Art
thou a representative or the thing represented, itself?
thou a representative or the thing represented, itself?
Nietzsche - v16 - Twilight of the Idols
For
such a man it will be quite difficult enough to regard
the questions raised in this work as actual problems.
Once, however, he has succeeded in doing this, and
has given his imagination time to play round these
questions as problems, the particular turn or twist
that Nietzsche gives to their elucidation, may then
perhaps strike him, not only as valuable, but as
absolutely necessary.
With regard to the substance of The Twilight of
the Idols, Nietzsche says in Ecce Homo (p. 119):
“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. ”
And what are these truths? They are things that
are not yet held to be true. They are the utterances
of a man who, as a single exception, escaped for a
a
## p. x (#12) ###############################################
X
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
while the general insanity of Europe, with its blind
idealism in the midst of squalor, with its unscrupu-
lous praise of so-called “Progress” while it stood
knee-deep in the belittlement of “Man,” and with
its vulgar levity in the face of effeminacy and decay;
—they are the utterances of one who voiced the
hopes, the aims, and the realities of another world,
not of an ideal world, not of a world beyond, but
of a real world, of this world regenerated and re-
organised upon a sounder, a more virile, and a more
orderly basis,-in fact, of a perfectly possible world,
one that has already existed in the past, and could
exist again, if only the stupendous revolution of a
transvaluation of all values were made possible.
This then is the nature of the truths uttered by
this one sane man in the whole of Europe at the end
of last century; and when, owing to his unequal
struggle against the overwhelming hostile forces of
his time, his highly sensitive personality was at last
forced to surrender itself to the enemy and become
one with them—that is to say, insane! —at least the
record of his sanity had been safely stored away,
beyond the reach of time and change, in the volumes
which constitute his life-work.
-
*
*
*
*
Nietzsche must have started upon the “Anti-
christ," immediately after having dispatched the
“ Idle Hours of a Psychologist” to the printers, and
the work appears to have been finished at the end
of September 1888. It was intended by Nietzsche
to form the first book of a large work entitled “The
Transvaluation of all Values”; but, though this
work was never completed, we can form some idea
## p. xi (#13) ##############################################
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
xi
from the substance of the “ Antichrist” and from
the titles of the remaining three books, which alas!
were never written, of what its contents would have
been. These titles are:- Book II.
Book II. The Free
Spirit. A Criticism of Philosophy as a Nihilistic
Movement. Book III. The Immoralist. A Criti-
cism of the most Fatal Kind of Ignorance,
Morality. Book IV. Dionysus. The Philosophy
of Eternal Recurrence.
Nietzsche calls this book “An Attempted Criti-
cism of Christianity. ” Modest as this sub-title is,
it will probably seem not quite modest enough to
those who think that Nietzsche fell far short of
doing justice to their Holy Creed. Be this as it
may, there is the solution of a certain profound
problem in this book, which, while it is the key to
all Nietzscheism, is also the justification and the
sanctification of Nietzsche's cause. The problem
stated quite plainly is this : “To what end did
Christianity avail itself of falsehood ? ”
Many readers of this amazing little work, who
happen to be acquainted with Nietzsche's doctrine
of Art and of Ruling, will probably feel slightly
confused at the constant deprecation of falsehood,
of deception, and of arbitrary make-believe, which
seems to run through this book like a litany in
praise of a certain Absolute Truth.
Remembering Nietzsche's utterance in volume
ii. (p. 26) of the Will to Power, to wit:-“The pre-
requisite of all living things and of their lives is :
that there should be a large amount of faith, that it
should be possible to pass definite judgments on
things, and that there should be no doubt at all con-
1
## p. xii (#14) #############################################
xii
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
1
cerning values. Thus it is necessary that something
should be assumed to be true, not that it is true ;”
remembering these words, as I say, the reader may
I
stand somewhat aghast before all those passages in
the second half of this volume, where the very
false-
hoods of Christianity, its assumptions, its unwarrant-
able claims to Truth, are declared to be pernicious,
base and corrupt.
Again and again, if we commit the error of sup-
posing that Nietzsche believed in a truth that was
absolute, we shall find throughout his works reasons
for charging him with apparently the very same
crimes that he here lays at the door of Christianity.
What then is the explanation of his seeming incon-
sistency?
It is simple enough. Nietzsche's charge of false-
hood against Christianity is not a moral one,-in
fact it may be taken as a general rule that Nietzsche
scrupulously avoids making moral charges, and that
heremains throughout faithful to his position Beyond
Good and Evil (see, for instance Aph. 6 (Antichrist)
where he repudiates all moral prejudice in charging
humanity with corruption). A man who maintained
that “truth is that form of error which enables a
particular species to prevail,” could not make a moral
charge of falsehood against any one, or any institu-
tion ; but he could do so from another standpoint.
He could well say, for instance, “ falsehood is that
kind of error which causes a particular species to
degenerate and to decay. "
Thus the fact that Christianity “lied ” becomes a
subject of alarm to Nietzsche, not owing to the fact
that it is immoral to lie, but because in this particular
## p. xiii (#15) ############################################
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
xiii
instance, the lie was harmful, hostile to life, and
dangerous to humanity; for “a belief might be false
and yet life-preserving” (Beyond Good and Evil,
pp. 8, 9).
Suppose, therefore, we say with Nietzsche that
there is no absolute truth, but that all that has been
true in the past which has been the means of making
the "plant man flourish best”-or, since the meaning
of“ best ”is open to some debate, let us say, flourish
in a Nietzschean sense, that is to say, thanks to a
mastery of life, and to a preponderance of all those
qualities which say yea to existence, and which
suggest no flight from this world and all its pleasure
and pain. And suppose we add that, wherever we
may find the plant man flourishing, in this sense,
we should there suspect the existence of truth? —
If we say this with Nietzsche, any sort of assumption
or arbitrary valuation which aims at a reverse order
of things, becomes a dangerous lie in a super-moral
and purely physiological sense.
With these preparatory remarks we are now pre-
pared to read aphorism 56 with a complete under-
standing of what Nietzsche means, and to recognise
in this particular aphorism the key to the whole of
Nietzsche's attitude towards Christianity. It is at
once a solution of our problem, and a justification
of its author's position. Naturally, it still remains
open to Nietzsche's opponents to argue, if they
choose, that man has flourished best under the sway
of nihilistic religions—religions which deny life,-
and that consequently the falsehoods of Christianity
are not only warrantable but also in the highest
degree blessed; but in any case, the aphorism in
## p. xiv (#16) #############################################
xiy
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
question completely exonerates Nietzsche from a
charge of inconsistency in the use of the terms
“truth” and “falsehood” throughout his works,
and it moreover settles once and for all the exact
altitude from which our author looked down upon
the religions of the world, not only to criticise them,
but also to place them in the order of their merit as
disciplinary systems aiming at the cultivation of
particular types of men.
Nietzsche
says in aphorism 56:—“After all, the
question is, to what end are falsehoods perpetrated ?
The fact that, in Christianity, 'holy' ends are
entirely absent, constitutes my objection to the
means it employs. Its ends are only bad ends :
the poisoning, the calumniation and the denial of
life, the contempt of the body, the degradation and
self-pollution of man by virtue of the concept sin,-
consequently its means are bad as well. ”
Thus, to repeat it once more, it is not because
Christianity availed itself of all kinds of lies that
Nietzsche condemns it; for the Book of Manu-
which he admires—is just as full of falsehood as
the Semitic Book of Laws; but, in the Book of
Manu the lies are calculated to preserve and to
create a strong and noble type of man, whereas in
Christianity the opposite type was the aim,-
-an aim
which has been achieved in a manner far exceeding
even the expectations of the faithful.
