Beyond Good and EvilFriedrich Nietzsche

PREFACESUPPOSING that Truth is a womanwhat then? Isthere not ground for suspecting that all philosophers, in sofar as they have been dogmatists, have failed to understandwomenthat the terrible seriousness and clumsyimportunity with which they have usually paid theiraddresses to Truth, have been unskilled and unseemlymethods for winning a woman? Certainly she has neverallowed herself to be won; and at present every kind ofdogma stands with sad and discouraged mienIF, indeed,it stands at all! For there are scoffers who maintain that ithas fallen, that all dogma lies on the groundnay more,that it is at its last gasp. But to speak seriously, there aregood grounds for hoping that all dogmatizing inphilosophy, whatever solemn, whatever conclusive anddecided airs it has assumed, may have been only a noblepuerilism and tyronism; and probably the time is at handwhen it will be once and again understood WHAT hasactually sufficed for the basis of such imposing andabsolute philosophical edifices as the dogmatists havehitherto reared: perhaps some popular superstition ofimmemorial time (such as the soul-superstition, which, inthe form of subject- and ego-superstition, has not yetceased doing mischief): perhaps some play upon words, adeception on the part of grammar, or an audaciousgeneralization of very restricted, very personal, veryhumanall-too-human facts. The philosophy of thedogmatists, it is to be hoped, was only a promise forthousands of years afterwards, as was astrology in stillearlier times, in the service of which probably morelabour, gold, acuteness, and patience have been spent thanon any actual science hitherto: we owe to it, and to itssuper- terrestrial pretensions in Asia and Egypt, the grandstyle of architecture. It seems that in order to inscribethemselves upon the heart of humanity with everlastingclaims, all great things have first to wander about the earthas enormous and awe- inspiring caricatures: dogmaticphilosophy has been a caricature of this kindforinstance, the Vedanta doctrine in Asia, and Platonism inEurope. Let us not be ungrateful to it, although it mustcertainly be confessed that the worst, the most tiresome,and the most dangerous of errors hitherto has been adogmatist errornamely, Platos invention of Pure Spiritand the Good in Itself. But now when it has beensurmounted, when Europe, rid of this nightmare, can

again draw breath freely and at least enjoy a healthiersleep, we, WHOSE DUTY IS WAKEFULNESSITSELF, are the heirs of all the strength which the struggleagainst this error has fostered. It amounted to the veryinversion of truth, and the denial of thePERSPECTIVEthe fundamental conditionof life, tospeak of Spirit and the Good as Plato spoke of them;indeed one might ask, as a physician: How did such amalady attack that finest product of antiquity, Plato? Hadthe wicked Socrates really corrupted him? Was Socratesafter all a corrupter of youths, and deserved his hemlock?But the struggle against Plato, orto speak plainer, andfor the peoplethe struggle against the ecclesiasticaloppression of millenniums of Christianity (FORCHRISITIANITY IS PLATONISM FOR THEPEOPLE), produced in Europe a magnificent tension ofsoul, such as had not existed anywhere previously; withsuch a tensely strained bow one can now aim at thefurthest goals. As a matter of fact, the European feels thistension as a state of distress, and twice attempts have beenmade in grand style to unbend the bow: once by means ofJesuitism, and the second time by means of democraticenlightenmentwhich, with the aid of liberty of the pressand newspaper-reading, might, in fact, bring it about thatthe spirit would not so easily find itself in distress! (TheGermans invented gunpowder-all credit to them! but theyagain made things squarethey invented printing.) Butwe, who are neither Jesuits, nor democrats, nor evensufficiently Germans, we GOOD EUROPEANS, andfree, VERY free spiritswe have it still, all the distress ofspirit and all the tension of its bow! And perhaps also thearrow, the duty, and, who knows? THE GOAL TO AIMAT.Sils Maria Upper Engadine, JUNE, 1885.

CHAPTER I: PREJUDICES OFPHILOSOPHERS1. The Will to Truth, which is to tempt us to many ahazardous enterprise, the famous Truthfulness of which allphilosophers have hitherto spoken with respect, whatquestions has this Will to Truth not laid before us! Whatstrange, perplexing, questionable questions! It is already along story; yet it seems as if it were hardly commenced. Isit any wonder if we at last grow distrustful, lose patience,and turn impatiently away? That this Sphinx teaches us atlast to ask questions ourselves? WHO is it really that putsquestions to us here? WHAT really is this Will to Truthin us? In fact we made a long halt at the question as to theorigin of this Willuntil at last we came to an absolutestandstill before a yet more fundamental question. Weinquired about the VALUE of this Will. Granted that wewant the truth: WHY NOT RATHER untruth? Anduncertainty? Even ignorance? The problem of the value oftruth presented itself before usor was it we whopresented ourselves before the problem? Which of us isthe Oedipus here? Which the Sphinx? It would seem tobe a rendezvous of questions and notes of interrogation.And could it be believed that it at last seems to us as if theproblem had never been propounded before, as if we werethe first to discern it, get a sight of it, and RISKRAISING it? For there is risk in raising it, perhaps there isno greater risk.2. HOW COULD anything originate out of itsopposite? For example, truth out of error? or the Will toTruth out of the will to deception? or the generous deedout of selfishness? or the pure sun-bright vision of the wiseman out of covetousness? Such genesis is impossible;whoever dreams of it is a fool, nay, worse than a fool;things of the highest value must have a different origin, anorigin of THEIR ownin this transitory, seductive,illusory, paltry world, in this turmoil of delusion andcupidity, they cannot have their source. But rather in thelap of Being, in the intransitory, in the concealed God, inthe Thing-in-itself THERE must be their source, andnowhere else!This mode of reasoning discloses thetypical prejudice by which metaphysicians of all times canbe recognized, this mode of valuation is at the back of alltheir logical procedure; through this belief of theirs, theyexert themselves for their knowledge, for something thatis in the end solemnly christened the Truth. The

fundamental belief of metaphysicians is THE BELIEF INANTITHESES OF VALUES. It never occurred even tothe wariest of them to doubt here on the very threshold(where doubt, however, was most necessary); though theyhad made a solemn vow, DE OMNIBUSDUBITANDUM. For it may be doubted, firstly, whetherantitheses exist at all; and secondly, whether the popularvaluations and antitheses of value upon whichmetaphysicians have set their seal, are not perhaps merelysuperficial estimates, merely provisional perspectives,besides being probably made from some corner, perhapsfrom belowfrog perspectives, as it were, to borrow anexpression current among painters. In spite of all the valuewhich may belong to the true, the positive, and theunselfish, it might be possible that a higher and morefundamental value for life generally should be assigned topretence, to the will to delusion, to selfishness, andcupidity. It might even be possible that WHAT constitutesthe value of those good and respected things, consistsprecisely in their being insidiously related, knotted, andcrocheted to these evil and apparently opposed thingsperhaps even in being essentially identical with them.Perhaps! But who wishes to concern himself with suchdangerous Perhapses! For that investigation one mustawait the advent of a new order of philosophers, such aswill have other tastes and inclinations, the reverse of thosehitherto prevalentphilosophers of the dangerousPerhaps in every sense of the term. And to speak in allseriousness, I see such new philosophers beginning toappear.3. Having kept a sharp eye on philosophers, and havingread between their lines long enough, I now say to myselfthat the greater part of conscious thinking must becounted among the instinctive functions, and it is so evenin the case of philosophical thinking; one has here to learnanew, as one learned anew about heredity and innateness.As little as the act of birth comes into consideration in thewhole process and procedure of heredity, just as little isbeing-conscious OPPOSED to the instinctive in anydecisive sense; the greater part of the conscious thinking ofa philosopher is secretly influenced by his instincts, andforced into definite channels. And behind all logic and itsseeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, orto speak more plainly, physiological demands, for themaintenance of a definite mode of life For example, thatthe certain is worth more than the uncertain, that illusion

is less valuable than truth such valuations, in spite of theirregulative importance for US, might notwithstanding beonly superficial valuations, special kinds of maiserie, suchas may be necessary for the maintenance of beings such asourselves. Supposing, in effect, that man is not just themeasure of things.4. The falseness of an opinion is not for us anyobjection to it: it is here, perhaps, that our new languagesounds most strangely. The question is, how far anopinion is life-furthering, life- preserving, species preserving,perhaps species-rearing, and we arefundamentally inclined to maintain that the falsest opinions(to which the synthetic judgments a priori belong), are themost indispensable to us, that without a recognition oflogical fictions, without a comparison of reality with thepurely IMAGINED world of the absolute and immutable,without a constant counterfeiting of the world by meansof numbers, man could not livethat the renunciation offalse opinions would be a renunciation of life, a negationof life. TO RECOGNISE UNTRUTH AS ACONDITION OF LIFE; that is certainly to impugn thetraditional ideas of value in a dangerous manner, and aphilosophy which ventures to do so, has thereby aloneplaced itself beyond good and evil.5. That which causes philosophers to be regarded half distrustfullyand half-mockingly, is not the oft-repeateddiscovery how innocent they arehow often and easilythey make mistakes and lose their way, in short, howchildish and childlike they are,but that there is notenough honest dealing with them, whereas they all raise aloud and virtuous outcry when the problem of truthfulnessis even hinted at in the remotest manner. They all pose asthough their real opinions had been discovered andattained through the self-evolving of a cold, pure, divinelyindifferent dialectic (in contrast to all sorts of mystics, who,fairer and foolisher, talk of inspiration), whereas, in fact, aprejudiced proposition, idea, or suggestion, which isgenerally their hearts desire abstracted and refined, isdefended by them with arguments sought out after theevent. They are all advocates who do not wish to beregarded as such, generally astute defenders, also, of theirprejudices, which they dub truths, and VERY far fromhaving the conscience which bravely admits this to itself,very far from having the good taste of the courage whichgoes so far as to let this be understood, perhaps to warnfriend or foe, or in cheerful confidence and self-ridicule.

