Several
aphorisms
are here, varying in length as
in subject, and ranging over the whole human pro-
vince—the emotions and aspirations, the religions
and cultures and philosophies, the arts and litera-
tures and politics of mankind.
in subject, and ranging over the whole human pro-
vince—the emotions and aspirations, the religions
and cultures and philosophies, the arts and litera-
tures and politics of mankind.
Nietzsche - v07 - Human All-Too-Human - b
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Title: The complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche. The first complete
and authorized English translation, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy.
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 SEVEN
r* »
HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN
PART TWO
i
--&
## p. (#10) #################################################
of the First Edition
of One Thousand Five
Hundred Copies this is
vol 240
## p. (#11) #################################################
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
HUMAN
ALL-TOO-HUMAN
A BOOK FOR FREE SPIRITS
PART II
TRANSLATED BY
PAUL V. COHN, B. A.
T. N. FOULIS
13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET
EDINBURGH: AND LONDON
1911
## p. (#12) #################################################
All RIGHTS RESERVED
Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh
## p. (#13) #################################################
CONTENTS
Translator's Introduction . . . vii
Author's Preface . . . . . i
Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions . . u
The Wanderer and his Shadow. . . 179
## p. (#14) #################################################
## p. (#15) #################################################
INTRODUCTION
The publication of Human, all-too-Human ex-
tends over the period 1878-1880. Of the two
divisions which constitute the Second Part, "Mis-
cellaneous Maxims and Opinions" appeared in 1879,
and "The Wanderer and his Shadow" in 1880,
Nietzsche being then in his thirty-sixth year. The
Preface was added in 1886. The whole book forms
Nietzsche's first lengthy contribution to literature.
His previous works comprise only the philological
treatises, The Birth of Tragedy, and the essays on
Strauss, Schopenhauer, and Wagner in Thoughts out
of Season.
With the volumes of Human, all-too-Human
Nietzsche appears for the first time in his true
colours as philosopher. His purely scholarly pub-
lications, his essays in literary and musical criticism
—especially the essay on Richard Wagner at Bay-
reuth—had, of course, foreshadowed his work as a
thinker.
These efforts, however, had been mere fragments,
from which hardly any one could observe that a new
philosophical star had arisen on the horizon. But
by 1878 the period of transition had definitely set
in. Outwardly, the new departure is marked by
Nietzsche's resignation in that year of his professor-
289186
## p. (#16) #################################################
viii INTRODUCTION.
ship at Bile—a resignation due partly to ill-health,
and partly to his conviction that his was a voice that
should speak not merely to students of philology,
but to all mankind.
Nietzsche himself characterises Human, all-too-
Human as " the monument of a crisis. " He might as
fitly have called it the first-fruits of a new harvest.
Now, for the first time, he practises the form which
he was to make so peculiarly his own. We are told
—and we may well believe—that the book came as
a surprise even to his most intimate friends. Wagner
had already seen how matters stood at the publica-
tion of the first part, and the gulf between the two
probably widened on the appearance of the Second
Part.
Several aphorisms are here, varying in length as
in subject, and ranging over the whole human pro-
vince—the emotions and aspirations, the religions
and cultures and philosophies, the arts and litera-
tures and politics of mankind. Equally varied is
the range of style, the incisive epigram and the
passage of pure poetry jostling each other on the
same page. In this curious power of alternating be-
tween cynicism and lyricism, Nietzsche appears as
the prose counterpart of Heine.
One or two of the aphorisms are of peculiar
interest to English readers. The essay (as it may
almost be called) on Sterne (p. 60, No. 113) does
ample justice, if not more than justice, to that
wayward genius. The allusion to Milton (p. 77,
No. 150) will come as somewhat of a shock to
English readers, especially to those who hold that
in Milton Art triumphed over Puritanism. It
## p. (#17) #################################################
INTRODUCTION. ix
should be remembered, however, that Nietzsche's
view coincides with Goethe's. The dictum that
Shakespeare's gold is to be valued for its quan-
tity rather than its quality (p. 81, No. 162) also
betrays a certain exclusiveness—a legacy from
that eighteenth-century France which appealed so
strongly to Nietzsche on its intellectual side. To
Nietzsche, as to Voltaire, Shakespeare is after all
"the great barbarian. "
The title of the book may be explained from a
phrase in Thus Spake Zarathustra: "Verily, even
the greatest I found—all-too-human. " The keynote
of these volumes is indeed disillusion and destruc-
tion. Nor is this to be wondered at, for all men must
sweepaway the rubbish beforetheycan build. Hence
we find here little of the constructive philosophy of
Nietzsche—so far as he had a constructive phil-
osophy. The Superman appears but faintly, the
doctrine of Eternal Recurrence not at all. For this
very reason, Human, all-too-Human is perhaps the
best starting-point for the study of Nietzsche. The
difficulties in style and thought of the later work—
difficulties that at times become well-nigh insuper-
able in Thus Spake Zarathustra—are here practi-
cally absent. The book may, in fact, almost be
described as "popular," bearing the same relation
to Nietzsche's later productions as Wagner's Tann-
hduser and Lohengrin bear to the Ring.
The translator's thanks are due to Mr. Thomas
Common for his careful revision of the manuscript
and many valuable suggestions.
P. V. C.
## p. (#18) #################################################
## p. 1 (#19) ###############################################
J
PREFACE.
One should only speak where one cannot remain
silent, and only speak of what one has conquered—
the rest is all chatter, "literature," bad breeding. My
writings speak only of my conquests, "I" am in them,
with all that is hostile to me, ego ipsissimus, or, if a
more haughty expression be permitted, ego ipsissi-
mum. It may be guessed that I have many below
me. . . . But first I always needed time, convalesc-
ence, distance, separation, before I felt the stirrings
of a desire to flay, despoil, lay bare, "represent" (or
whatever one likes to call it) for the additional
knowledge of the world, something that I had lived
through and outlived, something done or suffered.
Hence all my writings,—with one exception, im-
portant, it is true,—must be ante-dated—they always
tell of a " behind-me. " Some even, like the first three
Thoughts out of Season, must be thrown back before
the period of creation and experience of a previously
published book {The Birth of Tragedy in the case
cited, as any one with subtle powers of observation
and comparison could not fail to perceive). That
wrathful outburst against the Germanism, smugness,
and raggedness of speech of old David Strauss, the
## p. 2 (#20) ###############################################
2 PREFACE.
contents of the first Tlwught out of Season, gave a
vent to feelings that had inspired me long before, as
a student, in the midst of German culture and cul-
tured Philistinism (I claim the paternity of the now
much used and misused phrase "cultured Philis-
tinism "). What I said against the "historical dis-
ease" I said as one who had slowly and laboriously
recovered from that disease, and who was not at
all disposed to renounce "history" in the future be-
cause he had suffered from her in the past. When
in the third Thought out of Season I gave expression
to my reverence for my first and only teacher, the
great Arthur Schopenhauer—I should now give it a
far more personal and emphatic voice—I was for my
part already in the throes of moral scepticism and
dissolution, that is, as much concerned with the
criticism as with the study of all pessimism down to
the present day. I already did not believe in "a
blessed thing," as the people say, not even in Scho-
penhauer. It was at this very period that an un-
published essay of mine, " On Truth and Falsehood
in an Extra-Moral Sense," came into being. Even
my ceremonial oration in honour of Richard Wagner,
on the occasion of his triumphal celebration at
Bayreuth in 1876—Bayreuth signifies the greatest
triumph that an artist has ever won—a work that
bears the strongest stamp of " individuality," was in
the background an act of homage and gratitude to a
bit of the past in me, to the fairest but most perilous
calm of my sea-voyage . . . and as a matter of fact
a severance and a farewell. (Was Richard Wagner
mistaken on this point? I do not think so. So
long as we still love, we do not paint such pictures,
## p. 3 (#21) ###############################################
PREFACE. 3
we do not yet "examine," we do not place our-
selves so far away as is essential for one who
"examines. " "Examining needs at least a secret
antagonism, that of an opposite point of view," it
is said on page 46 of the above-named work itself,
with an insidious, melancholy application that was
perhaps understood by few. ) The composure that
gave me the power to speak after many intervening
years of solitude and abstinence, first came with
the book, Human, Ail-too Human, to which this
second preface and apologia * is dedicated. As a
book for "free spirits " it shows some trace of that
almost cheerful and inquisitive coldness of the psy-
chologist, who has behind him many painful things
that he keeps under him, and moreover establishes
them for himself and fixes them firmly as with a
needle-point. Is it to be wondered at that at such
sharp, ticklish work blood flows now and again, that
indeed the psychologist has blood on his fingers and
not only on his fingers?
The Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions were in
the first place, like The Wanderer and His Shadow,
published separately as continuations and appendices
to the above-mentioned human, ail-too human Book
for Free Spirits: and at the same time, as a continu-
ation and confirmation of an intellectual cure, con-
sisting in a course of anti-romantic self-treatment,
such as my instinct, which had always remained
* " Foreword " and "forword" would be the literal render-
ing of the play on words. —Tr.
## p. 4 (#22) ###############################################
4 PREFACE.
\
healthy, had itself discovered and prescribed against
a temporary attack of the most dangerous form of
romantics. After a convalescence of six years I may
well be permitted to collect these same writings
and publish them as a second volume of Human,
Ail-too Human. Perhaps, if surveyed together, they
will more clearly and effectively teach their lesson—
a lesson of health that may be recommended as a
disciplina voluntatis to the more intellectual natures
of the rising generation. Here speaks a pessimist
who has often leaped out of his skin but has always
returned into it, thus, a pessimist with goodwill to-
wards pessimism—at all events a romanticist no
longer. And has not a pessimist, who possesses this
serpentine knack of changing his skin, the right to
read a lecture to our pessimists of to-day, who are
one and all still in the toils of romanticism? Or at
least to show them how it is—done?
- f/v It was then, in fact, high time to bid farewell, and
\ I soon received proof. Richard Wagner, who seemed
all-conquering, but was in reality only a decayed and
despairing romantic, suddenly collapsed, helpless
and broken, before the Christian Cross. . . . Was
there not a single German with eyes in his head and
sympathy in his heart for this appalling spectacle?
Was I the only one whom he caused—suffering?
In any case, the unexpected event illumined for me
in one lightning flash theplace that I had abandoned,
and also the horror that is felt by every one who is
unconscious of a great danger until he has passed
## p. 5 (#23) ###############################################
PREFACE.
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer- 7
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his “good taste"? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination ?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, “a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism,” and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into “general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist-do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace
## p. 6 (#24) ###############################################
PREFACE.
was in the expectation of the coming of a musician
bold, subtle, malignant, southern, healthy enough to
take an immortal revenge upon that other music.
Lonely now and miserably self-distrustful, I took
sides, not without resentment, against myself and
for everything that hurt me and was hard to me.
Thus I once more found the way to that courageous
pessimism that is the antithesis of all romantic fraud,
and, as it seems to me to-day, the way to " myself,"
to my task. That hidden masterful Something, for
which we long have no name until at last it shows
itself as our task—that tyrant in us exacts a terrible
price for every attempt that we make to escape him
or give him the slip, for every premature act of self-
constraint, for every reconciliation with those to
whom we do not belong, for every activity, how-
ever reputable, which turns us aside from our main
purpose, yes, even for every virtue that would fain
protect us from the cruelty of our most individual
responsibility. "Disease " is always the answer when
we wish to have doubts of our rights to our own task,
when we begin to make it easier for ourselves in
any way. How strange and how terrible! It is our
very alleviations for which we have to make the
severest atonement! And if we want to return to
health, we have no choice left—we must load our-
selves more heavily than we were ever laden before.
J
5-
It was then that I learnt the hermitical habit of
## p. 7 (#25) ###############################################
PREFACE. 7
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer-
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his " good taste "? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, " a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism," and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into "general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist—do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace
## p. 7 (#26) ###############################################
PREFACE.
was in the expectation of the coming of a musician
bold, subtle, malignant, southern, healthy enough to
take an immortal revenge upon that other music.
Lonely now and miserably self-distrustful, I took
sides, not without resentment, against myself and
for everything that hurt me and was hard to me.
Thus I once more found the way to that courageous
pessimism that is the antithesis of all romantic fraud,
and, as it seems to me to-day, the way to “myself,"
to my task. That hidden masterful Something, for
which we long have no name until at last it shows
itself as our task—that tyrant in us exacts a terrible
price for every attempt that we make to escape him
or give him the slip, for every premature act of self-
constraint, for every reconciliation with those to
whom we do not belong, for every activity, how-
ever reputable, which turns us aside from our main
purpose, yes, even for every virtue that would fain
protect us from the cruelty of our most individual
responsibility. “Disease "is always the answer when
we wish to have doubts of our rights to our own task,
when we begin to make it easier for ourselves in
any way. How strange and how terrible! It is our
very alleviations for which we have to make the
severest atonement!
Several aphorisms are here, varying in length as
in subject, and ranging over the whole human pro-
vince—the emotions and aspirations, the religions
and cultures and philosophies, the arts and litera-
tures and politics of mankind. Equally varied is
the range of style, the incisive epigram and the
passage of pure poetry jostling each other on the
same page. In this curious power of alternating be-
tween cynicism and lyricism, Nietzsche appears as
the prose counterpart of Heine.
One or two of the aphorisms are of peculiar
interest to English readers. The essay (as it may
almost be called) on Sterne (p. 60, No. 113) does
ample justice, if not more than justice, to that
wayward genius. The allusion to Milton (p. 77,
No. 150) will come as somewhat of a shock to
English readers, especially to those who hold that
in Milton Art triumphed over Puritanism. It
## p. (#17) #################################################
INTRODUCTION. ix
should be remembered, however, that Nietzsche's
view coincides with Goethe's. The dictum that
Shakespeare's gold is to be valued for its quan-
tity rather than its quality (p. 81, No. 162) also
betrays a certain exclusiveness—a legacy from
that eighteenth-century France which appealed so
strongly to Nietzsche on its intellectual side. To
Nietzsche, as to Voltaire, Shakespeare is after all
"the great barbarian. "
The title of the book may be explained from a
phrase in Thus Spake Zarathustra: "Verily, even
the greatest I found—all-too-human. " The keynote
of these volumes is indeed disillusion and destruc-
tion. Nor is this to be wondered at, for all men must
sweepaway the rubbish beforetheycan build. Hence
we find here little of the constructive philosophy of
Nietzsche—so far as he had a constructive phil-
osophy. The Superman appears but faintly, the
doctrine of Eternal Recurrence not at all. For this
very reason, Human, all-too-Human is perhaps the
best starting-point for the study of Nietzsche. The
difficulties in style and thought of the later work—
difficulties that at times become well-nigh insuper-
able in Thus Spake Zarathustra—are here practi-
cally absent. The book may, in fact, almost be
described as "popular," bearing the same relation
to Nietzsche's later productions as Wagner's Tann-
hduser and Lohengrin bear to the Ring.
The translator's thanks are due to Mr. Thomas
Common for his careful revision of the manuscript
and many valuable suggestions.
