No More Learning

He has time,
he takes time, he cannot possibly think of becom-
ing “finished,”—in the matter of higher culture, a
man of thirty years is a beginner, a child. Our
overcrowded public-schools, our accumulation of
foolishly manufactured public-school masters, are a
scandal :) maybe there are very serious motives for
defending this state of affairs, as was shown quite
-
man, if


## p. 57 (#77) ##############################################

THINGS THE GERMANS LACK
57
recently by the professors of Heidelberg ; but there
can be no reasons for doing so.
6
In order to be true to my nature, which is affirma-
tive and which concerns itself with contradictions
and criticism only indirectly and with reluctance,
let me state at once what the three objects are for
which we need educators. People must learn to
see; they must learn to think, and they must learn
to speak and to write: the object of all three of
these pursuits is a noble culture. To learn to see-
to accustom the eye to calmness, to patience, and to
allow things to come up to it; to defer judgment,
and to acquire the habit of approaching and grasp-
ing an individual case from all sides. This is the
first preparatory schooling of intellectuality. One
must not respond immediately to a stimulus; one
must acquire a command of the obstructing and
isolating instincts. To learn to see, as I under-
stand this matter, amounts almost to that which in
popular language is called "strength of will”: its
essential feature is precisely not to wish to see, to
be able to postpone one's decision. All lack of
intellectuality, all vulgarity, arises out of the inability
to resist a stimulus :-one must respond or react,
every impulse is indulged. In many cases such
necessary action is already a sign of morbidity, of
decline, and a symptom of exhaustion. Almost
everything that coarse popular language character-
ises as vicious, is merely that physiological inability
to refrain from reacting. --As an instance of what it
means to have learnt to see, let me state that a man
1


## p. 58 (#78) ##############################################

58
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
thus trained will as a learner have become generally
slow, suspicious, and refractory. With hostile calm
he will first allow every kind of strange and new
thing to come right up to him,- he will draw back
his hand at its approach. To stand with all the
doors of one's soul wide open, to lie slavishly in the
dust before every trivial fact, at all times of the day
to be strained ready for the leap, in order to deposit
one's self, to plunge one's self, into other souls and
other things, in short, the famous "objectivity" of
modern times, is bad taste, it is essentially vulgar
and cheap.
7
As to learning how to think-our schools no
longer have any notion of such a thing. Even at
the universities, among the actual scholars in philo-
sophy, logic as a theory, as a practical pursuit, and
as a business, is beginning to die out. Turn to any
German book : you will not find the remotest trace
of a realisation that there is such a thing as a
technique, a plan of study, a will to mastery, in
the matter of thinking,—that thinking insists upon
being learnt, just as dancing insists upon being
learnt, and that thinking insists upon being learnt
as a form of dancing. What single German can
still say he knows from experience that delicate
shudder which light footfalls in matters intellectual
cause to pervade his whole body and limbs! Stiff
awkwardness in intellectual attitudes, and the clumsy
fist in grasping—these things are so essentially
German, that outside Germany they are absolutely
confounded with the German spirit. The German
has no fingers for delicate nuances. The fact that


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THINGS THE GERMANS LACK
59
the people of Germany have actually tolerated
their philosophers, more particularly that most de-
formed cripple of ideas that has ever existed—the
great Kant, gives one no inadequate notion of their
native elegance. For, truth to tell, dancing in all
its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum
of all noble education : dancing with the feet, with
ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must
also be able to dance with the pen—that one must
learn ow to write ? —But at this stage I should
become utterly enigmatical to German readers.


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SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE
AGE
I
! My Impossible People. —Seneca, or the toreador of
virtue. —Rousseau, or the return to nature, in impuris
naturalibus. ---Schiller, or the Moral-Trumpeter of
Säckingen. -Dante, or the hyæna that writes poetry
in tombs. -Kant, or cant as an intelligible character.
-Victor Hugo, or the lighthouse on the sea of non-
sense. —Liszt, or the school of racing—after women.
- George Sand, or lactea ubertas, in plain English :
the cow with plenty of beautiful milk. -Michelet, or
enthusiasm in its shirt sleeves. —Carlyle, or Pessim-
ism after undigested meals. —John Stuart Mill, or
offensive lucidity. —The brothers Goncourt, or the
two Ajaxes fighting with Homer. Music by Offen-
bach. -Zola, or the love of stinking.
2
Renan. —Theology, or the corruption of reason by
original sin (Christianity). Proof of this,—Renan
who, even in those rare cases where he ventures to
say either Yes or No on a general question, invari-
ably misses the point with painful regularity. For
instance, he would fain associate science and nobility:
but surely it must be obvious that science is demo-
cratic. He seems to be actuated by a strong desire
to represent an aristocracy of intellect: but, at the
60


