Latest / Logic Library / 03 - Why I Write Such Excellent Books, Part 1 - Ecce Homo - Friedrich Nietzsche

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03 - Why I Write Such Excellent Books, Part 1 - Ecce Homo - Friedrich Nietzsche · Logic Library

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Why I write such excellent books. Part one one. I am one thing,
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my creations are another. Here, before I speak of the books themselves,
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I shall touch upon the question of the understanding and misunderstanding with which they
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have met. I shall proceed to do this in as perfunctory a manner as
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the occasion demands. For the time has by no means come for this question.
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My time has not yet come either. Some men are born posthumously.
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One day, institutions will be needed in which men will live and teach as
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I understand living and teaching. May be also that by that time shares will
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be founded and endowed for the interpreter of Zarathustra. But I should regard it
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as a complete contradiction of myself if I expected to find ears and eyes for
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my truths to day. The fact that no one listens to me, that
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no one knows how to receive at my hands to day is not only comprehensible,
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it seems to me quite the proper thing. I do not wish to
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be mistaken for another. And to this end, I must not mistake myself
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to repeat what I have already said. I can point to but few instances
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of ill will in my life, and as for literary ill will, I
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could scarcely mention a single example of it. On the other hand, I
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have met with far too much pure foolery. It seems to me that take
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up one of my books is one of the rarest honors that a man can
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pay himself, even supposing that he put his shoes off from his feet beforehand,
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not to mention boots. When on one occasion Doctor Heinrich von Stein honestly
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complained that he could not understand a word of my Zarathustra, I said to
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him that this was just as it should be. To have understood six sentences
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in that book, that is to say, to have lived them raises a
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man to a higher level among mortals than modern man can attain. With this
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feeling of distance, how could I even wish to be read by the moderns
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whom I know my triumph is just the opposite of what Schopenhauer's was. I
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say, none legere, non legard, not that I should like to underestimate
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the pleasure I have derived from the innocence with which my works have been frequently
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contradicted. As late as last summer, at a time when I was attempting
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perhaps by means of my weighty all to weighty literature, to throw the rest
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of literature off its balance. A sudden professor of Berlin University kindly gave me
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to understand that I ought really to make use of a different form. No
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one could read such stuff as I wrote. Finally, it was not Germany
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but Switzerland that presented me with the two most extreme cases. An essay on
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beyond Good and Evil by doctor foul Vittmann in the paper called The Bunt under
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the heading Nietzsch's Dangerous Book, and a general account of all my works from
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the pen of her Kyle Spitelaer, also in The Bunt, constitute a maximum
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in my life. I shall not say of what the latter treated my Zarathustra,
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for instance, as advanced exercises in style, and expressed the wish that
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later on I might try and attend to the question of substance as well.
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Doctor Wildman assured me of this respect for the courage I showed in endeavoring to
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abolish all decent feeling. Thanks to a little trick of destiny. Every sentence
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in these criticisms seemed with a consistency that I could but admire to be an
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inverted truth. In fact, act, it was most remarkable that all one
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had to do was to transvalue all values in order to hit the nail on
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the head. With regard to me, instead of striking my head with the
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nail, I am more particularly anxious therefore, to discover an explanation. After
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all, no one can draw more out of things books included, than he
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already knows. A man has no ears for that to which experience has given
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him no access to. Take an extreme case, suppose a book contains simply
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incidents which lie quite outside the range of general or even rare experience. Suppose
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it to be the first language to express a whole series of experiences. In
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this case, nothing it contains will really be heard at all, and thanks
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to an acoustic delusion, people will believe that where nothing is heard, there
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is nothing to hear. This, at least, has been my usual experience,
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and proves, if you will, the originality of my experience. He
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who thought he had understood something in my work had, as a rule I
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adjusted something in it to his own image, not infrequently the very opposite of
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myself. An idealist. For instance, he who understood nothing in my work
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would deny that I was worth considering at all. The word superman, which
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designates a type of man that would be one of nature's rarest and luckiest strokes,
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as opposed to modern men, to good men, to Christians and other
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nihilists. A word which in the mouth of Zarathustra, the annihilator of morality,
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acquires a very profound meaning, is understood almost everywhere, and with perfect
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innocence, in light of those values to which a flat contradiction was made manifest
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in the figure of Zarathustra, that is to say, as an ideal type,
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a higher kind of man, half saint and half genius. Other learned
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cattle have suspected me of Darwinism on account of this word. Even the hero
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cult of that great unconscious and involuntary swindler Carlyle, a cult which I repudiate
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with such roguish malice, was recognized in my doctrine. Once, when I
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whispered to a man that he would do better to seek for the superman in
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a caesar Borgia than in a passerphal, he could not believe his ears.