P. V. C.
## p. (#18) #################################################
## p. 1 (#19) ###############################################
J
PREFACE.
One should only speak where one cannot remain
silent, and only speak of what one has conquered—
the rest is all chatter, "literature," bad breeding. My
writings speak only of my conquests, "I" am in them,
with all that is hostile to me, ego ipsissimus, or, if a
more haughty expression be permitted, ego ipsissi-
mum. It may be guessed that I have many below
me. . . . But first I always needed time, convalesc-
ence, distance, separation, before I felt the stirrings
of a desire to flay, despoil, lay bare, "represent" (or
whatever one likes to call it) for the additional
knowledge of the world, something that I had lived
through and outlived, something done or suffered.
Hence all my writings,—with one exception, im-
portant, it is true,—must be ante-dated—they always
tell of a " behind-me. " Some even, like the first three
Thoughts out of Season, must be thrown back before
the period of creation and experience of a previously
published book {The Birth of Tragedy in the case
cited, as any one with subtle powers of observation
and comparison could not fail to perceive). That
wrathful outburst against the Germanism, smugness,
and raggedness of speech of old David Strauss, the
## p. 2 (#20) ###############################################
2 PREFACE.
contents of the first Tlwught out of Season, gave a
vent to feelings that had inspired me long before, as
a student, in the midst of German culture and cul-
tured Philistinism (I claim the paternity of the now
much used and misused phrase "cultured Philis-
tinism "). What I said against the "historical dis-
ease" I said as one who had slowly and laboriously
recovered from that disease, and who was not at
all disposed to renounce "history" in the future be-
cause he had suffered from her in the past. When
in the third Thought out of Season I gave expression
to my reverence for my first and only teacher, the
great Arthur Schopenhauer—I should now give it a
far more personal and emphatic voice—I was for my
part already in the throes of moral scepticism and
dissolution, that is, as much concerned with the
criticism as with the study of all pessimism down to
the present day. I already did not believe in "a
blessed thing," as the people say, not even in Scho-
penhauer. It was at this very period that an un-
published essay of mine, " On Truth and Falsehood
in an Extra-Moral Sense," came into being. Even
my ceremonial oration in honour of Richard Wagner,
on the occasion of his triumphal celebration at
Bayreuth in 1876—Bayreuth signifies the greatest
triumph that an artist has ever won—a work that
bears the strongest stamp of " individuality," was in
the background an act of homage and gratitude to a
bit of the past in me, to the fairest but most perilous
calm of my sea-voyage . . . and as a matter of fact
a severance and a farewell. (Was Richard Wagner
mistaken on this point? I do not think so. So
long as we still love, we do not paint such pictures,
## p. 3 (#21) ###############################################
PREFACE. 3
we do not yet "examine," we do not place our-
selves so far away as is essential for one who
"examines. " "Examining needs at least a secret
antagonism, that of an opposite point of view," it
is said on page 46 of the above-named work itself,
with an insidious, melancholy application that was
perhaps understood by few. ) The composure that
gave me the power to speak after many intervening
years of solitude and abstinence, first came with
the book, Human, Ail-too Human, to which this
second preface and apologia * is dedicated. As a
book for "free spirits " it shows some trace of that
almost cheerful and inquisitive coldness of the psy-
chologist, who has behind him many painful things
that he keeps under him, and moreover establishes
them for himself and fixes them firmly as with a
needle-point. Is it to be wondered at that at such
sharp, ticklish work blood flows now and again, that
indeed the psychologist has blood on his fingers and
not only on his fingers?
The Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions were in
the first place, like The Wanderer and His Shadow,
published separately as continuations and appendices
to the above-mentioned human, ail-too human Book
for Free Spirits: and at the same time, as a continu-
ation and confirmation of an intellectual cure, con-
sisting in a course of anti-romantic self-treatment,
such as my instinct, which had always remained
* " Foreword " and "forword" would be the literal render-
ing of the play on words. —Tr.
## p. 4 (#22) ###############################################
4 PREFACE.
\
healthy, had itself discovered and prescribed against
a temporary attack of the most dangerous form of
romantics. After a convalescence of six years I may
well be permitted to collect these same writings
and publish them as a second volume of Human,
Ail-too Human. Perhaps, if surveyed together, they
will more clearly and effectively teach their lesson—
a lesson of health that may be recommended as a
disciplina voluntatis to the more intellectual natures
of the rising generation. Here speaks a pessimist
who has often leaped out of his skin but has always
returned into it, thus, a pessimist with goodwill to-
wards pessimism—at all events a romanticist no
longer. And has not a pessimist, who possesses this
serpentine knack of changing his skin, the right to
read a lecture to our pessimists of to-day, who are
one and all still in the toils of romanticism? Or at
least to show them how it is—done?
- f/v It was then, in fact, high time to bid farewell, and
\ I soon received proof. Richard Wagner, who seemed
all-conquering, but was in reality only a decayed and
despairing romantic, suddenly collapsed, helpless
and broken, before the Christian Cross. . . . Was
there not a single German with eyes in his head and
sympathy in his heart for this appalling spectacle?
Was I the only one whom he caused—suffering?
In any case, the unexpected event illumined for me
in one lightning flash theplace that I had abandoned,
and also the horror that is felt by every one who is
unconscious of a great danger until he has passed
## p. 5 (#23) ###############################################
PREFACE.
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer- 7
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his “good taste"? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination ?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, “a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism,” and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into “general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist-do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace
## p. 6 (#24) ###############################################
PREFACE.
was in the expectation of the coming of a musician
bold, subtle, malignant, southern, healthy enough to
take an immortal revenge upon that other music.
Lonely now and miserably self-distrustful, I took
sides, not without resentment, against myself and
for everything that hurt me and was hard to me.
Thus I once more found the way to that courageous
pessimism that is the antithesis of all romantic fraud,
and, as it seems to me to-day, the way to " myself,"
to my task. That hidden masterful Something, for
which we long have no name until at last it shows
itself as our task—that tyrant in us exacts a terrible
price for every attempt that we make to escape him
or give him the slip, for every premature act of self-
constraint, for every reconciliation with those to
whom we do not belong, for every activity, how-
ever reputable, which turns us aside from our main
purpose, yes, even for every virtue that would fain
protect us from the cruelty of our most individual
responsibility. "Disease " is always the answer when
we wish to have doubts of our rights to our own task,
when we begin to make it easier for ourselves in
any way. How strange and how terrible! It is our
very alleviations for which we have to make the
severest atonement! And if we want to return to
health, we have no choice left—we must load our-
selves more heavily than we were ever laden before.
J
5-
It was then that I learnt the hermitical habit of
## p. 7 (#25) ###############################################
PREFACE. 7
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer-
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his " good taste "? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, " a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism," and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into "general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist—do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace
## p. 7 (#26) ###############################################
PREFACE.
was in the expectation of the coming of a musician
bold, subtle, malignant, southern, healthy enough to
take an immortal revenge upon that other music.
Lonely now and miserably self-distrustful, I took
sides, not without resentment, against myself and
for everything that hurt me and was hard to me.
Thus I once more found the way to that courageous
pessimism that is the antithesis of all romantic fraud,
and, as it seems to me to-day, the way to “myself,"
to my task. That hidden masterful Something, for
which we long have no name until at last it shows
itself as our task—that tyrant in us exacts a terrible
price for every attempt that we make to escape him
or give him the slip, for every premature act of self-
constraint, for every reconciliation with those to
whom we do not belong, for every activity, how-
ever reputable, which turns us aside from our main
purpose, yes, even for every virtue that would fain
protect us from the cruelty of our most individual
responsibility. “Disease "is always the answer when
we wish to have doubts of our rights to our own task,
when we begin to make it easier for ourselves in
any way. How strange and how terrible! It is our
very alleviations for which we have to make the
severest atonement! And if we want to return to
health, we have no choice left-we must load our-
selves more heavily than we were ever laden before.