The spectacle of the Tartuffery of old Kant, equally stiffand decent, with which he entices us into the dialectic bywaysthat lead (more correctly mislead) to his categoricalimperative makes us fastidious ones smile, we who findno small amusement in spying out the subtle tricks of oldmoralists and ethical preachers. Or, still more so, thehocus-pocus in mathematical form, by means of whichSpinoza has, as it were, clad his philosophy in mail andmaskin fact, the love of HIS wisdom, to translate theterm fairly and squarelyin order thereby to strike terrorat once into the heart of the assailant who should dare tocast a glance on that invincible maiden, that PallasAthene:how much of personal timidity and vulnerabilitydoes this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray!6. It has gradually become clear to me what every greatphilosophy up till now has consisted ofnamely, theconfession of its originator, and a species of involuntaryand unconscious auto-biography; and moreover that themoral (or immoral) purpose in every philosophy hasconstituted the true vital germ out of which the entireplant has always grown. Indeed, to understand how theabstrusest metaphysical assertions of a philosopher havebeen arrived at, it is always well (and wise) to first askoneself: What morality do they (or does he) aim at?Accordingly, I do not believe that an impulse toknowledge is the father of philosophy; but that anotherimpulse, here as elsewhere, has only made use ofknowledge (and mistaken knowledge!) as an instrument.But whoever considers the fundamental impulses of manwith a view to determining how far they may have hereacted as INSPIRING GENII (or as demons and cobolds),will find that they have all practiced philosophy at onetime or another, and that each one of them would havebeen only too glad to look upon itself as the ultimate endof existence and the legitimate LORD over all the otherimpulses. For every impulse is imperious, and as SUCH,attempts to philosophize. To be sure, in the case ofscholars, in the case of really scientific men, it may beotherwisebetter, if you will; there there may really besuch a thing as an impulse to knowledge, some kind ofsmall, independent clock-work, which, when well woundup, works away industriously to that end, WITHOUT therest of the scholarly impulses taking any material parttherein. The actual interests of the scholar, therefore, aregenerally in quite another directionin the family,perhaps, or in money-making, or in politics; it is, in fact,

almost indifferent at what point of research his littlemachine is placed, and whether the hopeful young workerbecomes a good philologist, a mushroom specialist, or achemist; he is not CHARACTERISED by becoming thisor that. In the philosopher, on the contrary, there isabsolutely nothing impersonal; and above all, his moralityfurnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to WHO HEIS,that is to say, in what order the deepest impulses ofhis nature stand to each other.7. How malicious philosophers can be! I know ofnothing more stinging than the joke Epicurus took theliberty of making on Plato and the Platonists; he calledthem Dionysiokolakes. In its original sense, and on theface of it, the word signifies Flatterers of Dionysiusconsequently, tyrants accessories and lick-spittles; besidesthis, however, it is as much as to say, They are allACTORS, there is nothing genuine about them (forDionysiokolax was a popular name for an actor). And thelatter is really the malignant reproach that Epicurus castupon Plato: he was annoyed by the grandiose manner, themise en scene style of which Plato and his scholars weremastersof which Epicurus was not a master! He, the oldschool-teacher of Samos, who sat concealed in his littlegarden at Athens, and wrote three hundred books, perhapsout of rage and ambitious envy of Plato, who knows!Greece took a hundred years to find out who the gardengodEpicurus really was. Did she ever find out?8. There is a point in every philosophy at which theconviction of the philosopher appears on the scene; or,to put it in the words of an ancient mystery:Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissimus.9. You desire to LIVE according to Nature? Oh, younoble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves abeing like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlesslyindifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pityor justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain:imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a powerhow COULD you live in accordance with suchindifference? To liveis not that just endeavouring to beotherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing,preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to bedifferent? And granted that your imperative, livingaccording to Nature, means actually the same as livingaccording to lifehow could you do DIFFERENTLY?Why should you make a principle out of what youyourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite

otherwise with you: while you pretend to read withrapture the canon of your law in Nature, you wantsomething quite the contrary, you extraordinary stageplayersand self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictateyour morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and toincorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Natureaccording to the Stoa, and would like everything to bemade after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorificationand generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth,you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, andwith such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, thatis to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see itotherwise and to crown all, some unfathomablesuperciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope thatBECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselvesStoicism is self-tyrannyNature will also allow herself tobe tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature? But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened inold times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon asever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It alwayscreates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise;philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the mostspiritual Will to Power, the will to creation of the world,the will to the causa prima.10. The eagerness and subtlety, I should even saycraftiness, with which the problem of the real and theapparent world is dealt with at present throughoutEurope, furnishes food for thought and attention; and hewho hears only a Will to Truth in the background, andnothing else, cannot certainly boast of the sharpest ears. Inrare and isolated cases, it may really have happened thatsuch a Will to Trutha certain extravagant andadventurous pluck, a metaphysicians ambition of theforlorn hopehas participated therein: that which in theend always prefers a handful of certainty to a wholecartload of beautiful possibilities; there may even bepuritanical fanatics of conscience, who prefer to put theirlast trust in a sure nothing, rather than in an uncertainsomething. But that is Nihilism, and the sign of adespairing, mortally wearied soul, notwithstanding thecourageous bearing such a virtue may display. It seems,however, to be otherwise with stronger and livelierthinkers who are still eager for life. In that they sideAGAINST appearance, and speak superciliously ofperspective, in that they rank the credibility of their ownbodies about as low as the credibility of the ocular

evidence that the earth stands still, and thus, apparently,allowing with complacency their securest possession toescape (for what does one at present believe in morefirmly than in ones body?),who knows if they are notreally trying to win back something which was formerlyan even securer possession, something of the old domainof the faith of former times, perhaps the immortal soul,perhaps the old God, in short, ideas by which they couldlive better, that is to say, more vigorously and morejoyously, than by modern ideas? There is DISTRUST ofthese modern ideas in this mode of looking at things, adisbelief in all that has been constructed yesterday andtoday; there is perhaps some slight admixture of satiety andscorn, which can no longer endure the BRIC-A-BRACof ideas of the most varied origin, such as so-calledPositivism at present throws on the market; a disgust ofthe more refined taste at the village-fair motleyness andpatchiness of all these reality-philosophasters, in whomthere is nothing either new or true, except thismotleyness. Therein it seems to me that we should agreewith those skeptical anti-realists and knowledgemicroscopistsof the present day; their instinct, whichrepels them from MODERN reality, is unrefuted whatdo their retrograde by-paths concern us! The main thingabout them is NOT that they wish to go back, but thatthey wish to get AWAY therefrom. A little MOREstrength, swing, courage, and artistic power, and theywould be OFFand not back!11. It seems to me that there is everywhere an attemptat present to divert attention from the actual influencewhich Kant exercised on German philosophy, andespecially to ignore prudently the value which he set uponhimself. Kant was first and foremost proud of his Table ofCategories; with it in his hand he said: This is the mostdifficult thing that could ever be undertaken on behalf ofmetaphysics. Let us only understand this could be! Hewas proud of having DISCOVERED a new faculty inman, the faculty of synthetic judgment a priori. Grantingthat he deceived himself in this matter; the developmentand rapid flourishing of German philosophy dependednevertheless on his pride, and on the eager rivalry of theyounger generation to discover if possible somethingatall events new facultiesof which to be still prouder!But let us reflect for a momentit is high time to do so.How are synthetic judgments a priori POSSIBLE? Kantasks himselfand what is really his answer? BY MEANS

