Thomas Common—it adheres, as a rule,
closely to the German text; and in only two or
three instances has a slightly freer rendering been
adopted in order to make the sense quite clear.
closely to the German text; and in only two or
three instances has a slightly freer rendering been
adopted in order to make the sense quite clear.
Nietzsche - v09 - The Dawn of Day
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Title: The complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche. The first complete
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Author: Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900.
Publisher: [Edinburgh and London : T. N. Foulis, 1909-1913. ]
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THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
The First Complete and Authorised English Translation
EDITED BY
Dr. OSCAR LEVY
VOLUME NINE
THE DAWN OF DAY
## p. ii (#16) ##############################################
32,12
Of the First Edition of
One Thousand Five
Hundred Copies this is
No. 72
## p. iii (#17) #############################################
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
THE
DAWN OF DAY
TRANSLATED BY
1. M. KENNEDY
AUTHOR OF "THE QUINTESSENCE OF NIETZSCHE"
"RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES OF THE EAST"
There are many dawns which have yet
to shed their light.
Rig Veda.
T. N. FOULIS
13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET
EDINBURGH: AND LONDON
1911
## p. iv (#18) ##############################################
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh
## p. v (#19) ###############################################
INTRODUCTION.
WHEN Nietzsche called his book The Dawn of Day,
he was far from giving it a merely fanciful title to
attract the attention of that large section of the
public which judges books by their titles rather than
by their contents. The Dawn of Day represents,
figuratively, the dawn of Nietzsche's own philo-
sophy. Hitherto he had been considerably influ-
enced in his outlook, if not in his actual thoughts,
by Schopenhauer, Wagner, and perhaps also Comte.
Human,all-too-Human,bz\or\gs to a period of transi-
tion. After his rupture with Bayreuth, Nietzsche
is, in both parts of that work, trying to stand on his
own legs, and to regain his spiritual freedom; he is
feeling his way to his own philosophy. The Dawn
of Day, written in 1881 under the invigorating influ-
ence of a Genoese spring, is the dawn of this new
Nietzsche. "With this book I open my campaign
against morality," he himself said later in his auto-
biography, the Ecce Homo.
Just as in the case of the books written in his
prime—The Joyful Wisdom, Zarathustra, Beyond
Good and Evil, and The Genealogy of Morals—we
cannot fail to be impressed in this work by
Nietzsche's deep psychological insight, the insight
that showed him to be a powerful judge of men and
things unequalled in the nineteenth or, perhaps, any
## p. vi (#20) ##############################################
vi INTRODUCTION.
other century. One example of this is seen in his
searching analysis of the Apostle Paul (Aphorism
68), in which the soul of the "First Christian"
is ruthlessly and realistically laid bare to us.
Nietzsche's summing-up of the Founder of Christi-
anity—for of course, as is now generally recognised,
it was Paul, and not Christ, who founded the Chris-
tian Church—has not yet called forth those bitter
attacks from theologians that might have been ex-
pected, though one reason for this apparent neglect
is no doubt that the portrait is so true, and in these
circumstances silence is certainly golden on the part
of defenders of the faith, who are otherwise, as a
rule, loquacious enough. Nor has the taunt in
Aphorism 84 elicited an answer from the quarter
whither it was directed; and the " free " (not to say
dishonest) interpretation of the Bible by Christian
scholars and theologians, which is still proceeding
merrily, is now being turned to Nietzsche's own
writings. For the philosopher's works are now being
"explained away" by German theologians in a
most naive and daring fashion, and with an ability
which has no doubt been acquired as the result of
centuries of skilful interpretation of the Holy Writ
.
Nor are professional theologians the only ones
who have failed to answer Nietzsche; for in other
than religious matters the majority of savants
have not succeeded in plumbing his depths. There
is, for example, the question of race. Ten years
ago, twenty years after the publication of The
Dawn of Day, Nietzsche's countrymen enthusiastic-
ally hailed a book which has recently been trans-
lated into English, Chamberlain's Foundations of
## p. vii (#21) #############################################
INTRODUCTION. vil
the Nineteenth Century. In this book the Teutons
are said to be superior to all the other peoples in the
world, the reason given being that they have kept
their race pure. It is due to this purity of race that
they have produced so many great men; for every
"good" man in history is a Teuton, and every bad
man something else. Considerable skill is exhibited
by the author in filching from his opponents the
Latins their best trump cards, and likewise the
trump card, Jesus Christ, from the Jews; for Jesus
Christ, according to Chamberlain's very plausible
argument, was not a Jew but an Aryan, i. e. a mem-
ber of that great family of which the Teutons are
a branch.
What would Nietzsche have said to this leger-
demain? He has constantly pointed out that the
Teutons are so far from being a pure race that they
have, on the contrary, done everything in their power
to ruin even the idea of a pure race for ever. For
the Teutons, through their Reformation and their
Puritan revolt in England, and the philosophies
developed by the democracies that necessarily fol-
lowed, were the spiritual forbears of the French
Revolution and of the Socialistic regime under
which we are beginning to suffer nowadays. Thus
this noble race has left nothing undone to blot out
the last remnant of race in Europe, and it even
stands in the way of the creation of a new race. And
with such a record in history the Germans write
books, eulogising themselves as the salt of the earth,
the people of peoples, the race of races, while in truth
they are nothing else than nouveaux-rickes en-
deavouring to draw up a decent pedigree for them-
## p. viii (#22) ############################################
viii INTRODUCTION.
selves. We know that honesty is not a prerequisite
of such pedigrees, and that patriotism may be con-
sidered as a good excuse even for a wrong pedigree;
but the race-pandemonium that followed the public-
ation of Mr. Chamberlain's book in Germany was
really a very unwise proceeding in view of the false
and misleading document produced. What, it may
be asked again, would Nietzsche have said if he had
heard his countrymen screaming odes to their own
glory as the " flower of Europe "? He would assur-
edly have dismissed their exalted pretensions with a
good-natured smile; for his study of history had
shown him that even slaves must have their sat-
urnalia now and then. But as to his philosophical
answer there can be no doubt; for in Aphorism 272
olThe Dawn of Day there is a single sentence which
completely refutes the view of modern racemongers
like Chamberlain and his followers: "It is prob-
able," we read, "that there are no pure races, but
only races which have become purified, and even
these are extremely rare. " There are even stronger
expressions to be met with in " Peoples and Coun-
tries" (Aphorism 20; see the Genealogy 0/Morals,
p. 226): "What quagmires and mendacity must
there be about if it is possible, in the modern
European hotch-potch, to raise the question of
'race'! " and again, in Aphorism 21: "Maxim—to
associate with no man who takes any part in the
mendacious race-swindle. "
A man like Nietzsche, who makes so little im-
pression upon mankind in general, is certainly not,
as some people have thought and openly said, a
public danger, so the guardians of the State need not
## p. ix (#23) ##############################################
INTRODUCTION. ix
be uneasy. There is little danger of Nietzsche's re-
volutionising either the masses or the classes; for,
as Goethe used to say, " Seulement celui qui res-
semble le peuple, l'emeut. " Nietzsche's voice has as
yet hardly been lifted in this country; and, until it is
fully heard, both masses and classes will calmly pro-
ceed on their way to the extremes of democracy and
anarchy, as they now appear to be doing. Anarchy,
though, may be too strong a word; for there is some
doubt whether, throughout Europe and America at
all events, the people are not now too weak even for
anarchy. A revolt is a sign of strength in a slave;
but our modern slaves have no strength left.
In the meantime, however, it will have become
clear that Nietzsche tried to stop this threatening
degradation of the human race, that he endeavoured
to supplant the morality of altruism—the cause of
this degradation—by another, a super-Christian
morality, and that he has succeeded in this aim, if
not where the masses and the classes are concerned,
at any rate in the case of that small minority of
thinkers to which he really wished to appeal. And
this minority is naturally grateful to the philosopher
for having supplied them with a morality which
enables them to be "good" without being fools—
an unpleasant combination which,unfortunately, the
Nazarene morality is seldom able to avoid. This
Nazarene morality has doubtless its own merits, and
its "good " and " evil " in many cases coincide with
ours; but common sense and certain intellectual
qualities are not too highly appreciated in the table
of Christian values (see, for instance, I Cor. iii. 19),
whence it will be observed that the enlightenment
## p. x (#24) ###############################################
x INTRODUCTION.
of a Christian is not always quite equal to his
otherwise excellent intentions. We Nietzschians,
however, must show that patience to them which
they always pretend to show to their opponents.
Nietzsche himself, indeed, recommends this in Aph-
orism 103 of this book, an aphorism which is almost
too well known to need repetition; for it likewise
disproves the grotesque though widely circulated
supposition that all kinds of immorality would be
indulged in under the sway of the " Immoralistic"
philosopher:
"I should not, of course, deny—unless I were a
fool—that many actions which are called immoral
should be avoided and resisted; and in the same way
that many which are called moral should be per-
formed and encouraged; but I hold that in both
cases these actions should be performed from
motives other than those which have prevailed up
to the present time. We must learn anew in order
that at last, perhaps very late in the day, we may be
able to do something more: feel anew. "
In regard to the translation itself—which owes
a good deal to many excellent suggestions made
by Mr. Thomas Common—it adheres, as a rule,
closely to the German text; and in only two or
three instances has a slightly freer rendering been
adopted in order to make the sense quite clear.
