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.II (Berlin, 1875; 2nd ed., Strassburg, 1892), pp.291-310.Hillebrand also reviewed Nietzsche’s second and third “untimely meditations”: “Über Wissen und historischen Sinn” (on knowledge and the historical sense) and “Schopenhauer und das deutsche Publikum” (Schopenhauer and the German public), ibid., pp.311-38 and 353-66.8Sprach-Verlumpung in Deutschland.9Cf.Beyond Good and Evil, Part Two, “The Free Spirit,” especially section1The words placed in brackets are not in Nietzsche’s hand and were added by a German editor—presumably Gast.What Nietzsche claims may sound farfetched, but actually the first section of Schopenhauer as Educator makes this point very plainly.The question is raised how we can realize our true self, and the prescription is that we should ask ourselves: “What have you really loved till now?” For “your true self does not lie deeply concealed within you but immeasurably high above you, or at least above what you usually take for your ego.Your real educators, those/who formed you, reveal to you what is the true primary meaning and fundamental substance of your being …” The meditation on Schopenhauer is thus introduced as Nietzsche’s attempt to discover his own true self; and Nietzsche’s praise not only of Schopenhauer’s honesty but also—of all things—of his “cheerfulness” (in section 2) points in the same direction.2Cf.the pathos of distance in section 257 of Beyond Good and Evil.3Cf.ibid., section 211: “It may be necessary for the education of a genuine philosopher that he himself has also once stood on all these steps on which his servants, the scientific laborers of philosophy, remain standing …”Human, All-Too-Human With Two Sequels1Human, All-Too-Human is the monument of a crisis.It is subtitled “A Book for Free Spirits”: almost every sentence marks some victory—here I liberated myself from what in my nature did not belong to me.Idealism, for example; the title means: “where you see ideal things, I see what is—human, alas, all-too-human!”—I know man better.The term “free spirit” here is not to be understood in any other sense; it means a spirit that has become free,1 that has again taken possession of itself.The tone, the voice, is completely changed: you will find the book clever, cool, perhaps hard and mocking.A certain spirituality of noble taste seems to be fighting continually against a more passionate current in order to stay afloat.In this connection it makes sense that it was actually the hundredth anniversary of the death of Voltaire that the book pleaded, as it were, as an excuse for coming out in 1878.2 For Voltaire was above all, in contrast to all who wrote after him, a grandseigneur3 of the spirit—like me.—The name of Voltaire on one of my essays—that really meant progress—toward me.On closer inspection you discover a merciless spirit that knows all the hideouts where the ideal is at home—where it has its secret dungeons and, as it were, its ultimate safety.With a torch whose light never wavers, an incisive light is thrown into this underworld of the ideal.This is war, but war without powder and smoke, without warlike poses, without pathos and strained limbs:4 all that would still be “idealism.” One error after another is coolly placed on ice; the ideal is not refuted—it freezes to death.—Here, for example, “the genius” freezes to death; at the next corner, “the saint;” under a huge icicle, “the hero;” in the end, “faith,” so-called “conviction;” “pity” also cools down considerably—and almost everywhere “the thing in itself” freezes to death.2The beginnings of this book belong right in the midst of the first Bayreuther Festspiele;1 a profound alienation from everything that surrounded me there is one of its preconditions.Whoever has any notion of the visions I had encountered even before that, may guess how I felt when one day I woke up in Bayreuth.As if I were dreaming!Wherever was I? There was nothing I recognized; I scarcely recognized Wagner.In vain did I leaf through my memories.Tribschen—a distant isle of the blessed: not a trace of any similarity.The incomparable days when the foundation stone was laid, the small group of people that had belonged, had celebrated, and did not need first to acquire fingers for delicate matters—not a trace of any similarity.What had happened?—Wagner had been translated into German! The Wagnerian had become master over Wagner.—German art.The German master.German beer.We others, who know only too well to what subtle artists and what cosmopolitanism of taste Wagner’s art speaks, exclusively, were beside ourselves when we found Wagner again, draped with German “virtues.”I think I know the Wagnerians; I have experienced three generations, beginning with the late Brendel2 who confounded Wagner and Hegel, down to the “idealists” of the Bayreuther Blätter3 who confound Wagner and themselves—I have heard every kind of confession of “beautiful souls” about Wagner.A kingdom for one sensible word!—In truth, a hair-raising company! Nohl, Pohl, Kohl—droll with charm, in infinitum!4 Not a single abortion is missing among them, not even the anti-Semite.—Poor Wagner! Where had he landed!—If he had at least entered into swine!5 But to descend among Germans!Really, for the instruction of posterity one ought to stuff a genuine Bayreuther or, better yet, preserve him in spirits, for spirits are lacking—with the label: that is how the “spirit” looked on which the Reich was founded
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