Part 9

"Whither have ye fled, the tears of mine eyes and the bloom of my heart? Oh, the solitude of all givers! Oh, the silence of all beacons!

"Many are the suns that circle in barren space; to all that is dark do they speak with their light--to me alone are they silent.

"Alas, this is the hatred of light for that which shineth: pitiless it runneth its course.

"Unfair in its inmost heart to that which shineth; cold toward suns,--thus doth every sun go its way.

"Like a tempest do the suns fly over their course: for such is their way. Their own unswerving will do they follow: that is their coldness.

"Alas, it is ye alone, ye creatures of gloom, ye spirits of the night, that take your warmth from that which shineth. Ye alone suck your milk and comfort from the udders of light.

"Alas, about me there is ice, my hand burneth itself against ice!

"Alas, within me is a thirst that thirsteth for your thirst!

"It is night: woe is me, that I must needs be light! And thirst after darkness! And loneliness!

"It is night: now doth my longing burst forth like a spring,--for speech do I long.

"It is night: now do all gushing springs raise their voices. And my soul too is a gushing spring.

"It is night: now only do all lovers burst into song. And my soul too is the song of a lover."

8

Such things have never been written, never been felt, never been _suffered:_ only a God, only Dionysus suffers in this way. The reply to such a dithyramb on the sun's solitude in light would be Ariadne. ... Who knows, but I, who Ariadne is! To all such riddles no one heretofore had ever found an answer; I doubt even whether any one had ever seen a riddle here. One day Zarathustra severely determines his life-task--and it is also mine. Let no one misunderstand its meaning. It's a yea-saying to the point of justifying, to the point of redeeming even all that is past.

"I walk among men as among fragments of the future: of that future which I see.

"And all my creativeness and effort is but this, that I may be able to think and recast all these fragments and riddles and dismal accidents into one piece.

"And how could I bear to be a man, if man were not also a poet, a riddle reader, and a redeemer of chance!

"To redeem all the past, and to transform every 'it was' into 'thus would I have it'--that alone would be my salvation!"

In another passage he defines as strictly as possible what to him alone "man" can be,--not a subject for love nor yet for pity--Zarathustra became master even of his loathing of man: man is to him a thing unshaped, raw material, an ugly stone that needs the sculptor's chisel.

"No longer to will, no longer to value, no longer to create! Oh, that this great weariness may never be mine!

"Even in the lust of knowledge, I feel only the joy of my will to beget and to grow; and if there be innocence in my knowledge, it is because my procreative will is in it.

"Away from God and gods did this will lure me: what would there be to create if there were gods?

"But to man doth it ever drive me anew, my burning, creative will. Thus driveth it the hammer to the stone.

"Alas, ye men, within the stone there sleepeth an image for me, the image of all my dreams! Alas, that it should have to sleep in the hardest and ugliest stone!

"_Now rageth my hammer ruthlessly against its prison._ From the stone the fragments fly: what's that to me?

"I will finish it: for a shadow came unto me--the stillest and lightest thing on earth once came unto me!

"The beauty of the Superman came unto me as a shadow. Alas, my brethren! What are the--gods to me now?"

Let me call attention to one last point of view. The line in italics is my pretext for this remark. A Dionysian life-task needs the hardness of the hammer, and one of its first essentials is without doubt the _joy even of destruction._ The command, "Harden yourselves!" and the deep conviction that _all creators are hard,_ is the really distinctive sign of a Dionysian nature.

BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL:

"THE PRELUDE TO A PHILOSOPHY OF THE FUTURE"

1

My work for the years that followed was prescribed as distinctly as possible. Now that the yea-saying part of my life-task was accomplished, there came the turn of the negative portion, both in word and deed: the transvaluation of all values that had existed hitherto, the great war,--the conjuring-up of the day when the fatal outcome of the struggle would be decided. Meanwhile, I had slowly to look about me for my peers, for those who, _out of strength,_ would proffer me a helping hand in my work of destruction. From that time onward, all my writings are so much bait: maybe I understand as much about fishing as most people? If nothing was _caught,_ it was not I who was at fault _There were no fish to come and bite._

2

In all its essential points, this book (1886) is a criticism of _modernity,_ embracing the modern sciences, arts, even politics, together with certain indications as to a type which would be the reverse of modern man, or as little like him as possible, a noble and yea-saying type. In this last respect the book is a _school for gentlemen_--the term _gentleman_ being understood here in a much more spiritual and radical sense than it has implied hitherto. All those things of which the age is proud,--as, for instance, far-famed "objectivity," "sympathy with all that suffers," "the historical sense," with its subjection to foreign tastes, with its lying-in-the-dust before _petits faits,_ and the rage for science,--are shown to be the contradiction of the type recommended, and are regarded as almost ill-bred. If you remember that this book follows upon _Zarathustra,_ you may possibly guess to what system of diet it owes its life. The eye which, owing to tremendous constraint, has become accustomed to see at a great distance,--_Zarathustra_ is even more far-sighted than the Tsar,--is here forced to focus sharply that which is close at hand, the present time, the things that lie about him. In all the aphorisms and more particularly in the form of this book, the reader will find the same _voluntary_ turning away from those instincts which made a _Zarathustra_ a possible feat. Refinement in form, in aspiration, and in the art of keeping silent, are its more or less obvious qualities; psychology is handled with deliberate hardness and cruelty,--the whole book does not contain one single good-natured word.... All this sort of thing refreshes a man. Who can guess the kind of recreation that is necessary after such an expenditure of goodness as is to be found in _Zarathustra_? From a theological standpoint--now pay ye heed; for it is but on rare occasions that I speak as a theologian--it was God Himself who, at the end of His great work, coiled Himself up in the form of a serpent at the foot of the tree of knowledge. It was thus that He recovered from being a God.... He had made everything too beautiful.... The devil is simply God's moment of idleness, on that seventh day.

"THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS: A POLEMIC"

The three essays which constitute this genealogy are, as regards expression, aspiration, and the art of the unexpected, perhaps the most curious things that have ever been written. Dionysus, as you know, is also the god of darkness. In each case the beginning is calculated to mystify; it is cool, scientific, even ironical, intentionally thrust to the fore, intentionally reticent. Gradually less calmness prevails; here and there a flash of lightning defines the horizon; exceedingly unpleasant truths break upon your ears from out remote distances with a dull, rumbling sound,--until very soon a fierce tempo is attained in which everything presses forward at a terrible degree of tension. At the end, in each case, amid fearful thunderclaps, a new truth shines out between thick clouds. The truth of the first essays the psychology of Christianity: the birth of Christianity out of the spirit of resentment, not, as is supposed, out of the "Spirit,"--in all its essentials, a counter-movement, the great insurrection against the dominion of noble values. The second essay contains the psychology of conscience: this is not, as you may believe, "the voice of God in man"; it is the instinct of cruelty, which turns inwards once it is unable to discharge itself outwardly. Cruelty is here exposed, for the first time, as one of the oldest and most indispensable elements in the foundation of culture. The third essay replies to the question as to the origin of the formidable power of the ascetic ideal, of the priest ideal, despite the fact that this ideal is essentially detrimental, that it is a will to nonentity and to decadence. Reply: it flourished not because God was active behind the priests, as is generally believed, but because it was a _faute de mieux_--from the fact that hitherto it has been the only ideal and has had no competitors. "For man prefers to aspire to nonentity than not to aspire at all." But above all, until the time of _Zarathustra_ there was no such thing as a counter-ideal. You have understood my meaning. Three decisive overtures on the part of a psychologist to a _Transvaluation of all Values._--This book contains the first psychology of the priest.

"THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS:

HOW TO PHILOSOPHISE WITH THE HAMMER"

1

This work--which covers scarcely one hundred and fifty pages, with its cheerful and fateful tone, like a laughing demon, and the production of which occupied so few days that I hesitate to give their number--is altogether an exception among books: there is no work more rich in substance, more independent, more upsetting--more wicked. If any one should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of how everything, before my time, was standing on its head, he should begin reading me in this book. That which is called "Idols" on the title page is simply the old truth that has been believed in hitherto. In plain English, _The Twilight of the Idols_ means that the old truth is on its last legs.

2

There is no reality, no "ideality," which has not been touched in this book (touched! what a cautious euphemism!). Not only the eternal idols, but also the youngest--that is to say, the most senile: modern ideas, for instance. A strong wind blows between the trees and in all directions fall the fruit--the truths. There is the waste of an all-too-rich autumn in this book: you trip over truths. You even crush some to death, there are too many of them. Those things that you can grasp, however, are quite unquestionable; they are irrevocable decrees. I alone have the criterion of "truths" in my possession. I alone _can_ decide. It would seem as if a second consciousness had grown up in me, as if the "life-will" in me had thrown a light upon the downward path along which it has been running throughout the ages. The _downward path_--hitherto this had been called the road to "Truth." All obscure impulse--"darkness and dismay"--is at an end, the "_good man_" was precisely he who was least aware of the proper way.[1] And, speaking in all earnestness, no one before me knew the proper way, the way upwards: only after my time could men once more find hope, life-tasks, and roads mapped out that lead to culture--_I am the joyful harbinger of this culture._ ... On this account alone I am also a fatality.

3

Immediately after the completion of the above-named work, and without letting even one day go by, I tackled the formidable task of the _Transvaluation_ with a supreme feeling of pride which nothing could equal; and, certain at each moment of my immortality, I cut sign after sign upon tablets of brass with the sureness of Fate. The Preface came into being on 3rd September 1888. When, after having written it down, I went out into the open that morning, I was greeted by the most beautiful day I had ever seen in the Upper Engadine--clear, glowing with colour, and presenting all the contrasts and all the intermediary gradations between ice and the south. I left Sils-Maria only on the 20th of September. I had been forced to delay my departure owing to floods, and I was very soon, and for some days, the only visitor in this wonderful spot, on which my gratitude bestows the gift of an immortal name. After a journey that was full of incidents, and not without danger to life,--as for instance at Como, which was flooded when I reached it in the dead of night,--I got to Turin on the afternoon of the 21 st. Turin is the only suitable place for me, and it shall be my home henceforward. I took the same lodgings as I had occupied in the spring, 6111 Via Carlo Alberto, opposite the mighty Palazzo Carignano, in which Vittorio Emanuele was born; and I had a view of the Piazza Carlo Alberto and above it across to the hills. Without hesitating, or allowing myself to be disturbed for a single moment, I returned to my work, only the last quarter of which had still to be written. On the 30th September, tremendous triumph; the seventh day; the leisure of a god on the banks of the Po.[2] On the same day, I wrote the Preface to _The Twilight of the Idols,_ the correction of the proofs of which provided me with recreation during the month of September. Never in my life have I experienced such an autumn; nor had I ever imagined that such things were possible on earth--a Claude Lorrain extended to infinity, each day equal to the last in its wild perfection.

[Footnote 1: A witty reference to Goethe's well-known passage in the Prologue to _Faust_:--

"A good man, though in darkness and dismay, May still be conscious of the proper way."

The words are spoken by the Lord.--TR. ]

[Footnote 2: There is a wonderful promenade along the banks of the Po, for which Turin is famous, and of which Nietzsche was particularly fond.--TR.]