There are one or two cases in which a punning or
double meaning could not be adequately rendered
in English: e. g. Aphorism 50, where the German
word" Rausch" means both " intoxication " and also
"elation " (i. e. the exalted feelings of the religious
fanatic). Again, we have "Einleid," "Einleidig-
## p. xi (#25) ##############################################
INTRODUCTION. xi
keit," in Aphorism 63—words which do not quite
correspond to pity, compassion, or fellow-feeling,
and which, indeed, are not yet known to German
lexicographers. A literal translation, " one-feeling,"
would be almost meaningless. What is actually
signified is that both sufferer and sympathiser have
nerves and feelings in common: an experience which
Schopenhauer, as Nietzsche rightly points out, mis-
took for compassion or pity (" Mitleid"), and which
lacked a word, even in German, until the later
psychologist coined " Einleid. " Again, in Aphorism
5 54 we have a play upon the words " Vorschritt"
(leading, guidance) and " Fortschritt" (progress).
All these, however, are trifling matters in compar-
ison with the substance of the book, and they are of
more interest to philologists than to psychologists.
It is for psychologists that this book was written;
and such minds, somewhat rare in our time, may
read in it with much profit.
J. M. KENNEDY.
London, September 1911.
## p. xii (#26) #############################################
## p. 1 (#27) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
In this book we find a "subterrestrial" at work,
digging, mining, undermining. You can see him,
always provided that you have eyes for such deep
work,—how he makes his way slowly, cautiously,
gently but surely, without showing signs of the
weariness that usually accompanies a long privation
of light and air. He might even be called happy,
despite his labours in the dark. Does it not seem
as if some faith were leading him on, some solace
recompensing him for his toil? Or that he himself
desires a long period of darkness, an unintelligible,
hidden, enigmatic something, knowing as he does
that he will in time have his own morning, his
own redemption, his own rosy dawn ? —Yea, verily
he will return: ask him not what he seeketh in the
depths; for he himself will tell you, this apparent
Trophonius and subterrestrial, whensoever he once
again becomes man. One easily unlearns how to
hold one's tongue when one has for so long been a
mole, and all alone, like him. —
2.
Indeed, my indulgent friends, I will tell you—
here, in this late preface,* which might easily have
* The book was first published in 1881, the preface being
added to the second edition, 1886. —Tr.
A
## p. 2 (#28) ###############################################
2 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
become an obituary or a funeral oration—what
I sought in the depths below: for I have come
back, and—I have escaped. Think not that I will
urge you to run the same perilous risk! or that I
will urge you on even to the same solitude! For
whoever proceeds on his own path meets nobody:
this is the feature of one's "own path. " No one
comes to help him in his task: he must face every-
thing quite alone—danger, bad luck, wickedness,
foul weather. He goes his own way; and, as is
only right, meets with bitterness and occasional
irritation because he pursues this "own way" of
his: for instance, the knowledge that not even his
friends can guess who he is and whither he is going,
and that they ask themselves now and then : " Well?
Is he really moving at all? Has he still . . . a
path before him ? "—At that time I had undertaken
something which could not have been done by
everybody: I went down into the deepest depths;
I tunnelled to the very bottom ; I started to investi-
gate and unearth an old faith which for thousands
of years we philosophers used to build on as the
safest of all foundations—which we built on again
and again although every previous structure fell
in: I began to undermine our faith in morals.
But ye do not understand me? —
3-
So far it is on Good and Evil that we have
meditated least profoundly: this was always too
dangerous a subject. Conscience, a good reputa-
tion, hell, and at times even the police, have not
## p. 3 (#29) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 3
allowed and do not allow of impartiality; in the
presence of morality, as before all authority, we
must not even think, much less speak: here we
must obey! Ever since the beginning of the world,
no authority has permitted itself to be made the
subject of criticism; and to criticise morals—to
look upon morality as a problem, as problematic—
what! was that not—is that not—immoral ? —But
morality has at its disposal not only every means
of intimidation wherewith to keep itself free from
critical hands and instruments of torture: its
security lies rather in a certain art of enchantment,
in which it is a past master—it knows how to
"enrapture. " It can often paralyse the critical
will with a single look, or even seduce it to itself:
yea, there are even cases where morality can turn
the critical will against itself; so that then, like the
scorpion, it thrusts the sting into its own body.
Morality has for ages been an expert in all kinds
of devilry in the art of convincing: even at the
present day there is no orator who would not turn
to it for assistance (only hearken to our anarchists,
for instance: how morally they speak when they
would fain convince! In the end they even call
themselves "the good and the just"). Morality
has shown herself to be the greatest mistress of
seduction ever since men began to discourse and
persuade on earth—and, what concerns us philo-
sophers even more, she is the veritable Circe of
philosophers. For, to what is it due that, from
Plato onwards, all the philosophic architects in
Europe have built in vain? that everything which
they themselves honestly believed to be aere per-
## p. 4 (#30) ###############################################
4 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
ennius threatens to subside or is already laid in ruins?
Oh, how wrong is the answer which, even in our own
day, rolls glibly off the tongue when this question is
asked: "Because they have all neglected the pre-
requisite, the examination of the foundation, a
critique of all reason "—that fatal answer made by
Kant, who has certainly not thereby attracted us
modern philosophers to firmer and less treacherous
ground ! (and, one may ask apropos of this, was it
not rather strange to demand that an instrument
should criticise its own value and effectiveness?
that the intellect itself should "recognise" its own
worth, power, and limits? was it not even just a
little ridiculous ? ) The right answer would rather
have been, that all philosophers, including Kant
himself, were building under the seductive influence
of morality—that they aimed at certainty and
"truth" only in appearance; but that in reality
their attention was directed towards " majestic moral
edifices" to use once more Kant's innocent mode of
expression, who deems it his "less brilliant, but
not undeserving" task and work "to level the
ground and prepare a solid foundation for the
erection of those majestic moral edifices " {Critique
of Pure Reason, ii. 257). Alas! He did not
succeed in his aim, quite the contrary—as we must
acknowledge to-day. With this exalted aim, Kant
was merely a true son of his century, which more
than any other may justly be called the century
of exaltation: and this he fortunately continued
to be in respect to the more valuable side of this
century (with that solid piece of sensuality, for
example, which he introduced into his theory of
## p. 5 (#31) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 5
knowledge). He, too, had been bitten by the moral
tarantula, Rousseau; he, too, felt weighing on his
soul that moral fanaticism of which another disciple
of Rousseau's, Robespierre, felt and proclaimed
himself to be the executor: de fonder sur la terre
Vempire de la sagesse, de la justice, et de la vertu.
(Speech of June 4th, 1794. ) On the other hand,
with such a French fanaticism in his heart, no one
could have cultivated it in a less French, more
deep, more thorough and more German manner—
if the word German is still permissible in this
sense—than Kant did: in order to make room for
his " moral kingdom," he found himself compelled
to add to it an indemonstrable world, a logical
"beyond "—that was why he required his critique
of pure reason! In other words, he would not have
wanted it, if he had not deemed one thing to be
more important than all the others: to render his
moral kingdom unassailable by—or, better still,
invisible to, reason,—for he felt too strongly the
vulnerability of a moral order of things in the face
of reason. For, when confronted with nature and
history, when confronted with the ingrained im-
morality of nature and history, Kant was, like all
good Germans from the earliest times, a pessimist:
he believed in morality, not because it is demon-
strated through nature and history, but despite its
being steadily contradicted by them. To under-
stand this "despite," we should perhaps recall a
somewhat similar trait in Luther, that other great
pessimist, who once urged it upon his friends with
true Lutheran audacity: "If we could conceive by
reason alone how that God who shows so much
## p.
Thomas Common—it adheres, as a rule,
closely to the German text; and in only two or
three instances has a slightly freer rendering been
adopted in order to make the sense quite clear.
There are one or two cases in which a punning or
double meaning could not be adequately rendered
in English: e. g. Aphorism 50, where the German
word" Rausch" means both " intoxication " and also
"elation " (i. e. the exalted feelings of the religious
fanatic). Again, we have "Einleid," "Einleidig-
## p. xi (#25) ##############################################
INTRODUCTION. xi
keit," in Aphorism 63—words which do not quite
correspond to pity, compassion, or fellow-feeling,
and which, indeed, are not yet known to German
lexicographers. A literal translation, " one-feeling,"
would be almost meaningless. What is actually
signified is that both sufferer and sympathiser have
nerves and feelings in common: an experience which
Schopenhauer, as Nietzsche rightly points out, mis-
took for compassion or pity (" Mitleid"), and which
lacked a word, even in German, until the later
psychologist coined " Einleid. " Again, in Aphorism
5 54 we have a play upon the words " Vorschritt"
(leading, guidance) and " Fortschritt" (progress).
