Genealogy of Morals: First Essay: Sections 1–9

FIRST ESSAY
"GOOD AND EVIL," "GOOD AND BAD"

These English psychologists, to whom, among other things, we owe the only attempts hitherto made to bring about a history of the origin of morality, — they give us in their own persons no slight riddle to solve; they have even, if I may confess it, for this very reason, as living riddles, something distinctive in advance of their books — they themselves are interesting! These English psychologists — what is it they want? We find them, voluntarily or involuntarily, ever engaged in the same work, — the work of pushing into the foreground the partie honteuse of our inner world and of seeking for the really operative, really imperative and decisive factor in history just there, where the intellectual pride of man would least wish to find it (for example, in the vis inertiae of custom or in forgetfulness or in some blind and accidental hooking-together and mechanism of ideas or in something purely-passive, automatic, reflex-motion-like, molecular and thoroughly stupid). What is it that always drives these psychologists into just this direction? Is it a secret, a malignant and mean instinct of belittling man, which is, perhaps, even loath to confess itself? Or some pessimistic suspicion — the distrust of disappointed, morose, poisonous and angry-grown idealists? Or a little subterranean enmity and intrigue against Christianity (and Plato), which perhaps did not even pass the threshold of consciousness? Or even a libidinous taste for what is strange, painfully-paradoxical, questionable and nonsensical in existence? Or finally, a little of each, a little meanness, a little moroseness, a little anti-Christianism, a little tickling and need of pepper? . . . . But I am told that they are in reality nothing but so many stale, cold and tiresome frogs, hopping about and creeping into man, as if here they felt themselves at home, in their proper element, — namely in a swamp. I hear this unwillingly; nay, I do not believe it. And if, where knowledge is denied to us, I may venture to express a wish, then I wish quite heartily, that the reverse may be the case with them,—that these explorers and microscopists of the soul are, in reality, courageous, proud and magnanimous animals, who can, at will, set a curb to their heart, and also to their smart, and who have educated themselves to sacrifice all desirableness to truth, to each truth, even simple, bitter, ugly, repulsive, unchristian, immoral truth . . . . For there are such truths.

All due deference, therefore, to the good spirits who may hold sway in these historians of morality! But I am sorry to say that they are certainly lacking in the historical spirit, that they have been, in fact, deserted by all good spirits of history itself. They think, each and every one, according to an old usage of philosophers, essentially unhistorically; no doubt whatever! The botchery of their genealogy of morals becomes manifest right at the outset in the determination of the origin of the concept and judgment "good." "Unselfish actions" — such is their decree — "were originally praised and denominated 'good' by those to whom they were manifested, i.e., those to whom they were useful; afterwards, this origin of praise was forgotten, and unselfish actions, since they were always accustomed to be praised as good, were as a matter of course also felt as such, — as if, in themselves, they were something good." We see at once that this first derivation contains all the typical traits of English psychological idiosyncrasy,— we have "utility," "forgetting," "custom" and last of all "error," and all this as the basis of a valuation which hitherto formed the pride of superior man as being a kind of prerogative of man in general. This pride must be humbled, this valuation — devalued. Did they succeed in this? . . . . Now in the first place it is clear to me, that the true and primitive home of the concept "good" was sought for and posited at the wrong place: the judgment "good" was not invented by those to whom goodness was shown! On the contrary, the "good," i.e., the noble, the powerful, the higher-situated, the high- minded felt and regarded themselves and their acting as of first rank, in contradistinction to everything low, low-minded, mean and vulgar. Out of this pathos of distance they took for themselves the right of creating values, of coining names for these values. What had they to do with utility! In the case of such a spontaneous manifestation and ardent ebullition of highest rank-regulating and rank-differentiating valuations, the point-of-view of utility is as distant and out of place as possible; for in such things the feelings have arrived at a point diametrically opposite to that low degree of heat which is presupposed by every kind of arithmetical prudence, every utilitarian calculation, — and not momentarily, not for a single, exceptional hour, but permanently. The pathos of nobility and distance, as I said, the lasting and dominating, the integral and fundamental feeling of a higher dominating kind of man in contradistinction to a lower kind, to a "below" — such is the origin of the antithesis "good" and "bad." (The right of masters to confer names goes so far that we might venture to regard the origin of language itself as a manifestation of power on the part of rulers. They say: "This is such and such," they seal every thing and every happening with a sound, and by this act take it, as it were, into possession.) It follows from this derivation, that the word "good" has not necessarily any connection with unselfish actions, as the superstition of these genealogists of morals would have it. On the contrary, it is only when a decline of aristocratic valuations sets in, that this antithesis "selfish" and "unselfish" forces itself with constantly increasing vividness upon the conscience of man — it is, if I may express myself my own way, the herding instinct which by means of this antithesis succeeds at last in finding expression (and in coining words). And even after this event a long time elapses, before this instinct prevails to such an extent that the moral valuation makes halt at and actually sticks to this antithesis. (As in the case, for instance, of modern Europe. To-day, the prejustice which regards "moral," "unselfish," "désintéressé" as notions of equal value, already holds sway with the force of a "fixed idea" and brain-disease.)

