No More Learning

. " Into every abyss do I bear the
benediction of my yea to Life. " . . . But this, once
more, is precisely the idea of Dionysus.
What language will such a spirit speak, when he
speaks unto his soul? The language of the dithy-
ramb. I am the inventor of the dithyramb.
Hearken unto the manner in which Zarathustra
speaks to his soul Before Sunrise (iii. 48). Before


## p. 110 (#160) ############################################

IIO ECCE HOMO
my time such emerald joys and divine tenderness
had found no tongue. Even the profoundest
melancholy of such a Dionysus takes shape as a
dithyramb. As an example of this I take " The
Night-Song,"—the immortal plaint of one who,
thanks to his superabundance of light and power,
thanks to the sun within him, is condemned never
to love.
"It is night: now do all gushing springs raise
their voices. And my soul too is a gushing
spring.
"It is night: now only do all lovers burst into
song. And my soul too is the song of a lover.
"Something unquenched and unquenchable is
within me, that would raise its voice. A craving
for love is within me, which itself speaketh the
language of love.
"Light am I: would that I were night! But
this is my loneliness, that I am begirt with light.
"Alas, why am I not dark and like unto the
night! How joyfully would I then suck at the
breasts of light!
"And even you would I bless, ye twinkling star-
lets and glow-worms on high! and be blessed in
the gifts of your light.
"But in mine own light do I live, ever back into
myself do I drink the flames I send forth.
"I know not the happiness of the hand stretched
forth to grasp; and oft have I dreamt that steal-
ing must be more blessed than taking.
"Wretched am I that my hand may never rest
from giving: an envious fate is mine that I see ex-
pectant eyes and nights made bright with longing.


## p. 111 (#161) ############################################

WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS III
"Oh, the wretchedness of all them that give!
Oh, the clouds that cover the face of my sun!
That craving for desire! that burning hunger at
the end of the feast!
"They take what I give them; but do I touch
their soul? A gulf is there 'twixt giving and tak-
ing; and the smallest gulf is the last to be bridged.
"An appetite is born from out my beauty: would
that I might do harm to them that I fill with
light; would that I might rob them of the gifts
I have given:—thus do I thirst for wickedness.
"To withdraw my hand when their hand is
ready stretched forth like the waterfall that wavers,
wavers even in its fall:—thus do I thirst for
wickedness.
"For such vengeance doth my fulness yearn: to
such tricks doth my loneliness give birth.
"My joy in giving died with the deed. By its
very fulness did my virtue grow weary of itself.
"He who giveth risketh to lose his shame; he
that is ever distributing groweth callous in hand
and heart therefrom.
"Mine eyes no longer melt into tears at the
sight of the suppliant's shame; my hand hath be-
come too hard to feel the quivering of laden hands.
"Whither have ye fled, the tears of mine eyes and
the bloom of my heart? Oh, the solitude of all
givers! Oh, the silence of all beacons!
"Many are the suns that circle in barren space;
to all that is dark do they speak with their light—
to me alone are they silent.
"Alas, this is the hatred of light for that which
shineth: pitiless it runneth its course.


## p. 112 (#162) ############################################

112 ECCE HOMO
"Unfair in its inmost heart to that which shineth;
cold toward suns,—thus doth every sun go its way.
"Like a tempest do the suns fly over their course:
for such is their way. Their own unswerving will
do they follow: that is their coldness.
"Alas, it is ye alone, ye creatures of gloom, ye
spirits of the night, that take your warmth from that
which shineth. Ye alone suck your milk and com-
fort from the udders of light.
"Alas, about me there is ice, my hand burneth
itself against ice!
"Alas, within me is a thirst that thirsteth for
your thirst!
"It is night: woe is me, that I must needs
be light! And thirst after darkness! And
loneliness!
"It is night: now doth my longing burst forth
like a spring,—for speech do I long.
"It is night: now do all gushing springs raise
their voices. And my soul too is a gushing spring.
"It is night: now only do all lovers burst into
song. And my soul too is the song of a lover. "
8
Such things have never been written, never been
felt, never been suffered: only a God, only Dionysus
suffers in this way. The reply to such a dithyramb
on the sun's solitude in light would be Ariadne.
. . . Who knows, but I, who Ariadne is! To all
such riddles no one heretofore had ever found an
answer; I doubt even whether any one had ever
seen a riddle here. One day Zarathustra severely


