Chapter IX: Part IV: , the narrative section, answers the query often raised: For (3)

So great was the misunderstanding which attached to his phrase, "beyond good and evil," and so persistently was this phrase interpreted in its narrow sense of "beyond good and bad," that he felt the necessity of drawing the line of distinction between these two diametrically opposed conceptions and of explaining the origin of each. His first essay in "The Genealogy of Morals" is devoted to this task. At the outset he devotes considerable space criticising the methods and conclusions of former genealogists of morals, especially of the English psychologists who attribute an _intrinsic_ merit to altruism because at one time altruism possessed a utilitarian value. Herbert Spencer's theory that "good" is the same as "purposive" brings from Nietzsche a protest founded on the contention that because a thing was at one time useful, and therefore "good," it does not follow that the thing is good _in itself._ By the etymology of the descriptive words of morality, Nietzsche traces the history of modern moral attributes through class distinctions to their origin in the instincts of the "nobles" and the "vulgarians." He shows the relationship between the Latin _bonus_ and the "warrior," by deriving _bonus_ from _duonus. Bellum,_ he shows, equals _duellum_ which equals _duen-lum,_ in which word _duonus_ is contained. Likewise, he points out the aristocratic origin of "happiness"--a quality arising from an abundance of energy and the consciousness of power.

"Good and evil," according to Nietzsche, is a sign of slave-morality; while "good and bad" represents the qualities in the master-morality. The one stands for the adopted qualities of the subservient races; the other embodies the natural functioning of dominating races. The origin of the "good" in these two instances is by no means the same. In the strong man "good" represented an entirely different condition than the "good" in the resentful and weak man; and these two "goods" arose out of different causes. The one was spontaneous and natural--inherent in the individual of strength: the other was a manufactured condition, an optional selection of qualities to soften and ameliorate the conditions of existence. "Evil" and "bad," by the same token, became attributes originating in widely separated sources. The "evil" of the weak man was any condition which worked against the manufactured ideals of goodness, which brought about unhappiness--it was the beginning of the conception of a slave-morality, a term applied to all enemies. The "bad" of the strong man was the concept which grew directly out of his feeling for "good," and which had no application to another individual. Thus the ideas of "good" and "bad" are directly inherited from the nobles of the race, and these ideas included within themselves the tendency toward establishing social distinctions.

The second section of "The Genealogy of Morals," called "'Guilt,' 'Bad Conscience,' and the Like," is another important document, the reading of which is almost imperative for the student who would understand the processes of thought which led to Nietzsche's philosophic conclusions. In this essay Nietzsche traces the origin of sin to debt, thereby disagreeing with all the genealogists of morals who preceded him. He starts with the birth of memory in man and with the corresponding will to forgetfulness, showing that out of these two mental qualities was born responsibility. Out of responsibility in turn grew the function of promising and the accepting of promises, which at once made possible between individuals the relationship of "debtor" and "creditor." As soon as this relationship was established, one man had rights over another. The creditor could exact payment from the debtor, either in the form of material equivalent or by inflicting an injury in which was contained the sensation of satisfaction. Thus the creditor had the right to punish in cases where actual repayment was impossible. And in this idea of punishment began not only class distinction but primitive law. Later, when the power to punish was transferred into the hands of the community, the law of contract came into existence. Here, says Nietzsche, we find the cradle of the whole moral world of the ideas of "guilt," "conscience," and "duty"; and adds, "Their commencement, like the commencement of all great things in the world, is thoroughly and continuously saturated in blood."

Carrying out the principle underlying the relationship of debtor and creditor we arrive at the formation of the community. In return for protection and for communal advantages the individual pledged his good behaviour. When he violated this contract with the community, the community, in the guise of the defrauded creditor, took its revenge, or exacted its payment, from the debtor, the criminal. And, as was the case in early history, the community deprived the violator of future advantages and protection. The debtor was divested of all rights, even of mercy, for then there were no degrees in law-breaking. Primitive law was martial law. Says Nietzsche, "This shows why war itself (counting the sacrificial cult of war) has produced all the forms under which punishment has manifested itself in history." Later, as the community gathered strength, the offences of the individual debtors were looked upon as less serious. Out of its security grew leniency toward the offender: the penal code became mitigated, and, as in all powerful nations to-day, the criminal was protected. Only when there was a consciousness of weakness in a community did the acts of individual offenders take on an exaggerated seriousness, and under such conditions the law was consequently harshest. Thus, justice and the infliction of legal penalties are direct outgrowths of the primitive relation of debt between individuals. Herein we have the origin of guilt.

Nietzsche attempts an elaborate analysis of the history of punishment, in an effort to ascertain its true meaning, its relation to guilt and to the community, and its final effects on both the individual and society. It has been impossible to present the sequence of this analysis by direct excerpts from his own words, due to the close, synthetic manner in which he has made his research. Therefore I offer the following brief exposition of pages 88 to 99 inclusive, in which he examines the causes and effects of punishment. To begin with, Nietzsche disassociates the "origin" and the "end" of punishment, and regards them as two separate and distinct problems. He argues that the final utility of a thing, in the sense that revenge and deterrence are the final utilities of punishment, is in all cases opposed to the origin of that thing; that every force or principle is constantly being put to new purposes by forces greater than itself, thus making it impossible to determine its inception by the end for which it is used. Therefore the "function" of punishing was not conceived with a view to punishing, but may have been employed for any number of ends, according as a will to power has overcome that function and made use of it for its own purpose: in short; punishment, like any organ or custom or "thing," has passed through a series of new interpretations and adjustments and meanings--and is _not_ a direct and logical _progress as_ to an end.

