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05 - Why I Write Such Excellent Books, Part 3 - Ecce Homo - Friedrich Nietzsche · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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Why I write such excellent books. Part three, Beyond Good and Evil,
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the prelude to a philosophy of the future One. My work for the years
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that followed was prescribed as distinctly as possible. Now that the yea saying part
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of my life task was accomplished, there came the turn of the negative portion,
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both in word and deed, the transvaluation of all values that had existed
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hitherto the Great War, the conjuring up of the day when the fatal outcome
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of the struggle would be decided. Meanwhile, I had slowly to look about
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me for my peers, for those who, out of strength, would profer
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me a health hand in my work of destruction. From that time onward,
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all my writings are so much bait. Maybe I understand as much about fishing
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as most people. If nothing was caught, it was not I who was
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at fault. There were no fish to come and bite. Two. In
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all its essential points, this book eighteen eighty six is a criticism of modernity,
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embracing the modern sciences, arts, even politics, together with certain indications
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as to a type which would be the reverse of modern man, or as
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little like him as possible. A noble and yea saying type. In this
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last respect, the book is a school for gentlemen, the term gentleman being
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understood here in a much more spiritual and radical sense than it has implied hitherto
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all those things of which the age is proud, as, for instance,
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far famed objectivity, sympathy with all that suffers, the historical sense, with
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its subjection to foreign tastes, with its lying in the dust before betti fe,
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and the rage for science, are shown to be the contradiction of the
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type recommended, and are regarded as almost ill bred. If you remember that
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this book follows upon Zarathustra, you may possibly guess to what system of diet
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it owes its life. The eye, which owing to a tremendous constraint,
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has become accustomed to see at a great distance Zarathustra, is even more far
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sighted than the Czar. Is here forced to focus sharply that which is close
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at hand the present time, the things that lie about him. In all
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the aphorisms, and more particularly in the form of this book, the reader
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will find the same voluntary turning away from those instincts which made a Zarathustra a
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possible feat refinement in form in aspiration and in the art of keeping silent are
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more or less obvious qualities. Psychology is handled with deliberate hardness and cruelty.
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The whole book does not contain one single good natured word. All this sort
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of thing refreshes a man who can guess the kind of recreation that is necessary
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after such an expenditure of goodness, as is to be found in Zarathustra.
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From a theological standpoint, now pay ye heed, for it is but on
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rare occasions that I speak as a theologian. It was God himself who,
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at the end of his great work, coiled himself up in the form of
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a serpent at the foot of the tree of Knowledge. It was thus that
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he recovered from being a god he had made everything too beautiful. The devil
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is simply God's moment of idleness on that seventh day. The Genealogy of Morals
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a polemic. The three essays which constitute this genealogy are as regards expression,
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aspiration, and the art of the unexpected, perhaps the most curious things that
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have ever been written. Dionysus, as you know, is also the god
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of darkness. In each case, the beginning is calculated to mystify. It
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is cool, scientific, even ironical, intentionally thrust to the fore, intentionally
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reticent, gradually less calmness prevails here and there a flash of lightning defines the
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horizon. Exceedingly unpleasant truths break upon your ears from out remote distances with a
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dull, rumbling sound, until very soon a fierce tempo is attained, in
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which everything presses forwards at a terrible degree of tension. At the end,
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in each case, amid fearful thunderclapse, a new truth shines out between thick
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clouds. The truth of the first essay is the psychology of Christianity, the
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birth of Christianity out of the spirit of resentment, not as is supposed,
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out of the spirit in all its essentials, a counter movement, the great
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insurrection against the dominion of noble values. The second essay contains the psychology of
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conscience. This is, not, as you may believe, the voice of
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God in man. It is the instinct of cruelty, which turns inwards once
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it is unable to discharge itself outwardly. Cruelty is here exposed for the first
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time as one of the oldest and most indispensable elements in a foundation of culture.
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The third essay replies to the question as to the origin of the formidable
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power of the ascetic ideal of the priest ideal despite the fact that this ideal
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is essentially detrimental, that it is a will to nonentity and to decadence.
