotion) of soul and body, without any motive, -without any reservation, rather with shame and terror at the thought -of a devotion restricted by clauses or associated with conditions. In -this absence of conditions her love is precisely a <i>faith:</i> woman has -no other.—Man, when he loves a woman, <i>wants</i> precisely this love from -her; he is consequently, as regards himself, furthest removed from the -prerequisites of feminine love; granted, however, that there should -also be men to whom on their side the demand for complete devotion is -not unfamiliar,—well, they are really—not men. A man who loves like -a woman becomes thereby a slave: a woman, however, who loves like a -woman becomes thereby a <i>more perfect</i> woman.... Woman wants to be -taken and accepted as a possession, she wishes to be merged in the -conceptions<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span> of "possession" and "possessed"; consequently she wants -one who <i>takes,</i> who does not offer and give himself away, but who -reversely is rather to be made richer in "himself"—by the increase -of power, happiness and faith which the woman herself gives to him. -Woman gives herself, man takes her.—I do not think one will get over -this natural contrast by any social contract, or with the very best -will to do justice, however desirable it may be to avoid bringing the -severe, frightful, enigmatical, and unmoral elements of this antagonism -constantly before our eyes. For love, regarded as complete, great, -and full, is nature, and as nature, is to all eternity something -"unmoral."—<i>Fidelity</i> is accordingly included in woman's love, it -follows from the definition thereof; with man fidelity <i>may</i> readily -result in consequence of his love, perhaps as gratitude or idiosyncrasy -of taste, and so-called elective affinity, but it does not belong -to the <i>essence</i> of his love—and indeed so little, that one might -almost be entitled to speak of a natural opposition between love and -fidelity in man, whose love is just a desire to possess, and <i>not</i> a -renunciation and giving away; the desire to possess, however, comes to -an end every time with the possession. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">321</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">323</span></p> - -<p>Everything that is thought, versified, painted and composed, yea, even -built and moulded, belongs either to monologic art, or to art before -witnesses. Under the latter there is also to be included the apparently -monologic art which involves the belief in God, the whole lyric of -prayer; because for a pious man there is no solitude,—we, the godless, -have been the first to devise this invention. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">328</span></p> - -<p>A "scientific" interpretation of the world as you understand it might -consequently still be one of the <i>stupidest,</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span> that is to say, the most -destitute of significance, of all possible world-interpretations.... -An essentially mechanical world would be an essentially <i>meaningless -World!</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">339</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">340</span></p> - -<p>We, the new, the nameless, the hard-to-understand, we firstlings of a -yet untried future—we require for a new end also a new means, namely, -a new healthiness, stronger, sharper, tougher, bolder and merrier than -any healthiness hitherto. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">351</span></p> - -<p>Another ideal runs on before us, a strange, tempting ideal, full of -danger, to which we should not like to persuade any one, because we -do not so readily acknowledge any one's <i>right thereto:</i> the ideal -of a spirit who plays naively (that is to say involuntarily and from -overflowing abundance and power) with everything that has hitherto been -called holy, good, inviolable, divine; to whom the loftiest conception -which the people have reasonably made their measure of value, would -already imply danger, ruin, abasement, or at least relaxation, -blindness, or temporary self-forgetfulness; the ideal of a humanly -superhuman welfare and benevolence, which may often enough appear -<i>inhuman.</i> ... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">352</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">353</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="V" id="V">V</a></h4> - - -<h3>"Thus Spake Zarathustra"</h3> - - -<p>He student of Nietzsche can well afford to leave the reading of "Thus -Spake Zarathustra" <i>("Also Sprach Zarathustra")</i> until he has prepared -himself for the task by studying Nietzsche's other and less obscure -books. In both its conception and execution it differs markedly from -all the works which preceded and followed it. It is written in an -archaic and poetical style, and in many places is purposely obscure. -Nietzsche did not intend it for the general public, and the fourth part -was not published until seven years after its completion. It would -have been better had "Zarathustra" been withheld from the presses -until Nietzsche's other works had gained a wider recognition, for -it unfortunately lays itself open to all manner of misunderstanding -and misinterpretation. In fact, it is impossible to read "Thus Spake -Zarathustra" comprehendingly until several of the other books of this -philosopher, such as "The Dawn of Day," "The Genealogy of Morals" and -"Beyond Good and Evil," have been consumed and assimilated.</p> - -<p>Unfortunately this book, because of the attractive medium of its -style, was one of the first to fall into the hands of English speaking -people. For many years it was the principal source of the many -false accusations against Nietzsche which gained wide circulation. -The figures of speech contained in it and the numerous parables -which are used to set forth its ideas lend themselves<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> all too -easily to falsities of judgment and erroneous evaluations. Reading -the book unpreparedly one may find what appear to be unexplainable -contradictions and ethical sophistries. Above all, one may wrongly -sense the absence of that higher ethical virtue which is denied -Nietzsche in quarters where he is least understood, but which every -close student of his works knows to form the basis of his thought.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche began the writing of "Thus Spake Zarathustra" early in the -year 1883, and he did not finish it until the middle of February, -1885. The actual conception of the book came much before this time -even, as far back as the summer of 1881. This is when the idea of -eternal recurrence first took possession of him. At once he began -making notes, using this idea as the basis of Zarathustra's teachings. -At this time Nietzsche was just recovering from a siege of ill health -which had extended over many years, and no doubt the buoyant and -rhapsodic form in which he conceived this work was due to his sudden -acquisition of bodily health. The first part was written in ten days, -the second part a few months later, and the third part in the autumn of -the same year. But it was not until after a lapse of eighteen months -that the fourth and last section was completed. Because of this long -interval we see a radical difference between the first three parts of -the book and the last part. The language remains very much the same -throughout—spectacular, poetic and symbolic—but the form is changed. -The epigrammatic and non-sequacious mandates give way to a long -connected parable. The psalmodie brevity of the utterances of the first -three sections is supplanted by description and narrative. A story -runs through the entire fourth part; and it is in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> the obscurities of -this fable, rather than in any specific statements, that we must seek -the gist of Nietzsche's doctrines. This would be an impossible task -were we not more or less familiar with his other books. Yet, once we -understand the general trend of his thought, we can penetrate at once -to the meanings hidden in the fantastic divagations of his story and -can understand the dithyrambic utterances of both Zarathustra and the -"higher men" in the cave.</p> - -<p>"Thus Spake Zarathustra" is unique for the reason that there are few -points in Nietzsche's system of ethic -and for the most part they are -the unimportant ones—which we cannot find somewhere in its pages. But -do not think that one can grasp an idea of the sweep of his entire -thought merely by reading this book. Even in the most simply worded and -most lucidly phrased passages one would find difficulty in following -the steps in his philosophy, unless there had been considerable -preparatory study. To be sure, there are numerous isolated epigrams -and bits of observation which are easily understood, but their mere -isolation very often robs them of the true meaning they hold when -related to the other precepts. The very literalness with which these -passages have been taken by those who have read "Zarathustra" before -studying any of the other works of Nietzsche, accounts in a large -measure for the ignorance in which he is held even by those who profess -to have read him and understood him. A philosophy such as his, the -outposts of which are so far removed from the routine of our present -social life, is naturally hampered by the restricted connotation of -current words—even those technical words used to express abstract and -infinite things. For this reason it is inevitable that false meanings -should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span> attach to many of his statements, and that misunderstandings -should arise in quarters where there does not exist a previous general -knowledge of the co-ordinated structure of his teachings. This general -knowledge cannot be gained from "Thus Spake Zarathustra." Many of its -pages are entirely without significance to the reader not already -acquainted with Nietzsche's thought. And much of its nomenclature is -meaningless without the explanations to be found in the main body of -his work.</p> - -<p>For the reader, however, who picks up this book after having equipped -himself for an understanding of it, there is much of fascination and -stimulation. Nietzsche regarded it as his most intimate and personal, -and therefore his most important, work. He even had plans for two -more parts which were to be included in it. But these were never -finished. The indifference with which the book was received, even -by those on whose sympathy and understanding he had most counted, -reacted unfavourably upon him. It is nevertheless, just as it stands, -one of the most remarkable pieces of philosophic literature of modern -times. Its form alone makes it unique. Instead of stating his beliefs -directly and without circumlocution, as was always his method both -before and after the writing of this book, Nietzsche chose for his -mouthpiece a poet and philosopher borrowed from the Persians, namely: -Zoroaster. This sage of the ancients was used as a symbol of the higher -man. Into his mouth were put Nietzsche's own ideas in the form of -parables, admonitions, exhortations and discourses. The wanderings and -experiences of this Zoroaster are chronicled, and each event in his -life embodies a meaning in direct accord with the Nietzschean system of -conduct.</p> - -<p>Because of the Persian origin of Zoroaster one might<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span> imagine that -influences of Persian philosophy would be discoverable in the teachings -of this nomadic poet. But with the name all similarity between the -spokesman and his doctrines ends. Nietzsche's choice of Zoroaster -as his mouthpiece grew out of his early admiration for the Persians -who, he declared, "were the first to take a broad and comprehensive -view of history." As we see Zoroaster in this book we recognise him -at once as none other than Nietzsche himself; and the experiences -through which he goes in his wanderings are but picturesquely stated -accounts of Nietzsche's own sufferings, raptures, aspirations and -disappointments. To those familiar with Nietzsche's life, many of the -characters introduced in the book will be recognised as portraitures of -men whose lives crossed that of the philosopher. Likewise, many of the -parables and fables are thinly disguised accounts of the incidents in -his own life. In the last part of the book we find Nietzsche creating -a fantastic poet to represent Wagner, and holding him up to severe and -uncompromising criticism.</p> - -<p>Zoroaster, as he appears in this book, is an itinerant law-giver -and prophet who seeks the waste places of the earth, the mountains, -plains and sea shores, avoiding mankind and carrying with him two -symbolic animals, an eagle and a snake. At the end of his wanderings -he discovers a lion which is for him the sign that his journey is -drawing to a close, for this lion represents all that is best and -most powerful in nature. The book is comprised of the discourses and -sermons which Zoroaster delivers from day to day to the occasional -disciples and unbelievers who cross the path of his wanderings. There -are conversations between him and his accompanying animals; and in the -last part of the book he gathers together<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> in his cave a number of men -representing types of the higher man and talks with them. In all his -discourses he makes use of a rhapsodic and poetic style, not unlike -that found in the Psalms of David. The text telling of Zoroaster's -wanderings and experiences is cast in the manner of the early religious -books of the Orientals.</p> - -<p>"Thus Spake Zarathustra" was the first book to follow "Human, -All-Too-Human," "The Dawn of Day" and "The Joyful Wisdom," and many of -Nietzsche's constructive ideas are presented here for the first time. -Part I is more lucid and can be more easily understood than the parts -which follow. In it Nietzsche designates the classes of humanity and -differentiates between them. His three famous metamorphoses of the -spirit—symbolised by the camel, the lion and the child—are stated -and explained. Here we find the philosopher's most widely quoted -passages pertaining to marriage and child-bearing; his doctrine of -war and peace; and those passages wherein he reverses the beatitudes. -The passions and preferences of the individual are criticised in -their relation to the higher man, and the more obvious instincts are -analysed. Nietzsche outlines methods of conduct, and dissects the -actions and attitudes of his disciples, praising them or blaming them -in accordance with his own values. He presents an illuminating analysis -of charity, and outlines in his chapter, "The Bestowing Virtue," the -conditions under which it may become a means to existence. He poses -the problem of relative morality, and suggests the lines along which -his thesis will be developed at a later date. The superman is defined -briefly but with a completeness sufficient for us to sense his relation -to the philosophical scheme of which he is a part. The conception of -the superman was founded on<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> Darwin's doctrine of organic evolution, -and Nietzsche seeks to bring this superman about by the application -of the law of natural selection and by giving the law of the survival -of the fittest an open field for operation. Here, too, we have the -statement of Nietzsche's racial ideal: the highest exemplars of the -race, and not a standardized goal, is the aim of his philosophy.</p> - -<p>In Part II the doctrine of the will to power is clearly set forth in -its framework. The chapter wherein this appears—"Self-Surpassing"—is -merely a brief exposition founded on observation. The development of -this idea is not to be found until toward the end of Nietzsche's life; -but that the theory was clearly conceived in his mind is evidenced by -the fact that it is constantly being applied throughout the remainder -of his works. In its present form it is no more than a statement, but -so clearly is it presented that one is able to grasp its significance -and to determine in just what manner it differed from the Darwinian -and Spencerian doctrines. In this same section are contained many -personal chapters, including an excoriation of his early critics, a -comparison between himself and Schopenhauer, an account of his early -anti-scholastic warfare, a criticism of modern scientific methods, a -reference to his friendship with Wagner, and an expression of regret at -the misunderstanding which greeted his earlier works. One of the final -chapters offers a definition of "profundity" which goes deep into the -very undercurrents of his philosophy.</p> - -<p>The most important material to be found in the book is encountered -in Part III. Under the caption, "The Old and the New Tables," we -have an important summing up of the principal teachings in the -Nietzschean philosophical scheme. Here also we meet the doctrine<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span> of -eternal recurrence which, as I have said, generated the conception -of this book. Its present statement is limited to a few tentative -speculations; later on it was developed and set forth with greater -force and certainty. But despite the fact that in his autobiography -Nietzsche calls this speculative philosophic doctrine "the highest of -all possible formulæ of a Yea-saying philosophy," too much importance -must not be attached to it in its relation to his writings. In the -first place it was by no means new with him: he himself reconnoitred -a bit in one of his early essays looking for its possible origin. And -in the second place it had little influence on his main doctrine of -the superman. Although he spent considerable time and space in its -elucidation, it never became an integral part of any of his teachings. -Rather was it something superimposed on his other formulæ—a condition -introduced into the actualities of his conception of the universe. I am -inclined to think that he flirted with this idea of recurrence largely -because it was the most disheartening obstacle he could conceive in -the path of the superman; and as no obstacle was too great to be faced -triumphantly by this man of the future, he imposed this condition of -eternal recurrence upon him as an ultimate test of fortitude. This idea -would have added the final touch of futility to ambition, and Nietzsche -could not conceive of true greatness in man unless futility was at -the bottom of all ambitions. However, it is possible to eliminate -the entire idea of eternal recurrence from Nietzsche's work without -altering fundamentally any of his main teachings, for it is, in his -very conception of it, a deputy condition of existence.</p> - -<p>Part IV, the narrative section, answers the query often raised: For -whom is Nietzsche's philosophy intended?<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span> It does away once and for all -with the assumption of certain critics that his writings were for all -classes. In fact, this assumption, constantly posited by scholars—even -those who claim to possess an intimate knowledge of Nietzsche's -work—is nowhere borne out in his text. As far back as "Thoughts out of -Season" the reverse of this supposition was inferentially stated; and -in "The Antichrist" and "The Will to Power" we have definite denials -that his doctrines were intended for every one. Yet one is constantly -encountering critical refutations of his philosophy based on the theory -that he addressed his teachings to all men. Nothing could be further -from the truth. He held no vision of a race of supermen: a millennium -founded on the exertion of power was neither his aim nor his hope. -His philosophy was entirely aristocratic. It was a system of ethics -designed for the masters of the race; and his books were gifts for -the intelligent man alone. Locke, Rousseau and Hume are often brought -forward by critics as answers to his attempts at transvaluation; but -a close inspection of Nietzsche's definition of slave-morality, which -was an important factor in his ethical scheme, will show that it is -possible to accept the philosophy of the superman without abrogating -the softer ethics of these three other thinkers. Nietzsche's stand in -regard to his audience is made obvious in the fable of Zarathustra. The -poet-philosopher experiences the instinct for pity, but on going out -into the world, he recognises this instinct as pertaining only to the -"higher men." When he finds numerous of these men in danger from the -ignorance of the populace and from the restrictions of environment, -he leads them to his cave, and there, isolated from the inferior man, -discourses with them on the problems of life and points out to them -the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span> course they must take in order to bring about the superman.</p> - -<p>Because of the nature of the book it is extremely difficult to select -detached passages from it which will give an entirely adequate idea of -its contents. Often a single philosophical point will be contained in -a long parable, and the only way to present that point in Nietzsche's -own words would have been to embody the whole parable in this chapter. -That, of course, would have been impossible. Therefore, many of the -ideas set forth in the book have not been included in the following -excerpts. Part IV does not lend itself at all to mutilation, and I have -been unable to take anything save a few general passages from this -section. However, "Thus Spake Zarathustra" is not a book to which one -should go to become familiar with Nietzsche's teachings. When one sits -down to read it, my advice is that the notes of Mr. Anthony M. Ludovici -which are to be found in the appendix of the standard English edition, -be followed closely.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center">EXCERPTS FROM "THUS SPAKE ZARATHUSTRA"</p> - -<p><i>I teach you the Superman..</i>. Man is something that is to be surpassed. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">6</span></p> - -<p>What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock, a thing of shame. And just -the same shall man be to the Superman: a laughing-stock, a thing of -shame. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">6</span></p> - -<p>Ye have made your way from the worm to man, and much within you is -still worm. Once were ye apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than -any of the apes. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">7</span></p> - -<p>I conjure you, my brethren, <i>remain true to the earth.</i> and believe not -those who speak unto you of super-earthly hopes! Poisoners are they, -whether they know it or not. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">7</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span></p> - -<p>To blaspheme the earth is now the dreadfulest sin.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">7</span></p> - -<p>Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Superman—a rope -over an abyss. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">9</span></p> - -<p>What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">9</span></p> - -<p>I tell you: one must still have chaos in one, to give birth to a -dancing star.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">12</span></p> - -<p>Three metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit -becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child.</p> - -<p>Many heavy things are there for the spirit, the strong load-bearing -spirit in which reverence dwelleth: for the heavy and the heaviest -longeth its strength.</p> - -<p>What is heavy? so asketh the load-bearing spirit; then kneeleth it down -like the camel, and wanteth to be well laden.</p> - -<p>What is the heaviest thing, ye heroes? asketh the load-bearing spirit, -that I may take it upon me and rejoice in my strength.</p> - -<p>Is it not this: To humiliate oneself in order to mortify one's pride? -To exhibit one's folly in order to mock at one's wisdom?</p> - -<p>Or is it this: To desert our cause when it celebrateth its triumph? To -ascend high mountains to tempt the tempter?</p> - -<p>Or is it this: To feed on the acorns and grass of knowledge, and for -the sake of truth to suffer hunger of soul?</p> - -<p>Or is it this: To be sick and dismiss comforters, and make friends of -the deaf, who never hear thy requests?</p> - -<p>Or is it this: To go into foul water when it is the water of truth, and -not disclaim cold frogs and hot toads?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p> - -<p>Or is it this: To love those who despise us, and give one's hand to the -phantom when it is going to frighten us?</p> - -<p>All these heaviest things the load-bearing spirit taketh upon itself: -and like the camel, which, when laden, hasteneth into the wilderness, -so hasteneth the spirit into its wilderness.</p> - -<p>But in the loneliest wilderness happeneth the second metamorphosis: -here the spirit becometh a lion; freedom will it capture, and lordship -in its own wilderness.</p> - -<p>Its last Lord it here seeketh: hostile will it be to him, and to its -last God; for victory will it struggle with the great dragon.</p> - -<p>What is the great dragon which the spirit is no longer inclined to call -Lord and God? "Thou shalt," is the great dragon called. But the spirit -of the lion saith, "I will."</p> - -<p>"Thou shalt," lieth in its path, sparkling with gold—a scale-covered -beast; and on every scale glittereth golden, "Thou shalt!"</p> - -<p>The values of a thousand years glitter on those scales, and -thus speaketh the mightiest of all dragons: "All the values of -things—glitter on me."</p> - -<p>"All values have already been created, and all created values—do I -represent. Verily, there shall be no 'I will' any more." Thus speaketh -the dragon.</p> - -<p>My brethren, wherefore is there need of the lion in the spirit? Why -sufficeth not the beast of burden, which renounceth and is reverent?</p> - -<p>To create new values—that, even the lion cannot yet accomplish: but to -create itself freedom for new creating—that can the might of the lion -do.</p> - -<p>To create itself freedom, and give a holy Nay even<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span> unto duty: for -that, my brethren, there is need of the lion.</p> - -<p>To assume the right to new values—that is the most formidable -assumption for a load-bearing and reverent spirit. Verily, unto such a -spirit it is preying, and the work of a beast of prey.</p> - -<p>As its holiest, it once loved "Thou shalt": now is it forced to find -illusion and arbitrariness even in the holiest things, that it may -capture freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this capture.</p> - -<p>But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion -could not do? Why hath the preying lion still to become a child?</p> - -<p>Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a -self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea.</p> - -<p>Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea -unto life: <i>its own</i> will, willeth now the spirit; <i>his own</i> world -winneth the world's outcast.</p> - -<p>Three metamorphoses of the spirit have I designated to you: how the -spirit became a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">25</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">27</span></p> - -<p>A new pride ... teach I unto men: no longer to thrust the head into the -sand of celestial things, but to carry it freely, a terrestrial head, -which giveth meaning to the earth!</p> - -<p>A new will teach I unto men: to choose that path which man hath -followed blindly, and to approve of it—and no longer to slink aside -from it, like the sick and perishing!</p> - -<p>The sick and perishing—it was they who despised the body and the -earth, and invented the heavenly world, and the redeeming blood-drops; -but even those sweet and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> sad poisons they borrowed from the body and -the earth! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">33</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">34</span></p> - -<p>The awakened one, the knowing one, saith: "Body am I entirely, and -nothing more; and soul is only the name of something in the body." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">35</span></p> - -<p>The body is a big sagacity, a plurality with one sense, a war and a -peace, a flock and a shepherd.</p> - -<p>An instrument of thy body is also thy little sagacity, my brother, -which thou callest "spirit"—a little instrument and plaything of thy -big sagacity.</p> - -<p>Instruments and playthings are sense and spirit: behind them there -is still the Self. The Self seeketh with the eyes of the senses, it -hearkeneth also with the ears of the spirit. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">36</span></p> - -<p>Behind thy thoughts and feelings, my brother, there is a mighty lord, -an unknown sage—it is called Self; it dwelleth in thy body, it is thy -body. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">36</span></p> - -<p>When thou hast a virtue, and it is thine own virtue, thou hast it in -common with no one. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">38</span></p> - -<p>If thou be fortunate, then wilt thou have one virtue and no more: thus -goest thou easier over the bridge. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">39</span></p> - -<p>"Enemy" shall ye say but not "villain," "invalid" shall ye say but not -"wretch," "fool" shall ye say but not "sinner." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">41</span></p> - -<p>Of all that is written, I love only what a person hath written with his -blood. Write with blood, and thou wilt find that blood is spirit. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">43</span></p> - -<p>Ye look aloft when ye long for exaltation; and I look downward because -I am exalted.</p> - -<p>Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?</p> - -<p>He who climbeth on the highest mountains, laugheth at all tragic plays -and tragic realities.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p> - -<p>Courageous, unconcerned, scornful, coercive—so wisdom wisheth us; she -is a woman, and ever loveth a warrior. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">44</span></p> - -<p>It is true we love life; not because we are wont to live, but because -we are wont to love. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">44</span></p> - -<p>I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance.</p> - -<p>Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit -of gravity! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">45</span></p> - -<p>Full is the earth of the superfluous; marred is life by the -many-too-many. May they be decoyed out of this life by the "life -eternal"! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">49</span></p> - -<p>Ye are not great enough not to know of hatred and envy. Then be great -enough not to be ashamed of them! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">51</span></p> - -<p>Ye shall love peace as a means to new wars—and the short peace more -than the long.</p> - -<p>You I advise not to work, but to fight. You, I advise not to peace, but -to victory. Let your work be a fight, let your peace be a victory! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">52</span></p> - -<p>Ye say it is the good cause which halloweth even war? I say unto you: -it is the good war which halloweth every cause. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">52</span>.</p> - -<p>"What is good?" ye ask. To be brave is good. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">52</span> Ye shall only have -enemies to be hated, but not enemies to be despised. Ye must be proud -of your enemies; then, the successes of your enemies are also your -successes. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">53</span></p> - -<p>A state is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly lieth it -also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: "I, the state, am the -people." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">54</span></p> - -<p>Just see these superfluous ones! They steal the works of the inventors -and the treasures of the wise. Culture,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> they call their theft—and -everything becometh sickness and trouble unto them! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">56</span></p> - -<p>Around the devisers of new values revolveth the world:—invisibly it -revolveth. But around the actors revolve the people and the glory: such -is the course of things. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">58</span></p> - -<p>Would that ye were perfect—at least as animals! But to animals -belongeth innocence. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">61</span></p> - -<p>Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many almost a vice. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">61</span></p> - -<p>To whom chastity is difficult, it is to be dissuaded: lest it become -the road to hell—to filth and lust of soul. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">62</span></p> - -<p>If one would have a friend, then must one also be willing to wage war -for him: and in order to wage war, one must be <i>capable</i> of being an -enemy. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">63</span></p> - -<p>In one's friend one shall have one's best enemy. Thou shalt be closest -unto him with thy heart when thou withstandest him. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">63</span></p> - -<p>Art thou a slave? Then thou canst not be a friend. Art thou a tyrant? -Then thou canst not have friends.</p> - -<p>Far too long hath there been a slave and a tyrant concealed in woman. -On that account woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knoweth -only love.</p> - -<p>In woman's love there is injustice and blindness to all she doth -not love. And even in woman's conscious love, there is still always -surprise and lightning and night, along with the light. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">65</span></p> - -<p>Values did man only assign to things in order to maintain himself—he -created only the significance of things, a human significance! -Therefore, calleth he himself "man," that is, the valuator. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">67</span></p> - -<p>A thousand goals have there been hitherto, for a thousand peoples have -there been. Only the fetter for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> thousand necks is still lacking; -there is lacking the one goal. As yet humanity hath not a goal. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">69</span></p> - -<p>Do I advise you to neighbour-love? Rather do I advise you to -neighbour-flight and to furthest love!</p> - -<p>Higher than love to your neighbour is love to the furthest and future -ones; higher still than love to men, is love to things and phantoms.</p> - -<p>The phantom that runneth on before thee, my brother, is fairer than -thou; why dost thou not give unto it thy flesh and thy bones?... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">69</span></p> - -<p>Art thou one <i>entitled</i> to escape from a yoke? Many a one hath cast -away his final worth when he hath cast away his servitude.</p> - -<p>Free from what? What doth that matter to Zarathustra! Clearly, however, -shall thine eye show unto me: free <i>for what?</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">71</span></p> - -<p>Everything in woman is a riddle, and everything in woman hath one -solution—it is called pregnancy.</p> - -<p>Man is for woman, a means: the purpose is always the child. But what is -woman for man?</p> - -<p>Two different things wanteth the true man: danger and diversion. -Therefore wanteth he woman, as the most dangerous plaything.</p> - -<p>Man shall be trained for war, and woman for the recreation of the -warrior: all else is folly.</p> - -<p>Two sweet fruits—these the warrior liketh not. Therefore liketh he -woman;—bitter is ever the sweetest woman.</p> - -<p>Better than man doth woman understand children, but man is more -childish than woman.</p> - -<p>In the true man there is a child hidden: it wanteth to play. Up then, -ye women, and discover the child in man!</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p> - -<p>A plaything let woman be, pure and fine like the precious stone, -illumined with the virtues of a world not yet come.</p> - -<p>Let the beam of a star shine in your love! Let your hope say: "May I -bear the Superman!"</p> - -<p>In your love let there be valour! With your love shall ye assail him -who inspireth you with fear!</p> - -<p>In your love be your honour! Little doth woman understand otherwise -about honour. But let this be your honour: always to love more than ye -are loved, and never be the second.</p> - -<p>Let man fear woman when she loveth: then maketh she every sacrifice, -and everything else she regardeth as worthless.</p> - -<p>Let man fear woman when she hateth: for man in his innermost soul is -merely evil; woman, however, is mean.</p> - -<p>Whom hateth woman most?—Thus spake the iron to the loadstone: "I hate -thee most, because thou attractest, but art too weak to draw unto thee."</p> - -<p>The happiness of man is, "I will." The happiness of woman is, "He -will." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">76</span></p> - -<p>Thou goest to women? Do not forget thy whip! 77</p> - -<p>When ... ye have an enemy, then return him not good for evil: for that -would abash him. But prove that he hath done something good to you.</p> - -<p>And rather be angry than abash any one! And when ye are cursed, it -pleaseth me not that ye should then desire to bless. Rather curse a -little also! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">73</span></p> - -<p>Tell me: where find we justice, which is love with seeing eyes? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">78</span></p> - -<p>Thou art young, and desirest child and marriage. But I ask thee: Art -thou a man entitled to desire a child? Art thou the victorious one, the -self-conqueror, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span> ruler of thy passions, the master of thy virtues? -Thus do I ask thee.</p> - -<p>Or doth the animal speak in thy wish, and necessity? Or isolation? Or -discord in thee?</p> - -<p>I would have thy victory and freedom long for a child. Living monuments -shalt thou build to thy victory and emancipation.</p> - -<p>Beyond thyself shalt thou build. But first of all must thou be built -thyself, rectangular in body and soul. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">79</span></p> - -<p>Marriage: so call I the will of the twain to create the one that is -more than those who created it. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">80</span></p> - -<p>That which the many-too-many call marriage, those superfluous ones—ah, -what shall I call it?</p> - -<p>Ah, the poverty of soul in the twain! Ah, the filth of soul in the -twain! Ah, the pitiable self-complacency in the twain!</p> - -<p>Marriage they call it all; and they say their marriages are made in -heaven.</p> - -<p>Well, I do not like it, that heaven of the superfluous; No, I do not -like them, those animals tangled in the heavenly toils!</p> - -<p>Far from me also be the God who limpeth thither to bless what he hath -not matched!</p> - -<p>Laugh not at such marriages! What child hath not had reason to weep -over its parents? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">80</span></p> - -<p>Every one regardeth dying as a great matter: but as yet death is not -a festival. Not yet have people learned to inaugurate the finest -festivals. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">82</span></p> - -<p>My death, praise I unto you, the voluntary death, which cometh unto me -because I want it.</p> - -<p>And when shall I want it?—He that hath a goal and an heir, wanteth -death at the right time for the goal and the heir. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">83</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p> - -<p>It is your thirst to become sacrifices and gifts yourselves: and -therefore have ye the thirst to accumulate all riches in your soul.</p> - -<p>Insatiably striveth your soul for treasures and jewels, because your -virtue is insatiable in desiring to bestow.</p> - -<p>Ye constrain all things to flow towards you and into you, so that they -shall flow back again out of your fountain as the gifts of your love.</p> - -<p>Verily, an appropriator of all values must such bestowing love become; -but healthy and holy, call I this selfishness. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">86</span></p> - -<p>When ye are exalted above praise and blame, and your will would command -all things, as a loving one's will: there is the origin of your virtue. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">87</span></p> - -<p>Remain true to the earth, my brethren, with the power of your virtue! -Let your bestowing love and your knowledge be devoted to be the meaning -of the earth! Thus do I pray and conjure you.</p> - -<p>Let it not fly away from the earthly and beat against eternal walls -with its wings! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">88</span></p> - -<p>The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies, but -also to hate his friends. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">90</span></p> - -<p>Once did people say God, when they looked out upon distant seas; now, -however, have I taught you to say, Superman. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">98</span></p> - -<p>Could ye <i>conceive</i> a God?—But let this mean Will to Truth unto you, -that everything be transformed into the humanly conceivable, the -humanly visible, the humanly sensible! Your own discernment shall ye -follow out to the end! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">99</span></p> - -<p>Creating—that is the great salvation from suffering, and life's -alleviation. But for the creator to appear, suffering itself is needed, -and much transformation. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">100</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p> - -<p>What would there be to create if there were—? Gods! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">101</span></p> - -<p>Man himself is to the discerning one: the animal with red cheeks. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">102</span></p> - -<p>Verily, I like them not, the merciful ones, whose bliss is in their -pity: too destitute are they of bashfulness.</p> - -<p>If I must be pitiful, I dislike to be called so; and if I be so, it is -preferably at a distance. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">102</span></p> - -<p>Since humanity came into being, man hath enjoyed himself too little: -that alone, my brethren, is our original sin! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">103</span></p> - -<p>Great obligations do not make grateful, but revengeful; and when a -small kindness is not forgotten, it becometh a gnawing worm. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">103</span></p> - -<p>The sting of conscience teacheth one to sting. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">103</span></p> - -<p>Ah, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the -pitiful? And what in the world hath caused more suffering than the -follies of the pitiful?</p> - -<p>Woe unto all loving ones who have not an elevation which is above their -pity!</p> - -<p>Thus spake the devil unto me, once a time: "Even God hath his hell: it -is his love for man." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">105</span></p> - -<p>All great love is above all its pity: for it seeketh—to create what is -loved!</p> - -<p>"Myself do I offer unto my love, <i>and my neighbour as myself"</i>—such is -the language of all creators. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">105</span></p> - -<p>"Here are priests: but although they are mine enemies, pass them -quietly and with sleeping swords!"