But again: disregarding the historical untenableness of such a hypothesis on the origin of the valuation "good," it suffers from psychological self-contradiction. The utility, we are told, of an unselfish action accounts for the praise bestowed upon it, and this origin was afterwards forgotten. But, we ask, is this forgetting even so much as possible? Did the utility of such actions ever cease to exist at any time? The very opposite is the case. This utility was the everyday experience at all times, i.e., something which again and again was underscored anew; and which, therefore, could not only not disappear from consciousness or become forgettable, but actually had — with constantly increasing vividness — to impress itself upon consciousness. How much more reasonable is that opposite theory (it is, because more reasonable, not a bit more true), which, for instance, is represented by Mr. Herbert Spencer who regards the concept "good" to be essentially identical with the concept "useful," "suitable," so that precisely in the valuations "good" and "bad " mankind is said to have summed up and sanctioned its unforgotten and unforgettable experiences as to what is useful-suitable and harmful-unsuitable. Good, according to this theory, is that which at all times proved itself to be useful: hence it may keep its authority as "valuable in the highest degree," as "valuable in itself." This kind of explanation also, I say, is false, but the explanation itself is at least reasonable and psychologically tenable.

The hint, which put me on the right track, I received from the question as to the etymological signification of the names coined by different languages for denoting what is "good." Pushing this inquiry I found that they all pointed to one and the same shifting of concepts,— that "superior," "noble" in its caste sense, was in every instance the fundamental concept from which "good" in the sense of "superior in sentiment," noble in the sense of "with lofty sentiment" "privileged in sentiment" necessarily developed; — a development running in all cases parallel with that other one which causes "mean," "moblike," "common," to turn at last into the concept of "bad." The most striking instance, illustrating this latter development, is presented by the German word "schlecht" itself. It is identical with "schlicht" (simple). Compare "schlechtweg" (simply, plainly) and "schlechterdings" (absolutely). It denoted originally the simple, the ordinary man, in contradistinction to the gentleman, no secondary or equivocal sense attaching as yet to its meaning. About the time of the Thirty-years' war — quite late, we see — the sense shifted into that which obtains at present. — With reference to the genealogy of morals, this seems to me to be an essential discernment; the fact that it was found so late, is to be attributed to the retarding influence which In the modern world the democratic prejudice exercises in regard to all questions of origin. And this prejudice extends even into the seemingly most objective territory of natural science and physiology, as we shall but take occasion to intimate in this connection. What amount of mischief this prejudice, once unbridled and become hatred, may cause, especially in the domain of morality and history, the notorious case of Buckle teaches us: the plebeianism of modern thought, which is of English origin, broke out once again upon its native soil: violently, like some slimy volcano, and with that briny, boisterous, common eloquence, with which volcanoes at all times have spoken.

