August 15, 2025 • 36 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Why I write such excellent books. Part three, Beyond Good
and Evil, the prelude to a philosophy of the future One.
My work for the years that followed was prescribed as
(00:23):
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,
(00:44):
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 profer me a health hand in
my work of destruction. From that time onward, all my
(01:06):
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. Two. In all its essential points,
(01:31):
this book eighteen eighty six 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.
(01:52):
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,
(02:17):
sympathy with all that suffers, the historical sense, with its
subjection to foreign tastes, with its lying in the dust
before betti fe, and the rage for science, are shown
to be the contradiction of the type recommended, and are
(02:38):
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 a tremendous constraint, has become accustomed to see
(02:58):
at a great distance Zarathustra, is even more far sighted
than the Czar. 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
(03:21):
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 more
or less obvious qualities. Psychology is handled with deliberate hardness
(03:41):
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
(04:04):
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.
(04:28):
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,
(04:48):
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,
(05:08):
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
(05:33):
fierce tempo is attained, in which everything presses forwards at
a terrible degree of tension. At the end, in each case,
amid fearful thunderclapse, a new truth shines out between thick clouds.
The truth of the first essay is the psychology of Christianity,
(05:55):
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
(06:20):
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 a foundation
of culture. The third essay replies to the question as
(06:44):
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. Es reply. It flourished not because
(07:05):
God was active behind the priests, as is generally believed,
but because it was a fote de me from the
fact that hitherto it has been the only ideal and
has had no competitors. For man prefers to aspire to
non entity than not to aspire at all. But above all,
(07:31):
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
(08:00):
Colossifies with the Hammer one. 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 hesitated to give their number,
(08:20):
is altogether an exception among books. There is no work
more rich in substance, more independent, more upsetting, more wicked.
If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of
our everything before my time was standing on its head,
he should begin reading me. In this book. That which
(08:42):
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. Two. There is no reality,
(09:02):
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 for the fruit the truths.
(09:28):
There is a 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. There
are irrevocable decrees. I alone have the criterion of truths
(09:51):
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 have thrown a
light upon the downward path along which it has been
running throughout the ages. The downward path hitherto this has
(10:14):
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.
Translator's footnote a witty reference to Gerta's well known passage
in the Prolog to Faust. A good man, though in
(10:38):
darkness and dismay, may still be conscious of the proper way.
The words are spoken by the Lord and a translator's note,
and speaking in all earnestness. No one before me knew
the proper way, the way upwards. Only after my time
(10:59):
could men once more find hope life, tasks and roads
mapped out that lead to culture. I am the joyful
harboringer of this culture. On this account alone, I am
also a fatality. Three immediately after the completion of the
(11:23):
above named work, and without letting even one day go by,
I tackled the formidable task of the transvaluation with the
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.
(11:45):
The preface came into being on the third of September
eighteen eighty eight, 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 Egudine, clear, glowing with colour and presenting all
(12:07):
the contrasts and all the intermediary gradations between ice and
the south. I left sils Maria only on the twentieth
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
(12:31):
which by 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 twenty first.
(12:54):
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 six one one
one via Carlo Alberto, opposite the mighty Palazzo Carignano in
which Vittorio Emmanuel was born, and I had a view
(13:19):
of the Piazzo 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 thirtieth of September, tremendous triumph the seventh day,
(13:41):
the Leisure of a God on the banks of the
Poe translator's footnote, there is a wonderful promenade along the
banks of the Poe, for which Turin is famous, and
of which Nietzsche was particularly fond, and translator's note. On
the same day I wrote the preface to The Twilight
(14:03):
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 Laurins extended to infinity each day equal to
(14:29):
the last in its wild perfection. The Case of Wagner
a musician's problem one. 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
(14:51):
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,
(15:15):
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 the others at oneself credendo de caire
(15:36):
severroon translator's note, the motto of the Case of Wagner.
End of translator's note. When the verum deceree would justify
every sort of hardness is humanity itself? Who doubts that I,
old artillery man that I am, would be able if
(15:59):
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
(16:19):
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,
(16:40):
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.