## p. 61 (#81) ##############################################

SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE
61
same time he grovels on his knees, and not only on
his knees, before the opposite doctrine, the gospel
of the humble. What is the good of all free-spirited-
ness, modernity, mockery and acrobatic suppleness,
if in one's belly one is still a Christian, a Catholic,
and even a priest! Renan's forte, precisely like that
of a Jesuit and Father Confessor, lies in his seduc-
tiveness. His intellectuality is not devoid of that
unctuous complacency of a parson,—like all priests,
he becomes dangerous only when he loves. He is
second to none in the art of skilfully worshipping a
dangerous thing. This intellect of Renan's, which
in its action is enervating, is one calamity the more,
for poor, sick France with her will-power all going
to pieces.
3
Sainte-Beuve. -There is naught of man in him;
he is full of petty spite towards all virile spirits.
He wanders erratically; he is subtle, inquisitive, a
little bored, for ever with his ear to key-holes,-at
bottom a woman, with all woman's revengefulness
and sensuality. As a psychologist he is a genius of
slander ; inexhaustively rich in means to this end;
no one understands better than he how to intro-
duce a little poison into praise. In his fundamental
instincts he is plebeian and next of kin to Rousseau's
resentful spirit: consequently he is a Romanticist-
for beneath all romanticism Rousseau's instinct for
revenge grunts and frets. He is a revolutionary,
but kept within bounds by "funk. ” He is embar-
rassed in the face of everything that is strong (public
opinion, the Academy, the court, even Port Royal).
He is embittered against everything great in men


## p. 62 (#82) ##############################################

62
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
and things, against everything that believes in itself.
Enough of a poet and of a female to be able to feel
greatness as power; he is always turning and twist-
ing, because, like the proverbial worm, he constantly
feels that he is being trodden upon. As a critic he
has no standard of judgment, no guiding principle,
no backbone. Although he possesses the tongue of
the Cosmopolitan libertine which can chatter about
a thousand things, he has not the courage even to
acknowledge his libertinage. As a historian he has
no philosophy, and lacks the power of philosophical
vision,-hence his refusal to act the part of a judge,
and his adoption of the mask of “objectivity” in all
important matters. His attitude is better in regard
to all those things in which subtle and effete taste
is the highest tribunal : in these things he really
does have the courage of his own personality_he
really does enjoy his own nature—he actually is a
master. -In some respects he is a prototype of
Beaudelaire.
4
“ The Imitation of Christ” is one of those books
which I cannot even take hold of without physical
loathing: it exhales a perfume of the eternally
feminine, which to appreciate fully one must be a
Frenchman or a Wagnerite. This saint has a way
of speaking about love which makes even Parisiennes
feel a little curious. -I am told that that most intelli-
gent of Jesuits, Auguste Comte, who wished to lead
his compatriots back to Rome by the circuitous route
of science, drew his inspiration from this book. And
I believe it: “The religion of the heart. ”
»


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SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE 63
5
G. Eliot. They are rid of the Christian God and
therefore think it all the more incumbent upon them
to hold tight to Christian morality: this is an English
way of reasoning; but let us not take it ill in moral
females à la Eliot. In England, every man who
indulges in any trifling emancipation from theology,
must retrieve his honourin the most terrifying manner
by becoming a moral fanatic. That is how they do
penancein thatcountry. -Asfor us, we act differently.
When we renounce the Christian faith, we abandon
all right to Christian morality. This is not by any
means self-evident, and in defianceof English shallow-
pates the point must be made ever more and more
plain. Christianity is a system, a complete outlook
upon the world, conceived as a whole. If its leading
concept, the belief in God, is wrenched from it, the
wholeisdestroyed; nothing vital remainsinour grasp.
Christianity presupposes that man does not and can-
not know what is good or bad for him : the Christian
believes in God who, alone, can know these things.
Christian morality is a command, its origin is tran-
scendental. It is beyond all criticism, all right to
criticism ; it is true only on condition that God is
truth,-it stands or falls with the belief in God. If
the English really believe that they know intuitively,
and of their own accord, what is good and evil; if,
therefore, they assert that they no longer need Chris-
tianity as a guarantee of morality, this in itself is
simply the outcome of the dominion of Christian
valuations, and a proof of the strength and profundity
of this dominion. It only shows that the origin of