In respect to our problem, which for good reasons may be called a silent problem and which with quite particular taste addresses itself to but few ears, it is of no small interest to establish, that in the case of the words and roots denoting "good," the principal nuance is in many cases still apparent, on the ground, of which the gentlemen felt themselves as of higher rank. Most frequently, perhaps, they will simply name themselves according to their superiority of power (i.e., the "mighty," the "lords," the "rulers"), or according to the most visible emblem of such superiority, — for instance "the rich," "the owners" (such is the sense of arya; and correspondingly in the Iranian and Slavic languages). But again, according to some typical trait of character, and this is the case which more especially interests us. They will, for instance, call themselves "the truthful:" this is shown most clearly in the case of Grecian nobility of which the Megarian poet Theognis is spokesman. The word έσθλός, coined for this purpose, signifies, in its root one who is, who has reality, who is real, who is true; then with a subjective turn, the true one as the truthful man; in this phase of shifting its concept, it is made the watch-and-catch-word of the nobility and passes over entirely into the concept "noble," as a mark of distinction from the lying common man, as Theognis conceives and describes him, — till at last the same word, after the decline of nobility, simply remains to denote noblesse of soul and now attains, as it were, to ripeness and sweetness. In the word δειλός as in άγαθός (the Plebeian in contradistinction to the man who is άγαθός) we find cowardice underscored. This may, perhaps, serve as a hint as to the direction in which we must seek for the etymological derivation of άγαθός a word which allows several interpretations. In the case of the Latin malus (by the side of which I place μέλας), the dark-complexioned, especially the black-haired man ("hic niger est") might possibly have been characterised, he being the pre-Aryan habitant of Italian soil, whom his colour marked out most clearly as against the prevailing, to wit, the Aryan conquering race. At any rate, the Gaelic furnished me with a precisely analogous case. Fin (for instance, in the name Fin-Gal), the word characterising nobility, denoting ultimately the good, the noble, the pure, originally the flaxen-haired man in contradistinction to the dark, black-haired aborigines. The Celts, it may be observed here, were throughout a blond race. We do wrong if, as is still done by Virchow, we connect those streaks of an essentially dark-haired population, noticeable on the more carefully prepared ethnographical maps of Germany, with some doubtful Celtic origin and blood-admixture. On the contrary, it is the pre-Aryan population which makes itself felt in such places. (The same holds true for almost the whole of Europe. All in all, the conquered race has there once more succeeded in getting the upper hand, in colour, in shortness of skull, nay, perhaps even in the intellectual and social instincts. Who will guarantee that modern democracy, anarchy, which is still more modern, and especially the hankering for la commune, the most primitive form of society — which is held in common by all our European socialists, do not represent in the main an immense afterclap, and that the conquering and gentleman race, the race of the Aryans, is not among other things physiologically succumbing? . . . .) Latin bonus I think I may interpret as the warrior: granting, that I correctly trace back bonus to an older duonus (compare bellum = duellum = duen-lum), in which latter form I suppose duonus to be contained. Bonus, therefore, would be the man of quarrel, of dissension (duo), the warrior: we see, what constituted the "goodness" of a man in ancient Rome. Our own German "gut," — might it not denote "one godlike," the man of divine origin? And be identical with the name "Goths," denoting the people (originally, the nobility)? The reasons for such a supposition do not belong here.

