Human, All Too Human
Original German
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…
Musean translation
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.
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…
Plain English translation
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.
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…
About this section
Human, All Too Human is part of Ecce Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche. This page sets the German original beside 2 direct-source translations, so any line can be checked against the source. It is chapter 8 of 17 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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