What Nietzsche Taught

Beyond Good and Evil." This former work had met with small success, and the critics, failing to understand its doctrines, read converse meanings in it. One

This new polemic may be looked upon both as a completing of former works and as a further preparation for "The Will to Power." The book, a comparatively brief one (it contains barely 40,000 words), was written in a period of about two weeks during the early part of 1887. In July the manuscript was sent to the

n future volumes. "Beyond Good and Evil" was a commentary on "Thus Spake Zarathustra"; "The Genealogy of Morals" is a commentary on the newly propounded theses in "Beyond Good and Evil" and is in addition an elaboration of many of the ideas which took birth as far back as "Human, All-Too-Human." Out of "The Genealogy of Morals" in turn grew "The Antichrist" which dealt specifically with the theological phase of the former's discussion of general morals. And all of these books were but preparations for "The Will to Power." For this reason it is difficult to acquire a complete understanding of Nietzsche's philosophy unless one follows it c

ulty of psychological discrimination par excellence." He posed the following questions, and endeavoured to answer them by inquiring into the minutest aspects of historical conditions: "Under what conditions did Man invent for himself those judgments of value, 'good' and 'evil'? And what intrinsic value do they possess in themselves? Have they up to the present hindered or advanced human well-being"? Are they a symptom of the distress, impoverishment, and degeneration of Human Life? Or, conversely, is it in them that is manifested the fulness, the strength, and the will of Life, its courage, its self-confidence, its future?" In his research, Nietzsche first questioned the value

ns 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, Nietzs

an; 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 goodn

hat 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

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 lenienc

es 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[Pg 211] 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 imposs

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

o 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 ance

uted 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 o

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 itsel

work, routine and obedience. The sick man forgot himself in the labour which had received sanctification. The priests also combated depression by[Pg 215] permitting pleasure through the creation and production of joy. That is, they set men to helping and comforting each other, by instilling in th

ade 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, th

g

"THE GENEALO

d fundamental instinct of a higher dominant race coming into association with a mea

taining 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-

ctive 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 val

tocratic origin and that "evil" out of the cauldron of unsatisfied hatred-the former an imitation, an "extra," an additional[Pg 217] nuance; the latter, on the other hand, the original, the beginning, th

me, 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

e 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

nothing which wishes to be greater, we surmise that the process is always still backwards, still backwards towards something mor

g

overthrow, a wish to become master, a thirst for enemies and antagonisms and triumphs, is just as absurd as to require of

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

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 train

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 Jud?a, Jud?a 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 dia

rate that is not the same

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[Pg

igh 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

; 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 whi

egation 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

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 w

paid for," the oldest and most na?ve moral canon of justice the beginning of all "

t calls itself-Grace! it remains, as is obvious, the privi

freer outlook,[Pg 222] the better conscience. On the other hand, we already surmise who it rea

tion, an annihilation can be nothing wrong, inasmuch as life is essentially (that is, in its cardinal functions) something whi

ians, 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 ther

g

tself 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

"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 ca

self-abuse, that provides the necessary conditi

g, 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

lf 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

bidezza 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

e. Marriage, for example, seemed for a long time a sin against the rights of the communit

y almost become[Pg 226] "intrinsic values," were for a very long time actually despised

o 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 i

his 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 th

otched, oppressed, broken, those are they, the weakest are they, who most undermine the life beneath the fee

g

ould 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 eter

ned saviour, herdsman, and champion of the sick herd: the

st 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 th

f the priests which has[Pg 228] 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 the

f agonising and ecstatic music to play on the fibres of the human soul-

ettable 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 efficien

third, fourth, fifth, and sixth things which it has corrupted-I shall take

ngth, the confidence of life, the confidence in the future are no[Pg 229] more. The preponderance of the mandarins never signifies any good, any more than

ning; 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 wishe

ype="