OF A MEANS (faculty)but unfortunately not in fivewords, but so circumstantially, imposingly, and with suchdisplay of German profundity and verbal flourishes, thatone altogether loses sight of the comical niaiserieallemande involved in such an answer. People were besidethemselves with delight over this new faculty, and thejubilation reached its climax when Kant further discovereda moral faculty in manfor at that time Germans werestill moral, not yet dabbling in the Politics of hard fact.Then came the honeymoon of German philosophy. Allthe young theologians of the Tubingen institution wentimmediately into the grovesall seeking for faculties.And what did they not findin that innocent, rich, andstill youthful period of the German spirit, to whichRomanticism, the malicious fairy, piped and sang, whenone could not yet distinguish between finding andinventing! Above all a faculty for the transcendental";Schelling christened it, intellectual intuition, and therebygratified the most earnest longings of the naturally piousinclinedGermans. One can do no greater wrong to thewhole of this exuberant and eccentric movement (whichwas really youthfulness, notwithstanding that it disguiseditself so boldly, in hoary and senile conceptions), than totake it seriously, or even treat it with moral indignation.Enough, howeverthe world grew older, and the dreamvanished. A time came when people rubbed theirforeheads, and they still rub them today. People had beendreaming, and first and foremostold Kant. By means ofa means (faculty)he had said, or at least meant to say.But, is thatan answer? An explanation? Or is it notrather merely a repetition of the question? How doesopium induce sleep? By means of a means (faculty),namely the virtus dormitiva, replies the doctor inMoliere,Quia est in eo virtus dormitiva,Cujus est natura sensus assoupire.But such replies belong to the realm of comedy, and itis high time to replace the Kantian question, How aresynthetic judgments a PRIORI possible? by anotherquestion, Why is belief in such judgments necessary?ineffect, it is high time that we should understand that suchjudgments must be believed to be true, for the sake of thepreservation of creatures like ourselves; though they stillmight naturally be false judgments! Or, more plainlyspoken, and roughly and readilysynthetic judgments apriori should not be possible at all; we have no right to

them; in our mouths they are nothing but false judgments.Only, of course, the belief in their truth is necessary, asplausible belief and ocular evidence belonging to theperspective view of life. And finally, to call to mind theenormous influence which German philosophyI hopeyou understand its right to inverted commas(goosefeet)?has exercised throughout the whole ofEurope, there is no doubt that a certain VIRTUSDORMITIVA had a share in it; thanks to Germanphilosophy, it was a delight to the noble idlers, thevirtuous, the mystics, the artiste, the three-fourthsChristians, and the political obscurantists of all nations, tofind an antidote to the still overwhelming sensualismwhich overflowed from the last century into this, inshortsensus assoupire. 12. As regards materialistic atomism, it is one of thebest- refuted theories that have been advanced, and inEurope there is now perhaps no one in the learned worldso unscholarly as to attach serious signification to it, exceptfor convenient everyday use (as an abbreviation of themeans of expression) thanks chiefly to the PoleBoscovich: he and the Pole Copernicus have hithertobeen the greatest and most successful opponents of ocularevidence. For while Copernicus has persuaded us tobelieve, contrary to all the senses, that the earth doesNOT stand fast, Boscovich has taught us to abjure thebelief in the last thing that stood fast of the earththebelief in substance, in matter, in the earth-residuum,and particle- atom: it is the greatest triumph over thesenses that has hitherto been gained on earth. One must,however, go still further, and also declare war, relentlesswar to the knife, against the atomistic requirementswhich still lead a dangerous after-life in places where noone suspects them, like the more celebrated metaphysicalrequirements": one must also above all give the finishingstroke to that other and more portentous atomism whichChristianity has taught best and longest, the SOULATOMISM. Let it be permitted to designate by thisexpression the belief which regards the soul as somethingindestructible, eternal, indivisible, as a monad, as anatomon: this belief ought to be expelled from science!Between ourselves, it is not at all necessary to get rid ofthe soul thereby, and thus renounce one of the oldest andmost venerated hypothesesas happens frequently to theclumsiness of naturalists, who can hardly touch on the soulwithout immediately losing it. But the way is open for

new acceptations and refinements of the soul-hypothesis;and such conceptions as mortal soul, and soul ofsubjective multiplicity, and soul as social structure of theinstincts and passions, want henceforth to have legitimaterights in science. In that the NEW psychologist is about toput an end to the superstitions which have hithertoflourished with almost tropical luxuriance around the ideaof the soul, he is really, as it were, thrusting himself into anew desert and a new distrustit is possible that the olderpsychologists had a merrier and more comfortable time ofit; eventually, however, he finds that precisely thereby heis also condemned to INVENTand, who knows?perhaps to DISCOVER the new.13. Psychologists should bethink themselves beforeputting down the instinct of self-preservation as thecardinal instinct of an organic being. A living thing seeksabove all to DISCHARGE its strengthlife itself is WILLTO POWER; self-preservation is only one of the indirectand most frequent RESULTS thereof. In short, here, aseverywhere else, let us beware of SUPERFLUOUSteleological principles!one of which is the instinct ofself- preservation (we owe it to Spinozas inconsistency). Itis thus, in effect, that method ordains, which must beessentially economy of principles.14. It is perhaps just dawning on five or six minds thatnatural philosophy is only a world-exposition and worldarrangement(according to us, if I may say so!) and NOT aworld-explanation; but in so far as it is based on belief inthe senses, it is regarded as more, and for a long time tocome must be regarded as morenamely, as anexplanation. It has eyes and fingers of its own, it has ocularevidence and palpableness of its own: this operatesfascinatingly, persuasively, and CONVINCINGLY uponan age with fundamentally plebeian tastesin fact, itfollows instinctively the canon of truth of eternal popularsensualism. What is clear, what is explained? Only thatwhich can be seen and feltone must pursue everyproblem thus far. Obversely, however, the charm of thePlatonic mode of thought, which was an ARISTOCRATIC mode, consisted precisely inRESISTANCE to obvious sense-evidenceperhapsamong men who enjoyed even stronger and morefastidious senses than our contemporaries, but who knewhow to find a higher triumph in remaining masters ofthem: and this by means of pale, cold, grey conceptionalnetworks which they threw over the motley whirl of the

sensesthe mob of the senses, as Plato said. In thisovercoming of the world, and interpreting of the world inthe manner of Plato, there was an ENJOYMENTdifferent from that which the physicists of today offer usand likewise the Darwinists and anti-teleologists amongthe physiological workers, with their principle of thesmallest possible effort, and the greatest possible blunder.Where there is nothing more to see or to grasp, there isalso nothing more for men to dothat is certainly animperative different from the Platonic one, but it maynotwithstanding be the right imperative for a hardy,laborious race of machinists and bridge- builders of thefuture, who have nothing but ROUGH work to perform.15. To study physiology with a clear conscience, onemust insist on the fact that the sense-organs are notphenomena in the sense of the idealistic philosophy; assuch they certainly could not be causes! Sensualism,therefore, at least as regulative hypothesis, if not asheuristic principle. What? And others say even that theexternal world is the work of our organs? But then ourbody, as a part of this external world, would be the workof our organs! But then our organs themselves would bethe work of our organs! It seems to me that this is acomplete REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM, if theconception CAUSA SUI is something fundamentallyabsurd. Consequently, the external world is NOT thework of our organs?16. There are still harmless self-observers who believethat there are immediate certainties"; for instance, Ithink, or as the superstition of Schopenhauer puts it, Iwill"; as though cognition here got hold of its objectpurely and simply as the thing in itself, without anyfalsification taking place either on the part of the subject orthe object. I would repeat it, however, a hundred times,that immediate certainty, as well as absolute knowledgeand the thing in itself, involve a CONTRADICTIO INADJECTO; we really ought to free ourselves from themisleading significance of words! The people on their partmay think that cognition is knowing all about things, butthe philosopher must say to himself: When I analyze theprocess that is expressed in the sentence, I think, I find awhole series of daring assertions, the argumentative proofof which would be difficult, perhaps impossible: forinstance, that it is I who think, that there must necessarilybe something that thinks, that thinking is an activity andoperation on the part of a being who is thought of as a

cause, that there is an ego, and finally, that it is alreadydetermined what is to be designated by thinkingthat IKNOW what thinking is. For if I had not already decidedwithin myself what it is, by what standard could Idetermine whether that which is just happening is notperhaps willing or feeling? In short, the assertion Ithink, assumes that I COMPARE my state at the presentmoment with other states of myself which I know, inorder to determine what it is; on account of thisretrospective connection with further knowledge, it has,at any rate, no immediate certainty for me.In place ofthe immediate certainty in which the people may believein the special case, the philosopher thus finds a series ofmetaphysical questions presented to him, veritableconscience questions of the intellect, to wit: Whence didI get the notion of thinking? Why do I believe in causeand effect? What gives me the right to speak of an ego,and even of an ego as cause, and finally of an ego ascause of thought? He who ventures to answer thesemetaphysical questions at once by an appeal to a sort ofINTUITIVE perception, like the person who says, Ithink, and know that this, at least, is true, actual, andcertainwill encounter a smile and two notes ofinterrogation in a philosopher nowadays. Sir, thephilosopher will perhaps give him to understand, it isimprobable that you are not mistaken, but why should itbe the truth?17. With regard to the superstitions of logicians, I shallnever tire of emphasizing a small, terse fact, which isunwillingly recognized by these credulous mindsnamely, that a thought comes when it wishes, and notwhen I wish; so that it is a PERVERSION of the facts ofthe case to say that the subject I is the condition of thepredicate think. ONE thinks; but that this one isprecisely the famous old ego, is, to put it mildly, only asupposition, an assertion, and assuredly not an immediatecertainty. After all, one has even gone too far with thisone thinkseven the one contains anINTERPRETATION of the process, and does notbelong to the process itself. One infers here according tothe usual grammatical formulaTo think is an activity;every activity requires an agency that is active;consequently It was pretty much on the same lines thatthe older atomism sought, besides the operating power,the material particle wherein it resides and out of which itoperatesthe atom. More rigorous minds, however,

