Leo Strauss on Nietzsche's "Beyond Good & Evil"

Leo Strauss

Note on the Plan of Nietzsche's
Beyond Good and Evil

[1] Beyond Good and Evil always seemed to me to be the most beautiful of
Nietzsche's books. This impression could be thought to be contradicted by
his judgement, for he was inclined to believe that his Zarathustra is the most
profound book that exists in German as well as the most perfect in regard to
language. But "most beautiful" is not the same as "most profound" and
even as "most perfect in regard to language." To illustrate this partly by an
example which is perhaps not too far-fetched, there seems to be general
agreement to the effect that Plato's Republic, his Phaedrus and his Banquet
are his most beautiful writings without their being necessarily his most
profound writings. Yet Plato makes no distinction among his writings in
regard to profundity or beauty or perfection in regard to language; he is not
concerned with Plato-with his "ipsissimosity"-and hence with Plato's
writings, but points away from himself whereas Nietzsche points most
emphatically to himself, to "Mr. Nietzsche." Now Nietzsche "personally"
preferred, not Beyond Good and Evil but his Dawn of Morning and his Gay
Science to all his other books precisely because these two books are his
most personal" books (letter to Karl Knortz of June 21, 1888). As the very
term personal," ultimately derivative from the Greek word for "face "
indicates, being "personal" has nothing to do with being "profound" or with
being "perfect in regard to language."

[2] What is dimly perceived and inadequately expressed through our judge-
ment on Beyond Good and Evil, is stated clearly by Nietzsche in his account
of that book which he has given in Ecce Homo: Beyond Good and Evil is the
very opposite of the "inspired" and "dithyrambic" Zarathustra in as much as

Reprinted from Interpretation: A Journal of Political Philosophy 3, nos. 2 and 3 (1973).

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189

Zarathustra is most far-sighted, whereas in Beyond Good and Evil the eye is
compelled to grasp clearly the nearest, the timely (the present), the around-
us. This change of concern required in every respect, "above all also in the
form," the same arbitrary turning away from the instincts out of which a
Zarathustra had become possible: the graceful subtlety as regards form, as
regards intention, as regards the art of silence are in the foreground in
Beyond Good and Evil which amounts to saying that these qualities are not
in the foreground in the Zarathustra, to say nothing of Nietzsche's other
books.

[3] In other words, in Beyond Good and Evil, in the only book published by
Nietzsche, in the contemporary preface to which he presents himself as the
antagonist of Plato, he "platonizes" as regards the "form" more than
anywhere else.

W According to the preface to Beyond Good and Evil Plato's fundamental
error was his invention of the pure mind and of the good in itself. From this
premise one can easily be led to Diotima's conclusion that no human being is
wise, but only the god is; human beings can only strive for wisdom or
philosophize; gods do not philosophize (Banquet 203e-204a). In the
penultimate aphorism of Beyond Good and Evil in which Nietzsche deline-
ates "the genius of the heart"— a super-Socrates who is in fact the god
Dionysos— Nietzsche divulges after the proper preparation the novelty,
suspect perhaps especially among philosophers, that gods too philosophize.
Yet Diotima is not Socrates nor Plato, and Plato could well have thought
that gods philosophize (cf. Sophist 216b5-6, Theaetetus 151d 1-2). And
when in the ultimate aphorism of Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche under-
lines the fundamental difference between "written and painted thoughts"
and thoughts in their original form, we cannot help being reminded of what
Plato says or intimates regarding the "weakness of the logos" and regarding
the unsayable and a fortiori unwritable character of the truth (Ep. VII
341c-d, 342e-343a): the purity of the mind as Plato conceives of it, does not
necessarily establish the strength of the logos.

[5] Beyond Good and Evil has the subtitle "Prelude to a philosophy of the
future." The book is meant to prepare, not indeed the philosophy of the
future, the true philosophy, but a new kind of philosophy by liberating the
mind from "the prejudice of the philosophers," i.e. of the philosophers of
the past (and the present). At the same time or by this very fact the book is
meant to be a specimen of the philosophy of the future. The first chapter
("Of the prejudices of the philosophers") is followed by a chapter entitled
"The free mind." The free minds in Nietzsche's sense are free from the
prejudice of the philosophy of the past but they are riot yet philosophers of
the future; they are the heralds and precursors of the philosophy of the
future (aph. 44). It is hard to say how the distinction between the free minds
and the philosophers of the future is to be understood: are the free minds by

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any chance freer than the philosophers of the future? do they possess an
openness which is possible only during the transitional period between the
phi osophy of the past and the philosophy of the future? Be this as it may
philosophy is surely the primary theme of Beyond Good and Evil the
obvious theme of the first two chapters.
[6] The book consists of nine chapters. The third chapter is devoted to
religion. The heading of the fourth chapter ("Sayings and Interludes") does
not indicate a subject matter; that chapter is distinguished from all other
chapters by the fact that it consists exclusively of short aphorisms. The last
five chapters are devoted to morals and politics. The book as a whole
consists then of two main parts which are separated from one another by
about 123 "Sayings and Interludes"; the first of the two parts is devoted
chiefly to philosophy and religion and the second chiefly to morals and
politics. Philosophy and religion, it seems, belong together— belong more
closely together than philosophy and the city. (Cf. Hegel's distinction be-
tween the absolute and the objective mind.) The fundamental alternative is
that of the rule of philosophy over religion or the rule of religion over
philosophy; it is not, as it was for Plato or Aristotle, that of the philosophic
and the political life; for Nietzsche, as distinguished from the classics,
politics belongs from the outset to a lower plane than either philosophy or
religion. In the preface he intimates that his precursor par excellence is
not a statesman nor even a philosopher but the homo religiosus Pascal (cf
aph. 45). v

