Dawn
Original German
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 Hülfsbegriffe 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. –
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.
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.—
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.
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.—
About this section
Dawn 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 9 of 17 in the work, which is kept in the European tradition.
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