learnt at last to get along without this earth-residuum,and perhaps some day we shall accustom ourselves, evenfrom the logicians point of view, to get along without thelittle one (to which the worthy old ego has refineditself).18. It is certainly not the least charm of a theory that itis refutable; it is precisely thereby that it attracts the moresubtle minds. It seems that the hundred-times-refutedtheory of the free will owes its persistence to this charmalone; some one is always appearing who feels himselfstrong enough to refute it.19. Philosophers are accustomed to speak of the will asthough it were the best-known thing in the world;indeed, Schopenhauer has given us to understand that thewill alone is really known to us, absolutely and completelyknown, without deduction or addition. But it again andagain seems to me that in this case Schopenhauer also onlydid what philosophers are in the habit of doing-he seemsto have adopted a POPULAR PREJUDICE andexaggerated it. Willing-seems to me to be above allsomething COMPLICATED, something that is a unityonly in nameand it is precisely in a name that popularprejudice lurks, which has got the mastery over theinadequate precautions of philosophers in all ages. So let usfor once be more cautious, let us be unphilosophical": letus say that in all willing there is firstly a plurality ofsensations, namely, the sensation of the condition AWAYFROM WHICH we go, the sensation of the conditionTOWARDS WHICH we go, the sensation of thisFROM and TOWARDS itself, and then besides, anaccompanying muscular sensation, which, even withoutour putting in motion arms and legs, commences itsaction by force of habit, directly we will anything.Therefore, just as sensations (and indeed many kinds ofsensations) are to be recognized as ingredients of the will,so, in the second place, thinking is also to be recognized;in every act of the will there is a ruling thought;and letus not imagine it possible to sever this thought from thewilling, as if the will would then remain over! In thethird place, the will is not only a complex of sensation andthinking, but it is above all an EMOTION, and in fact theemotion of the command. That which is termed freedomof the will is essentially the emotion of supremacy inrespect to him who must obey: I am free, he mustobeythis consciousness is inherent in every will; andequally so the straining of the attention, the straight look

which fixes itself exclusively on one thing, theunconditional judgment that this and nothing else isnecessary now, the inward certainty that obedience willbe renderedand whatever else pertains to the position ofthe commander. A man who WILLS commandssomething within himself which renders obedience, orwhich he believes renders obedience. But now let usnotice what is the strangest thing about the will,thisaffair so extremely complex, for which the people haveonly one name. Inasmuch as in the given circumstanceswe are at the same time the commanding AND theobeying parties, and as the obeying party we know thesensations of constraint, impulsion, pressure, resistance,and motion, which usually commence immediately afterthe act of will; inasmuch as, on the other hand, we areaccustomed to disregard this duality, and to deceiveourselves about it by means of the synthetic term I": awhole series of erroneous conclusions, and consequentlyof false judgments about the will itself, has becomeattached to the act of willingto such a degree that hewho wills believes firmly that willing SUFFICES foraction. Since in the majority of cases there has only beenexercise of will when the effect of the commandconsequently obedience, and therefore actionwas to beEXPECTED, the APPEARANCE has translated itselfinto the sentiment, as if there were a NECESSITY OFEFFECT; in a word, he who wills believes with a fairamount of certainty that will and action are somehow one;he ascribes the success, the carrying out of the willing, tothe will itself, and thereby enjoys an increase of thesensation of power which accompanies all success.Freedom of Willthat is the expression for the complexstate of delight of the person exercising volition, whocommands and at the same time identifies himself with theexecutor of the order who, as such, enjoys also thetriumph over obstacles, but thinks within himself that itwas really his own will that overcame them. In this waythe person exercising volition adds the feelings of delightof his successful executive instruments, the usefulunderwills or under-soulsindeed, our body is but asocial structure composed of many soulsto his feelings ofdelight as commander. LEFFET CEST MOI. whathappens here is what happens in every well-constructedand happy commonwealth, namely, that the governingclass identifies itself with the successes of thecommonwealth. In all willing it is absolutely a question of

commanding and obeying, on the basis, as already said, ofa social structure composed of many souls, on whichaccount a philosopher should claim the right to includewilling- as-such within the sphere of moralsregarded asthe doctrine of the relations of supremacy under which thephenomenon of life manifests itself.20. That the separate philosophical ideas are notanything optional or autonomously evolving, but grow upin connection and relationship with each other, that,however suddenly and arbitrarily they seem to appear inthe history of thought, they nevertheless belong just asmuch to a system as the collective members of the fauna ofa Continentis betrayed in the end by the circumstance:how unfailingly the most diverse philosophers always fill inagain a definite fundamental scheme of POSSIBLEphilosophies. Under an invisible spell, they always revolveonce more in the same orbit, however independent ofeach other they may feel themselves with their critical orsystematic wills, something within them leads them,something impels them in definite order the one after theotherto wit, the innate methodology and relationship oftheir ideas. Their thinking is, in fact, far less a discoverythan a re-recognizing, a remembering, a return and ahome-coming to a far-off, ancient common-household ofthe soul, out of which those ideas formerly grew:philosophizing is so far a kind of atavism of the highestorder. The wonderful family resemblance of all Indian,Greek, and German philosophizing is easily enoughexplained. In fact, where there is affinity of language,owing to the common philosophy of grammarI meanowing to the unconscious domination and guidance ofsimilar grammatical functionsit cannot but be thateverything is prepared at the outset for a similardevelopment and succession of philosophical systems, justas the way seems barred against certain other possibilitiesof world- interpretation. It is highly probable thatphilosophers within the domain of the Ural-Altaiclanguages (where the conception of the subject is leastdeveloped) look otherwise into the world, and will befound on paths of thought different from those of theIndo-Germans and Mussulmans, the spell of certaingrammatical functions is ultimately also the spell ofPHYSIOLOGICAL valuations and racial conditions.Somuch by way of rejecting Lockes superficiality withregard to the origin of ideas.21. The CAUSA SUI is the best self-contradiction that

has yet been conceived, it is a sort of logical violation andunnaturalness; but the extravagant pride of man hasmanaged to entangle itself profoundly and frightfully withthis very folly. The desire for freedom of will in thesuperlative, metaphysical sense, such as still holds sway,unfortunately, in the minds of the half-educated, the desireto bear the entire and ultimate responsibility for onesactions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors,chance, and society therefrom, involves nothing less thanto be precisely this CAUSA SUI, and, with more thanMunchausen daring, to pull oneself up into existence bythe hair, out of the slough of nothingness. If any oneshould find out in this manner the crass stupidity of thecelebrated conception of free will and put it out of hishead altogether, I beg of him to carry his enlightenmenta step further, and also put out of his head the contrary ofthis monstrous conception of free will": I mean non-freewill, which is tantamount to a misuse of cause and effect.One should not wrongly MATERIALISE cause andeffect, as the natural philosophers do (and whoever likethem naturalize in thinking at present), according to theprevailing mechanical doltishness which makes the causepress and push until it effects its end; one should usecause and effect only as pure CONCEPTIONS, that isto say, as conventional fictions for the purpose ofdesignation and mutual understanding,NOT forexplanation. In being-in-itself there is nothing of casualconnection, of necessity, or of psychological nonfreedom";there the effect does NOT follow the cause,there law does not obtain. It is WE alone who havedevised cause, sequence, reciprocity, relativity, constraint,number, law, freedom, motive, and purpose; and whenwe interpret and intermix this symbol-world, as being-initself,with things, we act once more as we have alwaysactedMYTHOLOGICALLY. The non-free will ismythology; in real life it is only a question of STRONGand WEAK wills.It is almost always a symptom of whatis lacking in himself, when a thinker, in every causalconnectionand psychological necessity, manifestssomething of compulsion, indigence, obsequiousness,oppression, and non-freedom; it is suspicious to have suchfeelingsthe person betrays himself. And in general, if Ihave observed correctly, the non-freedom of the will isregarded as a problem from two entirely oppositestandpoints, but always in a profoundly PERSONALmanner: some will not give up their responsibility, their

belief in THEMSELVES, the personal right to THEIRmerits, at any price (the vain races belong to this class);others on the contrary, do not wish to be answerable foranything, or blamed for anything, and owing to an inwardself-contempt, seek to GET OUT OF THE BUSINESS,no matter how. The latter, when they write books, are inthe habit at present of taking the side of criminals; a sort ofsocialistic sympathy is their favourite disguise. And as amatter of fact, the fatalism of the weak-willed embellishesitself surprisingly when it can pose as la religion de lasouffrance humaine"; that is ITS good taste.22. Let me be pardoned, as an old philologist whocannot desist from the mischief of putting his finger onbad modes of interpretation, but Natures conformity tolaw, of which you physicists talk so proudly, as thoughwhy, it exists only owing to your interpretation and badphilology. It is no matter of fact, no text, but rather justa naively humanitarian adjustment and perversion ofmeaning, with which you make abundant concessions tothe democratic instincts of the modern soul! Everywhereequality before the lawNature is not different in thatrespect, nor better than we": a fine instance of secretmotive, in which the vulgar antagonism to everythingprivileged and autocraticlikewise a second and morerefined atheismis once more disguised. Ni dieu, nimaitrethat, also, is what you want; and thereforeCheers for natural law! is it not so? But, as has beensaid, that is interpretation, not text; and somebody mightcome along, who, with opposite intentions and modes ofinterpretation, could read out of the same Nature, andwith regard to the same phenomena, just the tyrannicallyinconsiderate and relentless enforcement of the claims ofpoweran interpreter who should so place theunexceptionalness and unconditionalness of all Will toPower before your eyes, that almost every word, and theword tyranny itself, would eventually seem unsuitable, orlike a weakening and softening metaphoras being toohuman; and who should, nevertheless, end by asserting thesame about this world as you do, namely, that it has anecessary and calculable course, NOT, however,because laws obtain in it, but because they are absolutelyLACKING, and every power effects its ultimateconsequences every moment. Granted that this also is onlyinterpretationand you will be eager enough to make thisobjection?well, so much the better.23. All psychology hitherto has run aground on moral