## p. 113 (#163) ############################################

WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 113
determines his life-task—and it is also mine. Let
no one misunderstand its meaning. It is a yea-
saying to the point of justifying, to the point of
redeeming even all that is past.
"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
fragments and 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 of chance!
"To redeem all the past, and to transform every
'it was ' into ' thus would I have it'—that alone
would be my salvation! "
In another passage he defines as strictly as
possible what to him alone "man" can be,—not
a subject for love nor yet for pity—Zarathustra
became master even of his loathing of man: man
is to him a thing unshaped, raw material, an
ugly stone that needs the sculptor's chisel.
"No longer to will, no longer to value, no
longer to create! Oh, that this great weariness
may never be mine!
"Even in the lust of knowledge, I feel only the
joy of my will to beget and to grow; and if there
be innocence in my knowledge, it is because my
procreative will 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
H


## p. 114 (#164) ############################################

114 ECCE HOMO
burning, creative will. Thus driveth it the hammer
to the stone.
"Alas, ye men, within the stone there sleepeth
an image for me, the image of all my dreams!
Alas, that it should have to sleep in the hardest
and ugliest stone!
"Now rageth my hammer ruthlessly against its
prison. From the stone the fragments fly: what's
that to me?
"I will finish it: for a shadow came unto me—
the stillest and lightest thing on earth once came
unto me!
"The beauty of the Superman came unto me as
a shadow. Alas, my brethren! What are the—
gods to me now? "
Let me call attention to one last point of view.
The line in italics is my pretext for this remark.
A Dionysian life-task needs the hardness of the
hammer, and one of its first essentials is without
doubt the joy even of destruction. The command,
"Harden yourselves ! " and the deep conviction that
all creators are hard, is the really distinctive sign
of a Dionysian nature.
"Beyond Good and Evil: The Prelude
to a Philosophy of the Future"
My work for the years that followed was pre-
scribed as distinctly as possible. Now that the
yea-saying part of my life-task was accomplished,


## p. 115 (#165) ############################################

WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 115
there came the turn of the negative portion, both
in word and deed: the transvaluation of all values
that had existed hitherto, the great war,—the con-
juring-up of the day when the fatal outcome of the
struggle would be decided. Meanwhile, I had
slowly to look about me for my peers, for those
who, out of strength, would proffer me a helping
hand in my work of destruction. From that time
onward, all my writings are so much bait: maybe
I understand as much about fishing as most people?
If nothing was caught, it was not I who was at
fault. There were no fish to come and bite.
In all its essential points, this book (1886) is
a criticism of modernity, embracing the modern
sciences, arts, even politics, together with certain
indications as to a type which would be the reverse
of modern man, or as little like him as possible, a
noble and yea-saying type. In this last respect
the book is a school for gentlemen—the term
gentleman being understood here in a much more
spiritual and radical sense than it has implied hither-
to. All those things of which the age is proud,—
as, for instance, far-famed " objectivity," " sympathy
with all that suffers," "the historical sense," with
its subjection to foreign tastes, with its lying-in-the-
dust before petits faits, and the rage for science,—
are shown to be the contradiction of the type re-
commended, and are regarded as almost ill-bred.
If you remember that this book follows upon
Zarathustra, you may possibly guess to what
system of diet it owes its life. The eye which,


## p. 116 (#166) ############################################

Il6 ECCE HOMO
owing to tremendous constraint, has become
accustomed to see at a great distance,—Zara-
thustra is even more far-sighted than the Tsar,—
is here forced to focus sharply that which is close
at hand, the present time, the things that lie about
him. In all the aphorisms and more particularly
in the form of this book, the reader will find the
same voluntary turning away from those instincts
which made a Zarathustra a possible feat. Re-
finement in form, in aspiration, and in the art of
keeping silent, are its more or less obvious quali-
ties; psychology is handled with deliberate hard-
ness and cruelty,—the whole book does not con-
tain one single good-natured word. . . . All this
sort of thing refreshes a man. Who can guess
the kind of recreation that is necessary after such
an expenditure of goodness as is to be found in
Zaratkustraf From a theological standpoint—
now pay ye heed; for it is but on rare occasions
that I speak as a theologian—it was God Himself
who, at the end of His great work, coiled Himself
up in the form of a serpent at the foot of the tree
of knowledge. It was thus that He recovered from
being a God. . . . He had made everything too
beautiful. . . . The devil is simply God's moment
of idleness, on that seventh day.
"The Genealogy of Morals:
A Polemic"
The three essays which constitute this genealogy
are, as regards expression, aspiration, and the art