(17:02):
Christian love together with antisemitism 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
(17:23):
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 doubt. The
Germans are idealists. When I was last in Germany. I
(17:46):
found German tastes striving to Grant Wagner and the trumpeter
of sackingen equal rights translator's footnote, an opera by Nessler
which was all the rage in Germany to twenty years
ago and translator's note. While I witnessed the attempts of
the people of Leipzig to do honor to one of
(18:08):
the most genuine and most German of musicians. Using German
here in the old sense of the word, a man
who is no mere German of the Empire, the master
Heinrich Schultz, by founding a List's Society, the object of
which was to cultivate and spread artful listige church music
(18:33):
translator's footnote. Unfortunately, it is impossible to render this play
on the words in English and translator's note without a
shadow of doubt. The Germans are idealists. Two. But here
(18:58):
nothing shall stop me from being rue 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 breath of vision which enables one to
(19:19):
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 breath of vision. A man must first and foremost
(19:39):
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
(19:59):
all all is a principle. Translator's note the German national
song Deutschland Deutschland Uberalus and translators note the Germans stand
for the moral order of the universe. In history. Compared
with the Roman Empire, they are the upholders of freedom.
(20:22):
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 her
(20:44):
von Tretsk is not ashamed of himself. Quite recently an
idiotic opinion in Historicus an observation of Fisher the Swabian athete,
since happily deceased made the round of the German newspapers
as a truth to which every German must assent. The
(21:09):
observation was this, the Renaissance and the Reformation only together
constitute a whole, the esthetic rebirth and the moral rebirth.
When I listen to such things, I lose all patients,
and I feel inclined. I even feel it's my duty
(21:30):
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
(21:54):
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
(22:15):
moment when a higher order of values, values that were noble,
that said yea to life and that guaranteed of future,
had succeeded in triumphing over the opposite values, the values
of degeneration. In the very seed of Christianity itself and
even in the hearts of those sitting there. Luther, that
(22:38):
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 an
(23:00):
impossible monk who, thanks to his own impossibility, attacked the
Church and in doing so restored it. Catholics would be
perfectly justified in celebrating feasts in honour of Luther and
in producing festival plays in his honour. Translator's note. Ever
(23:20):
since the year sixteen seventeen such plays have been produced
by the Protestants of Germany, and Translator's note, Luther and
the Rebirth of morality. May all psychology go to the
devil without a shadow of a doubt. The Germans are idealists.
(23:42):
On two occasions, when at the cost of enormous courage
and self control and upright unequivocal and perfectly scientific attitude
of mind had been attained, the Germans were able to
discover backstairs leading down to the old ideal again, compromises
between truth and the ideal and in short, formulae for
(24:06):
the right to reject science and to perpetrate falsehoods Leibnitz
and Kan't. 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
(24:27):
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 marvelous significance of Napoleon's life, and in doing so
(24:52):
they laid on their conscience everything that followed, everything that
exists today, this sickliness and one of reason, which is
most opposed to culture, and which is called nationalism, This
nevosa naciur now from which Europe is suffering acutely, this
(25:12):
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 any
(25:33):
one except me know of an aspiration which would be
great enough to bind the peoples of Europe once more together? Three?
And after all, why should I not express my suspicions
in my case too? The Germans will attempt to make
(25:56):
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.
(26:22):
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,
(26:44):
and Schleilemacher, just as well as to cant or Leadnitz.
They are all merely Schleilemacher's translator's footnote. Schleiermacher literally means
a weaver or maker of vain and translator's note, the
Germans must not have the honor of seeing the first
(27:07):
upright intellect in the 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
(27:28):
in the neighborhood of this psychological uncleanliness that has now
become instinctive, an uncleanliness which in every word an expression
betrays a German. They have never undergone a seventeenth century
of hard self examination, as the French have a laroche
(27:50):
fulcl a decar 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
(28:13):
be deep? The Germans are like women. You can scarcely
ever 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.
(28:38):
People refuse to be clear in regards 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
(28:59):
it to be his Cristian duty to liberate the slaves
in Africa. Among US Europeans, then this will recalled simply German.
Have the Germans ever produced even a book that had depth?
