---
type: article
status: Published
slug: "ecce-homo"
title: "Ecce Homo"
author: "Friedrich Nietzsche"
tradition: "european"
language: "de"
genre: "philosophical autobiography"
period: "1888 (published 1908)"
source_url: "https://archive.org/details/eccehomo00niet_0"
certainty: observed
source: "https://archive.org/details/eccehomo00niet_0"
---
# Ecce Homo

## Original

### Preface

Ecce homo

Wie man wird – was man ist

[1]

In Voraussicht, dass ich über Kurzem mit der schwersten Forderung an die Menschheit herantreten muß, die je an sie gestellt wurde, scheint es mir unerläßlich, zu sagen, *wer ich bin*. Im Grunde dürfte man’s wissen: denn ich habe mich nicht „unbezeugt gelassen“. Das Mißverhältniß aber zwischen der Größe meiner Aufgabe und der *Kleinheit* meiner Zeitgenossen ist darin zum Ausdruck gekommen, daß man mich weder gehört, noch auch nur gesehn hat. Ich lebe auf meinen eignen Credit hin, es ist vielleicht bloß ein Vorurtheil, daß ich lebe?… Ich brauche nur irgend einen „Gebildeten“ zu sprechen, der im Sommer in’s Ober-Engadin kommt, um mich zu überzeugen, daß ich *nicht* lebe… Unter diesen Umständen giebt es eine Pflicht, gegen die im Grunde meine Gewohnheit, noch mehr der Stolz meiner Instinkte revoltirt, nämlich zu sagen: *Hört mich! denn ich bin der und der. Verwechselt mich vor Allem nicht!*

[2]

Ich bin zum Beispiel durchaus kein Popanz, kein Moral-Ungeheuer, – ich bin sogar eine Gegensatz-Natur zu der Art Mensch, die man bisher als tugendhaft verehrt hat. Unter uns, es scheint mir, daß gerade Das zu meinem Stolz gehört. Ich bin ein Jünger des Philosophen Dionysos, ich zöge vor, eher noch ein Satyr zu sein, als ein Heiliger. Aber man lese nur diese Schrift. Vielleicht gelang es mir, vielleicht hatte diese Schrift gar keinen andren Sinn, als diesen Gegensatz in einer heitren und menschenfreundlichen Weise zum Ausdruck zu bringen. Das Letzte, was *ich* versprechen würde, wäre, die Menschheit zu „verbessern“. Von mir werden keine neuen Götzen aufgerichtet; die alten mögen lernen, was es mit thönernen Beinen auf sich hat. Götzen – mein Wort für Ideale – *umwerfen*, das gehört schon eher zu meinem Handwerk. Man hat die Realität in dem Grade um ihren Werth, ihren Sinn, ihre Wahrhaftigkeit gebracht, als man eine ideale Welt *erlog*… Die „wahre Welt“ und die „scheinbare Welt“ – auf deutsch: die *erlogene* Welt und die Realität… Die *Lüge* des Ideals war bisher der Fluch über der Realität, die Menschheit selbst ist durch sie bis in ihre untersten Instinkte hinein verlogen und falsch geworden, bis zur Anbetung der *umgekehrten* Werthe, als die sind, mit denen ihr erst das Gedeihen, die Zukunft, das hohe *Recht* auf Zukunft verbürgt wäre.

[3]

Wer die Luft meiner Schriften zu athmen weiß, weiß, daß es eine Luft der Höhe ist, eine *starke* Luft. Man muß für sie geschaffen sein, sonst ist die Gefahr keine kleine, sich in ihr zu erkälten. Das Eis ist nahe, die Einsamkeit ist ungeheuer – aber wie ruhig alle Dinge im Lichte liegen! wie frei man athmet! wie Viel man *unter* sich fühlt! – Philosophie, wie ich sie bisher verstanden und gelebt habe, ist das freiwillige Leben in Eis und Hochgebirge – das Aufsuchen alles Fremden und Fragwürdigen im Dasein, alles dessen, was durch die Moral bisher in Bann gethan war. Aus einer langen Erfahrung, welche eine solche Wanderung *im Verbotenen* gab, lernte ich die Ursachen, aus denen bisher moralisirt und idealisirt wurde, sehr anders ansehn als es erwünscht sein mag: Die *verborgene* Geschichte der Philosophen, die Psychologie ihrer großen Namen kam für mich an’s Licht. – Wie viel Wahrheit *erträgt*, wie viel Wahrheit *wagt* ein Geist? das wurde für mich immer mehr der eigentliche Werthmesser. Irrthum (– der Glaube an’s Ideal –) ist nicht Blindheit, Irrthum ist *Feigheit*… Jede Errungenschaft, jeder Schritt vorwärts in der Erkenntniß *folgt* aus dem Muth, aus der Härte gegen sich, aus der Sauberkeit gegen sich… Ich widerlege die Ideale nicht, ich ziehe bloß Handschuhe vor ihnen an… Nitimur in *vetitum*: in diesem Zeichen siegt einmal meine Philosophie, denn man verbot bisher grundsätzlich immer nur die Wahrheit. –

[4]

Innerhalb meiner Schriften steht für sich mein *Zarathustra*. Ich habe mit ihm der Menschheit das größte Geschenk gemacht, das ihr bisher gemacht worden ist. Dies Buch, mit einer Stimme über Jahrtausende hinweg, ist nicht nur das höchste Buch, das es giebt, das eigentliche Höhenluft-Buch – die ganze Thatsache Mensch liegt in ungeheurer Ferne *unter* ihm –, es ist auch das *tiefste*, das aus dem innersten Reichthum der Wahrheit heraus geborene, ein unerschöpflicher Brunnen, in den kein Eimer hinabsteigt, ohne mit Gold und Güte gefüllt heraufzukommen. Hier redet kein „Prophet“, keiner jener schauerlichen Zwitter von Krankheit und Willen zur Macht, die man Religionsstifter nennt. Man muß vor Allem den Ton, der aus diesem Munde kommt, diesen halkyonischen Ton richtig *hören*, um dem Sinn seiner Weisheit nicht erbarmungswürdig Unrecht zu thun. „Die stillsten Worte sind es, welche den Sturm bringen, Gedanken, die mit Taubenfüßen kommen, lenken die Welt –“

Die Feigen fallen von den Bäumen, sie sind gut und süß: und indem sie fallen, reißt ihnen die rothe Haut.

Ein Nordwind bin ich reifen Feigen.

Also, gleich Feigen, fallen euch diese Lehren zu, meine Freunde: nun trinkt ihren Saft und ihr süßes Fleisch!

Herbst ist es umher und reiner Himmel und Nachmittag –

Hier redet kein Fanatiker, hier wird nicht „gepredigt“, hier wird nicht *Glauben* verlangt: aus einer unendlichen Lichtfülle und Glückstiefe fällt Tropfen für Tropfen, Wort für Wort, – eine zärtliche Langsamkeit ist das Tempo dieser Reden. Dergleichen gelangt nur zu den Auserwähltesten; es ist ein Vorrecht ohne Gleichen, hier Hörer zu sein; es steht Niemandem frei, für Zarathustra Ohren zu haben… Ist Zarathustra mit Alledem nicht ein *Verführer?*… Aber was sagt er doch selbst, als er zum ersten Male wieder in seine Einsamkeit zurückkehrt? Genau das Gegentheil von dem, was irgendein „Weiser“, „Heiliger“, „Welt-Erlöser“ und andrer décadent in einem solchen Falle sagen würde… Er redet nicht nur anders, er *ist* auch anders…

Allein gehe ich nun, meine Jünger! Auch ihr geht nun davon und allein! So will ich es.

Geht fort von mir und wehrt euch gegen Zarathustra! Und besser noch: schämt euch seiner! Vielleicht betrog er euch.

Der Mensch der Erkenntniß muß nicht nur seine Feinde lieben, er muß auch seine Freunde hassen können.

Man vergilt einem Lehrer schlecht, wenn man immer nur der Schüler bleibt. Und warum wollt ihr nicht an meinem Kranze rupfen?

Ihr verehrt mich: aber wie, wenn eure Verehrung eines Tages *umfällt?* Hütet euch, daß euch nicht eine Bildsäule erschlage!

Ihr sagt, ihr glaubt an Zarathustra? Aber was liegt an Zarathustra! Ihr seid meine Gläubigen, aber was liegt an allen Gläubigen!

Ihr hattet euch noch nicht gesucht: da fandet ihr mich.

So thun alle Gläubigen; darum ist es so wenig mit allem Glauben.

Nun heiße ich euch, mich verlieren und euch finden; und erst, *wenn ihr mich Alle verleugnet habt*, will ich euch wiederkehren…

Friedrich Nietzsche

### Birthday Reflection

An diesem vollkommnen Tage, wo Alles reift und nicht nur die Traube braun wird, fiel mir eben ein Sonnenblick auf mein Leben: ich sah rückwärts, ich sah hinaus, ich sah nie so viel und so gute Dinge auf einmal. Nicht umsonst begrub ich heute mein vierundvierzigstes Jahr, ich *durfte* es begraben, – was in ihm Leben war, ist gerettet, ist unsterblich. Das erste Buch der *Umwerthung aller Werthe*, die *Lieder Zarathustra’s*, die *Götzen-Dämmerung*, mein Versuch, mit dem Hammer zu philosophiren – Alles Geschenke dieses Jahrs, sogar seines letzten Vierteljahrs! *Wie sollte ich nicht meinem ganzen Leben dankbar sein?* –

Und so erzähle ich mir
mein Leben.

### Why I Am So Wise

[1]

Das Glück meines Daseins, seine Einzigkeit vielleicht, liegt in seinem Verhängniß: ich bin, um es in Räthselform auszudrücken, als mein Vater bereits gestorben, als meine Mutter lebe ich noch und werde alt. Diese doppelte Herkunft, gleichsam aus der obersten und der untersten Sprosse an der Leiter des Lebens, décadent zugleich und *Anfang* – dies, wenn irgend Etwas, erklärt jene Neutralität, jene Freiheit von Partei im Verhältniß zum Gesammtprobleme des Lebens, die mich vielleicht auszeichnet. Ich habe für die Zeichen von Aufgang und Niedergang eine feinere Witterung als je ein Mensch gehabt hat, ich bin der Lehrer par excellence hierfür, – ich kenne Beides, ich bin Beides. – Mein Vater starb mit sechsunddreißig Jahren: er war zart, liebenswürdig und morbid, wie ein nur zum Vorübergehn bestimmtes Wesen, – eher eine gütige Erinnerung an das Leben, als das Leben selbst. Im gleichen Jahre, wo sein Leben abwärts gieng, gieng auch das meine abwärts: im sechsunddreißigsten Lebensjahre kam ich auf den niedrigsten Punkt meiner Vitalität, – ich lebte noch, doch ohne drei Schritt weit vor mich zu sehn. Damals – es war 1879 – legte ich meine Basler Professur nieder, lebte den Sommer über wie ein Schatten in St. Moritz und den nächsten Winter, den sonnenärmsten meines Lebens, *als* Schatten in Naumburg. Dies war mein Minimum: „Der Wanderer und sein Schatten“ entstand währenddem. Unzweifelhaft, ich verstand mich damals auf Schatten… Im Winter darauf, meinem ersten Genueser Winter, brachte jene Versüßung und Vergeistigung, die mit einer extremen Armuth an Blut und Muskel beinahe bedingt ist, die „Morgenröthe“ hervor. Die vollkommne Helle und Heiterkeit, selbst Exuberanz des Geistes, welche das genannte Werk wiederspiegelt, verträgt sich bei mir nicht nur mit der tiefsten physiologischen Schwäche, sondern sogar mit einem Exceß von Schmerzgefühl. Mitten in Martern, die ein ununterbrochner dreitägiger Gehirn-Schmerz sammt mühseligem Schleim-Erbrechen mit sich bringt, – besaß ich eine Dialektiker-Klarheit par excellence und dachte Dinge sehr kaltblütig durch, zu denen ich in gesünderen Verhältnissen nicht Kletterer, nicht raffinirt, nicht *kalt* genug bin. Meine Leser wissen vielleicht, in wie fern ich Dialektik als décadence-Symptom betrachte, zum Beispiel im allerberühmtesten Fall: im Fall des Sokrates. – Alle krankhaften Störungen des Intellekts, selbst jene Halbbetäubung, die das Fieber im Gefolge hat, sind mir bis heute gänzlich fremde Dinge geblieben, über deren Natur und Häufigkeit ich mich erst auf gelehrtem Wege zu unterrichten hatte. Mein Blut läuft langsam. Niemand hat je an mir Fieber constatiren können. Ein Arzt, der mich länger als Nervenkranken behandelte, sagte schließlich: „Nein! an Ihren Nerven liegt’s nicht, ich selber bin nur nervös“. Schlechterdings unnachweisbar irgend eine lokale Entartung; kein organisch bedingtes Magenleiden, wie sehr auch immer, als Folge der Gesammterschöpfung, die tiefste Schwäche des gastrischen Systems. Auch das Augenleiden, dem Blindwerden zeitweilig sich gefährlich annähernd, nur Folge, nicht ursächlich: sodaß mit jeder Zunahme an Lebenskraft auch die Sehkraft wieder zugenommen hat. – Eine lange, allzulange Reihe von Jahren bedeutet bei mir Genesung, – sie bedeutet leider auch zugleich Rückfall, Verfall, Periodik einer Art décadence. Brauche ich, nach alledem, zu sagen, daß ich in Fragen der décadence *erfahren* bin? Ich habe sie vorwärts und rückwärts buchstabirt. Selbst jene Filigran-Kunst des Greifens und Begreifens überhaupt, jene Finger für nuances, jene Psychologie des „Um-die-Ecke-sehns“ und was sonst mir eignet, ward damals erst erlernt, ist das eigentliche Geschenk jener Zeit, in der Alles sich bei mir verfeinerte, die Beobachtung selbst wie alle Organe der Beobachtung. Von der Kranken-Optik aus nach *gesünderen* Begriffen und Werthen, und wiederum umgekehrt aus der Fülle und Selbstgewißheit des *reichen* Lebens hinuntersehn in die heimliche Arbeit des décadence-Instinkts – das war meine längste Übung, meine eigentliche Erfahrung, wenn irgend worin wurde ich darin Meister. Ich habe es jetzt in der Hand, ich habe die Hand dafür, *Perspektiven umzustellen*: erster Grund, weshalb für mich allein vielleicht eine „Umwerthung der Werthe“ überhaupt möglich ist. –

[2]

Abgerechnet nämlich, daß ich ein décadent bin, bin ich auch dessen Gegensatz. Mein Beweis dafür ist, unter Anderem, daß ich instinktiv gegen die schlimmen Zustände immer die *rechten* Mittel wählte: während der décadent an sich immer die ihm nachtheiligen Mittel wählt. Als summa summarum war ich gesund, als Winkel, als Specialität war ich décadent. Jene Energie zur absoluten Vereinsamung und Herauslösung aus gewohnten Verhältnissen, der Zwang gegen mich, mich nicht mehr besorgen, bedienen, *beärzteln* zu lassen – das verräth die unbedingte Instinkt-Gewißheit darüber, *was* damals vor Allem noth that: Ich nahm mich selbst in die Hand, ich machte mich selbst wieder gesund: die Bedingung dazu – jeder Physiologe wird das zugeben – ist, *daß man im Grunde gesund ist*. Ein typisch morbides Wesen kann nicht gesund werden, noch weniger sich selbst gesund machen; für einen typisch Gesunden kann umgekehrt Kranksein sogar ein energisches *Stimulans* zum Leben, zum Mehrleben sein. So in der That erscheint mir *jetzt* jene lange Krankheits-Zeit: ich entdeckte das Leben gleichsam neu, mich selber eingerechnet, ich schmeckte alle guten und selbst kleinen Dinge, wie sie Andere nicht leicht schmecken könnten, – ich machte aus meinem Willen zur Gesundheit, zum *Leben*, meine Philosophie… Denn man gebe Acht darauf: die Jahre meiner niedrigsten Vitalität waren es, wo ich *aufhörte*, Pessimist zu sein: der Instinkt der Selbst-Wiederherstellung *verbot* mir eine Philosophie der Armuth und Entmuthigung… Und woran erkennt man im Grunde die *Wohlgerathenheit!* Daß ein wohlgerathner Mensch unsern Sinnen wohlthut: daß er aus einem Holze geschnitzt ist, das hart, zart und wohlriechend zugleich ist. Ihm schmeckt nur, was ihm zuträglich ist; sein Gefallen, seine Lust hört auf, wo das Maaß des Zuträglichen überschritten wird. Er erräth Heilmittel gegen Schädigungen, er nützt schlimme Zufälle zu seinem Vortheil aus; was ihn nicht umbringt, macht ihn stärker. Er sammelt instinktiv aus Allem, was er sieht, hört, erlebt, *seine* Summe: er ist ein auswählendes Princip, er läßt Viel durchfallen. Er ist immer in *seiner* Gesellschaft, ob er mit Büchern, Menschen oder Landschaften verkehrt: er ehrt, indem er *wählt*, indem er *zuläßt*, indem er *vertraut*. Er reagirt auf alle Art Reize langsam, mit jener Langsamkeit, die eine lange Vorsicht und ein gewollter Stolz ihm angezüchtet haben, – er prüft den Reiz, der herankommt, er ist fern davon, ihm entgegenzugehn. Er glaubt weder an „Unglück“ noch an „Schuld“: er wird fertig, mit sich, mit Anderen, er weiß zu *vergessen*, – er ist stark genug, daß ihm Alles zum Besten gereichen *muß*. – Wohlan, ich bin das *Gegenstück* eines décadent: denn ich beschrieb eben *mich*.

[3]

Diese *doppelte* Reihe von Erfahrungen, diese Zugänglichkeit zu anscheinend getrennten Welten wiederholt sich in meiner Natur in jeder Hinsicht, – ich bin ein Doppelgänger, ich habe auch das „zweite“ Gesicht noch außer dem ersten. *Und* vielleicht auch noch das dritte… Schon meiner Abkunft nach ist mir ein Blick erlaubt jenseits aller bloß lokal, bloß national bedingten Perspektiven, es kostet mich keine Mühe, ein „guter Europäer“ zu sein. Andrerseits bin ich vielleicht mehr deutsch, als jetzige Deutsche, bloße Reichsdeutsche es noch zu sein vermöchten, – ich, der letzte *antipolitische* Deutsche. Und doch waren meine Vorfahren polnische Edelleute: ich habe von daher viel Rassen-Instinkte im Leibe, wer weiß? zuletzt gar noch das liberum veto. Denke ich daran, wie oft ich unterwegs als Pole angeredet werde und von Polen selbst, wie selten man mich für einen Deutschen nimmt, so könnte es scheinen, daß ich nur zu den *angesprenkelten* Deutschen gehörte. Aber meine Mutter, Franziska Oehler, ist jedenfalls etwas sehr Deutsches; insgleichen meine Großmutter väterlicher Seits, Erdmuthe Krause. Letztere lebte ihre ganze Jugend mitten im guten alten Weimar, nicht ohne Zusammenhang mit dem Goethe’schen Kreise. Ihr Bruder, der Professor der Theologie Krause in Königsberg, wurde nach Herder’s Tode als Generalsuperintendent nach Weimar berufen. Es ist nicht unmöglich, daß ihre Mutter, meine Urgroßmutter, unter dem Namen „Muthgen“ im Tagebuch des jungen Goethe vorkommt. Sie verheirathete sich zum zweiten Mal mit dem Superintendenten Nietzsche in Eilenburg; an dem Tage des großen Kriegsjahres 1813, wo Napoleon mit seinem Generalstab in Eilenburg einzog, am 10. Oktober, hatte sie ihre Niederkunft. Sie war, als Sächsin, eine große Verehrerin Napoleon’s; es könnte sein, das ich’s auch noch bin. Mein Vater, 1813 geboren, starb 1849. Er lebte, bevor er das Pfarramt der Gemeinde Röcken unweit Lützen übernahm, einige Jahre auf dem Altenburger Schlosse und unterrichtete die vier Prinzessinnen daselbst. Seine Schülerinnen sind die Königin von Hannover, die Großfürstin Constantin, die Großherzogin von Oldenburg und die Prinzeß Therese von Sachsen-Altenburg. Er war voll tiefer Pietät gegen den preußischen König Friedrich Wilhelm den Vierten, von dem er auch sein Pfarramt erhielt; die Ereignisse von 1848 betrübten ihn über die Maaßen. Ich selber, am Geburtstage des genannten Königs geboren, am 15. Oktober, erhielt, wie billig, die Hohenzollern-Namen *Friedrich* Wilhelm. Einen Vorteil hatte jedenfalls die Wahl dieses Tages: mein Geburtstag war meine ganze Kindheit hindurch ein Festtag. – Ich betrachte es als ein großes Vorrecht, einen solchen Vater gehabt zu haben: es scheint mir sogar, daß sich damit Alles erklärt, was ich sonst an Vorrechten habe, – das Leben, das große Ja zum Leben *nicht* eingerechnet. Vor Allem, daß es für mich keiner Absicht dazu bedarf, sondern eines bloßen Abwartens, um unfreiwillig in eine Welt hoher und zarter Dinge einzutreten: ich bin dort zu Hause, meine innerste Leidenschaft wird dort erst frei. Daß ich für dies Vorrecht beinahe mit dem Leben zahlte, ist gewiß kein unbilliger Handel. – Um nur Etwas von meinem Zarathustra zu verstehn, muß man vielleicht ähnlich bedingt sein, wie ich es bin, – mit Einem Fuße *jenseits* des Lebens…

[4]

Ich habe nie die Kunst verstanden, gegen mich einzunehmen – auch das verdanke ich meinem unvergleichlichen Vater –, und selbst noch, wenn es mir von großem Werthe schien. Ich bin sogar, wie sehr immer das unchristlich scheinen mag, nicht einmal gegen mich eingenommen. Man mag mein Leben hin- und herwenden, man wird darin nur selten, im Grunde nur Ein Mal Spuren davon entdecken, daß Jemand bösen Willen gegen mich gehabt hätte, – vielleicht aber etwas zu viel Spuren von *gutem* Willen… Meine Erfahrungen selbst mit Solchen, an denen Jedermann schlechte Erfahrungen macht, sprechen ohne Ausnahme zu deren Gunsten; ich zähme jeden Bär, ich mache die Hanswürste noch sittsam. In den sieben Jahren, wo ich an der obersten Klasse des Basler Pädagogiums Griechisch lehrte, habe ich keinen Anlaß gehabt, eine Strafe zu verhängen; die Faulsten waren bei mir fleißig. Dem Zufall bin ich immer gewachsen; ich muß unvorbereitet sein, um meiner Herr zu sein. Das Instrument, es sei, welches es wolle, es sei so verstimmt, wie nur das Instrument „Mensch“ verstimmt werden kann – ich müßte krank sein, wenn es mir nicht gelingen sollte, ihm etwas Anhörbares abzugewinnen. Und wie oft habe ich das von den „Instrumenten“ selber gehört, daß sie sich noch nie *so* gehört hätten… Am schönsten vielleicht von jenem unverzeihlich jung gestorbenen Heinrich von Stein, der einmal, nach sorgsam eingeholter Erlaubniß, auf drei Tage in Sils-Maria erschien, Jedermann erklärend, daß er *nicht* wegen des Engadins komme. Dieser ausgezeichnete Mensch, der mit der ganzen ungestümen Einfalt eines preußischen Junkers in den Wagner’schen Sumpf hineingewatet war (– und außerdem noch in den Dühring’schen!) war diese drei Tage wie umgewandelt durch einen Sturmwind der Freiheit, gleich Einem, der plötzlich in *seine* Höhe gehoben wird und Flügel bekommt. Ich sagte ihm immer, das mache die gute Luft hier oben, so gehe es Jedem, man sei nicht umsonst 6000 Fuß über Bayreuth, – aber er wollte mir’s nicht glauben… Wenn trotzdem an mir manche kleine und große Missethat verübt worden ist, so war nicht der „Wille“, am wenigsten der *böse* Wille Grund davon: eher schon hätte ich mich – ich deutete es eben an – über den guten Willen zu beklagen, der keinen kleinen Unfug in meinem Leben angerichtet hat. Meine Erfahrungen geben mir ein Anrecht auf Mißtrauen überhaupt hinsichtlich der sogenannten „selbstlosen“ Triebe, der gesammten zu Rath und That bereiten „Nächstenliebe“. Sie gilt mir an sich als Schwäche, als Einzelfall der Widerstands-Unfähigkeit gegen Reize, – das *Mitleiden* heißt nur bei décadents eine Tugend. Ich werfe den Mitleidigen vor, daß ihnen die Scham, die Ehrfurcht, das Zartgefühl vor Distanzen leicht abhanden kommt, daß Mitleiden im Handumdrehen nach Pöbel riecht und schlechten Manieren zum Verwechseln ähnlich sieht, – daß mitleidige Hände unter Umständen geradezu zerstörerisch in ein großes Schicksal, in eine Vereinsamung unter Wunden, in ein *Vorrecht* auf schwere Schuld hineingreifen können. Die Überwindung des Mitleids rechne ich unter die *vornehmen* Tugenden: ich habe als „Versuchung Zarathustra’s“ einen Fall gedichtet, wo ein großer Nothschrei an ihn kommt, wo das Mitleiden wie eine letzte Sünde ihn überfallen, ihn von *sich* abspenstig machen will. Hier Herr bleiben, hier die *Höhe* seiner Aufgabe rein halten von den viel niedrigeren und kurzsichtigeren Antrieben, welche in den sogenannten selbstlosen Handlungen thätig sind, das ist die Probe, die letzte Probe vielleicht, die ein Zarathustra abzulegen hat – sein eigentlicher *Beweis* von Kraft…

[5]

Auch noch in einem anderen Punkte bin ich bloß mein Vater noch einmal und gleichsam sein Fortleben nach einem allzufrühen Tode. Gleich Jedem, der nie unter seines Gleichen lebte und dem der Begriff „Vergeltung“ so unzugänglich ist wie etwa der Begriff „gleiche Rechte“, verbiete ich mir in Fällen, wo eine kleine oder *sehr große* Thorheit an mir begangen wird, jede Gegenmaaßregel, jede Schutzmaaßregel, – wie billig, auch jede Vertheidigung, jede „Rechtfertigung“. Meine Art Vergeltung besteht darin, der Dummheit so schnell wie möglich eine Klugheit nachzuschicken: so holt man sie vielleicht noch ein. Im Gleichniß geredet: ich schicke einen Topf mit Confitüren, um eine *sauere* Geschichte loszuwerden… Man hat nur Etwas an mir schlimm zu machen, ich „vergelte“ es, dessen sei man sicher: ich finde über Kurzem eine Gelegenheit, dem „Missethäter“ meinen Dank auszudrücken (mitunter sogar für die Missethat) – oder ihn um Etwas zu *bitten*, was verbindlicher sein kann als Etwas geben… Auch scheint es mir, daß das gröbste Wort, der gröbste Brief noch gutartiger, noch honnetter sind als Schweigen. Solchen, die schweigen, fehlt es fast immer an Feinheit und Höflichkeit des Herzens; Schweigen ist ein Einwand, Hinunterschlucken macht nothwendig einen schlechten Charakter, – es verdirbt selbst den Magen. Alle Schweiger sind dyspeptisch. – Man sieht, ich möchte die Grobheit nicht unterschätzt wissen, sie ist bei weitem die *humanste* Form des Widerspruchs und, inmitten der modernen Verzärtelung, eine unsrer ersten Tugenden. – Wenn man reich genug dazu ist, ist es selbst ein Glück, Unrecht zu haben. Ein Gott, der auf die Erde käme, dürfte gar nichts Andres *thun*, als Unrecht, — nicht die Strafe, sondern die *Schuld* auf sich zu nehmen wäre erst göttlich.

[6]

DIE Freiheit vom Ressentiment, die Aufklärung über das Ressentiment — wer weiß, wie sehr ich zuletzt auch darin meiner langen Krankheit zu Dank verpflichtet bin! Das Problem ist nicht gerade einfach: man muß es aus der Kraft heraus und aus der Schwäche heraus erlebt haben. Wenn irgend Etwas überhaupt gegen Kranksein, gegen Schwachsein geltend gemacht werden muß, so ist es, daß in ihm der eigentliche Heilinstinkt, das ist der *Wehr- und Waffen-Instinkt* im Menschen mürbe wird. Man weiß von Nichts loszukommen, man weiß mit Nichts fertig zu werden, man weiß Nichts zurückzustoßen, — Alles verletzt. Mensch und Ding kommen zudringlich nahe, die Erlebnisse treffen zu tief, die Erinnerung ist eine eiternde Wunde. Kranksein *ist* eine Art Ressentiment selbst. — Hiergegen hat der Kranke nur Ein großes Heilmittel, — ich nenne es den *russischen Fatalismus*, jenen Fatalismus ohne Revolte, mit dem sich ein russischer Soldat, dem der Feldzug zu hart wird, zuletzt in den Schnee legt. Nichts überhaupt mehr annehmen, an sich nehmen, *in* sich hineinnehmen, — überhaupt nicht mehr reagiren... Die große Vernunft dieses Fatalismus, der nicht immer nur der Muth zum Tode ist, als lebenerhaltend unter den lebensgefährlichsten Umständen, ist die Herabsetzung des Stoffwechsels, dessen Verlangsamung, eine Art Wille zum Winterschlaf. Ein paar Schritte weiter in dieser Logik, und man hat den Fakir, der wochenlang in einem Grabe schläft... Weil man zu schnell sich verbrauchen würde, *wenn* man überhaupt reagirte, reagirt man gar nicht mehr: dies ist die Logik. Und mit Nichts brennt man rascher ab, als mit den Ressentiments-Affekten. Der Ärger, die krankhafte Verletzlichkeit, die Ohnmacht zur Rache, die Lust, der Durst nach der Rache, das Giftmischen in jedem Sinne — das ist für Erschöpfte sicherlich die nachtheiligste Art zu reagiren: ein rapider Verbrauch von Nervenkraft, eine krankhafte Steigerung schädlicher Ausleerungen, zum Beispiel der Galle in den Magen, ist damit bedingt. Das Ressentiment ist das Verbotene *an sich* für den Kranken — *sein* Böses: leider auch sein natürlichster Hang. — Das begriff jener tiefe Physiolog Buddha. Seine „Religion“, die man besser als eine *Hygiene* bezeichnen dürfte, um sie nicht mit so erbarmungswürdigen Dingen wie das Christentum ist, zu vermischen, machte ihre Wirkung abhängig von dem Sieg über das Ressentiment: die Seele *davon* frei machen — erster Schritt zur Genesung. „Nicht durch Feindschaft kommt Feindschaft zu Ende, durch Freundschaft kommt Feindschaft zu Ende“: das steht am Anfang der Lehre Buddha’s — so redet *nicht* die Moral, so redet die Physiologie. — Das Ressentiment, aus der Schwäche geboren, Niemandem schädlicher als dem Schwachen selbst, — im andern Falle, wo eine reiche Natur die Voraussetzung ist, ein *überflüssiges* Gefühl, ein Gefühl, über das Herr zu bleiben beinahe der Beweis des Reichthums ist. Wer den Ernst kennt, mit dem meine Philosophie den Kampf mit den Rach- und Nachgefühlen bis in die Lehre vom „freien Willen“ hinein aufgenommen hat — der Kampf mit dem Christenthum ist nur ein Einzelfall daraus — wird verstehn, weshalb ich mein persönliches Verhalten, meine *Instinkt-Sicherheit* in der Praxis hier gerade an’s Licht stelle. In den Zeiten der décadence *verbot* ich sie mir als schädlich; sobald das Leben wieder reich und stolz genug dazu war, verbot ich sie mir als *unter* mir. Jener „russische Fatalismus“, von dem ich sprach, trat darin bei mir hervor, daß ich beinahe unerträgliche Lagen, Orte, Wohnungen, Gesellschaften, nachdem sie einmal, durch Zufall, gegeben waren, Jahre lang zäh festhielt, — es war besser, als sie ändern, als sie veränderbar zu *fühlen*, — als sich gegen sie aufzulehnen... Mich in diesem Fatalismus stören, mich gewaltsam aufwecken nahm ich damals tödtlich übel: — in Wahrheit war es auch jedes Mal tödtlich gefährlich. — Sich selbst wie ein Fatum nehmen, nicht sich „anders“ wollen — das ist in solchen Zuständen die *große Vernunft* selbst.

[7]

EIN ander Ding ist der Krieg. Ich bin meiner Art nach kriegerisch. Angreifen gehört zu meinen Instinkten. Feind sein *können*, Feind sein — das setzt vielleicht eine starke Natur voraus, jedenfalls ist es bedingt in jeder starken Natur. Sie braucht Widerstände, folglich *sucht* sie Widerstand: das *aggressive* Pathos gehört ebenso nothwendig zur Stärke als das Rach- und Nachgefühl zur Schwäche. Das Weib zum Beispiel ist rachsüchtig: das ist in seiner Schwäche bedingt, so gut wie seine Reizbarkeit für fremde Noth. — Die Stärke des Angreifenden hat in der Gegnerschaft, die er nöthig hat, eine Art *Maaß*; jedes Wachsthum verräth sich im Aufsuchen eines gewaltigeren Gegners — oder Problems: denn ein Philosoph, der kriegerisch ist, fordert auch Probleme zum Zweikampf heraus. Die Aufgabe ist *nicht*, überhaupt über Widerstände Herr zu werden, sondern über solche, an denen man seine ganze Kraft, Geschmeidigkeit und Waffen-Meisterschaft einzusetzen hat, — über *gleiche* Gegner... Gleichheit vor dem Feinde — erste Voraussetzung zu einem *rechtschaffnen* Duell. Wo man verachtet, *kann* man nicht Krieg führen; wo man befiehlt, wo man Etwas *unter* sich sieht, *hat* man nicht Krieg zu führen. — Meine Kriegs-Praxis ist in vier Sätze zu fassen. Erstens: ich greife nur Sachen an, die siegreich sind, — ich warte unter Umständen, bis sie siegreich sind. Zweitens: ich greife nur Sachen an, wo ich keine Bundesgenossen finden würde, wo ich allein stehe, — wo ich mich allein compromittire... Ich habe nie einen Schritt öffentlich gethan, der nicht compromittirte: das ist *mein* Kriterium des rechten Handelns. Drittens: ich greife nie Personen an, — ich bediene mich der Person nur wie eines starken Vergrößerungsglases, mit dem man einen allgemeinen, aber schleichenden, aber wenig greifbaren Nothstand sichtbar machen kann. So griff ich David Strauß an, genauer den *Erfolg* eines altersschwachen Buchs bei der deutschen „Bildung“, — ich ertappte diese Bildung dabei auf der That... So griff ich Wagnern an, genauer die Falschheit, die Instinkt-Halbschlächtigkeit unsrer „Cultur“, welche die Raffinirten mit den Reichen, die Späten mit den Großen verwechselt. Viertens: ich greife nur Dinge an, wo jedwede Personen-Differenz ausgeschlossen ist, wo jeder Hintergrund schlimmer Erfahrungen fehlt. Im Gegentheil, angreifen ist bei mir ein Beweis des Wohlwollens, unter Umständen der Dankbarkeit. Ich ehre, ich zeichne aus damit, daß ich meinen Namen mit dem einer Sache, einer Person verbinde: für oder wider — das gilt mir darin gleich. Wenn ich dem Christenthum den Krieg mache, so steht dies mir zu, weil ich von dieser Seite aus keine Fatalitäten und Hemmungen erlebt habe, — die ernstesten Christen sind mir immer gewogen gewesen. Ich selber, ein Gegner des Christenthums de rigueur, bin ferne davon, es dem Einzelnen nachzutragen, was das Verhängniß von Jahrtausenden ist. —

[8]

DARF ich noch einen letzten Zug meiner Natur anzudeuten wagen, der mir im Umgang mit Menschen keine kleine Schwierigkeit macht? Mir eignet eine vollkommen unheimliche Reizbarkeit des Reinlichkeits-Instinkts, so daß ich die Nähe oder — was sage ich? — das Innerlichste, die „Eingeweide“ jeder Seele physiologisch wahrnehme — *rieche*... Ich habe an dieser Reizbarkeit psychologische Fühlhörner, mit denen ich jedes Geheimniß betaste und in die Hand bekomme: der viele *verborgene* Schmutz auf dem Grunde mancher Natur, vielleicht in schlechtem Blut bedingt, aber durch Erziehung übertüncht, wird mir fast bei der ersten Berührung schon bewußt. Wenn ich recht beobachtet habe, empfinden solche meiner Reinlichkeit unzuträgliche Naturen die Vorsicht meines Ekels auch ihrerseits: sie werden damit nicht wohlriechender... So wie ich mich immer gewöhnt habe — eine extreme Lauterkeit gegen mich ist meine Daseins-Voraussetzung, ich komme um unter unreinen Bedingungen —, schwimme und bade und plätschere ich gleichsam beständig im Wasser, in irgend einem vollkommen durchsichtigen und glänzenden Elemente. Das macht mir aus dem Verkehr mit Menschen keine kleine Gedulds-Probe; meine Humanität besteht *nicht* darin, mitzufühlen, wie der Mensch ist, sondern es *auszuhalten*, daß ich ihn mitfühle... Meine Humanität ist eine beständige Selbstüberwindung. — Aber ich habe *Einsamkeit* nöthig, will sagen, Genesung, Rückkehr zu mir, den Athem einer freien leichten spielenden Luft... Mein ganzer Zarathustra ist ein Dithyrambus auf die Einsamkeit, oder, wenn man mich verstanden hat, auf die *Reinheit*... Zum Glück nicht auf die *reine Torheit*... — Wer Augen für Farben hat, wird ihn diamanten nennen. — Der *Ekel* am Menschen, am „Gesindel“ war immer meine größte Gefahr... Will man die Worte hören, in denen Zarathustra von der *Erlösung* vom Ekel redet?

»Was geschah mir doch? Wie erlöste ich mich vom Ekel?

Wer verjüngte mein Auge? Wie erflog ich die Höhe, wo kein Gesindel mehr am Brunnen sitzt?

Schuf mein Ekel selber mir Flügel und quellenahnende Kräfte? Wahrlich, in’s Höchste mußte ich fliegen, daß ich den Born der Lust wiederfände! —

Oh ich fand ihn, meine Brüder! Hier im Höchsten quillt mir der Born der Lust! Und es giebt ein Leben, an dem kein Gesindel mittrinkt!

Fast zu heftig strömst du mir, Quell der Lust! Und oft leerst du den Becher wieder, dadurch, daß du ihn füllen willst.

Und noch muß ich lernen, bescheidener dir zu nahen: allzuheftig strömt dir noch mein Herz entgegen:

— mein Herz, auf dem mein Sommer brennt, der kurze, heiße, schwermüthige, überselige: wie verlangt mein Sommer-Herz nach deiner Kühle!

Vorbei die zögernde Trübsal meines Frühlings! Vorüber die Schneeflocken meiner Bosheit im Juni! Sommer wurde ich ganz und Sommer-Mittag, —

— ein Sommer im Höchsten mit kalten Quellen und seliger Stille: oh kommt, meine Freunde, daß die Stille noch seliger werde!

Denn dies ist *unsre* Höhe und unsre Heimat: zu hoch und zu steil wohnen wir hier allen Unreinen und ihrem Durste.

Werft nur eure reinen Augen in den Born meiner Lust, ihr Freunde! Wie sollte er darob trübe werden? Entgegenlachen soll er euch mit *seiner* Reinheit.

Auf dem Baume Zukunft bauen wir unser Nest; Adler sollen uns Einsamen Speise bringen in ihren Schnäbeln!

Wahrlich, keine Speise, an der Unsaubere mitessen dürften!

Feuer würden sie zu fressen wähnen und sich die Mäuler verbrennen.

Wahrlich, keine Heimstätten halten wir hier bereit für Unsaubere! Eishöhle würde ihren Leibern unser Glück heißen und ihren Geistern!

Und wie starke Winde wollen wir über ihnen leben, Nachbarn den Adlern, Nachbarn dem Schnee, Nachbarn der Sonne: also leben starke Winde.

Und einem Winde gleich will ich einst noch zwischen sie blasen und mit meinem Geiste ihrem Geiste den Athem nehmen: so will es meine Zukunft.

Wahrlich, ein starker Wind ist Zarathustra allen Niederungen: und solchen Rath räth er seinen Feinden und Allem, was spuckt und speit: hütet euch, *gegen* den Wind zu speien!...«

### Why I Am So Clever

[1]

WARUM ICH einiges *mehr* weiß? Warum ich überhaupt so klug bin? Ich habe nie über Fragen nachgedacht, die keine sind, — ich habe mich nicht verschwendet. — Eigentliche *religiöse* Schwierigkeiten zum Beispiel kenne ich nicht aus Erfahrung. Es ist mir gänzlich entgangen, inwiefern ich „sündhaft“ sein sollte. Insgleichen fehlt mir ein zuverlässiges Kriterium dafür, was ein Gewissensbiß ist: nach dem, was man darüber *hört*, scheint mir ein Gewissensbiß nichts Achtbares... Ich möchte nicht eine Handlung *hinterdrein* in Stich lassen, ich würde vorziehn, den schlimmen Ausgang, die *Folgen* grundsätzlich aus der Werthfrage wegzulassen. Man verliert beim schlimmen Ausgang gar zu leicht den *richtigen* Blick für Das, was man that: ein Gewissensbiß scheint mir eine Art „*böser* Blick.“ Etwas, das fehlschlägt, um so mehr bei sich in Ehren halten, *weil* es fehlschlug — das gehört eher schon zu meiner Moral. — „Gott,“ „Unsterblichkeit der Seele,“ „Erlösung,“ „Jenseits“ lauter Begriffe, denen ich keine Aufmerksamkeit, auch keine Zeit geschenkt habe, selbst als Kind nicht, — ich war vielleicht nie kindlich genug dazu? — Ich kenne den Atheismus durchaus nicht als Ergebniß, noch weniger als Ereigniß: er versteht sich bei mir aus Instinkt. Ich bin zu neugierig, zu *fragwürdig*, zu übermüthig, um mir eine faustgrobe Antwort gefallen zu lassen. Gott ist eine faustgrobe Antwort, eine Undelicatesse gegen uns Denker —, im Grunde sogar bloß ein faustgrobes *Verbot* an uns: ihr sollt nicht denken!... Ganz anders interessirt mich eine Frage, an der mehr das „Heil der Menschheit“ hängt, als an irgend einer Theologen-Curiosität: die Frage der *Ernährung*. Man kann sie sich, zum Handgebrauch, so formuliren: „wie hast gerade *du* dich zu ernähren, um zu deinem Maximum von Kraft, von virtù im Renaissance-Stile, von moralinfreier Tugend zu kommen?“ — Meine Erfahrungen sind hier so schlimm als möglich; ich bin erstaunt, diese Frage so spät gehört, aus diesen Erfahrungen so spät „Vernunft“ gelernt zu haben. Nur die vollkommne Nichtswürdigkeit unsrer deutschen Bildung — ihr „Idealismus“ — erklärt mir einigermaaßen, weshalb ich gerade hier rückständig bis zur Heiligkeit war. Diese „Bildung“, welche von vornherein die *Realitäten* aus den Augen verlieren lehrt, um durchaus problematischen, sogenannten idealen Zielen nachzujagen, zum Beispiel der „klassischen Bildung“: — als ob es nicht von vornherein verurtheilt wäre, „klassisch“ und „deutsch“ in Einen Begriff zu einigen! Mehr noch, es wirkt erheiternd, — man denke sich einmal einen „klassisch gebildeten“ Leipziger! — In der That, ich habe bis zu meinen reifsten Jahren immer nur *schlecht* gegessen, — moralisch ausgedrückt „unpersönlich“, „selbstlos“, „altruistisch“, zum Heil der Köche und andrer Mitchristen. Ich verneinte zum Beispiel durch Leipziger Küche, gleichzeitig mit meinem ersten Studium Schopenhauer’s (1865), sehr ernsthaft meinen „Willen zum Leben“. Sich zum Zweck unzureichender Ernährung auch noch den Magen verderben — dies Problem schien mir die genannte Küche zum Verwundern glücklich zu lösen. (Man sagt, 1866 habe darin eine Wendung hervorgebracht —.) Aber die deutsche Küche überhaupt — was hat sie nicht Alles auf dem Gewissen! Die Suppe *vor* der Mahlzeit (noch in Venetianischen Kochbüchern des 16. Jahrhunderts alla tedesca genannt); die ausgekochten Fleische, die fett und mehlig gemachten Gemüse; die Entartung der Mehlspeise zum Briefbeschwerer! Rechnet man gar noch die geradezu viehischen Nachguß-Bedürfnisse der alten, durchaus nicht bloß *alten* Deutschen dazu, so versteht man auch die Herkunft des *deutschen Geistes* — aus betrübten Eingeweiden... Der deutsche Geist ist eine Indigestion, er wird mit Nichts fertig. — Aber auch die *englische* Diät, die, im Vergleich mit der deutschen, selbst der französischen, eine Art „Rückkehr zur Natur“, nämlich zum Canibalismus ist, geht meinem eignen Instinkt tief zuwider; es scheint mir, daß sie dem Geist *schwere* Füße giebt — Engländerinnen-Füße... Die beste Küche ist die *Piemont’s*. — Alkoholika sind mir nachtheilig; ein Glas Wein oder Bier des Tags reicht vollkommen aus, mir aus dem Leben ein „Jammerthal“ zu machen, — in München leben meine Antipoden. Gesetzt, daß ich dies ein wenig spät begriff, *erlebt* habe ich’s eigentlich von Kindesbeinen an. Als Knabe glaubte ich, Weintrinken sei wie Tabakrauchen anfangs nur eine Vanitas junger Männer, später eine schlechte Gewöhnung. Vielleicht, daß an diesem *herben* Urtheil auch der Naumburger Wein mit schuld ist. Zu glauben, daß der Wein *erheitert*, dazu müßte ich Christ sein, will sagen glauben, was gerade für mich eine Absurdität ist. Seltsam genug, bei dieser extremen Verstimmbarkeit durch *kleine*, stark verdünnte Dosen Alkohol, werde ich beinahe zum Seemann, wenn es sich um *starke* Dosen handelt. Schon als Knabe hatte ich hierin meine Tapferkeit. Eine lange lateinische Abhandlung in Einer Nachtwache niederzuschreiben und auch noch abzuschreiben, mit dem Ehrgeiz in der Feder, es meinem Vorbilde Sallust in Strenge und Gedrängtheit nachzuthun, und einigen Grog von schwerstem Kaliber über mein Latein zu gießen, dies stand schon, als ich Schüler der ehrwürdigen Schulpforta war, durchaus nicht im Widerspruch zu meiner Physiologie, noch vielleicht auch zu der des Sallust — wie sehr auch immer zur ehrwürdigen Schulpforta... Später, gegen die Mitte des Lebens hin, entschied ich mich freilich immer strenger *gegen* jedwedes „geistige“ Getränk: ich, ein Gegner des Vegetarierthums aus Erfahrung, ganz wie Richard Wagner, der mich bekehrt hat, weiß nicht ernsthaft genug die unbedingte Enthaltung von Alcoholicis allen *geistigeren* Naturen anzurathen. *Wasser* thut’s... Ich ziehe Orte vor, wo man überall Gelegenheit hat, aus fließenden Brunnen zu schöpfen (Nizza, Turin, Sils); ein kleines Glas läuft mir nach wie ein Hund. In vino *veritas*: es scheint, daß ich auch hier wieder über den Begriff „Wahrheit“ mit aller Welt uneins bin: — bei mir schwebt der Geist über dem *Wasser*... Ein paar Fingerzeige noch aus meiner Moral. Eine starke Mahlzeit ist leichter zu verdauen als eine zu kleine. Daß der Magen als Ganzes in Thätigkeit tritt, erste Voraussetzung einer guten Verdauung. Man muß die Größe seines Magens *kennen*. Aus gleichem Grunde sind jene langwierigen Mahlzeiten zu widerrathen, die ich unterbrochne Opferfeste nenne, die an der table d’hôte. — Keine Zwischenmahlzeiten, keinen Café: Café verdüstert. *Thee* nur morgens zuträglich. Wenig aber energisch; Thee sehr nachtheilig und den ganzen Tag ankränkelnd, wenn er nur um einen Grad zu schwach ist. Jeder hat hier sein Maaß, oft zwischen den engsten und delikatesten Grenzen. In einem sehr agaçanten Klima ist Thee als Anfang unräthlich: man soll eine Stunde vorher eine Tasse dicken entölten Cacao’s den Anfang machen lassen. — So wenig als möglich *sitzen*; keinem Gedanken Glauben schenken, der nicht im Freien geboren ist und bei freier Bewegung, — in dem nicht auch die Muskeln ein Fest feiern. Alle Vorurtheile kommen aus den Eingeweiden. — Das Sitzfleisch — ich sagte es schon einmal — die eigentliche *Sünde* wider den heiligen Geist. —

[2]

MIT der Frage der Ernährung ist nächstverwandt die Frage nach *Ort* und *Klima*. Es steht Niemandem frei, überall zu leben; und wer große Aufgaben zu lösen hat, die seine ganze Kraft herausfordern, hat hier sogar eine sehr enge Wahl. Der klimatische Einfluß auf den *Stoffwechsel*, seine Hemmung, seine Beschleunigung, geht so weit, daß ein Fehlgriff in Ort und Klima Jemanden nicht nur seiner Aufgabe entfremden, sondern ihm dieselbe überhaupt vorenthalten kann: er bekommt sie nie zu Gesicht. Der animalische Vigor ist nie groß genug bei ihm geworden, daß jene in’s Geistigste überströmende Freiheit erreicht wird, wo Jemand erkennt: *das* kann ich allein... Eine zur schlechten Gewohnheit gewordne noch so kleine Eingeweide-Trägheit genügt vollständig, um aus einem Genie etwas Mittelmäßiges, etwas „Deutsches“ zu machen; das deutsche Klima allein ist ausreichend, um starke und selbst heroisch angelegte Eingeweide zu entmuthigen. Das Tempo des Stoffwechsels steht in einem genauen Verhältniß zur Beweglichkeit oder Lahmheit der *Füße* des Geistes; der „Geist“ selbst ist ja nur eine Art dieses Stoffwechsels. Man stelle sich die Orte zusammen, wo es geistreiche Menschen giebt und gab, wo Witz, Raffinement, Bosheit zum Glück gehörten, wo das Genie fast nothwendig sich heimisch machte: sie haben alle eine ausgezeichnet trockne Luft. Paris, die Provence, Florenz, Jerusalem, Athen — diese Namen beweisen Etwas: das Genie ist *bedingt* durch trockne Luft, durch reinen Himmel, — das heißt durch rapiden Stoffwechsel, durch die Möglichkeit, große, selbst ungeheure Mengen Kraft sich immer wieder zuzuführen. Ich habe einen Fall vor Augen, wo ein bedeutend und frei angelegter Geist bloß durch Mangel an Instinkt-Feinheit im Klimatischen eng, verkrochen, Spezialist und Sauertopf wurde. Und ich selber hätte zuletzt dieser Fall werden können, gesetzt, daß mich nicht die Krankheit zur Vernunft, zum Nachdenken über die Vernunft in der Realität gezwungen hätte. Jetzt, wo ich die Wirkungen klimatischen und meteorologischen Ursprungs aus langer Übung an mir als an einem sehr feinen und zuverlässigen Instrumente ablese und bei einer kurzen Reise schon, etwa von Turin nach Mailand, den Wechsel in den Graden der Luftfeuchtigkeit physiologisch bei mir nachrechne, denke ich mit Schrecken an die *unheimliche* Thatsache, daß mein Leben bis auf die letzten 10 Jahre, die lebensgefährlichen Jahre, immer sich nur in falschen und mir geradezu *verbotenen* Orten abgespielt hat. Naumburg, Schulpforta, Thüringen überhaupt, Leipzig, Basel, Venedig — ebenso viele Unglücks-Orte für meine Physiologie. Wenn ich überhaupt von meiner ganzen Kindheit und Jugend keine willkommne Erinnerung habe, so wäre es eine Thorheit, hier sogenannte „moralische“ Ursachen geltend zu machen, — etwa den unbestreitbaren Mangel an *zureichender* Gesellschaft: denn dieser Mangel besteht heute wie er immer bestand, ohne daß er mich hinderte, heiter und tapfer zu sein. Sondern die Unwissenheit in physiologicis — der verfluchte „Idealismus“ — ist das eigentliche Verhängniß in meinem Leben, das Überflüssige und Dumme darin, Etwas, aus dem nichts Gutes gewachsen, für das es keine Ausgleichung, keine Gegenrechnung giebt. Aus den Folgen dieses „Idealismus“ erkläre ich mir alle Fehlgriffe, alle großen Instinkt-Abirrungen und „Bescheidenheiten“ abseits der *Aufgabe* meines Lebens, zum Beispiel, daß ich Philologe wurde — warum zum Mindesten nicht Arzt oder sonst irgend etwas Augen-Aufschließendes? In meiner Basler Zeit war meine ganze geistige Diät, die Tages-Eintheilung eingerechnet, ein vollkommen sinnloser Mißbrauch außerordentlicher Kräfte, ohne eine irgendwie den Verbrauch deckende Zufuhr von Kräften, ohne ein Nachdenken selbst über Verbrauch und Ersatz. Es fehlte jede feinere Selbstigkeit, jede *Obhut* eines gebieterischen Instinkts, es war ein Sich-gleichsetzen mit Irgendwem, eine „Selbstlosigkeit“, ein Vergessen seiner Distanz, — Etwas, das ich mir nie verzeihe. Als ich fast am Ende war, dadurch, *daß* ich fast am Ende war, wurde ich nachdenklich über diese Grund-Unvernunft meines Lebens — den „Idealismus“. Die *Krankheit* brachte mich erst zur Vernunft. —

[3]

DIE Wahl in der Ernährung; die Wahl von Klima und Ort; — das Dritte, worin man um keinen Preis einen Fehlgriff thun darf, ist die Wahl *seiner* Art *Erholung*. Auch hier sind je nach dem Grade, in dem ein Geist sui generis ist, die Grenzen des ihm Erlaubten, das heißt *Nützlichen*, eng und enger. In meinem Fall gehört alles *Lesen* zu meinen Erholungen: folglich zu dem, was mich von mir losmacht, was mich in fremden Wissenschaften und Seelen spazieren gehn läßt, — was ich nicht mehr ernst nehme. Lesen erholt mich eben von *meinem* Ernste. In tief arbeitsamen Zeiten sieht man keine Bücher bei mir: ich würde mich hüten, Jemanden in meiner Nähe reden oder gar denken zu lassen. Und das hieße ja lesen... Hat man eigentlich beobachtet, daß in jener tiefen Spannung, zu der die Schwangerschaft den Geist und im Grunde den ganzen Organismus verurtheilt, der Zufall, jede Art Reiz von außen her zu vehement wirkt, zu tief „einschlägt“? Man muß dem Zufall, dem Reiz von außen her so viel als möglich aus dem Wege gehn; eine Art Selbst-Vermauerung gehört zu den ersten Instinkt-Klugheiten der geistigen Schwangerschaft. Werde ich es erlauben, daß ein *fremder* Gedanke heimlich über die Mauer steigt? — Und das hieße ja lesen... Auf die Zeiten der Arbeit und Fruchtbarkeit folgt die Zeit der Erholung: heran mit euch, ihr angenehmen, ihr geistreichen, ihr gescheuten Bücher! — Werden es deutsche Bücher sein?... Ich muß ein Halbjahr zurückrechnen, daß ich mich mit einem Buch in der Hand ertappe. Was war es doch? — Eine ausgezeichnete Studie von Victor Brochard, les Sceptiques Grecs, in der auch meine Laertiana gut benutzt sind. Die Skeptiker, der einzige *ehrenwerte* Typus unter dem so zwei- bis fünfdeutigen Volk der Philosophen!... Sonst nehme ich meine Zuflucht fast immer zu denselben Büchern, einer kleinen Zahl im Grunde, den gerade für mich *bewiesenen* Büchern. Es liegt vielleicht nicht in meiner Art, Viel und Vielerlei zu lesen: ein Lesezimmer macht mich krank. Es liegt auch nicht in meiner Art, Viel oder Vielerlei zu lieben. Vorsicht, selbst Feindseligkeit gegen neue Bücher gehört eher schon zu meinem Instinkte als „Toleranz“, „largeur du cœur“ und andre „Nächstenliebe“... Eine kleine Anzahl älterer Franzosen ist es, zu denen ich immer wieder zurückkehre: ich glaube nur an französische Bildung und halte Alles, was sich sonst in Europa „Bildung“ nennt, für Mißverständniß, nicht zu reden von der deutschen Bildung... Die wenigen Fälle hoher Bildung, die ich in Deutschland vorfand, waren alle französischer Herkunft, vor Allem Frau Cosima Wagner, bei weitem die erste Stimme in Fragen des Geschmacks, die ich gehört habe. — Daß ich Pascal nicht lese, sondern *liebe*, als das lehrreichste Opfer des Christenthums, langsam hingemordet, erst leiblich, dann psychologisch, die ganze Logik dieser schauderhaftesten Form unmenschlicher Grausamkeit; daß ich Etwas von Montaigne’s Muthwillen im Geiste, wer weiß? vielleicht auch im Leibe habe; daß mein Artisten-Geschmack die Namen Molière, Corneille und Racine nicht ohne Ingrimm gegen ein wüstes Genie wie Shakespeare in Schutz nimmt: das schließt zuletzt nicht aus, daß mir nicht auch die allerletzten Franzosen eine charmante Gesellschaft wären. Ich sehe durchaus nicht ab, in welchem Jahrhundert der Geschichte man so neugierige und zugleich so delikate Psychologen zusammenfischen könnte, wie im jetzigen Paris: ich nenne versuchsweise — denn ihre Zahl ist gar nicht klein — die Herren Paul Bourget, Pierre Loti, Gyp, Meilhac, Anatole France, Jules Lemaître, oder um Einen von der starken Rasse hervorzuheben, einen echten Lateiner, dem ich besonders zugethan bin, Guy de Maupassant. Ich ziehe *diese* Generation, unter uns gesagt, sogar ihren großen Lehrern vor, die allesamt durch deutsche Philosophie verdorben sind (Herr Taine zum Beispiel durch Hegel, dem er das Mißverständniß großer Menschen und Zeiten verdankt). Soweit Deutschland reicht, *verdirbt* es die Cultur. Der Krieg erst hat den Geist in Frankreich „erlöst“... Stendhal, einer der schönsten Zufälle meines Lebens — denn Alles, was in ihm Epoche macht, hat der Zufall, niemals eine Empfehlung, mir zugetrieben — ist ganz unschätzbar mit seinem vorwegnehmenden Psychologen-Auge, mit seinem Thatsachen-Griff, der an die Nähe des größten Thatsächlichen erinnert (ex ungue Napoleonem —); endlich nicht am Wenigsten als *ehrlicher* Atheist — eine in Frankreich spärliche und fast kaum auffindbare Species – Prosper Mérimée in Ehren… Vielleicht bin ich selbst auf Stendhal neidisch? Er hat mir den besten Atheisten-Witz weggenommen, den gerade ich hätte machen können: „die einzige Entschuldigung Gottes ist, daß er nicht existirt“… Ich selbst habe irgendwo gesagt: was war der größte Einwand gegen das Dasein bisher? *Gott*…

[4]

Den höchsten Begriff vom Lyriker hat mir *Heinrich Heine* gegeben. Ich suche umsonst in allen Reichen der Jahrtausende nach einer gleich süßen und leidenschaftlichen Musik. Er besaß jene göttliche Bosheit, ohne die ich mir das Vollkommne nicht zu denken vermag, – ich schätze den Werth von Menschen, von Rassen darnach ab, wie nothwendig sie den Gott nicht abgetrennt vom Satyr zu verstehn wissen. – Und wie er das Deutsche handhabt! Man wird einmal sagen, daß Heine und ich bei weitem die ersten Artisten der deutschen Sprache gewesen sind – in einer unausrechenbaren Entfernung von Allem, was bloße Deutsche mit ihr gemacht haben. – Mit *Byron’s* Manfred muß ich tief verwandt sein: ich fand alle diese Abgründe in mir, – mit dreizehn Jahren war ich für dies Werk reif. Ich habe kein Wort, bloß einen Blick für Die, welche in Gegenwart des Manfred das Wort Faust auszusprechen wagen. Die Deutschen sind *unfähig* jedes Begriffs von Größe: Beweis Schumann. Ich habe eigens, aus Ingrimm gegen diesen süßlichen Sachsen, eine Gegenouvertüre zum Manfred componirt, von der Hans von Bülow sagte, dergleichen habe er nie auf Notenpapier gesehn: das sei Nothzucht an der Euterpe. – Wenn ich meine höchste Formel für *Shakespeare* suche, so finde ich immer nur die, daß er den Typus Cäsar concipirt hat. Dergleichen erräth man nicht, – man ist es oder man ist es nicht. Der große Dichter schöpft *nur* aus seiner Realität – bis zu dem Grade, daß er hinterdrein sein Werk nicht mehr aushält… Wenn ich einen Blick in meinen Zarathustra geworfen habe, gehe ich eine halbe Stunde im Zimmer auf und ab, unfähig, über einen unerträglichen Krampf von Schluchzen Herr zu werden. – Ich kenne keine herzzerreißendere Lektüre als Shakespeare: was muß ein Mensch gelitten haben, um dergestalt es nöthig zu haben, Hanswurst zu sein! – *Versteht* man den Hamlet? Nicht der Zweifel, die *Gewißheit* ist Das, was wahnsinnig macht… Aber dazu muß man tief, Abgrund, Philosoph sein, um so zu fühlen… Wir fürchten uns Alle vor der Wahrheit… Und, daß ich es bekenne: ich bin dessen instinktiv sicher und gewiß, daß Lord Bacon der Urheber, der Selbstthierquäler dieser unheimlichsten Art Litteratur ist: was geht *mich* das erbarmungswürdige Geschwätz amerikanischer Wirr- und Flachköpfe an? Aber die Kraft zur mächtigsten Realität der Vision ist nicht nur verträglich mit der mächtigsten Kraft zur That, zum Ungeheuren der That, zum Verbrechen – *sie setzt sie selbst voraus*… Wir wissen lange nicht genug von Lord Bacon, dem ersten Realisten in jedem großen Sinn des Wortes, um zu wissen, was er Alles gethan, was er gewollt, was er mit sich erlebt hat… Und zum Teufel, meine Herren Kritiker! Gesetzt, ich hätte meinen Zarathustra auf einen fremden Namen getauft, zum Beispiel auf den Richard Wagner’s, der Scharfsinn von zwei Jahrtausenden hätte nicht ausgereicht, zu errathen, daß der Verfasser von „Menschliches, Allzumenschliches“ der Visionär des Zarathustra ist…

[5]

Hier, wo ich von den Erholungen meines Lebens rede, habe ich ein Wort nöthig, um meine Dankbarkeit für Das auszudrücken, was mich in ihm bei weitem am Tiefsten und Herzlichsten erholt hat. Dies ist ohne allen Zweifel der intimere Verkehr mit Richard Wagner gewesen. Ich lasse den Rest meiner menschlichen Beziehungen billig; ich möchte um keinen Preis die Tage von Tribschen aus meinem Leben weggeben, Tage des Vertrauens, der Heiterkeit, der sublimen Zufälle – der *tiefen* Augenblicke… Ich weiß nicht, was Andre mit Wagner erlebt haben: über *unsern* Himmel ist nie eine Wolke hinweggegangen. – Und hiermit komme ich nochmals auf Frankreich zurück, – ich habe keine Gründe, ich habe bloß einen verachtenden Mundwinkel gegen Wagnerianer et hoc genus omne übrig, welche Wagner damit zu ehren glauben, daß sie ihn *sich* ähnlich finden… So wie ich bin, in meinen tiefsten Instinkten Allem, was deutsch ist, fremd, so daß schon die Nähe eines Deutschen meine Verdauung verzögert, war die erste Berührung mit Wagner auch das erste Aufathmen in meinem Leben: ich empfand, ich verehrte ihn als *Ausland*, als Gegensatz, als leibhaften Protest gegen alle „deutschen Tugenden“. – Wir, die wir in der Sumpfluft der Fünfziger Jahre Kinder gewesen sind, sind mit Nothwendigkeit Pessimisten für den Begriff „deutsch“; wir können gar nichts Anderes sein als Revolutionäre, – wir werden keinen Zustand der Dinge zugeben, wo der Mucker obenauf ist. Es ist mir vollkommen gleichgültig, ob er heute in andern Farben spielt, ob er sich in Scharlach kleidet und Husaren-Uniformen anzieht… Wohlan! Wagner war ein Revolutionär – er lief vor den Deutschen davon… Als *Artist* hat man keine Heimat in Europa außer Paris; die délicatesse in allen fünf Kunstsinnen, die Wagner’s Kunst voraussetzt, die Finger für nuances, die psychologische Morbidität, findet sich nur in Paris. Man hat nirgendwo sonst diese Leidenschaft in Fragen der Form, diesen Ernst in der mise en scène – es ist der Pariser Ernst par excellence. Man hat in Deutschland gar keinen Begriff von der ungeheuren Ambition, die in der Seele eines Pariser Künstlers lebt. Der Deutsche ist gutmüthig – Wagner war durchaus nicht gutmüthig… Aber ich habe schon zur Genüge ausgesprochen (in „Jenseits von Gut und Böse“ S. 256f.), wohin Wagner gehört, wem er seine Nächstverwandten hat: es ist die französische Spät-Romantik, jene hochfliegende und hochemporreißende Art von Künstlern wie Delacroix, wie Berlioz, mit einem fond von Krankheit, von Unheilbarkeit im Wesen, lauter Fanatiker des *Ausdrucks*, Virtuosen durch und durch… Wer war der erste *intelligente* Anhänger Wagner’s überhaupt? Charles Baudelaire, derselbe, der zuerst Delacroix verstand, jener typische décadent, in dem sich ein ganzes Geschlecht von Artisten wiedererkannt hat – er war vielleicht auch der letzte… Was ich Wagnern nie vergeben habe? Daß er zu den Deutschen *condescendirte*, – daß er reichsdeutsch wurde… So weit Deutschland reicht, *verdirbt* es die Cultur. –

[6]

Alles erwogen, hätte ich meine Jugend nicht ausgehalten ohne Wagnerische Musik. Denn ich war *verurtheilt* zu Deutschen. Wenn man von einem unerträglichen Druck loskommen will, so hat man Haschisch nöthig. Wohlan, ich hatte Wagner nöthig. Wagner ist das Gegengift gegen alles Deutsche par excellence, – Gift, ich bestreite es nicht… Von dem Augenblick an, wo es einen Klavierauszug des Tristan gab – mein Compliment, Herr von Bülow! –, war ich Wagnerianer. Die älteren Werke Wagner’s sah ich ich unter mir – noch zu gemein, zu „deutsch“… Aber ich suche heute noch nach einem Werke von gleich gefährlicher Fascination, von einer gleich schauerlichen und süßen Unendlichkeit, wie der Tristan ist, – ich suche in allen Künsten vergebens. Alle Fremdheiten Lionardo da Vinci’s entzaubern sich beim ersten Tone des Tristan. Dies Werk ist durchaus das non plus ultra Wagner’s; er erholte sich von ihm mit den Meistersingern und dem Ring. Gesünder werden – das ist ein *Rückschritt* bei einer Natur wie Wagner… Ich nehme es als Glück ersten Rangs, zur rechten Zeit gelebt und gerade unter Deutschen gelebt zu haben, um *reif* für dies Werk zu sein: so weit geht bei mir die Neugierde des Psychologen. Die Welt ist arm für Den, der niemals krank genug für diese „Wollust der Hölle“ gewesen ist: es ist erlaubt, es ist fast geboten, hier eine Mystiker-Formel anzuwenden. – Ich denke, ich kenne besser als irgend Jemand das Ungeheure, das Wagner vermag, die fünfzig Welten fremder Entzückungen, zu denen Niemand außer ihm Flügel hatte; und so wie ich bin, stark genug, um mir auch das Fragwürdigste und Gefährlichste noch zum Vortheil zu wenden und damit stärker zu werden, nenne ich Wagner den großen Wohlthäter meines Lebens. Das, worin wir verwandt sind, daß wir tiefer gelitten haben, auch an einander, als Menschen dieses Jahrhunderts zu leiden vermöchten, wird unsre Namen ewig wieder zusammenbringen; und so gewiß Wagner unter Deutschen bloß ein Mißverständniß ist, so gewiß bin ich’s und werde es immer sein. – Zwei Jahrhunderte psychologische und artistische Disciplin *zuerst*, meine Herrn Germanen!… Aber das holt man nicht nach. –

[7]

Ich sage noch ein Wort für die ausgesuchtesten Ohren: was ich eigentlich von der Musik will. Daß sie heiter und tief ist, wie ein Nachmittag im Oktober. Daß sie eigen, ausgelassen, zärtlich, ein kleines süßes Weib von Niedertracht und Anmuth ist… Ich werde nie zulassen, daß ein Deutscher wissen *könne*, was Musik ist. Was man deutsche Musiker nennt, die größten voran, sind *Ausländer*, Slaven, Croaten, Italiäner, Niederländer – oder Juden; im andern Falle Deutsche der starken Rasse, *ausgestorbene* Deutsche, wie Heinrich Schütz, Bach und Händel. Ich selbst bin immer noch Pole genug, um gegen Chopin den Rest der Musik hinzugeben: ich nehme, aus drei Gründen, Wagner’s Siegfried-Idyll aus, vielleicht auch Einiges von Liszt, der die vornehmen Orchester-Accente vor allen Musikern voraus hat; zuletzt noch Alles, was jenseits der Alpen gewachsen ist – *diesseits*… Ich würde Rossini nicht zu missen wissen, noch weniger *meinen* Süden in der Musik, die Musik meines Venediger mästro Pietro Gasti. Und wenn ich jenseits der Alpen sage, sage ich eigentlich nur Venedig. Wenn ich ein andres Wort für Musik suche, so finde ich immer nur das Wort Venedig. Ich weiß keinen Unterschied zwischen Thränen und Musik zu machen, – ich weiß das Glück, den *Süden* nicht ohne Schauder von Furchtsamkeit zu denken.