All these, however, are trifling matters in compar-
ison with the substance of the book, and they are of
more interest to philologists than to psychologists.
It is for psychologists that this book was written;
and such minds, somewhat rare in our time, may
read in it with much profit.
J. M. KENNEDY.
London, September 1911.
## p. xii (#26) #############################################
## p. 1 (#27) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
In this book we find a "subterrestrial" at work,
digging, mining, undermining. You can see him,
always provided that you have eyes for such deep
work,—how he makes his way slowly, cautiously,
gently but surely, without showing signs of the
weariness that usually accompanies a long privation
of light and air. He might even be called happy,
despite his labours in the dark. Does it not seem
as if some faith were leading him on, some solace
recompensing him for his toil? Or that he himself
desires a long period of darkness, an unintelligible,
hidden, enigmatic something, knowing as he does
that he will in time have his own morning, his
own redemption, his own rosy dawn ? —Yea, verily
he will return: ask him not what he seeketh in the
depths; for he himself will tell you, this apparent
Trophonius and subterrestrial, whensoever he once
again becomes man. One easily unlearns how to
hold one's tongue when one has for so long been a
mole, and all alone, like him. —
2.
Indeed, my indulgent friends, I will tell you—
here, in this late preface,* which might easily have
* The book was first published in 1881, the preface being
added to the second edition, 1886. —Tr.
A
## p. 2 (#28) ###############################################
2 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
become an obituary or a funeral oration—what
I sought in the depths below: for I have come
back, and—I have escaped. Think not that I will
urge you to run the same perilous risk! or that I
will urge you on even to the same solitude! For
whoever proceeds on his own path meets nobody:
this is the feature of one's "own path. " No one
comes to help him in his task: he must face every-
thing quite alone—danger, bad luck, wickedness,
foul weather. He goes his own way; and, as is
only right, meets with bitterness and occasional
irritation because he pursues this "own way" of
his: for instance, the knowledge that not even his
friends can guess who he is and whither he is going,
and that they ask themselves now and then : " Well?
Is he really moving at all? Has he still . . . a
path before him ? "—At that time I had undertaken
something which could not have been done by
everybody: I went down into the deepest depths;
I tunnelled to the very bottom ; I started to investi-
gate and unearth an old faith which for thousands
of years we philosophers used to build on as the
safest of all foundations—which we built on again
and again although every previous structure fell
in: I began to undermine our faith in morals.
But ye do not understand me? —
3-
So far it is on Good and Evil that we have
meditated least profoundly: this was always too
dangerous a subject. Conscience, a good reputa-
tion, hell, and at times even the police, have not
## p. 3 (#29) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 3
allowed and do not allow of impartiality; in the
presence of morality, as before all authority, we
must not even think, much less speak: here we
must obey! Ever since the beginning of the world,
no authority has permitted itself to be made the
subject of criticism; and to criticise morals—to
look upon morality as a problem, as problematic—
what! was that not—is that not—immoral ? —But
morality has at its disposal not only every means
of intimidation wherewith to keep itself free from
critical hands and instruments of torture: its
security lies rather in a certain art of enchantment,
in which it is a past master—it knows how to
"enrapture. " It can often paralyse the critical
will with a single look, or even seduce it to itself:
yea, there are even cases where morality can turn
the critical will against itself; so that then, like the
scorpion, it thrusts the sting into its own body.
Morality has for ages been an expert in all kinds
of devilry in the art of convincing: even at the
present day there is no orator who would not turn
to it for assistance (only hearken to our anarchists,
for instance: how morally they speak when they
would fain convince! In the end they even call
themselves "the good and the just"). Morality
has shown herself to be the greatest mistress of
seduction ever since men began to discourse and
persuade on earth—and, what concerns us philo-
sophers even more, she is the veritable Circe of
philosophers. For, to what is it due that, from
Plato onwards, all the philosophic architects in
Europe have built in vain? that everything which
they themselves honestly believed to be aere per-
## p. 4 (#30) ###############################################
4 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
ennius threatens to subside or is already laid in ruins?
Oh, how wrong is the answer which, even in our own
day, rolls glibly off the tongue when this question is
asked: "Because they have all neglected the pre-
requisite, the examination of the foundation, a
critique of all reason "—that fatal answer made by
Kant, who has certainly not thereby attracted us
modern philosophers to firmer and less treacherous
ground ! (and, one may ask apropos of this, was it
not rather strange to demand that an instrument
should criticise its own value and effectiveness?
that the intellect itself should "recognise" its own
worth, power, and limits? was it not even just a
little ridiculous ? ) The right answer would rather
have been, that all philosophers, including Kant
himself, were building under the seductive influence
of morality—that they aimed at certainty and
"truth" only in appearance; but that in reality
their attention was directed towards " majestic moral
edifices" to use once more Kant's innocent mode of
expression, who deems it his "less brilliant, but
not undeserving" task and work "to level the
ground and prepare a solid foundation for the
erection of those majestic moral edifices " {Critique
of Pure Reason, ii. 257). Alas! He did not
succeed in his aim, quite the contrary—as we must
acknowledge to-day. With this exalted aim, Kant
was merely a true son of his century, which more
than any other may justly be called the century
of exaltation: and this he fortunately continued
to be in respect to the more valuable side of this
century (with that solid piece of sensuality, for
example, which he introduced into his theory of
## p. 5 (#31) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 5
knowledge). He, too, had been bitten by the moral
tarantula, Rousseau; he, too, felt weighing on his
soul that moral fanaticism of which another disciple
of Rousseau's, Robespierre, felt and proclaimed
himself to be the executor: de fonder sur la terre
Vempire de la sagesse, de la justice, et de la vertu.
(Speech of June 4th, 1794. ) On the other hand,
with such a French fanaticism in his heart, no one
could have cultivated it in a less French, more
deep, more thorough and more German manner—
if the word German is still permissible in this
sense—than Kant did: in order to make room for
his " moral kingdom," he found himself compelled
to add to it an indemonstrable world, a logical
"beyond "—that was why he required his critique
of pure reason! In other words, he would not have
wanted it, if he had not deemed one thing to be
more important than all the others: to render his
moral kingdom unassailable by—or, better still,
invisible to, reason,—for he felt too strongly the
vulnerability of a moral order of things in the face
of reason. For, when confronted with nature and
history, when confronted with the ingrained im-
morality of nature and history, Kant was, like all
good Germans from the earliest times, a pessimist:
he believed in morality, not because it is demon-
strated through nature and history, but despite its
being steadily contradicted by them. To under-
stand this "despite," we should perhaps recall a
somewhat similar trait in Luther, that other great
pessimist, who once urged it upon his friends with
true Lutheran audacity: "If we could conceive by
reason alone how that God who shows so much
## p. 6 (#32) ###############################################
6 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
wrath and malignity could be merciful and just,
what use should we have for faith? " For, from
the earliest times, nothing has ever made a deeper
impression upon the German soul, nothing has
ever " tempted" it more, than that deduction, the
most dangerous of all, which for every true Latin
is a sin against the intellect: credo quia absurdum
est. —With it German logic enters for the first time
into the history of Christian dogma; but even to-day,
a thousand years later, we Germans of the present,
late Germans in every way, catch the scent of truth,
a possibility of truth, at the back of the famous
fundamental principle of dialectics with which
Hegel secured the victory of the German spirit
over Europe—" contradiction moves the world; all
things contradict themselves. " We are pessimists
—even in logic.
But logical judgments are not the deepest and
most fundamental to which the daring of our
suspicion descends: the confidence in reason which
is inseparable from the validity of these judgments,
is, as confidence, a moral phenomenon . . . perhaps
German pessimism has yet to take its last step?
Perhaps it has once more to draw up its " credo"
opposite its "absurdum" in a terrible manner?
And if this book is pessimistic even in regard to
morals, even above the confidence in morals—
should it not be a German book for that very reason?
For, in fact, it represents a contradiction, and one
which it does not fear: in it confidence in morals
is retracted—but why? Out of morality! Or how
## p. 7 (#33) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 7
shall we call that which takes place in it—in us?
for our taste inclines to the employment of more
modest phrases. But there is no doubt that to us
likewise there speaketh a " thou shalt"; we likewise
obey a strict law which is set above us—and this
is the last cry of morals which is still audible to us,
which we too must live: here, if anywhere, are we
still men of conscience, because, to put the matter in
plain words, we will not return to that which we look
upon as decayed, outlived, and superseded, we will
not return to something "unworthy of belief,"
whether it be called God, virtue, truth, justice, love
of one's neighbour, or what not; we will not permit
ourselves to open up a lying path to old ideals;
we are thoroughly and unalterably opposed to
anything that would intercede and mingle with us;
opposed to all forms of present-day faith and
Christianity; opposed to the lukewarmness of all
romanticism and fatherlandism ; opposed also to the
artistic sense of enjoyment and lack of principle
which would fain make us worship where we no
longer believe—for we are artists—opposed, in
short, to all this European feminism (or idealism,
if this term be thought preferable) which everlast-
ingly "draws upward," and which in consequence
everlastingly " lowers" and " degrades. " Yet, being
men of this conscience, we feel that we are related
to that German uprightness and piety which dates
back thousands of years, although we im moralists
and atheists may be the late and uncertain offspring
of these virtues—yea, we even consider ourselves,
in a certain respect, as their heirs, the executors of
their inmost will: a pessimistic will,as I have already
## p. 8 (#34) ###############################################
8 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
pointed out, which is not afraid to deny itself,
because it denies itself with^y! In us is consum-
mated, if you desire a formula—the autosuppression
of morals.