[7J Nietzsche says very little about religion in the first two chapters. One
could say that he speaks there on religion only in a single aphorism which
happens to be the shortest (37). That aphorism is a kind of corollary to the
immediately preceding one in which he sets forth in the most straightfor-
ward and unambiguous manner that is compatible with his intention, the
particular character of his fundamental proposition according to which life is
will to power or seen from within the world is will to power and nothing else.
The will to power takes the place which the eros— the striving for "the good
in itself '—occupies in Plato's thought. But the eros is not "the pure mind"
{der reine Gem). Whatever may be the relation between the eros and the
pure mind according to Plato, in Nietzsche's thought the will to power takes
the place of both eros and the pure mind. Accordingly philosophizing
becomes a mode or modification of the will to power: it is the most spiritual
(dergetstigste) will to power; it consists in prescribing to nature what or how
it ought to be (aph. 9); it is not love of the true that is independent of will or
decision. Whereas according to Plato the pure mind grasps the truth,
according to Nietzsche the impure mind, or a certain kind of impure mind, is
the sole source of truth. Nietzsche begins therefore Beyond Good and Evil
with the questioning of love of truth and of truth. If we may make a
somewhat free use of an expression occurring in Nietzsche's Second Medita-

APPEN Dl X

191

tion Out of Season, the truth is not attractive, lovable, life-giving, but
deadly, as is shown by the true doctrines of the sovereignty of Becoming, of
the fluidity of all concepts, types and species, and of the lack of any cardinal
difference between man and beast (Werke, ed Schlechta, 1 272); it is shown
most simply by the true doctrine that God is dead. The world in itself, the
"thing-in-itself/' "nature" (aph. 9) is wholly chaotic and meaningless.
Hence all meaning, all order originates in man, in man's creative acts, in his
will to power* Nietzsche's statements or suggestions are deliberately
enigmatic (aph. 40). By suggesting or saying that the truth is deadly, he does
his best to break the power of the deadly truth; he suggests that the most
important, the most comprehensive truth— the truth regarding all truths— is
life-giving. In other words, by suggesting that the truth is human creation, he
suggests that this truth at any rate is not a human creation. One is tempted to
say that Nietzsche's pure mind grasps the fact that the impure mind creates
perishable truths. Resisting that temptation we state Nietzsche's suggestion
following him in this manner: the philosophers tried to get hold of the "text"
as distinguished from "interpretations"; they tried to "discover" and not to
"invent." What Nietzsche claims to have realized is that the text in its pure,
unfalsified form is inaccessible (like the Kantian Thing-in-itself); everything
thought by anyone— philosopher or man of the people— is in the last analy-
sis interpretation. But for this very reason the text, the world in itself, the
true world cannot be of any concern to us; the world of any concern to us is
necessarily a fiction, for it is necessarily anthropocentric; man is necessarily
in a manner the measure of all things (aph. 3 end, 12 end, 17, 22, 24, 34, 38;
cf. Plato, Laws 716c 4-6). As is indicated sufficiently by the title of the
book, the anthropocentrism for which Nietzsche opts is transmoral (cf. aph.
34 and 35 with 32). At first glance there does not seem to be a connection
between the grave aphorism 34 and the lighthearted aphorism 35 and this
seems to agree with the general impression according to which a book of
aphorisms does not have or need not have a lucid and necessary order or
may consist of disconnected pieces. The connection between aphorism 34
and 35 is a particularly striking example of the lucid, if somewhat hidden,
order governing the sequence of the aphorisms: the desultory character of
Nietzsche's argument is more pretended than real. If the aforesaid is cor-
rect, the doctrine of the will to power cannot claim to reveal what is, the fact,
the most fundamental fact but is "only" one interpretation, presumably the
best interpretation, among many. Nietzsche regards this apparent objection
as a confirmation of his proposition (aph. 22 end).
[8J We can now turn to the two aphorisms in Beyond Good and Evil I— II that
can be said to be devoted to religion (36-37). Aphorism 36 presents the
reasoning in support of the doctrine of the will to power. Nietzsche had
spoken of the will to power before* but only in the way of bald assertion, not
to say dogmatically. Now he sets forth with what is at the same time the most

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intransigent intellectual probity and the most bewitching playfulness his
reasons, i.e. the problematic, tentative, tempting, hypothetical character of
his proposition. It could seem that he does not know more of the will to
power as the fundamental reality than what he says here. Almost im-
mediately before, in the central aphorism of the second chapter (34), he had
drawn our attention to the fundamental distinction between the world which
is of any concern to us and the world in itself, or between the world of
appearance or fiction (the interpretations) and the true world (the text)
What he seems to aim at is the abolition of that fundamental distinction the
world as will to power is both the world of any concern to us and the world in
itself. Precisely if all views of the world are interpretations, i.e. acts of the
will to power, the doctrine of the will to power is at the same time an
interpretation and the most fundamental fact, for, in contradistinction to all
other interpretations, it is the necessary and sufficient condition of the
possibility of any "categories."
[9] After having tempted some of his readers (cf . aph. 30) with the doctrine of
the will to power Nietzsche makes them raise the question as to whether that
doctrine does not assert, to speak popularly, that God is refuted but the
devil is not. He replies "On the contrary! On the contary, my friends! And,
to the devil, what forces you to speak popularly?" The doctrine of the will to
power— the whole doctrine of Beyond Good and Evil—is in a manner a
vindication of God. (Cf. aph. 150 and 295, as well as Genealogy of Morals,
Preface Nr. 7.) —