</p> - -<p>Even among them there are heroes; many of them have suffered too -much:—so they want to make others suffer.</p> - -<p>Bad enemies are they: nothing is more revengeful than their meekness. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">106</span></p> - -<p>When a person goeth through fire for his teaching—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>what doth that -prove! It is more, verily, when out of one's own burning cometh one's -own teaching! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">108</span></p> - -<p>That <i>your</i> very Self be in your action, as the mother is in the child: -let that be <i>your</i> formula of virtue! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">112</span></p> - -<p>Life is a well of delight; but where the rabble also drink, there all -fountains are poisoned. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">113</span></p> - -<p>Ye who make the soul giddy, ye preachers of <i>equality!</i> Tarantulas are -ye unto me, and secretly revengeful ones! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">116</span></p> - -<p>Ye preachers of equality, the tyrant-frenzy of impotence crieth thus -in you for "equality": your most secret tyrant-longings disguise -themselves thus in virtue-words!</p> - -<p>Fretted conceit and suppressed envy—perhaps your fathers' conceit and -envy: in you break they forth as flame and frenzy of vengeance. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">117</span></p> - -<p>Distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!</p> - -<p>They are people of bad race and lineage; out of their countenances peer -the hangman and the sleuth-hound.</p> - -<p>Distrust all those who talk much of their justice! Verily, in their -souls not only honey is lacking.</p> - -<p>And when they call themselves "the good and just," forget not, that for -them to be Pharisees, nothing is lacking but—power! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">118</span></p> - -<p>With these preachers of equality will I not be mixed up and confounded. -For thus speaketh justice <i>unto me:</i> "Men are not equal."</p> - -<p>And neither shall they become so! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">118</span></p> - -<p>Good and evil, and rich and poor, and high and low, and all names of -values: weapons shall they be, and sounding signs, that life must again -and again surpass itself! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">119</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p> - -<p>Steadfast and beautiful, let us also be enemies, my friends I Divinely -will we strive <i>against</i> one another! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">120</span></p> - -<p>Hungry, fierce, lonesome, God-forsaken: so doth the lion-will wish -itself.</p> - -<p>Free from the happiness of slaves, redeemed from Deities and -adorations, fearless and fear-inspiring, grand and lonesome: so is the -will of the conscientious. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">122</span></p> - -<p>Wherever I found a living thing, there found I Will to Power; and even -in the will of the servant found I the will to be master.</p> - -<p>That to the stronger the weaker shall serve—thereto persuadeth he his -will who would be master over a still weaker one. That delight alone he -is unwilling to forego.</p> - -<p>And as the lesser surrendereth himself to the greater that he may have -delight and power over the least of all, so doth even the greatest -surrender himself, and staketh—life, for the sake of power.</p> - -<p>It is the surrender of the greatest to run risk and danger, and play -dice for death. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">136</span></p> - -<p>Good and evil which would be everlasting—it doth not exist! Of its own -accord must it ever surpass itself anew. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">137</span></p> - -<p>He who hath to be a creator in good and evil—verily, he hath first to -be a destroyer, and break values in pieces. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">138</span></p> - -<p>Ye tell me, friends, that there is to be no dispute about taste and -tasting? But all life is a dispute about taste and tasting.</p> - -<p>Taste: that is weight at the same time, and scales and weigher; and -alas for every living thing that would live without dispute about -weight and scales and weigher! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">139</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p> - -<p>Alien to me, and a mockery, are the present-day men, to whom of late my -heart impelled me; and exiled am I from fatherlands and motherlands.</p> - -<p>Thus do I love only my <i>children's land,</i> the undiscovered in the -remotest sea: for it do I bid my sails search and search.</p> - -<p>Unto my children will I make amends for being the child of my fathers: -and unto all the future—for <i>this</i> present-day! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">145</span></p> - -<p>Where is innocence? Where there is will to procreation. And he who -seeketh to create beyond himself, hath for me the purest will.</p> - -<p>Where is beauty? Where I <i>must will</i> with my whole Will; where I will -love and perish, that an image may not remain merely an image.</p> - -<p>Loving and perishing: these have rhymed from eternity. Will to love: -that is to be ready also for death. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">147</span></p> - -<p>Dare only to believe in yourselves—in yourselves and in your inward -parts! He who doth not believe in himself always lieth. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">147</span></p> - -<p>All Gods are poets-symbolisations, poet-sophistications! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">153</span></p> - -<p>"Freedom" ye all roar most eagerly: but I have unlearned the belief in -"great events," when there is much roaring and smoke about them.</p> - -<p>And believe me, friend Hollaballoo! The greatest events—are not our -noisiest, but our stillest hours.</p> - -<p>Not around the inventors of new noise, but around the inventors of new -values, doth the world revolve: <i>inaudibly</i> it revolveth. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">158</span></p> - -<p>To redeem what is past, and to transform every "It was" into "Thus -would have it!"—that only do I call redemption! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">168</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>The spirit of revenge:</i> my friends, that hath hitherto been man's best -contemplation; and where there was suffering, it was claimed there was -always penalty.</p> - -<p>"Penalty," so calleth itself revenge. With a lying word it feigneth a -good conscience. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">169</span></p> - -<p>This is my first manly prudence, that I allow myself to be deceived, -so as not to be on my guard against deceivers. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">172</span></p> - -<p>He who would not languish amongst men, must learn to drink out of all -glasses; and he who would keep clean amongst men, must know how to wash -himself even with dirty water. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">17</span></p> - -<p>Verily, there is still a future even for evil! And the warmest south is -still undiscovered by man.</p> - -<p>How many things are now called the worst wickedness, which are only -twelve feet broad and three months long! Some day, however, will -greater dragons come into the world.</p> - -<p>For that the Superman may not lack his dragon, the superdragon that -is worthy of him, there must still much warm sun glow on moist virgin -forests!</p> - -<p>Out of your wild cats must tigers have evolved, and out of your -poison-toads, crocodiles: for the good hunter shall have a good hunt!</p> - -<p>And verily, ye good and just! In you there is much to be laughed at, -and especially your fear of what hath hitherto been called "the devil"!</p> - -<p>So alien are ye in your souls to what is great, that to you the -Superman would be <i>frightful</i> in his goodness!</p> - -<p>And ye wise and knowing ones, ye would flee from the solar-glow of the -wisdom in which the Superman joyfully batheth his nakedness!</p> - -<p>Ye highest men who have come within my ken! this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> is my doubt of you, -and my secret laughter: I suspect ye would call my Superman—a devil!</p> - -<p>Ah, I became tired of those highest and best ones: from their "height" -did I long to be up, out, and away to the Superman!</p> - -<p>A horror came over me when I saw those best ones naked: then there grew -for me the pinions to soar away into distant futures.</p> - -<p>Into more distant futures, into more southern souths than ever artist -dreamed of: thither, where Gods are ashamed of all clothes!</p> - -<p>But disguised do I want to see <i>you,</i> ye neighbours and fellowmen, and -well-attired and vain and estimable, as "the good and just";—</p> - -<p>And disguised will I myself sit amongst you—that I may <i>mistake</i> you -and myself: for that is my last manly prudence. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">174</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">175</span></p> - -<p>He who would become a child must surmount even his youth. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">178</span></p> - -<p>Thou goest the way to thy greatness: here shall no one steal after -thee! Thy foot itself hath effaced the path behind thee, and over it -standeth written: Impossibility. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">184</span></p> - -<p>From the gateway, This Moment, there runneth a long eternal lane -<i>backwards:</i> behind us lieth an eternity.</p> - -<p>Must not whatever <i>can</i> run its course of all things, have already run -along that lane? Must not whatever <i>can</i> happen of all things have -already happened, resulted, and gone by?</p> - -<p>And if everything have already existed, what thinkest thou, dwarf, of -This Moment? Must not this gateway also—have already existed?</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p> - -<p>And are not all things closely bound together in such wise that This -Moment draweth all coming things after it? <i>Consequently</i>—itself also?</p> - -<p>For whatever <i>can</i> run its course of all things, also in this long lane -<i>outward—must</i> it once more run!—</p> - -<p>And this slow spider which creepeth in the moonlight, and this -moonlight itself, and thou and I in this gateway whispering together, -whispering of eternal things—must we not all have already existed? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">186</span></p> - -<p>And must we not return and run in that other lane out before us, that -long weird lane—must we not eternally return? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">190</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">191</span></p> - -<p>All things are baptised at the font of eternity, and beyond good and -evil; good and evil themselves, however, are but fugitive shadows and -damp afflictions and passing clouds.</p> - -<p>Verily, it is a blessing and not a blasphemy when I teach that "above -all things there standeth, the heaven of chance, the heaven of -innocence, the heaven of hazard, the heaven of wantonness."</p> - -<p>"Of Hazard"—that is the oldest nobility in the world; that gave I back -to all things; I emancipated them from bondage under purpose.</p> - -<p>This freedom and celestial serenity did I put like an azure bell above -all things, when I taught that over them and through them, no "eternal -will"—willeth.</p> - -<p>This wantonness and folly did I put in place of that will, when I -taught that "In everything there is one thing impossible—rationality!" -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">201</span></p> - -<p>I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open: they do not forgive -me for not envying their virtues.</p> - -<p>They bite at me, because I say unto them that for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span> small people, small -virtues are necessary—and because it is hard for me to understand that -small people are <i>necessary!</i><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">203</span></p> - -<p>Only he who is man enough, will—<i>save the woman</i> in woman. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">205</span></p> - -<p>So much kindness, so much weakness do I see. So much justice and pity, -so much weakness.</p> - -<p>Round, fair, and considerate are they to one another, as grains of sand -are round, fair, and considerate to grains of sand.</p> - -<p>Modestly to embrace a small happiness—that do they call "submission"! -and at the same time they peer modestly after a new small happiness.</p> - -<p>In their hearts they want simply one thing most of all: that no one -hurt them. Thus do they anticipate every one's wishes and do well unto -every one.</p> - -<p>That, however, is <i>cowardice,</i> though it be called "virtue."</p> - -<p>And when they chance to speak harshly, those small people, then do <i>I</i> -hear therein only their hoarseness—every draught of air maketh them -hoarse.</p> - -<p>Shrewd indeed are they, their virtues have shrewd fingers. But they -lack fists: their fingers do not know how to creep behind fists.</p> - -<p>Virtue for them is what maketh modest and tame: therewith have they -made the wolf a dog, and man himself man's best domestic animal.</p> - -<p>"We set our chair in the <i>midst</i>"—so saith their smirking unto -me—"and as far from dying gladiators as from satisfied swine."</p> - -<p>That, however, is—<i>mediocrity,</i> though it be called moderation. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">206</span></p> - -<p>Those teachers of submission! Wherever there is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> aught puny, or -sickly, or scabby, there do they creep like lice; and only my disgust -preventeth me from cracking them. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">207</span></p> - -<p>Too tender, too yielding: so is your soil! But for a tree to become -<i>great,</i> it seeketh to twine hard roots around hard rocks! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">208</span></p> - -<p>Do ever what ye will—but first be such as <i>can will.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">208</span></p> - -<p>Love ever your neighbour as yourselves—but first be such as <i>love -themselves.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">208</span></p> - -<p>Out of love alone shall my contempt and my warning bird take wing; but -not out of the swamp!</p> - -<p>In indulging and pitying lay ever my greatest danger; and all human -hubbub wisheth to be indulged and tolerated. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">226</span></p> - -<p>He who liveth amongst the good—pity teacheth him to lie. Pity maketh -stifling air for all free souls. For the stupidity of the good is -unfathomable. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">227</span></p> - -<p>Voluptuousness: to free hearts, a thing innocent and free, the -garden-happiness of the earth, all the future's thanks overflow to the -present.</p> - -<p>Voluptuousness: only to the withered a sweet poison; to the -lion-willed, however, the great cordial, and the reverently saved wine -of wines.</p> - -<p>Voluptuousness: the great symbolic happiness of a higher happiness and -highest hope. For to many is marriage promised, and more than marriage.</p> - -<p>To many that are more unknown to each other than man and woman:—and -who hath fully understood <i>have unknown</i> to each other are man and -woman!</p> - -<p>Voluptuousness:—but I will have hedges around my thoughts, and even -around my words, lest swine and libertine should break into my gardens! -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">230</span></p> - -<p>Passion for power: the earthquake which breaketh and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span> upbreaketh all -that is rotten and hollow; the rolling, rumbling, punitive demolisher -of whited sepulchres; the flashing interrogative-sign beside premature -answers.</p> - -<p>Passion for power: before whose glance man creepeth and croucheth and -drudgeth, and becometh lower than the serpent and the swine:—until at -last great contempt crieth out of him,—</p> - -<p>Passion for power: the terrible teacher of great contempt, which -preacheth to their face to cities and empires: "Away with thee!"—until -a voice crieth out of themselves: "Away with <i>me!</i>"</p> - -<p>Passion for power: which; however, mounteth alluringly even to the pure -and lonesome, and up to self-satisfied elevations, glowing like a love -that painteth purple felicities alluringly on earthly heavens.</p> - -<p>Passion for power: but who would call it <i>passion,</i> when the height -longeth to stoop for power! Verily, nothing sick or diseased is there -in such longing and descending!</p> - -<p>That the lonesome height may not for ever remain lonesome and -self-sufficing: that the mountains may come to the valleys and the -winds of the heights to the plains:</p> - -<p>Oh, who could find the right prenomen and honouring name for such -longing! "Bestowing virtue"—thus did Zarathustra once name the -unnamable.</p> - -<p>And then it happened also,—and verily, it happened for the first -time!—that his word blessed <i>selfishness,</i> the wholesome, healthy -selfishness, that springeth from the powerful soul:—</p> - -<p>From the powerful soul, to which the high body appertaineth, the -handsome, triumphing, refreshing body, around which everything becometh -a mirror:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p> - -<p>The pliant, persuasive body, the dancer, whose symbol and epitome is -the self-enjoying soul. Of such bodies and souls the self-enjoyment -calleth itself "virtue." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">232</span></p> - -<p>He who wisheth to become light, and be a bird, must love himself:—thus -do I teach.</p> - -<p>Not, to be sure, with the love of the sick and infected, for with them -stinketh even self-love!</p> - -<p>One must learn to love oneself—thus do I teach—with a wholesome and -healthy love: that one may endure to be with oneself, and not go roving -about.</p> - -<p>Such roving about christeneth itself "brotherly love"; with these words -hath there hitherto been the best lying and dissembling, and especially -by those who have been burdensome to every one.</p> - -<p>And verily, it is no commandment for to-day and to-morrow to <i>learn</i> to -love oneself. Rather is it of all arts the finest, subtlest, last and -patientest. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">235</span></p> - -<p><i>No one yet knoweth</i> what is good and bad:—unless it be the creating -one!</p> - -<p>It is he however createth man's goal, and giveth to the earth its -meaning and its future: he only <i>effecteth</i> it <i>that</i> aught is good and -bad. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">240</span></p> - -<p>Man is a bridge and not a goal. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">241</span></p> - -<p><i>Be not considerate of thy neighbour!</i> Man is something that must be -surpassed. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">243</span></p> - -<p>He who cannot command himself shall obey. And many a one <i>can</i> command -himself, but still sorely lacketh self-obedience! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">243</span></p> - -<p>He who is of the populace wisheth to live gratuitously; we others, -however, to whom life hath given itself—we are ever considering -<i>what</i> we can best give <i>in return!</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">243</span></p> - -<p>One should not wish to enjoy where one doth not<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span> contribute to the -enjoyment. And one should not <i>wish</i> to enjoy! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">243</span></p> - -<p>"Thou shalt not rob! Thou shalt not slay!"—such precepts were once -called holy; before them did one bow the knee and the head, and took -off one's shoes.</p> - -<p>But I ask you: Where have there ever been better robbers and slayers in -the world than such holy precepts?</p> - -<p>Is there not even in all life—robbing and slaying? And for such -precepts to be called holy, was not <i>truth</i> itself thereby—slain? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">246</span></p> - -<p>Let it not be your honour henceforth whence ye come, but whither ye go! -Your Will and your feet which seek to surpass you—let these be your -new honour! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">248</span></p> - -<p>The best shall rule, the best also <i>willeth</i> to rule! And where the -teaching is different, there—the best <i>is lacking.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">257</span></p> - -<p>Thus would I have man and woman: fit for war, the one, fit for -maternity, the other; both, however, fit for dancing with head and legs.</p> - -<p>And lost be the day to us in which a measure hath not been danced. And -false be every truth which hath not had laughter along with it! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">257</span></p> - -<p>The stupidity of the good is unfathomably wise.</p> - -<p>The good <i>must</i> crucify him who deviseth his own virtue! That <i>is</i> the -truth!</p> - -<p>The second one, however, who discovered their country—the country, -heart and soil of the good and just,—it was he who asked: "Whom do -they hate most?"</p> - -<p>The <i>creator,</i> hate they most, him who breaketh the tables and old -values, the breaker,—him they call the law-breaker.</p> - -<p>For the good—they <i>cannot</i> create; they are always the beginning of -the end:—</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p> - -<p>They crucify him who writeth new values on new tables, they sacrifice -<i>unto themselves</i> the future—they crucify the whole human future! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">260</span></p> - -<p>This new table, O my brethren, put I up over you: <i>Become hard!</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">262</span></p> - -<p>Everything goeth, everything returneth; eternally rolleth the wheel -of existence. Everything dieth, everything blossometh forth again; -eternally runneth on the year of existence.</p> - -<p>Everything breaketh, everything is integrated anew; eternally buildeth -itself the same house of existence. All things separate, all things -again greet one another; eternally true to itself remaineth the ring of -existence.</p> - -<p>Every moment beginneth existence, around every "Here" rolleth the ball -"There." The middle is everywhere. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">266</span></p> - -<p>For man his baddest is necessary for his best.</p> - -<p>That all that is baddest is the best <i>power,</i> and the hardest stone for -the highest creator; and that man must become better <i>and</i> badder:—<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">267</span></p> - -<p>The plexus of causes returneth in which I am intertwined,—it will -again create me! I myself pertain to the causes of the eternal return.</p> - -<p>I come again with this sun, with this earth, with this eagle, with this -serpent—<i>not</i> to a new life, or a better life, or a similar life:</p> - -<p>I come again eternally to this identical and selfsame life, in its -greatest and its smallest, to teach again the eternal return of all -things,—</p> - -<p>To speak again the word of the great noontide of earth and man, to -announce again to man the Superman. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">270</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">271</span></p> - -<p>"Ye higher men,"—so blinketh the populace—"there<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span> are no higher men, -we are all equal; man is man, before God—we are all equal!"</p> - -<p>Before God!—Now, however, this God hath died. Before the populace, -however, we will not be equal. Ye higher men, away from the -market-place! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">351</span></p> - -<p>Have a good distrust to-day, ye higher men, ye enheartened ones! Ye -open-hearted ones! And keep your reasons secret! For this to-day is -that of the populace.</p> - -<p>What the populace once learned to believe without reasons, who -could—refute it to them by means of reasons?</p> - -<p>And on the market-place one convinceth with gestures. But reasons make -the populace distrustful.</p> - -<p>And when truth hath once triumphed there, then ask yourselves with good -distrust: "What strong error hath fought for it?" <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">355</span></p> - -<p>Unlearn, I pray you, this "for," ye creating ones: your very virtue -wisheth you to have naught to do with "for" and "on account of" and -"because." Against these false little words shall ye stop your ears.</p> - -<p>"For one's neighbour," is the virtue only of the petty people: there it -is said "like and like" and "hand washeth hand":—they have neither the -right nor the power for <i>your</i> self-seeking! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">356</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">357</span></p> - -<p>What hath hitherto been the greatest sin here on earth? Was it not the -word of him who said: "Woe unto them that laugh now!"</p> - -<p>Did he himself find no cause for laughter on the earth? Then he sought -badly. A child even findeth cause for it. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">359</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">360</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="VI" id="VI">VI</a></h4> - - -<h3>"The Eternal Recurrence"</h3> - - -<p>He following excerpts from Nietzsche's notes relating to eternal -recurrence are set down here merely as supplementary passages to "Thus -Spake Zarathustra," in which book this doctrine of the eternally -recurring irrationality of all things first made its appearance. -Nietzsche's notations on this subject were undoubtedly written in the -latter part of 1881, when the idea of Zarathustra first came to him. -They were not published, however, until years later, and now form a -section of Volume XVI of Nietzsche's complete works in English, along -with "The Twilight of the Idols," "The Antichrist" and some explanatory -notes on "Thus Spake Zarathustra." This is the only material in -Nietzsche's writings which I have not put in chronological order, -and my reason for placing these extracts here, and not between "The -Dawn of Day" and "The Joyful Wisdom," is due to the fact that after -conceiving this doctrine and making notes pertaining to it, Nietzsche -put the idea aside and wrote "The Joyful Wisdom" in which this doctrine -was not embodied. Not until "Thus Spake Zarathustra" appeared did he -make use of this principle of recurrence, and inasmuch as this was the -first published statement of it, I have placed that book first and have -followed it with these explanatory notes.</p> - -<p>Another section of Nietzsche's works also deals with eternal -recurrence, namely: the last part of the second volume of "The Will to -Power." But here too we find<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span> but fragmentary jottings which contain -no material not found in the present quotations. It is true that -Nietzsche intended to elaborate these notes, but even had he done so I -doubt if this doctrine would have assumed a different aspect from the -one it at present possesses, or would have become more closely allied -with the main structure of his thought; for, even though it is not -fully elucidated in its present form, it at least is complete in its -conclusions.</p> - -<p>In my introduction to the quotations from "Thus Spake Zarathustra" -in the preceding chapter will be found a statement relating to this -doctrine, in which I have endeavoured to point out just what influence -it had on Nietzsche's philosophy, and to offer an explanation for its -appearance in his thought.</p> - -<p>A reading of the following notes is not at all necessary for an -understanding of the Nietzschean ethic, and I have placed these -passages here solely for the student to whom every phase of Nietzsche's -philosophy is of interest.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center">EXCERPTS FROM "THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE"</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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">237</span></p> - -<p>Energy remains constant and does 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">238</span></p> - -<p>The energy of the universe can only have a given number of possible -qualities. 238</p> - -<p>The assumption that the universe is an organism contradicts the very -essence of the organic. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">239</span></p> - -<p>We are 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 them which -continually recurs: activity is eternal, the number of the products and -states of energy is limited. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">239</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">240</span></p> - -<p>Anything like a static state of energy in general is impossible. If -stability were possible it would already have been reached. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">241</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">241</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">242</span></p> - -<p>Imaginic matter, even though in most cases it may once have -been organic, can have stored up no experience as it is always -without a past! If the reverse were the case a repetition would be -impossible—for then matter would for ever be producing new qualities -with new pasts. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">247</span></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! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">248</span></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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">249</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">249</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">251</span></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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">252</span></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 millions of years.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">253</span></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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span> 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! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">256</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="VII" id="VII">VII</a></h4> - - -<h3>"Beyond Good and Evil"</h3> - - -<p>Double purpose animated Nietzsche in his writing of "Beyond Good and -Evil" <i>("Jenseits von Gut und Böse").</i> It is at once an explanation -and an elucidation of "Thus Spake Zarathustra," and a preparatory book -for his greatest and most important work, "The Will to Power." In it -Nietzsche attempts to define the relative terms of "good" and "evil," -and to draw a line of distinction between immorality and unmorality. -He saw the inconsistencies evolved in the attempt to harmonise an -ancient moral code with the needs of modern life, and recognised the -compromises which were constantly being made between moral theory and -social practice. His object was to establish a relationship between -morality and necessity, and to formulate a workable basis for human -conduct. Consequently "Beyond Good and Evil" is one of his most -important contributions to a new system of ethics, and touches on many -of the deepest principles of his philosophy. As it stands, it is by -no means a complete expression of Nietzsche's doctrines, but it is -sufficiently profound and suggestive to be of valuable service in an -understanding of his later works. The book was begun in the summer of -1885 and finished the following winter. Again there was difficulty with -publishers, and finally the book was issued at the author's own expense -in the autumn of 1886.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p> - -<p>Nietzsche opens "Beyond Good and Evil" with a long chapter headed -"Prejudices of Philosophers," in which he outlines the course to be -taken by his dialectic. The exposition is accomplished by two methods: -first, by an analysis and a refutation of the systems of thinking -made use of by antecedent doctrinaires, and secondly, by defining the -hypotheses on which his own philosophy is built. This chapter is a -most important one, setting forth, as it does, the <i>rationale</i> of his -doctrine of the will to power. It has been impossible to make extracts -of any unified sequence from this chapter because of its intricate and -compact reasoning, and the student would do well to read it in its -entirety. It establishes Nietzsche's philosophic position and presents -a closely knit explanation of the course pursued in the following -chapters. The relativity of all truth—the hypothesis so often assumed -in his previous work—Nietzsche here defends by analogy and argument. -Using other leading forms of philosophy as a ground for exploration, he -questions the absolutism of truth and shows wherein lies the difficulty -of a final definition. Here we become conscious of that plasticity -of mind which was the dominating quality of his thinking. It is not, -however, that form of plasticity which on inspection resolves itself -into amorphic and unstable reasoning, but a logical, almost scientific, -method of valuing. The mercurial habits of the metaphysicians who deny -absolutism are nowhere discernible in Nietzsche's thought. His mind is -definite without being static. The basis of his argumentation is what -one might call floating. It rises and falls with the human tide of -causation; yet the structure built upon it remains at all times upright -and unchanged.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche points out that the numerous "logical"<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> conclusions of -philosophers have been for the most part <i>a priori</i> propositions, the -results of prejudices or desires, and that the syllogistic structures -reared to them came as explanations and defences, rather than as -dialectic preambles. In their adopting a hypothetical truth as a -premise, he sees only the advocacy for a point of view, arguing that -in order to erect a system of logic the initial thesis must be proved. -Therefore he questions the fundamental worth of certainty as opposed -to uncertainty, and of truth as opposed to falsity, thus striking at -the very foundations reared by those philosophers who have assumed, -without substantiation, that only certainty and truth are valuable. -Nietzsche calls these absolutists astute defenders of prejudices, and -characterises the verbalistic prestidigitation of Kant as a highly -developed form of prejudice-defending. Spinoza, with his mathematical -system of reasoning, likewise falls in the category of those thinkers -who first assume conclusions and then prepare explanations for them -by a process of inverted reasoning. Nietzsche proceeds to pose the -instinctive functions against conscious thinking. He asserts that the -channels taken by thought are defined by the thinker's nature, and that -even logic is influenced by physiological considerations. The whole -fabric of philosophic thought is held up to the light of immediate -necessity.</p> - -<p>Going further, he inquires into the "impulse to knowledge." He finds -that a specific purpose has always been the actuating force of any -philosophy, and that consequently philosophy, even in its most abstract -form, has had a residuum of autobiography in it. In fine, that -philosophy, far from being a search, has been an aim toward a definite -preconceived result. The moral or<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span> ethical impulse, being always -imperious, has not infrequently resulted in philosophising, and in all -such cases knowledge has been used as an instrument. Thus knowledge -which led to a philosophical conclusion has been the outgrowth of -a personal instinct. In those cases where an impersonal "impulse -to knowledge" may have existed, it has led, not into philosophical -channels, but into practical and often commercial activities. The -scholar has ever remained personal in his quest for philosophical -formulas. In Kant's "Table of Categories," wherein that philosopher -claimed to have found the faculty of synthetic judgment <i>a priori,</i> -Nietzsche finds only a circle of reasoning which begins and ends in -personal instinct. And in Kant's discovery of a new moral faculty, -Nietzsche sees only sophistical invention, and accounts for its -widespread acceptance by the moral state of the Germans at that period. -Ignoring the <i>possibility</i> of synthetic judgments <i>a priori,</i> Nietzsche -advances the query as to their <i>necessity,</i> and lays stress on the -impracticability of truth without <i>belief.</i> The inherent falsity or -truth of a proposition has no bearing on philosophical doctrines so -long as a contrary belief is present, a belief such as we exert toward -the illusions of the world of reality when we make practical use of -that world's perspective.</p> - -<p>The schemes of personal philosophy, such, for instance, as we find in -Schopenhauer, are dealt with by Nietzsche in a single paragraph: "When -I analyse the process that is expressed in the sentence, 'I think,' I -find a whole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proof of -which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: for instance, that it is -I who think, that there must necessarily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> be something that thinks, -that thinking is an activity and operation on the part of a being who -is thought of as a cause, that there is an 'ego,' and finally, that -it is already determined what is to be designated by thinking—that I -<i>know</i> what thinking is. For if I had not already decided within myself -what it is, by what standard could I determine whether that which is -just happening is not perhaps 'willing' or 'feeling'? In short, the -assertion 'I think,' assumes that I <i>compare</i> my state at the present -moment with other states of myself which I know, in order to determine -what it is: on account of this retrospective connection with further -'knowledge,' it has at any rate no immediate certainty for me." Thus -the smug materialistic philosopher finds himself necessitated to fall -back on purely metaphysical explanations for answers to the questions -arising out of his definition of truth.</p> - -<p>Locke falls under a critical survey in this chapter. In answer to -this thinker's theory regarding the origin of ideas, Nietzsche names -the great cycles of philosophical systems and calls attention to the -similarity of processes in such cycles. Furthermore, he shows that the -foundations of all previous philosophies are discoverable in the new -styles of contemporaneous thought. And in those national schools of -philosophy conceived in languages which stem from the same origin, he -finds an undeniable resemblance. All of which leads to a conclusion -incompatible with Locke's theory. Nietzsche attacks the conclusions -of the physicists, denying them any place in philosophy because -their research consists solely in interpretations of natural laws in -accordance with their own prejudices and beliefs. The theories which -might be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span> deduced from natural phenomena are not discoverable in their -doctrines; their activities have consisted in twisting natural events -to suit preconceived valuations.</p> - -<p>Finally Nietzsche inquires into the habits and practices of -psychologists. Not even among these workers does he find a basis for -philosophy. Psychology, he argues, has been guided, not by a detached -and lofty desire to ascertain truth in its relation to the human -mind, but by prejudices and fears grounded in moral considerations. -He finds a constant desire on the part of experimenters to account -for "good" impulses as distinguished from "bad" ones. And in this -desire lies the superimposing of moral prejudices on a science which, -more than all others, deals with problems farthest removed from -moral influences. These prejudices in psychology, as well as in all -branches of philosophy, are the obstacles which stand in the way of any -deep penetration into the motives beneath human conduct. Nietzsche, -in his analyses and criticisms, is not solely destructive: he is -subterraneously constructing his own philosophical system founded -on the will to power. This phrase is used many times in the careful -research of the first chapter. As the book proceeds, this doctrine -develops.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche's best definition of what he calls the "free spirit," namely: -the thinking man, the intellectual aristocrat, the philosopher and -ruler, is contained in the twenty-six pages of the second chapter of -"Beyond Good and Evil." In a series of paragraphs—longer than is -Nietzsche's wont—the leading characteristics of this superior man -are described. The "free spirit," however, must not be confused with -the superman. The former is the "bridge" which the present-day man -must cross in the process of surpassing himself. In the delineation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> -and analysis of him, as presented to us here, we can glimpse his most -salient mental features. Heretofore, as in "Thus Spake Zarathustra," -he has been but partially and provisionally defined. Now his instincts -and desires, his habits and activities are outlined. Furthermore, we -are given an explanation of his relation to the inferior man and to -the organisms of his environment. The chapter is an important one, -for at many points it is a subtle elucidation of many of Nietzsche's -dominant philosophic principles. By inference, the differences of class -distinction are strictly drawn. The slave-morality <i>(sklavmoral)</i> and -the master-morality (<i>herrenmoral</i>), though as yet undefined, are -balanced against each other; and the deportmental standards of the -masters and slaves are defined by way of differentiating between these -two opposing human factions. While the serving class is constantly -manifesting its need of a guiding dogma, the ruling class is constantly -approaching the state wherein the arbitrary moral mandates are denied. -Nietzsche sees a new order of philosophers appearing—men who will -stand beyond good and evil, who will be not only free spirits, "but -something more, higher, greater, and fundamentally different." In -describing these men of the future, of which the present free men are -the heralds and forerunners, Nietzsche establishes an individualistic -ideal which he develops fully in later chapters.</p> - -<p>A keen and far-reaching analysis of the various aspects assumed by -religious faith constitutes a third section of "Beyond Good and Evil." -Though touching upon various influences of Christianity, this section -is more general in its religious scope than even "The Antichrist," -many indications of which are to be found here. This chapter has to -do with the numerous inner experiences of man,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span> which are directly -or indirectly attributable to religious doctrines. The origin of the -instinct for faith itself is sought, and the results of this faith are -balanced against the needs of the individuals and of the race. The -relation between religious ecstasy and sensuality; the attempt on the -part of religious practitioners to arrive at a negation of the will; -the transition from religious gratitude to fear; the psychology at the -bottom of saint-worship;—to problems such as these Nietzsche devotes -his energies in his inquiry of the religious mood. The geographical -considerations which enter into the character and intensity of -religious faith form an important basis for study; and the differences -between Comte's sociology and Sainte-Beuve's anti-Jesuit utterances are -explained from a standpoint of national influences. Nietzsche examines -the many phases of atheism and the principal anti-Christian tendencies -of all philosophy since Descartes. There is an illuminating exposition -of the important stages in religious cruelty and of the motives -underlying the various forms of religious sacrifices. Again we run upon -the doctrine of eternal recurrence, but here, as elsewhere, it may be -regarded, not as a basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical scheme, -but as a by-product of his thought. Nietzsche emphasises the necessity -of idleness in all religious lives, and shows how the adherence to the -religious mood works against the activities, both of mind and of body, -which make for the highest efficiency.