prejudices and timidities, it has not dared to launch outinto the depths. In so far as it is allowable to recognize inthat which has hitherto been written, evidence of thatwhich has hitherto been kept silent, it seems as if nobodyhad yet harboured the notion of psychology as theMorphology and DEVELOPMENT-DOCTRINE OFTHE WILL TO POWER, as I conceive of it. The powerof moral prejudices has penetrated deeply into the mostintellectual world, the world apparently most indifferentand unprejudiced, and has obviously operated in aninjurious, obstructive, blinding, and distorting manner. Aproper physio-psychology has to contend withunconscious antagonism in the heart of the investigator, ithas the heart against it even a doctrine of the reciprocalconditionalness of the good and the bad impulses,causes (as refined immorality) distress and aversion in a stillstrong and manly consciencestill more so, a doctrine ofthe derivation of all good impulses from bad ones. If,however, a person should regard even the emotions ofhatred, envy, covetousness, and imperiousness as lifeconditioningemotions, as factors which must be present,fundamentally and essentially, in the general economy oflife (which must, therefore, be further developed if life isto be further developed), he will suffer from such a viewof things as from sea-sickness. And yet this hypothesis is farfrom being the strangest and most painful in this immenseand almost new domain of dangerous knowledge, andthere are in fact a hundred good reasons why every oneshould keep away from it who CAN do so! On the otherhand, if one has once drifted hither with ones bark, well!very good! now let us set our teeth firmly! let us open oureyes and keep our hand fast on the helm! We sail awayright OVER morality, we crush out, we destroy perhapsthe remains of our own morality by daring to make ourvoyage thitherbut what do WE matter. Never yet did aPROFOUNDER world of insight reveal itself to daringtravelers and adventurers, and the psychologist who thusmakes a sacrificeit is not the sacrifizio dell intelletto,on the contrary!will at least be entitled to demand inreturn that psychology shall once more be recognized asthe queen of the sciences, for whose service andequipment the other sciences exist. For psychology is oncemore the path to the fundamental problems.

CHAPTER II: THE FREESPIRIT24. O sancta simplicitiatas! In what strangesimplification and falsification man lives! One can nevercease wondering when once one has got eyes forbeholding this marvel! How we have made everythingaround us clear and free and easy and simple! how wehave been able to give our senses a passport to everythingsuperficial, our thoughts a godlike desire for wantonpranks and wrong inferences!how from the beginning,we have contrived to retain our ignorance in order toenjoy an almost inconceivable freedom, thoughtlessness,imprudence, heartiness, and gaietyin order to enjoy life!And only on this solidified, granitelike foundation ofignorance could knowledge rear itself hitherto, the will toknowledge on the foundation of a far more powerful will,the will to ignorance, to the uncertain, to the untrue! Notas its opposite, butas its refinement! It is to be hoped,indeed, that LANGUAGE, here as elsewhere, will not getover its awkwardness, and that it will continue to talk ofopposites where there are only degrees and manyrefinements of gradation; it is equally to be hoped that theincarnated Tartuffery of morals, which now belongs to ourunconquerable flesh and blood, will turn the wordsround in the mouths of us discerning ones. Here and therewe understand it, and laugh at the way in which preciselythe best knowledge seeks most to retain us in thisSIMPLIFIED, thoroughly artificial, suitably imagined, andsuitably falsified world: at the way in which, whether itwill or not, it loves error, because, as living itself, it loveslife!25. After such a cheerful commencement, a seriousword would fain be heard; it appeals to the most seriousminds. Take care, ye philosophers and friends ofknowledge, and beware of martyrdom! Of suffering forthe truths sake! even in your own defense! It spoils all theinnocence and fine neutrality of your conscience; it makesyou headstrong against objections and red rags; it stupefies,animalizes, and brutalizes, when in the struggle withdanger, slander, suspicion, expulsion, and even worseconsequences of enmity, ye have at last to play your lastcard as protectors of truth upon earthas though theTruth were such an innocent and incompetent creature asto require protectors! and you of all people, ye knights ofthe sorrowful countenance, Messrs Loafers and Cobwebspinners

of the spirit! Finally, ye know sufficiently wellthat it cannot be of any consequence if YE just carry yourpoint; ye know that hitherto no philosopher has carriedhis point, and that there might be a more laudabletruthfulness in every little interrogative mark which youplace after your special words and favourite doctrines (andoccasionally after yourselves) than in all the solemnpantomime and trumping games before accusers and lawcourts!Rather go out of the way! Flee into concealment!And have your masks and your ruses, that ye may bemistaken for what you are, or somewhat feared! And pray,dont forget the garden, the garden with golden trelliswork!And have people around you who are as a gardenor as music on the waters at eventide, when already theday becomes a memory. Choose the GOOD solitude, thefree, wanton, lightsome solitude, which also gives you theright still to remain good in any sense whatsoever! Howpoisonous, how crafty, how bad, does every long warmake one, which cannot be waged openly by means offorce! How PERSONAL does a long fear make one, along watching of enemies, of possible enemies! Thesepariahs of society, these long-pursued, badly-persecutedonesalso the compulsory recluses, the Spinozas orGiordano Brunosalways become in the end, even underthe most intellectual masquerade, and perhaps withoutbeing themselves aware of it, refined vengeance-seekersand poison-Brewers (just lay bare the foundation ofSpinozas ethics and theology!), not to speak of thestupidity of moral indignation, which is the unfailing signin a philosopher that the sense of philosophical humourhas left him. The martyrdom of the philosopher, hissacrifice for the sake of truth, forces into the lightwhatever of the agitator and actor lurks in him; and if onehas hitherto contemplated him only with artistic curiosity,with regard to many a philosopher it is easy to understandthe dangerous desire to see him also in his deterioration(deteriorated into a martyr, into a stage-and- tribunebawler).Only, that it is necessary with such a desire to beclear WHAT spectacle one will see in any casemerely asatyric play, merely an epilogue farce, merely thecontinued proof that the long, real tragedy IS AT ANEND, supposing that every philosophy has been a longtragedy in its origin.26. Every select man strives instinctively for a citadeland a privacy, where he is FREE from the crowd, themany, the majority where he may forget men who are

the rule, as their exception; exclusive only of the casein which he is pushed straight to such men by a stillstronger instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptionalsense. Whoever, in intercourse with men, does notoccasionally glisten in all the green and grey colours ofdistress, owing to disgust, satiety, sympathy, gloominess,and solitariness, is assuredly not a man of elevated tastes;supposing, however, that he does not voluntarily take allthis burden and disgust upon himself, that he persistentlyavoids it, and remains, as I said, quietly and proudlyhidden in his citadel, one thing is then certain: he was notmade, he was not predestined for knowledge. For as such,he would one day have to say to himself: The devil takemy good taste! but the rule is more interesting than theexceptionthan myself, the exception! And he would goDOWN, and above all, he would go inside. The longand serious study of the AVERAGE manandconsequently much disguise, self-overcoming, familiarity,and bad intercourse (all intercourse is bad intercourseexcept with ones equals):that constitutes a necessarypart of the life-history of every philosopher; perhaps themost disagreeable, odious, and disappointing part. If he isfortunate, however, as a favourite child of knowledgeshould be, he will meet with suitable auxiliaries who willshorten and lighten his task; I mean so- called cynics, thosewho simply recognize the animal, the commonplace andthe rule in themselves, and at the same time have somuch spirituality and ticklishness as to make them talk ofthemselves and their like BEFORE WITNESSESsometimes they wallow, even in books, as on their owndung-hill. Cynicism is the only form in which base soulsapproach what is called honesty; and the higher man mustopen his ears to all the coarser or finer cynicism, andcongratulate himself when the clown becomes shamelessright before him, or the scientific satyr speaks out. Thereare even cases where enchantment mixes with thedisgust namely, where by a freak of nature, genius isbound to some such indiscreet billy-goat and ape, as in thecase of the Abbe Galiani, the profoundest, acutest, andperhaps also filthiest man of his centuryhe was farprofounder than Voltaire, and consequently also, a gooddeal more silent. It happens more frequently, as has beenhinted, that a scientific head is placed on an apes body, afine exceptional understanding in a base soul, anoccurrence by no means rare, especially among doctorsand moral physiologists. And whenever anyone speaks