## p. 64 (#84) ##############################################

64
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
English morality has been forgotten, and that its
exceedingly relative right to exist is no longer felt.
For Englishmen morality is not yet a problem.
6
George Sand. —I have been reading the first “Lettres
d'un Voyageur”: like everything that springs from
Rousseau's influence it is false, made-up, blown out,
and exaggerated! I cannot endure this bright wall-
paper style, any more than I can bear the vulgar
striving after generous feelings. The worst feature
about it is certainly the coquettish adoption of male
attributes by this female, after the manner of ill-
bred schoolboys. And how cold she must have been
inwardly all the while, this insufferable artist! She
wound herself
up
like a clock and wrote. As cold
as Hugo and Balzac, as cold as all Romanticists are as
soon as they begin to write! And how self-compla-
cently she must have lain there, this prolific ink-
yielding cow. For she had something German in
her (German in the bad sense), just as Rousseau,
her master, had ;-—something which could only have
been possible when French taste was declining ! -
and Renan adores her! . . .
a
.
7
A Moral for Psychologists. Do not go in for any
note-book psychology! Never observe for the sake
of observing! Such things lead to a false point of
view, to a squint, to something forced and exagger-
ated. To experience things on purpose—this is not
a a bit of good. In the midst of an experience a man
should not turn his eyes upon himself; in such cases


## p. 65 (#85) ##############################################

SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE 65
any eye becomes the “evil eye. " A born psycho-
logist instinctively avoids seeing for the sake of see-
ing. And the same holds good of the born painter.
Such a man never works “from nature,”—he leaves
it to his instinct, to his camera obscura to sift and to
define the “ fact,” “nature,” the “experience. ” The
general idea, the conclusion, the result, is the only
thing that reaches his consciousness. He knows no-
thing of that wilful process of deducing from particu-
lar cases. What is the result when a man sets about
this matter differently? —when, for instance, after the
manner of Parisian novelists, he goes in for note-
book psychology on a large and small scale? Such
a man is constantly spying on reality, and every
evening he bears home a handful of fresh curios. . . .
But look at the result ! -a mass of daubs, at best a
piece of mosaic, in any case something heaped to-
gether, restless and garish. The Goncourts are the
greatest sinners in this respect: they cannot put
three sentences together which are not absolutely
painful to the eye — the eye of the psychologist.
From an artistic standpoint, nature is no model. It
exaggerates, distorts, and leaves gaps. Nature is the
accident. To study “ from nature" seems to me a
bad sign : it betrays submission, weakness, fatalism
—this lying in the dust before trivial facts is un-
worthy of a thorough artist. To see what is—is the
function of another order of intellects, the anti-artis-
tic, the matter-of-fact. One must know who one is.
8
Concerning the psychology of the artist. For art to
be possible at all — that is to say, in order that an
5


## p. 66 (#86) ##############################################

66
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
æsthetic mode of action and of observation may ex-
ist, a certain preliminary physiological state is indis-
pensable: ecstasy. * This state of ecstasy must first
have intensified the susceptibility of the whole ma-
chine: otherwise, no art is possible. All kinds of
ecstasy, however differently produced, have this
power to create art, and above all the state depend-
ent upon sexual excitement — this most venerable
and primitive form of ecstasy. The same applies to
that ecstasy which is the outcome of all great desires,
all strong passions; the ecstasy of the feast of the
arena, of the act of bravery, of victory, of all extreme
action; the ecstasy of cruelty ; the ecstasy of de-
struction; the ecstasy following upon certain mete-
orological influences, as for instance that of spring-
time, or upon the use of narcotics; and finally the
ecstasy of will, that ecstasy which results from ac-
cumulated and surging will-power. —The essential
feature of ecstasy is the feeling of increased strength
and abundance. Actuated by this feeling a man
gives of himself to things, he forces them to partake
of his riches, he does violence to them—this proceed-
ing is called idealising. Let us rid ourselves of a pre-
judice here: idealising does not consist, as is gener-
ally believed, in a suppression or an elimination of
detail or of unessential features. A stupendous
accentuation of the principal characteristics is by far
the most decisive factor at work, and in consequence
the minor characteristics vanish.
* The German word Rausch as used by Nietzsche here,
suggests a blend of our two English words “intoxication
and “elation. ”_TR.


