The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Will to Power, Book I and II, by Friedrich Nietzsche.

[10] TRANSLATOR'S NOTE.—Goethe invariably inveighed against the "gnoti seauton" of the Socratic school; he was of the opinion that an animal which tries to see its inner self must be sick.

The apparition of Greek philosophers since the time of Socrates is a symptom of decadence; the anti-Hellenic instincts become paramount.

The "Sophist" is still quite Hellenic—as are also Anaxagoras, Democritus, and the great Ionians; but only as transitional forms. The polis loses its faith in the unity of its culture, in its rights of dominion over every other polis.... Cultures, that is to say, "the gods," are exchanged, and thus the belief in the exclusive prerogative of the deus autochthonus is lost. Good and Evil of whatever origin get mixed: the boundaries separating good from evil gradually vanish.... This is the "Sophist." ...

On the other hand, the "philosopher" is the reactionary: he insists upon the old virtues. He sees the reason of decay in the decay of institutions: he therefore wishes to revive old institutions;—he sees decay in the decline of authority: he therefore endeavours to find new authorities (he travels abroad, explores foreign literature and exotic religions....);—he will reinstate the ideal polis, after the concept "polis" has become superannuated (just, as the Jews kept themselves together as a "people" after they had fallen into slavery). They become interested in all tyrants: their desire is to re-establish virtue with "force majeure".

Gradually everything genuinely Hellenic is held responsible for the state of decay (and Plato is just as ungrateful to Pericles, Homer, tragedy, and rhetoric as the prophets are to David and Saul). The downfall of Greece is conceived as an objection to the fundamental principles of Hellenic culture: the profound error of philosophers—Conclusion: the Greek world perishes. The cause thereof: Homer, mythology, ancient morality, etc.

The anti-Hellenic development of philosophers' valuations:—the Egyptian influence ("Life after death" made into law....);—the Semitic influence (the "dignity of the sage," the "Sheik");—the Pythagorean influence, the subterranean cults, Silence, means of terrorisation consisting of appeals to a "Beyond," mathematics: the religious valuation consisting of a sort of intimacy with a cosmic entity;—the sacerdotal, ascetic, and transcendental influences;—the dialectical influence,—I am of opinion that even Plato already betrays revolting and pedantic meticulousness in his concepts!—Decline of good intellectual taste: the hateful noisiness of every kind of direct dialectics seems no longer to be felt.

The two decadent tendencies and extremes run side by side: (a) the luxuriant and more charming kind of decadence which shows a love of pomp and art, and (b) the gloomy kind, with its religious and moral pathos, its stoical self-hardening tendency, its Platonic denial of the senses, and its preparation of the soil for the coming of Christianity.

To what extent psychologists have been corrupted by the moral idiosyncrasy!—Not one of the ancient philosophers had the courage to advance the theory of the non-free will (that is to say, the theory that denies morality);—not one had the courage to identify the typical feature of happiness, of every kind of happiness **("pleasure"), with the will to power: for the pleasure of power was considered immoral;—not one had the courage to regard virtue as a result of immorality (as a result of a will to power) in the service of a species (or of a race, or of a polis); for the will to power was considered immoral.

In the whole of moral evolution, there is no sign of truth: all the conceptual elements which come into play are fictions; all the psychological tenets are false; all the forms of logic employed in this department of prevarication are sophisms. The chief feature of all moral philosophers is their total lack of intellectual cleanliness and self-control: they regard "fine feelings" as arguments: their heaving breasts seem to them the bellows of godliness.... Moral philosophy is the most suspicious period in the history of the human intellect.

The first great example: in the name of morality and under its patronage, a great wrong was committed, which as a matter of fact was in every respect an act of decadence. Sufficient stress cannot be laid upon this fact, that the great Greek philosophers not only represented the decadence of every kind of Greek ability, but also made it contagious.... This "virtue" made wholly abstract was the highest form of seduction; to make oneself abstract means to turn one's back on the world.

The moment is a very remarkable one: the Sophists are within sight of the first criticism of morality, the first knowledge of morality:—they classify the majority of moral valuations (in view of their dependence upon local conditions) together;—they lead one to understand that every form of morality is capable of being upheld dialectically: that is to say, they guessed that all the fundamental principles of a morality must be sophistical—a proposition which was afterwards proved in the grandest possible style by the ancient philosophers from Plato onwards (up to Kant);—they postulate the primary truth that there is no such thing as a "moral per se," a "good per se," and that it is madness to talk of "truth" in this respect.

The Greek culture of the Sophists had grown out of all the Greek instincts; it belongs to the culture of the age of Pericles as necessarily as Plato does not: it has its predecessors in Heraclitus, Democritus, and in the scientific types of the old philosophy; it finds expression in the elevated culture of Thucydides, for instance. And—it has ultimately shown itself to be right: every step in the science of epistemology and morality has confirmed the attitude of the Sophists.... Our modern attitude of mind is, to a great extent, Heraclitean, Democritean, and Protagorean ... to say that it is Protagorean is even sufficient: because Protagoras was in himself a synthesis of the two men Heraclitus and Democritus.

(Plato: a great Cagliostro,—let us think of how Epicurus judged him; how Timon, Pyrrho's friend, judged him——Is Plato's integrity by any chance beyond question?... But we at least know what he wished to have taught as absolute truth—namely, things which were to him not even relative truths: the separate and immortal life of "souls.")

