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ECCE HOMO

BY

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

PORTLAND, MAINESMITH & SALE, PRINTERS1911

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COPYRIGHTT. N . F O U L I S

I 9 I I


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ECCE HOMOTHE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF NIETZSCHE

PREFACE

As it is my intention within a very short time to con-front my fellow-men with the very greatest demandthat has ever yet been made upon them, it seems tome above all necessary to declare here who and whatI am. As a matter of fact, this ought to be pretty wellknown already, for I have not "held my tongue" aboutmyself. But the disparity which exists between thegreatness of my task and the smallness of my contem-poraries, is revealed by the fact that people haveneither heard me nor yet seen me. I live on my ownself-made credit, and it is probably only a prejudice tosuppose that I am alive at all. I do but require tospeak to any one of the scholars who come to theOber-Engadine in the summer in order to convincemyself that I am not alive. . . . Under these circum-stances, it is a dutyand one against which my cus-tomary reserve, and to a still greater degree the prideof my instincts, rebelto say : Listen! for I am suchand such a person. For Heaven's sake do not confoundme with any one else 1

I am, for instance, in no wise a bogey man, or moralmonster. On the contrary, I am the very opposite in


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4 PREFACEnature to the kind of man that has been honouredhitherto as virtuous. Between ourselves it seems tome that this is precisely a matter on which I may feelproud. I am a disciple of the philosopher Dionysus,and I would prefer to be even a satyr than a saint.But just read this book ! Maybe I have here suc-ceeded in expressing this contrast in a cheerful and atthe same time sympathetic mannermaybe this is theonly purpose of the present work.The very last thing I should promise to accomplishwould be to "improve" mankind. I do not set up any

new idols ; may old idols only learn what it costs tohave legs of clay. To overthrow idols (idols is thename I give to all ideals) is much more like my busi-ness. In proportion as an ideal world has been falselyassumed, reality has been robbed of its value, itsmeaning, and its truthfulness. . . . The "true world"and the "apparent world"in plain English, the ficti-tious world and reality. . . . Hitherto the lie of theideal has been the curse of reality ; by means of it thevery source of mankind's instincts has become menda-cious and false ; so much so that those values havecome to be worshipped which are the exact opposite ofthe ones which would ensure man's prosperity, hisfuture, and his great right to a future.

He who knows how to beathe in the air of my writ-ings is conscious that it is the air of the heights, thatit is bracing. A man must be built for it, otherwisethe chances are that it will chill him. The ice is near,the loneliness is terriblebut how serenely everything


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PREFACE 5lies in the sunshine ! how freely one can breathe ! howmuch, one feels, lies beneath one ! Philosophy, as Ihave understood it hitherto, is a voluntary retirementinto regions of ice and mountain-peaksthe seeking-out of everything strange and questionable in exist-ence, everything upon which, hitherto, morality has setits ban. Through long experience, derived from suchwanderings in forbidden country, I acquired an opinionvery different from that which may seem generallydesirable, of the causes which hitherto have led tomen's moralising and idealising. The secret historyof philosophers, the psychology of their great names,was revealed to me. How much truth can a certainmind endure ; how much truth can it dare ?thesequestions became for me ever more and more theactual test of values. Error (the belief in the ideal) isnot blindness ; error is cowardice. . . . Every con-quest, every step forward in knowledge, is the outcomeof courage, of hardness towards one's self, of cleanli-ness towards one's self. I do not refute ideals ; all Ido is to draw on my gloves in their presence. . . .Nitimur in vetitum : with this device my philosophywill one day be victorious ; for that which has hithertobeen most stringently forbidden is, without exception.Truth.

In my lifework, my Zarathustra holds a place apart.With it, I gave my fellow-men the greatest gift that hasever been bestowed upon them. This book, the voiceof which speaks out across the ages, is not only theloftiest book on earth, literally the book of mountain


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b PREFACEair,the whole phenomenon, mankind, lies at an incal-culable distance beneath it,but it is also the deepestbook, born of the inmost abundance of truth ; an inex-haustible well, into which no pitcher can be loweredwithout coming up again laden with gold and withgoodness. Here it is not a "prophet" who speaks,one of those gruesome hybrids of sickness and Will toPower, whom men call founders of religions. If a manwould not do a sad wrong to his wisdom, he must aboveall give proper heed to the tonesthe halcyonic tonesthat fall from the lips of Zarathustra :"The most silent words are harbingers of the storm ;

thoughts that come on dove's feet lead the world."The figs fall from the trees ; they are good and

sweet, and, when they fall, their red skins are rent."A north wind am I unto ripe figs."Thus, like figs, do these precepts drop down to

you, my friends ; now drink their juice and their sweetpulp.

"It is autumn all around, and clear sky, and after-noon."No fanatic speaks to you here; this is not a "ser-

mon ; " no faith is demanded in these pages. Fromout an infinite treasure of light and well of joy, dropby drop, my words fall outa slow and gentle gait inthe cadence of these discourses. Such things canreach only the most elect; it is a rare privilege to bea listener here ; not every one who likes can have earsto hear Zarathustra. Is not Zarathustra, because ofthese things, a seducer 1 . . . But what, indeed, doeshe himself say, when for the first time he goes back tohis solitude? Just the reverse of that which any"Sage," "Saint," "Saviour of the world," and other


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PREFACE 7decadents would say. . . . Not only his words, but hehimself is other than they.

"Alone do I now go, my disciples ! Get ye alsohence, and alone ! Thus would I have it.

"Verily, I beseech you : take your leave of me andarm yourselves against Zarathustra ! And better still,be ashamed of him 1 Maybe he hath deceived you."The knight of knowledge must be able not only to

love his enemies, but also to hate his friends."The man who remaineth a pupil requiteth histeacher but ill. And why would ye not pluck at my

wreath ?" Ye honour me ; but what if your reverence should

one day break down ? Take heed, lest a statue crushyou.

"Ye say ye believe in Zarathustra ? But of whataccount is Zarathustra ? Ye are my believers : but ofwhat account are all believers ?

"Ye had not yet sought yourselves when ye foundme. Thus do all believers ; therefore is all believingworth so little."Now I bid you lose me and find yourselves ; and

only when ye have all denied me will I come back untoyou."Friedrich Nietzsche.


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On this perfect day, when everything is ripening, andnot only the grapes are getting brown, a ray of sun-shine has fallen on my life : I looked behind me, Ilooked before me, and never have I seen so manygood things all at once. Not in vain have I buriedmy four-and-fortieth year to-day ; I had the right tobury itthat in it which still had life, has been savedand is immortal. The first book of the Transvaluationof all Values, The Songs of Zarathustra, The Twilightof the Idols, my attempt to philosophise with the ham-mer all these things are the gift of this year, andeven of its last quarter. How could Ihelp being thank-ful to the whole of my life ?

That is why I am now going to tell myself the storyof my life.


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ECCE HOMOHOW ONE BECOMES WHAT ONE IS

WHY I AM SO WISE

THe happiness of my existence, its unique characterperhaps, consists in its fatefulness: to speak in ariddle, as my own father I am already dead, as myown mother I still live and grow old. This doubleorigin, taken as it were from the highest and lowestrungs of the ladder of life, at once a decadent and abeginning, this, if anything, explains that neutrality,that freedom from partisanship in regard to the generalproblem of existence, which perhaps distinguishes me.To the first indications of ascending or of descendinglife my nostrils are more sensitive than those of any manthat has yet lived. In this domain I am a master to mybackboneI know both sides, for I am both sides.My father died in his six-and-thirtieth year : he wasdelicate, lovable, and morbid, like one who is preor-dained simply to pay a flying visita gracious reminderof life rather than life itself. In the same year thathis life declined mine also declined : in my six-and-thirtieth year I reached the lowest point in my vitality,I still lived, but my eyes could distinguish nothingthat lay three paces away from me, At that timeitwas the year 1879 I resigned my professorship atBale, lived through the summer like a shadow in St.Moritz, and spent the following winter, the most sun-less of my life, like a shadow in Naumburg. This was


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lO ECCE HOMOmy lowest ebb. During this period I wrote The Wan-derer and His Shadow. Without a doubt I was con-versant with shadows then. The winter that followed,my first winter in Genoa, brought forth that sweetnessand spirituality which is almost inseparable from ex-treme poverty of blood and muscle, in the shape ofThe Dawn of Day. The perfect lucidity and cheer-fulness, the intellectual exuberance even, that this workreflects, coincides, in my case, not only with the mostprofound physiological weakness, but also with anexcess of suffering. In the midst of the agony of aheadache which lasted three days, accompanied byviolent nausea, I was possessed of most singular dia-lectical clearness, and in absolutely cold blood I thenthought out things, for which, in my more healthymoments, I am not enough of a climber, not sufficientlysupple, not sufficiently cold. My readers perhapsknow to what extent I consider dialectic a symptom ofdecadence, as, for instance, in the most famous of allcasesthe case of Socrates. All the morbid disturb-ances of the intellect, even that semi-stupor whichaccompanies fever, have, unto this day, remained com-pletely unknown to me ; and for my first informationconcerning their nature and frequency, I was obligedto have recourse to the learned works which have beencompiled on the subject. My circulation is slow. Noone has ever been able to detect fever in me. A doc-tor who treated me for some time as a nerve patientfinally declared : "No ! there is nothing wrong withyour nerves, it is simply I who am nervous,'' It has'been absolutely impossible to ascertain any localdegeneration in me, nor any organic stomach trouble,however much I may have suffered from profound