This then is the main argument of the book and
its conclusion ; but, in the course of the general
elaboration of this argument, many important side-
issues are touched upon and developed, wherein
Nietzsche reveals himself as something very much
## p. xv (#17) ##############################################
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
XV
more valuable than a mere iconoclast. Of course,
on every page of his philosophy, — whatever his
enemies may maintain to the contrary,—he never
once ceases to construct, since he is incessantly
enumerating and emphasising those qualities and
types which he fain would rear, as against those he
fain would see destroyed ; but it is in aphorism 57
of this book that Nietzsche makes the plainest and
most complete statement of his actual taste in
Sociology, and it is upon this aphorism that all his
followers and disciples will ultimately have to
build, if Nietzscheism is ever to become something
more than a merely intellectual movement.
ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.
## p. xvi (#18) #############################################
## p. xvii (#19) ############################################
1
PREFACE
-
a
-
To maintain a cheerful attitude of mind in the midst
of a gloomy and exceedingly responsible task, is no
slight artistic feat. And yet, what could be more
necessary than cheerfulness? Nothing ever succeeds
which exuberant spirits have not helped to produce.
Surplus power, alone, is the proof of power. —A
transvaluation of all values,—this note of interroga-
tion which is so black, so huge, that it casts a shadow
even upon him who affixes it,-is a task of such
fatal import, that he who undertakes it is compelled
every now and then to rush out into the sunlight
in order to shake himself free from an earnestness
that becomes crushing, far too crushing. This end
justifies every means, every event on the road to it
is a windfall. Above all war. War has always
been the great policy of all spirits who have pene-
trated too far into themselves or who have grown
too deep; a wound stimulates the recuperative
powers. For many years, a maxim, the origin of
which I withhold from learned curiosity, has been
my motto:
increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus.
At other times another means of recovery which
is even more to my taste, is to cross-examine idols.
There are more idols than realities in the world :
xvii
## p. xviii (#20) ###########################################
xviii
PREFACE
this constitutes my "evil eye” for this world : it is
also my “evil ear. ” To put questions in this quarter
with a hammer, and to hear perchance that well-
known hollow sound which tells of blown-out frogs,
—what a joy this is for one who has ears even behind
his ears, for an old psychologist and Pied Piper like
myself in whose presence precisely that which would
fain be silent, must betray itself.
Even this treatise—as its title shows/is above all
a recreation, a ray of sunshine, a leap sideways of
a psychologist in his leisure moments. Maybe, too,
a new war?
And are we again cross-examining
new idols? This little work is a great declaration
of war ; and with regard to the cross-examining of
idols, this time it is not the idols of the age but
eternal idols which are here struck with a hammer
as with a tuning fork,—there are certainly no idols
which are older, more convinced, and more inflated.
Neither are there any more hollow. This does not
alter the fact that they are believed in more than
any others, besides they are never called idols,-at
least, not the most exalted among their number.
ܪ
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.
Turin, the 30th September 1888,
on the day when the first
book of the Transvaluation
of all Values was finished
## p. 1 (#21) ###############################################
MAXIMS AND MISSILES
I
IDLENESS is the parent of all psychology. What? ?
Is psychology then a-vice?
2
Even the pluckiest among us has but seldom the
courage of what he really knows.
3
Aristotle says that in order to live alone, a man
must be either an animal or a god. The third alter-
native is lacking: a man must be both—a philo-
sopher.
4
“ All truth is simple. ”—Is not this a double lie?
5
Once for all I wish to be blind to many things
-Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.
6
A man recovers best from his exceptional nature
- his intellectuality—by giving his animal instincts
a chance.
I
## p. 2 (#22) ###############################################
2
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
2
7
Which is it? Is man only a blunder of God? Or
is God only a blunder of man?
8
From the military school of life. That which does
not kill me, makes me stronger.
9
Help thyself, then everyone will help thee. A
principle of neighbour-love.
IO
A man should not play the coward to his deeds.
He should not repudiate them once he has performed
them. Pangs of conscience are indecent.
II
Can a donkey be tragic? —To perish beneath a
load that one can neither bear nor throw off? This
is the case of the Philosopher.
I2
If a man knows the wherefore of his existence,
then the manner of it can take care of itself. Man
does not aspire to happiness; only the Englishman
does that.
13
Man created woman-out of what? Out of a rib
of his god,- of his “ideal. ”
14
What? Art thou looking for something? Thou
## p. 3 (#23) ###############################################
MAXIMS AND MISSILES
3
wouldst fain multiply thyself tenfold, a hundredfold?
Thou seekest followers ? Seek ciphers !
11
i
15
Posthumous men, like myself, are not so well
understood as men who reflect their age, but they
are heard with more respect. In plain English: we
are never understood-hence our authority.
16
Among women. —“Truth? Oh, you do not know
truth! Is it not an outrage on all our pudeurs ? ”–
17
There is an artist after my own heart, modest in
his needs: he really wants only two things, his bread
and his art-panem et Circen.
18
He who knows not how to plant his will in things
at least endows them with some meaning : that is
to say, he believes that a will is already present in
them. (A principle of faith. )
19
What? Ye chose virtue and the heaving breast,
and at the same time ye squint covetously at the
advantages of the unscrupulous. —But with virtue
ye renounce all “ advantages" (to be nailed to
an Antisemite's door).
20
The perfect woman perpetrates literature as if it
were a petty vice : as an experiment, en passant,
.
## p. 4 (#24) ###############################################
4
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
and looking about her all the while to see whether
anybody is noticing her, hoping that somebody is
noticing her.
21
One should adopt only those situations in which
one is in no need of sham virtues, but rather, like
the tight-rope dancer on his tight rope, in which one
must either fall or stand—or escape.
22
“Evil men have no songs. ”*_How is it that the
Russians have songs ?
23
“German intellect”; for eighteen years this has
been a contradictio in adjecto.
.
· 24
By seeking the beginnings of things, a man be-
comes a crab. The historian looks backwards : in
the end he also believes backwards.
* This is a reference to Seume's poem “ Die Gesänge," the
first verse of which is :
“Wo man singet, lass dich ruhig nieder,
Ohne Furcht, was man im Lande glaubt ;
Wo man singet, wird kein Mensch beraubt:
Bösewichter haten keine Lieder. "
(Wherever people sing thou canst safely settle down with-
out a qualm as to what the general faith of the land may be.
Wherever people sing, no man is ever robbed ; rascals have
no songs. ) Popular tradition, however, renders the lines
thus :-
“Wo man singt, da lass dich ruhig nieder;
Böse Menschen (evil men) haben keine Lieder. "
-TR.
## p. 5 (#25) ###############################################
MAXIMS AND MISSILES
5
25
Contentment preserves one even from catching
cold. Has a woman who knew that she was well-
dressed ever caught cold ? —No, not even when
she had scarcely a rag to her back.
26
I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. The
will to a system, shows a lack of honesty.
!
27
Man thinks woman profound—why? Because he
?
can never fathom her depths. Woman is not even
shallow.
28
When woman possesses masculine virtues, she is
enough to make you run away. When she possesses
no masculine virtues, she herself runs away.
29
“ How often conscience had to bite in times gone
by! !
What good teeth it must have had! And to-
day, what is amiss ? "-A dentist's question
30
Errors of haste are seldom committed singly. The
first time a man always does too much. And pre-
cisely on that account he commits a second error,
and then he does too little.
31
The trodden worm curls up. This testifies to its
caution. It thus reduces its chances of being trod-
## p. 6 (#26) ###############################################
6
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
den upon again. In the language of morality:
Humility. —
32
There is such a thing as a hatred of lies and dis-
simulation, which is the outcome of a delicate sense
of humour; there is also the selfsame hatred but as
the result of cowardice, in so far as falsehood is for-
bidden by Divine law. Too cowardly to lie. . .
a
a
33
What trifles constitute happiness! The sound of
a bagpipe. Without music life would be a mistake.
The German imagines even God as a songster.
34
On ne peut penser et écrire qu'assis (G. Flaubert).
Here I have got you, you nihilist! A sedentary
life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. Only
those thoughts that come by walking have any value.
35
There are times when we psychologists are like
horses, and grow fretful. We see our own shadow
,
rise and fall before us. The psychologist must look
away from himself if he wishes to see anything at all.