The Sophists are nothing more, nor less than realists: they elevate all the values and practices which are common property to the rank of values—they have the courage, peculiar to all strong intellects, which consists in knowing their immorality....

Is it to be supposed that these small Greek independent republics, so filled with rage and envy that they would fain have devoured each other, were led by principles of humanity and honesty? Is Thucydides by any chance reproached with the words he puts into the mouths of the Athenian ambassadors when they were treating with the Melii anent the question of destruction or submission? Only the most perfect Tartuffes could have been able to speak of virtue in the midst of that dreadful strain—or if not Tartuffes, at least detached philosophers, anchorites, exiles, and fleers from reality.... All of them, people who denied things in order to be able to exist.

The Sophists were Greeks: when Socrates and Plato adopted the cause of virtue and justice, they were Jews or I know not what. Grote's tactics in the defence of the Sophists are false: he would like to raise them to the rank of men of honour and moralisers—but it was their honour not to indulge in any humbug with grand words and virtues.

The great reasonableness underlying all moral education lay in the fact that it always attempted to attain to the certainty of an instinct: so that neither good intentions nor good means, as such, first required to enter consciousness. Just as the soldier learns his exercises, so should man learn how to act in life. In truth this unconsciousness belongs to every kind of perfection: even the mathematician carries out his calculations unconsciously....

What, then, does Socrates' reaction mean, which recommended dialectics as the way to virtue, and which was charmed when morality was unable to justify itself logically? But this is precisely what proves its superiority—without unconsciousness it is worth nothing!

In reality it means the dissolution of Greek instincts, when demonstrability is posited as the first condition of personal excellence in virtue. All these great "men of virtue" and of words are themselves types of dissolution.

In practice, it means that moral judgments have been torn from the conditions among which they grew and in which alone they had some sense, from their Greek and Græco-political soil, in order to be denaturalised under the cover of being made sublime. The great concepts "good" and "just" are divorced from the first principles of which they form a part, and, as "ideas" become free, degenerate into subjects for discussion. A certain truth is sought behind them; they are regarded as entities or as symbols of entities: a world is invented where they are "at home," and from which they are supposed to hail.

In short: the scandal reaches its apotheosis in Plato.... And then it was necessary to invent the perfectly abstract man also:—good, just, wise, and a dialectician to boot—in short, the scarecrow of the ancient philosopher: a plant without any soil whatsoever; a human race devoid of all definite ruling instincts; a virtue which "justifies" itself with reasons. The perfectly absurd "individual" per se! the highest form of Artificiality....

Briefly, the denaturalisation of moral values resulted in the creation of a degenerate type of man—"the good man," "the happy man," "the wise man."—Socrates represents a moment of the most profound perversity in the history of values.

Socrates.—This veering round of Greek taste in favour of dialectics is a great question. What really happened then? Socrates, the roturier who was responsible for it, was thus able to triumph over a more noble taste, the taste of the noble:—the mob gets the upper hand along with dialectics. Previous to Socrates dialectic manners were repudiated in good society; they were regarded as indecent; the youths were Warned against them. What was the purpose of this display of reasons? Why demonstrate? Against others one could use authority. One commanded, and that sufficed. Among friends, inter pares, there was tradition—also a form of authority: and last but not least, one understood each other. There was no room found for dialectics. Besides, all such modes of presenting reasons were distrusted. All honest things do not carry their reasons in their hands in such fashion. It is indecent to show all the five fingers at the same time. That which can be "demonstrated" is little worth. The instinct of every party-speaker tells him that dialectics excites mistrust and carries little conviction. Nothing is more easily wiped away than the effect of a dialectician. It can only be a last defence. One must be in an extremity; it is necessary to have to extort one's rights; otherwise one makes no use of dialectics. That is why the Jews were dialecticians, Reynard the Fox was a dialectician, and so was Socrates. As a dialectician a person has a merciless instrument in his hand: he can play the tyrant with it; he compromises when he conquers. The dialectician leaves it to his opponent to demonstrate that he is not an idiot; he is made furious and helpless, while the dialectician himself remains calm and still possessed of his triumphant reasoning powers—he paralyses his opponent's intellect.—The dialectician's irony is a form of mob-revenge: the ferocity of the oppressed lies in the cold knife-cuts of the syllogism....

In Plato, as in all men of excessive sensuality and wild fancies, the charm of concepts was so great, that he involuntarily honoured and deified the concept as a form of ideal. Dialectical intoxication: as the consciousness of being able to exercise control over one's self by means of it—as an instrument of the Will to Power.

The problem of Socrates.—The two antitheses: the tragic and the Socratic spirits—measured according to the law of Life.

To what extent is the Socratic spirit a decadent phenomenon? to what extent are robust health and power still revealed by the whole attitude of the scientific man, his dialectics, his ability, and his severity? (the health of the plebeian; whose malice, esprit frondeur, whose astuteness, whose rascally depths, are held in check by his cleverness; the whole type is "ugly").

Uglification: self-derision, dialectical dryness, intelligence in the form of a tyrant against the "tyrant" (instinct). Everything in Socrates is exaggeration, eccentricity, caricature; he is a buffoon with the blood of Voltaire in his veins. He discovers a new form of agon; he is the first fencing-master in the superior classed of Athens; he stands for nothing else than the highest form of cleverness: he calls it "virtue" (he regarded it as a means of salvation; he did not choose to be clever, cleverness was de rigueur); the proper thing is to control one's self in suchwise that one enters into a struggle not with passions but with reasons as one's weapons (Spinoza's stratagem—the unravelment of the errors of passion);—it is desirable to discover how every one may be caught once he is goaded into a passion, and to know how illogically passion proceeds; self-mockery is practised in order to injure the very roots of the feelings of resentment.