But, after all, why must we proclaim so loudly
and with such intensity what we are, what we want,
and what we do not want? Let us look at this more
calmly and wisely; from a higher and more distant
point of view. Let us proclaim it, as if among our-
selves, in so low a tone that all the world fails to
hear it and us! Above all, however, let us say it
slowly. . . . This preface comes late,but not too late:
what, after all, do five or six years matter? Such a
book, and such a problem, are in no hurry; besides,
we are friends of the lento, I and my book. I have
not been a philologist in vain—perhaps I am one
yet: a teacher of slow reading. I even come to
write slowly. At present it is not only my habit,
but even my taste—a perverted taste, maybe—to
write nothing but what will drive to despair every
one who is "in a hurry. " For philology is that vener-
able art which exacts from its followers one thing
above all—to step to one side, to leave themselves
spare moments, to grow silent, to become slow—the
leisurely art of the goldsmith applied to language:
an art which must carry out slow, fine work, and
attains nothing if not lento. For this very reason
philology is now more desirable than ever before;
for this very reason it is the highest attraction and
incitement in an age of " work ": that is to say, of
haste, of unseemly and immoderate hurry-skurry,
## p. 9 (#35) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. Q
which is intent upon " getting things done " at once,
even every book, whether old or new. Philology
itself, perhaps, will not "get things done" so
hurriedly: it teaches how to read well: i. e. slowly,
profoundly, attentively, prudently, with inner
thoughts, with the mental doors ajar, with delicate
fingers and eyes . . . my patient friends, this book
appeals only to perfect readers and philologists:
learn to read me well!
Ruta, near Genoa,
Autumn, 1886.
## p. 10 (#36) ##############################################
## p. 11 (#37) ##############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
BOOK I.
Subsequent Judgment. — All things that en-
dure for a long time are little by little so greatly
permeated by reason that their origin in unreason
becomes improbable. Does not almost every exact
statement of an origin strike us as paradoxical and
sacrilegious? Indeed, does not the true historian
constantly contradict?
2.
Prejudice of the Learned. —Savants are
quite correct in maintaining the proposition that
men in all ages believed that they knew what was
good and evil, praiseworthy and blamable. But it
is a prejudice of the learned to say that we now
know it better than any other age.
3-
A Time for Everything. —When man as-
signed a sex to all things, he did not believe that he
## p. 12 (#38) ##############################################
12 THE DAWN OF DAY.
was merely playing; but he thought, on the con-
trary, that he had acquired a profound insight:—it
was only at a much later period, and then only partly,
that he acknowledged the enormity of his error. In
the same way, man has attributed a moral relation-
ship to everything that exists, throwing the cloak of
ethical significance over the world's shoulders. One
day all that will be of just as much value, and no
more, as the amount of belief existing to-day in the
masculinity or femininity of the sun. *
4-
Against the Fanciful Disharmony of the
Spheres. —We must once more sweep out of the
world all this false grandeur, for it is contrary to
the justice that all things about us may claim.
And for this reason we must not see or wish the
world to be more disharmonic than it is!
5-'
Be ThaNKFul ! —The most important result of
the past efforts of humanity is that we need no
longer go about in continual fear of wild beasts,
barbarians, gods, and our own dreams.
6.
The Juggler and his Counterpart. —That
which is wonderful in science is contrary to that
* This refers, of course, to the different genders of the
nouns in other languages. In German, for example, the
sun is feminine, and in French masculine. —Tr.
## p. 13 (#39) ##############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 13
which is wonderful in the art of the juggler. For
the latter would wish to make us believe that we
see a very simple causality, where, in reality, an
exceedingly complex causality is in operation.
Science, on the other hand, forces us to give up our
belief in the simple causality exactly where every-
thing looks so easily comprehensible and we are
merely the victims of appearances. The simplest
things are very "complicated"—we can never be
sufficiently astonished at them!
Reconceiving our Feeling of Space. —Is
it real or imaginary things which have built up the
greater proportion of man's happiness? It is
certain, at all events, that the extent of the distance
between the highest point of happiness and the
lowest point of unhappiness has been established
only with the help of imaginary things. As a con-
sequence, this kind of a conception of space is
always, under the influence of science, becoming
smaller and smaller: in the same way as science
has taught us, and is still teaching us, to look upon
the earth as small—yea, to look upon the entire
solar system as a mere point.
8.
TRANSFIGUraTION. —Perplexed sufferers, con-
fused dreamers, the hysterically ecstatic—here we
have the three classes into which Raphael divided
mankind. We no longer consider the world in this
## p. 14 (#40) ##############################################
14 THE DAWN OF DAY.
light—and Raphael himself dare not do so: his own
eyes would show him a new transfiguration.
Conception of the Morality of Custom. —
In comparison with the mode of life which prevailed
among men for thousands of years, we men of the
present day are living in a very immoral age: the
power of custom has been weakened to a remarkable
degree, and the sense of morality is so refined and
elevated that we might almost describe it as vola-
tilised. That is why we late comers experience such
difficulty in obtaining a fundamental conception of
the origin of morality: and even if we do obtain it,
our words of explanation stick in our throats, so
coarse would they sound if we uttered them! or to
so great an extent would they seem to be a slander
upon morality! Thus, for example, the funda-
mental clause: morality is nothing else (and, above
all, nothing more) than obedience to customs, of
whatsoever nature they may be. But customs are
simply the traditional way of acting and valuing.
Where there is no tradition there is no morality;
and the less life is governed by tradition, the
narrower the circle of morality. The free man is
immoral, because it is his will to depend upon him-
self and not upon tradition: in all the primitive
states of humanity "evil" is equivalent to "in-
dividual," "free," "arbitrary," "unaccustomed,"
"unforeseen," "incalculable. " In such primitive
conditions, always measured by this standard, any
action performed—not because tradition commands
## p. 15 (#41) ##############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 15
it, but for other reasons (e. g. on account of its in-
dividual utility), even for the same reasons as had
been formerly established by custom—is termed
immoral, and is felt to be so even by the very man
who performs it, for it has not been done out of
obedience to the tradition.
What is tradition? A higher authority, which
is obeyed, not because it commands what is
useful to us, but merely because it commands.
And in what way can this feeling for tradition
be distinguished from a general feeling of fear?
It is the fear of a higher intelligence which com-
mands, the fear of an incomprehensible power,
of something that is more than personal—there
is superstition in this fear. In primitive times
the domain of morality included education and
hygienics, marriage, medicine, agriculture, war,
speech and silence, the relationship between man
and man, and between man and the gods—morality
required that a man should observe her prescrip-
tions without thinking of himself as individual.
Everything, therefore, was originally custom, and
whoever wished to raise himself above it, had first
of all to make himself a kind of lawgiver and
medicine-man, a sort of demi-god—in other words,
he had to create customs, a dangerous and fearful
thing to do! —Who is the most moral man? On
the one hand, he who most frequently obeys the
law: e. g. he who, like the Brahmins, carries a con-
sciousness of the law about with him wherever he
may go, and introduces it into the smallest divisions
of time, continually exercising his mind in finding
opportunities for obeying the law. On the other
## p. 16 (#42) ##############################################
16 THE DAWN OF DAY.
hand, he who obeys the law in the most difficult
cases. The most moral man is he who makes the
greatest sacrifices to morality; but what are the
greatest sacrifices? In answering this question
several different kinds of morality will be de-
veloped: but the distinction between the morality
of the most frequent obedience and the morality of
the most difficult obedience is of the greatest import-
ance. Let us not be deceived as to the motives of
that moral law which requires, as an indication of
morality, obedience to custom in the most difficult
cases! Self-conquest is required, not by reason
of its useful consequences for the individual; but
that custom and tradition may appear to be domin-
ant, in spite of all individual counter desires and
advantages. The individual shall sacrifice himself
—so demands the morality of custom.
On the other hand, those moralists who, like the
followers of Socrates, recommend self-control and
sobriety to the individual as his greatest possible
advantage and the key to his greatest personal
happiness, are exceptions—and if we ourselves do
not think so, this is simply due to our having been
brought up under their influence. They all take a
new path, and thereby bring down upon themselves
the utmost disapproval of all the representatives of
the morality of custom. They sever their connec-
tion with the community, as immoralists, and are,
in the fullest sense of the word, evil ones.