Having established this point, Nietzsche endeavours to determine the utilisation to which the custom of punishment has been put--to ascertain the meaning which has been interpreted into it. He finds that even in modern times not one but many uses have been made of punishment, and that in ancient times so diverse have been the utilisations of punishment that it is impossible to define them all. In fact, one cannot determine the _precise reason_ for punishment. To emphasise this point, Nietzsche gives a long list of possible meanings. Taking up the more popular _supposed_ utilities of punishment at the present time--such as creating in the wrong-doer the consciousness of guilt, which is supposed to evolve into conscience and remorse--he shows wherein punishment fails in its object. Against this theory of the creation of remorse, he advances psychology and shows that, to the contrary, punishment numbs and hardens. He argues also that punishment for the purpose of making the wrong-doer conscious of the intrinsic reprehensibility of his crime, fails because the very act for which he is chastened is practised in the service of justice and is called "good." Eliminating thus the _supposed_ effects of punishment, Nietzsche arrives at the conclusion (included in the excerpts at the end of this chapter) that punishment makes only for caution and secrecy, and is therefore detrimental.

In his analysis of the origin of the "bad conscience," Nietzsche lends himself to quotation. Therefore I have been able to present in his own words a fair _resume_ of the course pursued by him in his examination of the history of conscience. This particular branch of his research is carried into the formation of the "State" which, according to him, grew out of "a herd of blonde beasts." The older theory of the state, namely: that it originated in the adoption of a contract, is set aside as untenable when dealing with a peoples who possessed conquerors or masters. These masters, argues Nietzsche, had no need of contracts. By using the "bad conscience" as a ground for inquiry, the causes for the existence of altruism are shown to be included in the self-cruelty which followed in the wake of the instinct for freedom. (This last point is developed fully in the discussion of ascetic ideals which is found at the end of the book now under consideration.) Nietzsche traces the birth of deities back along the lines of credit and debt. First came the fear of ancestors. Then followed the obligation to ancestors. At length the sacrifice to ancestors marked the beginning of a conception of duty (debt) to the supernatural. The ancestors of powerful nations in time became heroes, and finally evolved into gods. Later monotheism came as a natural consequence, and God became the creditor. In the expiation of sin, as symbolised in the crucifixion of Christianity, we have this same relationship of debtor and creditor carried out into a more complex form through the avenues of self-torture.

The most important essay in "The Genealogy of Morals" is the last, called "What is the Meaning of Ascetic Ideals?" Nietzsche examines this question in relation to the artist, to the philosopher, to the priest, and to the race generally. In his examination of the problem in regard to artists he uses Wagner as a basis of inquiry, comparing the two phases of Wagner's art--the Parsifalian and the ante-Parsifalian. Artists, asserts Nietzsche, need a support of constituted authority; they are unable to stand alone--"standing alone is opposed to their deepest instincts"--and so they make use of asceticism as a rampart, as building material, to give their work authority. In his application of the ascetic ideal to philosophers, Nietzsche presents the cases of Schopenhauer and Kant, and concludes that asceticism in such instances is used as an escape from torture--a means to recreation and happiness. With the philosopher the ideal of asceticism is not a denial of existence. Rather is it an affirmation of existence. It permits him freedom of the intellect. It relieves him of the numerous obligations of life. Furthermore, the philosophic spirit, in order to establish itself, found it necessary to disguise itself as "one of the _previously fixed_ types of the contemplative man," as a priest or soothsayer. Only in such a religious masquerade was philosophy taken with any seriousness or reverence.

The history of asceticism in the priest I have been able to set forth with a certain degree of completeness in Nietzsche's own words. The priest was the sick physician who administered to the needs of a sick populace. His was the mission of mitigating suffering and of performing every kind of consolation. Wherein he failed, says Nietzsche, was in not going to the source, the cause, of suffering, but in dealing merely with its manifestations. These manifestations were the result of physiological depressions which prevailed at intervals among portions of the population. These depressions were the outgrowth of diverse causes, such as long wars, emigration to unsuitable climates, wrong diet, miscegenation on a large scale, disease, etc. According to Nietzsche the cure for such physiological phenomena can be found only in the realm of moral psychology, for here the origin is considered and administered to by disciplinary systems grounded in true knowledge. But the method employed by the priest was far from scientific. He combated these depressions by reducing the consciousness of life itself to the lowest possible degree--that is, by a doctrine of asceticism, of self-abnegation, equanimity, self-hypnotism. By thus minimising the consciousness of life, these depressions took on more and more the aspect of normality. The effects of this treatment, however, were transient, for the starving of the physical desires and the abstinence from exercising the physical impulses paved the way for all manner of mental disorders, excesses and insanity. Herein lies Nietzsche's explanation for religious ecstasies, hallucinations, and sensual outbursts.

Another form of treatment devised by the ascetic priests for a depressed people gave birth to the "blessedness" which, under the Christian code, attaches to work. These priests attempted to turn the attention of the people from their suffering by the establishment of mechanical activity, namely: work, routine and obedience. The sick man forgot himself in the labour which had received sanctification. The priests also combated depression by permitting pleasure through the creation and production of joy. That is, they set men to helping and comforting each other, by instilling in them the notion of brotherly love. Thereby the community mutually strengthened itself, and at the same time it reaped the joy of service which had been sanctioned by the priests. Out of this last method sprang many of the Christian virtues, especially those which benefit others rather than oneself.