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The fact that I have been quite free from curiosity in regard to criticism of
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my books, more particularly when they appear in newspapers, will have to be
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forgiven me. My friends and my publishers know this, and never speak to
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me of such things. In one particular case, I once saw all the
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sins that had been committed against a single book. It was beyond good and
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evil. I could tell you a nice story about it. Is it possible
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that in the Natsion nal Zaidun, a Prussian paper this comment is for the
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sake of my foreign readers. For my own part, I beg to state
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I read only Les Journal des de Bats really and seriously regarded the book as
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a sign of the times, or a genuine and typical example of Tory philosophy
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for which the kreuz Zeitunk had not sufficient courage. Translator's footnote Yunk philosophy.
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The landed proprietors constitute a dominating class in Prussia, and it is from this
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class that all officers and higher officials are drawn. The kraw Zeitunk is an
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organ of the Dunker party and Translator's note two. This was said for the
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benefit of Germans. For everywhere else I have my readers of them exceptionally intelligent
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men, characters that have won their spurs, and that have been reared in
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high offices and superior duties. I have even real geniuses among my readers.
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In Vienna, in Saint Petersburg, in Stockholm, in Copenhagen, in Paris
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and New York. I have been discovered everywhere. I have not yet been
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discovered in Europe's flat land Germany. And to make a confession, I rejoice
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much more heartily over those who do not read me, over those who have
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neither heard of my name nor of the word philosophy. But whethersoever I go
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here in Turin, for instance, every face brightens and softens at the sight
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of me. A thing that has flattered me more than anything else hitherto is
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the fact that old market women cannot rest until they have picked out the sweetest
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of their grapes. For me, to this extent, must a man be
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a philosopher. It is not in Vain that the Poles are considered as the
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French among the slaves. A charming Russian lady will not be mistaken for a
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single moment concerning my origin. I am not successful at being pompous. The
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most I can do is to appear embarrassed. I can think in German,
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I can feel in German, I can do most things, but this is
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beyond my powers. My old master Ritzschel, when so far as to declare
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that I planned even my philosophical treaties after the manner of a Parisian novelist,
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that I made them absurdly thrilling. In Paris itself, people are surprised at
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two de mes ardas et finesse. The words are monsieur tains. I fear
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that, even in the highest forms of the Diathram, that salt will be
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found pervading my work, which never becomes insipid, which never becomes German.
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And that is wit I can do naught else. God help me, Amen,
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we all know, some of us even from experience, what a long
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ears is. Well, then I venture to assert that I have the smallest
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is that have ever been seen. This fact is not without interest to women.
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It seems to me they feel that I understand them better. I essentially
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the anti ass and on this account alone, a monster in the world's history.
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In Greek, and not only in Greek, I am the Antichrist.
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Three, I am to a great extent aware of my privileges as a writer.
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In one or two cases it has even been brought home to me.
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How very much the habitual reading of my works spoils a man's taste. Other
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books simply cannot be endured after mine, and least of all philosophical ones.
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It is an incomparable distinction to cross the threshold of this noble and subtle world.
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In order to do so, one must certainly not be a German.
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It is, in short, a distinction which one must have deserved. He,
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however, who is related to me through loftiness of will, experiences genuine
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raptures of understanding in my books. For I swoop down from heights into which
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no bird has ever soared, I know abysses into which no foot has ever
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slipped. People have told me that it is impossible to lay down a book
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of mine that I disturb even the night's rest. There is no prouder or,
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at the same time more subtle kind of books. They sometimes attain to
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the highest pinnacle of earthly endeavor cynicism. To capture their thoughts, a man
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must have the tenderest fingers as well as the most intrepid fists. Any kind
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of spiritual decrepitude utterly excludes all intercourse with them, even any kind of dis
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spepsia. A man must have no nerves, but he must have a cheerful
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belly. Not only the poverty of a man's soul and its stuffy air excludes
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all intercourse with them, but also, and to a much greater degree,
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cowardice, uncleanliness, and secret intestinal revengefulness. A word from my lips suffices
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to make the color of all evil instincts rush into a face. Among my
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acquaintances, I have had a number of experimental subjects in whom I see depicted.
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All are different and instructively different reactions which follow upon a perusal of my
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works. Those who will have nothing to do with the contents of my books,
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as for instance, my so called friends, assume an impersonal tone concerning
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them. They wish me luck and congratulate me for having produced another work.
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They also declare that my writings show progress because they exhale a more cheerful spirit.