An der Brücke stand
jüngst ich in brauner Nacht.
Ferner kam Gesang;
goldener Tropfen quoll’s
über die zitternde Fläche weg.
Gondeln, Lichter, Musik –
trunken schwamm’s in die Dämmrung hinaus…

Meine Seele, ein Saitenspiel,
sang sich, unsichtbar berührt,
heimlich ein Gondellied dazu,
zitternd vor bunter Seligkeit.
– Hörte Jemand ihr zu?…

[8]

In Alledem – in der Wahl von Nahrung, von Ort und Klima, von Erholung – gebietet ein Instinkt der Selbsterhaltung, der sich als Instinkt der *Selbstvertheidigung* am unzweideutigsten ausspricht. Vieles nicht sehn, nicht hören, nicht an sich herankommen lassen – erste Klugheit, erster Beweis dafür, daß man kein Zufall, sondern eine Necessität ist. Das gangbare Wort für diesen Selbstvertheidigungs-Instinkt ist *Geschmack*. Sein Imperativ befiehlt nicht nur Nein zu sagen, wo das Ja eine „Selbstlosigkeit“ sein würde, sondern auch *so wenig als möglich Nein* zu sagen. Sich trennen, sich abscheiden von dem, wo immer und immer wieder das Nein nöthig werden würde. Die Vernunft darin ist, daß Defensiv-Ausgaben, selbst noch so kleine, zur Regel, zur Gewohnheit werdend, eine außerordentliche und vollkommen überflüssige Verarmung bedingen. Unsere *großen* Ausgaben sind die häufigsten kleinen. Das Abwehren, das Nicht-heran-kommen-lassen ist eine Ausgabe – man täusche sich hierüber nicht –, eine zu negativen Zwecken *verschwendete* Kraft. Man kann, bloß in der beständigen Noth der Abwehr, schwach genug werden, um sich nicht mehr wehren zu können. – Gesetzt, ich trete aus meinem Haus heraus und fände, statt des stillen und aristokratischen Turin, die deutsche Kleinstadt: mein Instinkt würde sich zu sperren haben, um Alles das zurückzudrängen, was aus dieser plattgedrückten und feigen Welt auf ihn eindringt. Oder ich fände die deutsche Großstadt, dies gebaute Laster, wo nichts wächst, wo jedwedes Ding, Gutes und Schlimmes, eingeschleppt ist. Müßte ich nicht darüber zum *Igel* werden? – Aber Stacheln zu haben ist eine Vergeudung, ein doppelter Luxus sogar, wenn es freisteht, keine Stacheln zu haben, sondern offne Hände…

Eine andre Klugheit und Selbstvertheidigung besteht darin, daß man *so selten als möglich reagirt* und daß man sich Lagen und Bedingungen entzieht, wo man verurtheilt wäre, seine „Freiheit“, seine Initiative gleichsam auszuhängen und ein bloßes Reagens zu werden. Ich nehme als Gleichniß den Verkehr mit Büchern. Der Gelehrte, der im Grunde nur noch Bücher „wälzt“ – der Philologe mit mäßigem Ansatz des Tags ungefähr 200 – verliert zuletzt ganz und gar das Vermögen, von sich aus zu denken. Wälzt er nicht, so denkt er nicht. Er *antwortet* auf einen Reiz (– einen gelesenen Gedanken), wenn er denkt, – er reagirt zuletzt bloß noch. Der Gelehrte giebt seine ganze Kraft im Ja- und Neinsagen, in der Kritik von bereits Gedachtem ab, – er selber denkt nicht mehr… Der Instinkt der Selbstvertheidigung ist bei ihm mürbe geworden; im andern Falle würde er sich gegen Bücher wehren. Der Gelehrte – ein décadent. – Das habe ich mit Augen gesehn: begabte, reich und frei angelegte Naturen schon in den dreißiger Jahren „zu Schanden gelesen“, bloß noch Streichhölzer, die man reiben muß, damit sie Funken –, „Gedanken“ geben. – Frühmorgens beim Anbruch des Tags, in aller Frische, in der Morgenröthe seiner Kraft, *ein Buch* lesen – das nenne ich lasterhaft! –

[9]

An dieser Stelle ist nicht mehr zu umgehn, die eigentliche Antwort auf die Frage, *wie man wird, was man ist*, zu geben. Und damit berühre ich das Meisterstück in der Kunst der Selbsterhaltung – der *Selbstsucht*… Angenommen nämlich, daß die Aufgabe, die Bestimmung, das *Schicksal* der Aufgabe über ein durchschnittliches Maaß bedeutend hinausliegt, so würde keine Gefahr größer sein, als sich selbst *mit* dieser Aufgabe zu Gesicht zu bekommen. Daß man wird, was man ist, setzt voraus, daß man nicht im Entferntesten ahnt, *was* man ist. Aus diesem Gesichtspunkte haben selbst die *Fehlgriffe* des Lebens ihren eignen Sinn und Werth, die zeitweiligen Nebenwege und Abwege, die Verzögerungen, die „Bescheidenheiten“, der Ernst, auf Aufgaben verschwendet, die jenseits der Aufgabe liegen. Darin kommt eine große Klugheit, sogar die oberste Klugheit zum Ausdruck: wo nosce te ipsum das Recept zum Untergang wäre, wird Sich-Vergessen, Sich-*Mißverstehn*, Sich-Verkleinern, -Verengern, -Vermittelmäßigen zur Vernunft selber. Moralisch ausgedrückt: Nächstenliebe, Leben für Andre und Anderes *kann* die Schutzmaaßregel zur Erhaltung der härtesten Selbstigkeit sein: Dies ist der Ausnahmefall, in welchem ich, gegen meine Regel und Überzeugung, die Partei der „selbstlosen“ Triebe nehme: sie arbeiten hier im Dienste der *Selbstsucht, Selbstzucht*. – Man muß die ganze Oberfläche des Bewußtseins – Bewußtsein ist eine Oberfläche – rein erhalten von irgend einem der großen Imperative. Vorsicht selbst vor jedem großen Worte, jeder großen Attitüde! Lauter Gefahren, daß der Instinkt zu früh „sich versteht“. – Inzwischen wächst und wächst die organisirende, die zur Herrschaft berufene „Idee“ in der Tiefe, – sie beginnt zu befehlen, sie leitet langsam aus Nebenwegen und Abwegen zurück, sie bereitet *einzelne* Qualitäten und Tüchtigkeiten vor, die einmal als Mittel zum Ganzen sich unentbehrlich erweisen werden, – sie bildet der Reihe nach alle *dienenden* Vermögen aus, bevor sie irgend Etwas von der dominirenden Aufgabe, von „Ziel“, „Zweck“, „Sinn“ verlauten läßt. – Nach dieser Seite hin betrachtet ist mein Leben einfach wundervoll. Zur Aufgabe einer *Umwerthung der Werthe* waren vielleicht mehr Vermögen nöthig, als je in einem Einzelnen bei einander gewohnt haben, vor Allem auch Gegensätze von Vermögen, ohne daß diese sich stören, zerstören dürften. Rangordnung der Vermögen; Distanz; die Kunst zu trennen, ohne zu verfeinden; Nichts vermischen, Nichts „versöhnen“; eine ungeheure Vielheit, die trotzdem das Gegenstück des Chaos ist – dies war die Vorbedingung, die lange geheime Arbeit und Künstlerschaft meines Instinkts. Seine *höhere Obhut* zeigte sich in dem Maaße stark, daß ich in keinem Falle auch nur geahnt habe, was in mir wächst, – daß alle meine Fähigkeiten plötzlich, reif, in ihrer letzten Vollkommenheit eines Tags *hervorsprangen*. Es fehlt in meiner Erinnerung, daß ich mich je bemüht hätte, – es ist kein Zug von *Ringen* in meinem Leben nachweisbar, ich bin der Gegensatz einer heroischen Natur. Etwas „wollen“, nach Etwas „streben“, einen „Zweck“, einen „Wunsch“ im Auge haben – das kenne ich Alles nicht aus Erfahrung. Noch in diesem Augenblick sehe ich auf meine Zukunft – eine *weite* Zukunft! – wie auf ein glattes Meer hinaus: kein Verlangen kräuselt sich auf ihm. Ich will nicht im Geringsten, daß Etwas anders wird als es ist; ich selber will nicht anders werden… Aber so habe ich immer gelebt. Ich habe keinen Wunsch gehabt. Jemand, der nach seinem vierundvierzigsten Jahre sagen kann, daß er sich nie um *Ehren*, um *Weiber*, um *Geld* bemüht hat! – Nicht daß sie mir gefehlt hätten… So war ich zum Beispiel eines Tags Universitätsprofessor, – ich hatte nie im Entferntesten an dergleichen gedacht, denn ich war kaum 24 Jahr alt. So war ich zwei Jahr früher eines Tags Philolog: in dem Sinne, daß meine *erste* philologische Arbeit, mein Anfang in jedem Sinne, von meinem Lehrer Ritschl für sein „Rheinisches Museum“ zum Druck verlangt wurde (*Ritschl* – ich sage es mit Verehrung – der einzige geniale Gelehrte, den ich bis heute zu Gesicht bekommen habe. Er besaß jene angenehme Verderbtheit, die uns Thüringer auszeichnet und mit der sogar ein Deutscher sympathisch wird: – wir ziehn selbst, um zur Wahrheit zu gelangen, noch die Schleichwege vor. Ich möchte mit diesen Worten meinen näheren Landsmann, den *klugen* Leopold von Ranke, durchaus nicht unterschätzt haben…).

[10]

Man wird mich fragen, warum ich eigentlich alle diese kleinen und nach herkömmlichem Urtheil gleichgültigen Dinge erzählt habe; ich schade mir selbst damit, um so mehr, wenn ich große Aufgaben zu vertreten bestimmt sei. Antwort: diese kleinen Dinge – Ernährung, Ort, Klima, Erholung, die ganze Casuistik der Selbstsucht – sind über alle Begriffe hinaus wichtiger als Alles, was man bisher wichtig nahm. Hier gerade muß man anfangen, *umzulernen*. Das, was die Menschheit bisher ernsthaft erwogen hat, sind nicht einmal Realitäten, bloße Einbildungen, strenger geredet, *Lügen* aus den schlechten Instinkten kranker, im tiefsten Sinne schädlicher Naturen heraus – alle die Begriffe „Gott“, „Seele“, „Tugend“, „Sünde“, „Jenseits“, „Wahrheit“, „ewiges Leben“… Aber man hat die Größe der menschlichen Natur, ihre „Göttlichkeit“ in ihnen gesucht… Alle Fragen der Politik, der Gesellschafts-Ordnung, der Erziehung sind dadurch bis in Grund und Boden gefälscht, daß man die schädlichsten Menschen für große Menschen nahm, – daß man die „kleinen“ Dinge, will sagen die Grundangelegenheiten des Lebens selber, verachten lehrte… Vergleiche ich mich nun mit den Menschen, die man bisher als *erste* Menschen ehrte, so ist der Unterschied handgreiflich. Ich rechne diese angeblich „Ersten“ nicht einmal zu den Menschen überhaupt, – sie sind für mich Ausschuß der Menschheit, Ausgeburten von Krankheit und rachsüchtigen Instinkten: sie sind lauter unheilvolle, im Grunde unheilbare Unmenschen, die am Leben Rache nehmen… Ich will dazu der Gegensatz sein: mein Vorrecht ist, die höchste Feinheit für alle Zeichen gesunder Instinkte zu haben. Es fehlt jeder krankhafte Zug an mir; ich bin selbst in Zeiten schwerer Krankheit nicht krankhaft geworden; umsonst, daß man in meinem Wesen einen Zug von Fanatismus sucht. Man wird mir aus keinem Augenblicke meines Lebens irgend eine anmaaßliche oder pathetische Haltung nachweisen können. Das Pathos der Attitüde gehört *nicht* zur Größe; wer Attitüden überhaupt nöthig hat, ist *falsch*… Vorsicht vor allen pittoresken Menschen! – Das Leben ist mir leicht geworden, am leichtesten, wenn es das Schwerste von mir verlangte. Wer mich in den siebzig Tagen dieses Herbstes gesehn hat, wo ich, ohne Unterbrechung, lauter Sachen ersten Ranges gemacht habe, die kein Mensch mir nachmacht – oder vormacht, mit einer Verantwortlichkeit für alle Jahrtausende nach mir, wird keinen Zug von Spannung an mir wahrgenommen haben, um so mehr eine überströmende Frische und Heiterkeit. Ich aß nie mit angenehmeren Gefühlen, ich schlief nie besser. – Ich kenne keine andre Art, mit großen Aufgaben zu verkehren als das *Spiel*: dies ist, als Anzeichen der Größe, eine wesentliche Voraussetzung. Der geringste Zwang, die düstre Miene, irgend ein harter Ton im Halse sind alles Einwände gegen einen Menschen, um wie viel mehr gegen sein Werk!… Man darf keine Nerven haben… Auch an der Einsamkeit *leiden* ist ein Einwand, – ich habe immer nur an der „Vielsamkeit“ gelitten… In einer absurd frühen Zeit, mit sieben Jahren, wußte ich bereits, daß mich nie ein menschliches Wort erreichen würde: hat man mich je darüber betrübt gesehn? – Ich habe heute noch die gleiche Leutseligkeit gegen Jedermann, ich bin selbst voller Auszeichnung für die Niedrigsten: in dem Allen ist nicht ein Gran von Hochmuth, von geheimer Verachtung. Wen ich verachte, der *erräth*, daß er von mir verachtet wird: ich empöre durch mein bloßes Dasein Alles, was schlechtes Blut im Leibe hat… Meine Formel für die Größe am Menschen ist *amor fati*: daß man Nichts anders haben will, vorwärts nicht, rückwärts nicht, in alle Ewigkeit nicht. Das Nothwendige nicht bloß ertragen, noch weniger verhehlen – aller Idealismus ist Verlogenheit vor dem Nothwendigen –, sondern es *lieben*…

### Why I Write Such Good Books

[1]

Das Eine bin ich, das Andre sind meine Schriften. – Hier werde, bevor ich von ihnen selber rede, die Frage nach dem Verstanden- oder *Nicht*-verstandenwerden dieser Schriften berührt. Ich thue es so nachlässig, als es sich irgendwie schickt: denn diese Frage ist durchaus noch nicht an der Zeit. Ich selber bin noch nicht an der Zeit, Einige werden posthum geboren. – Irgend wann wird man Institutionen nöthig haben, in denen man lebt und lehrt, wie ich leben und lehren verstehe; vielleicht selbst, daß man dann auch eigne Lehrstühle zur Interpretation des Zarathustra errichtet. Aber es wäre ein vollkommner Widerspruch zu mir, wenn ich heute bereits Ohren *und Hände für meine* Wahrheiten erwartete: daß man heute nicht hört, daß man heute nicht von mir zu nehmen weiß, ist nicht nur begreiflich, es scheint mir selbst das Rechte. Ich will nicht verwechselt werden, – dazu gehört, daß ich mich selber nicht verwechsele. – Nochmals gesagt, es ist Wenig in meinem Leben nachweisbar von „bösem Willen“; auch von litterarischem „bösen Willen“ wüßte ich kaum einen Fall zu erzählen. Dagegen zu Viel von *reiner Thorheit!*… Es scheint mir eine der seltensten Auszeichnungen, die Jemand sich erweisen kann, wenn er ein Buch von mir in die Hand nimmt, – ich nehme selbst an, er zieht dazu die Schuhe aus, – nicht von Stiefeln zu reden… Als sich einmal der Doctor Heinrich von Stein ehrlich darüber beklagte, kein Wort aus meinem Zarathustra zu verstehn, sagte ich ihm, daß das in Ordnung: sechs Sätze daraus verstanden, das heißt: *erlebt* haben erhebe auf eine höhere Stufe der Sterblichen hinauf, als „moderne“ Menschen erreichen könnten. Wie *könnte* ich, mit *diesem* Gefühl der Distanz, auch nur wünschen, von den „Modernen“, die ich kenne –, gelesen zu werden! – Mein Triumph ist gerade der umgekehrte, als der Schopenhauer’s war, – ich sage „non legor, non legar“. – Nicht, daß ich das Vergnügen unterschätzen möchte, das mir mehrmals die *Unschuld* im Neinsagen zu meinen Schriften gemacht hat. Noch in diesem Sommer, zu einer Zeit, wo ich vielleicht mit meiner schwerwiegenden, zu schwer wiegenden Litteratur den ganzen Rest von Litteratur aus dem Gleichgewicht zu bringen vermöchte, gab mir ein Professor der Berliner Universität wohlwollend zu verstehn, ich sollte mich doch einer andern Form bedienen: so Etwas lese Niemand. – Zuletzt war es nicht Deutschland, sondern die Schweiz, die die zwei extremen Fälle geliefert hat. Ein Aufsatz des Dr. V. Widmann im „Bund“, über „Jenseits von Gut und Böse“, unter dem Titel „Nietzsche’s gefährliches Buch“, und ein Gesammt-Bericht über meine Bücher überhaupt seitens des Herrn Karl Spitteler, gleichfalls im „Bund“, sind ein Maximum in meinem Leben – ich hüte mich zu sagen wovon… Letzterer behandelte zum Beispiel meinen Zarathustra als *höhere Stilübung*, mit dem Wunsche, ich möchte später doch auch für Inhalt sorgen; Dr. Widmann drückte mir seine Achtung vor dem Muth aus, mit dem ich mich um Abschaffung aller anständigen Gefühle bemühe. – Durch eine kleine Tücke von Zufall war hier jeder Satz, mit einer Folgerichtigkeit, die ich bewundert habe, eine auf den Kopf gestellte Wahrheit: man hatte im Grunde Nichts zu thun, als alle „Werthe umzuwerthen“, um, auf eine sogar bemerkenswerthe Weise, über mich den Nagel auf den Kopf zu treffen – statt meinen Kopf mit einem Nagel zu treffen… Um so mehr versuche ich eine Erklärung. – Zuletzt kann Niemand aus den Dingen, die Bücher eingerechnet, mehr heraushören, als er bereits weiß. Wofür man vom Erlebnisse her keinen Zugang hat, dafür hat man kein Ohr. Denken wir uns nun einen äußersten Fall: daß ein Buch von lauter Erlebnissen redet, die gänzlich außerhalb der Möglichkeit einer häufigen oder auch nur seltneren Erfahrung liegen, – daß es die *erste* Sprache für eine neue Reihe von Erfahrungen ist. In diesem Falle wird einfach Nichts gehört, mit der akustischen Täuschung, daß, wo Nichts gehört wird, *auch Nichts da ist*… Dies ist zuletzt meine durchschnittliche Erfahrung und, wenn man will, die *Originalität* meiner Erfahrung. Wer Etwas von mir verstanden zu haben glaubte, hatte sich Etwas aus mir zurecht gemacht, nach seinem Bilde, – nicht selten einen Gegensatz von mir, zum Beispiel einen „Idealisten“; wer Nichts von mir verstanden hatte, leugnete, daß ich überhaupt in Betracht käme. – Das Wort *„Übermensch“* zur Bezeichnung eines Typus höchster Wohlgerathenheit, im Gegensatz zu „modernen“ Menschen, zu „guten“ Menschen, zu Christen und Nihilisten – ein Wort, das im Munde eines Zarathustra, des *Vernichters* der Moral, ein sehr nachdenkliches Wort wird – ist fast überall mit voller Unschuld im Sinn derjenigen Werthe verstanden worden, deren Gegensatz in der Figur Zarathustra’s zur Erscheinung gebracht worden ist: will sagen als „idealistischer“ Typus einer höheren Art Mensch, halb „Heiliger“, halb „Genie“… Andres gelehrtes Hornvieh hat mich seinethalben des Darwinismus verdächtigt: selbst der von mir so boshaft abgelehnte „Heroen-Cultus“ jenes großen Falschmünzers wider Wissen und Willen, Carlyle’s, ist darin wiedererkannt worden. Wem ich in’s Ohr flüsterte, er solle sich eher noch nach einem Cesare Borgia als nach einem Parsifal umsehn, der traute seinen Ohren nicht. – Daß ich gegen Besprechungen meiner Bücher, insonderheit durch Zeitungen, ohne jedwede Neugierde bin, wird man mir verzeihn müssen. Meine Freunde, meine Verleger wissen das und sprechen mir nicht von dergleichen. In einem besondren Falle bekam ich einmal Alles zu Gesicht, was über ein einzelnes Buch — es war „Jenseits von Gut und Böse“ — gesündigt worden ist; ich hätte einen artigen Bericht darüber abzustatten. Sollte man es glauben, daß die Nationalzeitung — eine preußische Zeitung, für meine ausländischen Leser bemerkt, — ich selbst lese, mit Verlaub, nur das Journal des Débats — allen Ernstes das Buch als ein „Zeichen der Zeit“ zu verstehn wußte, als die echte rechte *Junker-Philosophie*, zu der es der Kreuzzeitung nur an Muth gebreche?...

[2]

DIES war für Deutsche gesagt: Denn überall sonst habe ich Leser — lauter *ausgesuchte* Intelligenzen, bewährte, in hohen Stellungen und Pflichten erzogene Charaktere; ich habe sogar wirkliche Genie’s unter meinen Lesern. In Wien, in St. Petersburg, in Stockholm, in Kopenhagen, in Paris und New-York — überall bin ich entdeckt: ich bin es *nicht* in Europa’s Flachland Deutschland... Und, daß ich es bekenne, ich freue mich noch mehr über meine Nicht-Leser, solche, die weder meinen Namen, noch das Wort Philosophie je gehört haben; aber wohin ich komme, hier in Turin zum Beispiel, erheitert und vergütigt sich bei meinem Anblick jedes Gesicht. Was mir bisher am meisten geschmeichelt hat, das ist, daß alte Hökerinnen nicht Ruhe haben, bevor sie mir nicht das Süßeste aus ihren Trauben zusammengesucht haben. *So weit* muß man Philosoph sein... Man nennt nicht umsonst die Polen die Franzosen unter den Slaven. Eine charmante Russin wird sich nicht einen Augenblick darüber vergreifen, wohin ich gehöre. Es gelingt mir nicht, feierlich zu werden, ich bringe es höchstens bis zur Verlegenheit... Deutsch denken, deutsch fühlen — ich kann Alles, aber *das* geht über meine Kräfte... Mein alter Lehrer Ritschl behauptete sogar, ich concipirte selbst noch meine philologischen Abhandlungen wie ein Pariser romancier — absurd spannend. In Paris selbst ist man erstaunt über „toutes mes audaces et finesses“ — der Ausdruck ist von Monsieur Taine —; ich fürchte, bis in die höchsten Formen des Dithyrambus findet man bei mir von jenem Salze beigemischt, das niemals dumm — „deutsch“ — wird, esprit... Ich kann nicht anders. Gott helfe mir! Amen. — Wir wissen Alle, Einige wissen es sogar aus Erfahrung, was ein Langohr ist. Wohlan, ich wage zu behaupten, daß ich die kleinsten Ohren habe. Dies interessirt gar nicht wenig die Weiblein —, es scheint mir, sie fühlen sich besser von mir verstanden?... Ich bin der *Antiesel* par excellence und damit ein welthistorisches Unthier, — ich bin, auf griechisch, und nicht nur auf griechisch, der *Antichrist*...

[3]

ICH kenne einigermaaßen meine Vorrechte als Schriftsteller; in einzelnen Fällen ist es mir auch bezeugt, wie sehr die Gewöhnung an meine Schriften den Geschmack „verdirbt“. Man hält einfach andre Bücher nicht mehr aus, am wenigsten philosophische. Es ist eine Auszeichnung ohne Gleichen, in diese vornehme und delikate Welt einzutreten, — man darf dazu durchaus kein Deutscher sein; es ist zuletzt eine Auszeichnung, die man sich verdient haben muß. Wer mir aber durch *Höhe* des Wollens verwandt ist, erlebt dabei wahre Ekstasen des Lernens: denn ich komme aus Höhen, die kein Vogel je erflog, ich kenne Abgründe, in die noch kein Fuß sich verirrt hat. Man hat mir gesagt, es sei nicht möglich, ein Buch von mir aus der Hand zu legen, — ich störte selbst die Nachtruhe... Es giebt durchaus keine stolzere und zugleich raffinirtere Art von Büchern: — sie erreichen hier und da das Höchste, was auf Erden erreicht werden kann, den Cynismus; man muß sie sich ebenso mit den zartesten Fingern wie mit den tapfersten Fäusten erobern. Jede Gebrechlichkeit der Seele schließt aus davon, ein für alle Male, selbst jede Dyspepsie: man muß keine Nerven haben, man muß einen fröhlichen Unterleib haben. Nicht nur die Armuth, die Winkel-Luft einer Seele schließt davon aus, noch viel mehr das Feige, das Unsaubere, das Heimlich-Rachsüchtige in den Eingeweiden: ein Wort von mir treibt alle schlechten Instinkte in’s Gesicht. Ich habe an meinen Bekannten mehrere Versuchsthiere, an denen ich mir die verschiedene, sehr lehrreich verschiedene Reaktion auf meine Schriften zu Gemüthe führe. Wer Nichts mit ihrem Inhalte zu thun haben will, meine sogenannten Freunde zum Beispiel, wird dabei „unpersönlich“: man wünscht mir Glück, wieder „so weit“ zu sein, — auch ergäbe sich ein Fortschritt in einer größeren Heiterkeit des Tons... Die vollkommen lasterhaften „Geister“, die „schönen Seelen“, die in Grund und Boden Verlogenen wissen schlechterdings nicht, was sie mit diesen Büchern anfangen sollen, — folglich sehn sie dieselben *unter* sich, die schöne Folgerichtigkeit aller „schönen Seelen“. Das Hornvieh unter meinen Bekannten, bloße Deutsche, mit Verlaub, giebt zu verstehn, man sei nicht immer meiner Meinung, aber doch mitunter... Ich habe dies selbst über den Zarathustra gehört... Insgleichen ist jeder „Femininismus“ im Menschen, auch im Manne, ein Thorschluß für mich: man wird niemals in dies Labyrinth verwegener Erkenntnisse eintreten. Man muß sich selbst nie geschont haben, man muß die *Härte* in seinen Gewohnheiten haben, um unter lauter harten Wahrheiten wohlgemuth und heiter zu sein. Wenn ich mir das Bild eines vollkommnen Lesers ausdenke, so wird immer ein Unthier von Muth und Neugierde daraus, außerdem noch etwas Biegsames, Listiges, Vorsichtiges, ein geborner Abenteurer und Entdecker. Zuletzt: ich wüßte es nicht besser zu sagen, zu wem ich im Grunde allein rede, als es Zarathustra gesagt hat: *wem* allein will er sein Räthsel erzählen?

„Euch, den kühnen Suchern, Versuchern, und wer je sich mit listigen Segeln auf furchtbare Meere einschiffte, —
euch, den Räthsel-Trunkenen, den Zwielicht-Frohen, deren Seele mit Flöten zu jedem Irrschlunde gelockt wird:
— denn nicht wollt ihr mit feiger Hand einem Faden nachtasten; und wo ihr *errathen* könnt, da haßt ihr es, zu *erschließen*...“

[4]

ICH sage zugleich noch ein allgemeines Wort über meine *Kunst des Stils*. Einen Zustand, eine innere Spannung von Pathos durch Zeichen, eingerechnet das Tempo dieser Zeichen, *mitzutheilen* — das ist der Sinn jedes Stils; und in Anbetracht, daß die Vielheit innerer Zustände bei mir außerordentlich ist, giebt es bei mir viele Möglichkeiten des Stils — die vielfachste Kunst des Stils überhaupt, über die je ein Mensch verfügt hat. *Gut* ist jeder Stil, der einen inneren Zustand wirklich mittheilt, der sich über die Zeichen, über das Tempo der Zeichen, über die *Gebärden* — alle Gesetze der Periode sind Kunst der Gebärde — nicht vergreift. Mein Instinkt ist hier unfehlbar. — Guter Stil *an sich* — eine reine Thorheit, bloßer „Idealismus“: etwa, wie das „Schöne *an sich*“, wie das „Gute *an sich*“, wie das „Ding *an sich*“... Immer noch vorausgesetzt, daß es Ohren giebt — daß es Solche giebt, die eines gleichen Pathos fähig und würdig sind, daß Die nicht fehlen, denen man sich mittheilen *darf*. — Mein Zarathustra zum Beispiel sucht einstweilen noch nach Solchen — ach, er wird noch lange zu suchen haben! — Man muß dessen *werth* sein, ihn zu hören... Und bis dahin wird es Niemanden geben, der die *Kunst*, die hier verschwendet worden ist, begreift: es hat nie Jemand mehr von neuen, von unerhörten, von wirklich erst dazu geschaffnen Kunstmitteln zu verschwenden gehabt. Daß dergleichen gerade in deutscher Sprache möglich war, blieb zu beweisen: ich selbst hätte es vorher am härtesten abgelehnt. Man weiß vor mir nicht, was man mit der deutschen Sprache kann, — was man überhaupt mit der Sprache kann. Die Kunst des *großen* Rhythmus, der *große Stil* der Periodik, zum Ausdruck eines ungeheuren Auf und Nieder von sublimer, von übermenschlicher Leidenschaft, ist erst von mir entdeckt; mit einem Dithyrambus wie dem letzten des *dritten* Zarathustra, „die sieben Siegel“ überschrieben, flog ich tausend Meilen über Das hinaus, was bisher Poesie hieß.

[5]

DASS aus meinen Schriften ein *Psychologe* redet, der nicht seines Gleichen hat, das ist vielleicht die erste Einsicht, zu der ein guter Leser gelangt — ein Leser, wie ich ihn verdiene, der mich liest, wie gute alte Philologen ihren Horaz lasen. Die Sätze, über die im Grunde alle Welt einig ist — gar nicht zu reden von den Allerwelts-Philosophen, den Moralisten und andren Hohltöpfen, Kohlköpfen — erscheinen bei mir als Naivetäten des Fehlgriffs: zum Beispiel jener Glaube, daß „unegoistisch“ und „egoistisch“ Gegensätze sind, während das ego selbst bloß ein „höherer Schwindel“, ein „Ideal“ ist... Es giebt *weder* egoistische, *noch* unegoistische Handlungen: beide Begriffe sind psychologischer Widersinn. Oder der Satz „der Mensch strebt nach Glück“... Oder der Satz „das Glück ist der Lohn der Tugend“... Oder der Satz „Lust und Unlust sind Gegensätze“... Die Circe der Menschheit, die Moral, hat alle psychologica in Grund und Boden gefälscht — *vermoralisirt* — bis zu jenem schauderhaften Unsinn, daß die Liebe etwas „Unegoistisches“ sein soll... Man muß fest auf *sich* sitzen, man muß tapfer auf seinen beiden Beinen stehn, sonst *kann* man gar nicht lieben. Das wissen zuletzt die Weiblein nur zu gut: sie machen sich den Teufel was aus selbstlosen, aus bloß objektiven Männern... Darf ich anbei die Vermuthung wagen, daß ich die Weiblein *kenne*? Das gehört zu meiner dionysischen Mitgift. Wer weiß? vielleicht bin ich der erste Psycholog des Ewig-Weiblichen. Sie lieben mich Alle — eine alte Geschichte: die *verunglückten* Weiblein abgerechnet, die „Emancipirten“, denen das Zeug zu Kindern abgeht. — Zum Glück bin ich nicht Willens, mich zerreißen zu lassen: das vollkommne Weib zerreißt, wenn es liebt... Ich kenne diese liebenswürdigen Mänaden... Ah, was für ein gefährliches, schleichendes, unterirdisches kleines Raubthier! Und so angenehm dabei!... Ein kleines Weib, das seiner Rache nachrennt, würde das Schicksal selbst über den Haufen rennen. — Das Weib ist unsäglich viel böser als der Mann, auch klüger; Güte am Weibe ist schon eine Form der *Entartung*... Bei allen sogenannten „schönen Seelen“ giebt es einen physiologischen Übelstand auf dem Grunde, — ich sage nicht Alles, ich würde sonst medicynisch werden. Der Kampf um *gleiche* Rechte ist sogar ein Symptom von Krankheit: jeder Arzt weiß das. — Das Weib, je mehr Weib es ist, wehrt sich ja mit Händen und Füßen gegen Rechte überhaupt: der Naturzustand, der ewige *Krieg* zwischen den Geschlechtern giebt ihm ja bei weitem den ersten Rang. — Hat man Ohren für meine Definition der Liebe gehabt? es ist die einzige, die eines Philosophen würdig ist. Liebe — in ihren Mitteln der Krieg, in ihrem Grunde der Todhaß der Geschlechter. — Hat man meine Antwort auf die Frage gehört, wie man ein Weib *kurirt* — „erlöst“? Man macht ihm ein Kind. Das Weib hat Kinder nöthig, der Mann ist immer nur Mittel: also sprach Zarathustra. — „Emancipation des Weibes“ — das ist der Instinkthaß des *mißrathenen*, das heißt gebäruntüchtigen Weibes gegen das wohlgerathene, — der Kampf gegen den „Mann“ ist immer nur Mittel, Vorwand, Taktik. Sie wollen, indem sie *sich* hinaufheben, als „Weib an sich“, als „höheres Weib“, als „Idealistin“ von Weib, das allgemeine Rang-Niveau des Weibes *herunter*bringen; kein sichereres Mittel dazu als Gymnasial-Bildung, Hosen und politische Stimmvieh-Rechte. Im Grunde sind die Emancipirten die *Anarchisten* in der Welt des „Ewig-Weiblichen“, die Schlechtweggekommenen, deren unterster Instinkt Rache ist... Eine ganze Gattung des bösartigsten „Idealismus“ — der übrigens auch bei Männern vorkommt, zum Beispiel bei Henrik Ibsen, dieser typischen alten Jungfrau — hat als Ziel, das gute Gewissen, die Natur in der Geschlechtsliebe zu *vergiften*... Und damit ich über meine in diesem Betracht ebenso honnette als strenge Gesinnung keinen Zweifel lasse, will ich noch einen Satz aus meinem Moral-Codex gegen das *Laster* mittheilen: mit dem Wort Laster bekämpfe ich jede Art Widernatur oder, wenn man schöne Worte liebt, Idealismus. Der Satz heißt: „die Predigt der Keuschheit ist eine öffentliche Aufreizung zur Widernatur. Jede Verachtung des geschlechtlichen Lebens, jede Verunreinigung desselben durch den Begriff „unrein“ ist das Verbrechen selbst am Leben, — ist die eigentliche Sünde wider den heiligen Geist des Lebens.“ —

[6]

UM einen Begriff von mir als Psychologen zu geben, nehme ich ein curioses Stück Psychologie, das in „Jenseits von Gut und Böse“ vorkommt, — ich verbiete übrigens jede Muthmaaßung darüber, wen ich an dieser Stelle beschreibe. „Das Genie des Herzens, wie es jener große Verborgene hat, der Versucher-Gott und geborne Rattenfänger der Gewissen, dessen Stimme bis in die Unterwelt jeder Seele hinabzusteigen weiß, welcher nicht ein Wort sagt, nicht einen Blick blickt, in dem nicht eine Rücksicht und Falte der Lockung läge, zu dessen Meisterschaft es gehört, daß er zu scheinen versteht — und nicht Das, was er ist, sondern was Denen, die ihm folgen, ein Zwang *mehr* ist, um sich immer näher an ihn zu drängen, um ihm immer innerlicher und gründlicher zu folgen... Das Genie des Herzens, das alles Laute und Selbstgefällige verstummen macht und horchen lehrt, das die rauhen Seelen glättet und ihnen ein neues Verlangen zu kosten giebt: — still zu liegen, wie ein Spiegel, daß sich der tiefe Himmel auf ihnen spiegele... Das Genie des Herzens, das die tölpische und überrasche Hand zögern und zierlicher greifen lehrt; das den verborgenen und vergessenen Schatz, den Tropfen Güte und süßer Geistigkeit unter trübem dickem Eise erräth und eine Wünschelruthe für jedes Korn Goldes ist, welches lange im Kerker vielen Schlammes und Sandes begraben lag... Das Genie des Herzens, von dessen Berührung Jeder reicher fortgeht, nicht begnadet und überrascht, nicht wie von fremdem Gute beglückt und bedrückt, sondern reicher an sich selber, sich neuer als zuvor, aufgebrochen, von einem Thauwinde angeweht und ausgehorcht, unsicherer vielleicht, zärtlicher zerbrechlicher zerbrochener, aber voll Hoffnungen, die noch keinen Namen haben, voll neuen Willens und Strömens, voll neuen Unwillens und Zurückströmens...“

### The Birth of Tragedy

[1]

Um gegen die „Geburt der Tragödie“ (1872) gerecht zu sein, wird man Einiges vergessen müssen. Sie hat mit dem *gewirkt* und selbst fascinirt, was an ihr verfehlt war — mit ihrer Nutzanwendung auf die *Wagnerei*, als ob dieselbe ein *Aufgangs*-Symptom sei. Diese Schrift war ebendamit im Leben Wagner’s ein Ereigniß: von da an gab es erst große Hoffnungen bei dem Namen Wagner. Noch heute erinnert man mich daran, unter Umständen mitten aus dem Parsifal heraus: wie *ich* es eigentlich auf dem Gewissen habe, daß eine so hohe Meinung über den *Cultur-Werth* dieser Bewegung obenauf gekommen sei. — Ich fand die Schrift mehrmals citirt als „die *Wieder*geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik“: man hat nur Ohren für eine neue Formel der Kunst, der Absicht, der Aufgabe *Wagner’s* gehabt, — darüber wurde überhört, was die Schrift im Grunde Werthvolles barg. „Griechenthum und Pessimismus“: das wäre ein unzweideutigerer Titel gewesen: nämlich als erste Belehrung darüber, wie die Griechen fertig wurden mit dem Pessimismus, — womit sie ihn *überwanden*... Die Tragödie gerade ist der Beweis dafür, daß die Griechen *keine* Pessimisten waren: Schopenhauer vergriff sich hier, wie er sich in Allem vergriffen hat. — Mit einiger Neutralität in die Hand genommen, sieht die „Geburt der Tragödie“ sehr unzeitgemäß aus: man würde sich nicht träumen lassen, daß sie unter den Donnern der Schlacht bei Wörth *begonnen* wurde. Ich habe diese Probleme vor den Mauern von Metz, in kalten September-Nächten, mitten im Dienste der Krankenpflege, durchgedacht; man könnte eher schon glauben, daß die Schrift fünfzig Jahre älter sei. Sie ist politisch indifferent — „undeutsch“, wird man heute sagen —, sie riecht anstößig Hegelisch, sie ist nur in einigen Formeln mit dem Leichenbitter-Parfüm Schopenhauer’s behaftet. Eine „Idee“ — der Gegensatz dionysisch und apollinisch — in’s Metaphysische übersetzt; die Geschichte selbst als die Entwicklung dieser „Idee“; in der Tragödie der Gegensatz zur Einheit aufgehoben; unter dieser Optik Dinge, die noch nie einander in’s Gesicht gesehen hatten, plötzlich gegenüber gestellt, aus einander beleuchtet und *begriffen*... Die Oper zum Beispiel und die Revolution... Die zwei entscheidenden *Neuerungen* des Buchs sind einmal das Verständniß des *dionysischen* Phänomens bei den Griechen — es giebt dessen erste Psychologie, es sieht in ihm die Eine Wurzel der ganzen griechischen Kunst —. Das Andre ist das Verständniß des Sokratismus: Sokrates als Werkzeug der griechischen Auflösung, als typischer décadent zum ersten Male erkannt. „Vernünftigkeit“ *gegen* Instinkt. Die „Vernünftigkeit“ um jeden Preis als gefährliche, als leben-untergrabende Gewalt! — Tiefes feindseliges Schweigen über das Christenthum im ganzen Buche: Es ist weder apollinisch, noch dionysisch; es *negirt* alle *ästhetischen* Werthe — die einzigen Werthe, die die „Geburt der Tragödie“ anerkennt: es ist im tiefsten Sinne nihilistisch, während im dionysischen Symbol die äußerste Grenze der *Bejahung* erreicht ist. Einmal wird auf die christlichen Priester wie auf eine „tückische Art von Zwergen“, von „Unterirdischen“ angespielt...

[2]

Dieser Anfang ist über alle Maaßen merkwürdig. Ich hatte zu meiner innersten Erfahrung das einzige Gleichniß und Seitenstück, das die Geschichte hat, *entdeckt*, — ich hatte ebendamit das wundervolle Phänomen des Dionysischen als der Erste begriffen. Insgleichen war damit, daß ich Sokrates als décadent erkannte, ein völlig unzweideutiger Beweis dafür gegeben, wie wenig die Sicherheit meines psychologischen Griffs von Seiten irgend einer Moral-Idiosynkrasie Gefahr laufen werde: — die Moral selbst als décadence-Symptom ist eine Neuerung, eine Einzigkeit ersten Rangs in der Geschichte der Erkenntniß. Wie hoch war ich mit Beidem über das erbärmliche Flachkopf-Geschwätz von Optimismus contra Pessimismus hinweggesprungen! — Ich sah zuerst den eigentlichen Gegensatz: — den *entartenden* Instinkt, der sich gegen das Leben mit unterirdischer Rachsucht wendet (— Christenthum, die Philosophie Schopenhauer’s, in gewissem Sinne schon die Philosophie Plato’s, der ganze Idealismus als typische Formen) und eine aus der Fülle, der Überfülle geborene Formel der *höchsten Bejahung*, ein Jasagen ohne Vorbehalt, zum Leiden selbst, zur Schuld selbst, zu allem Fragwürdigen und Fremden des Daseins selbst... Dieses letzte, freudigste, überschwänglich-übermüthigste Ja zum Leben ist nicht nur die höchste Einsicht, es ist auch die *tiefste*, die von Wahrheit und Wissenschaft am strengsten bestätigte und aufrecht erhaltene. Es ist Nichts, was ist, abzurechnen, es ist Nichts entbehrlich — die von den Christen und andren Nihilisten abgelehnten Seiten des Daseins sind sogar von unendlich höherer Ordnung in der Rangordnung der Werthe als das, was der décadence-Instinkt gutheißen, *gut heißen* durfte. Dies zu begreifen, dazu gehört *Muth* und, als dessen Bedingung, ein Ueberschuß von *Kraft*: denn genau so weit als der Muth sich vorwärts wagen *darf*, genau nach dem Maaß von Kraft nähert man sich der Wahrheit. Die Erkenntniß, das Jasagen zur Realität, ist für den Starken eine ebensolche Nothwendigkeit, als für den Schwachen, unter der Inspiration der Schwäche, die Feigheit und *Flucht* vor der Realität — das „Ideal“... Es steht ihnen nicht frei, zu erkennen: die décadents haben die Lüge *nöthig*, — sie ist eine ihrer Erhaltungs-Bedingungen. — Wer das Wort „dionysisch“ nicht nur begreift, sondern *sich* in dem Wort „dionysisch“ begreift, hat keine Widerlegung Plato’s oder des Christenthums oder Schopenhauer’s nöthig — er *riecht die Verwesung*...

[3]

Inwiefern ich ebendamit den Begriff „tragisch“, die endliche Erkenntnis darüber, was die Psychologie der Tragödie ist, gefunden hatte, habe ich zuletzt noch in der *Götzen-Dämmerung* Seite 139 zum Ausdruck gebracht: „Das Jasagen zum Leben selbst noch in seinen fremdesten und härtesten Problemen; der Wille zum Leben, im *Opfer* seiner höchsten Typen der eignen Unerschöpflichkeit frohwerdend — *das* nannte ich dionysisch, das verstand ich als Brücke zur Psychologie des *tragischen* Dichters. *Nicht* um von Schrecken und Mitleiden loszukommen, nicht um sich von einem gefährlichen Affekt durch eine vehemente Entladung zu reinigen — so mißverstand es Aristoteles —: sondern um, über Schrecken und Mitleiden hinaus, die ewige Lust des Werdens *selbst zu sein*, — jene Lust, die auch noch die *Lust am Vernichten* in sich schließt...“ In diesem Sinne habe ich das Recht, mich selber als den ersten *tragischen Philosophen* zu verstehn — das heißt den äußersten Gegensatz und Antipoden eines pessimistischen Philosophen. Vor mir giebt es diese Umsetzung des dionysischen in ein philosophisches Pathos nicht: es fehlt die *tragische Weisheit*, — ich habe vergebens nach Anzeichen davon selbst bei den *großen* Griechen der Philosophie, denen der zwei Jahrhunderte *vor* Sokrates, gesucht. Ein Zweifel blieb mir zurück bei *Heraklit*, in dessen Nähe überhaupt mir wärmer, mir wohler zu Muthe wird als irgendwo sonst. Die Bejahung des Vergehens *und Vernichtens*, das Entscheidende in einer dionysischen Philosophie, das Jasagen zu Gegensatz und Krieg, das *Werden*, mit radikaler Ablehnung auch selbst des Begriffs „*Sein*“ — darin muß ich unter allen Umständen das mir Verwandteste anerkennen, was bisher gedacht worden ist. Die Lehre von der „ewigen Wiederkunft“, das heißt vom unbedingten und unendlich wiederholten Kreislauf aller Dinge — diese Lehre Zarathustra’s *könnte* zuletzt auch schon gelehrt worden sein. Zum Mindesten hat die Stoa, die fast alle ihre grundsätzlichen Vorstellungen von Heraklit geerbt hat, Spuren davon. —

[4]

Aus dieser Schrift redet eine ungeheure Hoffnung. Zuletzt fehlt mir jeder Grund, die Hoffnung auf eine dionysische Zukunft der Musik zurückzunehmen. Werfen wir einen Blick ein Jahrhundert voraus, setzen wir den Fall, daß mein Attentat auf zwei Jahrtausende Widernatur und Menschenschändung gelingt. Jene neue Partei des Lebens, welche die größte aller Aufgaben, die Höherzüchtung der Menschheit in die Hände nimmt, eingerechnet die schonungslose Vernichtung alles Entartenden und Parasitischen, wird jenes *Zuviel von Leben* auf Erden wieder möglich machen, aus dem auch der dionysische Zustand wieder erwachsen muß. Ich verspreche ein *tragisches* Zeitalter: die höchste Kunst im Jasagen zum Leben, die Tragödie, wird wiedergeboren werden, wenn die Menschheit das Bewußtsein der härtesten, aber nothwendigsten Kriege hinter sich hat, *ohne daran zu leiden*... Ein Psychologe dürfte noch hinzufügen, daß was ich in jungen Jahren bei Wagnerischer Musik gehört habe, Nichts überhaupt mit Wagner zu thun hat; daß wenn ich die dionysische Musik beschrieb, ich Das beschrieb, was *ich* gehört hatte, — daß ich instinktiv Alles in den neuen Geist übersetzen und transfiguriren mußte, den ich in mir trug. Der Beweis dafür, *so stark als nur ein Beweis sein kann*, ist meine Schrift „Wagner in Bayreuth“: an allen psychologisch entscheidenden Stellen ist nur von mir die Rede, — man darf rücksichtslos meinen Namen oder das Wort „Zarathustra“ hinstellen, wo der Text das Wort Wagner giebt. Das ganze Bild des *dithyrambischen* Künstlers ist das Bild des *präexistenten* Dichters des Zarathustra, mit abgründlicher Tiefe hingezeichnet und ohne einen Augenblick die Wagner’sche Realität auch nur zu berühren. Wagner selbst hatte einen Begriff davon; er erkannte sich in der Schrift nicht wieder. — Insgleichen hatte sich „der Gedanke von Bayreuth“ in Etwas verwandelt, das den Kennern meines Zarathustra kein Räthsel-Begriff sein wird: in jenen *großen Mittag*, wo sich die Auserwähltesten zur größten aller Aufgaben weihen — wer weiß? die Vision eines Festes, das ich noch erleben werde... Das Pathos der ersten Seiten ist welthistorisch; der *Blick*, von dem auf der siebenten Seite die Rede ist, ist der eigentliche Zarathustra-Blick; Wagner, Bayreuth, die ganze kleine deutsche Erbärmlichkeit ist eine Wolke, in der eine unendliche Fata Morgana der Zukunft sich spiegelt. Selbst psychologisch sind alle entscheidenden Züge meiner eignen Natur in die Wagner’s eingetragen — das Nebeneinander der lichtesten und verhängnißvollsten Kräfte, der Wille zur Macht, wie ihn nie ein Mensch besessen hat, die rücksichtslose Tapferkeit im Geistigen, die unbegrenzte Kraft zu lernen, ohne daß der Wille zur That damit erdrückt würde. Es ist Alles an dieser Schrift vorherverkündend: die Nähe der Wiederkunft des griechischen Geistes, die Nothwendigkeit von *Gegen-Alexandern*, welche den gordischen Knoten der griechischen Cultur wieder *binden*, nachdem er gelöst war... Man höre den welthistorischen Accent, mit dem auf Seite 30 der Begriff „tragische Gesinnung“ eingeführt wird: es sind lauter welthistorische Accente in dieser Schrift. Dies ist die fremdartigste „Objektivität“, die es geben kann: die absolute Gewißheit darüber, was ich *bin*, projicirte sich auf irgend eine zufällige Realität, — die Wahrheit über mich redete aus einer schauervollen Tiefe. Auf Seite 71 wird der *Stil* des Zarathustra mit einschneidender Sicherheit beschrieben und vorweggenommen; und niemals wird man einen großartigeren Ausdruck für das *Ereigniß* Zarathustra, den Akt einer ungeheuren Reinigung und Weihung der Menschheit, finden, als er in den Seiten 43–46 gefunden ist. —

### The Untimely Meditations

[1]

Die vier *Unzeitgemäßen* sind durchaus kriegerisch. Sie beweisen, daß ich kein „Hans der Träumer“ war, daß es mir Vergnügen macht, den Degen zu ziehn, — vielleicht auch, daß ich das Handgelenk gefährlich frei habe. Der *erste* Angriff (1873) galt der deutschen Bildung, auf die ich damals schon mit schonungsloser Verachtung hinabblickte. Ohne Sinn, ohne Substanz, ohne Ziel: eine bloße „öffentliche Meinung“. Kein bösartigeres Mißverständniß als zu glauben, der große Waffen - Erfolg der Deutschen beweise irgend Etwas zu Gunsten dieser Bildung — oder gar *ihren* Sieg über Frankreich... Die *zweite* Unzeitgemäße (1874) bringt das Gefährliche, das Leben-Annagende und -Vergiftende in unsrer Art des Wissenschafts-Betriebs an’s Licht —: das Leben *krank* an diesem entmenschten Räderwerk und Mechanismus, an der „*Un*persönlichkeit“ des Arbeiters, an der falschen Ökonomie der „Theilung der Arbeit“. Der *Zweck* geht verloren, die Cultur: — das Mittel, der moderne Wissenschafts-Betrieb, *barbarisirt*... In dieser Abhandlung wurde der „historische Sinn“, auf den dies Jahrhundert stolz ist, zum ersten Mal als Krankheit erkannt, als typisches Zeichen des Verfalls. — In der *dritten* und *vierten* Unzeitgemäßen werden, als Fingerzeige zu einem *höheren* Begriff der Cultur, zur Wiederherstellung des Begriffs „Cultur“, zwei Bilder der härtesten *Selbstsucht, Selbstzucht* dagegen aufgestellt, unzeitgemäße Typen par excellence, voll souverainer Verachtung gegen Alles, was um sie herum „Reich“, „Bildung“, „Christenthum“, „Bismarck“, „Erfolg“ hieß, — Schopenhauer und Wagner *oder*, mit Einem Wort, Nietzsche...

[2]

Von diesen vier Attentaten hatte das erste einen außerordentlichen Erfolg. Der Lärm, den es hervorrief, war in jedem Sinne prachtvoll. Ich hatte einer siegreichen Nation an ihre wunde Stelle gerührt, — daß ihr Sieg *nicht* ein Cultur-Ereigniß sei, sondern vielleicht, vielleicht etwas ganz Anderes... Die Antwort kam von allen Seiten und durchaus nicht bloß von den alten Freunden David Straußens, den ich als Typus eines deutschen Bildungsphilisters und satisfait, kurz als Verfasser seines Bierbank-Evangeliums vom „alten und neuen Glauben“ lächerlich gemacht hatte (– das Wort Bildungsphilister ist von meiner Schrift her in der Sprache übriggeblieben). Diese alten Freunde, denen ich als Württembergern und Schwaben einen tiefen Stich versetzt hatte, als ich ihr Wunderthier, ihren Strauß komisch fand, antworteten so bieder und grob, als ich’s irgendwie wünschen konnte; die preußischen Entgegnungen waren klüger, – sie hatten mehr „berliner Blau“ in sich. Das Unanständigste leistete ein Leipziger Blatt, die berüchtigten „Grenzboten“; ich hatte Mühe, die entrüsteten Basler von Schritten abzuhalten. Unbedingt für mich entschieden sich nur einige alte Herrn, aus gemischten und zum Theil unausfindlichen Gründen. Darunter Ewald in Göttingen, der zu verstehen gab, mein Attentat sei für Strauß tödtlich abgelaufen. Insgleichen der alte Hegelianer Bruno Bauer, an dem ich von da an einen meiner aufmerksamsten Leser gehabt habe. Er liebte es, in seinen letzten Jahren, auf mich zu verweisen, zum Beispiel Herrn von Treitschke, dem preußischen Historiographen, einen Wink zu geben, bei wem er sich Auskunft über den ihm verloren gegangenen Begriff „Cultur“ holen könne. Das Nachdenklichste, auch das Längste über die Schrift und ihren Autor wurde von einem alten Schüler des Philosophen von Baader gesagt, einem Professor Hoffmann in Würzburg. Er sah aus der Schrift eine große Bestimmung für mich voraus, – eine Art Krisis und höchste Entscheidung im Problem des Atheismus herbeizuführen, als dessen instinktivsten und rücksichtslosesten Typus er mich errieth. Der Atheismus war Das, was mich zu Schopenhauer führte. – Bei weitem am besten gehört, am bittersten empfunden wurde eine außerordentlich starke und tapfere Fürsprache des sonst so milden Carl Hillebrand, dieses letzten *humanen* Deutschen, der die Feder zu führen wußte. Man las seinen Aufsatz in der „Augsburger Zeitung“; man kann ihn heute, in einer etwas vorsichtigeren Form, in seinen gesammelten Schriften lesen. Hier war die Schrift als Ereigniß, Wendepunkt, erste Selbstbesinnung, allerbestes Zeichen dargestellt, als eine wirkliche *Wiederkehr* des deutschen Ernstes und der deutschen Leidenschaft in geistigen Dingen. Hillebrand war voll hoher Auszeichnung für die Form der Schrift, für ihren reifen Geschmack, für ihren vollkommnen Takt in der Unterscheidung von Person und Sache: er zeichnete sie als die beste polemische Schrift aus, die deutsch geschrieben sei, – in der gerade für Deutsche so gefährlichen, so widerrathnen Kunst der Polemik. Unbedingt jasagend, mich sogar in dem verschärfend, was ich über die Sprach-Verlumpung in Deutschland zu sagen gewagt hatte (– heute spielen sie die Puristen und können keinen Satz mehr bauen –), in gleicher Verachtung gegen die „ersten Schriftsteller“ dieser Nation, endete er damit, seine Bewunderung für meinen *Muth* auszudrücken – jenen „höchsten Muth, der gerade die Lieblinge eines Volks auf die Anklagebank bringt“… Die Nachwirkung dieser Schrift ist geradezu unschätzbar in meinem Leben. Niemand hat bisher mit mir Händel gesucht. Man schweigt, man behandelt mich in Deutschland mit einer düstern Vorsicht: ich habe seit Jahren von einer unbedingten Redefreiheit Gebrauch gemacht, zu der Niemand heute, am wenigsten im „Reich“, die *Hand* frei genug hat. Mein Paradies ist „unter dem Schatten meines Schwertes“… Im Grunde hatte ich eine Maxime Stendhal’s practicirt: er räth an, seinen Eintritt in die Gesellschaft mit einem *Duell* zu machen. Und wie ich mir meinen Gegner gewählt hatte! den ersten deutschen Freigeist!… In der That, eine ganz *neue* Art Freigeisterei kam damit zum ersten Ausdruck: bis heute ist mir Nichts fremder und unverwandter als die ganze europäische und amerikanische Species von „libres penseurs“. Mit ihnen als mit unverbesserlichen Flachköpfen und Hanswürsten der „modernen Ideen“ befinde ich mich sogar in einem tieferen Zwiespalt als mit irgendwem von ihren Gegnern. Sie wollen auch, auf ihre Art, die Menschheit „verbessern“, nach ihrem Bilde, sie würden gegen das, was ich bin, was ich *will*, einen unversöhnlichen Krieg machen, gesetzt daß sie es verstünden, – sie glauben allesammt noch an’s „Ideal“… Ich bin der erste *Immoralist* –

[3]

Daß die mit den Namen Schopenhauer und Wagner abgezeichneten Unzeitgemäßen sonderlich zum Verständniß oder auch nur zur psychologischen Fragestellung beider Fälle dienen könnten, möchte ich nicht behaupten, – Einzelnes, wie billig, ausgenommen. So wird zum Beispiel mit tiefer Instinkt-Sicherheit bereits hier das Elementarische in der Natur Wagner’s als eine Schauspieler-Begabung bezeichnet, die seinen Mitteln und Absichten nur ihre Folgerungen zieht. Im Grunde wollte ich mit diesen Schriften etwas ganz Andres als Psychologie treiben: – ein Problem der Erziehung ohne Gleichen, ein neuer Begriff der *Selbst-Zucht, Selbst-Vertheidigung* bis zur Härte, ein Weg zur Größe und zu welthistorischen Aufgaben verlangte nach seinem ersten Ausdruck. In’s Große gerechnet nahm ich zwei berühmte und ganz und gar noch unfestgestellte Typen beim Schopf, wie man eine Gelegenheit beim Schopf nimmt, um Etwas auszusprechen, um ein paar Formeln, Zeichen, Sprachmittel mehr in der Hand zu haben. Dies ist zuletzt, mit vollkommen unheimlicher Sagacität, auf S. 93 der dritten Unzeitgemäßen auch angedeutet. Dergestalt hat sich Plato des Sokrates bedient, als einer Semiotik für Plato. – Jetzt, wo ich aus einiger Ferne auf jene Zustände zurückblicke, deren Zeugniß diese Schriften sind, möchte ich nicht verleugnen, daß sie im Grunde bloß von mir reden. Die Schrift „Wagner in Bayreuth“ ist eine Vision meiner Zukunft; dagegen ist in „Schopenhauer als Erzieher“ meine innerste Geschichte, mein *Werden* eingeschrieben. Vor Allem mein *Gelöbniß!*… *Was* ich heute bin, *wo* ich heute bin – in einer Höhe, wo ich nicht mehr mit Worten, sondern mit Blitzen rede – oh wie fern davon war ich damals noch! – Aber ich *sah* das Land, – ich betrog mich nicht einen Augenblick über Weg, Meer, Gefahr – *und* Erfolg! Die große Ruhe im Versprechen, dies glückliche Hinausschaun in eine Zukunft, welche nicht nur eine Verheißung bleiben soll! – Hier ist jedes Wort erlebt, tief, innerlich; es fehlt nicht am Schmerzlichsten, es sind Worte darin, die geradezu blutrünstig sind. Aber ein Wind der *großen* Freiheit bläst über Alles weg; die Wunde selbst wirkt *nicht* als Einwand. – Wie ich den Philosophen verstehe, als einen furchtbaren Explosionsstoff, vor dem Alles in Gefahr ist, wie ich meinen Begriff „Philosoph“ meilenweit abtrenne von einem Begriff, der sogar noch einen Kant in sich schließt, nicht zu reden von akademischen „Wiederkäuern“ und andern Professoren der Philosophie: darüber giebt diese Schrift eine unschätzbare Belehrung, zugegeben selbst, daß hier im Grunde nicht „Schopenhauer als Erzieher“, sondern sein *Gegensatz*, „Nietzsche als Erzieher“, zu Worte kommt. – In Anbetracht, daß damals mein Handwerk das eines Gelehrten war, und, vielleicht auch, daß ich mein Handwerk *verstand*, ist ein herbes Stück Psychologie des Gelehrten nicht ohne Bedeutung, das in dieser Schrift plötzlich zum Vorschein kommt: es drückt das *Distanz-Gefühl* aus, die tiefe Sicherheit darüber, was bei mir *Aufgabe*, was bloß Mittel, Zwischenakt und Nebenwerk sein kann. Es ist meine Klugheit, Vieles und vielerorts gewesen zu sein, um Eins werden zu können, – um zu Einem kommen zu können. Ich *mußte* eine Zeit lang auch Gelehrter sein.

### Human, All Too Human

Mit zwei Fortsetzungen.

