BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL – Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future.

OUR VIRTUES/Aphorism 231.

Circa 1886.

Learning changes us; it does what all nourishment does which also does not merely “preserve” – as physiologists know. But at the bottom of us, really “deep down,” there is, of course, something unteachable, some granite of spiritual fatum (“fate”), of predetermined decision and answer to predetermined selected questions. Whenever a cardinal problem is at stake, there speaks an unchangeable “this is I”; about man and woman, for example, a thinker cannot relearn but only finish learning – only discover ultimately how this is “settled in him.” At times we find certain solutions of problems that inspire strong faith in us; some call them henceforth their “convictions.” Later – we see them only as steps to self-knowledge, signposts to the problem we are – rather, to the great stupidity we are, to our spiritual fatum, to what is unteachable very “deep down.”

After this abundant civility that I have just evidenced in relation to myself I shall perhaps be permitted more readily to state a few truths about “woman as such” – assuming that it is now known from the outset how very much these are after all only – my truths.