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The thoroughly vicious people, the beautiful souls, the false from top to
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toe do not know in the least what to do with my books. Consequently,
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with the beautiful consistency of all beautiful souls, they regard my works as
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beneath them. The cattle among my acquaintances. The mere Germans leave me to
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understand, if you please, that they are not always of my opinion,
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though here and there they agree with me. I have heard this even said
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about Zarathustra. Feminism, whether in mankind or in man, is likewise a
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barrier to my writings. With it, no one could ever enter into this
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labyrinth of fearless knowledge. To this end, a man must never have spared
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himself. He must have been hard in his habits in order to be good,
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humored and marry among a host of inexorable truths. When I tried to
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picture the character of a perfect reader, I always imagine a monster of courage
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and curiosity, as well as of suppleness, cunning, and prudence. In
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short, a born adventurer and explorer. After all, I could not describe
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better than Zarathustra has done. Unto whom I really address myself, unto whom
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alone would he reveal his riddle, unto you, daring explorers and experimenters,
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and unto all who have ever embarked beneath cunning sails upon terrible seas, unto
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you who revel in riddles and in twilight, whose souls are lured by flutes
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into every treacherous abyss. For ye care not to grope your way along a
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thread with craven fingers, and where you are able to guess there you hate
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to argue. Four. I will now pass just one or two general remarks
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about my art of style. To communicate a state and inattention of pathos,
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by means of signs, including the tempo of these signs, that is the
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meaning of every style. And in view of the fact that the multiplicity of
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inner states in me is enormous, I am capable of many kinds of style.
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In short, the most multifarious art of style that any man has ever
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had at his disposal. Any style is good which genuinely communicates an inner condition,
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which does not blunder over the signs, over the tempo of the signs,
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or over moods. All the laws of phrasing are the outcome of representing
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moods artistically. Good style in itself is a piece of sheer foolery, mere
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idealism, like beauty in itself, for instance, or goodness in itself,
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or the thing in itself. All this takes for granted, of course,
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that there exists ears that can hear, and such men as are capable and
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worthy of a like pathos that those are not wanting unto whom one may communicate
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one's self. Meanwhile, my Zarathustra, for instance, is still in quest
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of such people, alas he will have to seek a long while. Yet
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a man must be worthy of listening to him. And until that time there
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will be no one who will understand the art that has been squandered in this
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book. No one has ever existed who has had more novel, more strange
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and purposely created art forms to fling to the winds. The fact that such
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things were possible in the German language still awaited proof. Formerly, I myself
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would have denied most emphatically that it was possible. Before my time people did
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not know what could be done with the German language, what could be done
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with language in general. The art of grand rhythm, of grand style in
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periods, for expressing the tremendous fluctuations of the sublime and superhuman passion, was
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first discovered by me with the diathram entitled the Seven Seals, which constitute the
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last discourse of the third part of Zarathustra. I soared miles above all that
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which heretofore has been called poetry. Five. The fact that the voice which
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speaks in my works is that of a psychologist who has not his peer is
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perhaps the first conclusion at which a good reader will arrive, A reader such
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as I deserve, and one who reads me is just as the old philologists
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used to read their horrace. Those propositions about which all the world is fundamentally
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agreed, not to speak of fashional philosophy of moralists and other empty headed and
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cabbage brained peoples, are to me but ingenuous blunders. For instance, the
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belief that altruistic and egotistic are opposites, while all the time the ego itself
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is merely a supreme swindle, an ideal. There are no such things as
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egotistical or altruistic actions. Both concepts are psychological nonsense. Of the proposition that
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man pursues happiness, or the proposition that happiness is the reward of virtue,
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or the proposition that pleasure and pain are opposite morality, the soursay of mankind
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has falsified everything psychological, root and branch. It has demralized everything, even
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to the terribly nonsensical point of calling love unselfish. A man must first be
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firmly poised, he must stand securely on his two legs, otherwise he cannot
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love at all. This. Indeed, the girls know only too well.
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They don't care two pins about unselfish and merely objective men. May I venture
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to suggest, incidentally, that I know women. This knowledge is part of
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my Deonesian patrimony. Who knows? Maybe I am the first psychologist of the
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eternally feminine women all like me. But that's an old story, save,
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of course, the abortions among them, the emancipated ones, those who lack
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the wherewithal to have children. Thank goodness, I am not willing to let
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myself be torn to pieces. The perfect woman tears you to pieces when she
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loves you. I know these amiable manads. Oh what a dangerous, creeping,
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subterranean little beast of prey she is, and so agreeable withal A little
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woman pursuing her vengeance would force open even the iron gates of fate itself.
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Woman is incalculably more wicked than man. She is also cleverer. Goodness in
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a woman is already a sign of g generation. All cases of beautiful souls
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in women may be traced to the faulty physiological condition. But I go no
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further lest I should become medicinical. The struggle for equal rights is even a
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symptom of disease. Every doctor knows this. The more womanly a woman is,
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the more she fights tooth and nail against rights. In general, the
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natural order of things, the eternal war between the sexes, assigns to her
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by far the foremost rank. Have people had ears to hear my definition of
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love? It is the only definition worthy of a philosopher. Love in this
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means is war in its foundation, it is the mortal hatred of the sexes.