"THE CASE OF WAGNER: A MUSICIAN'S PROBLEM"

1

In order to do justice to this essay a man ought to suffer from the fate of music as from an open wound.--From what do I suffer when I suffer from the fate of music? From the fact that music has lost its world-transfiguring, yea-saying character--that it is decadent music and no longer the flute of Dionysus. Supposing, however, that the fate of music be as dear to man as his own life, because joy and suffering are alike bound up with it; then he will find this pamphlet comparatively mild and full of consideration. To be cheerful in such circumstances, and laugh good-naturedly with others at one's self,--_ridendodicere severum_[1] when the _verum dicere_ would justify every sort of hardness,--is humanity itself. Who doubts that I, old artillery-man that I am, would be able if I liked to point my _heavy_ guns at Wagner?--Everything decisive in this question I kept to myself--I have loved Wagner.--After all, an attack upon a more than usually subtle "unknown person" whom another would not have divined so easily, lies in the meaning and path of my life-task. Oh, I have still quite a number of other "unknown persons" to unmask besides a Cagliostro of Music! Above all, I have to direct an attack against the German people, who, in matters of the spirit, grow every day more indolent, poorer in instincts, and more _honest_ who, with an appetite for which they are to be envied, continue to diet themselves on contradictions, and gulp down "Faith" in company with science, Christian love together with anti-Semitism, and the will to power (to the "Empire"), dished up with the gospel of the humble, without showing the slightest signs of indigestion. Fancy this absence of party-feeling in the presence of opposites! Fancy this gastric neutrality and "disinterestedness"! Behold this sense of justice in the German palate, which can grant equal rights to all,--which finds everything tasteful! Without a shadow of a doubt the Germans are idealists. When I was last in Germany, I found German taste striving to grant Wagner and the _Trumpeter of Sakkingen_[2] equal rights; while I myself witnessed the attempts of the people of Leipzig to do honour to one of the most genuine and most German of musicians,--using German here in the old sense of the word,--a man who was no mere German of the Empire, the master Heinrich Schütz, by founding a Liszt Society, the object of which was to cultivate and spread artful (_listige_[3]) Church music. Without a shadow of doubt the Germans are idealists.

2

But here nothing shall stop me from being rude, and from telling the Germans one or two unpleasant home truths: who else would do it if I did not? I refer to their laxity in matters historical. Not only have the Germans entirely lost the _breadth of vision_ which enables one to grasp the course of culture and the values of culture; not only are they one and all political (or Church) puppets; but they have also actually _put a ban upon_ this very breadth of vision. A man must first and foremost be "German," he must belong to "_the_ race"; then only can he pass judgment upon all values and lack of values in history--then only can he establish them.... To be German is in itself an argument, "Germany, Germany above all,"[4] is a principle; the Germans stand for the "moral order of the universe" in history; compared with the Roman Empire, they are the up-holders of freedom; compared with the eighteenth century, they are the restorers of morality, of the "Categorical Imperative." There is such a thing as the writing of history according to the lights of Imperial Germany; there is, I fear, anti-Semitic history--there is also history written with an eye to the Court, and Herr von Treitschke is not ashamed of himself. Quite recently an idiotic opinion _in historicis,_ an observation of Vischer the Swabian æsthete, since happily deceased, made the round of the German newspapers as a "truth" to which every German _must assent_ The observation was this: "The Renaissance _and_ the Reformation only together constitute a whole--the æsthetic rebirth, and the moral rebirth." When I listen to such things, I lose all patience, and I feel inclined, I even feel it my duty, to tell the Germans, for once in a way, all that they have on their conscience. _Every great crime against culture for the last four centuries lies on their conscience...._ And always for the same reason, always owing to their bottomless cowardice in the face of reality, which is also cowardice in the face of truth; always owing to the love of falsehood which has become almost instinctive in them--in short, "idealism." It was the Germans who caused Europe to lose the fruits, the whole meaning of her last period of greatness--the period of the Renaissance. At a moment when a higher order of values, values that were noble, that said yea to life, and that guaranteed a future, had succeeded in triumphing over the opposite values, the values of degeneration, in the very seat of Christianity itself,--and _even in the hearts of those sitting there,_--Luther, that cursed monk, not only restored the Church, but, what was a thousand times worse, restored Christianity, and at a time too when it lay defeated. Christianity, the _Denial of the Will to Live,_ exalted to a religion! Luther was an impossible monk who, thanks to his own "impossibility," attacked the Church, and in so doing restored it! Catholics would be perfectly justified in celebrating feasts in honour of Luther, and in producing festival plays[5] in his honour. Luther and the "rebirth of morality"! May all psychology go to the devil! Without a shadow of a doubt the Germans are idealists. On two occasions when, at the cost of enormous courage and self-control, an upright, unequivocal, and perfectly scientific attitude of mind had been attained, the Germans were able to discover back stairs leading down to the old "ideal" again, compromises between truth and the "ideal," and, in short, formulæ for the right to reject science and to perpetrate falsehoods. Leibniz and Kant--these two great breaks upon the intellectual honesty of Europe! Finally, at a moment when there appeared on the bridge that spanned two centuries of decadence, a superior force of genius and will which was strong enough to consolidate Europe and to convert it into a political and economic unit, with the object of ruling the world, the Germans, with their Wars of Independence, robbed Europe of the significance--the marvellous significance, of Napoleon's life. And in so doing they laid on their conscience everything that followed, everything that exists to-day,--this sickliness and want of reason which is most opposed to culture, and which is called Nationalism,--this _névrose nationale_ from which Europe is suffering acutely; this eternal subdivision of Europe into petty states, with politics on a municipal scale: they have robbed Europe itself of its significance, of its reason,--and have stuffed it into a cul-de-sac. Is there any one except me who knows the way out of this cul-de-sac? Does anyone except me know of an aspiration which would be great enough to bind the people of Europe once more together?

