Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (/nit/[1] German: [fid vlhlm Nietzsche attended a boys' school and then, later, a private

private school,
nits]; 15 October 1844 25 August 1900) was a German where he became friends with Gustav Krug, Rudolf Wagner, and
philosopher, cultural critic, poet, composer, and Latin and Greek Wilhelm Pinder, all of whom came from highly respected families.
scholar. He wrote several critical texts on religion, morality,
contemporary culture, philosophy, and science, displaying a fondness In 1854, he began to attend Domgymnasium in Naumburg but since he
for metaphor[2] and irony. showed particular talents in music and language, the internationally
recognized Schulpforta admitted him as a pupil. He transferred and
Nietzsche's key ideas include perspectivism, the will to power, master- studied there from 1858 to 1864, becoming friends with Paul Deussen
slave morality, the death of God, the bermensch and eternal and Carl von Gersdorff. He also found time to work on poems and
recurrence. One of the key tenets of his philosophy is "life-affirmation", musical compositions. At Schulpforta, Nietzsche received an important
which embraces the realities of the world in which we live over the idea grounding in languagesGreek, Latin, Hebrew, and Frenchso as to
of a world beyond. It further champions the creative powers of the be able to read important primary sources;[11] he also experienced for
individual to strive beyond social, cultural, and moral contexts.[3] the first time being away from his family life in a small-town
Nietzsche's attitude towards religion and morality was marked with conservative environment. His end-of-semester exams in March 1864
atheism, psychologism and historism: he considered them to be showed a 1 in Religion and German; a 2a in Greek and Latin; a 2b in
human creations ultimately produced by insecurities and flaws rather French, History, and Physics; and a "lackluster" 3 in Hebrew and
than effective means to alleviate those flaws.[4] His radical questioning Mathematics.[12]
of the value and objectivity of truth has been the focus of extensive
commentary, and his influence remains substantial, especially in While at Pforta, Nietzsche had a penchant for pursuing subjects that
schools of continental philosophy such as existentialism, were considered unbecoming. He became acquainted with the work of
postmodernism, and post-structuralism. His ideas of individual the then almost-unknown poet Friedrich Hlderlin, calling him "my
overcoming and transcendence beyond structure and context have favorite poet" and composing an essay in which he said that the mad
had a profound impact on late-twentieth and early-twenty-first century poet raised consciousness to "the most sublime ideality". [13] The
thinkers, who have used these concepts as points of departure in the teacher who corrected the essay gave it a good mark but commented
development of their philosophies.[5][6] that Nietzsche should concern himself in the future with healthier, more
lucid, and more "German" writers. Additionally, he became acquainted
Nietzsche began his career as a classical philologista scholar of with Ernst Ortlepp, an eccentric, blasphemous, and often drunken poet
Greek and Roman textual criticismbefore turning to philosophy. In who was found dead in a ditch weeks after meeting the young
1869, at age 24, he became the youngest-ever occupant of the Chair Nietzsche but who may have introduced Nietzsche to the music and
of Classical Philology at the University of Basel. He resigned in 1879 writing of Richard Wagner.[14] Perhaps under Ortlepp's influence, he
due to health problems that plagued him most of his life.[7] In 1889, at and a student named Richter returned to school drunk and
age 44, he suffered a collapse and a complete loss of his mental encountered a teacher, resulting in Nietzsche's demotion from first in
faculties. The breakdown was later ascribed to atypical general paresis his class and the end of his status as a prefect.[15]
due to tertiary syphilis, but this diagnosis has come into question.[8]
Nietzsche lived his remaining years in the care of his mother (until her Nietzsche in his younger days
death in 1897) and then his sister Elisabeth Frster-Nietzsche. He died
in 1900 of what was thought to be a stroke, however re-examination of After graduation in 1864, Nietzsche commenced studies in theology
Nietzsche's medical evaluation papers show that he almost certainly and classical philology at the University of Bonn. For a short time he
died of brain cancer.[9] and Deussen became members of the Burschenschaft Frankonia.
After one semester (and to the anger of his mother) he stopped his
As his caretaker, his sister assumed the roles of curator and editor of theological studies and lost his faith.[16] As early as his 1862 essay
Nietzsche's manuscripts. Frster-Nietzsche, the widow of prominent "Fate and History", Nietzsche had argued that historical research had
German nationalist and antisemite Bernhard Frster, reworked discredited the central teachings of Christianity,[17] but David Strauss's
Nietzsche's unpublished writings to fit her own ideology. Often she did Life of Jesus also seems to have had a profound effect on the young
so in ways contrary to her brother's stated opinions, which were man.[16] In 1865, at the age of 20, Nietzsche wrote to his sister
strongly and explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Elisabeth, who was deeply religious, a letter regarding his loss of faith.
Through Frster-Nietzsche's editions, Nietzsche's name became This letter ended with a following sentence:
associated with German militarism and Nazism, although later 20th-
century scholars have counteracted this conception of his ideas. "Hence the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and
pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then
Life inquire..."[18]

Youth (184469) Schopenhauer's philosophy strongly influenced Nietzsche's earliest