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Have you heard my reply to the question how a woman can be cured?
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Saved? In fact, give her a child. A woman needs children.
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Man is always only a means, Thus spake Zarathustra, the emancipation of
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women. This is the instinctive hatred of psychologically botched, that is to say,
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barren women. For those of their sisters who are well constituted, the
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fight against man is always only a means, a pretext, a piece of
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strategy. By trying to rise to women, per se, to higher women,
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to the ideal woman, all they wish to do is to lower the
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general level of women's rank, and there are no more certain means to this
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end than university education, trousers, and the rights of voting cattle. Truth
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to tell, the emancipated are the anarchists in the eternally feminine world. These
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psychological mishaps the most deep rooted instinct of whom is revenge, the whole species
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of the most malicious idealism, which, by the bye also manifests itself in
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men. In Heinrich Ibsen, for instance, that typical old maid, whose
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object is to poison the clean conscience, the natural spirit of sexual love.
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And in order to leave no doubt in your minds in regard to my opinion,
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which on this matter is as honest as it is severe, I will
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reveal to you one more clause out of my moral Code against vice. With
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the word vice, I combat every kind of opposition to nature, or,
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if you prefer fine words, idealism. The clause reads, preaching of chastity
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is a public incitement to unknown natural practices. All the appreciation of the sexual
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life, all the sullying of it by means of the concept impure, is
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the essential crime against life, is the essential crime against the holy spirit of
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life. Six. In order to give you some idea of myself as a
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psychologist. Let me take this curious piece of psychological analysis out of the book
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Beyond Good and Evil, in which it appears. I forbid by the bye
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any guessing as to whom I am describing this passage. The genius of the
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heart, as that great anchorte possessed it, the divine tempter and born piper
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of consciences, whose voice knows how to sink into the inmost depths of every
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soul who neither utters a word nor casts a glance in which some seductive motive
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or trick does not lie. A part of whose masterliness is that he understands
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the art of seeming, not what he is, but that which will place
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a fresh constraint upon his followers to press ever more closely upon him, to
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follow him ever more enthusiastically and wholeheartedly. The genius of the heart, which
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makes all loud and self conceited things hold their tongues and lend their ears,
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which polishes all rough souls and makes them taste a new longing to lie placid
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as a mirror that the deep heavens may be reflected in them. The genius
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of the heart, which teaches the clumsy and to hate fisty hand, to
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hesitate and grasp more tenderly, which sense the hidden and forgotten treasure, the
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pearl of goodness and sweet spirituality beneath thick black ice, and is a divining
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rod for every grain of gold long buried and imprisoned in heaps of mud and
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sand, the genius of the heart, from contact with which every man goes
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away richer, not blessed and overcome, not as though favored and crushed by
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the good things of others, but richer in himself, fresher to himself than
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before, opened up, breathed upon and sounded by a thawing wind, more
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uncertain, perhaps more delicate, more fragile, more bruised, but full of
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hopes which as yet lacked names, full of a new will and striving,
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full of a new unwillingness and counter striving. The birth of tragedy one.
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In order to be fair to the Birth of Tragedy eighteen seventy two, it
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is necessary to forget a few things. It created a sensation, and even
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fascinated by means of its mistakes, by means of its application to Wagnerism,
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as if the latter were the sign of an ascending tendency. On that account
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alone, this treatise was an event in Wagner's life. Thenceforward, great hopes
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surrounded the name of Wagner. Even to this day, people remind me sometimes
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in the middle of Parserval, that it rests on my conn if the opinion
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that this movement is of great value to culture at length became prevalent. I
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have often seen the book quoted as the second birth of tragedy. From the
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spirit of music. People had ears only for new formulae for Wagner's art,
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his object, and his mission, and in this way the real hidden value
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of the book was overlooked. Hellenism and pessimism. This would have been a
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less equivocal title, seeing that the book contained the first attempt at showing how
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the Greeks succeeded in disposing of pessimism in what manner they overcame it. Tragedy
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itself is the proof of the fact that the Greeks were not pessimists. Schopenhauer
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blundered here as the blended in everything else regarded impartially, The Birth of Tragedy
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is a book quite strange to its age. No one would dream that it
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was begun in the thunder of the Battle of Verd. I thought out these
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problems on cold September nights, beneath the walls of Mes, in the midst
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of my duties as a nurse to the wounded. It would be easier to
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think that it was written fifty years earlier. Its attitude towards politics is one
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of indifference un German, as people would say to day. Translator's note,
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Those Germans who like Nietzsche or Girte recognize that politics constitute a danger to culture,
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and who appreciate the literature of maturer cultures such as that of France are
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called un Deutsch on German by imperialistic Germans. And translator's note. It smells
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offensively of Hegel. Only in one or two formulae is it infected with a
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bitter odor of corpses, which is peculiar to schopenhauer An idea. The antagonism
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of the two concepts Deunesian and Apollonian is translated into metaphysics. History itself is
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depicted as the development of this idea. In tragedy, this antithesis has become
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unity. From this standpoint, things which thereto before have never been face to
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face, are suddenly confronted and understood and illuminated by each other Opera and Revolution,
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for instance. The two decisive innovations in the book are first the comprehension
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of the Denesian phenomenon among the Greeks. It provides the first psychological analysis of
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this phenomenon and sees in it the single root of all Greek arts. And
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secondly, the comprehension of Socraticism, Socrates being presented for the first time as
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the instrument of Greek dissolution, as a typical decadent reason versus instinct reason at
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any cost, as a dangerous life undermining force. The whole book is profoundly
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and politely silent concerning Christianity. The latter is neither Apollonian nor Dinesian. It
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denies all aesthetic value, which are the only values that The Birth of Tragedy
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recognizes. Christianity is most profoundly nihilistic, whereas in the Dionnesian symbol, the
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most extreme limits of a yay saying attitude to life are attained. In one
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part of the book, the Christian priesthood is referred to as the perfidious order.
