TWITIGHT OF THE IDOTS

OR,

HOW ONEPHITOSOPHIZES WITH A HAMMEN

Eorron's Pnprecg Nietzsche's last productive year, 1888, was also his most produetive. He began with The Wagner Ccse and endeil with Ntetache contra Wagneq and in between he dashed ofr Tuillght of the ldols, The Antichrtst, snd Ecce Homo. dismissed mere productsof as These books are sometimes insanity, and they certainly manilest a rapiil breakdou'nof of, the author'sinhibitions.In somepassages TIte Antichrist, Nietzsche's fury breaks all dams; and the madnessof his only by his motchless conceit in Ecce IIorui is harnessed irony, though much of this is lost on readerswho do not know Nietzsche'searlier works. Comparedto such ffreworks, Tuilight of the Idols is relatively calm and sane,except for its title; and none of his other works containsan equally summary of his later philosophy and psyconrprehe,nsive chology. With its roughly one hundred pages, the book furnishes a ffne epitome of NieEsche. The spectaculartitle was an afterthought. Nietzschehad becomeinterested in Francis Bacon, and his own discussion of "Four Great Errors" probably reminded him of Bacon's "Four ldols.o Hence the thought of varying Wagner's title, Gdttediimmerung, by coining Giitzen-Diimmerung,'"Iwi463

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 464 Iight of the ldols,' When he wrote the preface, however, the title was gtill to be A Psycholngist'sldleness, But on Septembereo his worshipful admirer Peter Gast wrote him a fateful letter. Gast's real name was Ileinrich Kiiselitz. He was a composer, he assisted and Nietzsche copyingmanby uscripts and reading proofs. Having completed his ftrst readingof this manuscript, wrote: 'The title, A PsychoL he ogist's ldleness, soundstoo unassumingto me when I think how it might impressother people: you have driven your artillery on the highestmountains,you have such guns as have never yet existed,and you need only shoot blindly o inspire terror all around. The stride lGangl of a giant, which makes the mountainsshake to their foundations,is no longer idlenessllrtilssiggangl.. . . So I beg you, if an incompetentpersonmay beg: a more sumptuous, more resplendent title!" Such adulatory fattery was surely what Nietzsche neededleast iust then. He changedthe title and added as a subtitle: "How One Philosophizes With a Harn, mer.- It is usually assumed that he -""^n, sledgehammer. " The preface, however, from which the image is derived as an aftertbought, explains: idols 'are here touched with a hammer as with a tuning fork." This was the last work Nietzsche himself publisheil: when it came out in Januaqyr88g he was insaie and no Ionger aware of any of his works. The Ant|christ and Nietzache contra Wagner were not publisheil until r8g5; Ecca Homo only in r9o8.
CONTENTS

Preface I\{axims and Arrows The Problem of Soqates 'Reasonin Philosophy How the "True World" Finally Becamea Fable Morality as Anti-Nature The Four Great Errors The 'Improvers" of Mankind What the GermansLack

465 466 475 479 485 486 492 5Qr 505

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS Skirmishesof an Untimely Man What I Owe to the Ancients the Hammer Speaks
PREFACE

485
513 556

sos

in Maintaining cheerfulness the midst of a gloomy affair; fraught with immeasurableresponsibility, is no small feat; and yet what is neededmore than cheerhas if Nothing succeeds prankishness no part fulness? in it. Excessof strength alone is the proof of strength. A reoaluation of all oalues, this question mark, so upon the man that shadows black,sotremendous it casts who puts it dow*-such a destinyof a task compelsone to run into the sun every rnomentto shakeofi a heavy, Every means is proper for all-too-heavyseriousness. usar,War this; every"case"I a caseof luck. Especially, hasalwaysbeenthe greatwisdom of all spirits who have become too inward, too profound; even in a wound thereis the power to heal.A maxim,the origin of which I withhold from scholarly curiosity, has long been my motto: lnuescant animl, olresclt oolnere oirtus.2 Another mode of convalescence-under certain circumstances even more to my liking-is sounding out fulols.Therc are more idols than realities in the world: that is mg "eil eye" for this world; that is also my oevil. ear." For once to pose guestions here with a lnmmer, and, perhaps,to hear as a reply that famous hollow sound which speaksof bloated entrails-what a delight for one who has earseven behind his ears,for rAn alluslon Nietzschds to TleWagwr Ccse(1888),a 'Polemic. r "The spiritsincrease, vigor growsth,rough wound.o a

THE PORTABLE NTETZSCHE &a me, an old psychologist and pied piper before whom iust that which would remain silent must becomeoutspoken. This essaytoo-the title betrays it-is above all a recreation, spot of sunshine, leap sideways a a into the idleness of a psychologist.Perhaps a new war, too? And are new idols soundedoutPThis little essayis a greatdeclaration war; and regarding sounding of the out of idols,this time they are not iust idols of the age,but eternalidols,which are heretouchedwith a hammeras with a tuning fork: there are altogetherno older, no more convinced,no more puffed-up idols-and none more hollow. That doesnot preventthem from being thosein which peoplehavethe mostfaith; nor doesone 'idol," especially in the mostdistinguished not ever say instance. go, Turin, September IBBB, on the day when the first bookr of the Revaluation of AII Valueswascompleteil. Fnrsonrcg NrsuscHs
MAXIMS AND ANROWS 1

What? Idlenessis the beginningof all psychology. be psychology a vice?2 Should

'
2

Even the most courageousamong us only rarely has the courage for that which he really knows. r That is, The Antichrlst. tThere is a Germanproverb: "Idlenessis the beginning of all vices."

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS

487

3 To live alone one must be a beast or a god, says Aristotle.Leavingout the third case:one must be both -a philosopher. 4 'All truth is simple." Is that not doubly a lie? 5 I want, once and for all, not to know many things. Wisdomsetslimits to knowledge too. 6 fn our own wild nature we ffnd the best recreation from our un-nature,from our spirituality. 7 What? Is man merely a mistakeof Godt? Or God merelya mistakeof mant? 8 Out of life's schoolol uar: What doesnot destrovme, makesme stronger. 9 Help yourself, then everyonewill help you. Principle of neighborJove.
10 Not to perpetrate cowardice against one's own acts!

Not to leavethem in the lurch afterward!The bite of conscience indecent. is

468

THE I'ORTABLE NIETZSCHE

Can an ass be tragic? To perish under a burden one can neither bear nor throw ofi? The casoof the philosopher.
L2.

If we have our own why of.life, we shall get along with almost any how. Man does nof strive for pleasure; only the Englishman does. r3 Man has created woman---out of what? Out of a rib *ideal." of his god-of his t4 What? You search? You would multiply yourself by ten, by a hundred? You seek follorvers? Seek zerosl 15 Posthumous men-I, for exirmple-are understood worse than timely ones, b:ut lrcard better. lv{ore precisely: we are never understood-hence our authority. r6 *Tluth? Among roornen: Oh, you don't know truthl Is it not an attempt to assassinate our 7rudeurs7' all r7 That is an artist as I love artists,modestin his needs: he really wants only two things, his bread and his art -panem et Circen.r 1panemet circerwes,'bread circuses"-here and changed by Nletzscheinto "brcad and Circe," art being compaied to the Flomericsorceress.

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS rg

409

Whoever does not lmorv how to lay his will into things, at least lays sune meaning into them: that means,he has the faith that they already obey a will. (Principle of 'Taith.") r9 What? You electedvirtue and the swelledbosomand yet you leer enviouslyat the advantages thosewithof out qualmsPBut virtue involves rernuncing "advantages." (Inscriptionfor an anti-Semite's door.)
20

literature as she perThe perfect woman peqpetrates petratesa smallsin: as an experiment, passing, in looking around to see if anybody notices it-and to make does. surethat somebody
2L To venture into all sorts of situations in which one may not have any sham virtues, where, like the tightrope walker on his rope, one either stands or falls-.or gets away. 22 "Evil men have no songs." How is it, then, that the Russianshave songs? 23 spirit": for the past eighteen years a contradiction in terms. 'German

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCITD

24 By searching origins,one becomes cratr. The out a historian looks bachvard; eventuallyhe also belieaet backward. \25 Contentnent proleetq even against colds. Has a womanwho knew herselfbe well dressed evercaught cold? I am assgningthat she was barely dressed.

z6
f mistnrstall systematizers I avoidthem.lhe will and to a systemis a lack of integrity. 27 Womenare considered profound.Why? Because one never fathoms their depths. Women arent even shallow. 28 If a woman has manly virtues, one feels like running away; and if she has no manly virtues, she herself nrns away. 29 'How much conscience had has to chew on in the past!And what excellent teethit hadl And today-what is lackingP' A dentist's guestion. 3o One rarely rushes into a single error. Rushing into the ffrst one,one alwaysdoestoo much. So one usually perpetratesanother one-and now one does too little.

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS

3r
When stepped a worm doubles That is clever. on, up. In that rvay h9 lessens probabilityof being stepped the on again. In the Ianguageof rnoralityt lrumility, There is a hatred of lii2and simulation,stemming from an easily provokedsenseof honor. There is another such hatred, from cowardice,siuce lies are forbiddenby a divine commandment. cowardlyto lie. Too 33 How little is requiredfor pleasurelThe sound of a bagpipe.Without music, life would be an eror. The German imagines evenGodsingingsongs. 34 On rn peut penseret dcrire gil'assiisr Flaubert). (G. There I have caughtyou, nihilistl The sedentary is life the very- sin against the Holy Spirit Only thoughts reachedby walking have value. There are casesin *o?i *" are like horses,we psychologists, and becomerestless:we see our own shadowwavering up and down before us. A psychologist must tum his eyesfrom himself to eye anything at all. gG Whether we immoralistsare harming virtue? Just as little as anarchists harm princes.Onlisince thj htter !'One cannotthink and write, exceptsitting..

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 472 are shot at do they again sit securelyon their thrones. Moral: morality must be shotot,

37 Are you doing it as a shepherd? Or You run ahaad? A as an exception? third casewould be the fugitive. First questionof conscience. 38 Or Are you genuine? merelyan actor?A representaIn tive? Or that which is represented? the end, perhaps questionof you are merely a copy of an actor. Second, conscience. 39 for . The disappointed one speaks.I searched great human beings;I alwaysfound only t\e apes of their ideals. 40
Are you one who looks on? Or one who lends a handP Or one who looks away and walks off? fhird guestion of conscience. 4L Do you want to walk along? Or walk ahead?Or walk by yourself? One must know uhat one wants and that one wants. Fourth question of conscience. 42 Those were steps for me, and I have climbed up over them: to that end I had to pass over them. Yet they thought that I wanted to retire on them.

TWILIGHT

OF THE IDOLS

478

What doesit matterif 113*"in right. I am much too dght. And he who laughsbest today will alsolaugh last. 44 a The formulaof my happinessr Yes,a No, a straight line, a goal,
TIIE PNOBLEM I OF SOCRATES

Conceming life, the wisest men of all ages have one iudgedalike: dt is no good.Alwaysand everywhere has heard the samesound from their mouths-a sound full full of doubt,full of melancholy, of weariness life, of full of resistance life. Even Socrates said,ashe died: to 'To live-that meansto be sick a long time: I owe Asclepius Saviora rooster." the Even Socrates tired was of it. What does that evidence?What does it evince? Formerly one would have said (---oh, it hasbeen said, and loud enough,and especiallyby our pessimists): "At least something all this must be truel The conof sensus the sages of evidences truth." Shall we still the must talk like that today?May we?'At leastsomething be ,ricftherei ue retort. Thesewisestmen of all agesthey should ffrst be scrutinizedclosely.Were they all perhapsshakyon their legs?late? tottery? decadents? Could it be that wisdom appears earth as a raven, on inspired by a little whifi of canion?
2

This irreverentthoughtthat the greatsages tqpeg arc ol declineffrst occunedto me precisely a case in where
i f, I tf

j i

q rya4'o'tfl . But l^ za"clotl Laee sr*L-Dat 'L V qrr,flr. b =u[ets'Jg

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 174 it is most strongly opposed by both scholarly and unscholarly prejudice: I recogaized Socratesand Plato to be qymptoms of degeneration,tools of the Greek dissolution, pseudo-Greelg anti-Greek (Birth of Traged.y, t87z). The consensusof the sages-I comprehended this ever more clearly-proves least of all that they were right in what they agreed on: it shows rather that they themselves, these wisest men, agreed in some plrysio.logical respect, and hence adopted the same negative

it or against can,in the I value, neverbe true: they @s* lend, in only as symptoms; I they are worthy of consideration themselves judgments stupidities. such are One must by all meansstretchout onds ffngersand makethe attempt ffnesse, the oalueof lile 99ry to graspthis amazing tlwt no{be'esfimaed. NJt by the livinfiGiTh{i6in inErested pry; even a' bone of iontention, and not For a iudges;not by the dead, for a different reason. philosopher seea problemin the value of life is thus to an objectionto him, a questionmark conceminghis wisdom,an un-wisdom.Indeed?All these great wise men-they were not only decadentsbut not wise at all? But I return to the problem of Socrates. 3 belonged the lowestclass:Socto fn origin, Socrates rateswasplebs.We know,we can still seefor ourselves, is in how ugly he was.But ugliness, itself an objection, a amorlgthe Greeksalmosta refutation.Was Socrates of all? Uglinessis often enoughthe expression Greek-at thwartedby cr-ossn development hasbeencrossed, tlat The as ing. Or i[ appears decliningdevelopment. anthropologtsts among the criminologists tell us that the

attitudeto lif*lwd to u9opl.it.J".lgg9g$-igdgnoSt I of concerning for life, it,

TWILIGHT OF THE TDOLS 476 typical criminal is ugly: rnorlstrumin fronte, nonstntm ln animo. But the criminal is a decadent Was Socrates a typical criminal? At least that would not be contradicted by the famous iudgment of the physiognomist which soundedso o$ensiveto the friends of Socrates. A foreignerwho knew about facesoncepassedthrough Athensand told Socrates his face that he uns a mutto ctrurn-that he harbored in himself all the bad vices and appetites.And Socrates merely answered:Tou know me, sir!' Socrates'decadence ,uf,gertednot only by the adi, mitted \rrantonness and anarchy of his instincts, but also by the hypertrophy of the logical faculty and that sorooamof the rachitic which distinguisheshim. Nor should we forget those auditory hallucinationswhich, 'the as d,aimonion Socrates," have been inteqpreted of religiously.Everything in him is exaggerated, buffo, a caricature; everything is at the same time concealed, ulterior, subterranean. seekto comprehencl I what idiosyncrasybegot that Socraticequationof reasonFvirtue,-and happiness: that mostbizarre of all equations, which, mor@ver, is opposedto all the instincts of the earlier Greela. 5 With Socrates, Greek taste changesin favor of diaIectics.What really happenedthere?Above all, a twble taste 'to is thus vanquished;with dialecticsthe plebs come the top. Befoie Socrates, dialectic -"nn"ir were repudiated in good society: they were considered bad manners, they were compromising.The young wer wamed against theur. Furthermore, all such presenta-

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE {IA were distrusted.Honest things, tions of one'sreasons men,do not carry their reasons their hands in like honest like that. It is indecentto show all five ffngers.What must first be provedis worth little. Whereverauthority rvhereonedoes give not still formspart of goodbearing, the dialecticianis a kind of reasonsbut commands, buffooni one laughsat him, one doesnot take him sewas riously.Socrates the buffoonwho got hhnselftaken what really happened there? seriously: 6 dialectic only when one has no other One chooses mistrust with it, means.One knows that one arouses Nothing is easier erase to that it is not very persuasive. of efiect:the experience everymeeting than a dialectical provesthis. It can only be at whieh there are speeches self-deferxefor thosewho no longer have other weapons. One must have to enforceone'sright: until one that point, one makesno use of it. The Jews reaches were dialecticiansfor that reason;Reynard the Fox too? was ono-and Socrates 7 of an Is the irony of Socrates expression revolt? Of enDoes he, as one-opPressed, plebeian ressentirnent? joy his own ferocityin the knife-thrusts his syllogisms? of Does he u)enge himself on the noble people whom he tool As one holds a merciless fascinates? a dialectician, a in onet hand; one can become tyrant by meansof it; The dialectician thoseone conquers. one compromises to his opponent prove that he is no idiot: he it leaves to at makesone furious and helpless the sametime. The rendersthe intellectof his opponent dialectician Powerless. Indeed? Is dialectic only a form of teoenge in Socrates?

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS

{t7

8 I have given to understand how it was that Socrates could repel: it is therefore all the more necessary to explain his fascination. That he discovered a new kind of agon,r that he became its first fencing master for the noble circles of Athens, is one point. He fascinated by appealing to the agonistic ilnpulse of the Greela-he introduced a variation into the wrestling match between young men and youths. Socrateswas also a gteat erotic. 9 But Socratesguessedeven more. He saw through lljrs noble Athenians; he comprehended that his orvn case, his idiosyncrasy, was no longer exceptional. The same kind of degeneration was quietly developing everywhere: old Athens was coming to an end. And Socrates understood that all the world rceded, him-his means, his cure, his personal artiffce of self,-preservation. Everywhere the instincts were in anarchy; ever;nrhere one was within five paces of excess:moratrurn in animo was the general danger. "The impulses want to play the tyrant; one must invent a counter-tlJranfwho is stronger." When the physiognomist had revealed to Socrates who he was-a cave of bad appetites-the great master of irony let slip another word which is the key to his 'This 'but character. is true,'he said, I mastered them all'" How did Socrates become master over himsefi? His case was, at bottom, merely the extreme case, only the most striking instance of what was then beginning to be a universal distress: no one was any longer master over himself, the instincts turned ogainst each other. He fascinated, being this extreme case] hir awe-inspiring ugliness proclaimed him as such to all who could see: r "Contest."

