Contents:

Important Concepts to aide the reading of Nietzsche

Background to assist in the reading of Nietzsche’s Genealogy:

Preface        

First Essay

Second Essay

[Third Essay – coming soon]

Important Concepts to aide the reading of Nietzsche:

Genealogy:  A study of the lines of descent that can be traced from current manifestations back to an origin.  Typically referring to a “family tree,” genealogy, for Nietzsche is the method and system for tracing back the ‘ancestors’ of morality—where morality was born. 

Reflection:  A positive form of knowing that Nietzsche regrets that we, humanity, have so little time for; different than the ‘clever’ knowing that the Jewish and Priests embody in the slave revolt of morals. 

Reactive:  The condition we are all in today; we react to stimuli instead of just spontaneously acting.  Reactivity was birthed with the slave revolt of morals when strength and weakness was proposed (however falsely) as things that could be willed.

Active:  The most natural condition of humanity, especially the Good/warriors, that held up spontaneity, honor, action, etc. as virtues.  There is no way to return to pure activity after the birth of morality; to be truly active, one would have to be beyond good and evil. 

Will to Power:  Active, affirmation of the strong, affirmation of life.  The force, drive, passion, or energy that defines humanity (the only thing truly essential—not relative—in his philosophy) and promotes excellence. 

Will against Life:  Reactive, self-defeating, corruption and inwardization of the Will to Power by the birth of morality and the sublimation of those morals, which require a curbing and repression of desire. 

Will to Truth:  Christianity cultivates a will to truth, which actually brings on its own auto-destruction—truth outgrows its reason for its birth (see 3rd Essay, §§XIX, XXIV-XXVII).  Nietzsche desires to re-establish the will to truth on new foundations—in service to the will to power.  What is interesting is that he is not suddenly supporting a true truth—but, more so the recognition of the fluidity of truth—that it is the original will to truth, birthed out of Christianity, that desires the fixed truth.

Eternal Return (i.e. eternal recurrence of the same):  The birth of morality via the take over of the slave revolt or the creditor-debtor relationship cannot be avoided nor could it have been—various interpretations of morality (truths) always have and always will continue to come and go.  This is why Nietzsche’s relativism is historical, yet atemporal.  Morality was not born in ancient Greece, in Kentucky in 1937, in Italy las year, etc. ... instead, it is/was constructed, yet not in any one specific time or place.  Further, it is cyclic, in a sense.  It will change, but nothing, really, will change.  There will always be the good guys and the evil guys--just who is who will change; there will always be good acts and evil acts--just what is what will change.  No matter how wistful certain passages will sound about the Warriors, pre-slave revolt, the hope for something better cannot be a reversion back to these times.  Thus, it is not a pure cycle wherein the birth of morals happens over and over--pre-moral, moral, pre-moral--instead, morality is/was born and we reenact its birth through the presumption that we actually crush current morality and begin again... we don’t, though.  The Übermensch is the only way to break the repetitive succession of moral codes, the only one to break the cycle of morality.  The eternal return is the most abysmal thought—it is the confrontation of a fate more terrible than just dying and existing no more—it is to endlessly repeat the misery of false idols, truths, morals, etc.

Dionysian and Apollonian: Although these terms primarily surface and are employed to great detail in Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy, and, to a lesser extent in Will to Power, a brief explanation here will help shed light on the differentiation of the Active and Reactive, or Warriors and Slaves in the Genealogy of Morals (as well as with most all contemporary French feminism).

Thus, according to the Birth of Tragedy, the origin of tragedy in Greece is a result of the struggle between two drives: the Apollonian and the Dionysian.  The Apollonian:  The drive to distinction, discreetness, individuality, the drawing and respecting of limits {as seen in Greek epic poetry}.  The Dionysian:  The drive to transgression of limits, the dissolution of boundaries, the destruction of individuality {as seen in choral music and dance}.

The NECESSARY balance between the Apollonian and the Dionysian is upset by the force connected to Socrates: instead of metaphysical consolation via the Dionysian dissolution of boundaries or the Apollonian cultivation of individual appearance, Socrates devotes his life to the creation of abstract generalizations, the attainment of theoretical knowledge, and the use of reason as leading to human happiness.  This shifts the striving for wisdom in the face of necessary dissatisfaction to the Socratic insistence on the use of knowledge to control one’s own fate.  This is the ill of modern culture.

The ‘forces,’ ‘drives’ do not match perfectly, but do somewhat map onto the ideas of the active (Dionysian) and reactive (Apollonian) and the warriors (Dionysian) and slaves (Apollonian) from the Genealogy.  Where this falls apart is in the details, for example: the warriors uphold strict and strong codes of conduct and honor, whereas the Dionysian expresses a dissolution of boundaries; the slaves (all of us, post-morality’s birth) become reactive, thus have a tendency to infuse law with humanity, as opposed to objectivity, and weaken it, rather than the Apollonian drawing of limits, etc.  Nevertheless, the dichotomy they express, that which is akin to a distinction of reason and passion, is very in keeping with the Genealogy’s distinctions.