philosophical thought.
Born on 15 October 1844, Nietzsche grew up in the small town of
Rcken, near Leipzig, in the Prussian Province of Saxony. He was Nietzsche subsequently concentrated on studying philology under
named after King Frederick William IV of Prussia, who turned forty-nine Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, whom he followed to the
on the day of Nietzsche's birth. (Nietzsche later dropped his middle University of Leipzig in 1865.[19] There, he became close friends with
name "Wilhelm".[10]) Nietzsche's parents, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche his fellow student Erwin Rohde. Nietzsche's first philological
(181349), a Lutheran pastor and former teacher, and Franziska publications appeared soon after.
Oehler (182697), married in 1843, the year before their son's birth.
They had two other children: a daughter, Elisabeth Frster-Nietzsche, In 1865, Nietzsche thoroughly studied the works of Arthur
born in 1846, and a second son, Ludwig Joseph, born in 1848. Schopenhauer. He owed the awakening of his philosophical interest to
Nietzsche's father died from a brain ailment in 1849; Ludwig Joseph reading Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Representation and
died the next year, at age two. The family then moved to Naumburg, later admitted that Schopenhauer was one of the few thinkers whom
where they lived with Nietzsche's maternal grandmother and his he respected, dedicating to him the essay "Schopenhauer as
father's two unmarried sisters. After the death of Nietzsche's Educator" in the Untimely Meditations.
grandmother in 1856, the family moved into their own house, now
In 1866, he read Friedrich Albert Lange's History of Materialism.
Nietzsche-Haus, a museum and Nietzsche study center.
Lange's descriptions of Kant's anti-materialistic philosophy, the rise of
Nietzsche in 1861 European Materialism, Europe's increased concern with science,
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, and the general rebellion against
tradition and authority intrigued Nietzsche greatly. The cultural
environment encouraged him to expand his horizons beyond philology
and continue his study of philosophy,[citation needed] although Nietzsche edition under the title Untimely Meditations. The essays shared the
would ultimately argue the impossibility of an evolutionary explanation orientation of a cultural critique, challenging the developing German
of the human aesthetic sense.[20] culture along lines suggested by Schopenhauer and Wagner. During
this time, in the circle of the Wagners, Nietzsche met Malwida von
In 1867, Nietzsche signed up for one year of voluntary service with the Meysenbug and Hans von Blow, and also began a friendship with
Prussian artillery division in Naumburg. He was regarded as one of the Paul Re, who in 1876 influenced him into dismissing the pessimism in
finest riders among his fellow recruits, and his officers predicted that he his early writings. However, he was deeply disappointed by the
would soon reach the rank of captain. However, in March 1868, while Bayreuth Festival of 1876, where the banality of the shows and
jumping into the saddle of his horse, Nietzsche struck his chest against baseness of the public repelled him. He was also alienated by
the pommel and tore two muscles in his left side, leaving him Wagner's championing of "German culture", which Nietzsche felt a
exhausted and unable to walk for months.[21][22] Consequently contradiction in terms, as well as by Wagner's celebration of his fame
Nietzsche turned his attention to his studies again, completing them among the German public. All this contributed to Nietzsche's
and meeting with Richard Wagner for the first time later that year.[23] subsequent decision to distance himself from Wagner.
Professor at Basel (186978) With the publication in 1878 of Human, All Too Human (a book of
aphorisms ranging from metaphysics to morality to religion to gender
studies), a new style of Nietzsche's work became clear, highly
influenced by Afrikan Spir's Thought and Reality[31] and reacting
Mid-October 1871. From left: Erwin Rohde, Karl von Gersdorff,
against the pessimistic philosophy of Wagner and Schopenhauer.
Nietzsche.
Nietzsche's friendship with Deussen and Rohde cooled as well. In
In part because of Ritschl's support, Nietzsche received a remarkable 1879, after a significant decline in health, Nietzsche had to resign his
offer to become professor of classical philology at the University of position at Basel. (Since his childhood, various disruptive illnesses had
Basel in Switzerland. He was only 24 years old and had neither plagued him, including moments of shortsightedness that left him
completed his doctorate nor received a teaching certificate. Despite the nearly blind, migraine headaches, and violent indigestion. The 1868
fact that the offer came at a time when he was considering giving up riding accident and diseases in 1870 may have aggravated these
philology for science, he accepted.[24] To this day, Nietzsche is still persistent conditions, which continued to affect him through his years
among the youngest of the tenured Classics professors on record. [25] at Basel, forcing him to take longer and longer holidays until regular
Before moving to Basel, Nietzsche renounced his Prussian citizenship: work became impractical.)
for the rest of his life he remained officially stateless.[26][27]
Independent philosopher (187988)
Nevertheless, Nietzsche served in the Prussian forces during the
Living off his pension from Basel and aid from friends, Nietzsche
Franco-Prussian War (18701871) as a medical orderly. In his short
travelled frequently to find climates more conducive to his health and
time in the military, he experienced much and witnessed the traumatic
lived until 1889 as an independent author in different cities. He spent
effects of battle. He also contracted diphtheria and dysentery.[citation
needed] many summers in Sils Maria near St. Moritz in Switzerland. He spent
Walter Kaufmann speculates that he might also have contracted
his winters in the Italian cities of Genoa, Rapallo, and Turin and the
syphilis along with his other infections at this time.[28][29] On returning to
French city of Nice. In 1881, when France occupied Tunisia, he
Basel in 1870, Nietzsche observed the establishment of the German
planned to travel to Tunis to view Europe from the outside but later
Empire and Otto von Bismarck's subsequent policies as an outsider
abandoned that idea, probably for health reasons.[32] Nietzsche
and with a degree of skepticism regarding their genuineness. His
occasionally returned to Naumburg to visit his family, and, especially
inaugural lecture at the university was "Homer and Classical
during this time, he and his sister had repeated periods of conflict and
Philology". Nietzsche also met Franz Overbeck, a professor of
reconciliation.
theology who remained his friend throughout his life. Afrikan Spir, a
little-known Russian philosopher responsible for the 1873 Thought and While in Genoa, Nietzsche's failing eyesight prompted him to explore
Reality, and Nietzsche's colleague the famed historian Jacob the use of typewriters as a means of continuing to write. He is known
Burckhardt, whose lectures Nietzsche frequently attended, began to to have tried using the Hansen Writing Ball, a contemporary typewriter
exercise significant influence on him during this time.[30] device. In the end, a past student of his, Heinrich Kselitz or Peter
Gast, became a sort of private secretary to Nietzsche. In 1876, Gast
Nietzsche had already met Richard Wagner in Leipzig in 1868 and
transcribed the crabbed, nearly illegible handwriting of Nietzsche for
later Wagner's wife, Cosima. Nietzsche admired both greatly and,
the first time with Richard Wagner in Bayreuth.[33] He subsequently
during his time at Basel, he frequently visited Wagner's house in
transcribed and proofread the galleys for almost all of Nietzsche's work
Tribschen in Lucerne. The Wagners brought Nietzsche into their most
from then on. On at least one occasion on February 23, 1880, the
intimate circle and enjoyed the attention he gave to the beginning of
usually broke Gast received 200 marks from their mutual friend, Paul
the Bayreuth Festival. In 1870, he gave Cosima Wagner the
Re.[34] Gast was one of the very few friends Nietzsche allowed to
manuscript of "The Genesis of the Tragic Idea" as a birthday gift. In
criticize him. In responding most enthusiastically to Zarathustra, Gast
1872, Nietzsche published his first book, The Birth of Tragedy.
did feel it necessary to point out that what were described as
However, his colleagues within his field, including Ritschl, expressed
"superfluous" people were in fact quite necessary. He went on to list
little enthusiasm for the work, in which Nietzsche eschewed the
the number of people Epicurus, for example, had to rely on even to
classical philologic method in favor of a more speculative approach. In
supply his simple diet of goat cheese.[35]
his polemic Philology of the Future, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff
dampened the book's reception and increased its notoriety. In To the end of his life, Gast and Overbeck remained consistently faithful
response, Rohde (then a professor in Kiel) and Wagner came to friends. Malwida von Meysenbug remained like a motherly patron even
Nietzsche's defense. Nietzsche remarked freely about the isolation he outside the Wagner circle. Soon Nietzsche made contact with the
felt within the philological community and attempted unsuccessfully to music-critic Carl Fuchs. Nietzsche stood at the beginning of his most
transfer to a position in philosophy at Basel instead. productive period. Beginning with Human, All Too Human in 1878,
Nietzsche would publish one book or major section of a book each
Nietzsche in c. 1872.
year until 1888, his last year of writing; that year, he completed five.
In 1873, Nietzsche began to accumulate notes that would be
Lou Salom, Paul Re and Nietzsche, 1882.
posthumously published as Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the
Greeks. Between 1873 and 1876, he published four separate long In 1882, Nietzsche published the first part of The Gay Science. That
essays: "David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer", "On the Use year he also met Lou Andreas Salom,[36] through Malwida von
and Abuse of History for Life", "Schopenhauer as Educator" and Meysenbug and Paul Re. Nietzsche and Salom spent the summer
"Richard Wagner in Bayreuth". These four later appeared in a collected
together in Tautenburg in Thuringia, often with Nietzsche's sister Although Nietzsche had previously announced at the end of On The
Elisabeth as a chaperone. Nietzsche, however, regarded Salom less Genealogy of Morals a new work with the title The Will to Power:
as an equal partner than as a gifted student. Salom reports that he Attempt at a Revaluation of All Values, he eventually seems to have
asked her to marry him and that she refused, though the reliability of abandoned this idea and instead used some of the draft passages to
her reports of events has come into question.[37] Nietzsche's compose Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist in 1888.[44]
relationship with Re and Salom broke up in the winter of 188283,
partially because of intrigues conducted by Elisabeth. Amidst renewed His health seemed to improve, and he spent the summer in high
bouts of illness, living in near-isolation after a falling out with his mother spirits. In the fall of 1888, his writings and letters began to reveal a
and sister regarding Salom, Nietzsche fled to Rapallo. Here he wrote higher estimation of his own status and "fate". He overestimated the
the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra in only ten days. increasing response to his writings, however, especially to the recent
polemic, "The Case of Wagner". On his 44th birthday, after completing
By 1882 Nietzsche was taking huge doses of opium but was still Twilight of the Idols and The Antichrist, he decided to write the
having trouble sleeping.[38] In 1883, while staying in Nice, he was autobiography Ecce Homo. In its prefacewhich suggests Nietzsche
writing out his own prescriptions for the sedative chloral hydrate, was well aware of the interpretive difficulties his work would
signing them "Dr. Nietzsche".[39] generatehe declares, "Hear me! For I am such and such a person.
Above all, do not mistake me for someone else".[45] In December,
After severing his philosophical ties with Schopenhauer (who was long Nietzsche began a correspondence with August Strindberg and
dead and never met Nietzsche) and his social ties with Wagner, thought that, short of an international breakthrough, he would attempt
Nietzsche had few remaining friends. Now, with the new style of to buy back his older writings from the publisher and have them
Zarathustra, his work became even more alienating and the market translated into other European languages. Moreover, he planned the
received it only to the degree required by politeness. Nietzsche publication of the compilation Nietzsche Contra Wagner and of the
recognized this and maintained his solitude, though he often poems that made up his collection Dionysian Dithyrambs.
complained about it. His books remained largely unsold. In 1885, he
printed only 40 copies of the fourth part of Zarathustra and distributed Mental breakdown and death (18891900)
only a fraction of these among close friends, including Helene von
Druskowitz.

