CAMBRIDGE TEXTS IN THE
HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Series editors
KARL AMERIKS
Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame
DESMOND
M.
Human, All Too Human
CLARKE
Professor of Philosophy at University College Cork
TRANSLATED BY
The main objective of Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy is to expand
the range, variety and quality of texts in the history of philosophy which are
available in English. The series includes texts by familiar names (such as Descartes
and Kant) and also by less well-known authors. Wherever possible, texts are
published in complete and unabridged form, and translations are specially commissioned for the series. Each volume contains a critical introduction together with a
guide to further reading and any necessary glossaries and textual apparatus. The
volumes are designed for student use at undergraduate and postgraduate level and
will be of interest not only to students of philosophy, but also to a wider audience
of readers in the history of science, the history of theology and the history of ideas.
R.
J.
HOLLINGDALE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
RICHARD SCHACHT
University of fllinois at Urbana-Champaign
For a list of titles published in the series, please see end of book.
IJICAMBRIDGE
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PREFACE
1
I have been told often enough, and always with an expression of great
surprise, that all my writings, from the Birth of Tragedy* to the most recently published Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, t have something that
distinguishes them and unites them together: they all of them, I have
been given to understand, contain snares and nets for unwary birds and
in effect a persistent invitation to the overturning of habitual evaluations
and valued habits. What? Everything only - human, all too human? It is
with this sigh that one emerges from my writings, not without a kind of
reserve and mistrust even in regard to morality, not a little tempted and
emboldened, indeed, for once to play the advocate of the worst things: as
though they have perhaps been only the worst slandered? My writings
have been called a schooling in suspicion, even more in contempt, but
fortunately also in courage, indeed in audacity. And in fact I myself do
not believe that anyone has ever before looked into the world with an
equally profound degree of suspicion, and not merely as an occasional
devil's advocate, but, to speak theologically, just as much as an enemy
and indicter of God; and anyone who could divine something of the consequences that lie in that profound suspiciousness, something of the
fears and frosts of the isolation to which that unconditional disparity of
view condemns him who is infected with it, will also understand how
, often, in an effort to recover from myself, as it were to induce a temporary
self-forgetting, I have sought shelter in this or that - in some piece of admiration or enmity or scientificality or frivolity or stupidity; and why,
where I could not find what I needed, I had artificially to enforce, falsify
and invent a suitable fiction for myself ( - and what else have poets ever
done? and to what end does art exist in the world at all?). What I again
and again needed most for my cure and self-restoration, however, was
the belief that !was not thus isolated, not alone in seeing as I did - an
enchanted surmising of relatedness and identity in eye and desires, a
reposing in a trust of friendship, a blindness in concert with another
without· suspicion or question-marks, a pleasure in foregrounds, surfaces, things close and closest, in everything possessing colour, skin and
apparitionality. Perhaps in this regard! might be reproached with having
employed a certain amount of 'art', a certain amount of false-coinage: for
• Birth of Tragedy: Nietzsche's first published book (1872)
t Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future: the subtitle of Beyond Good and Evil, published in 1886
5
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PREFACE
HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN
example, that I knowingly-wilfully closed my eyes before Schopenhauer' s* blind will to morality at a time when I was already sufficiently
clearsighted about morality; likewise that I deceived myself over Richard
Wagner'st incurable romanticism, as though it were a beginning and not
an end; likewise over the Greeks, likewise over the Germans and their
future - and perhaps a whole long list could be made of such likewises? - .