Such methods as these--devitalisation, labour, brotherly love--are called by Nietzsche the "innocent" prescriptions in the fight against depression. The "guilty" ones are far different, and are embodied in the one method: the production of emotional excess. This, the priests understood, was the most efficacious manner in overcoming protracted depression and pain. Confronted by the query: By what means can this emotional excess be produced? they made use of "the whole pack of hounds that rage in the human kennel"--rage, fear, lust, revenge, hope, despair, cruelty and the like. And once these emotional excesses became established, the priests, when asked by the "patients" for a "cause" of their suffering, declared it to be within the man himself, in his own guiltiness. Thus was the sick man turned into a sinner. Here originated also the conception of suffering as a _state of punishment,_ the fear of retribution, the iniquitous conscience, and the hope of redemption. Nietzsche goes further, and shows the racial and individual decadence which has followed in the train of this system of treatment. Dr. Oscar Levy says with justice that this last essay, considered in the light which it throws upon the attitude of the ecclesiast to the man of resentment and misfortune, "is one of the most valuable contributions to sacerdotal psychology."

EXCERPTS FROM "THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS"

The pathos of nobility and distance,... the chronic and despotic _esprit de corps_ and fundamental instinct of a higher dominant race coming into association with a meaner race, an "under race," this is the origin of the antitheses of good and bad. 20

The knightly-aristocratic "values" are based on a careful cult of the physical, on a flowering, rich, and even effervescing healthiness, that goes considerably beyond what is necessary for maintaining life, on war, adventure, the chase, the dance, the tourney--on everything, in fact, which is contained in strong, free, and joyous action. The priestly aristocratic mode of valuation is--we have seen--based on other hypotheses: it is bad enough for this class when it is a question of war! Yet the priests are, as is notorious, _the worst enemies_--why? Because they are the weakest. 29

The slave-morality requires as the condition of its existence an external and objective world, to employ physiological terminology, it requires objective stimuli to be of action at all--its action is fundamentally a reaction. The contrary is the case when we come to the aristocrat's system of values: it acts and grows spontaneously, it merely seeks its antithesis in order to pronounce a more grateful and exultant "yes" to its own self.... 35

The aristocratic man conceives the root idea "good" spontaneously and straight away, that is to say, out of himself, and from that material then creates for himself a concept of "bad"! This "bad" of aristocratic origin and that "evil" out of the cauldron of unsatisfied hatred--the former an imitation, an "extra," an additional nuance; the latter, on the other hand, the original, the beginning, the essential act in the conception of a slave-morality--these two words "bad" and "evil," how great a difference do they mark in spite of the fact that they have an identical contrary in the idea "good." 39

It is impossible not to recognise at the core of all these aristocratic races the beast of prey; the magnificent _blonde brute,_ avidly rampant for spoil and victory; this hidden core needed an outlet from time to time, the beast must get loose again, must return into the wilderness--the Roman, Arabic, German, and Japanese nobility, the Homeric heroes, the Scandinavian Vikings, are all alike in this need. It is the aristocratic races who have left the idea "Barbarian" on all the tracks in which they have marched; nay, a consciousness of this very barbarianism, and even a pride in it, manifests itself even in their highest civilisation. 40

What produces to-day our repulsion towards "man"?--for we _suffer_ from "man," there is no doubt about it. It is not fear; it is rather that we have nothing more to fear from men; it is that the worm "man" is in the foreground and pullulates; it is that the "tame man," the wretched mediocre and unedifying creature, has learnt to consider himself a goal and a pinnacle, an inner meaning, an historic principle, a "higher man." ... 42-43

In the dwarfing and levelling of the European man lurks _our_ greatest peril, for it is this outlook which fatigues--we see to-day nothing which wishes to be greater, we surmise that the process is always still backwards, still backwards towards something more attenuated, more inoffensive, more cunning, more comfortable, more mediocre, more indifferent, more Chinese, more Christian. 44

To require of strength that it should _not_ express itself as strength, that it should not be a wish to overpower, a wish to overthrow, a wish to become master, a thirst for enemies and antagonisms and triumphs, is just as absurd as to require of weakness that it should express itself as strength. A quantum of force is just such a quantum of movement, will, action. 45

The impotence which requites not, is turned to "goodness," craven baseness to meekness, submission to those whom one hates, to obedience (namely, obedience to one of whom they say that he ordered this submission--they call him God). The inoffensive character of the weak, the very cowardice in which he is rich, his standing at the door, his forced necessity of waiting, gain here fine names, such as "patience," which is also called "virtue"; not being able to avenge one's self, is called not wishing to avenge one's self, perhaps even forgiveness. 48

They are miserable, there is no doubt about it, all these whisperers and counterfeiters in the corners, although they try to get warm by crouching close to each other, but they tell me that their misery is a favour and distinction given to them by God, just as one beats the dogs one likes best; that perhaps this misery is also a preparation, a probation, a training; that perhaps it is still more something which will one day be compensated and paid back with a tremendous interest in gold, nay in happiness. This they call "Blessedness." 45-49

