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 HOW THE “TRUE WORLD” ULTIMATELY BECAME A FABLE MORALITY AS THE ENEMY OF NATURE THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS THE “IMPROVERS” OF MANKIND THINGS THE GERMANS LACK SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE ACT THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS THE ANTICHRIST ETERNAL RECURRENCE NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE _The Twilight of the Idols_ was written towards the end of the summer of 1888, its composition seems to have occupied only a few days,—so few indeed that, in _Ecce Homo_ (p. 118), Nietzsche says he hesitates to give their number; but, in any case, we know it was completed on the 3rd of September in Sils Maria. The manuscript which was dispatched to the printers on the 7th of September bore the title: “_Idle Hours of a Psychologist_”; this, however, was abandoned in favour of the present title, while the work was going through the press. During September and the early part of October 1888, Nietzsche added to the original contents of the book by inserting the whole section entitled “Things the Germans Lack,” and aphorisms 32-43 of “Skirmishes in a War with the Age”; and the book, as it now stands, represents exactly the form in which Nietzsche intended to publish it in the course of the year 1889. Unfortunately its author was already stricken down with illness when the work first appeared at the end of January 1889, and he was denied the 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 how everything before my time was standing on its head, he should begin reading me in this book. That which is called ‘Idols’ on the title-page is simply the old truth that has been believed in hitherto. In plain English, _The Twilight of the Idols_ means that the old truth is on its last legs.”