UOJ The third chapter is entitled "Das religiose Wesen"; it is not entitled "Das
Wesen der Religion," one of the reasons for this being that the essence of
religion, that which is common to all religions, is not or should not be of any
concern to us. The chapter considers religion with a view to the human soul
and its boundaries, to the whole history of the soul hitherto and its yet
inexhausted possibilities: Nietzsche does not deal with unknown possibili-
ties, although or because he deals with religion hitherto and the religion of
the future. Aphorisms 46-52 are devoted to religion hitherto and 53-57 to
the religion of the future. The rest of the chapter (aph. 58-^2) transmits
Nietzsche's appraisal of religion as a whole. In the section on religion
hitherto he speaks first of Christianity (46-48), then of the Greeks (49), then
again of Christianity (50-51) and finally of the Old Testament (52). "The
religiosity of the old Greeks" and above all certain parts of "the Jewish 'Old
Testament' " supply him with the standards by which he judges of Christian-
ity; nowhere in the chapter does he speak of Christianity with the respect,
the admiration, the veneration with which he speaks of the two pre-
Christian phenomena. The aphorisms on the Old Greeks and on the Old
Testament are obviously meant to interrupt the aphorisms devoted to
Christianity; the two interrupting aphorisms are put at some distance from
one another in order to imitate the distance or rather opposition between

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193

what one may call Athens and Jerusalem. The aphorism on the Old Testa-
ment is immediately preceded by an aphorism devoted to the saint: there are
no saints, no holy men in the Old Testament; the peculiarity of Old Testa-
ment theology in contradistinction especially to Greek theology is the
conception, the creation of the holy God (cf. Dawn o/Mormng aph 68) For
Nietzsche "the great style" of (certain parts of) the Old Testament shows
forth the greatness, not of God, but of what man once was: the holy God no
less than the holy man are creatures of the human will to power.

UD Nietzsche's vindication of God is then atheistic, at least for the time being-
the aphorism following that on the Old Testament begins with the question
•Why atheism today?' There was a time when theism was possible or
necessary. But in the meantime "God died" (Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Zarathustra's Prologue Nr. 3). This does not merely mean that men have
ceased to believe in God, for men's unbelief does not destroy God's life or
being. It does mean, however, that even while God lived he never was what
the believers in him thought him to be* namely, deathless. Theism as it
understood itself was therefore always wrong. Yet for a time it was true, i.e.
powerful, life-giving. In speaking of how or why it lost its power, Nietzsche
speaks here less of the reasons that swayed him than of the reasons advanced
by some of his contemporaries, presumably his most competent contempo-
raries. Not a few of his better readers will justifiably think that those reasons
verge on the frivolous. In particular it is not quite clear whether those
reasons are directed against natural (rational) or revealed theology. Never-
theless the most powerful anti-theistic argument which Nietzsche sketches is
directed against the possibility of a clear and unambiguous revelation, i.e. of
God's "speaking" to man (cf. Dawn of Morning aph. 91 and 95). Despite the
decay of European theism Nietzsche has the impression that the religious
instinct— "religiosity" as distinguished from "religion"— is growing power-
fully at present or that atheism is only a transitional phase. Could atheism
belong to the free mind as Nietzsche conceives of it while a certain kind of
non-atheism belongs to the philosopher of the future who will again worship
the god Dionysos or will again be, as an Epicurean might say, a dionysoko-
lax (cf. aph. 7)? This ambiguity is essential to Nietzsche's thought; without it
his doctrine would lose its character of an experiment or a temptation.

U2] Nietzsche provisionally illustrates his suggestion of an atheistic or, if you
wish, non-theistic religiosity by the alleged fact that the whole modern
philosophy was anti-Christian but not anti-religious— that it could seem to
point to something reminding of the Vedanta philosophy. But he does not
anticipate, he surely does not wish, that the religion of the future will be
something like the Vedanta philosophy. He anticipates a more Western, a
sterner, more terrible and more invigorating possibility: the sacrificing from
cruelty, i.e. from the will to power turning against itself, of God which
prepares the worshipping of the stone, stupidity, heaviness (gravity), fate,

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APPENDIX

the Nothing. He anticipates in other words that the better among the
contemporary atheists will come to know what they are dotag_»tl* "tW»

to realize hat there is somethihg infinitely more terrible, depressing and

«. Z . t a " l,fc B U " erly ""^ngle" and lacking support, that i

during which ,LT U,e WWCh " PreCeded and fo " 0wed by an infinite time
"On tmth »„i 1 man ^ W3S n °' a " d Wi " not be ' < Cf ' ,he inning of
nil bre,H a f k "." «**?«* sense '"> These religious atheists, This
new breed of atheists cannot be deceptively and deceivingly appeased as
people like Engels by the prospect of a most glorious future of the realm of"

™Z trewtl! indee ,f •" ' ermina,ed " y ,hC an " ihili « i<; " ° f * "«-»
,tZ^ f, ° f a " meaning bul which wi " 'ast for a very long

t^ni 0r a m, " e " n,Um » more -- *°' fortunately we find ourselves still on
the ascend.ng branch of human history" (F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbal
und derAusgang der demschtn klassischen Philosophic): the r«lm of free
dom destined to perish, necessarily contains withh, itself the seeds onts

[131 Nietzsche does not mean to sacrifice God for the sake of the Nothing for
whde recognizing the deadly truth that God died he aims a. transSng°

unni !"T n ^ 0ne ° r ra,her '° discover in «"» de P« h of the deadly t™th
its opposite. Sacrificing God for the sake of the Nothing would be an
extreme form of world-denial or of pessimism. B», Nie° s he , prompted by

i, demh?„d T de , Sire r has / ried for a ,ong ,ime '° P™' W "Mo
«s depth and in particular to free it from the delusion of morality which in a

way contradicts its world-denying tendency. He thus has grasped more

world-denying way of thinking than that of any previous pessimist. Yet a

ZJd h° ^^ ' WS r ° ad haS """"P 8 wi,h °"t inking 'o * -rtis
opened his eyes to the opposite ideal-to the ideal belonging to the religion

trha^thec ■"" ^'^ 'f yi " g ,nat Wha ' in »~ «»« »>»«
nMh7iK.i? " aS a ! aC ' '" Niet **he's thought and life. The adoration

wnHH rf I 1 . 8 P .r eS '° he ' he '"dispensable transition from every kind of
Zl.t, ^ T unb ° u " d * d ^s: the eternal Yes-saying to every!