It is my wish to understand which idiosyncratic states form a part of the Socratic problem: its association of reason, virtue, and happiness. With this absurd doctrine of the identity of these things it succeeded in charming the world: ancient philosophy could not rid itself of this doctrine....

Absolute lack of objective interest: hatred of science: the idiosyncrasy of considering one's self a problem. Acoustic hallucinations in Socrates: morbid element. When the intellect is rich and independent, it most strongly resists preoccupying itself with morality. How is it that Socrates is a moral-maniac?—Every "practical" philosophy immediately steps into the foreground in times of distress. When morality and religion become the chief interests of a community, they are signs of a state of distress.

Intelligence, clearness, hardness, and logic as weapons against the wildness of the instincts. The latter must be dangerous and must threaten ruin, otherwise no purpose can be served by developing intelligence to this degree of tyranny. In order to make a tyrant of intelligence the instincts must first have proved themselves tyrants. This is the problem. It was a very timely one in those days. Reason became virtue—virtue equalled happiness.

Solution: Greek philosophers stand upon the same fundamental fact of their inner experiences as Socrates does; five feet from excess, from anarchy and from dissolution—all decadent men. They regard him as a doctor: Logic as will to power, as will to control self, as will to "happiness." The wildness and anarchy of Socrates' instincts is a sign of decadence, as is also the superfœtation of logic and clear reasoning in him. Both are abnormities, each belongs to the other. Criticism. Decadence reveals itself in this concern about "happiness" (i.e. about the "salvation of the soul"; i.e. to feel that one's condition is a danger). Its fanatical interest in "happiness" shows the pathological condition of the subconscious self: it was a vital interest. The alternative which faced them all was: to be reasonable or to perish. The morality of Greek philosophers shows that they felt they were in danger.

Why everything resolved itself into mummery.—Rudimentary psychology, which only considered the conscious lapses of men (as causes), which regarded "consciousness" as an attribute of the soul, and which sought a will behind every action (i.e. an intention), could only answer "Happiness" to the question: "What does man desire?" (it was impossible to answer "Power," because that would have been immoral);—consequently behind all men's actions there is the intention of attaining to happiness by means of them. Secondly: if man as a matter of fact does not attain to happiness, why is it? Because he mistakes the means thereto.—What is the unfailing means of acquiring happiness? Answer: virtue.—Why virtue? Because virtue is supreme rationalness, and rationalness makes mistakes in the choice of means impossible: virtue in the form of reason is the way to happiness. Dialectics is the constant occupation of virtue, because it does away with passion and intellectual cloudiness.

As a matter of fact, man does not desire "happiness." Pleasure is a sensation of power: if the passions are excluded, those states of the mind are also excluded which afford the greatest sensation of power and therefore of pleasure. The highest rationalism is a state of cool clearness, which is very far from being able to bring about that feeling of power which every kind of exaltation involves....

The ancient philosophers combat everything that intoxicates and exalts—everything that impairs the perfect coolness and impartiality of the mind.... They were consistent with their first false principle: that consciousness was the highest, the supreme state of mind, the prerequisite of perfection—whereas the reverse is true....

Any kind of action is imperfect in proportion as it has been willed or conscious. The philosophers of antiquity were the greatest duffers in practice, "because they condemned themselves" theoretically to dufferdom,.... In practice everything resolved itself into theatricalness: and he who saw through it, as Pyrrho did, for instance, thought as everybody did—that is to say, that in goodness and uprightness "paltry people" were far superior to philosophers.

All the deeper natures of antiquity were disgusted at the philosophers of virtue; all people saw in them was brawlers and actors. (This was the judgment passed on Plato by Epicurus and Pyrrho.)

Result: In practical life, in patience, goodness, and mutual assistance, paltry people were above them:—this is something like the judgment Dostoiewsky or Tolstoy claims for his muzhiks: they are more philosophical in practice, they are more courageous in their way of dealing with the exigencies of life....

A criticism of the philosopher.—Philosophers and moralists merely deceive themselves when they imagine that they escape from decadence by opposing it. That lies beyond their wills: and however little they may be aware of the fact, it is generally discovered, subsequently that they were among the most powerful promoters of decadence.

Let us examine the philosophers of Greece—Plato, for instance. He it was who separated the instincts from the polis, from the love of contest, from military efficiency, from art, beauty, the mysteries, and the belief in tradition and in ancestors.... He was the seducer of the nobles: he himself seduces through the roturier Socrates.... He denied all the first principles of the "noble Greek" of sterling worth; he made dialectics an everyday practice, conspired with the tyrants, dabbled in politics for the future, and was the example of a man whose instincts were the example of a man whose instincts were most perfectly separated from tradition. He is profound and passionate in everything that is anti-Hellenic....

One after the other, these great philosophers represent the typical forms of decadence: the moral and religious idiosyncrasy, anarchy, nihilism, (ἀδιαφορία), cynicism, hardening principles, hedonism, and reaction.