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Es reply. It flourished not because God was active behind the priests, as
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is generally believed, but because it was a fote de me from the fact
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that hitherto it has been the only ideal and has had no competitors. For
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man prefers to aspire to non entity than not to aspire at all. But
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above all, until the time of Zarathustra, there was no such thing as
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a counter ideal. You have understood my meaning. Three decisive overtures on the
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part of a psychologist to a transvaluation of all values. This book contains the
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first psychology of the priest, the Twilight of the Idols, how to Colossifies
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with the Hammer one. This work, which covers scarcely one hundred and fifty
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pages, with its cheerful and fateful tone like a laughing demon, and the
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production of which occupied so few days that I hesitated to give their number,
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is altogether an exception among books. There is no work more rich in substance,
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more independent, more upsetting, more wicked. If anyone should desire to
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obtain a rapid sketch of our everything before my time was standing on its head,
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he should begin reading me. In this book. That which is called
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idols on the title page is simply the old truth that has been believed in
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hitherto. In plain English, the twilight of the idols means that the old
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truth is on its last legs. Two. There is no reality, no
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ideality which has not been touched in this book. Touched. What a cautious
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euphemism, not only the eternal idols, but also the youngest, that is
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to say, the most senile modern ideas. For instance, a strong wind
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blows between the trees and in all directions for the fruit the truths. There
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is a waste of an all too rich autumn in this book. You trip
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over truths, you even crush some to death. There are too many of
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them. Those things that you can grasp, however, are quite unquestionable.
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There are irrevocable decrees. I alone have the criterion of truths in my possession.
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I alone can decide it would seem as if a second consciousness had grown
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up in me, as if the life will in me have thrown a light
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upon the downward path along which it has been running throughout the ages. The
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downward path hitherto this has been called the road to truth. All obscure,
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impulse, darkness, and dismay is at an end. The good man was
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precisely he who was least aware of the proper way. Translator's footnote a witty
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reference to Gerta's well known passage in the Prolog to Faust. A good man,
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though in darkness and dismay, may still be conscious of the proper way.
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The words are spoken by the Lord and a translator's note, and speaking
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in all earnestness. No one before me knew the proper way, the way
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upwards. Only after my time could men once more find hope life, tasks
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and roads mapped out that lead to culture. I am the joyful harboringer of
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this culture. On this account alone, I am also a fatality. Three
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immediately after the completion of the above named work, and without letting even one
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day go by, I tackled the formidable task of the transvaluation with the supreme
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feeling of pride which nothing could equal and certain at each moment of my immortality,
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I cut sign after sign upon tablets of brass with the sureness of fate.
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The preface came into being on the third of September eighteen eighty eight,
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when, after having written it down, I went out into the open.
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That morning I was greeted by the most beautiful day I had ever seen in
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the upper Egudine, clear, glowing with colour and presenting all the contrasts and
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all the intermediary gradations between ice and the south. I left sils Maria only
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on the twentieth of September. I had been forced to delay my departure owing
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to floods, and I was very soon and for some days the only visitor
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in this wonderful spot on which by gratitude bestows the gift of an immortal name.