✓ 5.
It was then that I learnt the hermitical habit of
## p. 7 (#27) ###############################################
PREFACE.
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer--
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his “good taste"? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination ?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, “a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism,” and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into “general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist-do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace
## p. 8 (#28) ###############################################
8 FREFACE.
him from his entire "past," his troubles, friends,
letters, duties, stupid mistakes and painful memories,
and teaches him to stretch out hands and senses to-
wards new nourishment, a new sun, a new future:
so I, as physician and invalid in one, forced myself
into an utterly different and untried zone of the
soul, and particularly into an absorbing journey
to a strange land, a strange atmosphere, into a
curiosity for all that was strange. A long process
of roaming, seeking, changing followed, a distaste for
fixity of any kind—a dislike for clumsy affirmation
and negation: and at the same time a dietary and
discipline which aimed at making it as easy as pos-
sible for the soul to fly high, and above all con-
stantly to fly away. In fact a minimum of life, an
unfettering from all coarser forms of sensuality, an
independence in the midst of all marks of outward
disfavour, together with the pride in being able to
live in the midst of all this disfavour: a little cyni-
cism perhaps, a little of the "tub of Diogenes," a
good deal of whimsical happiness, whimsical gaiety,
much calm, light, subtle folly, hidden enthusiasm—
all this produced in the end a great spiritual
strengthening, a growing joy and exuberance of
health. Life itself rewards us for our tenacious will
to life, for such a long war as I waged against the
pessimistic weariness of life, even for every observ-
ant glance of our gratitude, glances that do not
miss the smallest, most delicate, most fugitive
gifts. . . . In the end we receive Life's great gifts,
perhaps the greatest it can bestow—we regain our
task.
## p. 9 (#29) ###############################################
PREFACE. 9
6.
Should my experience—the history of an illness
and a convalescence, for it resulted in a convalescence ,'
—be only my personal experience? and merely just
my "Human, All-too-human"? To-day I would
fain believe the reverse, for I am becoming more and
more confident that my books of travel were not
penned for my sole benefit, as appeared for a time to
be the case. May I, after six years of growing assur-
ance, send them once more on a journey for an ex-
periment? —May I commend them particularly to
the ears and hearts of those who are afflicted with
some sort of a "past," and have enough intellect left
to suffer even intellectually from their past? But
above all would I commend them to you whose
burden is heaviest, you choice spirits, most encom-
passed with perils, most intellectual, most courage-
ous, who must be the conscience of the modern soul
and as such be versed in its science: * in whom is
concentrated all of disease, poison or danger that
can exist to-day: whose lot decrees that you must
be more sick than any individual because you are not
"mere individuals ": whose consolation it is to know
and, ah! to walk the path to a new health, a health
of to-morrow and the day after: you men of destiny,
triumphant, conquerors of time, the healthiest and
the strongest, you good Europeans!
7-
To express finally in a single formula my op-
* It has been attempted to render the play on " Gewissen"
and "Wissen. "—Tr.
## p. 10 (#30) ##############################################
IO PREFACE.
position to the romantic pessimism of the abstinent,
the unfortunate, the conquered: there is a will to
the tragic and to pessimism, which is a sign as
much of the severity as of the strength of the in-
tellect (taste, emotion, conscience). With this will
in our hearts we do not fear, but we investigate our-
selves the terrible and the problematical elements
characteristic of all existence. Behind such a will
stand courage and pride and the desire for a really
great enemy. That was my pessimistic outlook
from the first—a new outlook, methinks, an outlook
that even at this day is new and strange? To this
moment I hold to it firmly and (if it will be believed)
not only for myself but occasionally against my-
self. . . . You would prefer to have that proved
first? Well, what else does all this long preface—
prove? '
Sils-Maria, Upper Engadine,
September, 1886.
## p. 11 (#31) ##############################################
HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN,
PART 1.
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND
OPINIONS.
## p. 12 (#32) ##############################################
## p. 13 (#33) ##############################################
I.
To the Disillusioned in Philosophy. —If you
hitherto believed in the highest value of life and
now find yourselves disillusioned, must you im-
mediately get rid of life at the lowest possible
price?
2.
Overnice. —One can even become overnice as
regards the clearness of concepts. How disgusted
one is then at having truck with the half-clear, the
hazy, the aspiring, the doubting! How ridiculous
and yet not mirth-provoking is their eternal flutter-
ing and straining without ever being able to fly or
to grasp!
The Wooers of Reality. —He who realises
at last how long and how thoroughly he has been
befooled, embraces out of spite even the ugliest
reality. So that in the long run of the world's
history the best men have always been wooers of
reality, for the best have always been longest and
most thoroughly deceived.
## p. 14 (#34) ##############################################
14 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
4-
Advance of Freethinking. —The difference
between past and present freethinking cannot better
be characterised than by that aphorism for the recog-
nition and expression of which all the fearlessness of
the eighteenth century was needed, and which even
then, if measured by our modern view, sinks into an
unconscious na'ivete\ I mean Voltaire's aphorism,
"croyez-moi, mon ami, l'erreur aussi a son merite. "
5-
A Hereditary Sin of Philosophers. —Philo-
sophers have at all times appropriated and corrupted
the maxims of censors of men (moralists), by taking
them over without qualification and trying to prove
as necessary what the moralists only meant as a
rough indication or as a truth suited to their fellow-
countrymen or fellow-townsmen for a single decade.
Moreover, the philosophers thought that they were
thereby raising themselves above the moralists!
Thus it will be found that the celebrated teachings
of Schopenhauer as to the supremacy of the will
over the intellect, of the immutability of character,
the negativity of pleasure—all errors, in the sense
in which he understands them—rest upon principles
of popular wisdom enunciated by the moralists.
Take the very word "will," which Schopenhauer
twisted so as to become a common denotation of
several human conditions and with which he filled
a gap in the language (to his own great advantage,
in so far as he was a moralist, for he became free to
## p. 15 (#35) ##############################################
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 15
speak of the will as Pascal had spoken of it). In
the hands of its creator, Schopenhauer's "will,"
through the philosophic craze for generalisation,
already turned out to be a bane to knowledge. For
this will was made into a poetic metaphor, when it
was held that all things in nature possess will.
Finally, that it might be applied to all kinds of
disordered mysticism, the word was misused by a
fraudulent convention. So now all our fashionable
philosophers repeat it and seem to be perfectly
certain that all things have a will and are in fact
One Will. According to the description generally
given of this All-One-Will, this is much as if one
should positively try to have the stupid Devil for
one's God.
Against Visionaries. —The visionary denies
the truth to himself, the liar only to others.
Enmity TO Light. —If we make it clear to any
one that, strictly, he can never speak of truth, but
only of probability and of its degrees, we generally
discover, from the undisguised joy of our pupil,
how greatly men prefer the uncertainty of their in-
tellectual horizon, and how in their heart of hearts
they hate truth because of its definiteness.
Find more books at https://www. hathitrust. org.
Title: The complete works of Friedrich Nietzsche. The first complete
and authorized English translation, edited by Dr. Oscar Levy.
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 SEVEN
r* »
HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN
PART TWO
i
--&
## p. (#10) #################################################
of the First Edition
of One Thousand Five
Hundred Copies this is
vol 240
## p. (#11) #################################################
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
HUMAN
ALL-TOO-HUMAN
A BOOK FOR FREE SPIRITS
PART II
TRANSLATED BY
PAUL V. COHN, B. A.