The question of "happiness," of "virtue," and of the "salvation of the soul," is the expression of physiological contradictoriness in these declining natures: their instincts lack all balance and purpose.

To what extent do dialectics and the faith in reason rest upon moral prejudices? With Plato we are as the temporary inhabitants of an intelligible world of goodness, still in possession of a bequest from former times: divine dialectics taking its root in goodness leads to everything good (it follows, therefore, that it must lead "backwards"). Even Descartes had a notion of the fact that, according to a thoroughly Christian and moral attitude of mind, which includes a belief in a good God as the Creator of all things, the truthfulness of God guarantees the judgments of our senses for us. But for this religious sanction and warrant of our senses and our reason, whence should we obtain our right to trust in existence? That thinking must be a measure of reality,—that what cannot be the subject of thought, cannot exist,—is a coarse non plus ultra of a moral blind confidence (in the essential principle of truth at the root of all things); this in itself is a mad assumption which our experience contradicts every minute. We cannot think of anything precisely as it is....

The real philosophers of Greece are those which came before Socrates (with Socrates something changes). They are all distinguished men, they take their stand away from the people and from usage; they have travelled; they are earnest to the point of sombreness, their eyes are calm, and they are not unacquainted with the business of state and diplomacy. They anticipated all the great concepts which coming sages were to have concerning things in general: they themselves represented these concepts, they made systems out of themselves. Nothing run give a higher idea of Greek intellect than this sudden fruitfulness in types, than this involuntary completeness in the drawing up of all the great possibilities of the philosophical ideal. I can see only one original figure in those that came afterwards: a late arrival but necessarily the last—Pyrrho the nihilist. His instincts were opposed to the influences which had become ascendant in the mean-time the Socratic school, Plato, and the artistic optimism of Heraclitus. (Pyrrho goes back to Democritus via Protagoras....)

Wise weariness: Pyrrho. To live humbly among the humble. Devoid of pride. To live in the vulgar way; to honour and believe what every one believes. To be on one's guard against science and intellect, and against everything that puffs one out. ... To be simply patient in the extreme, careless and mild;—ὰπάθεια or, better still, πραῢτης. A Buddhist for Greece, bred amid the tumult of the Schools; born alter his time; weary; an example of the protest of weariness against the eagerness of dialecticians; the incredulity of the tired man in regard to the importance of everything. He had seen Alexander; he had seen the Indian penitents. To such late-arrivals and creatures of great subtlety, everything lowly, poor, and idiotic, is seductive. It narcoticises: it gives them relaxation (Pascal). On the other hand, they mix with the crowd, and get confounded with the rest. These weary creatures need warmth.... To overcome contradiction; to do away with contests; to have no will to excel in any way; to deny the Greek instincts (Pyrrho lived with his sister, who was a midwife.) To rig out wisdom in such a way that it no longer distinguishes; to give it the ragged mantle of poverty; to perform the lowest offices, and to go to market and sell sucking-pigs.... Sweetness, clearness, indifference; no need of virtues that require attitudes; to be equal to all even in virtue: final conquest of one's self, final indifference.

Pyrrho and Epicurus;—two forms of Greek decadence; they are related in their hatred of dialectics and all theatrical virtues. These two things together were then called philosophy; Pyrrho and Epicurus intentionally held that which they loved in low esteem; they chose common and even contemptible names for it, and they represented a state in which one is neither ill, healthy, lively, nor dead.... Epicurus was more naïf, more idyllic, more grateful; Pyrrho had more experience of the world, had travelled more, and was more nihilistic. His life was a protest against the great doctrine of Identity (Happiness = Virtue = Knowledge). The proper way of living is not promoted by science: wisdom does not make "wise." ... The proper way of living does not desire happiness, it turns away from happiness....

The war against the "old faith," as Epicurus waged it, was, strictly speaking, a struggle against pre-existing Christianity—the struggle against a world then already gloomy, moralised, acidified throughout with feelings of guilt, and grown old and sick.

Not the "moral corruption" of antiquity, but precisely its moral infectedness was the prerequisite which enabled Christianity to become its master. Moral fanaticism (in short: Plato) destroyed paganism by transvaluing its values and poisoning its innocence. We ought at last to understand that what was then destroyed was higher than what prevailed! Christianity grew on the soil of psychological corruption, and could only take root in rotten ground.

Science: as a disciplinary measure or as an instinct—I see a decline of the instincts in Greek philosophers: otherwise they could not have been guilty of the profound error of regarding the conscious state as the more valuable state. The intensity of consciousness stands in the inverse ratio to the ease and speed of cerebral transmission. Greek philosophy upheld the opposite view, which is always the sign of weakened instincts.

We must, in sooth, seek perfect life there where it is least conscious (that is to say, there where it is least aware of its logic, its reasons, its means, its intentions, and its utility). The return to the facts of common sense, the facts of the common man and of "paltry people." Honesty and intelligence stored up for generations of people who are quite unconscious of their principles, and who even have some fear of principles. It is not reasonable to desire a reasoning virtue. ... A philosopher is compromised by such a desire.

When morality—that is to say, refinement, prudence, bravery, and equity—have been stored up in the same way, thanks to the moral efforts of a whole succession of generations, the collective power of this hoard of virtue projects its rays even into that sphere where honesty is most seldom present—the sphere of intellect. When a thing becomes conscious, it is the sign of a state of ill-ease in the organism; something new has got to be found, the organism is not satisfied or adapted, it is subject to distress, suspense, and it is hypersensitive—precisely all this is consciousness....