without bitterness, or rather quite innocently, of man as abelly with two requirements, and a head with one;whenever any one sees, seeks, and WANTS to see onlyhunger, sexual instinct, and vanity as the real and onlymotives of human actions; in short, when any one speaksbadlyand not even illof man, then ought the loverof knowledge to hearken attentively and diligently; heought, in general, to have an open ear wherever there istalk without indignation. For the indignant man, and hewho perpetually tears and lacerates himself with his ownteeth (or, in place of himself, the world, God, or society),may indeed, morally speaking, stand higher than thelaughing and self- satisfied satyr, but in every other sensehe is the more ordinary, more indifferent, and lessinstructive case. And no one is such a LIAR as theindignant man.27. It is difficult to be understood, especially when onethinks and lives gangasrotogati [Footnote: Like the riverGanges: presto.] among those only who think and liveotherwisenamely, kurmagati [Footnote: Like thetortoise: lento.], or at best froglike, mandeikagati[Footnote: Like the frog: staccato.] (I do everything to bedifficultly understood myself!)and one should beheartily grateful for the good will to some refinement ofinterpretation. As regards the good friends, however,who are always too easy-going, and think that as friendsthey have a right to ease, one does well at the very first togrant them a play-ground and romping-place formisunderstandingone can thus laugh still; or get rid ofthem altogether, these good friends and laugh then also!28. What is most difficult to render from one languageinto another is the TEMPO of its style, which has its basisin the character of the race, or to speak morephysiologically, in the average TEMPO of the assimilationof its nutriment. There are honestly meant translations,which, as involuntary vulgarizations, are almostfalsifications of the original, merely because its lively andmerry TEMPO (which overleaps and obviates all dangersin word and expression) could not also be rendered. AGerman is almost incapacitated for PRESTO in hislanguage; consequently also, as may be reasonably inferred,for many of the most delightful and daring NUANCES offree, free-spirited thought. And just as the buffoon andsatyr are foreign to him in body and conscience, soAristophanes and Petronius are untranslatable for him.Everything ponderous, viscous, and pompously clumsy, all

long-winded and wearying species of style, are developedin profuse variety among Germanspardon me for statingthe fact that even Goethes prose, in its mixture of stiffnessand elegance, is no exception, as a reflection of the goodold time to which it belongs, and as an expression ofGerman taste at a time when there was still a Germantaste, which was a rococo-taste in moribus et artibus.Lessing is an exception, owing to his histrionic nature,which understood much, and was versed in many things;he who was not the translator of Bayle to no purpose,who took refuge willingly in the shadow of Diderot andVoltaire, and still more willingly among the Romancomedy-writersLessing loved also free-spiritism in theTEMPO, and flight out of Germany. But how could theGerman language, even in the prose of Lessing, imitate theTEMPO of Machiavelli, who in his Principe makes usbreathe the dry, fine air of Florence, and cannot helppresenting the most serious events in a boisterousallegrissimo, perhaps not without a malicious artistic senseof the contrast he ventures to presentlong, heavy,difficult, dangerous thoughts, and a TEMPO of the gallop,and of the best, wantonest humour? Finally, who wouldventure on a German translation of Petronius, who, morethan any great musician hitherto, was a master ofPRESTO in invention, ideas, and words? What matter inthe end about the swamps of the sick, evil world, or of theancient world, when like him, one has the feet of a wind,the rush, the breath, the emancipating scorn of a wind,which makes everything healthy, by making everythingRUN! And with regard to Aristophanesthattransfiguring, complementary genius, for whose sake onePARDONS all Hellenism for having existed, providedone has understood in its full profundity ALL that thererequires pardon and transfiguration; there is nothing thathas caused me to meditate more on PLATOS secrecy andsphinx-like nature, than the happily preserved petit faitthat under the pillow of his death-bed there was found noBible, nor anything Egyptian, Pythagorean, or Platonicbut a book of Aristophanes. How could even Plato haveendured lifea Greek life which he repudiatedwithoutan Aristophanes!29. It is the business of the very few to be independent;it is a privilege of the strong. And whoever attempts it,even with the best right, but without being OBLIGED todo so, proves that he is probably not only strong, but alsodaring beyond measure. He enters into a labyrinth, he

multiplies a thousandfold the dangers which life in itselfalready brings with it; not the least of which is that no onecan see how and where he loses his way, becomes isolated,and is torn piecemeal by some minotaur of conscience.Supposing such a one comes to grief, it is so far from thecomprehension of men that they neither feel it, norsympathize with it. And he cannot any longer go back! Hecannot even go back again to the sympathy of men!30. Our deepest insights mustand shouldappear asfollies, and under certain circumstances as crimes, whenthey come unauthorizedly to the ears of those who are notdisposed and predestined for them. The exoteric and theesoteric, as they were formerly distinguished byphilosophersamong the Indians, as among the Greeks,Persians, and Mussulmans, in short, wherever peoplebelieved in gradations of rank and NOT in equality andequal rightsare not so much in contradistinction to oneanother in respect to the exoteric class, standing without,and viewing, estimating, measuring, and judging from theoutside, and not from the inside; the more essentialdistinction is that the class in question views things frombelow upwardswhile the esoteric class views thingsFROM ABOVE DOWNWARDS. There are heights ofthe soul from which tragedy itself no longer appears tooperate tragically; and if all the woe in the world weretaken together, who would dare to decide whether thesight of it would NECESSARILY seduce and constrain tosympathy, and thus to a doubling of the woe? Thatwhich serves the higher class of men for nourishment orrefreshment, must be almost poison to an entirely differentand lower order of human beings. The virtues of thecommon man would perhaps mean vice and weakness in aphilosopher; it might be possible for a highly developedman, supposing him to degenerate and go to ruin, toacquire qualities thereby alone, for the sake of which hewould have to be honoured as a saint in the lower worldinto which he had sunk. There are books which have aninverse value for the soul and the health according as theinferior soul and the lower vitality, or the higher and morepowerful, make use of them. In the former case they aredangerous, disturbing, unsettling books, in the latter casethey are herald-calls which summon the bravest toTHEIR bravery. Books for the general reader are alwaysill-smelling books, the odour of paltry people clings tothem. Where the populace eat and drink, and even wherethey reverence, it is accustomed to stink. One should not

go into churches if one wishes to breathe PURE air.31. In our youthful years we still venerate and despisewithout the art of NUANCE, which is the best gain oflife, and we have rightly to do hard penance for havingfallen upon men and things with Yea and Nay. Everythingis so arranged that the worst of all tastes, THE TASTEFOR THE UNCONDITIONAL, is cruelly befooled andabused, until a man learns to introduce a little art into hissentiments, and prefers to try conclusions with theartificial, as do the real artists of life. The angry andreverent spirit peculiar to youth appears to allow itself nopeace, until it has suitably falsified men and things, to beable to vent its passion upon them: youth in itself even, issomething falsifying and deceptive. Later on, when theyoung soul, tortured by continual disillusions, finally turnssuspiciously against itselfstill ardent and savage even inits suspicion and remorse of conscience: how it upbraidsitself, how impatiently it tears itself, how it revenges itselffor its long self-blinding, as though it had been a voluntaryblindness! In this transition one punishes oneself by distrustof ones sentiments; one tortures ones enthusiasm withdoubt, one feels even the good conscience to be a danger,as if it were the self-concealment and lassitude of a morerefined uprightness; and above all, one espouses uponprinciple the cause AGAINST youth.A decade later,and one comprehends that all this was also stillyouth!32. Throughout the longest period of human historyone calls it the prehistoric periodthe value or non-valueof an action was inferred from its CONSEQUENCES;the action in itself was not taken into consideration, anymore than its origin; but pretty much as in China atpresent, where the distinction or disgrace of a childredounds to its parents, the retro-operating power ofsuccess or failure was what induced men to think well orill of an action. Let us call this period the PRE-MORALperiod of mankind; the imperative, Know thyself! wasthen still unknown. In the last ten thousand years, onthe other hand, on certain large portions of the earth, onehas gradually got so far, that one no longer lets theconsequences of an action, but its origin, decide withregard to its worth: a great achievement as a whole, animportant refinement of vision and of criterion, theunconscious effect of the supremacy of aristocratic valuesand of the belief in origin, the mark of a period whichmay be designated in the narrower sense as the MORALone: the first attempt at self-knowledge is thereby made.

Instead of the consequences, the originwhat aninversion of perspective! And assuredly an inversioneffected only after long struggle and wavering! To be sure,an ominous new superstition, a peculiar narrowness ofinterpretation, attained supremacy precisely thereby: theorigin of an action was interpreted in the most definitesense possible, as origin out of an INTENTION; peoplewere agreed in the belief that the value of an action lay inthe value of its intention. The intention as the sole originand antecedent history of an action: under the influence ofthis prejudice moral praise and blame have been bestowed,and men have judged and even philosophized almost up tothe present day.Is it not possible, however, that thenecessity may now have arisen of again making up ourminds with regard to the reversing and fundamentalshifting of values, owing to a new self-consciousness andacuteness in manis it not possible that we may bestanding on the threshold of a period which to begin with,would be distinguished negatively as ULTRA-MORAL:nowadays when, at least among us immoralists, thesuspicion arises that the decisive value of an action liesprecisely in that which is NOT INTENTIONAL, andthat all its intentionalness, all that is seen, sensible, orsensed in it, belongs to its surface or skin which, likeevery skin, betrays something, but CONCEALS stillmore? In short, we believe that the intention is only a signor symptom, which first requires an explanationa sign,moreover, which has too many interpretations, andconsequently hardly any meaning in itself alone: thatmorality, in the sense in which it has been understoodhitherto, as intention-morality, has been a prejudice,perhaps a prematureness or preliminariness, probablysomething of the same rank as astrology and alchemy, butin any case something which must be surmounted. Thesurmounting of morality, in a certain sense even the selfmountingof morality let that be the name for the longsecret labour which has been reserved for the most refined,the most upright, and also the most wicked consciences oftoday, as the living touchstones of the soul.33. It cannot be helped: the sentiment of surrender, ofsacrifice for ones neighbour, and all self-renunciationmorality,must be mercilessly called to account, andbrought to judgment; just as the aesthetics of disinterestedcontemplation, under which the emasculation of artnowadays seeks insidiously enough to create itself a goodconscience. There is far too much witchery and sugar in