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WHY I AM SO WISE IIweakness of the gastric system as the result of generalexhaustion. Even my eye trouble, which sometimesapproached so parlously near to blindness, was onlyan effect and not a cause ; for, whenever my generalvital condition improved, my power of vision alsoincreased. Having admitted all this, do I need to saythat I am experienced in questions of decadence ? Iknow them inside and out. Even that filigree art ofprehension and comprehension in general, that feelingfor delicate shades of difference, that psychology of"seeing through brick walls," and whatever else I maybe able to do, was first learnt then, and is the specificgift of that period during which everything in me wassubtilised,observation itself, together with all theorgans of observation. To look upon healthier con-cepts and values from the standpoint of the sick, andconversely to look down upon the secret work ofthe instincts of decadence from the standpoint of himwho is laden and self-reliant with the richness of lifethis has been my longest exercise, my principal experi-ence. If in anything at all, it was in this that Ibecame a master. To-day my hand knows the trick, Inow have the knack of reversing perspectives : the firstreason perhaps why a Transvaluatioti of all Values hasbeen possible to me alone.

For, apart from the fact that I am a decadent, I amalso the reverse of such a creature. Among otherthings my proof of this is, that I always instinctively,select the proper remedy when my spiritual or bodily


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12 ECCE HOMOhealth is bad ; whereas the decadent, as such, invaria-bly chooses those remedies which are bad for him.As a whole I was sound, but in certain details I was adecadent. That energy with which I sentenced my-self to absolute solitude, and to a severance from allthose conditions in life to which I had grown accus-tomed ; my discipline of myself, and my refusal toallow myself to be pampered, to be tended hand andfoot, and to be doctored all this betrays the absolutecertainty of my instincts respecting what at that timewas most needful to me. I placed myself in my ownhands, I restored myself to health: the first conditionof success in such an undertaking, as every physiolo-gist will admit, is that at bottom a man should besound. An intrinsically morbid nature cannot becomehealthy. On the other hand, to an intrinsically soundnature, illness may even constitute a powerful stimulusto life, to a surplus of life. It is in this light that Inow regard the long period of illness that I enduredit seemed as if I had discovered life afresh, my ownself included. I tasted all good things and even triflesin a way in which it was not easy for others to tastethemout of my Will to Health and to Life I mademy philosophy. . . . For this should be thoroughlyunderstood ; it was during those years in which myvitality reached its lowest point that I ceased frombeing a pessimist : the instinct of self-recovery forbademy holding to a philosophy of poverty and despera-tion. Now, by what signs are Nature's lucky strokesrecognised among men? They are recognised by thefact that any such lucky stroke gladdens our senses ;that he is carved from one integral block, which ishard, sweet, and fragrant as well. He enjoys that


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WHY 1 AM SO WISE 13only which is good for him ; his pleasure, his desire,ceases when the limits of that which is good for himare overstepped. He divines remedies for injuries ;he knows how to turn serious accidents to his ownadvantage; that which does not kill him makes himstronger. He instinctively gathers his material fromall he sees, hears, and experiences. He is a selectiveprinciple ; he rejects much. He is always in his owncompany, whether his intercourse be with books, withmen, or with natural scenery ; he honours the thingshe chooses, the things he acknowledges, the things hetrusts. He reacts slowly to all kinds of stimuli, withthat tardiness which long caution and deliberate pridehave bred in himhe tests the approaching stimulus ;he would not dream of meeting it half-way. He be-lieves neither in "ill-luck" nor "guilt;" he can digesthimself and others ; he knows how to forgethe isstrong enough to make everything turn to his ownadvantage.Lo then ! I am the very reverse of a decadent, for

he whom I have just described is none other thanmyself.

This double thread of experiences, this means ofaccess to two worlds that seem so far asunder, findsin every detail its counterpart in my own natuream my own double : I have a "second" sight, as wellas a first. And perhaps I also have a third sight.By the very nature of my origin I was allowed an out-look beyond all merely local, merely national and lim-ited horizons ; it required no effort on my part to be a


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14 ECCE HOMO"good European." On the other hand, I am perhapsmore German than modern Germansmere ImperialGermanscan hope to be,I, the last anti-politicalGerman. Be this as it may, my ancestors were Polishnoblemen : it is owing to them that I have so muchrace instinct in my bloodwho knows ? perhaps eventhe liberum veto* When I think of the number oftimes in my travels that I have been accosted as aPole, even by Poles themselves, and how seldom Ihave been taken for. a German, it seems to me as if Ibelonged to those only who have a sprinkling of Ger-man in them. But my mother, Franziska Oehler, is atany rate something very German ; as is also my pater-nal grandmother, Erdmuthe Krause. The latter spentthe whole of her youth in good old Weimar, not with-out coming into contact with Goethe's circle. Herbrother, Krause, the Professor of Theology in Konigs-berg, was called to the post of General Superintendentat Weimar after Herder's death. It is not unlikelythat her mother, my great grandmother, is mentionedin young Goethe's diary under the name of "Muthgen."She married twice, and her second husband was Su-perintendent Nietzsche of Eilenburg. In 1813, theyear of the great war, when Napoleon with his generalstaff entered Eilenburg on the loth of October, shegave birth to a son. As a daughter of Saxony shewas a great admirer of Napoleon, and maybe that I amso still. My father, born in 18 13, died in 1849. P''^"* The right which every Polish deputy, whether a nobleman

or a commoner, possessed of forbidding the passing of anymeasure by the Diet, was called in Poland the libertim veto (inPolish nie pozwalam)y and brought all legislation to a standstill.Tr.


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WHY I AM SO WISE 1vious to taking over the pastorship of the parish ofRocken, not far from Liitzen, he lived for some yearsat the Castle of Altenburg, where he had charge of theeducation of the four princesses. His pupils are theQueen of Hanover, the Grand-Duchess Constantine,the Grand-Duchess of Oldenburg, and the PrincessTheresa of Saxe-Altenburg. He was full of loyalrespect for the Prussian King, Frederick William theFourth, from whom he obtained his living at Rocken ;the events of 1848 saddened him extremely. As Iwas born on 15th October, the birthday of the kingabove mentioned, I naturally received the HohenzoU-ern names of Frederick William. There was at allevents one advantage in the choice of this day : mybirthday throughout the whole of my childhood was aday of public rejoicing. I regard it as a great privi-lege to have had such a father : it even seems to methat this embraces all that I can claim in the matter ofprivilegeslife, the great yea to life, excepted. WhatI owe to him above all is this, that I do not need anyspecial intention, but merely a little patience, in orderinvoluntarily to enter a world of higher and more deli-cate things. There I am at home, there alone doesmy inmost passion become free. The fact that I hadto pay for this privilege almost with my life, certainlydoes not make it a bad bargain. In order to under-stand even a little of my Zarathiistra, perhaps a manmust be situated and constituted very much as I ammyselfwith one foot beyond the realm of the living.

I have never understood the art of arousing ill-feel-ing against myself,this is also something for which I


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1 ECCE HOMOhave to thank my incomparable father,even when itseemed to me highly desirable to do so. Howeverun-Christian it may seem, I do not even bear any ill-feeling towards myself. Turn my life about as youmay, you will find but seldomperhaps indeed onlyonceany trace of some one's having shown me ill-will. You might perhaps discover, however, too manytraces of good-wiW. . . . My experiences even withthose on whom every other man has burnt his fingers,speak without exception in their favour ; I tame everybear, I can make even clowns behave decently. Dur-ing the seven years in which I taught Greek to thesixth form of the College at Bale, I never had occasionto administer a punishment; the laziest youths werediligent in my class. The unexpected has alwaysfound me equal to it ; I must be unprepared in orderto keep my self-command.******WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKSRoughly speaking, I seized two famous and, there-

tofore, completely undefined types by the forelock,after the manner in which one seizes opportunities,simply in order to speak my mind on certain questions,in order to have a few more formulas, signs, and meansof expression at my disposal. Indeed I actually sug-gest this, with most unearthly sagacity, on page 183of Schopenhauer as Educator. Plato made use ofSocrates in the same waythat is to say, as a cipherfor Plato. Now that, from some distance, I can lookback upon the conditions of which these essays are the


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 17testimony, I would be loth to deny that they refer sim-ply to me. The essay Wagner in Bayreuth is a visionof my own future ; on the other hand, my most secrethistory, my development, is written down in Schopen-hauer as Educator. But, above all, the vow I made !What I am to-day, the place I now holdat a heightfrom which I speak no longer with words but withthunderboltsoh, how far I was from all this in thosedays ! But I saw the land I did not deceive myselffor one moment as to the way, the sea, the dangerand success ! The great calm in promising, this happyprospect of a future which must not remain only apromise !In this book every word has been lived,profoundly and intimately ; the most painful things arenot lacking in it ; it contains words which are posi-tively running with blood. But a wind of great free-dom blows over the whole ; even its wounds do notconstitute an objection. As to what I understand bybeing a philosopher,that is to say, a terrible explo-sive in the presence of which everything is in dangeras to how I sever my idea of the philosopher by milesfrom that other idea of him which includes even aKant, not to speak of the academic "ruminators" andother professors of philosophy,concerning all thesethings this essay provides invaluable information,even granting that at bottom, it is not "Schopenhaueras Educator" but "Nietzsche as Educator," who speakshis sentiments in it. Considering that, in those days,my trade was that of a scholar, and perhaps, also, thatI understood my trade, the piece of austere scholarpsychology which suddenly makes its appearance inthis essay is not without importance : it expresses thefeeling of distance, and my profound certainty regard-


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1 ECCE HOMOing what was my real life-task, and what were merelymeans, intervals, and accessary work to me. My wis-dom consists in my having been many things, and inmany places, in order to become one thingin orderto be able to attain to one thing. It was part of myfate to be a scholar for a while.