Gennius lies in the instincts; goodness does too. One only acts perfectly when one acts instinctively. Even from the moral point of view all thinking which is conscious is merely a process of groping, and in the majority of cases an attack on morality. Scientific honesty is always sacrificed when a thinker begins to reason: let any one try the experiment: put the wisest man in the balance, and then let him discourse upon morality....

It could also be proved that the whole of a man's conscious thinking shows a much lower standard of morality than the thoughts of the same man would show if they were led by his instincts.

The struggle against Socrates, Plato, and all the Socratic schools, proceeds from the profound instinct that man is not made better when he is shown that virtue may be demonstrated or based upon reason.... This in the end is the niggardly fact, it was the agonal instinct in all these born dialecticians, which drove them to glorify their personal abilities as the highest of all qualities, and to represent every other form of goodness as conditioned by them. The anti-scientific spirit of all this "philosophy": it will never admit that it is not right.

This is extraordinary. From its very earliest beginnings, Greek philosophy carries on a struggle against science with the weapons of a theory of knowledge, especially of scepticism; and why is this? It is always in favour of morality.... (Physicists and medical men are hated.) Socrates, Aristippus, the Megarian school, the Cynics, Epicurus and Pyrrho—a general onslaught upon knowledge in favour of morality.... (Hatred of dialectics also.) There is still a problem to be solved: they approach sophistry in order to be rid of science. On the other hand, the physicists are subjected to such an extent that, among their first principles, they include the theory of truth and of real being: for instance, the atom, the four elements (juxtaposition of being, in order to explain its multiformity and its transformations). Contempt of objectivity in interests is taught: return to practical interest, and to the personal utility of all knowledge....

The struggle against science is directed at: (1) its pathos (objectivity); (2) its means (that is to say, at its utility); (3) its results (which are considered childish). It is the same struggle which is taken up later on by the Church in the name of piety: the Church inherited the whole arsenal of antiquity for her war with science. The theory of knowledge played the same part in the affair as it did in Kant's or the Indians' case. There is no desire whatever to be troubled with it, a free hand is wanted for the "purpose" that is envisaged.

Against what powers are they actually defending themselves? Against dutifulness, against obedience to law, against the compulsion of going hand in hand—I believe this is what is called Freedom....

This is how decadence manifests itself: the instinct of solidarity is so degenerate that solidarity itself gets to be regarded as tyranny: no authority or solidarity is brooked, nobody any longer desires to fall in with the rank and file, and to adopt its ignobly slow pace. The slow movement which is the tempo of science is generally hated, as are also the scientific man's indifference in regard to getting on, his long breath, and his impersonal attitude.

At bottom, morality is hostile to science: Socrates was so already too—and the reason is, that science considers certain things important which have no relation whatsoever to "good" and "evil," and which therefore reduce the gravity of our feelings concerning "good" and "evil." What morality requires is that the whole of a man should serve it with all his power: it considers it waste on the part of a creature that can ill afford waste, when a man earnestly troubles his head about stars or plants. That is why science very quickly declined in Greece, once Socrates had inoculated scientific work with the disease of morality. The mental attitudes reached by a Democritus, a Hippocrates, and a Thucydides, have not been reached a second time.—

The problem of the philosopher and of the scientific man.—The influence of age; depressing habits (sedentary study à la Kant; over-work; inadequate nourishment of the brain; reading). A more essential question still: is it not already perhaps a symptom of decadence when thinking tends to establish generalities?

Objectivity regarded as the disintegration of the will (to be able to remain as detached as possible ...). This presupposes a tremendous adiaphora in regard to the strong passions: a kind of isolation, an exceptional position, opposition to the normal passions.

Type: desertion of home-country emigrants go ever greater distances afield; growing exoticism; the voice of the old imperative dies away;—and the continual question "whither?" ("happiness") is a sign of emancipation from forms of organisation, a sign of breaking loose from everything.

Problem: is the man of science more of a decadent symptom than the philosopher?—as a whole scientific man is not, cut loose from everything, only a part of his being is consecrated exclusively to the service of knowledge and disciplined to maintain a special attitude and point of view; in his department he is in need of all the virtues of a strong race, of robust health, of great severity, manliness and intelligence. He is rather a symptom of the great multiformity of culture than of the effeteness of the latter. The decadent scholar is a bad scholar. Whereas the decadent philosopher has always been reckoned hitherto as the typical philosopher.

Among philosophers, nothing is more rare than intellectual uprightness: they perhaps say the very reverse, and even believe it. But the prerequisite of all their work is, that they can only admit of certain truths; they know what they have to prove; and the fact that they must be agreed as to these "truths" is almost what makes them recognise one another as philosophers. There are, for instance, the truths of morality. But belief in morality is not a proof of morality: there are cases—and the philosopher's case is one in point—when a belief of this sort is simply a piece of immorality.

What is the retrograde factor in a philosopher?—He teaches that the qualities which he happens to possess are the only qualities that exist, that they are indispensable to those who wish to attain to the "highest good" (for instance, dialectics with Plato). He would have all men raise themselves, gradatim, to his type as the highest. He despises what is generally esteemed—by him a gulf is cleft between the highest priestly values and the values of the world. He knows what is true, who God is, what every one's goal should be, and the way thereto.... The typical philosopher is thus an absolute dogmatist;—if he requires scepticism at all it is only in order to be able to speak dogmatically of his principal purpose.