Find more books at https://www. hathitrust. org.
Title: The complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche. The first complete
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Author: Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900.
Publisher: [Edinburgh and London : T. N. Foulis, 1909-1913. ]
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THE COMPLETE WORKS
OF
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
The First Complete and Authorised English Translation
EDITED BY
Dr. OSCAR LEVY
VOLUME NINE
THE DAWN OF DAY
## p. ii (#16) ##############################################
32,12
Of the First Edition of
One Thousand Five
Hundred Copies this is
No. 72
## p. iii (#17) #############################################
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
THE
DAWN OF DAY
TRANSLATED BY
1. M. KENNEDY
AUTHOR OF "THE QUINTESSENCE OF NIETZSCHE"
"RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES OF THE EAST"
There are many dawns which have yet
to shed their light.
Rig Veda.
T. N. FOULIS
13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET
EDINBURGH: AND LONDON
1911
## p. iv (#18) ##############################################
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh
## p. v (#19) ###############################################
INTRODUCTION.
WHEN Nietzsche called his book The Dawn of Day,
he was far from giving it a merely fanciful title to
attract the attention of that large section of the
public which judges books by their titles rather than
by their contents. The Dawn of Day represents,
figuratively, the dawn of Nietzsche's own philo-
sophy. Hitherto he had been considerably influ-
enced in his outlook, if not in his actual thoughts,
by Schopenhauer, Wagner, and perhaps also Comte.
Human,all-too-Human,bz\or\gs to a period of transi-
tion. After his rupture with Bayreuth, Nietzsche
is, in both parts of that work, trying to stand on his
own legs, and to regain his spiritual freedom; he is
feeling his way to his own philosophy. The Dawn
of Day, written in 1881 under the invigorating influ-
ence of a Genoese spring, is the dawn of this new
Nietzsche. "With this book I open my campaign
against morality," he himself said later in his auto-
biography, the Ecce Homo.
Just as in the case of the books written in his
prime—The Joyful Wisdom, Zarathustra, Beyond
Good and Evil, and The Genealogy of Morals—we
cannot fail to be impressed in this work by
Nietzsche's deep psychological insight, the insight
that showed him to be a powerful judge of men and
things unequalled in the nineteenth or, perhaps, any
## p. vi (#20) ##############################################
vi INTRODUCTION.
other century. One example of this is seen in his
searching analysis of the Apostle Paul (Aphorism
68), in which the soul of the "First Christian"
is ruthlessly and realistically laid bare to us.
Nietzsche's summing-up of the Founder of Christi-
anity—for of course, as is now generally recognised,
it was Paul, and not Christ, who founded the Chris-
tian Church—has not yet called forth those bitter
attacks from theologians that might have been ex-
pected, though one reason for this apparent neglect
is no doubt that the portrait is so true, and in these
circumstances silence is certainly golden on the part
of defenders of the faith, who are otherwise, as a
rule, loquacious enough. Nor has the taunt in
Aphorism 84 elicited an answer from the quarter
whither it was directed; and the " free " (not to say
dishonest) interpretation of the Bible by Christian
scholars and theologians, which is still proceeding
merrily, is now being turned to Nietzsche's own
writings. For the philosopher's works are now being
"explained away" by German theologians in a
most naive and daring fashion, and with an ability
which has no doubt been acquired as the result of
centuries of skilful interpretation of the Holy Writ
.
Nor are professional theologians the only ones
who have failed to answer Nietzsche; for in other
than religious matters the majority of savants
have not succeeded in plumbing his depths. There
is, for example, the question of race. Ten years
ago, twenty years after the publication of The
Dawn of Day, Nietzsche's countrymen enthusiastic-
ally hailed a book which has recently been trans-
lated into English, Chamberlain's Foundations of
## p. vii (#21) #############################################
INTRODUCTION. vil
the Nineteenth Century. In this book the Teutons
are said to be superior to all the other peoples in the
world, the reason given being that they have kept
their race pure. It is due to this purity of race that
they have produced so many great men; for every
"good" man in history is a Teuton, and every bad
man something else. Considerable skill is exhibited
by the author in filching from his opponents the
Latins their best trump cards, and likewise the
trump card, Jesus Christ, from the Jews; for Jesus
Christ, according to Chamberlain's very plausible
argument, was not a Jew but an Aryan, i. e. a mem-
ber of that great family of which the Teutons are
a branch.
What would Nietzsche have said to this leger-
demain? He has constantly pointed out that the
Teutons are so far from being a pure race that they
have, on the contrary, done everything in their power
to ruin even the idea of a pure race for ever. For
the Teutons, through their Reformation and their
Puritan revolt in England, and the philosophies
developed by the democracies that necessarily fol-
lowed, were the spiritual forbears of the French
Revolution and of the Socialistic regime under
which we are beginning to suffer nowadays. Thus
this noble race has left nothing undone to blot out
the last remnant of race in Europe, and it even
stands in the way of the creation of a new race. And
with such a record in history the Germans write
books, eulogising themselves as the salt of the earth,
the people of peoples, the race of races, while in truth
they are nothing else than nouveaux-rickes en-
deavouring to draw up a decent pedigree for them-
## p. viii (#22) ############################################
viii INTRODUCTION.
selves. We know that honesty is not a prerequisite
of such pedigrees, and that patriotism may be con-
sidered as a good excuse even for a wrong pedigree;
but the race-pandemonium that followed the public-
ation of Mr. Chamberlain's book in Germany was
really a very unwise proceeding in view of the false
and misleading document produced. What, it may
be asked again, would Nietzsche have said if he had
heard his countrymen screaming odes to their own
glory as the " flower of Europe "? He would assur-
edly have dismissed their exalted pretensions with a
good-natured smile; for his study of history had
shown him that even slaves must have their sat-
urnalia now and then. But as to his philosophical
answer there can be no doubt; for in Aphorism 272
olThe Dawn of Day there is a single sentence which
completely refutes the view of modern racemongers
like Chamberlain and his followers: "It is prob-
able," we read, "that there are no pure races, but
only races which have become purified, and even
these are extremely rare. " There are even stronger
expressions to be met with in " Peoples and Coun-
tries" (Aphorism 20; see the Genealogy 0/Morals,
p. 226): "What quagmires and mendacity must
there be about if it is possible, in the modern
European hotch-potch, to raise the question of
'race'! " and again, in Aphorism 21: "Maxim—to
associate with no man who takes any part in the
mendacious race-swindle. "
A man like Nietzsche, who makes so little im-
pression upon mankind in general, is certainly not,
as some people have thought and openly said, a
public danger, so the guardians of the State need not
## p. ix (#23) ##############################################
INTRODUCTION. ix
be uneasy. There is little danger of Nietzsche's re-
volutionising either the masses or the classes; for,
as Goethe used to say, " Seulement celui qui res-
semble le peuple, l'emeut. " Nietzsche's voice has as
yet hardly been lifted in this country; and, until it is
fully heard, both masses and classes will calmly pro-
ceed on their way to the extremes of democracy and
anarchy, as they now appear to be doing. Anarchy,
though, may be too strong a word; for there is some
doubt whether, throughout Europe and America at
all events, the people are not now too weak even for
anarchy. A revolt is a sign of strength in a slave;
but our modern slaves have no strength left.
In the meantime, however, it will have become
clear that Nietzsche tried to stop this threatening
degradation of the human race, that he endeavoured
to supplant the morality of altruism—the cause of
this degradation—by another, a super-Christian
morality, and that he has succeeded in this aim, if
not where the masses and the classes are concerned,
at any rate in the case of that small minority of
thinkers to which he really wished to appeal. And
this minority is naturally grateful to the philosopher
for having supplied them with a morality which
enables them to be "good" without being fools—
an unpleasant combination which,unfortunately, the
Nazarene morality is seldom able to avoid. This
Nazarene morality has doubtless its own merits, and
its "good " and " evil " in many cases coincide with
ours; but common sense and certain intellectual
qualities are not too highly appreciated in the table
of Christian values (see, for instance, I Cor. iii. 19),
whence it will be observed that the enlightenment
## p. x (#24) ###############################################
x INTRODUCTION.
of a Christian is not always quite equal to his
otherwise excellent intentions. We Nietzschians,
however, must show that patience to them which
they always pretend to show to their opponents.
Nietzsche himself, indeed, recommends this in Aph-
orism 103 of this book, an aphorism which is almost
too well known to need repetition; for it likewise
disproves the grotesque though widely circulated
supposition that all kinds of immorality would be
indulged in under the sway of the " Immoralistic"
philosopher:
"I should not, of course, deny—unless I were a
fool—that many actions which are called immoral
should be avoided and resisted; and in the same way
that many which are called moral should be per-
formed and encouraged; but I hold that in both
cases these actions should be performed from
motives other than those which have prevailed up
to the present time. We must learn anew in order
that at last, perhaps very late in the day, we may be
able to do something more: feel anew. "
In regard to the translation itself—which owes
a good deal to many excellent suggestions made
by Mr. Thomas Common—it adheres, as a rule,
closely to the German text; and in only two or
three instances has a slightly freer rendering been
adopted in order to make the sense quite clear.