To this law, — that the concept of political precedence finally passes over into a concept of precedence of sentiment,— it is as yet not an exception (though it furnishes occasion for exceptions), if the highest caste is at the same time the priestly caste and, consequently, as its collective name, fixes upon a predicate which points to its priestly function. Here, for instance, "pure" and "impure" are, for the first time, contrasted as caste-distinctions, and here also a "good" and "bad " are afterwards developed which have lost their caste-sense. In general, the warning may be pronounced here, not to take, from the very outset, these concepts "pure" and "impure" as too important, too comprehensive or even symbolical: on the contrary, all concepts of infantile mankind were at first understood — to an extent which we can hardly realise — in a rough-hewn, heavy, superficial, narrow, straight-forward and, above all, unsymbolical, way. "Pure" man is, from the very beginning, merely one who washes himself; who abstains from certain aliments liable to beget skin diseases, who will not lie with the filthy women of the common people; who betrays a horror of blood; — he is no more, not much more! The very nature of a prevailingly priestly aristocracy makes clear, on the other hand, why precisely here the antitheses of valuation could be sharpened and deepened in a dangerous way at an early time; and indeed, through these antitheses, chasms were finally opened between man and man, which even an Achilles of freethinking will tremble to leap over. From the very beginning, there is something unhealthy in such priestly aristocracies and the habits which prevail in them are adverse to action, partly given to brooding, partly indulging in explosions of the feelings, and are almost inevitably followed by that intestinal morbidity and neurasthenia occurring almost inevitably in the priests of every age. As to the remedy, however, invented by themselves against this — their specific — morbidity is it not true, that in its final effects it has proved a hundred times more dangerous than the disease for which it was intended as a cure? Mankind itself still suffers from the effects of these priestly naïvetés in the art of curing. Let us, for instance, but call to our minds certain kinds of diet (abstention from meat), fasting, sexual abstinence, the flight "into the desert" (Weir-Mitchell's isolation, — of course without the subsequent fattening and hypertrophy, which form the most effective preventive of all hysteria of the ascetic ideal), as also all priestly metaphysics inimical to the senses — sloth-begetting, and subtilising, priestly self-hypnotisation in the manner of the Fakirs and the Brahmans — Brahman used as glass-button and fixed idea — and that which in the end follows but too naturally, the general state of being satiated with this radical cure, the Nothing (or God — the longing for an unio mystica with God is the longing of the Buddhist to go into the Nothing, Nirvana — it is no more!). In the case of priests, we observe, everything becomes more dangerous; not only the means and art of curing, but also their pride, vengeance, sagacity, intemperance, love, imperiousness, virtue, sickness. Of course, we might also add with some degree of fairness, that only on the basis of this essentially dangerous form of existence of man — the priestly form—has man come to be an interesting animal, that only here the human soul has in a higher sense, gained depth and become evil. And are not these the two fundamental forms of man's superiority over the remaining animal world? . . . .

The reader will have conjectured by this time, how readily the priestly manner of valuation will branch off from that of the chivalric-aristocratic caste and develop into the antithesis of it; which is especially prone to happen whenever the priest and the warrior-caste jealously oppose each other and fail to come to an agreement as to the prize. The chivalric-aristocratic valuations presuppose a powerful corporality, a vigorous, exuberant, ever extravagant health, and all that is necessary for its preservation, — war, adventure, hunting, dancing, sports, and in general, all that involves strong, free and cheerful activity. The priestly-aristocratic valuation has — as we have seen — other presuppositions: so much the worse it fares in case of war! The priests are, as is well known, the worst enemies — and why? Because they are the most impotent. From impotence in their case hatred grows into forms immense and dismal, the most spiritual and most poisonous forms. The greatest haters in history were, at all times, priests; and they were also the haters with the most esprit. Indeed, compared with the esprit of priestly vindictiveness all the remaining intelligence is scarcely worth consideration. Human history would be an extremely stupid affair, but for the esprit brought into it by the impotent. Let us at once consider the greatest instance! All that has ever been accomplished on earth against the "noble," the "powerful," the "lords," the "mighty" is not worth speaking of, when compared with that which the Jews have done against them; the Jews, that priestly people, which finally succeeded in procuring satisfaction for itself from its enemies and conquerors only by a transvaluation of their values, i.e., an act of the keenest, most spiritual vengeance. Thus only it befitted a priestly people, — the people of the most powerfully suppressed, priestly vindictiveness. It was the Jews, who, with most frightfully consistent logic, dared to subvert the aristocratic equation of values (good = noble = powerful = beautiful = happy = beloved of God), and who, with the teeth of the profoundest hatred (the hatred of impotency), clung to their own valuation: "The wretched alone are the good; the poor, the impotent, the lowly alone are the good; only the sufferers, the needy, the sick, the ugly are pious; only they are godly; them alone blessedness awaits; — but ye, ye, the proud and potent, ye are for aye and evermore the wicked, the cruel, the lustful, the insatiable, the godless; ye will also be, to all eternity, the unblessed, the cursed and the damned!" . . . . It is known, who has been the inheritor of this Jewish transvaluation . . . . In regard to the enormous initiative fatal beyond all measure, which the Jews gave by this most fundamental declaration of war, I refer to the proposition which elsewhere presented itself to me (Beyond Good and Evil, aph. 195) — viz., that with the Jews the slave-revolt in morality begins: that revolt, which has a history of two thousand years behind it, and which to-day is only removed from our vision, because it — has been victorious . . . .