The two _opposing values_ "good and bad," "good and evil," have fought a dreadful, thousand-year fight in the world, and though indubitably the second value has been for a long time in the preponderance, there are not wanting places where the fortune of the fight is still undecisive. It can almost be said that in the meanwhile the fight reaches a higher and higher level, and that in the meanwhile it has become more and more intense, and always more and more psychological; so that nowadays there is perhaps no more decisive mark of the _higher nature,_ of the more psychological nature, than to be in that sense self-contradictory, and to be actually still a battle-ground for those two opposites. The symbol of this fight, written in a writing which has remained worthy of perusal throughout the course of history up to the present time, is called "Rome against Judæa, Judæa against Rome." Hitherto there has been no greater event than _that_ fight, the putting of _that_ question, _that_ deadly antagonism. Rome found in the Jew the incarnation of the unnatural, as though it were its diametrically opposed monstrosity, and in Rome the Jew was held to be _convicted of hatred_ of the whole human race: and rightly so, in so far as it is right to link the well-being and the future of the human race to the unconditional mastery of the aristocratic values, of the Roman values. What, conversely, did the Jews feel against Rome? One can surmise it from a thousand symptoms, but it is sufficient to carry one's mind back to the Johannian Apocalypse, that most obscene of all the written outbursts, which has revenge on its conscience. 53-54

_Beyond Good and Evil_--at any rate that is not the same as "Beyond Good and Bad." 57

The proud knowledge of the extraordinary privilege of _responsibility,_ the consciousness of this rare freedom, of this power over himself and over fate, has sunk right down to his innermost depths, and has become an instinct, a dominating instinct--what name will he give to it, to this dominating instinct if he needs to have a word for it? But there is no doubt about it--the sovereign man calls it his _conscience._ 65

Have these current genealogists of morals ever allowed themselves to have even the vaguest notion, for instance, that the cardinal moral idea of "ought" originates from the very material idea of "owe"? Or that punishment developed as a _retaliation_ absolutely independently of any preliminary hypothesis of the freedom or determination of the will?--And this to such an extent, that a _high_ degree of civilisation was always first necessary for the animal man to begin to make those much more primitive distinctions of "intentional," "negligent," "accidental," "responsible," and their contraries, and apply them in the assessing of punishment. That idea--"the wrong-doer deserves punishment _because_ he might have acted otherwise," in spite of the fact that it is nowadays so cheap, obvious, natural, and inevitable, and that it has had to serve as an illustration of the way in which the sentiment of justice appeared on earth is in point of fact an exceedingly late, and even refined form of human judgment and inference; the placing of this idea back at the beginning of the world is simply a clumsy violation of the principles of primitive psychology. 69

The sight of suffering does one good, the infliction of suffering does one more good--this is a hard maxim, but none the less a fundamental maxim, old, powerful, and "human, all-too-human"; one, moreover, to which perhaps even the apes as well would subscribe: for it is said that in inventing bizarre cruelties they are giving abundant proof of their future humanity, to which, as it were, they are playing the prelude. Without cruelty, no feast: so teaches the oldest and longest history of man--and in punishment too is there so much of the _festive._ 75

The darkening of the heavens over man has always increased in proportion to the growth of man's shame _before man._The tired pessimistic outlook, the mistrust of the riddle of life, the icy negation of disgusted ennui, all those are not the signs of the _most evil_ age of the human race: much rather do they come first to the light of day, as the swamp-flowers, which they are, when the swamp to which they belong comes into existence--I mean the diseased refinement and moralisation, thanks to which the "animal man" has at last learnt to be ashamed of all his instincts. 75

The curve of human sensibilities to pain seems indeed to sink in an extraordinary and almost sudden fashion, as soon as one has passed the upper ten thousand or ten millions of over-civilised humanity, and I personally have no doubt that, by comparison with one painful night passed by one single hysterical chit of a cultured woman, the suffering of all the animals taken together who have been put to the question of the knife, so as to give scientific answers, are simply negligible. 76-77

Man ... arrived at the great generalisation "everything has its price, _all_ can be paid for," the oldest and most naïve moral canon of _justice_ the beginning of all "kindness," of all "equity," of all "goodwill," of all "objectivity" in the world. 80

The self-destruction of Justice! we know the pretty name it calls itself--_Grace!_ it remains, as is obvious, the privilege of the strongest, better still, their super-law. 83-84

The aggressive man has at all times enjoyed the stronger, bolder, more aristocratic, and also _freer_ outlook, the _better_ conscience. On the other hand, we already surmise who it really is that has on his conscience the invention of the "bad conscience,"--the resentful man! 86

To talk of intrinsic right and intrinsic wrong is absolutely nonsensical; intrinsically, an injury, an oppression, an exploitation, an annihilation can be nothing wrong, inasmuch as life is _essentially_ (that is, in its cardinal functions) something which functions by injuring, oppressing, exploiting, and annihilating, and is absolutely inconceivable without such a character. 88

Evildoers have throughout thousands of years felt when overtaken by punishment _exactly like Spinoza,_ on the subject of their "offence": "here is something which went wrong contrary to my anticipation, _not_ I ought not to have done this."--They submitted themselves to punishment, just as one submits one's self to a disease, to a misfortune, or to death, with that stubborn and resigned fatalism which gives the Russians, for instance, even nowadays, the advantage over us Westerners, in the handling of life. If at that period there was a critique of action, the criterion was prudence: the real _effect_ of punishment is unquestionably chiefly to be found in a sharpening of the sense of prudence, in a lengthening of the memory, in a will to adopt more of a policy of caution, suspicion, and secrecy; in the recognition that there are many things which are unquestionably beyond one's capacity; in a kind of improvement in self-criticism. The broad effects which can be obtained by punishment in man and beast, are the increase of fear, the sharpening of the sense of cunning, the mastery of the desires: so it is that punishment _tames_ man, but does not make him "better"--it would be more correct even to go so far as to assert the contrary. 99