"Human, all-too-Human"

Human, all-too-Human, with its two sequels, is thememorial of a crisis. It is called a book for free spir-its : almost every sentence in it is the expression of atriumphby means of it I purged myself of everythingin me which was foreign to my nature. Idealism isforeign to me : the title of the book means : "Whereye see ideal things I seehuman, alas ! all-too-humanthings ! "... I know men better. The word "freespirit" in this book must not be understood as anythingelse than a spirit that has become free, that has oncemore taken possession of itself. My tone, the pitchof my voice, has completely changed ; the book will bethought clever, cool, and at times both hard andscornful. A certain spirituality, of noble taste, seemsto be ever struggling to dominate a passionate torrentat its feet. In this respect there is some sense in thefact that it was the hundredth anniversary of Voltaire'sdeath that served, so to speak, as an excuse for thepublication of the book as early as 1878. For Vol-taire, as the opposite of every one who wrote afterhim, was above all a grandee of the intellect : pre-


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 1cisely what I am also. The name of Voltaire on oneof my writingsthat was verily a step forwardin mydirection. . . . Looking into this book a little moreclosely, you perceive a pitiless spirit who knows all thesecret hiding-places in which ideals are wont to skulkwhere they find their dungeons, and, as it were,their last refuge. With a torch in my hand, the lightof which is not by any means a flickering one, I il-luminate this nether world with beams that cut likeblades. It is war, but war without powder and smoke,without warlike attitudes, without pathos and contortedlimbsall these things would still be "idealism." Oneerror after the other is quietly laid upon ice ; the idealis not refutedit freezes. Here, for instance, "genius"freezes ; round the corner the "saint" freezes ; under athick icicle the "hero" freezes ; and in the end "faith"itself freezes. So-called "conviction" and also "pity"are considerably cooledand almost everywhere the" thing in itself" is freezing to death.

This book was begun during the first musical festivalat Bayreuth ; a feeling of profound strangeness towardseverything that surrounded me there, is one of its firstconditions. He who has any notion of the visionswhich even at that time had flitted across my path, willbe able to guess what I felt when one day I came tomy senses in Bayreuth. It was just as if I had beendreaming. Where on earth was I ? I recognised noth-ing that I saw; I scarcely recognised Wagner. It wasin vain that I called up reminiscences. Tribschenremote island of bliss : not the shadow of a resem-


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2 ECCE HOMOblance ! The incomparable days devoted to the layingof the first stone, the small group of the initiated whocelebrated them, and who were far from lacking fingersfor the handling of delicate things : not the shadow ofa resemblance! What had happened?Wagner hadbeen translated into German ! The Wagnerite hadbecome master of Wagner! German art! the Germanmaster ! German beer ! . . . We who know only toowell the kind of refined artists and cosmopolitanism intaste, to which alone Wagner's art can appeal, werebeside ourselves at the sight of Wagner bedecked withGerman virtues. I think I know the Wagnerite, Ihave experienced three generations of them, fromBrendel of blessed memory, who confounded Wagnerwith Hegel, to the "idealists" of the Bayreiith Gazette,who confounded Wagner with themselves,I havebeen the recipient of every kind of confession aboutWagner, from "beautiful souls." My kingdom for justone intelligent word !In very truth, a blood-curdlingcompany ! Nohl, Pohl, and Kohl,"^ and others of theirkidney to infinity ! There was not a single abortionthat was lacking among themno, not even the anti-Semite.Poor Wagner ! Into whose hands had hefallen ? If only he had fallen among swine ! Butamong Germans ! Some day, for the edification ofposterity, one ought really to have a genuine Bay-reuthian stuffed, or, better still, preserved in spirit,for it is precisely "spirit" that is lacking in this quarter,with this inscription at the foot of the jar : "A sam-ple of the spirit whereon the 'German Empire' was* Nohl and Pohl were both writers on music ; Kohl, however,

which literally means cabbage, is a slang expression, denotingsuperior nonsense. Te.


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS' 2 1founded." . . . But enough ! In the middle of thefestivities I suddenly packed my trunk and left theplace for a few weeks, despite the fact that a charmingParisian lady sought to comfort me ; I excused myselfto Wagner simply by means of a fatalistic telegramIn a Httle spot called KHngenbrunn, deeply buried in therecesses of the Bohmerwald, I carried my melancholyand my contempt of Germans about with me like anillnessand, from time to time, under the general titleof "The Ploughshare," I wrote a sentence or two downin my note-book, nothing but severe psychologicalstuff, which it is possible may have found its way intoHuman, alltoo-Htiman.

That which had taken place in me, then, was notonly a breach with WagnerI was suffering from ageneral aberration of my instincts, of which a mereisolated blunder, whether it were Wagner or my pro-fessorship at Bale, was nothing more than a symptom.I was seized with a fit of impatience with myself ; Isaw that it was high time that I should turn mythoughts upon my own lot. In a trice I realised, withappalling clearness, how much time had already beensquanderedhow futile and how senseless my wholeexistence as a philologist appeared by the side of mylife-task. I was ashamed of this false modesty. . . .Ten years were behind me, during which, to tell thetruth, the nourishment of my spirit had been at astandstill, during which I had added not a single use-ful fragment to my knowledge, and had forgottencountless things in the pursuit of a hotch-potch of dry-


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22 ECCE HOMOas-dust scholarship. To crawl with meticulous careand short-sighted eyes through old Greek metriciansthat is what I had come to ! . . . Moved to pity I sawmyself quite thin, quite emaciated : realities were onlytoo plainly absent from my stock of knowledge, andwhat the "idealities" were worth the devil alone knows !A positively burning thirst overcame me : and fromthat time forward I have done literally nothing elsethan study physiology, medicine, and natural scienceI even returned to the actual study of history onlywhen my life-task compelled me to. It was at thattime, too, that I first divined the relation between aninstinctively repulsive occupation, a so-called vocation,which is the last thing to which one is "called," andthat need of lulling a feeling of emptiness and hunger,by means of an art which is a narcoticby means ofWagner's art, for instance. After looking carefullyabout me, I have discovered that a large number ofyoung men are all in the same state of distress : onekind of unnatural practice perforce leads to another.In Germany, or rather, to avoid all ambiguity, in theEmpire,* only too many are condemned to determinetheir choice too soon, and then to pine away beneatha burden that they can no longer throw off. . . , Suchcreatures crave for Wagner as for an opiate,they arethus able to forget themselves, to be rid of themselvesfor a moment. . . . What am I saying !for five orsix hours.

* Needless to say, Nietzsche distinguishes sharply betweenBismarckian Germany and that other GermanyAustria, Swit-zerland, and the Baltic Provinceswhere the German languageis also spoken. Tr.


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 23

At this time my instincts turned resolutely againstany further yielding or following on my part, and anyfurther misunderstanding of myself. Every kind oflife, the most Cinfavourable circumstances, illness, pov-ertyanything seemed to me preferable to that undig-nified "selfishness" into which I had fallen ; in the firstplace, thanks to my ignorance and youth, and in whichI had afterwards remained owing to lazinessthe so-called "sense of duty." At this juncture there cameto my help, in a way that I cannot sufficiently admire,and precisely at the right time, that evil heritage whichI derive from my father's side of the family, and which,at bottom, is no more than a predisposition to dieyoung. Illness slowly liberated me from the toils, itspared me any sort of sudden breach, any sort of vio-lent and offensive step. At that time I lost not aparticle of the good will of others, but rather added tomy store. Illness likewise gave me the right com-pletely to reverse my mode of life ; it not only allowed,it actually commanded, me to forget ; it bestowed uponme the necessity of lying still, of having leisure, ofwaiting, and of exercising patience. . . . But all thismeans thinking ! . . . The state of my eyes alone putan end to all bookwormishness, or, in plain Englishphilology : I was thus delivered from books ; for yearsI ceased from reading, and this was the greatest boonI ever conferred upon myself ! That nethermost self,which was, as it were, entombed, and which had growndumb because it had been forced to listen perpetuallyto other selves (for that is what reading means !),slowly awakened ; at first it was shy and doubtful, but


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24 ECCE HOMOat last it spoke again. Never have I rejoiced moreover my condition than during the sickest and mostpainful moments of my life. You have only to exam-ine The Dawn of Day, or, perhaps, The Wanderer andhis Shadow^ in order to understand what this "returnto myself" actually meant; in itself it was the highestkind of recovery ! . . . My cure was simply the resultof it.