</p> - -<p>A very important phase of Nietzsche's teaching is contained in this -criticism of the religious life. The detractors of the Nietzschean -doctrine, almost without exception, base their judgments on the -assumption that the universal acceptation of his theories would result -in social chaos. As I have pointed out before, Nietzsche desired<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> -no such general adoption of his beliefs. In his bitterest diatribes -against Christianity, his object was not to shake the faith of the -great majority of mankind in their idols. He sought merely to free -the strong men from the restrictions of a religion which fitted the -needs of only the weaker members of society. He neither hoped nor -desired to wean the mass of humanity from Christianity or any similar -dogmatic comfort. On the contrary, he denounced those superficial -atheists who endeavoured to weaken the foundations of religion. He -saw the positive necessity of such religions as a basis for his slave -morality, and in the present chapter he exhorts the rulers to preserve -the religious faith of the serving classes, and to use it as a means -of government—as an instrument in the work of disciplining and -educating. In paragraph 61 he says: "The selecting and disciplining -influence—destructive as well as creative and fashioning—which can -be exercised by means of religion is manifold and varied, according to -the sort of people placed under its spell and protection." Not only is -this an expression of the utilitarian value of religious formulas, but -a definite voicing of one of the main factors in his philosophy. His -entire system of ethics is built on the complete disseverance of the -dominating class and the serving class; and his doctrine of "beyond -good and evil" should be considered only as it pertains to the superior -man. To apply it to all classes would be to reduce Nietzsche's whole -system of ethics to impracticability, and therefore to an absurdity.</p> - -<p>Passing from a consideration of the religious mood, Nietzsche enters a -broader sphere of ethical research, and endeavours to trace the history -and development of morals. He accuses the philosophers of having -avoided<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span> the real problem of morality, namely: the testing of the faith -and motives which lie beneath moral beliefs. This is the task he sets -for himself, and in his chapter, "The Natural History of Morals," he -makes an examination of moral origins—an examination which is extended -into an exhaustive treatise in "The Genealogy of Morals." However, his -dissection here is carried out on a broader and far more general scale -than in his previous books, such as "Human, All-Too-Human" and "The -Dawn of Day." Heretofore he had confined himself to codes and systems, -to <i>acts</i> of morality and immorality, to judgments of conducts. In -"Beyond Good and Evil" he treats of moral prejudices as forces working -hand in hand with human progress. In addition, there is a definite -attitude of constructive thinking here which is absent from his earlier -work. He outlines the course to be taken by the men of the future, and -points to the results which have accrued from the moralities of modern -nations. He offers the will to power in place of the older "will to -belief," and characterises the foundations of acceptance for all moral -codes as "fictions" and "premature hypotheses." He defines the racial -ideals which have grown up out of moral influences, and, applying them -to the needs of the present day, finds them inadequate and dangerous. -The conclusion to which his observations and analyses point is that, -unless the rulers of the race take a stand beyond the outposts of good -and evil and govern on a basis of expediency divorced from all moral -influences, the individual is in constant danger of being lowered to -the level of the gregarious conscience.</p> - -<p>In the chapter, "We Scholars," Nietzsche continues his definition -of the philosopher, whom he holds to be the highest type of man. -Besides being a mere description<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> of the intellectual traits of this -"free spirit," the chapter is also an exposition of the shortcomings -of those modern men who pose as philosophers. In the path of these -new thinkers Nietzsche sees many difficulties both from within and -from without, and points out methods whereby these obstacles may be -overcome. Also the man of science and the man of genius are analyzed -and weighed as to their relative importance in the community. In -fact, we have here Nietzsche's most concise and complete definition -of the individuals upon whom rests the burden of progress. These -valuations of the intellectual leaders are important to the student, -for by one's understanding them, along with the reasons for such -valuations, a comprehension of the ensuing volumes is facilitated. -Nietzsche hereby establishes the qualities of those entitled to the -master-morality code; and, by thus drawing the line of demarcation in -humanity, he defines at the same time that class whose constitutions -and predispositions demand the slave-morality. In addition, he affixes, -according to his philosophical formula, a scale of values to such -mental attributes as objectivity, power to will, scepticism, positivity -and constraint.</p> - -<p>Important material touching on many of the fundamental points of -Nietzsche's philosophy is embodied in the chapter entitled "Our -Virtues." The more general inquiries into conduct and the research -along the broader lines of ethics are supplanted by inquiries into -specific moral attributes. The current virtues are questioned, and -their historical significance is determined. The value of such virtues -is tested in their relation to different types of men. Sacrifice, -sympathy, brotherly love, service, loyalty, altruism and similar ideals -of conduct are examined, and the results of such virtues are shown -to be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span> incompatible with the demands of modern social intercourse. -Nietzsche poses against these virtues the sterner and more rigid -forms of conduct, pointing out wherein they meet with the present -requirements of human progress. The chapter is a preparation for his -establishment of a new morality and also an explanation of the dual -ethical code which is one of the main pillars in his philosophical -structure. Before presenting his precept of a dual morality, Nietzsche -endeavours to determine woman's place in the political and social -scheme, and points out the necessity, not only of individual feminine -functioning, but of the preservation of a distinct polarity in sexual -relationship.</p> - -<p>In the final chapter many of Nietzsche's philosophical ideas take -definite shape. The doctrine of slave-morality and master-morality, -prepared for and partially defined in preceding chapters, is here -directly set forth, and those virtues and attitudes which constitute -the "nobility" of the master class are specifically defined. Nietzsche -designates the duty of his aristocracy, and segregates the human -attributes according to the rank of individuals. The Dionysian ideal, -which underlies all the books that follow "Beyond Good and Evil," -receives its first direct exposition and application. The hardier -human traits such as egotism, cruelty, arrogance, retaliation and -appropriation are given ascendency over the softer virtues such -as sympathy, charity, forgiveness, loyalty and humility, and are -pronounced necessary constituents in the moral code of a natural -aristocracy. At this point is begun the transvaluation of values which -was to have been completed in "The Will to Power." The student should -read carefully this chapter, for it is an introduction as well as an -explanation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span> for what follows, and was written with that purpose in -view.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center">EXCERPTS FROM "BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL"</p> - -<p><i>To recognise untruth as a condition of life:</i> that is certainly to -impugn the traditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and a -philosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby alone placed itself -beyond good and evil. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">9</span></p> - -<p>Psychologists should bethink themselves before putting down the -instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic -being. A living thing seeks above all to <i>discharge its strength</i>—life -itself is <i>Will to Power;</i> self-preservation is only one of the -indirect and most frequent <i>results</i> thereof. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">20</span></p> - -<p>It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is the -privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it, even with the best -right, but without being <i>obliged</i> to do so, proves that he is probably -not only strong, but also daring beyond measure. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">43</span></p> - -<p>The virtues of the common man would perhaps mean vice and weakness in a -philosopher; it might be possible for a highly developed man, supposing -him to degenerate and go to ruin, to acquire qualities thereby alone, -for the sake of which he would have to be honoured as a saint in the -lower world into which he had sunk. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">44</span></p> - -<p>Books for the general reader are always ill-smelling books, the odour -of paltry people clings to them. Where the populace eat and drink, and -even where they reverence, it is accustomed to stink. One should not go -into churches if one wishes to breathe pure air. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">44</span></p> - -<p>"Will" can naturally only operate on "will"—and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> not on "matter" -(not on "nerves," for instance): in short, the hypothesis must be -hazarded, whether will does not operate on will wherever "effects" are -recognised—and whether all mechanical action, inasmuch as a power -operates therein, is not just the power of will, the effect of will. -Granted, finally, that we succeed in explaining our entire instinctive -life as the development and ramification of one fundamental form of -will—namely, the Will to Power, as <i>my</i> thesis puts it; granted that -all organic functions could be traced back to this Will to Power, and -that the solution of the problem of generation and nutrition—it is one -problem—could also be found therein: one would thus have acquired the -right to define <i>all</i> active force unequivocally as <i>Will to Power.</i> -The world seen from within, the world defined and designated according -to its "intelligible character"—it would simply be "Will to Power," -and nothing else. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">52</span></p> - -<p>Happiness and virtue are no arguments. It is willingly forgotten, -however, even on the part of thoughtful minds, that to make unhappy -and to make bad are just as little counter-arguments. A thing could be -<i>true,</i> although it were in the highest degree injurious and dangerous; -indeed, the fundamental constitution of existence might be such that -one succumbed by a full knowledge of it—so that the strength of a mind -might be measured by the amount of "truth" it could endure—or to speak -more plainly, by the extent to which it <i>required</i> truth attenuated, -veiled, sweetened, damped, and falsified. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">53</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">54</span></p> - -<p>Everything that is profound loves the mask; the profoundest things have -a hatred even of figure and likeness. Should not the <i>contrary</i> only be -the right disguise for the shame of a God to go about in? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">54</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">55</span></p> - -<p>One must renounce the bad taste of wishing to agree<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> with many people. -"Good" is no longer good when one's neighbour takes it into his mouth. -And how could there be a "common good." The expression contradicts -itself; that which can be common is always of small value. In the end -things must be as they are and have always been—the great things -remain for the great, the abysses for the profound, the delicacies and -thrills for the refined, and, to sum up shortly, everything rare for -the rare. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">57</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">58</span></p> - -<p>In every country of Europe, and the same in America, there is at -present ... a very narrow, prepossessed, enchained class of spirits.... -Briefly and regrettably, they belong to the <i>levellers,</i> these wrongly -named "free spirits"—as glib-tongued and scribe-fingered slaves of -the democratic taste and its "modern ideas"; all of them men without -solitude, without personal solitude, blunt honest fellows to whom -neither courage nor honourable conduct ought to be denied; only, they -are not free, and are ludicrously superficial, especially in their -innate partiality for seeing the cause of almost <i>all</i> human misery -and failure in the old forms in which society has hitherto existed—a -notion which happily inverts the truth entirely. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">53</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">59</span></p> - -<p>We believe that severity, violence, slavery, danger in the street and -in the heart, secrecy, stoicism, tempter's art and revelry of every -kind,—that everything wicked, terrible, tyrannical, predatory, and -serpentine in man, serves as well for the elevation of the human -species as its opposite.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">59</span></p> - -<p>The Christian faith from the beginning, is sacrifice: the sacrifice of -all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit; it is at the -same time subjection, self-derision, and self-mutilation. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">65</span></p> - -<p>The mightiest men have hitherto always bowed reverently before -the saint, as the enigma of self-subjugation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> and utter voluntary -privation.—Why did they thus bow? They divined in him—and as it were -behind the questionableness of his frail and wretched appearance—the -superior force which wished to test itself by such a subjugation; the -strength and love of power, and knew how to honour it: they honoured -something in themselves when they honoured the saint.... The mighty -ones of the world learned to have a new fear before him, they divined -a new power, a strange, still unconquered enemy:—it was the "Will to -Power" which obliged them to halt before the saint. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">70</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">71</span></p> - -<p>Perhaps the most solemn conceptions that have caused the most fighting -and suffering, the conceptions "God" and "sin," will one day seem to us -of no more importance than a child's plaything or a child's pain seems -to an old man.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">75</span></p> - -<p>To love mankind <i>for God's sake</i>—this has so far been the noblest and -remotest sentiment to which mankind has attained. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">79</span></p> - -<p>For those who are strong and independent, destined and trained -to command, in whom the judgment and skill of a ruling race is -incorporated, religion is an additional means for overcoming, betraying -and surrendering to the former the conscience of the latter, their -inmost heart, which would fain escape obedience. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">80</span></p> - -<p>Asceticism and Puritanism are almost indispensable means of educating -and ennobling a race which seeks to rise above its hereditary baseness -and work itself upward to future supremacy. And finally, to ordinary -men, to the majority of the people, who exist for service and general -utility, and are only so far entitled to exist, religion gives -invaluable contentedness with their lot and condition, peace of heart, -ennoblement of obedience, additional<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> social happiness and sympathy, -with something of transfiguration and embellishment, something of -justification of all the commonplaceness, all the meanness, all the -semi-animal poverty of their souls. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">81</span></p> - -<p>"Knowledge for its own sake"—that is the last snare laid by morality: -we are thereby completely entangled in morals once more. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">85</span></p> - -<p>He who attains his ideal, precisely thereby surpasses it. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">86</span></p> - -<p>Sympathy for all—would be harshness and tyranny for <i>thee,</i> my good -neighbour! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">88</span></p> - -<p>To be ashamed of one's immorality is a step on the ladder at the end of -which one is ashamed also of one's morality. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">89</span></p> - -<p>A discerning one might easily regard himself at present as the -animalisation of God. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">90</span></p> - -<p>Not their love of humanity, but the impotence of their love, prevents -the Christians of to-day—burning us. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">91</span></p> - -<p>There is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral -interpretation of phenomena. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">91</span></p> - -<p>The criminal is often enough not equal to his deed: he extenuates and -maligns it. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">91</span></p> - -<p>The great epochs of our life are at the points when we gain courage to -rebaptise our badness as the best in us. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">92</span></p> - -<p>It is a curious thing that God learned Greek when he wished to turn -author—and that he did not learn it better. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">93</span> - -Even concubinage has been corrupted—by marriage. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">93</span></p> - -<p>A nation is a detour of nature to arrive at six or seven great -men—Yes, and then to get round them. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">94</span></p> - -<p>From the senses originate all trustworthiness, all good conscience, all -evidence of truth. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">95</span></p> - -<p>Our vanity would like what we do best to pass<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> precisely for what is -most difficult to us.—Concerning the origin of many systems of morals. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">96</span></p> - -<p>When a woman has scholarly inclinations there is generally something -wrong with her sexual nature. Barrenness itself conduces to a certain -virility of taste; man, indeed, if I may say so, is "the barren -animal." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">96</span></p> - -<p>That which an age considers evil is usually an unseasonable echo of -what was formerly considered good—the atavism of an old ideal. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">97</span></p> - -<p>What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">98</span></p> - -<p>Objection, evasion, joyous distrust, and love of irony are signs of -health; everything absolute belongs to pathology. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">98</span></p> - -<p>The Jews—-a people "born for slavery," as Tacitus and the whole -ancient world say of them; "the chosen people among the nations," as -they themselves say and believe—the Jews performed the miracle of the -inversion of valuations, by means of which life on earth obtained a -new and dangerous charm for a couple of millenniums. Their prophets -fused into one the expressions "rich," "godless," "wicked," "violent," -"sensual," and for the first time coined the word "world" as a term of -reproach. In this inversion of valuations (in which is also included -the use of the word "poor" as synonymous with "saint" and "friend") the -significance of the Jewish people is to be found; it is with <i>them</i> -that the <i>slave-insurrection in morals</i> commences. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">117</span></p> - -<p>The beast of prey and the man of prey (for instance, Cæsar Borgia) are -fundamentally misunderstood, "nature" is misunderstood, so long as one -seeks a "morbidness" in the constitution of these healthiest of all -tropical monsters and growths.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">118</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span></p> - -<p>All the systems of morals which address themselves to individuals -with a view to their "happiness," as it is called—what else are they -but suggestions for behaviour adapted to the degree of <i>danger</i> from -themselves in which the individuals live; recipes for their passions, -their good and bad propensities in so far as such have the Will to -Power and would like to play the master; small and great expediencies -and elaborations, permeated with the musty odour of old family -medicines and old-wife wisdom; all of them grotesque and absurd in -their form—because they address themselves to "all," because they -generalise where generalisation is not authorised; all of them speaking -unconditionally, and taking themselves unconditionally; all of them -flavoured not merely with one grain of salt, but rather endurable only, -and sometimes even seductive, when they are over-spiced and begin to -smell dangerously, especially of "the other world." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">118</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">119</span></p> - -<p>In view ... of the fact that obedience has been most practised and -fostered among mankind hitherto, one may reasonably suppose that, -generally speaking, the need thereof is now innate in every one, as a -kind of <i>formal conscience.</i> ... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">120</span></p> - -<p>The history of the influence of Napoleon is almost the history of -the higher happiness to which the entire century has attained in its -worthiest individuals and periods. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">121</span></p> - -<p>As long as the utility which determines moral estimates is only -gregarious utility, as long as the preservation of the community is -only kept in view, and the immoral is sought precisely and exclusively -in what seems dangerous to the maintenance of the community, there can -be no "morality of love to one's neighbour." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">123</span></p> - -<p>"Love of our neighbour," is always a secondary matter,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> partly -conventional and arbitrarily manifested in relation to our <i>fear of our -neighbour.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">123</span></p> - -<p>Everything that elevates the individual above the herd, and is a -source of fear to the neighbour, is henceforth called <i>evil;</i> the -tolerant, unassuming, self-adapting, self-equalising disposition, the -<i>mediocrity</i> of desires, attains to moral distinction and honour. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">125</span></p> - -<p>The <i>democratic</i> movement is the inheritance of the Christian movement. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">127</span></p> - -<p>We, who regard the democratic movement, not only as a degenerating -form of political organisation, but as equivalent to a degenerating, -a waning type of man, as involving his mediocrising and depreciation: -where have <i>we</i> to fix our hopes? In <i>new philosophers</i>—there is no -other alternative: in minds strong and original enough to initiate -opposite estimates of value, to transvalue and invert "eternal -valuations"; in forerunners, in men of the future, who in the present -shall fix the constraints and fasten the knots which will compel -millenniums to take <i>new</i> paths. To teach men the future of humanity -as his <i>will,</i> as depending on human will, and to make preparation -for vast hazardous enterprises and collective attempts in rearing and -educating, in order thereby to put an end to the frightful rule of -folly and chance which has hitherto gone by the name of "history" (the -folly of the "greatest number" is only its last form)—for that purpose -a new type of philosophers and commanders will some time or other be -needed, at the very idea of which everything that has existed in the -way of occult, terrible, and benevolent beings might look pale and -dwarfed. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">128</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">129</span></p> - -<p>The <i>universal degeneracy of mankind</i> to the level of the "man of the -future"—as idealised by the socialistic<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> fools and shallow-pates—this -degeneracy and dwarfing of man to an absolutely gregarious animal (or -as they call it, to a man of "free society"), this brutalising of man -into a pigmy with equal rights and claims, is undoubtedly <i>possible!</i> -He who has thought out this possibility to its ultimate conclusion -knows <i>another</i> loathing unknown to the rest of mankind—and perhaps -also a new <i>mission!</i><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">130</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">131</span></p> - -<p>Supposing ... that in the picture of the philosophers of the future, -some trait suggests the question whether they must not perhaps be -sceptics in the last-mentioned sense, something in them would only -be designated thereby—and <i>not</i> they themselves. With equal right -they might call themselves critics; and assuredly they will be men of -experiments.... They will be <i>sterner</i> (and perhaps not always towards -themselves only) ... they will not deal with the "truth" in order that -it may "please" them, or "elevate" and "inspire" them—they will rather -have little faith in <i>"truth"</i> bringing with it such revels for the -feelings. They will smile, those rigorous spirits, when any one says in -their presence: "that thought elevates me, why should it not be true?" -or; "that artist enlarges me, why should he not be great?" Perhaps they -will not only have a smile, but a genuine disgust for all that is thus -rapturous, idealistic, feminine and hermaphroditic; and if any one -could look into their inmost heart, he would not easily find therein -the intention to reconcile "Christian sentiments" with "antique taste," -or even with "modern parliamentarism" (the kind of reconciliation -necessarily found even amongst philosophers in our very uncertain and -consequently very conciliatory century). Critical discipline, and every -habit that conduces to purity and rigour in intellectual matters,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> -will not only be demanded from themselves by these philosophers of -the future; they may even make a display thereof as their special -adornment—nevertheless they will not want to be called critics on -that account. It will seem to them no small indignity to philosophy to -have it decreed, as is so welcome nowadays, that "philosophy itself is -criticism and critical science—and nothing else whatever!" <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">149</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">151</span></p> - -<p><i>The real philosophers ... are commanders and law-givers;</i> they say: -"Thus <i>shall</i> it be." They determine first the Whither and the Why of -mankind, and thereby set aside the previous labour of all philosophical -workers, and all subjugators of the past—they grasp at the future with -a creative hand, and whatever is and was, becomes for them thereby a -means, an instrument, and a hammer. Their "knowing" is <i>creating,</i> -their creating is a law-giving, their will to truth is—<i>Will to -Tower.</i> ... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">152</span></p> - -<p>At present ... when throughout Europe the herding animal alone -attains to honours, and dispenses honours, when "equality of right" -can too readily be transformed into equality in wrong: I mean to say -into general war against everything rare, strange, and privileged, -against the higher man, the higher soul, the higher duty, the higher -responsibility, the creative plenipotence and lordliness—at present -it belongs to the conception of "greatness" to be noble, to wish to be -apart, to be capable of being different, to stand alone, to have to -live by personal initiative; and the philosopher will betray something -of his own ideal when he asserts: "He shall be the greatest who can -be the most solitary, the most concealed, the most divergent, the man -beyond good and evil, the master of his virtues, and of superabundance -of will;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> precisely this shall be called <i>greatness:</i> as diversified as -can be entire, as ample as can be full." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">154</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">155</span></p> - -<p>Morality as attitude is opposed to our taste nowadays. This is <i>also</i> -an advance, as it was an advance in our fathers that religion as an -attitude finally became opposed to their taste.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">161</span></p> - -<p>The practice of judging and condemning morally is the favourite revenge -of the intellectually shallow on those who are less so.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">162</span></p> - -<p>Whoever has really offered sacrifice knows that he wanted and obtained -something for it—perhaps something from himself for something from -himself; that he relinquished here in order to have more there, perhaps -in general to be more, or even feel himself "more." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">164</span></p> - -<p>Wherever sympathy (fellow-suffering) is preached nowadays ... let the -psychologist have his ears open: through all the vanity, through all -the noise which is natural to these preachers (as to all preachers), he -will hear a hoarse, groaning, genuine note of <i>self-contempt.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">165</span></p> - -<p>We are prepared as no other age has ever been for a carnival in the -grand style, for the most spiritual festival-laughter and arrogance, -for the transcendental height of supreme folly and Aristophanic -ridicule of the world. Perhaps we are still discovering the domain -of our <i>invention</i> just here, the domain where even we can still be -original, probably as parodists of the world's history and as God's -Merry-Andrews,—perhaps, though nothing else of the present have a -future, our <i>laughter</i> itself may have a future! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">168</span></p> - -<p>The discipline of suffering, of <i>great</i> suffering—know ye not that -it is only <i>this</i> discipline that has produced all the elevations of -humanity hitherto? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">171</span></p> - -<p>It is desirable that as few people as possible should<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> reflect upon -morals, and consequently it is <i>very</i> desirable that morals should not -some day become interesting! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">174</span></p> - -<p>Not one of those ponderous, conscience-stricken herding-animals (who -undertake to advocate the cause of egoism as conducive to the general -welfare) wants to have any knowledge or inkling of the facts that the -"general welfare" is no ideal, no goal, no notion that can be at all -grasped, but is only a nostrum,—that what is fair to one <i>may not</i> -at all be fair to another, that the requirement of one morality for -all is really a detriment to higher men, in short, that there is a -<i>distinction of rank</i> between man and man, and consequently between -morality and morality. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">175</span></p> - -<p>That which constitutes the painful delight of tragedy is cruelty; that -which operates agreeably in so-called tragic sympathy, and at the basis -even of everything sublime, up to the highest and most delicate thrills -of metaphysics, obtains its sweetness solely from the intermingled -ingredient of cruelty. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">177</span></p> - -<p>Enlightenment hitherto has fortunately been men's affair, men's -gift—we remained therewith "among ourselves"; and in the end, -in view of all that women write about "woman," we may well have -considerable doubt as to whether woman really <i>desires</i> enlightenment -about herself—and <i>can</i> desire it. If woman does not thereby seek a -new <i>ornament</i> for herself—I believe ornamentation belongs to the -eternally feminine?—why, then, she wishes to make herself feared; -perhaps she thereby wishes to get the mastery. But she does not <i>want</i> -truth—what does woman care for truth. From the very first nothing is -more foreign, more repugnant, or more hostile to woman than truth—her -great art is falsehood, her chief concern is appearance and beauty. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">183</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p> - -<p>It betrays corruption of the instincts—apart from the fact that it -betrays bad taste—when a woman refers to Madame Roland, or Madame -de Staël, or Monsieur George Sand, as though something were proved -thereby in <i>favour</i> of "woman as she is." Among men, these are the -three <i>comical</i> women as they are—nothing more—and just the best -involuntary <i>counter-arguments</i> against feminine emancipation and -autonomy. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">184</span></p> - -<p>Stupidity in the kitchen; woman as cook; the terrible thoughtlessness -with which the feeding of the family and the master of the house is -managed. Woman does not understand what food <i>means,</i> and she insists -on being cook. If woman had been a thinking creature, she should -certainly, as cook for thousands of years, have discovered the most -important physiological facts, and should likewise have got possession -of the healing art. Through bad female cooks—through the entire lack -of reason in the kitchen—the development of mankind has been longest -retarded and most interfered with, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">184</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">185</span></p> - -<p>To be mistaken in the fundamental problem of "man and woman," to deny -here the profoundest antagonism and the necessity for an eternally -hostile tension, to dream here perhaps of equal rights, equal -training, equal claims and obligations: that is a <i>typical</i> sign of -shallow-mindedness; and a thinker who has proved himself shallow at -this dangerous spot—shallow in instinct—may generally be regarded -as suspicious, nay more, as betrayed, as discovered: he will probably -prove too "short" for all fundamental questions of life, future as well -as present, and will be unable to descend into <i>any</i> of the depths. On -the other hand, a man who has depth of spirit as well as of desires, -and has also the depth of benevolence which is capable of severity and -harshness, and easily<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span> confounded with them, can only think of woman as -Orientals do: he must conceive of her as a possession, as confinable -property, as a being predestined for service and accomplishing her -mission therein.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">186</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">187</span></p> - -<p>The weaker sex has in no previous age been treated with so much respect -by men as at present—this belongs to the tendency and fundamental -taste of democracy, in the same way as disrespectfulness to old -age—what wonder is it that abuse should be immediately made of this -respect? They want more, they learn to make claims, the tribute of -respect is at last felt to be well-nigh galling.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">187</span></p> - -<p>Wherever the industrial spirit has triumphed over the military -and aristocratic spirit, woman strives for the economic and legal -independence of a clerk: "woman as clerkess" is inscribed on the portal -of the modern society which is in course of formation. While she -thus appropriates new rights, aspires to be "master," and inscribes -"progress" of woman on her flags and banners, the very opposite -realises itself with terrible obviousness: <i>woman retrogrades.</i> Since -the French Revolution the influence of woman in Europe has <i>declined</i> -in proportion as she has increased her rights and claims; and the -"emancipation of woman," in so far as it is desired and demanded by -women themselves (and not only by masculine shallow-pates), thus proves -to be a remarkable symptom of the increased weakening and deadening of -the most womanly instincts. There is <i>stupidity</i> in this movement, an -almost masculine stupidity, of which a well-reared woman—who is always -a sensible woman—might be heartily ashamed. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">187</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">188</span></p> - -<p>Every elevation of the type "man," has hitherto been the work of an -aristocratic society—and so will it always<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> be—a society believing in -a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human -beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">223</span></p> - -<p>The essential thing ... in a good and healthy aristocracy is that it -should <i>not</i> regard itself as a function either of the kingship or -the commonwealth, but as the <i>significance</i> and highest justification -thereof—that it should therefore accept with a good conscience the -sacrifice of a legion of individuals, who, <i>for its sake,</i> must be -suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments. -Its fundamental belief must be precisely that society is <i>not</i> allowed -to exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation and scaffolding, -by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate -themselves to their higher duties, and in general to a higher -<i>existence.</i> ... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">225</span></p> - -<p>Life itself is <i>essentially</i> appropriation, injury, conquest of the -strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of peculiar forms, -incorporation, and at the least, putting it mildest, exploitation.... -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">226</span></p> - -<p>People now rave everywhere, even under the guise of science, about -coming conditions of society in which "the exploiting character" is to -be absent:—that sounds to my ears as if they promised to invent a mode -of life which should refrain from all organic functions. "Exploitation" -does not belong to a depraved, or imperfect and primitive society; -it belongs to the <i>nature</i> of the living being as a primary organic -function; it is a consequence of the intrinsic Will to Power, which is -precisely the Will to Life. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">226</span></p> - -<p>In a tour through the many finer and coarser moralities which have -hitherto prevailed or still prevail on the earth, I found certain -traits recurring regularly together and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> connected with one another, -until finally two primary types revealed themselves to me, and a -radical distinction was brought to light. There is <i>master-morality</i> -and <i>slave-morality;</i>—I would at once add, however, that in all higher -and mixed civilisations, there are also attempts at the reconciliation -of the two moralities; but one finds still oftener the confusion -and mutual misunderstanding of them, indeed, sometimes their close -juxtaposition—even in the same man, within one soul. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">227</span></p> - -<p>The noble type of man regards <i>himself</i> as a determiner of values; -he does not require to be approved of; he passes the judgment: "What -is injurious to me is injurious in itself"; he knows that it is he -himself only who confers honour on things; he is a <i>creator</i> of -values. He honours whatever he recognises in himself: such morality -is self-glorification. In the foreground there is the feeling of -plenitude, of power, which seeks to overflow, the happiness of high -tension, the conscientiousness of a wealth which would fain give -and bestow:—the noble man also helps the unfortunate, but not—or -scarcely—out of pity, but rather from an impulse generated by the -superabundance of power. The noble man honours in himself the powerful -one, him also who has power over himself, who knows how to speak and -how to keep silence, who takes pleasure in subjecting himself to -severity and hardness, and has reverence for all that is severe and -hard. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">229</span></p> - -<p>A morality of the ruling class ... is ... especially foreign and -irritating to present-day taste in the sternness of its principle -that one has duties only to one's equals; that one may act towards -beings of a lower rank, towards all that is foreign, just as seems -good to one, or "as the heart desires," and in any case "beyond good -and evil": it is here that sympathy and similar sentiments<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span> can have a -place. The ability and obligation to exercise prolonged gratitude and -prolonged revenge—both only within the circle of equals,—artfulness -in retaliation, <i>raffinement</i> of the idea in friendship, a certain -necessity to have enemies as outlets for the emotions of envy, -quarrelsomeness, arrogance—in fact, in order to be a good <i>friend:</i> -all these are typical characteristics of the noble morality. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">229</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">230</span></p> - -<p>Slave-morality is essentially the morality of utility. Here is the seat -of the origin of the famous antithesis "good" and "<i>evil":</i>—power -and dangerousness are assumed to reside in the evil, a certain -dreadfulness, subtlety, and strength, which do not admit of being -despised. According to slave-morality, therefore, the "evil" man -arouses fear; according to master-morality, it is precisely the "good" -man who arouses fear and seeks to arouse it, while the bad man is -regarded as the despicable being. The contrast attains its maximum -when, in accordance with the logical consequences of slave-morality, -a shade of depreciation—it may be slight and well-intentioned—at -last attaches itself even to the "good" man of this morality; because, -according to the servile mode of thought, the good man must in any -case be the <i>safe</i> man: he is good-natured, easily deceived, perhaps a -little stupid, <i>un bonhomme.