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 478 a evenmoreasan answer, soluof he fascinated, course, tion, an apparentcure of,this case.
1()

lltlren one ffnds it necessary turn rcason into a to as Socrates the dangercannotbe slight that did, bnant, something will play the tyrant.Rationality wasthen else hit uponasthe savior;neitherSocrates his *patients" nor had any choiceabout being rational: it yas de rigeur, it was their last resort.The fanaticismwith which all Greek refection throws itself upon rationality betrays a desperate situation;there was danger,there was but one choice:either to perishor-to be absurdlyratiorwl. The moralismof the Greekphilosophers from Plato on is pathologicallyconditioned;so is their esteemof dialectics. Reason-virture-happiness, means merely that that one must irnitate Socrates and counter the dark appetites with a permanent dalight-the daylight of reason.One must be clever, clear, bright at any price: any concession the instincts,to the unconscious, leads to dounward.
11

I have given to understandhow it was that Socrates fascinated:he seemed be a physician,a savior. Is to it necessary go on to demonstratethe error in his to faith in'rationality at any price"?It is a self-deception and moralistsif they believe on the part of philosophers that they are extricating themselvesfrom decadence when they merely wage war againstit. Extrication lies beyontl their strength: what they chooseas a means, of as salvation,is itself but another expression decabut dence; they changeits expression, they do not get was a misunderstandrid of decadence itself. Socrates ing the uhole improoement-moralitg,includ,ing the

TIVILIGHT

OF THE IDOLS

The most blinding a Christiaq usas misunderstanding. daylighq rationality at any price; life, bright, cold, to without instinct,in oPPosition the conscious, cautious, anotherdisthis too was a mere disease, instincts-all 'health," 'virtue," to ease,and by no meansa return to . to happinessTo haw to ffght the instincts-that is the as decadence: long aslife is ascending,hay E^rfPof ' , piriessequalsinsUnct. this, this most brilDid he himself still conrf,rehend [ant of all se]f-outwitters?Was this what he said to to himselfin the end,in the uisdom of his courage die? uanteil to die: not Athens"but he himself Socrates chosedre hemlock; he forced Athens to sentencehim. osocrates no physiciarq"he said softly to himself; is himself has tere death aloneis the physician.Socrates merely been sick a long time.' -nEAsoN' rN PrrrLosoPEY Youaskme which of the;hibsophen'traits arereally For examplg their lack of historical idiosyncrasies? sense,their hatred of the very idea of becoming,their Egypticism.They think that they show their rcspeci for i\ a subiectwhen they de-historicize wb specieaeternl -when they turn it into a mummy. All that philosophers have handledfor thousands yearshave been of concept-mummies;nothing real escaped their grasp alive. When thesehonorableidolators of conceptsworship something,they kill it and stuff it; they threaten old the Iife of everythingthey worship.Death,change, agg as well as procreation and growth, are to their minds objections-even refutations.Whateverhasbeing

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 480 does not become; whatever becomes does not have

is the

'We have found him," they cry ecstatically;'it is the which are so immoral in other These scnses, senses! g us waystoo, deceive concemin the true wor]d. Moral: let us free ourselvesfrom the deception of the senses, from becoming,from history, from lies; history is nothfaith in lies.Moral: let us say ing but faith in the senses, to faith in the senses, all the rest of No to all who have mankind; they are all'mob.' Let us be philosophersl monotono-theism Let us represent Let us be mummiesl And above of by adoptingthe expression a gravediggerl ed id"e fae of the iittr th"-Uoay, this wietch "it, "riy disffgured by all the fallaci'esof logic, refuted, senses, even imposiible, although it is impudent enough to behave as if it were reall' 2 respec! I except the name of With the highest Heruclitus, Whin the rest of the philosophic folk rethey showed because iected the testimonyof t}te senses multiplicity and change, he rejected their testimony becaulethey showedtlings as if they had permauence an and unity. Heraclitustoo did the senses injustice. nor lie neither in the way the Eleatics-believed, as They he believed-they do not lie at all. What we make of' their testimony,that alone introduceslies; for examplo of the lie of unii, the lie of thinghood, of substance, tReason"is the causeof our falsiffcation pennanence. -ot Insofar as the senses Ae testimonyof the senses.

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS 481 show becoming,passingaway, and change,they do not lie. But Heraclitus will remain eternally right with 'aphis assertionthat being is an empty fiction. The parent"world is the only one: the "trud'world is merely added by a Ue. 3 we Ancl what magniffcentinskuments of observation of This nose,for example, which possess our sensesl in no philosopher has yet spoken with reverence and gratitude, is actually the most delicate instrument-so far at our disposal: it is able to detect minimal di$ercannot deencesof motion which even a spectroscope scienceprecisely to the extent tect. Today \ile possess to which we have decided to accept the testimony of the senses-to the extent to which we shaqpenthem further, arm them, and have learned to think them through. The rest is miscarriageand not-yet-sciencetheology,psychology,episin other words, metaphysics, temology-or formal science,a doctrine of signs,such as logic and that applied logic which is called mathematics. In them reality is not encounteredat all, not even as a problem-no more than the question of the value of such a sign-convention logic. as 4 the other idiosyncrasyof the philosophersis no less dangerous; consists confusing last and the ffrst. it in the They placethat which comesat the end-unfortunatelyl for it ought not to come at alll-namely, the'highest concepts," which meansthe most general,the emptiest concepts, last smokeof evaporating reality, in the the beginning,as the beginning.This againis nothing but their way of showingreverence:the higher may not grow out of the lower, may not have grown at all.

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 482 Moral: whateveris of the ffrst rank must be causasul,r an Origin out of somethingelseis considered obiection, a questioning value.All the highestvaluesare of the of ffrst rank; alhthe highestconcepts, that which hasbeing, the unconditional, the good, the true, the perfect-all thesecannothavebecome and rnustthereforebe cawa srrd. these,moreover,cannot be unlike eachother or All in contradictionto eachother. Thus they arrive at their stupendous concepq'God.-That which is last,thinnest, and emptiest is put ftrst, as the cause,as n$ reolissimum.2 Why did mankind have to take seriously the brain affiictions of sick web-spinnen?They have paid dearly for itl 5 At long last, let us contrastthe very difierent manner in which we conceivethe problem of error and appearance. (I say'weo for politeness' sake.)Formerly,alteration, change, any becoming at all, were taken as as proof of mere appearance, an indication that there must be somethingwhich led us astray. Today, conforces versely,preciselyinsofarasthe prejudiceof reason substance, cause, us to positunity, identity,permanence, caughtin somehow thinghood,being,we seeourselves error, compelled into error. So certain are we, on the that this is wherethe error basisof rigorousexamination, ftes. It is no difierent in this case than u'ith the moveadvocate ment of the sun: thereour eyeis the constant of error, here it is our language.In its origin language belongsin the age of the most rudimentaryform of psychology.We enter a realm of crude fetishismwhen we summonbefore consciousness basic presuppositions the rSelf-caused.' r"The mostrealbeing.'

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS 483 of of the metaphysics language,in plain tallc, the presuppositions reason. of Everywhere seesa doer and it doing; it believesin will as the cause;it believesin the ego, in the ego as being, in the ego as substance, and it projectsthis faith in the ego-substance upon all thingsonly thereby doesit ftrst createthe conceptof "thing.Every'rvhere"being" is projected by thought, pushed undemeath,as the cause;the conceptof being followq and is a derivative of, the concept of ego. In the beginning there is that great calamity of an error that the will is somethingwhich is effective, that will is a capacity. Today we know that it is only a word. Very much later, in a world which was in a thousand wa)rsmore enlightened,philosophers, their great surto prise, becameawareof the sureness, subjectivecerthe tainty, in our handlingof the categories reason:they of concluded that these categoriescould not be deriverl from anything empirieal-for everything empirical plainly contradictedthem. Wbence,then, were they derived? And in fndia, as in Greece,the same mistake was made: "We must oncehave been at home in a higher rvorld (insteadof a very much lower ong which would have beenthe truth); we must have beendivine, fot we have reasonl"fndeed, nothing has yet possessed more a naive power of persuasionthan the error concerning being,is it has bien formulated by the Eleatics,for ef ample.After all, every word we say and every sentence speak in its favor. Even the opponentsof the Eleatics still succumbedto the seduction of their concept of being: Democritus,amongothers,when he invente-d his atom. '?eason" in language-oh, what an old deceptive femalesheisl I am afraid we are not rid of God because we still have faith in grammar.

4U

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE

6 Itwill b appreciated if I condense so essential and so new an insight into four theses.In that way I facilitate comprehension; in that way I provoke contradiction. First propositian. The reasons for which "this" world has been characterized as "apparent" are the very reasons which indicate its reality; any other kind of reCity is absolutely indemonstrable. proposition. The criteria which have been beSecond. stowed on the'true being" of things are the criteria of 'trre not-being, of twuglfi; the world" has been constructed out of contradiction to the aetual world: indeed an apparent world, insofar as it is rnerely a moral-optical illusion. Thiril proposition. To invent fables about a world -other" than this one has no meaning at alf unless an instinct of slander, detraction, and suspicion against life has gained the upper hand in us: in that case,we avenge ourselves against life with a phantasmagoria of "an'better" other," a life. otrue' Fourth proposition. Any distinetion between a 'apparent' and an world-whether in the Christian manner or in the manner of Kant (in the end, an underhanded Christian)-is only a suggestionof decadence,a symptom of the decline of life. That the artist esteems appearance higher than reality is no objection to this *appearance" in this casemeans reality proposition. For once more, only by way of selection, reinforcement, and correction. The tragic artist is no pessimist: he is precisely the one who says Yes to everything questionable, ven to the terrible-he is Dionysian,

TWILIGHT 'TnuE

OF THF. IDOLS

485
BEcAME

now

rHE

:.#;rttNALLY

The History of an Etrot r. The true world-attainable for the sage,the pious, the virtuous man; he lives in it, he is it. (The oldest form of the idea, relatively sensible, sim' ple, and persuasive.A circumlocution for the sentence, "I, Plato, am the truth.") for now, but promz. The true world-unattainable ised for the sage, the pious, the virtuous man ('for the sinner who repents"). (Progress ol the idea: it becomesmore subtle, irsidious, incomprehensible-,it becomes temale, it becomes Christian.) indemonstrable, g. The true world-unattainable, unpromisable; but the very thought of it-a consolation, an obligation, an imperative. (At bottom, the old sun, but seen through mist and skepticism. The idea'has become elusive, pale, Nordic, Kbnigsbergian.l) At any rate, un' 4. The true world-unattainable? attained. And being unattained, also unknown. Conse' quentln not consoling, redeeming, or obligating: how could something unknown obligate us? (Gray morning. The ffrst yawn of reason. The cock' crow of positivism.) S. The "1ms" \Meilfl-xn idea which is no longer good for anything, not even obligating-an idea which has become useless and superfluous<ot$equently, a refuted idea: let us abolish itl (Bright day; breakfast; return of.bon sens and cheerI That is, Kantian.

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 486 fulness;Plato'sembarrassed blush; pandemonium all of free spirits.) What world 6. The true world-we have abolished. The But hasremained? apparentoneperhaps? nol lVifh tlrc true uorl.d,ue haoe alsoabolishedthe aVparentone, (Noon; momentof the briefest shadow;end of the longestenor; high pint of humanity;INCIPIT ZLRIe THUSTRA.I)
MONALITY AS ANTI.NATURE 1

a
I

have a phasewhen they are merelydisAll passions astrous,when they drag down their victim with the weight of stupidity-and a later, very much later phase when they wed the spirit,whenthey "spiritualize'themFormerly,in view of the elementof stupidity in selves. war was declaredon passion itself, its destrucpassion, are tion was plotted; all the old moral monsters agreed The on this: il faut tuer les possions.2 mostfamousforin mula for this is to be found in the New Testament, that Sermonon the Mount, where, ineidentally,things lookedat from a height.Thereit is said, are by no means to with particularreference sexuality:"If for example, thy eye ofiend thee, pluck it out." Fortunately,no Chriswith this precept. Destroying tian acts in accordance measand merelyas a preventive the passions cravings, conseure againsttheir stupidity and the unpleasant quencesof this stupidity-today this itself strikesus as l'Zarathustra of begins.'An echoof the conclusion ?ha ( had Gatt Science r88C): Nietzsche usedthe ffrst section his of of ihe Prologue Zarathustra, next work, as the final aphorismof- Book Four, aud given it the title: lnciptt tiaeoedia.
t*"One must kill the passions.-

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOI,S 4A merel)'anotheracute form of stupidity. We no longer admire dentistswho "pluck out" teeth so that they will not hurt any more. To be fair, it should be admitted, however, that on the ground out of which Christianity grew, the concept couldneverhavebeen of the'spirinnlization of passion" formed. After all the ffrst church, as is well known; 'intelligent" in favor of the "poor in fought againstthe spiril" How could oneexpectfrom it an intelligentwar with excision againstpassion? The church ftghtspassion in every sense:its practice, its "cure,o is castratimt. lt beautify,deify a neverasks:"How can one spiritualize, craving?"It has at all times laid the stressof discipline (of on extiqpation sensuality, pride,of the lust to rule, of of avarice, vengefulness). an attackon the roots of But of passion meansan attack on the roots of life: the practice of the church is hostile to life, The samemeansin the ight againsta craving<astration, extirpation-is instinctivelychosen thosewho by are too weak-willed, too degenerate, be able to imto pose rnoderation themselves; thosewho are so on by constituted that they requireLa Trappe,rto usea ffgure of speech, (without any ffgureof speech)somekind or of deffnitive declarationof hostility, a cleft between themselves and the passion.Radical meatu are indispensableonly for thi degenerate; weakness the the of will-or, to speakmore deffnitely,the inability rnt to respondto a stimulus-is itself merely another form of degeneration. radicalhostility, the deadlyhostility The againstsensuality, alwaysa symptomto reflecton: it is entitles us to suppositions concerningthe total state of one who is excessive this manner. in l The TrappistOrder.

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE

This hostility, this hatred, by the wan reachesits for climgx only when such types lack even the ffrmness of this radical cure, for this renunciation their "devil." One should survey the whole history of the priests and including the artists: the most poisonous philosophers, have been said not by the things againstthe senses ascetics, but impotent nor by ascetics, by the impossible by thosewho really were in dire need of being ascetics. t tt*' The spiritualization of sensuality is called looe: it a represents great triumph over Christianity.Another in of triumph'is ow spiritualization In$ility.It consists of a profoundappreciation the valueof havingenemies: in short, it meansacting and thinking in the opposite way from that which has been the rule. The church always wanted the destructionof its enemies;we, vr'e in ffnd our advantage immoralistsand Antichristians, this, that the church exists.In the political realm too, hostility has now becomemore spiritual-much more muchmorethoughtful,muchrnoreconsiderate. sensible, how it is in the interest Almosteveryparty understands that of its own self-preservation the oppositionshould not loseall strength;the sameis true of pgwer poliScs. A new creation in particular-the new Reich, f.or ex' morethan friendsrin opposition ample-needs enemies in alone does it feel itself necessary, opposition alone necessary. doesit become Our attitude to the "internal enemy" is no different: here too we have spiritualized hostility; here too we have cometo appreciateits value. The price of fruitfulnessis to be rich in internal opposition;ASg-IglgAing young-onlv-gs-]ong*asthe soul d-ogrnqt str.etchjiself enAlc-sire-geace- Not@T*as become more alien to of us than thal desideratum former times, "peace of

489 sdul," the ChrMian desideratum;there is nothing we envy lessthan the moralisticcow and the fat happiness renortnced the One has-- - +.*----"-<- great of the good conscience. frar.--_tife whJn one renounces Ginany caiei, to G sufr'peace of soul' is merely else,which lacksonly a a misunderstanding--someihing more honestname.Without further ado or prejudice,a '?eace ferv examples. of souf'can be, for one,the gentle radiationof a rich animalityinto the moral (or religious) the sphere. the beginningof weariness, ffrst shadow Or of evening,of any kind of evening.Or a sign that the Or air is humid, that southwinds are approaching. ungratitude for a good digestion (sometimes recognized called "love of rnan"). Or the attainmentof calm by a convalescent who feels a new relish in all things and waits.Or the statewhich followsa thoroughsatisfaction of our dominantpassion, well-beingof a rare replethe of tion. Or the senileweakness our will, our cravings,our vices. Or laziness,persuadedby vanity to give itself moral airs. Or the emergence certainty, even a dreadof ful certainty, after long tension and torture by uncertainty.Or the expression maturity and masteryin of the midst of doing,creating, working,and willing--calm breathing, dtairwd "freedom of the wilI." Tuilight ot the ld.ol,*who knows? perhaps also only a kind of 'peace of soul" 4 I reducea principle to a formula. Every naturalismin morality-that is, every healthy morality-is dominated by an instinctof life; somecommandment life is fulof filled by a determinate canonof "shalt" and "shaltnot"; someinhibition and hostileelement the path of life is on thus removed.Anti-naturcl morality-that is, almost every morality which has so far been taughg revered,

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 490 and preached-turns, conversely,against the instincts of life: it is condemnation theseinstincts, of now secret, *God now gutspoken impudent.When it says, and looks at thE\'ti.it-s3ys No_to both_the and the the enemgof F'elt"tl desirei'"oFlife, and pos$-6{as life.T'hesaintin whomlGodddlights.is idealeunuch. the Life has corytoanlnd where the'kingden-oforl3 begils/5 Once one has comprehended the outrage of such a revolt against life as has become almost sacrosanctin Christian morality, one has, fortunately, also comprehended something else: the futility, apparentness,-absurdity, and mend.aciousnessof such a revolt. A condemnation of life by the living remains in the end a mere symptom of a certain kind of life: the question whether it is justified or unjustiffed is not even raised tho"by. One would require a position outside of life, and yet have to know it as well as one, as many, as all who have lived it, in order to be permitted even to touch tlre problem of the oalue of life: reasonsenough to comprehend that this problem is for us an unalF proachable problem. When we speak of values, we speak with the inspiration, with tJ-reway of looking at things, which is part of life: Iife itself forces us to posit values; life itself values through us when we posit values. From this it follows that even that anti-natural morality which conceivesof God as the counter-concept and condemnation of life is only a value judgment of lif*but of what life? of what kind of life? I have already given the answer: of declining, weakened, weary, condemned life. Morality, as it has so far been understood-as it has in the end been formulated once more 'negation by Schopenhauer,as of the will to life"-is