There are one or two cases in which a punning or
double meaning could not be adequately rendered
in English: e. g. Aphorism 50, where the German
word" Rausch" means both " intoxication " and also
"elation " (i. e. the exalted feelings of the religious
fanatic). Again, we have "Einleid," "Einleidig-
## p. xi (#25) ##############################################
INTRODUCTION. xi
keit," in Aphorism 63—words which do not quite
correspond to pity, compassion, or fellow-feeling,
and which, indeed, are not yet known to German
lexicographers. A literal translation, " one-feeling,"
would be almost meaningless. What is actually
signified is that both sufferer and sympathiser have
nerves and feelings in common: an experience which
Schopenhauer, as Nietzsche rightly points out, mis-
took for compassion or pity (" Mitleid"), and which
lacked a word, even in German, until the later
psychologist coined " Einleid. " Again, in Aphorism
5 54 we have a play upon the words " Vorschritt"
(leading, guidance) and " Fortschritt" (progress).
All these, however, are trifling matters in compar-
ison with the substance of the book, and they are of
more interest to philologists than to psychologists.
It is for psychologists that this book was written;
and such minds, somewhat rare in our time, may
read in it with much profit.
J. M. KENNEDY.
London, September 1911.
## p. xii (#26) #############################################
## p. 1 (#27) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
In this book we find a "subterrestrial" at work,
digging, mining, undermining. You can see him,
always provided that you have eyes for such deep
work,—how he makes his way slowly, cautiously,
gently but surely, without showing signs of the
weariness that usually accompanies a long privation
of light and air. He might even be called happy,
despite his labours in the dark. Does it not seem
as if some faith were leading him on, some solace
recompensing him for his toil? Or that he himself
desires a long period of darkness, an unintelligible,
hidden, enigmatic something, knowing as he does
that he will in time have his own morning, his
own redemption, his own rosy dawn ? —Yea, verily
he will return: ask him not what he seeketh in the
depths; for he himself will tell you, this apparent
Trophonius and subterrestrial, whensoever he once
again becomes man. One easily unlearns how to
hold one's tongue when one has for so long been a
mole, and all alone, like him. —
2.
Indeed, my indulgent friends, I will tell you—
here, in this late preface,* which might easily have
* The book was first published in 1881, the preface being
added to the second edition, 1886. —Tr.
A
## p. 2 (#28) ###############################################
2 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
become an obituary or a funeral oration—what
I sought in the depths below: for I have come
back, and—I have escaped. Think not that I will
urge you to run the same perilous risk! or that I
will urge you on even to the same solitude! For
whoever proceeds on his own path meets nobody:
this is the feature of one's "own path. " No one
comes to help him in his task: he must face every-
thing quite alone—danger, bad luck, wickedness,
foul weather. He goes his own way; and, as is
only right, meets with bitterness and occasional
irritation because he pursues this "own way" of
his: for instance, the knowledge that not even his
friends can guess who he is and whither he is going,
and that they ask themselves now and then : " Well?
Is he really moving at all? Has he still . . . a
path before him ? "—At that time I had undertaken
something which could not have been done by
everybody: I went down into the deepest depths;
I tunnelled to the very bottom ; I started to investi-
gate and unearth an old faith which for thousands
of years we philosophers used to build on as the
safest of all foundations—which we built on again
and again although every previous structure fell
in: I began to undermine our faith in morals.
But ye do not understand me? —
3-
So far it is on Good and Evil that we have
meditated least profoundly: this was always too
dangerous a subject. Conscience, a good reputa-
tion, hell, and at times even the police, have not
## p. 3 (#29) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 3
allowed and do not allow of impartiality; in the
presence of morality, as before all authority, we
must not even think, much less speak: here we
must obey! Ever since the beginning of the world,
no authority has permitted itself to be made the
subject of criticism; and to criticise morals—to
look upon morality as a problem, as problematic—
what! was that not—is that not—immoral ? —But
morality has at its disposal not only every means
of intimidation wherewith to keep itself free from
critical hands and instruments of torture: its
security lies rather in a certain art of enchantment,
in which it is a past master—it knows how to
"enrapture. " It can often paralyse the critical
will with a single look, or even seduce it to itself:
yea, there are even cases where morality can turn
the critical will against itself; so that then, like the
scorpion, it thrusts the sting into its own body.
Morality has for ages been an expert in all kinds
of devilry in the art of convincing: even at the
present day there is no orator who would not turn
to it for assistance (only hearken to our anarchists,
for instance: how morally they speak when they
would fain convince! In the end they even call
themselves "the good and the just"). Morality
has shown herself to be the greatest mistress of
seduction ever since men began to discourse and
persuade on earth—and, what concerns us philo-
sophers even more, she is the veritable Circe of
philosophers. For, to what is it due that, from
Plato onwards, all the philosophic architects in
Europe have built in vain? that everything which
they themselves honestly believed to be aere per-
## p. 4 (#30) ###############################################
4 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
ennius threatens to subside or is already laid in ruins?
Oh, how wrong is the answer which, even in our own
day, rolls glibly off the tongue when this question is
asked: "Because they have all neglected the pre-
requisite, the examination of the foundation, a
critique of all reason "—that fatal answer made by
Kant, who has certainly not thereby attracted us
modern philosophers to firmer and less treacherous
ground ! (and, one may ask apropos of this, was it
not rather strange to demand that an instrument
should criticise its own value and effectiveness?
that the intellect itself should "recognise" its own
worth, power, and limits? was it not even just a
little ridiculous ? ) The right answer would rather
have been, that all philosophers, including Kant
himself, were building under the seductive influence
of morality—that they aimed at certainty and
"truth" only in appearance; but that in reality
their attention was directed towards " majestic moral
edifices" to use once more Kant's innocent mode of
expression, who deems it his "less brilliant, but
not undeserving" task and work "to level the
ground and prepare a solid foundation for the
erection of those majestic moral edifices " {Critique
of Pure Reason, ii. 257). Alas! He did not
succeed in his aim, quite the contrary—as we must
acknowledge to-day. With this exalted aim, Kant
was merely a true son of his century, which more
than any other may justly be called the century
of exaltation: and this he fortunately continued
to be in respect to the more valuable side of this
century (with that solid piece of sensuality, for
example, which he introduced into his theory of
## p. 5 (#31) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 5
knowledge). He, too, had been bitten by the moral
tarantula, Rousseau; he, too, felt weighing on his
soul that moral fanaticism of which another disciple
of Rousseau's, Robespierre, felt and proclaimed
himself to be the executor: de fonder sur la terre
Vempire de la sagesse, de la justice, et de la vertu.
(Speech of June 4th, 1794. ) On the other hand,
with such a French fanaticism in his heart, no one
could have cultivated it in a less French, more
deep, more thorough and more German manner—
if the word German is still permissible in this
sense—than Kant did: in order to make room for
his " moral kingdom," he found himself compelled
to add to it an indemonstrable world, a logical
"beyond "—that was why he required his critique
of pure reason! In other words, he would not have
wanted it, if he had not deemed one thing to be
more important than all the others: to render his
moral kingdom unassailable by—or, better still,
invisible to, reason,—for he felt too strongly the
vulnerability of a moral order of things in the face
of reason. For, when confronted with nature and
history, when confronted with the ingrained im-
morality of nature and history, Kant was, like all
good Germans from the earliest times, a pessimist:
he believed in morality, not because it is demon-
strated through nature and history, but despite its
being steadily contradicted by them. To under-
stand this "despite," we should perhaps recall a
somewhat similar trait in Luther, that other great
pessimist, who once urged it upon his friends with
true Lutheran audacity: "If we could conceive by
reason alone how that God who shows so much
## p.
Thomas Common—it adheres, as a rule,
closely to the German text; and in only two or
three instances has a slightly freer rendering been
adopted in order to make the sense quite clear.
There are one or two cases in which a punning or
double meaning could not be adequately rendered
in English: e. g. Aphorism 50, where the German
word" Rausch" means both " intoxication " and also
"elation " (i. e. the exalted feelings of the religious
fanatic). Again, we have "Einleid," "Einleidig-
## p. xi (#25) ##############################################
INTRODUCTION. xi
keit," in Aphorism 63—words which do not quite
correspond to pity, compassion, or fellow-feeling,
and which, indeed, are not yet known to German
lexicographers. A literal translation, " one-feeling,"
would be almost meaningless. What is actually
signified is that both sufferer and sympathiser have
nerves and feelings in common: an experience which
Schopenhauer, as Nietzsche rightly points out, mis-
took for compassion or pity (" Mitleid"), and which
lacked a word, even in German, until the later
psychologist coined " Einleid. " Again, in Aphorism
5 54 we have a play upon the words " Vorschritt"
(leading, guidance) and " Fortschritt" (progress).