## p. 67 (#87) ##############################################

SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE 67
9
In this state a man enriches everything from out
his own abundance: what he sees, what he wills,
he sees distended, compressed, strong, overladen
with power. He transfigures things until they reflect
his power,—until they are stamped with his perfec-
tion. This compulsion to transfigure into the beauti-
ful is—Art. Everything—even that which he is not,
-is nevertheless to such a man a means of rejoicing
over himself; in Art man rejoices over himself as
perfection. —It is possible to imagine a contrary
state, a specifically anti-artistic state of the instincts,
-a state in which a man impoverishes, attenuates,
and draws the blood from everything. And, truth
to tell, history is full of such anti-artists, of such
creatures of low vitality who have no choice but to
appropriate everything they see and to suck its
blood and make it thinner. This is the case with
the genuine Christian, Pascal for instance. There
is no such thing as a Christian who is also an artist.
. . . Let no one be so childish as to suggest Raphael
or any homeopathic Christian of the nineteenth
century as an objection to this statement : Raphael
said Yea, Raphael did Yea,-consequently Raphael
was no Christian.
IO
What is the meaning of the antithetical concepts
Apollonian and Dionysian which I have introduced
into the vocabulary of Æsthetic, as representing
two distinct modes of ecstasy ? —Apollonian ecstasy
acts above all as a force stimulating the eye, so that
it acquires the power of vision. The painter, the


## p. 68 (#88) ##############################################

68
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
sculptor, the epic poet are essentially visionaries.
In the Dionysian state, on the other hand, the whole
system of passions is stimulated and intensified, so
that it discharges itself by all the means of expres-
sion at once, and vents all its power of representa-
tion, of imitation, of transfiguration, of transforma-
tion, together with every kind of mimicry and
histrionic display at the same time. The essential
feature remains the facility in transforming, the in-
ability to refrain from reaction (-a similar state to
that of certain hysterical patients, who at the slightest
hint assume any rôle). It is impossible for the
Dionysian artist not to understand any suggestion;
no outward sign of emotion escapes him, he pos-
sesses the instinct of comprehension and of divina-
tion in the highest degree, just as he is capable of
the most perfect art of communication. He enters
into every skin, into every passion : he is continually
changing himself. Music as we understand it to-
day is likewise a general excitation and discharge
of the emotions; but, notwithstanding this, it is only
the remnant of a much richer world of emotional
expression, a mere residuum of Dionysian histrion-
ism. For music to be made possible as a special
art, quite a number of senses, and particularly the
muscular sense, had to be paralysed (at least re-
latively: for all rhythm still appeals to our muscles
to a certain extent): and thus man no longer imi-
tates and represents physically everything he feels,
as soon as he feels it. Nevertheless that is the
normal Dionysian state, and in any case its primitive
state. Music is the slowly attained specialisatio
of this state at the cost of kindred capacities.


## p. 69 (#89) ##############################################

SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE 69
II
The actor, the inime, the dancer, the musician, and
the lyricist, are in their instincts fundamentally re-
lated; but they have gradually specialised in their
particular branch, and become separated—even to
the point of contradiction. The lyricist remained
united with the musician for the longest period of
time; and the actor with the dancer. The architect
manifests neither a Dionysian nor an Apollonian
state: In his case it is the great act of will, the will
that moveth mountains, the ecstasy of the great will
which aspires to art. The most powerful men have
always inspired architects; the architect has always
been under the suggestion of power. In the archi-
tectural structure, man's pride, man's triumph over
gravitation, man's will to power, assume a visible
form. Architecture is a sort of oratory of power by
a
means of forms. Now it is persuasive, even flatter-
ing, and at other times merely commanding. The
highest sensation of power and security finds ex-
pression in grandeur of style. That power which no
longer requires to be proved, which scorns to please ;
which responds only with difficulty; which feels no
witnesses around it; which is oblivious of the fact
that it is being opposed; which relies on itself
fatalistically, and is a law among laws:-such power
expresses itself quite naturally in grandeur of style.
12
I have been reading the life of Thomas Carlyle,
that unconscious and involuntary farce, that heroico-
moral interpretation of dyspeptic moods. -Carlyle,
a man of strong words and attitudes, a rhetorician