## p. 117 (#167) ############################################

WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 117
of the unexpected, perhaps the most curious
things that have ever been written. Dionysus, as
you know, is also the god of darkness. In each
case the beginning is calculated to mystify; it is
cool, scientific, even ironical, intentionally thrust
to the fore, intentionally reticent. Gradually less
calmness prevails; here and there a flash of light-
ning defines the horizon; exceedingly unpleasant
truths break upon your ears from out remote dis-
tances with a dull, rumbling sound,—until very
soon a fierce tempo is attained in which everything
presses forward at a terrible degree of tension.
At the end, in each case, amid fearful thunderclaps,
a new truth shines out between thick clouds. The
truth of the first essay is the psychology of Chris-
tianity: the birth of Christianity out of the spirit
of resentment, not, as is supposed, out of the
"Spirit,"—in all its essentials, a counter-movement,
the great insurrection against the dominion of
noble values. The second essay contains the psy-
chology of conscience: this is not, as you may be-
lieve, " the voice of God in man "; it is the instinct
of cruelty, which turns inwards once it is unable
to discharge itself outwardly. Cruelty is here ex-
posed, for the first time, as one of the oldest and
most indispensable elements in the foundation of
culture. The third essay replies to the question
as to the origin of the formidable power of the
ascetic ideal, of the priest ideal, despite the fact
that this ideal is essentially detrimental, that it is
a will to nonentity and to decadence. Reply: it
flourished not because God was active behind the
priests, as is generally believed, but because it was


## p. 117 (#168) ############################################

116
ECCE HOMO
owing to tremendous constraint, has become
accustomed to see at a great distance,—Zara-
thustra is even more far-sighted than the Tsar,—
is here forced to focus sharply that which is close
at hand, the present time, the things that lie about
him. In all the aphorisms and more particularly
in the form of this book, the reader will find the
same voluntary turning away from those instincts
which made a Zarathustra a possible feat. Re-
finement in form, in aspiration, and in the art of
keeping silent, are its more or less obvious quali-
ties; psychology is handled with deliberate hard-
ness and cruelty,—the whole book does not con-
tain one single good-natured word. . . . All this
sort of thing refreshes a man. Who can guess
the kind of recreation that is necessary after such
an expenditure of goodness as is to be found in
Zarathustra? From a theological standpoint-
now pay ye heed; for it is but on rare occasions
that I speak as a theologian-it was God Himself
who, at the end of His great work, coiled Himself
up in the form of a serpent at the foot of the tree
of knowledge. It was thus that He recovered from
being a God. . . . He had made everything too
beautiful. . . . The devil is simply God's moment
of idleness, on that seventh day.
“THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS:
A POLEMIC”
The three essays which constitute this genealogy
are, as regards expression, aspiration, and the art


## p. 117 (#169) ############################################

WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 117
of the unexpected, perhaps the most curious
things that have ever been written. . Dionysus, as
you know, is also the god of darkness. In each
case the beginning is calculated to mystify; it is
cool, scientific, even ironical, intentionally thrust
to the fore, intentionally reticent. Gradually less
calmness prevails; here and there a flash of light-
ning defines the horizon; exceedingly unpleasant
truths break upon your ears from out remote dis-
tances with a dull, rumbling sound,—until very
soon a fierce tempo is attained in which everything
presses forward at a terrible degree of tension.
At the end, in each case, amid fearful thunderclaps,
a new truth shines out between thick clouds. The
truth of the first essay is the psychology of Chris-
tianity: the birth of Christianity out of the spirit
of resentment, not, as is supposed, out of the
“Spirit,"—in all its essentials, a counter-movement,
the great insurrection against the dominion of
noble values. The second essay contains the psy-
chology of conscience: this is not, as you may be-
lieve, “the voice of God in man”; it is the instinct
of cruelty, which turns inwards once it is unable
to discharge itself outwardly. Cruelty is here ex-
posed, for the first time, as one of the oldest and
most indispensable elements in the foundation of
culture. The third essay replies to the question
as to the origin of the formidable power of the
ascetic ideal, of the priest ideal, despite the fact
that this ideal is essentially detrimental, that it is
a will to nonentity and to decadence. Reply : it
flourished not because God was active behind the
priests, as is generally believed, but because it was