</i> Everywhere that slave-morality gains the -ascendency, language shows a tendency to approximate the significations -of the words "good" and "stupid."—A last fundamental difference: the -desire for <i>freedom,</i> the instinct for happiness and the refinements -of the feeling of liberty belong as necessarily to slave-morals and -morality, as artifice and enthusiasm in reverence and devotion are the -regular symptoms of an aristocratic mode of thinking and estimating. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">231</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span></p> - -<p>A <i>species</i> originates, and a type becomes established and strong in -the long struggle with essentially constant <i>unfavourable</i> conditions. -On the other hand, it is known by the experience of breeders that -species which receive superabundant nourishment, and in general a -surplus of protection and care, immediately tend in the most marked way -to develop variations, and are fertile in prodigies and monstrosities -(also in monstrous vices). <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">234</span></p> - -<p>I submit that egoism belongs to the essence of a noble soul, I mean -the unalterable belief that to a being such as "we," other beings must -naturally be in subjection, and have to sacrifice themselves. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">240</span></p> - -<p>Woman would like to believe that love can do <i>everything</i>—it is the -<i>superstition</i> peculiar to her. Alas, he who knows the heart finds -out how poor, helpless, pretentious, and blundering even the best and -deepest love is—he finds that it rather <i>destroys</i> than saves! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">246</span></p> - -<p>Signs of nobility: never to think of lowering our duties to the rank -of duties for everybody; to be unwilling to renounce or to share our -responsibilities; to count our prerogatives, and the exercise of them, -among our <i>duties.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">249</span></p> - -<p>A man strives after great things, looks upon every one whom he -encounters on his way either as a means of advance, or a delay and -hindrance—or as a temporary resting-place. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">249</span></p> - -<p>If one wishes to praise at all, it is a delicate and at the same time a -noble self-control, to praise only where one <i>does not</i> agree.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">254</span></p> - -<p>All society makes one somehow, somewhere, or sometimes—"commonplace." -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">254</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">255</span></p> - -<p><i>The noble soul has reverence for itself.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">256</span></p> - -<p>A man who can conduct a case, carry out a resolution,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span> remain true to -an opinion, keep hold of a woman, punish and overthrow insolence; a -man who has his indignation and his sword, and to whom the weak, the -suffering, the oppressed, and even the animals willingly submit and -naturally belong; in short, a man who is a <i>master</i> by nature—when -such a man has sympathy, well, <i>that</i> sympathy has value! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">259</span></p> - -<p>I would even allow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality -of their laughing—up to those who are capable of <i>golden</i> laughter. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">260</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="VIII" id="VIII">VIII</a></h4> - - -<h3>"The Genealogy of Morals"</h3> - - -<p>("<i>Zur Genealogie der Moral</i>") was written by Nietzsche primarily as an -elaboration and elucidation of the philosophic points which were merely -sketched in "Beyond Good and Evil." This former work had met with small -success, and the critics, failing to understand its doctrines, read -converse meanings in it. One critic hailed Nietzsche at once as an -anarchist, and this review went far in actuating him in drawing up the -three essays which comprise the present book. As will be remembered, -several of Nietzsche's most important principles were stated and -outlined in "Beyond Good and Evil," especially his doctrine of -slave-morality and master-morality. Now he undertakes to develop this -proposition, as well as many others which he set forth provisionally -in his earlier work. This new polemic may be looked upon both as a -completing of former works and as a further preparation for "The Will -to Power." The book, a comparatively brief one (it contains barely -40,000 words), was written in a period of about two weeks during the -early part of 1887. In July the manuscript was sent to the publisher, -but was recalled for revisions and addenda; and most of Nietzsche's -summer was devoted to correcting it. Later that same year the book -appeared; and thereby its author acquired another friendly reader,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> -Georg Brandes, to whom, more than to any other critic, Nietzsche owes -his early recognition.</p> - -<p>The style of "The Genealogy of Morals" is less aphoristic than any -of the books which immediately preceded or followed it. Few new -doctrines are propounded in it; and since it was for the most part -an analytic commentary on what had gone before, its expositional -needs were best met by Nietzsche's earlier style of writing. I have -spoken before of the desultory and sporadic manner in which Nietzsche -was necessitated to present his philosophy. Nowhere is his method -of work better exemplified than in this new work. Nearly every one -of his books overlaps another. Propositions are sketchily stated in -one essay, which receive elucidation only in future volumes. "Beyond -Good and Evil" was a commentary on "Thus Spake Zarathustra"; "The -Genealogy of Morals" is a commentary on the newly propounded theses in -"Beyond Good and Evil" and is in addition an elaboration of many of -the ideas which took birth as far back as "Human, All-Too-Human." Out -of "The Genealogy of Morals" in turn grew "The Antichrist" which dealt -specifically with the theological phase of the former's discussion -of general morals. And all of these books were but preparations for -"The Will to Power." For this reason it is difficult to acquire a -complete understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy unless one follows -it consecutively and chronologically. The book at present under -discussion is a most valuable one from an academic standpoint, for, -while it may not set forth any new and important doctrines, it goes -deep into the origins and history of moral concepts, and explains many -of the important conclusions in Nietzsche's moral code. It brings more -and more into prominence the main<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> pillars of his ethical system and -explains at length the steps in the syllogism which led to his doctrine -of master-morality. It ascertains the origin of the concept of sin, and -describes the racial deterioration which has followed in the train of -Christian ideals.</p> - -<p>In many ways this book is the profoundest of all the writings Nietzsche -left us. For the first time he separates theological and moral -prejudices and traces them to different origins. This is one of the -most important steps taken by him. By so doing he became an explorer -of entirely new fields. The moral historians and psychologists who -preceded him had considered moral precepts and Christian injunctions -as stemming from the same source: their genealogies had led them to -the same common spring. Nietzsche entered the search with new methods. -He applied the philologie test to all moral values. He brought to his -task, in addition to a historical sense, what he calls "an innate -faculty of psychological discrimination <i>par excellence.</i>" He posed the -following questions, and endeavoured to answer them by inquiring into -the minutest aspects of historical conditions: "Under what conditions -did Man invent for himself those judgments of value, 'good' and 'evil'? -<i>And what intrinsic value do they possess in themselves?</i> Have they -up to the present hindered or advanced human well-being"? Are they a -symptom of the distress, impoverishment, and degeneration of Human -Life? Or, conversely, is it in them that is manifested the fulness, the -strength, and the will of Life, its courage, its self-confidence, its -future?" In his research, Nietzsche first questioned the value of pity. -He found it to be a symptom of modern civilisation—a quality held in -contempt by the older philosophers, even by such widely dissimilar<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> -minds as Plato, Spinoza, La Rochefoucauld and Kant—but a quality -given high place by the more modern thinkers. Despite the seemingly -apparent isolation of the problem of pity-morality, Nietzsche saw that -in truth it was a question which underlay all other moral propositions; -and, using it as a ground-work for his research, he began to question -the utility of all those values held as "good," to apply the qualities -of the "good man" to the needs of civilisation, and to inquire into the -results left upon the race by the "bad man."</p> - -<p>So great was the misunderstanding which attached to his phrase, "beyond -good and evil," and so persistently was this phrase interpreted in -its narrow sense of "beyond good and bad," that he felt the necessity -of drawing the line of distinction between these two diametrically -opposed conceptions and of explaining the origin of each. His first -essay in "The Genealogy of Morals" is devoted to this task. At the -outset he devotes considerable space criticising the methods and -conclusions of former genealogists of morals, especially of the English -psychologists who attribute an <i>intrinsic</i> merit to altruism because -at one time altruism possessed a utilitarian value. Herbert Spencer's -theory that "good" is the same as "purposive" brings from Nietzsche a -protest founded on the contention that because a thing was at one time -useful, and therefore "good," it does not follow that the thing is good -<i>in itself.</i> By the etymology of the descriptive words of morality, -Nietzsche traces the history of modern moral attributes through class -distinctions to their origin in the instincts of the "nobles" and the -"vulgarians." He shows the relationship between the Latin <i>bonus</i> and -the "warrior," by deriving <i>bonus</i> from <i>duonus. Bellum,</i> he shows, -equals <i>duellum</i> which equals <i>duen-lum,</i> in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> which word <i>duonus</i> -is contained. Likewise, he points out the aristocratic origin of -"happiness"—a quality arising from an abundance of energy and the -consciousness of power.</p> - -<p>"Good and evil," according to Nietzsche, is a sign of slave-morality; -while "good and bad" represents the qualities in the master-morality. -The one stands for the adopted qualities of the subservient races; the -other embodies the natural functioning of dominating races. The origin -of the "good" in these two instances is by no means the same. In the -strong man "good" represented an entirely different condition than the -"good" in the resentful and weak man; and these two "goods" arose out -of different causes. The one was spontaneous and natural—inherent in -the individual of strength: the other was a manufactured condition, an -optional selection of qualities to soften and ameliorate the conditions -of existence. "Evil" and "bad," by the same token, became attributes -originating in widely separated sources. The "evil" of the weak man was -any condition which worked against the manufactured ideals of goodness, -which brought about unhappiness—it was the beginning of the conception -of a slave-morality, a term applied to all enemies. The "bad" of the -strong man was the concept which grew directly out of his feeling for -"good," and which had no application to another individual. Thus the -ideas of "good" and "bad" are directly inherited from the nobles of the -race, and these ideas included within themselves the tendency toward -establishing social distinctions.</p> - -<p>The second section of "The Genealogy of Morals," called "'Guilt,' 'Bad -Conscience,' and the Like," is another important document, the reading -of which is almost<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> imperative for the student who would understand the -processes of thought which led to Nietzsche's philosophic conclusions. -In this essay Nietzsche traces the origin of sin to debt, thereby -disagreeing with all the genealogists of morals who preceded him. He -starts with the birth of memory in man and with the corresponding will -to forgetfulness, showing that out of these two mental qualities was -born responsibility. Out of responsibility in turn grew the function of -promising and the accepting of promises, which at once made possible -between individuals the relationship of "debtor" and "creditor." As -soon as this relationship was established, one man had rights over -another. The creditor could exact payment from the debtor, either in -the form of material equivalent or by inflicting an injury in which -was contained the sensation of satisfaction. Thus the creditor had the -right to punish in cases where actual repayment was impossible. And in -this idea of punishment began not only class distinction but primitive -law. Later, when the power to punish was transferred into the hands -of the community, the law of contract came into existence. Here, says -Nietzsche, we find the cradle of the whole moral world of the ideas of -"guilt," "conscience," and "duty"; and adds, "Their commencement, like -the commencement of all great things in the world, is thoroughly and -continuously saturated in blood."</p> - -<p>Carrying out the principle underlying the relationship of debtor and -creditor we arrive at the formation of the community. In return for -protection and for communal advantages the individual pledged his good -behaviour. When he violated this contract with the community, the -community, in the guise of the defrauded creditor, took its revenge, or -exacted its payment, from the debtor, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span> criminal. And, as was the -case in early history, the community deprived the violator of future -advantages and protection. The debtor was divested of all rights, even -of mercy, for then there were no degrees in law-breaking. Primitive law -was martial law. Says Nietzsche, "This shows why war itself (counting -the sacrificial cult of war) has produced all the forms under which -punishment has manifested itself in history." Later, as the community -gathered strength, the offences of the individual debtors were looked -upon as less serious. Out of its security grew leniency toward the -offender: the penal code became mitigated, and, as in all powerful -nations to-day, the criminal was protected. Only when there was a -consciousness of weakness in a community did the acts of individual -offenders take on an exaggerated seriousness, and under such conditions -the law was consequently harshest. Thus, justice and the infliction of -legal penalties are direct outgrowths of the primitive relation of debt -between individuals. Herein we have the origin of guilt.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche attempts an elaborate analysis of the history of punishment, -in an effort to ascertain its true meaning, its relation to guilt -and to the community, and its final effects on both the individual -and society. It has been impossible to present the sequence of this -analysis by direct excerpts from his own words, due to the close, -synthetic manner in which he has made his research. Therefore I offer -the following brief exposition of pages 88 to 99 inclusive, in which he -examines the causes and effects of punishment. To begin with, Nietzsche -disassociates the "origin" and the "end" of punishment, and regards -them as two separate and distinct problems. He argues that the final -utility of a thing, in the sense that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> revenge and deterrence are the -final utilities of punishment, is in all cases opposed to the origin of -that thing; that every force or principle is constantly being put to -new purposes by forces greater than itself, thus making it impossible -to determine its inception by the end for which it is used. Therefore -the "function" of punishing was not conceived with a view to punishing, -but may have been employed for any number of ends, according as a will -to power has overcome that function and made use of it for its own -purpose: in short; punishment, like any organ or custom or "thing," -has passed through a series of new interpretations and adjustments and -meanings—and is <i>not</i> a direct and logical <i>progress as</i> to an end.</p> - -<p>Having established this point, Nietzsche endeavours to determine -the utilisation to which the custom of punishment has been put—to -ascertain the meaning which has been interpreted into it. He finds -that even in modern times not one but many uses have been made of -punishment, and that in ancient times so diverse have been the -utilisations of punishment that it is impossible to define them all. -In fact, one cannot determine the <i>precise reason</i> for punishment. To -emphasise this point, Nietzsche gives a long list of possible meanings. -Taking up the more popular <i>supposed</i> utilities of punishment at the -present time—such as creating in the wrong-doer the consciousness of -guilt, which is supposed to evolve into conscience and remorse—he -shows wherein punishment fails in its object. Against this theory -of the creation of remorse, he advances psychology and shows that, -to the contrary, punishment numbs and hardens. He argues also that -punishment for the purpose of making the wrong-doer conscious of the -intrinsic reprehensibility of his crime, fails because the very act for -which he is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> chastened is practised in the service of justice and is -called "good." Eliminating thus the <i>supposed</i> effects of punishment, -Nietzsche arrives at the conclusion (included in the excerpts at -the end of this chapter) that punishment makes only for caution and -secrecy, and is therefore detrimental.</p> - -<p>In his analysis of the origin of the "bad conscience," Nietzsche lends -himself to quotation. Therefore I have been able to present in his own -words a fair <i>resume</i> of the course pursued by him in his examination -of the history of conscience. This particular branch of his research -is carried into the formation of the "State" which, according to him, -grew out of "a herd of blonde beasts." The older theory of the state, -namely: that it originated in the adoption of a contract, is set aside -as untenable when dealing with a peoples who possessed conquerors or -masters. These masters, argues Nietzsche, had no need of contracts. -By using the "bad conscience" as a ground for inquiry, the causes for -the existence of altruism are shown to be included in the self-cruelty -which followed in the wake of the instinct for freedom. (This last -point is developed fully in the discussion of ascetic ideals which -is found at the end of the book now under consideration.) Nietzsche -traces the birth of deities back along the lines of credit and debt. -First came the fear of ancestors. Then followed the obligation to -ancestors. At length the sacrifice to ancestors marked the beginning -of a conception of duty (debt) to the supernatural. The ancestors of -powerful nations in time became heroes, and finally evolved into gods. -Later monotheism came as a natural consequence, and God became the -creditor. In the expiation of sin, as symbolised in the crucifixion -of Christianity, we have this same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span> relationship of debtor and -creditor carried out into a more complex form through the avenues of -self-torture.</p> - -<p>The most important essay in "The Genealogy of Morals" is the last, -called "What is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals?" Nietzsche examines -this question in relation to the artist, to the philosopher, to the -priest, and to the race generally. In his examination of the problem in -regard to artists he uses Wagner as a basis of inquiry, comparing the -two phases of Wagner's art—the Parsifalian and the ante-Parsifalian. -Artists, asserts Nietzsche, need a support of constituted authority; -they are unable to stand alone—"standing alone is opposed to their -deepest instincts"—and so they make use of asceticism as a rampart, -as building material, to give their work authority. In his application -of the ascetic ideal to philosophers, Nietzsche presents the cases -of Schopenhauer and Kant, and concludes that asceticism in such -instances is used as an escape from torture—a means to recreation -and happiness. With the philosopher the ideal of asceticism is not -a denial of existence. Rather is it an affirmation of existence. It -permits him freedom of the intellect. It relieves him of the numerous -obligations of life. Furthermore, the philosophic spirit, in order to -establish itself, found it necessary to disguise itself as "one of the -<i>previously fixed</i> types of the contemplative man," as a priest or -soothsayer. Only in such a religious masquerade was philosophy taken -with any seriousness or reverence.</p> - -<p>The history of asceticism in the priest I have been able to set forth -with a certain degree of completeness in Nietzsche's own words. -The priest was the sick physician who administered to the needs of -a sick populace. His was the mission of mitigating suffering and -of performing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span> every kind of consolation. Wherein he failed, says -Nietzsche, was in not going to the source, the cause, of suffering, but -in dealing merely with its manifestations. These manifestations were -the result of physiological depressions which prevailed at intervals -among portions of the population. These depressions were the outgrowth -of diverse causes, such as long wars, emigration to unsuitable -climates, wrong diet, miscegenation on a large scale, disease, etc. -According to Nietzsche the cure for such physiological phenomena can -be found only in the realm of moral psychology, for here the origin -is considered and administered to by disciplinary systems grounded in -true knowledge. But the method employed by the priest was far from -scientific. He combated these depressions by reducing the consciousness -of life itself to the lowest possible degree—that is, by a doctrine -of asceticism, of self-abnegation, equanimity, self-hypnotism. By -thus minimising the consciousness of life, these depressions took on -more and more the aspect of normality. The effects of this treatment, -however, were transient, for the starving of the physical desires and -the abstinence from exercising the physical impulses paved the way for -all manner of mental disorders, excesses and insanity. Herein lies -Nietzsche's explanation for religious ecstasies, hallucinations, and -sensual outbursts.</p> - -<p>Another form of treatment devised by the ascetic priests for a -depressed people gave birth to the "blessedness" which, under the -Christian code, attaches to work. These priests attempted to turn the -attention of the people from their suffering by the establishment of -mechanical activity, namely: work, routine and obedience. The sick man -forgot himself in the labour which had received sanctification. The -priests also combated depression by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> permitting pleasure through the -creation and production of joy. That is, they set men to helping and -comforting each other, by instilling in them the notion of brotherly -love. Thereby the community mutually strengthened itself, and at the -same time it reaped the joy of service which had been sanctioned by the -priests. Out of this last method sprang many of the Christian virtues, -especially those which benefit others rather than oneself.</p> - -<p>Such methods as these—devitalisation, labour, brotherly love—are -called by Nietzsche the "innocent" prescriptions in the fight against -depression. The "guilty" ones are far different, and are embodied in -the one method: the production of emotional excess. This, the priests -understood, was the most efficacious manner in overcoming protracted -depression and pain. Confronted by the query: By what means can this -emotional excess be produced? they made use of "the whole pack of -hounds that rage in the human kennel"—rage, fear, lust, revenge, hope, -despair, cruelty and the like. And once these emotional excesses became -established, the priests, when asked by the "patients" for a "cause" of -their suffering, declared it to be within the man himself, in his own -guiltiness. Thus was the sick man turned into a sinner. Here originated -also the conception of suffering as a <i>state of punishment,</i> the fear -of retribution, the iniquitous conscience, and the hope of redemption. -Nietzsche goes further, and shows the racial and individual decadence -which has followed in the train of this system of treatment. Dr. Oscar -Levy says with justice that this last essay, considered in the light -which it throws upon the attitude of the ecclesiast to the man of -resentment and misfortune, "is one of the most valuable contributions -to sacerdotal psychology."</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center">EXCERPTS FROM "THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS"</p> - -<p>The pathos of nobility and distance.... the chronic and despotic -<i>esprit de corps</i> and fundamental instinct of a higher dominant race -coming into association with a meaner race, an "under race," this is -the origin of the antitheses of good and bad. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">20</span></p> - -<p>The knightly-aristocratic "values" are based on a careful cult of the -physical, on a flowering, rich, and even effervescing healthiness, -that goes considerably beyond what is necessary for maintaining life, -on war, adventure, the chase, the dance, the tourney—on everything, -in fact, which is contained in strong, free, and joyous action. The -priestly aristocratic mode of valuation is—we have seen—based on -other hypotheses: it is bad enough for this class when it is a question -of war! Yet the priests are, as is notorious, <i>the worst enemies</i>—why? -Because they are the weakest. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">29</span></p> - -<p>The slave-morality requires as the condition of its existence an -external and objective world, to employ physiological terminology, -it requires objective stimuli to be of action at all—its action is -fundamentally a reaction. The contrary is the case when we come to the -aristocrat's system of values: it acts and grows spontaneously, it -merely seeks its antithesis in order to pronounce a more grateful and -exultant "yes" to its own self.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">35</span></p> - -<p>The aristocratic man conceives the root idea "good" spontaneously and -straight away, that is to say, out of himself, and from that material -then creates for himself a concept of "bad"! This "bad" of aristocratic -origin and that "evil" out of the cauldron of unsatisfied hatred—the -former an imitation, an "extra," an additional<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> nuance; the latter, on -the other hand, the original, the beginning, the essential act in the -conception of a slave-morality—these two words "bad" and "evil," how -great a difference do they mark in spite of the fact that they have an -identical contrary in the idea "good." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">39</span></p> - -<p>It is impossible not to recognise at the core of all these aristocratic -races the beast of prey; the magnificent <i>blonde brute,</i> avidly -rampant for spoil and victory; this hidden core needed an outlet from -time to time, the beast must get loose again, must return into the -wilderness—the Roman, Arabic, German, and Japanese nobility, the -Homeric heroes, the Scandinavian Vikings, are all alike in this need. -It is the aristocratic races who have left the idea "Barbarian" on all -the tracks in which they have marched; nay, a consciousness of this -very barbarianism, and even a pride in it, manifests itself even in -their highest civilisation. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">40</span></p> - -<p>What produces to-day our repulsion towards "man"?—for we <i>suffer</i> -from "man," there is no doubt about it. It is not fear; it is rather -that we have nothing more to fear from men; it is that the worm "man" -is in the foreground and pullulates; it is that the "tame man," the -wretched mediocre and unedifying creature, has learnt to consider -himself a goal and a pinnacle, an inner meaning, an historic principle, -a "higher man.".... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">42</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">43</span></p> - -<p>In the dwarfing and levelling of the European man lurks <i>our</i> greatest -peril, for it is this outlook which fatigues—we see to-day nothing -which wishes to be greater, we surmise that the process is always -still backwards, still backwards towards something more attenuated, -more inoffensive, more cunning, more comfortable, more mediocre, more -indifferent, more Chinese, more Christian. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">44</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p> - -<p>To require of strength that it should <i>not</i> express itself as strength, -that it should not be a wish to overpower, a wish to overthrow, a wish -to become master, a thirst for enemies and antagonisms and triumphs, is -just as absurd as to require of weakness that it should express itself -as strength. A quantum of force is just such a quantum of movement, -will, action. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">45</span></p> - -<p>The impotence which requites not, is turned to "goodness," craven -baseness to meekness, submission to those whom one hates, to obedience -(namely, obedience to one of whom they say that he ordered this -submission—they call him God). The inoffensive character of the weak, -the very cowardice in which he is rich, his standing at the door, his -forced necessity of waiting, gain here fine names, such as "patience," -which is also called "virtue"; not being able to avenge one's self, is -called not wishing to avenge one's self, perhaps even forgiveness. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">48</span></p> - -<p>They are miserable, there is no doubt about it, all these whisperers -and counterfeiters in the corners, although they try to get warm by -crouching close to each other, but they tell me that their misery is -a favour and distinction given to them by God, just as one beats the -dogs one likes best; that perhaps this misery is also a preparation, a -probation, a training; that perhaps it is still more something which -will one day be compensated and paid back with a tremendous interest in -gold, nay in happiness. This they call "Blessedness." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">45</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">49</span></p> - -<p>The two <i>opposing values</i> "good and bad," "good and evil," have fought -a dreadful, thousand-year fight in the world, and though indubitably -the second value has been for a long time in the preponderance, there -are not wanting places where the fortune of the fight is still<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> -undecisive. It can almost be said that in the meanwhile the fight -reaches a higher and higher level, and that in the meanwhile it has -become more and more intense, and always more and more psychological; -so that nowadays there is perhaps no more decisive mark of the <i>higher -nature,</i> of the more psychological nature, than to be in that sense -self-contradictory, and to be actually still a battle-ground for those -two opposites. The symbol of this fight, written in a writing which -has remained worthy of perusal throughout the course of history up to -the present time, is called "Rome against Judæa, Judæa against Rome." -Hitherto there has been no greater event than <i>that</i> fight, the putting -of <i>that</i> question, <i>that</i> deadly antagonism. Rome found in the Jew -the incarnation of the unnatural, as though it were its diametrically -opposed monstrosity, and in Rome the Jew was held to be <i>convicted of -hatred</i> of the whole human race: and rightly so, in so far as it is -right to link the well-being and the future of the human race to the -unconditional mastery of the aristocratic values, of the Roman values. -What, conversely, did the Jews feel against Rome? One can surmise it -from a thousand symptoms, but it is sufficient to carry one's mind -back to the Johannian Apocalypse, that most obscene of all the written -outbursts, which has revenge on its conscience. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">53</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">54</span></p> - -<p><i>Beyond Good and Evil</i>—at any rate that is not the same as "Beyond -Good and Bad." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">57</span></p> - -<p>The proud knowledge of the extraordinary privilege of <i>responsibility,</i> -the consciousness of this rare freedom, of this power over himself and -over fate, has sunk right down to his innermost depths, and has become -an instinct, a dominating instinct—what name will he give to it, to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span> -this dominating instinct if he needs to have a word for it? But there -is no doubt about it—the sovereign man calls it his <i>conscience.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">65</span></p> - -<p>Have these current genealogists of morals ever allowed themselves to -have even the vaguest notion, for instance, that the cardinal moral -idea of "ought" originates from the very material idea of "owe"? Or -that punishment developed as a <i>retaliation</i> absolutely independently -of any preliminary hypothesis of the freedom or determination of the -will?—And this to such an extent, that a <i>high</i> degree of civilisation -was always first necessary for the animal man to begin to make those -much more primitive distinctions of "intentional," "negligent," -"accidental," "responsible," and their contraries, and apply them -in the assessing of punishment. That idea—"the wrong-doer deserves -punishment <i>because</i> he might have acted otherwise," in spite of the -fact that it is nowadays so cheap, obvious, natural, and inevitable, -and that it has had to serve as an illustration of the way in which -the sentiment of justice appeared on earth is in point of fact -an exceedingly late, and even refined form of human judgment and -inference; the placing of this idea back at the beginning of the world -is simply a clumsy violation of the principles of primitive psychology. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">69</span></p> - -<p>The sight of suffering does one good, the infliction of suffering does -one more good—this is a hard maxim, but none the less a fundamental -maxim, old, powerful, and "human, all-too-human"; one, moreover, to -which perhaps even the apes as well would subscribe: for it is said -that in inventing bizarre cruelties they are giving abundant proof -of their future humanity, to which, as it were, they are playing -the prelude. Without cruelty, no feast:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span> so teaches the oldest and -longest history of man—and in punishment too is there so much of the -<i>festive.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">75</span></p> - -<p>The darkening of the heavens over man has always increased in -proportion to the growth of man's shame <i>before man. </i> The tired -pessimistic outlook, the mistrust of the riddle of life, the icy -negation of disgusted ennui, all those are not the signs of the <i>most -evil</i> age of the human race: much rather do they come first to the -light of day, as the swamp-flowers, which they are, when the swamp to -which they belong comes into existence—I mean the diseased refinement -and moralisation, thanks to which the "animal man" has at last learnt -to be ashamed of all his instincts. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">75</span></p> - -<p>The curve of human sensibilities to pain seems indeed to sink in an -extraordinary and almost sudden fashion, as soon as one has passed the -upper ten thousand or ten millions of over-civilised humanity, and I -personally have no doubt that, by comparison with one painful night -passed by one single hysterical chit of a cultured woman, the suffering -of all the animals taken together who have been put to the question of -the knife, so as to give scientific answers, are simply negligible. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">76</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">77</span></p> - -<p>Man ... arrived at the great generalisation "everything has its price, -<i>all</i> can be paid for," the oldest and most naïve moral canon of -<i>justice</i> the beginning of all "kindness," of all "equity," of all -"goodwill," of all "objectivity" in the world. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">80</span></p> - -<p>The self-destruction of Justice! we know the pretty name it calls -itself—<i>Grace!</i> it remains, as is obvious, the privilege of the -strongest, better still, their super-law. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">83</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">84</span></p> - -<p>The aggressive man has at all times enjoyed the stronger, bolder, more -aristocratic, and also <i>freer</i> outlook,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> the <i>better</i> conscience. On -the other hand, we already surmise who it really is that has on his -conscience the invention of the "bad conscience,"—the resentful man! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">86</span></p> - -<p>To talk of intrinsic right and intrinsic wrong is absolutely -nonsensical; intrinsically, an injury, an oppression, an exploitation, -an annihilation can be nothing wrong, inasmuch as life is <i>essentially</i> -(that is, in its cardinal functions) something which functions by -injuring, oppressing, exploiting, and annihilating, and is absolutely -inconceivable without such a character. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">88</span></p> - -<p>Evildoers have throughout thousands of years felt when overtaken by -punishment <i>exactly like Spinoza,</i> on the subject of their "offence": -"here is something which went wrong contrary to my anticipation, -<i>not</i> I ought not to have done this."—They submitted themselves -to punishment, just as one submits one's self to a disease, to a -misfortune, or to death, with that stubborn and resigned fatalism which -gives the Russians, for instance, even nowadays, the advantage over -us Westerners, in the handling of life. If at that period there was -a critique of action, the criterion was prudence: the real <i>effect</i> -of punishment is unquestionably chiefly to be found in a sharpening -of the sense of prudence, in a lengthening of the memory, in a will -to adopt more of a policy of caution, suspicion, and secrecy; in the -recognition that there are many things which are unquestionably beyond -one's capacity; in a kind of improvement in self-criticism. The broad -effects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast, are the -increase of fear, the sharpening of the sense of cunning, the mastery -of the desires: so it is that punishment <i>tames</i> man, but does not make -him "better"—it would be more correct even to go so far as to assert -the contrary. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">99</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span></p> - -<p>All instincts which do not find a vent without, <i>turn inwards</i>—this is -what I mean by the growing "internalisation" of man: consequently we -have the first growth in man, of what subsequently was called his soul. -The whole inner world, originally as thin as if it had been stretched -between two layers of skin, burst apart and expanded proportionately, -and obtained depth, breadth, and height, when man's external outlet -became <i>obstructed.</i> These terrible bulwarks, with which the social -organisation protected itself against the old instincts of freedom -(punishments belong pre-eminently to these bulwarks), brought it -about that all those instincts of wild, free, prowling man became -turned backwards <i>against man himself.</i> Enmity, cruelty, the delight -in persecution, in surprises, change, destruction—the turning all -these instincts against their own possessors: this is the origin of -the "bad conscience." It was man, who, lacking external enemies and -obstacles, and imprisoned as he was in the oppressive narrowness and -monotony of custom, in his own impatience lacerated, persecuted, -gnawed, frightened, and ill-treated himself; it was this animal in the -hands of the tamer, which beat itself against the bars of its cage; it -was this being who, pining and yearning for that desert home of which -it had been deprived, was compelled to create out of its own self, an -adventure, a torture-chamber, a hazardous and perilous desert—it was -this fool, this homesick and desperate prisoner—who invented the "bad -conscience." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">100</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">101</span></p> - -<p>A herd of blonde beasts of prey, a race of conquerors and masters, -which with all its warlike organisation and all its organising power -pounces with its terrible claws on a population, in numbers possibly -tremendously superior, but as yet formless, as yet nomad. Such is -the origin of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span> the "State." That fantastic theory that makes it -begin with a contract is, I think, disposed of. He who can command, -he who is a master by "nature," he who comes on the scene forceful -in deed and gesture—what has he to do with contracts? Such beings -defy calculation, they come like fate, without cause, reason, notice, -excuse, they are there like the lightning is there, too terrible, too -sudden, too convincing, too "different," to be personally even hated. -Their work is an instinctive creating and impressing of forms, they are -the most involuntary, unconscious artists that there are.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">103</span></p> - -<p>It is only the bad conscience, only the will for self-abuse, that -provides the necessary conditions for the existence of altruism as a -<i>value.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">105</span></p> - -<p>The feeling of owing a debt to the deity has grown continuously for -several centuries, always in the same proportion in which the idea -of God and the consciousness of God have grown and become exalted -among mankind. (The whole history of ethnic fights, victories, -reconciliations, amalgamations, everything, in fact, which precedes -the eventual classing of all the social elements in each great race -synthesis, are mirrored in the hotch-potch genealogy of their gods, in -the legends of their fights, victories, and reconciliations, Progress -towards universal empires invariably means progress towards universal -deities; despotism, with its subjugation of the independent nobility, -always paves the way for some system or other of monotheism.) The -appearance of the Christian god, as the record god up to this time, has -for that very reason brought equally into the world the record amount -of guilt consciousness. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">109</span></p> - -<p>This is a kind of madness of the will in the sphere of psychological -cruelty which is absolutely unparalleled:—<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>man's <i>will</i> to find -himself guilty and blameworthy to the point of inexpiability, his -<i>will</i> to think of himself as punished, without the punishment ever -being able to balance the guilt, his <i>will</i> to infect and to poison -the fundamental basis of the universe with the problem of punishment -and guilt, in order to cut off once and for all any escape out of this -labyrinth of "fixed ideas," his will for rearing an ideal—that of the -"holy God"—face to face with which he can have tangible proof of his -own unworthiness. Alas for this mad melancholy beast man! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">112</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">113</span></p> - -<p>What is the meaning of ascetic ideals? In artists, nothing, or too -much; in philosophers and scholars, a kind of "flair" and instinct for -the conditions most favourable to advanced intellectualism; in women, -at best an <i>additional</i> seductive fascination, a little <i>morbidezza</i> -on a fine piece of flesh, the angelhood of a fat, pretty animal; in -physiological failures and whiners (in the <i>majority</i> of mortals), -an attempt to pose as "too good" for this world, a holy form of -debauchery, their chief weapon, in the battle with lingering pain and -ennui; in priests, the actual priestly faith, their best engine of -power, and also the supreme authority for power; in saints, finally a -pretext for hibernation, their <i>novissima gloria cupido,</i> their peace -in nothingness ("God"), their form of madness. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">121</span></p> - -<p>All good things were once bad things; from every original sin has grown -an original virtue. Marriage, for example, seemed for a long time a sin -against the rights of the community; a man formerly paid a fine for the -insolence of claiming one woman to himself. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">144</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">145</span></p> - -<p>The soft, benevolent yielding, sympathetic feelings—eventually valued -so highly that they almost become<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> "intrinsic values," were for a very -long time actually despised by their possessors; gentleness was then a -subject for shame, just as hardness is now. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">145</span></p> - -<p><i>The ascetic ideal springs from the prophylactic and self-preservative -instincts which mark a decadent life,</i> which seeks by every means in -its power to maintain its position and fight for its existence; it -points to a partial physiological depression and exhaustion, against -which the most profound and intact life-instincts fight ceaselessly -with new weapons and discoveries. The ascetic ideal is such a weapon: -its position is consequently exactly the reverse of that which the -worshippers of the ideal imagine—life struggles in it and through it -with death and <i>against</i> death; the ascetic ideal is a dodge for the -<i>preservation</i> of life. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">154</span></p> - -<p>The ascetic priest is the incarnate wish for an existence of another -kind, an existence on another plane,—he is, in fact, the highest -point of this wish, its official ecstasy and passion: but it is the -very <i>power</i> of this wish which is the fetter that binds him here; it -is just that which makes him into a tool that must labour to create -more favourable conditions for earthly existence, for existence on the -human plane—it is with this very <i>power</i> that he keeps the whole herd -of failures, distortions, abortions, unfortunates, <i>sufferers from -themselves</i> of every kind, fast to existence, while he as the herdsman -goes instinctively on in front. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">154</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">155</span></p> - -<p>The <i>sick</i> are the great danger of man, <i>not</i> the evil, <i>not</i> the -"beasts of prey." They who are from the outset botched, oppressed, -broken, those are they, the weakest are they, who most undermine the -life beneath the feet of man, who instil the most dangerous venom and -scepticism into our trust in life, in man, in ourselves. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">157</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p> - -<p>Preventing the sick making the healthy sick ... this ought to be our -supreme object in the world—but for this it is above all essential -that the healthy should remain <i>separated</i> from the sick, that they -should even guard themselves from the look of the sick, that they -should not even associate with the sick. Or may it, perchance, be their -mission to be nurses or doctors? But they could not mistake or disown -<i>their</i> mission more grossly—the higher <i>must</i> not degrade itself to -be the tool of the lower, the pathos of distance must to all eternity -keep their missions also separate. The right of the happy to existence, -the right of bells with a full tone over the discordant cracked bells, -is verily a thousand times greater: they alone are the <i>sureties</i> of -the future, they alone are <i>bound</i> to man's future. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">160</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">161</span></p> - -<p>The ascetic priest must be accepted by us as the predestined saviour, -herdsman, and champion of the sick herd: thereby do we first understand -his awful historic mission. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">162</span></p> - -<p>"I suffer: it must be somebody's fault"—so thinks every sick sheep. -But his herdsman, the ascetic priest, says to him, "Quite so, my sheep, -it must be the fault of some one; but thou thyself art that some one, -it is all the fault of thyself alone—<i>it is the fault of thyself alone -against thyself":</i> that is bold enough, false enough, but one thing is -at least attained; thereby, as I have said, the course of resentment -is—<i>diverted</i>. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">165</span></p> - -<p>All sick and diseased people strive instinctively after a -herd-organisation, out of a desire to shake off their sense of -oppressive discomfort and weakness; the ascetic priest divines this -instinct and promotes it; wherever a herd exists it is the instinct -of weakness which has wished for the herd, and the cleverness of the -priests which has<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span> organised it, for, mark this: by an equally natural -necessity the strong strive as much for <i>isolation</i> as the weak for -<i>union:</i> when the former bind themselves it is only with a view to an -aggressive joint action and joint satisfaction of their Will for Power, -much against the wishes of their individual consciences; the latter, -on the contrary, range themselves together with positive <i>delight</i> in -such a muster—their instincts are as much gratified thereby as the -instincts of the "born master" (that is the solitary beast-of-prey -species of man) are disturbed and wounded to the quick by organisation. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">176</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">177</span></p> - -<p>The keynote by which the ascetic priest was enabled to get every kind -of agonising and ecstatic music to play on the fibres of the human -soul—was, as every one knows, the exploitation of the feeling of -<i>"guilt."</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">182</span></p> - -<p>The ascetic ideal and its sublime moral cult, this most ingenious, -reckless, and perilous systématisation of all methods of emotional -excess, is writ large in a dreadful and unforgettable fashion on the -whole history of man, and unfortunately not only on history. I was -scarcely able to put forward any other element which attacked the -<i>health</i> and race efficiency of Europeans with more destructive power -than did this ideal; it can be dubbed, without exaggeration, <i>the real -fatality</i> in the history of the health of the European man. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">186</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">187</span></p> - -<p>The ascetic ideal has corrupted not only health and taste, there are -also third, fourth, fifth, and sixth things which it has corrupted—I -shall take care not to go through the catalogue (when should I get to -the end?). <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">190</span></p> - -<p>The periods in a nation in which the learned man comes into prominence; -they are the periods of exhaustion, often of sunset, of decay—the -effervescing strength, the confidence of life, the confidence in the -future are no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> more. The preponderance of the mandarins never signifies -any good, any more than does the advent of democracy, or arbitration -instead of war, equal rights for women, the religion of pity, and all -the other symptoms of declining life. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">200</span></p> - -<p>The ascetic ideal simply means this: that something <i>was lacking,</i> -that a tremendous <i>void</i> encircled man—he did not know how to justify -himself, to explain himself, to affirm himself, he <i>suffered</i> from the -problem of his own meaning. He suffered also in other ways, he was -in the main a <i>diseased</i> animal; but his problem was not suffering -itself, but the lack of an answer to that crying question, "<i>To what -purpose</i> do we suffer?" Man, the bravest animal and the one most inured -to suffering, does <i>not</i> repudiate suffering in itself: he <i>wills</i> it, -he even seeks it out, provided that he is shown a meaning for it, a -<i>purpose</i> of suffering was the curse which till then lay spread over -humanity—<i>and the ascetic ideal gave it a meaning!</i> It was up till -then the only meaning; but any meaning is better than no meaning; -the ascetic ideal was in that connection the <i>"faute de mieux" par -excellence</i> that existed at that time. In that ideal suffering <i>found -an explanation;</i> the tremendous gap seemed filled; the door to all -suicidal Nihilism was closed. The explanation—there is no doubt about -it—brought in its train new suffering, deeper, more penetrating, more -venomous, gnawing more brutally into life: it brought all suffering -under the perspective of <i>guilt;</i> but in spite of all that—man was -<i>saved</i> thereby, he had <i>a meaning,</i> and from henceforth was no more -like a leaf in the wind, a shuttlecock, of chance, of nonsense, he -could now "will" something—absolutely immaterial to what end, to what -purpose, with that means he wished: <i>the will itself was saved.</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span> It -is absolutely impossible to disguise <i>what</i> in point of fact is made -clear by every complete will that has taken its direction from the -ascetic ideal: this hate of the human, and even more of the animal, -and more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason -itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this desire to get right -away from all illusion, change, growth, death, wishing and even -desiring—all this means—let us have the courage to grasp it—a will -for Nothingness, a will opposed to life, a repudiation of the most -fundamental conditions of life, but it is and remains <i>a will!</i>—and -to say at the end that which I said at the beginning—man will wish -<i>Nothingness</i> rather than not wish <i>at all.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">210</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">211</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="IX" id="IX">IX</a></h4> - - -<h3>"The Twilight of the Idols"</h3> - - -<p>Nietzsche followed "The Genealogy of Morals" with "The Case of Wagner," -that famous pamphlet in which he excoriated the creator of Parsifal. -Immediately after the publication of this attack, he began work on -what was to be still another preparatory book for "The Will to Power." -For its title he first chose "Idle Hours of a Psychologist." The book, -a brief one, was already on the presses when he changed the caption -to <i>"Götzendämmerung"</i>—"The Twilight of the Idols"—a titular -parody on Wagner's <i>"Götterdämmerung"</i> For a subtitle he appended a -characteristically Nietzschean phrase—"How to Philosophise with the -Hammer." The writing of this work was done with great rapidity: it was -accomplished in but a few days during August, 1888. In September it -was sent to the publisher, but during its printing Nietzsche added a -chapter headed "What the Germans Lack," and several aphorisms to the -section called "Skirmishes in a War with the Age." In January, 1889, -the book appeared.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche was then stricken with his fatal illness, and this was the -last book of his to appear during his lifetime. "The Antichrist" was -already finished, having been written in the fall of 1888 immediately -after the completion of "The Twilight of the Idols." <i>"Ecce Homo"</i> -his autobiography, was written in October, 1888; and during December -Nietzsche again gave his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span> attention to Wagner, drafting "Nietzsche -<i>contra</i> Wagner," a pamphlet made up entirely of excerpts from his -earlier writings. This work, intended to supplement "The Case of -Wagner," was not published until 1895, although it had been printed -and corrected before the author's final breakdown. "The Antichrist" -appeared at the same time as this second Wagner document, while <i>"Ecce -Homo"</i> was withheld from publication until 1908. "The Twilight of the -Idols" sold 9,000 copies, but Nietzsche's mind was too clouded to -know or care that at last he was coming into his own, that the public -which had denied him so long had finally begun to open its eyes to his -greatness.</p> - -<p>In many ways "The Twilight of the Idols" is one of Nietzsche's most -brilliant books. Being more compact, it consequently possesses a -greater degree of precision and clarity than is found in his more -analytical writings. It is not, however, a treatise to which one may -go without considerable preparation. With the exception of "Thus -Spake Zarathustra," it demands more on the part of the reader than -any of Nietzsche's other books. It is, for the most part, composed -of conclusions and comments which grow directly out of the laborious -ethical research of his preceding volumes, and presupposes in the -student an enormous amount of reading, not only of Nietzsche's own -writings but of philosophical works in general. But once equipped with -this preparation, one will find more of contemporary interest in it -than in the closely organised books such as "Beyond Good and Evil" -and "The Genealogy of Morals." There are few points in Nietzsche's -philosophy not found here. For a compact expression of his entire -teaching I know of no better book to which one might turn. Nietzsche<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> -himself, to judge from a passage in his <i>"Ecce Homo"</i> intended this -book as a statement of his whole ethical system. He probably meant -that it should present <i>in toto</i> the principal data of his foregoing -studies, in order that the reader might be familiar with all the steps -in his philosophy before setting forth upon the formidable doctrines -of "The Will to Power." Obviously, therefore, it is not a book for -beginners. Being expositional rather than argumentative, it is open -to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. It contains apparent -contradictions which might confuse the student who has not followed -Nietzsche in the successive points which led to his conclusions, and -who is unfamiliar with the exact definitions attached to certain words -relating to human conduct.</p> - -<p>Other qualities of a misleading nature are to be encountered in this -book. Many of the paragraphs have about them an air of mere cleverness, -although in reality they embody profound concepts. The reader ignorant -of the inner seriousness of Nietzsche will accept these passages only -at their surface value. Of the forty-four short epigrams which comprise -the opening chapter, I have appended but three, for fear they would be -judged solely by their superficial characteristics. Many of the other -aphorisms throughout the book lend themselves all too easily to the -same narrow judgment.</p> - -<p>Again, "The Problem of Socrates," the second division of the book, -because of its profundity, presents many difficulties to the unprepared -student. Here is a criticism of the Socratic ideals which requires, -in order that it be intelligently grasped, not only a wide general -knowledge, but also a specific training in the uprooting of prejudices -and of traditional ethical conceptions—such a training as can be -acquired only by a close study of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> Nietzsche's own destructive works. -The explanation of Socrates's power, the condemnation of that ancient -philosopher's subtle glorification of the <i>canaille,</i> the reasons -for his secret fascination, and the interpretation of his whole -mental progress culminating in his death—all this is profound and -categorical criticism which has its roots in the very fundamentals of -Nietzsche's philosophy. But because it is so deep-rooted, it therefore -presents a wide and all-inclusive vista of that philosophy from which -it stems. Furthermore, this criticism of Socrates poses a specific -problem which can be answered only by resorting to the doctrines which -underlie Nietzsche's entire thought. In like manner the chapter, -"Reason in Philosophy," is understandable only in the light of those -investigations set forth in "Beyond Good and Evil."</p> - -<p>Under the caption, "The Four Great Errors," Nietzsche uproots a series -of correlated beliefs which have the accumulated impetus of centuries -of acceptance behind them. These "errors," as stated, are (1) the -error of the confusion of cause and effect, (2) the error of false -causality, (3) the error of imaginary causes, and (4) the error of -free will. The eradication of these errors is necessary for a complete -acceptance of Nietzsche's philosophy. But unless one is familiar with -the vast amount of criticism which has led up to the present discussion -of them, one will experience difficulty in following the subtly drawn -arguments and analogies presented against them. To demonstrate briefly -the specific application of the first error, namely: the confusion of -cause and effect, I offer an analogy stated in the passage. We know -that Christian morality teaches us that a people perish through vice -and luxury—that is to say, that these two conditions are <i>causes</i> of -racial degeneration.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> Nietzsche's contention to the contrary is that -when a nation is approaching physiological degeneration, vice and -luxury result in the guise of stimuli adopted by exhausted natures. -By this it can be seen how the Christian conscience is developed by -a misunderstanding of causes; and it can also be seen how this error -may affect the very foundation on which morality is built. I am here -stating merely the conclusion: for the reasons leading up to this -conclusion one must go to the book direct.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche denies the embodiment of the motive of an action in the -"inner facts of consciousness" where, so we have been taught by -psychologists and physicists, the responsibilities of conduct are -contained. The will itself, he argues, is not a motivating force; -rather is it an effect of other deeper causes. This is what he -discusses in his paragraphs dealing with the second error of false -causality. In his criticism of the third error relating to imaginary -causes, he points to the comfort we obtain by attributing a certain -unexplained fact to a familiar cause—by tracing it to a commonplace -source—thereby doing away with its seeming mystery. Thus ordinary -maladies or afflictions, or, to carry the case into moral regions, -misfortunes and unaccountable strokes of fate, are explained by finding -trite and plausible reasons for their existence. As a consequence -the habit of postulating causes becomes a fixed mental habit. In the -great majority of cases, and especially in the domain of morality and -religion, the causes are false, inasmuch as the operation of finding -them depends on the mental characteristics of the searcher. The error -of free will Nietzsche attributes to the theologians' attempt to make -mankind responsible for its acts and therefore amenable to punishment. -I have been able to present his own words in explanation<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> of this -error, and they will be found at the end of this chapter—41-42 and 43.</p> - -<p>In "Skirmishes in a War with the Age," the longest section in the -book, Nietzsche gives us much brilliant and incisive criticism of men, -art and human attributes. He is here at his best, both in clarity of -mind and in his manner of expression. This passage, one of the last -things to come from his pen, contains the full ripeness of his nature, -and is a portion of his work which no student can afford to overlook. -It contains the whole of the Nietzschean philosophy applied to the -conditions of his age. Because it is not a direct voicing of his -doctrines it does not lend itself to mutilation except where it touches -on principles of conduct and abstract aspects of morality. Many of the -most widely read passages of all of Nietzsche's work are contained in -it. But here again, as in the case of "Thus Spake Zarathustra," one -regrets that the surface brilliance of its style attracted readers in -England and America before these nations were acquainted with the books -which came before. The casual reader, unfamiliar with the principles -underlying Nietzsche's ethic, will see only a bold and satanic -flippancy in his definition of Zola—"the love of stinking," or in his -characterisation of George Sand as "the cow with plenty of beautiful -milk," or in his bracketing of "tea-grocers, Christians, cows, women, -Englishmen and other democrats." Yet it is significant that Nietzsche -did not venture upon these remarks until he had the great bulk of his -life's work behind him.</p> - -<p>In this chapter are discussions of Renan, Sainte-Beuve, George Eliot, -George Sand, Emerson, Carlyle, Darwin, Schopenhauer, Goethe and other -famous men and women. In the short essays devoted to these writers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span> -we have, however, more than mere detached valuations. Beneath all the -criticisms is a <i>rationale</i> of judgment based on definite philosophical -doctrines. This same basis of appreciation is present in the discussion -of art and artists, to which subjects many pages are devoted. In fact, -"The Twilight of the Idols" contains most of the art theories and -æsthetic doctrines which Nietzsche advanced. He defines the psychology -of the artist, and draws the line between the two concepts, Apollonian -and Dionysian, as applied to art. He analyses the meaning of beauty -and ugliness, and endeavours to show in what manner the conceptions of -these qualities are related to the racial instincts. He also inquires -into the doctrine of <i>"l'art pour l'art"</i> and points out wherein it -fails in its purpose. A valuable explanation of "genius" is put forth -in the theory that the accumulative power of generations breaks forth -in the great men of a nation, and that these great men mark the end of -an age, as in the case of the Renaissance.</p> - -<p>The most significant brief essay in this section is an answer made -to certain critics who, in reviewing "Beyond Good and Evil," claimed -a superiority for the present age over the older civilisations. -Nietzsche calls this essay "Have We Become Moral?" and proceeds to make -comparisons of contemporaneous virtues with those of the ancients. -He denies that to-day, without our decrepit humanitarianism and our -doctrines of weakness, we would be able to withstand, either nervously -or muscularly, the conditions that prevailed during the Renaissance. -He points out that our morals are those of senility, and that we -have deteriorated, physically as well as mentally, as a result of -an adherence to a code of morality invented to meet the needs of a -weak and impoverished<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> people. Our virtues, he says, are determined -and stimulated by our weakness, so that we have come to admire the -moralities of the slave, the most prominent among which is the doctrine -of equality. In the decline of all the positive forces of life -Nietzsche sees only racial decadence. In this regard it is important -to take note of one of the passages relative to the discussion of this -decadence, namely: the one wherein he characterises the anarchist as -"the mouthpiece of the decaying strata of society." The appellation of -"anarchist" has not infrequently been applied to Nietzsche himself by -those who have read him superficially or whose acquaintance with him -has been the result of distorted hearsay. I know of no better analysis -of anarchistic motives or of no keener dissection of anarchistic -weakness than is set forth here. Nor do I know of any better answer to -those critics who have accused Nietzsche of anarchy, than the criticism -contained in this passage.</p> - -<p>In a final chapter, under the caption of "Things I Owe to the -Ancients," Nietzsche outlines the inspirational source of many of his -doctrines and literary habits. This chapter is important only to the -student who wishes to go to the remoter influences in Nietzsche's -writings, and for that reason I have omitted from the following -excerpts any quotation from it.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center">EXCERPTS FROM "THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS"</p> - -<p>Man thinks woman profound—why? Because he can never fathom her depths. -Woman is not even shallow. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">5</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">5</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">6</span></p> - -<p>The Church combats passion by means of excision of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> all kinds: its -practise, 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. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">27</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">27</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">28</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">29</span></p> - -<p>All naturalism is 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.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">30</span></p> - -<p>Morality, as it has been understood hitherto, 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">31</span></p> - -<p>Morality, in so far it condemns <i>per se,</i> and <i>not</i> out of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">32</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">35</span></p> - -<p>Morality and religion are completely and utterly parts of the -psychology of error: in every particular case cause and effect are -confounded. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">41</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">41</span></p> - -<p>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 held guilty.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">42</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">43</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p> - -<p>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.... -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">44</span></p> - -<p>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 appalling 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 -understood this: it ruined man, it made him weak,—but it laid claim to -having "improved" him. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">45</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">46</span></p> - -<p>All means which have been used heretofore with the object of making man -moral, were through and through immoral. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">49</span></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 Säckingen.—Dante, or the hyæna that writes -poetry in tombs.—Kant, or <i>cant</i> as an intelligible character.—Victor -Hugo,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> 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 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">60</span></p> - -<p>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. 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 springtime, or upon the use of narcotics; and finally -the ecstasy of will, that ecstasy which results from accumulated and -surging will-power. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">68</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">68</span></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 sculptor, the epic poet are essentially -visionaries. In the Dionysian state, on the other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">67</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">68</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">71</span></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 more formidable -antagonism. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">73</span></p> - -<p>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 <i>why</i> he actually suffers,—what his -poverty consists of—the poverty of life. 86</p> - -<p>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. -8<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">6</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span></p> - -<p>Why a Beyond, if it be not a means of splashing mud over a "Here," over -this world? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">87</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">87</span></p> - -<p>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 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">88</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">89</span></p> - -<p>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 <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." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">91</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">92</span></p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span> of industry, equity, and scientific method—with our lust of -collection, of economy and of mechanism—represent a <i>weak</i> age. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">93</span></p> - -<p>Liberalism, or, in plain English, the <i>transformation of mankind into -cattle.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">94</span></p> - -<p>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 his 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> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">94</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">95</span></p> - -<p>By showing ever more and more favour to <i>love-marriages,</i> 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." -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">97</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">98</span></p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> 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 self-same instincts by means of which -a working-class becomes possible, and <i>tolerable</i> 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 franchise: 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">98</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">99</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">101</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">102</span></p> - -<p>The criminal type is the type of the strong man and unfavourable -conditions, a strong man made sick. He<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span> 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">103</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">104</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">105</span></p> - -<p>Everything good is an inheritance: that which is not inherited is -imperfect, it is simply a beginning. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">107</span></p> - -<p>Christianity with its contempt of the body is the greatest mishap that -has ever befallen mankind. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">108</span></p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> and even terrible -nature and naturalness; such a nature as can play with great tasks and -<i>may</i> play with them. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">108</span></p> - -<p>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 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">108</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">109</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="X" id="X">X</a></h4> - -<h3>"The Antichrist"</h3> - - -<p>"The Antichrist" ("<i>Der Antichrist</i>") was written in September, 1888, -work evidently having been begun on it as soon as "The Twilight of the -Idols" had been sent to the publisher. Its composition could not have -occupied more than a few weeks at most, for the former book was not -despatched until September 7, and the present work was completed before -October. At this time Nietzsche was working at high pressure. He must -have had some presentiment of his impending breakdown for he filled in -every available minute with ardent and rapid writing. The fall of 1888 -was the most prolific period of his life. No less than four books "The -Twilight of the Idols," "The Antichrist," "Nietzsche <i>contra</i> Wagner" -and <i>"Ecce Homo"</i>—were completed by him between the late summer and -the first of the year; and in addition to this he made many notes for -his future volumes and read and corrected a considerable amount of -proofs. "The Antichrist," however, though completed in 1888, was not -published until the end of 1894, six years after he had laid aside his -work forever, and at a time when his mind was too darkened to know or -care about the circumstances of its issuance. It appeared in Vol. XIII -of <i>Nietzsches Werke</i> which, although published at the close of 1894, -bore the date of the following year.</p> - -<p>"The Antichrist" which, like "Beyond Good and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span> Evil," "The Genealogy of -Morals" and "The Twilight of the Idols," forms a part of Nietzsche's -final philosophic scheme, was intended—to judge from the evidence -contained in his notebooks—as the first division of a work to be -entitled "The Trans valuation of All Values" ("<i>Die Umwertung Aller -Werte</i>"). In fact this title and also "The Will to Power" were -considered alternately for his <i>magnum opus</i> which he intended writing -after the completion of "The Transvaluation of All Values." He finally -decided on the latter title for his great work, although he used the -former caption as a subtitle. The complete outline for the volumes -which were to be called "The Transvaluation of All Values" and which -were to be incorporated in his final general plan, is as follows:</p> - -<p>1. "The Antichrist. An Attempted Criticism of Christianity." ("<i>Der -Antichrist: Versuch einer Kritik des Christenthums.</i>")</p> - -<p>2. "The Free Spirit. A Criticism of Philosophy as a Nihilistic -Movement." ("<i>Der freie Geist: Kritik der Philosophie als einer -nihilistischen Bewegung</i>")</p> - -<p>3. "The Immoralist. A Criticism of the Most Fatal Species of Ignorance, -Morality." ("<i>Der Immoralist: Kritik der verhängnissvollsten Art von -Unwissenheit, der Moral</i>")</p> - -<p>4. "Dionysus, the Philosophy of Eternal Recurrence." ("<i>Dionysus, -Philosophie der ewigen Wiederkunft</i>")</p> - -<p>But Nietzsche did not finish this task, although "The Antichrist" is -in the form in which he intended it to be published. Nevertheless, it -must be considered merely as a fragment of a much more extensive plan.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span> -Though Nietzsche was far from being the first, he yet was the most -effective critic who ever waged war against Christianity. This was due -to the fact that he went about his destructive work from an entirely -new angle. Before him there had been many competent anti-Christian -writers and scientists. Even during his own time there was a large and -loud school of atheists at work undermining the foundations of Nazarene -morality. With the methods of his predecessors and contemporaries, -however, he had nothing in common. He saw that, despite the scientific -denial of the miracles of Christianity and the biological opposition -to the origin of Christian history, the theologian was always able to -reply to the denial of Christian truth with the counter-argument of -Christian practicability. Thus, while the reasoning of such men as -Darwin, Huxley and Spencer held good so far as the scientific aspects -of Christianity went, the results of Christianity were not involved. -The church, meeting the onslaughts of the "higher criticism," denied -the necessity of a literal belief in the Gospels, and asserted that, -while all the anti-Christian critics might be accurate in their purely -scientific and logical conclusions, Christianity itself as a workable -code was still efficient and deserving of consideration as the most -perfect system of conduct the world had ever known. Nietzsche therefore -did not go into the field already ploughed by Voltaire, Hume, Huxley, -Spencer, Paine and a host of lesser "free thinkers." The preliminary -battles in the great warfare against Christianity had already been won, -and he saw the futility of proceeding along historical and scientific -lines. Consequently he turned his attention to a consideration of -the <i>effects</i> of Christian morality upon the race, to an inquiry -into the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span> <i>causes</i> of pity-morality, and to a comparison of moral -codes in their relation to the needs of humanity. Whether or not the -origins of Christianity conformed to biological laws did not concern -him, although he assumed as his hypothesis the conclusions of the -scientific investigators. The only way of determining the merits and -demerits of the Christian code, he argued, was to ascertain the actual -results of its application, and to compare these with the results which -had accrued from the application of hardier and healthier codes. To -this investigation Nietzsche devotes practically the whole of "The -Antichrist," although there are a few analytical passages relating to -the early dissemination of Jewish ethics. But with these passages the -student need not seriously concern himself. They are speculative and -non-essential.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche's criticism of the effects of Christian virtues, however, -did not begin in "The Antichrist," although this book is the final -flowering of those anti-Christian ideas which cropped up continually -throughout his entire work. This religious antipathy was present even -in his early academic essays, and in "Human, All-Too-Human" we find him -well launched upon his campaign. No book of his, with the exception of -his unfinished pamphlet, "The Eternal Recurrence," is free from this -criticism. But one will find all his earlier conclusions and arguments -drawn together in a compact and complete whole in the present volume.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche's accusation against Christianity, reduced to a few words, -is that it works against the higher development of the individual; -that, being a religion of weakness, it fails to meet the requirements -of the modern man; in short, that it is <i>dangerous.</i> This conclusion -is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span> founded on the principle of biological monism. Nietzsche assumes -Darwin's law of the struggle for existence, and argues that the -Christian virtues oppose not only this law but the law of natural -selection as well. By this opposition the race has been weakened, -for self-sacrifice, the basis of Christian morality, detracts from -the power of the individual and consequently lessens his chances for -existence. Furthermore, the Christian ideal in itself is opposed to -progress and all that progress entails, such as science and research. -Knowledge of any kind tends to make man more independent, and thereby -reduces his need for theological supervision. As a result of the -passing over of power from the strong to the weak, in accordance with -the morality of Christianity, the strength of the race as a whole is -depleted. Furthermore, such a procedure is in direct opposition to -the laws of nature, and so long as man lives in a natural environment -the only way to insure progress is to conform to the conditions of -that environment. Nietzsche therefore makes a plea for the adoption -of other than Christian standards—standards compatible with the laws -of existence. He points out that already the race has been almost -irremediably weakened by its adherence to anti-natural doctrines, -that each day of Christian activity is another step in the complete -degeneration of man. And he asserts that the only reason the race -has maintained its power as long as it has is because the stronger -members of society, despite their voiced belief, do not live up to the -Christian code, but are continually compromising with it.</p> - -<p>The problem of the origin of Christianity interests Nietzsche, because -he sees in it an explanation of the results which it wished to -accomplish. Christianity,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> says he, can be understood only in relation -to the soil out of which it grew. When the Jewish people, subjugated -and in a position of slavery, were confronted with the danger of -extermination at the hands of a stronger people, they invented a system -of conduct which would insure their continued existence. They realised -that the adherence to such virtues as retaliation, aggressiveness, -initiative, cruelty, arrogance and the like would mean death; the -stronger nations would not have countenanced such qualities in a weak -and depleted nation. As a result the Jews replaced retaliation with -"long suffering," aggressiveness with peacefulness, cruelty with -kindness, and arrogance with humility. These <i>negative</i> virtues took -the place of positive virtues, and were turned into "beatitudes." -By thus "turning the other cheek" and "forgiving one's enemies," -instead of resenting persecution and attempting to avenge the wrongs -perpetrated against them, they were able to prolong life. This system -of conduct, says Nietzsche, was a direct falsification of all natural -conditions and a perversion of all healthy instincts. It was the -morality of an impoverished and subservient people, and was adopted by -the Jews only when they had been stripped of their power.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche presents a psychological history of Israel as an example of -the process by which natural values were denaturalised. The God of -Israel was Jehovah. He was the expression of the nation's consciousness -of power, of joy and of hope. Victory and salvation were expected -from him: he was the God of justice. The Assyrians and internal -anarchy changed the conditions of Israel. Jehovah was no longer able -to bring victory to his people, and consequently the nature of this -God was changed. In the hands of the priest he became a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span> weapon, and -unhappiness was interpreted as punishment for "sins." Jehovah became a -moral dictator, and consequently morality among the Israelites ceased -to be an expression of the conditions of life and became an abstract -theory opposed to life. Nor did the Jewish priesthood stop at this. It -interpreted the whole of history with a view to showing that all sin -against Jehovah led to punishment and that all pious worship of Jehovah -resulted in reward. A moral order of the universe was thus substituted -for a natural one. To bolster up this theory a "revelation" became -necessary. Accordingly a "stupendous literary fraud" was perpetrated, -and the "holy scriptures" were "discovered" and foisted upon the -people. The priests, avid for power, made themselves indispensable -by attributing to the will of God all those acts they desired of the -people. Repentance, namely: submission to the priests, was inaugurated. -Thus Christianity, hostile to all reality and power, gained its footing.