36
Do we immoralists injure virtue in any way? Just
as little as the anarchists injure royalty. Only since
they have been shot at do princes sit firmly on their
thrones once more. Moral : morality must be shot at.
## p. 7 (#27) ###############################################
MAXIMS AND MISSILES
7
37
Thou runnest ahead ? -Dost thou do so. as a
shepherd or as an exception? A third alternative
would be the fugitive. . . First question of con-
science.
38
Art thou genuine or art thou only an actor?
Art
thou a representative or the thing represented, itself?
Finally, art thou perhaps simply a copy of an actor?
Second question of conscience.
39
The disappointed man speaks :- I sought for great
men, but all I found were the apes of their ideal.
40
Art thou one who looks on, or one who puts his
own shoulder to the wheel ? Or art thou one who
looks away, or who turns aside? . . . Third question
of conscience.
41
.
Wilt thou go in company, or lead, or go by thy-
self? . . . A man should know what he desires, and
that he desires something. –Fourth question of con-
science.
42
They were but rungs in my ladder, on them I made
my ascent :-to that end I had to go beyond them.
But they imagined that I wanted to lay myself to
rest upon them.
## p. 8 (#28) ###############################################
8
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
43
What matters it whether I am acknowledged to
be right! I am much too right. And he who laughs
best to-day, will also laugh last.
44
The formula of my happiness: a Yea, a Nay, a
straight line, a goal. . . .
## p. 9 (#29) ###############################################
THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES
I
In all ages the wisest have always agreed in their
judgment of life: it is no good. At all times and
places the same words have been on their lips,-
words full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weari-
ness of life, full of hostility to life. Even Socrates'
dying words were :—“To live—means to be ill a
long while: I owe a cock to the god Æsculapius. "
Even Socrates had had enough of it. What does
that prove? What does it point to? Formerly
people would have said (-oh, it has been said, and
loudly enough too; by our Pessimists loudest of
all! ): “In any case there must be some truth in
this! The consensus sapientium is a proo. of truth. ”
-Shall we say the same to-day? May we do so?
“In any case there must be some sickness here," we
make reply. These great sages of all periods should
first be examined more closely! Is it possible that
they were, everyone of them, a little shaky on their
legs, effete, rocky, decadent? Does wisdom perhaps
appear on earth after the manner of a crow attracted
by a slight smell of carrion?
2
This irreverent belief that the great sages were
decadent types, first occurred to me precisely in
regard to that case concerning which both learned
9
## p. 10 (#30) ##############################################
10
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
and vulgar prejudice was most opposed to my view.
I recognised Socrates and Plato as symptoms of de-
cline, as instruments in the disintegration of Hellas,
as pseudo-Greek, as anti-Greek (“ The Birth of
Tragedy,” 1872). That consensus sapientium, as I
perceived ever more and more clearly, did not in
the least prove that they were right in the matter on
which they agreed. It proved rather that these sages
themselves must have been alike in some physiologi-
cal particular, in order to assume the same negative
attitude towards life—in order to be bound to assume
that attitude. After all, judgments and valuations
of life, whether for or against, cannot be true: their
only value lies in the fact that they are symptoms;
they can be considered only as symptoms,-per se
such judgments are nonsense. You must therefore
endeavour by all means to reach out and try to grasp
this astonishingly subtle axiom, that the value of life
cannot be estimated. A living man cannot do so,
because he is a contending party, or rather the very
object in the dispute, and not a judge; nor can a
dead man estimate it-for other reasons.
philosopher to see a problem in the value of life, is
almost an objection against him, a note of interro-
gation set against his wisdom-a lack of wisdom.
What? Is it possible that all these great sages were
not only decadents, but that they were not even
wise? Let me however return to the problem of
Socrates.
3
To judge from his origin, Socrates belonged to
the lowest of the low: Socrates was mob. You
know, and you can still see it for yourself, how ugly
For a
## p. 11 (#31) ##############################################
THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES
11
he was.
But ugliness, which in itself is an objec-
tion, was almost a refutation among the Greeks.
Was Socrates really a Greek? Ugliness is not infre-
quently the expression of thwarted development, or
of development arrested by crossing. In other cases
it
appears as a decadent development. The anthro-
pologists among the criminal specialists declare that
the typical criminal is ugly: monstrum in fronte,
monstrum in animo. But the criminal is a decadent. *
Was Socrates a typical criminal ? --At all events this
would not clash with that famous physiognomist's
judgment which was so repugnant to Socrates
friends. While on his way through Athens a cer-
tain foreigner who was no fool at judging by looks,
told Socrates to his face that he was a monster, that
his body harboured all the worst vices and passions.
And Socrates replied simply: “You know me
sir ! "-
4 4
Not only are the acknowledged wildness and
anarchy of Socrates' instincts indicativeof decadence,
but also that preponderance of the logical faculties
and that malignity of the mis-shapen which was
his special characteristic. Neither should we forget
those aural delusions which were religiously inter-
preted as “the demon of Socrates. ” Everything in
him is exaggerated, buffo, caricature, his nature is
also full of concealment, of ulterior motives, and
* It should be borne in mind that Nietzsche recognised two
types of criminals,-the criminal from strength, and the
criminal from weakness. This passage alludes to the latter,
Aphorism 45, p. 103, alludes to the former. - TR.
## p. 12 (#32) ##############################################
12
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
=
of underground currents. I try to understand the
idiosyncrasy from which the Socratic equation
Reason=Virtue Happiness, could have arisen:
the weirdest equation ever seen, and one which was
essentially opposed to all the instincts of the older
Hellenes.
5
With Socrates Greek taste veers round in favour
of dialectics : what actually occurs? In the first
place a noble taste is vanquished: with dialectics
the mob comes to the top. Before Socrates' time,
dialectical manners were avoided in good society:
they were regarded as bad manners, they were com-
promising. Young men were cautioned against
them. All such proffering of one's reasons was
looked upon with suspicion. Honest things like
honest men do not carry their reasons on their sleeve
in such fashion. It is not good form to make a
show of everything. That which needs to be proved
cannot be worth much. Wherever authority still
belongs to good usage, wherever men do not prove
but command, the dialectician is regarded as a sort
of clown. People laugh at him, they do not take
him seriously. Socrates was a clown who succeeded
in making men take him seriously: what then was
the matter?
6
A man resorts to dialectics only when he has no
other means to hand. People know that they excite
suspicion with it and that it is not very convincing.
Nothing is more easily dispelled than a dialectical
effect: this is proved by the experience of every
## p. 13 (#33) ##############################################
THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES
13
gathering in which discussions are held. It can be
only the last defence of those who have no other
weapons. One must require to extort one's right,
.
otherwise one makes no use of it. That is why the
Jews were dialecticians. Reynard the Fox was a
dialectician : what? —and was Socrates one as well?
7
Is the Socratic irony an expression of revolt, of
mob resentment? Does Socrates, as a creature
suffering under oppression, enjoy his innate ferocity
in the knife-thrusts of the syllogism? Does he wreak
his revenge on the noblemen he fascinates ? -As a
dialectician a man has a merciless instrument to
wield; he can play the tyrant with it: he compro-
mises when he conquers with it. The dialectician
leaves it to his opponent to prove that he is no idiot :
he infuriates, he likewise paralyses. The dialectician
cripples the intellect of his opponent. Can it be that
dialectics was only a form of revenge in Socrates ?
8
I have given you to understand in what way
Socrates was able to repel : now it is all the more
necessary to explain how he fascinated. -One reason
is that he discovered a new kind of Agon, and that
he was the first fencing-master in the best circles in
Athens. He fascinated by appealing to the com-
bative instinct of the Greeks,-he introduced a
variation into the contests between men and youths.
Socrates was also a great erotic.