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Of goblins as subterraneans. Two. This start of mine was remarkable beyond
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measure. As confirmation of my inmost personal experience. I had discovered the only
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example of this fact that history possesses. With this, I was the first
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to understand the amazing Dionnesian phenomenon. At the same time, by recognizing Socrates
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as a decadent, I proved most conclusively that a certainty of my psychological grasp
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of things ran very little risk at the hands of any sort of moral idiosyncrasy.
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To regard morality itself as a symptom of degeneration is an innovation, a
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unique event of the first order in the history of knowledge. How high I
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had soared above the pitifully foolish gabble about optimism and pessimism. With my two
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new doctrines, I was the first to see the actual contrast the degenerate instinct,
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which turns upon life with the subterranean lust of vengeance, Christianity, Schopenhauer's
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philosophy, and in some respects too, even Plato's philosophy. In short,
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the whole of idealism in its typical forms as opposed to a formula of the
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highest yay saying to life born of an abundance, and a superabundance of life,
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a ya saying free from all reserve, applying even to suffering and guilt,
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and all that is questionable and strange in existence. This last, most
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joyous, most exuberant, and exultant yay to life is not only the highest
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but also the profoundest conception, and one which is most strictly confirmed and supported
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by truth and science. Nothing that exists must be suppressed, nothing can be
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dispensed with. Those aspects of life which Christians and other nihilists reject, belong
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to an incalculably higher order in the hierarchy of values than that which the instinct
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of degeneration calls good and may call good. In order to understand this,
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a certain courage is necessary, and as a prequisite of this, a certain
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superfluidity of strength. For a man can approach only as near to truth as
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he has the courage to advance. That is to say, everything depends strictly
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upon the measure of his strength. Knowledge and the affirmation of reality are just
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as necessary to the strong man as cowardice the flight from reality, in fact,
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the ideal are necessary to the weak. Inspired by weakness. These people
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are not at liberty to know decadence stand in need of lies. It is
39:46
one of their self preservative measures. He who not only understands the word de
39:53
Innesian, but understands himself in that term, does not require any refutation of
40:01
Flato, or of Christianity, or of Schopenhauer for his nose sense decomposition three.
40:15
The extent to which I had, by means of these doctrines discovered the
40:21
idea of tragedy. The ultimate explanation of what the psychology of tragedy is I
40:30
discussed finally in the Twilight of the Idols Aphorism five, Part ten, the
40:37
saying of yea to life and even to its weirdest and most difficult problems,
40:45
the will to life, rejoicing at its own infinite vitality in the sacrifice of
40:51
its highest types. That is what I call Dionesian. That is what I
40:57
meant as the bridge to the psychology of the tragic poet. Not to cast
41:02
out terror and pity, or to purge one's self of dangerous passions by discharging
41:08
it with vehemence. This was Aristotle's misunderstanding of it. Translator's note, Aristotle's
41:19
Poetics, Chapter six end translator's note, But to be far beyond terror and
41:25
pity, and to be the eternal lust of becoming itself, that lust which
41:31
also involves the joy of destruction. In this sense, I have the right
41:38
to regard myself as the first tragic philosopher, that is to say, the
41:45
most extreme antithesis and antipods of a pessimistic philosopher. Before my time, no
41:52
such thing existed as this translation of the Denesian phenomenon into philosophy. Emotion,
42:00
tragic wisdom was lacking in vain. Have I sought for signs of it even
42:07
among the great Greeks in philosophy, those belonging to the two centuries before Socrates.