the sentiments for others and NOT for myself, for onenot needing to be doubly distrustful here, and for oneasking promptly: Are they not perhapsDECEPTIONS?That they PLEASE him who hasthem, and him who enjoys their fruit, and also the merespectatorthat is still no argument in their FAVOUR,but just calls for caution. Let us therefore be cautious!34. At whatever standpoint of philosophy one mayplace oneself nowadays, seen from every position, theERRONEOUSNESS of the world in which we think welive is the surest and most certain thing our eyes can lightupon: we find proof after proof thereof, which would fainallure us into surmises concerning a deceptive principle inthe nature of things. He, however, who makes thinkingitself, and consequently the spirit, responsible for thefalseness of the worldan honourable exit, which everyconscious or unconscious advocatus dei avails himself ofhe who regards this world, including space, time, form,and movement, as falsely DEDUCED, would have at leastgood reason in the end to become distrustful also of allthinking; has it not hitherto been playing upon us theworst of scurvy tricks? and what guarantee would it givethat it would not continue to do what it has always beendoing? In all seriousness, the innocence of thinkers hassomething touching and respect-inspiring in it, whicheven nowadays permits them to wait upon consciousnesswith the request that it will give them HONEST answers:for example, whether it be real or not, and why it keepsthe outer world so resolutely at a distance, and otherquestions of the same description. The belief inimmediate certainties is a MORAL NAIVETE whichdoes honour to us philosophers; butwe have now tocease being MERELY moral men! Apart from morality,such belief is a folly which does little honour to us! If inmiddle-class life an ever- ready distrust is regarded as thesign of a bad character, and consequently as animprudence, here among us, beyond the middle- classworld and its Yeas and Nays, what should prevent ourbeing imprudent and saying: the philosopher has at lengtha RIGHT to bad character, as the being who has hithertobeen most befooled on earthhe is now underOBLIGATION to distrustfulness, to the wickedestsquinting out of every abyss of suspicion.Forgive me thejoke of this gloomy grimace and turn of expression; for Imyself have long ago learned to think and estimatedifferently with regard to deceiving and being deceived,

and I keep at least a couple of pokes in the ribs ready forthe blind rage with which philosophers struggle againstbeing deceived. Why NOT? It is nothing more than amoral prejudice that truth is worth more than semblance;it is, in fact, the worst proved supposition in the world. Somuch must be conceded: there could have been no life atall except upon the basis of perspective estimates andsemblances; and if, with the virtuous enthusiasm andstupidity of many philosophers, one wished to do awayaltogether with the seeming worldwell, granted thatYOU could do that,at least nothing of your truthwould thereby remain! Indeed, what is it that forces us ingeneral to the supposition that there is an essentialopposition of true and false? Is it not enough to supposedegrees of seemingness, and as it were lighter and darkershades and tones of semblancedifferent valeurs, as thepainters say? Why might not the world WHICHCONCERNS USbe a fiction? And to any one whosuggested: But to a fiction belongs an originator?mightit not be bluntly replied: WHY? May not this belong alsobelong to the fiction? Is it not at length permitted to be alittle ironical towards the subject, just as towards thepredicate and object? Might not the philosopher elevatehimself above faith in grammar? All respect to governesses,but is it not time that philosophy should renouncegoverness-faith?35. O Voltaire! O humanity! O idiocy! There issomething ticklish in the truth, and in the SEARCH forthe truth; and if man goes about it too humanelyil necherche le vrai que pour faire le bienI wager he findsnothing!36. Supposing that nothing else is given as real but ourworld of desires and passions, that we cannot sink or riseto any other reality but just that of our impulsesforthinking is only a relation of these impulses to oneanother:are we not permitted to make the attempt andto ask the question whether this which is given does notSUFFICE, by means of our counterparts, for theunderstanding even of the so-called mechanical (ormaterial) world? I do not mean as an illusion, asemblance, a representation (in the Berkeleyan andSchopenhauerian sense), but as possessing the same degreeof reality as our emotions themselvesas a more primitiveform of the world of emotions, in which everything stilllies locked in a mighty unity, which afterwards branchesoff and develops itself in organic processes (naturally also,

refines and debilitates)as a kind of instinctive life inwhich all organic functions, including self- regulation,assimilation, nutrition, secretion, and change of matter, arestill synthetically united with one anotheras aPRIMARY FORM of life?In the end, it is not onlypermitted to make this attempt, it is commanded by theconscience of LOGICAL METHOD. Not to assumeseveral kinds of causality, so long as the attempt to getalong with a single one has not been pushed to its furthestextent (to absurdity, if I may be allowed to say so): that is amorality of method which one may not repudiatenowadaysit follows from its definition, asmathematicians say. The question is ultimately whetherwe really recognize the will as OPERATING, whetherwe believe in the causality of the will; if we do soandfundamentally our belief IN THIS is just our belief incausality itselfwe MUST make the attempt to posithypothetically the causality of the will as the onlycausality. Will can naturally only operate on willandnot on matter (not on nerves, for instance): in short, thehypothesis must be hazarded, whether will does notoperate on will wherever effects are recognizedandwhether all mechanical action, inasmuch as a poweroperates therein, is not just the power of will, the effect ofwill. Granted, finally, that we succeeded in explaining ourentire instinctive life as the development and ramificationof one fundamental form of willnamely, the Will toPower, as my thesis puts it; granted that all organicfunctions could be traced back to this Will to Power, andthat the solution of the problem of generation andnutritionit is one problem could also be foundtherein: one would thus have acquired the right to defineALL active force unequivocally as WILL TO POWER.The world seen from within, the world defined anddesignated according to its intelligible characteritwould simply be Will to Power, and nothing else.37. What? Does not that mean in popular language:God is disproved, but not the devil?On the contrary!On the contrary, my friends! And who the devil alsocompels you to speak popularly!38. As happened finally in all the enlightenment ofmodern times with the French Revolution (that terriblefarce, quite superfluous when judged close at hand, intowhich, however, the noble and visionary spectators of allEurope have interpreted from a distance their ownindignation and enthusiasm so long and passionately,

UNTIL THE TEXT HAS DISAPPEARED UNDERTHE INTERPRETATION), so a noble posterity mightonce more misunderstand the whole of the past, andperhaps only thereby make ITS aspect endurable.Orrather, has not this already happened? Have not weourselves beenthat noble posterity? And, in so far aswe now comprehend this, is it notthereby already past?39. Nobody will very readily regard a doctrine as truemerely because it makes people happy or virtuousexcepting, perhaps, the amiable Idealists, who areenthusiastic about the good, true, and beautiful, and let allkinds of motley, coarse, and good-natured desirabilitiesswim about promiscuously in their pond. Happiness andvirtue are no arguments. It is willingly forgotten, however,even on the part of thoughtful minds, that to makeunhappy and to make bad are just as little counterarguments.A thing could be TRUE, although it were inthe highest degree injurious and dangerous; indeed, thefundamental constitution of existence might be such thatone succumbed by a full knowledge of itso that thestrength of a mind might be measured by the amount oftruth it could endureor to speak more plainly, by theextent to which it REQUIRED truth attenuated, veiled,sweetened, damped, and falsified. But there is no doubtthat for the discovery of certain PORTIONS of truth thewicked and unfortunate are more favourably situated andhave a greater likelihood of success; not to speak of thewicked who are happya species about whom moralistsare silent. Perhaps severity and craft are more favourableconditions for the development of strong, independentspirits and philosophers than the gentle, refined, yieldinggood-nature, and habit of taking things easily, which areprized, and rightly prized in a learned man. Presupposingalways, to begin with, that the term philosopher be notconfined to the philosopher who writes books, or evenintroduces HIS philosophy into books!Stendhalfurnishes a last feature of the portrait of the free-spiritedphilosopher, which for the sake of German taste I will notomit to underlinefor it is OPPOSED to German taste.Pour etre bon philosophe, says this last great psychologist,il faut etre sec, clair, sans illusion. Un banquier, qui a faitfortune, a une partie du caractere requis pour faire desdecouvertes en philosophie, cest-a-dire pour voir clairdans ce qui est.40. Everything that is profound loves the mask: theprofoundest things have a hatred even of figure and