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS 49I the very hstinct of decadence, which makesan impera"Perishl" It is a condemnation tive of itself. It saysz prG nouncedby the condemned. 6 Let us ffnally considerhow naive it is altogetherto *Man say: ouglt to be suchand suchl"Realityshows us an enchantingwealth of types, the abundanceof a lavish play and change of forms-and somewretched "Not Man ought to be loafer of a rnoralistcomments: difierent."He evenknowswhat man shouldbe-like,this wretchedbigot and prig: he paintshimselfon the wall and comments,"Ecce homo!"But evenwhen the moralist addresses himselfonly to the singlehumanbeingand saysto him, 'ifou ought to be suchand such!"he does not cease makehimselfridiculous. to The singlehuman being is a piece of fatum from the front and from the rear, one law rnore, one necessity more for all that is yet to comeand to be. To sayto him, "Changeyourselft' is to demandthat everythingbe changed,even retroactively. And indeed there have been consistentmoralists who wantedman to be difierent,that is, virtuousthey wantedhim remadein their own image,as a prig: to that end, they negatedthe worldt No small madneJsl No modestkind of immodestyl Morality, insofar as it condntnns its own sake,and for not out of regard for the concerns, considerations, and contrivancesof life, is a speciffcerror with which one oggh_t have no pity-an idiosgnuasy of degererates Io which has caused immeasurable harm. We others,we immoralists, have, converselnmade room in our hearts for every kind of understanding, comprehending, approoing.We do not easily ni and gat_e; makeit a point of honorto be affrmers.More we and more,our eyeshaveopenedto that economy wlrich

THE PORTABLE METZSCHE 492 needs and knows how to utilize all that the holy witof lessness the pries! of.the diseased reason the priest, in rejects-that economy the law of life which ffndsan in advantageeven in the disgusting speciesof the prigs, the priests, the virtuous. What advantage? we ourBut selves,we immoralists,are the answer.
TIIE FOUR CREAT I ERRONS

The enor of confusfngcarne anil effect. Therc is no error than that of mistakingthe effect more dangerous for the cause:I call it the real corruptionof reason. Yet this error belongsamongthe most ancient and recent habits of mankind: it is even hallowedamongus and goes by the name of 'religion" or -morality." Every single sentencewhich religion and morality formulate contains it; priests and legislatorsof moral codes are the originators this comrptionof reason. of I give an example.Eierybody knows the book of the famous Cornaro in which he recommends slender his diet as a recipe for a long and happy life-a virtuous one too. Few bookshave beenread so much; evennow thousands copiesare sold in England every year. I of do not doubt that scarcely any book (exceptthe Bible, as as is meet) has done as much harm, has shortenpd, many lives, as this well-intentioned curdosurn.The reason:the mistakingof the effeetfor the cause.The worthy Italian thoughthis diet wasthe causeof.his long life, whereasthe precondition for a long life, the extraordinaryslowness his metabolism, of the consumption of solitde, wasthe cause his slender diet. He was of not freeto eatlittle or much;his frugalitywasnot a mat'free wilf': he became whenhe ate more.But sick ter of whoever is no carp not only does well to eat properly,

'but

TWILICHT OF THE IDOLS 493 needsto. A scbolarin our time, udth his rapid consumption of nervousenergy,would simply destroyhimself with Coraaro'sdiet Crcde experto.L o The most general formula on which every religion and morality is founded is: "Do this and that, refrain from this and that-then you will be happyl Otherwise . . ." Every morality, every religioru tisthis imperative; I call it the greatoriginalsin of reason, immortalunthe teasotu. my mouth, this formula is changedinto its In .opposit*ffrst example of my "revaluation of all val'ues": a'well-turned-outhuman being, a 'trappy one," rnusf perform certain actions and shrinks instinctively from other actions;he carriesthe order, which he represents physiologicalln into his relations with other human beingsaud things. In a formula: his virtue is the effec'tof.his happiness. long Me, many descendantsA this is not the wages of virtue; rather virtue itself is that slowing down of the metabolism which leads, among other tlings, also to a long life, many descendants-in short, to Cornari.sn. The church and morality say: 'A generaHon,a people, are destroyedby licenseand luxury." My ra. cooeredreason says:when a peopleapproaches destruction, when it degenerates physiologicalln then license and luxury follou from this (namely, the craving for ever shongerand more frequent stimulation,as every exhausted natureknowi it). This youngman turns pale early and wilts; his friends say: that is due to this or that disease. say: that he becamediseased, I that he did not resistthe disease, was alreadythe effect of an life impoverished or hereditaryexhaustion. The newspaper readersays:this party destroys itself by making r Telieve him who has triedl"

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 454 such a mistake.My higher poliHcssays: a party which makessuch mistakeshas reachedits end; i[ has lost its sureness instinct. Every mistakein every sense the of is efrect of the degeneration instinct, of the disintegraof tion of the will: one could almostdeffnewhat is bad in this way. All that is good is instinct-and heneeeasy, necessary, Laboriousness an objection; god is free. is the difierent from the hero. (In my language: hi"4ly Iight feet are the first attribute of divinity.) 3 The enor of afalse causality. People havebelievedat all timesthat theyknewwhat a cause but whence did is; we take our knowledgmr more preciseln our faith that we had such knowledge? From the realm of the famous 'tnner facts,' of which not a single one has so far proved to be factual. We believed ourselvesto be causal in the act of willing: we thought that here at least we caught causaliEr the act. Nor did one doubt in that all the antecedents an act, its causes, of were to be soughtin consciousness would be found thereonoe and sought-as 'motives": else one rvould not have been free and responsiblefor it. Finally, who would have denied that a thought is caused?that the ego causes the thought? Of thesethree 'inward facts" which seemto guarantee causality, ffrst and mostpersuasive that of the the is will as cause. The conception of a consciousness ('spirit") as a cause, and later also that of the ego as cause (the 'subject"), are only afterbirths: ffrst the causatty of the will was ffrmly acceptedas given, as enpirical. I\{eanwhilewe havethought better of it. Todaywe no Ionger believe a word of all this. The 'inner world" is full of phantomsand will-o'-the-wisps:the will is one of

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS 495 them. The will no longer movesanything, hence does not explain anything either-it merely accompanies events;it can alsobe absent. The so-called motioe:a* other error. Merely a surfaee phenomenon consciousof ness,something alongside deed that is more likely the to coverup the antecedents the deedsthan to repreof sentthem.And asfor the ego!Thathas become fable a a-ffgtio1,a play on words: it has altogetherceased to think, feel, or willl What follows from this?There areno mental causes at all. The whole of the allegedlyempiricalevidence for that has gone to the devil. That is-what followst And whata ffneabuse hadpelpetrated we with this'empirical evidenceo; created world on this basisasa world we the of causes, world of will, a world of spirits.The most a a_ncient enduringpsychology ai work here and and was did_notdo anythingelse:all that happened was considered a doing, all doing the efiect ol-a will; the world becameto it a multiplicity of doers;a doer (a .sub. je-ct")was slippedunder all that happened. was out It of himselfthat man projectedhis three'fttn., 12s1s'that in which he believed most ffrmln the will, the spirit, the ego.He eventook the conceptof beingfrom the conceptof the ego; he posited'things' as .Ling,in his image,in accordance with his conceptof the ego as a cause. Smallwonderthat later he alviavsfound"in things only that uthich he had put into thei. fhe tl*g itself, to sayit oncemore,the conceptof thing b a mere reflex of the faith in the ego as ea-,rse. And"even your atom,_my dear mechanists and physicists-how much error,how muehrudimentary psychology still residual is your_ atoml Not to mentionthe *thing-in-itself,-the in lwnendum pudcndarn the metaphysici"anst error of The of the spirit ascause mistaken reaiity!And madethe for very measure realityt And called Godl of

498

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE

4 The eror of imaginnry causes. begin with dreams: To ex postfacto, a causeis slipped under a particular senone shot) sation (for example, followinga far-ofi cannon -often a whole little novel in which tlle dreamertums up as the protagonist.The sensation enduresmeanwhile in a kind of resonance:it waits, as it were, until the causalinstinct permits it to step into the foregoundnow no longeras a chanceoccrurence, as'meaning.' but The cannon shot appearsin a causalmode, in an aIF parent reversalof time. What is really later, the motivation, is experiencedffrst-often with a hundred details which pass like hghtning-and the shot foll.ous. which were What has happened?The representations as proiluced by a certain statehave beenmisunderstood its causes. In fact, we do the samething when awake.Most of our generalfeelings-every kind of inhibition, pressure, tension, and explosionin the play and counterplay of onr organs,and particularly th" stateof the neranssympothicuffixcite our causalinstinct: we want to have a reasonfor feeling this way or that-for feeling bad or for feeling good. We are never satisffedmerely to state &e fact that we feel this way or that: we admit this fact of only-become conscious it only-when we have furnishedsomekind of motivation. Memory, which swings into action in such cases,unknown to us, brings up earlier statesof the samekind, togetherwith the causal intelpretations associatedwith thern-not their real caulcs. The faitlr, to be sure, that such representationg are conscious processes, the carxteq such accompanying is also brought forth by memory. Thus originates a habitud acceptanceof a particular causal interpreta-

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOI,S 4g/, tion, whiclr, as e matter of fact, inhibits any investigation into the real cnrstvn precludesit 5 The psgchobglcal erplawtion of this. To derive something unknown from somethingfamiliar relieves, besides comforts,and satisffes, $ving a feeling of power. one is confrontedwith danger,disWith the unknowq comforg and care; the ffnt instinct is to abolish these painful states.First principle: any explanationis better than none.Sinceat bottom it is merelya matter of wishone representations, is not too ing to be rid of oppressive particular about the meansof getting rid of them: the ffrst representation that e4plainsthe unknown as familiar feels so good that one 'tonsiders it true." The proof of pleasure("of sbength') as a criterion of truth. the causalinstinct is thus conditional upon, and ercited bn the feeling of fear. The "why?" shall, if at all p,ossible, $ve the causefor its own sakeso much ag not for a partiatl$ Hnd of causea causethat is comfortiog, liberating,and relieving.That it is something already familiar, e4perienced,and inscribed in the memory, which is positedas a cause,'thatis the ffrst consequence of this need. That which is new and strange and has not been experiencedbefore, is excluded as a cause. thus one searches only for somekind of explanation not to serveas a cause,but for a particularly selectedand preferred kind of explanatiorr-that which has most quickly and most frequently abolished the feeling of the strange,nenr,and hitherto unexperienced: mogf the habtanl explanations. Conseguence: kind of positone ing of causespredominatesmore and more, is concentrated into a systerL and ffnally emergesas dominant, that is, as simply precluding other causes and explana-

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 498 'businessr'the The banker immediatelythinks of tions. 'sir1" Christian of and the girl of her love. 6 The whole realm of morality and. religion belnngs uder this corwept of funginary cawes. The "explanageneral feelings. They are protion" of d.i,sagreeable duced by beingsthat are hostile to us (evil spirits: the most famouscas*the misunderstanding the hysterof ical as witches). They are producedby acts which can'sin,o "sinfulness," not be approved (the feeling of of is rlipp.d under a physiological discomfort; one always for ffnds reasons being dissatisffed with oneself). They as are producedas punishments, paymentfor something we shouldnot have done,for what we shouldnot have into a bem (impudently generaliznd. Schopenhauer by principle in which morality appearsas what it really 'Every is-as the very poisonerand slandererof life: great pain, whether physical or spiritual, declareswhat we deserve;for it could not come to us if we did not II, deserve World,asWill and.Representotinn 666). it." they are produced as eftects of ill-consideredactions are that turn out badly. (Here'the affects,the senses, posited as causes, 'guilty"; and physiologicalcalamas ities are inteqpreted with the help of other calamitiesas 'deserved.") generalfeelings.They The "explanatiof of agreeable are produced by trust in God. They are produced by of the consciousness good deeds (the so-called'good sen5sisnss"-tr physiolo$cal state rilhich at times looks so much like good digestionthat it is hard to tell them terminaapart). They are producedby the successful tion of someente{prise(a naive fallacy: the successful termination of someenterprisedoesnot by any means give a hypochondriac or a Pascal agreeable general

499 TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS bv feelings).They areproduced faith, charity,and hope -the Christianvirtues. are explanations resultIn truth, all thesesupposed or of were, translations pleasurable ant statesand, as it unpleasurablefeelings into a false dialect: one is in a feeling is the stale of hope because basic physiological onceagain strong and rich;@ of rst; the-fe@ves-Hense to the psyclnl' IUorality ind religion belong altogether ogV ofbnot in every singlecase,causeand effect are or tmth ii confusedwith the efiects of.be' "infur"a; lieoingsomethingto be true; or a state of consciousness with its causes.' is confused The enor of free u:ill. Today we no longer have any pity for the concept of "free will": we know only too well what it really is-the foulest of all theologians' artiffces, aimed at rnaking mankind "responsible" in their sense, at is, dependentupon thetn. Here I simply {:h of psychology all'making responsible." supply..the are Wherevei responsibilities sought,it is usually the instinct of wanting to iudge and puirishwhich is at work Becominghas beertdeprived of its innocencewhen any is tracedback to will, to purposes, being . iliw: the doctrine of the to acts of. responsibility: the-doctrinp-.qf=ltt" will hasI f"rTe p"tposeof punishment, for beeninverited?ssentially the puqpose punish*T,: I that is, because wantedto impute guilt. The entire one "Uy old psychology,the psychologyof will, was conditioned by the fact that its originators,the priests at the head wantedto createfor themselves of ancientcoinmunitie$o the r-rghtto punish*<r wanted to create this right for :they that they might be 9qd.Y:pf$a considered'f*"1tg miglrt'become that they miglrt'become iudgetr"-and punishefi;so as guilty: conseguently, everyact had to becdnsidered

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 5OO willed, and the origin of every act had to be considered as lying within the consciousness(and thus the most fundamental counterfeit in psychologicis was made the principle of psychology itself). Today, as we have entered into the reversemovement and we immoralists are trying with all our strength to take the concept of guilt and the concept of punishment out of the world again, and to cleanse psychology, history, nature, and social institutions and sanctions of them, there is in our eyes no more radical opposition than that of the theologians, who continue with the concept of a'moral world-order" to infect the innocence 'guilt." of becoming by means of "punishment" and Christianity is a metaphysics of. the hangman. 8 What alone can be our doctrine? That no one gioes man his qualities-neither God, nor society, noi his parents and ancestors,nor he himself. (The nonsenseof 'tntelligible freedom" by the last idea was taught as Kant-perhaps by Plato already.) No one is responsible for man's being there at all, for his being such-and-such, or for his being in these circumstances or in this environment. The fatality of his essenceis not to be disentangled from the fatality of all that has been and will be. Man is not the efiect of some special pu{pose, of a will, and end; nor is he the object of an attempt to 'ideal of humanity'' or an'ideal of happiness" attain an or an'ideal of morality." It is absurd to wish to devolve one's essenceon some end or other. We have invented the concept of "end": in realiw there is no end.

orre one jsir""rr"ry, @, belongsto the wholg one is in the whole; there is compare,or sennothing which could judge, measure, tenceour being,for that would meanjudging, measur-

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS 501 the ing, comparing,or sentencing whole. But there is ttoiiling besid6s the whole. that nobody is held reany sponsiEle longer, that the mode of being may_not 6e traced back to a causaprima, that the world does 'tpirit"or not form a unity either as a sensorium as that aloneis the great liberation;with this aloneis the The conceptof'God" of innocence becomingrestored. was until now the greatest objection to existence.We deny God, we deny the responsibilityin God: only the therebydo we redeem world.
THE 'rMpnovERs" 1 oF !.fANrrNn

is My demandupon the philosopher known, that he good and evil and leavethe illutake his standbeyond sion of moral judgmentbeneathhimself.This demand follows from an insight which I was the ffrst to formulate: that there arc altogether no rnoral fccts. Moral judgmentsagree with religious ones in believing in realitieswhich are no realities.Morality is merely an interpretationof certain phenomena-more precisely, ones, Iike a misinterpretation. Moral judgments, religious at belongto a stageof ignorance which the very concept of the real and the distinctionbetweenwhat is real and imaginary,are still lacking; thus "truth," at this stage, all designates sortsof thingswhich we todaycall "imagneverto be taken are inings."Moral judgments therefore they alwayscontain mere abliterally: so understood, however,they remain invaluable: surdity. Semeiotically, they reveal,at least for thosewho know, the most valuwhich did able realities of culturesand inwardnesses ounderstand" themselves. Morality not know enoughto meresymptomatology: must one is meresign language, know what it is all about to be able to profit from iL

502

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE

, A ftrst example,quite provisional. all times they At have wanted to 'improve" menr this above all was called morality. Under the samc word, however,the most divergenttendencies concealed. are Both the farning of the beast,man, and the brcedingof a particular kind of man have been called 'improvement Such " zoological terms are requiredto express realitiesthe realities, be sure,of which the typical'improver," the to priest,neitherknowsanytbing,nor wantsto know anything. To call the taming of an animal its 'improvement' soundsalmostlike a ioke to our ears.Whoeverknows what goeson in menageries doubtsthat the beasts are -improved" there. They are weakened, they are made lessharmful, and through the depressive ellect of fear, throughpain, throughwounds, and throughhungerthey becomesickly beasts. is no differentwith the tamed It man whom the priesthas'improved." In the early Middle Ages, when the church was indeed, above all, a menagerie, most beautiful specimens the "blond the of beast" were hunted down everywhere; and the noble Teutons,for example,were improved." But how did suchan'improved" Teutonwho had beenseduced into a monastery look afterward?Like a caricatureof man, Iike a miscarriage: had becomea "sinner,"he was he stuck in a cage,imprisoned amongall sortsof tenible concepts. And there he lay, sick, miserable, malevolent against himself: full of hatred against the springsof life, full of suspicionagainstall that was still strong and happy.In short,a "Christian.n . Physiologically speaking:in the strugglewith beasts, to make them sick maq be the only meansfor making them weak.This the ciurch unders-tood: raircd r,ai it

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS 503 weakened hinr--but it claimed to have "improved" it hftn.