In 1883 he tried and failed to obtain a lecturing post at the University of Drawing by Hans Olde from the photographic series, The Ill Nietzsche,
Leipzig. It was made clear to him that, in view of the attitude towards mid-1899.
Christianity and the concept of God expressed in Zarathustra, he had
become effectively unemployable by any German university. The On 3 January 1889, Nietzsche suffered a mental collapse. Two
subsequent "feelings of revenge and resentment" embittered him: "And policemen approached him after he caused a public disturbance in the
hence my rage since I have grasped in the broadest possible sense streets of Turin. What happened remains unknown, but an often-
what wretched means (the depreciation of my good name, my repeated tale from shortly after his death states that Nietzsche
character, and my aims) suffice to take from me the trust of, and witnessed the flogging of a horse at the other end of the Piazza Carlo
therewith the possibility of obtaining, pupils."[40] Alberto, ran to the horse, threw his arms up around its neck to protect
it, and then collapsed to the ground.[46][47]
In 1886 Nietzsche broke with his publisher Ernst Schmeitzner,
disgusted by his antisemitic opinions. Nietzsche saw his own writings In the following few days, Nietzsche sent short writingsknown as the
as "completely buried and unexhumeable in this anti-Semitic dump" of Wahnbriefe ("Madness Letters")to a number of friends including
Schmeitznerassociating the publisher with a movement that should Cosima Wagner and Jacob Burckhardt. Most of them were signed
be "utterly rejected with cold contempt by every sensible mind". [41] He "Dionysos", though some were also signed "der Gekreuzigte" or "the
then printed Beyond Good and Evil at his own expense. He also crucified one". To his former colleague Burckhardt, Nietzsche wrote: "I
acquired the publication rights for his earlier works and over the next have had Caiaphas put in fetters. Also, last year I was crucified by the
year issued second editions of The Birth of Tragedy, Human, All Too German doctors in a very drawn-out manner. Wilhelm, Bismarck, and
Human, Daybreak, and The Gay Science with new prefaces placing all anti-Semites abolished."[48] Additionally, he commanded the German
the body of his work in a more coherent perspective. Thereafter, he emperor to go to Rome to be shot and summoned the European
saw his work as completed for a time and hoped that soon a powers to take military action against Germany.[49]
readership would develop. In fact, interest in Nietzsche's thought did
The house Nietzsche stayed in while in Turin (background, right), as
increase at this time, if rather slowly and hardly perceptibly to him.
seen from across Piazza Carlo Alberto, where he is said to have had
During these years Nietzsche met Meta von Salis, Carl Spitteler, and
his breakdown. To the left is the rear faade of the Palazzo Carignano.
Gottfried Keller.
On 6 January 1889, Burckhardt showed the letter he had received from
In 1886, his sister Elisabeth also married the antisemite Bernhard
Nietzsche to Overbeck. The following day, Overbeck received a similar
Frster and travelled to Paraguay to found Nueva Germania, a
letter and decided that Nietzsche's friends had to bring him back to
"Germanic" colonya plan to which Nietzsche responded with
Basel. Overbeck travelled to Turin and brought Nietzsche to a
mocking laughter.[42] Through correspondence, Nietzsche's relationship
psychiatric clinic in Basel. By that time Nietzsche appeared fully in the
with Elisabeth continued through cycles of conflict and reconciliation,
grip of a serious mental illness, and his mother Franziska decided to
but they met again only after his collapse. He continued to have
transfer him to a clinic in Jena under the direction of Otto Binswanger.
frequent and painful attacks of illness, which made prolonged work
In January 1889, they proceeded with the planned release of Twilight
impossible.
of the Idols, by that time already printed and bound. From November
In 1887 Nietzsche wrote the polemic On the Genealogy of Morals. 1889 to February 1890, the art historian Julius Langbehn attempted to
During the same year, he encountered the work of Fyodor Dostoevsky, cure Nietzsche, claiming that the methods of the medical doctors were
to whom he felt an immediate kinship.[43] He also exchanged letters ineffective in treating Nietzsche's condition. Langbehn assumed
with Hippolyte Taine and Georg Brandes. Brandes, who had started to progressively greater control of Nietzsche until his secretiveness
teach the philosophy of Sren Kierkegaard in the 1870s, wrote to discredited him. In March 1890, Franziska removed Nietzsche from the
Nietzsche asking him to read Kierkegaard, to which Nietzsche replied clinic and, in May 1890, brought him to her home in Naumburg. During
that he would come to Copenhagen and read Kierkegaard with him. this process Overbeck and Gast contemplated what to do with
However, before fulfilling this promise, he slipped too far into illness. In Nietzsche's unpublished works. In February, they ordered a fifty-copy
the beginning of 1888, Brandes delivered in Copenhagen one of the private edition of Nietzsche contra Wagner, but the publisher C. G.
first lectures on Nietzsche's philosophy. Naumann secretly printed one hundred. Overbeck and Gast decided to
withhold publishing The Antichrist and Ecce Homo because of their
more radical content. Nietzsche's reception and recognition enjoyed citizenship came in a document dated April 17, 1869,[74] and for the
their first surge.[chronology citation needed] rest of his life he remained officially stateless.

In 1893, Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth returned from Nueva Germania in Nietzsche believed that his ancestors were Polish,[75] at least toward
Paraguay following the suicide of her husband. She read and studied the end of his life. He wrote in 1888, "My ancestors were Polish
Nietzsche's works and, piece by piece, took control of them and their noblemen (Nietzky); the type seems to have been well preserved
publication. Overbeck eventually suffered dismissal and Gast finally despite three generations of German mothers."[76] At one point
co-operated. After the death of Franziska in 1897, Nietzsche lived in Nietzsche becomes even more adamant about his Polish identity. "I
Weimar, where Elisabeth cared for him and allowed visitors, including am a pure-blooded Polish nobleman, without a single drop of bad
Rudolf Steiner (who in 1895 had written one of the first books praising blood, certainly not German blood."[77] On yet another occasion
Nietzsche),[50][page needed] to meet her uncommunicative brother. Nietzsche stated "Germany is a great nation only because its people
Elisabeth at one point went so far as to employ Steiner as a tutor to have so much Polish blood in their veins [...] I am proud of my Polish
help her to understand her brother's philosophy. Steiner abandoned descent."[78] Nietzsche believed his name might have been
the attempt after only a few months, declaring that it was impossible to Germanized, in one letter claiming, "I was taught to ascribe the origin
teach her anything about philosophy.[51] of my blood and name to Polish noblemen who were called Nitzky
and left their home and nobleness about a hundred years ago, finally
Peter Gast would "correct" Nietzsche's writings after the philosopher's yielding to unbearable suppression: they were Protestants."[79]
breakdown and did so without his approval, an action severely
criticized by modern scholars.[citation needed] Most scholars dispute Nietzsche's account of his family's origins. Hans
von Mller debunked the genealogy put forward by Nietzsche's sister
Nietzsche's mental illness was originally diagnosed as tertiary syphilis, in favor of a Polish noble heritage.[80] Max Oehler, the curator of the
in accordance with a prevailing medical paradigm of the time. Although Nietzsche Archive at Weimar, argued that all of Nietzsche's ancestors
most commentators regard his breakdown as unrelated to his bore German names, even the wives' families.[76] Oehler claims that
philosophy, Georges Bataille dropped dark hints ("Man incarnate' must Nietzsche came from a long line of German Lutheran clergymen on
also go mad")[52] and Ren Girard's postmortem psychoanalysis posits both sides of his family, and modern scholars regard the claim of
a worshipful rivalry with Richard Wagner.[53] Nietzsche had previously Nietzsche's Polish ancestry as a "pure invention".[81] Colli and
written, "all superior men who were irresistibly drawn to throw off the Montinari, the editors of Nietzsche's assembled letters, gloss
yoke of any kind of morality and to frame new laws had, if they were Nietzsche's claims as a "mistaken belief" and "without foundation." [82][83]
not actually mad, no alternative but to make themselves or pretend to The name Nietzsche itself is not a Polish name, but an exceptionally
be mad" (Daybreak,14). The diagnosis of syphilis has since been common one throughout central Germany, in this and cognate forms
challenged and a diagnosis of "manic-depressive illness with periodic (such as Nitsche and Nitzke). The name derives from the forename
psychosis followed by vascular dementia" was put forward by Cybulska Nikolaus, abbreviated to Nick; assimilated with the Slavic Nitz, it first
prior to Schain's study.[54][55] Leonard Sax suggested the slow growth of became Nitsche and then Nietzsche.[76]
a right-sided retro-orbital meningioma as an explanation of Nietzsche's
dementia;[56] Orth and Trimble postulated frontotemporal dementia[57] It is not known why Nietzsche wanted to be thought of as Polish
while other researchers have proposed a hereditary stroke disorder nobility. According to biographer R. J. Hollingdale, Nietzsche's
called CADASIL.[58][59] Poisoning by mercury, a treatment for syphilis at propagation of the Polish ancestry myth may have been part of the
the time of Nietzsche's death,[60] has also been suggested.[61] latter's "campaign against Germany".[76]

