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THE WILL TO POWER
PREFACE
(Nov. 1887-March 1888)
1
Of what is great one must either be silent or speak with greatness. With greatness--that means
cynically and with innocence.
2
What I relate is the history of the next two centuries. I describe what is coming, what can no
longer come differently: the advent of nihilism. This history can be related even now; for
necessity itself is at work here. This future speaks even now in a hundred signs, this destiny
announces itself everywhere; for this music of the future all ears are cocked even now. For some
time now, our whole European culture has been moving as toward a catastrophe, with a tortured
tension that is growing from decade to decade: restlessly, violently, headlong, like a river that
wants to reach the end, that no longer reflects, that is afraid to reflect.
3
He that speaks here, conversely, has done nothing so far but reflect: a philosopher and solitary
by instinct, who has found his advantage in standing aside and outside, in patience, in
procrastination, in staying behind; as a spirit of daring and experiment that has already lost its
way once in every labyrinth of the future; as a soothsayer-bird spirit who looks back when
relating what will come; as the first perfect nihilist of Europe who, however, has even now lived
through the whole of nihilism, to the end, leaving it behind, outside himself.
4
For one should make no mistake about the meaning of the title that this gospel of the future wants
to bear. "The Will to Power: Attempt at a Revaluation of All Values"--in this formulation a
countermovement finds expression, regarding both principle and task; a movement that in some
future will take the place of this perfect nihilism--but presupposes it, logically and
psychologically, and certainly can come only after and out of it. For why has the advent of
nihilism become necessary? Because the values we have had hitherto thus draw their final
consequence; because nihilism represents the ultimate logical conclusion of our great values and
ideals--because we must experience nihilism before we can find out what value these "values"
really had.--We require, sometime, new values.
BOOK ONE
EUROPEAN NIHILISM
1 (1885-1886)
Toward an Outline
1. Nihilism stands at the door: whence comes this uncanniest of all guests? Point of departure: it
is an error to consider "social distress" or "physiological degeneration" or, worse, corruption,
as the cause of nihilism. Ours is the most decent and compassionate age. Distress, whether of the
soul, body, or intellect, cannot of itself give birth to nihilism (i.e., the radical repudiation
of value, meaning, and desirability). Such distress always permits a variety of interpretations.
Rather: it is in one particular interpretation, the Christian-moral one, that nihilism is rooted.
2. The end of Christianity--at the hands of its own morality (which cannot be replaced), which
turns against the Christian God (the sense of truthfulness, developed highly by Christianity, is
nauseated by the falseness and mendaciousness of all Christian interpretations of the world and of
history; rebound from "God is truth" to the fanatical faith "All is false"; Buddhism of action).
3. Skepticism regarding morality is what is decisive. The end of the moral interpretation of the
world, which no longer has any sanction after it has tried to escape into some beyond, leads to
nihilism. "Everything lacks meaning" (the untenability of one interpretation of the world, upon
which a tremendous amount of energy has been lavished, awakens the suspicion that all
interpretations of the world are false). Buddhistic tendency, yearning for Nothing. (Indian
Buddhism is not the culmination of a thoroughly moralistic development; its nihilism is therefore
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full of morality that is not overcome: existence as punishment, existence construed as error,
error thus as a punishment--a moral valuation.) Philosophical attempts to overcome the "moral God"
(Hegel, pantheism). Overcoming popular ideals: the sage; the saint; the poet. The antagonism of
"true" and "beautiful" and "good".
4. Against "meaninglessness" on the one hand, against moral value judgments on the other: to what
extent has all science and philosophy so far been influenced by moral judgments? and won't this