3

And after all, why should I not express my suspicions? In my case, too, the Germans will attempt to make a great fate give birth merely to a mouse. Up to the present they have compromised themselves with me; I doubt whether the future will improve them. Alas! how happy I should be to prove a false prophet in this matter! My natural readers and listeners are already Russians, Scandinavians, and Frenchmen--will they always be the same? In the history of knowledge, Germans are represented only by doubtful names, they have been able to produce only "_unconscious_" swindlers (this word applies to Fichte, Schelling, Schopenhauer, Hegel, and Schleiermacher, just as well as to Kant or Leibniz; they were all mere _Schleiermachers_).[6] The Germans must not have the honour of seeing the first upright intellect in their history of intellects, that intellect in which truth ultimately got the better of the fraud of four thousand years, reckoned as one with the German intellect. "German intellect" is my foul air: I breathe with difficulty in the neighbourhood of this psychological uncleanliness that has now become instinctive--an uncleanliness which in every word and expression betrays a German. They have never undergone a seventeenth century of hard self-examination, as the French have,--a La Rochefoucauld, a Descartes, are a thousand times more upright than the very first among Germans,--the latter have not yet had any psychologists. But psychology is almost the standard of measurement for the cleanliness or uncleanliness of a race.... For if a man is not even clean, how can he be deep? The Germans are like women, you can scarcely ever I fathom their depths--they haven't any, and that's the end of it. Thus they cannot even be called shallow. That which is called "deep" in Germany, is precisely this instinctive uncleanliness towards one's self, of which I have just spoken: people refuse to be clear in regard to their own natures. Might I be allowed, perhaps, to suggest the word "German" as an international epithet denoting this psychological depravity?--At the moment of writing, for instance, the German Emperor is declaring it to be his Christian duty to liberate the slaves in Africa; among us Europeans, then, this would be called simply "German." ... Have the Germans ever produced even a book that had depth? They are lacking in the mere idea of what constitutes a book. I have known scholars who thought that Kant was deep. At the Court of Prussia I fear that Herr von Treitschke is regarded as deep. And when I happen to praise Stendhal as a deep psychologist, I have often been compelled, in the company of German University Professors, to spell his name aloud.

4