In 1898 and 1899 Nietzsche suffered at least two strokes which Relationships and sexuality
partially paralyzed him, leaving him unable to speak or walk. He likely
suffered from clinical hemiparesis/hemiplegia on the left side of his Nietzsche never married. Nietzsche proposed to Lou Salom three
body by 1899. After contracting pneumonia in mid-August 1900, he times, but his proposal was rejected each time. [84] The Nietzsche
had another stroke during the night of 2425 August and died at about scholar Joachim Khler has attempted to explain Nietzsche's life
noon on 25 August.[62] Elisabeth had him buried beside his father at the history and philosophy by claiming that Nietzsche was homosexual.
church in Rcken bei Ltzen. His friend and secretary Gast gave his Khler argues that Nietzsche's syphilis, which is "usually considered to
funeral oration, proclaiming: "Holy be your name to all future be the product of his encounter with a prostitute in a brothel in Cologne
generations!"[63] Nietzsche had written in Ecce Homo (at that point still or Leipzig, is equally likely, it is now held, to have been contracted in a
unpublished) of his fear that one day his name would be regarded as male brothel in Genoa".[85] Khler also suggests Nietzsche may have
"holy". had a romantic relationship as well as a friendship with Paul Re.
Khler's views have not found wide acceptance among Nietzsche
Elisabeth Frster-Nietzsche compiled The Will to Power from scholars and commentators. Allan Megill argues that while Khler's
Nietzsche's unpublished notebooks and published it posthumously. claim that Nietzsche was in confrontation with homosexual desire
Because his sister arranged the book based on her own conflation of cannot simply be dismissed, "the evidence is very weak" and Khler
several of Nietzsche's early outlines and took great liberties with the may be projecting twentieth-century understandings of sexuality on
material, the scholarly consensus has been that it does not reflect nineteenth-century notions of friendship.[86] Other scholars have argued
Nietzsche's intent. (For example, Elisabeth removed aphorism 35 of that Khler's sexuality-based interpretation is not helpful in
The Antichrist, where Nietzsche rewrote a passage of the Bible.) understanding Nietzsche's philosophy.[87][88] Some like Nigel Rodgers
Indeed, Mazzino Montinari, the editor of Nietzsche's Nachlass, called it and Mel Thompson have argued that continuous sickness and
a forgery.[64] headaches hindered Nietzsche from engaging much with women. Yet,
they bring other examples in which Nietzsche expressed his affections
Citizenship, nationality, ethnicity to other women, including Wagner's wife Cosima Wagner.[89]
General commentators and Nietzsche scholars, whether emphasizing Philosophy
his cultural background or his language, overwhelmingly label
Nietzsche as a "German philosopher".[65][66][67][68] Others do not assign Friedrich Nietzsche in 1869.
him a national category.[69][70][71] Germany had not yet been unified into
a nation-state but Nietzsche was born a citizen of Prussia, which was Main article: Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche
then part of the German Confederation.[72] His birthplace, Rcken, is in
the modern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. When he accepted his Because of Nietzsche's evocative style and his often outrageous
post at Basel, Nietzsche applied for the annulment of his Prussian claims, his philosophy generates passionate reactions. His works
citizenship.[73] The official response confirming the revocation of his remain controversial, due to varying interpretations and
misinterpretations of his work. In the Western philosophy tradition,
Nietzsche's writings have been described as the unique case of free
revolutionary thought, that is, revolutionary in its structure and themselves. And by denying the inherent inequality of people (such as
problems, although not tied to any revolutionary project.[90] success, strength, beauty or intelligence), slaves acquired a method of
escape, namely by generating new values on the basis of rejecting
In Daybreak Nietzsche begins his "Campaign against Morality".[91][92] something that was seen as a perceived source of frustration. It was
He calls himself an "immoralist" and harshly criticizes the prominent used to overcome the slave's own sense of inferiority before the
moral philosophies of his day: Christianity, Kantianism, and (better-off) masters. It does so by making out slave weakness to be a
utilitarianism. Nietzsche is also known for being very critical of the matter of choice, by, e.g., relabeling it as "meekness." The "good man"
Western belief in egalitarianism and rationality.[citation needed] Nietzsche's of master morality is precisely the "evil man" of slave morality, while
concept "God is dead" applies to the doctrines of Christendom, though the "bad man" is recast as the "good man."
not to all other faiths: he claimed that Buddhism is a successful religion
that he compliments for fostering critical thought.[93] Still, Nietzsche saw Nietzsche sees the slave-morality as a source of the nihilism that has
his philosophy as a counter-movement to nihilism through appreciation overtaken Europe. Modern Europe and Christianity exist in a
of art: hypocritical state due to a tension between master and slave morality,
both values contradictorily determining, to varying degrees, the values
Art as the single superior counterforce against all will to negation of of most Europeans (who are motley). Nietzsche calls for exceptional
life, art as the anti-Christian, anti-Buddhist, anti-Nihilist par people to no longer be ashamed of their uniqueness in the face of a
excellence."[94] supposed morality-for-all, which he deems to be harmful to the
flourishing of exceptional people. He cautions, however, that morality,
Nietzsche claimed that the Christian faith as practised was not a per se, is not bad; it is good for the masses, and should be left to them.
proper representation of Jesus' teachings, as it forced people merely to Exceptional people, on the other hand, should follow their own "inner
believe in the way of Jesus but not to act as Jesus did, in particular his law." A favorite motto of Nietzsche, taken from Pindar, reads: "Become
example of refusing to judge people, something that Christians had what you are."
constantly done the opposite of.[93] He condemned institutionalized
Christianity for emphasizing a morality of pity (Mitleid), which assumes A long standing assumption about Nietzsche is that he preferred
an inherent illness in society:[95] master over slave morality. However, the Nietzsche scholar Walter
Kaufmann rejected this interpretation, writing that Nietzsche's analyses
Christianity is called the religion of pity. Pity stands opposed to the of these two types of morality were only used in a descriptive and
tonic emotions which heighten our vitality: it has a depressing effect. historic sense, they were not meant for any kind of acceptance or
We are deprived of strength when we feel pity. That loss of strength glorifications.[100]
which suffering as such inflicts on life is still further increased and
multiplied by pity. Pity makes suffering contagious.[96] Death of God and nihilism