They are lacking in the mere idea of what constitutes
(29:19):
a book. I have known scholars who thought that Kant
was deep at the Court of Prussia. I fear that
her von Tresk is regarded as deep. And when I
happen to praise Sandhaul as a deep psychologist, I have
often been compelled in the company of German university professors
(29:41):
to spell his name aloud four and why should I
not proceed to the end? I am fond of clearing
the air. It is even part of my ambition to
be considered as essentially a despiser of Germans. I expressed
(30:01):
my suspicions of the German character even at the age
of six and twenty see Thoughts Out of Season Volume two,
pages one six four to one six five. To my mind,
the Germans are impossible when I try to think of
the kind of man who is opposed to me, in
(30:23):
all my instincts, my mental image takes the form of
a German. The first thing I ask myself when I
begin analyzing a man is whether he has a feeling
for distance in him, whether he sees rank, gradation and
order everywhere between man and man, whether he makes distinctions.
(30:48):
For this is what constitutes a gentleman. Otherwise he belongs
hopelessly to that open hearted, open minded alas and all
very good natured species lacanaye. But the Germans are knaye.
Alas they are so good natured. A man lowers himself
(31:12):
by frequenting the society of Germans. The German places everyone
on an equal footing. With the exception of my intercourse
with one or two artists, and above all with Richard Wagner,
I cannot say that I have spent one pleasant hour
with Germans. Suppose for one moment that the profoundest spirit
(31:36):
of all ages were to appear among Germans, then one
of the saviors of the capital would be sure to
arise and declare that his own ugly soul was just
as great. I can no longer abide this race with
which a man is always in bad company which has
(31:57):
no idea of nuances, woe to me, I am a nuance,
and which has not a spree in its feet, and
cannot even walk withal. In short, the Germans have no
feed at all. They simply have legs. The Germans have
not the faintest idea of how vulgar they are. But
(32:20):
this in itself is the acme of vulgarity. They are
not even ashamed of being merely Germans. They will have
their say in everything. They regard themselves as fit to
decide all questions. I even fear that they have decided
about me. My whole life is essentially a proof of
(32:44):
this remark. In vain have I sought among them for
a sign of tact and delicacy towards myself? Among Jews,
I did indeed find it, but not among Germans. I
am so constituted as to be gentle and kindly to everyone.
(33:04):
I have the right not to draw distinctions, but this
does not prevent my eyes from being open. I accept
no one, and least of all my friends. I only
trust that this has not prejudiced my reputation for humanity.
Among them, there are five or six things which I
(33:28):
have always made points of honor. Albeit the truth remains
that for many years I have considered almost every letter
that has reached me as a piece of cynicism. There
is more cynicism in an attitude of good will towards
me than any sort of hatred. I tell every friend
(33:49):
to his face that he has never thought it worth
his while to study any one of my writings. From
the slightest hints I gather that they do not even
know what lies hidden in my books. And with regard
even to my Zarathustra, which of my friends would have
(34:10):
seen more in it than a piece of unwarrantable, though
fortunately harmless arrogance. Ten years have elapsed, and no one
has yet felt it a duty to his conscience to
defend my name against the absurd silence beneath which it
has been entombed. It was a foreigner, a Dane, who
(34:35):
first showed sufficient keenness of instinct and courage to do this,
and who protested indignantly against my so called friends at
what German university to day would such lectures on my
philosophy be possible? As those which doctor Brandes delivered last
(34:56):
spring in Copenhagen, thus proving once more his right to
the title psychologist. For my part, these things have never
caused me any pain. That which is necessary does not
offend me. Our morphatty is the core of my nature. This, however,
(35:18):
does not alter the fact that I love irony, an
even world historic irony. And thus, about two years before
hurling the destructive thunderbolt of the transvaluation, which will send
the whole of civilization into convulsions, I sent my case
of Wagner out into the world. The Germans were given
(35:41):
the chance of blundering and immortalizing their stupidity once more
on my account, and they still have just enough time
to do it in and have they fallen in with
my plans admirably, My dear Germans, allow me to congratulate you,
(36:02):
and of why I write such excellent books. Part three
Why I write such excellent books. Part three, Beyond Good
and Evil, the prelude to a philosophy of the future One.