n,r v E see m rrrv t h y sa r g Ye , s ,o every,hing ,hat was «« J™****

may seem to reveal himself as radically antirevolutionary or conservative
beyond the wildest wishes of all other conservatives, who all say No to sle
"deals"' nd ^ T?..° r are ' Rememberi " g Nietzsche's strictures against

(November iJ^llf We V reminded ° f Goethe ' s words to Eckermann
(November 24 1824) according to which "everything idea-like(/«f„ Ide-

Ws " NTe7r h a °, reV0 ' u,io n ar y P ur P°ses." Be this as i, may, "And

wha'twa^ndU "° M S "k SUg8eS ' i0n regarding e,ernal petition of
what was and .s, would not be circulus vtiiosus deus?" As this concluding

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195

ambiguous question again shows, his atheism is not unambiguous, for he
had doubts whether there can be a world, any world whose center is not God
(aph. 150). The conclusion of the present aphorism reminds us, througlrits
form, of the theological aphorism occurring in the first two chapters (37)
where Nietzsche brings out the fact that in a manner the doctrine of the will
to power is a vindication of God, if a decidedly non-theistic vindication of
God.

1141 But now we are confronted with the fact that the vindication of God is
only the inversion of the sacrificing of God to stupidity, to the Nothing, or at
any rate presupposes that sacrificing. What is it that suddenly, if after a long
preparation, divinizes the Nothing? Is it the willing of eternity which gives to
the world, or restores to it, its worth which the world-denying ways of
thinking had denied it? Is it the willing of eternity that makes atheism
religious? Is beloved eternity divine merely because it is beloved? If we were
to say that it must be in itself lovable, in order to deserve to be loved, would
we not become guilty of a relapse into Platonism, into the teaching of "the
good in itself"? But can we avoid such a relapse altogether? For the eternal
to which Nietzsche says Yes, is not the stone, the stupidity, the Nothing
which even if eternal or sempiternal cannot arouse an enthusiastic, life-
inspiring Yes. The transformation of the world-denying way of thinking into
the opposite ideal is connected with the realization or divination that the
stone, the stupidity or the Nothing to which God is being sacrificed, is in its
"intelligible character" the will to power (cf. aph. 36).

115] There is an important ingredient, not to say the nerve, of Nietzsche's
"theology" of which I have not spoken and shall not speak since I have no
access to it. It has been worthily treated by Karl Reinhardt in his essay
"Nietzsche's Klage der Ariadne" {Vermachtnis derAntike, Gottingen 1960,
310-333; see also a remark of Reinhardt at the end of his eulogy of Walter F
Otto, ib. 379).—

116J It is possible but not likely that the "Sayings and Interludes" of which the
fourth chapter consists, possesses no order, that there is no rhyme or reason
to their selection and sequence. I must leave matters at a few observations

[ 17 j which are perhaps helpful to some of us.

The opening aphorism draws our attention to the paramountcy of being-
oneself, of being for oneself, of "preserving" oneself (cf. aph. 41). Accord-
ingly knowledge cannot be, or cannot be good, for its own sake; it is
justifiable only as self-knowledge: being oneself means being honest with
oneself, going the way to one's own ideal. This seems to have atheistic
implications. There occur in the chapter nine references to God; only one of
them points to Nietzsche's own theology (150). There occurs only a single
reference to nature (126). Instead we are confronted by nine aphorisms
devoted to woman and man. Surely the knower whom Nietzsche has in mind
has not, like Kant, the starred heaven above himself. As a consequence he

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has a high morality, a morality beyond good and evil and in particular
beyond puritanism and asceticism. Precisely because he is concerned with
the freedom of his mind, he must imprison his heart (87, 107) Freedom of
one s mind is not possible without a dash of stupidity (9). Self-knowledge is
not only very difficult but impossible to achieve; man could not live with
perfect self-knowledge (80-81, 231, 249).—

1181 The fifth chapter-the central chapter-is the only one whose heading

Toward the natural history of morality") refers to nature. Could nature be

the theme of this chapter or even of the whole second part of the book?

[19] Nature-to say nothing of "naturalists," "physics" and "physiology"-
had been mentioned more than once in the first four chapters. Let us cast a
glance at the most important or striking of those mentions. In discussing and
rejecting the Stoic imperative "to live according to nature" Nietzsche makes
a distinction between nature and life (9; cf. 49), just as on another occasion
he makes a distinction between nature and "us" (human beings) (22) The
opposite of life is death which is or may be no less natural than life The
opposite of the natural is the unnatural: the artificial, the domesticated the
misbegotten (62), the anti-natural (21, 51, 55); i.e., the unnatural may very
well be alive. J y

UOJ in the introductory aphorism (186) Nietzsche speaks of the desideratum
of a natural history of morality in a manner which reminds us of what he had
said in the introductory aphorism of the chapter on religion (45). But in the
earlier case he led us to suspect that the true science of religion i e the
empirical psychology of religion, is for all practical purposes impossible, for
he psychologist would have to be familiar with the religious experience of
the most profound homines religiosi and at the same time to be able to look
down, from above, on these experiences. Yet when stating the case for an
empirical study, a description, of the various moralities Nietzsche states at
the same time the case against the possibility of a philosophic ethics, a
science of morals which teaches the only true morality. It would seem that he
makes higher demands on the student of religion than on the student of
morality. This is perhaps the reason why he did not entitle the third chapter
The natural history of religion": Hume had written an essay entitled "The
Natural History of Religion."