Human, ail-too-Human, this monument of a courseof vigorous self-discipline, by means of which I put anabrupt end to all the "Superior Bunkum," "Idealism,""Beautiful Feelings," and other effeminacies that hadpercolated into my being, was written principally inSorrento ; it was finished and given definite shape dur-ing a winter at Bale, under conditions far less favour-able than those in Sorrento. Truth to tell, it wasPeter Gast, at that time a student at the University ofB^le, and a devoted friend of mine, who was respon-sible for the book. With my head wrapped in band-ages, and extremely painful, I dictated while he wroteand corrected as he went alongto be accurate, hewas the real composer, whereas I was only the author.When the completed book ultimately reached me,tothe great surprise of the serious invalid I then was,I sent, among others, two copies to Bayreuth. Thanksto a miraculous flash of intelligence on the part ofchance, there reached me precisely at the same time asplendid copy of the Parsifal text, with the followinginscription from Wagner's pen: "To his dear friend

* Htcman, ail-too-Human, Part II. in this edition. Tr.


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 25Friedrich Nietzsche, from Richard Wagner, Ecclesias-tical Councillor." At this crossing of the two books Iseemed to hear an ominous note. Did it not sound asif two swords had crossed ? At all events we both feltthis was so, for each of us remained silent. At aboutthis time the first Bayreuth Pamphlets appeared: andI then understood the move on my part for which itwas high time. Incredible! Wagner had becomepious.

My attitude to myself at that time (1876), and theunearthly certitude with which I grasped my life-taskand all its world-historic consequences, is well revealedthroughout the book, but more particularly in one verysignificant passage, despite the fact that, with myinstinctive cunning, I once more circumvented the useof the little word "I,"not however, this time, in orderto shed world-historic glory on the names of Schopen-hauer and Wagner, but on that of another of my friends,the excellent Dr. Paul Reefortunately much tooacute a creature to be deceivedothers were lesssubtle. Among my readers I have a number of hope-less people, the typical German professor for instance,who can always be recognised from the fact that, judg-ing from the passage in question, he feels compelled toregard the whole book as a sort of superior Reealism.As a matter of fact it contradicts five or six of myfriend's utterances : only read the introduction to TheGenealogy of Morals on this question.The passageabove referred to reads : "What, after all, is the prin-cipal axiom to which the boldest and coldest thinker,


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26 ECCE HOMOthe author of the book On the Origin of Moral Sensa-tions'^ (read Nietzsche, the first Immoralist), "hasattained by means of his incisive and decisive analysisof human actions ? 'The moral man,' he says, 'is nonearer to the intelligible (metaphysical) world than isthe physical man, for there is no intelligible world,'This theory, hardened and sharpened under thehammer-blow of historical knowledge" (read TheTransvaluation of all Values), "may some time orother, perhaps in some future period,1890!serveas the axe which is applied to the root of the 'metaphy-sical need' of man,whether more as a blessing thana curse to his general welfare it is not easy to saybut in any case as a theory with the most importantconsequences, at once fruitful and terrible, and look-ing into the world with that Janus-face which all greatknowledge possesses,"*

"The Dawn of Day :Thoughts about Morality as a Prejudice"

With this book I open my campaign against morality.Not that it is at all redolent of powderyou will findquite other and much nicer smells in it, provided thatyou have any keenness in your nostrils. There isnothing either of light or of heavy artillery in its com-position, and if its general end be a negative one, its

* Human, all-too-Human, vol. i. Aph. 37.


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 27means are not someans out of which the end followslike a logical conclusion, not like a cannon-shot. Andif the reader takes leave of this book with a feeling oftimid caution in regard to everything which has hither-to been honoured and even worshipped under thename of morality, it does not alter the fact that thereis not one negative word, not one attack, and not onesingle piece of malice in the whole workon the con-trary, it lies in the sunshine, smooth and happy, like amarine animal, basking in the sun between two rocks.For, after all, I was this marine animal : almost everysentence in the book was thought out, or rather caught,among that medley of rocks in the neighbourhood ofGenoa, where I lived quite alone, and exchangedsecrets with the ocean. Even to this day, when bychance I happen to turn over the leaves of this book,almost every sentence seems to me like a hook bymeans of which I draw something incomparable out ofthe depths ; its whole skin quivers with delicate shud-ders of recollection. This book is conspicuous for nolittle art in gently catching things which whisk rapidlyand silently away, moments which I call godlikelizardsnot with the cruelty of that young Greek godwho simply transfixed the poor little beast ; but never-theless with something pointedwith a pen. "Thereare so many dawns which have not yet shed theirlight"this Indian maxim is written over the doorwayof this book. Where does its author seek that newmorning, that delicate red, as yet undiscovered, withwhich another dayah I a whole series of days, awhole world of new days !will begin ? In the Trans-valuation of all Values, in an emancipation from allmoral values, in a saying of yea, and in an attitude of


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28 ECCE HOMOtrust, to all that which hitherto has been forbidden,despised, and damned. This yea-saying book projectsits light, its love, its tenderness, over all evil things^ itrestores to them their soul, their clear conscience, andtheir superior right and privilege to exist on earth.Morality is not assailed, it simply ceases to be con-sidered. This book closes with the word "or ?"it isthe only book which closes with an "or ?".

My life-task is to prepare for humanity one suprememoment in which it can come to its senses, a GreatNoon in which it will turn its gaze backwards andforwards, in which it will step from under the yoke ofaccident and of priests, and for the first time set thequestion of the Why and Wherefore of humanity as awholethis life-task naturally follows out of the con-viction that mankind does not get on the right road ofits own accord, that it is by no means divinely ruled,but rather that it is precisely under the cover of itsmost holy valuations that the instinct of negation, ofcorruption, and of degeneration has held such a seduc-tive sway. The question concerning the origin ofmoral valuations is therefore a matter of the highestimportance to me because it determines the future ofmankind. The demand made upon us to believe thateverything is really in the best hands, that a certainbook, the Bible, gives us the definite and comfortingassurance that there is a Providence that wisely rulesthe fate of man,when translated back into realityamounts simply to this, namely, the will to stifle thetruth which maintains the reverse of all this, which is


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 29that hitherto man has been in the worstpossible hands,and that he has been governed by the physiologicallybotched, the men of cunning and burning revengeful-ness, and the so-called "saints"those slanderers ofthe world and traducers of humanity. The definiteproof of the fact that the priest (including the priestin disguise, the philosopher) has become master, notonly within a certain limited religious community, buteverywhere, and that the morality of decadence, thewill to nonentity, has become morality per se, is to befound in this : that altruism is now an absolute value,and egoism is regarded with hostility everywhere. Hewho disagrees with me on this point, I regard asinfected. But all the world disagrees with me. To aphysiologist a like antagonism between values admitsof no doubt. If the most insignificant organ withinthe body neglects however slightly to assert withabsolute certainty its self-preservative powers, itsrecuperative claims, and its egoism, the whole systemdegenerates. The physiologist insists upon the removalof degenerated parts, he denies all fellow-feeling forsuch parts, and has not the smallest feeling of pity forthem. But the desire of the priest is precisely thedegeneration of the whole of mankind ; hence hispreservation of that which is degeneratethis is whathis dominion costs humanity. What meaning havethose lying concepts, those handmaids of morality,"Soul," "Spirit," "Free will," "God," if their aim is notthe physiological ruin of mankind ? When earnestnessis diverted from the instincts that aim at self-preserva-tion and an increase of bodily energy, /. e. at an increaseof life ; when anaemia is raised to an ideal and the con-tempt of the body is construed as "the salvation of the


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30 ECCE HOMOsoul," what is all this if it is not a recipe for decadence ?Loss of ballast, resistance offered to natural instincts,selfishness, in factthis is what has hitherto beenknown as morality. With The Dawn of Day I firstengaged in a struggle against the morality of self-renunciation.

"Joyful Wisdom :La Gaya Scienza"

Dawn of Day is a yea-saying book, profound, butclear and kindly. The same applies once more andin the highest degree to La Gaya Scienza: in almostevery sentence of this book, profundity and playful-ness go gently hand in hand. A verse which expressesmy gratitude for the most wonderful month of Januarywhich I have ever livedthe whole book is a giftsufficiently reveals the abysmal depths from which"wisdom" has here become joyful.

"Thou who with cleaving fiery lancesThe stream of my soul from its ice dost free,Till with a rush and a roar it advancesTo enter with glorious hoping the seaBrighter to see, and purer ever,Free in the bonds of thy sweet constraint,So it praises thy wondrous endeavour,January, thou beauteous saint ! "*

Who can be in any doubt as to what "glorious hop-ing" means here, when he has realised the diamondTranslated iox Joyful Wisdom by Paul V. Cohn.