## p. 70 (#90) ##############################################

70
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
a
by necessity, who seems ever to be tormented by
the desire of finding some kind of strong faith, and
by his inability to do so (-in this respect a typical
Romanticist ! ). To yearn for a strong faith is not
the proof of a strong faith, but rather the reverse.
If a man have a strong faith he can indulge in the
luxury of scepticism; he is strong enough, firm
enough, well-knit enough for such a luxury. Carlyle
stupefies something in himself by means of the
fortissimo of his reverence for men of a strong faith,
and his rage over those who are less foolish : he is
in sore need of noise. An attitude of constant
and passionate dishonesty towards himself—this is
his proprium ; by virtue of this he is and remains
interesting. –Of course, in England he is admired
precisely on account of his honesty. Well, that is
English; and in view of the fact that the English are
the nation of consummate cant, it is not only com-
prehensible but also very natural. At bottom, Carlyle
is an English atheist who makes it a point of honour
not to be one.
13
Emerson. He is much more enlightened, much
broader, more versatile,and more subtle than Carlyle;
but above all, he is happier. He is one who in-
stinctively lives on ambrosia and who leaves the
indigestible parts of things on his plate. Compared
with Carlyle he is a man of taste. -Carlyle, who
was very fond of him, nevertheless declared that
“he does not give us enough to chew. ” This is
perfectly true but it is not unfavourable to Emerson.
-Emerson possesses that kindly intellectual cheer-
fulness which deprecates overmuch seriousness; he


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SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE 71
has absolutely no idea of how old he is already,
and how young he will yet be,-he could have said
of himself, in Lope de Vega's words : “yo me sucedo
a mi mismo. " His mind is always finding reasons
for being contented and even thankful; and at times
he gets preciously near to that serene superiority of
theworthy bourgeois who returning from an amorous
rendezvous tamquam re bene gesta, said gratefully
“ Ut desint vires, tamen est laudanda voluptas. ”—
14
Anti-Darwin.
—As to the famous “struggle for
existence,” it seems to me, for the present, to be
more of an assumption than a fact. It does occur,
but as an exception. The general condition of life
is not one of want or famine, but rather of riches,
of lavish luxuriance, and even of absurd prodigality,
-where there is a struggle, it is a struggle for power.
We should not confound Malthus with nature. -
Supposing, however, that this struggle exists,-and
it does indeed occur,-its result is unfortunately the
very reverse of that which the Darwinian school
seems to desire, and of that which in agreement with
them we also might desire: that is to say, it is always
to the disadvantage of the strong, the privileged,
and the happy exceptions. Species do not evolve
towards perfection: the weak always prevail over
the strong-simply because they are the majority,
and because they are also the more crafty. Darwin
forgot the intellect (that is English ! ), the weak
have more intellect. In order to acquire intellect,
one must be in need of it. One loses it when one
no longer needs it. He who possesses strength


## p. 72 (#92) ##############################################

72
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
Alings intellect to the deuce (“let it go hence! "*
say the Germans of the present day, “the Empire
will remain ”). As you perceive, intellect to me
means caution, patience, craft, dissimulation, great
self-control, and everything related to mimicry (what
is praised nowadays as virtue is very closely related
to the latter).
15
Casuistry of a Psychologist. —This man knows
mankind: to what purpose does he study his fellows?
He wants to derive some small or even great ad-
vantages from them,—he is a politician! . . . That
man yonder is also well versed in human nature:
and ye tell me that he wishes to draw no personal
profit from his knowledge, that he is a thoroughly
disinterested person ? Examine him a little more
closely! Maybe he wishes to derive a more wicked
advantage from his possession ; namely, to feel
superior to men, to be able to look down upon them,
no longer to feel one of them. This “disinterested
person” is a despiser of mankind; and the former
is of a more humane type, whatever appearances may
seem to say to the contrary. At least he considers
himself the equal of those about him, at least he
classifies himself with them.
"
16
The psychological tact of Germans seems to me to
have been set in doubt by a whole series of cases
* An allusion to a verse in Luther's hymn : “Lass fahren
dahin. das Reich muss uns doch bleiben," which Nietzsche
applies to the German Empire. -TR.
1
!


