The Dawn of Day
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Introduction
When Nietzsche called his book The Dawn of Day, he was far from giving it a merely fanciful title to attract the attention of that large section of the public which judges books by their titles rather than by their contents. The Dawn of Day represents, figuratively, the dawn of Nietzsches own philosophy. Hitherto he had been considerably influenced in his outlook, if not in his actual thoughts, by Schopenhauer, Wagner, and perhaps also Comte. Human, alltooHuman, belongs to a period of transition. After his rupture with Bayreuth, Nietzsche is, in both parts of that work, trying to stand on his own legs, and to regain his spiritual freedom; he is feeling his way to his own philosophy. The Dawn of Day, written in 1881 under the invigorating influence of a Genoese spring, is the dawn of this new Nietzsche. With this book I open my campaign against morality, he himself said later in his autobiography, the Ecce Homo.
Just as in the case of the books written in his primeThe Joyful Wisdom, Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil, and The Genealogy of Moralswe cannot fail to be impressed in this work by Nietzsches deep psychological insight, the insight that showed him to be a powerful judge of men and things unequalled in the nineteenth or, perhaps, any other century. One example of this is seen in his searching analysis of the Apostle Paul (Aphorism 68), in which the soul of the First Christian is ruthlessly and realistically laid bare to us. Nietzsches summingup of the Founder of Christianityfor of course, as is now generally recognised, it was Paul, and not Christ, who founded the Christian Churchhas not yet called forth those bitter attacks from theologians that might have been expected, though one reason for this apparent neglect is no doubt that the portrait is so true, and in these circumstances silence is certainly golden on the part of defenders of the faith, who are otherwise, as a rule, loquacious enough. Nor has the taunt in Aphorism 84 elicited an answer from the quarter whither it was directed; and the free (not to say dishonest) interpretation of the Bible by Christian scholars and theologians, which is still proceeding merrily, is now being turned to Nietzsches own writings. For the philosophers works are now being explained away by German theologians in a most naïve and daring fashion, and with an ability which has no doubt been acquired as the result of centuries of skilful interpretation of the Holy Writ.
Nor are professional theologians the only ones who have failed to answer Nietzsche; for in other than religious matters the majority of savants have not succeeded in plumbing his depths. There is, for example, the question of race. Ten years ago, twenty years after the publication of The Dawn of Day, Nietzsches countrymen enthusiastically hailed a book which has recently been translated into English, Chamberlains Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. In this book the Teutons are said to be superior to all the other peoples in the world, the reason given being that they have kept their race pure. It is due to this purity of race that they have produced so many great men; for every good man in history is a Teuton, and every bad man something else. Considerable skill is exhibited by the author in filching from his opponents the Latins their best trump cards, and likewise the trump card, Jesus Christ, from the Jews; for Jesus Christ, according to Chamberlains very plausible argument, was not a Jew but an Aryan, i.e. a member of that great family of which the Teutons are a branch.
What would Nietzsche have said to this legerdemain? He has constantly pointed out that the Teutons are so far from being a pure race that they have, on the contrary, done everything in their power to ruin even the idea of a pure race for ever. For the Teutons, through their Reformation and their Puritan revolt in England, and the philosophies developed by the democracies that necessarily followed, were the spiritual forbears of the French Revolution and of the Socialistic régime under which we are beginning to suffer nowadays. Thus this noble race has left nothing undone to blot out the last remnant of race in Europe, and it even stands in the way of the creation of a new race. And with such a record in history the Germans write books, eulogising themselves as the salt of the earth, the people of peoples, the race of races, while in truth they are nothing else than nouveauxriches endeavouring to draw up a decent pedigree for themselves. We know that honesty is not a prerequisite of such pedigrees, and that patriotism may be considered as a good excuse even for a wrong pedigree; but the racepandemonium that followed the publication of Mr. Chamberlains book in Germany was really a very unwise proceeding in view of the false and misleading document produced. What, it may be asked again, would Nietzsche have said if he had heard his countrymen screaming odes to their own glory as the flower of Europe? He would assuredly have dismissed their exalted pretensions with a goodnatured smile; for his study of history had shown him that even slaves must have their saturnalia now and then. But as to his philosophical answer there can be no doubt; for in Aphorism 272 of The Dawn of Day there is a single sentence which completely refutes the view of modern racemongers like Chamberlain and his followers: It is probable, we read, that there are no pure races, but only races which have become purified, and even these are extremely rare. There are even stronger expressions to be met with in Peoples and Countries (Aphorism 20; see the Genealogy of Morals, p. 226): What quagmires and mendacity must there be about if it is possible, in the modern European hotchpotch, to raise the question of race! and again, in Aphorism 21: Maximto associate with no man who takes any part in the mendacious raceswindle.