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 3beauty of the first of Zarathustra's words as theyappear in a glow of light at the close of the fourthbook ? Or when he reads the granite sentences at theend of the third book, where in a fate for all times is firstgiven a formula ? The songs of Prince Free-as-a-Bird,which, for the most part, were written in Sicily, remindme quite forcibly of that Provencal notion of ^^GayaScienza,''^ of that union of singer, knight aridfree spirit,which distinguishes that wonderfully early culture ofthe Provencals from all doubtful cultures. The lastpoem of all, "To the Mistral,"an exuberant dancesong in which, if you please, the new spirit dancesfreely upon the corpse of morality,is a perfect Pro-ven^alism.

"Thus Spake Zarathustra :A Book for All and None"

I now wish to relate the history of Zarathustra.The fundamental idea of the work, the Eternal Recur-rence, the highest formula of a Yea-saying to life thatcan ever be attained, was first conceived in the monthof August 1881. I made a note of the idea on asheet of paper, with the postcript : "Six thousand feetbeyond man and time." That day I happened to bewandering through the woods alongside of the Lake ofSilvaplana, and I halted not far from Surlei, beside ahuge rock that towered aloft like a pyramid.


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32 ECCE HOMO"I walk among men as among fragments of the

future : of that future which I see."And all my creativeness and effort is but this, that

I may be able to think and recast all these fragmentsand riddles and dismal accidents into one piece."And how could I bear to be a man, if man were

not also a poet, a riddle reader, and a redeemer ofchance"To redeem all the past, and to transform 'it was'

,

into 'thus would I have it'that alone would be mysalvation !"In another passage he defines as strictly as possible

what to him alone "man" can be,not a subject forlove nor yet for pityZarathustra became master evenof his loathing of man : man is to him a thing unshaped,raw material, an ugly stone that needs the sculptors'chisel."No longer to will, no longer to value, no longer to

create ! Oh, that this great weariness may never bemine"Even in the lust of knowledge, I feel only the joy

of my will to beget and to grow ; and if there be inno-cence in my knowledge, it is because my procreativewill is in it."Away from God and gods did this will lure me

what would there be to create if there were gods !" But to man doth it ever drive me anew, my burn-

ing, creative will. Thus driveth it the hammer to thestone.

"Alas, ye men, within the stone there sleepeth animage for me, the image of all my dreams ! Alas, thatit should have to sleep in the hardest and uglieststone

!


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS ^^''N^ow rageth my hammer ruthlessly against its prisori.

From the stone the fragments fly : what 's that to me ?"I will finish it : for a shadow came unto methe

stillest and lightest thing on earth once came unto me !"The beauty of the Superman came unto me as ashadow. Alas, my brethren ! What are thegods tome now !"

Let me call attention to one last point of view. Theline in italics is my pretext for this remark. A Diony-sian life-task needs the hardness of the hammer, andone of its first essentials is without doubt they'cy^ evenof destruction. The command, "harden yourselves 1"and the deep conviction that all creators are hard, isthe really distinctive sign of a Dionysian nature.

"Beyond Good and Evil : The Prelude to aPhilosophy of the Future"

I

My work for the years that followed was prescribedas distinctly as possible. Now that the yea-saying partof my life-task was accomplished, there came the turnof the negative portion, both in word and deed : thetransvaluation of all values that had existed hitherto,the great war,the conjuring-up of the day when thefatal outcome of the struggle would be decided. Mean-while, I had slowly to look about me for my peers, forthose who, out of strength, would proffer me a helpinghand in my work of destruction From that timeonward, all my writings are so much bait : maybe Iunderstand as much about fishing as most people ? Ifnothing was caught, it was not I who was at fault.There were no fish to come and bite.


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34 ECCE HOMO

In all its essential points, this book (1886) is a crit-icism of modernity, embracing the modern sciences,arts, even politics, together with certain indications asto a type which would be the reverse of modern man,or as little like him as possible, a noble and yea-sayingtype. In this last respect the book is a schoolfor gen-tlementhe term gentleman being understood here in amuch more spiritual and radical sense than it hasimplied hitherto. All those things of which the age isproud,as, for instance, far-famed "objectivity," "sym-pathy with all that suffers," "the historical sense," withits subjection to foreign tastes, with its lying-in-the-diW'iA.h^ioxQ. petitsfaits, and the rage for science,areshown to be the contradiction of the type recommended,and are regarded as almost ill-bred. If you rememberthat this book follows upon Zarathiistra, you may pos-sibly guess to what system of diet it owes its life. Theeye which, owing to tremendous constraint, has becomeaccustomed to see at a great distance, Zarathustra iseven more far-sighted than the Tsar,is here forcedto focus sharply that which is close at hand, the pres-ent time, the things that lie about him. In all theaphorisms and more particularly in the form of thisbook, the reader will find the same voluntary turningaway from those instincts which made a Zarathustra apossible feat. Refinement in form, in aspiration, andin the art of keeping silent, are its more or less obvi-ous qualities ; psychology is handled with deliberatehardness and cruelty,the whole book does not con-tain one single good-natured word. . . . All this sortof thing refreshes a man. Who can guess the kind of


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT ROOKS 35recreation that is necessary after such an expenditureof goodness as is to be found in Zarasthustra? Froma theological standpointnow pay ye heed ; for it isbut on rare occasions that I speak as a theologianitwas God himself who at the end of his great work,coiled himself up in the form of a serpent at the foot ofthe tree of knowledge. It was thus that he recoveredfrom being a God. ... He had made everything toobeautiful. . . . The devil is simply God's moment ofidleness, on that seventh day.

"The Genealogy of Morals :A Polemic"

The three essays which constitute this genealogyare, as regards expression, aspiration, and the art ofthe unexpected, perhaps the most curious things thathave ever been written. Dionysus, as you know, isalso the god of darkness. In each case the beginningis calculated to mystify ; it is cool, scientific, evenironical, intentionally thrust to the fore, intentionallyreticent. Gradually less calmness prevails ; here andthere a flash of lightning defines the horizon ; exceed-ingly unpleasant truths break upon your ears from outremote distances with a dull, rumbling sounduntilvery soon a fierce tempo is attained in which every-thing presses forward at a terrible degree of tension.At the end, in each case, amid fearful thunderclaps, anew truth shines out between thick clouds. The truthof the first essay is the psychology of Christianity : thebirth of Christianity out of the spirit of resentment, notas is supposed, out of the "Spirit,"in all its essen-tials, a counter-movement, the great insurrection against


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36 ECCE HOMOthe dominion of noble values. The second essay con-tains the psychology of conscience : this is not, as youmay believe, "the voice of God in man" ; it is theinstinct of cruelty, which turns inwards once it is una-ble to discharge itself outwardly. Cruelty is hereexposed, for the first time, as one of the oldest andmost indispensable elements in the foundation of cul-ture. The third essay replies to the question as to theorigin of the formidable power of the ascetic ideal, ofthe priest ideal, despite the fact that this ideal is essen-tially detrimental, that it is a will to nonentity and todecadence. Reply : it flourished not because God wasactive behind the priests, as is generally believed, butbecause it was a faute de mieuxfrom the fact thathitherto it has been the only ideal and has had no com-petitors." For man prefers to aspire to nonentity thannot to aspire at all." But above all, until the time ofZarathustra there was no such thing as a counter-ideal.You have understood my meaning. Three decisiveovertures on the part of a psychologist to a Tratisval-iiatioii of all Values.^This book contains the firstpsychology of the priest.

"The Twilight of the Idols:How TO Philosophise with a Hammer"

This workwhich covers scarcely one hundred andfifty pages, with its cheerful and fateful tone, like alaughing demon, and the production of which occupied


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 37SO few days that I hesitate to give their numberisaltogether an exception among books : there is no workmore rich in substance, more independent, more upset-tingmore wicked. If any one should desire to obtaina more rapid sketch of how everything, before my time,was standing on its head, he should begin reading mein this book. That which is called "Idols" on the titlepage is simply the old truth that has been believed inhitherto. In plain English, The Twilight of the Idolsmeans that the old truth is on its last legs.

There is no reality, no "ideality," which has not beentouched in this book (touched ! what a cautious euphe-mism !). Not only the eternal idols, but also theyoungestthat is to say, the most senile : modernideas, for instance. A strong wind blows between thetrees and in all directions fall the fruitthe truths.There is the waste of an all-too-rich autumn in thisbook : you trip over truths. You even crush some todeath, there are too many of them. Those things thatyou can grasp, however, are quite unquestionablethey are irrevocable decrees. I alone have the crite-rion of "truths" in my possession. I alone can decide.It would seem as if a second consciousness had grownup in me, as if the "life-will" in me had thrown a lightupon the downward path along which it has been run-ning throughout the ages. The downward pathhitherto this had been called the road to "Truth." Allobscure impulse"darkness and dismay"is at anend, the "good man'''' was precisely he who was least


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38 ECCE HOMOaware of the proper way.* And, speaking in all ear-nestness, no one before me knew the proper way, theway upwards : only after my time could men once morefind hope, life-tasks, and roads mapped out that leadto culture/ am the joyful harbinger of this culture.. . . On this account alone I am also a fatality.