## p. 73 (#93) ##############################################

SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE
73
which my modesty forbids me to enumerate. In one
case at least I shall not let the occasion slip for
substantiating my contention : I bear the Germans
a grudge for having made a mistake about Kant
and his “backstairs philosophy,” as I call it. Such
a man was not the type of intellectual uprightness.
Another thing I hate to hear is a certain infamous
“and”: the Germans say, “Goethe and Schiller,"
I even fear that they say, “Schiller and Goethe. ”
“
. . Has nobody found Schiller out yet ? —But
there are other “ands” which are even
egregious. With my own ears I have heard-only
among University professors, it is true ! —men speak
of “Schopenhauer and Hartmann. ”
17
The most intellectual men, provided they are
also the most courageous, experience the most ex-
cruciating tragedies : but on that very account they
honour life, because it confronts them with its most
formidable antagonism.
18
Concerning “the Conscience of the Intellect. ”-
Nothing seems to me more uncommon to-day than
genuine hypocrisy. I strongly suspect that this
growth is unable to flourish in the mild climate of
our culture. Hypocrisy belongs to an age of strong
faith,—one in which one does not lose one's own
faith in spite of the fact that one has to make an out-
* A disciple of Schopenhauer who blunted the sharpness of
his master's Pessimism and who watered it down for modern
requirements. —TR.


## p. 74 (#94) ##############################################

74
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
ward show of holding another faith. Nowadays a
man gives it up; or, what is still more common, he
acquires a second faith,in any case, however, he
remains honest. Without a doubt it is possible to
have a much larger number of convictions at present,
than it was formerly: possible—that is to say, allow-
able,—that is to say, harmless. From this there
arises an attitude of toleration towards one's self.
Toleration towards one's self allows of a greater
number of convictions: the latter live comfortably
side by side, and they take jolly good care, as all
the world does to-day, not to compromise them-
selves. How does a man compromise himself to-
day? When he is consistent; when he pursues a
straight course; when he has anything less than
five faces; when he is genuine. . . . I very greatly
fear that modern man is much too fond of comfort
for certain vices; and the consequence is that the
latter are dying out. Everything evil which is the
outcome of strength of will—and maybe there is
nothing evil without the strengh of will,—degen-
erates, in our muggy atmosphere, into virtue. The
few hypocrites I have known only imitated hypoc-
risy: like almost every tenth man to-day, they were
actors.
19
Beautiful and Ugly :—Nothing is more relative,
let us say, more restricted, than our sense of the
beautiful. He who would try to divorce it from the
delight man finds in his fellows, would immediately
lose his footing. “Beauty in itself,” is simply a
word, it is not even a concept. In the beautiful,
man postulates himself as the standard of perfec-


## p. 75 (#95) ##############################################

SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE
75
.
.
tion; in exceptional cases he worships himself as
that standard. A species has no other alternative
than to say “yea” to itself alone, in this way. Its
,
lowest instinct, the instinct of self-preservation and
self-expansion, still radiates in such sublimities.
Man imagines the world itself to be overflowing
with beauty,—he forgets that he is the cause of it
all. He alone has endowed it with beauty. Alas!
and only with human all-too-human beauty! Truth
to tell man reflects himself in things, he thinks
everything beautiful that throws his own image back
at him. The judgment“ beautiful” is the “vanity
of his species. ” A little demon of suspicion
may well whisper into the sceptic's ear: is the
world really beautified simply because man thinks it
beautiful? He has only humanised it—that is all.
But nothing, absolutely nothing proves to us that it
is precisely man who is the proper model of beauty.
Who knows what sort of figure he would cut in the
eyes of a higher judge of taste? He might seem
a little outré ? perhaps even somewhat amusing ?
perhaps a trifle arbitrary? "O Dionysus, thou divine
one, why dost thou pull mine ears? ” Ariadne asks
on one occasion of her philosophic lover, during one
of those famous conversations on the island of
Naxos. “I find a sort of humour in thine ears,
Ariadne: why are they not a little longer ? ”
20
Nothing is beautiful; man alone is beautiful : all
æsthetic rests on this piece of ingenuousness, it is the
first axiom of this science. And now let us straight-
way add the second to it: nothing is ugly save the
.