My work for the years that followed was prescribed as
(00:23):
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,
(00:44):
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 profer me a health hand in
my work of destruction. From that time onward, all my
(01:06):
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. Two. In all its essential points,
(01:31):
this book eighteen eighty six 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.
(01:52):
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,
(02:17):
sympathy with all that suffers, the historical sense, with its
subjection to foreign tastes, with its lying in the dust
before betti fe, and the rage for science, are shown
to be the contradiction of the type recommended, and are
(02:38):
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 a tremendous constraint, has become accustomed to see
(02:58):
at a great distance Zarathustra, is even more far sighted
than the Czar. 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
(03:21):
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 more
or less obvious qualities. Psychology is handled with deliberate hardness
(03:41):
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
(04:04):
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.
(04:28):
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,
(04:48):
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,
(05:08):
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
(05:33):
fierce tempo is attained, in which everything presses forwards at
a terrible degree of tension. At the end, in each case,
amid fearful thunderclapse, a new truth shines out between thick clouds.
The truth of the first essay is the psychology of Christianity,
(05:55):
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
(06:20):
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 a foundation
of culture. The third essay replies to the question as
(06:44):
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. Es reply. It flourished not because
(07:05):
God was active behind the priests, as is generally believed,
but because it was a fote de me from the
fact that hitherto it has been the only ideal and
has had no competitors. For man prefers to aspire to
non entity than not to aspire at all. But above all,
(07:31):
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
(08:00):
Colossifies with the Hammer one. 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 hesitated to give their number,
(08:20):
is altogether an exception among books. There is no work
more rich in substance, more independent, more upsetting, more wicked.
If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of
our everything before my time was standing on its head,
he should begin reading me. In this book. That which
(08:42):
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. Two. There is no reality,
(09:02):
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 for the fruit the truths.
(09:28):
There is a 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. There
are irrevocable decrees. I alone have the criterion of truths
(09:51):
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 have thrown a
light upon the downward path along which it has been
running throughout the ages. The downward path hitherto this has
(10:14):
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.
Translator's footnote a witty reference to Gerta's well known passage
in the Prolog to Faust. A good man, though in
(10:38):
darkness and dismay, may still be conscious of the proper way.
The words are spoken by the Lord and a translator's note,
and speaking in all earnestness. No one before me knew
the proper way, the way upwards. Only after my time
(10:59):
could men once more find hope life, tasks and roads
mapped out that lead to culture. I am the joyful
harboringer of this culture. On this account alone, I am
also a fatality. Three immediately after the completion of the
(11:23):
above named work, and without letting even one day go by,
I tackled the formidable task of the transvaluation with the
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.
(11:45):
The preface came into being on the third of September
eighteen eighty eight, 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 Egudine, clear, glowing with colour and presenting all
(12:07):
the contrasts and all the intermediary gradations between ice and
the south. I left sils Maria only on the twentieth
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
(12:31):
which by 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 twenty first.
(12:54):
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 six one one
one via Carlo Alberto, opposite the mighty Palazzo Carignano in
which Vittorio Emmanuel was born, and I had a view
(13:19):
of the Piazzo 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 thirtieth of September, tremendous triumph the seventh day,
(13:41):
the Leisure of a God on the banks of the
Poe translator's footnote, there is a wonderful promenade along the
banks of the Poe, for which Turin is famous, and
of which Nietzsche was particularly fond, and translator's note. On
the same day I wrote the preface to The Twilight
(14:03):
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 Laurins extended to infinity each day equal to
(14:29):
the last in its wild perfection. The Case of Wagner
a musician's problem one. 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
(14:51):
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,
(15:15):
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 the others at oneself credendo de caire
(15:36):
severroon translator's note, the motto of the Case of Wagner.
End of translator's note. When the verum deceree would justify
every sort of hardness is humanity itself? Who doubts that I,
old artillery man that I am, would be able if
(15:59):
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
(16:19):
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,
(16:40):
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.