Immediately after the completion of the above-namedwork, and without letting even one day go by, I tackledthe formidable task of the Transvaluatioii with a su-preme feeling of pride which nothing could equal ; and,certain at each moment of my immortality, I cut signafter sign upon tablets of brass with the sureness ofFate. The Preface came into being on 3rd September1888. When after having written it down I went outinto the open that morning, I was greeted by the mostbeautiful day I had ever seen in the Upper Engadineclear, glowing with colour, and presenting all thecontrasts and all the intermediary gradations betweenice and the south. I left Sils-Ma.ria only on the 20thof September. I had been forced to delay my depar-ture owing to floods, and I was very soon, and forsome days, the only visitor in this wonderful spot, onwhich my gratitude bestows the gift of an immortalname. After a journey that was full of incidents, and* A witty reference to Goethe's well-known passage in the.

Prologue to Faust:"A good man, though in darkness and dismay,May still be conscious of the proper way."

The words are spoken by the Lord. Tr.


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 39not without danger to life,as for instance at Como,which was flooded when I reached it in the dead ofnight,I got to Turin on- the afternoon of the 21st.Turin is the only suitable place for me, and it shall bemy home henceforward. I took the same lodgings asI had occupied in the spring, 6"^ Via Carlo Alberto,opposite the mighty Palazzo Carignano, in which Vit-torio Emanuele was born ; and I had a view of thePiazza Carlo Alberto and above it across to the hills.Without hesitating, or allowing myself to be disturbedfor a single moment, I returned to my work, only thelast quarter of which had still to be written. On the30th September, tremendous triumph ; the seventhday ; the leisure of a god on the banks of the Po.''*'On the same day, I wrote the Preface to The Tivilightof the Idols, the correction of the proofs of which pro-vided me with recreation during the month of Septem-ber. Never in my life have I experienced such anautumn ; nor had I ever imagined that such thingswere possible on eartha Claude Lorraine extendedto affinity, each day equal to the last in its wild per-fection.

"The Case of Wagner :A Musician's Problem"

In order to do justice to this essay a man ought tosuffer from the fate of music as from an open wound.

?* A wonderful promenade along the banks of the Po, forwhich Turin is famous, and of which Nietzsche was particularlyfond.Tr.


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40 ECCE HOMOFrom what do I suffer when I suffer from the fate ofmusic ? From the fact that music has lost its world-transfiguring, yea-saying characterthat it is decadentmusic and no longer the flute of Dionysus. Suppos-ing, however, that the fate of music be as dear to manas his own life, because joy and suffering are alikebound up with it ; then he will find this pamphletcomparatively mild and full of consideration. Tobe cheerful in such circumstances, and laugh good-naturedly with others at one's self, ridendo dicere seve-rum* when the verum dicere would justify every sortof hardness, is humanity itself. Who doubts that I,old artilleryman that I am, would be able if I liked topoint my heavy guns at Wagner ?Everything decisivein this question I kept to myself I have loved Wag-ner.After all, an attack upon a more than usuallysubtle "unknown person" whom another would nothave divined so easily, lies in the meaning and path ofmy life-task. Oh, I have still quite a number of other"unknown persons" to unmask besides a Cagliostro ofMusic! Above all, I have to direct an. attack againstthe German people, who, in matters of the spirit, growevery day more indolent, poorer in instincts, and morehonest ; who, with an appetite for which they are to beenvied, continue to diet themselves on contradictions,and gulp down "Faith" in company with science. Chris-tian love together with anti-Semitism, and the will topower (to the "Empire"), dished up with the gospel ofthe humble, without showing the slightest signs of indi-gestion. Fancy this absence of party-feeling in thepresence of opposites ! Fancy this gastric neutrality

* The motto of The Case of Wagner.


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 41and "disinterestedness" ! Behold this sense of justicein the German palate, which can grant equal rights to all,which finds everything tasteful ! Without a shadowof a doubt the Germans are idealists. When I waslast in Germany, I found German taste striving togrant Wagner and the Trumpeter of Sakkingen* equalrights; while I myself witnessed the attempts of thepeople of Leipzig to do honour to one of the mostgenuine and most German of musicians,using Ger-man here in the old sense of the word,a man whowas no mere German of the Empire, the master Hein-rich Schiitz, by founding a Liszt Society, the object ofwhich was to cultivate and spread artful {listiget\')Church music. Without a shadow of doubt the Ger-mans are idealists.

But here nothing shall stop me from being rude, andfrom telling the Germans one or two unpleasant hometruths : who else would do it if I did not .'* I refer to theirlaxity in matters historical. Not only have the Germansentirely lost the breadth of vision which enables one tograsp the course of culture and the values of culture ; notonly are they one and all political (or Church) puppets ;but they have also actually put a ban upon this verybreadth of vision. A man must first and foremost be"German," he must belong to ''the race" ; then only canhe pass judgment upon all values and lack of values

* An opera by Nessler which was all the rage in Germanytwenty years ago. Tr.

1" Unfortunately it is impossible to render this play on thewords in English. Tr.


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42 ECCE HOMOin historythen only can he establish them. , , . To beGerman is in itself an argument, "Germany, Germanyabove all,"* is a principle; the Germans stand for the"moral order of the universe" in history ; comparedwith the Roman Empire, they are the upholders offreedom ; compared with the eighteenth century, theyare the restorers of morality, of the "Categorical Im-perative." There is such a thing as the writing ofhistory according to the lights of Imperial Germanythere is, I fear, anti-Semitic historythere is also his-tory written with an eye to the Court, and Herr vonTreitschke is not ashamed of himself. Quite recentlyan idiotic opinion in historkis, an observation of Vis-cher the Swabian aesthete, since happily deceased,made the rounds of the German newspapers as a"truth" to which every German must assent. The'observation was this : "The Renaissance and theReformation only together constitute a wholetheaesthetic rebirth, and the moral rebirth." When I listento such things, I lose all patience, and I feel inclined,I even feel it my duty, to tell the Germans, for once ina way, all that they have on their conscience. Everygreat crime against culture for the last four centurieslies on their conscience. . . . And always for the samereason, always owing to their bottomless cowardice inthe face of reality, which is also cowardice in the faceof truth ; always owing to the love of falsehood whichhas become almost instinctive in themin short,"idealism." It was the Germans who caused Europeto lose the fruits, the whole meaning of her last period

* The German National Song {Dentschland, Deutschlanduber alles).Tr.


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 43of greatnessthe period of the Renaissance. At amoment when a higher order of values, values thatwere noble, that said yea to life, and that guaranteed afuture, had succeeded in triumphing over the oppositevalues, the values of degeneration, in the very seat ofChristianity itself,and even in the hearts of those sit-ting there,Luther, that cursed monk, not only restoredthe Church, but, what was a thousand times worse,restored Christianity, and at a time too when it laydefeated. Christianity, the Denial of the Will to Live,exalted to a religion ! Luther was an impossible monkwho, thanks to his own "impossibility," attacked theChurch, and in so doing restored it ! Catholics wouldbe perfectly justified in celebrating feasts in honour ofLuther, and in producing festival plays* in his hon-our. Luther and the "rebirth of morality" ! May allpsychology go to the devil ! Without a shadow of adoubt the Germans are idealists. On two occasionswhen, at the cost of enormous courage and self-con-trol, an upright, unequivocal, and perfectly scientificattitude of mind had been attained, the Germans wereable to discover back stairs leading down to the old"ideal" again, compromises between truth and the"ideal," and, in short, formulae for the right to rejectscience and to perpetrate falsehoods. Leibnitz andKantthese two great breaks upon the intellectualhonesty of Europe ! Finally, at a moment when thereappeared on the bridge that spanned ^two centuries ofdecadence, a superior force of genius and will whichwas strong enough to consolidate Europe and to con-

* Ever since the year 16 17 such plays have been produced bythe Protestants of Germany. Tr.


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44 ECCE HOMOvert it into a political and economic unit, with theobject of ruling the world, the Germans, with theirWars of Independence, robbed Europe of the signifi-cancethe marvellous significance, of Napoleon's life.And in so doing they laid on their conscience every-thing that followed, everything that exists to-day,thissickliness and want of reason which is most opposedto culture, and which is called Nationalism, this nev-rose nationale from which Europe is suffering acutelythis eternal subdivision of Europe into petty states,with politics on a municipal scale: they have robbedEurope itself of its significance, of its reason,andhave stuffed it into a cul-de-sac. Is there any oneexcept me who knows the way out of this cul-de-sac ?Does anyone except me know of an aspiration whichwould be great enough to bind the people of Europeonce more together ?