In Ecce Homo Nietzsche called the establishment of moral systems Main articles: God is dead and Nihilism
based on a dichotomy of good and evil a "calamitous error",[97] and
wished to initiate a re-evaluation of the values of the Judeo-Christian The statement God is dead, occurring in several of Nietzsche's works
world.[98] He indicates his desire to bring about a new, more naturalistic (notably in The Gay Science), has become one of his best-known
source of value in the vital impulses of life itself. While Nietzsche remarks. On the basis of it, most commentators[101] regard Nietzsche
attacked the principles of Judaism, he was not antisemitic: in his work as an atheist; others (such as Kaufmann) suggest that this statement
On the Genealogy of Morality, he explicitly condemns antisemitism, reflects a more subtle understanding of divinity. Recent developments
and pointed out that his attack on Judaism was not an attack on Jews in modern science and the increasing secularization of European
as a people but specifically an attack upon the ancient Jewish society had effectively 'killed' the Abrahamic God, who had served as
priesthood whom he claims antisemitic Christians paradoxically based the basis for meaning and value in the West for more than a thousand
their views upon.[99] years. The death of God may lead beyond bare perspectivism to
outright nihilism, the belief that nothing has any inherent importance
The "slave revolt" in morals and that life lacks purpose. Here he states that the Christian moral
doctrine provides people with intrinsic value, belief in God (which
Main article: Masterslave morality justifies the evil in the world) and a basis for objective knowledge. In
this sense, in constructing a world where objective knowledge is
In Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality,
possible, Christianity is an antidote to a primal form of nihilismthe
Nietzsche's genealogical account of the development of modern moral
despair of meaninglessness. As Heidegger put the problem, "If God as
systems occupies central place. For Nietzsche, a fundamental shift
the suprasensory ground and goal of all reality is dead, if the
took place during human history from thinking in terms of "good" and
suprasensory world of the ideas has suffered the loss of its obligatory
"bad" toward "good" and "evil".
and above it its vitalizing and upbuilding power, then nothing more
The initial form of morality was set by a warrior aristocracy and other remains to which man can cling and by which he can orient
ruling castes of ancient civilizations. Aristocratic values of "good" and himself."[102]
"bad" coincided with and reflected their relationship to lower castes
One such reaction to the loss of meaning is what Nietzsche calls
such as slaves. Nietzsche presents this "master morality" as the
'passive nihilism', which he recognises in the pessimistic philosophy of
original system of moralityperhaps best associated with Homeric
Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's doctrine, which Nietzsche also refers
Greece. To be "good" was to be happy and to have the things related
to as Western Buddhism, advocates separating oneself from will and
to happiness: wealth, strength, health, power, etc. To be "bad" was to
desires in order to reduce suffering. Nietzsche characterises this
be like the slaves over which the aristocracy ruled, poor, weak, sick,
ascetic attitude as a "will to nothingness", whereby life turns away from
pathetican object of pity or disgust rather than hatred.
itself, as there is nothing of value to be found in the world. This moving
"Slave morality" comes about as a reaction to master-morality. Here, away of all value in the world is characteristic of the nihilist, although in
value emerges from the contrast between good and evil: good being this, the nihilist appears to be inconsistent:[103]
associated with other-worldliness, charity, piety, restraint, meekness,
A nihilist is a man who judges that the real world ought not to be, and
and submission; and evil seen as worldly, cruel, selfish, wealthy, and
that the world as it ought to be does not exist. According to this view,
aggressive. Nietzsche sees slave morality as pessimistic and fearful,
our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: this 'in
values for them serving only to ease the existence for those who suffer
vain' is the nihilists' pathosan inconsistency on the part of the
from the very same thing. He associates slave-morality with the Jewish
nihilists.
and Christian traditions, in a way that slave-morality is born out of the
ressentiment of slaves. Nietzsche argued that the idea of equality Friedrich Nietzsche, KSA 12:9 [60], taken from The Will to Power,
allowed slaves to overcome their own condition without hating section 585, translated by Walter Kaufmann
Nietzsche approaches the problem of nihilism as a deeply personal "In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness:
one, stating that this problem of the modern world is a problem that whatever one sees, whatever wills is seen swelled, taut, strong,
has "become conscious" in him.[104] Furthermore, he emphasizes both overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until
the danger of nihilism and the possibilities it offers, as seen in his they mirror his poweruntil they are reflections of his perfection. This
statement that "I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe having to transform into perfection isart."
it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection
of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes Nietzsche is adamant that the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles
master of this crisis, is a question of his strength!"[105] According to represent the apex of artistic creation, the true realization of tragedy; it
Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism is overcome that a culture can have is with Euripides, he states, that tragedy begins its "Untergang"
a true foundation upon which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming (literally "going under", meaning decline, deterioration, downfall, death,
only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure. Heidegger etc.). Nietzsche objects to Euripides' use of Socratic rationalism and
interprets the death of God with what he explains as the death of morality in his tragedies, claiming that the infusion of ethics and reason
metaphysics. He concludes that metaphysics has reached its potential robs tragedy of its foundation, namely the fragile balance of the
and that the ultimate fate and downfall of metaphysics was proclaimed Dionysian and Apollonian. Socrates emphasized reason to such a
with the statement God is dead. degree that he diffused the value of myth and suffering to human
knowledge. Plato continued with this path in his dialogues and modern
Apollonian and Dionysian world eventually inherited reason at the expense of artistic impulses
that could be found only in the Apollonian and Dionysus dichotomy.
Main article: Apollonian and Dionysian This leads to his conclusion that European culture from the time of
Socrates had always been only Apollonian and thus decadent and
The Apollonian and Dionysian is a philosophical concept, or unhealthy.[114] He notes that whenever Apollonian culture dominates,
dichotomy, based on certain features of ancient Greek mythology: the Dionysian lacks the structure to make a coherent art, and when
Apollo and Dionysus. While the concept is famously related to The Dionysian dominates, the Apollonian lacks the necessary passion.
Birth of Tragedy, poet Hlderlin spoke of them before, and Only the beautiful middle, the interplay of these two forces, brought
Winckelmann talked of Bacchus. One year before the publication of together as an art represented real Greek tragedy.[115]
The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche wrote a fragment titled "On Music and
Words".[106] In it he asserted the Schopenhauerian judgment that music An example of the impact of this idea can be seen in the book Patterns
is a primary expression of the essence of everything. Secondarily of Culture, where anthropologist Ruth Benedict uses Nietzschean
derivative are lyrical poetry and drama, which represent mere opposites of "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" as the stimulus for her
phenomenal appearances of objects. In this way, tragedy is born from thoughts about Native American cultures.[116] Carl Jung has written
music. extensively on the dichotomy in Psychological Types.[117] Michel
Foucault has commented that his book Madness and Civilization
Nietzsche found in classical Athenian tragedy an art form that should be read "under the sun of the great Nietzschean inquiry". Here
transcended the pessimism found in the so-called wisdom of Silenus. Foucault references Nietzsche's description of the birth and death of
The Greek spectators, by looking into the abyss of human suffering tragedy and his explanation that the subsequent tragedy of the
depicted by characters on stage, passionately and joyously affirmed Western world was the refusal of tragic and, with that, refusal of the
life, finding it worth living. A main theme in The Birth of Tragedy was sacred.[118] Painter Mark Rothko was influenced by Nietzsche's view of
that the fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian "Kunsttrieben" ("artistic tragedy, which were presented in The Birth of Tragedy.
impulses") forms dramatic arts, or tragedies. He goes on to argue that
this fusion has not been achieved since the ancient Greek tragedians. Perspectivism
Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity and logic, whereas
Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion and ecstasy. Main article: Perspectivism
Nietzsche used these two forces because, for him, the world of mind
and order on one side, and passion and chaos on the other formed Nietzsche claimed the death of God would eventually lead to the loss
principles that were fundamental to the Greek culture.[107][108] Apollonian of any universal perspective on things, and along with it any coherent
side being a dreaming state, full of illusions; and Dionysian being the sense of objective truth.[119][120][page needed] Nietzsche himself rejected the
state of intoxication, representing the liberations of instinct and idea of objective reality arguing that knowledge is contingent and
dissolution of boundaries. In this mold, man appears as the satyr. He is conditional, relative to various fluid perspectives or interests.[121] This
the horror of the annihilation of the principle of individuality and at the leads to constant reassessment of rules (i.e., those of philosophy, the
same time someone who delights in its destruction. [109] Both of these scientific method, etc.) according to the circumstances of individual
principles are meant to represent cognitive states that appear through perspectives.[122] This view has acquired the name perspectivism.
art as the power of nature in man.[110]
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche proclaims that a table of values
The relationship between the Apollonian and Dionysian juxtapositions hangs above every great person. He points out that what is common
is apparent, in the interplay of tragedy: the tragic hero of the drama, among different peoples is the act of esteeming, of creating values,
the main protagonist, struggles to make order (in the Apollonian sense) even if the values are different from one people to the next. Nietzsche
of his unjust and chaotic (Dionysian) fate, though he dies unfulfilled in asserts that what made people great was not the content of their
the end. Elaborating on the conception of Hamlet as an intellectual beliefs, but the act of valuing. Thus the values a community strives to
who cannot make up his mind, and therefore is a living antithesis to the articulate are not as important as the collective will to see those values
man of action, Nietzsche argues that a Dionysian figure possesses come to pass. The willing is more essential than the intrinsic worth of
knowledge to realize that his actions cannot change the eternal the goal itself, according to Nietzsche. "A thousand goals have there
balance of things, and it disgusts him enough not to be able to make been so far," says Zarathustra, "for there are a thousand peoples. Only
any act at all. Hamlet falls under this category he has glimpsed the the yoke for the thousand necks is still lacking: the one goal is lacking.
supernatural reality through the Ghost, he has gained true knowledge Humanity still has no goal." Hence, the title of the aphorism, "On The
and knows that no action of his has the power to change this.[111][112] Thousand And One Goals". The idea that one value-system is no more
For the audience of such drama, this tragedy allows them to sense an worthy than the next, although it may not be directly ascribed to
underlying essence, what Nietzsche called the Primordial Unity, which Nietzsche, has become a common premise in modern social science.
revives Dionysian nature. He describes this primordial unity as the Max Weber and Martin Heidegger absorbed it and made it their own. It
increase of strength, experience of fullness and plenitude bestowed by shaped their philosophical and cultural endeavor, as well as their
frenzy. Frenzy acts as an intoxication, and is crucial for the political understanding. Weber for example, relies on Nietzsche's
physiological condition that enables making of any art.[113] Stimulated perspectivism by maintaining that objectivity is still possiblebut only
by this state, person's artistic will is enhanced: after a particular perspective, value, or end has been