[211 The philosophers' science of morals claimed to have discovered the
foundation of morals either in nature or in reason. Apart from all other
defects of that pretended science it rests on the gratuitous assumption that
mora hty must or can be natural (according to nature) or rational. Yet every
morality is based on some tryanny against nature as well as against reason.
Nietzsche directs his criticism especially against the anarchists who oppose
every subjection to arbitrary laws: everything of value, every freedom arises
from a compulsion of long duration that was exerted by arbitrary, unreason-
able laws; it was that compulsion that has educated the mind to freedom.
Over against the ruinous permissiveness of anarchism Nietzsche asserts that

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197

precisely long lasting obedience to unnatural and unreasonable nomoi is
"the moral imperative of nature." Physis calls for nomoi while preserving
the distinction, nay, opposition of physis and nomos. Throughout this
aphorism (188) Nietzsche speaks of nature only in quotation marks except in
one case, in the final mention of nature; nature, and not only nature as the
anarchists understand it, has become a problem for Nietzsche and yet he
cannot do without nature.

[22] As for rationalist morality, it consists primarily in the identification of the
good with the useful and pleasant and hence in the calculation of conse-
quences; it is utilitarian. Its classic is the plebian Socrates. How the patrician
Plato— "the most beautiful growth of antiquity" (Preface), whose strength
and power was the greatest which hitherto a philosopher had at his dis-
posal—could take over the Socratic teaching is a riddle; the Platonic Soc-
rates is a monstrosity. Nietzsche intends then to overcome Plato not only by
substituting his truth for Plato's but also by surpassing him in strength or
power. Among other things "Plato is boring" (Twilight of the Gods, 'What I
owe to the Ancients' nr. 2), while Nietzsche surely is never boring. Both
Socrates and Plato are guided by, or follow, not only reason but instinct as
well; the instinct is more fundamental than reason. By explicitly taking the
side of instinct against reason Nietzsche tacitly agrees with Rousseau (cf.
Natural Right and History 262 n.). Instinct is, to say the least, akin to
nature— to that which one may expel with a hayfork but will nevertheless
always come back (cf . aph. 264; cf . the italicized heading of aph. 83, the first
of the four italicized headings in chapter four). We are entitled to surmise
that the fundamental instinct is the will to power and not, say, the urge
toward self-preservation (cf. aph. 13). What we ventured to call Nietzsche's
religiosity, is also an instinct (aph. 53): "The religious, that is to say god-
forming instinct" (Will to Power nr. 1038). As a consequence of the
irrationality of the moral judgement, of the decisive presence of the ir-
rational in the moral judgement, there cannot be any universally valid moral
rules: different moralities fit, belong to, different types of human beings.

[23] When Nietzsche speaks again of nature, supplying the term again with
quotation marks (aph. 197), he demands that one cease to regard as morbid
(as defectively natural) the predatory beings which are dangerous, in-
temperate, passionate, "tropical": it was precisely the defective nature of
almost all moralists— not reason and not nature simply-—, namely, their
timidity which induced them to conceive of the dangerous brutes and men as
morbid. These, moralists did not originate the morality stemming from
timidity; that morality is the morality of the human herd, i.e. of the large
majority of men. The utmost one could say is that the moral philosophers
(and theologians) tried to protect the individual against the dangers with
which he is threatened, not by other men, but by his own passions.

[24] Nietzsche speaks of the herd-instinct of obedience which is now almost
universally innate and transmitted by inheritance. It goes without saying

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that originally, in pre-historic times, that instinct was acquired (cf Geneal-
ogy of Morals II). While it was very powerful throughout history, it has
become simply predominant in contemporary Europe where it destroys at
least the good conscience of those who command and are independent and
where it successfully claims to be the only true morality. More precisely in
its earlier, healthy form it implied already that the sole standard of goodness
is utility for the herd, i.e. for the common good; independence, superiority
inequality were esteemed to the extent to which they were thought to be
subservient to the common good and indispensable for it, and not for their
own sake. The common good was understood as the good of a particular
society or tribe; it demanded therefore hostility to the tribe's external and
internal enemies and in particular to the criminals. When the herd morality
draws its ultimate consequences as it does in contemporary Europe it takes
the side of the very criminals and becomes afraid of inflicting punishment • it
is satisfied with making the criminals harmless; by abolishing the only
remaining ground of fear, the morality of timidity would reach its comple-
Uon and thus make itself superfluous (cf. aph. 73). Timidity and the aboli-
tion of fear are justified by the identification of goodness with indiscriminate
compassion.

1251 Prior to the victory of the democratic movement to which, as Nietzsche
understands it, also the anarchists and socialists belong, moralities other and
higher than the herd morality were at least known. He mentions with high
praise Napoleon and, above all, Alcibiades and Caesar. He could not have
shown his freedom from the herd morality more tellingly than by mention-
ing in one breath Caesar and Alcibiades. Caesar could be said to have
performed a great, historic function for Rome and to have dedicated himself
to that function-to have been, as it were, a functionary of Roman history,
but for Alcibiades Athens was no more than the pedestal, exchangeable if
need be with Sparta or Persia, for his own glory or greatness. Nietzsche
opposes men of such a nature to men of the opposite nature (aph. 199-200)
In the rest of the chapter he speaks no longer of nature. Instead he expresses
the view that man must be counted literally among the brutes (aph. 202) He
appeals from the victorious herd morality of contemporary Europe to the
superior morality of leaders {Fiihrer). The leaders who can counteract the
degradation of man which has led to the autonomy of the herd, can however
not be merely men born to rule like Napoleon, Alcibiades and Caesar. They
must be philosophers, new philosophers, a new kind of philosophers and
commanders, the philosophers of the future. Mere Caesars, however great
will not suffice, for the new philosophers must teach man the future of man
as his will, as dependent on a human will in order to put an end to the
gruesome rule of nonsense and chance which was hitherto regarded as
history : the true history— as distinguished from the mere prehistory, to
use a Marxian distinction— requires the subjugation of chance, of nature

