THE TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
BY
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Or, How to Philosophise with the Hammer
THE ANTICHRIST
NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA, AND ETERNAL RECURRENCE
TRANSLATED BY
ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI
The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche
The First Complete and Authorised English Translation
Edited by Dr Oscar Levy
Volume Sixteen
T.N. FOULIS
13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET
EDINBURGH: AND LONDON
1911
CONTENTS
TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
PREFACE
MAXIMS AND MISSILES
THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES
“REASON” IN PHILOSOPHY
MORALITY AS THE ENEMY OF NATURE
THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS
THE “IMPROVERS” OF MANKIND
THINGS THE GERMANS LACK
SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE
THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS
THE ANTICHRIST
THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE
NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA
TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE
The Twilight of the Idols was written towards the end of the summerof 1888, its composition seems to have occupied only a few days,—sofew indeed that, in Ecce Homo (p. 118), Nietzsche says he hesitatesto give their number; but, in any case, we know it was completed on the3rd of September in Sils Maria. The manuscript which was dispatched tothe printers on the 7th of September bore the title: “Idle Hours of aPsychologist”; this, however, was abandoned in favour of the presenttitle, while the work was going through the press. During Septemberand the early part of October 1888, Nietzsche added to the originalcontents of the book by inserting the whole section entitled “Thingsthe Germans Lack,” and aphorisms 32-43 of “Skirmishes in a War with theAge”; and the book, as it now stands, represents exactly the form inwhich Nietzsche intended to publish it in the course of the year 1889.Unfortunately its author was already stricken down with illness whenthe work first appeared at the end of January 1889, and he was deniedthe joy of seeing it run into nine editions, of one thousand each,before his death in 1900.
Of The Twilight of the Idols, Nietzsche says in Ecce Homo (p.118):—“If anyone should desire to obtain a rapid sketch of howeverything before my[Pg viii] time was standing on its head, he should beginreading me in this book. That which is called ‘Idols’ on the title-pageis simply the old truth that has been beli