established.[123][124]
Among his critique of traditional philosophy of Kant, Descartes and in a self-similar form an infinite number of times across infinite time or
Plato in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche attacked thing in itself and space. It is a purely physical concept, involving no supernatural
cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) as unfalsifiable beliefs based reincarnation, but the return of beings in the same bodies. The idea of
on naive acceptance of previous notions and fallacies.[125] Philosopher eternal return occurs in a parable in Section 341 of The Gay Science,
Alasdair MacIntyre puts Nietzsche in a high place in the history of and also in the chapter "Of the Vision and the Riddle" in Thus Spoke
philosophy. While criticizing nihilism and Nietzsche together as a sign Zarathustra, among other places.[141] Nietzsche contemplates the idea
of general decay,[126] he still commends him for recognizing as potentially "horrifying and paralyzing", and says that its burden is
psychological motives behind Kant and Hume's moral philosophy:[127] the "heaviest weight" imaginable ("das schwerste Gewicht").[142] The
wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate
For it was Nietzsche's historic achievement to understand more clearly affirmation of life, a reaction to Schopenhauer's praise of denying the
than any other philosopher...not only that what purported to be appeals willtolive. To comprehend eternal recurrence in his thought, and to
of objectivity were in fact expressions of subjective will, but also the not merely come to peace with it but to embrace it, requires amor fati,
nature of the problems that this posed for philosophy.[128] "love of fate".[143]
Will to power Not only does Nietzsche posit that the universe is recurring over infinite
time and space, but that the different versions of events that have
Main article: Will to power
occurred in the past may at one point or another take place again,
A basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical outlook is the will to hence "all configurations that have previously existed on this earth
power (der Wille zur Macht), which he maintained provides a basis for must yet meet..."[144] And with each version of events is hoping that
understanding human behaviormore so than competing some knowledge or awareness is gained to better the individual hence
explanations, such as the ones based on pressure for adaptation or "And thus it will happen one day that a man will be born again, just like
survival.[129][130][131] As such, according to Nietzsche, the drive for me and a woman will be born, just like Mary only that it is hoped to
conservation appears as the major motivator of human or animal be that the head of this man may contain a little less foolishness..."[144]
behavior only in exceptions, as the general condition of life is not one
Alexander Nehamas writes in Nietzsche: Life as Literature of three
of emergency, of 'struggle for existence'.[132] More often than not, self-
ways of seeing the eternal recurrence: "(A) My life will recur in exactly
conservation is but a consequence of a creature's will to exert its identical fashion." This expresses a totally fatalistic approach to the
strength on the outside world.
idea. "(B) My life may recur in exactly identical fashion." This second
In presenting his theory of human behavior, Nietzsche also addressed, view conditionally asserts cosmology, but fails to capture what
and attacked, concepts from philosophies popularly embraced in his Nietzsche refers to in The Gay Science, 341. Finally, "(C) If my life
days, such as Schopenhauer's notion of an aimless will or that of were to recur, then it could recur only in identical fashion." Nehamas
utilitarianism. Utilitarians claim that what moves people is mainly the shows that this interpretation exists totally independently of physics
desire to be happy, to accumulate pleasure in their lives. But such a and does not presuppose the truth of cosmology. Nehamas draws the
conception of happiness Nietzsche rejected as something limited to, conclusion that if individuals constitute themselves through their
and characteristic of, the bourgeois lifestyle of the English society,[133] actions, then they can only maintain themselves in their current state
and instead put forth the idea that happiness is not an aim per seit is by living in a recurrence of past actions (Nehamas 153). Nietzsche's
instead a consequence of a successful pursuit of one's aims, of the thought is the negation of the idea of a history of salvation.[145]
overcoming of hurdles to one's actionsin other words, of the bermensch
fulfillment of the will.[134]
Main article: bermensch
Related to his theory of the will to power, is his speculation, which he
did not deem final,[135] regarding the reality of the physical world, Another concept important to an understanding of Nietzsche's thought
including inorganic matterthat, like man's affections and impulses, is the bermensch (translated variously as "overman", "superman", or
the material world is also set by the dynamics of a form of the will to "super-human").[146][147][148][149] Developing the idea of nihilism,
power. At the core of his theory is a rejection of atomismthe idea that Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra, therein introducing the
matter is composed of stable, indivisible units (atoms). Instead, he concept of a value-creating bermensch, not as a project, but as an
seems to have accepted the conclusions of Ruer Bokovi, who anti-project, the absence of any project.[90] According to Lampert, "the
explained the qualities of matter as a result of an interplay of death of God must be followed by a long twilight of piety and nihilism
forces.[136][137] One study of Nietzsche defines his fully developed (II. 19; III. 8). ... Zarathustra's gift of the overman is given to a mankind
concept of the will to power as "the element from which derive both the not aware of the problem to which the overman is the solution."[150]
quantitative difference of related forces and the quality that devolves Zarathustra presents the overman as the creator of new values, and he
into each force in this relation" revealing the will to power as "the appears as a solution to the problem of the death of God and nihilism.
principle of the synthesis of forces."[138] Of such forces Nietzsche said The overman does not follow morality of common people since it
they could perhaps be viewed as a primitive form of the will. Likewise favors mediocrity but instead rises above the notion of good and evil
he rejected as a mere interpretation the view that the movement of and above the herd.[151] In this way Zarathustra proclaims his ultimate
bodies is ruled by inexorable laws of nature, positing instead that goal as the journey towards the state of overman. He wants a kind of
movement was governed by the power relations between bodies and spiritual evolution of self-awareness and overcoming of traditional
forces.[139] Other scholars disagree that Nietzsche considered the views on morality and justice that stem from the superstition beliefs still
material world to be a form of the will to power. Nietzsche thoroughly deeply rooted or related to the notion of God and Christianity.[152]
criticized metaphysics, and by including the will to power in the
material world, he would simply be setting up a new metaphysics. While interpretations of Nietzsche's overman vary wildly, here is one of
Other than aphorism 36 in Beyond Good and Evil, where he raised a his quotations from Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Prologue, 34):
question regarding will to power as being in the material world, it was
only in his notes (unpublished by himself), where he wrote about a I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome.
metaphysical will to power. Nietzsche directed his landlord to burn What have you done to overcome him?... All beings so far have
those notes in 1888 when he left Sils Maria for the last time.[140] created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb
of this great flood, and even go back to the beasts rather than
Eternal return overcome man? What is ape to man? A laughing stock or painful
embarrassment. And man shall be that to overman: a laughingstock or
Main article: Eternal return painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man,
and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now,
Eternal return (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a concept which
too, man is more ape than any ape... The overman is the meaning of
posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur,
the earth. Let your will say: the overman shall be the meaning of the detractor of Parmenides, who opposed Heraclitus and believed all
earth... Man is a rope, tied between beast and overmana rope over world is a single Being with no change at all.[160]
an abyss ... what is great in man is that he is a bridge and not an end.
In his Egotism in German Philosophy, Santayana claimed that
Zarathustra contrasts the overman with the last man of egalitarian Nietzsche's whole philosophy was a reaction to Schopenhauer.
modernity (most obvious example being democracy), an alternative Santayana wrote that Nietzsche's work was "an emendation of that of
goal which humanity might set for itself. The last man is possible only Schopenhauer. The will to live would become the will to dominate;
by mankind's having bred an apathetic creature who has no great pessimism founded on reflection would become optimism founded on
passion or commitment, who is unable to dream, who merely earns his courage; the suspense of the will in contemplation would yield to a
living and keeps warm. This concept appears only in Thus Spoke more biological account of intelligence and taste; finally in the place of
Zarathustra, and is presented as a condition that would render the pity and asceticism (Schopenhauer's two principles of morals)
creation of the overman impossible.[153] Nietzsche would set up the duty of asserting the will at all costs and
being cruelly but beautifully strong. These points of difference from
Some have suggested that the notion of eternal return is related to the Schopenhauer cover the whole philosophy of Nietzsche."[161]
overman since willing the eternal return of the same is a necessary
step if the overman is to create new values, untainted by the spirit of Nietzsche expressed admiration for 17th-century French moralists
gravity or asceticism. Values involve a rank-ordering of things, and so such as La Rochefoucauld, La Bruyre and Vauvenargues,[162] as well
are inseparable from approval and disapproval; yet it was as for Stendhal.[163] The organicism of Paul Bourget influenced
dissatisfaction that prompted men to seek refuge in other-worldliness Nietzsche,[164] as did that of Rudolf Virchow and Alfred Espinas.[165]
and embrace other-worldly values. It could seem that the overman, in Nietzsche wrote in a letter in 1867 that he was trying to improve his
being devoted to any values at all, would necessarily fail to create German style of writing with the help of Lessing, Lichtenberg and
values that did not share some bit of asceticism. Willing the eternal Schopenhauer. It was probably Lichtenberg (along with Paul Re)
recurrence is presented as accepting the existence of the low while still whose aphoristic style of writing contributed to Nietzsche's own use of
recognizing it as the low, and thus as overcoming the spirit of gravity or aphorism instead of an essay.[166] Nietzsche early learned of Darwinism
asceticism. One must have the strength of the overman in order to will through Friedrich Albert Lange.[167] Hippolyte Taine influenced
the eternal recurrence; that is, only the overman will have the strength Nietzsche's view on Rousseau and Napoleon.[168] Notably, he also read
to fully accept all of his past life, including his failures and misdeeds, some of the posthumous works of Charles Baudelaire,[169] Tolstoy's My
and to truly will their eternal return. This action nearly kills Zarathustra, Religion, Ernest Renan's Life of Jesus and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's
for example, and most human beings cannot avoid other-worldliness Demons.[169][170] Nietzsche called Dostoevsky "the only psychologist
because they really are sick, not because of any choice they made. from whom I have anything to learn."[171] Harold Bloom has often
claimed that the essays of Ralph Waldo Emerson had a profound and
Critique of mass culture favourable influence on Nietzsche. While Nietzsche never mentions
Max Stirner, the similarities in their ideas have prompted a minority of
Friedrich Nietzsche held a pessimistic view on modern society and interpreters to suggest a relationship between the
culture. His views stand against the concept of popular culture. He two.[172][173][174][175][176][177][178] In 1861 Nietzsche wrote an enthusiastic
believed the press and mass culture led to conformity and brought essay on his "favorite poet", Friedrich Hlderlin, mostly forgotten at that
about mediocrity. Nietzsche saw a lack of progression, leading to the time.[179] He also expressed deep appreciation for Stifter's Indian
decline of the human species. According to Nietzsche, individuals Summer,[180] Byron's Manfred and Twain's Tom Sawyer.[181]
needed to overcome this form of mass culture. He believed some
people were able to become superior individuals through the use of will Reception
power. By rising above mass culture, society would produce higher
and healthier human beings.[154] Main article:Influence and reception of Friedrich Nietzsche