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THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
degenerate man,—within these two first principles
the realm of astheticjudgmentsisconfined. From the
physiological standpoint, everything ugly weakens
and depresses man. It reminds him of decay, danger,
impotence; he literally loses strength in its presence.
The effect of ugliness may be gauged by the dyna-
mometer. Whenever man's spirits are downcast, it
is a sign that he scents the proximity of something
“ugly. ” His feeling of power, his will to power,
his courage
and his pride— these things collapse at
the sight of what is ugly, and rise at the sight of
what is beautiful. In both cases an inference is
drawn; the premises to which are stored with extra
ordinary abundance in the instincts. Ugliness is
understood to signify a hint and a symptom of de-
generation: that which reminds us however remotely
of degeneracy, impels us to the judgment "ugly. ”
Every sign of exhaustion, of gravity, of age, of
fatigue; every kind of constraint, such as cramp, or
paralysis ; and above all the smells, colours and
forms associated with decomposition and putrefaç-
tion, however much they may have been attenuated
into symbols,-all these things provoke the same
reaction which is the judgment“ ugly. ” A certain
hatred expresses itself here: what is it that man
hates? Without a doubt it is the decline of his
type. In this regard his hatred springs from the
deepest instincts of the race: there is horror, caution,
profundity and far-reaching vision in this hatred,
it is the most profound hatred that exists. On its
account alone Art is profound.


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SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE 77
21
Schopenhauer. —Schopenhauer, the last German
who is to be reckoned with (who is a European
event like Goethe, Hegel, or Heinrich Heine, and
who is not merely local, national), is for a psycholo-
gist a case of the first rank: I mean as a malicious
though masterly attempt to enlist on the side of a
general nihilistic depreciation of life, the very forces
which are opposed to such a movement,—that is to
say, the great self-affirming powers of the “will to
live," the exuberant forms of life itself. He inter-
preted Art, heroism, genius, beauty, great sympathy,
knowledge, the will to truth, and tragedy, one after
the other, as the results of the denial, or of the need
of the denial, of the “will ”—the greatest forgery,
Christianity always excepted, which history has to
show. Examined more carefully, he is in this respect
simply the heir of the Christian interpretation ; ex-
cept that he knew how to approve in a Christian
fashion (i. e. , nihilistically) even of the great facts of
human culture, which Christianity completely re-
pudiates. (He approved of them as paths to “salva-
tion,” as preliminary stages to "salvation,” as appe-
tisers calculated to arouse the desire for “salvation. ")
22
Let me point to one singleinstance. Schopenhauer
speaks of beauty with melancholy ardour,—why in
sooth does he do this? Because in beauty he sees
a bridge on which one can travel further, or which
stimulates one's desire to travel further. According
to him it constitutes a momentary emancipation from


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78
THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
the “will ”-it lures to eternal salvation. He values
it more particularly as a deliverance from the“ burn-
ing core of the will ” which is sexuality,-in beauty
he recognises the negation of the procreative instinct.
Singular Saint! Some one contradicts thee; I fear
it is Nature. Why is there beauty of tone, colour,
aroma, and of rhythmic movement in Nature at all ?
What is it forces beauty to the fore? Fortunately,
too, a certain philosopher contradicts him. No less
an authority than the divine Plato himself (thus
does Schopenhauer call him), upholds another pro-
position : that all beauty lures to procreation,—that
this precisely is the chief characteristic of its effect,
from the lowest sensuality to the highest spirituality.
a
23
Plato goes further.
further. With an innocence for which
a man must be Greek and not “Christian," he
says
that there would be no such thing as Platonic philo-
sophy if there were not such beautiful boys in
Athens : it was the sight of them alone that set the
soul of the philosopher reeling with erotic passion,
and allowed it no rest until it had planted the seeds
of all lofty things in a soil so beautiful. He was also
a singular saint ! -One scarcely believes one's ears,
even supposing one believes Plato. At least one
realises that philosophy was pursued differently in
Athens; above all, publicly. Nothing is less Greek
than the cobweb-spinning with concepts by an
anchorite, amor intellectualis dei after the fashion
of Spinoza. Philosophy according to Plato's style
.
might be defined rather as an erotic competition,
as a continuation and a spiritualisation of the old