[1]

„Menschliches, Allzumenschliches“ ist das Denkmal einer Krisis. Es heißt sich ein Buch für freie Geister: fast jeder Satz darin drückt einen Sieg aus – ich habe mich mit demselben vom *Unzugehörigen* in meiner Natur freigemacht. Unzugehörig ist mir der Idealismus: der Titel sagt „wo ihr ideale Dinge seht, sehe ich – Menschliches, ach nur Allzumenschliches“… Ich kenne den Menschen *besser*… In keinem andern Sinne will das Wort „freier Geist“ hier verstanden werden: ein *freigewordner* Geist, der von sich selber wieder Besitz ergriffen hat. Der Ton, der Stimmklang hat sich völlig verändert: man wird das Buch klug, kühl, unter Umständen hart und spöttisch finden. Eine gewisse Geistigkeit *vornehmen* Geschmacks scheint sich beständig gegen eine leidenschaftlichere Strömung auf dem Grunde obenauf zu halten. In diesem Zusammenhang hat es Sinn, daß es eigentlich die hundertjährige Todesfeier *Voltaire’s* ist, womit sich die Herausgabe des Buchs schon für das Jahr 1878 gleichsam entschuldigt. Denn Voltaire ist, im Gegensatz zu Allem, was nach ihm schrieb, vor Allem ein grandseigneur des Geistes: genau das, was ich auch bin. – Der Name Voltaire auf einer Schrift von mir – das war wirklich ein Fortschritt – *zu mir*… Sieht man genauer zu, so entdeckt man einen unbarmherzigen Geist, der alle Schlupfwinkel kennt, wo das Ideal heimisch ist, – wo es seine Burgverließe und gleichsam seine letzte Sicherheit hat. Eine Fackel in den Händen, die durchaus kein „fackelndes“ Licht giebt, mit einer schneidenden Helle wird in diese *Unterwelt* des Ideals hineingeleuchtet. Es ist der Krieg, aber der Krieg ohne Pulver und Dampf, ohne kriegerische Attitüden, ohne Pathos und verrenkte Gliedmaaßen – dies Alles selbst wäre noch „Idealismus“. Ein Irrthum nach dem andern wird gelassen auf’s Eis gelegt, das Ideal wird nicht widerlegt – *es erfriert*… Hier zum Beispiel erfriert „das Genie“; eine Ecke weiter erfriert „der Heilige“; unter einem dicken Eiszapfen erfriert „der Held“; am Schluß erfriert „der Glaube“, die sogenannte „Überzeugung“, auch das „Mitleiden“ kühlt sich bedeutend ab – fast überall erfriert „das Ding an sich“…

[2]

Die Anfänge dieses Buchs gehören mitten in die Wochen der ersten Bayreuther Festspiele hinein; eine tiefe Fremdheit gegen Alles, was mich dort umgab, ist eine seiner Voraussetzungen. Wer einen Begriff davon hat, was für Visionen mir schon damals über den Weg gelaufen waren, kann errathen, wie mir zu Muthe war, als ich eines Tags in Bayreuth aufwachte. Ganz als ob ich träumte… Wo war ich doch? Ich erkannte Nichts wieder, ich erkannte kaum Wagner wieder. Umsonst blätterte ich in meinen Erinnerungen. Tribschen – eine ferne Insel der Glückseligen: kein Schatten von Ähnlichkeit. Die unvergleichlichen Tage der Grundsteinlegung, die kleine *zugehörige* Gesellschaft, die sie feierte und der man nicht erst Finger für zarte Dinge zu wünschen hatte: kein Schatten von Ähnlichkeit. *Was war geschehn?* – Man hatte Wagner ins Deutsche übersetzt! Der Wagnerianer war Herr über Wagner geworden! – Die *deutsche* Kunst! der *deutsche* Meister! das *deutsche* Bier!… Wir Andern, die wir nur zu gut wissen, zu was für raffinirten Artisten, zu welchem Kosmopolitismus des Geschmacks Wagner’s Kunst allein redet, waren außer uns, Wagnern mit deutschen „Tugenden“ behängt wiederzufinden. – Ich denke, ich kenne den Wagnerianer, ich habe drei Generationen „erlebt“, vom seligen Brendel an, der Wagner mit Hegel verwechselte, bis zu den „Idealisten“ der Bayreuther Blätter, die Wagner mit sich selbst verwechseln, – ich habe alle Art Bekenntnisse „schöner Seelen“ über Wagner gehört. Ein Königreich für Ein gescheidtes Wort! – In Wahrheit, eine haarsträubende Gesellschaft! Nohl, Pohl, *Kohl* mit Grazie in infinitum! Keine Mißgeburt fehlt darunter, nicht einmal der Antisemit. – Der arme Wagner! Wohin war er gerathen! – Wäre er doch wenigstens unter die Säue gefahren! Aber unter Deutsche!… Zuletzt sollte man, zur Belehrung der Nachwelt, einen echten Bayreuther ausstopfen, besser noch in Spiritus setzen, denn an Spiritus fehlt es –, mit der Unterschrift: so sah der „Geist“ aus, auf den hin man das „Reich“ gründete… Genug, ich reiste mitten drin für ein paar Wochen ab, sehr plötzlich, trotzdem daß eine charmante Pariserin mich zu trösten suchte; ich entschuldigte mich bei Wagner bloß mit einem fatalistischen Telegramm. In einem tief in Wäldern verborgnen Ort des Böhmerwalds, Klingenbrunn, trug ich meine Melancholie und Deutschen-Verachtung wie eine Krankheit mit mir herum – *und* schrieb von Zeit zu Zeit, unter dem Gesammttitel „die Pflugschar“, einen Satz in mein Taschenbuch, lauter *harte* Psychologica, die sich vielleicht in „Menschliches, Allzumenschliches“ noch wiederfinden lassen.

[3]

Was sich damals bei mir entschied, war nicht etwa ein Bruch mit Wagner – ich empfand eine Gesammt-Abirrung meines Instinkts, von der der einzelne Fehlgriff, heiße er nun Wagner oder Basler Professur, bloß ein Zeichen war. Eine *Ungeduld* mit mir überfiel mich; ich sah ein, daß es die höchste Zeit war, mich auf *mich* zurückzubesinnen. Mit Einem Male war mir auf eine schreckliche Weise klar, wie viel Zeit bereits verschwendet sei, – wie nutzlos, wie willkürlich sich meine ganze Philologen-Existenz an meiner Aufgabe ausnehme. Ich schämte mich dieser *falschen* Bescheidenheit… Zehn Jahre hinter mir, wo ganz eigentlich die *Ernährung* des Geistes bei mir stillgestanden hatte, wo ich nichts Brauchbares hinzugelernt hatte, wo ich unsinnig Viel über einem Krimskrams verstaubter Gelehrsamkeit vergessen hatte. Antike Metriker mit Akribie und schlechten Augen durchkriechen – dahin war es mit mir gekommen! – Ich sah mit Erbarmen mich ganz mager, ganz abgehungert: die *Realitäten* fehlten geradezu innerhalb meines Wissens, und die „Idealitäten“ taugten den Teufel was! – Ein geradezu brennender Durst ergriff mich: von da ab habe ich in der That nichts mehr getrieben als Physiologie, Medizin und Naturwissenschaften, – selbst zu eigentlichen historischen Studien bin ich erst wieder zurückgekehrt, als die *Aufgabe* mich gebieterisch dazu zwang. Damals errieth ich auch zuerst den Zusammenhang zwischen einer instinktwidrig gewählten Thätigkeit, einem sogenannten „Beruf“, zu dem man *am letzten* berufen ist – und jenem Bedürfniß nach einer *Betäubung* des Öde- und Hungergefühls durch eine narkotische Kunst, – zum Beispiel durch die Wagnerische Kunst. Bei einem vorsichtigeren Umblick habe ich entdeckt, daß für eine große Anzahl junger Männer der gleiche Nothstand besteht: Eine Widernatur *erzwingt* förmlich eine zweite. In Deutschland, im „Reich“, um unzweideutig zu reden, sind nur zu Viele verurtheilt, sich unzeitig zu entscheiden und dann, unter einer unabwerfbar gewordnen Last, *hinzusiechen*… Diese verlangen nach Wagnern als nach einem *Opiat*, – sie vergessen sich, sie werden sich einen Augenblick los… Was sage ich! *fünf bis sechs Stunden!* –

[4]

Damals entschied sich mein Instinkt unerbittlich gegen ein noch längeres Nachgeben, Mitgehn, Mich-selbst-verwechseln. Jede Art Leben, die ungünstigsten Bedingungen, Krankheit, Armuth – Alles schien mir jener unwürdigen „Selbstlosigkeit“ vorziehenswerth, in die ich zuerst aus Unwissenheit, aus *Jugend* gerathen war, in der ich später aus Trägheit, aus sogenanntem „Pflichtgefühl“ hängen geblieben war. – Hier kam mir, auf eine Weise, die ich nicht genug bewundern kann, und gerade noch zur rechten Zeit jene *schlimme* Erbschaft von Seiten meines Vaters her zu Hülfe, – im Grunde eine Vorbestimmung zu einem frühen Tode. Die Krankheit *löste mich langsam heraus*: sie ersparte mir jeden Bruch, jeden gewaltthätigen und anstößigen Schritt. Ich habe kein Wohlwollen damals eingebüßt und viel noch hinzugewonnen. Die Krankheit gab mir insgleichen ein Recht zu einer vollkommnen Umkehr aller meiner Gewohnheiten; sie erlaubte, sie *gebot* mir Vergessen; sie beschenkte mich mit der *Nöthigung* zum Stillliegen, zum Müßiggang, zum Warten und Geduldigsein… Aber das heißt ja denken!… Meine Augen allein machten ein Ende mit aller Bücherwürmerei, auf deutsch: Philologie: ich war vom „Buch“ erlöst, ich las jahrelang Nichts mehr – die *größte* Wohlthat, die ich mir je erwiesen habe! – Jenes unterste Selbst, gleichsam verschüttet, gleichsam still geworden unter einem beständigen Hören-*müssen* auf andre Selbste (– und das heißt ja lesen!) erwachte langsam, schüchtern, zweifelhaft, – aber endlich *redete es wieder*. Nie habe ich so viel Glück an mir gehabt, als in den kränksten und schmerzhaftesten Zeiten meines Lebens: man hat nur die „Morgenröthe“ oder etwa den „Wanderer und seinen Schatten“ sich anzusehn, um zu begreifen, was diese „Rückkehr zu mir“ war: eine höchste Art von *Genesung* selbst!… Die andre folgte bloß daraus. –

[5]

*Menschliches, Allzumenschliches*, dies Denkmal einer rigorosen Selbstzucht, mit der ich bei mir allem eingeschleppten „höheren Schwindel“, „Idealismus“, „schönen Gefühl“ und andren Weiblichkeiten ein jähes Ende bereitete, wurde in allen Hauptsachen in Sorrent niedergeschrieben; es bekam seinen Schluß, seine endgültige Form in einem Basler Winter, unter ungleich ungünstigeren Verhältnissen als denen in Sorrent. Im Grunde hat Herr *Peter Gast*, damals an der Basler Universität studirend und mir sehr zugethan, das Buch auf dem Gewissen. Ich diktirte, den Kopf verbunden und schmerzhaft, er schrieb ab, er corrigirte auch, – er war im Grunde der eigentliche Schriftsteller, während ich bloß der Autor war. Als das Buch endlich fertig mir zu Händen kam – zur tiefen Verwunderung eines Schwerkranken –, sandte ich, unter anderen, auch nach Bayreuth zwei Exemplare. Durch ein Wunder von Sinn im Zufall kam gleichzeitig bei mir ein schönes Exemplar des Parsifal-Textes an, mit Wagner’s Widmung an mich „seinem theuren Freunde Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, Kirchenrath.“ – Diese Kreuzung der zwei Bücher – mir war’s, als ob ich einen ominösen Ton dabei hörte. Klang es nicht, als ob sich *Degen* kreuzten?… Jedenfalls empfanden wir es Beide so: denn wir schwiegen Beide. – Um diese Zeit erschienen die ersten Bayreuther Blätter: ich begriff, *wozu* es höchste Zeit gewesen war. – Unglaublich! Wagner war fromm geworden…

[6]

Wie ich damals (1876) über mich dachte, mit welcher ungeheuren Sicherheit ich meine Aufgabe und das Welthistorische an ihr in der Hand hielt, davon legt das ganze Buch, vor Allem aber eine sehr ausdrückliche Stelle Zeugniß ab: nur daß ich, mit der bei mir instinktiven Arglist, auch hier wieder das Wörtchen „ich“ umging und dies Mal nicht Schopenhauer oder Wagner, sondern einen meiner Freunde, den ausgezeichneten Dr. Paul Rée, mit einer welthistorischen Glorie überstrahlte – zum Glück ein viel zu feines Thier, als daß… *Andre* waren weniger fein: ich habe die Hoffnungslosen unter meinen Lesern, zum Beispiel den typischen deutschen Professor, immer daran erkannt, daß sie, auf diese Stelle hin, das ganze Buch als höheren Réealismus verstehn zu müssen glaubten… In Wahrheit enthielt es den Widerspruch gegen fünf, sechs Sätze meines Freundes: man möge darüber die Vorrede zur Genealogie der Moral nachlesen. Die Stelle lautet: Welches ist doch der Hauptsatz, zu dem einer der kühnsten und kältesten Denker, der Verfasser des Buchs „Über den Ursprung der moralischen Empfindungen“ (lisez: Nietzsche, der erste *Immoralist*) vermöge seiner ein- und durchschneidenden Analysen des menschlichen Handelns gelangt ist? „Der moralische Mensch steht der intelligiblen Welt nicht näher als der physische – *denn* es giebt keine intelligible Welt…“ Dieser Satz, hart und schneidig geworden unter dem Hammerschlag der historischen Erkenntniß (lisez: *Umwerthung aller Werthe*) kann vielleicht einmal, in irgend welcher Zukunft – 1890! – als die Axt dienen, welche dem „metaphysischen Bedürfniß“ der Menschheit an die Wurzel gelegt wird, – ob mehr zum Segen oder zum Fluche der Menschheit, wer wüßte das zu sagen? Aber jedenfalls als ein Satz der erheblichsten Folgen, fruchtbar und furchtbar zugleich und mit jenem *Doppelblick* in die Welt sehend, welchen alle großen Erkenntnisse haben…

### Dawn

Gedanken über die Moral als Vorurtheil.

[1]

Mit diesem Buche beginnt mein Feldzug gegen die *Moral*. Nicht daß es den geringsten Pulvergeruch an sich hätte: – man wird ganz andre und viel lieblichere Gerüche an ihm wahrnehmen, gesetzt, daß man einige Feinheit in den Nüstern hat. Weder großes, noch auch kleines Geschütz: ist die Wirkung des Buchs negativ, so sind es seine Mittel um so weniger, diese Mittel, aus denen die Wirkung wie ein Schluß, *nicht* wie ein Kanonenschuß folgt. Daß man von dem Buche Abschied nimmt mit einer scheuen Vorsicht vor Allem, was bisher unter dem Namen Moral zu Ehren und selbst zur Anbetung gekommen ist, steht nicht im Widerspruch damit, daß im ganzen Buch kein negatives Wort vorkommt, kein Angriff, keine Bosheit, – daß es vielmehr in der Sonne liegt, rund, glücklich, einem Seethier gleich, das zwischen Felsen sich sonnt. Zuletzt war ich’s selbst, dieses Seegethier: fast jeder Satz des Buchs ist erdacht, *erschlüpft* in jenem Felsen-Wirrwarr nahe bei Genua, wo ich allein war und noch mit dem Meere Heimlichkeiten hatte. Noch jetzt wird mir, bei einer zufälligen Berührung dieses Buchs, fast jeder Satz zum Zipfel, an dem ich irgend etwas Unvergleichliches wieder aus der Tiefe ziehe: seine ganze Haut zittert von zarten Schaudern der Erinnerung. Die Kunst, die es voraus hat, ist keine kleine darin, Dinge, die leicht und ohne Geräusch vorbeihuschen, Augenblicke, die ich göttliche Eidechsen nenne, ein wenig fest zu machen – nicht etwa mit der Grausamkeit jenes jungen Griechergottes, der das arme Eidechslein einfach anspießte, aber immerhin doch mit etwas Spitzem, mit der Feder… „Es giebt so viele Morgenröthen, die noch nicht geleuchtet haben“ – diese *indische* Inschrift steht auf der Thür zu diesem Buche. Wo *sucht* sein Urheber jenen neuen Morgen, jenes bisher noch unentdeckte zarte Roth, mit dem wieder ein Tag – ah, eine ganze Reihe, eine ganze Welt neuer Tage! – anhebt? In einer *Umwerthung aller Werthe*, in einem Loskommen von allen Moralwerthen, in einem Jasagen und Vertrauen-haben zu Alledem, was bisher verboten, verachtet, verflucht worden ist. Dies *jasagende* Buch strömt sein Licht, seine Liebe, seine Zärtlichkeit auf lauter schlimme Dinge aus, es giebt ihnen „die Seele“, das gute Gewissen, das hohe Recht und *Vorrecht* auf Dasein wieder zurück. Die Moral wird nicht angegriffen, sie kommt nur nicht mehr in Betracht… Dies Buch schließt mit einem „Oder?“ – es ist das einzige Buch, das mit einem „Oder?“ schließt…

[2]

Meine Aufgabe, einen Augenblick höchster Selbstbesinnung der Menschheit vorzubereiten, einen *großen Mittag*, wo sie zurückschaut und hinausschaut, wo sie aus der Herrschaft des Zufalls und der Priester heraustritt und die Frage des Warum?, des Wozu? zum ersten Male *als Ganzes* stellt –, diese Aufgabe folgt mit Nothwendigkeit aus der Einsicht, daß die Menschheit nicht von selber auf dem rechten Wege ist, daß sie durchaus *nicht* göttlich regiert wird, daß vielmehr gerade unter ihren heiligsten Werthbegriffen der Instinkt der Verneinung, der Verderbniß, der décadence-Instinkt verführerisch gewaltet hat. Die Frage nach der Herkunft der moralischen Werthe ist deshalb für mich eine Frage *ersten Ranges*, weil sie die Zukunft der Menschheit bedingt. Die Forderung, man solle *glauben*, daß Alles im Grunde in den besten Händen ist, daß ein Buch, die Bibel, eine endgültige Beruhigung über die göttliche Lenkung und Weisheit im Geschick der Menschheit giebt, ist, zurückübersetzt in die Realität, der Wille, die Wahrheit über das erbarmungswürdige Gegentheil davon nicht aufkommen zu lassen, nämlich, daß die Menschheit bisher in den *schlechtesten* Händen war, daß sie von den Schlechtweggekommenen, den Arglistig-Rachsüchtigen, den sogenannten „Heiligen“, diesen Weltverleumdern und Menschenschändern, regiert worden ist. Das entscheidende Zeichen, an dem sich ergiebt, daß der Priester (– eingerechnet die *versteckten* Priester, die Philosophen) nicht nur innerhalb einer bestimmten religiösen Gemeinschaft, sondern überhaupt Herr geworden ist, daß die décadence-Moral, der Wille zum Ende, als *Moral an sich* gilt, ist der unbedingte Werth, der dem Unegoistischen, und die Feindschaft, die dem Egoistischen überall zu Theil wird. Wer über diesen Punkt mit mir uneins ist, den halte ich für *inficirt*… Aber alle Welt ist mit mir uneins… Für einen Physiologen läßt ein solcher Werth-Gegensatz gar keinen Zweifel. Wenn innerhalb des Organismus das geringste Organ in noch so kleinem Maaße nachläßt, seine Selbsterhaltung, seinen Kraftersatz, seinen „Egoismus“ mit vollkommner Sicherheit durchzusetzen, so entartet das Ganze. Der Physiologe verlangt *Ausschneidung* des entartenden Theils, er verneint jede Solidarität mit dem Entartenden, er ist am fernsten vom Mitleiden mit ihm. Aber der Priester *will* gerade die Entartung des Ganzen, der Menschheit: darum *conservirt* er das Entartende – um diesen Preis beherrscht er sie… Welchen Sinn haben jene Lügenbegriffe, die *Hülfs*begriffe der Moral, „Seele“, „Geist“, „freier Wille“, „Gott“, wenn nicht den, die Menschheit physiologisch zu ruiniren?… Wenn man den Ernst von der Selbsterhaltung, Kraftsteigerung des Leibes, *das heißt des Lebens* ablenkt, wenn man aus der Bleichsucht ein Ideal, aus der Verachtung des Leibes „das Heil der Seele“ construirt, was ist das Andres, als ein *Recept* zur décadence? – Der Verlust an Schwergewicht, der Widerstand gegen die natürlichen Instinkte, die „Selbstlosigkeit“ mit Einem Worte – das hieß bisher *Moral*… Mit der „Morgenröthe“ nahm ich zuerst den Kampf gegen die Entselbstungs-Moral auf. –

### The Gay Science

(„la gaya scienza“).

Die „Morgenröthe“ ist ein jasagendes Buch, tief, aber hell und gütig. Dasselbe gilt noch einmal und im höchsten Grade von der gaya scienza: fast in jedem Satz derselben halten sich Tiefsinn und Muthwillen zärtlich an der Hand. Ein Vers, welcher die Dankbarkeit für den wunderbarsten Monat Januar ausdrückt, den ich erlebt habe – das ganze Buch ist sein Geschenk – verräth zur Genüge, aus welcher Tiefe heraus hier die „Wissenschaft“ *fröhlich* geworden ist:

Der du mit dem Flammenspeere
Meiner Seele Eis zertheilt,
Daß sie brausend nun zum Meere
Ihrer höchsten Hoffnung eilt:
Heller stets und stets gesunder,
Frei im liebevollsten Muß –
Also preist sie deine Wunder,
Schönster Januarius! –

Was hier „höchste Hoffnung“ heißt, wer kann darüber im Zweifel sein, der als Schluß des vierten Buchs die diamantene Schönheit der ersten Worte des Zarathustra aufglänzen sieht? – Oder der die granitnen Sätze am Ende des dritten Buchs liest, mit denen sich ein Schicksal *für alle Zeiten* zum ersten Male in Formeln faßt? Die *Lieder des Prinzen Vogelfrei*, zum besten Theil in Sicilien gedichtet, erinnern ganz ausdrücklich an den provençalischen Begriff der „gaya scienza“, an jene Einheit von *Sänger, Ritter* und *Freigeist*, mit der sich jene wunderbare Frühcultur der Provençalen gegen alle zweideutigen Culturen abhebt; das allerletzte Gedicht zumal, *„an den Mistral“*, ein ausgelassenes Tanzlied, in dem, mit Verlaub! über die Moral hinweggetanzt wird, ist ein vollkommner Provençalismus. –

### Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Ein Buch für Alle und Keinen.

[1]

Ich erzähle nunmehr die Geschichte des Zarathustra. Die Grundconception des Werks, der *Ewige-Wiederkunfts-Gedanke*, diese höchste Formel der Bejahung, die überhaupt erreicht werden kann —, gehört in den August des Jahres 1881: er ist auf ein Blatt hingeworfen, mit der Unterschrift: „6000 Fuß jenseits von Mensch und Zeit.“ Ich gieng an jenem Tage am See von Silvaplana durch die Wälder; bei einem mächtigen pyramidal aufgethürmten Block unweit Surlei machte ich Halt. Da kam mir dieser Gedanke. — Rechne ich von diesem Tage ein paar Monate zurück, so finde ich, als Vorzeichen, eine plötzliche und im Tiefsten entscheidende Veränderung meines Geschmacks, vor Allem in der Musik. Man darf vielleicht den ganzen Zarathustra unter die Musik rechnen; — sicherlich war eine Wiedergeburt in der Kunst *zu hören*, eine Vorausbedingung dazu. In einem kleinen Gebirgsbade unweit Vicenza, Recoaro, wo ich den Frühling des Jahrs 1881 verbrachte, entdeckte ich, zusammen mit meinem maestro und Freunde Peter Gast, einem gleichfalls „Wiedergebornen“, daß der Phönix Musik mit leichterem und leuchtenderem Gefieder, als er je gezeigt, an uns vorüberflog. Rechne ich dagegen von jenem Tage an vorwärts, bis zur plötzlichen und unter den unwahrscheinlichsten Verhältnissen eintretenden Niederkunft im Februar 1883 — die Schlußpartie, dieselbe, aus der ich im *Vorwort* ein paar Sätze citirt habe, wurde genau in der heiligen Stunde fertig gemacht, in der Richard Wagner in Venedig starb — so ergeben sich achtzehn Monate für die Schwangerschaft. Diese Zahl gerade von achtzehn Monaten dürfte den Gedanken nahelegen, unter Buddhisten wenigstens, daß ich im Grunde ein ElephantenWeibchen bin. — In die Zwischenzeit gehört die „gaya scienza“, die hundert Anzeichen der Nähe von etwas Unvergleichlichem hat; zuletzt giebt sie den Anfang des Zarathustra selbst noch, sie giebt im vorletzten Stück des vierten Buchs den Grundgedanken des Zarathustra. — Insgleichen gehört in diese Zwischenzeit jener *Hymnus auf das Leben* (für gemischten Chor und Orchester), dessen Partitur vor zwei Jahren bei E. W. Fritsch in Leipzig erschienen ist: ein vielleicht nicht unbedeutendes Symptom für den Zustand dieses Jahres, wo das *jasagende* Pathos par excellence, von mir das tragische Pathos genannt, im höchsten Grade mir innewohnte. Man wird ihn später einmal zu meinem Gedächtniß singen. — Der Text, ausdrücklich bemerkt, weil ein Mißverständniß darüber im Umlauf ist, ist nicht von mir: er ist die erstaunliche Inspiration einer jungen Russin, mit der ich damals befreundet war, des Fräulein Lou von Salomé. Wer den letzten Worten des Gedichts überhaupt einen Sinn zu entnehmen weiß, wird errathen, warum ich es vorzog und bewunderte: sie haben Größe. Der Schmerz gilt *nicht* als Einwand gegen das Leben: „Hast du kein Glück mehr übrig mir zu geben, wohlan! *noch hast du deine Pein*...“

Vielleicht hat auch meine Musik an dieser Stelle Größe. (Letzte Note der Oboe cis, nicht c. Druckfehler.) — Den darauf folgenden Winter lebte ich in jener anmuthig stillen Bucht von Rapallo unweit Genua, die sich zwischen Chiavari und dem Vorgebirge Porto fino einschneidet. Meine Gesundheit war nicht die beste; der Winter kalt und über die Maaßen regnerisch; ein kleines Albergo, unmittelbar am Meer gelegen, so daß die hohe See nachts den Schlaf unmöglich machte, bot ungefähr in Allem das Gegentheil vom Wünschenswerthen. Trotzdem und beinahe zum Beweis meines Satzes, daß alles Entscheidende „trotzdem“ entsteht, war es dieser Winter und diese Ungunst der Verhältnisse, unter denen mein Zarathustra entstand. — Den Vormittag stieg ich in südlicher Richtung auf der herrlichen Straße nach Zoagli hin in die Höhe, an Pinien vorbei und weitaus das Meer überschauend; des Nachmittags, so oft es nur die Gesundheit erlaubte, umgieng ich die ganze Bucht von Santa Margherita bis hinter nach Porto fino. Dieser Ort und diese Landschaft ist durch die große Liebe, welche Kaiser Friedrich der Dritte für sie fühlte, meinem Herzen noch näher gerückt; ich war zufällig im Herbst 1886 wieder an dieser Küste, als er zum letzten Mal diese kleine vergessne Welt von Glück besuchte. — Auf diesen beiden Wegen fiel mir der ganze erste Zarathustra ein, vor Allem Zarathustra selber, als Typus: richtiger, *er überfiel mich*...

[2]

Um diesen Typus zu verstehn, muß man sich zuerst seine physiologische Voraussetzung klar machen: sie ist das, was ich die *große Gesundheit* nenne. Ich weiß diesen Begriff nicht besser, nicht *persönlicher* zu erläutern, als ich es schon gethan habe, in einem der Schlußabschnitte des fünften Buchs der „gaya scienza.“ „Wir Neuen, Namenlosen, Schlechtverständlichen — heißt es daselbst —, wir Frühgeburten einer noch unbewiesenen Zukunft, wir bedürfen zu einem neuen Zwecke auch eines neuen Mittels, nämlich einer neuen Gesundheit, einer stärkeren gewitzteren zäheren verwegneren lustigeren, als alle Gesundheiten bisher waren. Wessen Seele darnach dürstet, den ganzen Umfang der bisherigen Werthe und Wünschbarkeiten erlebt und alle Küsten dieses idealischen „Mittelmeers“ umschifft zu haben, wer aus den Abenteuern der eigensten Erfahrung wissen will, wie es einem Eroberer und Entdecker des Ideals zu Muthe ist, insgleichen einem Künstler, einem Heiligen, einem Gesetzgeber, einem Weisen, einem Gelehrten, einem Frommen, einem Göttlich-Abseitigen alten Stils: der hat dazu zu allererst Eins nöthig, die *große Gesundheit* — eine solche, welche man nicht nur hat, sondern auch beständig noch erwirbt und erwerben muß, weil man sie immer wieder preisgiebt, preißgeben muß... Und nun, nachdem wir lange dergestalt unterwegs waren, wir Argonauten des Ideals, muthiger vielleicht als klug ist, und oft genug schiffbrüchig und zu Schaden gekommen, aber, wie gesagt, gesünder als man es uns erlauben möchte, gefährlich gesund, immer wieder gesund, — will es uns scheinen, als ob wir, zum Lohn dafür, ein noch unentdecktes Land vor uns haben, dessen Grenzen noch Niemand abgesehn hat, ein Jenseits aller bisherigen Länder und Winkel des Ideals, eine Welt so überreich an Schönem, Fremdem, Fragwürdigem, Furchtbarem und Göttlichem, daß unsre Neugierde sowohl als unser Besitzdurst außer sich gerathen sind — ach, daß wir nunmehr durch Nichts mehr zu ersättigen sind!... Wie könnten wir uns, nach solchen Ausblicken und mit einem solchen Heißhunger in Wissen und Gewissen, noch am *gegenwärtigen Menschen* genügen lassen? Schlimm genug, aber es ist unvermeidlich, daß wir seinen würdigsten Zielen und Hoffnungen nur mit einem übel aufrecht erhaltenen Ernste zusehn und vielleicht nicht einmal mehr zusehn... Ein andres Ideal läuft vor uns her, ein wunderliches, versucherisches, gefahrenreiches Ideal, zu dem wir Niemanden überreden möchten, weil wir Niemandem so leicht *das Recht darauf* zugestehn: das Ideal eines Geistes, der naiv, das heißt ungewollt und aus überströmender Fülle und Mächtigkeit mit Allem spielt, was bisher heilig, gut, unberührbar, göttlich hieß; für den das Höchste, woran das Volk billigerweise sein Werthmaaß hat, bereits so viel wie Gefahr, Verfall, Erniedrigung oder, mindestens, wie Erholung, Blindheit, zeitweiliges Selbstvergessen bedeuten würde; das Ideal eines menschlich-übermenschlichen Wohlseins und Wohlwollens, welches oft genug *unmenschlich* erscheinen wird, zum Beispiel, wenn es sich neben den ganzen bisherigen Erdenernst, neben alle bisherige Feierlichkeit in Gebärde, Wort, Klang, Blick, Moral und Aufgabe wie deren leibhafteste unfreiwillige Parodie hinstellt — und mit dem, trotzalledem, vielleicht *der große Ernst* erst anhebt, das eigentliche Fragezeichen erst gesetzt wird, das Schicksal der Seele sich wendet, der Zeiger rückt, die Tragödie *beginnt*...“

[3]

Hat Jemand, Ende des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, einen deutlichen Begriff davon, was Dichter starker Zeitalter *Inspiration* nannten? Im andren Falle will ich’s beschreiben. — Mit dem geringsten Rest von Aberglauben in sich würde man in der That die Vorstellung, bloß Incarnation, bloß Mundstück, bloß Medium übermächtiger Gewalten zu sein, kaum abzuweisen wissen. Der Begriff Offenbarung, in dem Sinn, daß plötzlich, mit unsäglicher Sicherheit und Feinheit, Etwas *sichtbar*, hörbar wird, Etwas, das Einen im Tiefsten erschüttert und umwirft, beschreibt einfach den Thatbestand. Man hört, man sucht nicht; man nimmt, man fragt nicht, wer da giebt; wie ein Blitz leuchtet ein Gedanke auf, mit Nothwendigkeit, in der Form ohne Zögern, — ich habe nie eine Wahl gehabt. Eine Entzückung, deren ungeheure Spannung sich mitunter in einen Thränenstrom auslöst, bei der der Schritt unwillkürlich bald stürmt, bald langsam wird; ein vollkommnes Außer-sich-sein mit dem distinktesten Bewußtsein einer Unzahl feiner Schauder und Überrieselungen bis in die Fußzehen; eine Glückstiefe, in der das Schmerzlichste und Düsterste nicht als Gegensatz wirkt, sondern als bedingt, als herausgefordert, als eine *nothwendige* Farbe innerhalb eines solchen Lichtüberflusses; ein Instinkt rhythmischer Verhältnisse, der weite Räume von Formen überspannt — die Länge, das Bedürfniß nach einem *weitgespannten* Rhythmus ist beinahe das Maaß für die Gewalt der Inspiration, eine Art Ausgleich gegen deren Druck und Spannung... Alles geschieht im höchsten Grade unfreiwillig, aber wie in einem Sturme von Freiheits-Gefühl, von Unbedingt-sein, von Macht, von Göttlichkeit... Die Unfreiwilligkeit des Bildes, des Gleichnisses ist das Merkwürdigste; man hat keinen Begriff mehr, was Bild, was Gleichniß ist, Alles bietet sich als der nächste, der richtigste, der einfachste Ausdruck. Es scheint wirklich, um an ein Wort Zarathustra’s zu erinnern, als ob die Dinge selber herankämen und sich zum Gleichniß anböten (— „hier kommen alle Dinge liebkosend zu deiner Rede und schmeicheln dir: denn sie wollen auf deinem Rücken reiten. Auf jedem Gleichniß reitest du hier zu jeder Wahrheit. Hier springen dir alles Seins Worte und Wort-Schreine auf; alles Sein will hier Wort werden, alles Werden will von dir reden lernen —“). Dies ist *meine* Erfahrung von Inspiration; ich zweifle nicht, daß man Jahrtausende zurückgehn muß, um Jemanden zu finden, der mir sagen darf „es ist auch die meine.“ —

[4]

Ich lag ein paar Wochen hinterdrein in Genua krank. Dann folgte ein schwermüthiger Frühling in Rom, wo ich das Leben hinnahm — es war nicht leicht. Im Grunde verdroß mich dieser für den Dichter des Zarathustra unanständigste Ort der Erde, den ich nicht freiwillig gewählt hatte, über die Maaßen; ich versuchte loszukommen, — ich wollte nach *Aquila*, dem Gegenbegriff von Rom, aus Feindschaft gegen Rom gegründet, wie ich einen Ort dereinst gründen werde, die Erinnerung an einen Atheisten und Kirchenfeind comme il faut, an einen meiner Nächstverwandten, den großen Hohenstaufen-Kaiser Friedrich den Zweiten. Aber es war ein Verhängniß bei dem Allen: ich mußte wieder zurück. Zuletzt gab ich mich mit der piazza Barberini zufrieden, nachdem mich meine Mühe um eine *antichristliche* Gegend müde gemacht hatte. Ich fürchte, ich habe einmal, um schlechten Gerüchen möglichst aus dem Wege zu gehn, im palazzo del Quirinale selbst nachgefragt, ob man nicht ein stilles Zimmer für einen Philosophen habe. — Auf einer loggia hoch über der genannten piazza, von der aus man Rom übersieht und tief unten die fontana rauschen hört, wurde jenes einsamste Lied gedichtet, das je gedichtet worden ist, das *Nachtlied*; um diese Zeit gieng immer eine Melodie von unsäglicher Schwermuth um mich herum, deren Refrain ich in den Worten wiederfand „todt vor Unsterblichkeit...“ Im Sommer, heimgekehrt zur heiligen Stelle, wo der erste Blitz des Zarathustra-Gedankens mir geleuchtet hatte, fand ich den zweiten Zarathustra. Zehn Tage genügten; ich habe in keinem Falle, weder beim ersten, noch beim dritten und letzten mehr gebraucht. Im Winter darauf, unter dem halkyonischen Himmel Nizza’s, der damals zum ersten Male in mein Leben hineinglänzte, fand ich den dritten Zarathustra — und war fertig. Kaum ein Jahr, für’s Ganze gerechnet. Viele verborgne Flecke und Höhen aus der Landschaft Nizza’s sind mir durch unvergeßliche Augenblicke geweiht; jene entscheidende Partie, welche den Titel „Von alten und neuen Tafeln“ trägt, wurde im beschwerlichsten Aufsteigen von der Station zu dem wunderbaren maurischen Felsenneste Eza gedichtet, — die Muskel-Behendheit war bei mir immer am größten, wenn die schöpferische Kraft am reichsten floß. Der *Leib* ist begeistert: lassen wir die „Seele“ aus dem Spiele... Man hat mich oft tanzen sehn können; ich konnte damals, ohne einen Begriff von Ermüdung, sieben, acht Stunden auf Bergen unterwegs sein. Ich schlief gut, ich lachte viel —, ich war von einer vollkommnen Rüstigkeit und Geduld.

[5]

Abgesehn von diesen Zehn-Tage-Werken waren die Jahre während und vor Allem *nach* dem Zarathustra ein Nothstand ohne Gleichen. Man büßt es theuer, unsterblich zu sein: man stirbt dafür mehrere Male bei Lebzeiten. — Es giebt Etwas, das ich die rancune des Großen nenne: alles Große, ein Werk, eine That, wendet sich, einmal vollbracht, unverzüglich *gegen* den, der sie that. Ebendamit, daß er sie that, ist er nunmehr *schwach*, — er hält seine That nicht mehr aus, er sieht ihr nicht mehr in’s Gesicht. Etwas *hinter* sich zu haben, das man nie wollen durfte, Etwas, worin der Knoten im Schicksal der Menschheit eingeknüpft ist — und es nunmehr *auf* sich haben!... Es zerdrückt beinahe... Die rancune des Großen! — Ein Andres ist die schauerliche Stille, die man um sich hört. Die Einsamkeit hat sieben Häute; es geht Nichts mehr hindurch. Man kommt zu Menschen, man begrüßt Freunde: neue Öde, kein Blick grüßt mehr. Im besten Falle eine Art Revolte. Eine solche Revolte erfuhr ich, in sehr verschiedenem Grade, aber fast von Jedermann, der mir nahe stand; es scheint, daß Nichts tiefer beleidigt als plötzlich eine Distanz merken zu lassen, — die *vornehmen* Naturen, die nicht zu leben wissen, ohne zu verehren, sind selten. — Ein Drittes ist die absurde Reizbarkeit der Haut gegen kleine Stiche, eine Art Hülflosigkeit vor allem Kleinen. Diese scheint mir in der ungeheuren Verschwendung aller Defensiv-Kräfte bedingt, die jede *schöpferische* That, jede That aus dem Eigensten, Innersten, Untersten heraus zur Voraussetzung hat. Die *kleinen* Defensiv-Vermögen sind damit gleichsam ausgehängt; es fließt ihnen keine Kraft mehr zu. — Ich wage noch anzudeuten, daß man schlechter verdaut, ungern sich bewegt, den Frostgefühlen, auch dem Mißtrauen allzu offen steht, — dem Mißtrauen, das in vielen Fällen bloß ein ätiologischer Fehlgriff ist. In einem solchen Zustande empfand ich einmal die Nähe einer Kuhheerde durch Wiederkehr milderer, menschenfreundlicherer Gedanken, noch bevor ich sie sah: *Das* hat Wärme in sich...

[6]

Dieses Werk steht durchaus für sich. Lassen wir die Dichter bei Seite: es ist vielleicht überhaupt nie Etwas aus einem gleichen Überfluß von Kraft heraus gethan worden. Mein Begriff „dionysisch“ wurde hier *höchste That*; an ihr gemessen erscheint der ganze Rest von menschlichem Thun als arm und bedingt. Daß ein Goethe, ein Shakespeare nicht einen Augenblick in dieser ungeheuren Leidenschaft und Höhe zu athmen wissen würde, daß Dante, gegen Zarathustra gehalten, bloß ein Gläubiger ist und nicht Einer, der die Wahrheit erst *schafft*, ein *weltregierender* Geist, ein Schicksal —, daß die Dichter des Veda Priester sind und nicht einmal würdig, die Schuhsohlen eines Zarathustra zu lösen, das ist Alles das Wenigste und giebt keinen Begriff von der Distanz, von der *azurnen* Einsamkeit, in der dies Werk lebt. Zarathustra hat ein ewiges Recht zu sagen: „ich schließe Kreise um mich und heilige Grenzen; immer Wenigere steigen mit mir auf immer höhere Berge, — ich baue ein Gebirge aus immer heiligeren Bergen“. Man rechne den Geist und die Güte aller großen Seelen in Eins: alle zusammen wären nicht im Stande, Eine Rede Zarathustra’s hervorzubringen. Die Leiter ist ungeheuer, auf der er auf und nieder steigt; er hat weiter gesehn, weiter gewollt, weiter *gekonnt*, als irgend ein Mensch. Er widerspricht mit jedem Wort, dieser jasagendste aller Geister; in ihm sind alle Gegensätze zu einer neuen Einheit gebunden. Die höchsten und die untersten Kräfte der menschlichen Natur, das Süßeste, Leichtfertigste und Furchtbarste strömt aus Einem Born mit unsterblicher Sicherheit hervor. Man weiß bis dahin nicht, was Höhe, was Tiefe ist; man weiß noch weniger, was Wahrheit ist. Es ist kein Augenblick in dieser Offenbarung der Wahrheit, der schon vorweggenommen, von Einem der Größten errathen worden wäre. Es giebt keine Weisheit, keine Seelen-Erforschung, keine Kunst zu reden vor Zarathustra; das Nächste, das Alltäglichste redet hier von unerhörten Dingen. Die Sentenz von Leidenschaft zitternd; die Beredsamkeit Musik geworden; Blitze vorausgeschleudert nach bisher unerrathenen Zukünften. Die mächtigste Kraft zum Gleichniß, die bisher da war, ist arm und Spielerei gegen diese Rückkehr der Sprache zur Natur der Bildlichkeit. — Und wie Zarathustra herabsteigt und zu Jedem das Gütigste sagt! Wie er selbst seine Widersacher, die Priester, mit zarten Händen anfaßt und mit ihnen an ihnen leidet! — Hier ist in jedem Augenblick der Mensch überwunden, der Begriff „Übermensch“ ward hier höchste Realität, — in einer unendlichen Ferne liegt alles Das, was bisher groß am Menschen hieß, *unter* ihm. Das Halkyonische, die leichten Füße, die Allgegenwart von Bosheit und Übermuth und was sonst Alles typisch ist für den Typus Zarathustra, ist nie geträumt worden als wesentlich zur Größe. Zarathustra fühlt sich gerade in diesem Umfang an Raum, in dieser Zugänglichkeit zum Entgegengesetzten als die *höchste Art alles Seienden*; und wenn man hört, wie er diese definirt, so wird man darauf verzichten, nach seinem Gleichniß zu suchen.

»— die Seele, welche die längste Leiter hat und am tiefsten hinunter kann,
die umfänglichste Seele, welche am weitesten in sich laufen und irren und schweifen kann,
die nothwendigste, welche sich mit Lust in den Zufall stürzt,
die seiende Seele, welche in’s Werden, die habende, welche in’s Wollen und Verlangen *will* —,
die sich selber fliehende, welche sich selber in weitesten Kreisen einholt,
die weiseste Seele, welcher die Narrheit am süßesten zuredet,
die sich selber liebendste, in der alle Dinge ihr Strömen und Widerströmen und Ebbe und Fluth haben — —«

*Aber das ist der Begriff des Dionysos selbst.* — Eben dahin führt eine andre Erwägung. Das psychologische Problem im Typus des Zarathustra ist, wie der, welcher in einem unerhörten Grade Nein sagt, Nein *thut*, zu Allem, wozu man bisher Ja sagte, trotzdem der Gegensatz eines neinsagenden Geistes sein kann; wie der das Schwerste von Schicksal, ein Verhängniß von Aufgabe tragende Geist trotzdem der leichteste und jenseitigste sein kann — Zarathustra ist ein Tänzer —; wie der, welcher die härteste, die furchtbarste Einsicht in die Realität hat, welcher den „abgründlichsten Gedanken“ gedacht hat, trotzdem darin keinen Einwand gegen das Dasein, selbst nicht gegen dessen ewige Wiederkunft findet, — vielmehr einen Grund noch hinzu, das ewige Ja zu allen Dingen *selbst zu sein*, „das ungeheure unbegrenzte Ja- und Amen-sagen“... „In alle Abgründe trage ich noch mein segnendes Jasagen“... *Aber das ist der Begriff des Dionysos noch einmal.*

[7]

Welche Sprache wird ein solcher Geist reden, wenn er mit sich allein redet? Die Sprache des *Dithyrambus*. Ich bin der Erfinder des Dithyrambus. Man höre, wie Zarathustra *vor Sonnenaufgang* (III, 18) mit sich redet: ein solches smaragdenes Glück, eine solche göttliche Zärtlichkeit hatte noch keine Zunge vor mir. Auch die tiefste Schwermuth eines solchen Dionysos wird noch Dithyrambus; ich nehme, zum Zeichen, das *Nachtlied*, — die unsterbliche Klage, durch die Überfülle von Licht und Macht, durch seine *Sonnen*-Natur, verurtheilt zu sein, nicht zu lieben.

»Nacht ist es: nun reden lauter alle springenden Brunnen.
Und auch meine Seele ist ein springender Brunnen.
Nacht ist es: nun erst erwachen alle Lieder der Liebenden.
Und auch meine Seele ist das Lied eines Liebenden.
Ein Ungestilltes, Unstillbares ist in mir, das will laut werden. Eine Begierde nach Liebe ist in mir, die redet selber die Sprache der Liebe.
Licht bin ich: ach daß ich Nacht wäre! Aber dies ist meine Einsamkeit, daß ich von Licht umgürtet bin.
Ach, daß ich dunkel wäre und nächtig! Wie wollte ich an den Brüsten des Lichts saugen!
Und euch selber wollte ich noch segnen, ihr kleinen Funkelsterne und Leuchtwürmer droben! — und selig sein ob eurer Licht-Geschenke.
Aber ich lebe in meinem eignen Lichte, ich trinke die Flammen in mich zurück, die aus mir brechen.
Ich kenne das Glück des Nehmenden nicht; und oft träumte mir davon, daß Stehlen noch seliger sein müsse als Nehmen.
Das ist meine Armuth, daß meine Hand niemals ausruht vom Schenken; das ist mein Neid, daß ich wartende Augen sehe und die erhellten Nächte der Sehnsucht.
Oh Unseligkeit aller Schenkenden! Oh Verfinsterung meiner Sonne! Oh Begierde nach Begehren! Oh Heißhunger in der Sättigung!
Sie nehmen von mir: aber rühre ich noch an ihre Seele?
Eine Kluft ist zwischen Nehmen und Geben; und die kleinste Kluft ist am letzten zu überbrücken.
Ein Hunger wächst aus meiner Schönheit: wehe thun möchte ich denen, welchen ich leuchte, berauben möchte ich meine Beschenkten — also hungere ich nach Bosheit.
Die Hand zurückziehend, wenn sich schon ihr die Hand entgegenstreckt; dem Wasserfall gleich, der noch im Sturze zögert: also hungere ich nach Bosheit.
Solche Rache sinnt meine Fülle aus, solche Tücke quillt aus meiner Einsamkeit.
Mein Glück im Schenken erstarb im Schenken, meine Tugend wurde ihrer selber müde an ihrem Überflusse!
Wer immer schenkt, dessen Gefahr ist, daß er die Scham verliere; wer immer austheilt, dessen Hand und Herz hat Schwielen vor lauter Austheilen.
Mein Auge quillt nicht mehr über vor der Scham der Bittenden; meine Hand wurde zu hart für das Zittern gefüllter Hände.
Wohin kam die Thräne meinem Auge und der Flaum meinem Herzen? Oh Einsamkeit aller Schenkenden! Oh Schweigsamkeit aller Leuchtenden!
Viel Sonnen kreisen im öden Raume: zu Allem, was dunkel ist, reden sie mit ihrem Lichte — mir schweigen sie.
Oh dies ist die Feindschaft des Lichts gegen Leuchtendes: erbarmungslos wandelt es seine Bahnen.
Unbillig gegen Leuchtendes im tiefsten Herzen, kalt gegen Sonnen — also wandelt jede Sonne.
Einem Sturme gleich wandeln die Sonnen ihre Bahnen, ihrem unerbittlichen Willen folgen sie, das ist ihre Kälte.
Oh ihr erst seid es, ihr Dunklen, ihr Nächtigen, die ihr Wärme schafft aus Leuchtendem! Oh ihr erst trinkt euch Milch und Labsal aus des Lichtes Eutern!
Ach, Eis ist um mich, meine Hand verbrennt sich an Eisigem! Ach, Durst ist in mir, der schmachtet nach eurem Durste.
Nacht ist es: ach daß ich Licht sein muß! Und Durst nach Nächtigem! Und Einsamkeit!
Nacht ist es: nun bricht wie ein Born aus mir mein Verlangen, — nach Rede verlangt mich.
Nacht ist es: nun reden lauter alle springenden Brunnen.
Und auch meine Seele ist ein springender Brunnen.
Nacht ist es: nun erwachen alle Lieder der Liebenden.
Und auch meine Seele ist das Lied eines Liebenden. —«

[8]

Dergleichen ist nie gedichtet, nie gefühlt, nie *gelitten* worden: so leidet ein Gott, ein Dionysos. Die Antwort auf einen solchen Dithyrambus der Sonnen-Vereinsamung im Lichte wäre Ariadne... Wer weiß außer mir, was Ariadne ist!... Von allen solchen Räthseln hatte Niemand bisher die Lösung, ich zweifle, daß je Jemand hier auch nur Räthsel sah. — Zarathustra bestimmt einmal, mit Strenge, seine Aufgabe — es ist auch die meine —, daß man sich über den *Sinn* nicht vergreifen kann: er ist *jasagend* bis zur Rechtfertigung, bis zur Erlösung auch alles Vergangenen.

»Ich wandle unter Menschen als unter Bruchstücken der Zukunft: jener Zukunft, die ich schaue.
Und das ist all mein Dichten und Trachten, daß ich in Eins dichte und zusammentrage, was Bruchstück ist und Räthsel und grauser Zufall.
Und wie ertrüge ich es Mensch zu sein, wenn der Mensch nicht auch Dichter und Räthselrather und Erlöser des Zufalls wäre?
*Die Vergangnen zu erlösen* und alles „Es war“ umzuschaffen in ein „So wollte ich es!“ — das hieße mir erst Erlösung.«

An einer andren Stelle bestimmt er so streng als möglich, was für ihn allein „der Mensch“ sein kann, — *kein* Gegenstand der Liebe oder gar des Mitleidens — auch über den *großen Ekel* am Menschen ist Zarathustra Herr geworden: der Mensch ist ihm eine Unform, ein Stoff, ein häßlicher Stein, der des Bildners bedarf.

»Nicht-mehr-*wollen* und Nicht-mehr-*schätzen* und Nicht-mehr-*schaffen*: oh daß diese große Müdigkeit mir stets ferne bleibe!
Auch im Erkennen fühle ich nur meines Willens Zeuge- und Werdelust; und wenn Unschuld in meiner Erkenntniß ist, so geschieht dies, weil *Wille zur Zeugung* in ihr ist.
Hinweg von Gott und Göttern lockte mich dieser Wille: Was wäre denn zu schaffen, wenn Götter — da wären?
Aber zum Menschen treibt er mich stets von Neuem, mein inbrünstiger Schaffens-Wille; so treibt’s den Hammer hin zum Steine.
Ach, ihr Menschen, im Steine schläft mir ein Bild, das Bild der Bilder! Ach, daß es im härtesten, häßlichsten Steine schlafen muß!
*Nun wüthet mein Hammer grausam gegen sein Gefängniß.*
Vom Steine stäuben Stücke: was schiert mich das!
Vollenden will ich’s, denn ein Schatten kam zu mir, — aller Dinge Stillstes und Leichtestes kam einst zu mir!
Des Übermenschen Schönheit kam zu mir als Schatten: was gehen mich noch — die Götter an!...«

Ich hebe einen letzten Gesichtspunkt hervor: der unterstrichne Vers giebt den Anlaß hierzu. Für eine *dionysische* Aufgabe gehört die Härte des Hammers, die *Lust selbst am Vernichten* in entscheidender Weise zu den Vorbedingungen. Der Imperativ „werdet hart!“, die unterste Gewißheit darüber, *daß alle Schaffenden hart sind*, ist das eigentliche Abzeichen einer dionysischen Natur. —

### Beyond Good and Evil

Vorspiel einer Philosophie der Zukunft.

[1]

Die Aufgabe für die nunmehr folgenden Jahre war so streng als möglich vorgezeichnet. Nachdem der jasagende Theil meiner Aufgabe gelöst war, kam die neinsagende, *neinthuende* Hälfte derselben an die Reihe: die Umwerthung der bisherigen Werthe selbst, der große Krieg, — die Heraufbeschwörung eines Tags der Entscheidung. Hier ist eingerechnet der langsame Umblick nach Verwandten, nach Solchen, die aus der Stärke heraus *zum Vernichten* mir die Hand bieten würden. — Von da an sind alle meine Schriften Angelhaken: vielleicht verstehe ich mich so gut als Jemand auf Angeln?... Wenn Nichts sich *fieng*, so liegt die Schuld nicht an mir. *Die Fische fehlten*...

[2]

Dies Buch (1886) ist in allem Wesentlichen eine *Kritik der Modernität*, die modernen Wissenschaften, die modernen Künste, selbst die moderne Politik nicht ausgeschlossen, nebst Fingerzeigen zu einem Gegensatz-Typus, der so wenig modern als möglich ist, einem vornehmen, einem jasagenden Typus. Im letzteren Sinne ist das Buch eine *Schule des gentilhomme*, der Begriff geistiger *und radikaler* genommen als er je genommen worden ist. Man muß Muth im Leibe haben, ihn auch nur auszuhalten, man muß das Fürchten nicht gelernt haben... Alle die Dinge, worauf das Zeitalter stolz ist, werden als Widerspruch zu diesem Typus empfunden, als schlechte Manieren beinahe, die berühmte „Objektivität“ zum Beispiel, das „Mitgefühl mit allem Leidenden“, der „historische Sinn“ mit seiner Unterwürfigkeit vor fremdem Geschmack, mit seinem Auf-dem-Bauch-liegen vor petits faits, die „Wissenschaftlichkeit“. — Erwägt man, daß das Buch *nach* dem Zarathustra folgt, so erräth man vielleicht auch das diätetische régime, dem es seine Entstehung verdankt. Das Auge, verwöhnt durch eine ungeheure Nöthigung, *fern* zu sehn — Zarathustra ist weitsichtiger noch, als der Czar —, wird hier gezwungen, das Nächste, die Zeit, das *Um-uns* scharf zu fassen. Man wird in allen Stücken, vor Allem auch in der Form, eine gleiche *willkürliche* Abkehr von den Instinkten finden, aus denen ein Zarathustra möglich wurde. Das Raffinement in Form, in Absicht, in der Kunst des *Schweigens*, ist im Vordergrunde, die Psychologie wird mit eingeständlicher Härte und Grausamkeit gehandhabt, — das Buch entbehrt jedes gutmüthigen Worts... Alles das erholt: wer erräth zuletzt, *welche* Art Erholung eine solche Verschwendung von Güte, wie der Zarathustra ist, nöthig macht?... Theologisch geredet — man höre zu, denn ich rede selten als Theologe — war es Gott selber, der sich als Schlange am Ende seines Tagewerks unter den Baum der Erkenntniß legte: er erholte sich so davon, Gott zu sein... Er hatte Alles zu schön gemacht... Der Teufel ist bloß der Müßiggang Gottes an jedem siebenten Tage...

### On the Genealogy of Morality

Eine Streitschrift.

Die drei Abhandlungen, aus denen diese Genealogie besteht, sind vielleicht in Hinsicht auf Ausdruck, Absicht und Kunst der Überraschung, das Unheimlichste, was bisher geschrieben worden ist. Dionysos ist, man weiß es, auch der Gott der Finsterniß. — Jedes Mal ein Anfang, der irre führen *soll*, kühl, wissenschaftlich, ironisch selbst, absichtlich Vordergrund, absichtlich hinhaltend. Allmählich mehr Unruhe; vereinzeltes Wetterleuchten; sehr unangenehme Wahrheiten aus der Ferne her mit dumpfem Gebrumm laut werdend, — bis endlich ein tempo feroce erreicht ist, wo Alles mit ungeheurer Spannung vorwärts treibt. Am Schluß jedes Mal, unter vollkommen schauerlichen Detonationen, eine *neue* Wahrheit zwischen dicken Wolken sichtbar. — Die Wahrheit der *ersten* Abhandlung ist die Psychologie des Christenthums: die Geburt des Christenthums aus dem Geiste des Ressentiment, *nicht*, wie wohl geglaubt wird, aus dem „Geiste“, — eine Gegenbewegung ihrem Wesen nach, der große Aufstand gegen die Herrschaft *vornehmer* Werthe. Die *zweite* Abhandlung giebt die Psychologie des *Gewissens*: dasselbe ist *nicht*, wie wohl geglaubt wird, „die Stimme Gottes im Menschen“, — es ist der Instinkt der Grausamkeit, der sich rückwärts wendet, nachdem er nicht mehr nach außen hin sich entladen kann. Die Grausamkeit als einer der ältesten und unwegdenkbarsten Cultur-Untergründe hier zum ersten Male an’s Licht gebracht. Die *dritte* Abhandlung giebt die Antwort auf die Frage, woher die ungeheure *Macht* des asketischen Ideals, des Priester-Ideals, stammt, obwohl dasselbe das *schädliche* Ideal par excellence, ein Wille zum Ende, ein décadence-Ideal ist. Antwort: *nicht*, weil Gott hinter den Priestern thätig ist, was wohl geglaubt wird, sondern faute de mieux, — weil es das einzige Ideal bisher war, weil es keinen Concurrenten hatte. „Denn der Mensch will lieber noch das Nichts wollen als *nicht* wollen“... Vor Allem fehlte ein *Gegen-Ideal — bis auf Zarathustra*. — Man hat mich verstanden. Drei entscheidende Vorarbeiten eines Psychologen für eine Umwerthung aller Werthe. — Dies Buch enthält die erste Psychologie des Priesters.

### Twilight of the Idols

Wie man mit dem Hammer philosophirt.

[1]

Diese Schrift von noch nicht 150 Seiten, heiter und verhängnißvoll im Ton, ein Dämon, welcher lacht —, das Werk von so wenig Tagen, daß ich Anstand nehme, ihre Zahl zu nennen, ist unter Büchern überhaupt die Ausnahme: es giebt nichts Substanzenreicheres, Unabhängigeres, Umwerfenderes, — Böseres. Will man sich kurz einen Begriff davon geben, wie vor mir Alles auf dem Kopfe stand, so mache man den Anfang mit dieser Schrift. Das, was *Götze* auf dem Titelblatt heißt, ist ganz einfach das, was bisher Wahrheit genannt wurde. *Götzen-Dämmerung* — auf deutsch: es geht zu Ende mit der alten Wahrheit...

[2]

Es giebt keine Realität, keine „Idealität“, die in dieser Schrift nicht berührt würde (— berührt: was für ein vorsichtiger Euphemismus!...). Nicht bloß die *ewigen* Götzen, auch die allerjüngsten, folglich altersschwächsten. Die „modernen Ideen“ zum Beispiel. Ein großer Wind bläst zwischen den Bäumen, und überall fallen Früchte nieder — Wahrheiten. Es ist die Verschwendung eines allzureichen Herbstes darin: man stolpert über Wahrheiten, man tritt selbst einige todt, — es sind ihrer zu viele... Was man aber in die Hände bekommt, das ist nichts Fragwürdiges mehr, das sind Entscheidungen. Ich erst habe den Maaßstab für „Wahrheiten“ in der Hand, ich *kann* erst entscheiden. Wie als ob in mir ein *zweites Bewußtsein* gewachsen wäre, wie als ob sich in mir „der Wille“ ein Licht angezündet hätte über die *schiefe* Bahn, auf der er bisher abwärts lief... Die *schiefe* Bahn — man nannte sie den Weg zur „Wahrheit“... Es ist zu Ende mit allem „dunklen Drang“, der *gute* Mensch gerade war sich am wenigsten des rechten Wegs bewußt... Und allen Ernstes, Niemand wußte vor mir den rechten Weg, den Weg *aufwärts*: erst von mir an giebt es wieder Hoffnungen, Aufgaben, vorzuschreibende Wege der Cultur — *ich bin deren froher Botschafter*... Ebendamit bin ich auch ein Schicksal. —

[3]

Unmittelbar nach Beendigung des eben genannten Werks und ohne auch nur einen Tag zu verlieren, griff ich die ungeheure Aufgabe der *Umwerthung* an, in einem souverainen Gefühl von Stolz, dem Nichts gleichkommt, jeden Augenblick meiner Unsterblichkeit gewiß und Zeichen für Zeichen mit der Sicherheit eines Schicksals in eherne Tafeln grabend. Das Vorwort entstand am 3. September 1888: als ich Morgens, nach dieser Niederschrift, in’s Freie trat, fand ich den schönsten Tag vor mir, den das Ober-Engadin mir je gezeigt hat — durchsichtig, glühend in den Farben, alle Gegensätze, alle Mitten zwischen Eis und Süden in sich schließend. — Erst am 20. September verließ ich Sils-Maria, durch Überschwemmungen zurückgehalten, zuletzt bei weitem der einzige Gast dieses wunderbaren Orts, dem meine Dankbarkeit das Geschenk eines unsterblichen Namens machen will. Nach einer Reise mit Zwischenfällen, sogar mit einer Lebensgefahr im überschwemmten Como, das ich erst tief in der Nacht erreichte, kam ich am Nachmittag des 21. in Turin an, meinem *bewiesenen* Ort, meiner Residenz von nun an. Ich nahm die gleiche Wohnung wieder, die ich im Frühjahr innegehabt hatte, via Carlo Alberto 6ᴵᴵᴵ, gegenüber dem mächtigen palazzo Carignano, in dem Vittorio Emanuele geboren ist, mit dem Blick auf die piazza Carlo Alberto und drüber hinaus auf’s Hügelland. Ohne Zögern und ohne mich einen Augenblick abziehn zu lassen, gieng ich wieder an die Arbeit: es war nur das letzte Viertel des Werks noch abzuthun. Am 30. September großer Sieg; siebenter Tag; Müßiggang eines Gottes am Po entlang. Am gleichen Tage schrieb ich noch das *Vorwort* zur „Götzen-Dämmerung“, deren Druckbogen zu corrigiren meine Erholung im September gewesen war. — Ich habe nie einen solchen Herbst erlebt, auch nie Etwas der Art auf Erden für möglich gehalten, — ein Claude Lorrain in’s Unendliche gedacht, jeder Tag von gleicher unbändiger Vollkommenheit. —

### The Case of Wagner

Ein Musikanten-Problem.

[1]

Um dieser Schrift gerecht zu werden, muß man am Schicksal der Musik wie an einer offnen Wunde leiden. — *Woran* ich leide, wenn ich am Schicksal der Musik leide? Daran, daß die Musik um ihren weltverklärenden, jasagenden Charakter gebracht worden ist, — daß sie décadence-Musik und nicht mehr die Flöte des Dionysos ist... Gesetzt aber, daß man dergestalt die Sache der Musik wie seine *eigene* Sache, wie seine *eigene* Leidensgeschichte fühlt, so wird man diese Schrift voller Rücksichten und über die Maaßen mild finden. In solchen Fällen heiter sein und sich gutmüthig mit verspotten — ridendo dicere *severum*, wo das verum dicere jede Härte rechtfertigen würde — ist die Humanität selbst. Wer zweifelt eigentlich daran, daß ich, als der alte Artillerist, der ich bin, es in der Hand habe, gegen Wagner mein *schweres* Geschütz aufzufahren? — Ich hielt alles Entscheidende in dieser Sache bei mir zurück, — ich habe Wagner geliebt. — Zuletzt liegt ein Angriff auf einen feineren „Unbekannten“, den nicht leicht ein Anderer erräth, im Sinn und Wege meiner Aufgabe — oh ich habe noch ganz andre „Unbekannte“ aufzudecken, als einen Cagliostro der Musik — noch mehr freilich ein Angriff auf die in geistigen Dingen immer träger und instinktärmer, immer *ehrlicher* werdende deutsche Nation, die mit einem beneidenswerthen Appetit fortfährt, sich von Gegensätzen zu nähren und „den Glauben“ so gut wie die Wissenschaftlichkeit, die „christliche Liebe“ so gut wie den Antisemitismus, den Willen zur Macht (zum „Reich“) so gut wie das évangile des humbles ohne Verdauungsbeschwerden hinunterschluckt... Dieser Mangel an Partei zwischen Gegensätzen! Diese stomachische Neutralität und „Selbstlosigkeit“! Dieser gerechte Sinn des deutschen *Gaumens*, der Allem gleiche Rechte giebt, — der Alles schmackhaft findet... Ohne allen Zweifel, die Deutschen sind Idealisten... Als ich das letzte Mal Deutschland besuchte, fand ich den deutschen Geschmack bemüht, Wagnern und dem Trompeter von Säkkingen gleiche Rechte zuzugestehn; ich selber war Zeuge, wie man in Leipzig, zu Ehren eines der echtesten und deutschesten Musiker im alten Sinne des Wortes deutsch, keines bloßen Reichsdeutschen, des Meister *Heinrich Schütz* einen Liszt-Verein gründete, mit dem Zweck der Pflege und Verbreitung *listiger* Kirchenmusik... Ohne allen Zweifel, die Deutschen sind Idealisten...