likeness. Should not the CONTRARY only be the rightdisguise for the shame of a God to go about in? A questionworth asking!it would be strange if some mystic has notalready ventured on the same kind of thing. There areproceedings of such a delicate nature that it is well tooverwhelm them with coarseness and make themunrecognizable; there are actions of love and of anextravagant magnanimity after which nothing can be wiserthan to take a stick and thrash the witness soundly: onethereby obscures his recollection. Many a one is able toobscure and abuse his own memory, in order at least tohave vengeance on this sole party in the secret: shame isinventive. They are not the worst things of which one ismost ashamed: there is not only deceit behind a maskthere is so much goodness in craft. I could imagine that aman with something costly and fragile to conceal, wouldroll through life clumsily and rotundly like an old, green,heavily-hooped wine-cask: the refinement of his shamerequiring it to be so. A man who has depths in his shamemeets his destiny and his delicate decisions upon pathswhich few ever reach, and with regard to the existence ofwhich his nearest and most intimate friends may beignorant; his mortal danger conceals itself from their eyes,and equally so his regained security. Such a hidden nature,which instinctively employs speech for silence andconcealment, and is inexhaustible in evasion ofcommunication, DESIRES and insists that a mask ofhimself shall occupy his place in the hearts and heads of hisfriends; and supposing he does not desire it, his eyes willsome day be opened to the fact that there is nevertheless amask of him thereand that it is well to be so. Everyprofound spirit needs a mask; nay, more, around everyprofound spirit there continually grows a mask, owing tothe constantly false, that is to say, SUPERFICIALinterpretation of every word he utters, every step he takes,every sign of life he manifests.41. One must subject oneself to ones own tests thatone is destined for independence and command, and do soat the right time. One must not avoid ones tests, althoughthey constitute perhaps the most dangerous game one canplay, and are in the end tests made only before ourselvesand before no other judge. Not to cleave to any person,be it even the dearestevery person is a prison and also arecess. Not to cleave to a fatherland, be it even the mostsuffering and necessitousit is even less difficult to detachones heart from a victorious fatherland. Not to cleave to a

sympathy, be it even for higher men, into whose peculiartorture and helplessness chance has given us an insight.Not to cleave to a science, though it tempt one with themost valuable discoveries, apparently specially reserved forus. Not to cleave to ones own liberation, to thevoluptuous distance and remoteness of the bird, whichalways flies further aloft in order always to see more underitthe danger of the flier. Not to cleave to our ownvirtues, nor become as a whole a victim to any of ourspecialties, to our hospitality for instance, which is thedanger of dangers for highly developed and wealthy souls,who deal prodigally, almost indifferently with themselves,and push the virtue of liberality so far that it becomes avice. One must know how TO CONSERVEONESELFthe best test of independence.42. A new order of philosophers is appearing; I shallventure to baptize them by a name not without danger. Asfar as I understand them, as far as they allow themselves tobe understoodfor it is their nature to WISH to remainsomething of a puzzlethese philosophers of the futuremight rightly, perhaps also wrongly, claim to be designatedas tempters. This name itself is after all only an attempt,or, if it be preferred, a temptation.43. Will they be new friends of truth, these comingphilosophers? Very probably, for all philosophers hithertohave loved their truths. But assuredly they will not bedogmatists. It must be contrary to their pride, and alsocontrary to their taste, that their truth should still be truthfor every onethat which has hitherto been the secretwish and ultimate purpose of all dogmatic efforts. Myopinion is MY opinion: another person has not easily aright to itsuch a philosopher of the future will say,perhaps. One must renounce the bad taste of wishing toagree with many people. Good is no longer good whenones neighbour takes it into his mouth. And how couldthere be a common good! The expression contradictsitself; that which can be common is always of small value.In the end things must be as they are and have alwaysbeenthe great things remain for the great, the abysses forthe profound, the delicacies and thrills for the refined, and,to sum up shortly, everything rare for the rare.44. Need I say expressly after all this that they will befree, VERY free spirits, these philosophers of the futureas certainly also they will not be merely free spirits, butsomething more, higher, greater, and fundamentallydifferent, which does not wish to be misunderstood and

mistaken? But while I say this, I feel underOBLIGATION almost as much to them as to ourselves

(we free spirits who are their heralds and forerunners), tosweep away from ourselves altogether a stupid oldprejudice and misunderstanding, which, like a fog, has toolong made the conception of free spirit obscure. In everycountry of Europe, and the same in America, there is atpresent something which makes an abuse of this name avery narrow, prepossessed, enchained class of spirits, whodesire almost the opposite of what our intentions andinstincts promptnot to mention that in respect to theNEW philosophers who are appearing, they must stillmore be closed windows and bolted doors. Briefly andregrettably, they belong to the LEVELLERS, thesewrongly named free spiritsas glib-tongued and scribefingeredslaves of the democratic taste and its modernideas all of them men without solitude, without personalsolitude, blunt honest fellows to whom neither couragenor honourable conduct ought to be denied, only, theyare not free, and are ludicrously superficial, especially intheir innate partiality for seeing the cause of almost ALLhuman misery and failure in the old forms in whichsociety has hitherto existeda notion which happilyinverts the truth entirely! What they would fain attainwith all their strength, is the universal, green-meadowhappiness of the herd, together with security, safety,comfort, and alleviation of life for every one, their twomost frequently chanted songs and doctrines are calledEquality of Rights and Sympathy with All Sufferersand suffering itself is looked upon by them as somethingwhich must be DONE AWAY WITH. We oppositeones, however, who have opened our eye and conscienceto the question how and where the plant man hashitherto grown most vigorously, believe that this hasalways taken place under the opposite conditions, that forthis end the dangerousness of his situation had to beincreased enormously, his inventive faculty anddissembling power (his spirit) had to develop intosubtlety and daring under long oppression andcompulsion, and his Will to Life had to be increased to theunconditioned Will to Powerwe believe that severity,violence, slavery, danger in the street and in the heart,secrecy, stoicism, tempters art and devilry of everykind,that everything wicked, terrible, tyrannical,predatory, and serpentine in man, serves as well for theelevation of the human species as its oppositewe do not

even say enough when we only say THIS MUCH, and inany case we find ourselves here, both with our speech andour silence, at the OTHER extreme of all modernideology and gregarious desirability, as their anti-podesperhaps? What wonder that we free spirits are not exactlythe most communicative spirits? that we do not wish tobetray in every respect WHAT a spirit can free itself from,and WHERE perhaps it will then be driven? And as to theimport of the dangerous formula, Beyond Good andEvil, with which we at least avoid confusion, we AREsomething else than libres-penseurs, liben pensatorifree-thinkers, and whatever these honest advocates ofmodern ideas like to call themselves. Having been athome, or at least guests, in many realms of the spirit,having escaped again and again from the gloomy,agreeable nooks in which preferences and prejudices,youth, origin, the accident of men and books, or even theweariness of travel seemed to confine us, full of maliceagainst the seductions of dependency which he concealedin honours, money, positions, or exaltation of the senses,grateful even for distress and the vicissitudes of illness,because they always free us from some rule, and itsprejudice, grateful to the God, devil, sheep, and worm inus, inquisitive to a fault, investigators to the point ofcruelty, with unhesitating fingers for the intangible, withteeth and stomachs for the most indigestible, ready for anybusiness that requires sagacity and acute senses, ready forevery adventure, owing to an excess of free will, withanterior and posterior souls, into the ultimate intentions ofwhich it is difficult to pry, with foregrounds andbackgrounds to the end of which no foot may run, hiddenones under the mantles of light, appropriators, althoughwe resemble heirs and spendthrifts, arrangers and collectorsfrom morning till night, misers of our wealth and our fullcrammeddrawers, economical in learning and forgetting,inventive in scheming, sometimes proud of tables ofcategories, sometimes pedants, sometimes night-owls ofwork even in full day, yea, if necessary, even scarecrowsand it is necessary nowadays, that is to say, inasmuch as weare the born, sworn, jealous friends of SOLITUDE, of ourown profoundest midnight and midday solitudesuchkind of men are we, we free spirits! And perhaps ye arealso something of the same kind, ye coming ones? yeNEW philosophers?

CHAPTER III: THE RELIGIOUSMOOD45. The human soul and its limits, the range of mansinner experiences hitherto attained, the heights, depths,and distances of these experiences, the entire history of thesoul UP TO THE PRESENT TIME, and its stillunexhausted possibilities: this is the preordained huntingdomainfor a born psychologist and lover of a big hunt".But how often must he say despairingly to himself: Asingle individual! alas, only a single individual! and thisgreat forest, this virgin forest! So he would like to havesome hundreds of hunting assistants, and fine trainedhounds, that he could send into the history of the humansoul, to drive HIS game together. In vain: again and againhe experiences, profoundly and bitterly, how difficult it isto find assistants and dogs for all the things that directlyexcite his curiosity. The evil of sending scholars into newand dangerous hunting- domains, where courage, sagacity,and subtlety in every sense are required, is that they are nolonger serviceable just when the BIG hunt, and also thegreat danger commences,it is precisely then that theylose their keen eye and nose. In order, for instance, todivine and determine what sort of history the problem ofKNOWLEDGE AND CONSCIENCE has hitherto hadin the souls of homines religiosi, a person would perhapshimself have to possess as profound, as bruised, as immensean experience as the intellectual conscience of Pascal; andthen he would still require that wide-spread heaven ofclear, wicked spirituality, which, from above, would beable to oversee, arrange, and effectively formulize this massof dangerous and painful experiences.But who could dome this service! And who would have time to wait forsuch servants!they evidently appear too rarely, they areso improbable at all times! Eventually one must doeverything ONESELF in order to know something;which means that one has MUCH to do!But a curiositylike mine is once for all the most agreeable of vicespardon me! I mean to say that the love of truth has itsreward in heaven, and already upon earth.46. Faith, such as early Christianity desired, and notinfrequently achieved in the midst of a skeptical andsouthernly free-spirited world, which had centuries ofstruggle between philosophical schools behind it and in it,counting besides the education in tolerance which theImperium Romanum gavethis faith is NOT t