All instincts which do not find a vent without, _turn inwards_--this is what I mean by the growing "internalisation" of man: consequently we have the first growth in man, of what subsequently was called his soul. The whole inner world, originally as thin as if it had been stretched between two layers of skin, burst apart and expanded proportionately, and obtained depth, breadth, and height, when man's external outlet became _obstructed._ These terrible bulwarks, with which the social organisation protected itself against the old instincts of freedom (punishments belong pre-eminently to these bulwarks), brought it about that all those instincts of wild, free, prowling man became turned backwards _against man himself._ Enmity, cruelty, the delight in persecution, in surprises, change, destruction--the turning all these instincts against their own possessors: this is the origin of the "bad conscience." It was man, who, lacking external enemies and obstacles, and imprisoned as he was in the oppressive narrowness and monotony of custom, in his own impatience lacerated, persecuted, gnawed, frightened, and ill-treated himself; it was this animal in the hands of the tamer, which beat itself against the bars of its cage; it was this being who, pining and yearning for that desert home of which it had been deprived, was compelled to create out of its own self, an adventure, a torture-chamber, a hazardous and perilous desert--it was this fool, this homesick and desperate prisoner--who invented the "bad conscience." 100-101

A herd of blonde beasts of prey, a race of conquerors and masters, which with all its warlike organisation and all its organising power pounces with its terrible claws on a population, in numbers possibly tremendously superior, but as yet formless, as yet nomad. Such is the origin of the "State." That fantastic theory that makes it begin with a contract is, I think, disposed of. He who can command, he who is a master by "nature," he who comes on the scene forceful in deed and gesture--what has he to do with contracts? Such beings defy calculation, they come like fate, without cause, reason, notice, excuse, they are there like the lightning is there, too terrible, too sudden, too convincing, too "different," to be personally even hated. Their work is an instinctive creating and impressing of forms, they are the most involuntary, unconscious artists that there are.... 103

It is only the bad conscience, only the will for self-abuse, that provides the necessary conditions for the existence of altruism as a _value._ 105

The feeling of owing a debt to the deity has grown continuously for several centuries, always in the same proportion in which the idea of God and the consciousness of God have grown and become exalted among mankind. (The whole history of ethnic fights, victories, reconciliations, amalgamations, everything, in fact, which precedes the eventual classing of all the social elements in each great race synthesis, are mirrored in the hotch-potch genealogy of their gods, in the legends of their fights, victories, and reconciliations, Progress towards universal empires invariably means progress towards universal deities; despotism, with its subjugation of the independent nobility, always paves the way for some system or other of monotheism.) The appearance of the Christian god, as the record god up to this time, has for that very reason brought equally into the world the record amount of guilt consciousness. 109

This is a kind of madness of the will in the sphere of psychological cruelty which is absolutely unparalleled:--man's _will_ to find himself guilty and blameworthy to the point of inexpiability, his _will_ to think of himself as punished, without the punishment ever being able to balance the guilt, his _will_ to infect and to poison the fundamental basis of the universe with the problem of punishment and guilt, in order to cut off once and for all any escape out of this labyrinth of "fixed ideas," his will for rearing an ideal--that of the "holy God"--face to face with which he can have tangible proof of his own unworthiness. Alas for this mad melancholy beast man! 112-113

What is the meaning of ascetic ideals? In artists, nothing, or too much; in philosophers and scholars, a kind of "flair" and instinct for the conditions most favourable to advanced intellectualism; in women, at best an _additional_ seductive fascination, a little _morbidezza_ on a fine piece of flesh, the angelhood of a fat, pretty animal; in physiological failures and whiners (in the _majority_ of mortals), an attempt to pose as "too good" for this world, a holy form of debauchery, their chief weapon, in the battle with lingering pain and ennui; in priests, the actual priestly faith, their best engine of power, and also the supreme authority for power; in saints, finally a pretext for hibernation, their _novissima gloria cupido,_ their peace in nothingness ("God"), their form of madness. 121

All good things were once bad things; from every original sin has grown an original virtue. Marriage, for example, seemed for a long time a sin against the rights of the community; a man formerly paid a fine for the insolence of claiming one woman to himself. 144-145

The soft, benevolent yielding, sympathetic feelings--eventually valued so highly that they almost become "intrinsic values," were for a very long time actually despised by their possessors; gentleness was then a subject for shame, just as hardness is now. 145

_The ascetic ideal springs from the prophylactic and self-preservative instincts which mark a decadent life,_ which seeks by every means in its power to maintain its position and fight for its existence; it points to a partial physiological depression and exhaustion, against which the most profound and intact life-instincts fight ceaselessly with new weapons and discoveries. The ascetic ideal is such a weapon: its position is consequently exactly the reverse of that which the worshippers of the ideal imagine--life struggles in it and through it with death and _against_ death; the ascetic ideal is a dodge for the _preservation_ of life. 154

The ascetic priest is the incarnate wish for an existence of another kind, an existence on another plane,--he is, in fact, the highest point of this wish, its official ecstasy and passion: but it is the very _power_ of this wish which is the fetter that binds him here; it is just that which makes him into a tool that must labour to create more favourable conditions for earthly existence, for existence on the human plane--it is with this very _power_ that he keeps the whole herd of failures, distortions, abortions, unfortunates, _sufferers from themselves_ of every kind, fast to existence, while he as the herdsman goes instinctively on in front. 154-155