[2]

Aber hier soll mich Nichts hindern, grob zu werden und den Deutschen ein paar harte Wahrheiten zu sagen: *wer thut es sonst?* — Ich rede von ihrer Unzucht in historicis. Nicht nur, daß den deutschen Historikern der *große Blick* für den Gang, für die Werthe der Cultur gänzlich abhanden gekommen ist, daß sie allesammt Hanswürste der Politik (oder der Kirche —) sind: dieser große Blick ist selbst von ihnen *in Acht gethan*. Man muß vorerst „deutsch“ sein, „Rasse“ sein, dann kann man über alle Werthe und Unwerthe in historicis entscheiden — man setzt sie fest... „Deutsch“ ist ein Argument, „Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles“ ein Princip, die Germanen sind die „sittliche Weltordnung“ in der Geschichte; im Verhältniß zum imperium romanum die Träger der Freiheit, im Verhältniß zum achtzehnten Jahrhundert die Wiederhersteller der Moral, des „kategorischen Imperativs“... Es giebt eine reichsdeutsche Geschichtsschreibung, es giebt, fürchte ich, selbst eine antisemitische, — es giebt eine *Hof*-Geschichtsschreibung und Herr von Treitschke schämt sich nicht... Jüngst machte ein Idioten-Urtheil in historicis, ein Satz des zum Glück verblichenen ästhetischen Schwaben Vischer, die Runde durch die deutschen Zeitungen als eine „Wahrheit“, zu der jeder Deutsche *Ja sagen müsse*: „Die Renaissance *und* die Reformation, Beide zusammen machen erst ein Ganzes — die ästhetische Wiedergeburt *und* die sittliche Wiedergeburt.“ — Bei solchen Sätzen geht es mit meiner Geduld zu Ende, und ich spüre Lust, ich fühle es selbst als Pflicht, den Deutschen einmal zu sagen, *was* sie Alles schon auf dem Gewissen haben. *Alle großen Cultur-Verbrechen von vier Jahrhunderten haben sie auf dem Gewissen!*... Und immer aus dem gleichen Grunde, aus ihrer innerlichsten *Feigheit* vor der Realität, die auch die Feigheit vor der Wahrheit ist, aus ihrer bei ihnen Instinkt gewordenen Unwahrhaftigkeit, aus „Idealismus“... Die Deutschen haben Europa um die Ernte, um den Sinn der letzten *großen* Zeit, der Renaissance-Zeit, gebracht, in einem Augenblicke, wo eine höhere Ordnung der Werthe, wo die vornehmen, die zum Leben jasagenden, die Zukunft-verbürgenden Werthe am Sitz der entgegengesetzten, der *Niedergangs-Werthe*, zum Sieg gelangt waren — *und bis in die Instinkte der dort Sitzenden hinein!* Luther, dies Verhängniß von Mönch, hat die Kirche, und, was tausend Mal schlimmer ist, das Christenthum wiederhergestellt, im Augenblick, *wo es unterlag*... Das Christenthum, diese Religion gewordene *Verneinung des Willens zum Leben*... Luther, ein unmöglicher Mönch, der, aus Gründen seiner „Unmöglichkeit“, die Kirche angriff und sie — folglich! — wiederherstellte... Die Katholiken hätten Gründe, Lutherfeste zu feiern, Lutherspiele zu dichten... Luther — und die „sittliche Wiedergeburt“! Zum Teufel mit aller Psychologie! — Ohne Zweifel, die Deutschen sind Idealisten. — Die Deutschen haben zwei Mal, als eben mit ungeheurer Tapferkeit und Selbstüberwindung eine rechtschaffne, eine unzweideutige, eine vollkommen wissenschaftliche Denkweise erreicht war, Schleichwege zum alten „Ideal“, Versöhnungen zwischen Wahrheit und „Ideal“, im Grunde Formeln für ein Recht auf Ablehnung der Wissenschaft, für ein Recht auf *Lüge* zu finden gewußt. Leibniz und Kant — diese zwei größten Hemmschuhe der intellektuellen Rechtschaffenheit Europa’s! — Die Deutschen haben endlich, als auf der Brücke zwischen zwei décadence-Jahrhunderten eine force majeure von Genie und Wille sichtbar wurde, stark genug, aus Europa eine Einheit, eine politische *und wirthschaftliche* Einheit, zum Zweck der Erdregierung zu schaffen, mit ihren „Freiheits-Kriegen“ Europa um den Sinn, um das Wunder von Sinn in der Existenz Napoleon’s gebracht, — sie haben damit Alles, was kam, was heute da ist, auf dem Gewissen, diese *culturwidrigste* Krankheit und Unvernunft, die es giebt, den Nationalismus, diese *névrose nationale*, an der Europa krank ist, diese Verewigung der Kleinstaaterei Europa’s, der *kleinen* Politik: sie haben Europa selbst um seinen Sinn, um seine *Vernunft* — sie haben es in eine Sackgasse gebracht. — Weiß Jemand außer mir einen *Weg* aus dieser Sackgasse?... Eine Aufgabe, groß genug, die Völker wieder zu *binden?*...

[3]

Und zuletzt, warum sollte ich meinem Verdacht nicht Worte geben? Die Deutschen werden auch in meinem Falle wieder Alles versuchen, um aus einem ungeheuren Schicksal eine Maus zu gebären. Sie haben sich bis jetzt an mir compromittirt, ich zweifle, daß sie es in der Zukunft besser machen. — Ah was es mich verlangt, hier ein *schlechter* Prophet zu sein!... Meine natürlichen Leser und Hörer sind jetzt schon Russen, Skandinavier und Franzosen, — werden sie es immer mehr sein? — Die Deutschen sind in die Geschichte der Erkenntniß mit lauter zweideutigen Namen eingeschrieben, sie haben immer nur „unbewußte“ Falschmünzer hervorgebracht (— Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Schleiermacher gebührt dies Wort so gut wie Kant und Leibniz; es sind alles bloße Schleiermacher —): sie sollen nie die Ehre haben, daß der erste *rechtschaffne* Geist in der Geschichte des Geistes, der Geist, in dem die Wahrheit zu Gericht kommt über die Falschmünzerei von vier Jahrtausenden, mit dem deutschen Geiste in Eins gerechnet wird. Der „deutsche Geist“ ist *meine* schlechte Luft: ich athme schwer in der Nähe dieser Instinkt-gewordnen Unsauberkeit in psychologicis, die jedes Wort, jede Miene eines Deutschen verräth. Sie haben nie ein siebzehntes Jahrhundert harter Selbstprüfung durchgemacht wie die Franzosen, — ein La Rochefoucauld, ein Descartes sind hundert Mal in Rechtschaffenheit den ersten Deutschen überlegen, — sie haben bis heute keinen Psychologen gehabt. Aber Psychologie ist beinahe der Maaßstab der *Reinlichkeit* oder *Unreinlichkeit* einer Rasse... Und wenn man nicht einmal reinlich ist, wie sollte man *Tiefe* haben? Man kommt beim Deutschen, beinahe wie beim Weibe, niemals auf den Grund, *er hat keinen*: das ist Alles. Aber damit ist man noch nicht einmal flach. — Das, was in Deutschland „tief“ heißt, ist genau diese Instinkt-Unsauberkeit gegen sich, von der ich eben rede: man *will* über sich nicht im Klaren sein. Dürfte ich das Wort „deutsch“ nicht als internationale Münze für *diese* psychologische Verkommenheit in Vorschlag bringen? — In diesem Augenblick zum Beispiel nennt es der deutsche Kaiser seine „christliche Pflicht“, die Sklaven in Afrika zu befreien: unter uns *andern* Europäern hieße das dann einfach „deutsch“... Haben die Deutschen auch nur Ein Buch hervorgebracht, das Tiefe hätte? Selbst der Begriff dafür, was tief an einem Buch ist, geht ihnen ab. Ich habe Gelehrte kennen gelernt, die Kant für tief hielten; am preußischen Hofe, fürchte ich, hält man Herrn von Treitschke für tief. Und wenn ich Stendhal gelegentlich als tiefen Psychologen rühme, ist es mir mit deutschen Universitätsprofessoren begegnet, daß sie mich den Namen buchstabiren ließen...

[4]

Und warum sollte ich nicht bis an’s Ende gehn? Ich liebe es, reinen Tisch zu machen. Es gehört selbst zu meinem Ehrgeiz, als Verächter der Deutschen par excellence zu gelten. Mein *Mißtrauen* gegen den deutschen Charakter habe ich schon mit sechsundzwanzig Jahren ausgedrückt (dritte Unzeitgemäße S. 71) — die Deutschen sind für mich unmöglich. Wenn ich mir eine Art Mensch ausdenke, die allen meinen Instinkten zuwiderläuft, so wird immer ein Deutscher daraus. Das Erste, worauf hin ich mir einen Menschen „nierenprüfe“, ist, ob er ein Gefühl für Distanz im Leibe hat, ob er überall Rang, Grad, Ordnung zwischen Mensch und Mensch sieht, ob er *distinguirt*: damit ist man gentilhomme; in jedem andren Fall gehört man rettungslos unter den weitherzigen, ach! so gutmüthigen Begriff der canaille. Aber die Deutschen sind canaille — ach! sie sind so gutmüthig... Man erniedrigt sich durch den Verkehr mit Deutschen: der Deutsche *stellt gleich*... Rechne ich meinen Verkehr mit einigen Künstlern, vor Allem mit Richard Wagner ab, so habe ich keine gute Stunde mit Deutschen verlebt... Gesetzt, daß der tiefste Geist aller Jahrtausende unter Deutschen erschiene, irgend eine Retterin des Capitols würde wähnen, ihre sehr unschöne Seele käme zum Mindesten ebenso in Betracht... Ich halte diese Rasse nicht aus, mit der man immer in schlechter Gesellschaft ist, die keine Finger für nuances hat — wehe mir! ich bin eine nuance —, die keinen esprit in den Füßen hat und nicht einmal gehen kann... Die Deutschen haben zuletzt gar keine Füße, sie haben bloß Beine... Den Deutschen geht jeder Begriff davon ab, wie gemein sie sind, aber das ist der Superlativ der Gemeinheit, — sie *schämen* sich nicht einmal, bloß Deutsche zu sein... Sie reden über Alles mit, sie halten sich selbst für entscheidend, ich fürchte, sie haben selbst über mich entschieden... Mein ganzes Leben ist der Beweis de rigueur für diese Sätze. Umsonst, daß ich in ihm nach einem Zeichen von Takt, von délicatesse gegen mich suche. Von Juden ja, noch nie von Deutschen. Meine Art will es, daß ich gegen Jedermann mild und wohlwollend bin — ich habe ein *Recht* dazu, keine Unterschiede zu machen —: dies hindert nicht, daß ich die Augen offen habe. Ich nehme Niemanden aus, am wenigsten meine Freunde, — ich hoffe zuletzt, daß dies meiner Humanität gegen sie keinen Abbruch getan hat! Es giebt fünf, sechs Dinge, aus denen ich mir immer eine Ehrensache gemacht habe. — Trotzdem bleibt wahr, daß ich fast jeden Brief, der mich seit Jahren erreicht, als einen Cynismus empfinde: es liegt mehr Cynismus im Wohlwollen gegen mich als in irgend welchem Haß... Ich sage es jedem meiner Freunde in’s Gesicht, daß er es nie der Mühe für wert genug hielt, irgend eine meiner Schriften zu *studiren*: ich errathe aus den kleinsten Zeichen, daß sie nicht einmal wissen, was drin steht. Was gar meinen Zarathustra anbetrifft, wer von meinen Freunden hätte mehr darin gesehn als eine unerlaubte, zum Glück vollkommen gleichgültige Anmaaßung?... Zehn Jahre: und Niemand in Deutschland hat sich eine Gewissensschuld daraus gemacht, meinen Namen gegen das absurde Stillschweigen zu vertheidigen, unter dem er vergraben lag: ein Ausländer, ein Däne, war es, der zuerst dazu genug Feinheit des Instinkts *und Muth* hatte, der sich über meine angeblichen Freunde empörte... An welcher deutschen Universität wären heute Vorlesungen über meine Philosophie möglich, wie sie letztes Frühjahr der damit noch einmal mehr bewiesene Psycholog Dr. Georg Brandes in Kopenhagen gehalten hat? — Ich selber habe nie an Alledem gelitten; das *Nothwendige* verletzt mich nicht; amor fati ist meine innerste Natur. Dies schließt aber nicht aus, daß ich die Ironie liebe, sogar die welthistorische Ironie. Und so habe ich, zwei Jahre ungefähr vor dem zerschmetternden Blitzschlag der *Umwerthung*, der die Erde in Convulsionen versetzen wird, den „Fall Wagner“ in die Welt geschickt: die Deutschen sollten sich noch einmal unsterblich an mir vergreifen und *verewigen!* es ist gerade noch Zeit dazu! — Ist das erreicht? — Zum Entzücken, meine Herrn Germanen! Ich mache Ihnen mein Compliment...

### Why I Am a Destiny

[1]

ICH kenne mein Loos. Es wird sich einmal an meinen Namen die Erinnerung an etwas Ungeheures anknüpfen, — an eine Krisis, wie es keine auf Erden gab, an die tiefste Gewissens-Collision, an eine Entscheidung heraufbeschworen *gegen* Alles, was bis dahin geglaubt, gefordert, geheiligt worden war. Ich bin kein Mensch, ich bin Dynamit. — Und mit Alledem ist Nichts in mir von einem Religionsstifter — Religionen sind Pöbel-Affairen, ich habe nöthig, mir die Hände nach der Berührung mit religiösen Menschen zu waschen... Ich *will* keine „Gläubigen“, ich denke, ich bin zu boshaft dazu, um an mich selbst zu glauben, ich rede niemals zu Massen... Ich habe eine erschreckliche Angst davor, daß man mich eines Tags *heilig* spricht; man wird errathen, weshalb ich dies Buch *vorher* herausgebe, es soll verhüten, daß man Unfug mit mir treibt... Ich will kein Heiliger sein, lieber noch ein Hanswurst... Vielleicht bin ich ein Hanswurst... Und trotzdem oder vielmehr *nicht* trotzdem — denn es gab nichts Verlogneres bisher als Heilige — redet aus mir die Wahrheit. — Aber meine Wahrheit ist *furchtbar*: denn man hieß bisher die *Lüge* Wahrheit. — *Umwerthung aller Werthe*: das ist meine Formel für einen Akt höchster Selbstbesinnung der Menschheit, der in mir Fleisch und Genie geworden ist. Mein Loos will, daß ich der erste *anständige* Mensch sein muß, daß ich mich gegen die Verlogenheit von Jahrtausenden im Gegensatz weiß... Ich erst habe die Wahrheit *entdeckt*, dadurch daß ich zuerst die Lüge als Lüge empfand — *roch*... Mein Genie ist in meinen Nüstern... Ich widerspreche, wie nie widersprochen worden ist, und bin trotzdem der Gegensatz eines neinsagenden Geistes. Ich bin ein *froher Botschafter*, wie es keinen gab, ich kenne Aufgaben von einer Höhe, daß der Begriff dafür bisher gefehlt hat; erst von mir an giebt es wieder Hoffnungen. Mit Alledem bin ich nothwendig auch der Mensch des Verhängnisses. Denn wenn die Wahrheit mit der Lüge von Jahrtausenden in Kampf tritt, werden wir Erschütterungen haben, einen Krampf von Erdbeben, eine Versetzung von Berg und Thal, wie dergleichen nie geträumt worden ist. Der Begriff Politik ist dann gänzlich in einen Geisterkrieg aufgegangen, alle Machtgebilde der alten Gesellschaft sind in die Luft gesprengt — sie ruhen allesammt auf der Lüge: es wird Kriege geben, wie es noch keine auf Erden gegeben hat. Erst von mir an giebt es auf Erden *große Politik*. —

[2]

WILL man eine Formel für ein solches Schicksal, *das Mensch wird?* — Sie steht in meinem Zarathustra.

*»— und wer ein Schöpfer sein will im Guten und Bösen, der muß ein Vernichter erst sein und Werthe zerbrechen.*
*Also gehört das höchste Böse zur höchsten Güte: diese aber ist die schöpferische.«*

Ich bin bei weitem der furchtbarste Mensch, den es bisher gegeben hat; dies schließt nicht aus, daß ich der wohlthätigste sein werde. Ich kenne die Lust am *Vernichten* in einem Grade, die meiner *Kraft* zum Vernichten gemäß ist, — in Beidem gehorche ich meiner dionysischen Natur, welche das Neinthun nicht vom Jasagen zu trennen weiß. Ich bin der erste *Immoralist*: damit bin ich der *Vernichter* par excellence. —

[3]

MAN hat mich nicht gefragt, man hätte mich fragen sollen, was gerade in meinem Munde, im Munde des ersten Immoralisten, der Name *Zarathustra* bedeutet: denn was die ungeheure Einzigkeit jenes Persers in der Geschichte ausmacht, ist gerade dazu das Gegentheil. Zarathustra hat zuerst im Kampf des Guten und des Bösen das eigentliche Rad im Getriebe der Dinge gesehn, — die Übersetzung der Moral in’s Metaphysische, als Kraft, Ursache, Zweck an sich, ist *sein* Werk. Aber diese Frage wäre im Grunde bereits die Antwort. Zarathustra *schuf* diesen verhängnißvollsten Irrthum, die Moral: folglich muß er auch der Erste sein, der ihn *erkennt*. Nicht nur, daß er hier länger und mehr Erfahrung hat als sonst ein Denker — die ganze Geschichte ist ja die Experimental-Widerlegung vom Satz der sogenannten „sittlichen Weltordnung“ —: das Wichtigere ist, Zarathustra ist wahrhaftiger als sonst ein Denker. Seine Lehre und sie allein, hat die Wahrhaftigkeit als oberste Tugend — das heißt den Gegensatz zur *Feigheit* des „Idealisten“, der vor der Realität die Flucht ergreift; Zarathustra hat mehr Tapferkeit im Leibe als alle Denker zusammengenommen. Wahrheit reden und *gut mit Pfeilen schießen*, das ist die persische Tugend. — Versteht man mich?... Die Selbstüberwindung der Moral aus Wahrhaftigkeit, die Selbstüberwindung des Moralisten in seinen Gegensatz — in *mich* — das bedeutet in meinem Munde der Name Zarathustra.

[4]

IM Grunde sind es zwei Verneinungen, die mein Wort *Immoralist* in sich schließt. Ich verneine einmal einen Typus Mensch, der bisher als der höchste galt, die *Guten*, die *Wohlwollenden, Wohlthätigen*; ich verneine andrerseits eine Art Moral, welche als Moral an sich in Geltung und Herrschaft gekommen ist, — die décadence-Moral, handgreiflicher geredet, die *christliche* Moral. Es wäre erlaubt, den zweiten Widerspruch als den entscheidenderen anzusehn, da die Überschätzung der Güte und des Wohlwollens, in’s Große gerechnet, mir bereits als Folge der décadence gilt, als Schwäche-Symptom, als unverträglich mit einem aufsteigenden und jasagenden Leben: im Jasagen ist Verneinen *und Vernichten* Bedingung. — Ich bleibe zunächst bei der Psychologie des guten Menschen stehn. Um abzuschätzen, was ein Typus Mensch werth ist, muß man den Preis nachrechnen, den seine Erhaltung kostet, — muß man seine Existenzbedingungen kennen. Die Existenz-Bedingung der Guten ist die *Lüge* —: anders ausgedrückt, das Nicht-sehen-*wollen* um jeden Preis, wie im Grunde die Realität beschaffen ist, nämlich *nicht* der Art, um jeder Zeit wohlwollende Instinkte herauszufordern, noch weniger der Art, um sich ein Eingreifen von kurzsichtigen gutmüthigen Händen jeder Zeit gefallen zu lassen. Die *Nothstände* aller Art überhaupt als Einwand, als Etwas, das man *abschaffen* muß, betrachten, ist die niaiserie par excellence, in’s Große gerechnet, ein wahres Unheil in seinen Folgen, ein Schicksal von Dummheit —, beinahe so dumm, als es der Wille wäre, das schlechte Wetter abzuschaffen — aus Mitleiden etwa mit den armen Leuten... In der großen Ökonomie des Ganzen sind die Furchtbarkeiten der Realität (in den Affekten, in den Begierden, im Willen zur Macht) in einem unausrechenbaren Maaße nothwendiger als jene Form des kleinen Glücks, die sogenannte „Güte“; man muß sogar nachsichtig sein, um der letzteren, da sie in der Instinkt-Verlogenheit bedingt ist, überhaupt einen Platz zu gönnen. Ich werde einen großen Anlaß haben, die über die Maaßen unheimlichen Folgen des *Optimismus*, dieser Ausgeburt der homines optimi, für die ganze Geschichte zu beweisen. Zarathustra, der Erste, der begriff, daß der Optimist ebenso décadent ist wie der Pessimist und vielleicht schädlicher, sagt: »*Gute Menschen reden nie die Wahrheit. Falsche Küsten und Sicherheiten lehrten euch die Guten; in Lügen der Guten wart ihr geboren und geborgen. Alles ist in den Grund hinein verlogen und verbogen durch die Guten.*« Die Welt ist zum Glück nicht auf Instinkte hin gebaut, daß gerade bloß gutmüthiges Heerdengethier darin sein enges Glück fände; zu fordern, daß Alles „guter Mensch“, Heerdenthier, blauäugig, wohlwollend, „schöne Seele“ — oder, wie Herr Herbert Spencer es wünscht, altruistisch werden solle, hieße dem Dasein seinen *großen* Charakter nehmen, hieße die Menschheit castriren und auf eine armselige Chineserei herunterbringen. — *Und dies hat man versucht!*... *Dies eben hieß man Moral*... In diesem Sinne nennt Zarathustra die Guten bald „die letzten Menschen“, bald den „Anfang vom Ende“; vor Allem empfindet er sie als *die schädlichste Art Mensch*, weil sie ebenso auf Kosten der *Wahrheit* als auf Kosten der *Zukunft* ihre Existenz durchsetzen.
»— Die Guten — die können nicht *schaffen*, die sind immer der Anfang vom Ende —
— sie kreuzigen den, der *neue* Werthe auf neue Tafeln schreibt, sie opfern sich die Zukunft, sie kreuzigen alle Menschen-Zukunft!
— Die Guten — die waren immer der Anfang vom Ende...
— Und was auch für Schaden die Welt-Verleumder thun mögen, *der Schaden der Guten ist der schädlichste Schaden.*«

[5]

ZARATHUSTRA, der erste Psycholog der Guten, ist — folglich — ein Freund der Bösen. Wenn eine décadenceArt Mensch zum Rang der höchsten Art aufgestiegen ist, so konnte dies nur auf Kosten ihrer Gegensatz-Art geschehn, der starken und lebensgewissen Art Mensch. Wenn das Heerdenthier im Glanze der reinsten Tugend strahlt, so muß der Ausnahme-Mensch zum Bösen heruntergewerthet sein. Wenn die Verlogenheit um jeden Preis das Wort „Wahrheit“ für ihre Optik in Anspruch nimmt, so muß der eigentlich Wahrhaftige unter den schlimmsten Namen wiederzufinden sein. Zarathustra läßt hier keinen Zweifel: er sagt, die Erkenntniß der Guten, der „Besten“ gerade sei es gewesen, was ihm Grausen vor dem Menschen überhaupt gemacht habe; aus *diesem* Widerwillen seien ihm die Flügel gewachsen, „fortzuschweben in ferne Zukünfte“, — er verbirgt es nicht, daß *sein* Typus Mensch, ein relativ übermenschlicher Typus, gerade im Verhältniß zu den *Guten* übermenschlich ist, daß die Guten und Gerechten seinen Übermenschen *Teufel* nennen würden...
»Ihr höchsten Menschen, denen mein Auge begegnete, das ist mein Zweifel an euch und mein heimliches Lachen: ich rathe, ihr würdet meinen Übermenschen — Teufel heißen! So fremd seid ihr dem Großen mit eurer Seele, daß euch der Übermensch *furchtbar* sein würde in seiner Güte...«
An dieser Stelle und nirgends wo anders muß man den Ansatz machen, um zu begreifen, was Zarathustra *will*: diese Art Mensch, die er concipirt, concipirt die Realität, *wie sie ist*: sie ist stark genug dazu —, sie ist ihr nicht entfremdet, entrückt, sie ist *sie selbst*, sie hat all deren Furchtbares und Fragwürdiges auch noch in sich, *damit erst kann der Mensch Größe haben*...

[6]

ABER ich habe auch noch in einem andren Sinne das Wort *Immoralist* zum Abzeichen, zum Ehrenzeichen für mich gewählt; ich bin stolz darauf, dies Wort zu haben, das mich gegen die ganze Menschheit abhebt. Niemand noch hat die *christliche* Moral als *unter* sich gefühlt; dazu gehörte eine Höhe, ein Fernblick, eine bisher ganz unerhörte psychologische Tiefe und Abgründlichkeit. Die christliche Moral war bisher die Circe aller Denker, — sie standen in ihrem Dienst. — Wer ist vor mir eingestiegen in die Höhlen, aus denen der Gifthauch dieser Art von Ideal — *der Weltverleumdung!* — emporquillt? Wer hat auch nur zu ahnen gewagt, *daß* es Höhlen sind? Wer war überhaupt vor mir unter den Philosophen *Psycholog* und nicht vielmehr dessen Gegensatz „höherer Schwindler“, „Idealist“? Es gab vor mir noch gar keine Psychologie. — Hier der Erste zu sein kann ein Fluch sein, es ist jedenfalls ein Schicksal: denn *man verachtet auch als der Erste*... Der *Ekel* am Menschen ist meine Gefahr...

[7]

HAT man mich verstanden? — Was mich abgrenzt, was mich bei Seite stellt gegen den ganzen Rest der Menschheit, das ist, die christliche Moral *entdeckt* zu haben. Deshalb war ich eines Worts bedürftig, das den Sinn einer Herausforderung an Jedermann enthält. Hier nicht eher die Augen aufgemacht zu haben gilt mir als die größte Unsauberkeit, die die Menschheit auf dem Gewissen hat, als Instinkt gewordner Selbstbetrug, als grundsätzlicher Wille, jedes Geschehen, jede Ursächlichkeit, jede Wirklichkeit *nicht* zu sehen, als Falschmünzerei in psychologicis bis zum Verbrechen. Die Blindheit vor dem Christenthum ist das *Verbrechen par excellence* — das Verbrechen *am Leben*... Die Jahrtausende, die Völker, die Ersten und die Letzten, die Philosophen und die alten Weiber — fünf, sechs Augenblicke der Geschichte abgerechnet, mich als siebenten — in diesem Punkte sind sie alle einander würdig. Der Christ war bisher *das* „moralische Wesen“, ein Curiosum ohne Gleichen — und, *als* „moralisches Wesen“, absurder, verlogner, eitler, leichtfertiger, *sich selber nachtheiliger* als auch der größte Verächter der Menschheit es sich träumen lassen könnte. Die christliche Moral — die bösartigste Form des Willens zur Lüge, die eigentliche Circe der Menschheit: Das, was sie *verdorben* hat. Es ist *nicht* der Irrthum als Irrthum, was mich bei diesem Anblick entsetzt, *nicht* der jahrtausendelange Mangel an „gutem Willen“, an Zucht, an Anstand, an Tapferkeit im Geistigen, der sich in seinem Sieg verräth: — es ist der Mangel an Natur, es ist der vollkommen schauerliche Thatbestand, daß die *Widernatur* selbst als Moral die höchsten Ehren empfieng und als Gesetz, als kategorischer Imperativ, über der Menschheit hängen blieb!... In diesem Maaße sich vergreifen, *nicht* als Einzelner, *nicht* als Volk, sondern als Menschheit!... Daß man die allerersten Instinkte des Lebens verachten lehrte; daß man eine „Seele“, einen „Geist“ *erlog*, um den Leib zu Schanden zu machen; daß man in der Voraussetzung des Lebens, in der Geschlechtlichkeit, etwas Unreines empfinden lehrt; daß man in der tiefsten Nothwendigkeit zum Gedeihen, in der *strengen* Selbstsucht (— das Wort schon ist verleumderisch! —) das böse Princip sucht; daß man umgekehrt in dem typischen Abzeichen des Niedergangs und der Instinkt-Widersprüchlichkeit, im „Selbstlosen“, im Verlust an Schwergewicht, in der „Entpersönlichung“ und „Nächstenliebe“ (— Nächsten*sucht!*) den *höheren* Werth, was sage ich! den *Werth an sich* sieht!... Wie! wäre die Menschheit selber in décadence? war sie es immer? — Was feststeht, ist, daß ihr nur décadence-Werthe als oberste Werthe *gelehrt* worden sind. Die Entselbstungs-Moral ist die Niedergangs-Moral par excellence, die Thatsache „*ich* gehe zu Grunde“ in den Imperativ übersetzt: „ihr *sollt* alle zu Grunde gehn“ — und *nicht nur* in den Imperativ!... Diese einzige Moral, die bisher gelehrt worden ist, die Entselbstungs-Moral, verräth einen Willen zum Ende, sie *verneint* im untersten Grunde das Leben. — Hier bliebe die Möglichkeit offen, daß nicht die Menschheit in Entartung sei, sondern nur jene parasitische Art Mensch, die des *Priesters*, die mit der Moral sich zu ihren Werth-Bestimmern emporgelogen hat, — die in der christlichen Moral ihr Mittel zur *Macht* errieth... Und in der That, das ist *meine* Einsicht: die Lehrer, die Führer der Menschheit, Theologen insgesammt, waren insgesammt auch décadents: *daher* die Umwerthung aller Werthe in’s Lebensfeindliche, *daher* die Moral... *Definition der Moral*: Moral — die Idiosynkrasie von décadents, mit der Hinterabsicht, *sich am Leben zu rächen* — *und* mit Erfolg. Ich lege Werth auf *diese* Definition.

[8]

HAT man mich verstanden? — Ich habe eben kein Wort gesagt, das ich nicht schon vor fünf Jahren durch den Mund Zarathustra’s gesagt hätte. — Die *Entdeckung* der christlichen Moral ist ein Ereigniß, das nicht seines Gleichen hat, eine wirkliche Katastrophe. Wer über sie aufklärt, ist eine force majeure, ein Schicksal, — er bricht die Geschichte der Menschheit in zwei Stücke. Man lebt *vor* ihm, man lebt *nach* ihm... Der Blitz der Wahrheit traf gerade Das, was bisher am höchsten stand: wer begreift, *was* da vernichtet wurde, mag zusehn, ob er überhaupt noch Etwas in den Händen hat. Alles, was bisher „Wahrheit“ hieß, ist als die schädlichste, tückischste, unterirdischste Form der Lüge erkannt; der heilige Vorwand, die Menschheit zu „verbessern“, als die List, das Leben selbst *auszusaugen*, blutarm zu machen. Moral als *Vampyrismus*... Wer die Moral entdeckt, hat den Unwerth aller Werthe mit entdeckt, an die man glaubt oder geglaubt hat; er sieht in den verehrtesten, in den selbst *heilig* gesprochenen Typen des Menschen nichts Ehrwürdiges mehr, er sieht die verhängnißvollste Art von Mißgeburten darin, verhängnißvoll, *weil sie fasciniren*... Der Begriff „Gott“ erfunden als Gegensatz-Begriff zum Leben, — in ihm alles Schädliche, Vergiftende, Verleumderische, die ganze Todfeindschaft gegen das Leben in eine entsetzliche Einheit gebracht! Der Begriff „Jenseits“, „wahre Welt“ erfunden, um die *einzige* Welt zu entwerthen, die es giebt, — um kein Ziel, keine Vernunft, keine Aufgabe für unsre Erden-Realität übrig zu behalten! Der Begriff „Seele“, „Geist“, zuletzt gar noch „unsterbliche Seele“, erfunden, um den Leib zu verachten, um ihn krank — „heilig“ — zu machen, um allen Dingen, die Ernst im Leben verdienen, den Fragen von Nahrung, Wohnung, geistiger Diät, Krankenbehandlung, Reinlichkeit, Wetter, einen schauerlichen Leichtsinn entgegenzubringen! Statt der Gesundheit das „Heil der Seele“ — will sagen eine folie circulaire zwischen Bußkrampf und Erlösungs-Hysterie! Der Begriff „Sünde“ erfunden sammt dem zugehörigen Folter-Instrument, dem Begriff „freier Wille“, um die Instinkte zu verwirren, um das Mißtrauen gegen die Instinkte zur zweiten Natur zu machen! Im Begriff des „Selbstlosen“, des „Sich-selbst-Verleugnenden“ das eigentliche décadence-Abzeichen, das *Gelockt*werden vom Schädlichen, das Seinen-Nutzen-nicht-mehr-finden-*können*, die Selbst-Zerstörung zum Werthzeichen überhaupt gemacht, zur „Pflicht“, zur „Heiligkeit“, zum „Göttlichen“ im Menschen! Endlich — es ist das Furchtbarste — im Begriff des *guten* Menschen die Partei alles Schwachen, Kranken, Mißrathnen, An-sich-selber-Leidenden genommen, alles dessen, *was zu Grunde gehn soll* —, das Gesetz der *Selektion* gekreuzt, ein Ideal aus dem Widerspruch gegen den stolzen und wohlgerathenen, gegen den jasagenden, gegen den zukunftsgewissen, zukunftverbürgenden Menschen gemacht — dieser heißt nunmehr *der Böse*... Und das Alles wurde geglaubt *als Moral!* — *Ecrasez l’infâme!* — —

[9]

HAT man mich verstanden? — *Dionysos gegen den Gekreuzigten*...

### Fame and Eternity

[1]

WIE lange sitzest du schon
  auf deinem Mißgeschick?
Gieb Acht! du brütest mir noch
  ein Ei
  ein Basilisken-Ei
aus deinem langen Jammer aus.

Was schleicht Zarathustra entlang dem Berge? —

Mißtrauisch, geschwürig, düster,
ein langer Lauerer —,
aber plötzlich, ein Blitz,
hell, furchtbar, ein Schlag
gen Himmel aus dem Abgrund:
— dem Berge selber schüttelt sich
das Eingeweide...

Wo Haß und Blitzstrahl
Eins ward, ein *Fluch* —,
auf den Bergen haust jetzt Zarathustra’s Zorn,
eine Wetterwolke schleicht er seines Wegs.

Verkrieche sich, wer eine letzte Decke hat!
In’s Bett mit euch, ihr Zärtlinge!
Nun rollen Donner über die Gewölbe,
nun zittert, was Gebälk und Mauer ist,
nun zucken Blitze und schwefelgelbe Wahrheiten —
Zarathustra *flucht*...

[2]

DIESE Münze, mit der
alle Welt bezahlt,
*Ruhm* —,
mit Handschuhen fasse ich diese Münze an,
mit Ekel trete ich sie *unter* mich.

*Wer* will bezahlt sein?
Die Käuflichen...
Wer *feil* steht, greift
mit fetten Händen
nach diesem Allerwelts-Blechklingklang Ruhm!

— *Willst* du sie kaufen?
Sie sind Alle käuflich.
Aber biete Viel!
klingle mit vollem Beutel!
— du *stärkst* sie sonst,
du stärkst sonst ihre *Tugend*...

Sie sind Alle tugendhaft.
Ruhm und Tugend — das reimt sich.
So lange die Welt lebt,
zahlt sie Tugend-Geplapper
mit Ruhm-Geklapper —,
die Welt *lebt* von diesem Lärm...

Vor allen Tugendhaften
will ich schuldig sein,
schuldig heißen mit jeder großen Schuld!
Vor allen Ruhms-Schalltrichtern
wird mein Ehrgeiz zum Wurm —,
unter Solchen gelüstet’s mich,
der *Niedrigste* zu sein...

Diese Münze, mit der
alle Welt bezahlt,
*Ruhm* —,
mit Handschuhen fasse ich diese Münze an,
mit Ekel trete ich sie *unter* mich.

[3]

STILL! —
Von großen Dingen — ich *sehe* Großes! —
soll man schweigen
oder groß reden:
rede groß, meine entzückte Weisheit!

Ich sehe hinauf —
dort rollen Lichtmeere:
— oh Nacht, oh Schweigen, oh todtenstiller Lärm!...
Ich sehe ein Zeichen —,
aus fernsten Fernen
sinkt langsam funkelnd ein Sternbild gegen mich...

[4]

HÖCHSTES Gestirn des Seins!
Ewiger Bildwerke Tafel!
*Du* kommst zu mir? —
Was Keiner erschaut hat,
deine stumme Schönheit, —
wie? sie flieht vor meinen Blicken nicht?

Schild der Nothwendigkeit!
Ewiger Bildwerke Tafel!
— aber du weißt es ja:
was Alle hassen,
was allein *ich* liebe,
daß du *ewig* bist!
daß du *nothwendig* bist!
Meine Liebe entzündet
sich ewig nur an der Nothwendigkeit.

Schild der Nothwendigkeit!
Höchstes Gestirn des Seins!
— das kein Wunsch erreicht,
das kein Nein befleckt,
ewiges Ja des Seins,
ewig bin ich dein Ja:
*denn ich liebe dich, oh Ewigkeit!* — —

## Translation — Mouseia

> A complete machine-assisted Musean translation directly from the German of the 1908 Insel edition, including its concluding poem. This early edition's readings and omissions are retained, not replaced with later critical restorations.

### Preface

Ecce Homo

How One Becomes—What One Is

[1]

Foreseeing that before long I must confront humanity with the heaviest demand ever laid upon it, I find it indispensable to say *who I am*. At bottom, people ought to know: I have not left myself “without testimony.” Yet the disproportion between the greatness of my task and the *smallness* of my contemporaries has found expression in the fact that I have neither been heard nor even seen. I live on my own credit; perhaps it is merely a prejudice that I am alive?… I need only speak to some “educated person” who comes to the Upper Engadin in summer to convince myself that I do *not* live… Under these circumstances there is a duty against which my habits, and still more the pride of my instincts, revolt: to say, *Hear me! For I am such and such a person. Above all, do not mistake me for someone else!*

[2]

I am, for instance, by no means a bogeyman, a monster of morality—I am even the opposite in nature to the kind of person hitherto revered as virtuous. Between ourselves, it seems to me that precisely this is a source of my pride. I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus; I would rather be a satyr than a saint. But just read this book. Perhaps I have succeeded—perhaps this book had no other purpose—in expressing that opposition cheerfully and with goodwill toward humanity. The last thing *I* would promise would be to “improve” humanity. I erect no new idols; let the old ones learn what it means to have legs of clay. To *overthrow* idols—my word for ideals—is rather more in my line of work. Reality has been robbed of its value, its meaning, its truthfulness to the very extent that an ideal world has been *lied into being*… The “true world” and the “apparent world”—in plain terms, the world *invented by lies* and reality… The *lie* of the ideal has hitherto been the curse upon reality; through it humanity itself has become mendacious and false down to its deepest instincts—to the point of worshiping the *opposite* values to those that alone could guarantee its flourishing, its future, its high *right* to a future.

[3]

Whoever knows how to breathe the air of my writings knows that it is the air of the heights, a *bracing* air. One must be made for it; otherwise there is no small danger of catching cold in it. The ice is near, the solitude immense—but how peacefully all things lie in the light! How freely one breathes! How much one feels *beneath* oneself! Philosophy, as I have understood and lived it hitherto, is a voluntary life among ice and high mountains—a seeking-out of everything strange and questionable in existence, of everything morality has so far placed under its ban. From the long experience such wandering *in the forbidden* gave me, I learned to regard the causes of moralizing and idealizing very differently from what might be wished: the *hidden* history of philosophers, the psychology of their great names, came to light for me. How much truth does a spirit *bear*, how much truth does it *dare*? That became for me, more and more, the true measure of value. Error—belief in the ideal—is not blindness; error is *cowardice*… Every achievement, every step forward in knowledge, *follows* from courage, from hardness toward oneself, from cleanliness toward oneself… I do not refute ideals; I merely put on gloves before them… We strive toward the *forbidden*: under this sign my philosophy will one day triumph, for hitherto truth alone has been forbidden on principle.—

[4]

Among my writings, my *Zarathustra* stands apart. With it I have given humanity the greatest gift it has yet received. This book, with a voice that carries across millennia, is not only the loftiest book there is, the true book of mountain air—the whole fact of humanity lies at an immense distance *beneath* it—it is also the *deepest*, born of the innermost wealth of truth: an inexhaustible well into which no bucket descends without coming up filled with gold and goodness. No “prophet” speaks here, none of those gruesome hybrids of sickness and will to power whom people call founders of religions. Above all, one must correctly *hear* the tone that comes from this mouth, this halcyon tone, so as not to do pitiable injustice to the meaning of its wisdom. “It is the stillest words that bring the storm; thoughts that come on doves’ feet guide the world—”

“The figs fall from the trees; they are good and sweet: and as they fall, their red skins split.

“I am a north wind to ripe figs.

“Thus, like figs, these teachings fall to you, my friends: now drink their juice and their sweet flesh!

“Autumn is about us, and clear sky and afternoon—”

No fanatic speaks here; this is no “preaching”; no *faith* is demanded here: out of an infinite fullness of light and depth of happiness, drop by drop, word by word, it falls—a tender slowness is the pace of these discourses. Such things reach only the most select; to be a listener here is a privilege without equal; no one can choose at will to have ears for Zarathustra… Yet is Zarathustra not, for all that, a *seducer?*… But what does he himself say as he returns for the first time to his solitude? Precisely the opposite of what any “sage,” “saint,” “world-redeemer,” or other decadent would say in such a case… Not only does he speak differently; he also *is* different…

“Now I go alone, my disciples! You too now go away, and alone! So I will it.

“Go away from me and defend yourselves against Zarathustra! And better still: be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you.

“The person of knowledge must not only love his enemies; he must also be able to hate his friends.

“One repays a teacher badly by always remaining only a pupil. And why will you not pluck at my wreath?

“You revere me: but what if one day your reverence *topples*? Take care that a statue does not strike you dead!

“You say you believe in Zarathustra? But what does Zarathustra matter! You are my believers: but what do all believers matter!

“You had not yet sought yourselves when you found me.

“So it is with all believers; hence all belief amounts to so little.

“Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves; and only *when you have all denied me* will I return to you…”

Friedrich Nietzsche

### Birthday Reflection

On this perfect day, when everything ripens and not only the grape turns brown, a shaft of sunlight has just fallen upon my life: I looked back, I looked out: never have I seen such an abundance of things, and such good ones, all at once. Not in vain have I buried my forty-fourth year today; I *was permitted* to bury it—what was life in it is saved, is immortal. The first book of the *Revaluation of All Values*, the *Songs of Zarathustra*, the *Twilight of the Idols*, my attempt to philosophize with a hammer—all gifts of this year, even of its final quarter! *How could I fail to be grateful to my whole life?*—

And so I tell myself
my life.

### Why I Am So Wise

[1]

The good fortune of my existence, perhaps its uniqueness, lies in its fate: to put it as a riddle, as my father I have already died; as my mother I still live and grow old. This double descent, as it were from the highest and lowest rungs on the ladder of life, at once a decadent and a *beginning*—this, if anything, explains that neutrality, that freedom from taking sides in relation to the whole problem of life, which perhaps distinguishes me. I have a finer scent for the signs of ascent and decline than any human being has ever possessed; in this I am the teacher par excellence—I know both; I am both.—My father died at thirty-six: he was delicate, lovable, and sickly, like a creature destined only for a passing visit—more a kindly remembrance of life than life itself. At the age when his life began its descent, mine did too: in my thirty-sixth year I reached the lowest point of my vitality—I still lived, yet could not see three steps ahead. At that time—it was 1879—I resigned my professorship at Basel, lived through the summer like a shadow in St. Moritz, and the following winter, the most sunless of my life, *as* a shadow in Naumburg. This was my lowest ebb: “The Wanderer and His Shadow” came into being meanwhile. Without doubt I understood shadows then… In the winter that followed, my first winter in Genoa, that sweetening and spiritualization almost inseparable from an extreme poverty of blood and muscle brought forth “Dawn”. The perfect brightness and cheerfulness, even exuberance of spirit, reflected in that work are compatible in me not only with the profoundest physiological weakness, but even with an excess of pain. Amid the torments of an unbroken three-day headache, accompanied by laborious vomiting of mucus, I possessed a dialectical clarity par excellence and thought things through with great composure—things for which, in healthier circumstances, I am not climber enough, not refined enough, not *cold* enough. My readers perhaps know to what extent I regard dialectic as a symptom of decadence, for instance in the most celebrated case: that of Socrates.—All morbid disturbances of the intellect, even that half-stupor which fever brings in its wake, have remained entirely foreign to me to this day; I first had to learn their nature and frequency from scholarly books. My blood runs slowly. No one has ever been able to detect a fever in me. A doctor who had long treated me for nervous illness finally said, “No! There is nothing wrong with your nerves; it is only I who am nervous.” No localized degeneration whatever can be demonstrated; no organically caused stomach ailment, however profound the weakness of the gastric system resulting from general exhaustion. The eye trouble too, at times perilously close to blindness, was only a consequence, not a cause: with every increase in vitality, my eyesight also improved.—A long, all too long succession of years means recovery for me—unfortunately, it also means relapse, decline, the recurrence of a kind of decadence. Need I say, after all this, that I am *experienced* in questions of decadence? I have spelled it out forward and backward. Even that filigree art of grasping and comprehending in general, those fingers for nuances, that psychology of “seeing around corners,” and whatever else is mine, was learned only then: it is the true gift of that time, when everything in me grew more refined, observation itself as much as all the organs of observation. To look from the sick person's perspective toward *healthier* concepts and values, and then, conversely, from the fullness and self-assurance of *rich* life down into the secret labor of the instinct of decadence—that was my longest exercise, my true experience; if I became a master in anything, it was in this. Now it is in my hands; I have the hand for it: *to shift perspectives*. That is the first reason why a “revaluation of values” may perhaps be possible for me alone.—

[2]

Apart from being a decadent, I am also its opposite. Among other things, my proof is that I have always instinctively chosen the *right* remedies against bad conditions, whereas the decadent as such always chooses the remedies harmful to him. As a whole I was healthy; as an aspect, as a specialty, I was decadent. That energy for absolute isolation and release from familiar conditions, that compulsion against myself to stop allowing myself to be cared for, waited on, *doctored*—that betrays an absolute instinctive certainty about *what* was then needed above all! I took myself in hand; I made myself healthy again: the condition for this—every physiologist will admit it—is *that one is fundamentally healthy*. A typically sickly creature cannot become healthy, still less make itself healthy; for someone typically healthy, by contrast, being sick can even become an energetic *stimulus* to life, to more life. That, indeed, is how that long period of illness appears to me *now*: I discovered life anew, as it were, myself included; I tasted all good and even little things as others could not easily taste them—I made my philosophy out of my will to health, to *life*… For mark this: the years of my lowest vitality were those in which I *ceased* to be a pessimist; the instinct of self-restoration *forbade* me a philosophy of poverty and discouragement… And how, at bottom, does one recognize the *well-constituted person!* By the pleasure such a person gives our senses: he is carved from a wood at once hard, delicate, and fragrant. He relishes only what agrees with him; his liking, his pleasure, ends where the measure of what benefits him is exceeded. He divines remedies against injuries; he turns misfortunes to his advantage; what does not kill him makes him stronger. From everything he sees, hears, experiences, he instinctively gathers *his* sum: he is a principle of selection; he lets much fall away. He is always in *his own* company, whether he associates with books, people, or landscapes: he honors by *choosing*, by *admitting*, by *trusting*. He reacts slowly to every kind of stimulus, with that slowness bred into him by long caution and a deliberate pride—he examines the approaching stimulus; he is far from going out to meet it. He believes neither in “misfortune” nor in “guilt”: he comes to terms with himself, with others; he knows how to *forget*—he is strong enough that everything *must* turn out for his best.—Well then, I am the *opposite* of a decadent, for I have just described *myself*.

[3]

This *double* sequence of experiences, this access to apparently separate worlds, repeats itself in my nature in every respect—I am a double; I have the “second” sight as well as the first. *And* perhaps the third as well… My very descent permits me a vision beyond all merely local, merely nationally conditioned perspectives; it costs me no effort to be a “good European.” On the other hand, I am perhaps more German than Germans of today, mere Germans of the Reich, could still be—I, the last *antipolitical* German. And yet my ancestors were Polish noblemen: from them I carry much racial instinct in my body, who knows? Perhaps even the *liberum veto* in the end. When I consider how often I am addressed as a Pole while traveling, and by Poles themselves, how seldom I am taken for a German, it might seem that I belong only among the *speckled* Germans. But my mother, Franziska Oehler, is in any case something very German; so too my paternal grandmother, Erdmuthe Krause. The latter spent her whole youth in good old Weimar, not without connections to Goethe's circle. Her brother, Professor of Theology Krause in Königsberg, was called to Weimar as general superintendent after Herder's death. It is not impossible that her mother, my great-grandmother, appears under the name “Muthgen” in the young Goethe's diary. She married Superintendent Nietzsche in Eilenburg as her second husband; on the day of the great war year 1813 when Napoleon entered Eilenburg with his general staff, October 10, she gave birth. As a Saxon she was a great admirer of Napoleon; it could be that I still am too. My father, born in 1813, died in 1849. Before taking up the pastorate of the community of Röcken near Lützen, he lived for several years at Altenburg Castle, teaching the four princesses there. His pupils were the Queen of Hanover, the Grand Duchess Constantine, the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg, and Princess Therese of Saxe-Altenburg. He was full of deep reverence for the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, from whom he also received his pastorate; the events of 1848 distressed him beyond measure. Born on that king's birthday, October 15, I naturally received the Hohenzollern names *Friedrich* Wilhelm. The choice of that day had at least one advantage: throughout my childhood my birthday was a holiday.—I consider it a great privilege to have had such a father; it even seems to me that this explains everything else I possess by way of privilege—life, the great Yes to life, *not* included. Above all, it takes no intention on my part, only a little waiting, to enter involuntarily into a world of lofty and delicate things: there I am at home; only there is my deepest passion set free. That I almost paid for this privilege with my life is certainly no unfair bargain.—To understand anything of my Zarathustra, one must perhaps be conditioned much as I am—with one foot *beyond* life…

[4]

I have never understood the art of turning people against me—for that too I thank my incomparable father—not even when it seemed to me of great value. Indeed, however unchristian it may appear, I am not even prejudiced against myself. Turn my life this way and that, and only rarely, at bottom only once, will you discover traces of someone's having borne me ill will—perhaps, however, rather too many traces of *good* will… Even my experiences with those with whom everyone has bad experiences speak without exception in their favor; I tame every bear; I make even buffoons behave. In the seven years when I taught Greek in the highest class of the Basel Pädagogium, I never had occasion to impose a punishment; even the idlest boys worked hard for me. I am always a match for chance; I must be unprepared to be master of myself. Whatever the instrument, however out of tune—as out of tune as only the instrument “human being” can become—I would have to be ill if I could not coax something worth hearing from it. And how often I have heard from the “instruments” themselves that they had never heard themselves sound *so*… Most beautifully, perhaps, from Heinrich von Stein, who died unforgivably young: once, after carefully obtaining permission, he appeared for three days in Sils-Maria, announcing to everyone that he was *not* coming for the Engadin. This excellent man, who with all the headlong simplicity of a Prussian Junker had waded into Wagner's swamp—and Dühring's too!—was as if transformed during those three days by a whirlwind of freedom, like someone suddenly lifted to *his own* height and given wings. I kept telling him it was the good air up here, that everyone felt the same, that one was not six thousand feet above Bayreuth for nothing—but he would not believe me… If, despite this, many wrongs great and small have been done me, it was not “will,” least of all *ill* will, that caused them: I might sooner have complained—as I have just suggested—of the good will that has caused no little mischief in my life. My experiences give me the right to distrust the so-called “selfless” drives in general, the whole of that “love of one's neighbor” ever ready with advice and action. In itself I regard it as weakness, as a particular case of the inability to resist stimuli—only among decadents does *pity* pass for a virtue. I reproach the compassionate with readily losing shame, reverence, and a delicate sense of distances; with pity's smelling of the rabble in an instant and looking indistinguishably like bad manners; with compassionate hands sometimes intruding with downright destructive force into a great destiny, a solitude among wounds, a *privilege* of bearing grave guilt. I count the overcoming of pity among the *noble* virtues: in “Zarathustra's Temptation” I invented a case in which a great cry of distress reaches him, in which pity assails him like a final sin and seeks to estrange him *from himself*. To remain master here, to keep the *height* of one's task free from the much lower and more shortsighted impulses at work in so-called selfless actions—that is the trial, perhaps the final trial a Zarathustra must undergo—his true *proof* of strength…

[5]

In yet another respect I am simply my father once again, as it were his continued life after an all too early death. Like anyone who has never lived among his equals and to whom the concept of “retaliation” is as inaccessible as, say, the concept of “equal rights,” I forbid myself, when some small or *very great* folly is committed against me, every countermeasure, every protective measure—and naturally every defense, every “justification.” My kind of retaliation consists in sending a clever response after a stupidity as quickly as possible: perhaps that way it can still catch up with it. To speak in a parable: I send a pot of preserves to be rid of a *sour* affair… Let someone do me an injury and I “repay” him, be sure of that: before long I find an opportunity to express my thanks to the “evildoer”—sometimes even for the evil deed—or to *ask* something of him, which can be more binding than giving something. It also seems to me that the rudest word, the rudest letter, is more good-natured, more honorable, than silence. Those who remain silent almost always lack refinement and courtesy of heart: silence is an objection; swallowing things down necessarily makes for a bad character—it spoils even the stomach. All silent people are dyspeptic.—Clearly, I would not have rudeness undervalued; it is by far the most *humane* form of disagreement and, amid modern coddling, one of our foremost virtues.—If one is rich enough for it, it is even good fortune to be in the wrong. A god who came to earth ought to do nothing but wrong: to take upon himself not the punishment but the *guilt* would first be divine.

[6]

Freedom from resentment, understanding resentment—who knows how greatly, in the end, I am indebted to my long illness for this too! The problem is not exactly simple: one must have lived it from within strength and from within weakness. If anything at all must be held against being sick, against being weak, it is that the true healing instinct, the human instinct of *defense and arms*, grows weary in that condition. One knows how to be rid of nothing, how to cope with nothing, how to repel nothing—everything wounds. People and things draw importunately near; experiences strike too deep; memory is a festering wound. Being sick *is* a kind of resentment itself.—Against this the sick person has only one great remedy—I call it *Russian fatalism*: that fatalism without revolt with which a Russian soldier, when the campaign grows too hard, finally lies down in the snow. No longer to take anything at all, take it upon oneself, *take it into oneself*—no longer to react at all… The great wisdom of this fatalism, which is not always merely the courage to die, lies in reducing the metabolism, slowing it down, a kind of will to hibernation, as a means of preserving life under the most life-threatening circumstances. A few steps further in this logic, and one has the fakir who sleeps for weeks in a grave… Because one would exhaust oneself too quickly *if* one reacted at all, one ceases to react altogether: that is the logic. And nothing burns one out more quickly than the affects of resentment. Vexation, morbid vulnerability, impotence to revenge oneself, the desire, the thirst for revenge, the mixing of poison in every sense—this is assuredly the most harmful way for the exhausted to react: it entails a rapid expenditure of nervous energy, a morbid increase in harmful secretions, of bile into the stomach, for instance. Resentment is what is forbidden *in itself* to the sick person—*his* evil: unfortunately, also his most natural inclination.—That profound physiologist Buddha understood this. His “religion,” which might better be called a *hygiene*, so as not to confuse it with such pitiable things as Christianity, made its effect depend on victory over resentment: to free the soul *from that*—the first step toward recovery. “Hostility is not ended by hostility; hostility is ended by friendship”: this stands at the beginning of Buddha's teaching—thus speaks *not* morality, thus speaks physiology.—Resentment, born of weakness, harmful to no one more than to the weak person himself—in the other case, where a rich nature is presupposed, an *expendable* feeling, a feeling that to remain master of is almost the proof of wealth. Whoever knows the earnestness with which my philosophy has taken up the struggle against feelings of revenge and rancor, right into the doctrine of “free will”—the struggle against Christianity is only one particular instance of this—will understand why I bring to light here precisely my personal conduct, my *instinctive certainty* in practice. In times of decadence I *forbade* myself those feelings as harmful; as soon as life was again rich and proud enough for them, I forbade them as *beneath* me. That “Russian fatalism” of which I spoke showed itself in me in my clinging tenaciously for years to almost unbearable situations, places, lodgings, and company, once chance had provided them—it was better than changing them, than *feeling* them to be changeable—than rebelling against them… To be disturbed in this fatalism, to be violently awakened, I took as a mortal offense at the time—in truth, it was mortally dangerous each time as well.—To accept oneself like a destiny, not to wish oneself “different”—in such conditions that is *great wisdom* itself.

[7]

War is another matter. By nature I am warlike. To attack belongs among my instincts. To be *able* to be an enemy, to be an enemy—this perhaps presupposes a strong nature; in any case it is a condition of every strong nature. It needs resistance, consequently it *seeks* resistance: the *aggressive* passion belongs as necessarily to strength as the feelings of revenge and rancor belong to weakness. Woman, for instance, is vengeful: this is conditioned by her weakness, as is her susceptibility to the distress of others.—The strength of an attacker has a kind of *measure* in the opposition he needs; every growth betrays itself in seeking a mightier opponent—or problem: for a warlike philosopher also challenges problems to a duel. The task is *not* to become master over resistance in general, but over opponents against whom one must bring all one's strength, agility, and mastery of weapons—over *equal* opponents… Equality before the enemy—the first prerequisite for an *honorable* duel. Where one despises, one *cannot* wage war; where one commands, where one sees something *beneath* oneself, one *must not* wage war.—My practice in war can be summed up in four propositions. First: I attack only causes that are victorious—under some circumstances I wait until they are victorious. Second: I attack only causes against which I would find no allies, where I stand alone—where I compromise myself alone… I have never taken a public step that did not compromise me: that is *my* criterion of right action. Third: I never attack persons—I use a person only as a powerful magnifying glass with which to make visible a general but insidious and elusive state of distress. Thus I attacked David Strauss—or more precisely, the *success* of a senile book among German “culture”—I caught that culture in the act… Thus I attacked Wagner—or more precisely, the falseness, the hybridity of instinct in our “culture,” which confuses the sophisticated with the rich, the latecomers with the great. Fourth: I attack only things where every personal difference is excluded, where every background of bad experiences is absent. On the contrary, attacking is with me a proof of goodwill, sometimes of gratitude. I honor, I distinguish, by linking my name with that of a cause, a person: whether for or against makes no difference to me. If I wage war on Christianity, I have the right to do so because I have experienced no misfortunes or hindrances from that quarter—the most earnest Christians have always been well disposed toward me. I myself, an opponent of Christianity as a matter of obligation, am far from holding against an individual what is the doom of millennia.—

[8]

May I dare to suggest one final trait in my nature that causes me no small difficulty in dealings with people? I possess an utterly uncanny sensitivity in the instinct for cleanliness, so that I perceive physiologically—*smell*—the proximity, or what am I saying, the innermost being, the “entrails” of every soul… In this sensitivity I have psychological antennae with which I touch and grasp every secret: the great quantity of *hidden* filth at the bottom of many a nature, perhaps conditioned by bad blood but whitewashed by upbringing, becomes apparent to me almost at the first contact. If I have observed correctly, such natures, intolerable to my cleanliness, also sense the caution of my disgust: they become no more fragrant for that… Just as I have always been accustomed—an extreme honesty with myself is the condition of my existence; under unclean conditions I perish—I am, as it were, perpetually swimming, bathing, and splashing in water, in some perfectly transparent and shining element. That makes dealing with people no small trial of patience for me; my humanity consists *not* in sharing the feeling of what a human being is, but in *enduring* the fact that I share that feeling… My humanity is a constant self-overcoming.—But I need *solitude*, which is to say recovery, return to myself, the breath of a free, light, playful air… My whole Zarathustra is a dithyramb on solitude, or, if I have been understood, on *purity*… Fortunately, not on *pure folly*… Whoever has eyes for colors will call it diamond-like.—*Disgust* at human beings, at the “rabble,” was always my greatest danger… Will you hear the words in which Zarathustra speaks of *redemption* from disgust?

“What happened to me? How did I redeem myself from disgust?

Who rejuvenated my eye? How did I fly to the height where no rabble sits beside the well?

Did my disgust itself create wings for me and powers to divine springs? Truly, I had to fly to the highest to find the wellspring of delight again!—

Oh, I found it, my brothers! Here in the highest the wellspring of delight gushes for me! And there is a life from which no rabble drinks!

Almost too violently you flow for me, wellspring of delight! And often you empty the cup again by wanting to fill it.

And I must still learn to approach you more modestly: all too violently my heart still streams toward you:

—my heart, on which my summer burns, that short, hot, melancholy, overblessed summer: how my summer-heart longs for your coolness!

Gone is the hesitant affliction of my spring! Gone are the snowflakes of my malice in June! Wholly summer I became, and summer noon—

—a summer in the highest, with cold springs and blissful stillness: oh, come, my friends, that the stillness may grow more blissful still!

For this is *our* height and our home: too high and steep we dwell here for all the unclean and their thirst.

Cast only your pure eyes into the wellspring of my delight, my friends! How could it grow clouded by that? With *its own* purity it shall laugh back at you.

On the tree of the future we build our nest; eagles shall bring us solitary ones food in their beaks!

Truly, no food of which the unclean might partake!

They would think they were eating fire and burn their mouths.

Truly, no dwellings do we hold ready here for the unclean! An ice cave our happiness would be called by their bodies and their spirits!

And like strong winds we wish to live above them, neighbors to the eagles, neighbors to the snow, neighbors to the sun: thus live strong winds.

And like a wind I will one day blow among them and with my spirit take the breath from their spirit: thus wills my future.