When the philosopher is confronted with his rival—science, for instance, he becomes a sceptic; then he appropriates a form of knowledge which he denies to the man of science; he goes hand in hand with the priest so that he may not be suspected of atheism or materialism; he considers an attack made upon himself as an attack upon morals, religion, virtue, and order—he knows how to bring his opponents into ill repute by calling them "seducers" and "underminers": then he marches shoulder to shoulder with power.

The philosopher at war with other philosophers:—he does his best to compel them to appear like anarchists, disbelievers, opponents of authority. In short, when he fights, he fights exactly like a priest and like the priesthood.

According to Aristotle, Philosophy is the art of discovering truth. On the other hand, the Epicurians, who availed themselves of Aristotle's sensual theory of knowledge, retorted in ironical opposition to the search for truth: "Philosophy is the art of Life."

Knowledge as a means to the "denial of Life"—inasmuch as it leads to disappointment—(as if ...).

Error and ignorance are fatal.—The assumption that truth has been found and that ignorance and error are at an end, constitutes one of the most seductive thoughts in the world. Granted that it be generally accepted, it paralyses the will to test, to investigate, to be cautious, and to gather experience: it may even be regarded as criminal—that is to say, as a doubt concerning truth....

"Truth" is therefore more fatal than error and ignorance, because it paralyses the forces which lead to enlightenment and knowledge. The passion for idleness now stands up for "truth" ("Thought is pain and misery!"), as also do order, rule, the joy of possession, the pride of wisdom—in fact, vanity.—it is easier to obey than to examine; it is more gratifying to think "I possess the truth," than to see only darkness in all directions; ... but, above all, it is reassuring, it lends confidence, and alleviates life—it "improves" the character inasmuch as it reduces mistrust." Spiritual peace," "a quiet conscience"—these things are inventions which are only possible provided "Truth be found."—"By their fruits ye shall know them." ... "Truth" is the truth because it makes men better.... The process goes on: all goodness and all success is placed to the credit of "truth."

This is the proof by success: the happiness, contentment, and the welfare of a community or of an individual, are now understood to be the result of the belief in morality.... Conversely: failure is ascribed to a lack of faith.

The causes of error lie just as much in the good as in the bad will of man:—in an incalculable number of cases he conceals reality from himself, he falsifies it, so that he may not suffer from his good or bad will. God, for instance, is considered the shaper of man's destiny; he interprets his little lot as though everything were intentionally sent to him for the salvation of his soul,—this act of ignorance in "philology," which to a more subtle intellect would seem unclean and false, is done, in the majority of cases, with perfect good faith. Goodwill, "noble feelings," and "lofty states of the soul" are just as underhand and deceptive in the means they use as are the passions love, hatred, and revenge, which morality has repudiated and declared to be egotistic.

Errors are what mankind has had to pay for most dearly: and taking them all in all, the errors which have resulted from goodwill are those which have wrought the most harm. The illusion which makes people happy is more harmful than the illusion which is immediately followed by evil results: the latter increases keenness and mistrust, and purifies, the understanding; the former merely narcoticises....

Fine feelings and noble impulses ought, speaking physiologically, to be classified with the narcotics: their abuse is followed by precisely the same results as the abuse of any other opiate—weak nerves.

Error is the most expensive luxury that man can indulge in: and if the error happen to be a physiological one, it is fatal to life. What has mankind paid for most dearly hitherto? For its "truths ": for every one of these were errors in physiologicis>....

Psychological confusions: the desire for belief is confounded with the "will to truth" (for instance, in Carlyle). But the desire for disbelief has also been confounded with the "will to truth" (a need of ridding one's self of a belief for a hundred reasons: in order to carry one's point against certain "believers"). What is it that inspires Sceptics? The hatred of dogmatists—or a need of repose, weariness as in Pyrrho's case.

The advantages which were expected to come from truth, were the advantages resulting from a belief in it: for, in itself, truth could have been thoroughly painful, harmful, and even fatal. Likewise truth was combated only on account of the advantages which a victory over it would provide—for instance, emancipation from the yoke of the ruling powers.

The method of truth was not based upon motives of truthfulness, but upon motives of power, upon the desire to be superior.

How is truth proved? By means of the feeling of increased power,—by means of utility,—by means of indispensability,—in short, by means of its advantages (that is to say, hypotheses concerning what truth should be like in order that it may be embraced by us). But this involves prejudice: it is a sign that truth does not enter the question at all....

What is the meaning of the "will to truth," for instance in the Goncourts? and in the naturalists?—A criticism of "objectivity."

Why should we know: why should we not prefer to be deceived?... But what was needed was always belief—and not truth.... Belief is created by means which are quite opposed to the method of investigation: it even depends upon the exclusion of the latter.

A certain degree of faith suffices to-day to give us an objection to what is believed—it does more, it makes us question the spiritual healthiness of the believer.

