Beyond Good and Evil
Friedrich Nietzsche
Interpretive Resumé
by
J. Prescott Johnson, Ph.D
Northwestern University
Professor Emer itus of Philosophy
Monmouth College (IL)
Introduction
Nietzsche began work on this book in the summer of 1885 and completed the work the following winter. In it he attempted to define the relative terms of “good” and “evil,” and to draw a line of distinction between immorality and unmorality. The distinction formulates a workable basis for human conduct.
The book opens with a chapter called “Prejudices of Philosophers.” The argument involves two methods: first, an analysis and refutation of the thought of previous philosophers, and secondly by defining the hypotheses on which his own philosophy is built.
He uses the term free Spirit to mean the bridge that must be crossed in the process of surpassing oneself. It should not be confuses with the superman. There is involved here the differences of the master morality and the slave morality.
The section dealing with the religious faith considers the numerous individual inner experiences of the individual. The origin of the instinct for faith are set forth and the results of this faith are balanced against the needs of the individuals and the human race,
The discussion of the religious life points up the fact that this life prohibits any and all social chaos. Even in his severest criticism of Criticism of Christianity his object was not to shake the faith of the great majority of mankind in their idols. He sought merely to free the strong individuals from the restrictions of a religion that fitted the needs of only the precept of a dual morality. Also he argued for distinct polarity in sexual relationship.
Preface
The tenor of this section points up the necessity of the equality of the sexes in the work of the Kingdom of God.
I. Prejudices of Philosophers
1
The will to truth has laid upon us many perplexing questions. The question is raised concerning what really is this will to truth in us? There is involved in this question a further question: what is the value of this will? There is a risk in raising it; perhaps there is no greater risk.
2
It is not possible that anything can originate out of its opposite. For example, truth out of error, or the will to Truth out of the will to deception, or the generous deed out of selfishness, or the pure sun-bright vision of the wise man out of covetousness . Things of the highest value must have a different origin, an origin of their own. But rather in the fountain of Being, in the in transitory, in the concealed God, in the the “Thing-in-itself,” there must be their source, and nowhere else!! There are, unfortunately, metaphysicians who fail to recognize this and fall into error.
3
Behind all logic and its seeming sovereignty of movement, there are valuations, or to speak more plainly, physiological demands, for the maintenance of a definite mode of life, for example, that the certain is worth more than the uncertain, that illusion is less valuable than “truth”: such valuations, in spite of their regulative importance for us, might, notwithstanding, be only superficial valuations, special kinds of miaiserie, such as might be necessary for the maintenance of beings such as ourselves. Supposing, in effect, that man is not just the “measure of things.” . . .
4
If we recognize untruth as a condition of life it is certainly to impugn the traditional values of life, and a philosophy that does so places itself beyond good and evil.
5
That which causes people to distrust philosophers is not their childish innocence, but rather their dishonesty. They assume that their cold-like force of abstract logic yields the truth. However, their assumption is far from the truth, and people who prize authenticity realize this.
6
It is not true that an impulse to knowledge is the father of philosophy. There is another impulse that is here involved. It is only the impulse to be recognized and admired. This impulse is spurious.
7
There is a certain maliciousness about philosophers. Epicurus made a joke on Plato and the Platonists. He called them Dionysiokolakes. This term means “Flatterers of Dionysius”—consequently, tyrants, accessories and lick-spittles; besides this, however, it is as much as to say, “they are all actors, there is nothing genuine about them.
8
There is a point in every philosophy at which the “conviction” of the philosopher appears on the scene; or, to put it in the words of an ancient mystery:
Adventavit
Pulcher et Fortissimus
9
The saying “live according to nature” is a fraudulent axiom. It involves being boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly being indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves Indifference as a power—how could you live in accordance with such indifference? Instead, to live as humanity is to live in a new spiritual mode of transcendence.