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After a journey that was full of incidents and not without danger to life,
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as for instance at Como, which was flooded when I reached it in
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the dead of night, I got to Turin on the afternoon of the twenty
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first. Turin is the only suitable place for me, and it shall be
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my home. Henceforward I took the same lodgings as I had occupied in the
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spring six one one one via Carlo Alberto, opposite the mighty Palazzo Carignano in
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which Vittorio Emmanuel was born, and I had a view of the Piazzo Carlo
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Alberto and above it across to the hills. Without hesitating or allowing myself to
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be disturbed for a single moment, I returned to my work, only the
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last quarter of which had still to be written. On the thirtieth of September,
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tremendous triumph the seventh day, the Leisure of a God on the banks
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of the Poe translator's footnote, there is a wonderful promenade along the banks of
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the Poe, for which Turin is famous, and of which Nietzsche was particularly
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fond, and translator's note. On the same day I wrote the preface to
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The Twilight of the Idols, the correction of the proofs of which provided me
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with recreation during the month of September. Never in my life have I experienced
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such an autumn, nor had I ever imagined that such things were possible on
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earth. A Claude Laurins extended to infinity each day equal to the last in
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its wild perfection. The Case of Wagner a musician's problem one. In order
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to do justice to this essay, a man ought to suffer from the fate
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of music as from an open wound. From what do I suffer when I
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suffer from the fate of music? From the fact that music has lost its
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world, transfiguring yea saying character that it is decadent music and no longer the
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flute of Dionysus. Supposing, however, that the fate of music be as
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dear to man as his own life, because joy and suffering are alike bound
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up with it, then he will find this pamphlet comparatively mild and full of
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consideration, to be cheerful in such circumstances, and laugh good naturedly with the
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others at oneself credendo de caire severroon translator's note, the motto of the Case
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of Wagner. End of translator's note. When the verum deceree would justify every
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sort of hardness is humanity itself? Who doubts that I, old artillery man
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that I am, would be able if I liked to point my heavy guns
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at Wagner? Everything decisive in this question I kept to myself. I have
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loved Wagner. After all, an attack upon a more than usually subtle unknown
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person whom another would not have divined so easily, lies in the meaning and
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path of my life. Task. Oh, I have still quite a number
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of other unknown persons to unmask, besides a cagliostro of music. Above all,
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I have to direct an attack against the German people, who, in
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matters of the spirit, grow every day more indolent, poorer in instincts,
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and more honest, who, with an appetite for which they are to be
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envied, continue to diet themselves on contradictions and gulp down faith in company with
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science. Christian love together with antisemitism and the will to power to the empire,
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dished up with the Gospel of the humble, without showing the slightest signs
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of indigestion. Fancy this absence of party feeling in the presence of opposites.
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Fancy this gastric neutrality and disinterestedness. Behold this sense of justice in the German
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palate, which can grant equal rights to all, which finds everything tasteful without
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a shadow of doubt. The Germans are idealists. When I was last in
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Germany. I found German tastes striving to Grant Wagner and the trumpeter of sackingen
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equal rights translator's footnote, an opera by Nessler which was all the rage in
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Germany to twenty years ago and translator's note. While I witnessed the attempts of
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the people of Leipzig to do honor to one of the most genuine and most
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German of musicians. Using German here in the old sense of the word,
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a man who is no mere German of the Empire, the master Heinrich Schultz,
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by founding a List's Society, the object of which was to cultivate and
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spread artful listige church music translator's footnote. Unfortunately, it is impossible to render
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this play on the words in English and translator's note without a shadow of doubt.
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The Germans are idealists. Two. But here nothing shall stop me from
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being rue and from telling the Germans one or two unpleasant home truths. Who
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else would do it if I did not? I refer to their laxity in
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matters historical. Not only have the Germans entirely lost the breath of vision which
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enables one to grasp the course of culture and the values of culture. Not
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only are they one and all political or church puppets, but they have also
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actually put a ban upon this very breath of vision. A man must first
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and foremost be German, he must belong to the race. Then only can
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he pass judgment upon all values and lack of values in history. Then only
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can he establish them to be German is in itself an argument Germany, Germany
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above all all is a principle. Translator's note the German national song Deutschland Deutschland
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Uberalus and translators note the Germans stand for the moral order of the universe.
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In history. Compared with the Roman Empire, they are the upholders of freedom.
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Compared with the eighteenth century, they are the restorers of morality, of
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the categorical imperative. There is such a thing as the writing of history.