## p. 117 (#170) ############################################

116
ECCE HOMO
owing to tremendous constraint, has become
accustomed to see at a great distance, -Zara-
thustra is even more far-sighted than the Tsar,—
is here forced to focus sharply that which is close
at hand, the present time, the things that lie about
him. In all the aphorisms and more particularly
in the form of this book, the reader will find the
same voluntary turning away from those instincts
which made a Zarathustra a possible feat. Re-
finement in form, in aspiration, and in the art of
keeping silent, are its more or less obvious quali-
ties; psychology is handled with deliberate hard-
ness and cruelty,—the whole book does not con-
tain one single good-natured word. . . . All this
sort of thing refreshes a man. Who can guess
the kind of recreation that is necessary after such
an expenditure of goodness as is to be found in
Zarathustra ? From a theological standpoint-
now pay ye heed; for it is but on rare occasions
that I speak as a theologian—it was God Himself
who, at the end of His great work, coiled Himself
up in the form of a serpent at the foot of the tree
of knowledge. It was thus that He recovered from
being a God. . . . He had made everything too
beautiful. . . . The devil is simply God's moment
of idleness, on that seventh day.

“ THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS:
A POLEMIC
g
en
The three essays which cor
are, as regards expression,


## p. 117 (#171) ############################################

WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 117
of the unexpected, perhaps the most curious
things that have ever been written. Dionysus, as
you know, is also the god of darkness. In each
case the beginning is calculated to mystify; it is
cool, scientific, even ironical, intentionally thrust
to the fore, intentionally reticent. Gradually less
calmness prevails; here and there a flash of light-
ning defines the horizon ; exceedingly unpleasant
truths break upon your ears from out remote dis-
tances with a dull, rumbling sound,—until very
soon a fierce tempo is attained in which everything
presses forward at a terrible degree of tension.
At the end, in each case, amid fearful thunderclaps,
a new truth shines out between thick clouds. The
truth of the first essay is the psychology of Chris-
tianity: the birth of Christianity out of the spirit
of resentment, not, as is supposed, out of the
“Spirit,”—in all its essentials, a counter-movement,
the great insurrection against the dominion of
noble values. The second essay contains the psy-
chology of conscience: this is not, as you may be-
lieve, “the voice of God in man”; it is the instinct
of cruelty, which turns inwards once it is unable
to discharge itself outwardly. Cruelty is here ex-
posed, for the first time, as one of the oldest and
most indispensable elements in the foundation of
culture. The third essay replies to the question
as to the origin of the formidable power of the
ascetic ideal, of the priest ideal, despite the fact
that this ideal is essentially detrimental, that it is
a will to nonentity and to decadence. Reply : it
flourished not because God was active behind the
priests, as is generally believed, but because it was



## p.
117 (#172) ############################################

116
ECCE HOMO
owing to tremendous constraint, has become
accustomed to see at a great distance,-Zara-
thustra is even more far-sighted than the Tsar,—
is here forced to focus sharply that which is close
at hand, the present time, the things that lie about
him. In all the aphorisms and more particularly
in the form of this book, the reader will find the
same voluntary turning away from those instincts
which made a Zarathustra a possible feat. Re-
finement in form, in aspiration, and in the art of
keeping silent, are its more or less obvious quali-
ties; psychology is handled with deliberate hard-
ness and cruelty,—the whole book does not con-
tain one single good-natured word. . . . All this
sort of thing refreshes a man. Who can guess
the kind of recreation that is necessary after such
an expenditure of goodness as is to be found in
Zarathustra? From a theological standpoint-
now pay ye heed; for it is but on rare occasions
that I speak as a theologian-it was God Himself
who, at the end of His great work, coiled Himself
up in the form of a serpent at the foot of the tree
of knowledge. It was thus that He recovered from
being a God. . . . He had made everything too
beautiful. . . . The devil is simply God's moment
of idleness, on that seventh day.
“ THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS:
A POLEMIC”
The three essays which constitute this genealogy
are, as regards expression, aspiration, and the art