(17:02):
Christian love together with antisemitism 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
(17:23):
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 doubt. The
Germans are idealists. When I was last in Germany. I
(17:46):
found German tastes striving to Grant Wagner and the trumpeter
of sackingen equal rights translator's footnote, an opera by Nessler
which was all the rage in Germany to twenty years
ago and translator's note. While I witnessed the attempts of
the people of Leipzig to do honor to one of
(18:08):
the most genuine and most German of musicians. Using German
here in the old sense of the word, a man
who is no mere German of the Empire, the master
Heinrich Schultz, by founding a List's Society, the object of
which was to cultivate and spread artful listige church music
(18:33):
translator's footnote. Unfortunately, it is impossible to render this play
on the words in English and translator's note without a
shadow of doubt. The Germans are idealists. Two. But here
(18:58):
nothing shall stop me from being rue 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 breath of vision which enables one to
(19:19):
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 breath of vision. A man must first and foremost
(19:39):
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
(19:59):
all all is a principle. Translator's note the German national
song Deutschland Deutschland Uberalus and translators note the Germans stand
for the moral order of the universe. In history. Compared
with the Roman Empire, they are the upholders of freedom.
(20:22):
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 her
(20:44):
von Tretsk is not ashamed of himself. Quite recently an
idiotic opinion in Historicus an observation of Fisher the Swabian athete,
since happily deceased made the round of the German newspapers
as a truth to which every German must assent. The
(21:09):
observation was this, the Renaissance and the Reformation only together
constitute a whole, the esthetic rebirth and the moral rebirth.
When I listen to such things, I lose all patients,
and I feel inclined. I even feel it's my duty
(21:30):
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
(21:54):
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
(22:15):
moment when a higher order of values, values that were noble,
that said yea to life and that guaranteed of future,
had succeeded in triumphing over the opposite values, the values
of degeneration. In the very seed of Christianity itself and
even in the hearts of those sitting there. Luther, that
(22:38):
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 an
(23:00):
impossible monk who, thanks to his own impossibility, attacked the
Church and in doing so restored it. Catholics would be
perfectly justified in celebrating feasts in honour of Luther and
in producing festival plays in his honour. Translator's note. Ever
(23:20):
since the year sixteen seventeen such plays have been produced
by the Protestants of Germany, and Translator's note, Luther and
the Rebirth of morality. May all psychology go to the
devil without a shadow of a doubt. The Germans are idealists.
(23:42):
On two occasions, when at the cost of enormous courage
and self control and upright unequivocal and perfectly scientific attitude
of mind had been attained, the Germans were able to
discover backstairs leading down to the old ideal again, compromises
between truth and the ideal and in short, formulae for
(24:06):
the right to reject science and to perpetrate falsehoods Leibnitz
and Kan't. 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
(24:27):
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 marvelous significance of Napoleon's life, and in doing so
(24:52):
they laid on their conscience everything that followed, everything that
exists today, this sickliness and one of reason, which is
most opposed to culture, and which is called nationalism, This
nevosa naciur now from which Europe is suffering acutely, this
(25:12):
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 any
(25:33):
one except me know of an aspiration which would be
great enough to bind the peoples of Europe once more together? Three?
And after all, why should I not express my suspicions
in my case too? The Germans will attempt to make
(25:56):
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.
(26:22):
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,
(26:44):
and Schleilemacher, just as well as to cant or Leadnitz.
They are all merely Schleilemacher's translator's footnote. Schleiermacher literally means
a weaver or maker of vain and translator's note, the
Germans must not have the honor of seeing the first
(27:07):
upright intellect in the 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
(27:28):
in the neighborhood of this psychological uncleanliness that has now
become instinctive, an uncleanliness which in every word an expression
betrays a German. They have never undergone a seventeenth century
of hard self examination, as the French have a laroche
(27:50):
fulcl a decar 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
(28:13):
be deep? The Germans are like women. You can scarcely
ever 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.
(28:38):
People refuse to be clear in regards 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
(28:59):
it to be his Cristian duty to liberate the slaves
in Africa. Among US Europeans, then this will recalled simply German.
Have the Germans ever produced even a book that had depth?