And after all, why should I not express my suspic-ions ? In my case, too, the Germans will attempt tomake a great fate give birth merely to a mouse. Upto the present they have compromised themselves withme; I doubt whether the future will improve them..Alas ! how happy I should be to prove a false prophetin this matter ! My natural readers and listeners arealready Russians, Scandinavians, and Frenchmenwill they always be the same ? In the history of knowl-edge, Germans are represented only by doubtful names,they have been able to produce only '^unconscious^ ^ swin-dlers (this word applies to Fichte, Schelling, Schopen-hauer, Hegel, and Schleiermacher, just as well as to


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 45Kant or Leibnitz ; they were all mere weavers ofveils).* The Germans must not have the honour ofseeing the first upright intellect in their history ofintellects, that intellect in which truth ultimately gotthe better of the fraud of four thousand years, reck-oned as one with the German intellect. "Germanintellect" is my foul air : I breathe with difficulty inthe neighbourhood of this psychological uncleanlinessthat has now become instinctivean uncleanlinesswhich in every word and expression betrays a German.They have never undergone a seventeenth century ofhard self-examination, as the French have, a LaRochefoucauld, a Descartes, are a thousand timesmore upright than the very first among Germans,thelatter have not yet had any psychologists. But psy-chology is almost the standard of measurement for thecleanliness or uncleanliness of a race. . . . For if aman is not even clean, how can he be deep ? TheGermans are like women, you can scarcely everfathom their depthsthey haven't any, and that 's theend of it. Thus they cannot even be called shallow.That which is called "deep" in Germany, is preciselythis instinctive uncleanliness towards one's self, ofwhich I have just spoken :, people refuse to be clear inregard to their own natures. Might I be allowed, per-haps, to suggest the word "German" as an internationalepithet denoting this psychological depravity ?At themoment of writing, for instance, the German Emperoris declaring it to be his Christian duty to liberate theslaves in Africa ; among us Europeans, then, this would* Schleiermacher literally means a weaver or maker of veils.-Tr.


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46 ECCE HOMObe called simply "German." . . . Have the Germansever produced even a book that had depth ? They arelacking in the mere idea of what constitutes a book. Ihave known scholars who thought that Kant was deep.At the Court of Prussia I fear that Herr von Treitschkeis regarded as deep. And when I happen to praiseStendhal as a deep psychologist, I have often beencompelled in the company of German University Pro-fessors, to spell his name aloud.

And why should I not proceed to the end ? I amfond of clearing the air. It is even part of my ambi-tion to be considered as essentially a despiser ofGermans. I expressed my suspicions of the Germancharacter even at the age of six-and-twenty (seeThoughts out of Season, vol. ii. pp. 164, 165),to mymind the Germans are impossible. When I try andthink of the kind of man who is opposed to me in allmy instincts, my mental image takes the form of aGerman. The first thing I ask myself when I beginanalysing a man, is, whether he has a feeling for dis-tance in him; whether he sees rank, gradation, andorder everywhere between man and man ; whether hemakes distinctions ; for this is what constitutes a gen-tleman. Otherwise he belongs hopelessly to thatopen-hearted,- open-mindedalas ! and always verygood-natured species, la canaille! But the Germansare canaillealas ! they are so good-natured ! A manlowers himself by frequenting the society of Germans :the German places every one on an equal footing.


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 47With the exception of my intercourse with one or twoartists, and above all with Richard Wagner, I cannotsay that I have spent one pleasant hour with Germans.Suppose, for one moment, that the profoundest spiritof all ages were to appear among Germans, then oneof the saviours of the Capitol would be sure to ariseand declare that his own ugly soul was just as great.I can no longer abide this race with which a man isalways in bad company, which has no idea of nuanceswoe to me ! I am a nuanceand which has not espritin its feet, and cannot even walk withal ! In short,the Germans have no feet at all, they simply have legs.The Germans have not the faintest idea of how vulgarthey arebut this in itself is the acme of vulgarity,they are not even ashamed of being merely Germans.They will have their say in everything, they regardthemselves as fit to decide all questions ; I even fearthat they have decided about me. My whole life isessentially a proof of this remark. In vain have I soughtamong them for a sign of tact and delicacy towardsmyself. Among Jews I did indeed find it, but notamong Germans. I am so constituted as to be gentleand kindly to every one,I have the right not todraw distinctions,but this does not prevent my eyesfrom being open. I except no one, and least of all myfriends,I only trust that this has not prejudiced myreputation for humanity among them ? There are fiveor six things which I have always made points ofhonour. Albeit, the truth remains that for many yearsI have considered almost every letter that has reachedme as a piece of cynicism. There is more cynicism inan attitude of goodwill towards me than in any sort ofhatred. I tell every friend to his face that he has


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4o ECCE HOMOnever thought it worth his while to study any one ofmy writings : from the slightest hints I gather thatthey do not even know what lies hidden in my books.And with regard even to my Zarathustra, which of myfriends would have seen more in it than a piece ofunwarrantable, though fortunately harmless, arrogance ?Ten years have elapsed, and no one has yet felt it aduty to his conscience to defend my name against theabsurd silence beneath which it has been entombed.It was a foreigner, a Dane, who first showed sufficientkeenness of instinct and of courage to do this, andwho protested indignantly against my so-called friends.At what German University to-day would such lectureson my philosophy be possible, as those which Dr.Brandes delivered last spring in Copenhagen, thusproving once more his right to the title psychologist ?For my part, these things have never caused me anypain ; that which is necessary does not offend me.Amorfati is the core of my nature. This, however,does not alter the fact that I love irony and evenworld-historic irony. And thus, about two years beforehurling the destructive thunderbolt of the Transval-uation, which will send the whole of civilisation intoconvulsions, I sent my Case of Wagner out into theworld. The Germans were given the chance of blun-dering and immortalising their stupidity once more onmy account, and they still have just enough time to doit in. And have they fallen in with my plans ?Admirably ! my dear Germans. Allow me to con-gratulate you.


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WHY I AM A FATALITYI KNOW my destiny. There will come a day when myname will recall the memory of something formidable a crisis the like of which has never been known onearth, the memory of the most profound clash of con-sciences, and the passing of a sentence upon all thatwhich theretofore had been believed, exacted, andhallowed. I am not a man, I am dynamite. Andwith it all there is nought of the founder of a religionin me. Religions are matters for the mob ; after com-ing in contact with a religious man, I always feel thatI must wash my hands. ... I require no "believers,"it is my opinion that I am too full of malice to believeeven in myself ; I never address myself to masses. Iam horribly frightened that one day I shall be pro-nounced , "holy." You will understand why I publishthis book beforehand it is to prevent people fromwronging me. I refuse to be a saint ; I would ratherbe a clown. Maybe I am a clown. And I am not-withstanding, or rather not


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50 ECCE HOMOthat is to say, I smelt it as such. My genius residesin my nostrils. I contradict as no one has contradictedhitherto, and am nevertheless the reverse of a negativespirit. I am the harbinger of joy, the like of whichhas never existed before ; I have discovered tasks ofsuch lofty greatness that, until my time, no one hadany idea of such things. Mankind can begin to havefresh hopes, only now that I have lived. Albeit, I amnecessarily a man of Fate. For when Truth enters thelists against the falsehood of ages, shocks are boundto ensue, and a spell of earthquakes, followed by thetransposition of hills and valleys, such as the worldhas never yet imagined even in its dreams. The con-cept "politics" then becomes elevated entirely to thesphere of spiritual warfare. All the mighty realms ofthe ancient order of society are blown into spaceforthey are all based on falsehood : there will be wars,the like of which have never been seen on earth before.Only from my time and after me will politics on a largescaleexist on earth.

If you should require a formula for a destiny of thiskind that has taken human form, you will find it inmy Zarathustra."And he who would be a creator in good and evil

verily, he must first be a destroyer, and break valuesinto pieces.

"Thus the greatest evil belongeth unto the greatestgood : but this is the creative good."I am by far the most terrible man that has ever

existed ; but this does not alter the fact that I shall


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WHY I AM A FATALITY 51become the most beneficent. I know the joy of anni-hilation to a degree which is commensurate with mypower to annihilate. In both cases I obey my Diony-sian nature, which knows not how to separate the neg-ative deed from the saying of yea. I am the firstimmoralist, and in this sense I am essentially theannihilator.

People have never asked me as they should havedone, what the name of Zarathustra precisely meant inmy mouth, in the mouth of the first immoralist ; forthat which distinguishes this Persian from all others inthe past is the very fact that he was the exact reverseof an immoralist. Zarathustra was the first to see inthe struggle between good and evil the essential wheelin the working of things. The translation of moralityinto the realm of metaphysics, as force, cause, end-in-itself, is his work. But the very question suggests itsown answer. Zarathustra created this most portentousof all errors,morality ; therefore he must be the firstto expose it. Not only because he has had longer andgreater experience of the subject than any otherthinker,all history is indeed the experimental refuta-tion of the theory of the so-called moral order ofthings,but because of the more important fact thatZarathustra was the most truthful of thinkers. In histeaching alone is truthfulness upheld as the highestvirtuethat is to say, as the reverse of the cowardiceof the "idealist" who takes to his heels at the sight ofreality. Zarathustra has more pluck in his body thanall other thinkers put together. To tell the truth and


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52 ECCE HOMO"to aim straight : that is the first Persian virtue. HaveI made myself clear ? . . . The overcoming of moralityby itself through truthfulness, the moralist's overcom-ing of himself in his oppositein methat is whatthe name Zarathustra means in my mouth.