## p. 117 (#173) ############################################

WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 117
of the unexpected, perhaps the most curious
things that have ever been written. Dionysus, as
you know, is also the god of darkness. In each
case the beginning is calculated to mystify; it is
cool, scientific, even ironical, intentionally thrust
to the fore, intentionally reticent. Gradually less
calmness prevails; here and there a flash of light-
ning defines the horizon; exceedingly unpleasant
truths break upon your ears from out remote dis-
tances with a dull, rumbling sound,—until very
soon a fierce tempo is attained in which everything
presses forward at a terrible degree of tension.
At the end, in each case, amid fearful thunderclaps,
a new truth shines out between thick clouds. The
truth of the first essay is the psychology of Chris-
tianity: the birth of Christianity out of the spirit
of resentment, not, as is supposed, out of the
“Spirit,"—in all its essentials, a counter-movement,
the great insurrection against the dominion of
noble values. The second essay contains the psy-
chology of conscience: this is not, as you may be-
lieve, “the voice of God in man”; it is the instinct
of cruelty, which turns inwards once it is unable
to discharge itself outwardly. Cruelty is here ex-
posed, for the first time, as one of the oldest and
most indispensable elements in the foundation of
culture. The third essay replies to the question
as to the origin of the formidable power of the
ascetic ideal, of the priest ideal, despite the fact
that this ideal is essentially detrimental, that it is
a will to nonentity and to decadence. Reply : it
flourished not because God was active behind the
priests, as is generally believed, but because it was


## p. 118 (#174) ############################################

Il8 ECCE HOMO
a faute de mieux—from the fact that hitherto it
has been the only ideal and has had no competitors.
"For man prefers to aspire to nonentity than not
to aspire at all. " But above all, until the time of
Zarathustra there was no such thing as a counter-
ideal. You have understood my meaning. Three
decisive overtures on the part of a psychologist
to a Transvaluation of all Values. —This book
contains the first psychology of the priest.
"The Twilight of the Idols:
How to Philosophise with the Hammer"
This work—which covers scarcely one hundred
and fifty pages, with its cheerful and fateful tone,
like a laughing demon, and the production of which
occupied so few days that I hesitate to give their
number—is altogether an exception among books:
there is no work more rich in substance, more
independent, more upsetting—more wicked. If
any one should desire to obtain a rapid sketch
of how everything, before my time, was standing
on its head, he should begin reading me in this
book. That which is called " Idols" on the title
page is simply the old truth that has been be-
lieved in hitherto. In plain English, The Twi-
light of the Idols means that the old truth is on its
last legs.


## p. 119 (#175) ############################################

WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 119
There is no reality, no "ideality," which has
not been touched in this book (touched! what a
cautious euphemism ! ). Not only the eternal idols,
but also the youngest—that is to say, the most
senile: modern ideas, for instance. A strong
wind blows between the trees and in all directions
fall the fruit—the truths. There is the waste of
an all-too-rich autumn in this book : you trip over
truths. You even crush some to death, there are
too many of them. Those things that you can
grasp, however, are quite unquestionable ; they are
irrevocable decrees. I alone have the criterion of
"truths" in my possession. I alone can decide.
It would seem as if a second consciousness had
grown up in me, as if the "life-will" in me had
thrown a light upon the downward path along
which it has been running throughout the ages.
The downward path—hitherto this had been called
the road to "Truth. " All obscure impulse—
"darkness and dismay "—is at an end, the "good
man" was precisely he who was least aware of the
proper way. * And, speaking in all earnestness,
no one before me knew the proper way, the way
upwards: only after my time could men once
more find hope, life-tasks, and roads mapped out
* 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.