Martyrs.—To combat anything that is based upon reverence, opponents must be possessed of both daring and recklessness, and be hindered by no scruples.... Now, if one considers that for thousands of years man has sanctified as truths only those things which were in reality errors, and that he has branded any criticism of them with the hall-mark of badness, one will have to acknowledge, however reluctantly, that a goodly amount of immoral deeds were necessary in order to give the initiative to an attack—I mean to reason.... That these immoralists have always posed as the "martyrs of truth" should be forgiven them: the truth of the matter is that they did not stand up and deny owing to an instinct for truth; but because of a love of dissolution, criminal scepticism, and the love of adventure. In other cases it is personal rancour which drives them into the province of problems—they only combat certain points of view in order to be able to carry their point against certain people. But, above all, it is revenge which has become scientifically useful—the revenge of the oppressed, those who, thanks to the truth that happens to be ruling, have been pressed aside and even smothered....

Truth, that is to say the scientific method, was grasped and favoured by such as recognised that it was a useful weapon of war—an instrument of destruction....

In order to be honoured as opponents, they were moreover obliged to use an apparatus similar to that used by those whom they were attacking: they therefore brandished the concept "truth" as absolutely as their adversaries did—they became fanatics at least in their poses, because no other pose could be expected to be taken seriously. What still remained to be done was left to persecution, to passion, and the uncertainty of the persecuted—hatred waxed great, and the first impulse began to die away and to leave the field entirely to science. Ultimately all of them wanted to be right in the same absurd way as their opponents.... The word "conviction," "faith," the pride of martyrdom—these things are most unfavourable to knowledge. The adversaries of truth finally adopt the whole subjective manner of deciding about truth,—that is to say, by means of poses, sacrifices, and heroic resolutions,—and thus prolong the dominion of the anti-scientific method. As martyrs they compromise their very own deed.

The dangerous distinction between "theoretical" and "practical" in Kant for instance, but also in the ancient philosophers:—they behave as if pure intellectuality presented them with the problems of science and metaphysics;—they behave as if practice should be judged by a measure of its own, whatever the judgment of theory may be.

Against the first tendency I set up my psychology of philosophers: their strangest calculations and "intellectuality" are still but the last pallid impress of a physiological fact; spontaneity is absolutely lacking in them, everything is instinct, everything is intended to follow a certain direction from the first....

Against the second tendency I put my question: whether we know another method of acting correctly, besides that of thinking correctly; the last case is action, the first presupposes thought Are we possessed of a means whereby we can judge of the value of a method of life differently from the value of a theory: through induction or comparison?... Guileless people imagine that in this respect we are better equipped, we know what is "good"—and the philosophers are content to repeat this view. We conclude that some sort of faith is at work in this matter, and nothing more....

"Men must act; consequently rules of conduct are necessary"—this is what even the ancient Sceptics thought. The urgent need of a definite decision in this department of knowledge is used as an argument in favour of regarding something as true!...

"Men must not act"—said their more consistent brothers, the Buddhists, and then thought out a mode of conduct which would deliver man from the yoke of action....

To adapt one's self, to live as the "common man" lives, and to regard as right and proper what he regards as right: this is submission to the gregarious instinct. One must carry one's courage and severity so far as to learn to consider such submission a disgrace. One should not live according to two standards!... One should not separate theory and practice!...

Of all that which was formerly held to be true, not one word is to be credited. Everything which was formerly disdained as unholy, forbidden, contemptible, and fatal—all these flowers now bloom on the most charming paths of truth.

The whole of this old morality concerns us no longer: it contains not one idea which is still worthy of respect. We have outlived it—we are no longer sufficiently coarse and guileless to be forced to allow ourselves to be lied to in this way.... In more polite language: we are too virtuous for it.... And if truth in the old sense were "true" only because the old morality said "yea" to it, and had a right to say "yea" to it: it follows that no truth of the past can any longer be of use to us.... Our criterion of truth is /certainly not morality: we refute an assertion when we show that it is dependent upon morality and is inspired by noble feelings.

All these values are empirical and conditioned. But he who believes in them and who honours them, refuses to acknowledge this aspect of them. All philosophers believe in these values, and one form their reverence takes is the endeavour to make a priori truths out of them. The falsifying nature of reverence....

Reverence is the supreme test of intellectual honesty, but in the whole history of philosophy there is no such thing as intellectual honesty,—but the "love of goodness ..."

On the one hand, there is an absolute lack of method in testing the value of these values; secondly, there is a general disinclination either to test them or to regard them as conditioned at all.—All anti-scientific instincts assembled round moral values in order to keep science out of this department....

Why philosophers are slanderers.—The artful and blind hostility of philosophers towards the senses—what an amount of mob and middle-class qualities lie in all this hatred!

The crowd always believes that an abuse of which it feels the harmful results, constitutes an objection to the thing which happens to be abused: all insurrectionary movements against principles, whether in politics or agriculture, always follow a line of argument suggested by this ulterior motive: the abuse must be shown to be necessary to, and, inherent in, the principle.

It is a woeful history: mankind looks for a principle, from the standpoint of which he will be able to contemn man—he invents a world in order to be able to slander and throw mud at this world: as a matter of fact, he snatches every time at nothing, and construes this nothing as "God," as "Truth," and, in any case, as judge and detractor of this existence....

If one should require a proof of how deeply and thoroughly the actually barbarous needs of man, even in his present state of tameness and "civilisation," still seek gratification, one should contemplate the "leitmotifs" of the whole of the evolution of philosophy:—a sort of revenge upon reality, a surreptitious process of destroying the values by means of which men live, a dissatisfied soul to which the conditions of discipline is one of torture, and which takes a particular pleasure in morbidly severing all the bonds that bind it to such a condition.