3 Let us consider other caseof socalled morality, the the case of. breeding a particular race and kind. The of mostmagniffcent example this is fumishedby Indian morality,sanctioned religionin the form of "the law as of Manu." Here the task set is to breed no lessthan four races at once: one priestln one warlike, one for trade and agriculture,and ffnally a race of servants, the Obviously, are hereno longeramonganimal we Sudras. tamers:a kind of man that is a hundredtimes milder and more reasonable the conditionfor evenconceivis ing sucha plan of breeding. Oneheaves sigh of relief a at leavingthe Christianatmosphere disease dunof and geonsfor this healthier, higher, and, uid.er world. How wretched is the New Testamentcompared to Manu, how foul it smells! Yet this organizationtoo found it necessaryto be terrible-this time not in the struggle with beasts,but with their counter-concept, unbred man, the mishthe mash man, the chandala.And again it had no other for means heepinghim from being dangerous, makfor ing him weak, than to make him sicft-it was the 6ght 'great with the number." Perhapsthere is nothing that contradictsour feeling more than tlreseprotective measures of Indian morality. The third edict, for example (Avadana-Sastra %n impure vegetables,'ordains I), that the only nourishment permitted to the chandala shallbe garllc and onions, that the holy scripture seeing prohibits giving them grain or fruit with grains, or water or ffre. The sameedict ordersthat the water they need may not be taken from rivers or wells, nor from ponds, but only from the approaches swampsand to

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 504 from holes made by the footstepsof animals.They are also prohibited from washing their laundry and ftom uaslfing themsehses, since the water they are conceded as an act of grace may be used only to quench thirst. Fina\ a prohibitionthat Sudrawomenmay not assist chandala women in childbirth, and a prohibition that the latter may not assisteach other is this condition. The success such sanitary police measures of was inevitable: murderousepidemics, ghastlyvenerealdiseases,and thereupon again "the law of the knife," ordaining circumcisionfor male children and the removal of the internal labia for female children. Manu himself says: "The chandalasare the fruit of adultery, incest,and crime (these,the necessary consequences of tlle conceptof breeding).For clothing they shall have only rags from corpses;for dishes, broken pots; for adornment old iron; for divine services, only evil spirits. They shall wander without rest from place to place. They are prohibited from writing from left to right and from usingthe right hand in writing: the useof the right hand and of fromJeft-to-right is reservedfor the virtuous, for the people of.racei 4 Ihese regulations are instructive enough: here we encounterfor once Aryan humanity, quite pure, quite primordial-we learn that the concept of "pure blood' On of concept. the otherhand, is the opposite a harmless it becomes clear in which people the hatred, the chandala hatred, against this 'humaneness"has etemalized itself, where it has becomereligion, where it has becomegenius.Seenin this perspective,the Gospelsrepresenta documentof prime importance;even more, the Book of Enoch. Christianity, sprung from Jewish roots and comprehersibleonly as a growth on this soil" rep-

TIVILIGHT OF THE TDOLS

resentsthe counter-movement any morality of breedto ing, of race, of privilege: it is the arti-Aryan religion par excellence. Christianity-the revaluation of all Aryan values,tle victory of chandalavalues,the gospel preached the poor and base,the generalrevolt of all to the downhodden, the wretched, the failures, the less favored, against "racejz the undying chandala hatred as the rcligion of looe. 5 The morality of.breed,ing and the morality of tatning are, in the means they use, entirely worthy of each other: we may proclaim it as the supremeprinciple that, to make morakty,onemust have the unconditional will to its opposite. This is the great, the uncanny problem which I have been pursuing the longest: the psychology the "improvers" of rnankind.A small,and of at bottom modest fact-that of the so-called, fmusr pia --+ffered me the ffrst approach to this problem: tlle pia fraus, the heirloom of all philosophersand priests who "improved" mankind. Neither Manu nor Plato nor Confucius nor the Jewish and Christian teachershave ever doubted their right to lie. They have not doubted that they had very different rights too. Expressed a in formula, one might sayt all the means by which one has so far attempted to make mankind moral were throughand throughimmoral.
.WHAT THE GENMANS 1 LACK

Among Germans today it is not enough to have spirit: one must arrogate it, one must have the arroganee to have spirit 1'Holy lie.-

THE PORTABLE 506 NIETZSCHE Perhaps know the Germans, I perhaps may eventell I them sometruths.The new Germany represents large a quantumof fitness, both inheritedandacquired trainby ing, so that for a time it may expandits accumulated store of strength,even squanderit. It is rtot a high culture that has thus becomethe master,and evenlessa delicate taste, a noble "beauty" of the instincts;but moreohile virtues than any other countqyin Europecan show.Much cheerfulness self-respecf and much-assurancein socialrelations and in the reciprocality duties, of much industriousness, much perseveranc*and an irr herited moderation which needsthe spur rather than the brake.I add that here one still obeyswithout feeling that obedience humiliates. And nobodydespises his opponent. One will notice that I wish to be just to the Germans: I do not want to break faith with rnyself here. I must therefore also state my objectionsto them. One pays h*urly for coming to power: pnwer makesstupid. The Germans-once they were calledthe peopleof thinken: do they think at all today?The Germans now bored are with the spirit, the Germansnow mistrust the spirit; , * lolitics swallowsup all seriousconcernfor really spirI f\*ituat matters. Deuischlard.,Deutschlnndtiter itlei*l t ltte"t that was the end of Germanphilosophy. ' "Are there any German Are philosophers? there German poets?fue there good Germanbooks?"they ask me abroad. blush;but with the courage I which I maintain even in desperate situationsI reply: 'Well, Bismarck."Would it be permissible me to confess for what booksare read today?Accursedinstinct of mediocrityl What the German spint mtghtbe-who has not had his melancholyideas about thatl But this people has

TWILICHT OF THE IDOLS 5O7 stupid, for nearly a millennium: deliberatd made itself nowherehavethe two great Europeannarcotics,alcohol and Christianity, been abused more dissolutely. Recently even a third has been added<ne that alone would be sufficient to dispatch all ffne and bold flexibility of the spirit-rnusic, our constipated,constipating Germanmusie. How much disgruntled heaviness,lameness,d*P ness, dressing gowehow much beer there is in the Germanintelligence!How is it at all possiblethat young men who dedicatetheir lives to the most spiritual goals do not feel the ffrst instirrctof spirituality,the upirifc lnstinct of self-ptesenmtiot*and drink beer?The alcoholism of the young scholarsis perhapsno question mark concemingtheir scholarliness-without spirit one can still be a great scholar-but in every other respect it remains a problem. Where would one not ffnd the gentle degeneration which beer producesin the spirit? Once, in a c:ue that has almost becomefamous,I put my ffnger on such a degeneratior-the degeneration of our number-oireGerman free spirit, the clewr David Strauss,into the author of e beer-bench gospel and 'new faith." It was not for nothing that he had rnade his vow to tbe 'fair bnrnette" 1 in vers*loyalty unto death. 3 I was speakingof the Germanspirit: it is becoming cruder, it is becoming shallower. Is that enough?At bottom, it is somethingquite different that alarmsme: how German seriousness, German depth, C,erman pacsron in spiritual matters are declining more and mora not Here The vervehaschanged, just the intellectuality. and there I comeinto contactwith Germanuniversities:
l Teer.-

T'HE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 508 what an atmosphere prevailsamongtheir scholars, what desolatespirituality---and how contentedand lukewarm it has becomelIt would be a profound misunderstanding if one wanted to adduce German scienceagainst rne-it would also be proof that one has not read a years I have never word I have written. For seventeen tired of calling attention to the deuplrltualztng influenceof our current science-indusey. The hard helotism to which t}te tremendousrange of the sciencesc.ondemnsevery scholal today is a main reasonwhy those with a fuller, richer, prolounder disposition no longer find a congenial education and congenial educators. There is nothing of which our culture suffersmore than of the superabundance pretentiousjobbers and fragof mentsof humanity;our universities againsttheir will" are, the real hothousesfor this kind of withering of the instincts of the spirit. And the whole of Europe already has someidea of this-power politics deceives nobody. Gerrrany is considered more and more as Europe'sflathnd. I am still looking for a German with whom I might be able to be serious my own.way-and how in lmuch more for one with whom I might be cheerfull Tuilight of the ldols: who today would comprehend from what seriousness philosopher seeksrecreation a is here?Our cheerfulness what is mostincomprehensible about us. 4 . Even a rapid estimate shows that it is not only obviousthat Germanculture is declining but that there for is suftcient reason that. In the end, no one can spend. more than he has: that is tme of the individual, it is true of a people. If one spendsoneselffor power, for power politics, for economics, world trade, parliamentarianism, and military interests-if one spendsin thfs

TWILIGHT OT THE IDOLS

seriousness, direction the quantum of understanding, will, and self-overcomingwhich one represents,then
it will be lacking for the other direction. Culture and the state<ne should not deeeive one-

t "Kultur-Staof is merely
other, one thrives at

the expenseof the other. All agesof culture are agesof political decline: wtra@ even anti-politbol. Coeths W
heart opened at the phenomenon of Napoleon-it closed at the'"\Mars of Liberation." At the same moment when Gerrnany comes up as a great power, France' gairx a new importance as a cultural poueL Even today rnuch new seriousness,much new passion of the spirit have migrated to Paris; the question of pessimism, for example, the question of Wagner, and almost all psychological and artistic questions are there weighed incomparably more delicately and thoroughly thau in Germany-the Germans are altogether incapable of thir kinil of seriousness.In the history of European culture 'RebW the rise of the means one thing above all: a 1 displacement of the center of gravity. It is already I known everywhere: in what matters most-and that I Germans are no longer' always remains cultur+the worthy of consideration. One asks: Can you point to even a single spirit who counts from a European point of view, as your Goethe, your Hegel, your Heinrich Heing your Schopenhauer counted? That there is no longer a single German philosopher-about that there is no end of astonishment. 5 The entire system of higher education in Germany has lost what matters most: the end as well as the means to the end. That education, t-hat Bild;ung, is itself

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 5TO en end-and not uthe RiicH-arnd tlrat educatorcarc neededto that end, and nof secondary-school teachers and university scholars-that has been forgotten. Educators are neededwho have themselves been educated, superior,noble spirits, proved at every moment,proved by words and silence, representingculture which has grown ripe and sweet-not the leamed louts whom secondary schools and universitiestoday ofier our youth as "higher wet nurses.- Educators are laeking, not countingthe most exceptional exceptions, very of the ffrst conditionof education:hencethe-declineof Geiman culture. Onpof this rarestof exceptions my veneris able friend, JacobBurckhardtin Basel:it is primarily to him that Baselowesits pre-eminence humaneness. in What the 'lhigher schools" in Germany really achieve is a brutal tmining, designedto prepire hugl numbers of young men, with as little loss of time as possiblg to become usable, abusable,in govemment service. 'Hrgher education" and huge numbers-that is a conhadiction to start with. All higher education belongsonly to the exception: one must be privileged to have a right to so high a privilege. All great, all beautiful things can never be common propertyz puL chrum est paucorumhomirwm, What conditionsthe declineof GermancultureP That'higher education"is no longer a privilege-the democratism of Bililung, which has become dsornrnen"-too common. Let it not be forgotten that rnilitary privileges really compel an all-too-greatatteudancein the higher schools,and thus their downfall, Germanyno one is any longer free to In present-day give his childrena nobleeducation: our'higher schoolsare all set up for the most ambiguous mediocrity,with curricula, and teachingaims.And everytheir teachers, rvherean indecenthasteprevails,as if somethingwould

51I TWILTGHTOF THE IDOLS if the young man of twenty-threewere not yet be lost 'ffnished,"or if he did not yet know the answerto the *main question"ruhich calling?A higher kind of human be'ing,if I may say so,io"t t Jt [ke "-callings,' He has he Secause knowshimselfto be called.'ffnishprecisely Iime, he takes time, he does not even think of ing": at thirty one is, in the senseof high culture, a schools, beginner, a child. Our overcrowdedsecondary teachers' our overworked, stupeffed secondary-school as for are a scandal: oneto defendsuchconditions, the professors Heidelbergdid recently,there may perat there hapsbe c{nrsB-reasons 6 I put forward at once-lest I break with my styla which is ffirmatioe and deals with contradictionand criticism only as a means,only involuntarily-the three tasksfor which educatorsare required. One must learn to see,one must learn to think, onemust learn to speak and write: the goal in all three is a noble culture. LearG ing to .sea-accustomingthe eye to calmness,to Pa- 1!\ tience, to letting things come up to it; postponing ; judgment,learningto go around and graspeachindi- *1f vidual casefrom all sides.That is the frsf preliminary schoolingfor spirituality: not to react at once to a j) "a stimrrlus,but to gai cluding instincts.Learning to-EEFTffi-derstand it,-i5alriioiiilhaTinphilosopf,ically speaking, is called a strongwill: the essential feature is preciselynof to 'will.' -to be able to suspenddecision.All un-spirituafity, all vulgar commonness, dependon the inability to resist a stimulus: oae rnusf react, one follows every impulse. In many cases, such a compulsion already pathology, is decline, a symptomof exhaustiorr-almost everything that unphilosophicalcrudity designates with the word

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 5I2 'vice" is merely this physiologicalinability nat to reacilA practical application of having learned to see: as a learner, one will have becomealtogetherslow, mistrustful recalcitranl One will let strange, new things of every kind come up to oneself, inspecting them with hostile calm and withdrawing one'shand. To have all doors standing open, to lie servilely on one's stomach before every little fact, always to be prepared for the leap of putting oneselfinto the place of, or of plunging 'others into, and other things-in short, the famous 'objectivity' modern is had^taste,is igtnble par excelU l',,r1 'f alri*ererrll lence t 7 Leaming to thlrlfr,:in our schoolsone no longer has any idea of this. Bven in the universities,even among the real scholarsof philosophy,logic as a theory, as a practice, as a uaft, is beginning to die out. One need only read Germanbooks:there is no longerthe remotest recollectionthat thinking requiresa technique,a teaching curriculum, a will to mastely-that thinking wants to be leamed lfte dancing, as a kind of dancing. Who among Cermansstill hrows from experiencethe delicate shudderwhich light feet in spiritual matters send into every muscle?The stiff clumsiness the spiritual of gesture, the bungling hand at grasping-that is German to such a degreethat abroad one mistakesit for the German character as such" The Gemran has no fingersfor nuances. That the Germans have been able to stand their philosophersat all, especiallythat most deformedconcept-cripple of all time, the grea Kant provides not a bad notion of German grace. For one cannot subtract dancing in every form from a noble education-to be able to dance with one's feet, with concepts,witb

TIYILIGHT OF THE IDOLS 513 words: need I still add that one must be able to do it with the pen too-that one must learn to tniteP But at this point I should become completely enigmatic for Germanreaders.
STINMISIIES OF AN I UNTIMELY MAN

of or otles.Senpca: the toreador virtue. My impossible Rousseau: the return to nature in impuris naturalibus. or Dante: Schifler: or the Moral-Trumpeterof Sackingen. or the hyena who writes poetry in tombs.Kant; or cant Vbtor Httgo: or the pharos as an intelligiblecharacter. Liszt: or the school of smoothat t*re sea of nonsense. ness-with \ilomen. George Sand,:or lac'teaubertasin translation, the milk cow with "a beautiful style." Mbhelet: or the enthusiasmwhich takes off its coat. Cadyl.e:or pessimism a poorly digesteddinner. Joha as Stuort Mill: or insulting clarity. I*s frdres dp Gorwourt: or the two Ajaxes in baftle with Homer-music by O$enbach.Zoln: or "the delight in stinking."
2

Renan. Theology: or the comrption of reason by 'original sin" (Christianity).Witness Renan who,whenever he risks a Yes or No of a more general nature, scores a miss with painful regularity. He wants, for example,to weld together Ia scietwe and la rcblpsse: but la sciencebelongswith democracy;what could be plainer? With no little ambition, he wishesto represent an aristocracy the spirit: ybt at the sametime he is of on his kneesbeforeits very counter-doctrine, 6oat the gile des humble*and, not only on his knees.To what avail is all free-spiritedness, modemity, mockery, and w1y-necksuppleness, in one'sguts one is still a Chrisif

NIETZSCHE THE PORTABLE 514 tian, a Catholic-in fact, a priestl Renanis most inven' tive, just like a Jesuit and father confessor,when it his comesto seduction; spirituality doesnot evenlack the broadfat popishsmile-like all priests,he becomes only when he loves.Nobodycan equal him dangerous life to when it comes adoringin a mannerendangering a itself. This spirit ol Renan's, spirit which is enervated, will-tick France. is onemorecalamityfor poor,s-ick, 3 SahtteBeuoe.Nothing of virility, full of petty wrath against all virile spirits. Wanders around, cowardly, bored,eaveidropping-afemaleat bottom,with "irionr, lust for revenge sensuality.-As and a female's a female's a psychologist,a geniui of. mddisonoa,linexhaustibly rich in meins to that end; no one knowsbetter how to in mix praisewith poison.Plebeian the lowestinstincts of and related to the ressentiment Rousseau:consea romantic*for underneathall romantismelie quently, instinct for re{he grunting and greed of Rousseau's but still pretty well harnessed vengi. A rJvolutionary, by fear. Without freedomwhen confrontedwith anytliing strong (public opinion,the Academy, -the court, great Embitteredagainst_everything even Port Royal). men and fhings,againstwhateverbelievesin itself. in Poet and half-femaleenoughto sensethe great as a power; alwayswrithing like the famousworm because ie alwaysfiels steppedupon. As a critic, without any and backbone,with the cosmostandard,steadiness, libertine'stongue for a medley -of things, but politan As his evento confess li.bertirwge' ivithout the courage without the powerof the without philosophy, a historian, ey*hetce decliningtfre t-as\of jud-ging philosophical in all iigniffcant matterg hiding behind the mask of t "Slander."