Reading and influence Portrait of Friedrich Nietzsche by Edvard Munch, 1906.

The residence of Nietzsche's last three years, along with archive in Nietzsche's works did not reach a wide readership during his active
Weimar, Germany, which holds many of Nietzsche's papers. writing career. However, in 1888 the influential Danish critic Georg
Brandes aroused considerable excitement about Nietzsche through a
Main article: Library of Friedrich Nietzsche series of lectures he gave at the University of Copenhagen. In the
years after Nietzsche's death in 1900, his works became better known,
A trained philologist, Nietzsche had a thorough knowledge of Greek and readers have responded to them in complex and sometimes
philosophy. He read Kant, Plato, Mill, Schopenhauer and Spir,[155] who controversial ways.[182] Many Germans eventually discovered his
became his main opponents in his philosophy, and later Spinoza, appeals for greater individualism and personality development in Thus
whom he saw as his "precursor" in many respects [156] but as a Spoke Zarathustra, but responded to them divergently. He had some
personification of the "ascetic ideal" in others. However, Nietzsche following among left-wing Germans in the 1890s; in 18941895
referred to Kant as a "moral fanatic", Plato as "boring", Mill as a German conservatives wanted to ban his work as subversive. During
"blockhead", and of Spinoza he said: "How much of personal timidity the late 19th century Nietzsche's ideas were commonly associated with
and vulnerability does this masquerade of a sickly recluse betray?".[157] anarchist movements and appear to have had influence within them,
particularly in France and the United States.[183][184][185] H. L. Mencken
Nietzsche's philosophy, while innovative and revolutionary, was
produced the first book on Nietzsche in English in 1907, The
indebted to many predecessors. While at Basel, Nietzsche offered
Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, and in 1910, a book of translated
lecture courses on pre-Platonic philosophers for several years, and the
paragraphs from Nietzsche, increasing knowledge of his philosophy in
text of this lecture series has been characterized as a "lost link" in the
the United States.[186] Nietzsche is known today as a precursor to
development of his thought. "In it concepts such as the will to power,
expressionism,[187] existentialism, and postmodernism.[188]
the eternal return of the same, the overman, gay science, self-
overcoming and so on receive rough, unnamed formulations and are W. B. Yeats and Arthur Symons described Nietzsche as the intellectual
linked to specific pre-Platonics, especially Heraclitus, who emerges as heir to William Blake. Symons went on to compare the ideas of the two
a pre-Platonic Nietzsche."[158] The pre-Socratic thinker Heraclitus was thinkers in The Symbolist Movement in Literature while Yeats tried to
known for the rejection of the concept of being as a constant and raise awareness of Nietzsche in Ireland.[189][190][191] A similar notion was
eternal principle of universe, and his embrace of "flux" and incessant espoused by W. H. Auden who wrote of Nietzsche in his New Year
change. His symbolism of the world as "child play" marked by amoral Letter (released in 1941 in The Double Man): "O masterly debunker of
spontaneity and lack of definite rules was appreciated by Nietzsche. [159] our liberal fallacies [...] all your life you stormed, like your English
From his Heraclitean sympathy, Nietzsche was also a vociferous forerunner Blake".[192][193][194] Nietzsche made an impact on composers
during the 1890s. Writer on music Donald Mitchell notes that Gustav Nietzsche museum in Weimar and did use expressions of Nietzsche's,
Mahler was "attracted to the poetic fire of Zarathustra, but repelled by such as "lords of the earth" in Mein Kampf.[230] The Nazis made
the intellectual core of its writings." He also quotes Gustav himself, and selective use of Nietzsche's philosophy. Mussolini,[231][232] Charles de
adds that he was influenced by Nietzsche's conception and affirmative Gaulle[233] and Huey P. Newton[234] read Nietzsche. Richard Nixon read
approach to nature, which Mahler presented in Third Symphony using Nietzsche with "curious interest," and his book Beyond Peace might
Zarathustra's roundelay. Frederick Delius has produced a piece of have taken its title from Nietzsche's book Beyond Good and Evil which
choral music A Mass of Life based on a text of Thus Spoke Nixon read beforehand.[235] Bertrand Russell wrote that Nietzsche had
Zarathustra, while Richard Strauss (who also based his Also sprach exerted great influence on philosophers and on people of literary and
Zarathustra on the same book), was only interested in finishing artistic culture, but warned that the attempt to put Nietzsche's
"another chapter of symphonic autobiography".[195] Famous writers and philosophy of aristocracy into practice could only be done by an
poets influenced by Nietzsche include Andr Gide, August Strindberg, organization similar to the Fascist or the Nazi party.[236]
Robinson Jeffers, Po Baroja, D. H. Lawrence, Edith Sdergran and
Yukio Mishima. A decade after World War II, there was a revival of Nietzsche's
philosophical writings thanks to exhaustive translations and analyses
Nietzsche was an early influence on the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. by Walter Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale. Others, well known
Knut Hamsun counted Nietzsche, along with Strindberg and philosophers in their own right, wrote commentaries on Nietzsche's
Dostoyevsky as one of his primary influences.[196] Author Jack London philosophy, including Martin Heidegger, who produced a four-volume
wrote that he was more stimulated by Nietzsche than by any other study and Lev Shestov who wrote a book called Dostoyevski, Tolstoy
writer.[197] Critics have suggested that the character of David Grief in A and Nietzsche where he portrays Nietzsche and Dostoyevski as the
Son of the Sun was based on Nietzsche.[198] Nietzsche's influence on "thinkers of tragedy".[237] Georg Simmel compares Nietzsche's
Muhammad Iqbal is most evidenced in Asrar-i-Khudi (The Secrets of importance to ethics to that of Copernicus for cosmology.[238]
the Self).[199] Wallace Stevens[200] was another reader of Nietzsche and Sociologist Ferdinand Tnnies read Nietzsche avidly from his early life,
elements of Nietzsche's philosophy were found throughout and later frequently discussed many of his concepts in his own works.
Harmonium.[201][202] Olaf Stapledon was influenced by the idea of Nietzsche has influenced philosophers such as Martin Heidegger,
bermensch and it is central theme in his books Odd John and Jean-Paul Sartre,[239] Oswald Spengler,[240] George Grant,[241] Emil
Sirius.[203] In Russia, Nietzsche has influenced Russian symbolism[204] Cioran,[242] Albert Camus, Ayn Rand,[243] Jacques Derrida, Leo
and figures such as Dmitry Merezhkovsky,[205] Andrei Bely,[206] Strauss,[244] Max Scheler, Michel Foucault and Bernard Williams.
Vyacheslav Ivanovich Ivanov and Alexander Scriabin have all Camus described Nietzsche as "the only artist to have derived the
incorporated or discussed parts of Nietzsche philosophy in their works. extreme consequences of an aesthetics of the absurd".[245] Paul
Thomas Mann's novel Death in Venice[207] shows a use of Apollonian Ricur called Nietzsche one of the masters of the "school of
and Dionysian, and in Doctor Faustus Nietzsche was a central source suspicion", alongside Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud.[246] Carl Jung was
for the character of Adrian Leverkhn.[208][209] Hermann Hesse, also influenced by Nietzsche.[247] In Memories, Dreams, Reflections, a
similarly, in his Narcissus and Goldmund presents two main characters biography transcribed by his secretary, he cites Nietzsche as a large
in the sense of Apollonian and Dionysian as the two opposite yet influence.[248]
intertwined spirits. Painter Giovanni Segantini was fascinated by Thus
Spoke Zarathustra, and he drew an illustration for the first Italian Aspects of Nietzsche's philosophy, especially his ideas of the self and
translation of the book. The Russian painter Lena Hades created the his relation to society, also run through much of late-twentieth and
oil painting cycle "Also Sprach Zarathustra" dedicated to the book Thus early twenty-first century thought.[249][250] His deepening of the romantic-
Spoke Zarathustra.[210] heroic tradition of the nineteenth century, for example, as expressed in
the ideal of the "grand striver" appears in the work of thinkers from
By World War I, Nietzsche had acquired a reputation as an inspiration Cornelius Castoriadis to Roberto Mangabeira Unger.[251] For Nietzsche
for both right-wing German militarism and leftist politics. German this grand striver overcomes obstacles, engages in epic struggles,
soldiers received copies of Thus Spoke Zarathustra as gifts during pursues new goals, embraces recurrent novelty, and transcends
World War I.[211][212] The Dreyfus Affair provides a contrasting example existing structures and contexts. No social or cultural construct can
of his reception: the French antisemitic Right labelled the Jewish and contain this idealized individual.[252] Inspired by this ideal, Unger
Leftist intellectuals who defended Alfred Dreyfus as "Nietzscheans".[213] elevates it to a philosophy of human nature, removing Nietzsche's
Nietzsche had a distinct appeal for many Zionist thinkers around the formulations from the application to only a few higher beings and re-
start of the 20th century most notable being Ahad Ha'am,[214] Hillel grounding them in the fundamental characteristics of our humanity so
Zeitlin,[215] Micha Josef Berdyczewski, A. D. Gordon[216] and Martin that each individual is embodied with this striving and context
Buber who went so far as to extoll Nietzsche as a "creator" and overcoming aspirations. Rather than identifying a few exemplary
"emissary of life".[217] Chaim Weizmann was a great admirer of individuals, Unger makes it central to human personality and the basis
Nietzsche; the first president of Israel sent Nietzsche's books to his of our moral and political action.[253] From here, Unger goes on to
wife, adding a comment in a letter that "This was the best and finest articulate a social vision of institutions of a social, political, and
thing I can send to you".[218] Israel Eldad, the ideological chief of the economic structure that will not entrap us or hold us back, but rather
Stern Group that fought the British in Palestine in the 1940s, wrote are open to transformation and will become an expression of our will.
about Nietzsche in his underground newspaper and later translated Political and social arrangements, for Unger, should be open to
most of Nietzsche's books into Hebrew.[219] Eugene O'Neill remarked constant revision rather than the concrete givens expressed by the
that Zarathustra influenced him more than any other book he ever thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
read. He also shared Nietzsche's view of tragedy.[220] Plays The Great
God Brown and Lazarus Laughed are an example of Nietzsche's
influence on O'Neill.[221][222][223] Nietzsche's influence on the works of
Frankfurt School philosophers Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Beyond Good and Evil
Adorno[224] can be seen in the popular Dialectic of Enlightenment. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Adorno summed up Nietzsche's philosophy as expressing the
"humane in a world in which humanity has become a sham".[225] This article is about the book by Friedrich Nietzsche. For other uses,
see Beyond Good and Evil (disambiguation).
Nietzsche's growing prominence suffered a severe setback when his
works became closely associated with Adolf Hitler and the German This article relies too much on references to primary
Reich. Many political leaders of the twentieth century were at least sources. Please improve this article by adding secondary
superficially familiar with Nietzsche's ideas, although it is not always or tertiary sources. (December 2007)
possible to determine whether they actually read his work. Hitler, for
example, probably never read Nietzsche and, if he did, his reading was
not extensive,[226][227][228][229] although he was a frequent visitor to the
 Beyond Good and Evil approach that fearlessly confronts the perspectival nature of
knowledge and the perilous condition of the modern individual.