All these, however, are trifling matters in compar-
ison with the substance of the book, and they are of
more interest to philologists than to psychologists.
It is for psychologists that this book was written;
and such minds, somewhat rare in our time, may
read in it with much profit.
J. M. KENNEDY.
London, September 1911.
## p. xii (#26) #############################################
## p. 1 (#27) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
In this book we find a "subterrestrial" at work,
digging, mining, undermining. You can see him,
always provided that you have eyes for such deep
work,—how he makes his way slowly, cautiously,
gently but surely, without showing signs of the
weariness that usually accompanies a long privation
of light and air. He might even be called happy,
despite his labours in the dark. Does it not seem
as if some faith were leading him on, some solace
recompensing him for his toil? Or that he himself
desires a long period of darkness, an unintelligible,
hidden, enigmatic something, knowing as he does
that he will in time have his own morning, his
own redemption, his own rosy dawn ? —Yea, verily
he will return: ask him not what he seeketh in the
depths; for he himself will tell you, this apparent
Trophonius and subterrestrial, whensoever he once
again becomes man. One easily unlearns how to
hold one's tongue when one has for so long been a
mole, and all alone, like him. —
2.
Indeed, my indulgent friends, I will tell you—
here, in this late preface,* which might easily have
* The book was first published in 1881, the preface being
added to the second edition, 1886. —Tr.
A
## p. 2 (#28) ###############################################
2 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
become an obituary or a funeral oration—what
I sought in the depths below: for I have come
back, and—I have escaped. Think not that I will
urge you to run the same perilous risk! or that I
will urge you on even to the same solitude! For
whoever proceeds on his own path meets nobody:
this is the feature of one's "own path. " No one
comes to help him in his task: he must face every-
thing quite alone—danger, bad luck, wickedness,
foul weather. He goes his own way; and, as is
only right, meets with bitterness and occasional
irritation because he pursues this "own way" of
his: for instance, the knowledge that not even his
friends can guess who he is and whither he is going,
and that they ask themselves now and then : " Well?
Is he really moving at all? Has he still . . . a
path before him ? "—At that time I had undertaken
something which could not have been done by
everybody: I went down into the deepest depths;
I tunnelled to the very bottom ; I started to investi-
gate and unearth an old faith which for thousands
of years we philosophers used to build on as the
safest of all foundations—which we built on again
and again although every previous structure fell
in: I began to undermine our faith in morals.
But ye do not understand me? —
3-
So far it is on Good and Evil that we have
meditated least profoundly: this was always too
dangerous a subject. Conscience, a good reputa-
tion, hell, and at times even the police, have not
## p. 3 (#29) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 3
allowed and do not allow of impartiality; in the
presence of morality, as before all authority, we
must not even think, much less speak: here we
must obey! Ever since the beginning of the world,
no authority has permitted itself to be made the
subject of criticism; and to criticise morals—to
look upon morality as a problem, as problematic—
what! was that not—is that not—immoral ? —But
morality has at its disposal not only every means
of intimidation wherewith to keep itself free from
critical hands and instruments of torture: its
security lies rather in a certain art of enchantment,
in which it is a past master—it knows how to
"enrapture. " It can often paralyse the critical
will with a single look, or even seduce it to itself:
yea, there are even cases where morality can turn
the critical will against itself; so that then, like the
scorpion, it thrusts the sting into its own body.
Morality has for ages been an expert in all kinds
of devilry in the art of convincing: even at the
present day there is no orator who would not turn
to it for assistance (only hearken to our anarchists,
for instance: how morally they speak when they
would fain convince! In the end they even call
themselves "the good and the just"). Morality
has shown herself to be the greatest mistress of
seduction ever since men began to discourse and
persuade on earth—and, what concerns us philo-
sophers even more, she is the veritable Circe of
philosophers. For, to what is it due that, from
Plato onwards, all the philosophic architects in
Europe have built in vain? that everything which
they themselves honestly believed to be aere per-
## p. 4 (#30) ###############################################
4 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
ennius threatens to subside or is already laid in ruins?
Oh, how wrong is the answer which, even in our own
day, rolls glibly off the tongue when this question is
asked: "Because they have all neglected the pre-
requisite, the examination of the foundation, a
critique of all reason "—that fatal answer made by
Kant, who has certainly not thereby attracted us
modern philosophers to firmer and less treacherous
ground ! (and, one may ask apropos of this, was it
not rather strange to demand that an instrument
should criticise its own value and effectiveness?
that the intellect itself should "recognise" its own
worth, power, and limits? was it not even just a
little ridiculous ? ) The right answer would rather
have been, that all philosophers, including Kant
himself, were building under the seductive influence
of morality—that they aimed at certainty and
"truth" only in appearance; but that in reality
their attention was directed towards " majestic moral
edifices" to use once more Kant's innocent mode of
expression, who deems it his "less brilliant, but
not undeserving" task and work "to level the
ground and prepare a solid foundation for the
erection of those majestic moral edifices " {Critique
of Pure Reason, ii. 257). Alas! He did not
succeed in his aim, quite the contrary—as we must
acknowledge to-day. With this exalted aim, Kant
was merely a true son of his century, which more
than any other may justly be called the century
of exaltation: and this he fortunately continued
to be in respect to the more valuable side of this
century (with that solid piece of sensuality, for
example, which he introduced into his theory of
## p. 5 (#31) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 5
knowledge). He, too, had been bitten by the moral
tarantula, Rousseau; he, too, felt weighing on his
soul that moral fanaticism of which another disciple
of Rousseau's, Robespierre, felt and proclaimed
himself to be the executor: de fonder sur la terre
Vempire de la sagesse, de la justice, et de la vertu.
(Speech of June 4th, 1794. ) On the other hand,
with such a French fanaticism in his heart, no one
could have cultivated it in a less French, more
deep, more thorough and more German manner—
if the word German is still permissible in this
sense—than Kant did: in order to make room for
his " moral kingdom," he found himself compelled
to add to it an indemonstrable world, a logical
"beyond "—that was why he required his critique
of pure reason! In other words, he would not have
wanted it, if he had not deemed one thing to be
more important than all the others: to render his
moral kingdom unassailable by—or, better still,
invisible to, reason,—for he felt too strongly the
vulnerability of a moral order of things in the face
of reason. For, when confronted with nature and
history, when confronted with the ingrained im-
morality of nature and history, Kant was, like all
good Germans from the earliest times, a pessimist:
he believed in morality, not because it is demon-
strated through nature and history, but despite its
being steadily contradicted by them. To under-
stand this "despite," we should perhaps recall a
somewhat similar trait in Luther, that other great
pessimist, who once urged it upon his friends with
true Lutheran audacity: "If we could conceive by
reason alone how that God who shows so much
## p. 6 (#32) ###############################################
6 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
wrath and malignity could be merciful and just,
what use should we have for faith? " For, from
the earliest times, nothing has ever made a deeper
impression upon the German soul, nothing has
ever " tempted" it more, than that deduction, the
most dangerous of all, which for every true Latin
is a sin against the intellect: credo quia absurdum
est. —With it German logic enters for the first time
into the history of Christian dogma; but even to-day,
a thousand years later, we Germans of the present,
late Germans in every way, catch the scent of truth,
a possibility of truth, at the back of the famous
fundamental principle of dialectics with which
Hegel secured the victory of the German spirit
over Europe—" contradiction moves the world; all
things contradict themselves. " We are pessimists
—even in logic.
But logical judgments are not the deepest and
most fundamental to which the daring of our
suspicion descends: the confidence in reason which
is inseparable from the validity of these judgments,
is, as confidence, a moral phenomenon . . . perhaps
German pessimism has yet to take its last step?
Perhaps it has once more to draw up its " credo"
opposite its "absurdum" in a terrible manner?
And if this book is pessimistic even in regard to
morals, even above the confidence in morals—
should it not be a German book for that very reason?
For, in fact, it represents a contradiction, and one
which it does not fear: in it confidence in morals
is retracted—but why? Out of morality! Or how
## p. 7 (#33) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 7
shall we call that which takes place in it—in us?
for our taste inclines to the employment of more
modest phrases. But there is no doubt that to us
likewise there speaketh a " thou shalt"; we likewise
obey a strict law which is set above us—and this
is the last cry of morals which is still audible to us,
which we too must live: here, if anywhere, are we
still men of conscience, because, to put the matter in
plain words, we will not return to that which we look
upon as decayed, outlived, and superseded, we will
not return to something "unworthy of belief,"
whether it be called God, virtue, truth, justice, love
of one's neighbour, or what not; we will not permit
ourselves to open up a lying path to old ideals;
we are thoroughly and unalterably opposed to
anything that would intercede and mingle with us;
opposed to all forms of present-day faith and
Christianity; opposed to the lukewarmness of all
romanticism and fatherlandism ; opposed also to the
artistic sense of enjoyment and lack of principle
which would fain make us worship where we no
longer believe—for we are artists—opposed, in
short, to all this European feminism (or idealism,
if this term be thought preferable) which everlast-
ingly "draws upward," and which in consequence
everlastingly " lowers" and " degrades. " Yet, being
men of this conscience, we feel that we are related
to that German uprightness and piety which dates
back thousands of years, although we im moralists
and atheists may be the late and uncertain offspring
of these virtues—yea, we even consider ourselves,
in a certain respect, as their heirs, the executors of
their inmost will: a pessimistic will,as I have already
## p. 8 (#34) ###############################################
8 AUTHOR'S PREFACE.
pointed out, which is not afraid to deny itself,
because it denies itself with^y! In us is consum-
mated, if you desire a formula—the autosuppression
of morals.