5T5 TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS 'objectivity.'It is difierentwith his attitudeto allthings in which a ffne,well-worntasteis the highesttribunal: to there he really hasthe courage standby himselfand delight in himself-there he is a master.In somerespects,a preliminary version of Baudelaire. 4 De lmitatione Christt is one of those books which I reaccannothold in my hand without a physiological tion: it exudes a perfume of the Eternal-Feminine which is strictly for Frenchmen-or Wagnerians.This saint has a way of talking about love which arouses even Parisian women to curiosity. I am told that that A. of cleverest Jesuits, Comte,who wanted to lead his Frenchmento Rome via the detour of science,found his inspirationin tlris book. I believeit: "the religion of the heart.' 5 G. Eliot. They are rid of the Christian God and now believe all the more ffrmly that they must cling to we Christianmorality. That is an English consistency; I do not wish to hold it againstlittle moralisticfemales la Eliot. In Englandone must rehabilitateoneselfafter every little emancipationfrom theology by showing in a veritably awe-inspiringmannerwhat a moral fanatic they pay there. one is. That is the penance We othershold otherwise.When one gives up the Christianfaith, one pulls the right to Christianmorality out from under one'sfeet. This moralityis by no means self-evident: this point has to be exhibited again and again, despitethe English fatheads. Christianityis a system,a uhole view of things thought out together. By breakingone main conceptout of it, the faith in remains God, one breaksthe whole: nothing necessary

THE PORTABLENIETZSCHE 5T6 in one's hands. Christianity presupposesthat man does not know, cannot know, what is good for him, what evil: he believes in God, who alone knows it. Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth

only if God is the truth-it

in God. amrm-ttte 'intuitively"

standsand falls with faith

English actually believe that they lnow what is good and evil, when they therefore suppose that they no longer require Christianity as the guarantee of moralitn we merely witness the ef ects of the dominion of the Christian value iudgment and an expression of the strength and depth of this dominion: such that the origin of English morality has been forgotten, such that the very conditional character of its right to existenceis no longer felt. For the English, morality is not yet a problem. 6 George Sanil. I read the frrst Lettres tun rngageur: like everything that is descendedfrom Rousseau,false, fabricated, bellows, exaggerated. I cannot stand this motley wallpaper style any more than the mob aspiration for gellerous feelings. The worst feature, to be sure, is the female's coquetry with male attributes, with the manners of naughty boys. How cold she must have been throughout, this insufierable artistt She wound herself like a clock-and wrote. Cold, like Hugo, like Balzac, like all the romantics as soon as they tools up poetic invention. And how self-satisffed she may have lain there all the while, this fertile writing-cow who had in her something German in the bad sense, like Rousseau himself, her master, and who in any case was possible only during the decline of French tastel But Renan reveresher.

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS

5U

7 Not to go in for backstairs Moral for psgchologists. psychology.Neier to observein order to observelThat leadsto squintingand some!iu"r a fiise perspective, Experienceas the rpish Ihing forced ind exaggerated. One rnttstnot eye oneto eiperiencedoesnot succeed. else the eye becomes self while having an experience; 'an evil eye.- dborn piychologistguardsinstinctively againstseling in ordef to see;the sameis true of the b6rn painter.He neverworks "from nature'; he leaves to it to fris instinct,to his'cameraobscura, sift through *case,- 'nature,' that which 'eileand expressthe { of only of what is general, the riencedl,'Heis conscious he doesnot know arbitrary ab' the conclusion, result: stractionsfrom an individual case. What happenswhen one proceedsdifierently? For example,if, in the rnannerof the Parisiannovelists,one goes in for baclatairs psychologyand deals in gos_sip' wholesaleand retail? Then one lies in wait for reality, as it were,and everyeveningone brings homea handful of curiosities.But note what ffnally comesof all a this: a heap of splotches, mosaicat best, but in any a case somethingadded together,somethingrestless, messof screamingcolors. The worst in this respect is accomplished by the Goncourts; they do not put togetherwithout really hurting the eye, three sentences eye. the psychologist's Nature, estimatedartistically, is no model.It exaggerates, it distorts, it leaves gaps. Nature is chance. To to study'from natureoseems me to be a bad sign:-it fatalism;this lying in the weakness, betriys submission, dust beforepetit faits is unworthyof a uhol'eartist. To seeuhat fs-that is the mark of anotherkind of spirif the anti-artistic,the factual. One must know rphoone is.

51E

THE PORTABL,TENIETZSCHE

I Toward a psgchologyof the artist. If there is to be doing and seeing, one art, if thereis to be any aesthetic frenzy. Frenzy conditionis indispensable: physiological the must first have enhanced excitabilityof the whole machine;elsethere is no art. All kinds of frenzy,however diversely conditioned,have the strength to acexcitement, of complish this: aboveall, the fuenzy sexual this most ancientand original form of frenzy,Also the frenzy that follows all great cravings,all strong affects; feats of daring, victory, the frenzy of feasts,contests, all extreme movement; the frenzy of cruelty; the the in f,renzy destruction; frenzy under certainmeteoroas logical influences, for examplethe frenzy of spring; or under the influenceof narcotics;and finally the and f.renzy will, the frenzyof an overcharged swollen of in will. What is essential such frenzy is the feeling of strengthand fullness.Out of this feelingone increased from us, one lendsto things, oneforcesthem to accePt Let is violatesthem-this process called i'dealizittg. us a prejudicehere: idealizingdoesnot consist, get rid of the or as is commonlyheld, in subtracting discounting What is decisiveis rather a petty and inconsequential. lremendousdrive to bring out the main featuresso that in disappear the process. tlre others 9 In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness:whateverone sees,whateverone wills, rvith strength. is seenswelled,taut, strong,overloaded things until they mirror this statetransforms A man in of his power-until they are reflections his perfection. Thii haoing fo transforminto perfectionis-art. Even

TTI'ILIGHTOF THE IDOLS 5T9 for everythingthat he is not yet, becomes him an occasion of joy in hirnself;in art man enjoyshimselfas perfection. It would be permissible imaginean opposite to state, a specificanti-artistryby instinct-a mode of being which would impoverishall things, making them thin And, asa matterof fact, historyis rich and consumptive. in suchanti-artists, suchpeoplewho are starvedby in life and must of necessitygrab things, eat them out, and makethem moremeager. the This is, for example, for caseof the genuineChristian--of Pascal, example: a Christianwho would at the sametime be an artist simply doesnot occur.One shouldnot be childishand Chrisobject by namingRaphaelor somehomeopathic tian of the nineteenth century: Raphael said Yes, Raphaelilid Yes;consequently, Raphaelwas no Christian. lo What is the meaning of the conceptualopposites which I haveintroducedinto aesthetics, ATtollinian. and Dbnysian, both conceivedas kinds of frenzy? The Apollinian frenzy excitesthe eye aboveall, so that it gainsthe power of vision.The painter,the sculptor,the par epic poet are visionaries excellence. the DionyIn sianstate,on the other hand,the rvholeafrective sytem is excited and enhanced:so that it discharges its all means of expressionat once and drives foith simultaneously porverof representation, the imitation, transfiguration,transformation, everykind of mirnicking and and acting.The essential featurehere remainsthe ease of metamorphosis, inability not to react (similar to the certbinhysterical typeswho also,upon any suggestion, enter into ony role). It is impossiblefor the Dionysian

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 520 type not to understand any suggestion; he does not overlook any sign of an affect; he possesses instinct the of understanding and guessing in the highest degree, just as he commands the art of communication in the highest degree. He enters into any skin, into any afiect: he constantly transforms himself. Music, as we understand it todan is also a total excitement and a total discharge of the affects, but even so only the remnant of a much fuller world of expressionof the affects, a mere residue of the Dionysian histrionicism. To make music possible as a separate art, a number of senses,especially the muscle sense, have been immobilized (at least relatively, for to a certain degree all rhythm still appeals to our muscles); so that man no longer bodily imitates and represents everything he feels. Nevertheless, that is really the normal Dionysian state, at least the original state. Musie is the specialization of this state attained slowly at the expense of those faculties which are most closely related to it.
ll

The actor, the mime, the dancer, the musician, and the lyric poet are basically relatedin their instinctsand, at bottom, one-but graduallythey have becomespecialized and separated from each other, even to the point of mutual opposition. The lyric poet remained united with the rnusicianfor the longesttime; the actor, with the dancer. The architecf representsneither a Dionysian nor an Apollinian state: here it is the great act of will, the will that movesmountains,the frenzy of the great will which aspiresto art. The most powerful human beings have always inspired architects; the architect has al-

TWILIGHTOF THE IDOLS 52L ways been under the spell of power. His buildingsare to supposed render pride visible, and the victory over gravit/, the witl to power. Architeeture is a kind of even of eloquence power in forms-now persuading, The highestfeeling now only commanding. fattering, style, ffndsexpression a grand, in of powerand sureness The power which no longer needsany proof, which which doesnot answerlightly, which spurnspleasing, feels no witnessnear, which lives obliviousof all opwithin itself, fatalisticalln positionto it, which reposes of a law amonglaws-that speaks itself as a grand style.
t2

I have been reading the life of Thomas Carlyle, this unconsciousand involuntary f.aree,this heroic-moralistic interpretation of dyspeptic states. Carlyle: a man of strong words and attitudes, a rhetor from need, constantly lured by the craving for a strong faith and the feeling of his incapacity for it (in this respect, a typical romantic!). The craving for a strong faith is no proof of a strong faith, but quite the contrary. If one has such a faith, then one can afford the beautiful luxury of skepticism: one is sure enough, ffrm enough, has ties enough for that. Carlyle drugs something in himself with the fortissimo of his veneration of men of strong faith and with his rage against tlle less simple-minded: he requires noise. A constant passionate dishonesty against himself-that is his proprium; in this respect he is and remains interesting. Of course, in England he is admired precisely for his honesty. Well, that is English; and in view of the fact that the English are the people of consummatecant, it is even as it should be, and not only corhprehensible. At bottom, Carlyle is an English atheist who makes it a point of honor not to be one.

522

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE

r3
Emerson. Much more enlightened, more roving, more manifold, subtler than Carlyle; above all, happier. One who instinctively nourishes himself only on ambrosia, Ieaving behind what is indigestible in things. Compared with Carlyle, a man of taste. Carlyle, who loved him 'He very much, nevertheless said of him: does not $ve us enough to chew on"-which may be true, but is no refection on Emerson. Emerson has that gracious and clever cheerfulnesswhich discouragesall seriousness; he simply does not know how old he is already and how young he is still going to be; he could say of himself, quoting Lope de Yega: *Yo me sucedo a ml ,nismo." I His spirit always ftnds reasons for being satisffed and even grateful; and at times he touches on the cheerful transcendency of the worthy gentleman who returned from an amorous rendezvous, tamquam 'Ut rc bene gesta. desint oiresi he said gratefully, "tamen est laudnndn ooluptas.- 2 r4 'struggle Afii-Darwin As for the famous f.or existenre," so far it seemsto me to be assertedrather than proved. It occurs, but as an exception; the total ap pearance of life is not the extremity, not starvation, but rather riches, profusion, even absurd squanderingand where there is struggle, it is a struggle f.or power. One should not mistake Malthus for nature. Assuming, however, that there is such a struggle for existence-and, indeed, it occurs-its result is unl'f am mv own heir.t'As if tr'e trad accomplished mission.-Ihough the his power is lacking, the lust'is nevertheless praiseworth].''

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS

fortunately the opposite of what Darwin's school desires,and of what one might perhaps desire with them-namely, in favor of the strong, the privileged, do The the fortunateexceptions. species not grow in perfection: the weak prevail .over the strong again and
again, for they are the great majority-and they are y'so more intelligent. Darwin forgot the spirit (that is

nglish!); the ueak hane more rpirit. One must need it spirit to acquirespirit; one loses when one no Ionger needs it. Whoever has strength dispenseswith the 'the spirit ('Let it gol" they think in Germanytoday; Raichmust still remainto us."l). It will be notedthat
I mean care, patience, cunning, simulation, self-control, and everything that is mimicry (the f,reat by 'spirit"

tter includesa great deal of so-called virtue).

15 Casuistryof Psychologists. This man knows human nature; why doeshe really study people?He wants to over them--<r big ones,for that seizelittle advantages matter-he is a politician. That one over there also knows human nature, and you say that he seeksno 'impersonal." profft for himself, that he is thoroughly he Look more closelytPerhaps evenwantsa worseadvantage:to feel superiorto other humanbeings,to be able to look down on them, and no longer to mistake himself for one of them. This "frnpersonal"type is a deryiser of human beings,while the ffnt type is the more humanespecies, appearances notwithstanding. At least he places himself on the same plane, he places himselfamongthem. l from Luther'smost famoushymn, Ein leste Quotation Burg. ln its original context,Reichrctersto the kingdom of God.

524

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE

r6
a\e paphological taa of the Germansseemsvery questionaLleto ire, in view of quite a number of cases In lihich modestypreventsme from enumerating' one a great occasionto substantiate case I shall nof lack my thesis: I bear the Cermans g*-dg9 f9r having 'backdoor " made such a mistake about KcrTl and his philosophn- as I call it-for that was not the type of intellecltualintegrity. The other thing I do not like to 'and': the Germanssay 'Coethe hear is a notorioui 'schiller and am afraid they say and Schillei'-I Goethe.' Dorft they lcnou this Schiller yet? And there 'ands"; with my own earsI have heard, are evenworse 'schopenhauerard if only amonguniversity profeisors, Harbnann." t7 that if The most spiritual humanbein-gs, we.assume 'most alio experienceby -far courageous' they are the the most painful tragediei: but iust for that,reasonthey it honor Me because pits its greatestoppositionagainst them. r8 rarer . On the'lrtellec'tual conscietwe.'Nothing seems today than genuinehypocrisy. I greatly lusPgct I to *" of- ottt culture is insalubriousfor this I that the toit "it lphnt. Hypocrisy belongsin the ages of strong faith '*h"n, | ttorigtt cottiruirwd to display anotherfaith, "u"ir abaidon one'sown faith. Today one does not one did abandonit; or, evenmore cosrmonly,one addsa seccind faittr-and in either caseone remains honest' Without number of a doubt, a very much greater'possible" convictionsis meanspermispossibletoday-than formerly:

TWLIGHT OF THE IDOLS 525 sible, which meansharmless,This begetstolerancetoward oneself. Tolerancetoward oneselfpermits severalconvictions, and they get along with each other: they are careful, themtke all the rest of the world, not to compromise oneself today?If one How doesone compromise selves. is consistent.If one proceedsin a straight line. If one enoughto permit five conflicting interis not ambiguous pretations.If one is genuine. I fear greatly that modem man is simply too comfortable for somevices, so that they die out by default. All evil that is a functionof a strong'will*.and perhaps there is no evil without strength of willJegenerates into virtue in our tepid air. The few hypocriteswhom I have met imitated hypocrisy: Iike almost every tenth person today, they \vere actorc. Beuntful atd ugly. Nothing is more conditional---or, let us say,narrower-than our feeling for beauty. Whoever would think of it apart from man's joy in 'teautiful irl would immediately lose any foothold. itself- is a mere phrase, not even a concept In the beautiful, man posits himself as the measureof perfection; in special caseshe worships himself in it. A speciescannot do otherwisebut thus affrm itself alone. Its lauest instinct that of setf-presewationand selfexpansion,still radiates in such sublimities. Man beIieves tlle world itself to be overloadedwith beautyand he forgets himself as the causeof this. He alone has presentedthe world with beauty-alasl only with a very human" all-too-humanbeauty. At bottom, rnan mirrorshimselfin things;he considers everything tilul that refeets his own image: the judgment Uful'is the unity of his species. For a little

THE FORTABLE NIETZSCHE 526 may rilhisper this question into the skeptie's ear: Is the world really beautiffedby the fact that man thinks it beautiful? He has hutrwnizedig that is all. But nothing, absolutelynothing, guarantees that man should be the model of beauty. Who knows what he looks like in the-eyes a higher judge of beauty?Daring perhaps? of Perhapseven amusing? Perhapsa little arbitiaiy? 'O Dionysus, divine one, why do you pull me by my earsil' Ariadne once asked her philosophic lover during one of thosefamousdialogues Naios. 'I ffnd on a kind of humor in your earg Ariadne: why are they not even longer?"
20

Nothing is beautiful, exceptman alone: all aesthetics rests upon this naivet6, which is its /trsf tmth. Let us immediatelyadd the second: the

with lFthe realmoI?6EE[F {"g9."@g,qt.-"nd is circumscribed. Physiologicalln everything iudgment ugly weakens and saddens man. It remindshim of
decan danger, impotence;it actually deprives him of strength. One can measurethe effect of the ugly with a dynamometer.Wherever man is depressed all, he at the senses proximrty of something"trgly.' His feeling of power, his will to power, his courage,his pride-all fall with the ugly and rise with the beautiful. In both caseswe draw an inference: the premisesfor it are piled up in the greatestabundance instinct. The ugly in as is understood a sign and symptomof degeneration: whatever remindsus in the least of degeneration tauses in us the iudgment of 'ugly,' Every suggestionof exbaustion,of heaviness, age, of weariness; of every kind of lack of freedom, such as cramps,such as paralysis; and aboveall, the smell, the color, the form of dissolution, of decompositiorHven in the ultimate attenua-

TWILIGHTOF THE IDOLS 527 a symbol-all evoke the samereaction,the tion into valuejudgment,"ugly." Alntred is aroused-but whom doesman hate then?There is no doubt: the declineol his type. Here he hatesout of the deepestinstinct of in tlte species; this hatred there is a shudder,caution, depth,farsightedness-itis the deepest -is lrgtred there is. It becausiof this that art is deep. lA so^, fr{ ,e"p, 5 kv\tr \ce"hf*I.., zt worthy Schopenhauer, lastGerman the Schopmhauer. (who represents European a eventlike of consideration Goethe, like Hegel,like HeinrichHeine,and not merely a local event, a "national" one), is for a psychologist a ftrst-rate case: namely, as a maliciouslyingenious attempt to adducein favor of a nihilistic total depreciation of life precisely the counter-instances, great the self-afirmations of the "will to life," lifet forms of exuberance.He has interpreted arf, heroism, genius, beauty, great sympathy,knowledge,the will to tmth, and hagedy, in turn, as consequences hegation" or of of the "wills" need to negatFthe greatestpsycho' logical counterfeit in all history, not counting Christiantg. On closerinspection, is at this point merely he the heir of the Christianinterpretation:only he knew how to approvethat which Christianityhad repudiated, tlle great cultural facts of humanity-albeit in a Christian, that is, nihilistic, rnanner (namely, as ways of 'redemptionr" as anticipations of iedemption," as 'redemption'). stimuli of the needfor
22

I take a singlecase.Schopenhauer of speaks heauty fervor. Why? Because seesin it with a melancholy he a bridge on which onewill go farther, or develp a thirst to go farther. Beautyis for him a momentary redemp-

THE PORTABLENIETZSCHE 528 'will"-a tion from the lure to eternal redemption. Particularly, he praises beauty as the redeemer from 'the focal point of the will," from sexuality-in beauty he sees the negation of the drive toward procreation. Queer saintl Somebody seemsto be contradicting you; I fear it is nature. To what end is there any such thing as beauty in tone, color, fragrance, or rhythmic movement in nature? What is it that beauty evokes? Fortunately, a philosopher contradicts him too. No lesser authority than that of the divine Plato (so Schopenhauer himself calls him) maintains a difterent proposition: t'hat all beauty incites procreaHon, that iust this is the propriurn of its effect, from the most sensual up to the most spiritual. 23 Plato goes further. He says with an innocence possible only for a Greek, not a "Christian," that there would be no Platonic philosophy at all if there were not such beautiful youths in Athens: it is only their sight that transposes the philosophe/s soul into an erotic tance, leaving it no peace until it lowers the seed of all exalted things into such beautiful soil. Another queer saint! One does not trust onet ears, even if one should trust Plato. At least one guesses that they philosophized differently in Athens, especially in public. Nothing is less Greek than the conceptual web-spinning of a hermit-amor intellectualis deiL aftet the fashion of Spinoza. Philosophy after the fashion of Plato might rather be deffned as an erotic contest, as a further development and tuming inward of the ancient agonistic gymnastics and of its prewpposdtdoas.What ultimately grew out of this philosophic eroticism of Plato? A new art form of the Greek agon: dialectics. Finally, I recallr "fntellectual love of God."

