He begins by giving us plain, matter-of-fact information about himself, speaking warmly and proudly of his father. The latter had been tutor to four princesses of Altenburg before he was appointed to his living. Out of respect-for Friedrich Wilhelm IV. he gave his son the Hohenzollern names of Friedrich Wilhelm, and he felt the events of 1848 very keenly. His father only reached the age of thirty-six, and Nietzsche lost him when he was himself five years old. But he ascribes to paternal heredity his ability to feel at home in a world of high and delicate things (_in einer Welt hoher und zarter Dinge_). For all that, Nietzsche does not forget to bring in, here as elsewhere, the supposition of his descent from Polish noblemen; but he did not know this for a fact, and it was only established by Scharlitt's investigation of the family seal. He describes himself as what we should call a winning personality. He has "never understood the art of arousing ill-feeling against himself." He can tame every bear; he even makes clowns behave decently. However out of tune the instrument "man" may be, he can coax a pleasing tone out of it. During his years of teaching, even the laziest became diligent under him. Whatever offence has been done him, has not been the result of ill-will. The pitiful have wounded him more deeply than the malicious. Nor has he given vent to feelings of revenge or rancour. His conflict with Christianity is only one instance among many of his antagonism to resentful feelings. It is an altogether different matter that his very nature is that of a warrior. But he confers distinction on the objects of his attacks, and he has never waged war on private individuals, only on types; thus in Strauss he saw nothing but the Culture-Philistine. He attributes to himself an extremely vivid and sensitive instinct of cleanliness. At the first contact the filth lying at the base of another's nature is revealed to him. The unclean are therefore ill at ease in his presence; nor does the sense of being seen through make them any more fragrant. And with true psychology he adds that his greatest danger--he means to his spiritual health and balance--is loathing of mankind. The loathing of mankind is doubtless the best modern expression for what the ancients called misanthropy. No one knows what it is till he has experienced it. When we read, for instance, in our youth of Frederick the Great that in his later years he was possessed and fettered by contempt for men, this appears to us an unfortunate peculiarity which the king ought to have overcome; for of course he must have seen other men about him besides those who flattered him for the sake of advantage. But the loathing of mankind is a force that surprises and overwhelms one, fed by hundreds of springs concealed in subconsciousness. One only detects its presence after having long entertained it unawares.