</p> - -<p>The psychology of Christ, as set forth in "The Antichrist," and the -use made of his doctrines by those who directly followed him, form an -important part of Nietzsche's argument against Christian morality. -Christ's doctrine, according to Nietzsche, was one of immediacy. It -was a mode of conduct and not, according to the present Christian -conception, a preparation for a future world. Christ was a simple -heretic in his rebellion against the existing political order. He -represented a reactionary mode of existence—-a system of conduct which -said Nay to life, a code of inaction and non-interference. His death on -the cross was meant as a supreme example and proof of this doctrine. -It remained for his disciples to attach other meanings to it. Loving -Christ<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span> as they did, and consequently blinded by that love, they were -unable to forgive his execution at the hands of the State. At the same -time they were unprepared to follow his example and to give their -own lives to the cause of his teachings. A feeling of revenge sprang -up in them, and they endeavoured to find an excuse for his death. To -what was it attributable? And the answer they found, says Nietzsche, -was "dominant Judaism, its ruling class." For the moment they failed -to realise that the "Kingdom of God," as preached by Christ, was an -earthly thing, something contained within the individual; and after the -crucifixion it was necessary for them either to follow Christ's example -or to interpret his death, a voluntary one, as a promise of future -happiness, that is, to translate his <i>practical</i> doctrine into symbolic -terms. They unhesitatingly chose the latter.</p> - -<p>In their search for an explanation as to how God could have allowed -his "son" to be executed, they fell upon the theory that Christ's -death was a sacrifice for their sins, an expiation for their guilt. -From that time on, says Nietzsche, "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 then rationalised the conception by -introducing into it the doctrine of personal immortality by means of -having Christ rise from the dead; and he preached this immortality as -a reward for virtue. Thus, asserts Nietzsche, Christ's effort toward a -Buddhistic movement of peace, "toward real and <i>not</i> merely promised -<i>happiness on earth"</i> was controverted<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span> by his posterity. Nothing of -Christ's original doctrine remained, once Paul, the forger, set to work -to twist it to his own ends. Paul went further and by changing and -falsifying it turned all Jewish history into a <i>prophecy</i> for his own -teachings. Thus the whole doctrine of Christ, the true meaning of his -death and the realities which he taught, were altered and distorted. In -short, Christ's life was used as a means for furthering the religion of -Paul, who gave to it the name of Christianity.</p> - -<p>A most important part of "The Antichrist" is that passage wherein -Nietzsche defines his order of castes. Every healthy society, says he, -falls naturally into three separate and distinct types. These classes -condition one another and "gravitate differently in the psychological -sense." Each type has its own work, its own duties, its own emotions, -its own compensations and mastership. The first class, comprising the -rulers, is distinguished by its intellectual superiority. It devolves -upon this class "to represent happiness, beauty and goodness on earth." -The members of this superior class are in the minority, but they are -nevertheless the creators of values. "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 <i>recreation."</i> They are at once the -most honourable, cheerful and gracious of all men. The second class -is composed of those who relieve the first class of their duties and -execute the will of the rulers. They are the guardians of the law, the -merchants and professional men, the warriors and the judges. In brief, -they are the executors of the race.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span> The third class is made up of -the workers, the lowest order of man—those destined for menial and -disagreeable tasks. "The fact," says Nietzsche, "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 -specialty, is a natural instinct." The conception of these classes -contains the nucleus of Nietzsche's doctrine. It embodies his whole -idea of a natural aristocracy as opposed to the spurious European -aristocracy of the present day, wherein the rulers are in reality -merely members of the second class.</p> - -<p>The charge is constantly brought against Nietzsche by the ecclesiastic -dialecticians that his criticism of Christianity is fraught with the -very nihilism against which he so eloquently argues. There is perhaps -a slight basis for such a contention if we confine ourselves strictly -to those of his utterances against the Jewish morality which appear in -his previous books. But in "The Antichrist" this does not hold true -even in the slightest manner. Nietzsche is constantly supplanting modes -of action for every Christian virtue he denies. He is as constructive -as he is destructive. "The Antichrist" contains, not only a complete -denial of all Christian morality, but a statement of a new and -consistent system of ethics based on the research of all his works.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center">EXCERPTS FROM "THE ANTICHRIST"</p> - -<p>What is good? All that enhances the feeling of power, the Will to -Power, and power itself in man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> 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 (virtue in the Renaissance sense, <i>virtu,</i> -free from all moralic acid). The weak and 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">128</span></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> against 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">130</span></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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">131</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">131</span></p> - -<p>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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> drain on strength which suffering itself -already introduces into the world is multiplied a thousandfold. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">131</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">131</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">132</span></p> - -<p>This depressing and infectious instinct thwarts those instincts -which aim at the preservation and enhancement of the value of life: -by <i>multiplying</i> misery quite as much as by preserving all that is -miserable, it is the principal agent in promoting decadence. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">132</span></p> - -<p>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." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">135</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">137</span></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,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span> souls); imaginary Natural History (anthropocentric: total -lack of the notion, "natural causes"); an imaginary <i>psychology</i> -(nothing 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). <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">141</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">142</span></p> - -<p>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 profit 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">143</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">143</span></p> - -<p>The Christian concept of God—God as the deity of the sick, God as a -spider, God as a 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> 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! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">146</span></p> - -<p>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." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">151</span></p> - -<p>If <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 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.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span> -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> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">152</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">153</span></p> - -<p>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 cankerworm of conscience. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">157</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">158</span></p> - -<p>What does a "moral order of the universe" mean? That once and for all -there is such a thing as 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 <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 ascendency of the priesthood. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">158</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">159</span></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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">162</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p> - -<p>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 <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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">162</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">163</span></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 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">166</span></p> - -<p>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>killeth.</i> The idea, <i>experience, -"life"</i> as he alone knows it, is, according to him, opposed to every -kind of word, formula,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span> law, faith and dogma. He speaks only of the -innermost things: "life" or "truth" or "light," is his expression for -the innermost things,—everything else the whole of reality, the whole -of nature, language even, has only the value of a sign, of a simile for -him. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">169</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">170</span></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 himself by means of a <i>different</i> mode of action.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">171</span></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 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." Not "repentance," not "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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> 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.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">171</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">172</span></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> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">174</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">175</span></p> - -<p>"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! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">178</span></p> - -<p>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 -certain<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span> men, it is even necessary: genuine, primitive Christianity -will be possible in all ages.... <i>Not</i> a faith, but a course of action. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">178</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">179</span></p> - -<p>To regard a man like St.-Paul as honest (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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">185</span></p> - -<p>When the centre of gravity of life is laid, <i>not</i> in life, but in a -beyond—in <i>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 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span> 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 owed 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">185</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">186</span></p> - -<p>With Christianity, the art of feeling 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. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">188</span></p> - -<p>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 <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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">189</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">190</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span></p> - -<p>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, openheartedness -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 these -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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">193</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">194</span></p> - -<p>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 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!" <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">195</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">196</span></p> - -<p>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." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">197</span></p> - -<p>The priest knows only one great danger, and that is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span> science,—the -healthy concept of cause and effect. But, on the whole, science -flourishes only in 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">199</span></p> - -<p>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 <i>sense of causality:</i> they are 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>priest's</i> -attack! A <i>parasite's</i> attack! A vampyrism of pale subterranean -leeches! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">200</span></p> - -<p>"Faith saveth; <i>therefore</i> it is true."—It might be objected here that -it is precisely salvation which is not probed 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">201</span></p> - -<p>Holiness in itself is simply a symptom of an<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span> impoverished, enervated -and incurably deteriorated body! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">203</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">204</span></p> - -<p>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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">204</span></p> - -<p>"Faith" simply means the refusal to know what is true. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">205</span></p> - -<p>The conclusion which all idiots, women and common people come to, that -there must be something in a cause for which some one 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">208</span></p> - -<p>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 <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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">209</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">210</span></p> - -<p>Whom do I hate most among the 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. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">220</span></p> - -<p>The Christian and the anarchist are both decadents; they are both -incapable of acting in any other way than disintegratingly, poisonously -and witheringly, like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span> <i>bloodsuckers;</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. 221-222</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 race, and refined luxuries of the Moors! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">226</span></p> - -<p>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 lie, and every honest impulse -into an ignominy of the soul. Let any one 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<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span> 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 <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.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">230</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">231</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="XI" id="XI">XI</a></h4> - - -<h3>"The Will to Power"</h3> - -<h4>Volume I</h4> - - -<p>All the evidences of what was to be Nietzsche's final and complete -philosophical work in four volumes, are contained in two volumes -of desultory and often highly condensed notes which were recently -issued under the single caption of "The Will to Power" <i>("Die Wille -zur Macht").</i> On this culminating work Nietzsche had laboured from -1883 until his final breakdown. He made two plans for "The Will to -Power"—one in 1886 and the other in 1887. As the 1887 plan was the -one ultimately adhered to, there seems no reason to hesitate about -accepting it as the right one. The titles of the four books which -comprised this final work as it stands to-day are "European Nihilism," -"A Criticism of the Highest Values that Have Prevailed Hitherto," -"The Principles of a New Valuation" and "Discipline and Breeding." -These headings are according to the last plan made at Nice in 1887, -and although, as I stated in the preceding chapter, there was some -hesitation between the general title of "The Will to Power" and "The -Transvaluation of All Values," "The Antichrist," which fell under the -latter heading, must not be considered as forming a part of "The Will -to Power." However, "The Antichrist" and also "Beyond Good and Evil," -"The Genealogy of Morals" and "The Twilight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span> of the Idols," are closely -related in thought to "The Will to Power." This fact is borne out not -only by internal evidence, by the manner in which the books overlap, -and by the constant redistribution of titles which sometimes prove -the unity of the last phase of his thought, but also by the testimony -of those who had Nietzsche's confidence and could watch him at close -quarters.</p> - -<p>Nietzsche intended to embody in the four books of "The Will to Power" -the entire sweep of his philosophical teachings. This work was to be -a summary, not only in statement but also in analysis, of his ethical -system. His preceding books had been replete in repetitions, and lacked -both organisation and sequence. His health was such that he could -work only sporadically and in short shifts, with the result that he -was constantly trying to crowd an enormous amount of material into a -short space. He was able to deal with but one point at a time, and, as -his working period was frequently too short to develop that point as -fully as he desired, we find him constantly going back over old ground, -altering his syllogisms, making addenda, interpolating analogies, and -in numerous other ways changing and clarifying what he had previously -written. "The Will to Power" was to be, then, a colossal organisation -of all his writings, with every step intact, and every conclusion in -its place. And throughout the four volumes emphasis was to be put on -his motivating doctrine, the will to power, an oppositional theory to -Darwin's theory of struggle for mere existence. But although we have -two large volumes of notes, these jottings lack in a large degree the -co-ordination which would have characterised them had Nietzsche been -able to carry out his plan.</p> - -<p>The notes of these two books are the work of many<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span> years, and the -putting together of them for publication has been done without any -attempt to alter their original text. They are just as Nietzsche -left them—in some cases completed and closely argued paragraphs, in -others mere notations and memoranda, elliptic and unelaborated. It is -possible, however, to gain a very adequate idea of what was to be the -contents of this final work, due to the copiousness of the material -at hand. From the time of finishing "Thus Spake Zarathustra" to 1889, -Nietzsche was constantly making notes for his great work, and there -is no phase of his thought which is not touched upon in these two -remaining volumes. By following their pages closely, in the light -of his foregoing works, one gets a very definite impression of the -synthesis of his thoughts. Especially true is this of the second volume -of "The Will to Power," for it is here that his cardinal doctrine is -most strongly and consistently emphasised and its relationship to all -human relationships most concisely drawn. Because of this fact I have -chosen to consider the two volumes separately. The first volume is full -of material more or less familiar to those who have followed Nietzsche -in his earlier works. The notes are, in the majority of cases, -elaborations and explanations of doctrines contained in those books -which followed "Thus Spake Zarathustra." As such they are important.</p> - -<p>The first volume is divided into two sections—"European Nihilism" and -"A Criticism of the Highest Values that Have Prevailed Hitherto." Two -subdivisions are found under section one—"Nihilism" and "Concerning -the History of European Nihilism." In this first subdivision Nietzsche -defines Nihilism and attempts to trace its origin. He states that it -is an outcome of the valuations<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span> and interpretations of existence -which have formerly prevailed, namely: the result of the doctrines of -Christianity. For our adherence to Christian morality, Nietzsche says, -we must pay dearly: by this adherence we are losing our equilibrium -and are on the verge of adopting opposite valuations—those consisting -of Nihilistic elements. He defines the Nihilistic movement as an -expression of decadence, and declares that this decadence is spreading -throughout all our modern institutions. Under his second subdivision, -he explains that modern gloominess is a result of the "slow advance -and rise of the middle and lower classes," and asserts that this -gloominess is accompanied by moral hypocrisy and the decadent virtues -of sympathy and pity. In this connection he denies that the nineteenth -century shows an improvement over the sixteenth. No better analysis -of the effects of Christian morality on modern man is to be found in -any of Nietzsche's writings than in this treatise of Nihilism; and a -close study of this analysis will greatly help one in grasping the full -significance of the doctrine of the will to power. Although the notes -in this book are the least satisfactory of all the portions of "The -Will to Power," being both tentative and incomplete, I have been able -to select enough definite statements from them to give an adequate idea -of both Nietzsche's theories and conclusions in regard to Nihilism.</p> - -<p>In the second section of Volume I, "A Criticism of the Highest Values -That Have Prevailed Hitherto," the notes are fuller and more closely -organised. This is due to the fact that the ground covered by them -is in the main the same ground covered by "The Antichrist," "The -Genealogy of Morals" and "Beyond Good and Evil." In fact, there is -in these notes much repetition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> of passages to be found in the three -previous volumes. The first subdivision of this second section is -called "Criticism of Religion," and there is little material in it -which does not appear in "The Antichrist." Even in the manner of -expression there exists so strong a similarity that I am inclined to -think Nietzsche used these notes in composing his famous philippic -against Christianity. Consequently I have made but few quotations from -this division, choosing in each instance only such passages as do not -possess a direct parallel in his earlier work. We find here the same -inquiry into the origin of religions, the same analysis of Christian -ideals, the same history of Christian doctrines, and the same argument -against the dissemination of Christian faiths as are contained in "The -Antichrist." However, these present notes are sufficiently different -from this previous book to interest the thorough student, and there -are occasional speculations advanced which are not to be encountered -elsewhere in Nietzsche's writings. For the casual reader, however, -there is little of new interest in this subdivision.</p> - -<p>The same criticism holds true to a large extent when we come to the -second subdivision of the second section "A Criticism of Morality." In -"The Genealogy of Morals" we have a discussion of practically all the -subjects considered in the present notes, such as the origin of moral -valuations, the basis of conscience, the influence of the herd, the -dominance of virtue, the slander of the so-called evil man, and the -significance of such words as "improving" and "elevating." However, -there is sufficient new material in these notes to warrant a reading, -for although, despite a few exceptions, there are no new issues posed, -certain points which were put forth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> only in a speculative and abridged -manner in earlier books, are here enlarged upon. This is especially -true in regard to the doctrine of rank. Nietzsche has been accused of -advocating only an individualistic morality. But the truth is that he -advanced two codes. He preached a morality for the herd, a definite -system which suited the needs of the serving classes. For the superior -individuals, on the other hand, he taught another code, one which -fitted and met the needs of the rulers. The herd morality has always -sought to create and maintain a single type of mediocre man. Nietzsche -preached the necessity of the superior, as well as the inferior, type -of man; and in his present notes he goes into this doctrine more fully -than heretofore. Furthermore, he makes clear his stand in regard to -the weak. On page 291 he states, "I have declared war against the -anæmic Christian ideal (together with what is closely related to it), -not because I want to annihilate it, but only to put an end to its -<i>tyranny</i> and clear the way for other <i>ideals,</i> for <i>more robust</i> -ideals." It has been stated, even in quarters where we have a right -to look for more intelligent criticism, that Nietzsche favoured the -complete elimination of the weak and incompetent. No such advocacy is -to be found in his teachings. To the contrary, as will be seen from the -above quotation, he preached only against the <i>dominance</i> of the weak. -He resented their supremacy over the intelligent man. Their existence, -he maintained, was a most necessary thing. This belief is insisted upon -in many places, and one should bear the point in mind when reading the -criticisms of socialism to be found throughout the present volume.</p> - -<p>Another new point to be found in these notes relates to the immoral -methods used by the disseminators of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span> morals. From the passages in -which these new points are raised I have taken the quotations which -follow at the end of this chapter.</p> - -<p>In the third and last subdivision of this second section, "Criticism -of Philosophy," we have an extension of Chapter I in "Beyond Good -and Evil," "Prejudices of Philosophers," and of the two chapters in -"The Twilight of the Idols"—"The Problem of Socrates" and "Reason' -in Philosophy." The notes (excepting a few pages of general remarks) -occupy themselves with a criticism of Greek philosophy and with -an analysis of philosophical truths and errors. These notes touch -only indirectly on Nietzsche's doctrines, and may be looked upon as -explanations of his intellectual methods.</p> - -<p>Despite their fragmentariness, the notes in this volume, as I have -said, permit one to gain an adequate idea of Nietzsche's purpose. In -making my excerpts from this book, I have chosen those passages which -will throw new light upon his philosophy rather than those statements -of conclusions which have been previously encountered.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center">EXCERPTS FROM "THE WILL TO POWER" volume I</p> - -<p>What does Nihilism mean?—<i>That the highest values are losing their -value.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">8</span></p> - -<p>Thorough Nihilism is the conviction that life is absurd, in the -light of the highest values already discovered; it also includes the -view that we have not the smallest right to assume the existence of -transcendental objects or things in themselves, which would be either -divine or morality incarnate.</p> - -<p>This view is the result of fully developed "truthfulness": therefore a -consequence of the belief in morality. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">8</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span></p> - -<p><i>Moral valuations are condemnations, negations; morality is the -abdication of the will to live.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">12</span></p> - -<p>All values with which we have tried, hitherto, to lend the world -some worth, from our point of view, and with which we have therefore -<i>deprived it of all worth</i> (once these values have been shown to be -inapplicable)—all these values, are, psychologically, the results of -certain views of utility, established for the purpose of maintaining -and increasing the dominion of certain communities: but falsely -projected into the nature of things. It is always man's <i>exaggerated -ingenuousness</i> to regard himself as the sense and measure of all -things. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">15</span></p> - -<p>Every purely <i>moral</i> valuation (as, for instance, the Buddhistic) -<i>terminates in Nihilism:</i> Europe must expect the same thing! It is -supposed that one can get along with a morality bereft of a religious -background; but in this direction the road to Nihilism is opened. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">19</span></p> - -<p>Nihilism is not only a meditating over the "in vain"—not only the -belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one's -shoulder to the plough; <i>one destroys.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">22</span></p> - -<p>The time is coming when we shall have to pay for having been -<i>Christians</i> for two thousand years: we are losing the equilibrium -which enables us to live—for a long while we shall not know in what -direction we are travelling. We are hurling ourselves headlong into the -<i>opposite</i> valuations, with that degree of energy which could only have -been engendered in man by an <i>overvaluation</i> of himself.</p> - -<p>Now, everything is false from the root, words and nothing but words, -confused, feeble, or overstrained. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">25</span></p> - -<p>Modern Pessimism is an expression of the uselessness<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span> only of the -<i>modern</i> world, not of the world and existence as such. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">29</span></p> - -<p>The "preponderance of <i>pain over pleasure</i>" or the reverse (Hedonism); -both of these doctrines are already signposts to Nihilism....</p> - -<p>For here, in both cases, no other final purpose is sought than the -phenomenon pleasure or pain. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">29</span></p> - -<p>"Life is not worth living"; "Resignation"; "what is the good of -tears?"—this is a feeble and sentimental attitude of mind. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">29</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">30</span></p> - -<p>People have not yet seen what is so terribly obvious—namely, that -Pessimism is not a problem but a <i>symptom,</i>—that the term ought to be -replaced by "Nihilism,"—that the question, "to be or not to be," is -itself an illness, a sign of degeneracy, an idiosyncrasy.</p> - -<p>The Nihilistic movement is only an expression of physiological -decadence. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">32</span></p> - -<p><i>Decay, decline,</i> and <i>waste,</i> are, <i>per se,</i> in no way open to -objection; they are the natural consequences of life and vital growth. -The phenomenon of decadence is just as necessary to life as advance or -progress is: we are not in a position which enables us to <i>suppress</i> -it. On the contrary, reason <i>would have it retain its rights.</i></p> - -<p>It is disgraceful on the part of socialist-theorists to argue that -circumstances and social combinations could be devised which would put -an end to all vice, illness, crime, prostitution, and poverty.... But -that is tantamount to condemning <i>Life.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">33</span></p> - -<p>Decadence itself is not a thing <i>that can be withstood:</i> it is -absolutely necessary and is proper to all ages and all peoples. -That which must be withstood, and by all means in our power, is the -spreading of the contagion among the sound parts of the organism. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">33</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">34</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p> - -<p>All those things which heretofore have been regarded as the <i>causes of -degeneration,</i> are really its effects. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">34</span></p> - -<p>If Nature have no pity on the degenerate, it is not therefore immoral: -the growth of physiological and moral evils in the human race, is -rather the <i>result of morbid and unnatural morality.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">44</span></p> - -<p>The whole of our sociology knows no other instinct than that of the -herd, <i>i.e.,</i> of a <i>multitude of mere ciphers</i>—of which every cipher -has "equal rights," and where it is a virtue to be—naught. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">45</span></p> - -<p>Nihilism is a sign that the botched and bungled have no longer any -consolation, that they destroy in order to be destroyed, that, having -been deprived of morality, they no longer have any reason to "resign -themselves," that they take up their stand on the territory of the -opposite principle, and <i>will also exercise power</i> themselves, by -compelling the powerful to become their hangmen. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">52</span></p> - -<p>Our age, with its indiscriminate endeavours to mitigate distress, to -honour it, and to wage war in advance with unpleasant possibilities, is -an age of the <i>poor.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">57</span></p> - -<p>Overwork, curiosity and sympathy—our <i>modern vices.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">64</span></p> - -<p>Christianity, revolution, the abolition of slavery, equal rights, -philanthropy, love of peace, justice, truth: all these big words are -only valuable in a struggle, as banners: not as realities, but as -<i>showwords,</i> for something quite different (yea, even quite opposed to -what they mean!). <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">68</span></p> - -<p>The nineteenth century shows no advance whatever on the sixteenth: -and the German spirit of 1888 is an example of a backward movement -when compared with that of 1788.... Mankind does not advance, it does -not even exist. The aspect of the whole is much more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span> like that of a -huge experimenting workshop where some things in all ages succeed, -while an incalculable number of things fail; where all order, logic, -co-ordination, and responsibility is lacking. How dare we blink the -fact that the rise of Christianity is a decadent movement?—that the -German Reformation was a recrudescence of Christian barbarism?—that -the Revolution destroyed the instinct for an organisation of society on -a large scale?... Man is not an example of progress as compared with -animals: the tender son of culture is an abortion compared with the -Arab or the Corsican; the Chinaman is a more successful type—that is -to say, richer in sustaining power than the European. 7<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">2</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">73</span></p> - -<p>I know best why man is the only animal that laughs: he alone suffers -so excruciatingly that he was <i>compelled</i> to invent laughter. The -unhappiest and most melancholy animal is, as might have been expected, -the most cheerful. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">74</span></p> - -<p>Socialism—or the <i>tyranny</i> of the meanest and the most -brainless,—that is to say, the superficial, the envious, and the -mummers, brought to its zenith,—is, as a matter of fact, the logical -conclusion of "modern ideas" and their latent anarchy: but in the -genial atmosphere of democratic well-being the capacity for forming -resolutions or even for coming <i>to an end</i> at all, is paralysed. Men -will follow—but no longer their reason. That is why socialism is on -the whole a hopelessly bitter affair: and there is nothing more amusing -than to observe the discord between the poisonous and desperate faces -of present-day socialists—and what wretched and nonsensical feelings -does not their style reveal to us!—and the childish lamblike happiness -of their hopes and desires. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">102</span></p> - -<p>This is the teaching which life itself preaches to all<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> living things: -the morality of Development. To have and to wish to have more, in a -word, Growth—that is life itself. In the teaching of socialism "a will -to the denial of life" is but poorly concealed: botched men and races -they must be who have devised a teaching of this sort. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">102</span></p> - -<p><i>Spiritual enlightenment</i> is an unfailing means of making men -uncertain, weak of will, and needful of succour and support; in short, -of developing the herding instincts in them. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">105</span></p> - -<p>When the <i>feeling of power</i> suddenly seizes and overwhelms a man,—and -this takes place in the case of all the great passions,—a doubt arises -in him concerning his own person: he dare not think himself the cause -of this astonishing sensation—and thus he posits a stronger person, a -Godhead as its cause, <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">114</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">115</span></p> - -<p>Religion has lowered the concept "man"; its ultimate conclusion is -that all goodness, greatness, and truth are superhuman, and are only -obtainable by the grace of God. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">116</span></p> - -<p><i>In short:</i> what is the price paid for the <i>improvement</i> supposed to -be due to morality?—The unhinging of <i>reason,</i> the reduction of all -motives to fear and hope (punishment and reward); <i>dependence</i> upon the -tutelage of priests, and upon a formulary exactitude which is supposed -to express a divine will; the implantation of a "conscience" which -establishes a false science in the place of experience and experiment: -as though all one had to do or had not to do were predetermined—a kind -of contraction of the seeking and striving spirit;—<i>in short:</i> the -worst <i>mutilation</i> of man that can be imagined, and it is pretended -that "the good man" is the result. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">122</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">123</span></p> - -<p>Paganism is that which says yea to all that is natural,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span> it is -innocence in being natural, "naturalness." <i>Christianity</i> is that which -says no to all that is natural, it is a certain lack of dignity in -being natural; hostility to Nature. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">127</span></p> - -<p><i>Christianity</i> is a degenerative movement, consisting of all kinds of -decaying and excremental elements: it is <i>not</i> the expression of the -downfall of a race, it is, from the root, an agglomeration of all the -morbid elements which are mutually attractive and which gravitate to -one another.</p> - -<p>It is therefore <i>not</i> a national religion, <i>not</i> determined by race: it -appeals to the disinherited everywhere; it consists of a foundation of -resentment against all that is successful and dominant: it is in need -of a symbol which represents the damnation of everything successful and -dominant. It is opposed to every form of <i>intellectual</i> movement, to -all philosophy: it takes up the cudgels for idiots, and utters a curse -upon all intellect. Resentment against those who are gifted, learned, -intellectually independent: in all these it suspects the element of -success and domination. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">130</span></p> - -<p>All Christian "truth," is idle falsehood and deception, and is -precisely the reverse of that which was at the bottom of the first -Christian movement. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">133</span></p> - -<p>To be really Christian would mean to be absolutely indifferent to -dogmas, cults, priests, church, and theology. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">133</span></p> - -<p>A God who died for our sins, salvation through faith, resurrection -after death—all these things are the counterfeit coins of -real-Christianity, for which that pernicious blockhead Paul must be -held responsible. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">138</span></p> - -<p>Christianity has, from the first, always transformed the symbolical -into crude realities:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span></p> - -<p>(1) The antitheses "true life" and "false life" were misunderstood and -changed into "life here" and "life beyond."</p> - -<p>(2) The notion "eternal life," as opposed to the personal life which is -ephemeral, is translated into "personal immortality";</p> - -<p>(3) The process of fraternising by means of sharing the same food and -drink, after the Hebrew-Arabian manner, is interpreted as the "miracle -of transubstantiation."</p> - -<p>(4) "Resurrection" which was intended to mean the entrance to the "true -life," in the sense of being intellectually "born again," becomes an -historical contingency, supposed to take place at some moment after -death;</p> - -<p>(5) The teaching of the Son of man as the "Son of God,"—that is to -say, the life-relationship between man and God,—becomes the "second -person of the Trinity," and thus the filial relationship of every -man—even the lowest—to God, is <i>done away with;</i></p> - -<p>(6) Salvation through faith (that is to say, that there is no other way -to this filial relationship to God save through the <i>practice of life</i> -taught by Christ) becomes transformed into the belief that there is a -miraculous way of <i>atoning</i> for all <i>sin;</i> though not through our own -endeavours, but by means of Christ:</p> - -<p>For all these purposes, "Christ on the Cross" had to be interpreted -afresh. The <i>death</i> itself would certainly not be the principal feature -of the event ... it was only another sign pointing to the way in which -one should behave towards the authorities and the laws of the world -<i>—that one was not to defend oneself—this was the exemplary life.</i> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">139</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">140</span></p> - -<p>The Gospel is the announcement that the road to happiness lies open for -the lowly and the poor—that all one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span> has to do is to emancipate one's -self from all institutions, traditions, and the tutelage of the higher -classes. Thus Christianity is no more than the <i>typical teaching of -Socialists.