APPENDIX

199

(Genealogy II ; n. 2) >by men of the highest spirituality, of the greatest reason
The subjugation of nature depends then decisively on mnTSa

(aph^9): the philosophers of the future must possess that will to a dejee
which was not even dreamed of by the philosophy of the Zt« Ihev must
possess that will in its absolute form. The new philosopher aS act w^e
tempted to say, to the highest degree according to nature ?hev uVor Z
also to the highest degree according to reason, for ^
of unreason and the high-the high independent spirituality the wil to
stand alone, the great reason (aph. 201)-is Evidently preferable to the bw
The turn from theautonomyof the herd to the rule of the philosophers o°he
future is akin to the transformation of the worshipping of theToth n Tinto

because one must be strong, healthy and well-born in order to agreetoTor
even to understand it? Yet can one say that Nietzsche's praise oKv as
distinguished from Plato's praise of gentleness, is rational? Or b SK

£2 3? "T 1 " able and ' h * ~>ble «£&££
irrational glorification of compassion (cf. Genealogy, preface, nr 5 end)?

Furthermore, .s not Nietzsche's critique of Plato and of Socmes a grave

exaggerat-on not to say a caricature? I, suffices to rememberThe difference

cCeW^\ ^ ,etZ5 f he ^ nse («*• »P»- 190)- As Nietzsche says in the same
chapter (202), Socrates did not think that he knew what good and evil is In
otter words, "virtue is knowledge" is a riddle rathe? than a so lu«o„

"a StincS' • S T E if based °t awareness ° f the to "»« «~E£

a scientific head is placed on the body of an ape, a subtle exceptional

co^SorT V"'" 1 " (a " h - ** « N«- awaLeLK
complexity of the relation between Wissen and Gewissen to use a favorite
distinction of Nietzsche which in this form is indeed alien to Socrate To
considerations such as these one is compelled to retort thai liT^lc

a nature of inan: the denial of any cardinal difference between man and

™ Sa T\ " " ""f tmtb: henCe "*» cannot be ■»'«"" «K man
as man: all values are human creations.

^ nh ^ h ! ,e . Niet f che ' s tu ™ from the autonomous herd to the new philoso-
phers is in perfect agreement with his doctrine of the will to power, it seems
to be irreconcilable with his doctrine of eternal return: how hideed can the
demand for something absolutely new, this intransigent farewell to the
whole past to all "history" be reconciled with the unbounded Yes to
everything that was and is? Toward the end of the present chapter Nietzsche

200

APPENDIX

gives a hint regarding the connection between the demand for wholly new
philosophers and eternal return; the philosophers of the future, he says
must be able to endure the weight of the responsibility for the future of man '
He had originally published his suggestion regarding eternal return under
the heading "Das grosste Schwergewicht" (Gay Science aph. 341)
128J From the desideration of the new philosophers Nietzsche is naturally led
to passing judgement on the contemporary philosophers, a sorry lot, who
are not philosophers in a serious and proper sense but professors of philoso-
phy, philosophic laborers or, as they came to call themselves after Nietz-
sche's death, men who "do philosophy." They are in the best case, i.e. only
in rare cases, scholars or scientists, i.e. competent and honest specialists
who of right ought to be subservient to philosophy or handmaidens to
philosophy. The chapter devoted to this kind of man is entitled "Wir
Gelehrten"; it is the only one in whose title the first person of the personal
pronoun is used: Nietzsche wishes to emphasize the fact that apart from
being a precursor of the philosophers of the future, he belongs to the
scholars and not, for instance, to the poets or the homines religiosL The
emancipation of the scholars or scientists from philosophy is according to
him only a part of the democratic movement, i.e. of the emancipation of the
low from subordination to the high. The things which we have observed in
the 20th century regarding the sciences of man confirm Nietzsche's di-
agnosis.

[29J The plebeian character of the contemporary scholar or scientist is due to
the fact that he has no reverence for himself and this in its turn is due to his
lack of self, to his self-forgetting, the necessary consequence or cause of his
objectivity; hence he is no longer "nature" or "natural"; he can only be
genuine" or "authentic." Originally, one can say with some exaggeration,
the natural and the genuine were the same (cf. Plato, Laws 642c 8-d 1 777d
5-6; Rousseau, Du Contrat Social I. 9 end and II. 7, third paragraph);
Nietzsche prepares decisively the replacement of the natural by the authen-
tic. That he does this and why he does this will perhaps become clear from
the following consideration. He is concerned more immediately with the
classical scholars and historians than with the natural scientists (cf. aph
209). Historical study had come to be closer to philosophy and therefore also
a greater danger to it than natural science. This in turn was a consequence of
what one may call the historicization of philosophy, the alleged realization
that truth is a function of time (historical epoch) or that every philosophy
belongs to a definite time and place (country). History takes the place of
nature as a consequence of the fact that the natural— e.g. the natural gifts
which enable a man to become a philosopher— is no longer understood as
given but as the acquisition of former generations (aph. 213; cf. Dawn of
Morning aph. 540). Historicism is the child of the peculiarly modern tend-
ency to understand everything in terms of its genesis, of its human produc-

APPENDIX

201

tion: nature furnishes only the almost worthless materials as in themselves
(Locke, Two Treatises of Government II sect. 43).