Truly, a strong wind is Zarathustra to all lowlands; and this is the counsel he gives his enemies and everything that spits and spews: beware of spitting *against* the wind!…”

### Why I Am So Clever

[1]

Why do I know a little *more*? Why am I so clever at all? I have never thought about questions that are not questions—I have not squandered myself.—Genuinely *religious* difficulties, for instance, are outside my experience. It has entirely escaped me in what sense I am supposed to be “sinful.” I likewise lack a reliable criterion for what a pang of conscience is: from what one *hears* about it, a pang of conscience seems to me nothing worthy of respect… I would not want to abandon an action *after the fact*; I would prefer, as a matter of principle, to leave the bad outcome, the *consequences*, out of the question of value. When the outcome is bad, it is all too easy to lose the *right* view of what one did: a pang of conscience seems to me a kind of “*evil* eye.” To hold something in all the greater honor within oneself when it fails, *because* it failed—that is rather more in keeping with my morality.—“God,” “immortality of the soul,” “redemption,” “the beyond”: all concepts to which I have given neither attention nor time, not even as a child—perhaps I was never childish enough for that?—I know atheism neither as a conclusion nor, still less, as an event: with me it is instinctively self-evident. I am too curious, too *questioning*, too high-spirited to put up with a bludgeoning answer. God is a bludgeoning answer, an offense against the delicacy of us thinkers—at bottom, even a bludgeoning *prohibition* addressed to us: you shall not think!… A quite different question interests me, one on which the “salvation of humanity” depends more than on any theological curiosity: the question of *nutrition*. For practical use, one can formulate it like this: “How must *you*, in particular, nourish yourself to attain your maximum of strength, of vigor in the Renaissance style, of virtue free of moraline?”—My experiences here have been as bad as possible; I am astonished that I heard this question so late, learned “reason” from these experiences so late. Only the utter worthlessness of our German education—its “idealism”—goes some way toward explaining why, in precisely this matter, I was backward to the point of saintliness. This “education,” which teaches us from the outset to lose sight of *realities* in pursuit of thoroughly dubious, so-called ideal goals, “classical education,” for example—as if the attempt to unite “classical” and “German” in a single concept were not doomed from the outset! More than that, it is amusing—just imagine a “classically educated” native of Leipzig!—In fact, until my most mature years I always ate *badly*—in moral terms, “impersonally,” “selflessly,” “altruistically,” for the salvation of cooks and other fellow Christians. Through Leipzig cooking, for example, at the same time as my first study of Schopenhauer (1865), I very earnestly denied my “will to live.” To ruin one's stomach into the bargain, for the sake of inadequate nourishment—the cooking in question seemed to me to solve this problem with astonishing success. (They say that 1866 brought a change in this respect—.) But German cooking in general—what does it not have on its conscience! Soup *before* the meal (still called “in the German style” in Venetian cookbooks of the 16th century); meat boiled to exhaustion, vegetables made fatty and floury; the degeneration of flour-based dishes into paperweights! Add to this the downright bestial need to wash it all down among the old Germans—and by no means just the *old* ones—and one understands the origins of the *German spirit* too: in afflicted bowels… The German spirit is an indigestion; it cannot cope with anything.—But the *English* diet, which, compared with the German and even the French, is a kind of “return to nature,” namely to cannibalism, also runs profoundly counter to my own instinct; it seems to me to give the spirit *heavy* feet—Englishwomen's feet… The best cooking is that of *Piedmont*.—Alcoholic drinks do me harm; one glass of wine or beer a day is quite enough to make my life a “vale of tears”—my antipodes live in Munich. Granted that I understood this rather late, I have actually *experienced* it from childhood on. As a boy I believed that drinking wine, like smoking tobacco, was at first merely a vanity of young men, and later a bad habit. Perhaps Naumburg wine bears some of the blame for this *tart* judgment. To believe that wine *cheers* people, I would have to be a Christian—that is, believe what is, for me in particular, an absurdity. Strangely enough, despite this extreme susceptibility to being put out of sorts by *small*, heavily diluted doses of alcohol, I become almost a sailor when it comes to *strong* doses. Even as a boy I had my courage in this respect. To write a long Latin treatise in a single night's vigil and then copy it out as well, my pen fired by the ambition to match my model Sallust in rigor and concision, and to pour a few grogs of the heaviest caliber over my Latin—even when I was a pupil at venerable Schulpforta, this in no way contradicted my physiology, nor perhaps Sallust's either—however much it contradicted venerable Schulpforta… Later, toward the middle of life, I did, of course, come down ever more firmly *against* any “spirituous” drink: an opponent of vegetarianism from experience, just like Richard Wagner, who converted me, I cannot urge complete abstinence from alcohol earnestly enough upon all the *more spiritual* natures. *Water* will do… I prefer places where one can draw from flowing fountains everywhere (Nice, Turin, Sils); a little glass follows me around like a dog. In wine, *truth*: it seems that here too I am at odds with the whole world over the concept of “truth”—with me the spirit hovers over the *water*… A few more pointers from my morality. A substantial meal is easier to digest than one that is too small. The first prerequisite for good digestion is that the stomach as a whole should go into action. One must *know* the size of one's stomach. For the same reason, those protracted meals that I call interrupted sacrificial feasts, the set-menu meals, are to be avoided.—No eating between meals, no coffee: coffee darkens the spirits. *Tea* is beneficial only in the morning. Little, but potent; tea is very harmful and leaves one ailing all day if it is even one degree too weak. Everyone has a measure here, often within the narrowest and most delicate limits. In a very irritating climate, tea is inadvisable as a start: a cup of thick, defatted cocoa should be allowed to make the start an hour beforehand.—*Sit* as little as possible; put no faith in any thought that was not born outdoors and in free movement—one in which the muscles too do not celebrate a festival. All prejudices come from the bowels.—The sedentary backside—I have said it once before—the true *sin* against the Holy Spirit.—

[2]

Closely related to the question of nutrition is the question of *place* and *climate*. No one is free to live everywhere; and someone who has great tasks to accomplish, tasks that call upon all his strength, has a very narrow choice indeed. The influence of climate on *metabolism*, its slowing or speeding up, reaches so far that a mistake in place and climate can not only estrange someone from his task but withhold it from him altogether: he never catches sight of it. His animal vigor has never grown great enough to attain that freedom which overflows into the most spiritual sphere, where someone recognizes: I alone can do *this*… The slightest sluggishness of the bowels, once it has become a bad habit, is quite enough to turn a genius into something mediocre, something “German”; the German climate alone is sufficient to discourage even strong and heroically constituted bowels. The tempo of metabolism stands in an exact relation to the mobility or lameness of the spirit's *feet*; the “spirit” itself is, after all, only a form of this metabolism. Assemble the places where there are and have been people of spirit, where wit, refinement, malice have been part of happiness, where genius has almost inevitably made itself at home: they all have exceptionally dry air. Paris, Provence, Florence, Jerusalem, Athens—these names prove something: genius is *conditioned* by dry air, by clear skies—that is, by rapid metabolism, by the possibility of continually replenishing great, even tremendous quantities of strength. I have a case in mind in which a spirit endowed for greatness and freedom became narrow, withdrawn, a specialist and a sourpuss, simply through a lack of instinctive subtlety in matters of climate. And I myself could ultimately have become such a case, had illness not forced me to see reason, to reflect on the reason inherent in reality. Now that long practice has taught me to read the effects of climate and weather in myself as on a very fine and reliable instrument, and even on a short journey, say from Turin to Milan, I register physiologically the change in degrees of humidity, I think with horror of the *uncanny* fact that, apart from the last 10 years, the years of mortal danger, my life has always been spent in the wrong places, places downright *forbidden* to me. Naumburg, Schulpforta, Thuringia in general, Leipzig, Basel, Venice—so many places of disaster for my physiology. If I have no welcome memory at all of my entire childhood and youth, it would be foolish to invoke so-called “moral” causes here—for example, the undeniable lack of *adequate* company: for that lack persists today as it always has, without preventing me from being cheerful and brave. Rather, ignorance in matters of physiology—the accursed “idealism”—is the true calamity in my life, its superfluous and stupid element, something from which no good has grown, for which there is no compensation, no counterbalance. The consequences of this “idealism” explain to me all the mistakes, all the great instinctual aberrations and “modesties” that led me away from the *task* of my life: that I became a philologist, for example—why not at least a physician, or something else that opens one's eyes? In my Basel years my whole spiritual diet, including the division of my day, was a completely senseless misuse of exceptional powers, without any supply of strength remotely sufficient to cover the expenditure, without even a thought for expenditure and replenishment. Every finer sense of self was lacking, every *safeguard* of a commanding instinct; it was a putting oneself on a level with just anyone, a “selflessness,” a forgetting of one's distance—something I never forgive myself. When I was almost at the end, *because* I was almost at the end, I began to reflect on this fundamental unreason of my life—“idealism.” Only *illness* brought me to reason.—

[3]

The choice of food; the choice of climate and place—the third thing in which one must make no mistake at any price is the choice of *one's own* kind of *recreation*. Here too, depending on the degree to which a spirit is unique, the bounds of what is permissible—that is, *useful*—to it grow narrower and narrower. In my case all *reading* belongs among my recreations: consequently among the things that release me from myself, that let me stroll through other people's fields of knowledge and souls—things I no longer take seriously. Reading gives me recreation precisely from *my* seriousness. In times of deep work one sees no books around me: I would take care not to let anyone speak, let alone think, in my presence. And that, after all, would be reading… Has anyone actually observed that, in that deep tension to which pregnancy condemns the spirit and, at bottom, the whole organism, chance, every kind of stimulus from outside, acts too violently, “strikes home” too deeply? One must avoid chance, stimuli from outside, as much as possible; a kind of walling oneself in is among the first acts of instinctive wisdom in spiritual pregnancy. Shall I allow an *alien* thought to climb secretly over the wall?—And that, after all, would be reading… The time of work and fruitfulness is followed by the time of recreation: come along, you pleasant, you spirited, you clever books!—Will they be German books?… I have to count back half a year to catch myself with a book in my hand. What was it again?—An excellent study by Victor Brochard, les Sceptiques Grecs, in which good use is also made of my Laertiana. The skeptics, the only *honorable* type among that tribe of philosophers with their two to five layers of ambiguity!… Otherwise I almost always take refuge in the same books, a small number at bottom, the books *proven* for me in particular. Perhaps it is not in my nature to read much or widely: a reading room makes me ill. Nor is it in my nature to love much or widely. Caution, even hostility toward new books, belongs to my instinct rather more than “tolerance,” “generosity of heart,” and other forms of “love of one's neighbor”… It is to a small number of older French writers that I keep returning: I believe only in French culture and regard everything else in Europe that calls itself “culture” as a misunderstanding, not to speak of German culture… The few instances of high culture I found in Germany were all of French origin, above all Mrs. Cosima Wagner, by far the foremost voice in matters of taste that I have heard.—That I do not read Pascal but *love* him, as Christianity's most instructive victim, slowly murdered, first bodily, then psychologically, the whole logic of this most horrifying form of inhuman cruelty; that I have something of Montaigne's mischievous exuberance in my spirit—who knows? perhaps in my body too; that my artist's taste defends the names Molière, Corneille, and Racine, not without fury at a savage genius like Shakespeare: all this does not, in the end, prevent even the very latest French writers from being charming company for me. I simply cannot see in what century of history one could fish out a collection of psychologists as curious and at the same time as delicate as those in present-day Paris: I name, by way of example—for their number is by no means small—the gentlemen Paul Bourget, Pierre Loti, Gyp, Meilhac, Anatole France, Jules Lemaître, or, to single out one of the strong race, a true Latin for whom I have a particular fondness, Guy de Maupassant. Between ourselves, I prefer *this* generation even to their great teachers, who have all been spoiled by German philosophy (Mr. Taine, for example, by Hegel, to whom he owes his misunderstanding of great people and ages). Wherever Germany reaches, it *spoils* culture. Only the war “redeemed” the spirit in France… Stendhal, one of the loveliest accidents of my life—for everything that marks an epoch in it has come to me by chance, never by recommendation—is quite priceless with his anticipatory psychologist's eye, with his grasp of facts that recalls the proximity of the greatest man of fact (from the claw, Napoleon—); finally, not least as an *honest* atheist—a scarce and scarcely discoverable species in France, with all due respect to Prosper Mérimée… Perhaps I am even jealous of Stendhal? He took from me the best atheist's joke, the one that I above all could have made: “God's only excuse is that he does not exist”… I myself have said somewhere: what has been the greatest objection to existence so far? *God*…

[4]

*Heinrich Heine* gave me my highest conception of the lyric poet. I search in vain through all the realms of the millennia for music as sweet and passionate. He possessed that divine malice without which I cannot conceive of perfection—I assess the value of people, of races, by how essential they find it to understand the god as inseparable from the satyr.—And how he handles German! One day it will be said that Heine and I were by far the foremost artists of the German language—at an incalculable distance from everything mere Germans have done with it.—I must be deeply related to *Byron's* Manfred: I found all these abysses within me—at thirteen I was ripe for this work. I have no word, only a look, for those who dare utter the word Faust in the presence of Manfred. The Germans are *incapable* of any conception of greatness: Schumann is the proof. In fury at this saccharine Saxon, I expressly composed a counter-overture to Manfred, of which Hans von Bülow said that he had never seen anything like it on music paper: it was the rape of Euterpe.—When I seek my highest formula for *Shakespeare*, I find only this: he conceived the type of Caesar. One does not divine such a thing—one is it or one is not. The great poet draws *only* from his own reality—to the point where afterward he can no longer bear his work… When I have glanced into my Zarathustra, I pace up and down the room for half an hour, unable to master an unbearable spasm of sobbing.—I know no reading more heartrending than Shakespeare: what must a person have suffered to have such a need to be a buffoon!—Does one *understand* Hamlet? Not doubt, but *certainty* is what drives one mad… But one must be deep, an abyss, a philosopher, to feel this way… We are all afraid of the truth… And, let me confess it: I am instinctively sure and certain that Lord Bacon is the author—the torturer of his own animal self—of this uncanniest kind of literature: what do *I* care about the pitiable chatter of American muddleheads and shallow minds? But the power to achieve the mightiest reality of vision is not merely compatible with the mightiest power for action, for monstrous action, for crime—*it actually presupposes it*… We know far too little about Lord Bacon, the first realist in every great sense of the word, to know all that he did, what he wanted, what he experienced within himself… And to the devil with you, gentlemen critics! Suppose I had christened my Zarathustra with someone else's name, Richard Wagner's, for example: the acumen of two millennia would not have sufficed to guess that the author of “Human, All Too Human” is the visionary of Zarathustra…

[5]

Here, where I speak of the recreations of my life, I need a word to express my gratitude for what has given me by far the deepest and most heartfelt recreation in it. This was, without any doubt, my more intimate association with Richard Wagner. I set little store by the rest of my human relationships; at no price would I give up the days at Tribschen from my life, days of trust, of cheerfulness, of sublime accidents—of *deep* moments… I do not know what others experienced with Wagner: no cloud ever passed across *our* sky.—And this brings me back once more to France—I have no arguments, only a contemptuous curl of the lip left for Wagnerians and all their kind who believe they honor Wagner by finding him like *themselves*… Being as I am, in my deepest instincts a stranger to everything German, so that the mere proximity of a German slows my digestion, my first contact with Wagner was also the first time in my life I could breathe freely: I felt and revered him as a *foreign land*, as an opposite, as a living protest against all “German virtues.”—We who were children in the swamp air of the fifties are necessarily pessimists about the concept “German”; we cannot be anything but revolutionaries—we will admit no state of affairs in which the sanctimonious hypocrite has the upper hand. It is entirely indifferent to me whether today he changes his colors, dresses in scarlet and puts on hussar uniforms… Well then! Wagner was a revolutionary—he ran away from the Germans… As an *artist*, one has no home in Europe except Paris; the delicacy in all five artistic senses that Wagner's art presupposes, the fingers sensitive to nuance, the psychological morbidity, are found only in Paris. Nowhere else is there this passion in questions of form, this seriousness about staging—it is the quintessential Parisian seriousness. In Germany there is no conception at all of the tremendous ambition that lives in the soul of a Parisian artist. The German is good-natured—Wagner was anything but good-natured… But I have already said enough (in “Beyond Good and Evil,” S. 256f.) about where Wagner belongs, where he has his closest kin: it is French late Romanticism, that high-flying and uplifting kind of artist such as Delacroix, such as Berlioz, with a foundation of sickness, of incurability in their nature, all fanatics of *expression*, virtuosos through and through… Who was Wagner's first *intelligent* follower at all? Charles Baudelaire, the same man who first understood Delacroix, that typical decadent in whom a whole generation of artists recognized itself—perhaps he was also the last… What have I never forgiven Wagner? That he *condescended* to the Germans—that he became a German of the Reich… Wherever Germany reaches, it *spoils* culture.—

[6]

All things considered, I could not have endured my youth without Wagner's music. For I was *condemned* to Germans. When one wants to escape an unbearable pressure, one needs hashish. Well then, I needed Wagner. Wagner is the supreme antidote to everything German—poison, I do not deny it… From the moment there was a piano score of Tristan—my compliments, Mr. von Bülow!—I was a Wagnerian. I saw Wagner's earlier works as beneath me—still too vulgar, too “German”… But to this day I seek a work of equally dangerous fascination, of an infinity as terrifying and sweet as Tristan's—I seek in vain through all the arts. All the strangeness of Lionardo da Vinci is stripped of its magic at the first note of Tristan. This work is unquestionably Wagner's unsurpassed achievement; he recovered from it with the Meistersinger and the Ring. To grow healthier—that is a *regression* in a nature like Wagner's… I count it a piece of good fortune of the first rank to have lived at the right time, and precisely among Germans, so as to be *ripe* for this work: that is how far the psychologist's curiosity goes in me. The world is poor for anyone who has never been sick enough for this “voluptuous bliss of hell”: one is permitted, almost obliged, to use a mystic's formula here.—I think I know better than anyone the tremendous things Wagner can do, the fifty worlds of unfamiliar rapture for which no one but he had wings; and being as I am, strong enough to turn even the most questionable and dangerous things to my advantage and grow stronger through them, I call Wagner the great benefactor of my life. What makes us akin—that we have suffered more deeply, even from one another, than people of this century could suffer—will forever bring our names together again; and as surely as Wagner among Germans is nothing but a misunderstanding, so surely am I one and will always remain one.—Two centuries of psychological and artistic discipline *first*, my Germanic gentlemen!… But that cannot be made up for.—

[7]

One more word for the most discerning ears: what I actually want from music. That it be cheerful and deep, like an afternoon in October. That it be distinctive, exuberant, tender, a sweet little woman of malice and grace… I will never allow that a German *could* know what music is. Those called German musicians, the greatest above all, are *foreigners*, Slavs, Croats, Italians, Netherlanders—or Jews; otherwise, Germans of the strong race, *extinct* Germans, like Heinrich Schütz, Bach, and Handel. I myself am still Pole enough to give up the rest of music for Chopin: for three reasons I make an exception for Wagner's Siegfried-Idyll, perhaps also for a few things by Liszt, who has the noble orchestral accents beyond all other musicians; finally, for everything that has grown beyond the Alps—on *this* side… I could not do without Rossini, still less without *my* South in music, the music of my Venetian maestro Pietro Gasti. And when I say beyond the Alps, I really mean only Venice. When I seek another word for music, I find only the word Venice. I cannot distinguish tears from music—I cannot think of happiness, of the *South*, without a shudder of apprehension.

By the bridge I stood
lately in the brown night.
From afar came singing;
in golden drops it welled
over the trembling surface.
Gondolas, lights, music—
drunkenly it floated out into dusk…

My soul, a stringed instrument,
sang to itself, invisibly touched,
a gondola song with it in secret,
trembling with many-colored bliss.
—Was anyone listening to it?…

[8]

In all this—in the choice of food, of place and climate, of recreation—an instinct of self-preservation commands, expressing itself most unequivocally as an instinct of *self-defense*. Not to see many things, not to hear them, not to let them approach one—the first act of wisdom, the first proof that one is not an accident but a necessity. The common word for this instinct of self-defense is *taste*. Its imperative commands not only that one say No where Yes would be a “selflessness,” but also that one *say No as little as possible*. To separate oneself, to part from whatever would make a No necessary again and again. The reason for this is that defensive expenditures, however small, when they become the rule, the habit, bring about an extraordinary and wholly unnecessary impoverishment. Our *great* expenditures are the small ones we make most often. Warding off, not letting things approach, is an expenditure—let us not deceive ourselves about this—a strength *squandered* on negative purposes. Merely through the constant need for defense, one can become too weak to defend oneself any longer.—Suppose I stepped out of my house and found, instead of quiet, aristocratic Turin, the German small town: my instinct would have to bar the way, to repel everything assailing it from this flattened and cowardly world. Or I might find the German metropolis, this vice made architecture, where nothing grows, where every single thing, good and bad, has been dragged in. Would I not have to become a *hedgehog*?—But to have spines is a waste, a double luxury indeed, when one is free to have no spines but open hands…

Another act of wisdom and self-defense consists in *reacting as seldom as possible* and withdrawing from situations and conditions in which one would be condemned, as it were, to hang up one's “freedom,” one's initiative, and become a mere reagent. I take dealings with books as an illustration. The scholar who at bottom does nothing but “pore over” books—the philologist, at a modest estimate, some 200 a day—eventually loses the capacity to think for himself altogether. If he is not poring, he is not thinking. He *responds* to a stimulus (—a thought he has read) when he thinks—in the end he merely reacts. The scholar spends all his strength in saying Yes and No, in criticizing what has already been thought—he himself no longer thinks… His instinct of self-defense has become brittle; otherwise he would defend himself against books. The scholar—a decadent.—I have seen it with my own eyes: gifted natures, richly and freely endowed, already in their thirties “read to ruin,” mere matches that must be struck to give off sparks—“thoughts.”—Early in the morning, at daybreak, in all one's freshness, in the dawn of one's strength, to read *a book*—that is what I call vicious!—

[9]

At this point it can no longer be avoided: I must give the real answer to the question of *how one becomes what one is*. And with that I touch upon the masterstroke in the art of self-preservation—of *selfishness*… Suppose, namely, that the task, the calling, the *destiny* of the task lies far beyond the average measure: then no danger would be greater than catching sight of oneself *with* this task. Becoming what one is presupposes that one has not the remotest inkling of *what* one is. From this perspective, even life's *missteps* have their own meaning and value, the temporary byways and wrong turns, the delays, the “modesties,” the seriousness squandered on tasks that lie beyond the task. Here a great wisdom, even the highest wisdom, finds expression: where “know yourself” would be a recipe for ruin, forgetting oneself, *misunderstanding* oneself, making oneself smaller, narrower, more mediocre becomes reason itself. In moral terms: love of one's neighbor, living for others and other things, *can* be the protective measure that preserves the most adamant selfhood: this is the exceptional case in which, against my rule and conviction, I take the side of the “selfless” drives: here they work in the service of *selfishness, self-discipline*.—One must keep the whole surface of consciousness—consciousness is a surface—clear of any of the great imperatives. Beware even of every grand word, every grand attitude! All are dangers that the instinct may “understand itself” too soon.—Meanwhile the organizing “idea,” the one called to rule, grows and grows in the depths—it begins to command, it slowly leads back from byways and wrong turns, it prepares *individual* qualities and capabilities that will one day prove indispensable as means to the whole—it trains all the *serving* capacities in succession before letting anything be heard of the dominant task, of “goal,” “purpose,” “meaning.”—Seen from this side, my life is simply marvelous. For the task of a *revaluation of values*, perhaps more capacities were needed than have ever dwelt together in a single individual, above all opposing capacities that must not be allowed to hinder or destroy one another. An order of rank among capacities; distance; the art of separating without making enemies; mixing nothing, “reconciling” nothing; a tremendous multiplicity that is nevertheless the opposite of chaos—this was the precondition, the long secret labor and artistry of my instinct. Its *higher guardianship* proved so strong that in no case did I even suspect what was growing within me—that all my abilities suddenly *sprang forth* one day, ripe, in their final perfection. I have no memory of ever having exerted myself—no trace of *struggle* can be found in my life; I am the opposite of a heroic nature. To “will” something, to “strive” for something, to have a “goal,” a “wish” in view—all this is outside my experience. Even at this moment I look out upon my future—a *wide* future!—as upon a smooth sea: no longing ripples over it. I do not in the least want anything to be different from what it is; I myself do not want to become different… But that is how I have always lived. I have had no wish. Someone who, after his forty-fourth year, can say that he has never exerted himself for *honors*, for *women*, for *money*!—Not that I have lacked them… Thus one day I was a university professor—I had never remotely thought of such a thing, for I was barely 24 years old. Thus, two years earlier, one day I was a philologist: in the sense that my *first* philological work, my beginning in every sense, was requested for publication by my teacher Ritschl for his “Rheinisches Museum” (*Ritschl*—I say it with reverence—the only scholar of genius I have set eyes on to this day. He possessed that pleasant corruption which distinguishes us Thuringians and with which even a German becomes likable: we prefer the back routes even in reaching the truth. With these words I would by no means wish to have underrated my fellow countryman from nearer home, the *clever* Leopold von Ranke…).

[10]

I will be asked why I have related all these small things, things indifferent by conventional judgment; I am harming myself by doing so, all the more if I am destined to stand for great tasks. Answer: these small things—nutrition, place, climate, recreation, the whole casuistry of selfishness—are more important, beyond all conception, than everything people have taken to be important until now. Here, precisely, one must begin to *relearn*. What humanity has so far seriously considered are not even realities, mere imaginings, more strictly speaking, *lies* born of the bad instincts of sick natures, harmful in the deepest sense—all the concepts “God,” “soul,” “virtue,” “sin,” “the beyond,” “truth,” “eternal life”… Yet people have sought the greatness of human nature, its “divinity,” in them… All questions of politics, of social order, of education have been falsified to their very foundations by taking the most harmful people for great people—by teaching contempt for the “small” things, meaning the fundamental concerns of life itself… If I now compare myself with those people hitherto honored as the *foremost* human beings, the difference is palpable. I do not even count these supposedly “foremost” among human beings at all—to me they are humanity's rejects, offspring of sickness and vengeful instincts: nothing but baleful, fundamentally incurable monsters who take revenge on life… I want to be their opposite: my privilege is to have the highest sensitivity to every sign of healthy instincts. There is no morbid trait in me; even in times of severe illness I have not become morbid; one searches my nature in vain for a trace of fanaticism. No one will be able to point to any moment of my life when I struck a presumptuous or grandiloquent pose. Grandiose posturing does *not* belong to greatness; anyone who needs poses at all is *false*… Beware all picturesque people!—Life has become easy for me, easiest when it demanded the hardest things of me. Anyone who saw me during the seventy days of this autumn, when, without interruption, I did nothing but things of the first rank that no one can imitate—or show me how to do—with a responsibility for all the millennia after me, will have perceived no trace of tension in me, but all the more an overflowing freshness and cheerfulness. I have never eaten with more pleasant feelings, never slept better.—I know no other way of dealing with great tasks than *play*: as a sign of greatness, this is an essential prerequisite. The slightest constraint, the gloomy face, any harsh note in the throat are all objections to a person—how much more to his work!… One must have no nerves… To *suffer* from solitude is also an objection—I have only ever suffered from “multitude”… At an absurdly early age, at seven, I already knew that no human word would ever reach me: has anyone ever seen me saddened by it?—To this day I have the same affability toward everyone; I even treat the lowliest with every distinction: in all this there is not a grain of arrogance, of secret contempt. Anyone I despise *divines* that I despise him: by my mere existence I outrage everything that has bad blood in its veins… My formula for greatness in a human being is *love of fate*: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not for all eternity. Not merely to bear what is necessary, still less to conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but to *love* it…

### Why I Write Such Good Books

[1]

I am one thing, my writings another.—Before I speak of the writings themselves, let me touch on the question of their being understood or *not* understood. I do so as casually as decency permits: for this question is not yet timely at all. I myself am not yet timely; some are born posthumously.—One day there will be a need for institutions in which people live and teach as I understand living and teaching; perhaps special chairs will even be established for the interpretation of Zarathustra. But it would utterly contradict me to expect ears *and hands for my* truths today: that people do not hear me today, that they do not know how to receive anything from me, is not merely understandable; to me it even seems right. I do not want to be mistaken for someone else—and that means not mistaking myself for someone else.—To say it again, there is little evidence of “ill will” in my life; I could scarcely recount a single case even of literary “ill will.” On the other hand, far too much of *sheer stupidity!*… It seems to me one of the rarest distinctions a person can confer upon himself to take up a book of mine—I even assume he takes off his shoes to do so, to say nothing of boots… When Dr. Heinrich von Stein once complained in all sincerity that he did not understand a word of my Zarathustra, I told him that this was as it should be: to have understood six sentences from it—that is, to have *lived* them—would raise him to a higher order of mortals than “modern” people could reach. With *this* feeling of distance, how *could* I so much as wish to be read by the “moderns” I know!—My triumph is precisely the reverse of Schopenhauer’s—I say, “I am not read; I will not be read.”—Not that I would underrate the pleasure I have several times derived from the *innocence* with which my writings have been rejected. Just this summer, at a time when my weighty, all-too-weighty literature might perhaps have thrown all the rest of literature off balance, a professor at the University of Berlin benevolently gave me to understand that I really ought to try a different form: no one read anything like this.—In the end it was not Germany but Switzerland that supplied the two extreme cases. An essay by Dr. V. Widmann in the Bund on Beyond Good and Evil, entitled “Nietzsche’s Dangerous Book,” and an overall account of my books by Mr. Karl Spitteler, likewise in the Bund, mark an extreme in my life—I take care not to say of what… The latter treated my Zarathustra, for example, as an *advanced exercise in style*, expressing the wish that I might later see to the content as well; Dr. Widmann conveyed his respect for the courage with which I strove to abolish all decent feelings.—By a small trick of chance, every sentence here was a truth turned on its head, with a consistency I admired: at bottom one had only to “revalue all values” to hit the nail on the head about me, and even remarkably well—instead of hitting my head with a nail… So let me try all the harder to explain.—In the end, no one can hear more in things, books included, than he already knows. What we have no access to through lived experience, we have no ear for. Now let us imagine an extreme case: a book speaks of nothing but experiences entirely beyond the possibility of frequent or even infrequent experience—it is the *first* language for a new range of experiences. In this case, quite simply, nothing is heard, accompanied by the acoustic illusion that where nothing is heard, *nothing is there*… This, after all, is my usual experience and, if you like, the *originality* of my experience. Whoever thought he had understood something of me had fashioned something out of me in his own image—not infrequently my opposite, an “idealist,” for example; whoever had understood nothing of me denied that I deserved any consideration at all.—The word *“overman,”* designating a type of supreme human flourishing, in contrast to “modern” people, to “good” people, to Christians and nihilists—a word that, in the mouth of Zarathustra, the *destroyer* of morality, becomes a very thought-provoking word—has almost everywhere been understood, in perfect innocence, in the sense of those values whose opposite is embodied in the figure of Zarathustra: that is, as the “idealistic” type of a higher kind of human being, half “saint,” half “genius”… Other learned cattle have suspected me of Darwinism on its account: people have even recognized in it that “hero worship” I so maliciously rejected, the cult of that great unwitting and unwilling counterfeiter, Carlyle. Anyone into whose ear I whispered that he should look for a Cesare Borgia rather than a Parsifal could not believe his ears.—I must be forgiven for having no curiosity whatever about reviews of my books, especially in newspapers. My friends and my publishers know this and do not speak to me of such things. In one particular case I once saw everything that had been perpetrated against a single book—it was Beyond Good and Evil; I could give an entertaining account of it. Would anyone believe that the Nationalzeitung—a Prussian newspaper, I should mention for my foreign readers; I myself, with your permission, read only the Journal des Débats—quite seriously contrived to understand the book as a “sign of the times,” as the genuine, authentic *Junker philosophy* for which the Kreuzzeitung merely lacked the courage?…

[2]

This was said for Germans: for everywhere else I have readers—nothing but *select* intelligences, proven characters schooled in high positions and duties; I even have genuine geniuses among my readers. In Vienna, in St. Petersburg, in Stockholm, in Copenhagen, in Paris and New York—everywhere I have been discovered: I have *not* been discovered in Europe’s flatland, Germany… And, to confess it, I take still greater pleasure in those who do not read me, people who have never heard either my name or the word philosophy; yet wherever I go, here in Turin for example, every face brightens and grows kinder at the sight of me. What has flattered me most so far is that old market women will not rest until they have picked out the sweetest of their grapes for me. One must be a philosopher *to that extent*… It is not for nothing that the Poles are called the French among the Slavs. A charming Russian woman will not mistake for an instant where I belong. I cannot manage to become solemn; at most I become embarrassed… To think German, to feel German—I can do anything, but *that* is beyond my powers… My old teacher Ritschl even maintained that I conceived my philological treatises like a Parisian novelist—absurdly gripping. In Paris itself people marvel at “all my audacities and subtleties”—the phrase is Monsieur Taine’s; I fear that even in the highest forms of the dithyramb, something of that salt is found mixed into me which never becomes stupid—“German”—wit… I cannot do otherwise. God help me! Amen.—We all know, some even from experience, what a long-eared ass is. Well then, I dare to claim that I have the smallest ears. This interests the little women more than a little—it seems to me they feel better understood by me?… I am the supreme *anti-ass*, and thus a monster of world-historical proportions—I am, in Greek and not only in Greek, the *Antichrist*…

[3]

I have some idea of my privileges as a writer; in particular cases I have also been shown how thoroughly familiarity with my writings “spoils” the taste. Other books simply become unbearable, philosophical books least bearable of all. It is a distinction beyond compare to enter this noble and delicate world—one absolutely must not be German to do so; in the end it is a distinction one must have earned. But anyone akin to me in the *height* of his willing experiences true ecstasies of learning here: for I come from heights no bird has ever reached in flight; I know abysses into which no foot has yet strayed. I have been told that it is impossible to put down a book of mine—that I even disturb a night’s rest… There is simply no prouder and at the same time more refined kind of book: here and there they attain the highest that can be attained on earth, cynicism; they must be conquered with the most delicate fingers as much as with the bravest fists. Every infirmity of soul bars one from them once and for all, even any dyspepsia: one must have no nerves, one must have a cheerful belly. It is not merely the poverty of a soul, its stuffy backroom air, that bars one, but far more the cowardice, the uncleanliness, the secret vengefulness in the bowels: a word from me drives every bad instinct into the face. Among my acquaintances I have several experimental animals through whom I bring home to myself the different, instructively different reactions to my writings. Those who want nothing to do with their content—my so-called friends, for example—become “impersonal” about them: they congratulate me on having come “so far” again—and there is progress, too, they say, in the greater cheerfulness of the tone… The thoroughly vicious “spirits,” the “beautiful souls,” those who are liars through and through, have absolutely no idea what to do with these books—and therefore see them as *beneath* them, the beautiful consistency of all “beautiful souls.” The cattle among my acquaintances—mere Germans, with your permission—give me to understand that they are not always of my opinion, but sometimes they are… I have heard this even about Zarathustra… Likewise, any “femininity” in a person, even in a man, closes the gate to me: such a person will never enter this labyrinth of audacious insights. One must never have spared oneself, one must have *hardness* among one’s habits, to be in good spirits and cheerful among nothing but hard truths. When I imagine the picture of a perfect reader, it always becomes a monster of courage and curiosity, with something supple, cunning, cautious besides, a born adventurer and discoverer. Finally: I could find no better way of saying to whom alone I speak, at bottom, than Zarathustra’s way: to *whom* alone does he want to tell his riddle?

“To you, bold seekers, tempters, and whoever has ever embarked with cunning sails upon terrible seas—
to you, drunk with riddles, glad of twilight, whose soul is lured by flutes into every treacherous abyss:
—for you do not want to grope along a thread with a cowardly hand; and where you can *divine*, you hate to *deduce*…”

[4]

Let me also say a general word about my *art of style*. To *communicate* a state, an inner tension of feeling, through signs, including the tempo of these signs—that is the meaning of every style; and since the multiplicity of inner states in me is extraordinary, I have many possibilities of style—the most multifarious art of style that any human being has ever commanded. Every style is *good* that truly communicates an inner state, that makes no mistake about the signs, about the tempo of the signs, about the *gestures*—all the laws of the periodic sentence are an art of gesture. Here my instinct is infallible.—Good style *in itself*—sheer stupidity, mere “idealism”: like the “beautiful *in itself*,” the “good *in itself*,” the “thing *in itself*”… Always assuming that there are ears—that there are people capable and worthy of the same feeling, that those to whom one *may* communicate oneself are not lacking.—My Zarathustra, for example, is still looking for such people—ah, he will have to keep looking for a long time!—One must be *worthy* of hearing him… And until then there will be no one who comprehends the *art* lavished here: no one has ever had so many new, unheard-of artistic means to lavish, means truly created for the first time for this purpose. That anything like this was possible in the German language of all languages remained to be proved: I myself would previously have been the most vehement in denying it. Before me, no one knows what can be done with the German language—what can be done with language at all. The art of the *great* rhythm, the *grand style* of the periodic sentence, expressing a tremendous rise and fall of sublime, of superhuman passion, was first discovered by me; with a dithyramb like the last in the *third* Zarathustra, entitled “The Seven Seals,” I flew a thousand miles beyond what had been called poetry until then.

[5]

That a *psychologist* without equal speaks from my writings is perhaps the first insight a good reader reaches—a reader such as I deserve, who reads me as good old philologists read their Horace. The propositions on which basically everyone agrees—not to mention the commonplace philosophers, moralists, and other empty pots and cabbage heads—appear in my work as naïve blunders: for example, the belief that “unegoistic” and “egoistic” are opposites, when the ego itself is merely a “higher swindle,” an “ideal”… There are *neither* egoistic *nor* unegoistic actions: both concepts are psychological nonsense. Or the proposition “man strives for happiness”… Or the proposition “happiness is the reward of virtue”… Or the proposition “pleasure and displeasure are opposites”… Morality, humanity’s Circe, has falsified everything psychological through and through—*moralized* it—right down to the appalling nonsense that love is supposed to be something “unegoistic”… One must be firmly settled in *oneself*, one must stand bravely on one’s own two legs, or one *cannot* love at all. The little women, after all, know this only too well: they do not give a damn for selfless, merely objective men… May I venture the conjecture, in passing, that I *know* the little women? That belongs to my Dionysian dowry. Who knows? Perhaps I am the first psychologist of the Eternal Feminine. They all love me—an old story: except for the *ill-constituted* little women, the “emancipated,” who lack the capacity to bear children.—Fortunately I have no intention of letting myself be torn apart: the perfect woman tears apart when she loves… I know these lovable maenads… Ah, what a dangerous, stealthy, subterranean little beast of prey! And so pleasant with it!… A little woman running after her revenge would run down fate itself.—Woman is unspeakably more evil than man, and cleverer too; goodness in a woman is already a form of *degeneration*… In all so-called “beautiful souls” there is a physiological disorder at bottom—I do not say everything, or I would become medicynical. The struggle for *equal* rights is itself a symptom of sickness: every physician knows that.—The more woman a woman is, the more she fights tooth and nail against rights of any kind: the natural state, the eternal *war* between the sexes, gives her by far the foremost rank.—Have people had ears for my definition of love? It is the only one worthy of a philosopher. Love—war in its means, the deadly hatred of the sexes at its core.—Have people heard my answer to the question of how to *cure* a woman—“redeem” her? Make her pregnant. Woman needs children, man is always merely a means: thus spoke Zarathustra.—“The emancipation of woman”—that is the instinctive hatred of the *ill-constituted* woman, that is, the woman unfit to bear children, for the well-constituted woman—the struggle against “man” is always merely a means, a pretext, a tactic. By raising *themselves* up as “woman in herself,” as the “higher woman,” as a female “idealist,” they want to bring *down* the general level of woman’s rank; there is no surer means of doing so than a university-preparatory education, trousers, and political rights as voting cattle. At bottom, the emancipated are the *anarchists* in the world of the “Eternal Feminine,” those who have come off badly, whose deepest instinct is revenge… A whole species of the most malignant “idealism”—which also occurs in men, incidentally, for example in Henrik Ibsen, that typical old maid—aims to *poison* the good conscience, the naturalness of sexual love… And to leave no doubt about my attitude in this matter, as honorable as it is strict, I will give one more proposition from my moral code against *vice*: with the word vice I combat every kind of unnaturalness—or, if one loves fine words, idealism. The proposition runs: “The preaching of chastity is a public incitement to unnaturalness. Every contempt for sexual life, every defilement of it through the concept ‘unclean,’ is the crime against life itself—is the true sin against the holy spirit of life.”—

[6]

To give an idea of myself as a psychologist, I take a curious piece of psychology that occurs in Beyond Good and Evil—I forbid, incidentally, any conjecture about whom I am describing in this passage. “The genius of the heart, such as that great hidden one possesses, the tempter-god and born pied piper of consciences, whose voice knows how to descend into the underworld of every soul, who speaks not a word, casts not a glance, without some careful thought and subtle twist of enticement within it, whose mastery includes knowing how to appear—and not as what he is, but as what offers those who follow him *one more* compulsion to press ever closer to him, to follow him ever more inwardly and thoroughly… The genius of the heart, which silences everything loud and self-satisfied and teaches it to listen, which smooths rough souls and gives them a new longing to taste: to lie still like a mirror, so that the deep sky may be reflected upon them… The genius of the heart, which teaches the clumsy and overhasty hand to hesitate and grasp more delicately; which divines the hidden and forgotten treasure, the drop of goodness and sweet spirituality beneath murky, thick ice, and is a divining rod for every grain of gold long buried in a dungeon of mud and sand… The genius of the heart, from whose touch everyone goes away richer, not favored by grace and surprised, not gladdened and burdened as though by another’s goods, but richer in himself, newer to himself than before, broken open, breathed upon and sounded out by a thawing wind, perhaps more uncertain, tenderer, more fragile, more broken, but full of hopes that have no name as yet, full of new will and surging, full of new discontent and ebbing…”

### The Birth of Tragedy

[1]

To do justice to The Birth of Tragedy (1872), one will have to forget a few things. It *made its impact*, and even fascinated, through what was mistaken in it—through its application to *Wagnerism*, as though that were a symptom of *ascent*. For that very reason, this work was an event in Wagner’s life: only from then on were great hopes attached to the name Wagner. Even today I am reminded of this, sometimes in the middle of Parsifal: how it is really *I* who bear the responsibility for so lofty an opinion of this movement’s *cultural value* having gained the upper hand.—I have several times found the work cited as “The *Re*birth of Tragedy out of the Spirit of Music”: people had ears only for a new formula for *Wagner’s* art, intention, task—and in the process failed to hear what was fundamentally valuable in the work. “The Greeks and Pessimism”: that would have been a less ambiguous title—as the first instruction in how the Greeks dealt with pessimism, by what means they *overcame* it… Tragedy itself is the proof that the Greeks were *not* pessimists: Schopenhauer went wrong here, as he went wrong in everything.—Taken up with some neutrality, The Birth of Tragedy looks very untimely: one would never dream that it was *begun* amid the thunder of the Battle of Wörth. I thought these problems through before the walls of Metz, on cold September nights, while tending the sick; one might sooner believe the work was fifty years older. It is politically indifferent—“un-German,” people would say today—it smells offensively Hegelian; only in a few formulas does Schopenhauer’s undertaker perfume cling to it. An “idea”—the opposition between Dionysian and Apollonian—translated into metaphysics; history itself as the unfolding of this “idea”; in tragedy, the opposition sublated into unity; seen through this lens, things that had never before looked each other in the face suddenly set opposite one another, illuminated and *comprehended* through one another… Opera, for example, and the Revolution… The book’s two decisive *innovations* are, first, its understanding of the *Dionysian* phenomenon among the Greeks—it gives the first psychology of that phenomenon, it sees in it the one root of all Greek art. The other is its understanding of Socratism: Socrates recognized for the first time as an instrument of Greek dissolution, as a typical decadent. “Rationality” *against* instinct. “Rationality” at any price as a dangerous force, a force undermining life!—A deep, hostile silence about Christianity throughout the book: it is neither Apollonian nor Dionysian; it *negates* all *aesthetic* values—the only values The Birth of Tragedy recognizes: it is nihilistic in the deepest sense, while in the Dionysian symbol the furthest limit of *affirmation* is reached. Once, Christian priests are alluded to as a “treacherous breed of dwarfs,” of “underground creatures”…

[2]

This beginning is remarkable beyond measure. I had *discovered* the only image and parallel history offers for my innermost experience—and in doing so had become the first to comprehend the marvelous phenomenon of the Dionysian. Likewise, my recognition of Socrates as a decadent furnished wholly unambiguous proof of how little the sureness of my psychological grasp would be endangered by any moral idiosyncrasy: morality itself as a symptom of decadence is an innovation, a singular achievement of the first rank in the history of knowledge. How high I had leaped, with both these insights, above the pitiful, shallow-headed chatter about optimism versus pessimism!—I was the first to see the true opposition: the *degenerating* instinct, which turns against life with subterranean vengefulness—with Christianity, Schopenhauer’s philosophy, in a certain sense even Plato’s philosophy, all idealism as typical forms—and a formula of *supreme affirmation* born of fullness, of overfullness, an unreserved yes even to suffering, even to guilt, even to everything questionable and strange in existence… This ultimate, most joyful, exuberantly high-spirited yes to life is not only the highest insight; it is also the *deepest*, the insight most rigorously confirmed and sustained by truth and science. Nothing that exists is to be discounted, nothing is dispensable—the sides of existence rejected by Christians and other nihilists are even of an infinitely higher order in the hierarchy of values than what the instinct of decadence was permitted to approve, to *call good*. To comprehend this requires *courage* and, as its condition, a surplus of *strength*: for precisely as far as courage *may* venture forward, precisely in proportion to one’s strength, one approaches truth. Knowledge, saying yes to reality, is as much a necessity for the strong as cowardice and *flight* from reality—the “ideal”—are for the weak, under the inspiration of weakness… They are not free to know: decadents *need* the lie—it is one of the conditions of their preservation.—Anyone who not only comprehends the word “Dionysian” but comprehends *himself* in the word “Dionysian” has no need to refute Plato or Christianity or Schopenhauer—he *smells the decay*…

[3]

To what extent I had thereby found the concept “tragic,” the definitive knowledge of what the psychology of tragedy is, I most recently expressed in *Twilight of the Idols*, page 139: “Saying yes to life even in its strangest and hardest problems; the will to life rejoicing in its own inexhaustibility through the *sacrifice* of its highest types—*that* is what I called Dionysian, that is what I understood as the bridge to the psychology of the *tragic* poet. *Not* to be rid of terror and pity, not to purge oneself of a dangerous emotion through a violent discharge—as Aristotle misunderstood it—but, beyond terror and pity, *to be, oneself,* the eternal joy of becoming—that joy which also encompasses the *joy in destruction*…” In this sense I have the right to understand myself as the first *tragic philosopher*—that is, the utmost opposite and antipode of a pessimistic philosopher. Before me there is no such translation of the Dionysian into a philosophical passion: *tragic wisdom* is missing—I have looked in vain for signs of it even among the *great* Greek philosophers, those of the two centuries *before* Socrates. A doubt remained in the case of *Heraclitus*, in whose proximity I feel altogether warmer, more at ease than anywhere else. The affirmation of passing away *and destroying*, the decisive element in a Dionysian philosophy, saying yes to opposition and war, *becoming*, with a radical rejection even of the concept of “*being*”—in this I must in any event recognize what is closest to me of all that has been thought so far. The doctrine of “eternal recurrence,” that is, of the unconditional and infinitely repeated cycle of all things—this doctrine of Zarathustra’s *could*, after all, have been taught before. At least the Stoa, which inherited almost all its fundamental ideas from Heraclitus, bears traces of it.—

[4]

An immense hope speaks from this work. In the end, I have no reason whatever to withdraw my hope for a Dionysian future of music. Let us look a century ahead; let us suppose that my assault on two millennia of unnaturalness and desecration of humanity succeeds. That new party of life, which takes in hand the greatest of all tasks, the breeding of humanity to a higher level, including the merciless destruction of everything degenerating and parasitic, will again make possible on earth that *excess of life* from which the Dionysian state must also grow anew. I promise a *tragic* age: the highest art of saying yes to life, tragedy, will be reborn when humanity has behind it the consciousness of the hardest but most necessary wars, *without suffering from it*… A psychologist might add that what I heard in Wagnerian music in my youth had nothing whatever to do with Wagner; that when I described Dionysian music I was describing what *I* had heard—that I instinctively had to translate and transfigure everything into the new spirit I carried within me. The proof, *as strong as any proof can be*, is my work “Wagner in Bayreuth”: at every psychologically decisive point it speaks only of me—one may unhesitatingly put my name or the word “Zarathustra” wherever the text gives the word Wagner. The whole portrait of the *dithyrambic* artist is the portrait of the *preexistent* poet of Zarathustra, drawn with abysmal depth and without for a moment so much as touching Wagner’s reality. Wagner himself had some inkling of this; he did not recognize himself in the work.—Likewise, “the idea of Bayreuth” had been transformed into something that will be no riddle to those who know my Zarathustra: into that *great noon* when the most select consecrate themselves to the greatest of all tasks—who knows? The vision of a festival I shall yet live to see… The passion of the first pages is world-historical; the *gaze* spoken of on the seventh page is the true Zarathustra gaze; Wagner, Bayreuth, the whole petty German wretchedness is a cloud in which an infinite mirage of the future is reflected. Even psychologically, all the decisive traits of my own nature are inscribed in Wagner’s—the brightest and most fateful forces side by side, the will to power such as no human being has ever possessed, the unsparing courage in matters of the spirit, the boundless capacity to learn without crushing the will to act. Everything in this work is prophetic: the approaching return of the Greek spirit, the need for *counter-Alexanders* to *retie* the Gordian knot of Greek culture after it had been undone… Listen to the world-historical accent with which, on page 30, the concept of a “tragic disposition” is introduced: this work is nothing but world-historical accents. This is the strangest “objectivity” there can be: absolute certainty about what I *am* projected itself onto some chance reality—the truth about me spoke from a terrifying depth. On page 71 the *style* of Zarathustra is described and anticipated with incisive assurance; and no grander expression will ever be found for the *event* of Zarathustra, the act of an immense purification and consecration of humanity, than the one found on pages 43–46.—

### The Untimely Meditations

[1]

The four *Untimely Meditations* are warlike through and through. They prove that I was no “Jack the Dreamer,” that I take pleasure in drawing my sword—perhaps also that my wrist is dangerously free. The *first* attack (1873) was directed at German education and culture, on which I already looked down with merciless contempt. Without meaning, without substance, without a goal: mere “public opinion.” There is no more pernicious misunderstanding than to believe that the Germans’ great military success proves anything in favor of this culture—or even *its* victory over France… The *second* Untimely Meditation (1874) brings to light what is dangerous, what gnaws at life and poisons it, in the way we conduct scholarship—life made *sick* by this dehumanized machinery and mechanism, by the worker’s “*im*personality,” by the false economy of the “division of labor.” The *end* is lost, culture—the means, the modern machinery of scholarship, *barbarizes*… In this essay the “historical sense,” the pride of this century, was recognized for the first time as a sickness, a typical sign of decline.—In the *third* and *fourth* Untimely Meditations, two images of the most unyielding *selfishness, self-discipline* are set against this, pointing toward a *higher* conception of culture, toward the restoration of the concept “culture”: untimely types in the highest degree, full of sovereign contempt for everything around them that went by the names “Reich,” “education,” “Christianity,” “Bismarck,” “success”—Schopenhauer and Wagner, *or*, in a word, Nietzsche…

[2]

Of these four assaults, the first had an extraordinary success. The uproar it provoked was magnificent in every sense. I had touched a victorious nation on its sore spot—that its victory was *not* an event in the history of culture, but perhaps, perhaps something quite different… The answer came from every side, and by no means only from the old friends of David Strauss, whom I had made ridiculous as the type of a German cultural philistine and self-satisfied man, in short as the author of his beer-bench gospel of “The Old Faith and the New” (the expression “cultural philistine” has remained in the language since my essay). These old friends, whom I had stabbed to the quick as Württembergers and Swabians by finding their wonder-beast, their Strauss, comical, answered as stolidly and coarsely as I could possibly have wished; the Prussian rejoinders were cleverer—they had more “Berlin blue” in them. A Leipzig paper, the notorious “Grenzboten,” produced the most indecent performance; I had difficulty keeping the indignant people of Basel from taking action. Only a few old gentlemen came out unconditionally on my side, for mixed and in part unfathomable reasons. Among them was Ewald in Göttingen, who gave it to be understood that my assault had proved fatal to Strauss. Likewise the old Hegelian Bruno Bauer, in whom, from then on, I had one of my most attentive readers. In his last years he liked to point to me, for instance by giving Mr. von Treitschke, the Prussian historiographer, a hint as to where he might find enlightenment about the concept of “culture” he had lost. The most thoughtful remarks about the essay and its author, and also the longest, came from an old pupil of the philosopher von Baader, a Professor Hoffmann in Würzburg. From the essay he foresaw a great destiny for me—to bring about a kind of crisis and supreme decision in the problem of atheism, whose most instinctive and uncompromising type he divined in me. Atheism was what led me to Schopenhauer.—By far the most widely heard and most bitterly felt response was the extraordinarily forceful and courageous advocacy of the otherwise so mild Carl Hillebrand, that last *humane* German who knew how to wield a pen. His essay was read in the “Augsburger Zeitung”; today it can be read, in a somewhat more cautious form, in his collected writings. Here my essay was presented as an event, a turning point, a first return to self-awareness, the most auspicious of signs, as a genuine *return* of German seriousness and German passion in matters of the spirit. Hillebrand paid the highest tribute to the essay’s form, its mature taste, its consummate tact in distinguishing the person from the issue: he singled it out as the best polemical essay written in German—in the art of polemic, so dangerous for Germans in particular, so ill-advised for them. Unconditionally assenting, even sharpening what I had ventured to say about the degradation of language in Germany (today they play the purists and can no longer construct a sentence), sharing my contempt for this nation’s “foremost writers,” he ended by expressing his admiration for my *courage*—that “highest courage which puts precisely a people’s favorites in the dock”… The aftereffect of this essay on my life is quite simply beyond price. No one has tried to pick a quarrel with me since. They keep silent; in Germany they treat me with a somber caution: for years I have exercised an unconditional freedom of speech for which no one today, least of all in the “Reich,” has a *hand* free enough. My paradise is “in the shadow of my sword”… At bottom I had put a maxim of Stendhal’s into practice: he advises making one’s entrance into society with a *duel*. And what an opponent I had chosen! The foremost German free spirit!… In fact, an entirely *new* kind of free-spiritedness found its first expression here: to this day nothing is more alien or less akin to me than the whole European and American species of “freethinkers.” With them, as incorrigible shallow minds and buffoons of “modern ideas,” I am in an even deeper conflict than with any of their opponents. They too, in their way, want to “improve” humanity, in their own image; they would wage an implacable war against what I am, what I *want*, if they understood it—they all still believe in the “ideal”… I am the first *immoralist*—

[3]

I would not claim that the Untimely Meditations bearing the names Schopenhauer and Wagner could do much to help anyone understand either case, or even frame its psychological questions—with exceptions in detail, of course. Thus, for example, with profound instinctive certainty, the elemental quality in Wagner’s nature is already identified here as an actor’s gift that merely carries through its implications in his means and intentions. At bottom I meant to do something quite different from psychology with these essays—an unparalleled problem of education, a new conception of *self-discipline, self-defense* to the point of hardness, a path to greatness and to tasks of world-historical significance demanded its first expression. Broadly speaking, I seized two famous types, as yet wholly undefined, by the forelock, as one seizes an opportunity, in order to say something, to have a few more formulas, signs, means of expression at hand. This is, in the end, also suggested with perfectly uncanny sagacity on S. 93 of the third Untimely Meditation. In just this way Plato used Socrates, as a language of signs for Plato.—Now that I look back from some distance on the states to which these essays bear witness, I would not deny that at bottom they speak only of me. The essay “Wagner in Bayreuth” is a vision of my future; in “Schopenhauer as Educator,” by contrast, my innermost history, my *becoming*, is inscribed. Above all, my *vow!*… *What* I am today, *where* I am today—at a height where I no longer speak with words but with lightning—oh, how far I still was from that then!—But I *saw* the land—I was not deceived for a moment about the path, the sea, the danger—*and* success! That great calm in making a promise, that happy gaze into a future that is not to remain a mere promise!—Here every word has been lived, deeply, inwardly; the most painful things are not missing; there are words in it that are positively bloodthirsty. But a wind of *great* freedom sweeps across it all; the wound itself does *not* count as an objection.—How I understand the philosopher, as a terrible explosive before which everything is in danger, how I set my concept of “philosopher” miles apart from a concept that still includes even a Kant, to say nothing of academic “ruminants” and other professors of philosophy: this essay offers an invaluable lesson on that, even granting that at bottom it is not “Schopenhauer as Educator” who speaks here, but his *opposite*, “Nietzsche as Educator.”—Considering that my trade at the time was that of a scholar, and perhaps also that I *knew* my trade, a harsh piece of the psychology of the scholar that suddenly emerges in this essay is not without significance: it expresses the *feeling of distance*, the profound certainty about what can be my *task*, and what can be merely a means, an interlude, a sideline. My wisdom lies in having been many things and in many places in order to become one thing—to arrive at one thing. For a time I *had* to be a scholar too.

### Human, All Too Human

With two sequels.

[1]

“Human, All Too Human” is the monument to a crisis. It calls itself a book for free spirits: almost every sentence in it expresses a victory—with it I freed myself from what was *foreign* to my nature. Idealism is foreign to me: the title says, “Where you see ideal things, I see—human things, alas, only all-too-human things”… I know humanity *better*… The words “free spirit” are to be understood here in no other sense: a spirit that has *become free*, that has taken possession of itself again. The tone, the sound of the voice, has changed completely: the book will be found shrewd, cool, at times harsh and mocking. A certain intellectual temper, *noble* in taste, seems constantly to hold its own above a more passionate current underneath. In this connection it makes sense that the centenary of *Voltaire’s* death is, in effect, what excuses the book’s publication as early as 1878. For Voltaire, unlike everyone who wrote after him, is above all a great aristocrat of the spirit: precisely what I am too.—The name Voltaire on a work of mine—that really was progress—*toward myself*… A closer look discovers a merciless spirit that knows every hiding place where the ideal makes its home—where it has its dungeons and, as it were, its final refuge. With a torch in hand that gives no “wavering” light at all, a cutting brightness is cast into this *underworld* of the ideal. It is war, but war without gunpowder and smoke, without warlike postures, without grand emotion and contorted limbs—all that would itself still be “idealism.” One error after another is calmly laid on ice; the ideal is not refuted—*it freezes to death*… Here, for example, “genius” freezes to death; around the next corner “the saint” freezes to death; beneath a thick icicle “the hero” freezes to death; finally “faith,” so-called “conviction,” freezes to death; “compassion” too cools off considerably—almost everywhere “the thing in itself” freezes to death…

[2]

The beginnings of this book fall squarely within the weeks of the first Bayreuth Festival; a deep estrangement from everything surrounding me there is one of its preconditions. Anyone with some idea of the visions that had already crossed my path can guess how I felt when one day I woke up in Bayreuth. Just as though I were dreaming… Where was I? I recognized nothing; I scarcely recognized Wagner. In vain I leafed through my memories. Tribschen—a distant island of the blessed: not a shadow of resemblance. Those incomparable days when the foundation stone was laid, the little company of people who *belonged* there, who celebrated them and whose touch for delicate things left nothing to be desired: not a shadow of resemblance. *What had happened?*—Wagner had been translated into German! The Wagnerian had become master of Wagner!—*German* art! The *German* master! *German* beer!… We others, who know only too well that Wagner’s art speaks only to refined artists and to a cosmopolitan taste, were beside ourselves to find Wagner hung about with German “virtues.”—I think I know the Wagnerian; I have “lived through” three generations, from the late lamented Brendel, who confused Wagner with Hegel, to the “idealists” of the Bayreuther Blätter, who confuse Wagner with themselves—I have heard every sort of confession from “beautiful souls” about Wagner. A kingdom for one intelligent word!—Truly, a hair-raising company! Nohl, Pohl, *rigmarole* with grace to infinity! Not a single monstrosity is missing, not even the anti-Semite.—Poor Wagner! Where had he ended up!—If only he had at least gone among swine! But among Germans!… In the end, for the instruction of posterity, an authentic Bayreuth devotee ought to be stuffed, or better still preserved in spirits, since spirit is what is lacking—with the caption: this is what the “spirit” looked like on whose strength the “Reich” was founded… Enough: midway through I left for a few weeks, very abruptly, despite a charming Parisian woman’s efforts to console me; I excused myself to Wagner with only a fatalistic telegram. In Klingenbrunn, a place hidden deep in the forests of the Bohemian Forest, I carried my melancholy and my contempt for Germans about with me like a sickness—*and* from time to time wrote a sentence in my pocket notebook under the general title “The Plowshare”: nothing but *hard* pieces of psychology, which may perhaps still be found in “Human, All Too Human.”

[3]

What was decided in me then was not, for instance, a break with Wagner—I sensed that my instinct had gone astray altogether, and the individual mistake, whether called Wagner or the Basel professorship, was merely a sign of it. An *impatience* with myself seized me; I realized that it was high time to call *myself* back to mind. All at once it became terribly clear to me how much time had already been wasted—how useless, how arbitrary my entire existence as a philologist looked beside my task. I was ashamed of this *false* modesty… Ten years behind me in which the *nourishment* of my spirit had, in the strictest sense, come to a standstill, in which I had learned nothing useful, in which I had forgotten an absurd amount over a jumble of dusty scholarship. To crawl through ancient writers on meter with painstaking precision and bad eyes—that was what I had come to!—I looked on myself with pity, so thin, so starved: *realities* were simply absent from my knowledge, and “idealities” were not worth a damn!—A positively burning thirst seized me: from then on I have in fact pursued nothing but physiology, medicine, and the natural sciences—even to historical studies proper I returned only when my *task* imperiously compelled me. It was then, too, that I first divined the connection between an occupation chosen against one’s instinct, a so-called “vocation” to which one is *least* of all called—and the need to *numb* the feeling of desolation and hunger with a narcotic art—for example, Wagner’s art. Looking about more carefully, I discovered that a great many young men are in the same distress: one offense against nature virtually *compels* a second. In Germany, in the “Reich,” to speak unambiguously, all too many are condemned to decide prematurely and then, beneath a burden they can no longer throw off, to *waste away*… These people crave Wagner as an *opiate*—they forget themselves, they are rid of themselves for a moment… What am I saying! *Five to six hours!*—

[4]

At that time my instinct decided inexorably against any further yielding, going along, mistaking myself. Any kind of life, the most unfavorable conditions, sickness, poverty—everything seemed preferable to that unworthy “selflessness” into which I had first fallen through ignorance, through *youth*, and in which I had later remained stuck through inertia, through a so-called “sense of duty.”—Here, in a way I cannot sufficiently admire, and just in time, that *bad* inheritance from my father came to my aid—at bottom, a predestination to an early death. Sickness *slowly disentangled me*: it spared me every rupture, every violent and offensive step. I lost no one’s goodwill then and gained much more. Sickness likewise gave me the right to a complete reversal of all my habits; it permitted, it *commanded* me to forget; it gave me the gift of being *forced* to lie still, to be idle, to wait and be patient… But that is what thinking means!… My eyes alone put an end to all bookwormishness—in plain language, philology: I was delivered from the “book”; for years I read nothing—the *greatest* kindness I have ever done myself!—That deepest self, as though buried, as though silenced under a continual *compulsion* to listen to other selves (and that is what reading means!), awoke slowly, shyly, uncertainly—but at last *it spoke again*. Never have I found so much happiness in myself as in the sickest and most painful times of my life: one need only look at “Dawn” or, say, “The Wanderer and His Shadow” to understand what this “return to myself” was: itself a supreme kind of *recovery!*… The other recovery merely followed from it.—

[5]

*Human, All Too Human*, this monument to a rigorous self-discipline with which I abruptly put an end to all the “higher humbug,” “idealism,” “beautiful feeling,” and other femininities imported into me, was written down in all its essentials in Sorrento; it received its conclusion, its definitive form, during a winter in Basel, under incomparably less favorable conditions than those in Sorrento. At bottom Mr. *Peter Gast*, then a student at the University of Basel and very devoted to me, has the book on his conscience. I dictated, my head bandaged and aching; he transcribed, he also corrected—at bottom he was the actual writer, while I was merely the author. When the finished book finally reached my hands—to the profound amazement of a gravely ill man—I sent two copies to Bayreuth, among other places. Through a miracle of meaning in chance, a handsome copy of the text of Parsifal reached me at the same time, with Wagner’s dedication to me: “To his dear friend Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, church councilor.”—This crossing of the two books—I felt as though I heard an ominous sound in it. Did it not sound like *swords* crossing?… At any rate we both felt it so: for we both kept silent.—Around this time the first issues of the Bayreuther Blätter appeared: I understood *what* it had been high time for.—Incredible! Wagner had become pious…

[6]

How I thought of myself then (1876), with what tremendous certainty I held my task and its world-historical significance in hand, is attested by the entire book, but above all by one very explicit passage: except that, with my instinctive cunning, here again I avoided the little word “I,” and this time bathed not Schopenhauer or Wagner but one of my friends, the distinguished Dr. Paul Rée, in a world-historical radiance—fortunately an animal much too subtle to… *Others* were less subtle: I have always recognized the hopeless cases among my readers, for example the typical German professor, by their belief that this passage obliged them to understand the whole book as a higher Réealism… In truth it contained a contradiction of five or six propositions of my friend’s: on this point, consult the preface to On the Genealogy of Morality. The passage reads: What, then, is the central proposition reached by one of the boldest and coldest thinkers, the author of the book “On the Origin of Moral Sensations” (read: Nietzsche, the first *immoralist*), through his incisive and penetrating analyses of human action? “The moral human being stands no closer to the intelligible world than the physical human being—*for* there is no intelligible world…” This proposition, grown hard and sharp beneath the hammer blows of historical knowledge (read: *revaluation of all values*), may perhaps one day, in some future—1890!—serve as the ax laid to the root of humanity’s “metaphysical need”—whether more as a blessing or a curse to humanity, who could say? But in any case as a proposition of the most momentous consequences, fruitful and fearful at once, looking into the world with that *double vision* possessed by all great insights…

### Dawn

Thoughts on Morality as a Prejudice.

[1]

With this book my campaign against *morality* begins. Not that it has the slightest smell of gunpowder about it—quite different and much sweeter scents will be noticed, provided one has some delicacy in one’s nostrils. Neither heavy nor even light artillery: if the book’s effect is negative, its means are all the less so, means from which that effect follows like a conclusion, *not* like a cannon shot. That one takes leave of the book with a shy wariness toward everything hitherto honored and even worshiped under the name of morality does not contradict the fact that there is not a negative word in the whole book, not an attack, not a malice—that instead it lies in the sun, round, happy, like a sea creature basking among rocks. In the end I myself was this sea creature: almost every sentence in the book was thought out, *hatched*, in that tangle of rocks near Genoa where I was alone and still shared secrets with the sea. Even now, when I happen to touch this book, almost every sentence becomes an edge I can grasp to draw something incomparable back up from the depths: its whole skin trembles with delicate shivers of memory. No small part of its distinctive art lies in holding fast, for a little while, things that flit past lightly and without a sound, moments I call divine lizards—not with the cruelty of that young Greek god who simply skewered the poor little lizard, but still with something pointed, with the pen… “There are so many dawns that have not yet shone”—this *Indian* inscription stands on the door to this book. Where does its author *seek* that new morning, that delicate red, still undiscovered, with which another day—ah, a whole succession, a whole world of new days!—begins? In a *revaluation of all values*, in a release from all moral values, in saying Yes and placing trust in everything that has hitherto been forbidden, despised, cursed. This *Yes-saying* book pours out its light, its love, its tenderness over nothing but bad things; it gives them back their “soul,” their good conscience, their exalted right and *prerogative* to exist. Morality is not attacked; it simply no longer comes into consideration… This book ends with an “Or?”—it is the only book that ends with an “Or?”…

[2]

My task, to prepare a moment of humanity’s supreme self-reflection, a *great noon*, when it looks back and looks ahead, when it steps out from the rule of chance and priests and, *as a whole*, for the first time poses the question Why? To what end?—this task follows necessarily from the insight that humanity is not of itself on the right path, that it is *not* divinely governed at all, that instead the instinct of negation, of corruption, the instinct of decadence, has exerted its seductive power precisely under cover of humanity’s holiest conceptions of value. The question of the origin of moral values is therefore for me a question of the *first rank*, because it determines humanity’s future. The demand that one should *believe* everything is fundamentally in the best of hands, that a book, the Bible, gives definitive reassurance about divine guidance and wisdom in humanity’s fate, is, translated back into reality, the will to keep the truth about the pitiable opposite from coming to light: namely, that humanity has hitherto been in the *worst* of hands, that it has been governed by those who have fared badly, the cunningly vengeful, the so-called “saints,” those slanderers of the world and defilers of humanity. The decisive sign revealing that the priest (including the *hidden* priests, the philosophers) has become master not merely within a particular religious community but altogether, that the morality of decadence, the will to the end, passes for *morality itself*, is the unconditional value everywhere accorded to the unselfish, and the hostility everywhere shown to the selfish. Whoever disagrees with me on this point I consider *infected*… But the whole world disagrees with me… For a physiologist, such an opposition of values leaves no room for doubt. If the smallest organ within an organism slackens in the slightest degree in asserting its self-preservation, the replenishment of its strength, its “egoism,” with complete certainty, the whole degenerates. The physiologist demands the *excision* of the degenerating part; he denies all solidarity with what is degenerating; nothing is further from him than compassion for it. But the priest *wants* precisely the degeneration of the whole, of humanity: that is why he *preserves* what is degenerating—at this price he rules over humanity… What meaning do those lying concepts, morality’s *auxiliary* concepts, “soul,” “spirit,” “free will,” “God,” have, if not to ruin humanity physiologically?… When seriousness is diverted from the body’s self-preservation and increase of strength, *that is, from life*, when anemia is fashioned into an ideal, contempt for the body into “salvation of the soul,” what is that but a *prescription* for decadence?—The loss of gravity, resistance to the natural instincts, in a word, “selflessness”—that is what has hitherto been called *morality*… With “Dawn” I first took up the struggle against the morality of self-abnegation.—

### The Gay Science

(“la gaya scienza”).