They are lacking in the mere idea of what constitutes
(29:19):
a book. I have known scholars who thought that Kant
was deep at the Court of Prussia. I fear that
her von Tresk is regarded as deep. And when I
happen to praise Sandhaul as a deep psychologist, I have
often been compelled in the company of German university professors
(29:41):
to spell his name aloud four and why should I
not proceed to the end? I am fond of clearing
the air. It is even part of my ambition to
be considered as essentially a despiser of Germans. I expressed
(30:01):
my suspicions of the German character even at the age
of six and twenty see Thoughts Out of Season Volume two,
pages one six four to one six five. To my mind,
the Germans are impossible when I try to think of
the kind of man who is opposed to me, in
(30:23):
all my instincts, my mental image takes the form of
a German. The first thing I ask myself when I
begin analyzing a man is whether he has a feeling
for distance in him, whether he sees rank, gradation and
order everywhere between man and man, whether he makes distinctions.
(30:48):
For this is what constitutes a gentleman. Otherwise he belongs
hopelessly to that open hearted, open minded alas and all
very good natured species lacanaye. But the Germans are knaye.
Alas they are so good natured. A man lowers himself
(31:12):
by frequenting the society of Germans. The German places everyone
on an equal footing. With the exception of my intercourse
with one or two artists, and above all with Richard Wagner,
I cannot say that I have spent one pleasant hour
with Germans. Suppose for one moment that the profoundest spirit
(31:36):
of all ages were to appear among Germans, then one
of the saviors of the capital would be sure to
arise and declare that his own ugly soul was just
as great. I can no longer abide this race with
which a man is always in bad company which has
(31:57):
no idea of nuances, woe to me, I am a nuance,
and which has not a spree in its feet, and
cannot even walk withal. In short, the Germans have no
feed at all. They simply have legs. The Germans have
not the faintest idea of how vulgar they are. But
(32:20):
this in itself is the acme of vulgarity. They are
not even ashamed of being merely Germans. They will have
their say in everything. They regard themselves as fit to
decide all questions. I even fear that they have decided
about me. My whole life is essentially a proof of
(32:44):
this remark. In vain have I sought among them for
a sign of tact and delicacy towards myself? Among Jews,
I did indeed find it, but not among Germans. I
am so constituted as to be gentle and kindly to everyone.
(33:04):
I have the right not to draw distinctions, but this
does not prevent my eyes from being open. I accept
no one, and least of all my friends. I only
trust that this has not prejudiced my reputation for humanity.
Among them, there are five or six things which I
(33:28):
have always made points of honor. Albeit the truth remains
that for many years I have considered almost every letter
that has reached me as a piece of cynicism. There
is more cynicism in an attitude of good will towards
me than any sort of hatred. I tell every friend
(33:49):
to his face that he has never thought it worth
his while to study any one of my writings. From
the slightest hints I gather that they do not even
know what lies hidden in my books. And with regard
even to my Zarathustra, which of my friends would have
(34:10):
seen more in it than a piece of unwarrantable, though
fortunately harmless arrogance. Ten years have elapsed, and no one
has yet felt it a duty to his conscience to
defend my name against the absurd silence beneath which it
has been entombed. It was a foreigner, a Dane, who
(34:35):
first showed sufficient keenness of instinct and courage to do this,
and who protested indignantly against my so called friends at
what German university to day would such lectures on my
philosophy be possible? As those which doctor Brandes delivered last
(34:56):
spring in Copenhagen, thus proving once more his right to
the title psychologist. For my part, these things have never
caused me any pain. That which is necessary does not
offend me. Our morphatty is the core of my nature. This, however,
(35:18):
does not alter the fact that I love irony, an
even world historic irony. And thus, about two years before
hurling the destructive thunderbolt of the transvaluation, which will send
the whole of civilization into convulsions, I sent my case
of Wagner out into the world. The Germans were given
(35:41):
the chance of blundering and immortalizing their stupidity once more
on my account, and they still have just enough time
to do it in and have they fallen in with
my plans admirably, My dear Germans, allow me to congratulate you,
(36:02):
and of why I write such excellent books. Part three
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