Übermensch:  German, for the Over-man, the Super-man; this is the envisioned future ‘person’ who could be beyond good and evil, and thus break the cycle of slave morality.  Sometimes Zarathustra is posed as the Übermensch in the Genealogy, but not actually in the book Thus Spoke Zarathustra.  The Übermensch would be one who is active, who does not fall prey to slave morality, is beyond the delusion that reason brings, embraces the riches of the passions (knowledge born from intuitive faculties as opposed to reason).  Nietzsche saw the Übermensch as a future potentiality that was not here now, nor was it entirely possible that it could ever be; the Nazis, on the other hand, embraced this concept as dedicative of themselves.  There is much textual evidence that Nietzsche would not only not support this view, but actually saw the hatred of German Nationalism (of course, pre-Nazi, as this was the rise of WWI, but, a similar nationalism) as yet another symptom of modernity’s sickness.

Asceticism:  Ataraxia: satisfaction with nothing missing; peace of mind; ultimate self-denial as a habituated life either religious, political, or otherwise motivated.  This is the goal of the Epicureans, according to Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer’s goal.  There are many variations on asceticism, for example, Nietzsche identifies the: Asceticism of the Artist, Asceticism of the Philosopher, and Asceticism of the Ascetic Priest (the peculiarity of the ascetic will also preserving life).  Within these, there are multiple evolutions of Asceticism, namely, depression and modernity.  The evolution(s) of the problem points us, thus, to meaning  {the trouble of TRUTH}.  Asceticism reveals itself as a precursor to issue of willing — needing object – needing meaning.  Modernity’s Dis-ease:  Where does this leave us?  What is to be done?  “Is there really enough pride, courage, self-assurance, intellectual energy, responsibility, freedom of the will, to make philosophy possible in our world today?” (3rd Essay, §X).

Background to assist in the reading of Nietzsche’s Genealogy:

Preface:

(III)

The Classic Philosophical-Theological Problem of Evil:

If God is omnipotent, then he created everything—including evil.  If God is all good, then he cannot have created evil.  So, where did evil come from?  A) God or B) Humanity.  If you choose God, then you diminish His goodness; if you choose humanity, then you diminish His power.  Nietzsche chooses humanity as the cause of evil, which is not too unlike the classic theological solution, best expressed by Saint Augustine (354-430 CE).  He argues that God cannot be the cause of evil—instead, humans are its cause when they lack learning and understanding of the Good.  Evil is not learned since it is the privation of Good, thus it is nothing.  The source of evil in humans comes from Lust (Libido), which is the result of the Fall (it is not a punishment but an automatic result of the act of disobedience).  He uses the examples of adultery and punishing criminals—adultery is not evil because the law forbids it, nor because people punish it, nor because people should not want for others what they do not want for themselves; instead, it is evil because of lust. Likewise, with the punishment of criminals and self-defense, these are not evil acts, so long as they do not spring from lust.  (We can be the cause of evil since God has given us Free Will).  Thinking and doing an evil deed both involve lust and are equally bad.  Augustine has many definitions of Libido/Lust, the three main ones include: (1) Love of the things one can lose against one’s will (i.e. physical things, not spiritual).  (2) Desire, this definition implies that lust is a disorder since the inferior (bodily, material) disobeys the superior (mind, spiritual).  (3) The appetite of the soul by which temporal things are preferred to eternal things.

(IV)

Dr. Paul Rée:

Dr. Paul Rée is an oft-cited foe; his The Origin of Moral Perceptions (book published in 1877) followed Hume and Schopenhauer in the belief that humans have innate universal characteristics of benevolence—a natural altruistic spirit.  Thus, moral judgments are reactions to sentiments or emotions, these judgments are NOT conducted via reason.  In contrast to Rée (and Schopenhauer and Hume), Nietzsche cites Plato (ca. 428-348 BCE), Spinoza (1632-77), La Rochefoucauld (17th c.), and Kant (1724-1804).  These four disagree with the premise of compassion being related to emotion and moral judgments arising out of these emotions, not reason.  Plato: the highest region of the soul consists in intellectual reasoning, while the base part, the desiring part, participates in judgments, they are not proper without reason.  Spinoza: people cannot reason out emotion, thus we chase it out by using a stronger “emotion,” the intellectual love of God.  Kant: morality is through and through rational, as is all religious sentiment; any judgment requires a faculty of the mind. 

(V)

Nietzsche’s Critique of Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1869):

Schopenhauer’s main premise is that the world is not all rational; life is suffering, or at least an event in a world of endless strife, and we must face life with an aim to repress desire to achieve a more tranquil world-view through which to offer any help to the pathetic human condition.  (He was greatly influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism).  This outlook requires a theoretical sub-structure: a universal, general will that was emotive, passion-centered, and prior to reason.  Nietzsche likes his emphasis on the primacy of emotions but dislikes the denial of reason as the mother of morality.  Nietzsche also has a will, but it is not general.  He sees Schopenhauer’s thoughts as the greatest danger for humanity—a will turned against life, a Buddhism, a nihilism.   