I30J The philosopher, as distinguished from the scholar or scientist, is the
complementary man in whom not only man but the rest of existence is
justified (cf. aph. 207); he is the peak which does not permit and still less
demand to be overcome. This characterization applies, however, strictly
speaking only to the philosophers of the future compared with whom men of
the rank of Kant and Hegel are only philosophic laborers, for the philoso-
pher in the precise sense creates values. Nietzsche raises the question
whether there ever were such philosophers (aph. 211 end). He seems to
have answered that question in the affirmative by what he had said near the
beginning of the sixth chapter on Heraclitus, Plato and Empedocles. Or
does it remain true that we must overcome also the Greeks {The Gay Science
aph. 125, 340)? The philosopher as philosopher belongs to the future and
was therefore at all times in contradiction to his Today; the philosophers
were always the bad conscience of their time. They belonged then to their
time, not indeed, as Hegel thought, by being the sons of their times (Vorle-
sungen uber die Geschichte der Philosophie, Einleitung, ed. Hoffmeister,
149) but by being their step-sons (Schopenhauer als Erzieher nr. 3). As
belonging to their time and their place or country if only as their step-sons,
the precursors of the philosophers of the future are concerned not only with
the excellence of man in general but with the preservation of Europe which
is threatened by Russia and which therefore must become a united Europe
(aph. 208): the philosophers of the future must become the invisible spiritual
rulers of a united Europe without ever becoming its servants.

131] In the seventh chapter Nietzsche turns to "our virtues." Yet the "we"
whose virtues he discusses there, are not "we scholars" but "we Europeans
of the time after tomorrow, we firstlings of the 20th century" (aph. 214), "we
free minds" (aph. 227), i.e. the precursors of the philosophers of the future.
The discussion of the virtues and vices of the scholars must be supplemented
by a discussion of the virtues and vices of free minds. The virtues of the free
minds had been discussed in the second chapter but their vices which are
inseparable from their virtues, must also be laid bare. "Our" morality is
characterized by a fundamental ambiguity; it is inspired by Christianity and
by anti-Christianity. One can say that "our" morality constitutes a progress
beyond the morality of the preceding generations but this change is no
ground for pride; such pride would be incompatible with "our" increased
delicacy in moral matters. Nietzsche is willing to grant that a high spirituality
(intellectuality) is the ultimate product of moral qualities, that it is the
synthesis of all those states which one ascribes to men who are "only
moral,"that it consists in the spiritualization of justice and of that kind of
severity which knows that it is commissioned to maintain in the world the
order of rank, even among the things and not only among men. Being the

202

APPENDIX

complementary man in whom the rest of existence is justified (aph 207)
standing on the summit, nay, being the summit, the philosopher has a
cosmic responsibility. But "our virtues" are not the virtues of the phi-
losopher of the future. The concession which Nietzsche makes to the men
who are only moral" does not prevent him from treating both the reigning
moral teachings (altruism, the identification of goodness with compassion
utilitarianism) as well as their critique by moralists as trivial, not to say with
contempt; the superior morality which flows from that critique or which is its
presupposition does not belong to "our virtues. " The reigning moralities are
unaware of the problematic character of morality as such and this is due to
their insufficient awareness of the variety of moralities (cf. aph 186) to
these moralists' lack of historical sense. The historical sense is "our" virtue
even "our great virtue." It is a novel phenomenon, not older than the 19th
century. It is an ambiguous phenomenon. Its root is a lack of self-sufficiency
of plebian Europe, or it expresses the self-criticism of modernity, its longing
fo something different, for something past or alien. As a consequence
measure is foreign to us; we are titillated by the infinite and unmeasured"-
hence we are half-barbarians. It would seem that this defect, the reverse side
of our great virtue, points to a way of thinking and living that transcends
his oncism, to a peak higher than all earlier peaks. The discussion of the
historical sense (aph 223-24) is surrounded by a discussion of compassion
(aph.222 and 225): the historical sense mediates in a manner between the
plebian morality which boasts of its compassion with those who have been
neglected by nature (aph. 219) and which is bent on the abolition of all
suffering, and the opposite morality which goes together with awareness of
he great things man owes to suffering (aph. 225). The next aphorism (226) is
the only one in the chapter with an italicized heading ("We immoralists")-
we immoralists are "men of duty"; "our" immoralism is our virtue. "Our
virtue which alone is left to us" is probity, intellectual probity; it is, one may
say, the positive or reverse side of our immoralism. Probity includes and
completes "our great virtue of the historical sense." Yet probity is an end
rather than a beginning; it points to the past rather than to the future; it is not
the virtue characteristic of the philosophers of the future; it must be sup-
ported modified, fortified by "our most delicate, most disguised, most
spiritual will to power" which is directed toward the future. Surely our
probity must not be permitted to become the ground or object of our pride,
for this would lead us back to moralism (and to theism).
[32J For a better understanding of "our virtue" it is helpful to contrast it with
the most powerful antagonist, the morality preached up by the English
utilitarians which accepts indeed egoism as the basis of morality but con-
tends that egoism rightly understood leads to the espousal of the general
welfare. That utilitarianism is disgusting, boring and naive. While it recog-

APPENDIX

203

mzes the fundamental character of egoism, it does not realize the fact that
egoism is will to power and hence includes cruelty which, as cruelty directed
toward oneself, is effective in intellectual probity, in "the intellectual con-
science."