But this ye do not understand? Ye are blind to something which needed two thousand years ere it came to be triumphant? There is nothing in it surprising to me: all long things are hard to see, hard to survey. But this is the event: from the trunk of that tree of revenge and hatred, Jewish hatred — the deepest and sublimest hatred, i.e., a hatred which creates ideals and transforms values, and which never had its like upon earth — something equally incomparable grew up, a new love, the deepest and sublimest kind of love: — and, indeed, from what other trunk could it have grown? . . . . Quite wrong it is, however, to suppose, that this love grew up as the true negation of that thirst of vengeance, as the antithesis of the Jewish hatred! No, the reverse is true! This love grew out of this trunk, as its crown, — as the crown of triumph, which spread its foliage ever farther and wider in clearest brightness and fulness of sunshine, and which with the same vitality strove upwards, as it were, in the realm of light and elevation and towards the goals of that hatred, towards victory, spoils and seduction, with which the roots of that hatred penetrated ever more and more profoundly and eagerly into everything deep and evil. This Jesus of Nazareth, as the personified gospel of love, this saviour bringing blessedness and victory unto the poor, the sick, the sinners — did he not represent seduction in its most awful and irresistible form — the seduction and by-way to those same Jewish values and new ideals? Has not Israel, even by the round-about-way of this "redeemer," this seeming adversary and destroyer of Israel, attained the last goal of its sublime vindictiveness? Does it not belong to the secret black-art of truly grand politics of vengeance, of a vengeance far-seeing, underground, slowly-gripping and fore-reckoning, that Israel itself should deny and crucify before all the world the proper tool of its vengeance, as though it were something deadly inimical, — so that "all the world," namely all enemies of Israel, might quite unhesitatingly bite at this bait? And could, on the other hand, any still more dangerous bait be imagined, even with the utmost refinement of spirit? Could we conceive anything, which in influence seducing, intoxicating, narcotising, corrupting, might equal that symbol of the "sacred cross," that awful paradox of a "God on the cross," that mystery of an unfathomable, ultimate, extremest cruelty and self-crucifixion of God for the salvation of man? . . . . Thus much is certain, that sub hoc signo Israel, with its vengeance and transvaluation of all values, has so far again and again triumphed over all other ideals, over all nobler ideals.

But, Sir, why still speak of nobler ideals? Let us submit to the facts: the folk has conquered — or the " slaves," or the "mob," or the "herd" or — call it what you will! If this has come about through the Jews, good! then never a people had a more world-historic mission. The "lords" are done away with; the morality of the common man has triumphed. This victory may at the same time be regarded as an act of blood-poisoning (it has jumbled the races together) — I shall not object. But, beyond a doubt, the intoxication did succeed. The redemption of mankind (from "the lords," to wit) is making excellent headway; everything judaïses, christianises, or vulgarises in full view (words are no matter!). The progress of this poisoning, through the entire body of mankind, seems irresistible; the tempo and step of it may even be, from now on, ever slower, finer, less audible, more cautious — time is not wanting . . . . "With reference to this end has the church to-day still a necessary mission, or even a right to existence? Or could it be dispensed with? Quaeritur. It seems as though it rather impedes and retards this progress, instead of hastening it? But perhaps this very fact constitutes its utility . . . . At all events, the church is something coarse and rustic; something repugnant to a more delicate intelligence, to a truly modern taste. Should it not at least refine itself a little? . . . . It rather tends to estrange today than to seduce . . . . Who among us would be a freethinker, if there were no church? It is the church that we disrelish, not its poison . . . . Disregarding the church, we even love the poison . . . ." Such is the epilogue of a "freethinker" to my disquisition, — an honest animal, as he abundantly betrayed, moreover a democrat; he had been attentive until then, and could not suffer to see me silent. For, for me there are here many things about which I must be silent.