## p. 120 (#176) ############################################

120 ECCE HOMO
that lead to culture—/ am the joyful harbinger of
this culture. . . . On this account alone I am also
a fatality.
Immediately after the completion of the above-
named work, and without letting even one day go
by, I tackled the formidable task of the Transvalua-
tion with a supreme feeling of pride which nothing
could equal; and, certain at each moment of my
immortality, I cut sign after sign upon tablets of
brass with the sureness of Fate. The Preface came
into being on 3rd September 1888. When, after
having written it down, I went out into the open
that morning, I was greeted by the most beautiful
day I had ever seen in the Upper Engadine—clear,
glowing with colour, and presenting all the contrasts
and all the intermediary gradations between ice and
the south. I left Sils-Maria only on the 20th of
September. I had been forced to delay my depart-
ure owing to floods, and I was very soon, and for
some days, the only visitor in this wonderful spot,
on which my gratitude bestows the gift of an im-
mortal name. After a journey that was full of incid-
ents, and not without danger to life,—as for instance
at Como, which was flooded when I reached it in
the dead of night,—I got to Turin on the afternoon
of the 21 st. Turin is the only suitable place for
me, and it shall be my home henceforward. I took
the same lodgings as I had occupied in the spring,
6111 Via Carlo Alberto, opposite the mighty Palazzo
Carignano, in which Vittorio Emanuele was born;
and I had a view of the Piazza Carlo Alberto and


## p. 121 (#177) ############################################

WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 121
above it across to the hills. Without hesitating, or
allowing myself to be disturbed for a single moment,
I returned to my work, only the last quarter of
which had still tobewritten. On the 30th September,
tremendous triumph; the seventh day; the leisure
of a god on the banks of the Po. * On the same
day, I wrote the Preface to The Twilight of the
Idols, the correction of the proofs of which provided
me with recreation during the month of September.
Never in my life have I experienced such an
autumn; nor had I ever imagined that such things
were possible on earth—a Claude Lorrain extended
to infinity, each day equal to the last in its wild
perfection.
"The Case of Wagner-.
A Musician's Problem"
In order to do justice to this essay a man ought
to suffer from the fate of music as from an open
wound. —From what do I suffer when I suffer from
the fate of music? From the fact that music has
lost its world-transfiguring, yea-saying character—
that it is decadent music and no longer the flute of
Dionysus. Supposing, however, that the fate of
music be as dear to man as his own life, because
joy and suffering are alike bound up with it; then
he will find this pamphlet comparatively mild and
* There is a wonderful promenade along the banks of
the Po, for which Turin is famous, and of which Nietzsche
was particularly fond. —Tr.


## p. 122 (#178) ############################################

122 ECCE HOMO
full of consideration. To be cheerful in such circum-
stances, and laugh good-naturedly with others at
one's self,—ridendo dicere severum* when the verunt
dicere would justify every sort of hardness,—is
humanity itself. Who doubts that I, old artillery-
man that I am, would be able if I liked to point
my heavy guns at Wagner ? —Everything decisive
in this question I kept to myself—I have loved
Wagner. —After all, an attack upon a more than
usually subtle " unknown person" whom another
would not have divined so easily, lies in the mean-
ing and path of my life-task. Oh, I have still quite
a number of other " unknown persons " to unmask
besides a Cagliostro of Music! Above all, I have
to direct an attack against the German people, who,
in matters of the spirit, grow every day more In-
dolent, poorer in instincts, and more honest; who,
with an appetite for which they are to be envied,
continue to diet themselves on contradictions, and
gulp down "Faith" in company with science,
Christian love together with anti-Semitism, and
the will to power (to the " Empire "), dished up with
the gospel of the humble, without showing the
slightest signs of indigestion. Fancy this absence
of party-feeling in the presence of opposites! Fancy
this gastric neutrality and "disinterestedness"!
Behold this sense of justice in the German palate,
which can grant equal rights to all,—which finds
everything tasteful! Without a shadow of a doubt
the Germans are idealists. When I was last in
Germany, I found German taste striving to grant
* The motto of The Case of Wagner. —Tr.


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 123
Wagner and the Trumpeter of Sdkkingen * equal
rights; while I myself witnessed the attempts of the
people of Leipzig to do honour to one of the most
genuineand most German of musicians,—using Ger-
man here in the old sense of the word,—a man who
was no mere German of the Empire, the master
Heinrich Schiitz, by founding a Liszt Society, the
object of which was to cultivate and spread artful
{listige t) Church music. Without a shadow of doubt
the Germans are idealists.
But here nothing shall stop me from being rude,
and from telling the Germans one or two unpleasant
home truths: who else would do it if I did not?
I refer to their laxity in matters historical. Not
only have the Germans entirely lost the breadth of
vision which enables one to grasp the course of cul-
ture and the values of culture; not only are they
one and all political (or Church) puppets; but they
have also actually put a ban upon this very breadth
of vision. A man must first and foremost be " Ger-
man," he must belong to " the race "; then only can
he pass judgment upon all values and lack of values
in history—then only can he establish them. . . . To
be German is in itself an argument, " Germany,
Germany above all," J is a principle; the Germans
* An opera by Nessler which was all the rage in Germany
twenty years ago. —Tr.
+ Unfortunately it is impossible to render this play on the
words in English. —Tr.
X The German National Song (Deutschland, Deutschland
titer alles). —Tn.