10
The problem of the real and apparent world furnishes for today some considerable perplexity. There are many who are anxious to abandon appearance and recover reality, The are trying to win back something that was formerly an even securer possession, something of the old domain of former times, perhaps the “immortal soul,” perhaps “the old God,” in short, ideas by which they could live better, that is to say, more vigorously and more joyously, than by “modern ideas.” There is a distrust of these ideas in this mode of looking at things, a disbelief in all that has been previously constructed.
11
It was Kant who gave to the world the “magic” of the “synthetic a priori” which was regarded as furnishing the same certainty that the analytic a priori did. But it was soon seen, by response able scholars that it could not fulfill that promise. In “maters of fact” contingency reigned. There was no a posteriori certainty.
12
As regard material atomism, it is now universally refuted. Also, the belief in the soul as something indestructible , eternal, as a monad, as an atomon; this belief must be rejected. The way is thus opened for former acceptations and refinements of the soul-hypothesis, and such conceptions as “mortal soul,” and “soul as subjective multiplicity,” and “soul as social structure of the instincts and passions,”should hencforth have their rightful place in science.
13
We should disavow the view that the soul is the cardinal instinct of self-preservation of an organic being. A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength—life itself is Will to Power; self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results thereof.
14
Natural philosophy is only a world-exposition and world-arrangement, and not a world-arrangement. As it is based on a belief in the senses, it is regarded as more, namely, as an explanation.
15
The sense organs are not phenomena in the sense of the idealist philosophy. If they were, then our body, as part of this external world, would be the work of our organs. But this would mean that the organs themselves would be the work of our organs! But this is a complete reductio as absurdum. Consequently, the external world is not the work of our organs.
16
“Immediate certainty, ”as well as “absolute knowledge” and “the thing in itself” involves a contradictio in adjecto. We must free ourselves from the misleading significance of these words.
17
A thought comes when “it” wishes , and not when “I” wish; so that it is a pervasion of the facts to say that the “I” is the condition of the predicate “think.”
18
The theory of the “free will” is but a charm that is, however, illusory.
19
The “Will” is not an atomic individual that acts. Rather, it is a series of process.
20
The philosophical ideas are not separate, but belong to a system.
21
The causa sui is a self-contradictory idea. It stems from the desire to bear the ultimate responsibility for one’s actions oneself, and to absolve God, the world, ancestors, chance, and society therefrom, involves nothing less than to be precisely this causa sui.
22
The idea of “Nature’s conformity to law” exists only as one’s interpretation and bad “philology.” It is just a naively humanitarian and perversion of meaning.
23
Psychology has run aground on moral prejudices and timidity; it has not dared to launch out into depths. It seems that no one has yet harbored the notion of psychology as the morphology and Development doctrine of the Will to power.
2 The Free Spirit
24
O sanctus simplicitas! We live in the sphere of strange simplification and falsification. We have made everything around us clear and free and easy and simple. We have done this in order to enjoy an almost inconceivable freedom, thoughtlessness, impudence, heartiness, and gaiety in order to enjoy life. We have adopted the will to ignorance.
25
After a cheerful commencement, a serious world would fain be heard; it appeals to the most serious minds. Take care, ye philosophers and friends of knowledge, and beware of martyrdom! Of suffering “for truth’s sake”! Even in your own defense! It spoils all the innocence and fine neutrality of your conscience; it makes you headstrong against objections and red rags; it stupefies animalizes and breathalyzes , when in the struggle with danger, slander, suspicion, expulsion, and even worse consequence of enmity, ye have at last to play your last card as protectors of truth upon the earth—as though “the truth” were such an innocent and incompetent creature require proctors!
26
Every man strives instinctively for a citadel and a privacy, where he is free from the crowd, the many, the majority—where he may forget “men who are the rule.” as their exception—exclusive only in the case in which he is pushed straight to such men by a still stronger instinct, as a discerner in the great and exceptional sense.
27
It is difficult to be understood, especially when one thinks and lives gangasrotogati (like the river Ganges).
28
What is most difficult is to render from one language to another is the tempo of its style, which has its basis in the character of the race, or to speak more physiologically, in the average of its nutriment.
29
It is the business of the very few to be independent; it is a privilege of the strong. In so doing one proves that he or she is not only strong, but also daring beyond measure.