42:15
I still remained little doubtful about Heraclitis, in whose presence alone I felt
42:21
warmer and more at ease than anywhere else. The Ya saying to the impermanence
42:27
and annihilation of things, which is the decisive feature of Dionesian philosophy, the
42:32
Ya saying to contradiction and war the postulation of becoming, together with a radical
42:40
rejection even of the concept being in all these things. At all events,
42:46
I must recognize him who has come nearest to me in thought hitherto the doctrine
42:53
of the eternal recurrence, that is to say, of the absolute and eternal
43:00
repetition of all things in periodical cycles. This doctrine of Zarathustras, might,
43:06
it is true, have been taught before. In any case, the Stoics,
43:13
who derive nearly all the fundamental ideas from Heracitis, show traces of it.
43:21
Four. A tremendous hope finds expression in this work. After all,
43:28
I have absolutely no reason to renounce the hope for a deneasy in future of
43:34
music. Let us look a century ahead, and let us suppose that my
43:38
attempt to destroy two millenniums of hostility to nature and of the violation of humanity
43:45
be crowned with success. That new party of life advocates, which will undertake
43:52
the greatest of all tasks, the elevation and perfection of mankind, as well
43:58
as the relentless instruction of all degenerate and parasitical elements, will make that superabundance
44:06
of life on earth once more possible, out of which the Denesian state will
44:13
perforce arise again. I promise the advent of a tragic age the highest art
44:20
in the saying of yea to life. Tragedy will be born again when mankind
44:25
has the knowledge of the hardest but most necessary of wars behind it, without,
44:31
however, suffering from that knowledge. A psychologist might add that what I
44:39
heard in Wagnerian music in my youth and early manhood have nothing whatsoever to do
44:46
with Wagner. That when I described Denesian music, I described merely what I
44:52
personally had heard. That I was compelled instinctively to translate and transfigure everything into
45:01
the new spirit which filled my breast. A proof of this, and as
45:07
strong a proof as you could have, is my essay Wagner in by right,
45:13
in all its decisive psychological passages, I am the only person concerned.
45:20
Without any hesitation. You may read my name or the word Zarathustra wherever the
45:25
text contains the name of Wagner. The whole panorama of the Diathrambic artist is
45:32
the representation of the already existing author of Zarathustra, and it is drawn with
45:40
an abysmal depth which does not even once come into contact with the real Wagner.
45:47
Wagner himself had a notion of this truth. He did not recognize himself
45:52
in the essay. In this way, the idea of by right was changed
46:00
into something which, to those who are acquainted with my Zarathustra, will be
46:05
no riddle, that is to say, into the great noon, when the
46:12
highest of the elect will consecrate themselves for the greatest of all duties. Who
46:19
knows the vision of a feast which I may live to see? The pathos
46:27
at the first few pages is universal history. The look. The look which
46:31
is discussed on page one oh five of the book is the actual look of
46:37
Zarathustra. Translator's footnote This number and those which follow refers to the thoughts out
46:46
of Season Part one in this edition of Nietzsche's works and translator's note. Wagner
46:57
bayright. The whole of this petty German wretchedness is a cloud upon which an
47:04
infinite fat Morgana of the future is reflected. Even from the psychological standpoint,
47:10
all the decisive traits in my character are introduced into Wagner's nature the juxtaposition of
47:19
the most brilliant and most fatal forces. A will to power such as no
47:25
man has ever possessed, inexorable bravery in matters spiritual, an unlimited power of
47:34
learning, unaccompanied by depressed powers for action. Everything in this essay is a
47:42
prophecy, the proximity of the resurrection of the Greek spirit, the need of
47:49
men who will be counter Alexander's, who will once more tie the Gaudian knot
47:54
of Greek culture after it has been cut. Listen to the world historic accent
48:02
with which the concept sense for the tragic is introduced on page one o eight.
48:10
There are little else but world historic accents in this essay. This is
48:16
the strangest kind of objectivity that ever existed. By absolute certainty in regard to
48:23
what I am projected itself into any chance reality truth about myself was voiced from
48:32
out appalling depths on pages one seven four and one seven five. The style
48:39
of Zarathustra is described and foretold with incisive certainty, and no more magnificent expression
48:47
will ever be found than that on pages one four four to one four seven
48:53
for the event for which Zarathustra stands, that prodigious act of the beautifulation and
49:00
consecration of mankind Thoughts out of Season one. The four essays composing the Thoughts
49:13
out of Season are thoroughly warlike in tone. They proved that I was no
49:19
mere dreamer that I delight in drawing the sword, and perhaps also that my
49:27
wrist is dangerously supple. The first Onslaught eighteen seventy three was directed against German
49:36
culture, upon which I looked down even at that time, with unmitigated contempt.
49:44
Without either sense, substance or goal. It was simply public opinion.