T1VILIGHTOF THE IDOLS 529 and againstSchopenhauer in honor of Plato-that the France whole higher culture and litemture of classical in too grew on the soil of sexualinterest.Everynvhere the it one may look for the amatory,the senses, sexual contest,"the womarf'---one will never look in vain. 24 Iiart Ttour\art. T\e ffght against purpose in art is alwaln a ftght against the moralizing tendency in a*, against its subordination to morality. Xart pour fart means,"The devil take moralityl" But even this hostility still betraysthe overpoweringforce of the prejudice. When the purpose of moral preachingand of improving man has been excluded from art, it still does not follow by any meansthat art is altogetherpurposeless, aimless, senseless-in short, Xarf pun fart, a vr'onn 'Rather no pu{poseat all than a chewingits own tail. rnoral puqpossl"-1hn1is the talk of mere passion.A psychologist, the otherhand, asks:rvhat doesall art on do? does it not praise?glorify? chooseP prefer? With all this it strengthensor weakenscertain valuations.Is this merely a "moreovet''Pan accident? somethingin which the artist's instinct had no share?Or is it not the very presupposition the artist'sability? Does.his of basic instinct aim at art, or rather at the senseof art, at life? at a desirability of life? Art is the great stimulus to life: how could one understand as puqposeless, it as aimless,as Tart pour fart? One guestionremains:art alsomakesapparentmuch that is ugly, hard, and questionablein life; doesit not thereby spoil life for us? And indeed there have been philosophen who attributed this senseto it: 'liberation from the wilf' was what Schopenhauer taught as the over-all end of art; and with admiration he found the great utility of tragedy in its "evoking resignation."But

NIETZSCHE THE PORTABLE 530 peris this, as I havealreadysuggested, the pessimist's spective and "evil eye." We must appeal to the artists What does the tragic artist communicate themselves. the of himself?Is it not precisely stateuithutt fear in that the faceof the fear{uland questionable he is showwhoever ing? This state itself is a great desideratum; honors.He comknows it, honorsit with the greatest it, municatesit-must communicate providedhe is an and freedom Courage of artist, a genius communication. of feeling before a powerful enemy,before a sublime calamity, before a problem that arousesdread-this what triumphantstateis what the tragic artist chooses, what is warlike in our soul Beforetragedy, he gloriffes. whoeveris used to suffering, its celebrates Saturnalia; his out whoeverseeks sufiering,the heroicman praises own being through tragedy-to him alonethe tragedian cruelty. this drink of sweetest presents 25 with one's to To put up with people, keepopenhouse heart-thai is liberal, but that is merely liberal. One those hearts which are capable of noble recognizes hospitality by the many draped windows and closed shuiters,they keep their best roomsempty. {hy? Because they exPect guests with whom one does not "put up."

z6
sufficientlywhen we We no longer esteemourselves are Our true experiences not ourselves. communicate themat all gamrlous.They could not communicate they lack the selvesdvenif they tried. That is because right wor{. is a grain of alieadF+ot-levond. In all 65-ttt"tirptl t atrguage,it seems,was invented only for

TWILIGHT OF TITE IDOLS 581 With lanwhat is average,medium, communicable. guagethe speakerimmediatelyvulgarizeshimself. Out and other philosophen. of a morality for deaf-mutes 27 -This picture is enchantinglybeautiful!" r The literary female: unsatisffed, excited,her heart and entrails yoid, ever listening, full of painful curiosity, to the imperative, which whispers from the depths of her *aut organism, liberl ut libf 2-the literary female: enoughto understand voiceof natureeven educated the when it speaks Latin, and yet vain enoughand goose enough to speak secretlywith herself in French, "1a me oerrai, ie me lirai, ie m'extasierai ie dirai: Poset sible, que faie eu tant desltritT z ,.8 Ibe'impersonaF get a word in. *Nothing is easier for us than to be wise, patient, and superior. We drip with the oil of forgivenessand sympathy,we are absurdly just, we pardoneverything. that very reason For we ought to be a little more strict rvith ourselves; for that very reason oughtto breeda Iittle afiect in ourwe selvesfrom time to time, a little vice of an affect. It may be hard on us; and amongourselves may even we laugh at the sight we thus ofter.But rvhat can be done about itP No other way of self-overcoming left to us is any more: this is our asceticism, penance." oul Developing personaltraits: the virtue of the "impersonal." Quotation t'Either chil&en or booki." t'I shall see myself, I shall read myself, I shall go into ecstasies,and I shall say: Is it possibl6 that I shoulld have had so much esrritfl" r hom The MagtcFluto,

. ) I t 6.

532

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE

29 From a doctoral examination. "What is the task of all higher education?" To turn men into machines. "What are the means?" Man must learn to be bored. "How is that accomplished?" By means of the concept of duty. "Who servesas the model?" The philologist: he teaches grinding. "Who is the perfect man?" The civil servant. 'Which philosophy ofiers the highest formula for the civil servant?" Kant's: the civil servant as a thing-initself raised up to be judge over the civil servant as phenomenon 3o The right to stupidit7. The weary laborer who breathes slowll . looks genial, and lets things go as they may-this typical ftgure, encountered today, in the age of labor (and of the "Reiclt"l), in all classesof society, claims art, no less, as his own sphere, including boo}s and, above all, magazines-and even more the beauties of nature, Italy. The man of the evening, with his -savage drives gone to sleep" (as Faust says), needs a summer resort, the seashore, glaciers, BayreutJrs. In such ages art has a right to pure foolishness-as a kind of vacation for spirit, wit, and feeling. Wagner under. stood that. Pure foolishnessrestores.l

by Anotherproblemof diet. The means which Julius and headCaesardefendedhimself againstsickliness marches,the most frugal way of aches: tremendous life, uninterruptedsojournin the open air, continuous exertion-these are, in general,the universalrules of preservationand protection againstthe extremevulnerl WagnerhirnselfcallsParsifal'the pure fool."

1l"

L*t rq@t sr

5S3 T1VILIGHT OF THE IDOLS ability of that subtle machine, working under the highest pressure, which we call genius. 32 Tlrc immoralist speaks. Nothing ofiends the philosopher's taste more than man, insofar as man desires. If he seesman in action, even if he seesthis most courageous,most cunning, most enduring animal lost in labyrinthian distress-how admirable man appears to himl He still likes him. But the philosopher despises the desiring man, also the "desirable" man-and altogether all desirabilities, all ideals of man. If a philosopher could be a nihilist, he would be one because he ffnds nothing behind all the ideals of man. Or not even nothing-but only what is abject, absurd, sick, cowardln and weaqy, all kinds of dregs out of the emptied cup of his li[e. Man being so venerable in his reality, how is it that he deserves no respect insofar as he desires? Must he atone for being so capable in reality? Must he balance his activity, the strain on head and will in all his activity, by stretching his limbs in the realm of the imaginary and the absurd? The history of his desirabilities has so far been the partie honteuse of man: one should beware of reading in it too long. What iustiffes man is his reality-it will

eternallyjustify him. , foully

much

is the worth

And it is only the ideal man who pher's taste.

n*'"#[

33 The natural wlue of egoism. Self-interestis worth as much as'the personwho has it: it can be worth a great deal, and it can be unworthy and contemptible.

534

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE

Every individual may be scrutinizedto seewhether he represents ascendingor the descending the line of life. Having made that decision,one has a canon for the worth of his self-interest. he represents ascending If the line, then his worth is indeed extraordinery-and for the'sakeof life as a whole, which taltesa itep farther through himr the care for his preservation and for the
of the best conditions for him may even be single one, the individual,' as hitherto

,pleand the philosophers alike, is is nothing by himself,no atom, no "link in the chain, nothing merely inherited from " former times; he the lzhole singleline of humanity to himself.If represents descending the T&Etq
an error after all: its causes), then he has small worth, and the minimum of deceney requires that he take away as little as possible from those wlohave turned out well. He is merd

their parasite.

El,hr^

Chfi,stianand anarchisttf"n"" the anarchist,as the mouthpiece the decliningstrataof society,demands of with a ffne indignationwhat is 'right," 'justice," and *equal rights," he is merely under the pressure his of own uncultured state, which cannot comprehend the for -real reason his suffering-wbat it is that he is poor lin: lile. A causalinstinct isserts itself in him: it must fault that he is in a bad way. [be somebody's Also, the "ffne indignation"itself soothes him; it is a pleasurefor all wretched devils to scold: it gives a slight but intoxicatingsense power. Even plaintiveof nessand complaining give life a charmfor the sake can of which one enduresit: there is a ffne doseof revenge

5S5 one'sown bad situation, onecharges in everycomplaint; even onet own badand under cirtain circumstances ness,to those who are difterent, as if that were an 'If f am canaille,you iniustice,a forbidden privilege. made. ought to be too"--on such logic are revolutions is Complaining neverany good: it stemsfmm weakness. Whether one chargesone's misfortune to others or to oneself-the socialistdoes the formeu the Christian, for example, tl're latter-really makes no difierand, let us add, the unworthn thing, ence.The common fault that one is.[ to is that it is supposed be somebody's sufiering; in short, that the sullerer prescribestlp'l for honey of revenge himselfagainsthis sulfering.The objectsof this need for revenge,as a need for pleasure, are mere occasions:everywherethe sufferer ffnds occasionsfor satisfying his little revenge. If he is a Christiar+to repeat it once more--he ffnds them in himself. The Christian and the anarchist are both decadents.When the Christian condemns,slanders,an{ besmirches'theworld," his instinct is the sameas tha{ workerto condemn, slander{ which promptsthe socialist 'last and besmirch nciety. The iudgment"is the sweet\ comfort of reveng*the revoluUon,which the socialist worker also awaits, but concrived as a litde farther off. The "beyond"-p4y, if not as
TWILIGHT OF THE IDOIS

besmirching tftrs
35 Crltique of the morality of dccadence.An 'altruistic" morality-a morality in which self-interestwilts away-remains a bad sign under all circumstances. This is true of individuals;it is particularlytrue of nations. The bestis lackingwhen self-interest beginsto be lacking. Instinctively to choosewhat is harmful fot orneself, to feel attracted by 'disinterested" motives,that is vir-

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 536 oNot to seek one's own formula of decadence. tually the advantage"-that is merely the moral ffg leaf for quite 't a different, namely, a physiological, state of affairs: no longer know how to find my own advantage." Disgregation of the instinctsl Man is ffnished when he be'7 am no comes altruistic. Instead of saying naively, longer worth anything," the moraf he in the mouth of the decadent says, "Nothing is worth anything, life is not worth anything." Such a judgment always remains very dangerous,it is contagious: throughout the morbid soil of society it soon proliferates into a tropical vegetation of concepts-now as a religion (Christianity), now as a philosophy (Schopenhauerism). Sometimes the poisonous vegetation which has grown out of such decomposition poisons life itself for millennia with its fumes.

society. In a certain state it is indecent to live longer. To go on vegetating in cowardly dependence on physicians and machinations, after the meaning of life, the right to life, has been lost, that ought to prompt a profound contempt in society. The physicians, in turn, would have to be the mediators of this contempt-not prescriptions, but every day a new dose of nauseawith their patients. To create a new responsibility, that of the physician, for all casesin which the highest interest of life, of ascending life, demands the most inconsiderate pushing down and aside of degenerating life-for example, for the right of procreation, for the right to be born, for the right to live. To die proudly when it is no longer possible to live proudly. Death freely chosen, death at the right time, brignUy and cheerfully accomplished amid chil&en and

36 of The Moralityfor phgsicians. sickmanis a parasite

5S7 TWILIGHT OF THE tDOtS as then a real farewell is still possible, the witnesses: one who is taking leave is still there; also a real estimate of what one has achieved and what one has

illlli3',f

| tianity has made of the hour of death. One should neve!'" -r forgel that Christianity has exploited the weakness o{$"* | thJaying for a rape of the conscience;and the ma_nn-er{-t'r,ttl s of death"itself, for]value iudqments about man and the-, Past' Here it is important to defy all the cowa,rdices of preiudice and to establish, above all, the real, that is, -tha physiological, appieciation of so-called rwtutal 'unnatural," a kind of death-"whicli is in the end also suicide. One never perishes through anybody but oneself. But usually it is death under the most contemptible conditions, an'unfree death, death rwt at the right time, a coward's death. From love of hfe, one should desire a difierent death: free, conscious, without acri'

,"#l

dent, without ambush. Finally, some advice for our dear pessimistsand not our hands other decadents. It is not in our hands to prevent our other decadents. lr Duurs birth; but we can .ggrect ulN mistake-for in some blrth: but we can c^Qrrect this m$raKo-lur it is a mistakd(When bne does away with one""r", one does the most estimable thing possible: one self,
almost earns the right to live. Society-what am I saying?-life itsef derives more advantage from this than 'life" from any of renunciation, anemia, and other virtues: one has liberated the others from one's sight; one has liberated life from an objection. Pessimism, put, oert, is proved only by the self-refutation of our dear pessimists: one must advance a step further in its Iogic 'will and representation"" and not only negate lite with must ffrst of all negate as Schopenhauer did<ne Schopenhauer.

B-+ X fitre ff'"tzoheppa.l,t f s.^,s,,1. .T tf tc a \"j,.ct r{*f b'' h hsrc Jvu.*is-.