30
The exoteric view things from below upwards, while the esoteric view things from above downwards.
31
In our youthful years we still venerate and despise without the art of nuance, which is the best gain of life, and we have rightly to do hard penance for having fallen upon men with Yea and Nay. Everything is so arranged that worst of all tastes, the taste for the unconditional.
32
Throughout the longest period of human history—one calls it the prehistoric period—the value or non-value of an action was inferred from its consequences; the action in itself was not taken into consideration. We may call this the pre-moral period of mankind; the imperative, know thyself! was still unknown. We now let the consequences of an action, but its origin, decide to its worth. This may be designated in the narrower sense as the moral one; the first attempt in self-knowledge is thereby made.
33
The sentiment of surrender, of sacrifice for one’s neighbor and all renouncement morality must be mercifully called into account, and brought to judgement.
34
He who regards this world, including space, time, form, and movement, as falsely deduced, would have, at least good reason in the end to become distrustful of all thinking.
35
O Voltaire! O humanity! O idiocy! There is something tickish in “the truth: and if man goes about it too humanely—“il ne cherche le virai que pour faire le bieb”—I wager he finds nothing!
36
By the command of logic we must believe that all organic functions, including self-regulation, assimilation, nutrition, secretion, and change of matter, are still synthetically united with one another—as a primary form of life.
37
“What? Does not that mean in popular language: God is disproved, but not the devil”?—On the contrary! And who compels you to speak popularly?
38
As to the tragic events of the past, there are those who misunderstand the whole past and make those events endurable.
39
Nobody will very readily regard a doctrine as true merely because it makes people happy and virtuous. A thing could be true, although it were in the highest degree injurious and dangerous.
40
Everything that is profound loves a mask. There are proceedings of such a delicate nature that is well to overwhelm them with coarseness and make them unrecognizable. Every profoune spirit needs a mask, nay, more, around every profound spirit there continually grows mask, owing to the constantly false, that is to say, superficial interpretation of every word he utters, every step he takes, every sign of life he manifests.
41
One must subject oneself to one’s own tests that one is destined for independence and command , and do so at the right time. One must not avoid one’s tests, although they constitute perhaps the most dangerous game one can play, and are in the end tests made before ourselves and before no other.
42
A new order of philosophers is appearing. They wrongly claim to be ”tempters.” This name itself is after all only an attempt, of if it be preferred, a temptation.
43
Will there be new friends of “truth,” these coming philosophers? Very probably, for all philosophers have hitherto loved their truths, but the will not be dogmatists.
44
The philosophers of the future will be free spirits. Further, they will be something more, higher, greater, and something more, higher, greater, and fundamentally different
3. The Religious Mood
45
It concerns the quest of the human soul to actualize its spiritual possibilities. One searches for the human limits of the soul, the heights, the range of man’s inner experiences hitherto attained, the heights, depth and distances of these experiences, the entire history of the soul up to the present time, and its still unexhausted possibilities. One would like to hav assistance in realizing this goal, but there is no such assistance. The individual must perform this task alone.
46
The Christian faith is not an excursion in luxury. From the beginning it is sacrifice, the sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self confidence of spirit; it is at the same time subjection, self-derision. And self-mutilation. There is cruelty and religious Phœnicism in this faith, which is adapted to a tender, many-
sided and very fastidious conscience; it takes for granted that the subjection of the spirit indescribably painful, that all the past and all the habits of such a spirit resist the absurdissimum , in the form of which “faith” comes to it. Many have no sense for the terrible superlative conception that was implied to an antique taste by the paradox of the formula, “God on the Cross.” Hitherto there had never and nowhere such boldness in inversionn nor anything so dreadful, so questioning and questionable as this formula: it promised a trans-valuation of all ancient values.
47
Whenever the religious neurosis has appeared on the earth so far, we find it connected with three dangerous perceptions as to regimen: solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence—but without its being possible to determine with certainty which is cause or which is effect, or if any relation at all of cause and effect exists there.