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According to the lights of Imperial Germany. There is i fear, anti Semitic
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history. There is also history written with an eye to the court. And
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her von Tretsk is not ashamed of himself. Quite recently an idiotic opinion in
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Historicus an observation of Fisher the Swabian athete, since happily deceased made the round
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of the German newspapers as a truth to which every German must assent. The
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observation was this, the Renaissance and the Reformation only together constitute a whole,
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the esthetic rebirth and the moral rebirth. When I listen to such things,
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I lose all patients, and I feel inclined. I even feel it's my
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duty to tell the Germans, for once in a way, all that they
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have on their conscience, every great crime against culture for the last four centuries,
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lies on their conscience, and always for the same reason, always owing
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to their bottomless cowardice in the face of reality, which is also cowardice in
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the face of truth, always owing to the love of falsehood, which has
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become almost instinctive in them. In short, idealism, it was the Germans
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who caused Europe to lose the fruits the whole meaning of her last period of
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greatness, the period of the Renaissance, at a moment when a higher order
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of values, values that were noble, that said yea to life and that
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guaranteed of future, had succeeded in triumphing over the opposite values, the values
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of degeneration. In the very seed of Christianity itself and even in the hearts
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of those sitting there. Luther, that cursed monk, not only restored the
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Church, but what was a thousand times worse, restored Christianity, and at
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a time too, when it lay defeated Christianity, the denial of the will
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to live exalted to a religion. Luther was an an impossible monk who,
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thanks to his own impossibility, attacked the Church and in doing so restored it.
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Catholics would be perfectly justified in celebrating feasts in honour of Luther and in
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producing festival plays in his honour. Translator's note. Ever since the year sixteen
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seventeen such plays have been produced by the Protestants of Germany, and Translator's note,
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Luther and the Rebirth of morality. May all psychology go to the devil
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without a shadow of a doubt. The Germans are idealists. On two occasions,
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when at the cost of enormous courage and self control and upright unequivocal and
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perfectly scientific attitude of mind had been attained, the Germans were able to discover
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backstairs leading down to the old ideal again, compromises between truth and the ideal
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and in short, formulae for the right to reject science and to perpetrate falsehoods
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Leibnitz and Kan't. These two great breaks upon the intellectual honesty of Europe finally
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at a moment when there appeared, on the bridge that spanned two centuries of
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decadence, a superior force of genius and will, which was strong enough to
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consolidate Europe and to convert it into a political and economic unit with the object
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of ruling the world. The Germans, with their wars of independence, robbed
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Europe of the significance, the marvelous significance of Napoleon's life, and in doing
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so they laid on their conscience everything that followed, everything that exists today,
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this sickliness and one of reason, which is most opposed to culture, and
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which is called nationalism, This nevosa naciur now from which Europe is suffering acutely,
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this eternal subdivision of Europe into petty states with politics on a municipal scale.
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They have robbed Europe itself of its significance, of its reason, and
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have stuffed it into a cul de sac. Is there any one except me
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who knows the way out of this cul de sac. Does any one except
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me know of an aspiration which would be great enough to bind the peoples of
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Europe once more together? Three? And after all, why should I not
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express my suspicions in my case too? The Germans will attempt to make a
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great fate give birth merely to a mouse. Up to the present they have
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compromised themselves with me. I doubt whether the future will improve them alas how
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happy I should be to prove a false prophet in this matter. My natural
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readers and listeners are already Russians, Scandinavians and Frenchmen. Will they always be
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the same? In the history of knowledge, Germans are represented only by doubtful
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names. They have been able to produce only unconscious swindlers. This word applies
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to Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel, and Schleilemacher, just as well
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as to cant or Leadnitz. They are all merely Schleilemacher's translator's footnote. Schleiermacher
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literally means a weaver or maker of vain and translator's note, the Germans must
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not have the honor of seeing the first upright intellect in the history of intellects.
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That intellect in which truth ultimately got the better of the fraud of four
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thousand years, reckoned as one with the German intellect. German intellect is my
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foul air. I breathe with difficulty in the neighborhood of this psychological uncleanliness that
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has now become instinctive, an uncleanliness which in every word an expression betrays a
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German. They have never undergone a seventeenth century of hard self examination, as
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the French have a laroche fulcl a decar are a thousand times more upright than
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the very first among Germans. The latter have not yet had any psychologists.
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But psychology is almost the standard of measurement for the cleanliness or uncleanliness of a
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race. For if a man is not even clean, how can he be
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deep? The Germans are like women. You can scarcely ever fathom their depths.