49:51
There could be no more dangerous misunderstanding than to suppose that Germany's success at arms
49:58
proved anything in favour of German culture, and still less the triumph of this
50:04
culture over that of France. The second essay eighteen seventy four brings to light
50:13
that which is dangerous, that which corrodes and poisonous life in our manner of
50:19
pursuing scientific study. Life is diseased thanks to this dehumanized piece of clockwork and
50:27
mechanism, thanks to the impersonality of the workmen and the false economy of the
50:34
division of labour, The object, which is culture is lost. Sight of
50:40
modern scientific activity as a means there too, simply produces barbarism. In this
50:49
treatise, the historical sense of which this century is so proud is for the
50:55
first time recognized as sickness, as a typical symptom of decay. In the
51:02
third and fourth essays, a signpost is set up pointing to a higher concept
51:07
of culture, to a re establishment of the notion culture, and two pictures
51:15
of the hardest self love and self discipline are presented. Two essentially unmodern types
51:22
full of the most sovereign contempt for all that which lay around them, and
51:29
was called empire, culture, Christianity, Bismarck and success. These two types
51:38
were Schopenhauer and Wagner, or in a word, Nietzsche. Two of these
51:50
four attacks, the first met with extraordinary success. The stir which it created
51:57
was in every way gorgeous. I had put my finger on the vulnerable spot
52:02
of a triumphant nation. I have told it that its victory was not a
52:08
red letter day for culture, but perhaps something very different. The reply rang
52:15
out from all sides, and certainly not from old friends of David Strauss,
52:21
whom I had made ridiculous, as the type of the German philistine of culture
52:27
and a man of smug self content, in short, as the author of
52:31
that subterranean gospel of his called the Old and the New Faith. The term
52:38
philistine of culture passed into the current language of Germany after the appearance of my
52:45
book. These old friends, whose vanity, as Weertembergians and Swabians I had
52:52
deeply wounded in regarding their unique animal, their bird of Paradise as a rifle
53:00
comic, replied to me as ingenuously and as grossly as I could have wished.
53:07
The Prussian replies were smarter, they contained more Prussian blue. The most
53:13
disreputable attitude was assumed by a Leibsig paper, the Egregarius Gretzborden, and it
53:22
cost me some pains to prevent my indignant friends at Boola from taking action against
53:28
it. Only a few gentlemen decided in my favor, and for very diverse
53:34
and sometimes unaccountable reasons. Among them was one Edouald of Gertingen, who made
53:42
it clear that my attacks on Strauss had been deadly. There was also the
53:47
Heglian Bruno Bauer, who from that time became one of my most attentive readers.
53:55
In his later years he liked to refer to me when, for instance,
54:00
he wanted to give her von Treysk, the Prussian historiographer, a hint
54:06
as to where he could obtain information about the notion culture of which he her
54:13
von Te had completely lost sight The weightiest and longest notice of my book and
54:21
its author appeared in Wurtzburg and was written by Professor Hoffmann, an old pupil
54:28
of the philosopher von Bada. The essays made him foresee a great future for
54:35
me, namely that of bringing about a sort of crisis and decisive turning point
54:39
in the problem of atheism, of which he recognized in me the most instinctive
54:45
and most radical advocate. It was atheism that had drawn me to Schopenhauer.
54:52
The review, which received by far the most attention and which excited the most
54:57
bitterness, was an extraordinary, really powerful and plucky appreciation of my work by
55:02
Karl Hillebrand, a man who was usually so mild and the last humane German
55:10
who knew how to wield a pen. The article appeared in the Augsburg Gazette
55:16
and can be read to day, couched in rather more cautious language among his
55:22
collective essays. In it, my work is referred to as an event,
55:27
as a decisive turning point, as the first sign of an awakening, as
55:32
an excellent symptom, as an actual revival of German earnestness and of German passion
55:39
in things spiritual, Hillebrand could speak only in the terms of the highest respect
55:47
of the form of my book, of its consumer taste, of its perfect
55:52
tact in discriminating between persons and causes. He characterized it as the best polemic
56:00
work in the German language, the best performance in the art of polemics,
56:05
for which Germans is so dangerous and so strongly to be depreciated. Besides confirming
56:13
my standpoint, he laid even greater stress upon what I had dared to say
56:19
about the deterioration of language in Germany. Nowadays writers assume the heirs of purists
56:27
and can no longer even construct a sentence translator's footnote. The purists constitute a
56:34
definite body in Germany, which is called the Deutscher sprate Wearin. Their object
56:42
is to banish every foreign word from the language, and they carry this process
56:45
of ostracism even into the domain of the menu, where their efforts at rendering
56:52
the meaning of French dishes are extremely comical. Strange to say, their principal
56:58
organ and their other publications are by no means free either from solecisms or faults
57:04
of style. And it is doubtless to this curious anomaly that Nietzsche here refers
57:10
and translators footnote, sharing my contempt for the literary stars of this nation.