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124 ECCE HOMO
stand for the "moral order of the universe" in history;
compared with the Roman Empire, they are the up-
holders of freedom; compared with the eighteenth
century, they are the restorers of morality, of the
"Categorical Imperative. " There is such a thing
as the writing of history according to the lights of
Imperial Germany; there is, I fear, anti-Semitic
history—there is also history written with an eye
to the Court, and Herr von Treitschke is not
ashamed of himself. Quite recently an idiotic
opinion in historicis, an observation of Vischer the
Swabian aesthete, since happily deceased, made the
round of the German newspapers as a "truth" to
which every German must assent. The observation
was this: "The Renaissance and the Reformation
only together constitute a whole—the aesthetic re-
birth, and the moral rebirth. " When I listen to
such things, I lose all patience, and I feel inclined,
I even feel it my duty, to tell the Germans, for once
in a way, all that they have on their conscience.
Every gi-eat crime against culture for the last four
centuries lies on their conscience. . . . And always
for the same reason, always owing to their bottom-
less cowardice in the face of reality, which is also
cowardice in the face of truth; always owing to the
love of falsehood which has become almost instinc-
tive in them—in short, "idealism. " It was the
Germans who caused Europe to lose the fruits, the
whole meaning of her last period of greatness—the
period of the Renaissance. At a moment when a
higher order of values, values that were noble, that
said yea to life, and that guaranteed a future, had
succeeded in triumphing over the opposite values,


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 125
the values of degeneration, in the very seat of
Christianity itself,—and even in the hearts of those
sitting there,—Luther, that cursed monk, not only
restored the Church, but, what was a thousand times
worse, restored Christianity, and at a time too when
it lay defeated. Christianity, the Denial of the Will
to Live, exalted to a religion! Luther was an im-
possible monk who, thanks to his own "impossi-
bility," attacked the Church, and in so doing restored
it! Catholics would be perfectly justified in cele-
brating feasts in honour of Luther, and in produc-
ing festival plays * in his honour. Luther and the
"rebirth of morality "! May all psychology go to
the devil! Without a shadow of a doubt the Ger-
mans are idealists. On two occasions when, at the
cost of enormous courage and self-control, an up-
right, unequivocal, and perfectly scientific attitude
of mind had been attained, the Germans were able
to discover back stairs leading down to the old
"ideal" again, compromises between truth and the
"ideal," and, in short, formulas for the right to reject
science and to perpetrate falsehoods. Leibniz and
Kant—these two great breaks upon the intellectual
honesty of Europe! Finally, at a moment when
there appeared on the bridge that spanned two cen-
turies of decadence, a superior force of genius and
will which was strong enough to consolidate Europe
and to convert it into a political and economic unit,
with the object of ruling the world, the Germans,
with their Wars of Independence, robbed Europe
* Ever since the year 1617 such plays have been produced
by the Protestants of Germany. —Tr.


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126 ECCE HOMO
of the significance—the marvellous significance, of
Napoleon's life. And in so doing they laid on their
conscience everything that followed, everything that
exists to-day,—this sickliness and want of reason
which is most opposed to culture, and which is called
Nationalism,—this nivrose nationale from which
Europe is suffering acutely; this eternal subdivision
of Europe into petty states, with politics on a muni-
cipal scale: they have robbed Europe itself of its
significance, of its reason,—and have stuffed it into
a cul-de-sac. Is there any one except me who
knows the way out of this cul-de-sac? Does any-
one except me know of an aspiration which would
be great enough to bind the people of Europe once
more together?
And after all, why should I not express my
suspicions? In my case, too, the Germans will
attempt to make a great fate give birth merely to
a mouse. Up to the present they have compro-
mised themselves with me; I doubt whether the
future will improve them. Alas! how happy I
should be to prove a false prophet in this matter!
My natural readers and listeners are already Rus-
sians, Scandinavians, and Frenchmen—will they
always be the same? In the history of knowledge,
Germans are represented only by doubtful names,
they have been able to produce only " unconscious"
swindlers (this word applies to Fichte, Schelling,
Schopenhauer, Hegel, and Schleiermacher, just as
well as to Kant or Leibniz; they were all mere