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They haven't any, and that's the end of it. Thus they cannot
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even be called shallow. That which is called deep in Germany is precisely this
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instinctive uncleanliness towards one's self of which I have just spoken. People refuse to
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be clear in regards to their own natures. Might I be allowed, perhaps
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to suggest the word German as an international epithet denoting this psychological depravity. At
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the moment of writing, for instance, the German emperor is declaring it to
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be his crit ristian duty to liberate the slaves in Africa. Among US Europeans,
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then this will recalled simply German. Have the Germans ever produced even a
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book that had depth? They are lacking in the mere idea of what constitutes
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a book. I have known scholars who thought that Kant was deep at the
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Court of Prussia. I fear that her von Tresk is regarded as deep.
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And when I happen to praise Sandhaul as a deep psychologist, I have often
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been compelled in the company of German university professors to spell his name aloud four
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and why should I not proceed to the end? I am fond of clearing
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the air. It is even part of my ambition to be considered as essentially
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a despiser of Germans. I expressed my suspicions of the German character even at
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the age of six and twenty see Thoughts out of Season Volume two, pages
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one six four to one six five. To my mind, the Germans are
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impossible when I try to think of the kind of man who is opposed to
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me, in all my instincts, my mental image takes the form of a
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German. The first thing I ask myself when I begin analyzing a man is
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whether he has a feeling for distance in him, whether he sees rank,
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gradation and order everywhere between man and man, whether he makes distinctions. For
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this is what constitutes a gentleman. Otherwise he belongs hopelessly to that open hearted,
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open minded alas and all very good natured species lacanaye. But the Germans
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are knaye. Alas they are so good natured. A man lowers himself by
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frequenting the society of Germans. The German places everyone on an equal footing.
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With the exception of my intercourse with one or two artists, and above all
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with Richard Wagner, I cannot say that I have spent one pleasant hour with
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Germans. Suppose for one moment that the profoundest spirit of all ages were to
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appear among Germans, then one of the saviors of the capital would be sure
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to arise and declare that his own ugly soul was just as great. I
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can no longer abide this race with which a man is always in bad company
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which has no idea of nuances, woe to me, I am a nuance,
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and which has not a spree in its feet, and cannot even walk
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withal. In short, the Germans have no feed at all. They simply
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have legs. The Germans have not the faintest idea of how vulgar they are.
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But this in itself is the acme of vulgarity. They are not even
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ashamed of being merely Germans. They will have their say in everything. They
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regard themselves as fit to decide all questions. I even fear that they have
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decided about me. My whole life is essentially a proof of this remark.
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In vain have I sought among them for a sign of tact and delicacy towards
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myself? Among Jews, I did indeed find it, but not among Germans.
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I am so constituted as to be gentle and kindly to everyone. I
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have the right not to draw distinctions, but this does not prevent my eyes
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from being open. I accept no one, and least of all my friends.
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I only trust that this has not prejudiced my reputation for humanity. Among
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them, there are five or six things which I have always made points of
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honor. Albeit the truth remains that for many years I have considered almost every
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letter that has reached me as a piece of cynicism. There is more cynicism
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in an attitude of good will towards me than any sort of hatred. I
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tell every friend to his face that he has never thought it worth his while
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to study any one of my writings. From the slightest hints I gather that
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they do not even know what lies hidden in my books. And with regard
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even to my Zarathustra, which of my friends would have seen more in it
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than a piece of unwarrantable, though fortunately harmless arrogance. Ten years have elapsed,
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and no one has yet felt it a duty to his conscience to defend
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my name against the absurd silence beneath which it has been entombed. It was
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a foreigner, a Dane, who first showed sufficient keenness of instinct and courage
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to do this, and who protested indignantly against my so called friends at what
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German university to day would such lectures on my philosophy be possible? As those
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which doctor Brandes delivered last spring in Copenhagen, thus proving once more his right
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to the title psychologist. For my part, these things have never caused me
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any pain. That which is necessary does not offend me. Our morphatty is
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the core of my nature. This, however, does not alter the fact
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that I love irony, an even world historic irony. And thus, about
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two years before hurling the destructive thunderbolt of the transvaluation, which will send the
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whole of civilization into convulsions, I sent my case of Wagner out into the
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world. The Germans were given the chance of blundering and immortalizing their stupidity once
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more on my account, and they still have just enough time to do it
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in and have they fallen in with my plans admirably, My dear Germans,
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allow me to congratulate you, and of why I write such excellent books. Part three