T. N. FOULIS
13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET
EDINBURGH: AND LONDON
1911
## p. (#12) #################################################
All RIGHTS RESERVED
Printed by Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh
## p. (#13) #################################################
CONTENTS
Translator's Introduction . . . vii
Author's Preface . . . . . i
Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions . . u
The Wanderer and his Shadow. . . 179
## p. (#14) #################################################
## p. (#15) #################################################
INTRODUCTION
The publication of Human, all-too-Human ex-
tends over the period 1878-1880. Of the two
divisions which constitute the Second Part, "Mis-
cellaneous Maxims and Opinions" appeared in 1879,
and "The Wanderer and his Shadow" in 1880,
Nietzsche being then in his thirty-sixth year. The
Preface was added in 1886. The whole book forms
Nietzsche's first lengthy contribution to literature.
His previous works comprise only the philological
treatises, The Birth of Tragedy, and the essays on
Strauss, Schopenhauer, and Wagner in Thoughts out
of Season.
With the volumes of Human, all-too-Human
Nietzsche appears for the first time in his true
colours as philosopher. His purely scholarly pub-
lications, his essays in literary and musical criticism
—especially the essay on Richard Wagner at Bay-
reuth—had, of course, foreshadowed his work as a
thinker.
These efforts, however, had been mere fragments,
from which hardly any one could observe that a new
philosophical star had arisen on the horizon. But
by 1878 the period of transition had definitely set
in. Outwardly, the new departure is marked by
Nietzsche's resignation in that year of his professor-
289186
## p. (#16) #################################################
viii INTRODUCTION.
ship at Bile—a resignation due partly to ill-health,
and partly to his conviction that his was a voice that
should speak not merely to students of philology,
but to all mankind.
Nietzsche himself characterises Human, all-too-
Human as " the monument of a crisis. " He might as
fitly have called it the first-fruits of a new harvest.
Now, for the first time, he practises the form which
he was to make so peculiarly his own. We are told
—and we may well believe—that the book came as
a surprise even to his most intimate friends. Wagner
had already seen how matters stood at the publica-
tion of the first part, and the gulf between the two
probably widened on the appearance of the Second
Part.
Several aphorisms are here, varying in length as
in subject, and ranging over the whole human pro-
vince—the emotions and aspirations, the religions
and cultures and philosophies, the arts and litera-
tures and politics of mankind. Equally varied is
the range of style, the incisive epigram and the
passage of pure poetry jostling each other on the
same page. In this curious power of alternating be-
tween cynicism and lyricism, Nietzsche appears as
the prose counterpart of Heine.
One or two of the aphorisms are of peculiar
interest to English readers. The essay (as it may
almost be called) on Sterne (p. 60, No. 113) does
ample justice, if not more than justice, to that
wayward genius. The allusion to Milton (p. 77,
No. 150) will come as somewhat of a shock to
English readers, especially to those who hold that
in Milton Art triumphed over Puritanism. It
## p. (#17) #################################################
INTRODUCTION. ix
should be remembered, however, that Nietzsche's
view coincides with Goethe's. The dictum that
Shakespeare's gold is to be valued for its quan-
tity rather than its quality (p. 81, No. 162) also
betrays a certain exclusiveness—a legacy from
that eighteenth-century France which appealed so
strongly to Nietzsche on its intellectual side. To
Nietzsche, as to Voltaire, Shakespeare is after all
"the great barbarian. "
The title of the book may be explained from a
phrase in Thus Spake Zarathustra: "Verily, even
the greatest I found—all-too-human. " The keynote
of these volumes is indeed disillusion and destruc-
tion. Nor is this to be wondered at, for all men must
sweepaway the rubbish beforetheycan build. Hence
we find here little of the constructive philosophy of
Nietzsche—so far as he had a constructive phil-
osophy. The Superman appears but faintly, the
doctrine of Eternal Recurrence not at all. For this
very reason, Human, all-too-Human is perhaps the
best starting-point for the study of Nietzsche. The
difficulties in style and thought of the later work—
difficulties that at times become well-nigh insuper-
able in Thus Spake Zarathustra—are here practi-
cally absent. The book may, in fact, almost be
described as "popular," bearing the same relation
to Nietzsche's later productions as Wagner's Tann-
hduser and Lohengrin bear to the Ring.
The translator's thanks are due to Mr. Thomas
Common for his careful revision of the manuscript
and many valuable suggestions.
P. V. C.
## p. (#18) #################################################
## p. 1 (#19) ###############################################
J
PREFACE.
One should only speak where one cannot remain
silent, and only speak of what one has conquered—
the rest is all chatter, "literature," bad breeding. My
writings speak only of my conquests, "I" am in them,
with all that is hostile to me, ego ipsissimus, or, if a
more haughty expression be permitted, ego ipsissi-
mum. It may be guessed that I have many below
me. . . . But first I always needed time, convalesc-
ence, distance, separation, before I felt the stirrings
of a desire to flay, despoil, lay bare, "represent" (or
whatever one likes to call it) for the additional
knowledge of the world, something that I had lived
through and outlived, something done or suffered.
Hence all my writings,—with one exception, im-
portant, it is true,—must be ante-dated—they always
tell of a " behind-me. " Some even, like the first three
Thoughts out of Season, must be thrown back before
the period of creation and experience of a previously
published book {The Birth of Tragedy in the case
cited, as any one with subtle powers of observation
and comparison could not fail to perceive). That
wrathful outburst against the Germanism, smugness,
and raggedness of speech of old David Strauss, the
## p. 2 (#20) ###############################################
2 PREFACE.
contents of the first Tlwught out of Season, gave a
vent to feelings that had inspired me long before, as
a student, in the midst of German culture and cul-
tured Philistinism (I claim the paternity of the now
much used and misused phrase "cultured Philis-
tinism "). What I said against the "historical dis-
ease" I said as one who had slowly and laboriously
recovered from that disease, and who was not at
all disposed to renounce "history" in the future be-
cause he had suffered from her in the past. When
in the third Thought out of Season I gave expression
to my reverence for my first and only teacher, the
great Arthur Schopenhauer—I should now give it a
far more personal and emphatic voice—I was for my
part already in the throes of moral scepticism and
dissolution, that is, as much concerned with the
criticism as with the study of all pessimism down to
the present day. I already did not believe in "a
blessed thing," as the people say, not even in Scho-
penhauer. It was at this very period that an un-
published essay of mine, " On Truth and Falsehood
in an Extra-Moral Sense," came into being. Even
my ceremonial oration in honour of Richard Wagner,
on the occasion of his triumphal celebration at
Bayreuth in 1876—Bayreuth signifies the greatest
triumph that an artist has ever won—a work that
bears the strongest stamp of " individuality," was in
the background an act of homage and gratitude to a
bit of the past in me, to the fairest but most perilous
calm of my sea-voyage . . . and as a matter of fact
a severance and a farewell. (Was Richard Wagner
mistaken on this point? I do not think so. So
long as we still love, we do not paint such pictures,
## p. 3 (#21) ###############################################
PREFACE. 3
we do not yet "examine," we do not place our-
selves so far away as is essential for one who
"examines. " "Examining needs at least a secret
antagonism, that of an opposite point of view," it
is said on page 46 of the above-named work itself,
with an insidious, melancholy application that was
perhaps understood by few. ) The composure that
gave me the power to speak after many intervening
years of solitude and abstinence, first came with
the book, Human, Ail-too Human, to which this
second preface and apologia * is dedicated. As a
book for "free spirits " it shows some trace of that
almost cheerful and inquisitive coldness of the psy-
chologist, who has behind him many painful things
that he keeps under him, and moreover establishes
them for himself and fixes them firmly as with a
needle-point. Is it to be wondered at that at such
sharp, ticklish work blood flows now and again, that
indeed the psychologist has blood on his fingers and
not only on his fingers?
The Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions were in
the first place, like The Wanderer and His Shadow,
published separately as continuations and appendices
to the above-mentioned human, ail-too human Book
for Free Spirits: and at the same time, as a continu-
ation and confirmation of an intellectual cure, con-
sisting in a course of anti-romantic self-treatment,
such as my instinct, which had always remained
* " Foreword " and "forword" would be the literal render-
ing of the play on words. —Tr.
## p. 4 (#22) ###############################################
4 PREFACE.
\
healthy, had itself discovered and prescribed against
a temporary attack of the most dangerous form of
romantics. After a convalescence of six years I may
well be permitted to collect these same writings
and publish them as a second volume of Human,
Ail-too Human. Perhaps, if surveyed together, they
will more clearly and effectively teach their lesson—
a lesson of health that may be recommended as a
disciplina voluntatis to the more intellectual natures
of the rising generation. Here speaks a pessimist
who has often leaped out of his skin but has always
returned into it, thus, a pessimist with goodwill to-
wards pessimism—at all events a romanticist no
longer. And has not a pessimist, who possesses this
serpentine knack of changing his skin, the right to
read a lecture to our pessimists of to-day, who are
one and all still in the toils of romanticism? Or at
least to show them how it is—done?
- f/v It was then, in fact, high time to bid farewell, and
\ I soon received proof. Richard Wagner, who seemed
all-conquering, but was in reality only a decayed and
despairing romantic, suddenly collapsed, helpless
and broken, before the Christian Cross. . . . Was
there not a single German with eyes in his head and
sympathy in his heart for this appalling spectacle?
Was I the only one whom he caused—suffering?
In any case, the unexpected event illumined for me
in one lightning flash theplace that I had abandoned,
and also the horror that is felt by every one who is
unconscious of a great danger until he has passed
## p. 5 (#23) ###############################################
PREFACE.
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer- 7
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his “good taste"? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination ?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, “a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism,” and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into “general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist-do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace
## p. 6 (#24) ###############################################
PREFACE.
was in the expectation of the coming of a musician
bold, subtle, malignant, southern, healthy enough to
take an immortal revenge upon that other music.
Lonely now and miserably self-distrustful, I took
sides, not without resentment, against myself and
for everything that hurt me and was hard to me.
Thus I once more found the way to that courageous
pessimism that is the antithesis of all romantic fraud,
and, as it seems to me to-day, the way to " myself,"
to my task. That hidden masterful Something, for
which we long have no name until at last it shows
itself as our task—that tyrant in us exacts a terrible
price for every attempt that we make to escape him
or give him the slip, for every premature act of self-
constraint, for every reconciliation with those to
whom we do not belong, for every activity, how-
ever reputable, which turns us aside from our main
purpose, yes, even for every virtue that would fain
protect us from the cruelty of our most individual
responsibility. "Disease " is always the answer when
we wish to have doubts of our rights to our own task,
when we begin to make it easier for ourselves in
any way. How strange and how terrible! It is our
very alleviations for which we have to make the
severest atonement! And if we want to return to
health, we have no choice left—we must load our-
selves more heavily than we were ever laden before.
J
5-
It was then that I learnt the hermitical habit of
## p. 7 (#25) ###############################################
PREFACE. 7
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer-
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his " good taste "? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, " a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism," and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into "general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist—do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace
## p. 7 (#26) ###############################################
PREFACE.
was in the expectation of the coming of a musician
bold, subtle, malignant, southern, healthy enough to
take an immortal revenge upon that other music.
Lonely now and miserably self-distrustful, I took
sides, not without resentment, against myself and
for everything that hurt me and was hard to me.
Thus I once more found the way to that courageous
pessimism that is the antithesis of all romantic fraud,
and, as it seems to me to-day, the way to “myself,"
to my task. That hidden masterful Something, for
which we long have no name until at last it shows
itself as our task—that tyrant in us exacts a terrible
price for every attempt that we make to escape him
or give him the slip, for every premature act of self-
constraint, for every reconciliation with those to
whom we do not belong, for every activity, how-
ever reputable, which turns us aside from our main
purpose, yes, even for every virtue that would fain
protect us from the cruelty of our most individual
responsibility. “Disease "is always the answer when
we wish to have doubts of our rights to our own task,
when we begin to make it easier for ourselves in
any way. How strange and how terrible! It is our
very alleviations for which we have to make the
severest atonement!
Several aphorisms are here, varying in length as
in subject, and ranging over the whole human pro-
vince—the emotions and aspirations, the religions
and cultures and philosophies, the arts and litera-
tures and politics of mankind. Equally varied is
the range of style, the incisive epigram and the
passage of pure poetry jostling each other on the
same page. In this curious power of alternating be-
tween cynicism and lyricism, Nietzsche appears as
the prose counterpart of Heine.
One or two of the aphorisms are of peculiar
interest to English readers. The essay (as it may
almost be called) on Sterne (p. 60, No. 113) does
ample justice, if not more than justice, to that
wayward genius. The allusion to Milton (p. 77,
No. 150) will come as somewhat of a shock to
English readers, especially to those who hold that
in Milton Art triumphed over Puritanism. It
## p. (#17) #################################################
INTRODUCTION. ix
should be remembered, however, that Nietzsche's
view coincides with Goethe's. The dictum that
Shakespeare's gold is to be valued for its quan-
tity rather than its quality (p. 81, No. 162) also
betrays a certain exclusiveness—a legacy from
that eighteenth-century France which appealed so
strongly to Nietzsche on its intellectual side. To
Nietzsche, as to Voltaire, Shakespeare is after all
"the great barbarian. "
The title of the book may be explained from a
phrase in Thus Spake Zarathustra: "Verily, even
the greatest I found—all-too-human. " The keynote
of these volumes is indeed disillusion and destruc-
tion. Nor is this to be wondered at, for all men must
sweepaway the rubbish beforetheycan build. Hence
we find here little of the constructive philosophy of
Nietzsche—so far as he had a constructive phil-
osophy. The Superman appears but faintly, the
doctrine of Eternal Recurrence not at all. For this
very reason, Human, all-too-Human is perhaps the
best starting-point for the study of Nietzsche. The
difficulties in style and thought of the later work—
difficulties that at times become well-nigh insuper-
able in Thus Spake Zarathustra—are here practi-
cally absent. The book may, in fact, almost be
described as "popular," bearing the same relation
to Nietzsche's later productions as Wagner's Tann-
hduser and Lohengrin bear to the Ring.
The translator's thanks are due to Mr. Thomas
Common for his careful revision of the manuscript
and many valuable suggestions.
P. V. C.
## p. (#18) #################################################
## p. 1 (#19) ###############################################
J
PREFACE.
One should only speak where one cannot remain
silent, and only speak of what one has conquered—
the rest is all chatter, "literature," bad breeding. My
writings speak only of my conquests, "I" am in them,
with all that is hostile to me, ego ipsissimus, or, if a
more haughty expression be permitted, ego ipsissi-
mum. It may be guessed that I have many below
me. . . . But first I always needed time, convalesc-
ence, distance, separation, before I felt the stirrings
of a desire to flay, despoil, lay bare, "represent" (or
whatever one likes to call it) for the additional
knowledge of the world, something that I had lived
through and outlived, something done or suffered.