57:17
He concluded by expressing his admiration for my courage, that greatest courage of all,
57:25
which places the very favorites of the people in the dark. The after
57:31
effects of this essay of mine proved invaluable to me. In my life.
57:37
No one has ever tried to meddle with me. Since people are silent in
57:43
Germany, I am treated with gloomy caution. For years I have rejoiced in
57:47
the privilege of such absolute freedom of speech, as no one nowadays, least
57:53
of all in the Empire, has enough liberty to claim. My paradise is
57:59
in the sh shadow of my sword. At bottom, all I had done
58:04
was to put one of Senhaal's maxims into practice. He advises one to make
58:08
one's entrance into society by means of a jewel. And how well I had
58:15
chosen my opponent, the foremost freethinker of Germany. As a matter of fact,
58:22
quite a novel kind of free thought found its expression in this way.
58:25
After the present, nothing has been more strange and more foreign to my blood
58:30
than the whole of that European and American species known as libre panceur, incorrigible
58:38
blockheads and clowns of modern ideas that they are. I feel much more profoundly
58:45
at variance with them than with any one of their adversaries. They also wished
58:51
to improve mankind after their own fashion, that is to say, in their
58:58
own image, against that which I stand for and desire. They would wage
59:04
an implacable war if only they understood it. The whole gang of them still
59:08
believe in an ideal I am the first immoralist. Three. I should not
59:19
like to say that the last two essays in the Thoughts out of Season,
59:23
associated with the names of Schopenhauer and Wagner respectively, serve any special purpose in
59:30
throwing light upon these two cases or in formulating their psychological problems. This,
59:37
of course does not apply to a few details. Thus, for instance,
59:44
in the second of the two essays, with a profound certainty of instinct,
59:49
I already characterized the elementary factor in Wagner's nature as a theatrical talent, which,
59:55
in all his means and inspirations, only draws its final conclusions. At
1:00:01
bottom, my desire in this essay was to do something very different from writing
1:00:07
psychology an unprecedented educational problem, a new understanding of self discipline and self defense
1:00:16
carried to the point of hardness, a road to greatness and to world historic
1:00:22
duties yearned to find expression. Roughly speaking, I seized too famous and theretofore
1:00:31
completely undefined types by the forelock after the manner in which one seizes opportunities simply
1:00:39
in order to speak my mind on certain questions, in order to have a
1:00:45
few more formulas, signs, and means of expression at my disposal. Indeed,
1:00:52
I actually suggest this with a most unearthly sagacity. On page one eight
1:00:58
three of Schopenhauer as Educator, Plato made use of Socrates in the same way,
1:01:07
that is to say, as a cipher for Plato. Now that from
1:01:13
some distance I can look back upon the conditions of which these essays are the
1:01:17
testimony I would be loath to deny that they refer simply to me. The
1:01:24
essay Wagner in by right, is a vision of my own future. On
1:01:30
the other hand, my most secret history, my development is written down in
1:01:36
Schopenhauer as Educator. But above all the vow I made what I am to
1:01:45
day the place I now hold at a height from which I speak no longer
1:01:51
with words, but with thunderbolts. Oh how far I was from all this
1:01:55
in those days. But I saw the lamp, and I did not deceive
1:02:00
myself one moment as to the way, the sea, the danger, and
1:02:07
success the great calm in promising this happy prospect of a future which must not
1:02:14
remain only a promise. In this book, every word has been lived profoundly
1:02:22
and intimately the most painful things are not lacking in it. It contains words
1:02:28
which are positively running with blood, but a wind of great freedom blows over
1:02:34
the whole. Even its wounds do not constitute an objection as to what I
1:02:40
understand by being a philosopher, that is to say, the terrible explosive in
1:02:45
the presence of which everything is in danger. As to how I sever my
1:02:52
idea of the philosopher by miles from that other idea of him, which includes
1:02:59
even a count, not to speak of the academic ruminators and other professors of
1:03:05
philosophy. Concerning all these things, this essay provides invaluable information, even granting
1:03:13
that at bottom it is not Schopenhauer as educator but Nietzsche as educator. Who
1:03:21
speaks his sentiments in it, considering that in those days my trade was that
1:03:28
of a scholar, and perhaps also that I understood my trade. The piece
1:03:32
of austere scholar psychology which suddenly makes its appearance in this essay is not without
1:03:39
importance. It expresses the feeling of distance and my profound certainty regarding what was
1:03:47
my real life task and what was merely means intervals and accessory work. To
1:03:55
me, my wisdom consists in my having been many things and in many places,
1:04:04
in order to become one thing, in order to be able to attain
1:04:09
to one thing. It was part of my fate to be a scholar for
1:04:15
a while, and of why I write such excellent books. Part one