In reaUty two negations are involved in my titleImmoralist. I first of all deny the type of man thathas hitherto been regarded as the highestthe good^the kind, and the charitable ; and I also deny that kindof morality which has become recognised and para-mount as morality-in-itselfI speak of the morality ofdecadence, or, to use a still cruder term. Christianmorality. I would agree to the second of the twonegations being regarded as the more decisive, for,reckoned as a whole, the overestimation of goodnessand kindness seems to me already a consequence ofdecadence, a symptom of weakness, and incompatiblewith any ascending and yea-saying life. Negation andannihilation are inseparable from a yea-saying attitudetowards life. Let me halt for a moment at the ques-tion of the psychology of the good man. In order toappraise the value of a certain type of man, the cost ofhis maintenance must be calculated,and the condi-tions of his existence must be known. The conditionof the existence' of the good is falsehood : or, otherwiseexpressed, the refusal at any price to see how reality isactually constituted. The refusal to see that this real-ity is not so constituted as always to be stimulatingbeneficent instincts, and still less, so as to suffer at allmoments the intrusion of ignorant and good-natured


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WHY 1 AM A FATALITY 53hands. To consider distress of all kinds as an objec-tion, as something which must be done away with, isthe greatest nonsense on earth ; generally speaking, itis nonsense of the most disastrous sort, fatal in itsstupidityalmost as mad as the will to abolish badweather, out of pity for the poor, so to speak. In thegreat economy of the whole universe, the terrors ofreality (in the passions, in the desires, in the will topower) are incalculably more necessary than that formof petty happiness which is called "goodness" ; it iseven needful to practise leniency in order so much asto allow the latter a place at all, seeing that it is basedupon a falsification of the instincts. I shall have anexcellent opportunity of showing the incalculablycalamitous consequences to the whole of history, ofthe credo of optimism, this monstrous offspring of thehomifies optimi. Zarathustra,* the first who recognisedthat the optimist is just as degenerate as the pessimist,though perhaps more detrimental, says: ^^Good men7iever speak the truth. False shores and false harbourswere ye taught by the good. In the lies of the good wereye borft and bred. Through the good everything hathbecome false atid crooked from the roots. ''^ Fortunatelythe world is not built merely upon those instinctswhich would secure to the good-natured herd animalhis paltry happiness. To desire everybody to becomea "good man," "a gregarious animal," "a blue-eyed,benevolent, beautiful soul," or as Herbert Spencerwisheda creature of altruism, would mean robbingexistence of its greatest character, castrating man, andreducing humanity to a sort of wretched Chinadom.* Needless to say this is Nietzsche, and no longer the Persian.Tr.


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54 ECCE HOMOAnd this some have tried to do ! It is precisely this thatmen called morality. In this sense Zarathustra calls"the good," now "the last men," and anon "the begin-ning of the end" ; and above all, he considers them asthe most detrimental kind of men, because they securetheir existence at the cost of Truth and at the cost ofthe Future.

"The goodthey cannot create ; they are ever thebeginning of the end.

"They crucify him who desireth new values on newtables ; they sacrifice unto themselves the future ; theycrucify the whole future of humanity !

"The goodthey are ever the beginning of the end."And whatever harm the slanderers of the world

may do, the harm of the good is the most calamitous ofall harmy

Zarathustra, as the first psychologist of the goodman, is perforce the friend of the evil man. When adegenerate kind of man has succeed-ed to the highestrank among the human species, his position must havebeen gained at the cost of the reverse typeat thecost of the strong man who is certain of life. Whenthe gregarious animal stands in the glorious rays ofthe purest virtue, the exceptional man must bedegraded to the rank of the evil. If falsehood insistsat all costs on claiming the word "truth" for its ownparticular standpoint, the really truthful man must besought out among the despised. Zarathustra allows ofno doubt here ; he says that it was precisely theknowledge of the good, of the "best," which inspired


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WHY I ARr A FATALITY 55his absolute horror of men. And it was out of thisfeeling of repulsion that he grew the wings whichallowed him to soar into remote futures. He does notconceal the fact that his type of man is one which isrelatively superhumanespecially as opposed to the"good" man, and that the good and the just wouldregard his superman as the devil."Ye higher men, on whom my gaze now falls, this

is the doubt that ye wake in my breast, and this is mysecret laughter: methinks ye would call my Supermanthe devil! So strange are ye in your souls to all thatis great, that the Superman would be terrible in youreyes for his goodness."

It is from this passage, and from no other, that youmust set out to understand the goal to which Zara-thustra aspiresthe kind of man that he conceivessees reality as it is ; he is strong enough for thisheis not estranged or far removed from it, he is thatreality himself, in his own nature can be found all theterrible and questionable character of reality: only thuscan man have srreatness.

But I have chosen the title of Immoralist as a sur-name and as a badge of honour in yet another senseI am very proud to possess this name which distin-guishes me from all the rest of mankind. No onehitherto has felt Christian morality beneath him ; tothat end there were needed height, a remoteness ofvision, and an abysmal psychological depth, notbelieved to be possible hitherto. Up to the presentChristian morality has been the Circe ofall thinkers


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56 ECCE HOMOthey stood at her service. What man, before my time,had descended into the underground caverns from outof which the poisonous fumes of this idealof thisslandering of the worldburst forth ? What man hadeven dared to suppose that they were undergroundcaverns? Was a single one of the philosophers whopreceded me a psychologist at all, and not the veryreverse of a psychologistthat is to say, a "superiorswindler," an "Idealist ?" Before my time there wasno psychology. To be the first in this new realm mayamount to a curse ; at all events, it is a fatality : forone is also the first to despise. My danger is the loath-ing of mankind.

Have you understood me ? That which defines me,that which makes me stand apart from the whole ofthe rest of humanity, is the fact that I u?imaskedChristian morality. For this reason I was in need ofa word which conveyed the idea of a challenge toeverybody. Not to have awakened to these discoveriesbefore, struck me as being the sign of the greatestuncleanliness that mankind has oa, its conscience, asself-deception become instinctive, as the fundamentalwill to be bliiid to every phenomenon, all causality andall reality ; in fact, as an almost criminal fraud inpsychologicis. Blindness in regard to Christianity isthe essence of criminalityfor it is the crime againstlife. Ages and peoples, the first as well as the last,philosophers and old women, with the exception offive or six moments in history (and of myself, theseventh), are all alike in this. Hitherto the Christian


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WHY I AM A FATALITY 57has been the "moral being," a peerless oddity, and, as"a moral being," he was more absurd, more vain, morethoughtless, and a greater disadvantage to himself,than the greatest despiser of humanity could havedeemed possible. Christian morality is the* mostmalignant form of all falsehood, the actual Circe ofhumanity : that which has corrupted mankind. It isnot error as error which infuriates me at the sight ofthis spectacle; it is not the millenniums of absence of"goodwill," of discipline, of decency, and of bravery inspiritual things, which betrays itself in the triumph ofChristianity; it is rather the absence of nature, it isthe perfectly ghastly fact that anti-nature itself receivedthe highest honours as morality and as law, andremained suspended over man as the Categorical Im-perative. Fancy blundering in this way, not as anindividual, not as a people, but as a whole species! ashumanity! To teach the contempt of all the principalinstincts of life; to posit falsely the existence of a"soul," of a "spirit," in order to be able to defy thebody ; to spread the feeling that there is somethingimpure in the very first prerequisite of life in sex ; toseek the principle of evil in the profound need ofgrowth and expansiianthat is to say, in severe self-love (the term itself is slanderous); and conversely tosee a higher moral valuebut what am I talkingabout i*I mean the moral value per se^ in the typicalsigns of decline, in the antagonism of the instincts, in"selflessness," in the loss of ballast, in "the suppres-sion of the personal element," and in "love of one'sneighbour" (neighbour-itis !) What ! is humanity itselfin a state of degeneration ? Has it always been inthis state? One thing is certain, that ye are taught


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58 ECCE HOMOonly the values of decadence as the highest values.The morality of self-renunciation is essentially themorality of degeneration ; the fact, "I am going to thedogs," is translated into the imperative, "Ye shall allgo to the dogs"and not only into the imperative.This morality of self-renunciation, which is the onlykind of morality that has been taught hitherto, betraysthe will to nonentity-it denies life to the very roots.There still remains the possibility that it is not man-kind that is in a state of degeneration, but only thatparasitical kind of manthe priest, who, by means ofmorality and lies, has climbed up to his position ofdeterminator of values, who divined in Christian moral-ity his road to power. And, to tell the truth, this ismy opinion. The teachers and leaders of mankind,including the theologianshave been, every one ofthem, decadents: hence their transvaluation of allvalues into a hostility towards life ; hence morality.The definition ofmorality : Morality is the idiosyncrasyof decadents, actuated by a desire to avenge themselveswith success upon life. I attach great value to thisdefinition.

8

Have you understood me ? I have not uttered asingle word which I had not already said five yearsago through my mouthpiece Zarathustra. The unmask-ing of Christian morality is an event which isunequalled in history, it is a real catastrophe. Theman who throws light upon it is a force majeure, afatality; he breaks the history of man into two. Timeis reckoned up before him and after him. The light-


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WHY 1 AM A FATALITY 59ning flash of truth struck precisely that which thereto-fore had stood highest: he who understands what wasdestroyed by that flash should look to see whether hestill holds anything in his hands. Everything whichuntil then was called truth, has been revealed as themost detrimental, most spiteful, and most subterraneanform of life; the holy pretext, which was the "improve-me

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