The _sick_ are the great danger of man, _not_ the evil, _not_ the "beasts of prey." They who are from the outset botched, oppressed, broken, those are they, the weakest are they, who most undermine the life beneath the feet of man, who instil the most dangerous venom and scepticism into our trust in life, in man, in ourselves. 157

Preventing the sick making the healthy sick ... this ought to be our supreme object in the world--but for this it is above all essential that the healthy should remain _separated_ from the sick, that they should even guard themselves from the look of the sick, that they should not even associate with the sick. Or may it, perchance, be their mission to be nurses or doctors? But they could not mistake or disown _their_ mission more grossly--the higher _must_ not degrade itself to be the tool of the lower, the pathos of distance must to all eternity keep their missions also separate. The right of the happy to existence, the right of bells with a full tone over the discordant cracked bells, is verily a thousand times greater: they alone are the _sureties_ of the future, they alone are _bound_ to man's future. 160-161

The ascetic priest must be accepted by us as the predestined saviour, herdsman, and champion of the sick herd: thereby do we first understand his awful historic mission. 162

"I suffer: it must be somebody's fault"--so thinks every sick sheep. But his herdsman, the ascetic priest, says to him, "Quite so, my sheep, it must be the fault of some one; but thou thyself art that some one, it is all the fault of thyself alone--_it is the fault of thyself alone against thyself":_ that is bold enough, false enough, but one thing is at least attained; thereby, as I have said, the course of resentment is--_diverted_. 165

All sick and diseased people strive instinctively after a herd-organisation, out of a desire to shake off their sense of oppressive discomfort and weakness; the ascetic priest divines this instinct and promotes it; wherever a herd exists it is the instinct of weakness which has wished for the herd, and the cleverness of the priests which has organised it, for, mark this: by an equally natural necessity the strong strive as much for _isolation_ as the weak for _union:_ when the former bind themselves it is only with a view to an aggressive joint action and joint satisfaction of their Will for Power, much against the wishes of their individual consciences; the latter, on the contrary, range themselves together with positive _delight_ in such a muster--their instincts are as much gratified thereby as the instincts of the "born master" (that is the solitary beast-of-prey species of man) are disturbed and wounded to the quick by organisation. 176-177

The keynote by which the ascetic priest was enabled to get every kind of agonising and ecstatic music to play on the fibres of the human soul--was, as every one knows, the exploitation of the feeling of _"guilt."_ 182

The ascetic ideal and its sublime moral cult, this most ingenious, reckless, and perilous systématisation of all methods of emotional excess, is writ large in a dreadful and unforgettable fashion on the whole history of man, and unfortunately not only on history. I was scarcely able to put forward any other element which attacked the _health_ and race efficiency of Europeans with more destructive power than did this ideal; it can be dubbed, without exaggeration, _the real fatality_ in the history of the health of the European man. 186-187

The ascetic ideal has corrupted not only health and taste, there are also third, fourth, fifth, and sixth things which it has corrupted--I shall take care not to go through the catalogue (when should I get to the end?). 190

The periods in a nation in which the learned man comes into prominence; they are the periods of exhaustion, often of sunset, of decay--the effervescing strength, the confidence of life, the confidence in the future are no more. The preponderance of the mandarins never signifies any good, any more than does the advent of democracy, or arbitration instead of war, equal rights for women, the religion of pity, and all the other symptoms of declining life. 200

The ascetic ideal simply means this: that something _was lacking,_ that a tremendous _void_ encircled man--he did not know how to justify himself, to explain himself, to affirm himself, he _suffered_ from the problem of his own meaning. He suffered also in other ways, he was in the main a _diseased_ animal; but his problem was not suffering itself, but the lack of an answer to that crying question, "_To what purpose_ do we suffer?" Man, the bravest animal and the one most inured to suffering, does _not_ repudiate suffering in itself: he _wills_ it, he even seeks it out, provided that he is shown a meaning for it, a _purpose_ of suffering was the curse which till then lay spread over humanity--_and the ascetic ideal gave it a meaning!_ It was up till then the only meaning; but any meaning is better than no meaning; the ascetic ideal was in that connection the _"faute de mieux" par excellence_ that existed at that time. In that ideal suffering _found an explanation;_ the tremendous gap seemed filled; the door to all suicidal Nihilism was closed. The explanation--there is no doubt about it--brought in its train new suffering, deeper, more penetrating, more venomous, gnawing more brutally into life: it brought all suffering under the perspective of _guilt;_ but in spite of all that--man was _saved_ thereby, he had _a meaning,_ and from henceforth was no more like a leaf in the wind, a shuttlecock, of chance, of nonsense, he could now "will" something--absolutely immaterial to what end, to what purpose, with that means he wished: _the will itself was saved._ It is absolutely impossible to disguise _what_ in point of fact is made clear by every complete will that has taken its direction from the ascetic ideal: this hate of the human, and even more of the animal, and more still of the material, this horror of the senses, of reason itself, this fear of happiness and beauty, this desire to get right away from all illusion, change, growth, death, wishing and even desiring--all this means--let us have the courage to grasp it--a will for Nothingness, a will opposed to life, a repudiation of the most fundamental conditions of life, but it is and remains _a will!_--and to say at the end that which I said at the beginning--man will wish _Nothingness_ rather than not wish _at all._ 210-211