A man like Nietzsche, who makes so little impression upon mankind in general, is certainly not, as some people have thought and openly said, a public danger, so the guardians of the State need not be uneasy. There is little danger of Nietzsches revolutionising either the masses or the classes; for, as Goethe used to say, Seulement celui qui ressemble le peuple, lémeut. Nietzsches voice has as yet hardly been lifted in this country; and, until it is fully heard, both masses and classes will calmly proceed on their way to the extremes of democracy and anarchy, as they now appear to be doing. Anarchy, though, may be too strong a word; for there is some doubt whether, throughout Europe and America at all events, the people are not now too weak even for anarchy. A revolt is a sign of strength in a slave; but our modern slaves have no strength left.
In the meantime, however, it will have become clear that Nietzsche tried to stop this threatening degradation of the human race, that he endeavoured to supplant the morality of altruismthe cause of this degradationby another, a superChristian morality, and that he has succeeded in this aim, if not where the masses and the classes are concerned, at any rate in the case of that small minority of thinkers to which he really wished to appeal. And this minority is naturally grateful to the philosopher for having supplied them with a morality which enables them to be good without being foolsan unpleasant combination which, unfortunately, the Nazarene morality is seldom able to avoid. This Nazarene morality has doubtless its own merits, and its good and evil in many cases coincide with ours; but common sense and certain intellectual qualities are not too highly appreciated in the table of Christian values (see, for instance, 1 Cor. iii. 19), whence it will be observed that the enlightenment of a Christian is not always quite equal to his otherwise excellent intentions. We Nietzschians, however, must show that patience to them which they always pretend to show to their opponents. Nietzsche himself, indeed, recommends this in Aphorism 103 of this book, an aphorism which is almost too well known to need repetition; for it likewise disproves the grotesque though widely circulated supposition that all kinds of immorality would be indulged in under the sway of the Immoralistic philosopher:
I should not, of course, denyunless I were a foolthat many actions which are called immoral should be avoided and resisted; and in the same way that many which are called moral should be performed and encouraged; but I hold that in both cases these actions should be performed from motives other than those which have prevailed up to the present time. We must learn anew in order that at last, perhaps very late in the day, we may be able to do something more: feel anew.
In regard to the translation itselfwhich owes a good deal to many excellent suggestions made by Mr. Thomas Commonit adheres, as a rule, closely to the German text; and in only two or three instances has a slightly freer rendering been adopted in order to make the sense quite clear. There are one or two cases in which a punning or double meaning could not be adequately rendered in English: e.g. Aphorism 50, where the German word Rausch means both intoxication and also elation (i.e. the exalted feelings of the religious fanatic). Again, we have Einleid, Einleidigkeit, in Aphorism 63words which do not quite correspond to pity, compassion, or fellowfeeling, and which, indeed, are not yet known to German lexicographers. A literal translation, onefeeling, would be almost meaningless. What is actually signified is that both sufferer and sympathiser have nerves and feelings in common: an experience which Schopenhauer, as Nietzsche rightly points out, mistook for compassion or pity (Mitleid), and which lacked a word, even in German, until the later psychologist coined Einleid. Again, in Aphorism 554 we have a play upon the words Vorschritt (leading, guidance) and Fortschritt (progress).
All these, however, are trifling matters in comparison with the substance of the book, and they are of more interest to philologists than to psychologists. It is for psychologists that this book was written; and such minds, somewhat rare in our time, may read in it with much profit.
J. M. Kennedy.
LONDON, September 1911.
Authors Preface
1
In this book we find a subterrestrial at work, digging, mining, undermining. You can see him, always provided that you have eyes for such deep work,how he makes his way slowly, cautiously, gently but surely, without showing signs of the weariness that usually accompanies a long privation of light and air. He might even be called happy, despite his labours in the dark. Does it not seem as if some faith were leading him on, some solace recompensing him for his toil? Or that he himself desires a long period of darkness, an unintelligible, hidden, enigmatic something, knowing as he does that he will in time have his own morning, his own redemption, his own rosy dawn?Yea, verily he will return: ask him not what he seeketh in the depths; for he himself will tell you, this apparent Trophonius and subterrestrial, whensoever he once again becomes man. One easily unlearns how to hold ones tongue when one has for so long been a mole, and all alone, like him.