THE COMPLETE WORKS OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
First Complete and Authorised English translation in Eighteen Volumes
EDITED BY
Dr OSCAR LEVY
VOLUME EIGHT
THIRD EDITION
WE PHILOLOGISTS
TRANSLATED BY
J. M. KENNEDY
T. N. FOULIS
13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET
EDINBURGH · AND LONDON
1911
CONTENTS
WE PHILOLOGISTS
Autumn 1874
(Published Posthumously)
Translated by J. M. KENNEDY
AUTHOR OF "THE QUINTESSENCE OF NIETZSCHE," "RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIESOF THE EAST," &c.
The mussel is crooked inside and rough outside · it is only when wehear its deep note after blowing into it that we can begin toesteem it at its true value.—(Ind. Spruche, ed Bothlingk, 1 335)
An ugly-looking-wind instrument · but we must first blow into it.
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
The subject of education was one to which Nietzsche, especially duringhis residence in Basel, paid considerable attention, and his insightinto it was very much deeper than that of, say, Herbert Spencer or evenJohann Friedrich Herbart, the latter of whom has in late years exercisedconsiderable influence in scholastic circles. Nietzsche clearly saw thatthe "philologists" (using the word chiefly in reference to the teachersof the classics in German colleges and universities) were absolutelyunfitted for their high task, since they were one and all incapable ofentering into the spirit of antiquity. Although at the first reading,therefore, this book may seem to be rather fragmentary, there are twomain lines of thought running through it: an incisive criticism ofGerman professors, and a number of constructive ideas as to whatclassical culture really should be.
These scattered aphorisms, indeed, are significant as showing how farNietzsche had travelled along the road over which humanity had beentravelling from remote ages, and how greatly he was imbued with thepagan spirit which he recognised in Goethe and valued in Burckhardt.Even at this early period of his life Nietzsche was convinced thatChristianity was the real danger to culture; and not merely modernChristianity, but also the Alexandrian culture, the last gasp of Greek[Pg 106]antiquity, which had helped to bring Christianity about. When, in thelater aphorisms of "We Philologists," Nietzsche appears to be throwingover the Greeks, it should be remembered that he does not refer to theGreeks of the era of Homer or Æschylus, or even of Aristotle, but to themuch later Greeks of the era of Longinus.
Classical antiquity, however, was conveyed to the public throughuniversity professors and their intellectual offspring, and theseprofessors, influenced (quite unconsciously, of course) by religious and"liberal" principles, presented to their scholars a kind of emasculatedantiquity. It was only on these conditions that the State allowed thepagan teaching to be propagated in the schools; and if, where classicalscholars were concerned, it was more tolerant t