“Dawn” is a Yes-saying book, deep but bright and kind. The same holds again, and in the highest degree, for the gaya scienza: in almost every sentence, profundity and impishness tenderly hold hands. A poem expressing gratitude for the most wonderful January I have ever lived through—the whole book is its gift—betrays clearly enough the depths out of which “science” here became *joyful*:

You who with your spear of flame
Split the ice within my soul,
So now, roaring, to the sea
Of its highest hope it speeds:
Ever brighter, ever healthier,
Free in the most loving compulsion—
So it praises your wonders,
Januarius, loveliest of all!—

What “highest hope” means here—who could doubt it after seeing the diamond beauty of Zarathustra’s first words flash out at the close of the fourth book?—Or after reading the granite sentences at the end of the third book, in which a destiny *for all time* first formulates itself? The *Songs of Prince Outlaw*, written for the most part in Sicily, recall quite explicitly the Provençal conception of the “gaya scienza,” that unity of *singer, knight*, and *free spirit* by which the wondrous early culture of the Provençals stands apart from all equivocal cultures; the very last poem in particular, *“To the Mistral,”* an exuberant dance song in which, if you please, one dances right over morality, is pure Provençalism.—

### Thus Spoke Zarathustra

A Book for Everyone and No One.

[1]

I shall now tell the story of Zarathustra. The work’s fundamental conception, the *thought of eternal recurrence*, this highest formula of affirmation that can possibly be attained, dates from August 1881: it was thrown down on a sheet of paper, with the inscription: “6000 feet beyond humanity and time.” That day I was walking through the woods beside Lake Silvaplana; I stopped near Surlei, at a mighty block of stone towering up like a pyramid. Then this thought came to me.—Counting back a few months from that day, I find, as a foretoken, a sudden and profoundly decisive change in my taste, above all in music. Perhaps the whole of Zarathustra may be reckoned as music;—certainly a rebirth in the art of *hearing* was a prerequisite for it. In Recoaro, a little mountain spa near Vicenza, where I spent the spring of 1881, I discovered, together with my maestro and friend Peter Gast, himself also “reborn,” that the phoenix of music was flying past us with lighter, more radiant plumage than it had ever shown before. But counting forward from that day to the sudden delivery in February 1883, under the most improbable circumstances—the concluding passage, the very one from which I quoted a few sentences in the *Foreword*, was finished at precisely the sacred hour in which Richard Wagner died in Venice—gives eighteen months of pregnancy. This exact figure of eighteen months might suggest, among Buddhists at least, that I am fundamentally a female elephant.—The intervening period includes “The Gay Science,” with its hundred signs that something incomparable is approaching; at the end it even gives the opening of Zarathustra itself, and in the next-to-last piece of the fourth book it gives Zarathustra’s fundamental thought.—This same intervening period also includes that *Hymn to Life* (for mixed chorus and orchestra), whose score appeared two years ago with E. W. Fritsch in Leipzig: a perhaps not insignificant symptom of my condition that year, when the supremely *Yes-saying* pathos, which I call tragic pathos, dwelt in me to the highest degree. One day it will be sung in my memory.—The text, let me expressly state, since a misunderstanding about it is in circulation, is not mine: it is the astonishing inspiration of a young Russian woman with whom I was then friends, Miss Lou von Salomé. Anyone able to find any meaning at all in the poem’s final words will divine why I preferred and admired it: they have greatness. Pain is *not* held to be an objection to life: “If you have no happiness left to give me, well then! *You still have your torment*…”

Perhaps my music, too, has greatness at this point. (The oboe’s final note is C-sharp, not C. A printer’s error.)—The following winter I lived in that charmingly quiet bay of Rapallo near Genoa, which cuts into the coast between Chiavari and the promontory of Portofino. My health was not the best; the winter was cold and excessively rainy; a little inn right beside the sea, so that the high surf made sleep impossible at night, offered in almost every respect the opposite of what one could wish. Nevertheless, and almost in proof of my proposition that everything decisive comes into being “nevertheless,” it was in this winter and these adverse circumstances that my Zarathustra came into being.—In the mornings I climbed southward along the magnificent road toward Zoagli, past pines and with a wide view over the sea; in the afternoons, whenever my health permitted, I walked around the entire bay from Santa Margherita all the way beyond to Portofino. This place and this landscape have grown still closer to my heart through the great love Emperor Friedrich the Third felt for them; by chance I was on this coast again in the autumn of 1886, when he visited this little forgotten world of happiness for the last time.—On these two walks the whole of the first Zarathustra came to me, above all Zarathustra himself, as a type: more precisely, *he fell upon me*…

[2]

To understand this type, one must first be clear about his physiological prerequisite: it is what I call *great health*. I know no better, no more *personal* way of explaining this concept than I have already given in one of the concluding sections of the fifth book of “The Gay Science.” “We new, nameless, hard-to-understand ones,” it says there, “we premature births of a future still unproven—for a new end we also need a new means, namely a new health, stronger, shrewder, tougher, more daring, more cheerful than any health has been before. Whoever’s soul thirsts to have lived through the whole compass of values and desirable things to date, and sailed around every coast of this ideal ‘Mediterranean’; whoever wants to know, from the adventures of his own most personal experience, how a conqueror and discoverer of the ideal feels, and likewise an artist, a saint, a lawgiver, a sage, a scholar, a devout man, a divinely aloof one of the old style: he needs one thing above all for this, *great health*—a health one not only has but also continually acquires and must acquire, because one gives it up again and again, must give it up… And now, after we have long been on our way in this fashion, we Argonauts of the ideal, more courageous perhaps than is wise, and often enough shipwrecked and injured, but, as I said, healthier than anyone would like to permit us, dangerously healthy, healthy again and again—it seems to us that, as our reward, we have before us a still undiscovered country whose boundaries no one has yet surveyed, a beyond to all the lands and corners of the ideal so far, a world so overflowing with beauty, strangeness, things questionable, terrible, and divine, that our curiosity and our thirst for possession alike have gone beyond themselves—ah, that nothing can satisfy us anymore!… After such vistas, and with such a ravenous hunger in knowledge and conscience, how could we still content ourselves with *the human being of today*? It is bad enough, but unavoidable, that we look on at his worthiest goals and hopes with a seriousness we can barely sustain, and perhaps no longer even look on… Another ideal runs ahead of us, a strange, tempting ideal, rich in danger, to which we would persuade no one, because we do not lightly concede to anyone *the right to it*: the ideal of a spirit who naively, that is, involuntarily and out of overflowing fullness and power, plays with everything hitherto called holy, good, untouchable, divine; for whom the highest thing by which the people rightly measure value would already signify danger, decline, abasement, or at least recreation, blindness, a temporary forgetting of oneself; the ideal of a human-superhuman well-being and benevolence that will often enough appear *inhuman*, for example when it takes its place beside all earthly seriousness to date, beside all solemnity hitherto found in gesture, word, sound, gaze, morality, and task, as their most incarnate, involuntary parody—and with which, for all that, perhaps *great seriousness* first arises, the real question mark is first set down, the soul’s destiny turns, the hand of the clock moves, tragedy *begins*…”

[3]

At the end of the nineteenth century, does anyone have a clear idea of what the poets of strong ages called *inspiration*? If not, I shall describe it.—With the slightest remnant of superstition in oneself, one would indeed scarcely know how to reject the notion that one was merely the incarnation, merely the mouthpiece, merely the medium of overwhelming powers. The concept of revelation, in the sense that suddenly, with inexpressible certainty and subtlety, something becomes *visible*, audible, something that shakes and overturns one to the very depths, simply describes the facts. One hears, one does not seek; one takes, one does not ask who gives; a thought flashes up like lightning, necessarily, its form unhesitating—I have never had a choice. An ecstasy whose tremendous tension sometimes breaks into a flood of tears, in which one’s pace involuntarily now rushes, now slows; a complete being-outside-oneself with the most distinct awareness of countless delicate shudders and thrills running down to one’s toes; a depth of happiness in which the most painful and darkest things do not act as opposites, but as something entailed, something called forth, as a *necessary* color within such an excess of light; an instinct for rhythmic relationships that spans vast expanses of forms—the length, the need for a *wide-spanning* rhythm, is almost the measure of inspiration’s force, a kind of counterbalance to its pressure and tension… Everything happens involuntarily in the highest degree, but as in a storm of the feeling of freedom, of being unconditioned, of power, of divinity… The involuntary nature of the image, of the metaphor, is the strangest thing; one no longer has any idea what is image, what is metaphor; everything offers itself as the nearest, truest, simplest expression. It really seems, to recall something Zarathustra says, as though things themselves approached and offered themselves as metaphors (—“here all things come caressingly to your speech and flatter you: for they want to ride on your back. On every metaphor you ride here to every truth. Here the words and word-shrines of all being spring open for you; all being here wants to become word, all becoming wants to learn from you how to speak—”). This is *my* experience of inspiration; I do not doubt that one must go back thousands of years to find anyone entitled to tell me, “It is mine as well.”—

[4]

A few weeks later I lay ill in Genoa. Then came a melancholy spring in Rome, where I accepted life—it was not easy. At bottom, this most indecent place on earth for the poet of Zarathustra, a place I had not chosen of my own free will, vexed me beyond measure; I tried to get away—I wanted to go to *Aquila*, the antithesis of Rome, founded in enmity toward Rome, as I shall one day found a place, in memory of an atheist and enemy of the Church in the fullest sense, one of my closest kin, the great Hohenstaufen emperor Friedrich the Second. But fatality lay over it all: I had to return. At last I contented myself with the Piazza Barberini, after my search for an *anti-Christian* district had worn me out. I fear that once, to escape bad smells as far as possible, I inquired at the Palazzo del Quirinale itself whether they might have a quiet room for a philosopher.—On a loggia high above the square I have named, from which one looks out over Rome and hears the fountain rushing far below, that loneliest song ever written was composed, the *Night Song*; around this time a melody of inexpressible melancholy was always hovering about me, whose refrain I found again in the words “dead of immortality…” In the summer, having returned home to the sacred spot where the first lightning flash of the Zarathustra thought had shone for me, I found the second Zarathustra. Ten days sufficed; in no case, neither with the first nor with the third and last, did I need more. The following winter, under the halcyon sky of Nice, which then shone into my life for the first time, I found the third Zarathustra—and was finished. Scarcely a year for the whole. Many hidden spots and heights in the landscape of Nice are consecrated for me by unforgettable moments; that decisive passage entitled “On Old and New Tablets” was composed during the most arduous climb from the station to the marvelous Moorish crag-top eyrie of Eza—my muscular agility was always greatest when my creative power flowed most richly. The *body* is inspired: let us leave the “soul” out of it… I could often be seen dancing; in those days I could be out in the mountains for seven, eight hours without any notion of fatigue. I slept well, I laughed a great deal—I possessed perfect vigor and patience.

[5]

Apart from these ten-day works, the years during and above all *after* Zarathustra were a state of distress without equal. One pays dearly for being immortal: one dies for it several times while still alive.—There is something I call the resentment of greatness: everything great, a work, a deed, turns at once, as soon as it is accomplished, *against* the one who accomplished it. Precisely because he did it, he is now *weak*—he can no longer endure his deed, can no longer look it in the face. To have something *behind* one that one should never have dared to will, something in which the knot in humanity’s destiny is tied—and now to have it *upon* one!… It almost crushes one… The resentment of greatness!—Another thing is the dreadful silence one hears around oneself. Solitude has seven skins; nothing passes through them anymore. One comes among people, greets friends: fresh desolation, no glance returns the greeting. At best, a kind of revolt. I experienced such a revolt, in very different degrees, but from almost everyone close to me; it seems that nothing offends more deeply than suddenly letting a distance be felt—the *noble* natures who cannot live without reverence are rare.—A third thing is the skin’s absurd sensitivity to small pricks, a kind of helplessness before everything small. This seems to me to result from the tremendous expenditure of all defensive forces that every *creative* deed, every deed out of one’s own deepest, innermost, lowest depths, presupposes. The *small* defensive capacities are, as it were, unhinged by it; no strength flows into them anymore.—I venture also to suggest that one digests less well, moves reluctantly, is all too susceptible to feelings of cold, and to mistrust—to the mistrust that in many cases is merely a mistaken identification of the cause. In such a state I once felt the nearness of a herd of cows through the return of gentler, more benevolent thoughts, before I even saw it: *that* has warmth in it…

[6]

This work stands entirely alone. Let us leave the poets aside: perhaps nothing has ever been done out of an equal abundance of strength. My concept ‘Dionysian’ here became *the highest deed*; measured against it, all the rest of human doing appears poor and conditional. That a Goethe, a Shakespeare would not know how to breathe for a single moment in this tremendous passion and height; that Dante, held against Zarathustra, is merely a believer, not one who first *creates* truth, a *world-ruling* spirit, a destiny; that the poets of the Veda are priests, not even worthy to unfasten the soles of a Zarathustra’s shoes—all this is the least of it and gives no idea of the distance, of the *azure* solitude in which this work lives. Zarathustra has an eternal right to say: “I draw circles around me and holy boundaries; ever fewer climb with me up ever higher mountains—I build a mountain range of ever holier mountains.” Add together the spirit and goodness of all great souls: all together they would be incapable of producing a single discourse of Zarathustra’s. The ladder he climbs up and down is immense; he has seen farther, willed farther, been *capable* of more than any human being. With every word he contradicts, this most Yes-saying of all spirits; in him all opposites are bound into a new unity. The highest and the lowest forces of human nature, the sweetest, most frivolous, and most terrible, flow from a single spring with immortal certainty. Until then one does not know what height is, what depth is; still less does one know what truth is. Not a moment of this revelation of truth had already been anticipated, divined by any of the greatest. Before Zarathustra there is no wisdom, no exploration of the soul, no art of speech; here the nearest, most everyday things speak of unheard-of matters. The aphorism trembling with passion; eloquence become music; lightning bolts hurled ahead toward futures never yet divined. The mightiest power of metaphor that has ever existed is poverty and play beside this return of language to the nature of imagery.—And how Zarathustra descends and says the kindest things to everyone! How he touches even his adversaries, the priests, with tender hands, and suffers with them from them!—Here at every moment the human being is overcome, the concept ‘overman’ here became the highest reality—everything hitherto called great in humanity lies infinitely far *beneath* him. The halcyon quality, the light feet, the omnipresence of malice and high spirits, and everything else typical of the Zarathustra type, have never been dreamed of as essential to greatness. Precisely in this compass of space, in this openness to opposites, Zarathustra feels himself to be the *highest kind of all that exists*; and when one hears how he defines it, one will give up looking for his equal.

“—the soul that has the longest ladder and can descend the deepest,
the most encompassing soul, which can run and wander and roam farthest within itself,
the most necessary soul, which plunges with delight into chance,
the soul that is, which *wills* to enter becoming, the soul that has, which *wills* to enter willing and longing—,
the soul that flees itself, which catches up with itself in the widest circles,
the wisest soul, to which folly speaks most sweetly,
the soul that loves itself most, in which all things have their flowing and counterflowing and ebb and flood——”

*But that is the concept of Dionysus himself.*—Another reflection leads to the same point. The psychological problem in the Zarathustra type is how someone who says No, who *does* No, to an unheard-of degree, to everything to which people have hitherto said Yes, can nevertheless be the opposite of a No-saying spirit; how the spirit bearing the heaviest destiny, a fateful task, can nevertheless be the lightest and most beyond—Zarathustra is a dancer—; how someone who has the hardest, most terrible insight into reality, who has thought the ‘most abysmal thought,’ nevertheless finds in it no objection to existence, not even to its eternal recurrence—but rather one more reason *to be himself* the eternal Yes to all things, ‘the tremendous, unbounded saying of Yes and Amen’… ‘Into all abysses I still carry my blessing Yes-saying’… *But that is the concept of Dionysus once again.*

[7]

What language will such a spirit speak when speaking only with itself? The language of the *dithyramb*. I am the inventor of the dithyramb. Listen to how Zarathustra speaks with himself *Before Sunrise* (III, 18): such emerald happiness, such divine tenderness had no tongue before me. Even the deepest melancholy of such a Dionysus becomes a dithyramb; as evidence I take the *Night Song*—the immortal lament of being condemned, through an excess of light and power, through his *sunlike nature*, not to love.

“It is night: now all the leaping fountains speak aloud.
And my soul too is a leaping fountain.
It is night: now only do all the songs of lovers awaken.
And my soul too is the song of a lover.
There is something unappeased, unappeasable in me, that longs to speak aloud. A longing for love is in me, itself speaking the language of love.
I am light: ah, if only I were night! But this is my solitude, that I am encircled by light.
Ah, if I were dark and of the night! How I would suck at the breasts of light!
And you yourselves I would bless, you little sparkling stars and glowworms above!—and be blissful in your gifts of light.
But I live in my own light; I drink back into myself the flames that break from me.
I do not know the happiness of one who receives; and often I dreamed that stealing must be more blissful still than receiving.
This is my poverty, that my hand never rests from giving; this is my envy, that I see waiting eyes and the nights of longing lit up.
Oh, unhappiness of all who give! Oh, darkening of my sun! Oh, longing to be longed for! Oh, ravenous hunger in satiety!
They take from me: but do I still touch their souls?
A gulf lies between giving and receiving; and the smallest gulf is the last to be bridged.
A hunger grows out of my beauty: I would hurt those upon whom I shine; I would rob those to whom I give—thus I hunger for malice.
Drawing back my hand when their hand is already stretching toward it; like the waterfall that hesitates even in its plunge—thus I hunger for malice.
Such revenge my abundance devises; such treachery wells up from my solitude.
My happiness in giving died in giving; my virtue grew weary of itself in its abundance!
Whoever always gives is in danger of losing shame; whoever always distributes has calluses on hand and heart from all that distributing.
My eye no longer overflows at the shame of those who ask; my hand has grown too hard for the trembling of hands filled with gifts.
Where have the tears of my eye gone, and the down on my heart? Oh, solitude of all who give! Oh, silence of all who shine!
Many suns circle in empty space: to everything dark they speak with their light—to me they are silent.
Oh, this is the hostility of light toward what shines: mercilessly it follows its courses.
Unjust in its deepest heart toward what shines, cold toward suns—thus every sun follows its course.
Like a storm the suns follow their courses; they obey their inexorable will: that is their coldness.
Oh, only you, you dark ones, you creatures of the night, draw warmth from what shines! Oh, only you drink milk and refreshment from the udders of light!
Ah, ice surrounds me; my hand burns against what is icy! Ah, thirst is in me, yearning for your thirst.
It is night: ah, that I must be light! And thirst for what is of the night! And solitude!
It is night: now my longing bursts out of me like a spring—I long for speech.
It is night: now all the leaping fountains speak aloud.
And my soul too is a leaping fountain.
It is night: now all the songs of lovers awaken.
And my soul too is the song of a lover.—”

[8]

Nothing like this has ever been composed, ever felt, ever *suffered*: thus a god suffers, a Dionysus. The answer to such a dithyramb of the sun's solitude in the light would be Ariadne… Who besides me knows what Ariadne is!… No one until now had the solution to all such riddles; I doubt that anyone ever even saw riddles here.—Zarathustra once defines his task—it is mine too—with such rigor that one cannot mistake its *meaning*: he says Yes to the point of justifying, of redeeming, even everything past.

“I walk among people as among fragments of the future: that future which I behold.
And this is all my composing and striving: to compose into one and gather together what is fragment and riddle and dreadful chance.
And how could I endure being human if the human being were not also a poet, a solver of riddles, and a redeemer of chance?
*To redeem those who are past* and transform every ‘It was’ into a ‘Thus I willed it!’—that alone would I call redemption.”

Elsewhere he defines as rigorously as possible what “the human being” alone can be for him—not an object of love, still less of pity—Zarathustra has mastered even the *great disgust* at humanity: the human being is for him an unformed thing, a material, an ugly stone that needs the sculptor.

“To will no more, to value no more, to create no more: oh, may this great weariness always remain far from me!
Even in knowing I feel only my will's delight in begetting and becoming; and if there is innocence in my knowledge, it is because a *will to begetting* is in it.
Away from God and gods this will lured me: what would there be to create if gods—existed?
But toward the human being it drives me again and again, my ardent creative will; thus it drives the hammer toward the stone.
Ah, you people, in the stone an image sleeps for me, the image of images! Ah, that it must sleep in the hardest, ugliest stone!
*Now my hammer rages cruelly against its prison.*
Pieces of stone scatter: what do I care!
I will complete it, for a shadow came to me—the stillest and lightest of all things once came to me!
The beauty of the overman came to me as a shadow: what do I care any longer—for the gods!…”

I emphasize one final point of view; the marked line gives occasion for it. For a *Dionysian* task, the hardness of the hammer, the *pleasure even in destroying*, is decisively among the preconditions. The imperative “become hard!”, the deepest certainty *that all creators are hard*, is the true distinguishing mark of a Dionysian nature.—

### Beyond Good and Evil

Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future.

[1]

The task for the years that followed was mapped out as rigorously as possible. Once the Yes-saying part of my task was accomplished, its No-saying, *No-doing* half came next: the revaluation of the values hitherto accepted, the great war—the conjuring of a day of decision. This included a slow search for kindred spirits, for those who, out of strength, would offer me their hand *in the work of destruction*.—From that point on, all my writings are fishhooks: perhaps I understand fishing as well as anyone?… If nothing was *caught*, the fault is not mine. *There were no fish*…

[2]

In all essentials this book (1886) is a *critique of modernity*, not excluding modern science, modern art, or even modern politics, together with pointers toward an opposing type, as little modern as possible: a noble, Yes-saying type. In this latter sense the book is a *school for the gentleman*, the concept understood more spiritually *and radically* than ever before. You must have courage in your very bones merely to endure it; you must not have learned to be afraid… All the things the age takes pride in are felt as contradictions of this type, almost as bad manners: its celebrated “objectivity,” for example, its “compassion for all who suffer,” its “historical sense,” with its subservience to foreign tastes, its groveling before little facts, its “scientific spirit.”—If you consider that this book comes *after* Zarathustra, you may also guess the dietary regimen to which it owes its existence. The eye, spoiled by an immense compulsion to see *far*—Zarathustra is more farsighted even than the tsar—is forced here to focus sharply on what is nearest, on the age, on *what surrounds us*. In every respect, above all in its form, you will find the same *deliberate* turning away from the instincts that made a Zarathustra possible. Refinement of form, of intention, of the art of *silence*, comes to the fore; psychology is practiced with an avowed harshness and cruelty—the book lacks a single good-natured word… All this is restorative: who, in the end, can guess *what* kind of restoration such a lavish outpouring of goodness as Zarathustra makes necessary?… To speak theologically—listen, for I rarely speak as a theologian—it was God himself who, as a serpent, lay down beneath the tree of knowledge at the end of his day's work: this was how he recovered from being God… He had made everything too beautiful… The devil is merely God's idleness on every seventh day…

### On the Genealogy of Morality

A Polemic.

The three essays that make up this Genealogy are perhaps, in expression, intention, and the art of surprise, the most uncanny things yet written. Dionysus, as everyone knows, is also the god of darkness.—Each time a beginning *designed* to mislead: cool, scientific, even ironic, deliberately a foreground, deliberately keeping us waiting. Gradually, greater unease; isolated flashes of lightning; very unpleasant truths sounding from afar in a muffled rumble—until at last a furious tempo is reached, where everything drives forward under immense tension. At the end, each time, amid utterly terrifying detonations, a *new* truth becomes visible between thick clouds.—The truth of the *first* essay is the psychology of Christianity: the birth of Christianity from the spirit of resentment, *not*, as people tend to believe, from “the Spirit”—a countermovement in its very essence, the great uprising against the rule of *noble* values. The *second* essay gives the psychology of *conscience*: it is *not*, as people tend to believe, “the voice of God in man”—it is the instinct of cruelty turning backward once it can no longer discharge itself outward. Cruelty as one of the oldest foundations of culture, one without which culture cannot be conceived, is brought to light here for the first time. The *third* essay answers the question of where the immense *power* of the ascetic ideal, the priestly ideal, comes from, although it is the *harmful* ideal above all others, a will bent on bringing things to an end, an ideal of decadence. Answer: *not* because God is at work behind the priests, as people tend to believe, but for want of anything better—because it has been the only ideal so far, because it had no competitor. “For man would rather will nothingness than *not* will”… Above all, there was no *counterideal—until Zarathustra*.—I have been understood. Three decisive preliminary studies by a psychologist toward a revaluation of all values.—This book contains the first psychology of the priest.

### Twilight of the Idols

How to Philosophize with a Hammer.

[1]

This work of not even 150 pages, cheerful and fateful in tone, a laughing demon—the work of so few days that I hesitate to name their number—is an exception among books altogether: nothing is richer in substance, more independent, more subversive—or more wicked. Anyone who wants a quick sense of how, before me, everything stood on its head should begin with this work. What the title page calls an *idol* is quite simply what has been called truth until now. *Twilight of the Idols*—in plain language: the old truth is coming to an end…

[2]

There is no reality, no “ideality,” that this work does not touch (—touch: what a cautious euphemism!…). Not only the *eternal* idols, but the very newest, and therefore the most decrepit. “Modern ideas,” for example. A great wind blows through the trees, and fruit falls everywhere—truths. It has all the lavishness of an overabundant autumn: you stumble over truths, even trample some to death—there are too many… But whatever comes into your hands is no longer anything questionable: these are decisions. I am the first to hold the measure of “truths” in my hand; I am the first who *can* decide. As though a *second consciousness* had grown within me, as though “the will” had lit a lamp inside me to illuminate the *sloping* track down which it had run until now… The *sloping* track—they called it the path to “truth”… All “dark striving” is at an end; it was precisely the *good* man who was least aware of the right path… And in all seriousness, no one before me knew the right path, the path *upward*: only with me are there once again hopes, tasks, paths to prescribe for culture—*I am their bearer of glad tidings*… That also makes me a destiny.—

[3]

Immediately after finishing the work just mentioned, without losing even a day, I attacked the immense task of the *revaluation*, with a sovereign feeling of pride beyond compare, certain at every moment of my immortality, engraving sign after sign on bronze tablets with the sureness of a destiny. The preface was written on September 3, 1888: when I stepped outside that morning after writing it, I found before me the most beautiful day the Upper Engadin had ever shown me—transparent, glowing with color, embracing every contrast, every middle ground between ice and the South.—Not until September 20 did I leave Sils-Maria, detained by floods, at last the only guest left anywhere in this wonderful place, to which my gratitude means to give the gift of an immortal name. After an eventful journey, which even put my life in danger in flooded Como, where I arrived only deep into the night, I reached Turin on the afternoon of the 21st, my *proven* place, my residence from now on. I took the same lodgings I had occupied in the spring, via Carlo Alberto 6ᴵᴵᴵ, opposite the mighty Palazzo Carignano, where Vittorio Emanuele was born, looking out over the Piazza Carlo Alberto and beyond it to the hills. Without hesitation, without letting myself be distracted for a moment, I returned to work: only the last quarter of the work remained to be done. On September 30, a great victory; the seventh day; a god's idleness along the Po. On that same day I also wrote the *preface* to Twilight of the Idols, whose proofs I had corrected for recreation during September.—I have never experienced such an autumn, nor ever thought anything like it possible on earth—a Claude Lorrain extended into infinity, each day of the same unbridled perfection.—

### The Case of Wagner

A Musician's Problem.

[1]

To do this work justice, you must suffer from the fate of music as from an open wound.—*What* do I suffer from when I suffer from the fate of music? From music's having been robbed of its world-transfiguring, Yes-saying character—from its having become the music of decadence, no longer the flute of Dionysus… But if you feel the cause of music in this way as your *own* cause, as the history of your *own* suffering, you will find this work full of consideration and mild beyond measure. To be cheerful in such cases, and good-naturedly join in mocking yourself—to speak *severely* with a laugh, where speaking the truth sincerely would justify any harshness—is humanity itself. Who really doubts that, old artilleryman that I am, I have it in my power to bring up my *heavy* guns against Wagner?—I kept everything decisive in this matter to myself—I have loved Wagner.—Ultimately, an attack on a subtler “unknown,” whom another person would hardly guess, lies within the meaning and course of my task—oh, I have quite other “unknowns” to expose than a Cagliostro of music—but still more so an attack on the German nation, which in matters of the spirit grows ever more sluggish and poorer in instinct, ever *more honest*, and with an enviable appetite continues to feed on opposites, swallowing “faith” as readily as the scientific spirit, “Christian love” as readily as antisemitism, the will to power (to the “empire”) as readily as the gospel of the humble, without indigestion… This refusal to take sides between opposites! This neutrality and “selflessness” of the stomach! This fair-mindedness of the German *palate*, which grants equal rights to everything—which finds everything tasty… Beyond all doubt, the Germans are idealists… When I last visited Germany, I found German taste busy granting equal rights to Wagner and The Trumpeter of Säckingen; I myself witnessed the founding in Leipzig, in honor of one of the truest and most German musicians in the old sense of the word German, no mere imperial German, the master *Heinrich Schütz*, of a Liszt Society, for the cultivation and propagation of *cunningly Lisztian* church music… Beyond all doubt, the Germans are idealists…

[2]

But nothing here shall stop me from being blunt and telling the Germans a few hard truths: *who else will?*—I am speaking of their indecency in matters of history. Not only have German historians entirely lost the *grand perspective* on the course and values of culture, not only are they all buffoons of politics (or of the church—): they have actually *outlawed* this grand perspective. First you must be “German,” must belong to the “race,” and then you can decide on every value and disvalue in history—you lay them down… “German” is an argument, “Germany, Germany above all” a principle; the Germanic peoples are the “moral world order” in history; in relation to the Roman Empire, the bearers of freedom; in relation to the eighteenth century, the restorers of morality, of the “categorical imperative”… There is an imperial-German historiography; there is, I fear, even an antisemitic one—there is a *court* historiography, and Mr. von Treitschke is not ashamed… Recently an idiot's judgment on history, a statement by the Swabian aesthete Vischer, fortunately now deceased, made the rounds of the German newspapers as a “truth” to which every German *must say Yes*: “The Renaissance *and* the Reformation, only the two together make a whole—the aesthetic rebirth *and* the moral rebirth.”—Statements like this exhaust my patience, and I feel the desire, indeed I feel it as a duty, to tell the Germans for once just *what* they already have on their conscience. *They have all the great crimes against culture of four centuries on their conscience!*… And always for the same reason: their innermost *cowardice* before reality, which is also cowardice before truth; their dishonesty, which has become instinct in them; their “idealism”… The Germans robbed Europe of the harvest, of the meaning of its last *great* age, the age of the Renaissance, at a moment when a higher order of values, when the noble, life-affirming values that guarantee a future, had triumphed at the very seat of the opposing values, the *values of decline*—*even in the instincts of those who sat there!* Luther, that disastrous monk, restored the church and, what is a thousand times worse, Christianity, at the moment *when it was going under*… Christianity, that *denial of the will to life* become religion… Luther, an impossible monk who, because of his “impossibility,” attacked the church and—consequently!—restored it… Catholics would have reason to hold Luther festivals, to write Luther plays… Luther—and the “moral rebirth”! To the devil with all psychology!—Beyond doubt, the Germans are idealists.—Twice, just when an honest, unambiguous, thoroughly scientific way of thinking had been achieved through immense courage and self-overcoming, the Germans contrived to find secret paths back to the old “ideal,” reconciliations between truth and the “ideal,” at bottom formulas for a right to reject science, for a right to *lie*. Leibniz and Kant—these two greatest obstacles to Europe's intellectual integrity!—Finally, when on the bridge between two centuries of decadence an overwhelming force of genius and will appeared, strong enough to make Europe a unity, a political *and economic* unity, for the purpose of governing the earth, the Germans, with their “wars of liberation,” robbed Europe of the meaning, the miracle of meaning, in Napoleon's existence. They thereby have on their conscience everything that followed, everything that exists today: nationalism, that most *culture-hostile* disease and unreason there is, that *national neurosis* from which Europe suffers, that perpetuation of Europe's fragmentation into petty states, of *petty* politics: they robbed Europe itself of its meaning, of its *reason*—they drove it into a dead end.—Does anyone but me know a *way* out of this dead end?… A task great enough to *bind* the nations together again?…

[3]

And finally, why should I not put my suspicion into words? In my case too, the Germans will once again try everything to bring forth a mouse from a monstrous destiny. So far they have discredited themselves over me; I doubt they will do better in the future.—Ah, how I long to be a *bad* prophet here!… My natural readers and listeners are already Russians, Scandinavians, and Frenchmen—will they be so more and more?—The Germans are inscribed in the history of knowledge with nothing but dubious names; they have never produced anything but “unconscious” counterfeiters (—Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Schleiermacher deserve this word as much as Kant and Leibniz; they are all mere Schleiermachers, makers of veils—): they shall never have the honor of seeing the first *honest* spirit in the history of the spirit, the spirit in which truth sits in judgment on four millennia of counterfeiting, counted as one with the German spirit. The “German spirit” is *my* bad air: I find it hard to breathe near this uncleanliness in psychological matters, become instinct, which every word, every expression of a German betrays. They have never undergone a seventeenth century of harsh self-examination as the French did—a La Rochefoucauld, a Descartes are a hundred times superior in integrity to the foremost Germans—to this day they have had no psychologist. But psychology is almost the measure of a race's *cleanliness* or *uncleanliness*… And if you are not even clean, how could you have *depth*? With a German, almost as with a woman, you never get to the bottom: *he has none*. That is all. But that does not even make him shallow.—What is called “deep” in Germany is precisely this instinctive uncleanliness toward oneself of which I have just been speaking: one *wants* to remain unclear about oneself. Might I propose the word “German” as international currency for *this* psychological depravity?—At this moment, for example, the German emperor calls freeing the slaves in Africa his “Christian duty”: among us *other* Europeans that would simply be called “German”… Have the Germans produced even one book with depth? They lack even a concept of what is deep in a book. I have met scholars who thought Kant deep; at the Prussian court, I fear, they think Mr. von Treitschke deep. And when I occasionally praise Stendhal as a deep psychologist, I have had German university professors ask me to spell the name…

[4]

And why should I not go to the very end? I like to make a clean sweep. It is even part of my ambition to be regarded as the foremost despiser of the Germans. I expressed my *distrust* of the German character at the age of twenty-six (dritte Unzeitgemäße S. 71)—the Germans are impossible for me. Whenever I imagine a kind of person contrary to all my instincts, he always turns out to be a German. The first thing I look for when I “probe a person's kidneys” is whether he has a feeling for distance in his body, whether he sees rank, degree, order everywhere between one person and another, whether he *distinguishes*: that makes a gentleman; in every other case he belongs irretrievably under that broad-hearted, ah! so good-natured concept of the rabble. But the Germans are rabble—ah! they are so good-natured… You lower yourself by associating with Germans: the German *levels everyone*… Except for my dealings with a few artists, above all Richard Wagner, I have not spent one good hour with Germans… Suppose the deepest spirit of all millennia appeared among Germans: some goose who saved the Capitol would imagine that her very unattractive soul counted for at least as much… I cannot endure this race, with whom one is always in bad company, who have no fingers for nuances—woe is me! I am a nuance—who have no wit in their feet and cannot even walk… Ultimately the Germans have no feet at all, only legs… The Germans have no conception of how vulgar they are, but that is the very summit of vulgarity—they are not even *ashamed* of being merely German… They have their say about everything, they consider themselves the deciding authority; I fear they have even passed judgment on me… My whole life is the requisite proof of these propositions. In vain do I search it for a sign of tact, of delicacy toward me. From Jews, yes; never yet from Germans. My nature is to be mild and well-disposed toward everyone—I have a *right* to make no distinctions—: that does not stop me from keeping my eyes open. I make no exceptions, least of all for my friends—I hope, in the end, that this has not diminished my humanity toward them! There are five or six things I have always made a point of honor.—Nonetheless, it remains true that for years I have felt almost every letter that reaches me to be a piece of cynicism: there is more cynicism in goodwill toward me than in any hatred… I tell every one of my friends to his face that he has never thought it sufficiently worth the trouble to *study* any of my writings: from the smallest signs I can tell they do not even know what is in them. And as for my Zarathustra, which of my friends has seen more in it than an illicit and fortunately quite inconsequential piece of presumption?… Ten years: and no one in Germany has made it a matter of conscience to defend my name against the absurd silence beneath which it lay buried. A foreigner, a Dane, was the first to have sufficient delicacy of instinct *and courage* for this, the first to feel indignant at my supposed friends… At what German university would lectures on my philosophy be possible today, such as those given last spring in Copenhagen by Dr. Georg Brandes, who thereby proved himself a psychologist once again?—I myself have never suffered from all this; the *necessary* does not wound me; love of fate is my innermost nature. But this does not prevent me from loving irony, even world-historical irony. And so, about two years before the crushing lightning bolt of the *revaluation*, which will send the earth into convulsions, I sent The Case of Wagner out into the world: the Germans were to have one more chance to wrong me for all eternity and *immortalize themselves!* There is just enough time left!—Has that been achieved?—To my delight, my Germanic gentlemen! My compliments…

### Why I Am a Destiny

[1]

I know my fate. One day my name will be linked to the memory of something monstrous—a crisis unlike any on earth, the deepest collision of conscience, a decision conjured up *against* everything hitherto believed, demanded, held sacred. I am no human being, I am dynamite.—And for all that, there is nothing of a founder of religion in me—religions are affairs of the rabble; I need to wash my hands after contact with religious people… I *want* no “believers”; I think I am too malicious to believe in myself; I never speak to masses… I have a horrifying fear that one day I will be *canonized*; you will guess why I am publishing this book *beforehand*: it is meant to prevent people from making mischief with me… I do not want to be a saint; I would rather be a buffoon… Perhaps I am a buffoon… And nonetheless, or rather *not* nonetheless—for nothing yet has been more mendacious than saints—truth speaks out of me.—But my truth is *terrible*: for until now the *lie* has been called truth.—*Revaluation of all values*: that is my formula for an act of humanity's highest self-examination, become flesh and genius in me. My fate decrees that I must be the first *decent* human being, that I know myself to stand in opposition to the mendacity of millennia… I was the first to *discover* truth, because I was the first to sense the lie as a lie—to *smell* it… My genius is in my nostrils… I contradict as no one has ever contradicted, and yet I am the opposite of a No-saying spirit. I am a *bearer of glad tidings* such as there has never been; I know tasks of such a height that the concept for them has been lacking until now; only with me are there hopes again. For all that, I am necessarily also the man of doom. For when truth enters into battle with the lie of millennia, we will have upheavals, a convulsion of earthquakes, a shifting of mountain and valley such as no one has ever dreamed of. The concept of politics will then be wholly absorbed into a war of spirits; all the power structures of the old society will be blown into the air—they all rest on the lie: there will be wars unlike any on earth before. Only with me is there *great politics* on earth.—

[2]

DO you want a formula for such a destiny *that becomes human?*—It is in my Zarathustra.

*“—and whoever wants to be a creator in good and evil must first be a destroyer and break values.*
*Thus the highest evil belongs to the highest goodness: but this is creative goodness.”*

I am by far the most terrible human being there has ever been; this does not rule out my becoming the most beneficial. I know the joy of *destroying* to a degree commensurate with my *power* to destroy—in both I obey my Dionysian nature, which cannot separate No-doing from Yes-saying. I am the first *immoralist*: that makes me the *destroyer* par excellence.—

[3]

NO one has asked me—they should have asked me—what the name *Zarathustra* means precisely in my mouth, in the mouth of the first immoralist: for what makes that Persian so immensely unique in history is precisely the opposite of this. Zarathustra was the first to see in the struggle of good and evil the true wheel in the machinery of things—the translation of morality into metaphysics, as force, cause, end in itself, is *his* work. But this question would, at bottom, already be the answer. Zarathustra *created* this most fateful error, morality: consequently he must also be the first to *recognize* it. Not only does he have longer and greater experience here than any other thinker—indeed, all history is the experimental refutation of the proposition of the so-called “moral world order”—: more importantly, Zarathustra is more truthful than any other thinker. His teaching, and his alone, holds truthfulness to be the highest virtue—which means the opposite of the *cowardice* of the “idealist,” who flees from reality; Zarathustra has more courage in his body than all thinkers put together. To speak the truth and *shoot well with arrows*: that is Persian virtue.—Am I understood?… The self-overcoming of morality through truthfulness, the self-overcoming of the moralist into his opposite—into *me*—that is what the name Zarathustra means in my mouth.

[4]

AT bottom, my word *immoralist* contains two negations. For one thing, I negate a type of human being hitherto regarded as the highest: the *good*, the *benevolent, beneficent*; for another, I negate a kind of morality that has gained currency and dominion as morality itself—the morality of decadence, more plainly, *Christian* morality. One would be justified in regarding the second contradiction as the more decisive, since, on the grand scale, I already regard the overvaluation of goodness and benevolence as a consequence of decadence, a symptom of weakness, incompatible with an ascending and Yes-saying life: negation *and destruction* are conditions of Yes-saying.—For now I will stay with the psychology of the good person. To assess what a type of human being is worth, you must reckon the price of maintaining it—you must know its conditions of existence. The condition of existence of the good is the *lie*—: in other words, the *will* at any price not to see how reality is fundamentally constituted, namely *not* in such a way as to call forth benevolent instincts at all times, still less in such a way as to submit at all times to interference from shortsighted, good-natured hands. To regard *distress* of every kind as an objection, as something one must *abolish*, is the supreme foolishness; on the grand scale, it is a true calamity in its consequences, a destiny of stupidity—almost as stupid as the will to abolish bad weather would be—out of pity for poor people, perhaps… In the great economy of the whole, the terrible things in reality (in the passions, in the desires, in the will to power) are necessary to an incalculably greater degree than that form of petty happiness called “goodness”; one must even be indulgent to grant the latter any place at all, since it depends on instinctive mendacity. I will have ample occasion to demonstrate the immeasurably uncanny consequences, for the whole of history, of *optimism*, that offspring of the best of men. Zarathustra, the first to grasp that the optimist is as decadent as the pessimist, and perhaps more harmful, says: “*Good people never speak the truth. The good taught you false shores and certainties; in the lies of the good you were born and sheltered. Through the good, everything is falsified and twisted to its very foundations.*” Fortunately, the world is not built to suit instincts that would let nothing but good-natured herd animals find their narrow happiness in it; to demand that everything become a “good person,” a herd animal, blue-eyed, benevolent, a “beautiful soul”—or altruistic, as Mr. Herbert Spencer wishes—would mean robbing existence of its *great* character, castrating humanity and reducing it to a wretched Chinese affair.—*And this has been attempted!*… *This is precisely what was called morality*… In this sense Zarathustra calls the good now “the last men,” now the “beginning of the end”; above all, he feels them to be *the most harmful kind of human being*, because they assert their existence at the expense of *truth* as well as at the expense of the *future*.
“—The good—they cannot *create*, they are always the beginning of the end—
—they crucify the one who writes *new* values on new tablets; they sacrifice the future to themselves; they crucify the whole human future!
—The good—they have always been the beginning of the end…
—and whatever harm the slanderers of the world may do, *the harm done by the good is the most harmful harm.*”

[5]

ZARATHUSTRA, the first psychologist of the good, is—consequently—a friend of the evil. If a decadent kind of human being has risen to the rank of the highest kind, this could only have happened at the expense of its opposite, the strong kind, certain of life. If the herd animal shines in the radiance of the purest virtue, the exceptional human being must have been devalued into evil. If mendacity at any price claims the word “truth” for its own way of seeing, the genuinely truthful person must be found under the worst names. Zarathustra leaves no doubt here: he says that it was precisely his knowledge of the good, the “best,” that made him feel horror at humanity itself; from *this* aversion his wings grew, “to soar away into distant futures”—he does not conceal that *his* type of human being, a relatively superhuman type, is superhuman precisely in relation to the *good*, that the good and the just would call his overman a *devil*…
“You highest human beings my eye has encountered, this is my doubt about you and my secret laughter: I guess you would call my overman—a devil! So alien are your souls to greatness that the overman would be *terrible* to you in his goodness…”
Here, and nowhere else, one must make a beginning in order to grasp what Zarathustra *wants*: the kind of human being he envisages apprehends reality *as it is*: it is strong enough to do so—it is not estranged from reality, not removed from it, it *is reality itself*, it also has within itself all that is terrible and questionable in reality; *only through this can a human being have greatness*…

[6]

BUT I have chosen the word *immoralist* as my badge, my badge of honor, in yet another sense: I am proud to have this word that sets me apart from all humanity. No one yet has felt *Christian* morality to be *beneath* him; that would require a height, a far reach of vision, a psychological depth and abyssal reach quite unheard of until now. Christian morality has hitherto been the Circe of all thinkers—they stood in her service.—Who before me descended into the caves from which the poisonous breath of this kind of ideal—*the slandering of the world!*—wells up? Who dared even to suspect *that* they are caves? Who among philosophers before me was a *psychologist* at all, rather than his opposite, a “higher swindler,” an “idealist”? Before me there was no psychology at all.—To be the first here can be a curse; in any case it is a destiny: for *one is also the first to despise*… *Disgust* at humanity is my danger…

[7]

HAVE I been understood?—What sets me apart, what places me to one side against all the rest of humanity, is having *discovered* Christian morality. That is why I needed a word containing the sense of a challenge to everyone. Not to have opened one's eyes here sooner seems to me the greatest uncleanliness humanity has on its conscience: self-deception become instinct, a fundamental will *not* to see any event, any causality, any reality, counterfeiting in psychological matters to the point of criminality. Blindness to Christianity is the *crime above all crimes*—the crime *against life*… The millennia, the peoples, the first and the last, the philosophers and the old women—excepting five or six moments of history, myself as the seventh—in this respect they are all worthy of one another. The Christian has hitherto been *the* “moral being,” a curiosity beyond compare—and, *as* a “moral being,” more absurd, more mendacious, more vain, more frivolous, *more harmful to himself* than even the greatest despiser of humanity could have dreamed. Christian morality—the most malicious form of the will to lie, humanity's true Circe: what has *corrupted* it. It is *not* error as error that horrifies me at this sight, *not* the millennia-long lack of “goodwill,” of discipline, of decency, of courage in matters of the spirit, betrayed by its victory: it is the lack of nature, the utterly appalling fact that *what is contrary to nature* itself received the highest honors as morality and remained hanging over humanity as law, as categorical imperative!… To go so far astray, *not* as an individual, *not* as a people, but as humanity!… That people were taught to despise the very first instincts of life; that a “soul,” a “spirit” was *fabricated* to disgrace the body; that people are taught to feel something unclean in the precondition of life, in sexuality; that the principle of evil is sought in the deepest necessity for thriving, in *strict* selfishness (—even the word is slanderous!—); that, conversely, the typical badge of decline and of contradiction among the instincts, the “selfless,” the loss of a center of gravity, “depersonalization” and “love of one's neighbor” (—*addiction* to one's neighbor!), are seen as the *higher* value—what am I saying!—as *value in itself*!… What! Could humanity itself be decadent? Has it always been?—What is certain is that only decadent values have been *taught* to it as the highest values. The morality of self-renunciation is the morality of decline above all others, the fact “*I* am perishing” translated into the imperative “you *shall* all perish”—and *not only* into the imperative!… This sole morality taught until now, the morality of self-renunciation, betrays a will to the end; at the deepest level it *negates* life.—Here the possibility would remain open that it is not humanity that is degenerating, but only that parasitic kind of human being, the *priest*, who by means of morality has lied his way up into the position of determining humanity's values—who divined in Christian morality his means to *power*… And indeed, this is *my* insight: the teachers, the leaders of humanity, theologians all, were also all decadents: *hence* the revaluation of all values into hostility to life, *hence* morality… *Definition of morality*: morality—the idiosyncrasy of decadents, with the ulterior motive of *taking revenge on life*—*and* with success. I attach importance to *this* definition.

[8]

HAVE I been understood?—I have just said not a word that I had not already said five years ago through the mouth of Zarathustra.—The *discovery* of Christian morality is an event without equal, a real catastrophe. Whoever throws light on it is an overwhelming force, a destiny—he breaks the history of humanity in two. One lives *before* him, one lives *after* him… The lightning bolt of truth struck precisely what had stood highest until then: whoever grasps *what* was destroyed there may look to see whether he has anything left in his hands at all. Everything hitherto called “truth” is recognized as the most harmful, most insidious, most subterranean form of the lie; the holy pretext of “improving” humanity, as the cunning means to *suck dry* life itself, to make it anemic. Morality as *vampirism*… Whoever discovers morality also discovers the worthlessness of all values people believe or have believed in; he sees nothing venerable anymore in the most revered types of human being, even those declared *holy*; he sees in them the most fateful kind of monstrosities, fateful *because they fascinate*… The concept “God” invented as the counterconcept to life—in it everything harmful, poisonous, slanderous, the whole deadly hostility to life brought into one terrible unity! The concept “beyond,” “true world,” invented to devalue the *only* world there is—to leave no goal, no reason, no task for our earthly reality! The concept “soul,” “spirit,” finally even “immortal soul,” invented to despise the body, to make it sick—“holy”—to treat with appalling frivolity all the things that deserve seriousness in life: questions of food, housing, mental diet, treatment of illness, cleanliness, weather! Instead of health, the “salvation of the soul”—which means a cycle of madness between spasms of penance and the hysteria of redemption! The concept “sin” invented, together with its accompanying instrument of torture, the concept “free will,” to confuse the instincts, to make distrust of the instincts second nature! In the concept of the “selfless,” the “self-denying,” the very badge of decadence—being *lured* by the harmful, no longer being *able* to find one's own advantage, self-destruction—made into the sign of value as such, into “duty,” into “holiness,” into the “divine” in humanity! Finally—it is the most terrible thing—in the concept of the *good* person, taking the side of everything weak, sick, ill-formed, suffering from itself, everything *that ought to perish*—thwarting the law of *selection*, making an ideal out of opposition to the proud and well-formed person, the Yes-saying person, the person certain of the future and guaranteeing the future—who is now called *the evil one*… And all this was believed *as morality!*—*Crush the infamous thing!*——

[9]

HAVE I been understood?—*Dionysus against the Crucified*…

### Fame and Eternity

[1]

HOW long have you been sitting
  on your misfortune?
Take care! You will yet hatch me
  an egg,
  a basilisk’s egg,
out of your long lament.

Why does Zarathustra creep along the mountain?—

Suspicious, ulcerous, gloomy,
long lying in wait—,
but suddenly, a lightning flash,
bright, terrible, a blow
struck skyward from the abyss:
—the mountain’s own entrails
shudder…

Where hatred and lightning bolt
became one, a *curse*—,
Zarathustra’s wrath now haunts the mountains,
a thundercloud, he creeps upon his way.

Let anyone with one last blanket crawl beneath it!
To bed with you, you tender creatures!
Now thunder rolls across the vaults,
now every beam and wall is trembling,
now lightning flashes and sulfur-yellow truths—
Zarathustra *curses*…

[2]

THIS coin with which
all the world pays,
*fame*—,
I handle this coin with gloves,
with disgust I tread it *under* me.

*Who* wants to be paid?
Those who can be bought…
Whoever is *for sale* reaches
with greasy hands
for this common tinny clatter, fame!

—*Do* you want to buy them?
They can all be bought.
But offer plenty!
Jingle a full purse!
—otherwise you *strengthen* them,
otherwise you strengthen their *virtue*…

They are all virtuous.
Fame and virtue—that rhymes.
As long as the world lives,
it pays for virtue’s prattle
with fame’s rattle—,
the world *lives* on this noise…

Before all the virtuous
I want to be guilty,
to be called guilty of every great guilt!
Before all the trumpets of fame
my ambition turns to a worm—,
among such people I long
to be the *lowest*…

This coin with which
all the world pays,
*fame*—,
I handle this coin with gloves,
with disgust I tread it *under* me.

[3]

SILENCE!—
Of great things—I *see* great things!—
one should be silent
or speak greatly:
speak greatly, my enraptured wisdom!

I look up—
there seas of light are rolling:
—oh night, oh silence, oh deathly silent tumult!…
I see a sign—,
from the farthest distances
a constellation sinks slowly toward me, sparkling…

[4]

HIGHEST star of being!
Tablet of eternal images!
*You* come to me?—
What no one has beheld,
your silent beauty—,
what? It does not flee my gaze?

Shield of necessity!
Tablet of eternal images!
—but you know it well:
what everyone hates,
what *I* alone love,
that you are *eternal*!
that you are *necessary*!
My love is kindled
eternally by necessity alone.

Shield of necessity!
Highest star of being!
—which no wish reaches,
which no No defiles,
eternal Yes of being,
eternally I am your Yes:
*for I love you, oh eternity!*——

## Translation — Mouseia

> A complete machine-assisted Plain English translation made independently and directly from the same German edition, including its concluding poem. This is the 1908 text, not a modern critical edition.

### Preface

Ecce homo

How you become—what you are

[1]

I expect that very soon I will have to make the hardest demand ever made on humanity. So I think I have to say *who I am*. People should really know already: I haven't left myself “without witnesses.” But the gap between the greatness of my task and the *smallness* of my contemporaries has shown itself in this: they haven't heard me or even seen me. I live on my own credit. Perhaps the idea that I'm alive is just a prejudice?… I only need to speak to some “educated” person visiting the Upper Engadin in summer to convince myself that I'm *not* alive… In these circumstances I have a duty that goes against my habits and, even more, the pride of my instincts. I have to say: *Listen to me! This is who I am. Above all, don't mistake me for someone else!*

[2]

For example, I'm certainly no bogeyman, no monster of morality. My nature is actually the opposite of the kind of person people have honored as virtuous until now. Between ourselves, I think that's precisely something to be proud of. I'm a follower of the philosopher Dionysus. I would rather be a satyr than a saint. But just read this book. Perhaps I've managed to express this contrast in a cheerful, friendly way; perhaps that was the whole point of writing it. The last thing *I* would promise is to “improve” humanity. I won't set up any new idols. Let the old ones find out what it means to have legs of clay. *Knocking down* idols—my word for ideals—is more my line of work. The more people *lied* an ideal world into existence, the more they robbed reality of its value, its meaning, its truthfulness… The “true world” and the “apparent world”—in plain language, the world *made up by lies* and reality… The *lie* of the ideal has been a curse on reality until now. Through it, humanity itself has become dishonest and false down to its deepest instincts. It has even come to worship values that are the *reverse* of those that alone could guarantee its flourishing, its future, its great *right* to a future.

[3]

Anyone who knows how to breathe the air in my writings knows it's mountain air, *strong* air. You have to be made for it. Otherwise there's a real danger of catching cold in it. The ice is close, the solitude is enormous—but how calmly everything lies in the light! How freely you breathe! How much you feel *below* you! Philosophy, as I've understood and lived it until now, means choosing to live among ice and high mountains. It means seeking out everything strange and questionable in existence, everything morality has forbidden until now. Long experience of traveling *through forbidden territory* taught me to see the reasons behind moralizing and idealizing very differently from how people might like me to see them. The *hidden* history of philosophers, the psychology behind their great names, came to light for me. How much truth can a mind *bear*? How much truth does it *dare* to face? More and more, that became my real measure of value. Error—belief in the ideal—isn't blindness. Error is *cowardice*… Every achievement, every step forward in knowledge, *comes from* courage, from being hard on yourself, from keeping yourself clean… I don't refute ideals; I just put on gloves before handling them… We strive for what is *forbidden*: under this sign my philosophy will one day win, because until now it has always been truth, and nothing else, that people have forbidden on principle.—

[4]

Among my writings, my *Zarathustra* stands apart. With it I've given humanity the greatest gift it has ever received. This book speaks across thousands of years. It isn't just the highest book there is, the true book of mountain air—the whole fact of being human lies immensely far *below* it. It's also the *deepest* book, born from the innermost richness of truth. It's a well that never runs dry: no bucket goes down into it without coming back up filled with gold and goodness. No “prophet” is speaking here, none of those horrifying mixtures of sickness and will to power that people call founders of religions. Above all, you have to *hear* the tone of this voice correctly, its deep calm, or you'll do a pitiful injustice to the meaning of its wisdom. “The quietest words are the ones that bring the storm. Thoughts that arrive on doves' feet guide the world—”

“Figs are falling from the trees. They're good and sweet, and as they fall their red skin splits.

“I'm a north wind to ripe figs.

“Like figs, these teachings fall to you, my friends. Now drink their juice and their sweet flesh!

“It's autumn all around, with clear skies and afternoon—”

No fanatic is speaking here. No one is “preaching”; no *belief* is demanded. Out of an endless abundance of light and depth of happiness, it falls drop by drop, word by word. These speeches move at a tender, slow pace. Something like this reaches only the most select few. To listen here is a privilege like no other. No one can just choose to have ears for Zarathustra… Doesn't all this make Zarathustra a *seducer?*… But what does he himself say when he returns to his solitude for the first time? Exactly the opposite of what any “sage,” “saint,” “savior of the world,” or other decadent would say in that situation… He doesn't just speak differently. He *is* different too…

“Now I go alone, my students! You too must leave now, and go alone! That's what I want.

“Leave me and defend yourselves against Zarathustra! Better still, be ashamed of him! Perhaps he deceived you.

“A person who seeks knowledge must not only love their enemies. They must also be able to hate their friends.

“You repay a teacher badly if you always remain just a student. And why don't you want to pull at my wreath?

“You admire me. But what if your admiration one day *topples over?* Be careful that a statue doesn't fall on you and kill you!

“You say you believe in Zarathustra? But what does Zarathustra matter! You're my believers, but what do any believers matter!

“You hadn't yet looked for yourselves when you found me.

“That's what all believers do. That's why all belief amounts to so little.

“Now I tell you to lose me and find yourselves. Only *when you have all denied me* will I return to you…”

Friedrich Nietzsche

### Birthday Reflection

On this perfect day, when everything is ripening and not just the grapes are turning brown, a ray of sunlight just fell on my life. I looked back, I looked outward; I'd never seen that many things at once, and never things that good. It wasn't for nothing that I buried my forty-fourth year today. I *was allowed* to bury it: whatever was alive in it has been saved and is immortal. The first book of the *Revaluation of All Values*, the *Songs of Zarathustra*, *Twilight of the Idols*, my attempt to philosophize with a hammer—all gifts from this year, even from its last three months! *How could I not be grateful for my whole life?*—

And so I tell myself
the story of my life.

### Why I Am So Wise

[1]

The good fortune of my life, perhaps its uniqueness, lies in its fate. To put it as a riddle: as my father, I have already died; as my mother, I am still alive and growing old. This double origin comes, as it were, from the highest and lowest rungs on the ladder of life. I am both a decadent and a *beginning*. If anything explains my neutrality toward the whole problem of life, my freedom from taking sides, which may set me apart, this does. I have a keener nose for signs of rising and decline than any human being has ever had. I am the supreme teacher in this field—I know both, I am both.—My father died at 36. He was delicate, lovable, and sickly, like a being meant only to pass through—more a kindly memory of life than life itself. At the same age when his life went downhill, mine did too. In my 36th year I reached the lowest point of my vitality. I was still alive, but unable to see three steps ahead. That was in 1879. I gave up my professorship at Basel, lived like a shadow in St. Moritz through the summer, and spent the next winter, the least sunny of my life, *as* a shadow in Naumburg. That was my lowest point. I wrote “The Wanderer and His Shadow” during that time. There is no doubt that I understood shadows then… The next winter, my first in Genoa, brought forth “Dawn.” It grew out of that sweetness and refinement of mind that almost inevitably come with an extreme lack of blood and muscle. The complete brightness and cheerfulness, even overflowing energy of mind, reflected in that work are compatible in me not just with the deepest physical weakness, but even with extreme pain. In the middle of the torments brought on by three days of unbroken pain in the brain and exhausting vomiting of mucus, I had the clearest possible grasp of logical argument. I thought things through very coolly that, in healthier conditions, I am not enough of a climber, not subtle enough, not *cold* enough to reach. My readers may know how far I see this kind of logical argument as a symptom of decadence—for example, in the most famous case of all, that of Socrates.—To this day, all sickly disturbances of the mind have remained completely foreign to me, even the half-stunned state that comes with fever. I had to learn about their nature and frequency from scholarly study. My blood runs slowly. No one has ever been able to detect a fever in me. A doctor who treated me for a nervous disorder for quite some time finally said: “No! Your nerves aren't the problem. I'm just nervous myself.” No localized degeneration can be demonstrated at all. There is no stomach disease with an organic cause, however extreme the weakness of my digestive system may be as a result of general exhaustion. Even my eye trouble, which at times came dangerously close to blindness, was only a result, not a cause. So every increase in vitality also brought an improvement in my eyesight.—For me, a long, far too long series of years means recovery. Unfortunately, it also means relapse, decline, the recurring cycle of a kind of decadence. After all this, do I need to say that I am *experienced* in questions of decadence? I have spelled it out forward and backward. Even that delicate art of grasping and understanding in general, those fingers for fine shades of difference, that psychology of “seeing around corners,” and whatever else belongs to me, were only learned then. They are the real gift of that time, when everything in me grew more sensitive, observation itself as well as all the organs of observation. To look from the sick person's point of view toward *healthier* ideas and values, and then, in reverse, to look down from the fullness and self-assurance of a *rich* life into the secret work of the instinct of decadence—that was my longest practice, my real experience. If I became a master at anything, it was this. Now it is in my hands; I have the skill to *switch perspectives*. That is the first reason why a “revaluation of values” may be possible for me alone.—

[2]

For, besides being a decadent, I am also its opposite. One proof is that I always instinctively chose the *right* remedies for bad conditions. A decadent as such always chooses remedies that harm him. Taken as a whole, I was healthy; in one corner, in one particular respect, I was decadent. That energy for complete isolation and breaking away from familiar circumstances, the force I used on myself to stop letting people look after me, wait on me, and *doctor me*—all this shows the absolute certainty of my instinct about *what* was needed above all at that time. I took myself in hand. I made myself healthy again. The condition for doing this—every physiologist will admit it—is *that you are basically healthy*. A being who is typically sickly cannot become healthy, still less make himself healthy. For someone typically healthy, on the other hand, sickness can even be a powerful *spur* to life, to more life. That is indeed how that long period of sickness looks to me *now*. I discovered life anew, as it were, including myself. I tasted all the good things, even the small things, as others could not easily taste them. I made my will to health, to *life*, into my philosophy… For notice this: it was in the years when my vitality was lowest that I *stopped* being a pessimist. The instinct to restore myself *forbade* me a philosophy of poverty and discouragement… And how, at bottom, do you recognize *someone who has turned out well?* Such a person is pleasant to our senses. He is carved from wood that is hard, delicate, and fragrant at the same time. He likes the taste only of what is good for him. His liking, his pleasure, stops where the limit of what benefits him is passed. He senses the remedies for injuries. He turns bad accidents to his advantage. What does not kill him makes him stronger. He instinctively gathers *his own* total from everything he sees, hears, and experiences. He is a principle of selection; he lets much fall away. Whether he is dealing with books, people, or landscapes, he is always in *his own* company. He honors things by *choosing* them, by *admitting* them, by *trusting* them. He responds slowly to every kind of stimulus, with the slowness that long caution and deliberate pride have trained into him. He examines the stimulus that approaches him; he is far from going out to meet it. He believes neither in “bad luck” nor in “guilt.” He comes to terms with himself and with others. He knows how to *forget*. He is strong enough that everything *must* turn out for his good.—Well then, I am the *opposite* of a decadent: what I just described was *myself*.