Hence all my writings,—with one exception, im-
portant, it is true,—must be ante-dated—they always
tell of a " behind-me. " Some even, like the first three
Thoughts out of Season, must be thrown back before
the period of creation and experience of a previously
published book {The Birth of Tragedy in the case
cited, as any one with subtle powers of observation
and comparison could not fail to perceive). That
wrathful outburst against the Germanism, smugness,
and raggedness of speech of old David Strauss, the
## p. 2 (#20) ###############################################
2 PREFACE.
contents of the first Tlwught out of Season, gave a
vent to feelings that had inspired me long before, as
a student, in the midst of German culture and cul-
tured Philistinism (I claim the paternity of the now
much used and misused phrase "cultured Philis-
tinism "). What I said against the "historical dis-
ease" I said as one who had slowly and laboriously
recovered from that disease, and who was not at
all disposed to renounce "history" in the future be-
cause he had suffered from her in the past. When
in the third Thought out of Season I gave expression
to my reverence for my first and only teacher, the
great Arthur Schopenhauer—I should now give it a
far more personal and emphatic voice—I was for my
part already in the throes of moral scepticism and
dissolution, that is, as much concerned with the
criticism as with the study of all pessimism down to
the present day. I already did not believe in "a
blessed thing," as the people say, not even in Scho-
penhauer. It was at this very period that an un-
published essay of mine, " On Truth and Falsehood
in an Extra-Moral Sense," came into being. Even
my ceremonial oration in honour of Richard Wagner,
on the occasion of his triumphal celebration at
Bayreuth in 1876—Bayreuth signifies the greatest
triumph that an artist has ever won—a work that
bears the strongest stamp of " individuality," was in
the background an act of homage and gratitude to a
bit of the past in me, to the fairest but most perilous
calm of my sea-voyage . . . and as a matter of fact
a severance and a farewell. (Was Richard Wagner
mistaken on this point? I do not think so. So
long as we still love, we do not paint such pictures,
## p. 3 (#21) ###############################################
PREFACE. 3
we do not yet "examine," we do not place our-
selves so far away as is essential for one who
"examines. " "Examining needs at least a secret
antagonism, that of an opposite point of view," it
is said on page 46 of the above-named work itself,
with an insidious, melancholy application that was
perhaps understood by few. ) The composure that
gave me the power to speak after many intervening
years of solitude and abstinence, first came with
the book, Human, Ail-too Human, to which this
second preface and apologia * is dedicated. As a
book for "free spirits " it shows some trace of that
almost cheerful and inquisitive coldness of the psy-
chologist, who has behind him many painful things
that he keeps under him, and moreover establishes
them for himself and fixes them firmly as with a
needle-point. Is it to be wondered at that at such
sharp, ticklish work blood flows now and again, that
indeed the psychologist has blood on his fingers and
not only on his fingers?
The Miscellaneous Maxims and Opinions were in
the first place, like The Wanderer and His Shadow,
published separately as continuations and appendices
to the above-mentioned human, ail-too human Book
for Free Spirits: and at the same time, as a continu-
ation and confirmation of an intellectual cure, con-
sisting in a course of anti-romantic self-treatment,
such as my instinct, which had always remained
* " Foreword " and "forword" would be the literal render-
ing of the play on words. —Tr.
## p. 4 (#22) ###############################################
4 PREFACE.
\
healthy, had itself discovered and prescribed against
a temporary attack of the most dangerous form of
romantics. After a convalescence of six years I may
well be permitted to collect these same writings
and publish them as a second volume of Human,
Ail-too Human. Perhaps, if surveyed together, they
will more clearly and effectively teach their lesson—
a lesson of health that may be recommended as a
disciplina voluntatis to the more intellectual natures
of the rising generation. Here speaks a pessimist
who has often leaped out of his skin but has always
returned into it, thus, a pessimist with goodwill to-
wards pessimism—at all events a romanticist no
longer. And has not a pessimist, who possesses this
serpentine knack of changing his skin, the right to
read a lecture to our pessimists of to-day, who are
one and all still in the toils of romanticism? Or at
least to show them how it is—done?
- f/v It was then, in fact, high time to bid farewell, and
\ I soon received proof. Richard Wagner, who seemed
all-conquering, but was in reality only a decayed and
despairing romantic, suddenly collapsed, helpless
and broken, before the Christian Cross. . . . Was
there not a single German with eyes in his head and
sympathy in his heart for this appalling spectacle?
Was I the only one whom he caused—suffering?
In any case, the unexpected event illumined for me
in one lightning flash theplace that I had abandoned,
and also the horror that is felt by every one who is
unconscious of a great danger until he has passed
## p. 5 (#23) ###############################################
PREFACE.
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer- 7
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his “good taste"? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination ?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, “a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism,” and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into “general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist-do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace
## p. 6 (#24) ###############################################
PREFACE.
was in the expectation of the coming of a musician
bold, subtle, malignant, southern, healthy enough to
take an immortal revenge upon that other music.
Lonely now and miserably self-distrustful, I took
sides, not without resentment, against myself and
for everything that hurt me and was hard to me.
Thus I once more found the way to that courageous
pessimism that is the antithesis of all romantic fraud,
and, as it seems to me to-day, the way to " myself,"
to my task. That hidden masterful Something, for
which we long have no name until at last it shows
itself as our task—that tyrant in us exacts a terrible
price for every attempt that we make to escape him
or give him the slip, for every premature act of self-
constraint, for every reconciliation with those to
whom we do not belong, for every activity, how-
ever reputable, which turns us aside from our main
purpose, yes, even for every virtue that would fain
protect us from the cruelty of our most individual
responsibility. "Disease " is always the answer when
we wish to have doubts of our rights to our own task,
when we begin to make it easier for ourselves in
any way. How strange and how terrible! It is our
very alleviations for which we have to make the
severest atonement! And if we want to return to
health, we have no choice left—we must load our-
selves more heavily than we were ever laden before.
J
5-
It was then that I learnt the hermitical habit of
## p. 7 (#25) ###############################################
PREFACE. 7
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer-
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his " good taste "? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, " a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism," and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into "general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist—do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace
## p. 7 (#26) ###############################################
PREFACE.
was in the expectation of the coming of a musician
bold, subtle, malignant, southern, healthy enough to
take an immortal revenge upon that other music.
Lonely now and miserably self-distrustful, I took
sides, not without resentment, against myself and
for everything that hurt me and was hard to me.
Thus I once more found the way to that courageous
pessimism that is the antithesis of all romantic fraud,
and, as it seems to me to-day, the way to “myself,"
to my task. That hidden masterful Something, for
which we long have no name until at last it shows
itself as our task—that tyrant in us exacts a terrible
price for every attempt that we make to escape him
or give him the slip, for every premature act of self-
constraint, for every reconciliation with those to
whom we do not belong, for every activity, how-
ever reputable, which turns us aside from our main
purpose, yes, even for every virtue that would fain
protect us from the cruelty of our most individual
responsibility. “Disease "is always the answer when
we wish to have doubts of our rights to our own task,
when we begin to make it easier for ourselves in
any way. How strange and how terrible! It is our
very alleviations for which we have to make the
severest atonement! And if we want to return to
health, we have no choice left-we must load our-
selves more heavily than we were ever laden before.
✓ 5.