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 127
Schleiermachers). * The Germans must not have
the honour of seeing, the first upright intellect in
their history of intellects, that intellect in which
truth ultimately got the better of the fraud of four
thousand years, reckoned as one with the German
intellect. "German intellect" is my foul air: I
breathe with difficulty in the neighbourhood of this
psychological uncleanliness that has now become
instinctive—an uncleanliness which in every word
and expression betrays a German. They have
never undergone a seventeenth century of hard self-
examination, as the French have,—a La Roche-
foucauld, a Descartes, are a thousand times more
upright than the very first among Germans,—the
latter have not yet had any psychologists. But
psychology is almost the standard of measurement
for the cleanliness or uncleanliness of a race. . . .
For if a man is not even clean, how can he be deep?
The Germans are like women, you can scarcely ever
fathom their depths—they haven't any, and that's
the end of it. Thus they cannot even be called
shallow. That which is called " deep " in Germany,
is precisely this instinctive uncleanliness towards
one's self, of which I have just spoken : people refuse
to be clear in regard to their own natures. Might
I be allowed, perhaps, to suggest the word " Ger-
man " as an international epithet denoting this psy-
chological depravity ? —At the moment of writing,
for instance, the German Emperor is declaring it to
be his Christian duty to liberate the slaves in Africa;
* Schleiermacker literally means a weaver or maker of veils.
-Tr.


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128 ECCE HOMO
among us Europeans, then, this would be called
simply "German. " . . . Have the Germans ever
produced even a book that had depth? They are
lacking in the mere idea of what constitutes a book.
I have known scholars who thought that Kant was
deep. At the Court of Prussia I fear that Herr
von Treitschke is regarded as deep. And when I
happen to praise Stendhal as a deep psychologist,
I have often been compelled, in the company of
German University Professors, to spell his name
aloud.
4
And why should I not proceed to the end? I
am fond of clearing the air. It is even part of my
ambition to be considered as essentially a despiser
of Germans. I expressed my suspicions of the
German character even at the age of six-and-twenty
(see Thoughts out of Season, vol. ii. pp. 164, 165),
—to my mind the Germans are impossible. When
I try to think of the kind of man who is opposed
to me in all my instincts, my mental image takes
the form of a German. The first thing I ask my-
self when I begin analysing a man, is, whether he
has a feeling for distance in him; whether he sees
rank, gradation, and order everywhere between man
and man; whether he makes distinctions; for this
is what constitutes a gentleman. Otherwise he be-
longs hopelessly to that open-hearted, open-minded
—alas! and always very good-natured species, la
canaille! But the Germans are canaille—alas!
they are so good-natured! A man lowers himself
by frequenting the society of Germans: the German
places every one on an equal footing. With the


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WHY I WRITE SUCH EXCELLENT BOOKS 129
exception of my intercourse with one or two artists,
and above all with Richard Wagner, I cannot say
that I have spent one pleasant hour with Germans.
Suppose, for one moment, that the profoundest
spirit of all ages were to appear among Germans,
then one of the saviours of the Capitol would be
sure to arise and declare that his own ugly soul
was just as great. I can no longer abide this race
with which a man is always in bad company, which
has no idea of nuances—woe to me! I am a nuance
—and which has not esprit in 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 vulgar they are—but 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 regard themselves as
fit to decide all questions; I even fear that they
have decided about me. My whole life is essenti-
ally a proof of this remark. In vain have I sought
among them for a sign of tact and delicacy towards
myself. Among Jews I did indeed find it, but not
among Germans. I am so constituted as to be
gentle and kindly to every one,—I have the right
not to draw distinctions,—but this does not prevent
my eyes from being open. I except no one, and
least of all my friends,—I only trust that this has
not prejudiced my reputation for humanity among
them? There are five or six things which I have
always made points of honour. Albeit, the truth
remains that for many years I have considered
almost every letter that has reached me as a piece
of cynicism.