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SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE 79
agonal gymnastics and the conditions on which they
depend. . . . What was the ultimate outcome of
this philosophic eroticism of Plato's? A new art-
form of the Greek Agon, dialectics. —In opposition
to Schopenhauer and to the honour of Plato, I would
remind you that all the higher culture and literature
of classical France, as well, grew up on the soil of
sexual interests. In all its manifestations you may
look for gallantry, the senses, sexual competition,
and “woman,” and you will not look in vain.
24
L'Art pour l'Art. —The struggle against a pur-
pose in art is always a struggle against the moral
tendency in art, against its subordination to morality.
L'art pour l'art means, “let morality go to the devil! ”
-But even this hostility betrays the preponderating
power of the moral prejudice. If art is deprived of
the purpose of preaching morality and of improving
mankind, it does not by any means follow that art
is absolutely pointless, purposeless, senseless, in
short l'art pour l'art—a snake which bites its own
tail. “No purpose at all is better than a moral
purpose! ”—thus does pure passion speak. A psy-
chologist, on the other hand, puts the question :
what does all art do? does it not praise? does it not
glorify? does it not select? does it not bring things
into prominence? In all this it strengthens or
weakens certain valuations. Is this only a secon-
dary matter? an accident? something in which the
artist's instinct has no share? Or is it not rather the
very prerequisite which enables the artist to accom-


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THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
plish something? . . . Is his most fundamental
instinct concerned with art? Is it not rather con-
cerned with the purpose of art, with life? with a
certain desirable kind of life? Art is the great
stimulus to life: how can it be regarded as purpose-
less, as pointless, as l'art pour l'art ? —There stil!
remains one question to be answered: Art also re-
veals much that is ugly, hard and questionable in
life,-does it not thus seem to make life intolerable?
-And, as a matter of fact, there have been philo-
sophers who have ascribed this function to art.
According to Schopenhauer's doctrine, the general
object of art was to “ free one from the Will”; and
what he honoured as the great utility of tragedy, was
that it" made people more resigned. ”—But this, as
I have already shown, is a pessimistic standpoint;
it is the “evil eye”: the artist himself must be
appealed to. What is it that the soul of the tragic
artist communicates to others? Is it not precisely
his fearless attitude towards that which is terrible
and questionable? This attitude is in itself a highly
desirable one; he who has once experienced it
honours it above everything else. He communi-
cates it. He must communicate, provided he is an
artist and a genius in the art of communication
A courageous and free spirit, in the presence of a
mighty foe, in the presence of a sublime misfortune,
and face to face with a problem that inspires horror
-this is the triumphant attitude which the tragic
artist selects and which he glorifies. The martial
elements in our soul celebrate their Saturnalia in
tragedy; he who is used to suffering, he who looks
out for suffering, the heroic man, extols his exist-


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SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE
81
ence by means of tragedy,—to him alone does the
tragic artist offer this cup of sweetest cruelty. -
25
To associate in an amiable fashion with any-
body; to keep the house of one's heart open to all, is
certainly liberal : but it is nothing else. One can
recognise the hearts that are capable of noble hos-
pitality, by their wealth of screened windows and
closed shutters: they keep their best rooms empty.
Whatever for ? —Because they are expecting guests
who are somebodies.
26
We no longer value ourselves sufficiently highly
when we communicate our soul's content. Our real
experiences are not at all garrulous. They could
not communicate themselves even if they wished to.
They are at a loss to find words for such con-
fidences. Those things for which we find words, are
things we have already overcome. In all speech there
lies an element of contempt. Speech, it would seem,
was only invented for average, mediocre and com-
municable things. -Every spoken word proclaims
the speaker vulgarised. —(Extract from a moral code
for deaf-and-dumb people and other philosophers. )
27
“This picture is perfectly beautiful ! ” * The dis-
satisfied and exasperated literary woman with a
desert in her heart and in her belly, listening with
* Quotation from the Libretto of Mozart's “ Magic Flute,"
Act 1, Sc. 3. -TR.
6


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THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
agonised curiosity every instant to the imperative
which whispers to her from the very depths of her
being : aut liberi, aut libri : the literary woman,
sufficiently educated to understand the voice of
nature, even when nature speaks Latin, and more-
over enough of a peacock and a goose to speak even
French with herself in secret. “Je me verrai, je me
lirai, je m'extasierai et je dirai : Possible, que j'aie
eu tant d'esprit ? ”
.
.
28
The objective ones speak. —“Nothing comes more
easily to us, than to be wise, patient, superior. We
are soaked in the oil of indulgence and of sympathy,
we are absurdly just, we forgive everything. Pre-
cisely on that account we should be severe with our-
selves; for that very reason we ought from time to
time to go in for a little emotion, a little emotional
vice.