## p. 14 (#34) ##############################################
14
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
9
But Socrates divined still more. He saw right
through his noble Athenians; he perceived that his
case, his peculiar case, was no exception even in his
time. The same kind of degeneracy was silently
preparing itself everywhere: ancient Athens was
dying out. And Socrates understood that the whole
world needed him,-his means, his remedy, his
special artifice for self-preservation. Everywhere
the instincts were in a state of anarchy ; everywhere
people were within an ace of excess: the monstrum
in animo was the general danger. “The instincts
would play the tyrant; we must discover a counter-
tyrant who is stronger than they. ” On the occasion
when that physiognomist had unmasked Socrates,
and had told him what he was—a crater full of evil
desires, the great Master of Irony let fall one or two
words more, which provide the key to his nature.
“This is true,” he said, " but I overcame them all. ”
How did Socrates succeed in mastering himself?
His case was at bottom only the extreme and most
apparent example of a state of distress which was
beginning to be general : that state in which no one
was able to master himself and in which the instincts
turned one against the other. As the extreme
example of this state, he fascinated—his terrifying
ugliness made him conspicuous to every eye: it is
quite obvious that he fascinated still more as a reply,
as a solution, as an apparent cure of this case.
IO
When a man finds it necessary, as Socrates did,
to create a tyrant out of reason, there is no small
## p. 15 (#35) ##############################################
THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES
15
»
danger that something else wishes to play the tyrant.
Reason was then discovered as a saviour; neither
Socrates nor his “patients” were at liberty to be
rational or not, as they pleased ; at that time it was
de rigueur, it had become a last shift. The fanaticism
with which the whole of Greek thought plunges into
reason, betrays a critical condition of things : men
were in danger; there were only two alternatives :
either perish or else be absurdly rational. The moral
bias of Greek philosophy from Plato onward, is the
outcome of a pathological condition, as is also its
appreciation of dialectics. Reason=Virtue=Happi-
ness, simply means: we must imitate Socrates, and
confront the dark passions permanently with the
light of day—the light of reason. We must at all
costs be clever, precise, clear: all yielding to the
instincts, to the unconscious, leads downwards.
II
I have now explained how Socrates fascinated :
he seemed to be a doctor, a Saviour. Is it necessary
to expose the errors which lay in his faith in “reason
at any price"? - It is a piece of self-deception on the
part of philosophers and moralists to suppose that
they can extricate themselves from degeneration
by merely waging war upon it. They cannot thus
extricate themselves : that which they choose as a
means, as the road to salvation, is in itself again only
an expression of degeneration—they only modify its
mode of manifesting itself: they do not abolish it.
Socrates was a misunderstanding. The whole of the
morality of amelioration—that of Christianity as well
-was a misunderstanding. The most blinding light
## p. 16 (#36) ##############################################
16
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
of day: reason at any price; life made clear, cold,
cautious, conscious, without instincts, opposed to the
instincts, was in itself only a disease, another kind of
disease—and by no means a return to “virtue,” to
“ health,” and to happiness. To be obliged to fight
the instincts—this is the formula of degeneration :
as long as life is in the ascending line, happiness is
the same as instinct.
12
-Did he understand this himself, this most in-
telligent of self-deceivers ? Did he confess this to
himself in the end, in the wisdom of his courage be-
fore death. Socrates wished to die. Not Athens,
but his own hand gave him the draught of hemlock;
he drove Athens to the poisoned cup. “ Socrates is
not a doctor," he whispered to himself,“ death alone
can be a doctor here. Socrates himself has only
been ill a long while. "
a
## p. 17 (#37) ##############################################
“REASON” IN PHILOSOPHY
I
You ask me what all idiosyncrasy is in philosophers?
. . . For instance their lack of the historical sense,
their hatred even of theidea of Becoming, their Egyp-
tianism. They imagine that they do honour to a
thing by divorcing it from history sub specie æterni,-
when they make a mummy of it. All the ideas that
philosophers have treated for thousands of years,
have been mummied concepts; nothing real has
ever come out of their hands alive. These idolaters
of concepts merely kill and stuff things when they
worship,—they threaten the life of everything they
adore. Death, change, age, as well as procreation
and growth, are in their opinion objections, even re-
futations. That which is cannot evolve; that which
evolves is not. Now all of them believe, and even
with desperation, in Being. But, as they cannot lay
hold of it, they try to discover reasons why this
privilege is withheld from them. “ Some merely
apparent quality, some deception must be the cause
of our not being able to ascertain the nature of Being :
where is the deceiver? ” “We have him,” they cry
rejoicing, “it is sensuality! ” These senses, which
in other things are so immoral, cheat us concerning
the true world. Moral : we must get rid of the de-
ception of the senses, of Becoming, of history, of
-
2
17
## p. 18 (#38) ##############################################
18
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
falsehood. —History is nothing more than the belief
in the senses, the belief in falsehood. Moral: we
must
say "no" to everything in which the senses be-
lieve : to all the rest of mankind : all that belongs
to the “people. ” Let us be philosophers, mummies,
monotono-theists, grave-diggers ! And above all,
away with the body, this wretched idée fixe of the
senses, infected with all the faults of logic that exist,
refuted, even impossible, although it be impudent
enough to pose as if it were real !
2
With a feeling of great reverence I except the
name of Heraclitus. If the rest of the philosophic
gang rejected the evidences of the senses, because
the latter revealed a state of multifariousness and
change, he rejected the same evidence because it re-
vealed things as if they possessed permanence and
unity. Even Heraclitus did an injustice to the senses.
The latter lie neither as the Eleatics believed them
to lie, nor as he believed them to lie,—they do not
lie at all. The interpretations we give to their evi-
dence is what first introduces falsehood into it; for
instance the lie of unity, the lie of matter, of sub-
stance and of permanence. Reason is the cause of
our falsifying the evidence of the senses. In so far
as the senses show us a state of Becoming, of tran-
siency, and of change, they do not lie. But in de-
claring that Being was an empty illusion, Heraclitus
will remain eternally right. The “apparent” world
is the only world: the “true world” is no more than
a false adjunct thereto.
## p. 19 (#39) ##############################################
"REASON” IN PHILOSOPHY
19
3
And what delicate instruments of observation we
have in our senses! This human nose, for instance,
of which no philosopher has yet spoken with rever-
ence and gratitude, is, for the present, the most finely
adjusted instrument at our disposal : it is able to
register even such slight changes of movement as
the spectroscope would be unable to record. Our
scientific triumphs at the present day extend pre-
cisely so far as we have accepted the evidence of
our senses,—as we have sharpened and armed them,
and learned to follow them up to the end. What
remains is abortive and not yet science—that is to
say, metaphysics, theology, psychology, epistem-
ology, or formal science, or a doctrine of symbols,
like logic and its applied form mathematics. In all
these things reality does not come into consideration
at all, even as a problem ; just as little as does the
question concerning the general value of such a
convention of symbols as logic.
»
4
The other idiosyncrasy of philosophers is no less
dangerous; it consists in confusing the last and the
first things. They place that which makes its appear-
ance last-unfortunately! for it ought not to appear
at all. ! —the “highest concept,” that is to say, the
most general, the emptiest, the last cloudy streak of
evaporating reality, at the beginning as the begin-
ning. This again is only their manner of expressing
their veneration : the highest thing must not have
grown out of the lowest, it must not have grown at
all. . . . Moral: everything of the first rank must be
## p. 20 (#40) ##############################################
20
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
causa sui. To have been derived from something
else, is as good as an objection, it sets the value of a
thing in question. All superior values are of the first
rank, all the highest concepts—that of Being, of the
Absolute, of Goodness, of Truth, and of Perfection;
all these things cannot have been evolved, they must
therefore be causa sui. All these things cannot how-
ever be unlike one another, they cannot be opposed
to one another. Thus they attain to their stupend-
ous concept “God. ” The last, most attenuated and
emptiest thing is postulated as the first thing, as the
absolute cause, as ens realissimum. Fancy humanity
having to take the brain diseases of morbid cobweb-
spinners seriously! —And it has paid dearly for
having done so.
5
-Against this let us set the different manner in
which we (-you observe that I am courteous enough
to say “we”) conceive the problem of the error and
deceptiveness of things. Formerly people regarded
change and evolution in general as the proof of
appearance, as a sign of the fact that something
must be there that leads us astray.
such a man it will be quite difficult enough to regard
the questions raised in this work as actual problems.
Once, however, he has succeeded in doing this, and
has given his imagination time to play round these
questions as problems, the particular turn or twist
that Nietzsche gives to their elucidation, may then
perhaps strike him, not only as valuable, but as
absolutely necessary.
With regard to the substance of The Twilight of
the Idols, Nietzsche says in Ecce Homo (p. 119):
“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. ”
And what are these truths? They are things that
are not yet held to be true. They are the utterances
of a man who, as a single exception, escaped for a
a
## p. x (#12) ###############################################
X
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
while the general insanity of Europe, with its blind
idealism in the midst of squalor, with its unscrupu-
lous praise of so-called “Progress” while it stood
knee-deep in the belittlement of “Man,” and with
its vulgar levity in the face of effeminacy and decay;
—they are the utterances of one who voiced the
hopes, the aims, and the realities of another world,
not of an ideal world, not of a world beyond, but
of a real world, of this world regenerated and re-
organised upon a sounder, a more virile, and a more
orderly basis,-in fact, of a perfectly possible world,
one that has already existed in the past, and could
exist again, if only the stupendous revolution of a
transvaluation of all values were made possible.
This then is the nature of the truths uttered by
this one sane man in the whole of Europe at the end
of last century; and when, owing to his unequal
struggle against the overwhelming hostile forces of
his time, his highly sensitive personality was at last
forced to surrender itself to the enemy and become
one with them—that is to say, insane! —at least the
record of his sanity had been safely stored away,
beyond the reach of time and change, in the volumes
which constitute his life-work.
-
*
*
*
*
Nietzsche must have started upon the “Anti-
christ," immediately after having dispatched the
“ Idle Hours of a Psychologist” to the printers, and
the work appears to have been finished at the end
of September 1888. It was intended by Nietzsche
to form the first book of a large work entitled “The
Transvaluation of all Values”; but, though this
work was never completed, we can form some idea
## p. xi (#13) ##############################################
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
xi
from the substance of the “ Antichrist” and from
the titles of the remaining three books, which alas!
were never written, of what its contents would have
been. These titles are:- Book II.
Book II. The Free
Spirit. A Criticism of Philosophy as a Nihilistic
Movement. Book III. The Immoralist. A Criti-
cism of the most Fatal Kind of Ignorance,
Morality. Book IV. Dionysus. The Philosophy
of Eternal Recurrence.
Nietzsche calls this book “An Attempted Criti-
cism of Christianity. ” Modest as this sub-title is,
it will probably seem not quite modest enough to
those who think that Nietzsche fell far short of
doing justice to their Holy Creed. Be this as it
may, there is the solution of a certain profound
problem in this book, which, while it is the key to
all Nietzscheism, is also the justification and the
sanctification of Nietzsche's cause. The problem
stated quite plainly is this : “To what end did
Christianity avail itself of falsehood ? ”
Many readers of this amazing little work, who
happen to be acquainted with Nietzsche's doctrine
of Art and of Ruling, will probably feel slightly
confused at the constant deprecation of falsehood,
of deception, and of arbitrary make-believe, which
seems to run through this book like a litany in
praise of a certain Absolute Truth.
Remembering Nietzsche's utterance in volume
ii. (p. 26) of the Will to Power, to wit:-“The pre-
requisite of all living things and of their lives is :
that there should be a large amount of faith, that it
should be possible to pass definite judgments on
things, and that there should be no doubt at all con-
1
## p. xii (#14) #############################################
xii
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
1
cerning values. Thus it is necessary that something
should be assumed to be true, not that it is true ;”
remembering these words, as I say, the reader may
I
stand somewhat aghast before all those passages in
the second half of this volume, where the very
false-
hoods of Christianity, its assumptions, its unwarrant-
able claims to Truth, are declared to be pernicious,
base and corrupt.
Again and again, if we commit the error of sup-
posing that Nietzsche believed in a truth that was
absolute, we shall find throughout his works reasons
for charging him with apparently the very same
crimes that he here lays at the door of Christianity.
What then is the explanation of his seeming incon-
sistency?
It is simple enough. Nietzsche's charge of false-
hood against Christianity is not a moral one,-in
fact it may be taken as a general rule that Nietzsche
scrupulously avoids making moral charges, and that
heremains throughout faithful to his position Beyond
Good and Evil (see, for instance Aph. 6 (Antichrist)
where he repudiates all moral prejudice in charging
humanity with corruption). A man who maintained
that “truth is that form of error which enables a
particular species to prevail,” could not make a moral
charge of falsehood against any one, or any institu-
tion ; but he could do so from another standpoint.
He could well say, for instance, “ falsehood is that
kind of error which causes a particular species to
degenerate and to decay. "
Thus the fact that Christianity “lied ” becomes a
subject of alarm to Nietzsche, not owing to the fact
that it is immoral to lie, but because in this particular
## p. xiii (#15) ############################################
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
xiii
instance, the lie was harmful, hostile to life, and
dangerous to humanity; for “a belief might be false
and yet life-preserving” (Beyond Good and Evil,
pp. 8, 9).
Suppose, therefore, we say with Nietzsche that
there is no absolute truth, but that all that has been
true in the past which has been the means of making
the "plant man flourish best”-or, since the meaning
of“ best ”is open to some debate, let us say, flourish
in a Nietzschean sense, that is to say, thanks to a
mastery of life, and to a preponderance of all those
qualities which say yea to existence, and which
suggest no flight from this world and all its pleasure
and pain. And suppose we add that, wherever we
may find the plant man flourishing, in this sense,
we should there suspect the existence of truth? —
If we say this with Nietzsche, any sort of assumption
or arbitrary valuation which aims at a reverse order
of things, becomes a dangerous lie in a super-moral
and purely physiological sense.
With these preparatory remarks we are now pre-
pared to read aphorism 56 with a complete under-
standing of what Nietzsche means, and to recognise
in this particular aphorism the key to the whole of
Nietzsche's attitude towards Christianity. It is at
once a solution of our problem, and a justification
of its author's position. Naturally, it still remains
open to Nietzsche's opponents to argue, if they
choose, that man has flourished best under the sway
of nihilistic religions—religions which deny life,-
and that consequently the falsehoods of Christianity
are not only warrantable but also in the highest
degree blessed; but in any case, the aphorism in
## p. xiv (#16) #############################################
xiy
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
question completely exonerates Nietzsche from a
charge of inconsistency in the use of the terms
“truth” and “falsehood” throughout his works,
and it moreover settles once and for all the exact
altitude from which our author looked down upon
the religions of the world, not only to criticise them,
but also to place them in the order of their merit as
disciplinary systems aiming at the cultivation of
particular types of men.
Nietzsche
says in aphorism 56:—“After all, the
question is, to what end are falsehoods perpetrated ?
The fact that, in Christianity, 'holy' ends are
entirely absent, constitutes my objection to the
means it employs. Its ends are only bad ends :
the poisoning, the calumniation and the denial of
life, the contempt of the body, the degradation and
self-pollution of man by virtue of the concept sin,-
consequently its means are bad as well. ”
Thus, to repeat it once more, it is not because
Christianity availed itself of all kinds of lies that
Nietzsche condemns it; for the Book of Manu-
which he admires—is just as full of falsehood as
the Semitic Book of Laws; but, in the Book of
Manu the lies are calculated to preserve and to
create a strong and noble type of man, whereas in
Christianity the opposite type was the aim,-
-an aim
which has been achieved in a manner far exceeding
even the expectations of the faithful.
This then is the main argument of the book and
its conclusion ; but, in the course of the general
elaboration of this argument, many important side-
issues are touched upon and developed, wherein
Nietzsche reveals himself as something very much
## p. xv (#17) ##############################################
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE
XV
more valuable than a mere iconoclast. Of course,
on every page of his philosophy, — whatever his
enemies may maintain to the contrary,—he never
once ceases to construct, since he is incessantly
enumerating and emphasising those qualities and
types which he fain would rear, as against those he
fain would see destroyed ; but it is in aphorism 57
of this book that Nietzsche makes the plainest and
most complete statement of his actual taste in
Sociology, and it is upon this aphorism that all his
followers and disciples will ultimately have to
build, if Nietzscheism is ever to become something
more than a merely intellectual movement.
ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.
## p. xvi (#18) #############################################
## p. xvii (#19) ############################################
1
PREFACE
-
a
-
To maintain a cheerful attitude of mind in the midst
of a gloomy and exceedingly responsible task, is no
slight artistic feat. And yet, what could be more
necessary than cheerfulness? Nothing ever succeeds
which exuberant spirits have not helped to produce.
Surplus power, alone, is the proof of power. —A
transvaluation of all values,—this note of interroga-
tion which is so black, so huge, that it casts a shadow
even upon him who affixes it,-is a task of such
fatal import, that he who undertakes it is compelled
every now and then to rush out into the sunlight
in order to shake himself free from an earnestness
that becomes crushing, far too crushing. This end
justifies every means, every event on the road to it
is a windfall. Above all war. War has always
been the great policy of all spirits who have pene-
trated too far into themselves or who have grown
too deep; a wound stimulates the recuperative
powers. For many years, a maxim, the origin of
which I withhold from learned curiosity, has been
my motto:
increscunt animi, virescit volnere virtus.
At other times another means of recovery which
is even more to my taste, is to cross-examine idols.
There are more idols than realities in the world :
xvii
## p. xviii (#20) ###########################################
xviii
PREFACE
this constitutes my "evil eye” for this world : it is
also my “evil ear. ” To put questions in this quarter
with a hammer, and to hear perchance that well-
known hollow sound which tells of blown-out frogs,
—what a joy this is for one who has ears even behind
his ears, for an old psychologist and Pied Piper like
myself in whose presence precisely that which would
fain be silent, must betray itself.
Even this treatise—as its title shows/is above all
a recreation, a ray of sunshine, a leap sideways of
a psychologist in his leisure moments. Maybe, too,
a new war?
And are we again cross-examining
new idols? This little work is a great declaration
of war ; and with regard to the cross-examining of
idols, this time it is not the idols of the age but
eternal idols which are here struck with a hammer
as with a tuning fork,—there are certainly no idols
which are older, more convinced, and more inflated.
Neither are there any more hollow. This does not
alter the fact that they are believed in more than
any others, besides they are never called idols,-at
least, not the most exalted among their number.
ܪ
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.
Turin, the 30th September 1888,
on the day when the first
book of the Transvaluation
of all Values was finished
## p. 1 (#21) ###############################################
MAXIMS AND MISSILES
I
IDLENESS is the parent of all psychology. What? ?
Is psychology then a-vice?
2
Even the pluckiest among us has but seldom the
courage of what he really knows.
3
Aristotle says that in order to live alone, a man
must be either an animal or a god. The third alter-
native is lacking: a man must be both—a philo-
sopher.
4
“ All truth is simple. ”—Is not this a double lie?
5
Once for all I wish to be blind to many things
-Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge.
6
A man recovers best from his exceptional nature
- his intellectuality—by giving his animal instincts
a chance.
I
## p. 2 (#22) ###############################################
2
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
2
7
Which is it? Is man only a blunder of God? Or
is God only a blunder of man?
8
From the military school of life. That which does
not kill me, makes me stronger.
9
Help thyself, then everyone will help thee. A
principle of neighbour-love.
IO
A man should not play the coward to his deeds.
He should not repudiate them once he has performed
them. Pangs of conscience are indecent.
II
Can a donkey be tragic? —To perish beneath a
load that one can neither bear nor throw off? This
is the case of the Philosopher.
I2
If a man knows the wherefore of his existence,
then the manner of it can take care of itself. Man
does not aspire to happiness; only the Englishman
does that.
13
Man created woman-out of what? Out of a rib
of his god,- of his “ideal. ”
14
What? Art thou looking for something? Thou
## p. 3 (#23) ###############################################
MAXIMS AND MISSILES
3
wouldst fain multiply thyself tenfold, a hundredfold?
Thou seekest followers ? Seek ciphers !
11
i
15
Posthumous men, like myself, are not so well
understood as men who reflect their age, but they
are heard with more respect. In plain English: we
are never understood-hence our authority.
16
Among women. —“Truth? Oh, you do not know
truth! Is it not an outrage on all our pudeurs ? ”–
17
There is an artist after my own heart, modest in
his needs: he really wants only two things, his bread
and his art-panem et Circen.
18
He who knows not how to plant his will in things
at least endows them with some meaning : that is
to say, he believes that a will is already present in
them. (A principle of faith. )
19
What? Ye chose virtue and the heaving breast,
and at the same time ye squint covetously at the
advantages of the unscrupulous. —But with virtue
ye renounce all “ advantages" (to be nailed to
an Antisemite's door).
20
The perfect woman perpetrates literature as if it
were a petty vice : as an experiment, en passant,
.
## p. 4 (#24) ###############################################
4
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
and looking about her all the while to see whether
anybody is noticing her, hoping that somebody is
noticing her.
21
One should adopt only those situations in which
one is in no need of sham virtues, but rather, like
the tight-rope dancer on his tight rope, in which one
must either fall or stand—or escape.
22
“Evil men have no songs. ”*_How is it that the
Russians have songs ?
23
“German intellect”; for eighteen years this has
been a contradictio in adjecto.
.
· 24
By seeking the beginnings of things, a man be-
comes a crab. The historian looks backwards : in
the end he also believes backwards.
* This is a reference to Seume's poem “ Die Gesänge," the
first verse of which is :
“Wo man singet, lass dich ruhig nieder,
Ohne Furcht, was man im Lande glaubt ;
Wo man singet, wird kein Mensch beraubt:
Bösewichter haten keine Lieder. "
(Wherever people sing thou canst safely settle down with-
out a qualm as to what the general faith of the land may be.
Wherever people sing, no man is ever robbed ; rascals have
no songs. ) Popular tradition, however, renders the lines
thus :-
“Wo man singt, da lass dich ruhig nieder;
Böse Menschen (evil men) haben keine Lieder. "
-TR.
## p. 5 (#25) ###############################################
MAXIMS AND MISSILES
5
25
Contentment preserves one even from catching
cold. Has a woman who knew that she was well-
dressed ever caught cold ? —No, not even when
she had scarcely a rag to her back.
26
I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. The
will to a system, shows a lack of honesty.
!
27
Man thinks woman profound—why? Because he
?
can never fathom her depths. Woman is not even
shallow.
28
When woman possesses masculine virtues, she is
enough to make you run away. When she possesses
no masculine virtues, she herself runs away.
29
“ How often conscience had to bite in times gone
by! !
What good teeth it must have had! And to-
day, what is amiss ? "-A dentist's question
30
Errors of haste are seldom committed singly. The
first time a man always does too much. And pre-
cisely on that account he commits a second error,
and then he does too little.
31
The trodden worm curls up. This testifies to its
caution. It thus reduces its chances of being trod-
## p. 6 (#26) ###############################################
6
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
den upon again. In the language of morality:
Humility. —
32
There is such a thing as a hatred of lies and dis-
simulation, which is the outcome of a delicate sense
of humour; there is also the selfsame hatred but as
the result of cowardice, in so far as falsehood is for-
bidden by Divine law. Too cowardly to lie. . .
a
a
33
What trifles constitute happiness! The sound of
a bagpipe. Without music life would be a mistake.
The German imagines even God as a songster.
34
On ne peut penser et écrire qu'assis (G. Flaubert).
Here I have got you, you nihilist! A sedentary
life is the real sin against the Holy Spirit. Only
those thoughts that come by walking have any value.
35
There are times when we psychologists are like
horses, and grow fretful. We see our own shadow
,
rise and fall before us. The psychologist must look
away from himself if he wishes to see anything at all.
36
Do we immoralists injure virtue in any way? Just
as little as the anarchists injure royalty. Only since
they have been shot at do princes sit firmly on their
thrones once more. Moral : morality must be shot at.
## p. 7 (#27) ###############################################
MAXIMS AND MISSILES
7
37
Thou runnest ahead ? -Dost thou do so. as a
shepherd or as an exception? A third alternative
would be the fugitive. . . First question of con-
science.
38
Art thou genuine or art thou only an actor?
Art
thou a representative or the thing represented, itself?
Finally, art thou perhaps simply a copy of an actor?
Second question of conscience.
39
The disappointed man speaks :- I sought for great
men, but all I found were the apes of their ideal.
40
Art thou one who looks on, or one who puts his
own shoulder to the wheel ? Or art thou one who
looks away, or who turns aside? . . . Third question
of conscience.
41
.
Wilt thou go in company, or lead, or go by thy-
self? . . . A man should know what he desires, and
that he desires something. –Fourth question of con-
science.
42
They were but rungs in my ladder, on them I made
my ascent :-to that end I had to go beyond them.
But they imagined that I wanted to lay myself to
rest upon them.
## p. 8 (#28) ###############################################
8
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
43
What matters it whether I am acknowledged to
be right! I am much too right. And he who laughs
best to-day, will also laugh last.
44
The formula of my happiness: a Yea, a Nay, a
straight line, a goal. . . .
## p. 9 (#29) ###############################################
THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES
I
In all ages the wisest have always agreed in their
judgment of life: it is no good. At all times and
places the same words have been on their lips,-
words full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weari-
ness of life, full of hostility to life. Even Socrates'
dying words were :—“To live—means to be ill a
long while: I owe a cock to the god Æsculapius. "
Even Socrates had had enough of it. What does
that prove? What does it point to? Formerly
people would have said (-oh, it has been said, and
loudly enough too; by our Pessimists loudest of
all! ): “In any case there must be some truth in
this! The consensus sapientium is a proo. of truth. ”
-Shall we say the same to-day? May we do so?
“In any case there must be some sickness here," we
make reply. These great sages of all periods should
first be examined more closely! Is it possible that
they were, everyone of them, a little shaky on their
legs, effete, rocky, decadent? Does wisdom perhaps
appear on earth after the manner of a crow attracted
by a slight smell of carrion?
2
This irreverent belief that the great sages were
decadent types, first occurred to me precisely in
regard to that case concerning which both learned
9
## p. 10 (#30) ##############################################
10
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
and vulgar prejudice was most opposed to my view.
I recognised Socrates and Plato as symptoms of de-
cline, as instruments in the disintegration of Hellas,
as pseudo-Greek, as anti-Greek (“ The Birth of
Tragedy,” 1872). That consensus sapientium, as I
perceived ever more and more clearly, did not in
the least prove that they were right in the matter on
which they agreed. It proved rather that these sages
themselves must have been alike in some physiologi-
cal particular, in order to assume the same negative
attitude towards life—in order to be bound to assume
that attitude. After all, judgments and valuations
of life, whether for or against, cannot be true: their
only value lies in the fact that they are symptoms;
they can be considered only as symptoms,-per se
such judgments are nonsense. You must therefore
endeavour by all means to reach out and try to grasp
this astonishingly subtle axiom, that the value of life
cannot be estimated. A living man cannot do so,
because he is a contending party, or rather the very
object in the dispute, and not a judge; nor can a
dead man estimate it-for other reasons.
philosopher to see a problem in the value of life, is
almost an objection against him, a note of interro-
gation set against his wisdom-a lack of wisdom.
What? Is it possible that all these great sages were
not only decadents, but that they were not even
wise? Let me however return to the problem of
Socrates.
3
To judge from his origin, Socrates belonged to
the lowest of the low: Socrates was mob. You
know, and you can still see it for yourself, how ugly
For a
## p. 11 (#31) ##############################################
THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES
11
he was.
But ugliness, which in itself is an objec-
tion, was almost a refutation among the Greeks.
Was Socrates really a Greek? Ugliness is not infre-
quently the expression of thwarted development, or
of development arrested by crossing. In other cases
it
appears as a decadent development. The anthro-
pologists among the criminal specialists declare that
the typical criminal is ugly: monstrum in fronte,
monstrum in animo. But the criminal is a decadent. *
Was Socrates a typical criminal ? --At all events this
would not clash with that famous physiognomist's
judgment which was so repugnant to Socrates
friends. While on his way through Athens a cer-
tain foreigner who was no fool at judging by looks,
told Socrates to his face that he was a monster, that
his body harboured all the worst vices and passions.
And Socrates replied simply: “You know me
sir ! "-
4 4
Not only are the acknowledged wildness and
anarchy of Socrates' instincts indicativeof decadence,
but also that preponderance of the logical faculties
and that malignity of the mis-shapen which was
his special characteristic. Neither should we forget
those aural delusions which were religiously inter-
preted as “the demon of Socrates. ” Everything in
him is exaggerated, buffo, caricature, his nature is
also full of concealment, of ulterior motives, and
* It should be borne in mind that Nietzsche recognised two
types of criminals,-the criminal from strength, and the
criminal from weakness. This passage alludes to the latter,
Aphorism 45, p. 103, alludes to the former. - TR.
## p. 12 (#32) ##############################################
12
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
=
of underground currents. I try to understand the
idiosyncrasy from which the Socratic equation
Reason=Virtue Happiness, could have arisen:
the weirdest equation ever seen, and one which was
essentially opposed to all the instincts of the older
Hellenes.
5
With Socrates Greek taste veers round in favour
of dialectics : what actually occurs? In the first
place a noble taste is vanquished: with dialectics
the mob comes to the top. Before Socrates' time,
dialectical manners were avoided in good society:
they were regarded as bad manners, they were com-
promising. Young men were cautioned against
them. All such proffering of one's reasons was
looked upon with suspicion. Honest things like
honest men do not carry their reasons on their sleeve
in such fashion. It is not good form to make a
show of everything. That which needs to be proved
cannot be worth much. Wherever authority still
belongs to good usage, wherever men do not prove
but command, the dialectician is regarded as a sort
of clown. People laugh at him, they do not take
him seriously. Socrates was a clown who succeeded
in making men take him seriously: what then was
the matter?
6
A man resorts to dialectics only when he has no
other means to hand. People know that they excite
suspicion with it and that it is not very convincing.
Nothing is more easily dispelled than a dialectical
effect: this is proved by the experience of every
## p. 13 (#33) ##############################################
THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES
13
gathering in which discussions are held. It can be
only the last defence of those who have no other
weapons. One must require to extort one's right,
.
otherwise one makes no use of it. That is why the
Jews were dialecticians. Reynard the Fox was a
dialectician : what? —and was Socrates one as well?
7
Is the Socratic irony an expression of revolt, of
mob resentment? Does Socrates, as a creature
suffering under oppression, enjoy his innate ferocity
in the knife-thrusts of the syllogism? Does he wreak
his revenge on the noblemen he fascinates ? -As a
dialectician a man has a merciless instrument to
wield; he can play the tyrant with it: he compro-
mises when he conquers with it. The dialectician
leaves it to his opponent to prove that he is no idiot :
he infuriates, he likewise paralyses. The dialectician
cripples the intellect of his opponent. Can it be that
dialectics was only a form of revenge in Socrates ?
8
I have given you to understand in what way
Socrates was able to repel : now it is all the more
necessary to explain how he fascinated. -One reason
is that he discovered a new kind of Agon, and that
he was the first fencing-master in the best circles in
Athens. He fascinated by appealing to the com-
bative instinct of the Greeks,-he introduced a
variation into the contests between men and youths.
Socrates was also a great erotic.
## p. 14 (#34) ##############################################
14
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
9
But Socrates divined still more. He saw right
through his noble Athenians; he perceived that his
case, his peculiar case, was no exception even in his
time. The same kind of degeneracy was silently
preparing itself everywhere: ancient Athens was
dying out. And Socrates understood that the whole
world needed him,-his means, his remedy, his
special artifice for self-preservation. Everywhere
the instincts were in a state of anarchy ; everywhere
people were within an ace of excess: the monstrum
in animo was the general danger. “The instincts
would play the tyrant; we must discover a counter-
tyrant who is stronger than they. ” On the occasion
when that physiognomist had unmasked Socrates,
and had told him what he was—a crater full of evil
desires, the great Master of Irony let fall one or two
words more, which provide the key to his nature.
“This is true,” he said, " but I overcame them all. ”
How did Socrates succeed in mastering himself?
His case was at bottom only the extreme and most
apparent example of a state of distress which was
beginning to be general : that state in which no one
was able to master himself and in which the instincts
turned one against the other. As the extreme
example of this state, he fascinated—his terrifying
ugliness made him conspicuous to every eye: it is
quite obvious that he fascinated still more as a reply,
as a solution, as an apparent cure of this case.
IO
When a man finds it necessary, as Socrates did,
to create a tyrant out of reason, there is no small
## p. 15 (#35) ##############################################
THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES
15
»
danger that something else wishes to play the tyrant.
Reason was then discovered as a saviour; neither
Socrates nor his “patients” were at liberty to be
rational or not, as they pleased ; at that time it was
de rigueur, it had become a last shift. The fanaticism
with which the whole of Greek thought plunges into
reason, betrays a critical condition of things : men
were in danger; there were only two alternatives :
either perish or else be absurdly rational. The moral
bias of Greek philosophy from Plato onward, is the
outcome of a pathological condition, as is also its
appreciation of dialectics. Reason=Virtue=Happi-
ness, simply means: we must imitate Socrates, and
confront the dark passions permanently with the
light of day—the light of reason. We must at all
costs be clever, precise, clear: all yielding to the
instincts, to the unconscious, leads downwards.
II
I have now explained how Socrates fascinated :
he seemed to be a doctor, a Saviour. Is it necessary
to expose the errors which lay in his faith in “reason
at any price"? - It is a piece of self-deception on the
part of philosophers and moralists to suppose that
they can extricate themselves from degeneration
by merely waging war upon it. They cannot thus
extricate themselves : that which they choose as a
means, as the road to salvation, is in itself again only
an expression of degeneration—they only modify its
mode of manifesting itself: they do not abolish it.
Socrates was a misunderstanding. The whole of the
morality of amelioration—that of Christianity as well
-was a misunderstanding. The most blinding light
## p. 16 (#36) ##############################################
16
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
of day: reason at any price; life made clear, cold,
cautious, conscious, without instincts, opposed to the
instincts, was in itself only a disease, another kind of
disease—and by no means a return to “virtue,” to
“ health,” and to happiness. To be obliged to fight
the instincts—this is the formula of degeneration :
as long as life is in the ascending line, happiness is
the same as instinct.
12
-Did he understand this himself, this most in-
telligent of self-deceivers ? Did he confess this to
himself in the end, in the wisdom of his courage be-
fore death. Socrates wished to die. Not Athens,
but his own hand gave him the draught of hemlock;
he drove Athens to the poisoned cup. “ Socrates is
not a doctor," he whispered to himself,“ death alone
can be a doctor here. Socrates himself has only
been ill a long while. "
a
## p. 17 (#37) ##############################################
“REASON” IN PHILOSOPHY
I
You ask me what all idiosyncrasy is in philosophers?
. . . For instance their lack of the historical sense,
their hatred even of theidea of Becoming, their Egyp-
tianism. They imagine that they do honour to a
thing by divorcing it from history sub specie æterni,-
when they make a mummy of it. All the ideas that
philosophers have treated for thousands of years,
have been mummied concepts; nothing real has
ever come out of their hands alive. These idolaters
of concepts merely kill and stuff things when they
worship,—they threaten the life of everything they
adore. Death, change, age, as well as procreation
and growth, are in their opinion objections, even re-
futations. That which is cannot evolve; that which
evolves is not. Now all of them believe, and even
with desperation, in Being. But, as they cannot lay
hold of it, they try to discover reasons why this
privilege is withheld from them. “ Some merely
apparent quality, some deception must be the cause
of our not being able to ascertain the nature of Being :
where is the deceiver? ” “We have him,” they cry
rejoicing, “it is sensuality! ” These senses, which
in other things are so immoral, cheat us concerning
the true world. Moral : we must get rid of the de-
ception of the senses, of Becoming, of history, of
-
2
17
## p. 18 (#38) ##############################################
18
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
falsehood. —History is nothing more than the belief
in the senses, the belief in falsehood. Moral: we
must
say "no" to everything in which the senses be-
lieve : to all the rest of mankind : all that belongs
to the “people. ” Let us be philosophers, mummies,
monotono-theists, grave-diggers ! And above all,
away with the body, this wretched idée fixe of the
senses, infected with all the faults of logic that exist,
refuted, even impossible, although it be impudent
enough to pose as if it were real !
2
With a feeling of great reverence I except the
name of Heraclitus. If the rest of the philosophic
gang rejected the evidences of the senses, because
the latter revealed a state of multifariousness and
change, he rejected the same evidence because it re-
vealed things as if they possessed permanence and
unity. Even Heraclitus did an injustice to the senses.
The latter lie neither as the Eleatics believed them
to lie, nor as he believed them to lie,—they do not
lie at all. The interpretations we give to their evi-
dence is what first introduces falsehood into it; for
instance the lie of unity, the lie of matter, of sub-
stance and of permanence. Reason is the cause of
our falsifying the evidence of the senses. In so far
as the senses show us a state of Becoming, of tran-
siency, and of change, they do not lie. But in de-
claring that Being was an empty illusion, Heraclitus
will remain eternally right. The “apparent” world
is the only world: the “true world” is no more than
a false adjunct thereto.
## p. 19 (#39) ##############################################
"REASON” IN PHILOSOPHY
19
3
And what delicate instruments of observation we
have in our senses! This human nose, for instance,
of which no philosopher has yet spoken with rever-
ence and gratitude, is, for the present, the most finely
adjusted instrument at our disposal : it is able to
register even such slight changes of movement as
the spectroscope would be unable to record. Our
scientific triumphs at the present day extend pre-
cisely so far as we have accepted the evidence of
our senses,—as we have sharpened and armed them,
and learned to follow them up to the end. What
remains is abortive and not yet science—that is to
say, metaphysics, theology, psychology, epistem-
ology, or formal science, or a doctrine of symbols,
like logic and its applied form mathematics. In all
these things reality does not come into consideration
at all, even as a problem ; just as little as does the
question concerning the general value of such a
convention of symbols as logic.
»
4
The other idiosyncrasy of philosophers is no less
dangerous; it consists in confusing the last and the
first things. They place that which makes its appear-
ance last-unfortunately! for it ought not to appear
at all. ! —the “highest concept,” that is to say, the
most general, the emptiest, the last cloudy streak of
evaporating reality, at the beginning as the begin-
ning. This again is only their manner of expressing
their veneration : the highest thing must not have
grown out of the lowest, it must not have grown at
all. . . . Moral: everything of the first rank must be
## p. 20 (#40) ##############################################
20
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
causa sui. To have been derived from something
else, is as good as an objection, it sets the value of a
thing in question. All superior values are of the first
rank, all the highest concepts—that of Being, of the
Absolute, of Goodness, of Truth, and of Perfection;
all these things cannot have been evolved, they must
therefore be causa sui. All these things cannot how-
ever be unlike one another, they cannot be opposed
to one another. Thus they attain to their stupend-
ous concept “God. ” The last, most attenuated and
emptiest thing is postulated as the first thing, as the
absolute cause, as ens realissimum. Fancy humanity
having to take the brain diseases of morbid cobweb-
spinners seriously! —And it has paid dearly for
having done so.
5
-Against this let us set the different manner in
which we (-you observe that I am courteous enough
to say “we”) conceive the problem of the error and
deceptiveness of things. Formerly people regarded
change and evolution in general as the proof of
appearance, as a sign of the fact that something
must be there that leads us astray.