[3]

This *double* series of experiences, this access to apparently separate worlds, repeats itself in every part of my nature. I am a double; besides my first sight, I also have “second” sight. *And* perhaps third sight too… My ancestry alone lets me look beyond every perspective shaped merely by a locality or a nation. Being a “good European” takes no effort for me. On the other hand, perhaps I am more German than today's Germans, mere Germans of the Reich, could still manage to be—I, the last *antipolitical* German. And yet my ancestors were Polish noblemen. I carry many racial instincts in my body from that source. Who knows? Perhaps, in the end, even the unrestricted right to veto. When I think how often people address me as a Pole on my travels, even Poles themselves, and how rarely they take me for a German, it might seem that I was only one of the Germans *speckled* with foreign blood. But my mother, Franziska Oehler, is certainly something very German, as is my grandmother on my father's side, Erdmuthe Krause. The latter spent her whole youth in good old Weimar, with some connections to Goethe's circle. Her brother, Krause, a professor of theology in Königsberg, was called to Weimar as general superintendent after Herder's death. It is not impossible that her mother, my great-grandmother, appears under the name “Muthgen” in the young Goethe's diary. She married a second time, to Superintendent Nietzsche in Eilenburg. In the great war year of 1813, she gave birth on the day Napoleon entered Eilenburg with his general staff, October 10. As a Saxon, she was a great admirer of Napoleon. It could be that I still am too. My father, born in 1813, died in 1849. Before taking over as pastor of the congregation in Röcken, near Lützen, he lived for several years at Altenburg Castle, where he taught the four princesses. His pupils are the Queen of Hanover, the Grand Duchess Constantine, the Grand Duchess of Oldenburg, and Princess Therese of Saxe-Altenburg. He felt deep devotion to the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who also gave him his position as pastor. The events of 1848 saddened him beyond measure. I myself was born on that king's birthday, October 15, and, fittingly, received the Hohenzollern names *Friedrich* Wilhelm. The choice of that day had at least one advantage: throughout my childhood, my birthday was a holiday.—I see it as a great privilege to have had such a father. In fact, it seems to explain all my other privileges—*not* counting life, the great Yes to life. Above all, I do not need to make any deliberate effort, but only to wait, to enter without willing it a world of lofty and delicate things. I am at home there. Only there is my deepest passion set free. That I nearly paid for this privilege with my life is certainly no unfair bargain.—To understand even a little of my Zarathustra, perhaps you need to be constituted much as I am—with one foot *beyond* life…

[4]

I have never understood the art of turning people against me—another thing I owe to my incomparable father—even when doing so seemed very valuable to me. In fact, however unchristian it may seem, I am not even against myself. Turn my life this way and that, and you will rarely find traces of anyone having wished me harm—at bottom, only once. But perhaps you will find rather too many traces of *good* will… Even my experiences with people everyone else has bad experiences with speak without exception in their favor. I tame every bear; I even make clowns behave decently. In the seven years when I taught Greek to the highest class at the Basel preparatory school, I never had reason to give a punishment. The laziest students worked hard for me. I am always a match for chance. I have to be unprepared to be master of myself. Whatever the instrument, however out of tune it may be—even as out of tune as the instrument “human being” can become—I would have to be sick not to get something worth hearing out of it. And how often I have heard from the “instruments” themselves that they had never heard themselves *like that* before… Perhaps the finest case was Heinrich von Stein, who died unforgivably young. Once, after carefully obtaining permission, he appeared in Sils-Maria for three days, explaining to everyone that he was *not* coming because of the Engadin. This excellent man had waded into the Wagnerian swamp with all the headstrong simplicity of a Prussian landed nobleman—and into Dühring's swamp as well! During those three days, he seemed transformed by a gale of freedom, like someone suddenly lifted to *his own* height and given wings. I kept telling him it was the good air up here, that everyone felt that way, that we were not 6000 feet above Bayreuth for nothing—but he would not believe me… If, despite this, people have done me various small and large wrongs, “will” was not the reason, least of all *ill* will. Rather—as I have just suggested—I would have cause to complain about good will, which has done no small amount of mischief in my life. My experiences entitle me to distrust the so-called “selfless” drives in general, all that “love of one's neighbor” ready with advice and action. I see it as weakness in itself, as a particular case of being unable to resist stimuli. Only decadents call *pity* a virtue. My charge against the pitying is that they easily lose their sense of shame, their respect, their delicate feeling for distances. Pity quickly smells of the mob and looks so like bad manners that you can mistake one for the other. Under some circumstances, pitying hands can actually reach in and destroy a great destiny, a wounded solitude, a *privilege* of bearing grave guilt. I count overcoming pity among the *noble* virtues. In “Zarathustra's Temptation” I imagined a case in which a great cry of distress reaches him, and pity tries to fall on him like a final sin and turn him away from *himself*. To remain master here, to keep the *height* of his task free from the much lower and more shortsighted impulses at work in so-called selfless actions—that is the test, perhaps the final test, that a Zarathustra has to pass, his real *proof* of strength…

[5]

In one other respect, too, I am simply my father over again, as though he lived on after dying far too soon. Like anyone who has never lived among his equals, and to whom the idea of “retaliation” is as inaccessible as, say, the idea of “equal rights,” I forbid myself any countermeasure or protective measure when someone does something foolish to me, whether small or *very large*. Naturally, I also forbid any defense, any “justification.” My way of retaliating is to send something clever after the stupidity as quickly as possible: perhaps it can still catch up with it. To put it in an image: I send a jar of jam to get rid of a *sour* business… People only need to do me some harm, and I will “pay them back”—they can be sure of that. Before long, I find an opportunity to express my thanks to the “wrongdoer,” sometimes even for the wrongdoing, or to *ask* him for something, which can create a stronger bond than giving something… It also seems to me that the rudest word, the rudest letter, is still kinder and more honest than silence. Those who keep silent almost always lack delicacy and politeness of heart. Silence is an objection. Swallowing things down inevitably makes for a bad character—it even ruins the stomach. Everyone who keeps silent has indigestion.—You see, I do not want rudeness to be underrated. It is by far the most *humane* form of disagreement and, amid modern oversensitivity, one of our foremost virtues.—If you are rich enough for it, being in the wrong is even a piece of good fortune. A god who came to earth would have to *do* nothing but wrong. Taking on not the punishment but the *guilt* would be truly divine.

[6]

Freedom from resentment, insight into resentment—who knows how much I ultimately owe my long illness for these too! The problem is not exactly simple. You have to have experienced it from a position of strength and from a position of weakness. If anything must be held against sickness and weakness, it is that they wear down the real healing instinct in a person, the *instinct to defend and arm oneself*. You cannot get free of anything, cannot deal with anything, cannot push anything back—everything hurts you. People and things press too close. Experiences strike too deep. Memory is a festering wound. Being sick *is* itself a kind of resentment.—Against this, the sick person has just one great remedy. I call it *Russian fatalism*: that fatalism without rebellion with which a Russian soldier finally lies down in the snow when a campaign becomes too hard. To stop accepting anything at all, taking anything on, taking anything *in*—to stop reacting altogether… The great good sense of this fatalism, which is not always just the courage to die, lies in preserving life under the most dangerous conditions by reducing the metabolism, slowing it down—a kind of will to hibernate. Follow this logic a few steps further and you have the fakir who sleeps in a grave for weeks… Because you would use yourself up too quickly *if* you reacted at all, you stop reacting completely: that is the logic. And nothing burns you out faster than the emotions of resentment. Anger, sickly sensitivity to hurt, powerlessness to take revenge, the desire, the thirst for revenge, the mixing of poison in every sense—this is certainly the most harmful way for exhausted people to react. It necessarily brings a rapid drain on nervous energy, a sickly increase in harmful discharges, such as bile into the stomach. For the sick person, resentment is what is forbidden *in itself*—*his* evil. Unfortunately, it is also his most natural inclination.—That profound physiologist Buddha understood this. His “religion,” which would be better called a system of *hygiene*, so as not to confuse it with such pitiful things as Christianity, made its effect depend on victory over resentment. Freeing the soul from *that* is the first step toward recovery. “Hostility does not end through hostility; hostility ends through friendship”: this stands at the beginning of Buddha's teaching. That is *not* morality speaking; that is physiology.—Resentment is born of weakness, and harms no one more than the weak person himself. In the other case, where a rich nature is the starting point, it is a *needless* feeling. Keeping mastery over it is almost the proof of that richness. Anyone who knows how seriously my philosophy has taken up the struggle against feelings of revenge and lingering resentment, right into the doctrine of “free will”—the struggle against Christianity is only one particular case—will understand why I am bringing my personal conduct, my *certainty of instinct* in practice, to light on this very point. In times of decadence, I *forbade* myself those feelings as harmful. As soon as life was rich and proud enough again, I forbade them as *beneath* me. The “Russian fatalism” I spoke of showed itself in the way I stubbornly held on for years to almost unbearable situations, places, lodgings, and company once chance had put them there. This was better than changing them, than *feeling* that they could be changed, than rebelling against them… At that time I took deadly offense at anyone who disturbed me in this fatalism or forcibly woke me up. In truth, each time it was also a deadly danger.—To accept yourself as a fate, not to want yourself to be “different”—in such conditions, that is *great good sense* itself.

[7]

War is another matter. I am warlike by nature. Attacking is one of my instincts. Being *able* to be an enemy, being an enemy—perhaps this requires a strong nature; in any case, it is part of every strong nature. Such a nature needs resistance, so it *seeks* resistance. The *aggressive* passion belongs to strength as necessarily as feelings of revenge and lingering resentment belong to weakness. Woman, for example, is vengeful. That comes from her weakness, just as her sensitivity to other people's distress does.—The strength of an attacker has a kind of *measure* in the opposition he needs. Every growth in strength reveals itself in seeking a more powerful opponent—or problem. For a warlike philosopher challenges problems to single combat too. The task is *not* to overcome just any resistance, but resistance that requires you to use all your strength, flexibility, and skill with weapons—opponents who are your *equals*… Equality with the enemy is the first condition for an *honest* duel. Where you despise, you *cannot* wage war. Where you command, where you see something *beneath* you, you *have no business* waging war.—My practice in war can be summed up in four statements. First: I attack only causes that are victorious. Sometimes I wait until they are victorious. Second: I attack only causes against which I would find no allies, where I stand alone—where I alone put myself in a compromising position… I have never taken a public step that did not put me in a compromising position. That is *my* test of right action. Third: I never attack people. I use a person only as a powerful magnifying glass to make visible a general but creeping, hard-to-grasp state of distress. That is how I attacked David Strauss—more precisely, the *success* of a senile book among German “educated society.” I caught that society in the act… That is how I attacked Wagner—more precisely, the falseness and mongrel instincts of our “culture,” which confuses the refined with the rich, the latecomers with the great. Fourth: I attack only things where any personal disagreement is ruled out, where there is no background of bad experiences. On the contrary, with me an attack is proof of good will, sometimes of gratitude. I honor and single out a cause or a person by linking my name with theirs. Whether I am for or against them makes no difference to me in this respect. If I wage war on Christianity, I have the right to do so because I have suffered no misfortunes or obstacles from that quarter. The most serious Christians have always been well disposed toward me. I myself, an uncompromising opponent of Christianity, am far from holding against an individual what is the fate of thousands of years.—

[8]

May I dare to point out one final trait of my nature, one that causes me no small difficulty in dealing with people? My instinct for cleanliness is sensitive to a completely uncanny degree. I physically sense—*smell*—the presence, or rather, what am I saying?—the innermost part, the “guts,” of every soul… This sensitivity gives me psychological feelers with which I touch and take hold of every secret. The great amount of *hidden* dirt at the bottom of many a nature, perhaps rooted in bad blood but whitewashed by upbringing, becomes clear to me almost at the first contact. If I have observed correctly, these natures that are bad for my cleanliness also sense the caution of my disgust. That does not make them smell any better… As I have always been used to doing—complete honesty with myself is a condition of my existence; I perish in impure conditions—I am, as it were, constantly swimming, bathing, and splashing in water, in some completely transparent and shining element. This makes dealing with people no small test of patience for me. My humanity does *not* consist in feeling what people are like, but in *enduring* that I feel it… My humanity is a constant overcoming of myself.—But I need *solitude*, by which I mean recovery, a return to myself, the breath of free, light, playful air… My whole Zarathustra is a song of praise to solitude—or, if you have understood me, to *purity*… Fortunately, not to *pure folly*…—Anyone with eyes for colors will call it diamond-like.—*Disgust* with humanity, with the “rabble,” has always been my greatest danger… Would you like to hear the words in which Zarathustra speaks of *release* from disgust?

“What happened to me, then? How did I free myself from disgust?

Who made my eye young again? How did I fly up to the height where no rabble sits by the well anymore?

Did my disgust itself create wings for me, and powers to sense springs? Yes, I had to fly to the greatest heights to find the fountain of pleasure again!—

Oh, I found it, my brothers! Here at the greatest heights the fountain of pleasure springs up for me! And there is a life that no rabble drinks from!

You flow almost too fiercely for me, spring of pleasure! And often you empty the cup again by wanting to fill it.

And I must still learn to approach you more modestly: my heart still flows too fiercely toward you:

—my heart, on which my summer burns, that short, hot, sad, overjoyed summer: how my summer heart longs for your coolness!

The lingering sadness of my spring is past! The snowflakes of my malice in June are over! I have become all summer and summer noon—

—a summer at the greatest heights, with cold springs and blissful stillness. Oh, come, my friends, so the stillness may grow still more blissful!

For this is *our* height and our home. We live too high and steep here for all the unclean and their thirst.

Just cast your pure eyes into the fountain of my pleasure, my friends! How could that make it cloudy? It should laugh back at you with *its own* purity.

On the tree of the future we build our nest. Eagles are to bring food in their beaks to us who live alone!

Yes, no food that the unclean would be allowed to share!

They would think they were eating fire and would burn their mouths.

Yes, we keep no homes ready here for the unclean! Our happiness would mean a cave of ice to their bodies and their minds!

And like strong winds we want to live above them, neighbors to the eagles, neighbors to the snow, neighbors to the sun: that is how strong winds live.

And like a wind I want one day to blow among them and with my spirit take the breath away from their spirit: that is what my future wills.

Yes, Zarathustra is a strong wind to all lowlands. And this is the advice he gives his enemies and everything that spits and spews: beware of spitting *against* the wind!…”

### Why I Am So Clever

[1]

Why do I know a little *more*? Why am I so clever at all? I have never thought about questions that aren't really questions—I haven't wasted myself.—For example, I have no firsthand experience of real *religious* difficulties. I have completely failed to see how I could be “sinful.” I also have no reliable way to tell what a guilty conscience is. From what one *hears* about it, a guilty conscience seems to me nothing to respect… I wouldn't want to abandon an action *afterward*. I would rather leave a bad outcome, the *consequences*, out of the question of its value altogether. When something ends badly, it's all too easy to lose the *right* view of what one did. A guilty conscience seems to me a kind of “*evil* eye.” To value something all the more in one's own eyes when it fails, *because* it failed—that's closer to my morality.—“God,” “immortality of the soul,” “redemption,” “the afterlife”: I have given none of these ideas any attention or time, not even as a child. Perhaps I was never childish enough for that?—For me, atheism is certainly not a conclusion, still less an event. It comes naturally, by instinct. I am too curious, too *full of questions*, too high-spirited to accept a crude, heavy-handed answer. God is a crude, heavy-handed answer, an offense against the good taste of us thinkers. At bottom, he is even just a crude *ban* imposed on us: you must not think!… A very different question interests me. The “salvation of humanity” depends on it more than on any theological oddity: the question of *food*. For practical use, you can put it this way: “How should *you*, in particular, eat to reach your greatest strength, your greatest force of character in the Renaissance sense, your greatest virtue free from moralizing?”—My experiences here have been as bad as possible. I am amazed that I heard this question so late and learned “sense” from these experiences so late. Only the complete worthlessness of our German education—its “idealism”—helps me understand why, in this very matter, I was backward enough to be a saint. This “education” teaches people from the start to lose sight of *realities* and chase thoroughly questionable, so-called ideal goals, such as a “classical education.” As if joining “classical” and “German” in one idea weren't doomed from the start! More than that, it's funny. Just picture a “classically educated” man from Leipzig!—In fact, until I was well into adulthood, I always ate *badly*. In moral language, I ate “impersonally,” “selflessly,” “altruistically,” for the good of cooks and other fellow Christians. Through Leipzig cooking, for example, I very seriously denied my “will to live” at the same time as I first studied Schopenhauer (1865). To upset your stomach while also getting too little nourishment—this was a problem that cooking seemed to solve with astonishing success. (People say 1866 brought a change in this respect.) But German cooking in general—what doesn't it have on its conscience! Soup *before* the meal, still called “in the German style” in Venetian cookbooks of the 16th century. Meat boiled to death. Vegetables made fatty and floury. Flour-based dishes turned into paperweights! Add to that the downright animal need of the old Germans—and by no means just the *old* ones—to pour drink on top, and you can also understand where the *German spirit* comes from: unhappy bowels… The German spirit is indigestion. It can't get through anything.—But the *English* diet also goes deeply against my own instinct. Compared with the German diet, even with the French, it is a kind of “return to nature”—that is, to cannibalism. It seems to give the mind *heavy* feet—the feet of Englishwomen… The best cooking is *Piedmont's*.—Alcohol is bad for me. One glass of wine or beer a day is quite enough to turn my life into a “vale of tears.” My complete opposites live in Munich. Though I understood this rather late, I have actually *experienced* it since childhood. As a boy, I thought drinking wine, like smoking tobacco, was at first just young men's vanity and later a bad habit. Perhaps Naumburg wine also had something to do with this *harsh* judgment. To believe that wine *cheers people up*, I would have to be a Christian. In other words, I would have to believe something that is absurd precisely for me. Strangely enough, though *small*, heavily diluted doses of alcohol can upset my mood so badly, I become almost a sailor when it comes to *strong* doses. Even as a boy, I was brave in this respect. I could write a long essay in Latin in a single night and then make a clean copy of it too. My pen was driven by the ambition to match my model Sallust in strictness and conciseness, and I poured several very strong grogs over my Latin. Even when I was a pupil at the venerable Schulpforta, this was in no way at odds with my body's nature. Perhaps it wasn't at odds with Sallust's either—however much it was at odds with the venerable Schulpforta… Later, toward the middle of my life, I did take an ever firmer stand *against* every kind of “spirited” drink. I oppose vegetarianism on the basis of experience, just like Richard Wagner, who converted me. And I can't urge complete abstinence from alcohol strongly enough on all *more intellectual* people. *Water* does the job… I prefer places where you can draw water from flowing fountains everywhere: Nice, Turin, Sils. A little glass follows me around like a dog. In wine there is *truth*: it seems that here too I disagree with everyone else about the meaning of “truth.” In my case, the spirit hovers over the *water*… A few more hints from my morality. A substantial meal is easier to digest than one that's too small. The first condition for good digestion is that the stomach gets to work as a whole. You must *know* the size of your stomach. For the same reason, I advise against those drawn-out meals at the communal hotel table, which I call interrupted sacrificial feasts.—No snacks between meals, no coffee: coffee darkens the mood. *Tea* is good for you only in the morning. A little, but strong. Tea is very harmful and makes you feel ill all day if it is even one degree too weak. Everyone has their own measure here, often within very narrow and delicate limits. In a very irritating climate, tea isn't a good way to start. You should begin with a cup of thick, defatted cocoa an hour earlier.—*Sit* as little as possible. Don't trust any thought that wasn't born outdoors and in free movement—one in which the muscles aren't holding a celebration too. All prejudices come from the bowels.—Sitting on your backside—I have said this before—is the real *sin* against the Holy Spirit.—

[2]

Closely related to the question of food is the question of *place* and *climate*. No one is free to live just anywhere. And anyone who has great tasks to carry out, tasks that demand all their strength, has a very narrow choice here. Climate affects the *metabolism*, slowing it down or speeding it up, so much that a wrong choice of place and climate can do more than separate someone from their task. It can keep the task from them altogether. They never even see it. Their physical energy has never grown strong enough to reach that freedom which overflows into the highest activity of the mind, where someone realizes: only I can do *this*… Even the slightest sluggishness of the bowels, once it has become a bad habit, is quite enough to turn a genius into something average, something “German.” The German climate alone is enough to discourage strong bowels, even bowels with a heroic bent. The speed of the metabolism is directly linked to how nimble or lame the mind's *feet* are. The “mind” itself is only a form of this metabolism. Make a list of the places where people with lively minds live and have lived, where wit, refinement, and malice were part of happiness, where genius almost inevitably made itself at home. They all have remarkably dry air. Paris, Provence, Florence, Jerusalem, Athens—these names prove something. Genius *depends* on dry air, on clear skies—that is, on a rapid metabolism, on the ability to take in large, even enormous amounts of energy again and again. I have a case in mind where a mind built for greatness and freedom became narrow, withdrawn, specialized, and sour, simply because its instinct wasn't sensitive enough to climate. And I myself might have ended up as that case, if illness hadn't forced me to see sense, to think about the sense in reality. Now, after long practice, I read the effects of climate and weather in myself as on a very fine and reliable instrument. Even on a short trip, say from Turin to Milan, I work out the change in degrees of humidity from its effects on my body. So I look back with horror at the *unnerving* fact that, except for the last 10 years, the years when my life was in danger, I have always lived in the wrong places, places positively *forbidden* to me. Naumburg, Schulpforta, Thuringia in general, Leipzig, Basel, Venice—every one of them a place of disaster for my body. I have no welcome memory of my entire childhood and youth. But it would be foolish to blame so-called “moral” causes for this—for instance, the undeniable lack of *suitable* company. That lack exists today just as it always did, without stopping me from being cheerful and brave. Instead, ignorance about the body—that damned “idealism”—has been the real curse of my life, the needless and stupid part of it. Nothing good has grown from it, and nothing makes up for it or balances it out. I explain all my wrong choices, all my great failures of instinct and acts of “modesty” away from my life's *task*, as the results of this “idealism.” For example, that I became a philologist. Why not at least a doctor, or something else that opens one's eyes? During my time in Basel, my whole mental diet, including how I divided up the day, was a completely senseless misuse of extraordinary powers. I took in nothing like enough strength to cover what I used up. I didn't even think about what I spent and how to replace it. I lacked any finer sense of myself, any *care* from an instinct that knew how to command. I put myself on a level with just anyone. It was “selflessness,” a forgetting of my distance from others—something I never forgive myself for. When I was almost at the end, *because* I was almost at the end, I began thinking about this basic unreason in my life—“idealism.” Only *illness* brought me to my senses.—

[3]

The choice of food; the choice of climate and place. The third choice one must never get wrong, at any price, is the choice of *one's own* kind of *relaxation*. Here too, the more a mind is one of a kind, the narrower the limits of what is allowed it—that is, what is *useful* to it. In my case, all *reading* is a form of relaxation. So it belongs among the things that free me from myself, that let me go for a walk through other people's fields of knowledge and minds—things I no longer take seriously. Reading gives me a rest from *my own* seriousness. When I am deeply at work, you won't see any books around me. I would take care not to let anyone speak near me, or even think. And reading would mean just that… Has anyone really noticed how, in the deep tension that pregnancy imposes on the mind and basically on the whole body, chance, any kind of stimulus from outside, acts too strongly, “strikes home” too deeply? One must avoid chance and outside stimulation as much as possible. A kind of walling oneself in is among the first wise moves of instinct during a pregnancy of the mind. Will I allow a *foreign* thought to climb secretly over the wall? And reading would mean just that… After the times of work and fertility comes the time of relaxation. Come here, you pleasant, witty, clever books!—Will they be German books?… I have to look back six months to catch myself with a book in my hand. What was it? An excellent study by Victor Brochard, les Sceptiques Grecs, which also makes good use of my Laertiana. The skeptics, the only *honorable* type in that two-to-five-faced tribe of philosophers!… Otherwise, I almost always turn to the same books. There are only a few of them, really: the books that have *proved their worth* specifically for me. Perhaps it's not in my nature to read a lot or to read widely. A reading room makes me ill. Nor is it in my nature to love a lot or to love widely. Caution, even hostility toward new books, is more a part of my instinct than “tolerance,” “generosity of heart,” and other forms of “love of one's neighbor”… I keep returning to a small number of older French writers. I believe only in French culture. I consider everything else in Europe that calls itself “culture” a misunderstanding, not to mention German culture… The few examples of high culture I found in Germany were all French in origin. Above all, Mrs. Cosima Wagner, by far the foremost voice on questions of taste that I have ever heard.—I don't read Pascal, I *love* him, as Christianity's most instructive victim: slowly murdered, first physically, then psychologically, with all the logic of this most horrifying form of inhuman cruelty. I have something of Montaigne's mischievous high spirits in my mind, and who knows, perhaps in my body too. My artistic taste defends the names Molière, Corneille, and Racine, not without anger at a wild genius like Shakespeare. But none of this rules out my also finding the very latest French writers charming company. I simply can't see in what century of history one could gather psychologists as curious and at the same time as sensitive as those in Paris today. Let me name a few—for there are quite a lot of them—Paul Bourget, Pierre Loti, Gyp, Meilhac, Anatole France, Jules Lemaître. Or, to single out one of the strong race, a true Latin whom I especially like, Guy de Maupassant. Between ourselves, I even prefer *this* generation to their great teachers. All those teachers have been spoiled by German philosophy—Mr. Taine, for example, by Hegel, to whom he owes his misunderstanding of great people and periods. Wherever Germany reaches, it *spoils* culture. Only the war “set free” the mind in France… Stendhal, one of the finest chance discoveries of my life—for everything that marks a turning point in my life has come to me by chance, never through a recommendation—is quite priceless. He has a psychologist's eye that sees things ahead of time, and a grip on facts that recalls his closeness to the greatest realist: you can tell Napoleon by his claw.—Not least, he is priceless as an *honest* atheist, a rare and almost impossible-to-find species in France, with all due respect to Prosper Mérimée… Perhaps I myself envy Stendhal? He took away from me the best atheist joke, the one I in particular could have made: “God's only excuse is that he doesn't exist”… I myself have said somewhere: what has been the greatest objection to existence up to now? *God*…

[4]

*Heinrich Heine* gave me the highest idea of what a lyric poet can be. I search in vain through all the realms of thousands of years for music as sweet and passionate. He had that divine malice without which I can't imagine perfection. I judge the value of people and races by how necessary they find it to see the god and the satyr as inseparable.—And how he handles German! One day people will say that Heine and I were by far the greatest artists of the German language—at an incalculable distance from everything that mere Germans have done with it.—I must be deeply related to *Byron's* Manfred. I found all those depths within myself. At thirteen, I was ready for this work. I have no words, only a look, for those who dare to mention Faust in the presence of Manfred. The Germans are *incapable* of any idea of greatness. Schumann is the proof. Out of anger at this sugary Saxon, I deliberately composed a counter-overture to Manfred. Hans von Bülow said he had never seen anything like it on music paper: it was rape of Euterpe.—When I look for my highest way of describing *Shakespeare*, I always find only this: he conceived the Caesar type. You don't guess something like that. You either are it or you aren't. A great poet draws *only* on his own reality—to the point that afterward he can no longer bear his own work… After I have glanced into my Zarathustra, I walk up and down the room for half an hour, unable to control an unbearable fit of sobbing.—I know no reading more heartbreaking than Shakespeare. How much a person must have suffered to need so badly to play the clown!—Does anyone *understand* Hamlet? It's not doubt but *certainty* that drives people mad… But to feel that way, you have to be deep, an abyss, a philosopher… We are all afraid of the truth… And let me admit it: I am instinctively sure and certain that Lord Bacon is the creator of this most unnerving kind of literature, torturing the animal in himself. What do *I* care about the pitiful chatter of muddled and shallow American minds? But the power to make visions overwhelmingly real is not just compatible with the greatest power to act, to carry out monstrous deeds, to commit crime—*it actually requires that power*… We know nowhere near enough about Lord Bacon, the first realist in every great sense of the word, to know all that he did, all that he wanted, all that he experienced within himself… And damn you, gentlemen critics! Suppose I had put someone else's name on my Zarathustra, Richard Wagner's, for example. The sharp insight of two thousand years would not have been enough to guess that the author of “Human, All Too Human” was the visionary of Zarathustra…

[5]

Here, as I speak of the things that have refreshed me in life, I need to say a word of thanks for what has refreshed me by far the most deeply and warmly. Without any doubt, this was my close friendship with Richard Wagner. I would let the rest of my human relationships go cheap. I wouldn't give up the days at Tribschen from my life at any price: days of trust, cheerfulness, sublime moments of chance—the *deep* moments… I don't know what others experienced with Wagner. No cloud ever crossed *our* sky.—And this brings me back to France once more. I have no arguments left for Wagnerians and all that sort, only a contemptuous curl of the lip. They think they honor Wagner by finding him like *themselves*… Being who I am, a stranger in my deepest instincts to everything German, so much so that just being near a German slows my digestion, my first contact with Wagner was also the first time in my life I could breathe freely. I felt and honored him as *a foreign country*, as an opposite, as a living protest against all the “German virtues.”—We who were children in the swampy air of the fifties are necessarily pessimists about the idea of “German.” We can be nothing but revolutionaries. We will accept no state of affairs in which the religious hypocrite comes out on top. I don't care at all whether he appears in different colors today, whether he dresses in scarlet and puts on hussar uniforms… Well then! Wagner was a revolutionary—he ran away from the Germans… As an *artist*, one has no home in Europe except Paris. The delicacy in all five artistic senses that Wagner's art requires, the fingers sensitive to fine shades of difference, the sickliness of the mind—these are found only in Paris. Nowhere else is there this passion about form, this seriousness about staging. It is Parisian seriousness in its fullest sense. In Germany, people have no idea of the enormous ambition living in the soul of a Parisian artist. The German is good-natured. Wagner was not good-natured at all… But I have already said enough (in “Beyond Good and Evil,” S. 256f.) about where Wagner belongs, who his closest relatives are. They belong to late French Romanticism: that kind of artist who soars high and sweeps others high along with him, like Delacroix, like Berlioz. All of them have a foundation of sickness, of something incurable in their nature. All are fanatics of *expression*, masters of technique through and through… Who was Wagner's first *intelligent* follower? Charles Baudelaire, the same man who first understood Delacroix, that typical decadent in whom a whole generation of artists recognized itself. Perhaps he was also the last… What have I never forgiven Wagner for? That he *stooped* to the Germans—that he became a German of the empire… Wherever Germany reaches, it *spoils* culture.—

[6]

All things considered, I couldn't have endured my youth without Wagner's music. For I was *condemned* to Germans. When you want to escape an unbearable pressure, you need hashish. Well, I needed Wagner. Wagner is the supreme antidote to everything German—a poison, I don't deny it… From the moment a piano arrangement of Tristan appeared—my compliments, Mr. von Bülow!—I was a Wagnerian. I saw Wagner's earlier works as beneath me: still too vulgar, too “German”… But even today I am looking for a work as dangerously fascinating, with an infinity as frightening and sweet, as Tristan. I search in vain through all the arts. All the strangeness of Lionardo da Vinci loses its spell at the first note of Tristan. This work is Wagner's very highest achievement. He recovered from it with Meistersinger and the Ring. Getting healthier is a *step backward* for someone with Wagner's nature… I count it a piece of the very greatest luck that I lived at the right time, and lived precisely among Germans, so that I was *ready* for this work. That is how far my curiosity as a psychologist goes. The world is poor for anyone who has never been sick enough for this “sensual pleasure of hell.” We may, we almost must, use a mystic's phrase here.—I think I know better than anyone the enormous things Wagner can do, the fifty worlds of unfamiliar ecstasy for which no one but him had wings. And being who I am, strong enough to turn even the most questionable and dangerous things to my advantage and grow stronger through them, I call Wagner the great benefactor of my life. What we have in common is that we have suffered more deeply, even from each other, than people of this century could suffer. This will keep bringing our names together forever. And just as surely as the Germans simply misunderstand Wagner, they misunderstand me and always will.—Two centuries of psychological and artistic training *first*, my Germanic gentlemen!… But you can't make up for missing that.—

[7]

One more word for the most sensitive ears: what I really want from music. I want it to be cheerful and deep, like an afternoon in October. I want it to have a character of its own, to be wild, tender, a sweet little woman full of malice and grace… I will never admit that a German *could* know what music is. Those called German musicians, the greatest first of all, are *foreigners*: Slavs, Croats, Italians, Dutch—or Jews. Otherwise they are Germans of the strong race, Germans who have *died out*, like Heinrich Schütz, Bach, and Handel. I myself am still Polish enough to give up all other music for Chopin. For three reasons, I make an exception for Wagner's Siegfried-Idyll, perhaps also for some things by Liszt, who surpasses all other musicians in the noble accents of his orchestration. Finally, I also except everything that has grown on the far side of the Alps—on *this side*… I couldn't do without Rossini, still less without *my* South in music, the music of my Venetian master Pietro Gasti. And when I say the far side of the Alps, I really mean only Venice. When I look for another word for music, I always find only the word Venice. I can't tell tears and music apart. I cannot think of happiness, of the *South*, without a shiver of fear.

By the bridge I stood
recently, in the brown night.
Singing came from far away;
it welled up in golden drops
across the trembling surface.
Gondolas, lights, music—
drunkenly it floated out into the twilight…

My soul, a stringed instrument,
sang to itself, touched by something unseen,
a secret gondola song along with it,
trembling with happiness in many colors.
—Was anyone listening to it?…

[8]

In all this—in the choice of food, place and climate, and relaxation—an instinct for self-preservation is in command. It shows itself most clearly as an instinct for *self-defense*. Not seeing many things, not hearing them, not letting them reach you: this is the first piece of wisdom, the first proof that you are not an accident but a necessity. The usual word for this instinct of self-defense is *taste*. Its command is not only to say no where saying yes would be “selflessness,” but also to *say no as little as possible*. Separate yourself, move away from whatever would make you say no again and again. The sense in this is that even the smallest expenses on defense, once they become a rule, a habit, make us extraordinarily and quite needlessly poorer. Our *big* expenses are the small ones that happen most often. Warding things off, not letting them get near, is an expense—don't fool yourself about this. It is strength *wasted* for negative purposes. Simply through the constant need to defend yourself, you can grow too weak to defend yourself anymore.—Suppose I stepped out of my house and found, instead of quiet, aristocratic Turin, a small German town. My instinct would have to brace itself to push back everything pressing in on it from this flattened, cowardly world. Or suppose I found the big German city, this vice turned into buildings, where nothing grows, where every single thing, good or bad, has been brought in from elsewhere. Wouldn't I have to become a *hedgehog*?—But having spines is a waste, even a double luxury, when you are free to have no spines, but open hands instead…

Another wise form of self-defense is to *react as rarely as possible* and to escape situations and conditions where you would be forced to hang up your “freedom,” your initiative, so to speak, and become nothing but something that reacts. Take the example of dealing with books. The scholar who basically does nothing but “turn over” books—about 200 a day for a philologist, by a modest estimate—eventually loses the ability to think for himself altogether. If he isn't turning over books, he isn't thinking. When he thinks, he is *answering* a stimulus—a thought he has read. In the end, all he does is react. The scholar uses up all his strength saying yes and no, criticizing what has already been thought. He no longer thinks himself… His instinct for self-defense has worn out. Otherwise, he would defend himself against books. The scholar—a decadent.—I have seen this with my own eyes: gifted people, born with rich and free natures, already “read to ruin” in their thirties. They are nothing but matches that you have to strike to make them give off sparks—“thoughts.”—Early in the morning, as day breaks, in all your freshness, in the dawn of your strength, to read *a book*—I call that a vice!—

[9]

At this point I can no longer avoid giving the real answer to the question of *how you become what you are*. This brings me to the masterpiece in the art of self-preservation—of *selfishness*… Suppose that one's task, one's calling, the *destiny* of that task, lies far beyond the ordinary measure. Then nothing would be more dangerous than seeing oneself *together with* this task. Becoming what you are requires that you have not the faintest idea *what* you are. From this point of view, even life's *mistakes* have their own meaning and value: the temporary side roads and wrong turns, the delays, the acts of “modesty,” the seriousness wasted on tasks outside the task. This expresses great wisdom, even the highest wisdom. Where “know yourself” would be a recipe for ruin, forgetting yourself, *misunderstanding* yourself, making yourself smaller, narrower, more average, becomes reason itself. In moral terms, loving your neighbor, living for others and other things, *can* be a protective measure that preserves the hardest sense of self. This is the exceptional case in which, against my rule and conviction, I take the side of the “selfless” drives. Here they work in the service of *selfishness, self-discipline*.—One must keep the whole surface of consciousness—consciousness is a surface—clear of any of the great commands. Be careful even of every grand word, every grand pose! They all risk making the instinct “understand itself” too early.—Meanwhile, the organizing “idea,” the one called to rule, keeps growing and growing in the depths. It begins to command. It slowly leads us back from side roads and wrong turns. It prepares *individual* qualities and skills that will one day prove essential as means to the whole. It develops all the *serving* abilities one after another before it lets anything be heard of the ruling task, of “goal,” “purpose,” “meaning.”—Seen from this side, my life is simply wonderful. The task of a *revaluation of values* may have needed more abilities than have ever lived together in one individual. Above all, it needed opposing abilities too, without letting them interfere with or destroy each other. A ranking of abilities; distance; the art of separating without creating enemies; mixing nothing, “reconciling” nothing; an enormous variety that is still the opposite of chaos—this was the precondition, the long, secret work and artistry of my instinct. Its *higher care* proved so strong that I never had even a guess at what was growing in me. All my abilities suddenly *sprang out* one day, mature, in their final perfection. I have no memory of ever making an effort. No trace of *struggle* can be found in my life. I am the opposite of a heroic nature. To “want” something, to “strive” for something, to have a “purpose,” a “wish” in view—I have no firsthand experience of any of this. Even at this moment I look out on my future—a *vast* future!—as on a smooth sea. No longing ripples across it. I don't want anything at all to be different from what it is. I myself don't want to become different… But I have always lived like this. I have had no wish. Someone who, past the age of forty-four, can say he has never pursued *honors*, *women*, or *money*!—Not that I lacked them… For example, one day I was a university professor. I had never remotely thought of such a thing, since I was barely 24 years old. In the same way, two years earlier, one day I was a philologist. I mean that my teacher Ritschl asked to print my *first* work in philology, my beginning in every sense, in his “Rheinisches Museum.” (*Ritschl*—I say this with respect—is the only scholar of genius I have seen to this day. He had that pleasant roguishness that marks us Thuringians and with which even a German becomes likable. Even to reach the truth, we still prefer the back roads. With these words I certainly don't mean to undervalue my closer countryman, the *clever* Leopold von Ranke…).

[10]

People will ask why I have told them all these little things, things usually thought unimportant. They will say I am harming myself by doing so, all the more if I am meant to stand for great tasks. My answer: these little things—food, place, climate, relaxation, all the fine points of selfishness—are more important beyond all measure than everything people have considered important up to now. This is exactly where we must begin to *learn differently*. The things humanity has seriously considered up to now aren't even realities. They are mere imaginings, or, to speak more strictly, *lies* born from the bad instincts of sick people, people harmful in the deepest sense: all those ideas of “God,” “soul,” “virtue,” “sin,” “the afterlife,” “truth,” “eternal life”… Yet people have looked for the greatness of human nature, its “divinity,” in them… Every question of politics, social order, and education has been falsified to its very roots because people took the most harmful people for great people. They taught us to despise the “little” things—that is, the basic matters of life itself… If I now compare myself with those honored up to now as the *foremost* human beings, the difference is plain to see. I don't even count these supposedly “foremost” ones as human beings at all. To me, they are humanity's rejects, monstrous offspring of sickness and vengeful instincts. They are all disastrous, basically incurable monsters who take revenge on life… I want to be their opposite. My special advantage is that I have the finest sensitivity to every sign of healthy instincts. There isn't a sickly trait in me. Even during serious illness, I never became sickly. Anyone looking for a trace of fanaticism in my nature will look in vain. No one will be able to point to any moment in my life when I took an arrogant or theatrical pose. The drama of a pose is *not* part of greatness. Anyone who needs poses at all is *fake*… Beware of all people who make a striking picture!—Life has been easy for me, easiest when it demanded the hardest things from me. Anyone who saw me during the seventy days of this fall, when I did nothing but first-rate things without a break, things no one can copy from me—or show me beforehand—with a responsibility for all the thousands of years after me, will have noticed no trace of tension in me. All the more so, they will have noticed an overflowing freshness and cheerfulness. I have never eaten with more pleasant feelings, never slept better.—I know no other way of dealing with great tasks than *play*. As a sign of greatness, this is an essential condition. The slightest strain, a gloomy face, any harsh tone in the throat, all count against a person—how much more against their work!… You must have no nerves… To *suffer* from loneliness also counts against you. I have only ever suffered from “too much company”… At an absurdly early age, at seven, I already knew that no human word would ever reach me. Has anyone ever seen me saddened by that?—Even today I am just as friendly toward everyone. I even show special respect to the lowliest. In all this there isn't a grain of arrogance or secret contempt. Anyone I despise *guesses* that I despise them. My mere existence outrages everyone with bad blood in their body… My formula for greatness in a human being is *love of fate*: not wanting anything to be different, not in the future, not in the past, not for all eternity. Not merely putting up with what is necessary, still less hiding it—all idealism is dishonesty in the face of what is necessary—but *loving* it…

### Why I Write Such Good Books

[1]

I am one thing; my writings are another.—Before I talk about the writings themselves, I will touch on whether people understand them or do *not* understand them. I will do this as casually as I can decently manage. The time for this question has not come at all. My own time has not come yet. Some people are born after their deaths.—Someday people will need institutions where they live and teach as I understand living and teaching. Perhaps they will even set up special university chairs to interpret Zarathustra. But I would completely contradict myself if I already expected ears *and hands for my* truths today. It is not just understandable that people do not hear me today, that they do not know how to take anything from me. It even seems right to me. I do not want to be confused with anyone else—and that means I must not confuse myself with anyone else.—Again, there is little evidence of “ill will” in my life. I could hardly name a case of literary “ill will” either. But there is far too much *sheer stupidity!*… It seems to me one of the rarest honors anyone can do himself to pick up a book of mine. I even assume that he takes off his shoes for the occasion—not to mention his boots… Once Dr. Heinrich von Stein honestly complained that he could not understand a word of my Zarathustra. I told him that was quite all right. To have understood six sentences from it—that is, to have *lived through* them—would raise someone to a higher level among mortals than “modern” people could reach. With *this* feeling of distance, how *could* I even wish to be read by the “modern people” I know!—My triumph is just the opposite of Schopenhauer’s. I say, “I am not read; I will not be read.”—Not that I want to underrate the pleasure I have several times taken in the *innocence* with which people reject my writings. Just this summer, at a time when my weighty, all-too-weighty writing might throw all other writing off balance, a professor at the University of Berlin kindly suggested that I should use a different form. Nobody, he said, reads this sort of thing.—In the end it was not Germany but Switzerland that supplied the two extreme cases. An article by Dr. V. Widmann in the “Bund” about “Beyond Good and Evil,” titled “Nietzsche’s Dangerous Book,” and an overall account of my books by Mr. Karl Spitteler, also in the “Bund,” mark a high point in my life—I am careful not to say of what… The latter, for instance, treated my Zarathustra as an *advanced exercise in style*, with the wish that later I might also provide some content. Dr. Widmann expressed his respect for the courage with which I was working to abolish all decent feelings.—Through a small trick of chance, every sentence here was a truth turned upside down, with a consistency I admired. Basically, all one had to do was “revalue all values” to hit the nail on the head about me, quite remarkably—instead of hitting my head with a nail… So I will make all the more effort to explain.—In the end, no one can hear more in things, books included, than he already knows. If you have no access to something through experience, you have no ear for it. Now imagine an extreme case: a book speaks entirely of experiences that lie completely beyond the possibility of frequent or even fairly rare experience. It is the *first* language for a new set of experiences. In this case people simply hear nothing. They suffer from the acoustic illusion that where nothing is heard, *nothing is there either*… This, in short, is my usual experience and, if you like, the *originality* of my experience. Anyone who thought he had understood something of me had made something out of me in his own image—quite often my opposite, an “idealist,” for example. Anyone who understood nothing of me denied that I mattered at all.—The word *“overman”* describes a type that has turned out supremely well, in contrast to “modern” people, “good” people, Christians, and nihilists. In the mouth of a Zarathustra, the *destroyer* of morality, this word gives one much to think about. Almost everywhere, people have understood it with complete innocence in terms of the very values whose opposite the figure of Zarathustra embodies. That is, they take it to mean an “idealistic” type of higher human being, half “saint,” half “genius”… Other learned cattle have suspected me of Darwinism on its account. People have even recognized in it Carlyle’s “hero worship,” which I so spitefully rejected—Carlyle, that great counterfeiter who did not know or mean to be one. When I whispered in someone’s ear that he should look for a Cesare Borgia rather than a Parsifal, he could not believe his ears.—You will have to forgive my complete lack of curiosity about reviews of my books, especially in newspapers. My friends and publishers know this and do not talk to me about such things. In one particular case I once saw all the sins committed against a single book—it was “Beyond Good and Evil.” I could give a pretty account of them. Would anyone believe that the Nationalzeitung—a Prussian newspaper, I mention for my foreign readers; I myself, if you please, read only the Journal des Débats—quite seriously took the book as a “sign of the times,” as the genuine *philosophy of the Junkers* that the Kreuzzeitung merely lacked the courage to express?…

[2]

That was said for Germans. Everywhere else I have readers—all of them *exceptional* minds, proven characters trained in high positions and responsibilities. I even have real geniuses among my readers. In Vienna, in St. Petersburg, in Stockholm, in Copenhagen, in Paris, and in New York—everywhere I have been discovered. I have *not* been discovered in Europe’s flatland, Germany… And I admit that I take even more pleasure in my nonreaders, people who have never heard either my name or the word philosophy. Wherever I go, here in Turin for instance, every face grows brighter and kinder at the sight of me. What has flattered me most so far is that old market women cannot rest until they have picked out their sweetest grapes for me. A philosopher must go *that far*… It is not for nothing that the Poles are called the French of the Slavs. A charming Russian woman will not be mistaken for a moment about where I belong. I cannot manage to be solemn. At most I become embarrassed… To think like a German, to feel like a German—I can do anything, but *that* is beyond my powers… My old teacher Ritschl even claimed that I planned my philological papers like a Parisian novelist—absurdly gripping. In Paris itself people are amazed at “all my daring and subtleties”—Monsieur Taine’s words. I fear that even in the highest forms of the dithyramb people find in me a dash of that salt which never becomes stupid—“German”—namely wit… I cannot do otherwise. God help me! Amen.—We all know, some of us even from experience, what a long-eared ass is. Well then, I dare to claim that I have the smallest ears. This interests the little women quite a bit. It seems to me that they feel I understand them better?… I am the *anti-ass* above all others, and therefore a monster of world-historical importance. In Greek, and not only in Greek, I am the *Antichrist*…

[3]

I have some sense of my privileges as a writer. In individual cases, people have also told me how much getting used to my writings “spoils” their taste. They simply cannot stand other books anymore, least of all philosophical ones. It is an honor like no other to enter this noble and delicate world. You absolutely must not be a German to do so. In the end it is an honor you must have earned. But anyone related to me through the *height* of his aspirations experiences real ecstasies of learning here. For I come from heights no bird has ever reached in flight. I know depths where no foot has ever strayed. People have told me they cannot put down a book of mine—that I even disturb their sleep… There is no prouder and at the same time more refined kind of book. Here and there they reach the highest thing that can be reached on earth: cynicism. You must win them for yourself with the most delicate fingers as well as the bravest fists. Any weakness of the soul shuts you out of them once and for all—even any indigestion. You must not be nervous; you must have a cheerful belly. It is not just the poverty of a soul, its stuffy backroom air, that shuts people out. Far more, it is the cowardice, the dirt, the secret desire for revenge in their guts. A word from me brings every bad instinct to the surface of the face. Among my acquaintances I have several experimental animals. They let me study the different, instructively different reactions to my writings. Anyone who wants nothing to do with their content—my so-called friends, for example—becomes “impersonal” about them. They congratulate me on being “that far along” again. They also see progress in the greater cheerfulness of the tone… The thoroughly vicious “spirits,” the “beautiful souls,” the people who are false through and through, simply do not know what to do with these books. So they regard the books as *beneath* them—the beautiful consistency of all “beautiful souls.” The cattle among my acquaintances—mere Germans, if you please—give me to understand that they do not always agree with me, but sometimes do… I have even heard this about Zarathustra… Likewise, any “femininity” in a person, even in a man, means a closed gate to me. Such a person will never enter this maze of daring insights. You must never have spared yourself. *Hardness* must be part of your habits if you are to feel well and cheerful among nothing but hard truths. When I picture a perfect reader, he always turns into a monster of courage and curiosity. He is also something flexible, cunning, cautious: a born adventurer and discoverer. Finally, I could find no better words than Zarathustra’s for saying who my only real audience is. To *whom* alone does he want to tell his riddle?

“To you, the bold seekers, the experimenters, and whoever has ever set sail with cunning sails on terrible seas—
to you, drunk on riddles, happy in the twilight, whose soul is lured by flutes to every treacherous abyss:
—for you do not want to feel your way along a thread with a coward’s hand; and where you can *guess*, you hate to *deduce*…”

[4]

I will also say something general here about my *art of style*. To *communicate* a state, an inner tension of strong feeling, through signs—including the pace of those signs—that is the point of every style. And since I have an extraordinary range of inner states, I have many possibilities of style. I have the most varied art of style any human being has ever had. Any style is *good* if it really communicates an inner state, if it makes no mistake about the signs, their pace, or the *gestures*—all the rules of long, structured sentences are an art of gesture. My instinct here is infallible.—Good style *in itself* is sheer stupidity, mere “idealism,” like the “beautiful *in itself*,” the “good *in itself*,” the “thing *in itself*”… All this still assumes that there are ears to hear—that there are people capable and worthy of the same intensity of feeling, that there are people to whom one *may* communicate oneself.—My Zarathustra, for instance, is still looking for such people—oh, he will have to keep looking for a long time!—You must be *worthy* of hearing him… Until then there will be no one who understands the *art* lavished here. No one has ever had so many new, unheard-of artistic means to lavish, means really created for the first time to do this. That such a thing was possible in German, of all languages, still had to be proved. I myself would have denied it most emphatically beforehand. Before me, people do not know what can be done with German—what can be done with language at all. I was the first to discover the art of *great* rhythm, the *grand style* of long, structured sentences, which expresses an enormous rise and fall of sublime, superhuman passion. With a dithyramb like the last one in the *third* part of Zarathustra, titled “The Seven Seals,” I flew a thousand miles beyond what had been called poetry until then.

[5]

The first insight a good reader reaches may be that a *psychologist* without an equal speaks through my writings. I mean a reader such as I deserve, who reads me as good old philologists read their Horace. Statements on which basically everyone agrees—not to mention the commonplace philosophers, moralists, and other empty heads and cabbageheads—appear in my work as naive blunders. Take, for instance, the belief that “unselfish” and “selfish” are opposites, when the self itself is merely a “higher fraud,” an “ideal”… There are *neither* selfish *nor* unselfish actions. Both ideas are psychological nonsense. Or the statement “Human beings seek happiness”… Or the statement “Happiness is the reward of virtue”… Or the statement “Pleasure and displeasure are opposites”… Morality, humanity’s Circe, has falsified everything psychological through and through—*turned it into morality*—right up to the dreadful nonsense that love is supposed to be something “unselfish”… You must be firmly seated on *yourself*, you must stand bravely on your own two legs, or you simply *cannot* love. The little women know this only too well, after all. They do not give a damn about selfless men, men who are merely objective… May I venture to suggest, by the way, that I *know* the little women? That is part of my Dionysian endowment. Who knows? Perhaps I am the first psychologist of the eternal feminine. They all love me—an old story, apart from the *failed* little women, the “emancipated” ones, who do not have what it takes to bear children.—Luckily, I have no intention of letting myself be torn apart. The perfect woman tears apart when she loves… I know these lovable maenads… Ah, what a dangerous little predator, creeping along underground! And so pleasant at the same time!… A little woman chasing her revenge would knock fate itself flat.—Woman is indescribably more evil than man, and cleverer too. Goodness in a woman is already a form of *degeneration*… All so-called “beautiful souls” have an underlying physiological problem. I am not saying everything, or I would turn medically cynical. The struggle for *equal* rights is itself a symptom of sickness. Every doctor knows that.—The more a woman is a woman, the more she fights tooth and nail against rights in general. The state of nature, the eternal *war* between the sexes, gives her by far the highest rank.—Have people had ears for my definition of love? It is the only one worthy of a philosopher. Love—war in its methods, the deadly hatred between the sexes at its root.—Have people heard my answer to the question of how to *cure* a woman—to “redeem” her? Get her pregnant. Woman needs children; man is always only a means: thus spoke Zarathustra.—“Women’s emancipation” is the instinctive hatred of the *failed* woman, meaning one who cannot bear children, for the woman who has turned out well. The struggle against “man” is always just a means, a pretext, a tactic. By raising *themselves* up as “woman in herself,” as “higher woman,” as the “idealist” kind of woman, they want to *lower* the general rank of women. There is no surer means to this than an academic high-school education, pants, and political rights as voting cattle. Basically, emancipated women are the *anarchists* in the world of the “eternal feminine,” the ones who have come off badly, whose deepest instinct is revenge… A whole species of the most malicious “idealism”—which also occurs in men, for example in Henrik Ibsen, that typical old maid—aims to *poison* the good conscience, the naturalness of sexual love… And to leave no doubt about my views here, which are as honest as they are strict, I will share another statement from my moral code against *vice*. With the word vice I fight everything against nature—or, if you like fine words, idealism. The statement reads: “Preaching chastity is a public incitement to acts against nature. Every contempt for sexual life, every defilement of it through the idea of ‘impurity,’ is the crime against life itself—is the real sin against the holy spirit of life.”—

[6]

To give some idea of me as a psychologist, I will take an unusual piece of psychology from “Beyond Good and Evil.” I forbid any guesses, by the way, about whom I am describing here. “The genius of the heart, such as that great hidden one has, the tempter god and born pied piper of consciences, whose voice knows how to descend into the underworld of every soul. He says no word, casts no glance, without some thought and a subtle twist of enticement in it. Part of his mastery is knowing how to appear—not as what he is, but as what gives his followers *one more* compelling reason to press ever closer to him, to follow him ever more inwardly and thoroughly… The genius of the heart, which silences everything loud and self-satisfied and teaches it to listen, which smooths rough souls and gives them a taste of a new desire: to lie still like a mirror, so that the deep sky may be reflected in them… The genius of the heart, which teaches the clumsy, overhasty hand to pause and grasp more delicately; which senses the hidden and forgotten treasure, the drop of goodness and sweet spirituality beneath cloudy, thick ice, and is a divining rod for every grain of gold long buried in a prison of mud and sand… The genius of the heart, from whose touch everyone goes away richer—not blessed with a gift and surprised, not delighted and burdened as by someone else’s possessions, but richer in himself, newer to himself than before, broken open, blown upon and sounded out by a thawing wind, perhaps less sure, more tender, more breakable, more broken, but full of hopes that have no name yet, full of new willing and flowing, full of new unwillingness and flowing back…”

### The Birth of Tragedy

[1]

To be fair to “The Birth of Tragedy” (1872), you have to forget a few things. The book *made its impact*, and even fascinated people, through what was wrong with it: its application to the *Wagner cult*, as though this were a sign of *rising* strength. For that very reason, this book was an event in Wagner’s life. Only from then on were great hopes attached to Wagner’s name. Even today people remind me of this, sometimes right in the middle of Parsifal: how *I* am really responsible for the high opinion that came to prevail about this movement’s *cultural value*.—Several times I have found the book cited as “The *Re*birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music.” People had ears only for a new formula for *Wagner’s* art, intentions, and task. They failed to hear what was really valuable in the book. “The Greeks and Pessimism” would have been a clearer title. It was the first account of how the Greeks dealt with pessimism—how they *overcame* it… Tragedy itself proves that the Greeks were *not* pessimists. Schopenhauer was wrong here, as he was wrong about everything.—Read with some neutrality, “The Birth of Tragedy” seems very much out of step with its time. You would never dream that it was *begun* amid the thunder of the battle of Wörth. I thought these problems through outside the walls of Metz, on cold September nights, while serving as a nurse. You might more easily believe the book was fifty years older. It is indifferent to politics—“un-German,” people would say today. It smells offensively of Hegel. Only a few of its formulas carry Schopenhauer’s undertaker’s perfume. An “idea”—the opposition between the Dionysian and the Apollonian—translated into metaphysical terms; history itself as the development of this “idea”; the opposition resolved into a unity in tragedy. Seen this way, things that had never before looked each other in the face were suddenly set opposite each other, illuminated through each other, and *understood*… Opera and revolution, for example… One of the book’s two decisive *innovations* is its understanding of the *Dionysian* phenomenon among the Greeks. It gives the first psychology of this phenomenon and sees it as the single root of all Greek art. The other is its understanding of Socratism. For the first time, Socrates is recognized as a tool of Greek disintegration, a typical decadent. “Rationality” *against* instinct. “Rationality” at any price as a dangerous force that undermines life!—A deep, hostile silence about Christianity runs through the whole book. Christianity is neither Apollonian nor Dionysian. It *denies* all *aesthetic* values—the only values “The Birth of Tragedy” recognizes. It is nihilistic in the deepest sense, while the Dionysian symbol reaches the furthest limit of *affirmation*. Once, Christian priests are referred to as a “treacherous kind of dwarf,” as “underground creatures”…

[2]

This beginning is remarkable beyond measure. I had *discovered* the only image and parallel that history offers for my innermost experience. In doing so, I was the first to understand the wonderful phenomenon of the Dionysian. Likewise, by recognizing Socrates as a decadent, I had given completely unambiguous proof that no moral peculiarity would threaten the sureness of my psychological grasp. Morality itself as a symptom of decadence is an innovation, something unique of the first rank in the history of knowledge. With these two insights, how far I had leaped above the pathetic chatter of shallow minds about optimism versus pessimism!—I was the first to see the real opposition: the *degenerating* instinct, which turns against life with an underground desire for revenge—Christianity, Schopenhauer’s philosophy, in a certain sense already Plato’s philosophy, and all idealism are typical forms—and a formula of *the highest affirmation*, born of fullness, of overflowing fullness. This is a yes without reservation, even to suffering, even to guilt, even to everything questionable and strange in existence… This final, most joyful, extravagantly exuberant yes to life is not just the highest insight. It is also the *deepest*, the one most strictly confirmed and sustained by truth and science. Nothing that exists is to be subtracted; nothing can be dispensed with. The sides of existence rejected by Christians and other nihilists actually rank infinitely higher in the order of values than what the instinct of decadence was allowed to approve, to *call good*. Understanding this takes *courage* and, as a condition of courage, a surplus of *strength*. For you approach truth exactly as far as your courage *can* venture forward, exactly in proportion to your strength. Knowledge, saying yes to reality, is as necessary for the strong as cowardice and *escape* from reality—the “ideal”—are for the weak, inspired by their weakness… They are not free to know: decadents *need* lies. Lying is one of the conditions of their survival.—Anyone who not only understands the word “Dionysian” but understands *himself* in the word “Dionysian” needs no refutation of Plato or Christianity or Schopenhauer—he *smells the decay*…

[3]

I recently explained in *Twilight of the Idols*, page 139, how I had also found the concept of the “tragic,” the final understanding of the psychology of tragedy: “Saying yes to life even in its strangest and harshest problems; the will to life rejoicing in its own inexhaustibility through the *sacrifice* of its highest types—*that* is what I called Dionysian. That is what I understood as the bridge to the psychology of the *tragic* poet. *Not* to get rid of terror and pity, not to cleanse oneself of a dangerous emotion by discharging it violently—that was Aristotle’s misunderstanding—but to go beyond terror and pity and *yourself be* the eternal joy of becoming—that joy which also includes the *joy of destruction*…” In this sense I have the right to understand myself as the first *tragic philosopher*—that is, the most extreme opposite, the farthest counterpart, of a pessimistic philosopher. Before me there was no such translation of the Dionysian into a philosophical passion. *Tragic wisdom* was missing. I looked in vain for signs of it even among the *great* Greek philosophers, those of the two centuries *before* Socrates. I was left with a doubt about *Heraclitus*, in whose company I generally feel warmer and better than anywhere else. Affirming passing away *and destroying*, the decisive thing in a Dionysian philosophy; saying yes to opposition and war; *becoming*, with a radical rejection even of the very concept of “*being*”—in all this I must recognize the closest kinship to myself in anything thought so far. The teaching of “eternal recurrence,” meaning the unconditional and infinitely repeated cycle of all things—this teaching of Zarathustra’s *could*, after all, have been taught before. At least the Stoic school, which inherited almost all its basic ideas from Heraclitus, shows traces of it.—

[4]

An enormous hope speaks through this book. In the end I have no reason at all to take back my hope for a Dionysian future of music. Let us look a century ahead. Suppose my attack on two thousand years of crimes against nature and degradation of humanity succeeds. That new party of life, which takes on the greatest of all tasks, breeding humanity to a higher level—including the ruthless annihilation of everything that is degenerating or parasitic—will once again make possible that *excess of life* on earth from which the Dionysian state must grow again. I promise a *tragic* age. The highest art of saying yes to life, tragedy, will be reborn once humanity has passed through awareness of the harshest but most necessary wars, *without suffering from it*… A psychologist might add that what I heard in Wagner’s music when I was young had nothing at all to do with Wagner. When I described Dionysian music, I was describing what *I* had heard. Instinctively I had to translate and transform everything into the new spirit I carried within me. The proof, *as strong as any proof can be*, is my book “Wagner in Bayreuth.” At every psychologically decisive point it talks only about me. You can put my name or the word “Zarathustra” wherever the text says Wagner, without any hesitation. The whole portrait of the *dithyrambic* artist is a portrait of the poet of Zarathustra *before he appeared*, drawn with unfathomable depth and without touching on Wagner as he really was for even a moment. Wagner himself had some sense of this. He did not recognize himself in the book.—Likewise, “the idea of Bayreuth” had changed into something that will be no riddle to those who know my Zarathustra: that *great noon* when the most select people dedicate themselves to the greatest of all tasks. Who knows? Perhaps it is the vision of a festival I will live to see… The passion of the first pages is on the scale of world history. The *gaze* discussed on the seventh page is the true gaze of Zarathustra. Wagner, Bayreuth, all that petty German misery is a cloud in which an infinite mirage of the future is reflected. Even psychologically, all the decisive features of my own nature have been written into Wagner’s: the brightest and most fateful forces side by side; the will to power such as no human being has ever had; ruthless courage in matters of the mind; the unlimited strength to learn without crushing the will to act in the process. Everything in this book foretells what is to come: the approaching return of the Greek spirit, the need for *counter-Alexanders* who will *tie* the Gordian knot of Greek culture again after it has been untied… Listen to the world-historical tone in which the idea of a “tragic outlook” is introduced on page 30. Every emphasis in this book is on the scale of world history. This is the strangest “objectivity” there can be: absolute certainty about what I *am* projected itself onto some random reality. The truth about me spoke from a terrifying depth. On page 71, the *style* of Zarathustra is described and anticipated with incisive certainty. And no one will ever find a grander expression of the *event* of Zarathustra, the act of an enormous purification and consecration of humanity, than the one found on pages 43–46.—

### The Untimely Meditations

[1]

The four *Untimely Meditations* are combative through and through. They show that I was no “Jack the Dreamer.” I enjoy drawing my sword—and perhaps my wrist is dangerously loose. The *first* attack (1873) targeted German culture, which I already looked down on with ruthless contempt. No meaning, no substance, no goal: just “public opinion.” Nothing could be a more damaging mistake than to think that the Germans’ great military success proved anything in favor of this culture—or even marked *its* victory over France… The *second* Untimely Meditation (1874) exposes what is dangerous, what eats away at life and poisons it, in the way we practice scholarship. Life is *sick* from this dehumanized system of gears and machinery, from the worker’s “*im*personality,” from the false economy of the “division of labor.” The *goal*, culture, gets lost. The means, the modern system of scholarship, makes us *barbaric*… This essay was the first to identify the “historical sense,” the pride of this century, as a disease, a typical sign of decline.—The *third* and *fourth* Untimely Meditations set two portraits against this. They point toward a *higher* idea of culture and toward restoring the meaning of “culture.” These are portraits of the most unyielding *selfishness, self-discipline*: supremely untimely figures, full of sovereign contempt for everything around them called “Empire,” “culture,” “Christianity,” “Bismarck,” or “success”—Schopenhauer and Wagner, *or*, in a word, Nietzsche…

[2]

The first of these four attacks was an extraordinary success. The uproar it caused was magnificent in every way. I had touched a victorious nation’s sore spot: its victory was *not* a cultural event, but perhaps, perhaps something quite different… Answers came from every side, and by no means only from the old friends of David Strauss. I had ridiculed him as a typical German cultural philistine, smug and satisfied—in short, as the author of his beer-bench gospel of “The Old Faith and the New” (the word “cultural philistine” entered the language through my essay). These old friends were natives of Württemberg and Swabia. I had wounded them deeply by finding their wonder-beast, their Strauss, comical. Their replies were as stolid and crude as I could possibly have wished. The Prussian replies were cleverer—they had more “Berlin blue” in them. The most indecent response came from a Leipzig paper, the notorious “Grenzboten.” I had trouble keeping the outraged people of Basel from taking action. Only a few old gentlemen came out firmly on my side, for mixed reasons, some of which could not be traced. One was Ewald in Göttingen, who indicated that my attack had proved fatal to Strauss. Another was the old Hegelian Bruno Bauer, who from then on was one of my most attentive readers. In his last years he liked to point people toward me. For example, he gave Mr. von Treitschke, the Prussian historian, a hint about where he could learn the meaning of “culture,” which he had lost. The most thoughtful response to the essay and its author, and also the longest, came from an old student of the philosopher von Baader, a Professor Hoffmann in Würzburg. From the essay he foresaw a great destiny for me: to bring about a kind of crisis and final decision on the question of atheism. He recognized me as its most instinctive and ruthless representative. Atheism was what led me to Schopenhauer.—By far the most widely heard and most bitterly felt response was an extraordinarily forceful, brave defense of me by the usually gentle Carl Hillebrand, that last *humane* German who knew how to write. His article appeared in the “Augsburger Zeitung.” Today it can be read, in a slightly more cautious form, in his collected writings. It presented my essay as an event, a turning point, the first act of self-examination, the best possible sign: a real *return* of German seriousness and passion in intellectual matters. Hillebrand gave high praise to the essay’s form, its mature taste, and its perfect tact in separating the person from the issue. He singled it out as the best polemical essay written in German—in an art of polemic that is especially dangerous and ill-advised for Germans. He agreed completely with what I had dared to say about the degradation of language in Germany, and even sharpened my attack (today they play the purist and can no longer put a sentence together). Sharing my contempt for this nation’s “leading writers,” he ended by expressing admiration for my *courage*—that “highest courage, which puts a people’s very favorites in the dock”… The effect this essay has had on my life is beyond price. No one has tried to pick a fight with me since. People keep silent. In Germany they treat me with a gloomy caution. For years I have made use of an absolute freedom of speech that no one today, least of all in the “Empire,” has a *hand* free enough to claim. My paradise lies “in the shadow of my sword”… Basically I had put a maxim of Stendhal’s into practice: he advises making your entrance into society with a *duel*. And what an opponent I had chosen! Germany’s leading free spirit!… In fact, a completely *new* kind of free thinking found its first expression here. To this day nothing is more foreign to me, or less like me, than the whole European and American species of “freethinkers.” They are incurable shallow heads and clowns of “modern ideas.” I am in even deeper conflict with them than with any of their opponents. They too want to “improve” humanity in their own way, in their own image. They would wage an unforgiving war against what I am, what I *want*, if they understood it. Every one of them still believes in the “ideal”… I am the first *immoralist*—

[3]

I would not claim that the Untimely Meditations bearing the names of Schopenhauer and Wagner do much to help us understand either man, or even frame psychological questions about them—with a few exceptions, of course. For instance, a deep certainty of instinct already identifies the basic element in Wagner’s nature as an actor’s talent, which simply works out its implications in his methods and aims. At bottom, I wanted these writings to do something quite different from psychology. An unmatched problem of education, a new idea of *self-discipline, self-defense* carried to the point of hardness, a path to greatness and to tasks of world-historical importance—all this needed its first expression. Broadly speaking, I seized two famous figures, both still wholly undefined, by the forelock, as one seizes an opportunity. I used them to say something, to have a few more formulas, signs, and means of expression at hand. In fact, this is hinted at with perfectly uncanny insight on S. 93 of the third Untimely Meditation. Plato used Socrates in the same way, as a language of signs for Plato.—Now that I look back from some distance at the states of mind these writings record, I would not deny that at bottom they speak only of me. “Wagner in Bayreuth” is a vision of my future. “Schopenhauer as Educator,” by contrast, records my innermost history, my *becoming*. Above all, my *vow!*… *What* I am today, *where* I am today—at a height where I no longer speak with words but with lightning—oh, how far I still was from that then!—But I *saw* the land. I was not mistaken for a moment about the way, the sea, the danger—*and* success! The great calm of that promise, that happy gaze into a future that is not to remain a mere promise!—Every word here has been lived, deeply and inwardly. The most painful experiences are there too; some of its words are positively bloodthirsty. But a wind of *great* freedom blows over it all. Even the wound does *not* count as an objection.—I understand the philosopher as a terrible explosive that puts everything in danger. I place my idea of the “philosopher” miles away from an idea that still includes even Kant, not to mention academic “cud-chewers” and other professors of philosophy. This essay offers priceless instruction on that point, even if we grant that at bottom it is not “Schopenhauer as Educator” speaking here, but his *opposite*, “Nietzsche as Educator.”—At that time my trade was scholarship, and perhaps I also *knew* my trade. So there is some significance in a harsh piece of psychology about the scholar that suddenly appears in this essay. It expresses my *sense of distance*, my deep certainty about what can be my *task* and what can only be a means, an interlude, and a sideline. My wisdom lies in having been many things in many places so that I could become one thing—so that I could arrive at one thing. I *had* to be a scholar for a while too.