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 538 Incidentally, however contagious pessimismis, it still does not inerease the sicklinessof an bge, of a generation as a whole: it is an exDressionof this sickliness. One falls vicUm to it as one f;ils victim to cholera: one has to be morbid enough in onet whole predisposition. Pessimismitself does not create a single decadent more; I recall the statistics which show that the years in which cholera rages do not difier from other y""ts io the total number of deaths.

conceptionof 'beyond good and svfl"-ss was to be misexpected-the whole ferocity of moral hebetation, taken for morality itself in Germany,as is well larown, has goneinto action: I could tell ffne storiesabout thaL 'undeniable Above all I was asked to consider the superiority" of our age in moral judgment, the real with us, a ?rcgresswe have made here: compared. CesareBorgia is by no meansto be representedafter rry manner as a "higher mar1" a kind of overman.A 'underSwiss editor of. the Bund,went so far that he stood' the meaningof my work-not without exlxessing hir respectfor my'courage and daring-to be a 'llhank demand foi the abolition of all decent feelings. youl In reply, I take the liberty of raising the question whether we'have really becomemore moral. That all the world believesthis to be the casemerely constitutes an objection. We modern men, very tender, very easily hurt, and ofiering as well as receiving considerationa hundred' fold, r-ally have the conceit that this tender humanity which we represent,this attained unanimity in sympato thetie regard"in readiness help, in mutual trust, reP positive progressand that in this respectwe are resents

37 Against my morernoral. Whaher ue haoebecome

530 TWTLIGHTOF THE IDOLS But far above the men of the Renaissance. that is how syery aqe thinks, how it must think What is oertain ir conin that'we-may not place ourselves Renaissance our nerveswould ditions, not iven bf an act of thought: of not endurethat reality, not to sPeak our muscles'But only another, doesnot prove progr-ess, such incapacity later conJtitution, one which is weaker, frailer, no're a generates morality easily hurt, and which necessarily Were we to think away our rich'in cpnsideration. then frailty and lateness,our physiologicalsenescence, 'humanizition" would immediatelylose moraliry of our its value too (in itself, no morality has any value)-it would even arousedisdain. On the other hand, let us not doubt that we modems, with our thickly paddeil humanity, which at all costswants to avoid bumping into a stbne,would have provided CesareBorgia'scor temporarieswith a comedy at which they could havo to lauihed themselves death.Indeed,we areunwitringly furiny beyond all measurewith our modem'virtuesi in The decrease instinctswhich are hostileand arouse 'progress" amountstomistrust-and that is all our the rcpresentsbut one of the consequences_attending n generaldecrease dtality: it reqlires a hundred times more trouble and caution to make so conditional antl late an existenceprevail. Hence each helps the other; henceeveryoneis to a cprtain extent sick, and everyong 'virtue.is a nurse for the sick. And that is called Among men who still knew life differently-, fuller, moro squandering,more overflowing-it would have been 'cowardice" perhaps,owrtcb' catled by anothername: edness;"'old ladies'morality." Our softening of manners-that is my proposition; of that is, if you will, my innovation-is a consequence decline; tire hardnessand terriblenessof moral$ cpnversely,can be a oo$eguenceof an exctss of life. For

THE PORTABLE NTETZSCHE 540 in that case much may also be dared, much challenged, and much squandered. V/hat was once the spice of life would be poison for us. To be indifrerent-that too is a form of strengthfor that we are likewise too old, too late. Our morality of sympathy, against w'hich I was the ffrst to issue a waming-that which one might call timpressioni,sme morale-is just another expression of that physiological overexcitability which is characteristie of everything decadenl That movement which tried to introduce itself scientifically with Schopenhauert morality of pity+ very unfortunate attempt!-is the real movement of decadencein morality; as suclr, it is profoundly related to Christian morality. Strong ages, noble cul'neighbor-love," and the lack of tures, consider plty, self and self-assurancesomething contemptible. Ages must be measured by their positive strength-and then that lavishly squandering and fatal age of the Renaissance appea$ as the last great age; and we moderns, with our anxious self-solicitude and neighbor-love, with our virtues of work, modesty, legality, and scientismas a acrumulating, economig machinelike-appear weak age. Our virtues are conditional on, are provoked bn ,our weaknesses. "Equality," as a certain factual increase in similarity, which merely ffnds expression in the theory of "equal rights," is an essential feature of decline. The cleavage between man and man, stahrs and status, the plurality of types, the will to be oneself, to stand out-what I call the pathos of distatrce, that is characteristic of every strong age. The strength to withstand tension, the width of the tensions between extremes,becomes ever smaller today; ffnally, the extremes themselves become blurred to the point of similarity. All our political theories and constitutions-and the

,4L TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS 'German Reiclf is by no means an exception-are of consequences' decline; the necessary consequences, mastery has efiect of decadence assumed uncon3cious Ir{y sciences. obiecevenover the idealsof someof the tion against the whole of sociologyin England and only the that France-remains it knowsfrom experience forms of social decay, and with perfect innocenceaccepts its own instinctsof decayas the no-rmof socioThe decline of life, the delogical value-iudgments. power to organize,that is, to separate, creasein the tear open clefis, subordinite and super-ordinate-all this his been formulatedas the ideal in contemporary but are Our socialists decadents, Mr. Herbert sociology. the too: he considers triumph of Spenceiis a decadent desirable. altnrism g8 The My conceptionof frced.om. valueof a thing sometimeJ does not lie in that which one attains by it but in what one pays for it-what it costsus. I shall give an example.Liberal institutions ceaseto be liberal as soonas they are attained:later on, there are no worse and no moie thorough injurers of freedom than liberal institutions.Their effectsare known well enough:they underminethe will to Power;they level mountainand valley, and call that morality; they make men sma[ cowardly, and hedonistic<very time it is the herd animal that triumphs with them. Liberalism: in other words, herd-animalization. producequite differenteffects institutions Thesesame while they are still being fought for; then they really promotefreedomin a powerful way. On closerinspecthe theseefrects, war for tion, it is war that produces liberal institutions, which, as a war, permits illiberal instincts to continue. And war educatesfor freedom.

THE PORTABLE 542 NIETZSCHE For what is freedom?That one has the will to assume responsibility for oneself.That one maintains the distance which separates That one becomesmore inus. different to difficulties, hardships, privation, even to life itself. That oneis preparedto sacriffce humanbeings for one'scause,not Cxcludingoneself. that the nanbp+nstincts t that the nanlFjnstincts which delil in war and victory dortrinateover other iisfhcts, for example,over ile6-sure." human being who has become The how much more the spirii who has become free-spits on the contemptible type of well-being dreamedof by shopkeepers, Christians,cows, females, Englishmen,and other democrats. The free man is a uarriar. How is freedommeasured individuals and peoples? in According to the resistance which must be overcome, according to the exertion required, to remain on top. The highest type of free men should be sought where is lhe highestresistance constantlyovercome:ftve steps from tyranny, close to the threshold of the danger of servitude. This is true psychologicallyif by 'tyrantsa are meant inexorablernd fearful instincts that provoke the maximumof authorityand disciplineagainstthemmost beautiful type: Julius Caesar. selves; This is true politically too; one need only go through history. The peopleswho had somevalue,attairwil somevalue,never attainedit underliberal institutions: wasgreatdanger it that made something of them that merits respect. Danger alone acquaintsus with our own resources, our virhres, our armor and weapons,our qpirif, and forces us to be strong. First principle: one must need to be strong--otherwiseone will never becomestrong. Thoselarge hothouses the strong-for the strongfor est kind of humanbeing that has so far beenknownthe aristocraticcommonwealths the type of Romeor of

548 TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS Venice, understood freedom exactly in the sense in which I understandit: as somethingone has or does rnt have, something one u)ants, something one con' q|rcrc. 39 Critique of moilarnity. Our institutions are no -good Howany more: on that there is universalagreement. evlr, it is not their fault but ours. Once we have lost all the instinctsout of which institutionsgrow, we lose institutions altogether becausewe are no longer good for them. Democracyhas ever been the form of decline in organizing power: in Humon, AII-Too-Human (1, -I tomodern democracy, 472) already characterized getherwith its hybrids suchas the "GermanReichi as the form of decline of the state. In order that there may be institutions, there rnust be a kind of will, instinct, or imperative, which is antiliberal to the point of malice: the will to tradition, to authority, to responsibility for centuriesto come, to the solidarity of chains of generations,fonn'ard and bachn'a:d.ad, infnitum. like the im,perium something When this will is present, Romanwnis founded; or like Russia,the only powerlt which can wait, which canlI todaywhich hasendurance, still promise something-Russia, the concept that sug-l I gests the oppositeof the wretched European nervous-lI nessand systemof small states,rvhich has entereda I t critical phasewith the founding of the GermanRebh.ll the The whole of the West no longer possesses instincts out of which institutions grow, out of which a its future grows:perhapsnothing antagonizes "modern spirit" so much. One lives for the dan one lives very fas! one lives very irresponsibly:preciselythis is called "freedom."That which makesan institution an institution is despised,hated, repudiated: one fears tlre

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 544 danger of a new slavery the rnoment the word'authority"1s even spoken out loud. That is how far decadence has advancecl in the value-instincts of our politicians, of our political partiesr instinctioely they prefer what disintegrates,what hastens the end. Witness modern marringe. All rationality has clearly vanished from modern marriage; yet that is no objec' tion to marriage, but to modernity. The rationality of marriage-tha[ lay in the husband's sole juridical responsiSility, which gave marriage a center of gravity, wtil" tod"y it limpi on both legs. The rationality -of laf in its indissolubility in principle, maniagJthat whichlent it an accent that could be heard above the accident of feeling, passion,and what is merely momentary. It also hyln the family's responsibility for-the choice of a spouse.With the growing indulgence of love matches, th6 very foundation of marriage has been eliminated, that which alone makes an institution of it. Never, absolutely never, can an institution be founded on an idiosyncrasy; one cannot' as I have said, found marriage oo'1ou";'-i1 can be founded on the sex drive, on the property drive (wife and child as property)' on the driie t^odominate, which continually organizes for itself the smallest structure of domination, the family, and which needs children and heirs to hold fastphvsioloqically too-to an attained measure of power, intiu"n"i ani wealth, in order to prePare for longrange tasks, for a solidarity of instinct between the cen' turils. Marriage as an institution involves the affir' mation of thJ hrgest and most enduring form of organization: wheri society cannot affirm itself as a wf,ole, down to the most distant generations,then marmarriage has riage has altogether no meaning. Vtr-d"-1"losf its meanin-g--*onsequently bne abolishes it'

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS

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40 The hbor question. The stupidity-at bottom, the of degeneration instinct, which is today the causeof cll stupidities-is that there is a Iabor questionat all. Certain things one doesnot question:that is the ftrst imperative of instinct. I simply cannot see what one worker now that one proposes do with the European to has madea questionof him. He is far too well off not to askfor more and more,not to askmore immodestly. on In the end,he hasnumbers his side.The hopeis gone kind of man, a foreverthat a modestand self-suficient Chinese fire, might here developas a class:and there in would have been reason that, it would almosthave Everythingto nip But beena necessity. what wasdone? in the bud even the preconditionsfor this: the instincts by virtue of which the worker becomespossibleas a class, possible in his own eyes, have been destroyed through and through with the most irreqponsible The thoughtlessness. worker was qualiffed for military service, granted the right to organize and to vote: is his it any wbnder that the worker today experiences as own existence distressing-morallyspeaking,as an I But what is uonted,? ask oncemore.If one injustice? wants an end, one must also want the means:il one wants slaves,then one is a fool if one educatesthem to be masters.
4t which I do not mean." In times like thesg abandonment to one's instincts is one calamity more. Our instincts contradict, disturb, deshoy each other; I have already defined what_lq mqd91n as phyglolo-gicql self-contradiction. Rationality in education would re'Freedom

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 546 quire that under iron pressureat least one of these instinct systems paralyzed permit anotherto gain be to in power, to becomestrong,to becomemaster.Today the individual stil! has to be made possibleby being pruned: possiblehere means whole. The reverseis what happens:the claim for independence, free for development, La.isser is pressed f.or aller most hotly by the very peoplefor whom no reinswould be too strict. This is true dnpolitins,this is true in art. But that is a symptom of decadence:our modern conceptionof "freedom" is one more proof of the degeneration the of instincts. 42 Where faith i"snpeiled.Nothing is rarer amongmoralists and saintsthan honesty. Perhaps they say the conbary, perhapsthey even belierse For when a faith is it. than , more useful, more efiective, and more persuasive ponscioushypocrisn then hypocrisy soon turns instine .rtively into inrpcerwe:ffrst principle for the understandare ing of great saints.The philosophers merely another kind of saint, and their whole craft is such that they admit only certain truths-namely those for the sakeof which their craft is accorded public sanctionin Kantianterms,truths of.procticalreason. They know what they must prove; in this they are practical.They 'the recognizeeach other by their agreementabout 'Thou shalt not lie": in other words, beware, truths." my dear philosopher,of telling the truth. 43 Whisperedto the conseroatioes. What was not known formerly,what ls known,or might be known,today: a is reversion, return in any sense degree simplynot a or know that. Yet all priests possible.We physiologists

5N TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS have believedthe opposite-they wanted and moralists to take mankind back, to screw it back, to a former of measure virtue. Morality was alwaysa bed of Pro' crustes.Even the politicianshave aped the preachers of virhe at this point: today too there are still parties whosedreamit ia that all things might walk backwards like crabs.But no one is free to be a crab. Nothing avails: o\e ,nust go forward-step by step further into (that is rny deffnitionof modern"progress"). decadence One can check this developmentand thus dam up degeneration,gather it and make it more vehementand suddan:one can do no more. 44 Greatmen,like greatages' My corceptionof geni.us. forceis storeduPi in are explosives which a tremendous historicallyand physiologiis their precondition always, cally, that for a long time much has been gathered' stored up, saved up, and corxerved for them-that for there has beenno explosion a long time. Once the too has tensionin the mass become great,then the most to accidentalstimulussuffices summoninto the world the "genius," the "deed," the great destiny. What does the environmentmatter then, or the age, or the \irit of the age,"or'public opinion"l France, Take the case of Napoleon.Revolutionary and even more, prerevolutionaryFrance, would have brought fo*h the oppositetype; in fact, it did. Because Napoleon was different, the heir of a stronger, older, more ancient civilization than the one which was then perishingin France,he becamethe masterthere, he the oc.s the only master.Great men are necessary, age in rvhich they appear is acciclental;that they almost over their age is only because alwaysbecomemasters for they are older, because a they are stronger,because

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 548 Ionger time much was gathered for them. The relationship between a genius and his age is like that between strong and weak, or between old and young: the age is relatively always much younger, thinner, more im' mature, less assured,more childish. That in France today the! think quite differently on this subject (in Germanytoo, but that doesnot matter), that the milieu theory, which is truly a neurotic's theory' has become sacrosanct and almost scientiftc and has found adherentseven among physiologists-that "smells bad" and arouses sad reflections. It is no different in England, but that will not grieve anybody. For the English there are only two ways of coming to terms 'great man": either democratiwith the genius and the -Buckle or religiously in the cally in ihe -^trnet of manner of Carlyle. The danger that Ues in great men and ages is--extraordinary; exhaustion of every kind, sterilily, fo[ow in their wake. The great human being is a finale; the great age-the Reniissance, for example-js a ffnale. the genirrs, in work and deed, is necessarilya squandereri that he squanders himself; that is his gr,eatness. -self-preservation is suspended, as it The instinct of were; the overpowering pressure of outflowing forces forbids him any such cire or caution. People call this *self-sacriffce' and praise his "heroism," his indifference to his own wel-being, his devotion to an idea, a great cause, a fatherland: without exception, misunderitandings. He fows out, he overflows, he uses himself up, he loes not spare himself-and this is a calamitous, irivoluntary fataliiy, no less than a river's flooding the land. Yet, because much is owed to such explosives, much has also been given them in retum: for example, a kind of higher moiality. After all, that is the way of human gratifude: it misinderstands its benefactors'

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649

45
The criminal and. uhat is related to him. The crim' inal type is the type of the strong human being under unfavorable circumstancesi a strong human being made sick. He lacks the wilderness, a somehow freer and more dangerous environment and form of existence, where everything that is weaPons and armor in the instinct of the stiong human being has its rightful place. His oirtues are ostracized by society; the most vivid drives with which he is endowed soon grow together with the depressing afiects-with suspicion, fea1, and dishonor. Yet this is almost the recipe for physiological degeneration. Whoever must do secretly, with long suspense,caution, and cunning, what he can do best and would like most to do, becomes anemic; and because he always harvests only danger, persecution, and calamity from his instincts, his attitude to these instincts is reversed too, and he comes to experience them fatalistically. It is society, our tame, mediocre, emasculated society, in which a natural human being, who comes frorr the mountains or from the adventures of the sea necessarily degenerates into a criminal. Or almost necessarily; for there are cases in which such a man proves stronger than society: tbe Corsican, Napoleon, is the rnost famous case. The testimony of Dostoevski is relevant to this probIem-Dostoevski, the only psychologis! incidentally, from whom I had something to leam; he ranks among the most beautiful strokes of fortune in my life, even more than my discovery of Stendhal. This profourd human being, who was ten times right in his low estimate of the superficial Germans, hved for a long time among the convicts in Siberia-hardened criminals for whom there was no way back to society-and

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 550 found them very different from what he himself hail expected:they were carvedout of iust about the bes! hardest,and most valuable wood that grows anywhere on Russian soil. Let us generaUze case of the criminal: Iet us the think of men so constituted that, for one reason anor other, they lack public approval and know that they are not felt to be beneffcentor useful-that Chandala feeling that one is not consideredequal, but an outcast, unworthy, contaminating. men so constituted All have a subterranean to their thoughtsand actions; hue everything about them becomespaler than in those whoseexistence touchedby daylight. Yet almostall is forms of existencewhich we consider distinguished today oncelived in this half tomblikeatmosphere: the scientific character, artist,the genius, free spiri! the the the actor, the merchant, the great discoverer.As long as the priest was consideredthe supreme We, eoery valuable kind of human being was devaluated. The time will come,I promise,when the priest will be consideredthe lowest type, our Chandala, most menthe dacious,the most indecentkind of human being. I call attentionto the fact that evennow-under the mildest regimen of morals which has ever ruled on earth, or at least in Europe-every deviation, every long, all-too-long sojourn below, every unusual or opaqueform of existence, brings one closerto that type which is perfectedin the criminal. All innovatorsof the spirit must for a time bear the pallid and fatal mark of the Chandalaon their forehead*not because they that way by others,but because are considered they themselvesfeel the terrible cleavagewhich separates them from everything that is customaryor reputable. Almosteverygenius knows,asonestageof his develop'Catilinarian rnen! the slisfsnssD-tr feeling of hatred,

TWILIGHT OT THE IDOLS

revenge,and rebellion againste rs. which no lonqer becomes, .',,.-._].a=_-g---r of lre-existence eie\1 Caesdr.

46
Herc the oieu i,sfueo.lt may be nobility of the soul is when a philosopher silent; it may be love when he contradicts himself; and he who has knowledge may be polite enoughto lie. It has been said, not without delicacy:ll est indigne des grand coeurcd.e$pand.re lc troubb qiils ressefient.l But one must add that not to be afraid of the mostunwodhy may alsobe greatness of soul. A woman who loves, sacriffcesher honor; a knower who "loves" may perhapssacriffcehis humana ity; a God who loved became Jew. 47 Beautg no arcident. The beauty of a race or familn in is their grace and graciousness all gestures, won by it work: Iike genius, is the end resultof the accumulated One must have made great sacriwork of generations. ffces to good taste, one must have done much and omitted much for its sake-seventeenth-century France is admirable in both respects-and good taste must have furnished a principle for selectingcompann placg dress, sexual satisfaction; one must have preferred beauty to advantage, habit, opinion, and inertia. Supreme nrle of conduct: before oneselftoo, one must not "let oneselfgo." The goodthings are immeasurably costly; and the law always holds that those who hcoa them are di-fferentfrom those who acquire them. All that is good is inherited: whatever is not inberited is imperfect, is a mere beginning. 1:I! is unworthyof greathearts pour out the confusion to _ they feel."