133J To recognize the crucial importance of cruelty is indispensable if "the
terrible basic text homo natural "that eternal basic text" is again to be seen,
if man is to be "re-translated into nature." That re-translation is altogether a
task for the future: "there never was yet a natural humanity" (Will to Power
nr. 120). Man must be "made natural" (vernaturlicht) together "with the
pure, newly found, newly redeemed nature" (The Gay Science aph. 109).
For a man is the not yet fixed, not yet established beast (aph. 62): man
becomes natural by acquiring his final, fixed character. For the nature of a
being is its end, its completed state, its peak (Aristotle, Politics 1252b
32-34). "I too speak of 'return to nature,' although it is properly not agoing
back but an ascent— up into the high, free, even terrible nature and natural-
ness . . ." (Twilight of the Idols, 'Skirmishes of an untimely man' nr. 48).
Man reaches his peak through and in the philosopher of the future as the
truly complementary man in whom not only man but the rest of existence is
justified (aph. 207). He is the first man who consciously creates values on the
basis of the understanding of the will to power as the fundamental phe-
nomenon. His action constitutes the highest form of the most spiritual will to
power and therewith the highest form of the will to power. By this action he
puts an end to the rule of non-sense and chance (aph. 203). As the act of the
highest form of man's will to power the Vernaturlichung of man is at the
same time the peak of the anthropomorphization of the non-human (cf . Will
to Power nr. 614), for the most spiritual will to power consists in prescribing
to nature what or how it ought to be (aph. 9). It is in this way that Nietzsche
abolishes the difference between the world of appearance or fiction (the
interpretations) and the true world (the text). (Cf . Marx 'Nationalokonomie
und Philosophic', Die Friihschriften, ed. Landshut, pp. 235, 237, 273.)

134J It is however the history of man hitherto, i.e. the rule of non-sense and
chance, which is the necessary condition for the subjugation of non-sense
and chance. That is to say, the Vernaturlichung of man presupposes and
brings to its conclusion the whole historical process— a completion which is
by no means necessary but requires a new, free creative act. Still, in this way
history can be said to be integrated into nature. Be this as it may, man cannot
say Yes to the philosophers of the future without saying Yes to the past. Yet
there is a great difference between this Yes and the unbounded Yes to
everything that was and is, i.e. the affirmation of eternal return.

[35J Instead of explaining why it is necessary to affirm the eternal return,
Nietzsche indicates that the highest achievement, as all earlier high achieve-
ments, is in the last analysis not the work of reason but of nature; in the last

204

APPENDIX

analysis all thought depends on something unteachable "deep down " on a
fundamental stupidity; the nature of the individual, the individual nature,
not evident and universally valid insights, it seems, is the ground of a!
worthwhile understanding or knowledge (aph. 231; cf. aph. 8). There is an
o der of rank of the natures; at the summit of the hierarchy is the com-
plementary man. His supremacy is shown by the fact that he solves the
highest the most difficult problem. As we have observed, for Nietzsche
nature has become a problem and yet he cannot do without nature. Nature

r„7 y S T. J* C ° me 3 Pr ° b,em ° wing to the fact that ma " * conquering
nature and there are no assignable limits to that conquest. As a conse

Y^ff Pe ° P 5 aVC C ° me t0 think ° f abolishin g offering and inequality.

239 .^n H n ?K m ! qUa f arC thC P rere ^ uisites of human greatness (aph.
239 and 257). Hithertc .suffering and inequality have been taken for granted

as given, as imposed on man. Henceforth, they must be willed. That is to
m'JZ grUe f S ° me ' C ° f nonsense and cha ^e, nature, the fact that almost

«„H n , are .T! ntS ' mpp,eS and grUesome accidents > the whole present
and past is itself a fragment, a riddle, a gruesome accident unless it is willed
as a bridge to the future (cf. Zarathustra, 'Of Redemption'). While paving

btnTH v ^ C 1 °7 ,ementary man ' ° ne must at the sa ™ time say Tn
' t d h S * thC fragmentS and cri PP ,es " Nature , ** eternity of nature,
owes its being to a postulate, to an act of the will to power on the part of
the highest nature. v

fcA^V™ xi he sevent \ cha P ter Ni etzsche discusses "woman and man"
n Uf h h ? a PP arent, y c,ums y transition to that subject-a transition

m which he questions the truth of what he is about to say by claiming that it
expresses merely his "fundamental stupidity deep down"-is not merely a
,nH 7' ".FT* °[ comes y to the friends of woman's emancipation It
indicates that he is about to continue the theme of nature, i.e. the natural
hierarchy, ,n full awareness of the problem of nature.

i< ^n. e / P i ?,,OS ° P !l erS ° f thC fUtUre may beIon « to a united Eur °Pe but Europe
is still / Europe des nations et despatries. Germany more than any other part

o non-Russian Europe has more of a prospect of a future than, say, France

S ? ( . aph ' 24 °' 2M ' 255; Cf - Hdne ed ' E,ster IV 51 °)- O^ could find
that Nietzsche stresses in his chapter on peoples and fatherlands more the

frleTJl L C ° n ? r^ GCmany than her virtues: U is not s ° difficult to
free one s heart from a victorious fatherland as from a beaten one (aph. 41)

^e Rirh^H w S """ff hcfe * ** German P hi,os °Phy but German music!
wor?,nH f er ' ^T PrCC,Se,y ' Eur °P ean nobi,it y re veals itself as the

work and invention of France, whereas European commonness, the pie-
bianism of the modern ideas, is the work and invention of England (aph.

[38] Nietzsche thus prepares the last chapter which he entitled "Was ist vor-
nehm? Vornehm" differs from "noble" because it is inseparable from

136]

[37]

APPENDIX

205

extraction, origin, birth {Dawn of Morning, aph. 199; Goethe Wilhelm
Meister's Lehrjahre [Samtliche Werke, Tempel-KIassiker, II 87-88] and
Dichtung und Wahrheit, Vol. 2, ed. cit. 44-45). Being the last chapter of a
prelude to a philosophy of the future, it shows the (a) philosophy of the
future as reflected in the medium of conduct, of life; thus reflected the
philosophy of the future reveals itself as the philosophy of the future. The
virtues of the philosopher of the future differ from the Platonic virtues:
Nietzsche replaces temperance and justice by compassion and solitude (aph.
284). This is one illustration among many of what he means by characteriz-
ing nature by its " Vornehmheit" (aph. 188). Die vornehme Natur ersetzt die
gottliche Natur.