### Human, All Too Human

With two sequels.

[1]

“Human, All Too Human” stands as a monument to a crisis. It calls itself a book for free spirits. Almost every sentence in it expresses a victory: with this book I freed myself from what *did not belong* in my nature. Idealism does not belong in me. The title says, “Where you see ideal things, I see—human things, oh, only all-too-human things”… I know human beings *better*… “Free spirit” is meant in no other sense here: a spirit that has *become free*, that has taken possession of itself again. The tone, the sound of the voice, has completely changed. Readers will find the book intelligent, cool, sometimes hard and mocking. A certain intellectual quality of *noble* taste seems to keep itself constantly above a more passionate current below. In this context it makes sense that the centenary of *Voltaire’s* death supplies, so to speak, the excuse for publishing the book as early as 1878. For Voltaire, unlike everyone who wrote after him, is above all an aristocrat of the mind: exactly what I am too.—Voltaire’s name on a book of mine—that really was a step forward—*toward me*… A closer look reveals a merciless spirit that knows every hiding place where the ideal makes its home—where it has its castle dungeons and, so to speak, its last refuge. With a torch in hand that certainly gives no “wavering” light, it casts a cutting brightness into this *underworld* of the ideal. This is war, but war without gunpowder and smoke, without military poses, without grand emotion and contorted limbs—all that would itself still be “idealism.” One error after another is calmly laid on ice. The ideal is not refuted—*it freezes to death*… Here, for example, “genius” freezes to death. A corner farther on, “the saint” freezes to death. Under a thick icicle, “the hero” freezes to death. Finally, “faith,” so-called “conviction,” freezes to death. “Pity” also cools down considerably. Almost everywhere “the thing in itself” freezes to death…

[2]

The beginnings of this book fall right in the middle of the weeks of the first Bayreuth Festival. One of the conditions behind it was a deep sense of alienation from everything around me there. Anyone who has some idea of the visions that had already crossed my path can guess how I felt when I woke up one day in Bayreuth. It was just as if I were dreaming… Where was I? I recognized nothing; I hardly recognized Wagner. I searched my memories in vain. Tribschen—a distant island of the blessed: not a trace of resemblance. Those incomparable days of laying the foundation stone, the little group that celebrated them and *belonged* there, people who already had a delicate touch: not a trace of resemblance. *What had happened?*—Wagner had been translated into German! The Wagnerian had become master of Wagner!—*German* art! The *German* master! *German* beer!… The rest of us knew only too well that Wagner’s art speaks only to highly refined artists, to a cosmopolitan taste. We were beside ourselves to find Wagner draped in German “virtues.”—I think I know the Wagnerian. I have “lived through” three generations, from the late Brendel, who confused Wagner with Hegel, to the “idealists” of the Bayreuther Blätter, who confuse Wagner with themselves. I have heard every kind of confession about Wagner from “beautiful souls.” A kingdom for one sensible word!—Really, a hair-raising company! Nohl, Pohl, *rigmarole* served up gracefully, without end! Every kind of monstrosity is there, even the antisemite.—Poor Wagner! Where had he ended up!—If only he had at least entered into pigs! But into Germans!… In the end, to instruct future generations, we should stuff a genuine Bayreuth follower. Better still, preserve him in spirits, since spirit is what he lacks—with the caption: this is what the “spirit” looked like on which the “Empire” was founded… Enough: in the middle of it all I left very suddenly for a few weeks, even though a charming Parisian woman tried to comfort me. I excused myself to Wagner with nothing but a fatalistic telegram. In Klingenbrunn, a place hidden deep in the forests of the Bohemian Forest, I carried my melancholy and contempt for Germans around like a disease—*and* now and then I wrote a sentence in my notebook under the general title “The Plowshare.” They were all *hard* psychological observations, which may still be found in “Human, All Too Human.”

[3]

What I settled then was not simply a break with Wagner. I felt that my instinct had gone completely astray. Any single wrong move, whether called Wagner or the Basel professorship, was only a sign of that. *Impatience* with myself came over me. I saw that it was high time to think back to *myself*. Suddenly I saw with terrible clarity how much time I had already wasted—how useless, how arbitrary my whole life as a philologist seemed beside my task. I was ashamed of this *false* modesty… Ten years behind me in which my mind had, strictly speaking, received no *nourishment*, in which I had learned nothing useful, in which I had forgotten a senseless amount while busy with the odds and ends of dusty scholarship. Crawling through ancient writers on meter, with painstaking care and bad eyes—that was what I had come to!—I looked at myself with pity, all thin and starved. *Realities* were simply missing from my knowledge, and the “idealities” weren’t worth a damn!—A positively burning thirst took hold of me. From then on, in fact, I studied nothing but physiology, medicine, and the natural sciences. I did not even return to historical studies proper until my *task* forced me back to them. It was then, too, that I first guessed the connection between an occupation chosen against one’s instincts, a so-called “calling” for which one is *least* suited, and the need to *numb* that feeling of emptiness and hunger with a narcotic art—for example, Wagner’s art. Looking around more carefully, I discovered that a great many young men are in the same distress. One violation of nature virtually *forces* another. In Germany—to speak plainly, in the “Empire”—far too many people are condemned to decide too early and then *waste away* under a burden they can no longer throw off… They crave Wagner as an *opiate*. They forget themselves; they escape themselves for a moment… What am I saying! *Five to six hours!*—

[4]

At that time my instinct decided without mercy against any further giving in, going along, or mistaking myself for something else. Any kind of life, the worst conditions, sickness, poverty—everything seemed preferable to that degrading “selflessness” into which I had first fallen through ignorance, through *youth*, and in which I had later stayed out of laziness, out of a so-called “sense of duty.”—Here, in a way I cannot admire enough, and just in time, that *bad* inheritance from my father came to my aid—basically, a predisposition to an early death. Illness *slowly freed me*. It spared me every break, every violent and offensive step. I lost no one’s goodwill then, and gained much more. Illness also gave me the right to reverse all my habits completely. It allowed me, it *ordered* me, to forget. It gave me the gift of *having* to lie still, do nothing, wait, and be patient… But that is what thinking means!… My eyes alone put an end to all bookworm activity—in plain words, philology. I was freed from the “book.” For years I read nothing more—the *greatest* kindness I have ever done myself!—That deepest self, buried as it were, silenced as it were by constantly *having* to listen to other selves (and that is what reading means!), slowly woke up, shyly, uncertainly—but at last *it spoke again*. I have never found so much happiness in myself as during the sickest and most painful times of my life. You only have to look at “Dawn” or perhaps “The Wanderer and His Shadow” to understand what this “return to myself” was: itself a supreme kind of *recovery!*… The other recovery simply followed from it.—

[5]

*Human, All Too Human*, this monument to a strict self-discipline through which I abruptly ended all the imported “higher fraud,” “idealism,” “beautiful feeling,” and other feminine traits in myself, was written in all its main parts in Sorrento. It was finished and given its final form during a winter in Basel, under conditions far less favorable than those in Sorrento. Basically, Mr. *Peter Gast*, then a student at the University of Basel and very devoted to me, has the book on his conscience. I dictated with my head bandaged and aching. He wrote it down and also corrected it. At bottom, he was the actual writer, while I was merely the author. When the finished book finally reached my hands—to the deep astonishment of a very sick man—I sent two copies to Bayreuth, among other places. By a miracle of meaning in coincidence, a fine copy of the text of Parsifal arrived at the same time, with Wagner’s dedication to me: “To his dear friend Friedrich Nietzsche, Richard Wagner, church councilor.”—This crossing of the two books—I seemed to hear an ominous sound in it. Didn’t it sound like *swords* crossing?… At any rate, we both felt that way: for we both kept silent.—The first issues of the Bayreuther Blätter appeared around this time. I understood *what* it had been high time for.—Unbelievable! Wagner had become pious…

[6]

How I thought about myself then (1876), how enormously sure I was of my task and its world-historical importance—the whole book bears witness to that, but above all one very explicit passage. Only, with my instinctive cunning, I once again avoided the little word “I.” This time I bathed not Schopenhauer or Wagner but one of my friends, the excellent Dr. Paul Rée, in world-historical glory—fortunately an animal far too subtle to… *Others* were less subtle. I have always recognized the hopeless cases among my readers, the typical German professor for example, by their belief that this passage required them to understand the whole book as a higher form of Réealism… In fact it contradicted five or six of my friend’s propositions. On that point, read the preface to On the Genealogy of Morality. The passage reads: What is the main proposition reached by one of the boldest and coldest thinkers, the author of “On the Origin of Moral Sensations” (read: Nietzsche, the first *immoralist*), through his penetrating, cutting analyses of human action? “The moral human being is no closer to the intelligible world than the physical human being—*because* there is no intelligible world…” This proposition, hardened and sharpened under the hammer blows of historical knowledge (read: *revaluation of all values*), may someday, in some future—1890!—serve as the ax laid to the root of humanity’s “metaphysical need.” Whether that will be more a blessing or a curse for humanity, who could say? But in any case it will be a proposition with the most far-reaching consequences, fruitful and frightening at once, looking into the world with that *double vision* that all great insights possess…

### Dawn

Thoughts on morality as a prejudice.

[1]

This book begins my campaign against *morality*. Not that it carries the slightest smell of gunpowder: you will notice quite different and much lovelier smells, if your nostrils have any sensitivity. Neither heavy nor light artillery: if the book’s effect is negative, its means are all the less so. The effect follows from those means like a conclusion, *not* like a cannon shot. You finish the book with a shy caution toward everything that has so far been honored, even worshiped, under the name of morality. This does not conflict with the fact that the whole book contains no negative word, no attack, no malice. Instead, it lies in the sun, round and happy, like a sea creature basking among rocks. In the end, I myself was that sea creature. Almost every sentence of the book was thought out, *hatched*, in that tangle of rocks near Genoa, where I was alone and still shared secrets with the sea. Even now, when I happen to touch this book, almost every sentence becomes a loose end I can grasp to pull something incomparable back up from the depths. Its whole skin trembles with delicate shivers of memory. The art in which it excels is no small one: holding fast, for a little while, things that flit past lightly and silently, moments I call divine lizards. Not with the cruelty of that young Greek god who simply skewered the poor little lizard, but still with something pointed, with a pen… “There are so many dawns that have not yet shone”—this *Indian* inscription is on the door to this book. Where does its author *look* for that new morning, that delicate red not yet discovered, with which another day begins—oh, a whole series, a whole world of new days? In a *revaluation of all values*, in breaking free of all moral values, in saying yes to and trusting everything that has so far been forbidden, despised, and cursed. This *yes-saying* book pours out its light, its love, its tenderness on nothing but bad things. It gives them back their “soul,” their good conscience, their high right and *privilege* of existence. Morality is not attacked; it simply no longer enters into consideration… This book ends with an “Or?”—it is the only book that ends with an “Or?”…

[2]

My task is to prepare a moment of humanity’s deepest self-examination, a *great noon*, when it looks back and looks ahead, when it steps out from under the rule of chance and priests and, *as a whole*, asks for the first time, “Why?” and “What for?” This task follows necessarily from the insight that humanity is not on the right path on its own, that it is *not* governed by God, that instead the instinct of denial, of corruption, the instinct of decadence, has held seductive power precisely under its holiest ideas of value. The question of where moral values come from is therefore a question of the *first importance* for me, because it determines humanity’s future. We are told we must *believe* that everything is basically in the best of hands, that one book, the Bible, gives final reassurance about divine guidance and wisdom in humanity’s fate. Translated back into reality, this demand is the will to suppress the truth about the pitiful opposite: that humanity has so far been in the *worst* hands. It has been governed by those who have come off badly, the cunningly vengeful, the so-called “saints,” these slanderers of the world and defilers of humanity. The decisive sign that the priest—including the *hidden* priests, the philosophers—has become master, not just within one religious community but in general, is this: unselfishness is given absolute value, while selfishness meets hostility everywhere. This shows that the morality of decadence, the will to the end, counts as *morality itself*. I consider anyone who disagrees with me on this point *infected*… But the whole world disagrees with me… For a physiologist, this opposition of values leaves no room for doubt. If the smallest organ in a body slackens even slightly in ensuring its own preservation, the renewal of its strength, its “selfishness,” with complete certainty, the whole body degenerates. The physiologist demands that the degenerating part be *cut out*. He rejects any solidarity with what is degenerating; nothing is further from him than pity for it. But the priest *wants* the whole to degenerate, wants humanity to degenerate. That is why he *preserves* what is degenerating—this is the price at which he rules humanity… What is the point of those lying concepts, morality’s *supporting* concepts, “soul,” “spirit,” “free will,” “God,” if not to ruin humanity’s bodily health?… When you divert serious attention from preserving the body and increasing its strength, *which means preserving and strengthening life*, when you turn anemia into an ideal and contempt for the body into “the salvation of the soul,” what is that but a *recipe* for decadence?—Losing one’s center of gravity, resisting natural instincts, “selflessness” in a word—that is what has so far been called *morality*… With “Dawn” I first took up the fight against the morality of self-erasure.—

### The Gay Science

(“la gaya scienza”).

“Dawn” is a yes-saying book, deep but bright and kind. The same is true again, and to the highest degree, of gaya scienza: in almost every sentence, depth of thought and mischief tenderly hold hands. A poem expresses my gratitude for the most wonderful January I have ever experienced—the whole book is its gift. It reveals well enough the depths from which “science” here became *joyful*:

You whose spear of flame
Splits the ice within my soul,
So now it rushes roaring to the sea
Of its highest hope:
Ever brighter, ever healthier,
Free in the most loving necessity—
So it praises your wonders,
Most beautiful Januarius!—

Who could doubt what “highest hope” means here after seeing the diamond beauty of Zarathustra’s first words flash out at the end of the fourth book?—Or after reading the granite sentences at the end of the third book, where for the first time a destiny takes shape in formulas *for all time*? The *Songs of Prince Free-as-a-Bird*, mostly written in Sicily, quite explicitly recall the Provençal idea of the “gaya scienza”: that unity of *singer, knight*, and *free spirit* that sets the Provençals’ wonderful early culture apart from all ambiguous cultures. The very last poem in particular, *“To the Mistral,”* an exuberant dance song in which, if you please, the dance goes right over morality, is perfectly Provençal.—

### Thus Spoke Zarathustra

A Book for Everyone and No One.

[1]

I will now tell the story of Zarathustra. The book's basic idea, the *thought of eternal recurrence*, the highest possible formula of affirmation, dates from August 1881. It was jotted down on a sheet of paper, with the words underneath: “6,000 feet beyond humanity and time.” That day I was walking through the woods by Lake Silvaplana. I stopped by a huge block of stone piled up like a pyramid, not far from Surlei. That was where the thought came to me.—If I count back a few months from that day, I find an early sign: a sudden change in my taste, decisive at the deepest level, especially in music. Perhaps the whole of Zarathustra could be counted as music. Certainly a rebirth in the art of *hearing* was a necessary condition for it. In Recoaro, a little mountain spa near Vicenza where I spent the spring of 1881, my master and friend Peter Gast, who had also been “reborn,” joined me in discovering that music, the phoenix, was flying past us in lighter, brighter feathers than it had ever shown before. But if I count forward from that day to the sudden delivery in February 1883, under the most unlikely conditions—the closing passage, the very one I quoted a few sentences from in the *Foreword*, was finished at exactly the sacred hour when Richard Wagner died in Venice—the pregnancy comes to eighteen months. That exact figure of eighteen months might suggest, at least to Buddhists, that I am really a female elephant.—The intervening period includes The Gay Science, with its hundred signs that something beyond comparison is near. At the end it even gives the beginning of Zarathustra itself, and in the next-to-last piece of its fourth book it gives Zarathustra's basic idea.—The same period also includes the *Hymn to Life* (for mixed chorus and orchestra), whose score was published two years ago by E. W. Fritsch in Leipzig. It may be a not insignificant sign of my condition that year, when I was filled to the highest degree with the passion of *saying yes* above all else, what I call tragic passion. One day people will sing it in my memory.—Let me state this clearly, because a misunderstanding is going around: the words are not mine. They are the astonishing inspiration of a young Russian woman I was friends with then, Miss Lou von Salomé. Anyone who can find any meaning at all in the poem's last words will guess why I preferred and admired it: they have greatness. Pain is *not* treated as an objection to life: “If you have no happiness left to give me, well then! *You still have your pain* …”

Perhaps my music has greatness at this point too. (The oboe's last note is C-sharp, not C. A printing error.)—The following winter I lived in the lovely, quiet bay of Rapallo near Genoa, which cuts into the land between Chiavari and the headland of Portofino. My health was not the best. The winter was cold and excessively rainy. A little inn stood right by the sea, so that the high waves made sleep impossible at night; in almost every way it offered the opposite of what I wanted. Yet, almost as proof of my claim that everything decisive comes into being “in spite of everything,” it was in this winter and under these unfavorable conditions that my Zarathustra came into being.—In the morning I climbed southward along the splendid road toward Zoagli, past pine trees and with a wide view over the sea. In the afternoon, whenever my health allowed it, I walked around the whole bay from Santa Margherita all the way to beyond Portofino. This place and landscape have grown even closer to my heart because of Emperor Frederick III's great love for them. I happened to be back on this coast in the fall of 1886, when he visited this little forgotten world of happiness for the last time.—On these two walks the whole first Zarathustra came to me, above all Zarathustra himself as a type. More accurately, *he ambushed me* …

[2]

To understand this type, you first have to be clear about its physiological basis: what I call *great health*. I know no better or more *personal* way to explain this idea than I already did in one of the closing sections of the fifth book of The Gay Science. “We new, nameless, hard-to-understand people,” it says there, “we premature births of a future still unproven, also need a new means for a new purpose: a new health, stronger, shrewder, tougher, bolder, more cheerful than any health before it. Anyone whose soul thirsts to experience the full range of values and things people have wished for up to now, and to sail around every coast of this ideal ‘Mediterranean’; anyone who wants to know through the adventures of their own most personal experience how a conqueror and discoverer of the ideal feels, or an artist, a saint, a lawgiver, a wise person, a scholar, a devout person, someone divinely detached in the old style—such a person needs one thing before anything else: *great health*. This is a health you don't just have, but keep gaining and must keep gaining, because you keep giving it up and must give it up … And now, after we have traveled this way for a long time, we Argonauts of the ideal, perhaps braver than is wise, often enough shipwrecked and injured, but, as I said, healthier than people would like to allow us, dangerously healthy, healthy again and again—it seems to us that our reward is a still undiscovered land ahead, whose borders no one has yet seen: a world beyond all the lands and corners of the ideal known so far, a world so overflowing with beauty, strangeness, things to question, terrors, and divinity that both our curiosity and our thirst to possess have gone wild—ah, nothing can satisfy us anymore! … After such prospects, and with such a ravenous hunger in our knowledge and conscience, how could we still be satisfied with *human beings as they are today*? Bad enough, but it is unavoidable: we can watch their most worthy goals and hopes only with a seriousness we can barely keep up, and perhaps we no longer even watch … A different ideal runs ahead of us, a strange, tempting, dangerous ideal that we wouldn't want to persuade anyone to adopt, because we don't readily grant anyone *the right to it*: the ideal of a spirit that plays naturally—that is, without intending to, out of overflowing fullness and power—with everything previously called holy, good, untouchable, divine. For such a spirit, the highest things by which the people rightly measure value would already mean danger, decline, degradation, or at least relaxation, blindness, temporary self-forgetting. It is the ideal of a human and superhuman well-being and goodwill that will often enough seem *inhuman*: for example, when it stands beside all the seriousness the earth has known, beside all the solemnity of gesture, word, sound, look, morality, and task, as their most living, unintentional parody. And yet perhaps only with it does *great seriousness* start, the real question mark get put down, the soul's fate turn, the hand of the clock move, tragedy *begin* …”

[3]

Does anyone at the end of the nineteenth century have a clear idea of what the poets of strong ages called *inspiration*? If not, I will describe it.—With the slightest trace of superstition left in you, you could hardly shake off the idea that you were merely the incarnation, mouthpiece, or medium of overwhelming powers. The idea of revelation describes the facts exactly: something suddenly becomes *visible*, audible, with indescribable certainty and precision, something that shakes you and knocks you over at the deepest level. You hear, you don't search; you take, you don't ask who gives. A thought flashes up like lightning, inevitably, with no hesitation over its form—I have never had a choice. A state of rapture whose tremendous tension sometimes releases itself in a flood of tears, while your steps involuntarily rush forward or slow down; a complete state of being outside yourself, with the clearest awareness of countless delicate shudders and tingles down to your toes; a depth of happiness in which the most painful and darkest things don't act as opposites, but as something required, called forth, a *necessary* color within such an overflow of light; an instinct for rhythmic relationships that spans broad expanses of form—the length, the need for a *far-reaching* rhythm, is almost the measure of the force of inspiration, a sort of counterweight to its pressure and tension … Everything happens utterly involuntarily, but as though in a storm of feeling free, unconditioned, powerful, divine … The most remarkable thing is how involuntary the image, the metaphor, is. You no longer have any idea what is an image or a metaphor. Everything offers itself as the nearest, most accurate, simplest expression. It really seems, to recall something Zarathustra says, as if things themselves came forward and offered themselves as metaphors (—“here all things come caressingly to your speech and flatter you: for they want to ride on your back. Here you ride on every metaphor to every truth. Here the words and word-shrines of all being open up for you; all being wants to become words here, all becoming wants to learn from you how to speak—”). This is *my* experience of inspiration. I have no doubt that you would have to go back thousands of years to find someone entitled to tell me, “It is mine too.”—

[4]

A few weeks later I was lying sick in Genoa. Then came a gloomy spring in Rome, where I put up with life—it wasn't easy. At bottom this place, the most improper place on earth for the poet of Zarathustra, irritated me beyond measure. I hadn't chosen it freely. I tried to get away—I wanted to go to *Aquila*, Rome's opposite, founded out of hostility to Rome, as I too will found a place someday, a memorial to an atheist and enemy of the church in the proper sense, one of my closest relatives, the great Hohenstaufen emperor Frederick II. But fate was against all this: I had to go back. In the end I settled for the Piazza Barberini, after my efforts to find an *anti-Christian* area had tired me out. I'm afraid that once, to get as far as possible from bad smells, I inquired at the Palazzo del Quirinale itself whether they had a quiet room for a philosopher.—On a loggia high above that square, looking out over Rome and hearing the fountain rush far below, I wrote the loneliest song ever written, the *Night Song*. Around this time a melody of unspeakable sadness was always floating around me; I found its refrain again in the words “dead from immortality …” In summer, back at the sacred place where the first lightning flash of the Zarathustra idea had shone for me, I found the second Zarathustra. Ten days were enough. In no case—not for the first, nor for the third and last—did I need more. The following winter, under Nice's calm, clear sky, which then shone into my life for the first time, I found the third Zarathustra—and was finished. Barely a year, counting the whole thing. Unforgettable moments have made many hidden spots and heights in the landscape of Nice sacred to me. That decisive passage titled “On Old and New Tablets” was written during the hardest climb from the station to the wonderful Moorish village perched on the rocks at Eza. My muscles were always most agile when my creative strength flowed most richly. The *body* is inspired: let's leave the “soul” out of it … People could often see me dancing. In those days I could spend seven or eight hours on the move in the mountains without any sense of fatigue. I slept well, I laughed a lot—I was full of vigor and patience.

[5]

Apart from these ten-day works, the years during and especially *after* Zarathustra were a time of unmatched hardship. You pay dearly for being immortal: you die several times during your lifetime.—There is something I call the resentment of greatness: everything great, a work, a deed, turns *against* the person who did it as soon as it is completed. Precisely because he did it, he is now *weak*—he can no longer bear his deed or look it in the face. To have something *behind* you that you should never have dared to want, something in which the knot in humanity's fate is tied—and now to have it *upon* you! … It almost crushes you … The resentment of greatness!—Another thing is the terrifying silence you hear around you. Solitude has seven skins; nothing gets through anymore. You meet people, you greet friends: fresh desolation, no welcoming look anymore. At best a kind of revolt. I experienced this kind of revolt in very different degrees, but from almost everyone close to me. It seems that nothing offends more deeply than suddenly making a distance felt. *Noble* natures, who don't know how to live without revering something, are rare.—A third thing is the absurd sensitivity of the skin to little pinpricks, a kind of helplessness in the face of everything small. This seems to me to result from the enormous expenditure of all defensive strength required by every *creative* deed, every deed that comes from what is most your own, deepest within you, furthest down. The *small* defensive powers are, so to speak, disconnected; no strength reaches them anymore.—I will venture to add that you digest worse, dislike moving, and are all too open to feelings of cold, and also to mistrust—mistrust that in many cases is merely a mistaken diagnosis of the cause. In such a state, I once sensed a herd of cows nearby through the return of gentler, more friendly thoughts about people, even before I saw it: *that* has warmth in it …

[6]

This work stands entirely on its own. Leave the poets aside: perhaps nothing at all has ever been done from such an overflow of strength. Here my idea of the “Dionysian” became the *highest deed*. Measured against it, everything else humans have done looks poor and conditioned. Goethe or Shakespeare could not breathe for a moment in this tremendous passion and height; compared with Zarathustra, Dante is merely a believer, not someone who first *creates* truth, a *world-ruling* spirit, a fate; the poets of the Veda are priests, not even worthy to loosen the soles of a Zarathustra's shoes. All this is the least of it and gives no idea of the distance, the *sky-blue* solitude in which this work lives. Zarathustra has an eternal right to say: “I draw circles around myself and sacred boundaries; fewer and fewer climb with me up higher and higher mountains—I build a mountain range out of ever holier mountains.” Add together the spirit and goodness of all great souls: all of them together could not produce a single speech of Zarathustra's. The ladder he climbs up and down is tremendous. He has seen further, wanted more, been *capable* of more than any human being. With every word he contradicts, this most affirmative of all spirits. In him all opposites are bound into a new unity. The highest and lowest forces of human nature, the sweetest, most carefree, and most terrible things, flow from one spring with immortal certainty. Until this point you don't know what height or depth is; still less do you know what truth is. There is not a moment in this revelation of truth that has already been anticipated, guessed by one of the greatest people. Before Zarathustra there is no wisdom, no exploration of the soul, no art of speaking. Here the nearest, most everyday things speak of things never heard before. The saying trembles with passion; eloquence has become music; lightning flashes are hurled ahead toward futures no one has yet guessed. The greatest power to make metaphors that has existed up to now is poor child's play beside this return of language to its natural use of images.—And how Zarathustra comes down and says the kindest things to everyone! How he handles even his opponents, the priests, with gentle hands, and suffers with them and because of them!—Here at every moment the human being is overcome, the idea of the “overman” has become the highest reality. Everything previously called great in humanity lies infinitely far *below* him. The calm brightness, the light feet, the mischief and high spirits present everywhere, and everything else typical of Zarathustra's type—no one has ever dreamed that these were essential to greatness. It is precisely in this extent of space, this openness to opposites, that Zarathustra feels himself to be *the highest kind of everything that exists*. And when you hear how he defines it, you will give up looking for his equal.

“—the soul that has the longest ladder and can go down deepest,
the most far-reaching soul, which can run and wander and roam furthest within itself,
the most necessary soul, which throws itself joyfully into chance,
the soul that is, which *wants* to enter becoming; the soul that has, which *wants* to enter willing and longing—,
the soul fleeing itself, which catches up with itself in the widest circles,
the wisest soul, to which folly speaks most sweetly,
the soul that loves itself most, in which all things have their flow and counterflow and ebb and flood——”

*But this is the idea of Dionysus himself.*—Another line of thought leads to the same place. The psychological problem in the type Zarathustra is this: how can someone who says no, who *acts* no to an unheard-of degree toward everything people have said yes to until now, still be the opposite of a no-saying spirit? How can the spirit bearing the heaviest fate, a fateful task, still be the lightest and the one furthest beyond—Zarathustra is a dancer? How can someone with the harshest, most terrible insight into reality, someone who has thought the “most abysmal thought,” still find in it no objection to existence, not even to its eternal recurrence—but rather one more reason *himself to be* the eternal yes to all things, “the tremendous, boundless saying of yes and amen” … “Into every abyss I still carry my blessing yes” … *But this is the idea of Dionysus once again.*

[7]

What language will a spirit like this speak when speaking alone to itself? The language of the *dithyramb*. I am the inventor of the dithyramb. Listen to how Zarathustra speaks to himself *before sunrise* (III, 18). No tongue before mine had expressed such emerald happiness, such divine tenderness. Even the deepest sadness of a Dionysus like this becomes a dithyramb. As evidence, I take the *Night Song*: the immortal lament of someone condemned not to love by his excess of light and power, by his nature as a *sun*.

“It is night: now all the leaping fountains speak more loudly.
And my soul too is a leaping fountain.
It is night: only now do all the songs of lovers wake up.
And my soul too is a lover's song.
Something unsatisfied, impossible to satisfy, is inside me and wants to speak out. A craving for love is inside me, and it speaks the language of love itself.
I am light: if only I were night! But this is my loneliness: light surrounds me.
If only I were dark and full of night! How I would suck at the breasts of light!
And I would even bless you, little sparkling stars and glowworms up above!—and find happiness in your gifts of light.
But I live in my own light; I drink back into myself the flames that burst out of me.
I don't know the happiness of receiving; often I have dreamed that stealing must be happier still than receiving.
This is my poverty: my hand never rests from giving. This is my envy: I see waiting eyes and the lit-up nights of longing.
Oh, the unhappiness of all who give! Oh, the darkening of my sun! Oh, the craving to be craved! Oh, the ravenous hunger in being full!
They receive from me: but do I still touch their souls?
There is a gap between receiving and giving; and the smallest gap is the last to be bridged.
A hunger grows out of my beauty: I want to hurt those I shine on, to rob those I have given to—that is how I hunger to do harm.
Pulling back my hand when another hand is already reaching toward it; like the waterfall that hesitates even as it falls—that is how I hunger to do harm.
My overflowing fullness devises this revenge; my loneliness pours out this malice.
My happiness in giving died away in giving; my virtue grew tired of itself because of its excess!
Someone who always gives risks losing their sense of shame; someone who always hands things out gets calluses on hand and heart from all that giving.
My eyes no longer overflow at the shame of those who ask; my hand has grown too hard to feel the trembling of hands it has filled.
Where have the tears in my eyes and the soft down on my heart gone? Oh, the loneliness of all who give! Oh, the silence of all who shine!
Many suns circle in empty space: they speak with their light to everything dark—to me they are silent.
Oh, this is light's hostility toward things that shine: it follows its paths without mercy.
Unfair at heart to things that shine, cold toward suns—that is how every sun moves.
Like a storm the suns follow their paths; they follow their unrelenting will—that is their coldness.
Oh, only you, you dark ones, you creatures of night, draw warmth from things that shine! Oh, only you drink milk and refreshment from the udders of light!
Ah, ice surrounds me; my hand burns itself on icy things! Ah, there is a thirst inside me that pines for your thirst.
It is night: if only I did not have to be light! And thirst for what belongs to night! And loneliness!
It is night: now my longing bursts out of me like a spring—I long to speak.
It is night: now all the leaping fountains speak more loudly.
And my soul too is a leaping fountain.
It is night: now all the songs of lovers wake up.
And my soul too is a lover's song.—”

[8]

Nothing like this has ever been written as poetry, ever been felt, ever been *suffered*: this is how a god suffers, a Dionysus. The answer to such a dithyramb of a sun growing lonely in its light would be Ariadne … Who besides me knows what Ariadne is! … No one before now had the solution to any of these riddles; I doubt anyone ever even saw riddles here.—At one point Zarathustra defines his task—it is mine too—so precisely that its *meaning* cannot be mistaken: he *says yes* to the point of justifying, even redeeming, everything in the past.

“I walk among people as among fragments of the future: the future I see.
And all my poetry and effort aim to compose into one whole, to gather together, what is fragment and riddle and dreadful chance.
And how could I bear being human if human beings were not also poets, solvers of riddles, and redeemers of chance?
*To redeem those of the past* and transform every ‘It was’ into ‘That is how I wanted it!’—only that would count as redemption for me.”

Elsewhere he defines as precisely as possible the only thing ‘the human being’ can be for him—*not* an object of love, much less of pity. Zarathustra has also mastered his *great disgust* at humanity: for him the human being is something unformed, a material, an ugly stone that needs a sculptor.

“No longer *wanting* and no longer *valuing* and no longer *creating*: oh, may this great weariness always stay far from me!
Even in understanding, I feel only my will's pleasure in producing life and coming into being; and if there is innocence in my understanding, it is because there is a *will to reproduce* in it.
This will lured me away from God and gods: what would there be to create if gods—existed?
But my passionate will to create drives me back to human beings again and again; that is how the hammer is driven toward the stone.
Ah, you human beings, an image lies asleep for me in the stone, the image of images! Ah, that it has to sleep in the hardest, ugliest stone!
*Now my hammer rages cruelly against its prison.*
Fragments fly off the stone: what do I care!
I mean to finish it, because a shadow came to me—the stillest and lightest of all things once came to me!
The beauty of the overman came to me as a shadow: what do I care now about—the gods! …”

I will stress one last point, prompted by the underlined line. The hammer's hardness, the *pleasure even in destroying*, is an essential requirement for a *Dionysian* task. The command “Become hard!”, the deepest certainty *that all creators are hard*, is the true distinguishing mark of a Dionysian nature.—

### Beyond Good and Evil

Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future.

[1]

The task for the years that followed was laid out as strictly as possible. I had finished the yes-saying part of my task. Now it was time for its no-saying, *no-doing* half: the revaluation of the values accepted up to now, the great war—the summoning of a day of decision. This included slowly looking around for kindred spirits, for people who would join hands with me *in destruction* out of their own strength.—From then on, all my writings have been fishhooks. Perhaps I know as much about fishing as anyone?… If nothing was *caught*, that isn't my fault. *There were no fish*…

[2]

In all its essentials, this book (1886) is a *critique of modernity*. That includes modern science, modern art, and even modern politics. It also points toward an opposite type of person, as unmodern as possible: a noble, yes-saying type. In this last sense, the book is a *school for gentlemen*, with that idea understood more intellectually *and more radically* than ever before. You need real courage just to stand it. You must never have learned fear… Everything our age is proud of is felt to clash with this type, almost like bad manners. Take the famous “objectivity,” for example, “sympathy with all who suffer,” or the “historical sense,” with its submission to other people's tastes, its crawling on its belly before little facts, its “scientific approach.”—Remember that the book comes *after* Zarathustra, and you may also guess the dietary discipline that brought it into being. The eye had grown spoiled by an enormous demand to see *far away*—Zarathustra is even more farsighted than the tsar. Here it is forced to focus sharply on what is nearest: the present, *what surrounds us*. In every respect, above all in its form, you will find the same *deliberate* turning away from the instincts that made a Zarathustra possible. Subtlety in form, intention, and the art of *keeping silent* comes first. Psychology is practiced with openly admitted harshness and cruelty—the book has not one good-natured word… All this is restful. But who can guess *what* sort of rest is needed after spending so much goodness as Zarathustra does?… Speaking as a theologian—listen, because I rarely speak that way—it was God himself who lay down as a snake beneath the tree of knowledge at the end of his day's work. That was how he rested from being God… He had made everything too beautiful… The devil is simply God doing nothing every seventh day…

### On the Genealogy of Morality

A Polemic.

In their expression, intention, and art of surprise, the three essays that make up this Genealogy may be the most unsettling things ever written. Dionysus, as we know, is also the god of darkness.—Each starts in a way that is *meant* to mislead: cool, scientific, even ironic, deliberately staying on the surface, deliberately keeping you waiting. Gradually, there is more unease. Isolated flashes of distant lightning. Very unpleasant truths begin to sound from far away with a low rumble—until at last the pace grows fierce and everything drives forward under enormous tension. Each time, at the end, amid utterly terrifying explosions, a *new* truth appears between thick clouds.—The truth of the *first* essay is the psychology of Christianity: Christianity's birth from the spirit of resentment, *not* from “the Spirit,” as people tend to believe. It is a countermovement in its very nature, the great revolt against the rule of *noble* values. The *second* essay gives the psychology of *conscience*. Conscience is *not* “the voice of God in man,” as people tend to believe. It is the instinct for cruelty turning back on itself once it can no longer discharge itself outward. Here, for the first time, cruelty is brought to light as one of culture's oldest foundations, one we cannot imagine culture without. The *third* essay answers the question of where the enormous *power* of the ascetic ideal, the priestly ideal, comes from, even though it is the supremely *harmful* ideal: a will to bring things to an end, an ideal of decline. The answer: *not* because God is at work behind the priests, as people tend to believe, but for lack of anything better—because it was the only ideal so far, because it had no rival. “For man would rather will nothingness than *not* will”… Above all, there was no *opposing ideal—until Zarathustra*.—I have been understood. Three decisive preliminary studies by a psychologist for a revaluation of all values.—This book contains the first psychology of the priest.

### Twilight of the Idols

How to Philosophize with a Hammer.

[1]

This book of fewer than 150 pages is cheerful and fateful in tone, a demon that laughs. It took so few days to write that I hesitate to name the number. Among books, it stands alone: nothing is richer in substance, more independent, more revolutionary—or more wicked. If you want a quick idea of how everything stood on its head before me, start with this book. What the title calls an *idol* is simply what people have called truth until now. *Twilight of the Idols*—in plain words: the old truth is coming to an end…

[2]

There is no reality, no “ideality,” that this book doesn't touch on (touch on—what a cautious way to put it!…). Not just the *eternal* idols, but also the newest and therefore the most decrepit. The “modern ideas,” for example. A great wind blows through the trees, and fruit falls everywhere—truths. It has the extravagance of an all-too-rich autumn: you stumble over truths, you even trample some to death—there are too many… But what you get into your hands is no longer something open to question. These are decisions. I am the first to hold the measuring stick for “truths”; I am the first who *can* decide. It is as if a *second consciousness* had grown in me, as if “the will” had lit a lamp inside me to illuminate the *sloping* path it has been running down until now… The *sloping* path—that was what people called the road to “truth”… All “dark urges” are finished. It was precisely the *good* person who knew least about the right road… And in all seriousness, no one before me knew the right road, the road *upward*. Only with me are there once again hopes, tasks, paths to lay down for culture—*I bring their good news*… That also makes me a destiny.—

[3]

Immediately after finishing that book, without losing even a day, I took on the enormous task of the *revaluation*. I felt a supreme pride beyond anything else, certain of my immortality at every moment, carving sign after sign into bronze tablets with the certainty of fate. The preface was written on September 3, 1888. That morning, when I stepped outside after writing it, I found the most beautiful day the Upper Engadin had ever shown me—clear, glowing with color, holding every contrast and every point between ice and the South.—Flooding kept me in Sils-Maria until September 20. By the end, I was the only guest left anywhere in that wonderful place, to which my gratitude wants to give an immortal name. The journey had its mishaps. My life was even in danger in flooded Como, which I did not reach until late at night. On the afternoon of the 21st, I arrived in Turin, my *proven* place, my home from now on. I took the same rooms I had occupied in the spring, via Carlo Alberto 6ᴵᴵᴵ, across from the great Palazzo Carignano, where Vittorio Emanuele was born. They overlooked the Piazza Carlo Alberto and, beyond it, the hills. Without hesitation, without letting myself be distracted for a moment, I went back to work. Only the last quarter of the book remained to be done. On September 30, a great victory; the seventh day; a god's day off along the Po. That same day I also wrote the *preface* to “Twilight of the Idols,” whose proofs I had been correcting for relaxation during September.—I have never experienced an autumn like that. I had never even thought anything like it possible on earth—a Claude Lorrain carried into infinity, every day showing the same unrestrained perfection.—

### The Case of Wagner

A Musician's Problem.

[1]

To do this book justice, you must feel the fate of music like an open wound.—*What* hurts me when I suffer over the fate of music? That music has been robbed of its yes-saying power to make the world shine—that it has become music of decline instead of the flute of Dionysus… But suppose you feel the cause of music as your *own* cause, as the story of your *own* suffering. Then you will find this book full of consideration and extraordinarily mild. To stay cheerful in such cases, to include yourself in the good-natured mockery—to say something *severe* with a laugh, when telling the truth sincerely would justify any harshness—is humanity itself. Does anyone really doubt that, as the old artilleryman I am, I could bring my *heavy* guns to bear on Wagner?—I held back everything decisive in this matter—I loved Wagner.—Ultimately, an attack on a subtler “unknown,” one few others could guess, fits the meaning and course of my task. Oh, I have quite other “unknowns” to expose than a Cagliostro of music. Still more does an attack on the German nation fit my task. In intellectual matters it grows ever lazier, poorer in instinct, and *more honest*. With an enviable appetite, it keeps feeding on opposites. It swallows “faith” as readily as the scientific approach, “Christian love” as readily as antisemitism, the will to power (to the “empire”) as readily as the gospel of the humble, without indigestion… This refusal to take sides between opposites! This neutrality and “selflessness” of the stomach! This fair-mindedness of the German *palate*, which grants everything equal rights—which finds everything tasty… Without a doubt, the Germans are idealists… The last time I visited Germany, I found German taste working to grant equal rights to Wagner and The Trumpeter of Säckingen. I myself saw a Liszt Society founded in Leipzig to honor the master *Heinrich Schütz*, one of the most genuine and German musicians in the old sense of the word German, not a mere citizen of the Empire. Its purpose was to cultivate and spread *tricky, Liszt-style* church music… Without a doubt, the Germans are idealists…

[2]

But nothing here will stop me from being rude and telling the Germans a few hard truths: *who else does it?*—I mean their indecency in historical matters. German historians have not just completely lost the *broad view* of the course of culture and its values, becoming every last one of them the buffoons of politics (or the church—). They have actually *outlawed* that broad view. First you must be “German,” belong to the “race”; then you can decide what does and doesn't have value in history—you lay down the values… “German” is an argument; “Germany, Germany above everything” is a principle. The Germanic peoples are the “moral world order” in history: compared with the Roman Empire, the champions of freedom; compared with the eighteenth century, the restorers of morality, of the “categorical imperative”… There is an imperial-German way of writing history. I fear there is even an antisemitic one. There is history written for the *court*, and Mr. von Treitschke feels no shame… Recently an idiotic judgment about history made the rounds of the German newspapers as a “truth” that every German *must agree with*. It came from Vischer, the Swabian writer on aesthetics, who is fortunately dead: “The Renaissance *and* the Reformation: only together do they make a whole—aesthetic rebirth *and* moral rebirth.”—With statements like that, my patience runs out. I feel the urge, even the duty, to tell the Germans for once just *what* they already have on their conscience. *They have all the great crimes against culture of four centuries on their conscience!*… And always for the same reason: their deepest *cowardice* in the face of reality, which is also cowardice in the face of truth; the dishonesty that has become instinctive in them; their “idealism”… The Germans robbed Europe of the harvest, of the meaning of the last *great* age, the Renaissance. This happened just when a higher order of values had won out in the very seat of the opposite values, the *values of decline*: noble values that said yes to life and guaranteed a future—*even reaching into the instincts of the people seated there!* Luther, that disastrous monk, restored the church and, a thousand times worse, Christianity, at the very moment *it was going under*… Christianity, that *denial of the will to live* turned into a religion… Luther, an impossible monk who attacked the church because of his own “impossibility,” and so—of course!—restored it… Catholics would have good reason to celebrate Luther festivals and write Luther plays… Luther—and “moral rebirth”! To hell with all psychology!—Without a doubt, the Germans are idealists.—Twice, just when enormous courage and self-overcoming had achieved an honest, clear, thoroughly scientific way of thinking, the Germans managed to find back roads to the old “ideal,” compromises between truth and the “ideal.” At bottom, these were formulas for a right to reject science, a right to *lie*. Leibniz and Kant—Europe's two greatest obstacles to intellectual honesty!—Finally, on the bridge between two centuries of decline, an overwhelming power of genius and will appeared. It was strong enough to make Europe a unity, a political *and economic* unity, for the purpose of governing the earth. With their “Wars of Liberation,” the Germans robbed Europe of the meaning, the miracle of meaning, in Napoleon's existence. That puts everything that followed, everything we have today, on their conscience: nationalism, the disease and irrationality *most hostile to culture* that exists, this *national neurosis* that makes Europe sick; this perpetuation of Europe's division into little states, of *petty* politics. They robbed Europe itself of its meaning, of its *reason*—they drove it into a dead end.—Does anyone besides me know a *way* out of this dead end?… A task great enough to *bind* the peoples together again?…

[3]

And finally, why shouldn't I put my suspicion into words? In my case too, the Germans will try everything again to make an enormous destiny give birth to a mouse. So far, their behavior toward me has disgraced them. I doubt they will do better in the future.—Ah, how I long to be a *bad* prophet here!… My natural readers and listeners are already Russians, Scandinavians, and French people—will they become increasingly so?—The Germans have entered the history of knowledge with nothing but dubious names. They have only ever produced “unconscious” counterfeiters (Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel, and Schleiermacher deserve that word just as much as Kant and Leibniz—they are all just makers of veils—Schleiermachers). They must never have the honor of seeing the first *honest* mind in the history of thought counted as one with the German mind—the mind in which truth passes judgment on four thousand years of counterfeiting. The “German spirit” is *my* bad air. I struggle to breathe near this instinctive filthiness in psychological matters, which every word and every expression of a German betrays. They never went through a seventeenth century of harsh self-examination like the French. A La Rochefoucauld or a Descartes is a hundred times more honest than the foremost Germans. To this day, they have not had a psychologist. But psychology is almost the measure of a race's *cleanliness* or *uncleanliness*… And if you aren't even clean, how can you have *depth*? With a German, almost as with a woman, you never get to the bottom: *he has none*. That's all. But that doesn't even make him shallow.—What Germany calls “deep” is precisely this instinctive uncleanliness toward oneself that I am talking about: people don't *want* to be clear about themselves. May I suggest the word “German” as an international coin for *this* psychological depravity?—At this very moment, for example, the German emperor calls it his “Christian duty” to free the slaves in Africa. Among us *other* Europeans, that would simply be called “German”… Have the Germans produced even one book with depth? They lack even the idea of what makes a book deep. I have met scholars who thought Kant was deep. At the Prussian court, I fear they think Mr. von Treitschke is deep. And when I occasionally praise Stendhal as a deep psychologist, German university professors have asked me to spell his name…

[4]

And why shouldn't I go all the way? I like to settle things once and for all. It is even my ambition to be known as the foremost despiser of Germans. I expressed my *distrust* of the German character back when I was twenty-six (dritte Unzeitgemäße S. 71). The Germans are impossible for me. If I imagine a type of person who goes against all my instincts, a German always emerges. The first thing I check when I test someone to the core—“probe his kidneys”—is whether he has a sense of distance in his body: does he see rank, degree, and order between people everywhere? Does he *make distinctions*? That makes a gentleman. In every other case, he belongs beyond rescue under the broad-hearted and, alas, so good-natured heading of the rabble. But the Germans are rabble—alas, they are so good-natured… You lower yourself by mixing with Germans: a German *puts everyone on the same level*… Apart from my dealings with a few artists, above all Richard Wagner, I have not spent one good hour with Germans… Suppose the deepest mind of all the millennia appeared among Germans. Some goose who rescued the Capitol would imagine that her very ugly soul counted for at least as much… I can't stand this race, with whom you are always in bad company. They have no fingertips for nuances—poor me! I am a nuance—and no wit in their feet; they can't even walk… In the end, the Germans have no feet at all, only legs… The Germans have no idea how vulgar they are. But that is the height of vulgarity: they aren't even *ashamed* of being nothing but German… They join in on every subject. They think their own judgment is decisive. I fear they have even passed judgment on me… My whole life supplies the necessary proof of these statements. I search it in vain for a sign of tact, of sensitivity toward me. From Jews, yes; from Germans, never. My nature makes me mild and well-disposed toward everyone—I have a *right* to make no distinctions. But that doesn't keep my eyes from being open. I make no exceptions, least of all for my friends. I hope, in the end, that this has not lessened my humanity toward them! There are five or six things I have always made a point of honor.—Even so, it remains true that for years I have felt almost every letter I receive as an act of cynicism. There is more cynicism in goodwill toward me than in any hatred… I tell every one of my friends to his face that he has never thought it worth the trouble to *study* any of my writings. From the smallest signs, I can tell that they don't even know what's in them. As for my Zarathustra, which of my friends has seen anything more in it than an outrageous piece of arrogance, fortunately of no consequence at all?… Ten years—and no one in Germany felt bound by conscience to defend my name against the absurd silence in which it lay buried. A foreigner, a Dane, was the first to have enough delicacy of instinct *and courage* to do so, and to be outraged at my supposed friends… At which German university would lectures on my philosophy be possible today, like those Dr. Georg Brandes gave in Copenhagen last spring, once again proving himself a psychologist?—I myself have never suffered from any of this. What is *necessary* doesn't hurt me. Love of fate is my innermost nature. But that doesn't stop me from loving irony, even world-historical irony. And so, about two years before the crushing lightning strike of the *revaluation* that will throw the earth into convulsions, I sent “The Case of Wagner” into the world. The Germans were to do me an immortal wrong one more time, and *immortalize themselves!* There is still just time for it!—Has that been achieved?—To my delight, my Germanic gentlemen! My compliments…

### Why I Am a Destiny

[1]

I know my fate. One day my name will be linked to the memory of something enormous—a crisis unlike any the earth has seen, the deepest clash of conscience, a decision called forth *against* everything people had believed, demanded, and held sacred until then. I am not a human being; I am dynamite.—And yet there is nothing of a religious founder in me. Religions are affairs of the rabble; I need to wash my hands after contact with religious people… I don't *want* “believers.” I think I am too malicious to believe even in myself. I never speak to crowds… I am terribly afraid that one day people will declare me a *saint*. You can guess why I am publishing this book *beforehand*: it is meant to stop people from playing such tricks with me… I don't want to be a saint. I would rather be a buffoon… Perhaps I am a buffoon… And yet—or rather, *not* “and yet,” since nothing so far has been more dishonest than saints—truth speaks through me.—But my truth is *terrible*: until now, people have called the *lie* truth.—*Revaluation of all values*: that is my formula for an act of humanity's deepest self-examination, which has become flesh and genius in me. My fate requires me to be the first *decent* human being, to know myself in opposition to the dishonesty of millennia… I was the first to *discover* truth, because I was the first to feel—to *smell*—the lie as a lie… My genius is in my nostrils… I contradict as no one has ever contradicted, yet I am the opposite of a no-saying mind. I am a *bringer of good news* unlike any before me. I know tasks so high that until now there has been no concept for them. Only with me are there hopes again. All this necessarily makes me a man of doom as well. For when truth goes to battle with the lie of millennia, there will be tremors, a spasm of earthquakes, a shifting of mountains and valleys beyond anything ever dreamed of. The very idea of politics will then be entirely absorbed into a war of minds. All the power structures of the old society will be blown apart—they all rest on the lie. There will be wars unlike any the earth has seen. Only with me does *great politics* begin on earth.—

[2]

Do you want a formula for such a destiny *taking human form?*—It is in my Zarathustra.

*“—and whoever wants to be a creator in good and evil must first be a destroyer and break values.*
*So the highest evil belongs to the highest goodness: but that goodness is creative.”*

I am by far the most terrible human being there has ever been. That doesn't rule out my becoming the most beneficial. I know the pleasure of *destroying* to a degree that matches my *power* to destroy. In both, I obey my Dionysian nature, which cannot separate saying no through action from saying yes. I am the first *immoralist*: that makes me the *destroyer* in the fullest sense.—

[3]

No one has asked me, but someone should have asked, what the name *Zarathustra* means in my mouth, the mouth of the first immoralist. For what makes that Persian so enormously unique in history is precisely the opposite of this. Zarathustra was the first to see the struggle between good and evil as the real wheel in the machinery of things. Turning morality into something metaphysical, into a force, a cause, an end in itself, was *his* work. But at bottom, asking this question would already supply the answer. Zarathustra *created* this most fateful error, morality. So he must also be the first to *recognize* it. It is not just that he has longer and greater experience of it than any other thinker—after all, the whole of history is an experimental refutation of the claim that there is a “moral world order.” More importantly, Zarathustra is more truthful than any other thinker. His teaching, and his alone, makes truthfulness the highest virtue. That means the opposite of the *cowardice* of the “idealist” who runs from reality. Zarathustra has more courage in his body than all thinkers put together. To speak the truth and *shoot arrows well*: that is the Persian virtue.—Do you understand me?… Morality overcoming itself through truthfulness, the moralist overcoming himself into his opposite—into *me*—that is what the name Zarathustra means in my mouth.

[4]

At bottom, my word *immoralist* includes two denials. First, I deny a type of person who until now has been considered the highest: the *good*, the *well-meaning, helpful*. Second, I deny a kind of morality that has gained acceptance and power as morality itself—the morality of decline, or, more plainly, *Christian* morality. You could see the second objection as the more decisive one. In the larger picture, I already consider the overvaluing of goodness and goodwill a result of decline, a sign of weakness, incompatible with a rising, yes-saying life. Saying yes requires denying *and destroying*.—For now, I will stay with the psychology of the good person. To judge what a type of person is worth, you must work out the price of maintaining it. You must know the conditions of its existence. The condition of the good person's existence is the *lie*. In other words, it is *wanting* at any cost not to see what reality is like at bottom. Reality is *not* made to call forth well-meaning instincts at every moment, still less to put up at every moment with interference from shortsighted, good-natured hands. To see *hardships* of every kind as an objection, as something we must *abolish*, is the height of foolishness. On the large scale, its effects are a real disaster, a fate determined by stupidity—almost as stupid as wanting to abolish bad weather, perhaps out of pity for poor people… In the great economy of the whole, the terrifying things in reality—in emotions, in desires, in the will to power—are incomparably more necessary than that form of small happiness called “goodness.” It even takes indulgence to grant goodness any place at all, since it depends on instinctive dishonesty. I will have a great opportunity to show the extraordinarily disturbing effects of *optimism*, this offspring of the best people, on the whole of history. Zarathustra was the first to understand that the optimist is just as much a person of decline as the pessimist, and perhaps more harmful. He says: “*Good people never tell the truth. The good taught you false shores and false safety. You were born and sheltered in the lies of the good. Everything has been falsified and twisted to its roots by the good.*” Fortunately, the world is not built around instincts that would let nothing but good-natured herd animals find their little happiness in it. To demand that everyone become a “good person,” a herd animal, blue-eyed, well-meaning, a “beautiful soul”—or altruistic, as Mr. Herbert Spencer wishes—would take the *great* character out of existence. It would castrate humanity and reduce it to a miserable Chinese-style existence.—*And people have tried to do this!*… *This is precisely what they called morality*… In this sense, Zarathustra sometimes calls the good “the last human beings,” sometimes the “beginning of the end.” Above all, he feels they are *the most harmful kind of person*, because they maintain their existence at the expense of both *truth* and the *future*.
“—The good—they cannot *create*, they are always the beginning of the end—
—they crucify anyone who writes *new* values on new tablets; they sacrifice the future to themselves; they crucify all human future!
—The good—they were always the beginning of the end…
—And whatever harm the slanderers of the world may do, *the harm done by the good is the most harmful harm.*”

[5]

Zarathustra, the first psychologist of the good, is—therefore—a friend of the evil. If a declining type of person has risen to the rank of the highest type, this could only have happened at the expense of its opposite: the strong type, confident in life. If the herd animal shines in the glory of the purest virtue, the exceptional person must have been devalued as evil. If dishonesty claims the word “truth” for its way of seeing at any cost, then the truly truthful person must be found under the worst names. Zarathustra leaves no doubt here. He says it was precisely his knowledge of the good, the “best,” that made him shudder at human beings in general. From *this* disgust he grew wings “to soar away into distant futures.” He doesn't hide the fact that *his* type of person, a relatively superhuman type, is superhuman precisely in relation to the *good*. The good and the just would call his overman a *devil*…
“You highest human beings my eyes have met, this is my doubt about you and my secret laughter: I guess you would call my overman—a devil! Your souls are so foreign to greatness that the overman would be *terrible* to you in his goodness…”
Here, and nowhere else, is where you must start to understand what Zarathustra *wants*. The type of person he conceives of conceives of reality *as it is*: he is strong enough for it. He is not estranged from it, not carried away from it; he is *reality itself*. He also has everything terrifying and questionable about reality within him. *Only with this can a human being have greatness*…

[6]

But there is another sense in which I have chosen the word *immoralist* as my badge, my badge of honor. I am proud to have this word, which sets me apart from all humanity. No one before has felt *Christian* morality to be *beneath* him. That required a height, a far-reaching vision, a psychological depth and capacity for probing the depths never heard of before. Until now, Christian morality has been the Circe of all thinkers—they were in its service.—Who before me went down into the caves from which the poisonous breath of this kind of ideal—*the slandering of the world!*—rises? Who even dared suspect *that* they were caves? Who among philosophers before me was a *psychologist* rather than his opposite, a “higher swindler,” an “idealist”? Before me, there was no psychology at all.—Being the first here can be a curse. In any case, it is a destiny: for *you are also the first to feel contempt*… My danger is *disgust* at human beings…

[7]

Have I been understood?—What sets me apart, what places me on one side against all the rest of humanity, is that I have *discovered* Christian morality. That is why I needed a word carrying the sense of a challenge to everyone. I consider humanity's failure to open its eyes here sooner the greatest filth on its conscience. It is self-deception turned into instinct, a fundamental will *not* to see any event, any process of cause and effect, any reality; counterfeiting in psychological matters to the point of crime. Blindness to Christianity is the *supreme crime*—the crime *against life*… The millennia, the peoples, the first and the last, the philosophers and the old women—apart from five or six moments in history, with me as the seventh—are all worthy of each other on this point. Until now, the Christian has been *the* “moral being,” a curiosity without equal—and, *as* a “moral being,” more absurd, dishonest, vain, careless, and *harmful to himself* than even the greatest despiser of humanity could dream. Christian morality—the most malicious form of the will to lie, humanity's real Circe: what has *corrupted* it. What horrifies me at this sight is *not* error as error, *not* the thousands of years of failing in “goodwill,” discipline, decency, and intellectual courage that its victory reveals. It is the lack of nature. It is the utterly dreadful fact that what is *against nature* received the highest honors as morality and remained hanging over humanity as law, as a categorical imperative!… To go so wrong, *not* as an individual, *not* as a people, but as humanity!… That people were taught to despise the most basic instincts of life; that a “soul,” a “spirit,” was *made up* to disgrace the body; that people are taught to feel something unclean in sexuality, the condition of life; that the principle of evil is sought in *strict* selfishness, the deepest necessity for thriving (even the word is slanderous!); that, on the contrary, the typical signs of decline and conflicting instincts—“selflessness,” losing one's center of gravity, “depersonalization,” and “love of one's neighbor” (an *addiction* to one's neighbor!)—are seen as the *higher* value, what am I saying, as *value itself*!… What! Could humanity itself be in decline? Has it always been?—What is certain is that it has only ever been *taught* values of decline as its highest values. The morality of stripping away the self is the morality of decline above all others. It turns the fact “*I* am perishing” into the command “you *must* all perish”—and *not only* into a command!… This one morality, the only one taught until now, the morality of stripping away the self, reveals a will to the end. At its deepest level, it *denies* life.—Here the possibility remains that it is not humanity that is degenerating, but only that parasitic type of person, the *priest*, who used morality to lie his way up into the role of humanity's judge of values, who recognized Christian morality as his means to *power*… And in fact, this is *my* insight: humanity's teachers and leaders, theologians every one, were also people of decline every one. *Hence* the revaluation of all values into values hostile to life; *hence* morality… *Definition of morality*: morality—the peculiar nature of people of decline, with the hidden intention of *taking revenge on life*—*and* with success. I attach importance to *this* definition.

[8]

Have I been understood?—I have just said nothing that I had not already said through Zarathustra's mouth five years ago.—The *discovery* of Christian morality is an event without equal, a real catastrophe. Whoever throws light on it is an overwhelming force, a destiny—he breaks humanity's history into two pieces. People live *before* him; people live *after* him… The lightning of truth struck precisely what had stood highest until then. Anyone who understands *what* was destroyed should see whether he has anything left in his hands at all. Everything called “truth” until now has been recognized as the most harmful, most treacherous, most deeply buried form of the lie. The sacred pretext of “improving” humanity has been recognized as a trick for *sucking the blood out of* life itself, making it anemic. Morality as *vampirism*… Whoever discovers morality has also discovered the worthlessness of all the values people believe or have believed in. He no longer sees anything worthy of respect in the most respected types of person, even those declared *saints*. He sees in them the most disastrous kind of monstrosity, disastrous *because they fascinate*… The concept “God” was invented as the opposite of life. In it, everything harmful, poisonous, and slanderous, the whole deadly hatred of life, was brought together into one terrifying unity! The concepts “afterlife” and “true world” were invented to devalue the *only* world there is—to leave no goal, no reason, no task for our earthly reality! The concepts “soul,” “spirit,” and finally even “immortal soul” were invented to make people despise the body, to make it sick—“holy”—and to treat with dreadful carelessness everything that deserves to be taken seriously in life: food, housing, mental diet, care of the sick, cleanliness, weather! Instead of health, “salvation of the soul”—meaning a recurring madness that swings between convulsions of repentance and hysteria over redemption! The concept “sin” was invented, together with its instrument of torture, the concept “free will,” to confuse the instincts and make distrust of the instincts second nature! In the concepts of the “selfless” and the “self-denying,” the very mark of decline—being *lured* by what harms you, no longer being *able* to find what benefits you, self-destruction—was made the mark of value itself, of “duty,” of “holiness,” of the “divine” in a human being! Finally—and this is the most terrible thing—in the concept of the *good* person, sides were taken with everything weak, sick, failed, and suffering from itself, with everything *that should perish*. The law of *selection* was thwarted. An ideal was made out of opposition to the proud and well-formed person, the yes-saying person, confident in the future and guaranteeing it. That person is now called *the evil one*… And all this was believed *as morality!*—*Crush the infamous thing!*——

[9]

Have I been understood?—*Dionysus against the Crucified*…

### Fame and Eternity

[1]

How long have you been sitting
  on your misfortune?
Watch out! You'll hatch
  an egg for me yet,
  a basilisk's egg,
out of your long misery.

Why is Zarathustra creeping along the mountain?—

Distrustful, covered in sores, gloomy,
long lying in wait—,
but suddenly, lightning,
bright, terrible, a blow
from the abyss toward the sky:
—the mountain's own
insides shake …

Where hatred and a lightning bolt
became one, a *curse*—,
Zarathustra's anger now lives in the mountains;
he creeps along his way, a storm cloud.

Let anyone with one last blanket crawl under it!
Off to bed, you tender creatures!
Now thunder rolls over the vaulted roofs,
now every beam and wall trembles,
now lightning and sulfur-yellow truths flash—
Zarathustra *curses* …

[2]

This coin that
the whole world pays with,
*fame*—,
I handle this coin with gloves;
I stamp it *under* my feet in disgust.

*Who* wants to be paid?
Those who can be bought …
Anyone *for sale* reaches
with fat hands
for this cheap, tinny jingle everyone calls fame!

—Do you *want* to buy them?
They can all be bought.
But offer plenty!
Jingle a full purse!
—Otherwise you *strengthen* them,
you strengthen their *virtue* …

They are all virtuous.
Fame and virtue—they rhyme.
As long as the world lives,
it pays for virtue's babbling
with fame's rattling—,
the world *lives* on this noise …

Before all the virtuous
I want to be guilty,
to be called guilty of every great wrong!
Before all the megaphones of fame
my ambition becomes a worm—,
among such people I feel the urge
to be the *lowest* …

This coin that
the whole world pays with,
*fame*—,
I handle this coin with gloves;
I stamp it *under* my feet in disgust.

[3]

Quiet!—
About great things—I *see* great things!—
we should keep silent
or speak grandly:
speak grandly, my delighted wisdom!

I look up—
seas of light roll there:
—oh night, oh silence, oh deathly quiet noise! …
I see a sign—,
from the farthest distances
a sparkling constellation slowly sinks toward me …

[4]

Highest star of existence!
Tablet of eternal images!
*You* are coming to me?—
What no one has ever seen,
your silent beauty—
what? It doesn't flee from my eyes?

Shield of necessity!
Tablet of eternal images!
—but you already know:
what everyone hates,
what *I* alone love,
is that you are *eternal*!
that you are *necessary*!
My love is set alight
forever by necessity alone.

Shield of necessity!
Highest star of existence!
—which no wish reaches,
which no denial stains,
existence's eternal yes,
forever I am your yes:
*because I love you, oh eternity!*——