NIETZSCHE THE PORTABLE 552 his of Cicero,who expresses In Athens,in the time were far suthis, the men and youthssurpriseabout women. But what work and in 'exertion beauty to the ""tiot in the service beautyhad the malesexthere of one imnoredon itself for centuries!-For shouldmakeno tniiot about the methodin this case: a breedingof " feelinss and thoughtsalone is almostnothing (this is educaunderlyingGe,rman gr"eat misunde"rstanding the tion,"whichis wholly illusJry); one must ffrst Persuade in the'boda.Strict peiseverance significantand exquithe tii" noitt"t tosither with'let obligation to live only themielves go"-that is *iih"o"orrl" wh'o do not for one to becomesignificantand exquiouite'enough all site, and itt't*o or three generations this becomes -the lot of a people and of inward. It is decisivefor humanity that culture shouldbegin in the right place ot -not in the "soul" (as was the fateful superstition the pii"ttt and half-priests):the right place-is b-odn ttr" ihe th" i"r*t", the diei, physiology; iest follows from tfr"tl ift"t.if"re the Gteekt rlmain the first cultural i" fti""ry: they knew,they did, whatwas needed; ""ri the *hich deqpised body,hasbeenthe "na-6ft.ittiunily, of humanity so iar' misfortune greatest 48 'return to I in Progress mg sense. too speak of a an n"lui"]- althougti it is really nota going back but inti the high,-free,-even terrible nature iti"i-"p outut"lftesswhere lreat tasks are something.one "ni with, onema7play with' To put it metaphorrcarty: plays ^Nairoleon was a pieceof "return to nature''-as I under' even in staid, the phrasj (for example, rebus tacticis; tiiUt"ry men knoi' in mattersof strategy)' rnor", Rousseau-to what did he really want to retrrm? But "t n*ttt"u, this ffrst modernman, idealistand rabble in

558 TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS one frerson-one who needed moral "dignity" to be able io ttlnnd his own sight, sick with unbridled vanity -and unbridled self-contJmpt. This miscarriage, couched on 'of modirn times, also wanted a "return the threshold nature"; to ask this once more' to what did Rousseau to want to retum? I still hate Rousseau in the French Revolution: it is the world-historical expressionof this duality of idealist and rabble. The bloody farce which became an aspect of the Revolution, its "immorality," are of little concern to me: what I hate is its Rousseauan 'truths' of the Revolution so-called morality-the througli which it still works and attracts everything shallo-wand mediocre. The doctrine of equalityl There is no more poisonous poison an)rvvhere:for it seems to be preached by justice itself, whereas it really is the terriination of justice. "Equal to the equal, un-equalto

n of iustice; the unequal"-that would be the true what is unmake and also its corollary: $wer was suiiounded d;ctrhffe$a:Iry gqual.' That this and bloody events,that-has given S:izuch gruesome a this'rnodim idea" par excellence kind of glory and has fiery aura so that the Revolution as a sp-ectocle seducedeven the noblest spirits. In the end, that is no it reasonfor respecting any more. I seeonly one man with it who experienced as it must be experienced, nousea--Goethe.

49 Goethe-not a Germanevent,but a Europeanone: centhe attemptto overcome eighteenth a magniffcent tury [y a return to nature, by an ascentto the naturalon kind of self-overcoming nessof the Renaissance-a instincts century.He bore its strongest the part of that within himself: the sensibility,the idolatry of nature, the anti-historic, the idealistic, the unreal and revolu-

s4

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE

tionary (the latter being merelya form of the unreal). He soughthelp from history, natural science,antiquit/' but, aboveall, from practicalactivity; and alsoSpinoza, he himselfwith limited horizons; did not he surroun-ded himselfinto the midst of it; he retire from life but put upon but was not fainthearted took asmuch aspossible himself,overhimself,into himself,What he wantedwas of totality; he fought the mutual extraneousnessreason, s"nt"tl feeling,*andwill (preachedwith- the-most abby horrentschola'sticism Kant,the antipodeof Goethe); he he diseiplinedhimself to wholeness, ueated himself. In the middle of an age with an unreal outlooh Goethewas a convincedrealist: he said Yes to every' thing that was relatedto him in this respect-and he had-no greater experiencethan $at ens tealissirntml a calledNipoleon.ioethe conceived humanbgtlg Ylo bodity g, skillful in all bodily would be^sttot hiehlv educated, be strong,highly and reverent rvvvsrg himself, e"self-coit.oll-ed, rvYerertL toward rr'r"svst matters, Dcll-culruuucur maftgrsr the whole range and wealth who might dare to afiord fo-r being strong-enough such.freedom; of being"natural, the malo of toleranci, not from weaknessbut from he because knowshow to useto his advantage, strength, naturewould perish; even"thatfrom which the average the man for whom there is no longer anythingthat is whether called vice {orbiddeeunless it be ueokness, or virtue. Such a spirit who has becomefrce standsamid the *itf, joyousand trustingfatalism,-inthe faith cosmos " that onlv the pa*icular is loathsome,and that all is redeemed and^affirmed in the whole-he does wt *,no,t, otw rnorc.Sucha faith, however,is the highest "all pos"iblefaiths: I have baptizedit with the name of of Diongarc, yMost real beingl

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555

5o One might say that in a certain sensethe nineteenth crcnturyclio stivb for all that which Goetheas a Perand son had striven for: universalityin understanding letting everythingcomecloseto oneself' in rvelcoming, factual for a an audaciouJrealism,reverence everything IIow is it that the over-all result is no Goethe,but an chaos,a nihilistic sigh, an utter bewilderment, inwhich in practice continually drives stinct of weariness toward a recourseto the eighteenthcentury? (For example, as a romanticism of feeling, as altruism and hlpersentimentality, as feminism in taste, as socialism in politics.) Is not the nineteenthcentury, especially brutaliaedeighteenth at its close,merelyan intensiffed, So century,that is, a century of dpcadence? that Goethe but been-not merelyfor Germany, for all would-have of Europe-a mere interlude, a beautiful "in vain"? But one misunderstandsgreat human beings if one views them from the miserable penpective of some public use. That one cannot put them to any use, that in itself may belong to greatness. Goetheis the last C"r*"Silo, whom I feel any reverence: he would have felt three things which I feel'bross." and we also understandeach other about the I am often askedwhn after all, I write in German: norvheream I read worse than in the fa'.herland.But who knows in the end whether I even wish to be read today? To create things on which time tests its teeth to in vain; in form, in substance, strive for a little immortality-I have never yet been modest enough to demandlessof myself. The aphorism,the apothegm,in which I am the ffrst amongthe Gerrans to be a master,

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 550 are the forms of "eternity"; it is my ambition to say in what everyone ten sentences elsesaysin a book-what everyoneelse doesnot sayin a book. I Lavegivenmankindttre mostprofoundbookit possesses, Zarathustra; my shortly I sh6ll give it the most independent.
WIIAT I OrilE TO 1 THE ANCIENTS

fn conclusion, a word about tl'rat world to which I sought approaches, to which I have perhaps found a new approach-the ancient world. My taste, which may be the opposite of a tolerant taste, is in this case too far from saying Yes indiscriminately: it does not Iike to say Yes; rather even No; but best of all, nothing. That applies to whole cultures, it applies to books-also to places and landscapes.At bottom it is a very small number of ancient books that counts in my life; the most famous are not among them. My sense of style, for the epigram as a style, was awakened almost instantly when I came into contact with Sallust. I have not forgotten the surprise of my honored teacher, Corssen, when he had to give his worst Latin pupil the best grade: I had finished with one stroke. Compact, severe, with as much substance as possible, a cold sarcasm against "beautiful words" and "beautiful ssntirnsnfs"here I found myself. And even in my Zarathustra one will recognize a very serious ambition for a Roman style, for the aere perenniusL in style. Nor was my experience any difierent in my ffrst contact with Horace. Te this day, no other poet has given me the same artistic delight that a Horatian ode gave me from the ftrst. In certain languages that which has l "More enduring than bronze."

wl oF THE IDoLs livrucHr been achievedhere could not even be attempted.This mosaic of words, in rvhich every word-as sound, as right and left place,as concept-pours out its strengthwhole, this minimum in the extent and ind over the numberof the signs,and the maximumtherebyattained in the energyof the signs-all that is Romanand, if All one will believe me, noblc par excellence. the rest too in of poetry becomes, contrist, something popular -a meregarrulity of feelings.
,T

, To the GreeksI do not by any meansowe similarly strong impressions;and-to come right out with itOne t)tey cannotmean as much to us as the Romans. does not leorn ftom the Greeks-their manner is too foreign, and too fluid, to have an imperativg a "classical" efiect. Who could ever have learnedto write from a Greek?Who could ever have learned it withnt the Romans? For heaven'ssake, do not throw Plato at me. I am a completeskeptic about Plato, and I have never been able to join in the admiration for the aftM Plato which is customaryamong scholars.In the en4 the subtlest are judgesof taste amongthe ancientsthemselves here to on my side. Plato, it seems me, throws all stylistic in formstogetherand is thus a ffrst-ratedecadent style: his responsibility is thus comparable to that of the Cynics, who invented the satura Menippea,r To be attracted by the Platonic dialogue, this horribly selfand childishkind of dialectic,one must never satisfted have read good French writers-Fontenelle, for example. Plato is boring. In the end, my mistrust of from suchan aberration Plato goesdeepr he represents so all the basicinstinctsof the Hellene,is so moralistic, t Varro'ssatireon the modelof Menippus Cynic. the

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 558 prexistently Christian-he already taka th9 congept ugood for the highest cnncept-that for the whole phenomenon Plato I would sooneruse the harshp-hrase oidealism," 'higher snindle," or, if it sounds better, thai any other. We have paid dearly for the fact that this Athenian got his schoolingfrom the Egyptians (or from the Jews in Egryt?). In tha! great calamlty' that Ch'ristianiEi,Plato repres-ents ambiguity and fascioideal,' which made it possible for nation, cailed an themthe nobler spirits of antiquity to misunderstand selvesand to set foot on the bridge leading to the cross. And how rnuch Plato there still is in the concept 'church,o in the construction,system' and practice of the churchl My recreation, D/ preference, my cwe from all platonismhasalways'bein Thucydides. Thucydidesand' MachiavellikPrirc'tpeire- most closelyrelated perhaps, io myieU by the unconclitionalwill not to gull oneself and lo seeieason in reality-not in "reason,"still less embellishmentof the in "morality.' For the wretched 'classically educated" the Greels int6 an ideal, which drilli carriesinto life as a prize for his classroom youth -cure than Thucydides.One ihere is no more complete must follow hirr tine by line and read no less clearly between the lines: tlere are few thinkers who say so much between ttre lines. With him the culture of the Sophists,by which I mean the culture of the realists' reiches its perfect orpressiorr-this inestimablernovment amid tire moralisiic and idealistic swindleset loose on all sidesby the Socraticsehools.Greek phllosoph-y: of tbe decadence the Greek instinct. Thucydides: the great sum,the last revelationof that strcng,swere, haril iactualiw which was instinctive with the older Hellenes.In the end, itis couragein the face of reality that distinguishesa man like Thucydidesfrom Plato: Plato

TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS 559 he fees into is a coward before reality, consequently the ideal; Thucydides has control of. hinself, conse. quently he also maintainscontrol of things. 3 *golden means,' and To smell out teautiful souls,' or in other perfections the Greeks, to admiretheir calm in greatnes*their ideal cast of rnind, their noble simin plicity-the psychologist me protectedme against -such "noble iimplicity,' e niaiserieallernandeanyway. I saw their strongestinstinct, the will to power; I saw them tremble Gfore the indomitable force of this drive-I saw how all their institutions gew out of taken to protect eachother against preventivemeasures This tremendousinward tension iheir inner explosives. itself in terrible and ruthless hostility then discharged to the outside world: the city-statestore each other to pieces so that the citizens of each might find peace One neededto be strong: dangerwas from themselves. The magniftcent physical near, it lurked everynvhere. realismand immoralismwhich the suppleness, audacious diitinguished the Hellene constituted s neeil, not 'natuie.' It only resulted, it was not there from the start. And with festivals and the arts they also aimed at nothing other than to feel on top, to shoo themselves on top. These are meansof gloritlng oneself, and in certain cases,of inspiring fear of oneself. How could one possiblyjudge the Greels by their philosopherqas the Germans have done, and use the Ftritistiie moralismof the Socraticschoolsas a clue to what was basicallyHelleniclAfter all, the philosophers are the decadentsof Greek culture, the counter-movement to the ancien! noble taste (to the agonistic instinct, to tl'rcpolk, to the value of race, to the authority because The Socratic virtueswerepreached of descent).

NIETZSCHE THE PORTABLE 560 the Greeks had lost them: excitable' timid, ffckle every one of them, they had a few reasons comedians, too many for having moralspreachedto-them. Not that it did iny good-but big words and attitudes suit decadentsso well. 4 I was the ffrst to take seriousln for the understanding of the older, the still rich and even overflowingHellenic instinct, that wonderful phenomenonwhich bears the name of Dionyzus: it is 6xplicable only in terrrs of an of excess force. Whoever followed the Greeks,like that most profound student of their culture in our time' Iacob^Burcl*rardt in Basel, knew imme&ately that thereby; and Burckiomething had been accomplished added a special section on this phenomenonto hardt To his Croilizdion of tlw Greeles. seethe opposite,one should look at the almost amusing poverty of instinct among the German philologists when they--apPtoTl tbe D-ionysian. -worldThe famousLobeck, above all, crawled of mysteriousstates with all the veninto this of erablesureness a worm dried up betweenbooks,and persuaded himself that it was scientiffcof him to be eliU and childish to the point of nausea-and with the itmost erudition, Lobeck gave us to understand that all &ese curiositiesreally did not amount to anything. fn fact, the priests could have told the participantsin such orgies iome not altogether worthless things; for u*"*ple that wine excites lust, that man can under live on fruit, that plants bloom certain circumstances and wilt in the fall. As regardsthe astonin the spring and myths of an orgiastic ishine dealth of rites, symbols, origii, with which the ancient world is Iiterally overrun-, this gave Lobeck an opportunity to becomestill moreingefuous.'TheGreels,"he saicl(Ag;l.aophamusl,

561 TWILICHT OF THE IDOLS 672), "when they had nothing else to do, laughed, feels iumped,and ran iround; or, sinceman sometimes ih"t t tge too, they sat down, cried, and lamented. Others6amelater iln and soughtsomereasonfor this behavior;and thus there originated,as exspectacular planationsfor thesecustoms, traditionsconcountless Lncerning feastsand myths. On the other hand, it was believed that this d'roll do, which took place on the part feast days after all, must also form a necessary of the fbstival and therefore it was maintained as an indispensablefeature of the religious seryice." This is conternptibleprattle; a Lobeck simply cannot be taken seriouslyfor a moment. We have quite a difrerent feeling when we examine the concepttreek" which was developedby Winckelmann and Goethe,and ffnd it incompatiblewith that elementout of which Dionysianart grows-the orgiastic. Indeed I do not doubt that as a matter of principle Goethe excluded anything of the sort from Coethe of the possibilities the Greeksoul.Consequentlg For it is only in the tlze d,id-rct und,erstand' Greeles. in Dionysianmysteries, the psychologyof the Dionysian state, that the basic tacl of.the Hellenic instinct 6nds expression-its "will to life." What was it that the Hellene guaranteedhimself by means of these mysteries?Etenwl life, the eternal return of life; the future promisedand hallowed in the past; the triumphant Yes io life beyond all death and change;true life as the through of over-allcontinuation life throughprocreation, the mysteriesof sexuality. For the Greeks the serual symbol was therefore the venerable symbol par e:(cellence,the real profundity in the whole of ancient piety. Every single elementin the act of procreation, of pregnancy, and of birth aroused the highest and most solemnfeelings. In the doctrine of the mysteries,

THE PORTABLE NIETZSCHE 562 pain is pronounced holy: the pangs of the woman giving birth hallow all pain; all becomingand growing -all that guaranteesa future-involves pain. That there may be the eternal joy of creating,that the will to life may eternally afirm itself, the agony of the woman $ving birth rnusf also be there eternally. All this is meant by the word Dionysus:I know no higher symbolism than this Greek symbolismof the Here the most profoundinstinct of Dionysianfestivals. life, thdt directed toward the future of life, the eternity religiously-anil the way to life, of life, is experienced procreation,as the holy way. It was Christianity, with againstlife at the bottom of its hearg its ressentimenf which first made something unclean of sexuality: it of threw filth on the otio, on the presupposition otu life. 5 The psychology of the orgiastic as an overflow_ing -of feeling Ufe and strength,where even pain still has

charge-Aristotle

ffi"y-but

it

-otd"t

( 6r]h6t,r, r

to be

TWILIGHT OT THE IDOLS the eternal ioy of

568

bevond all
even joy in
#

destroying. And herewith I again touch that point from which I onc went fortht The Birth of Traged'gwas my ffrst of HerewithI againstandon the revaluation all values. which my intention, my ability grows-I, soil out of the last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus-I, the teacherof tbe eternalrecurrence.
THE IIAMMER SPEATS

"\ll/hy so hard?" the kitchen coal once said to the 'After all, are we not closekin?" diamond. Why so soft? O my brothers, thus I ask you: are you not after all my brothers? Why so soft, so pliant and yielding? Why is there so much denial" seU-denial" your hearu? So little desin tiny in your eyes? And if you do not want to be destiniesand inexorable oneq how can you one day triumph with me? And if your hardnessdoesnot wish to flash and cut and cut through,how can you one day createwith me? For all creatorsare hard. And it must seemblessedness to you to imFressyour hand on millennia as on wa& Blessedness write on the will of millennia as on to bronze-harder than bronze, nobler than bronze. Only the noblestis altogetherhard. This new tablet, O my brothers, f place over yous becomehardl Tnrathustra,III, p. 3zO