"THE GENEALOGY OF MORALS: A POLEMIC"

The three essays which constitute this genealogy are, as regards expression,
aspiration, and the art[Pg 117] of the unexpected, perhaps the most curious things that
have ever been written. Dionysus, as you know, is also the god of darkness. In each
case the beginning is calculated to mystify; it is cool, scientific, even ironical,
intentionally thrust to the fore, intentionally reticent. Gradually less calmness
prevails; here and there a flash of lightning defines the horizon; exceedingly
unpleasant truths break upon your ears from out remote distances with a dull,
rumbling sound,—until very soon a fierce tempo is attained in which everything
presses forward at a terrible degree of tension. At the end, in each case, amid fearful
thunderclaps, a new truth shines out between thick clouds. The truth of the first
essays the psychology of Christianity: the birth of Christianity out of the spirit of
resentment, not, as is supposed, out of the "Spirit,"—in all its essentials, a counter-
movement, the great insurrection against the dominion of noble values. The second
essay contains the psychology of conscience: this is not, as you may believe, "the
voice of God in man"; it is the instinct of cruelty, which turns inwards once it is
unable to discharge itself outwardly. Cruelty is here exposed, for the first time, as
one of the oldest and most indispensable elements in the foundation of culture. The
third essay replies to the question as to the origin of the formidable power of the
ascetic ideal, of the priest ideal, despite the fact that this ideal is essentially
detrimental, that it is a will to nonentity and to decadence. Reply: it flourished not
because God was active behind the priests, as is generally believed, but because it
was[Pg 118] a faute de mieux—from the fact that hitherto it has been the only ideal
and has had no competitors. "For man prefers to aspire to nonentity than not to aspire
at all." But above all, until the time of Zarathustra there was no such thing as a
counter-ideal. You have understood my meaning. Three decisive overtures on the
part of a psychologist to a Transvaluation of all Values.—This book contains the
first psychology of the priest.