48
It seems that the Latin races are far more deeply attached to their Catholicism than are we Northerners are to Christianity generally, and that consequently unbelief in Catholic countries means something quite different from what it does among Protestants—namely, a sort of revolt against the spirit of the race, while with us it is rather a return to the spirit (or non-spirit) of the race..
49
That which is so astonishing in the religious life of the ancient Greeks is the irrestible stream of gratitude which it pours forth— it is a very kind of man who takes such an attitude towards nature and life.—Later on, when the popular got the upper hand in Greece, fear became rampant also in religion; and Christianity was preparing itself.
50
The passion for God: there are churlish, honest-hearted and importunate kinds of it—the whole of Protestantism lacka the southern delicatezza. There is an Oriental exaltation of the mind in it. There is a feminine tenderness and sensuality in it, which modestly and unconsciously longs for a unio mystica et physica.
51
The mightiest men have hitherto bowed reverently before the saint, as the enigma of self-subjection and utter voluntary privation—why did they thus bow? They divined in him the superior force which wished to test itself by such a subjection; the strength of will, in which they recognized their own strength and love of power, and knew how to honor it: they honored something in themselves when they honored the saint. In addition to this, the contemplation of the saint suggested to them a suspicion: such an enormity of self-negation and such anti-naturalism will not have been coveted for nothing.
52
In the Jewish “Old Testament,” the book of divine justice, there are men, things, and sayings on such an immense scale, that Greek and Indian literature has nothing to compare with it. One stands with fear and reverence before those stupendous remains of what was formerly,
53
Why Athenian nowadays? “The Father” in God is thoroughly refuted; equally so “the judge,” “the rewarder.” Also his “free will”: he does not hear—and even if he did, he would not know how to help. He seems incapable of communicating himself clearly; he is uncertain. This is the cause of the decline of European theism.. It rejects the theistic satisfaction with profound distrust
54
What does all modern philosophy mainly do? An attentat has been made on the part of philosophers on the conception of the soul, on the fundamental presupposition of Christian doctrine.
55
There have been different forms of religious cruelty: (1) the sacrifice of their God , and perhaps just those that they loved the best—to this category belong the firstling sacrifice of primitive religions. (2) Then, during the moral epoch of mankind, they sacrificed to their God the strongest instincts they possessed, their “nature.” (3) finally they sacrificed everything comforting, healing, all hope, all faith in hidden harmonies, in future blessedness and justice. It became necessary to sacrifice God himself, and out cruelty to themselves to worship stone, stupidity, gravity, fate, nothingness.
56
There is ideal that is opposite to positive faith. It is the perverse psuedo-ideal, the most world-renouncing of all possible modes of thought. It is the opposite ideal: the ideal of the mos t world-approving exuberant and vivacious man.
57
The distance, and as it were, the space around man, grows with the strength of his intellectual vision; his world becomes profounder; new stars, new enigmas, and notions are ever coming into view.
58
Had it been observed to what extent outward idleness, sem-idleness, is necessary to a real religious life? I mean the idleness with a good conscience. The “free=thinkers” have dissolved the religious instincts: so that they no longer know what purpose religion serves, and only note their existence in the world with a kind of dull astonishment. It seems that they have no time whatsoever left for religion;
59
Men have are superficial. It is their preservative instinct that teaches them to be flighty, lightsome, and false.
60
To love mankind for God’s sake—this has so far been the noblest and remotest sentiment to which mankind has attained.
61
The philosopher, as we free spirits understand him—as the man of greatest responsibility, who has the conscience for the general devolepment for mankind,—will use religion for his disciplining and educating work, just as he will use the contemporary economic conditions. The selecting and disciplining that can be exercised by means of religion is manifold and varied, according to the sort of people placed under its spell and protection. For those who are strong and independent, religion is an additional means for overcoming resistance in the exercise of authority. For those who are spiritual, religion itself may be used as a means for obtaining peace from noise and the trouble of managing secular affairs.
62
To be sure—the cost is terrible when religions do not operate as an educational and disciplinary medium in the hands of a philosopher, but rule voluntarily and paramountly, when they wish to be the final end, and not a means along with other means.