Supposing, however, that all this were true and that I was reproached
with it with good reason, what do you know, what could you know, of
how much cunning in self-preservation, how much reason and higher
safeguarding, is contained in such self-deception - or of how much falsity
I shall require if I am to continue to permit myself the luxury of my truthfulness? ... Enough, I am still living; and life is, after all, not a product of
morality: it wants deception, it lives on deception ... but there you are, I
am already off again, am I not, and doing what I have always done, old
immoralist and bird-catcher that I am - speaking unmorally, extramorally, 'beyond good and evil'? 2
-Thus when I needed to I once also invented for myself the 'free spirits' to
whom this melancholy-valiant book with the title Human, All Too Human
is dedicated: 'free spirits' of this kind do not exist, did not exist- but, as I
have said, I had need of them at that time if I was to keep in good spirits
while surrounded by ills (sickness, solitude, unfamiliar places, acedia, inactivity): as brave companions and familiars with whom one can laugh
and chatter when one feels like laughing and chattering, and whom one
can send to the Devil when they become tedious - as compensation for
the friends I lacked. That free spirits of this kind could one day exist, that
our Europe will have such active and audacious fellows among its sons of
tomorrow and the next day, physically present and palpable and not, as
in my case, merely phantoms and hermit's phantasmagoria: I should
wish to be the last to doubt it. I see them already coming, slowly, slowly;
and perhaps I shall do something to speed their coming if I describe in
advance under what vicissitudes, upon what paths, I see them coming? - -
/
3
One may conjecture that a spirit in whom the type 'free spirit' will·one
day become ripe and sweet to the point of perfection has had its decisive
experience in a great liberation and that previously it was all the more a fettered spirit and seemed to be chained for ever to its pillar and corner.
What fetters the fastest? What bends are all but unbreakable? In the case
of men of a high and select kind they will be their duties: that reverence
proper to youth, that reserve and delicacy before all that is honoured and
• Schopenhauer: Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), the philosopher, of whom Nietzsche
was in his youth a disciple (see the essay, 'Schopenhauer as Educator' in the Untimely Meditations)
t Richard Wagner (1813-S3), the composer and dramatist who was, like Schopenhauer, an
object of the youthful Nietzsche's veneration (see the essay 'Richard Wagner in Bayreuth' in
the Untimely Meditations)
.J
revered from of Old, that gratitude for the soil out of which they have
grown, for the hand which led them, for the holy place where they
learned to worship - their supreme moments themselves will fetter them
the fastest, lay upon them the most enduring obligation. The great liberation comes for those who are thus fettered suddenly, like the shock of an
earthquake: the youthful soul is all at once convulsed, torn loose, torn
away - it itself does not know what is happening. A drive and impulse
rules and masters it like a command; a will and desire awakens to go off,
•
anywhere, at any cost; a vehement dangerous curiosity for an undis- YI
m
.
~·
Geniality of the sage. - The sage will involuntarily mingle with other people
as genially as a prince and, all differences of talent, rankand morality riot~ ··
withstanding, easily be inclined to treat them as equals: which, as sopn:a~ ·•
it is noticed, causes great offence.
·
340
Gold. - All that is gold does not glisten. A gentle radiance pertains to thE!
selves from an illusion: they imagine they excite envy among the
mediocre and are felt to be exceptions. In fact they are felt to be something quite superfluous which if it did not exist no one would miss.
346
Demand of cleanliness. - Changing one's opinions is to one nature just as
much a demand of cleanliness as changing one's clothes: for another,
however, it is only a demand of vanity.
'
347
This, too, is worthy of a hero. - Here is a hero who has done nothing but
shake the tree as soon as the fruit was ripe. Do you think this too little?
Then take a look at the tree he shook.
348
Measure of wisdom. - Growth in wisdom can be measured precisely by
decline in bile.
349
Calling error unpleasant. - It is not to everyone's taste that truth should be
called pleasant. But at least let no one believe that error becomes truth
when it is called unpleasant.
noblest metal.
35°
The golden watchword. - Many chains have been laid upon man so that he
341
Wheel and brake. - The wheel and the brake have differing duties, bu~also
should no longer behave like an animal: and he has in truth become gentler, .more spiritual, more joyful, more reflective than any animal is. Now,
however, he suffers from having worn his chains for so long, from being
deprived for so long of clear air and free movement: - these chains, however, I shall never cease from repeating, are those heavy and pregnant
errors contained in the conceptions of morality, religion and metaphysics. Only when this sickness from one's chains has also been overcome will
the first great goal have truly been attained: the separation of man from
the animals. - We stand now in the midst of our work of removing these
chains, and we need to proceed.with the greatest caution. Only the ennobled man may be given freedom of spirit; to him alone does alleviation of life
draw near and salve his wounds; only he may say that he lives for the
sake of joy and for the sake of no further goal; and in any other mouth his
motto would be perilous: Peace all around me and goodwill to all things closest
to me. - With this motto for individuals he recalls an ancient great and
moving saying intended for all which has remained hanging over all mankind as a sign and motto by which anyone shall perish who inscnbes it on
his banner too soon - by which Christianity perished. The time has, it
seems, still not yet come when all men are to share the experience of those
shepherds who saw the heavens brighten above them and heard the
one in common: to hurt one another.