But, after all, why must we proclaim so loudly
and with such intensity what we are, what we want,
and what we do not want? Let us look at this more
calmly and wisely; from a higher and more distant
point of view. Let us proclaim it, as if among our-
selves, in so low a tone that all the world fails to
hear it and us! Above all, however, let us say it
slowly. . . . This preface comes late,but not too late:
what, after all, do five or six years matter? Such a
book, and such a problem, are in no hurry; besides,
we are friends of the lento, I and my book. I have
not been a philologist in vain—perhaps I am one
yet: a teacher of slow reading. I even come to
write slowly. At present it is not only my habit,
but even my taste—a perverted taste, maybe—to
write nothing but what will drive to despair every
one who is "in a hurry. " For philology is that vener-
able art which exacts from its followers one thing
above all—to step to one side, to leave themselves
spare moments, to grow silent, to become slow—the
leisurely art of the goldsmith applied to language:
an art which must carry out slow, fine work, and
attains nothing if not lento. For this very reason
philology is now more desirable than ever before;
for this very reason it is the highest attraction and
incitement in an age of " work ": that is to say, of
haste, of unseemly and immoderate hurry-skurry,
## p. 9 (#35) ###############################################
AUTHOR'S PREFACE. Q
which is intent upon " getting things done " at once,
even every book, whether old or new. Philology
itself, perhaps, will not "get things done" so
hurriedly: it teaches how to read well: i. e. slowly,
profoundly, attentively, prudently, with inner
thoughts, with the mental doors ajar, with delicate
fingers and eyes . . . my patient friends, this book
appeals only to perfect readers and philologists:
learn to read me well!
Ruta, near Genoa,
Autumn, 1886.
## p. 10 (#36) ##############################################
## p. 11 (#37) ##############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY.
BOOK I.
Subsequent Judgment. — All things that en-
dure for a long time are little by little so greatly
permeated by reason that their origin in unreason
becomes improbable. Does not almost every exact
statement of an origin strike us as paradoxical and
sacrilegious? Indeed, does not the true historian
constantly contradict?
2.
Prejudice of the Learned. —Savants are
quite correct in maintaining the proposition that
men in all ages believed that they knew what was
good and evil, praiseworthy and blamable. But it
is a prejudice of the learned to say that we now
know it better than any other age.
3-
A Time for Everything. —When man as-
signed a sex to all things, he did not believe that he
## p. 12 (#38) ##############################################
12 THE DAWN OF DAY.
was merely playing; but he thought, on the con-
trary, that he had acquired a profound insight:—it
was only at a much later period, and then only partly,
that he acknowledged the enormity of his error. In
the same way, man has attributed a moral relation-
ship to everything that exists, throwing the cloak of
ethical significance over the world's shoulders. One
day all that will be of just as much value, and no
more, as the amount of belief existing to-day in the
masculinity or femininity of the sun. *
4-
Against the Fanciful Disharmony of the
Spheres. —We must once more sweep out of the
world all this false grandeur, for it is contrary to
the justice that all things about us may claim.
And for this reason we must not see or wish the
world to be more disharmonic than it is!
5-'
Be ThaNKFul ! —The most important result of
the past efforts of humanity is that we need no
longer go about in continual fear of wild beasts,
barbarians, gods, and our own dreams.
6.
The Juggler and his Counterpart. —That
which is wonderful in science is contrary to that
* This refers, of course, to the different genders of the
nouns in other languages. In German, for example, the
sun is feminine, and in French masculine. —Tr.
## p. 13 (#39) ##############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 13
which is wonderful in the art of the juggler. For
the latter would wish to make us believe that we
see a very simple causality, where, in reality, an
exceedingly complex causality is in operation.
Science, on the other hand, forces us to give up our
belief in the simple causality exactly where every-
thing looks so easily comprehensible and we are
merely the victims of appearances. The simplest
things are very "complicated"—we can never be
sufficiently astonished at them!
Reconceiving our Feeling of Space. —Is
it real or imaginary things which have built up the
greater proportion of man's happiness? It is
certain, at all events, that the extent of the distance
between the highest point of happiness and the
lowest point of unhappiness has been established
only with the help of imaginary things. As a con-
sequence, this kind of a conception of space is
always, under the influence of science, becoming
smaller and smaller: in the same way as science
has taught us, and is still teaching us, to look upon
the earth as small—yea, to look upon the entire
solar system as a mere point.
8.
TRANSFIGUraTION. —Perplexed sufferers, con-
fused dreamers, the hysterically ecstatic—here we
have the three classes into which Raphael divided
mankind. We no longer consider the world in this
## p. 14 (#40) ##############################################
14 THE DAWN OF DAY.
light—and Raphael himself dare not do so: his own
eyes would show him a new transfiguration.
Conception of the Morality of Custom. —
In comparison with the mode of life which prevailed
among men for thousands of years, we men of the
present day are living in a very immoral age: the
power of custom has been weakened to a remarkable
degree, and the sense of morality is so refined and
elevated that we might almost describe it as vola-
tilised. That is why we late comers experience such
difficulty in obtaining a fundamental conception of
the origin of morality: and even if we do obtain it,
our words of explanation stick in our throats, so
coarse would they sound if we uttered them! or to
so great an extent would they seem to be a slander
upon morality! Thus, for example, the funda-
mental clause: morality is nothing else (and, above
all, nothing more) than obedience to customs, of
whatsoever nature they may be. But customs are
simply the traditional way of acting and valuing.
Where there is no tradition there is no morality;
and the less life is governed by tradition, the
narrower the circle of morality. The free man is
immoral, because it is his will to depend upon him-
self and not upon tradition: in all the primitive
states of humanity "evil" is equivalent to "in-
dividual," "free," "arbitrary," "unaccustomed,"
"unforeseen," "incalculable. " In such primitive
conditions, always measured by this standard, any
action performed—not because tradition commands
## p. 15 (#41) ##############################################
THE DAWN OF DAY. 15
it, but for other reasons (e. g. on account of its in-
dividual utility), even for the same reasons as had
been formerly established by custom—is termed
immoral, and is felt to be so even by the very man
who performs it, for it has not been done out of
obedience to the tradition.
What is tradition? A higher authority, which
is obeyed, not because it commands what is
useful to us, but merely because it commands.
And in what way can this feeling for tradition
be distinguished from a general feeling of fear?
It is the fear of a higher intelligence which com-
mands, the fear of an incomprehensible power,
of something that is more than personal—there
is superstition in this fear. In primitive times
the domain of morality included education and
hygienics, marriage, medicine, agriculture, war,
speech and silence, the relationship between man
and man, and between man and the gods—morality
required that a man should observe her prescrip-
tions without thinking of himself as individual.
Everything, therefore, was originally custom, and
whoever wished to raise himself above it, had first
of all to make himself a kind of lawgiver and
medicine-man, a sort of demi-god—in other words,
he had to create customs, a dangerous and fearful
thing to do! —Who is the most moral man? On
the one hand, he who most frequently obeys the
law: e. g. he who, like the Brahmins, carries a con-
sciousness of the law about with him wherever he
may go, and introduces it into the smallest divisions
of time, continually exercising his mind in finding
opportunities for obeying the law. On the other
## p. 16 (#42) ##############################################
16 THE DAWN OF DAY.
hand, he who obeys the law in the most difficult
cases. The most moral man is he who makes the
greatest sacrifices to morality; but what are the
greatest sacrifices? In answering this question
several different kinds of morality will be de-
veloped: but the distinction between the morality
of the most frequent obedience and the morality of
the most difficult obedience is of the greatest import-
ance. Let us not be deceived as to the motives of
that moral law which requires, as an indication of
morality, obedience to custom in the most difficult
cases! Self-conquest is required, not by reason
of its useful consequences for the individual; but
that custom and tradition may appear to be domin-
ant, in spite of all individual counter desires and
advantages. The individual shall sacrifice himself
—so demands the morality of custom.
On the other hand, those moralists who, like the
followers of Socrates, recommend self-control and
sobriety to the individual as his greatest possible
advantage and the key to his greatest personal
happiness, are exceptions—and if we ourselves do
not think so, this is simply due to our having been
brought up under their influence. They all take a
new path, and thereby bring down upon themselves
the utmost disapproval of all the representatives of
the morality of custom. They sever their connec-
tion with the community, as immoralists, and are,
in the fullest sense of the word, evil ones.