IX

"The Twilight of the Idols"

Nietzsche followed "The Genealogy of Morals" with "The Case of Wagner," that famous pamphlet in which he excoriated the creator of Parsifal. Immediately after the publication of this attack, he began work on what was to be still another preparatory book for "The Will to Power." For its title he first chose "Idle Hours of a Psychologist." The book, a brief one, was already on the presses when he changed the caption to _"Götzendämmerung"_--"The Twilight of the Idols"--a titular parody on Wagner's _"Götterdämmerung"_ For a subtitle he appended a characteristically Nietzschean phrase--"How to Philosophise with the Hammer." The writing of this work was done with great rapidity: it was accomplished in but a few days during August, 1888. In September it was sent to the publisher, but during its printing Nietzsche added a chapter headed "What the Germans Lack," and several aphorisms to the section called "Skirmishes in a War with the Age." In January, 1889, the book appeared.

Nietzsche was then stricken with his fatal illness, and this was the last book of his to appear during his lifetime. "The Antichrist" was already finished, having been written in the fall of 1888 immediately after the completion of "The Twilight of the Idols." _"Ecce Homo"_ his autobiography, was written in October, 1888; and during December Nietzsche again gave his attention to Wagner, drafting "Nietzsche _contra_ Wagner," a pamphlet made up entirely of excerpts from his earlier writings. This work, intended to supplement "The Case of Wagner," was not published until 1895, although it had been printed and corrected before the author's final breakdown. "The Antichrist" appeared at the same time as this second Wagner document, while _"Ecce Homo"_ was withheld from publication until 1908. "The Twilight of the Idols" sold 9,000 copies, but Nietzsche's mind was too clouded to know or care that at last he was coming into his own, that the public which had denied him so long had finally begun to open its eyes to his greatness.

In many ways "The Twilight of the Idols" is one of Nietzsche's most brilliant books. Being more compact, it consequently possesses a greater degree of precision and clarity than is found in his more analytical writings. It is not, however, a treatise to which one may go without considerable preparation. With the exception of "Thus Spake Zarathustra," it demands more on the part of the reader than any of Nietzsche's other books. It is, for the most part, composed of conclusions and comments which grow directly out of the laborious ethical research of his preceding volumes, and presupposes in the student an enormous amount of reading, not only of Nietzsche's own writings but of philosophical works in general. But once equipped with this preparation, one will find more of contemporary interest in it than in the closely organised books such as "Beyond Good and Evil" and "The Genealogy of Morals." There are few points in Nietzsche's philosophy not found here. For a compact expression of his entire teaching I know of no better book to which one might turn. Nietzsche himself, to judge from a passage in his _"Ecce Homo"_ intended this book as a statement of his whole ethical system. He probably meant that it should present _in toto_ the principal data of his foregoing studies, in order that the reader might be familiar with all the steps in his philosophy before setting forth upon the formidable doctrines of "The Will to Power." Obviously, therefore, it is not a book for beginners. Being expositional rather than argumentative, it is open to misunderstanding and misinterpretation. It contains apparent contradictions which might confuse the student who has not followed Nietzsche in the successive points which led to his conclusions, and who is unfamiliar with the exact definitions attached to certain words relating to human conduct.

Other qualities of a misleading nature are to be encountered in this book. Many of the paragraphs have about them an air of mere cleverness, although in reality they embody profound concepts. The reader ignorant of the inner seriousness of Nietzsche will accept these passages only at their surface value. Of the forty-four short epigrams which comprise the opening chapter, I have appended but three, for fear they would be judged solely by their superficial characteristics. Many of the other aphorisms throughout the book lend themselves all too easily to the same narrow judgment.

Again, "The Problem of Socrates," the second division of the book, because of its profundity, presents many difficulties to the unprepared student. Here is a criticism of the Socratic ideals which requires, in order that it be intelligently grasped, not only a wide general knowledge, but also a specific training in the uprooting of prejudices and of traditional ethical conceptions--such a training as can be acquired only by a close study of Nietzsche's own destructive works. The explanation of Socrates's power, the condemnation of that ancient philosopher's subtle glorification of the _canaille,_ the reasons for his secret fascination, and the interpretation of his whole mental progress culminating in his death--all this is profound and categorical criticism which has its roots in the very fundamentals of Nietzsche's philosophy. But because it is so deep-rooted, it therefore presents a wide and all-inclusive vista of that philosophy from which it stems. Furthermore, this criticism of Socrates poses a specific problem which can be answered only by resorting to the doctrines which underlie Nietzsche's entire thought. In like manner the chapter, "Reason in Philosophy," is understandable only in the light of those investigations set forth in "Beyond Good and Evil."

Under the caption, "The Four Great Errors," Nietzsche uproots a series of correlated beliefs which have the accumulated impetus of centuries of acceptance behind them. These "errors," as stated, are (1) the error of the confusion of cause and effect, (2) the error of false causality, (3) the error of imaginary causes, and (4) the error of free will. The eradication of these errors is necessary for a complete acceptance of Nietzsche's philosophy. But unless one is familiar with the vast amount of criticism which has led up to the present discussion of them, one will experience difficulty in following the subtly drawn arguments and analogies presented against them. To demonstrate briefly the specific application of the first error, namely: the confusion of cause and effect, I offer an analogy stated in the passage. We know that Christian morality teaches us that a people perish through vice and luxury--that is to say, that these two conditions are _causes_ of racial degeneration. Nietzsche's contention to the contrary is that when a nation is approaching physiological degeneration, vice and luxury result in the guise of stimuli adopted by exhausted natures. By this it can be seen how the Christian conscience is developed by a misunderstanding of causes; and it can also be seen how this error may affect the very foundation on which morality is built. I am here stating merely the conclusion: for the reasons leading up to this conclusion one must go to the book direct.