The history of philosophy is the story of a secret and mad hatred of the prerequisities of Life, of the feelings which make for the real values of Life, and of all partisanship in favour of Life. Philosophers have never hesitated to affirm a fanciful world, provided it contradicted this world, and furnished them with a weapon wherewith they could calumniate this world. Up to the present, philosophy has been the grand school of slander: and its power has been so great, that even to-day our science, which pretends to be the advocate of Life, has accepted the fundamental position of slander, and treats this world as "appearance," and this chain of causes as though it were only phenomenal. What is the hatred which is active here?

I fear that it is still the Circe of philosophers—Morality, which plays them the trick of compelling them to be ever slanderers.... They believed in moral "truths," in these they thought they had found the highest values; what alternative had they left, save that of denying existence ever more emphatically the more they got to know about it?... For this life is immoral.... And it is based upon immoral first principles: and morality says nay to Life.

Let us suppress the real world: and in order to do this, we must first suppress the highest values current hitherto—morals.... It is enough to show that morality itself is immoral, in the same sense as that in which immorality has been condemned heretofore. If an end be thus made to the tyranny of the former values, if we have suppressed the "real world," a new order of values must follow of its own accord.

The world of appearance and the world of lies: this constitutes the contradiction. The latter hitherto has been the "real world," "truth," "God." This is the one which we still have to suppress.

(1) Morality as the highest value (it is master of all the phases of philosophy, even of the Sceptics). Result: this world is no good, it is not the "real world."

(2) What is it that determines the highest value here? What, in sooth, is morality?—It is the instinct of decadence; it is the means whereby the exhausted and the degenerate revenge themselves. Historical proof: philosophers have always been decadents ... in the service of nihilistic religions.

(3) It is the instinct of decadence coming to the fore as will to power. Proof: the absolute immorality of the means employed by morality throughout its history.

General aspect: the values which have been highest hitherto constitute a specific case of the will to power; morality itself is a specific case of immorality.

The principal innovations: Instead of "moral values," nothing but naturalistic values. Naturalisation of morality.

In the place of "society," the complex whole of culture, which is my chief interest (whether in its entirety or in parts).

In the place of the "theory of knowledge," a doctrine which laid down the value of the passions (to this a hierarchy of the passions would belong: the passions transfigured; their superior rank, their "spirituality").

In the place of "metaphysics" and religion, the doctrine of Eternal Recurrence (this being regarded as a means to the breeding and selection of men).

My precursors: Schopenhauer. To what extent I deepened pessimism, and first brought its full meaning within my grasp, by means of its most extreme opposite.

I have named those who were unconsciously my workers and precursors. But in what direction may I turn with any hope of finding my particular kind of philosophers themselves, or at least my yearning for new philosophers? In that direction, alone, where a noble attitude of mind prevails, an attitude of mind which believes in slavery and in manifold orders of rank, as the prerequisites of any high degree of culture. In that direction, alone, where a creative attitude of mind prevails, an attitude of mind which does not regard the world of happiness and repose, the "Sabbath of Sabbaths" as an end to be desired, and which, even in peace, honours the means which lead to new wars; an attitude of mind which would prescribe laws for the future, which for the sake of the future would treat everything that exists to-day with harshness and even tyranny; a daring and "immoral" attitude of mind, which would wish to see both the good and the evil qualities in man developed to their fullest extent, because it would feel itself able to put each in its right place—that is to say, in that place in which each would need the other. But what prospect has he of finding what he seeks, who goes in search of philosophers to-day? Is it not probable that, even with the best Diogenes-lantern in his hand, he will wander about by night and day in vain? This age is possessed of the opposite instincts. What it wants, above all, is comfort; secondly, it wants publicity and the deafening din of actors' voices, the big drum which appeals to its Bank-Holiday tastes; thirdly, that every one should lie on his belly in utter subjection before the greatest of all lies—which is "the equality of men"—and should honour only those virtues which make men equal and place them in equal positions. But in this way, the rise of the philosopher, as I understand him, is made completely impossible—despite the fact that many may regard the present tendencies as rather favourable to his advent. As a matter of fact, the whole world mourns, to-day, the hard times that philosophers used to have, hemmed in between the fear of the stake, a guilty conscience, and the presumptuous wisdom of the Fathers of the Church: but the truth is, that precisely these conditions were ever so much more favourable to the education of a mighty, extensive, subtle, rash, and daring intellect than the conditions prevailing to-day. At present another kind of intellect, the intellect of the demagogue, of the actor, and perhaps of the beaver- and ant-like scholar too, finds the best possible conditions for its development. But even for artists of a superior calibre the conditions are already far from favourable: for does not every one of them, almost, perish owing to his want of discipline? They are no longer tyrannised over by an outside power—by the tables of absolute values enforced by a Church or by a monarch: and thus they no longer learn to develop their "inner tyrant," their will. And what holds good of artists also holds good, to a greater and more fatal degree, of philosophers. Where, then, are free spirits to be found to-day? Let any one show me a free spirit to-day!

Under "Spiritual freedom" I understand something very definite: it is a state in which one is a hundred times superior to philosophers and other disciples of "truth" in one's severity towards one's self, in one's uprightness, in one's courage, and in one's absolute will to say nay even when it is dangerous to say nay. I regard the philosophers that have appeared heretofore as contemptible libertines hiding behind the petticoats of the female "Truth."

END OF VOL. I.