It was then that I learnt the hermitical habit of
## p. 7 (#27) ###############################################
PREFACE.
speech acquired only by the most silent and suffer--
ing. I spoke without witnesses, or rather indifferent
to the presence of witnesses, so as not to suffer from
silence, I spoke of various things that did not con-
cern me in a style that gave the impression that
they did. Then, too, I learnt the art of showing my-
self cheerful, objective, inquisitive in the presence
of all that is healthy and evil—is this, in an invalid,
as it seems to me, his “good taste"? Nevertheless,
a more subtle eye and sympathy will not miss what
perhaps gives a charm to these writings—the fact
that here speaks one who has suffered and abstained
in such a way as if he had never suffered or ab-
stained. Here equipoise, composure, even gratitude
towards life shall be maintained, here rules a stern,
proud, ever vigilant, ever susceptible will, which has
undertaken the task of defending life against pain
and snapping off all conclusions that are wont to
grow like poisonous fungi from pain, disappoint-
ment, satiety, isolation and other morasses. Perhaps
this gives our pessimists a hint to self-examination ?
For it was then that I hit upon the aphorism, “a
sufferer has as yet no right to pessimism,” and that
I engaged in a tedious, patient campaign against
the unscientific first principles of all romantic pes-
simism, which seeks to magnify and interpret in-
dividual, personal experiences into “general judg-
ments," universal condemnations—it was then, in
short, that I sighted a new world. Optimism for
the sake of restitution, in order at some time to
have the right to become a pessimist-do you under-
stand that? Just as a physician transfers his patient
to totally strange surroundings, in order to displace
## p. 8 (#28) ###############################################
8 FREFACE.
him from his entire "past," his troubles, friends,
letters, duties, stupid mistakes and painful memories,
and teaches him to stretch out hands and senses to-
wards new nourishment, a new sun, a new future:
so I, as physician and invalid in one, forced myself
into an utterly different and untried zone of the
soul, and particularly into an absorbing journey
to a strange land, a strange atmosphere, into a
curiosity for all that was strange. A long process
of roaming, seeking, changing followed, a distaste for
fixity of any kind—a dislike for clumsy affirmation
and negation: and at the same time a dietary and
discipline which aimed at making it as easy as pos-
sible for the soul to fly high, and above all con-
stantly to fly away. In fact a minimum of life, an
unfettering from all coarser forms of sensuality, an
independence in the midst of all marks of outward
disfavour, together with the pride in being able to
live in the midst of all this disfavour: a little cyni-
cism perhaps, a little of the "tub of Diogenes," a
good deal of whimsical happiness, whimsical gaiety,
much calm, light, subtle folly, hidden enthusiasm—
all this produced in the end a great spiritual
strengthening, a growing joy and exuberance of
health. Life itself rewards us for our tenacious will
to life, for such a long war as I waged against the
pessimistic weariness of life, even for every observ-
ant glance of our gratitude, glances that do not
miss the smallest, most delicate, most fugitive
gifts. . . . In the end we receive Life's great gifts,
perhaps the greatest it can bestow—we regain our
task.
## p. 9 (#29) ###############################################
PREFACE. 9
6.
Should my experience—the history of an illness
and a convalescence, for it resulted in a convalescence ,'
—be only my personal experience? and merely just
my "Human, All-too-human"? To-day I would
fain believe the reverse, for I am becoming more and
more confident that my books of travel were not
penned for my sole benefit, as appeared for a time to
be the case. May I, after six years of growing assur-
ance, send them once more on a journey for an ex-
periment? —May I commend them particularly to
the ears and hearts of those who are afflicted with
some sort of a "past," and have enough intellect left
to suffer even intellectually from their past? But
above all would I commend them to you whose
burden is heaviest, you choice spirits, most encom-
passed with perils, most intellectual, most courage-
ous, who must be the conscience of the modern soul
and as such be versed in its science: * in whom is
concentrated all of disease, poison or danger that
can exist to-day: whose lot decrees that you must
be more sick than any individual because you are not
"mere individuals ": whose consolation it is to know
and, ah! to walk the path to a new health, a health
of to-morrow and the day after: you men of destiny,
triumphant, conquerors of time, the healthiest and
the strongest, you good Europeans!
7-
To express finally in a single formula my op-
* It has been attempted to render the play on " Gewissen"
and "Wissen. "—Tr.
## p. 10 (#30) ##############################################
IO PREFACE.
position to the romantic pessimism of the abstinent,
the unfortunate, the conquered: there is a will to
the tragic and to pessimism, which is a sign as
much of the severity as of the strength of the in-
tellect (taste, emotion, conscience). With this will
in our hearts we do not fear, but we investigate our-
selves the terrible and the problematical elements
characteristic of all existence. Behind such a will
stand courage and pride and the desire for a really
great enemy. That was my pessimistic outlook
from the first—a new outlook, methinks, an outlook
that even at this day is new and strange? To this
moment I hold to it firmly and (if it will be believed)
not only for myself but occasionally against my-
self. . . . You would prefer to have that proved
first? Well, what else does all this long preface—
prove? '
Sils-Maria, Upper Engadine,
September, 1886.
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HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN,
PART 1.
MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND
OPINIONS.
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I.
To the Disillusioned in Philosophy. —If you
hitherto believed in the highest value of life and
now find yourselves disillusioned, must you im-
mediately get rid of life at the lowest possible
price?
2.
Overnice. —One can even become overnice as
regards the clearness of concepts. How disgusted
one is then at having truck with the half-clear, the
hazy, the aspiring, the doubting! How ridiculous
and yet not mirth-provoking is their eternal flutter-
ing and straining without ever being able to fly or
to grasp!
The Wooers of Reality. —He who realises
at last how long and how thoroughly he has been
befooled, embraces out of spite even the ugliest
reality. So that in the long run of the world's
history the best men have always been wooers of
reality, for the best have always been longest and
most thoroughly deceived.
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14 HUMAN, ALL-TOO-HUMAN.
4-
Advance of Freethinking. —The difference
between past and present freethinking cannot better
be characterised than by that aphorism for the recog-
nition and expression of which all the fearlessness of
the eighteenth century was needed, and which even
then, if measured by our modern view, sinks into an
unconscious na'ivete\ I mean Voltaire's aphorism,
"croyez-moi, mon ami, l'erreur aussi a son merite. "
5-
A Hereditary Sin of Philosophers. —Philo-
sophers have at all times appropriated and corrupted
the maxims of censors of men (moralists), by taking
them over without qualification and trying to prove
as necessary what the moralists only meant as a
rough indication or as a truth suited to their fellow-
countrymen or fellow-townsmen for a single decade.
Moreover, the philosophers thought that they were
thereby raising themselves above the moralists!
Thus it will be found that the celebrated teachings
of Schopenhauer as to the supremacy of the will
over the intellect, of the immutability of character,
the negativity of pleasure—all errors, in the sense
in which he understands them—rest upon principles
of popular wisdom enunciated by the moralists.
Take the very word "will," which Schopenhauer
twisted so as to become a common denotation of
several human conditions and with which he filled
a gap in the language (to his own great advantage,
in so far as he was a moralist, for he became free to
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MISCELLANEOUS MAXIMS AND OPINIONS. 15
speak of the will as Pascal had spoken of it). In
the hands of its creator, Schopenhauer's "will,"
through the philosophic craze for generalisation,
already turned out to be a bane to knowledge. For
this will was made into a poetic metaphor, when it
was held that all things in nature possess will.
Finally, that it might be applied to all kinds of
disordered mysticism, the word was misused by a
fraudulent convention. So now all our fashionable
philosophers repeat it and seem to be perfectly
certain that all things have a will and are in fact
One Will. According to the description generally
given of this All-One-Will, this is much as if one
should positively try to have the stupid Devil for
one's God.
Against Visionaries. —The visionary denies
the truth to himself, the liar only to others.
Enmity TO Light. —If we make it clear to any
one that, strictly, he can never speak of truth, but
only of probability and of its degrees, we generally
discover, from the undisguised joy of our pupil,
how greatly men prefer the uncertainty of their in-
tellectual horizon, and how in their heart of hearts
they hate truth because of its definiteness.