Nietzsche denies the embodiment of the motive of an action in the "inner facts of consciousness" where, so we have been taught by psychologists and physicists, the responsibilities of conduct are contained. The will itself, he argues, is not a motivating force; rather is it an effect of other deeper causes. This is what he discusses in his paragraphs dealing with the second error of false causality. In his criticism of the third error relating to imaginary causes, he points to the comfort we obtain by attributing a certain unexplained fact to a familiar cause--by tracing it to a commonplace source--thereby doing away with its seeming mystery. Thus ordinary maladies or afflictions, or, to carry the case into moral regions, misfortunes and unaccountable strokes of fate, are explained by finding trite and plausible reasons for their existence. As a consequence the habit of postulating causes becomes a fixed mental habit. In the great majority of cases, and especially in the domain of morality and religion, the causes are false, inasmuch as the operation of finding them depends on the mental characteristics of the searcher. The error of free will Nietzsche attributes to the theologians' attempt to make mankind responsible for its acts and therefore amenable to punishment. I have been able to present his own words in explanation of this error, and they will be found at the end of this chapter--41-42 and 43.

In "Skirmishes in a War with the Age," the longest section in the book, Nietzsche gives us much brilliant and incisive criticism of men, art and human attributes. He is here at his best, both in clarity of mind and in his manner of expression. This passage, one of the last things to come from his pen, contains the full ripeness of his nature, and is a portion of his work which no student can afford to overlook. It contains the whole of the Nietzschean philosophy applied to the conditions of his age. Because it is not a direct voicing of his doctrines it does not lend itself to mutilation except where it touches on principles of conduct and abstract aspects of morality. Many of the most widely read passages of all of Nietzsche's work are contained in it. But here again, as in the case of "Thus Spake Zarathustra," one regrets that the surface brilliance of its style attracted readers in England and America before these nations were acquainted with the books which came before. The casual reader, unfamiliar with the principles underlying Nietzsche's ethic, will see only a bold and satanic flippancy in his definition of Zola--"the love of stinking," or in his characterisation of George Sand as "the cow with plenty of beautiful milk," or in his bracketing of "tea-grocers, Christians, cows, women, Englishmen and other democrats." Yet it is significant that Nietzsche did not venture upon these remarks until he had the great bulk of his life's work behind him.

In this chapter are discussions of Renan, Sainte-Beuve, George Eliot, George Sand, Emerson, Carlyle, Darwin, Schopenhauer, Goethe and other famous men and women. In the short essays devoted to these writers we have, however, more than mere detached valuations. Beneath all the criticisms is a _rationale_ of judgment based on definite philosophical doctrines. This same basis of appreciation is present in the discussion of art and artists, to which subjects many pages are devoted. In fact, "The Twilight of the Idols" contains most of the art theories and æsthetic doctrines which Nietzsche advanced. He defines the psychology of the artist, and draws the line between the two concepts, Apollonian and Dionysian, as applied to art. He analyses the meaning of beauty and ugliness, and endeavours to show in what manner the conceptions of these qualities are related to the racial instincts. He also inquires into the doctrine of _"l'art pour l'art"_ and points out wherein it fails in its purpose. A valuable explanation of "genius" is put forth in the theory that the accumulative power of generations breaks forth in the great men of a nation, and that these great men mark the end of an age, as in the case of the Renaissance.

The most significant brief essay in this section is an answer made to certain critics who, in reviewing "Beyond Good and Evil," claimed a superiority for the present age over the older civilisations. Nietzsche calls this essay "Have We Become Moral?" and proceeds to make comparisons of contemporaneous virtues with those of the ancients. He denies that to-day, without our decrepit humanitarianism and our doctrines of weakness, we would be able to withstand, either nervously or muscularly, the conditions that prevailed during the Renaissance. He points out that our morals are those of senility, and that we have deteriorated, physically as well as mentally, as a result of an adherence to a code of morality invented to meet the needs of a weak and impoverished people. Our virtues, he says, are determined and stimulated by our weakness, so that we have come to admire the moralities of the slave, the most prominent among which is the doctrine of equality. In the decline of all the positive forces of life Nietzsche sees only racial decadence. In this regard it is important to take note of one of the passages relative to the discussion of this decadence, namely: the one wherein he characterises the anarchist as "the mouthpiece of the decaying strata of society." The appellation of "anarchist" has not infrequently been applied to Nietzsche himself by those who have read him superficially or whose acquaintance with him has been the result of distorted hearsay. I know of no better analysis of anarchistic motives or of no keener dissection of anarchistic weakness than is set forth here. Nor do I know of any better answer to those critics who have accused Nietzsche of anarchy, than the criticism contained in this passage.

In a final chapter, under the caption of "Things I Owe to the Ancients," Nietzsche outlines the inspirational source of many of his doctrines and literary habits. This chapter is important only to the student who wishes to go to the remoter influences in Nietzsche's writings, and for that reason I have omitted from the following excerpts any quotation from it.

EXCERPTS FROM "THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS"