No More Learning

"Utopia," the "ideal man," the deification of Nature, the vanity of making one's own personality
the centre of interest, subordination to the propa
ganda of social ideas, charlatanism--all this we derive from the eighteenth century.
The style of the seventeenth century: propre exact et libre.
. The strong individual who is self-sufficient, or
who appeals ardently to God--and that obtrusive ness and indiscretion of modern authors--these
things are opposites. "Showing-oneself-off"--what
a contrast to the Scholars of Port-Royal | VOL. I. F
? ? ? ? 82 THE WILL TO POWER.
Alfieri had a sense for the grand style.
The hate of the burlesque (that which lacks dignity), the lack of a sense of Nature belongs to the seventeenth century.
98.
Against Rousseau. --Alas / man is no longer sufficiently evil; Rousseau's opponents, who say
that "man is a beast of prey," are unfortunately wrong. Not the corruption of man, but the
softening and moralising of him is the curse. In
the sphere which Rousseau attacked most violently, the relatively strongest and most successful type
of man was still to be found (the type which still possessed the great passions intact: Will to Power,
Will to Pleasure, the Will and Ability to Com
mand). The man of the eighteenth century must
be compared with the man of the Renaissance (also
with the man of the seventeenth century in France) if the matter is to be understood at all: Rousseau
is a symptom of self-contempt and of inflamed vanity--both signs that the dominating will is
? lacking:
own misery after the style of a revengeful man in the ruling classes.
he moralises and seeks the cause ofhis
99.
Voltaire -- Rousseau. -- A state of nature is
terrible; man is a beast of prey: our civilisation is an extraordinary triumph over this beast-of
prey
He was conscious of the mildness, the refinements,
in nature--this was Voltaire's conclusion.
? ? ? NIHILISM.
83
the intellectual joys of the civilised state; he despised obtuseness, even in the form of virtue,
and the lack of delicacy even in ascetics and monks.
The moral depravity of man seemed to pre occupy Rousseau; the words "unjust," "cruel," are
the best possible for the purpose of exciting the
instincts of the oppressed, who otherwise find themselves under the ban of the vetitum and of
disgrace; so that their conscience is opposed to their
indulging any
emancipators seek one thing above all: to give
insurrectional desires. These
their party the great accents and attitudes of higher Nature,
? IOO.
Rousseau : the rule founded on
sentiment;
Nature as the source of justice; man perfects
himself in proportion as he approaches Nature
(according to Voltaire, in proportion as he leaves AVature behind). The very same periods seem to
the one to demonstrate the progress of humanity and, to the other, the increase of injustice and | inequality.
* . . . ,'2-4
--
Voltaire,
sense of the Renaissance, as also virti (as "higher
who still understood umanita in the
culture"), fights
gens," "la bonne compagnie," taste, science, arts,
for the cause of the "honne? tes
and even for the cause of progress and civilisation. The flare-up occurred towards 1760 : On the one hand the citizen of Geneva, on the other le
seigneur de Ferney. It is only from that moment and henceforward that Voltaire was the man of
. "
? ? ? 84
THE WILL TO POWER.
his age, the philosopher, the representative
Toleration and of Disbelief (theretofore he ha
been merely un bel esprit). His envy and hatre
of Rousseau's success forced him upwards. "Pour "la canaille' un dieu re? mune? rateur
vengeur"--Voltaire.
The criticism of both standpoints in regard
the value of civilisation. To Voltaire nothir seems finer than the social invention : there
no higher goal than to uphold and perfect L'honne? tete? consists precisely in respecting soci
usage;
various necessary "prejudices" which favour th maintenance of society. Missionary of Cultu, aristocrat, representative of the triumphant ar ruling
virtue in a certain obedience towar.
? classes and their values. But Roussea remained a plebeian, even as hommes de lettres, th was preposterous; his shameless contempt f everything
that was not himself.
The morbid feature in Rousseau is the or
which happens to have been most admired an
imitated. (Lord Byron resembled him somewha
he too screwed himself up to sublime attitude and to revengeful rage--a sign of vulgarity; lat'
on, when Venice restored his equilibrium, he unde
stood what was more alleviating and did mo,
good . . . l'insouciance. )
In spite of his antecedents, Rousseau is prou
of himself; but he is incensed if he is reminded his origin. . . .
In Rousseau there was undoubtedly some brai
trouble; in Voltaire--rare health and lightsome ness. The revengefulness of the sick; his period
? ? ? NIHILISM.
85
of insanity as also those of his contempt of man, and of his mistrust.
Rousseau's defence of Providence (against Vol
taire's Pessimism): he had need of God in order to be able to curse society and civilisation; every
thing must be good per because God had created it; man alone has corrupted man. The "good man" man Nature was pure fantasy;
but with the dogma God's authorship he became
something probable and even not devoid found ation.
Romanticism Rousseau: passion ("the
? sovereign right passion"); "naturalness";
the fascination madness (foolishness reckoned
greatness); the senseless vanity the weak; the
revengefulness the masses elevated the posi tion justice ("in politics, for one hundred years,'
the leader has been an invalid").
IOI.
Kant: makes the scepticism Englishmen, regard the theory knowledge, possible for Germans.
(1) By enlisting cause the interest the German's religious and moral needs: just the new academicians used scepticism for the same
reasons, Augustine); scepticism
preparation
for Platonism (vide
just
order
Pascal even used moral provoke (to justify) the
belief;
(2) By complicating and entangling with
need
scholastic flourishes view making more
? ? in
as
in its
of a la
of
of
it it
of
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in
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? 86 THE WILL TO POWER.
acceptable to the German's scientific taste in fo
(for Locke and Hume, alone, were too illuminati too clear--that is to say, judged according to
German valuing instinct, "too superficial"). Kant: a poor psychologist and mediocre ju
of human nature, made hopeless mistakes
regard to great historical values (the Fre Revolution); a moral fanatic a la Rousseau; w a subterranean current of Christian values thorough dogmatist,
but bored to extinction this tendency, to the extent of wishing to tyrant
over but quickly tired, even scepticism; not yet affected by any cosmopolitan thought antique beauty dawdler and go-betw.
; not all original (like Leibnitz, something betw
mechanism and spiritualism; like Goethe, someth between the taste the eighteenth century
that the "historical sense" [which essenti sense exoticism]; like German music, betw French and Italian music; like Charles the Gr
who mediated and built bridges between Roman Empire and Nationalism--a dawdler excellence).
O2.
what respect have the Christian centu with their Pessimism been stronger centuries the eighteenth--and how do they corresp.
with the tragic age the Greeks?
The nineteenth century versus the eighteel
How was an heir P--how was step backwa from the latter? (more lacking "spirit"
? ? ? it in a
of a
In it
of
at
it,
of
I
of
a
is t. ::
a
of
. . .
? NIHILISM,
87
in taste)--how did it show an advance on the latter ? (more gloomy, more realistic, stronger).
IO3.
How can we explain the fact that we feel something in common with the Campagna romana P And the high mountain chain?
Chateaubriand in a letter to M. de Fontanes
in 18o3 writes his first impression of the Campagna 70%a/Za.
The President de Brosses says of the Campagna romana: "Il fallait que Romulus fe^t ivre quand il songea a ba? tir une ville dans un terrain aussi laid. "
Even Delacroix would have nothing to do with Rome, it frightened him. He loved Venice, just as Shakespeare, Byron, and Georges Sand did.
The? ophile Gautier's and Richard Wagner's dislike of Rome must not be forgotten.
Lamartine has the language for Sorrento and Posilippo.
Victor Hugo raves about Spain, "parce que
aucune autre nation n'a moins emprunte? a` l'antiquite? , parce qu'elle n'a subi aucune influence classique. "
104. '
The two great attempts that were made to overcome the eighteenth century:
Mapoleon, in that he called man, the soldier, and the great struggle for power, to life again,
? and conceived Europe as a united political power.
Goethe, in that he imagined a European
&:
? ? ? 88 THE WILL TO POWER.
[which would consist of the whole heritage of what humanity had attained to up to his time.
German culture in this century inspires mistrust --the music of the period lacks that complete
element which liberates and binds as well, to wit--Goethe.
The pre-eminence of music in the romanticists
of 1830 and 1840. Delacroix.
passionate musician (admired Gluck, Beethoven, Mozart), said to his pupils in Rome:
"Si je pouvais vous rendre tous musiciens, vous y gagneriez comme peintres"--likewise Horace
Vernet, who was particularly fond of Don Juan (as Mendelssohn assures us, 1831); Stendhal, too, who
says of himself: "Combien de lieues ne ferais-je pas a` pied, et a` combien de jours de prison ne me soumetterais-je pas pour entendre Don Juan ou le
Matrimonio segreto; et je ne sais pour quelle autre
chose je ferais cet effort. " He was then fifty-six years old.
The borrowed forms, for instance: Brahms as
a typical "Epigone," likewise Mendelssohn's cul
tured Protestantism (a former "soul" is turned into poetry posthumously . . . )
--the moral and poetical substitutions in Wagner, who used one art as a stop-gap to make up for what another lacked.
--the "historical sense," inspiration derived from poems, sagas.
--that characteristic transformation of which
G. Flaubert is the most striking example among
Frenchmen, and Richard Wagner the most strik
Ingres--a
Haydn,
? N
ing example among Germans,
shows how the
? ? ? NIHILISM.
89
changes into a longing for nonentity in 1830-50.
romantic belief in love and the future
IO6. --
How is it that German music reaches its culminating point in the age of German romanti *. . . * *
*A*-* *-*
How is it that German music lacks
cism P.
Goethe P On the other hand, how much Schiller,
or more exactly, how much "Thekla. "* is there not in Beethoven |
Eichendorff, Uhland, Heine, Hoffman, Tieck, in him. Richard Wagner has Freischu? tz, Hoffmann, Grimm, the romantic Saga,
the mystic catholicism of instinct, symbolism, "the free-spiritedness of passion" (Rousseau's
intention). The Flying . Dutchman savours of
France, where le te? ne`breux (1830) was the type of the seducer.
The cult of music, the revolutionary romanticism
of form. Wagner synthesises German and French romanticism.
Io? .
From the point of view only of his value to Germany and to German culture, Richard Wagner is still a great problem, perhaps a German mis fortune: in any case, however, a fatality. But
what does it matter? Is he not very much more than a German event? It also seems to
me that to no country on earth is he less related than to Germany; nothing was prepared there for
* Thekla is the sentimental heroine in Schiller's Wallen stein. --TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
Schumann has
? ? ? ? **
90
THE WILL TO POWER.
his advent; his whole type is simply strange amongst Germans; there he stands in their midst,
wonderful, misunderstood, incomprehensible.
people carefully avoid acknowledging this: they are
too kind, too square-headed--too German for that.
"Credo quia absurdus est": thus did the German
spirit wish it to be, in this case too--hence it is
content meanwhile to believe everything Richard
Wagner wanted to have believed about himself. In
all ages the spirit of Germany has been deficient in
subtlety and divining powers concerning psycho
logical matters. Now that it happens to be under the highpressureof patrioticnonsenseandself-adoration,
it is visibly growing thicker and coarser: how could it therefore be equal to the problem of Wagner !
IO8.
The Germans are not yet anything, but they are becoming something; that is why they have not yet any culture;--that is why they cannot yet have any culture l--They are not yet anything:
that means they are all kinds of things. They , are becoming something: that means that they will
one day cease from being all kinds of things. The latter is at bottom only a wish, scarcely a hope
yet. Fortunately
can live, a question of will, of work, of discipline, a question of training, as also of resentment, of longing, of privation, of discomfort,-yea, even of bitterness,--in short, we Germans will get something out of ourselves, something that has not
yet been wanted of us--we want something more !
it is a wish with which one
But
? ? ? ? NIHILISM.
9I
That this "German, as he is not as yet"-- has a right to something better than the present
German "culture"; that all who wish to become something better, must wax angry when they perceive a sort of contentment, an impudent "setting-oneself-at-ease," or "a process of self censing," in this quarter: that is my second principle, in regard to which my opinions have not yet changed.
(c) SIGNS OF INCREASING STRENGTH. I O9.
First Principle: everything that characterises
modern men savours of decay: but side by side
with the prevailing sickness there are signs of a
strength and powerfulness of soul which are still
untried. The same causes which tend to promote ** the belittling of men, also force the stronger and ,"
rarer individuals upwards to greatness.
I IO.
General survey: the ambiguous character of our.
modern world -- precisely the same symptoms
might at the same time be indicative of either decline or strength. And the signs of strength
and of emancipation dearly bought, might in view of traditional (or hereditary) appreciations con cerned with the feelings, be misunderstood as in dications of weakness. In short, feeling, as a
means of fixing valuations, is not on a level with the times.
? ? ? ? 92
THE WILL TO POWER.
Generalised: Every valuation is always back ward; it is merely the expression of the con
ditions which favoured survival and growth ir a much earlier age: it struggles against new conditions of existence out of which it did no
arise, and which it therefore necessarily misunder stands: it hinders, and excites suspicion against all that is new.
I I I.
The problem of the nineteenth century. --To dis
cover whether its strong and weak side belong to
each other. Whether they have been cut from
one and the same piece. Whether the variety o its ideals and their contradictions are conditioned
by a higher purpose: whether they are something higher.
--For it might be the prerequisite of great
ness, that growth should take place amid such
? Dissatisfaction, Nihilism, migh
II 2.
General survey. --As a matter of fact, al
abundant growth involves a concomitant proces of crumbling to bits and decay: suffering and th
symptoms of decline belong to ages of enormou progress; every fruitful and powerful movemen
of mankind has always brought about a concurren Nihilistic movement. Under certain circumstances
the appearance of the extremest form of Pessimism and actual Nihilism might be the sign of a proces: of incisive and most essential growth, and of man
kind's transit into completely new conditions o existence. This is what I have understood.
violent tension. be a good sign.
? ? ? allow ourselves to be deceived
by appearance:
NIHILISM,
II 3.
A.
.
93
Starting out with a thoroughly courageous appreciation of our men of to-day:--we must not
this mankind is much less effective, but it gives quite different pledges of lasting strength, its
tempo is slower, but the rhythm itself is richer.
Healthiness is increasing, the real conditions of a healthy body are on the point of being known,
and will gradually be created, "asceticism" is regarded with irony. The fear of extremes, a #. . .
certain confidence in the "right way," no raving: . . .
* s
. .
? a periodical self-habituation to narrower values (such as "mother-land," "science," etc. ).
". ambiguous: it might be a movement either of *
This whole picture, however, would still be .
increase or decline Life.
B.
The belief "progress"--in lower spheres intelligence, appears increasing life: but this self-deception;
higher spheres intelligence sign declining life.
Description the symptoms.
The unity the aspect: uncertainty regard to the standard of valuation.
Fear general "in vain. " Nihilism.
? ? of a
of of
in
in
a
of in
as of
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. ". .
in
? THE WILL TO POWER.
II. 4.
94
in need of an antidote against the first Ni
Life is no longer so uncertain, accident.
senseless in modern Europe. All such trem
exaggeration of the value of men, of the vi evil, etc. , are not so necessary now; we can
a considerable diminution of this value, w grant a great deal of nonsense and accider
power man has acquired now allows of a lo of the means of discipline, of which the str was the moral interpretation of the universe. hypothesis "God" is much too extreme.
II 5.
As a matter of fact, we are no longer soul
? If anything shows that our humanisatio genuine sign of progress, it is the fact that longer require excessive contraries, that longer require
contraries at all. . . .
We may love the senses; for we have
ualised them in every way and made them a
We have a right to all things which h have been most calumniated.
II 6.
The reversal of the order of rank--Thos counterfeiters--the priests--are becoming Ch in our midst:--they occupy the position
charlatan, of the quack, of the counterfeiter sorcerer: we regard them as corrupters of t
? ? ? NIHILISM.
95
as the great slanderers and vindictive enemies of
Life, and as the rebels among the bungled and the botched. We have made our middle class out of
our servant-caste--the Sudra--that is to say, our
people or the body which wields the political power.
On the other hand, the Chandala of former times is paramount: the blasphemers, the im moralists, the independents of all kinds, the artists, the Jews, the minstrels--and, at bottom, all dis
reputable classes are in the van.
We have elevated ourselves to honourable
thoughts,'--even more, we determine what honour is on earth,--"nobility. " . . . All of us to-day
are advocates of life. --We Immoralists are to-day the strongest power: the other great powers are
in need of us . . . we re-create the world in our own image.
We have transferred the label "Chandala " to
the priests, the backworldsmen, and to the deformed
Christian society which has become associated with
these people, together with creatures of like origin, the pessimists, Nihilists, romanticists of pity,
criminals, and men of vicious habits--the whole
sphere in which the idea of "God" is that of Saviour. . . .
We are proud of being no longer obliged to be liars, slanderers, and detractors of Life. . . .
I 17.
? -a*-da- --
** ** 5--> --~~~ *
? century upon the eighteenth (at bottom we good Europeans
The advance of the nineteenth
* -
? ? ? 96
THE WILL TO POWER.
are carrying on a war against the eigl century):
(1) "The return to Nature" is getting understood, ever more definitely, in a way
is quite the reverse of that in which Rousses the phrase--away from idylls and operas /
(2) Ever more decided, more anti-id more objective, more fearless, more indu
more temperate, more suspicious ofsudden cl anti-revolutionary;
(3) The question of bodily health is being
ever more decidedly in front of the health &
soul": the latter is regarded as a condition b
about by the former, and bodily health is b to be, at least, the prerequisite to spiritual l
II 8.
If anything at all has been achieved, it is
innocent attitude towards the senses, a h
more favourable demeanour in regard to sen: resembling rather the position taken up by G
a prouder feeling has also been developed in ledge, and the "reine Thor"* meets wit
? faith.
II 9.
We "objective people. "--It is not "pity
opens up the way for us to all that is most and most strange in life and culture; b
* This is a reference to Wagner's Parsifal. The c as is well known, is written to represent a son o affliction, and a child of wisdom--humble, guileless
pure, and a fool. --TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.
? ? ? NIHILISM.
A. . . . "
accessibility and ingenuousness, which precisely
does not "pity," but rather takes pleasure in hun dreds of things which formerly caused pain (which in former days either outraged or moved us, or in the presence of which we were either hostile or indifferent). Pain in all its various phases is now interesting to us: on that account we are certainly not the more pitiful, even though the sight of pain
may shake us to our foundations and move us to tears: and we are absolutely not inclined to be more helpful in view thereof.
pain and error, we have grown stronger and more
was, <-tax *****
97
In this deliberate desire to look on at powerful than the eighteenth century;
? proof
our increase strength (we have drawn the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries). profound mistake regard our "roman
closer
But
ticism" proof our "beautified souls. " We want stronger sensations than all coarser ages and classes have wanted. (This fact must not be con founded with the needs neurotics and decadents;
their case, course, there craving for pepper --even for cruelty. )
We are all seeking conditions which are eman cipated from the bourgeois, and greater degree
from the priestly, notion
everything insipid which not forbidden and con sidered compromising bourgeois circles; and the
case the same with books, music, politics, and
opinions on women. WOL.
which savours all
gives the impression
mental indigence). "Good company," fact, finds
morality (every book priestdom and theology
pitiful niaiserie and
? ? I.
us
is to of as a
in G
of is
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he never turns
**
(Morality
98
THE WILL TO POWER.
I2O.
The simplification of man in the nineteenth cen tury (The eighteenth century was that of elegance, subtlety, and generous feeling). --Not "return to
nature"; for no natural humanity has ever existed yet. Scholastic, unnatural, and antinatural values
beginning; - only
are the rule and the man reaches
'Nature after a long struggle
"back" to her. . . . To be natural means, to dare
to be as immoral as Nature is.
We are coarser, more direct, richer in irony
towards generous feelings, even when we are be neath them.
Our haute vole? e, the society consisting of our
rich and leisured men, is more natural: people hunt
each other, the love of the sexes is a kind of sport
in which marriage is both a charm and an obstacle;
people entertain each other and live for the sake of pleasure; bodily advantages stand in the first rank,
and curiosity and daring are the rule.
Our attitude towards knowledge is more natural;
we are innocent in our absolute spiritual debauchery, we hate pathetic and hieratic manners, we delight
in that which is most strictly prohibited, we should scarcely recognise any interest in knowledge if we
were bored in acquiring
Our attitude morality also more natural. Principles have become laughing-stock; no one
irony. But
? dares speak his "duty," unless
helpful,
located
highly instinct and the rest
benevolent
disposition
valued.
? ? is
is
. "*
**
, a
is
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to
of
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is
a
it.
? NIHILISM.
99
despised. Besides this there are few points of honour. )
Our attitude to politics is more natural: we see problems of power, of the quantum of power, against
another quantum. We do not believe in a right "
that does not proceed from a power which is able to uphold We regard all rights conquests.
Our valuation great men and things more natural: we regard passion privilege; we can
conceive nothing great which does not involve
great crime; all greatness associated our minds with certain standing-beyond-the-pale morality.
Our attitude to Nature more natural: we no longer love her for her "innocence," her "reason,"
her "beauty," we have made her beautifully devilish
and "foolish. " But instead despising her
that account, since then we have felt more closely
related her and more familiar her presence.
She does not aspire virtue: we therefore respect her.
Our attitude towards Art more natural we do not exact beautiful, empty lies, etc. , from her; brutal positivism reigns supreme, and ascer tains things with perfect calm.
short: there are signs showing that the
European the nineteenth century less ashamed his instincts; he has gone long way towards
acknowledging his unconditional naturalness and immorality, without bitterness: on the contrary, he
strong enough endure this point view alone.
? To some ears this will sound
not drawn nearer to the "Nature" which Rousseau
though corruption had made strides: and certain that man has
? ? it as is
a
of
is
In
to
of
is of
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of
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it
:
is
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? IOO THE WILL TO POWER.
speaks about, but has gone one step farther in t civilisation before which Rousseau stood in horra
We have grown stronger, we have drawn nearer the seventeenth century, more particularly to t
taste which reigned towards its close (Dancou Le Sage, Regnard).
I 2 I.
Culture versus Civilisation. --The
culminati,
stages of culture and civilisation apart: must not be led astray regards the fundament antagonism existing between culture and civilis
? tion. From the moral
standpoint, great perio
the history culture have always been perio corruption; while on the other hand, those perio
which man was deliberately and compulsori
tamed ("civilisation") have always been perio of intolerance towards the most intellectual
lmost audacious natures. Civilisation desires som
thing
their aims may perhaps
different from what culture strives afte opposed.
22.
What warn people against confounding
instincts decadence with those
humanity
Confounding the dissolving means civilis
tion and those which necessarily promote decaden
with culture;
Confounding debauchery, and the princip
"laisser aller," with the Will Power latter the exact reverse the former).
? ? is
of I
of
to
:
of of
. . .
lie
(t t at
ol
1
be
of
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? NIHILISM. IOI
I 23.
The unsolved problems which I set anew : the - problem of civilisation, the struggle between Rous
seau and Voltaire about the year 1760. Man becomes deeper, more mistrustful, more "immoral,"
stronger, more self-confident--and therefore "more natural"; that is "progress. " In this way, by a
process of division of labour, the more evil strata
and the milder and tamer strata of society get
separated: so that the general facts are not visible
at first sight. . . . It is a sign of strength, and of
the self-control and fascination of the strong, that
these stronger strata possess the arts in order to
make their greater powers for evil felt as something
"higher. " As soon as there is "progress" there is
a transvaluation of the strengthened factors into
? the "good. "
I 24.
Man must have the courage of his natural instincts restored to him. --
The poor opinion he has of himself must be destroyed (not in the sense of the individual, but in the sense of the natural man . . . )--
The contradictions in things must be eradicated, after it has been well understood that we were
responsible for them-- -
Social idiosyncrasies must be stamped out of
(guilt, punishment, justice, honesty, freedom, love, etc. etc. )-- %
An advance towards "naturalness": in all politi
cal questions, even in the relations between parties, even in merchants', workmen's, or contractors'
existence
? ? ? 1 O2 THE WILL TO POWER.