· · ·
342
:
Disturbances while, thinking. - The thinker must regard everything that
interrupts his thoughts (disturbs them, as we say) with equanimity, as
though it were a new model coming in to offer herself to the artist .. Inter~
ruptions are the ravens which bring food to the solitary.
··
343
Possessing much spirit. - To possess much spirit keeps one young: bufin
exchange one must endure being thought older than one is. For men read ·,
the characters inscribed by the spirit as signs of experience of life, that is to
say of having experienced many, and many bad things, of sufferiI),g'.
error and remorse. Thus,. one is thought not only older but worse than one
is when one possesses much spirit and shows it.
344
The proper way to win. - One ought not to want to win if one has the pros~
pect of overtaking one's opponent by only a hair's breadth. The good
393
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•... ,.,--··-~·-
· HUMAN, ALL TOO HUMAN
THEW A'NDERER AND HIS SHADOW
words: 'On earth peace; good will toward men'. - It is still the age of the
the sunlight, 11am feeling too cold.
The Wanderer: What shall I do?
The Shadow: -Step under these trees and look out ~t the mountains; the
sun is sjnking.
The Wanderer.- Where are you? Where are you?
indi:uidual.
The Shadow: Of all you have said nothing has pleased me more than. a
prpmise you have made: you want again to become a good neighbour to
the things closest to you. This will benefit us poor shadows, too. For admit it- you have hitherto been only too happy to slander us.
The Wanderer: Slander? But why have you never defended yourselves?
You were close enough to- our ear, after all.
The Shad.ow: It seemed to us we were much too close to venture to speak
of ourselves.
The Wanderer: How very tactful! You sl¥tdows are 'better men' than we
are, that I can see.
The Shadow: And yet you called us 'importunate':-- us, who understand
at any rate one thing well: to stay silent and wait- no Englishman understands it better. It is true we are to be found very, very often following
behind man, yet we are not his slaves. When man shuns the light, we
shun man: our freedom extends that far.
The Wanderer: Alas, the light shuns man much more often, and then
you too desert him.
·
·
The Shadow: It is often with sorrow that I have deserted you: it seems to
me, who am·greedy for knowledge, that much that is dark still adheres to
man because I cannot always be with him. ff the reward were a perfect
knowledge of man I might even agree to be your slave.
The Wanderer: But do you know, do I know, whether you would not
then change unawares from slave to master? Or, though still a slave,_.
co:me to despise your master and live a life of abasement and disgust? Let
us both be content with such freedom as you have -you and me! For l:he
sight of one unfree .would embitter for me all my joy; I would -find even
the best things repulsive if.someone had to share them with me - I-want
no slaves around me. That is why I will not have even a dog, that lazy,
tail-wagging parasite who has become 'doglike' only through being the
slave of man and who is even commended for loyalty to his master and
willingness to follow him like his The Shadow: Like his shadow, that is how they put it. Perhaps today too
I have already been following you too long?· It has been the longest day,
but we have reached its end, be patient a little while longer! The grass is
damp, I am getting cold.
The Wanderer: Oh, is it already time for us to part? And I had to end by
hurting you; I saw it, you grew darker as I did it.
The Shadow: I blushed, in the colour in which I am able to blush. It
occurred to me that I have often lain at your feet like a dog, and that you
then·
The Wanderer: And could I not, in all haste, do something to please you?
Is there nothing you want?
The Shadow: Nothing, except perhaps that which the philosophical
~dog' desired of the gre;:i.t Alexander: that you should move a little out of
394
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