</i></p> - -<p>Property, acquisitions, mother-country, status and rank, tribunals, -the police, the State, the Church, Education, Art, militarism: all -these are so many obstacles in the way of happiness, so many mistakes, -snares, and devil's artifices, on which the Gospel passes sentence—all -this is typical of socialistic doctrines.</p> - -<p>Behind all this there is the outburst, the explosion of a concentrated -loathing of the "masters"—the instinct which discerns the happiness of -freedom after such long oppression. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">173</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">174</span></p> - -<p>Christianity is a denaturalisation of gregarious morality: under the -power of the most complete misapprehensions and self-deceptions. -Democracy is a more natural form of it, and less sown with falsehood. -It is a fact that the oppressed, the low, and whole mob of slaves and -half-castes, <i>will prevail.</i></p> - -<p>First step: they make themselves free—they detach themselves, at -first in fancy only; they recognise each other; they make themselves -paramount.</p> - -<p>Second step: they enter the lists, they demand acknowledgment, equal -rights, "Justice."</p> - -<p>Third step: they demand privileges (they draw the representatives of -power over to their side).</p> - -<p>Fourth step: they <i>alone</i> want all power, and they <i>have</i> it. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">177</span></p> - -<p>When and where has any man, <i>of any note at all,</i> resembled the -Christian ideal?—at least in the eyes of those who are psychologists -and triers of the heart and reins. Look at all Plutarch's heroes! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">180</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p> - -<p>The <i>higher</i> man distinguishes himself from the <i>lower</i> by his -fearlessness and his readiness to challenge misfortune: it is a -sign of <i>degeneration</i> when eudemonistic values begin to prevail -(physiological fatigue and enfeeblement of will-power). Christianity, -with its prospect of "blessedness," is the typical attitude of mind of -a suffering and impoverished species of man. Abundant strength will be -active, will suffer, and will go under. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">182</span></p> - -<p>All ideals are dangerous; because they lower and brand realities; they -are all poisons. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">183</span></p> - -<p>These "conditions of salvation" of which the Christian is conscious are -merely variations of the same diseased state—the interpretation of an -attack of epilepsy by means of a particular formula which is provided, -<i>not</i> by science, but by religious mania. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">190</span></p> - -<p><i>A pang of conscience</i> in a man is a sign that his character is not -yet equal to his <i>deed.</i> There is such a thing as a pang of conscience -after <i>good deeds:</i> in this case it is their unfamiliarity, their -incompatibility with an old environment. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">192</span></p> - -<p>We immoralists prefer to disbelieve in "faults." We believe that all -deeds, of what kind soever, are identically the same at root; just as -deeds which turn <i>against</i> us may be useful from an economical point -of view, and even <i>generally desirable.</i> In certain individual cases, -we admit that we might well have been <i>spared</i> a given action; the -circumstances alone predisposed us in its favour. Which of us, if -<i>favoured</i> by circumstances, would not already have committed every -possible crime?... That is why, one should never say: "Thou shouldst -never have done such and such a thing," but only: "How strange it -is that I have not done such and such<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> a thing hundreds of times -already!"—As a matter of fact, only a very small number of acts are -<i>typical</i> acts and real epitomes of a personality, and seeing what a -small number of people really are personalities, a single act very -rarely characterises a man. Acts are mostly dictated by circumstances; -they are superficial or merely reflex movements performed in response -to a stimulus, long before the depths of our beings are affected or -consulted in the matter. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">192</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">193</span>.</p> - -<p>Experience teaches us that, in every case in which a man has elevated -himself to any great extent above the average of his fellows, every -high degree of <i>power</i> always involves a corresponding degree of -<i>freedom</i> from Good and Evil as also from "true" and "false," and -cannot take into account what goodness dictates. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">200</span></p> - -<p>What is Christian "virtue" and "love of men," if not precisely this -mutual assistance with a view to survival, this solidarity of the weak, -this thwarting of selection? What is Christian altruism, if it is not -the mob-egotism of the weak which divines that, if everybody looks -after everybody else, every individual will be preserved for a longer -period of time?... He who does not consider this attitude of mind -as <i>immoral,</i> as a crime against life, himself belongs to the sickly -crowd, and also shares their instincts.... Genuine love of mankind -exacts sacrifice for the good of the species—it is hard, full of -self-control, because it needs human sacrifices. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">203</span></p> - -<p>What deserves the most rigorous condemnation, is the ambiguous and -cowardly infirmity of purpose of a religion like <i>Christianity,</i>—or -rather like the <i>Church,—</i>which, instead of recommending death and -self-destruction, actually protects all the botched and bungled, and -encourages them to propagate their kind. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">204</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span></p> - -<p>Let us see what the "genuine Christian" does of all the things which -his instincts forbid him to do:—he covers beauty, pride, riches, -self-reliance, brilliancy, knowledge, and power with suspicion and -<i>mud</i>—in short, <i>all culture:</i> his object is to deprive the latter of -its <i>clean conscience.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">200</span></p> - -<p>What is it we combat in Christianity? That it aims at destroying -the strong, at breaking their spirit, at exploiting their moments -of weariness and debility, at converting their proud assurance -into anxiety and conscience-trouble; that it knows how to poison -the noblest instincts and to infect them with disease, until their -strength, their will to power, turns inwards, against themselves—until -the strong perish through their excessive self-contempt and -self-immolation. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">209</span></p> - -<p>All virtues should be looked upon as physiological <i>conditions.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">213</span></p> - -<p>Formerly it was said of every form of morality, "Ye shall know them by -their fruits." I say of every form of morality: "It is a fruit, and -from it I learn the <i>Soil</i> out of which it grew." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">214</span></p> - -<p>My leading doctrine is this: <i>there are no moral phenomena, but only a -moral interpretation of phenomena. The origin of this interpretation -itself lies beyond the pale of morality.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">214</span></p> - -<p>The whole of morality of Europe is based upon the values <i>which are -useful to the herd.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">228</span></p> - -<p>The herd regards the <i>exception,</i> whether it be above or beneath its -general level, as something which is antagonistic and dangerous to -itself. Their trick in dealing with the exceptions above them, the -strong, the mighty, the wise, and the fruitful, is to persuade them to -become guardians, herdsmen, and watchmen—in fact, to become<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span> their -<i>head-servants:</i> thus they convert a danger into a thing which is -useful. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">231</span></p> - -<p>My teaching is this, that the herd seeks to maintain and preserve one -type of man, and that it defends itself on two sides—that is to say, -against those which are decadents from its ranks (criminals, etc.), and -against those who rise superior to its dead level. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">236</span></p> - -<p>My philosophy aims at a new <i>order of rank: not</i> at an individualistic -morality. The spirit of the herd should rule within the herd—but not -beyond it: the leaders of the herd require a fundamentally different -valuation for their actions. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">237</span></p> - -<p>Conscience condemns an action because that action has been condemned -for a long period of time: all conscience does is to imitate: it -does not create values. That which first led to the condemnation of -certain actions, was <i>not</i> conscience: but the knowledge of (or the -prejudice against) its consequences.... The approbation of conscience, -the feeling of well-being, of "inner peace," is of the same order of -emotions as the artist's joy over his work—it proves nothing. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">242</span></p> - -<p><i>By what means does a virtue attain to power?</i>—With precisely the same -means as a political party: slander, suspicion, the undermining of -opposing virtues that happen to be already in power, the changing of -their names, systematic persecution and scorn; in short, <i>by means of -acts of general "immorality."</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">252</span></p> - -<p>Cruelty has become transformed and elevated into tragic pity, so that -we no longer recognise it as such. The same has happened to the love -of the sexes which has become amour-passion; the slavish attitude of -mind appears as Christian obedience; wretchedness becomes humility; the -disease of the <i>nervus sympathicus,</i> for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span> instance, is eulogised as -Pessimism, Pascalism, or Carlylism, etc. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">253</span></p> - -<p>The qualities which constitute the strength of an <i>opposing race</i> or -class are declared to be the most evil and pernicious things it has: -for by means of them it may be harmful to us. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">255</span></p> - -<p>I recognise virtue in that: (1) it does not insist upon being -recognised; (2) it does not presuppose the existence of virtue -everywhere, but precisely something else; (3) it does <i>not suffer</i> -from the absence of virtue, but regards it rather as a relation of -perspective which throws virtue into relief: it does not proclaim -itself; (4) it makes no propaganda; (5) it allows no one to pose as -judge because it is always a personal virtue; (6) it does precisely -what is generally <i>forbidden:</i> virtue as I understand it is the actual -<i>vetitum</i> within all gregarious legislation; (7) in short, I recognise -virtue in that it is in the Renaissance style—<i>virtu</i>—free from all -moralic acid. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">258</span></p> - -<p>Lust of property, lust of power, laziness, simplicity, fear; all these -things are interested in virtue; that is why it stands so securely. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">261</span></p> - -<p>Vice is a somewhat arbitrary epitome of certain effects resulting -from physiological degeneracy. A general proposition such as that -which Christianity teaches, namely, "Man is evil," would be justified -provided one were justified in regarding a given type of degenerate -man as normal. But this may be an exaggeration. Of course, wherever -Christianity prospers and prevails, the proposition holds good: for -then the existence of an unhealthy soil—of a degenerate territory—is -demonstrated. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">269</span></p> - -<p>It is difficult to have sufficient respect for man, when one sees how -he understands the art of fighting his way,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span> of enduring, of turning -circumstances to his own advantage, and of overthrowing opponents; but -when he is seen in the light of his <i>desires,</i> he is the most absurd of -all animals. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">269</span></p> - -<p>As to the whole socialistic ideal: it is nothing but a blockheaded -misunderstanding of the Christian moral ideal. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">275</span></p> - -<p>An ideal which is striving to prevail or to assert itself endeavours to -further its purpose (a) by laying claim to a <i>spurious</i> origin; (b) by -assuming a relationship between itself and the powerful ideals already -existing; (c) by means of the thrill produced by mystery, as though an -unquestionable power were manifesting itself; (d) by the slander of -its opponents' ideals; (e) by a lying teaching of the advantages which -follow in its wake, for instance: happiness, spiritual peace, general -peace, or even the assistance of a mighty God. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">278</span></p> - -<p>My view: all the forces and instincts which are the source of life -are lying beneath the <i>ban of morality:</i> morality is the life-denying -instinct. Morality must be annihilated if life is to be emancipated. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">278</span></p> - -<p>Every one's desire is that there should be no other teaching and -valuation of things than those by means of which he himself succeeds. -Thus the <i>fundamental tendency</i> of the <i>weak</i> and <i>mediocre</i> of all -times, has been to <i>enfeeble the strong and to reduce them to the -level of the weak: their chief weapon in this process</i> was the <i>moral -principle.</i> The attitude of the strong towards the weak is branded as -evil; the highest states of the strong become bad bywords. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">279</span></p> - -<p>Every small community (or individual), finding itself involved in -a struggle, strives to convince itself of this: "Good taste, good -judgment, and virtue are<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span> ours." War urges people to this exaggerated -self-esteem. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">281</span></p> - -<p>Whatever kind of eccentric ideal one may have (whether as a -"Christian," a "free-spirit," an "immoralist," or a German -Imperialist), one should try to avoid insisting upon its being <i>the</i> -ideal; for, by so doing, it is deprived of all its privileged nature. -One should have an ideal as a distinction; one should not propagate it, -and thus level one's self down to the rest of mankind. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">281</span></p> - -<p>Real heroism consists, <i>not</i> in fighting under the banner of -self-sacrifice, submission and disinterestedness, but in <i>not fighting -at all</i>.... "I am thus: I will be thus—and you can go to the devil!" -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">282</span></p> - -<p>Modest, industrious, benevolent, and temperate: thus you would that -men were?—that <i>good men</i> were? But such men I can only conceive as -slaves, the slaves of the future. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">289</span></p> - -<p>Industry, modesty, benevolence, temperance, are just so many -<i>obstacles</i> in the way of <i>sovereign sentiments,</i> of great <i>ingenuity,</i> -of an heroic purpose, of noble existence for one's self. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">290</span></p> - -<p>I have declared war against the anæmic Christian ideal (together with -what is closely related to it), not because I want to annihilate it, -but only to put an end to its <i>tyranny</i> and clear the way for other -<i>ideals,</i> for <i>more robust</i> ideals. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">291</span></p> - -<p>If one does good merely out of pity, it is one's self and not one's -neighbour that one is succouring. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">294</span></p> - -<p>"One is continually promoting the interests of one's <i>'ego'</i> at the -cost of other people"; "Living consists in living at the cost of -others"—he who has not grasped this fact, has not taken the first step -towards truth to himself. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">294</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span></p> - -<p>A morality and a religion of "love," the <i>curbing</i> of the -self-affirming spirit, and a doctrine encouraging patience, -resignation, helpfulness, and co-operation in word and deed may be of -the highest value within the confines of such classes, even in the -eyes of their rulers: for it restrains the feelings of rivalry, of -resentment, and of envy,—feelings which are only too natural in the -bungled and the botched,—and it even deifies them under the ideal of -humility, of obedience, of slave-life, of being-ruled, of poverty, -of illness, and of lowliness. This explains why the ruling classes -(or races) and individuals of all ages have always upheld the cult of -unselfishness, the gospel of the lowly and of "God on the Cross." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">296</span></p> - -<p>The <i>hatred of egoism,</i> whether it be one's own (as in the case of the -Socialists) appears as a valuation reached under the predominance of -revenge; and also as an act of prudence on the part of the preservative -instinct of the suffering, in the form of an increase in their feelings -of co-operation and unity.... At bottom, the discharge of resentment -which takes place in the act of judging, rejecting, and punishing -egoism (one's own or that of others) is still a self-preservative -measure on the part of the bungled and the botched. In short: the cult -of altruism is merely a particular form of egoism, which regularly -appears under certain definite physiological circumstances.</p> - -<p>When the Socialist, with righteous indignation, cries for "justice," -"rights," "equal rights," it only shows that he is oppressed by his -inadequate culture, and is unable to understand why he suffers: he -also finds pleasure in crying;—if he were more at ease he would take -jolly good care not to cry in that way: in that case he would<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span> seek his -pleasure elsewhere. The same holds good of the Christian: he curses, -condemns, and slanders the "world"—and does not even except himself. -But that is no reason for taking him seriously. In both cases we are -in the presence of invalids who feel better for crying, and who find -relief in slander. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">298</span></p> - -<p>I value a man according to the <i>quantum of power and fulness of his -will;</i> not according to the enfeeblement and moribund state thereof. I -consider that a philosophy which <i>teaches</i> the denial of will is both -defamatory and slanderous.... I test the <i>power</i> of a <i>will</i> according -to the amount of resistance it can offer and the amount of pain and -torture it can endure and know how to turn to its own advantage; I -do not point to the evil and pain of existence with the finger of -reproach, but rather entertain the hope that life may one day be more -evil and more full of suffering than it has ever been. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">304</span></p> - -<p>My ultimate conclusion is, that the real man represents a much higher -value than the "desirable" man of any ideal that has ever existed -hitherto; that all "desiderata" in regard to mankind have been -absurd and dangerous dissipations by means of which a particular -kind of man has sought to establish his measures of preservation -and of growth as a law for all; that every "desideratum" of this -kind which has been made to dominate has <i>reduced</i> man's worth, his -strength, and his trust in the future; that the indigence and mediocre -intellectuality of man becomes most apparent, even to-day, when he -reveals a <i>desire;</i> that man's ability to fix values has hitherto been -developed too inadequately to do justice to the actual, not merely to -the "desirable," <i>worth of man;</i> that, up to the present, ideals have -really been the power which has most slandered man and power, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> -poisonous fumes which have hung over reality, and which have <i>seduced -men to yearn for nonentity</i>.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">311</span></p> - -<p>One must be very immoral in order to <i>make people moral by deeds.</i> The -moralist's means are the most terrible that have ever been used; he -who has not the courage to be an immoralist in deeds may be fit for -anything else, but not for the duties of a moralist. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">314</span></p> - -<p>The priests of all ages have always pretended that they wished to -"improve.. ... But we, of another persuasion, would laugh if a -lion-tamer ever wished to speak to us of his "improved" animals. As a -rule, the taming of a beast is only achieved by deteriorating it: even -the moral man is not a better man; he is rather a weaker member of his -species. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">319</span></p> - -<p>Up to the present, morality has developed at the <i>cost</i> of: the -ruling classes and their specific instincts, the well-constituted and -<i>beautiful</i> natures, the independent and privileged classes in all -respects.</p> - -<p>Morality, then, is a sort of counter-movement opposing Nature's -endeavours to arrive at a <i>higher type.</i> Its effects are: mistrust -of life in general (in so far as its tendencies are felt to be -immoral),—hostility towards the senses (inasmuch as the highest values -are felt to be opposed to the higher instincts).—Degeneration and -self-destruction of "higher natures," because it is precisely in them -that the conflict becomes <i>conscious.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">321</span></p> - -<p>Suppose the <i>strong</i> were masters in all respects, even in valuing: -let us try and think what their attitude would be towards illness, -suffering, and sacrifice. Self-contempt on the part of the weak would -be the result: they would do their utmost to disappear and to extirpate -their kind. And would this be desirable?—should we really like a world -in which the subtlety, the consideration, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span> intellectuality, the -<i>plasticity</i>—in fact, the whole influence of the weak—was lacking? -... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">323</span></p> - -<p>Under "Spiritual freedom" I understand something very definite: it is -a state in which one is a hundred times superior to philosophers and -other disciples of "truth" in one's severity towards one's self, in -one's uprightness, in one's courage, and in one's absolute will to say -nay even when it is dangerous to say nay. I regard the philosophers -that have appeared heretofore as <i>contemptible libertines</i> hiding -behind the petticoats of the female "Truth." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">384</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="XII" id="XII">XII</a></h4> - - -<h3>"The Will to Power"</h3> - -<h4>Volume II</h4> - - -<p>The second volume of "The Will to Power," even in its present -fragmentary form, is the most important of Nietzsche's works. It -draws together under one cover many of the leading doctrines voiced -in his principal constructive books, and in addition states them in -terms of his fundamental postulate—the will to power. In Volume I -of this work we had the application of this doctrine to morality, -religion and philosophy. In the present book it is applied to science, -nature, society, breeding and art. The notes are more analytical than -in the former volume; and the subject-matter is in itself of greater -importance, being more directly concerned with the exposition of -Nietzsche's main theory. Volume II is also fuller and more homogeneous, -and contains much new material. So compact is its organisation that -one is able to gain a very adequate idea of the purpose which animated -Nietzsche at the time of making these notes.</p> - -<p>The will to power, the principle which Nietzsche held to be the -elementary expression of life, must be understood in order for one to -comprehend the Nietzschean system of ethics. Throughout all the books -which followed "The Joyful Wisdom" we have indirect references to it -and conclusions based on its assumption as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span> hypothesis. And, although -it was never definitely and finally defined until the publication of -the notes comprising "The Will to Power," it nevertheless was the -actuating motive in all Nietzsche's constructive writings. Simply -stated, the will to power is the biological instinct to maintenance, -persistence and development. Nietzsche holds that Darwin's universal -law of the instinct to mere survival is a misinterpretation of the -forces at work in life. He points out that existence is a condition—a -medium of action—and by no means an end. It is true that only the -fittest survive in nature as a result of the tendency to exist; but -this theory does not account for the activities which take place after -existence has been assured. In order to explain these activities -Nietzsche advances the theory of the will to power and tests all -actions by it. It will be seen that by this theory the universal law -of Darwin is by no means abrogated, but rather is it explained and -developed.</p> - -<p>In the operation of Darwin's biological law there are many forces -at work. That is to say, once the fact of existence is established, -numerous forces can be found at work within the limits of existence. -We know that the forces of nature—acting within the medium of -existence which is an <i>a priori</i> condition—are rarely unified and -directed toward the same result. In short, they are not reciprocal. -To the contrary, they work more often against each other—they are -antagonistic. Immediately a war of forces takes place; and it is this -war that constitutes all action in nature. A force in nature directed -at another force calls forth a resistance and counter-force; and this -instinct to act and to resist is in itself a will to act. Otherwise, -inertia would be the condition of life, once mere existence was assured -by the fittest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span> But life is not inert. Even when certain organisms -have accomplished the victory for existence, and are no longer moved by -a necessity to struggle for mere being, the will to action persists; -and this will to action, according to Nietzsche, is the will for power, -for in every clash of forces, there is an attempt on the part of each -force to overcome and resist the antagonistic one. The greater the -action, the greater the antagonism. Hence, this tendency in all forces -to <i>persist</i> is at bottom a tendency of self-assertion, of overcoming -counter-forces, of augmenting individual power. Wherever this will to -persist is found, Nietzsche argues that the will to act is present; and -there can be no will to act without a will to power, because the very -desire for existence and development is a desire for power.</p> - -<p>This, in brief, is Nietzsche's doctrine applied to the organic and -inorganic world. In its application to the ideological world, the -reasoning is not changed. In ideas Nietzsche finds this same will to -power. But in them it is the reflection of the principle inherent -in the material world. There is no will inherent in ideas. This -assumption of a reflected will to power in the ideological world is -one of Nietzsche's most important concepts, for it makes all ideas the -outgrowth of ourselves, and therefore dependent on natural laws. It -does away with the conception of supernatural power and with the old -philosophical belief that ideas are superior forces to those of the -organic and inorganic world. Nietzsche once and for all disposes of the -theory that there is anything more powerful than force, and by thus -doing away with this belief, he rationalises all ideas and puts thought -on a tangible and stable basis. In the opening section of the present -book where he applies the will to power to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> scientific research, the -whole of this new theory is made clear, and I advise the student to -read well this section, for I have been unable to present as clear and -complete an expositional statement of it in Nietzsche's own words as I -would have liked to do, owing to the close and interrelated manner in -which these notes were written.</p> - -<p>Volume II of "The Will to Power" is in two books. The first is called -"The Principles of a New Valuation"; the second, "Discipline and -Breeding." The first book is divided into four sections—"The Will -to Power in Science," "The Will to Power in Nature," "The Will to -Power as Exemplified in Society and in the Individual" and "The Will -to Power in Art." The second book has three divisions—"The Order of -Rank," "Dionysus" and "Eternal Recurrence." Of the first section of -Book One, "The Will to Power in Science," I have already spoken. In -this section Nietzsche shows how arbitrary a thing science is, and how -closely related are its conclusions to the instinct of the scientists, -namely: the instinct of the will to power. Scientists, he holds, are -confronted by the necessity of translating all phenomena into terms -compatible with the struggle for persistence and maintenance. A fact -in nature unaccounted for is a danger, an obstacle to the complete -mastery of natural conditions. Consequently the scientist, directed -and influenced by his will to power, invents explanations which will -bring all facts under his jurisdiction and control, and will thereby -increase his feeling of power. As a result, the great facts of life -are looked upon as of secondary importance to their explanations, and -science becomes, not an intelligent search for knowledge, but a system -of interpretations tending to increase the feeling of mastery in the -men directly connected with it. Thus the law of the will to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span> power, as -manifest in the organic and inorganic world, becomes the dominating -instinct in the ideological world as well.</p> - -<p>It is well to speak here of truth as Nietzsche conceived it. We have -seen how he denied its absolutism and declared it to be relative. But -in his present work he goes further and contends that the feeling of -the increase of power is the determining factor in truth. If, as we -have seen, the "truths" of science are merely those interpretations -which grow out of the scientists' will to power, then truth itself must -be the outgrowth of this instinct. That which makes for the growth and -development of the individual—or in other words, that which increases -the feeling of strength—is necessarily the truth. From this it is easy -to deduce the conclusion that in many instances truth is a reversal of -facts, for preservation very often consists in an adherence to actual -falsity. Thus, the false causality of certain phenomena—the outcome of -logic engendered by a will to power—has not infrequently masqueraded -as truth. Nietzsche holds that this doctrine contains the only possible -definition of truth; and in this doctrine we find an explanation for -many of the apparent paradoxes in his teachings when the matter of -truth and falsity are under discussion.</p> - -<p>The second part of the first book relates to the will to power in -nature, and contains the most complete and lucid explanation of -Nietzsche's basic theory to be found anywhere in his writings. -This section opens with an argument against a purely mechanical -interpretation of the world, and a refutation of the physicists' -concept of "energy." The chemical and physical laws, the atomic -theory and the mechanical concept of movement, he characterises as -"inventions" on the part of scientists and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span> researchers for the purpose -of understanding natural phenomena and therefore of increasing their -feeling of power. The apparent sequence of phenomena which constitutes -"law" is, according to Nietzsche, only a "relation of power between -two or more forces"—a matter of interdependence, a process wherein -the "procession of moments do <i>not</i> determine each other after the -manner of cause and effect." In these observations we see the process -of reasoning with which Nietzsche refutes the current methods of -ascertaining facts and the manner in which he introduces the principle -of will to power into the phenomena of nature.</p> - -<p>It is in this section that Nietzsche discusses at length the points -of divergence between his life principle and that of Darwin. And it -is here also that he treats of the psychology of pleasure and pain in -their relation to the will to power. This latter statement is of great -importance in an understanding of the instincts of life as he taught -them, for it denies both pleasure and pain a place in the determining -of acts. They are both, according to him, but accompanying factors, -never causes, and are but second-rate valuations derived from a -dominating value. He denies that man struggles for happiness. To the -contrary, he holds that all expansion and growth and resistance—in -short, all movement—is related to states of pain, and that, although -the modern man is master of the forces of nature and of himself, he -is no happier than the primeval man. Why, then, does man struggle for -knowledge and growth, knowing that it does not bring happiness? Not for -existence, because existence is already assured him. But for power, -for the feeling of increased mastery. Thus Nietzsche answers the two -common explanations of man's will to action—the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span> need for being and -the desire for happiness—by his doctrine of the will to power.</p> - -<p>The entire teaching of Nietzsche in regard to classes and to the -necessity of divergent moral codes to meet the needs of higher and -lower castes, is contained in the third part of the first book. Here -again he emphasises the need of two codes and makes clear his stand -in relation to the superior individual. As I have pointed out in -preceding chapters, Nietzsche did not attempt to do away with the -morality of the inferior classes. He saw that some such religious -belief as Christianity was imperative for them. His fight was against -its application to all classes, against its dominance. I mention this -point again because it is the basis of the greatest misunderstanding -of Nietzsche's philosophy. Part III is written for the higher man, and -if this viewpoint is assumed on the part of the reader, there will -be no confusion as to doctrines encountered. The statements in this -section are in effect similar to those to be found in Nietzsche's -previous works, but in every instance in the present case they are -directly related to the will to power. Because of this they possess a -significance which does not attach to them in antecedent volumes.</p> - -<p>The whole of Nietzsche's art theories are to be found in Part IV, -"The Will to Power in Art." It is not merely a system of æsthetics -that occupies the pages under this section, for Nietzsche never -divorces art from life itself; and the artist, according to him, is -the superior type, the creator of values. The concepts of beauty and -ugliness are the outgrowths of an overflow of Dionysian power; and -it is to the great artists of the past, the instinctive higher men, -that we owe our current concepts. The principle here is the dominant -one in Nietzsche's<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span> philosophy in relation to valuing:—<i>to the few -individuals of the race are we indebted for the world of values.</i> To -the student who wishes to go deeply into Nietzsche's ideas of art and -his conception of the artist, and to know in just what manner the -Dionysian and Apollonian figure in his theories, I unhesitatingly -recommend Anthony M. Ludovici's book, "Nietzsche and Art."</p> - -<p>The first section of the second book in this volume contains some of -Nietzsche's finest writing. Its title, "The Order of Rank," explains in -a large measure what material comprises it. It is a description of the -various degrees of man, and a statement of the attributes which belong -to each. No better definition of the different classes of men is to -be found anywhere in this philosopher's writings. One part is devoted -to a consideration of the strong and the weak, and the way in which -they react on one another; another part deals with "the noble man" -and contains (in Aphorism 943) a list of the characteristics of the -noble man, unfortunately too long a list to be quoted in the present -chapter; another part defines "the lords of the earth"; another part -delineates "the great man," and enumerates his specific qualities; -and still another part treats of "the highest man as law-giver of the -future." This section, however, is not a mere series of detached and -isolated definitions, but an important summary of the ethical code -which Nietzsche advanced as a result of his application of the doctrine -of the will to power to the order of individual rank.</p> - -<p>The two remaining sections—"Dionysus" and "Eternal Recurrence"—are -short, and fail to touch on new ground. There are a few robust and -heroic passages in the former section which summarise Nietzsche's -definitions of Apollonian and Dionysian; but in the latter<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span> section -there is nothing not found in the pamphlet called "The Eternal -Recurrence" and in "Thus Spake Zarathustra." I do not doubt that -Nietzsche had every intention of elaborating this last section, for -he considered the principle of recurrence a most important one in his -philosophy. But, as it stands, it is but a few pages in length and in -no way touches upon his other philosophical doctrines. If importance it -had in the philosophy of the superman, that importance was never shown -either by Nietzsche or by his critics.</p> - -<p>However, let us not overlook the importance of the doctrine of the -will to power either in its relation to Nietzsche's writings or in its -application to ourselves. By this doctrine the philosopher wished to -make mankind realise its great dormant power. The insistence on the -human basis of all things was no more than a call to arms—an attempt -to instil courage in men who had attributed all great phenomena to -supernatural forces and had therefore acquiesced before them instead -of having endeavoured to conquer them. Nietzsche's object was to make -man surer of himself, to infuse him with pride, to imbue him with more -daring, to awaken him to a full realisation of his possibilities. -This, in brief, is the teaching of the will to power reduced to its -immediate influences. In this doctrine is preached a new virility. -Not the sedentary virility of compromise, but the virility which is -born of struggle and suffering, which is a sign of one's great love -of living. Nietzsche offered a new set of vital ideals to supplant -the decadent ones which now govern us. Resolute faith, the power of -affirmation, initiative, pride, courage and fearlessness—these are the -rewards in the exercise of the will to power. The strength of great -love and the vitality of great deeds, as<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span> well as the possibility of -rare and vigorous growth, lie within this doctrine of will. Its object -is to give back to us the life we have lost—the life of beauty and -plenitude, of strength and exuberance.</p> - -<hr class="r5" /> -<p class="center">EXCERPTS FROM "THE WILL TO POWER" volume II</p> - -<p>For hundreds of years, pleasure and pain have been represented as the -<i>motives</i> for every action. Upon reflection, however, we are bound to -concede that everything would have proceeded in exactly the same way, -according to precisely the same sequence of cause and effect, if the -states "pleasure" and "pain" had been entirely absent. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">8</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">9</span></p> - -<p>The <i>measure</i> of the desire for knowledge depends upon the extent to -which <i>the Will to Power</i> grows in a certain species: a species gets a -grasp of a given amount of reality, <i>in order to master it, in order to -enlist that amount in its service.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">12</span></p> - -<p>It is our needs that <i>interpret the world;</i> our instincts and their -impulses for and against. Every instinct is a sort of thirst for -power.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">13</span></p> - -<p>That a belief, however useful it may be for the preservation of a -species, has nothing to do with the truth, may be seen from the fact -that we <i>must</i> believe in time, space, and motion, without feeling -ourselves compelled to regard them as absolute realities. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">16</span></p> - -<p><i>Truth is that hind of error</i> without which a certain species of living -being cannot exist. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">20</span></p> - -<p>In the formation of reason, logic, and the categories, it was a <i>need</i> -in us that was the determining power: not the need "to know," but -to classify, to schematise, for the purpose of intelligibility and -calculation. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">29</span></p> - -<p>Logic is the attempt on our part to understand the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span> actual world -according to a scheme of Being devised by ourselves; or, more exactly, -it is our attempt at making the actual world more calculable and more -susceptible to formulation, for our own purposes.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">33</span></p> - -<p>"Truth" is the will to be master over the manifold sensations that -reach consciousness; it is the will to <i>classify</i> phenomena according -to definite categories. In this way we start out with a belief in the -"true nature" of things (we regard phenomena as real).</p> - -<p>The character of the world in the process of Becoming <i>is not -susceptible of formulation;</i> it is "false" and "contradicts itself." -<i>Knowledge</i> and the process of evolution exclude each other. -<i>Consequently,</i> knowledge must be something else; it must be preceded -by a will to make things knowable, a kind of Becoming in itself must -create the <i>impression</i> of <i>Being.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">33</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">34</span></p> - -<p><i>The chief error of psychologists:</i> they regard the indistinct idea -as of a lower <i>kind</i> than the <i>distinct;</i> but that which keeps at a -distance from our consciousness and which is therefore <i>obscure, may</i> -on that very account be quite clear in itself. <i>The fact that a thing -becomes obscure is a question of the perspective of consciousness.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">42</span></p> - -<p>The criterion of truth lies in the enhancement of the feeling of power. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">49</span></p> - -<p>Logic was intended to be a method of facilitating thought: <i>a means of -expression,</i>—not truth.... Later on it got to <i>act</i> like truth.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">50</span></p> - -<p>In a world which was essentially false, truthfulness would be an -<i>anti-natural tendency:</i> its only purpose would be to provide a means -of attaining to a <i>higher degree of falsity.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">51</span></p> - -<p>We have absolutely no experience concerning <i>cause;</i> viewed -psychologically we derive the whole concept<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span> from the subjective -conviction, that <i>we</i> ourselves are causes. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">55</span></p> - -<p>"Truth" is not something which is present and which has to be found and -discovered; it is something <i>which has to be created</i> and which <i>gives</i> -its name <i>to a process,</i> or, better still, to the Will to overpower, -which in itself has no purpose.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">60</span></p> - -<p>The absolute is even an absurd concept: an "absolute mode of existence" -is nonsense, the concept "being," "thing," is always <i>relative</i> to us.</p> - -<p>The trouble is that, owing to the old antithesis "apparent" and "real," -the correlative valuations "little value" and "absolute value" have -been spread abroad. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">83</span></p> - -<p>Man seeks "the truth": a world that does not contradict itself, that -does not deceive, that does not change, a <i>real</i> world—a world in -which there is no suffering: contradiction, deception, variability—the -causes of suffering. He does not doubt that there is such a thing as a -world as it ought to be; he would fain find a road to it.... Obviously, -the will to truth is <i>merely</i> the longing for a <i>stable world.</i></p> - -<p>The senses deceive; reason corrects the errors: <i>therefore,</i> it was -concluded, reason is the road to a static state; the most <i>spiritual</i> -ideas must be nearest to the "real world." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">88</span></p> - -<p>The degree of a man's will-power may be measured from the extent to -which he can dispense with the meaning in things, from the extent to -which he is able to endure a world without meaning: <i>because he himself -arranges a small portion of it.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">90</span></p> - -<p>There is no such thing as an established fact, everything fluctuates, -everything is intangible, yielding; after all, the most lasting of all -things are our opinions. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">103</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span></p> - -<p>That the <i>worth of the world</i> lies in our interpretations (that perhaps -yet other interpretations are possible somewhere, besides mankind's); -that the interpretations made hitherto were perspective valuations, -by means of which we were able to survive in life, i. e. in the Will -to Power and in the growth of power; that every <i>elevation of man</i> -involves the overcoming of narrower interpretations; that every higher -degree of strength or power attained, brings new views in its train, -and teaches a belief in new horizons—these doctrines lie scattered -through all my works. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">107</span></p> - -<p>The triumphant concept <i>"energy"</i> with which our physicists created God -and the world, needs yet to be completer: it must be given an inner -will which I characterise as the "Will to Power"—that is to say, as an -insatiable desire to manifest power; or the application and exercise of -power as a creative instinct, etc.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">110</span></p> - -<p>The unalterable sequence of certain phenomena does not prove any "law," -but a relation of power between two or more forces. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">115</span></p> - -<p>A quantum of power is characterised by the effect it produces and -the influence it resists. The adiaphoric state which would be -thinkable in itself, is entirely lacking. It is essentially a will to -violence and a will to defend one's self against violence. It is not -self-preservation: every atom exercises its influence over the whole of -existence—it is thought out of existence if one thinks this radiation -of will-power away. That is why I call it a quantum of "Will to Power." -... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">117</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">118</span></p> - -<p>My idea is that every specific body strives to become master of all -space, and to extend its power (its will to power), and to thrust -back everything that resists it. But inasmuch as it is continually -meeting the same<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span> endeavours on the part of other bodies, it concludes -by coming to terms with those (by "combining" with those) which are -sufficiently related to it—<i>and thus they conspire together for -power.</i> And the process continues. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">121</span></p> - -<p>The influence of "environment" is nonsensically <i>over-rated</i> in Darwin: -the essential factor in the process of life is precisely the tremendous -inner power to shape and to create forms, which merely <i>uses, exploits</i> -"environment." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">127</span></p> - -<p>The <i>feeling of being surcharged,</i> the feeling accompanying an -<i>increase in strength,</i> quite apart from the utility of the struggle, -is the actual <i>progress:</i> from these feelings the will to war is first -derived. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">128</span></p> - -<p>A living thing seeks above all to <i>discharge</i> its strength: -<i>"self-preservation"</i> is only one of the results thereof.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">128</span></p> - -<p>The most fundamental and most primeval activity of a protoplasm cannot -be ascribed to a will to self-preservation, for it absorbs an amount -of material which is absurdly out of proportion with the needs of its -preservation: and what is more, it does <i>not</i> "preserve itself" in the -process, but actually falls to <i>pieces ...</i>. The instinct which rules -here, must account for this total absence in the organism of a desire -to preserve itself.</p> - -<p>The will to power can manifest itself only against <i>obstacles:</i> it -therefore goes in search of what resists it—this is the primitive -tendency of the protoplasm when it extends its <i>pseudopodia</i> and feels -about it. The act of appropriation and assimilation is, above all, -the result of an additional building and rebuilding, until at last -the subjected creature has become completely a part of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span> superior -creature's sphere of power, and has increased the latter.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">130</span></p> - -<p>Why is all <i>activity,</i> even that of a <i>sense,</i> associated with -pleasure? Because, before the activity was possible, an obstacle or a -burden was done away with. Or, rather, because all action is a process -of overcoming, of becoming master of, and of <i>increasing</i> the <i>feeling -of power?</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">135</span></p> - -<p>Man is <i>not</i> only an individual, but the continuation of collective -organic life in one definite line. The fact that <i>man</i> survives, -proves that a certain species of interpretations (even though it still -be added to) has also survived; that, as a system, this method of -interpreting has not changed. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">152</span></p> - -<p>The fundamental phenomena: <i>innumerable individuals are sacrificed for -the sake of a few,</i> in order to make the few possible.—One must not -allow one's self to be deceived; the case is the same with <i>peoples</i> -and <i>races:</i> they produce the "body" for the generation of isolated and -valuable <i>individuals,</i> who continue the great process. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">153</span></p> - -<p>Life is <i>not</i> the continuous adjustment of internal relations to -external relations, but will to power, which, proceeding from inside, -subjugates and incorporates an ever-increasing quantity of "external" -phenomena. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">153</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">154</span></p> - -<p>Man as a species is not progressing. Higher specimens are indeed -attained; but they do not survive. The general level of the species is -not raised.... Man as a species does not represent any sort of progress -compared with any other animal. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">157</span></p> - -<p>The domestication (culture) of man does not sink very deep. When it -does sink far below the skin it immediately becomes degeneration (type: -the Christian). The<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span> "wild" man (or, in moral terminology, the <i>evil</i> -man) is a reversion to Nature—and, in a certain sense, he represents a -recovery, a <i>cure</i> from the effects of "culture."... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">158</span></p> - -<p>The strong always have to be upheld against the weak; and the -well-constituted against the ill-constituted, the healthy against -the sick and physiologically botched. If we drew our morals from -reality, they would read thus: the mediocre are more valuable than the -exceptional creatures, and the decadent than the mediocre; the will to -nonentity prevails over the will to life.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">159</span></p> - -<p>That species show an ascending tendency, is the most nonsensical -assertion that has ever been made: until now they have only manifested -a dead level. There is nothing whatever to prove that the higher -organisms have developed from the lower. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">160</span></p> - -<p>Man as he has appeared up to the present is the embryo of the man -of the future; <i>all</i> the formative powers which are to produce the -latter, already lie in the former: and owing to the fact that they are -enormous, the more <i>promising for the future</i> the modern individual -happens to be, the more <i>suffering</i> falls to his lot. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">161</span></p> - -<p>The will to power is the primitive motive force out of which all other -motives have been derived. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">162</span></p> - -<p>From a psychological point of view the idea of "cause" is our feeling -of power in the act which is called willing—our concept "effect" is -the superstition that this feeling of power is itself the force which -moves things.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">163</span></p> - -<p>Life as an individual case (a hypothesis which may be applied to -existence in general) strives after the maximum feeling of power; life -is essentially a striving after more power; striving itself is only a -straining after more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span> power; the most fundamental and innermost thing -of all is this will. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">165</span></p> - -<p>Man does not seek happiness and does not avoid unhappiness. Everybody -knows the famous prejudices I here contradict. Pleasure and pain are -mere results, mere accompanying phenomena—that which every man, which -every tiny particle of a living organism will have, is an increase of -power. In striving after this, pleasure and pain are encountered; it is -owing to that will that the organism seeks opposition and requires that -which stands in its way.... Pain as the hindrance of its will to power -is therefore a normal feature, a natural ingredient of every organic -phenomenon; man does not avoid it; on the contrary, he is constantly -in need of it; every triumph, every feeling of pleasure, every event -presupposes an obstacle overcome. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">172</span></p> - -<p>Man is now master of the forces of nature, and master too of his own -wild and unbridled feelings (the passions have followed suit, and have -learned to become useful)—in comparison with primeval man, the man of -to-day represents an enormous quantum of power, but not an increase -in happiness. How can one maintain, then, that he has striven after -happiness? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">174</span></p> - -<p>"God" is the culminating moment: life is an eternal process of deifying -and undeifying. <i>But withal there is no zenith of values,</i> but only a -zenith of <i>power.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">181</span></p> - -<p>Man has one terrible and fundamental wish; he desires power, and this -impulse, which is called freedom, must be the longest restrained. Hence -ethics has instinctively aimed at such an education as shall restrain -the desire for power; thus our morality slanders the would-be tyrant, -and glorifies charity, patriotism, and the ambition of the herd. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">186</span></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span></p> - -<p>When the instincts of a society ultimately make it give up war and -renounce conquest, it is decadent: it is ripe for democracy and the -rule of shopkeepers. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">189</span></p> - -<p>The maintenance of the military State is the last means of adhering to -the great tradition of the past; or, where it has been lost, to revive -it. By means of it the superior or strong type of man is preserved, and -all institutions and ideas which perpetuate enmity and order of rank in -States such as national feeling, protective tariffs, etc., may on that -account seem justified. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">190</span></p> - -<p><i>Concerning the future of marriage.</i>—A supertax on inherited property, -a longer term of military service for bachelors of a certain minimum -age within the community.</p> - -<p>Privileges of all sorts for fathers who lavish boys upon the world, and -perhaps plural votes as well.</p> - -<p>A medical certificate as a condition of any marriage, endorsed by the -parochial authorities, in which a series of questions addressed to the -parties and the medical officers must be answered ("family histories").</p> - -<p>As a counter-agent to prostitution, or as its ennoblement, I would -recommend leasehold marriages (to last for a term of years or months), -with adequate provision for the children.</p> - -<p>Every marriage to be warranted and sanctioned by a certain number of -good men and true, of the parish, as a parochial obligation. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">193</span></p> - -<p>Society ... should in many cases actually prevent the act of -procreation, and may, without any regard for rank, descent, or -intellect, hold in readiness the most rigorous forms of compulsion -and restriction, and, under certain circumstances, have recourse to -castration. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">194</span></p> - -<p>The idea of punishment ought to be reduced to the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span> concept of the -suppression of revolt, a weapon against the vanquished (by means of -long or short terms of imprisonment). But punishment should not be -associated in any way with contempt. A criminal is at all events a man -who has set his life, his honour, his freedom at stake; he is therefore -a man of courage. Neither should punishment be regarded as penance or -retribution, as though there were some recognised rate of exchange -between crime and punishment. Punishment does not purify, simply -because crime does not sully. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">198</span></p> - -<p>Should not the punishment fit the crime? <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">200</span></p> - -<p>"The will to power" is so loathed in democratic ages that the whole of -the psychology of these ages seems directed towards its belittlement -and slander. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">205</span></p> - -<p>I am opposed to Socialism because it dreams ingenuously of "goodness, -truth, beauty, and equal rights" (anarchy pursues the same ideal, but -in a more brutal fashion).</p> - -<p>I am opposed to parliamentary government and the power of the press, -because they are the means whereby cattle become masters. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">206</span></p> - -<p>The idea of a higher order of man is hated much more profoundly than -monarchs themselves. Hatred of aristocracy always uses hatred of -monarchy as a mask. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">207</span></p> - -<p>Utility and pleasure are slave theories of life. "The blessing of work" -is an ennobling phrase for slaves. Incapacity for leisure. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">208</span></p> - -<p>There is no such thing as a right to live, a right to work, or a right -to be happy: in this respect man is no different from the meanest worm. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">208</span></p> - -<p><i>Fundamental errors:</i> to regard the herd as an aim instead of the -individual! The herd is only a means and nothing <i>more! </i> But -nowadays people are trying to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span> understand <i>the herd</i> as they would an -individual, and to confer higher rights upon it than upon isolated -personalities. In addition to this, all that makes for gregariousness, -<i>e.g.,</i> sympathy, is regarded as the <i>more valuable</i> side of our -natures. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">214</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">215</span></p> - -<p><i>The will to power</i> appears:—</p> - -<blockquote> - -<p>(a) Among the oppressed and slaves of all kinds, in the form -of will to <i>"freedom":</i> the mere fact of breaking loose from -something seems to be an end in itself (in a religio-moral -sense: "One is only answerable to one's own conscience"; -"evangelical freedom," etc., etc.).</p> - -<p>(b) In the case of a stronger species, ascending to power, -in the form of the will to overpower. If this fails, then -it shrinks to the "will to justice"—that is to say, to -the will to the same measure of rights as the ruling caste -possesses.</p> - -<p>(c) In the case of the strongest, richest, most independent, -and most courageous, in the form of "love of humanity," of -"love of the people," of the "gospel," of "truth," of "God," -of "pity," of "self-sacrifice," etc., etc.; in the form of -overpowering, of deeds of capture, of imposing service on -some one, of an instinctive reckoning of one's self as part -of a great mass of power to which one attempts to give a -direction: the hero, the prophet, the Cæsar, the Saviour, -the bell-wether. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">220</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">221</span></p></blockquote> - -<p><i>Individualism</i> is a modest and still unconscious form of will to -power; with it a single human unit seems to think it sufficient to free -himself from the preponderating power of society (or of the State or -Church). He does not set himself up in opposition as a <i>personality,</i> -but merely as a unit; he represents the rights of all other individuals -as against the whole. That is to say, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> instinctively places himself -on a level with every other unit: what he combats he does not combat as -a person, but as a representative of units against a mass. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">227</span></p> - -<p>There are no such things as moral actions: they are purely imaginary. -Not only is it impossible to demonstrate their existence (a fact -which Kant and Christianity, for instance, both acknowledge)—but -they are not even possible. Owing to psychological misunderstanding, -man invented an <i>opposite</i> to the instinctive impulses of life, and -believed that a new species of instinct was thereby discovered: a -<i>primum mobile</i> was postulated which does not exist at all. According -to the valuation which gave rise to the antithesis "moral" and -"immoral," one should say: <i>There is nothing else on earth but immoral -intentions and actions.</i></p> - -<p>The whole differentiation, "moral" and "immoral," arises from the -assumption that both moral and immoral actions are the result of a -spontaneous will—in short, that such a will exists; or in other words, -that moral judgments can only hold good with regard to intuitions and -actions <i>that are free.</i> But this whole order of actions and intentions -is purely imaginary: the only world to which the moral standard could -be applied does not exist at all: <i>there is no such thing as a moral or -an immoral action.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">230</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">231</span></p> - -<p>There are two conditions in which art manifests itself in man even as -a force of nature, and disposes of him whether he consent or not: it -may be as a constraint to visionary states, or it may be an orgiastic -impulse. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">240</span></p> - -<p><i>Sexuality, intoxication, cruelty;</i> all these belong to the oldest -<i>festal joys</i> of mankind, they also preponderate in budding artists. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">243</span></p> - -<p>The desire for art and beauty is an indirect longing<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span> for the ecstasy -of sexual desire, which gets communicated to the brain. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">248</span></p> - -<p>All art works as a <i>tonic;</i> it increases strength, it kindles desire -(<i>i.e.,</i> the feeling of strength), it excites all the more subtle -recollections of intoxication.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">252</span></p> - -<p>The inartistic states are: objectivity, reflection, suspension of the -will.... The inartistic states are: those which impoverish, which -subtract, which bleach, under which life suffers—the Christian. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">257</span></p> - -<p>Would any link be missing in the whole chain of science and art, if -woman, if woman's work, were excluded from it? Let us acknowledge the -exception—it proves the rule—that woman is capable of perfection in -everything which does not constitute a work: in letters, in memoirs, in -the most intricate handiwork—in short, in everything which is not a -craft.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">260</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">261</span></p> - -<p>A man is an artist to the extent to which he regards everything -that inartistic people call "form" as the actual substance, as the -"principal" thing. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">261</span></p> - -<p>The essential feature in art is its power of perfecting existence, -its production of perfection and plenitude; art is essentially the -affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of existence.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">263</span></p> - -<p>The greatness of an artist is not to be measured by the beautiful -feelings which he evokes: let this belief be left to the girls. It -should be measured according to the extent to which he approaches the -grand style, according to the extent to which he is capable of the -grand style. This style and great passion have this in common—that -they scorn to please; that they forget to persuade: that they command; -that they will.... To become master of the chaos which is in one; to -compel one's inner chaos to assume form; to become consistent, simple, -unequivocal,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span> mathematical, law—this is the great ambition here. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">277</span></p> - -<p>A preference for questionable and terrible things is a symptom of -strength; whereas the taste for pretty and charming trifles is -characteristic of the weak and the delicate. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">287</span></p> - -<p>Art is the great means of making life possible, the great seducer to -life, the great stimulus of life.</p> - -<p>Art is the only superior counter-agent to all will to the denial of -life; it is <i>par excellence</i> the anti-Christian, the anti-Buddhistic, -the anti-Nihilistic force. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">290</span></p> - -<p>Quanta of power alone determine rank and distinguish rank: nothing else -does. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">295</span></p> - -<p>It is necessary for <i>higher</i> men to declare war upon the masses! In -all directions mediocre people are joining hands in order to make -themselves masters. Everything that pampers, that softens, and that -brings the "people" or "woman" to the front, operates in favour of -universal suffrage—that is to say, the dominion of <i>inferior</i> men. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">297</span></p> - -<p>Woman has always conspired with decadent types,—the priests, for -instance,—against the "mighty," against the "strong," against <i>men.</i> -Women avail themselves of children for the cult of piety, pity, and -love:—the <i>mother</i> stands as the symbol of <i>convincing</i> altruism. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">300</span></p> - -<p>It is <i>necessary</i> to show <i>that a counter-movement is inevitably -associated</i> with any increasingly economical consumption of men -and mankind, and with an ever more closely involved "machinery" of -interests and services. I call this counter-movement the <i>separation -of the luxurious surplus of mankind:</i> by means of it a stronger kind, -a higher type, must come to light, which has other conditions for its -origin and for its maintenance than the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span> average man. My concept, my -metaphor for this type is, as you know, the word "Superman." <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">305</span></p> - -<p>Readers are beginning to see what I am combating—namely, <i>economic</i> -optimism: as if the general welfare of everybody must necessarily -increase with the growing self-sacrifice of everybody. The very reverse -seems to me to be the case, <i>the self-sacrifice of everybody amounts to -a collective loss;</i> man becomes <i>inferior</i>—so that nobody knows what -end this monstrous purpose has served. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">306</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">307</span></p> - -<p><i>The root of all evil:</i> that the slave morality of modesty, chastity, -selfishness, and absolute obedience should have triumphed. Dominating -natures were thus condemned (1) to hypocrisy, (2) to qualms of -conscience,—creative natures regarded themselves as rebels against -God, uncertain and hemmed in by eternal values. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">309</span></p> - -<p>That which <i>men of power and will are able to demand of themselves</i> -gives them the standard for what they may also allow themselves. Such -natures are the very opposite of the <i>vicious</i> and the <i>unbridled:</i> -although under certain circumstances they may perpetrate deeds for -which an inferior man would be convicted of vice and intemperance.</p> - -<p>In this respect the concept, <i>"all men are equal before God"</i> does -an extraordinary amount of harm; actions and attitudes of mind were -forbidden which belonged to the prerogative of the strong alone, just -as if they were in themselves unworthy of man. All the tendencies of -strong men were brought into disrepute by the fact that the defensive -weapons of the most weak (even of those who were weakest towards -themselves) were established as a standard of valuation. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">311</span></p> - -<p><i>The degeneration of the ruler and of the ruling classes</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span> has been the -cause of all the great disorders in history! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">312</span></p> - -<p>The solitary type should not be valued from the standpoint of the -gregarious type, or <i>vice versa.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">320</span></p> - -<p>Who would dare to disgust the mediocre of their mediocrity! As -you observe, I do precisely the reverse: every step away from -mediocrity—thus do I teach—leads to <i>immorality.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">324</span></p> - -<p>What I combat: that an exceptional form should make war upon the -rule—instead of understanding that the continued existence of the rule -is the first condition of the value of the exception. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">325</span></p> - -<p>One should not suppose the mission of a higher species to be the -<i>leading</i> of inferior men (as Comte does, for instance); but the -inferior should be regarded as the <i>foundation</i> upon which a higher -species may live their higher life—upon which alone they <i>can stand.</i> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">329</span></p> - -<p>My consolation is, that the nature of man is <i>evil,</i> and this -guarantees his <i>strength!</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">332</span></p> - -<p>There is no true scholar who has not the instincts of a true soldier -in his veins. To be able to command and to be able to obey in a proud -fashion; to keep one's place in rank and file, and yet to be ready at -any moment to lead; to prefer danger to comfort; not to weigh what is -permitted and what is forbidden in a tradesman's balance; to be more -hostile to pettiness, slyness, and parasitism than to wickedness. What -is it that one <i>learns</i> in a hard school?—to <i>obey</i> and to <i>command.</i> -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">335</span></p> - -<p><i>The means by which a strong species maintains itself:—</i></p> - -<p>It grants itself the right of exceptional actions, as a test of the -power of self-control and of freedom.</p> - -<p>It abandons itself to states in which a man is not allowed to be -anything else than a barbarian.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span></p> - -<p>It tries to acquire strength of will by every kind of asceticism.</p> - -<p>It is not expansive; it practises silence; it is cautious in regard to -all charms.</p> - -<p>It learns to obey in such a way that obedience provides a test of -self-maintenance. Casuistry is carried to its highest pitch in regard -to points of honour.</p> - -<p>It never argues, "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the -gander"—but conversely! it regards reward, and the ability to repay, -as a privilege, as a distinction.</p> - -<p>It does not covet <i>other</i> people's virtues. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">341</span></p> - -<p>The <i>blind yielding</i> to a passion, whether it be generosity, pity, or -hostility, is the cause of the greatest evil. Greatness of character -does not consist in not possessing these passions—on the contrary, a -man should possess them to a terrible degree: but he should lead them -by the bridle.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">346</span></p> - -<p>Education: essentially a means of <i>ruining</i> exceptions in favour of the -rule. Culture: essentially the means of directing taste against the -exceptions in favour of the mediocre. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">349</span></p> - -<p><i>What is noble?</i>—The fact that one is constantly forced to be playing -a part. That one is constantly searching for situations in which one -is forced to put on airs. That one leaves happiness to the <i>greatest -number:</i> the happiness which consists of inner peacefulness, of virtue, -of comfort, and of Anglo-angelic-back-parlour-smugness, à la Spencer. -That one instinctively seeks for heavy responsibilities. That one knows -how to create enemies everywhere, at a pinch even in one's self. That -one contradicts the <i>greatest number,</i> not in words at all, but by -continually behaving differently from them. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">357</span></p> - -<p>The first thing that must be done is to rear a <i>new kind</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[Pg 327]</a></span> of man in -whom the duration of the necessary will and the necessary instincts -is guaranteed for many generations. This must be a new kind of ruling -species and caste—this ought to be quite as clear as the somewhat -lengthy and not easily expressed consequences of this thought. The aim -should be to prepare a <i>transvaluation of values</i> for a particularly -strong kind of man, most highly gifted in intellect and will, and, -to his end, slowly and cautiously to liberate in him a whole host of -slandered instincts hitherto held in check.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">363</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">364</span></p> - -<p>The revolution, confusion, and distress of whole peoples is in my -opinion of less importance than <i>the misfortunes which attend great -individuals in their development.</i> We must not allow ourselves to be -deceived: the many misfortunes of all these small folk do not together -constitute a sum-total, except in the feelings of <i>mighty</i> men. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">369</span></p> - -<p>The greatest men may also perhaps have great virtues, but then they -also have the opposites of these virtues. I believe that it is -precisely out of the presence of these opposites and of the feelings -they suscitate, that the great man arises,—for the great man is the -broad arch which spans two banks lying far apart. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">370</span></p> - -<p>In <i>great men</i> we find the specific qualities of life in their highest -manifestation: injustice, falsehood, exploitation. But inasmuch as -their effect has always been <i>overwhelming,</i> their essential nature has -been most thoroughly misunderstood, and interpreted as goodness. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">370</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">371</span></p> - -<p>We must <i>not</i> make men "better," we must <i>not</i> talk to them about -morality in any form as if "morality in itself," or an ideal kind -of man in general, could be taken for granted; but we must <i>create -circumstances</i> in which <i>stronger men are necessary,</i> such as for -their part will<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[Pg 328]</a></span> require a morality (or, better still: a bodily and -spiritual discipline) which makes men strong, and upon which they will -consequently insist! <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">379</span></p> - -<p>We must not separate greatness of soul from intellectual greatness. -For the former involves <i>independence;</i> but without intellectual -greatness independence should not be allowed; all it does is to create -disasters even in its lust of well-doing and of practising "justice." -Inferior spirits <i>must</i> obey, consequently they cannot be possessed of -greatness. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">380</span></p> - -<p>I teach that there are higher and lower men, and that a single -individual may under certain circumstances justify whole millenniums of -existence—that is to say, a wealthier, more gifted, greater, and more -complete man, as compared with innumerable imperfect and fragmentary -men. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">386</span></p> - -<p>He who <i>determines</i> values and leads the will of millenniums, and does -this by leading the highest natures—he <i>is the highest man.</i> <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">386</span></p> - -<p>We should attain to such a height, to such a lofty eagle's ledge, in -our observation, as to be able to understand that everything happens, -<i>just as it ought to happen:</i> and that all "imperfection," and the pain -it brings, belong to all that which is most eminently desirable. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">389</span></p> - -<p><i>Pleasure</i> appears with the feeling of power.</p> - -<p><i>Happiness</i> means that power and triumph have entered into our -consciousness.</p> - -<p><i>Progress</i> is the strengthening of the type, the ability to exercise -great will-power: everything else is a misunderstanding and a danger. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">403</span></p> - -<p>Man is a combination of the <i>beast and the superbeast:</i> higher man a -combination of the monster and the superman: these opposites belong -to each other. With every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[Pg 329]</a></span> degree of a man's growth towards greatness -and loftiness, he also grows downwards into the depths and into the -terrible:... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">405</span></p> - -<p>The word <i>"Dionysian"</i> expresses: a constraint to unity, a soaring -above personality, the commonplace, society, reality, and above the -abyss of the <i>ephemeral;</i> the passionately painful sensation of -superabundance, in darker, fuller, and more fluctuating conditions; -an ecstatic saying of yea to the collective character of existence, -as that which remains the same, and equally mighty and blissful -throughout all change; the great pantheistic sympathy with pleasure -and pain, which declares even the most terrible and most questionable -qualities of existence good, and sanctifies them; the eternal will to -procreation, to fruitfulness, and to recurrence; the feeling of unity -in regard to the necessity of creating and annihilating. <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">415</span>-<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">416</span></p> - -<p>At this point I set up the Dionysus of the Greeks: the religious -affirmation of Life, of the whole of Life, not of denied and partial -Life.... <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">420</span></p> - -<p>God on the Cross is a curse upon Life, a signpost directing people to -deliver themselves from it;—Dionysus cut into pieces is a promise of -Life: it will be for ever born anew, and rise afresh from destruction. -<span style="font-size: 0.8em;">421</span></p> - -<hr class="chap" /> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[Pg 330]</a><br /><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[Pg 331]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h4><a name="BIBLIOGRAPHY" id="BIBLIOGRAPHY">BIBLIOGRAPHY</a></h4> - - -<p>In the following list no attempt has been made at completion. I have -set down only the important and more useful works concerning Nietzsche -and his philosophy, and have further limited myself to such volumes -as are in English. I have omitted entirely the large number of essays -on Nietzsche which have appeared in magazines, as well as those books -which embody only the various Nietzschean ideas.</p> - - -<p class="center">EXPOSITIONAL BOOKS</p> - -<p><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">THE PHILOSOPHY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE</span>, by H. L. Mencken. A brilliantly -written and extensive exposition of Nietzsche's thought, including an -account of the philosopher's life, a discussion of his origins, a reply -to his critics, and a chapter on how to study him. Mr. Mencken's book, -though untechnical, is comprehensive, concise and admirably conceived. -It constitutes one of the most valuable Nietzschean commentaries in -English.</p> - -<p><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE: HIS LIFE AND WORK</span>, by M. A. Mügge. A large and -scholarly treatise of special value to the philosophical student. This -work, a pioneer one, is somewhat ponderous and uninteresting, but none -the less exhaustive; and contains a bibliography consisting of 850 -titles.</p> - -<p><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">THE PHILOSOPHY OF NIETZSCHE</span>, by Georges H. Chatterton-Hill. A -suggestive, academic study of the main points in the Nietzschean -ethic. This book is too<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[Pg 332]</a></span> technical in places to appeal strongly to the -beginner, but is invaluable as supplementary reading.</p> - -<p><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">THE QUINTESSENCE OF NIETZSCHE</span>, by J. M. Kennedy. An interesting and -unassuming survey of Nietzsche's work, abounding with quotations.</p> - -<p><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">NIETZSCHE: HIS LIFE AND WORKS</span>, by Anthony M. Ludovici. Mr. Ludovici -is the translator of many of Nietzsche's works into English, and has -contributed to Dr. Levy's edition several prefaces and many explanatory -notes. His book is complete and authoritative.</p> - -<p>Other adequate commentaries are: <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">THE GOSPEL OF SUPERMAN</span>, by Henri -Lichtenberger, translated from the French by J. M. Kennedy; <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">FRIEDRICH -NIETZSCHE</span>, by A. R. Orage; <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">NIETZSCHE AS CRITIC, PHILOSOPHER, POET AND -PROPHET</span>, by Thomas Common; <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">THE PHILOSOPHY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE</span>, -by Grace Neal Dolson; and <span style="font-size: 0.8em;">FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE</span>, by Georg Brandes, -translated by A. G. Chater.</p> - - -<p class="center">BIOGRAPHIES</p> - -<p><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">THE LIFE OF NIETZSCHE</span>, by Frau Förster-Nietzsche. This work, in two -volumes, is the standard biography of Nietzsche, written by his sister. -Though elaborate in detail and replete in personal correspondence and -papers, it is not all that might be hoped for. One's devoted sister -does not always make the most penetrating biographer.</p> - -<p><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">THE LIFE OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE</span>, by Daniel Halévy, translated from the -French by J. M. Hone. M. Halévy has founded his work on that of Frau -Förster-Nietzsche; and while his version improves on its model at many -points, it is in places supposititious and over-drawn, and is conceived -in too ironical a vein.</p> - -<p>Unfortunately there is no adequate biography of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[Pg 333]</a></span> Nietzsche in -existence. Nor is there likely to be one, inasmuch as all the papers -and data necessary for such an undertaking are in the possession of -Nietzsche's sister.</p> - - -<p class="center">BOOKS OF SELECTIONS</p> - -<p><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">THE GIST OF NIETZSCHE</span>, by H. L. Mencken.</p> - -<p><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">NIETZSCHE IN OUTLINE AND APHORISM</span>, by A. R. Orage.</p> - -<p><span style="font-size: 0.8em;">NIETZSCHE: HIS MAXIMS</span>, by J. M. Kennedy.</p> - - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of Project Gutenberg's What Nietzsche Taught, by Willard Huntington Wright - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHAT NIETZSCHE TAUGHT *** - -***** This file should be named 53622-h.htm or 53622-h.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/5/3/6/2/53622/ - -Produced by Marc D'Hooghe at Free Literature (online soon -in an extended version, also linking to free sources for -education worldwide ... 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