Contents

1 Background and themes

2 Structure of the work
3 On philosophers, free spirits, and scholars
4 On morality and religion
5 On nations, peoples and cultures
6 Aphorisms and poetry
7 Editions
8 Notes
9 External links

Background and themes

Of the four "late-period" writings of Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

most closely resembles the aphoristic style of his middle period. In it he
exposes the deficiencies of those usually called "philosophers" and
identifies the qualities of the "new philosophers": imagination, self-
assertion, danger, originality, and the "creation of values". He then
contests some of the key presuppositions of the old philosophic
tradition like "self-consciousness," "knowledge," "truth," and "free will",
explaining them as inventions of the moral consciousness. In their
place, he offers the "will to power" as an explanation of all behavior;
this ties into his "perspective of life", which he regards as "beyond
Title page of the first edition. good and evil", denying a universal morality for all human beings.
Religion and the master and slave moralities feature prominently as
Nietzsche re-evaluates deeply held humanistic beliefs, portraying even
Author Friedrich Nietzsche
domination, appropriation and injury to the weak as not universally
objectionable.
Jenseits von Gut und Bse. Vorspiel einer Philosophie der
Original title
Zukunft
Structure of the work
Country Germany
The work consists of 296 numbered sections and an "epode" (or
Language German "aftersong") entitled "From High Mountains". The sections are
organized into nine parts:
Subject morality, metaphysics
Part One: On the Prejudices of Philosophers
Genre philosophy Part Two: The Free Spirit
Part Three: The Religious Essence
Published 1886 Part Four: Maxims and Interludes
Part Five: On the Natural History of Morals
Media type Print
Part Six: We Scholars
Preceded by Thus Spoke Zarathustra (18831885) Part Seven: Our Virtues
Part Eight: Peoples and Fatherlands
Followed by On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) Part Nine: What is Noble?

On philosophers, free spirits, and scholars

Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future
(German: Jenseits von Gut und Bse: Vorspiel einer Philosophie der In the opening two parts of the book, Nietzsche discusses in turn the
Zukunft) is a book by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, first published in philosophers of the past, whom he accuses of a blind dogmatism
1886. plagued by moral prejudice masquerading as a search for objective
truth; and the "free spirits", like himself, who are to replace them.
It draws on and expands the ideas of his previous work, Thus Spoke
Zarathustra, but with a more critical and polemical approach. He casts doubt on the project of past philosophy by asking why we
should want the "truth" rather than recognizing untruth "as a condition
In Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche accuses past philosophers of of life." He offers an entirely psychological explanation of every past
lacking critical sense and blindly accepting dogmatic premises in their philosophy: each has been an "involuntary and unconscious memoir"
consideration of morality. Specifically, he accuses them of founding on the part of its author (6) and exists to justify his moral prejudices,
grand metaphysical systems upon the faith that the good man is the which he solemnly baptizes as "truths".
opposite of the evil man, rather than just a different expression of the
same basic impulses that find more direct expression in the evil man. In one passage (34), Nietzsche writes that "from every point of view
The work moves into the realm "beyond good and evil" in the sense of the erroneousness of the world in which we believe we live is the
leaving behind the traditional morality which Nietzsche subjects to a surest and firmest thing we can get our eyes on". Philosophers are
destructive critique in favour of what he regards as an affirmative wrong to rail violently against the risk of being deceived. "It is no more
than a moral prejudice that truth is worth more than appearance". Life Himself to be sacrificed (55). Christianity, "the most fatal kind of self-
is nothing without appearances; it appears to Nietzsche that it follows presumption ever", has beaten everything joyful, assertive and
from this that the abolition of appearances would imply the abolition of autocratic out of man and turned him into a "sublime abortion" (62). If,
"truth" as well. Nietzsche asks the question, "what compels us to unlike past philosophers such as Schopenhauer, we really want to
assume there exists any essential antithesis between 'true' and tackle the problems of morality, we must "compare many moralities"
'false'?" and "prepare a typology of morals" (186). In a discussion that
anticipates On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche claims that
"Morality is in Europe today herd-animal morality" (202)i.e., it
Nietzsche singles out the Stoic precept of "living according to nature"
emanates from the ressentiment of the slave for the master (see also
(9) as showing how philosophy "creates the world in its own image"
260, which leads into the discussion in Genealogy, I).
by trying to regiment nature "according to the Stoa". But nature, as
something uncontrollable and "prodigal beyond measure", cannot be
tyrannized over in the way Stoics tyrannize over themselves. Further, Nietzsche argues that noble and base are distinguished by more than
there are forceful attacks on several individual philosophers. what they value as "good." Even where there is agreement over what
Descartes' cogito presupposes that there is an I, that there is such an is good, what men consider a sufficient sign of possessing what is
activity as thinking, and that I know what thinking is (16). Spinoza good differs (194). Nietzsche describes love as the desire to possess
masks his "personal timidity and vulnerability" by hiding behind his a woman. The most unrefined form of the desire is also the most
geometrical method (5), and inconsistently makes self-preservation a readily identifiable as a desire to possess another: control over the
fundamental drive while rejecting teleology (13). Kant, "the great woman's body. A subtler desire to possess her wants her soul, as well,
Chinaman of Knigsberg" (210), reverts to the prejudice of an old and thus wants her to be willing to sacrifice herself for her lover.
moralist with his categorical imperative, the dialectical grounding of Nietzsche describes this as a more complete possession. A still more
which is a mere smokescreen (5). His "faculty" to explain the refined desire to possess her prompts a concern that she might be
possibility of synthetic a priori judgements is likened to the explanation willing to sacrifice what she desires for a mistaken image of her lover.
of the narcotic quality of opium in terms of a "sleepy faculty" in This leads some lovers to want their women to know them deep down
Molire's comedy Le Malade imaginaire. Schopenhauer is mistaken in so that their sacrifice really is a sacrifice for them. A similar rank-
thinking that the nature of the will is self-evident (19), which is in fact ordering applies to statesmen, the less refined not caring whether they
a highly complex instrument of control over those who must obey, not attain power by fraud, the more refined not taking pleasure in the
transparent to those who command. people's love unless they love the statesman for who he really is. In
both cases, the more spiritualized form of the desire to possess also
demands one possess what is good more completely.
"Free spirits", by contrast to the philosophers of the past, are
"investigators to the point of cruelty, with rash fingers for the
ungraspable, with teeth and stomach for the most indigestible" (44). On nations, peoples and cultures
Nietzsche warns against those who would suffer for the sake of truth,
and exhorts his readers to shun these indignant sufferers for truth and
Nietzsche discusses the complexities of the German soul (244),
lend their ears instead to "cynics" those who "speak 'badly' of man
praises the Jews and heavily criticizes the trend of German anti-
but do not speak ill of him" (26).
Semitism (251). He praises France as "the seat of Europe's most
spiritual and refined culture and the leading school of taste" (254). He
There are kinds of fearless scholars who are truly independent of finds the English coarse, gloomy, more brutal than the Germans, and
prejudice (6), but these "philosophical labourers and men of science declares that "they are no philosophical race", singling out Bacon,
in general" should not be confused with philosophers, who are Hobbes, Hume and Locke as representing a "debasement and
"commanders and law-givers" (211). devaluation of the concept 'philosopher' for more than a century"
(252). Nietzsche also touches on problems of translation and the
leaden quality of the German language (28).
Nietzsche also subjects physics to critique. "Nature's conformity to law"
is merely one interpretation of the phenomena which natural science
observes; Nietzsche suggests that the same phenomena could equally In a prophetic statement, Nietzsche proclaims that "The time for petty
be interpreted as demonstrating "the tyrannically ruthless and politics is past: the very next century will bring with it the struggle for
inexorable enforcement of power-demands" (22). Nietzsche appears mastery over the whole earth" (208).
to espouse a strong brand of scientific anti-realism when he asserts
that "It is we alone who have fabricated causes, succession,
Aphorisms and poetry
reciprocity, relativity, compulsion, number, law, freedom, motive,
purpose" (21).
Between 62 and 186 Nietzsche inserts a collection of mostly single-
sentence aphorisms, modelled on French aphorists such as La
On morality and religion
Rochefoucauld. Twelve of these ( 84, 85, 86, 114, 115, 127, 131,
139, 144, 145, 147, 148) concern women or the distinction between
In the "pre-moral period of mankind", actions were judged by their men and women. Other subjects touched on include his doctrine of the
consequences. Over the past 10,000 years, however, a morality has eternal recurrence (70), music (106) and utilitarianism (174),
developed where actions are judged by their origins (their motivations) among more general attempts at trenchant observations about human
not their consequences. This morality of intentions is, according to nature.
Nietzsche, a "prejudice" and "something provisional [...] that must be
overcome" (32).
The work concludes with a short ode to friendship in verse form
(continuing Nietzsche's use of poetry in The Gay Science and Thus
Nietzsche criticizes "unegoistic morality" and demands that "Moralities Spoke Zarathustra).
must first of all be forced to bow before order of rank" (221). Every
"high culture" begins by recognizing "the pathos of distance"[1] (257).

Nietzsche contrasts southern (Catholic) and northern (Protestant)

Christianity; northern Europeans have much less "talent for religion"
(48) and lack "southern delicatezza" (50). As elsewhere, Nietzsche
praises the Old Testament while disparaging the New (52).

Religion has always been connected to "three dangerous dietary

prescriptions: solitude, fasting and sexual abstinence" (47), and has
exerted cruelty through demanding sacrifice according to a "ladder"
with different rungs of cruelty, which has ultimately caused God