Buddhism and Nihilism:

A “Will turned against life” is crucial to understand in its distinction to the Will to Power—in essence, the first is the cause/result of morality that suppresses our free outflow of passions or energy by sublimating, weakening our desires and creating inhibitions; the will to power, which we need, according to Nietzsche, to re-embrace is the opposite to the Will against life.  This debate is cast in almost parallel terms as having a reactive or active will—the first negative, the second positive. 

His critique of Buddhism is easier to understand if one understands the deadening effects of the nihilistic tendency inherent in the Will against Life.  “Buddhism” comes from “Budhi,” “to awaken.”  It originated out of Hinduism, approximately 2,500 years ago when Siddhartha Gotama, known as the Buddha, was awakened (enlightened).  Buddhism’s tenets can be summarized by the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path.  The Four Noble Truths are:  (1) Life is suffering; (2) Suffering is caused by desires; (3) Suffering can be overcome; (4) the Eightfold Path leads to the end of suffering.  While the idea of “awakening” would be something society needs, according to Nietzsche, the Buddhist’s means to awakening should point immediately to the seat of his scorn—“suffering is caused by desire;” Nietzsche believes life is suffering, but not by the flow of desire, but by their repression—and repressing desires is how the Buddhists see a means to alleviating suffering. 

Nihilism proper comes from the Latin, nihil, nothing; a common definition would encompass one or more of the following premises: 1) All values are baseless; 2) rejection of all distinction in moral value, refutation of all previous moral systems; 3) belief that existing political-social systems must be destroyed for future improvement.  But, do not limit nihilism to these statutes alone; for example, to the degree that Buddhism is ascetic, it is nihilistic—it embraces a will against life as passionate and aims to the nothing in rejection of pleasure. 

(VII)

Charles Darwin (1809-1882):

The British Naturalist who developed the first theory of a naturalistic mechanism for evolution based upon the idea of mutation and specialization leading to natural selection; it was published in 1859 in On the Origin of the Species, which reveals his collected evidence and reflections from his five-year voyage on the Beagle, where he famously noted the difference between the same species of birds and tortoises on the difference Galápagos Islands.  In essence, Darwin’s evolutionary theory (versus Lamarck et al) explains the diversification of life through a lengthy process of descent with modifications; this means that change is reactive to the environment; it is not an active adaptation.  Over time and generations, living things react to the world around them; those that react the best (and thus adapt the best) survive.  This theory is the epitome of a reactive will that Nietzsche will rail against. 

Jean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck (aka, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck) (1744-1829):

A French naturalist who promoted a theory of evolution in accordance with natural laws (teleological) by observing hereditary changes in invertebrates.  His theory rests on two premises: use it or lose it and inheritance.   For example, the active straining of a giraffe to reach high leaves encourages its neck to grow longer and the furious paddling of water fowl feet encouraged them to become webbed—if the giraffe had a lot of low feed it would not grow a long neck; if the bird did not swim it would not grow webbed feet.  We all begin evolutionarily simple and, according to a natural plan, strive for perfection, which is to become complex (best suited for tasks).  Obviously problematic here is the reliance on “progression” and “perfection.”  Nietzsche likes the active adaptation this theory stresses.

“Dionysiac Drama:”

Nietzsche employs the dichotomy of the Greek gods Dionysius and Apollo to explain the two tendencies of nature (human nature, but also the two opposing tendencies we can see in art, history, etc.): the active/crazed/primal and the reactive/controlled/moral.  Neither is purely good or bad, promoted or rejected, but one could carefully say that Nietzsche understands the former as more capable of teaching us today a forgotten lesson even while it is a very dangerous tendency.

(VIII)

Zarathustra:

The main figure in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a wise man who ventures far and encounters much; also sometimes used to indicate the Übermensch (the “overman,” or “super man”) who can go beyond the dichotomy of good and evil. 

First Essay:

I +) “English Psychologists:”

Not all English and not psychologists, this is a catch-all name for all of the moral philosophers/thinkers who believe in some sort of innate human benevolence or want to ascribe morality to concepts of utility. 

This list variously includes:

David Hume (1711-1776) Scottish philosopher, promoted a moral theory similar to what John Stuart Mill would later christen “utilitarianism,” or, a moral theory based upon the good being that which is good for the greatest number of people.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) German philosopher, against German Idealism’ optimism (esp. Hegel’s) Schopenhauer is an idealist while being the greatest pessimist.  Inspired by Hinduism, he proposed a universal, general will that was emotive, passion centered, and was prior to reason it is in us (individual) as it is also beyond us (collective); life is suffering, but suffering can be ‘positive’ in that it permits us a more vivid aesthetic outlook—so, while the will drives us to desire, the will can also be focused on the aesthetic (on art) as an escape from that false reality where life is suffering.  Also links to Nietzsche through naming music as the highest art form.

Paul Rée (see notes on Preface).

Herbert Spencer (see notes on Preface concerning Darwin), (1820-1903) English philosopher, coined the term “survival of the fittest,” casting Darwin’s evolutional theory in a social light.

III)

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903):

Spencer, the English political philosopher, is famous for interpreting Darwin’s reactive adaptation into a “social” perspective that essentially promotes “the strongest survive” or “survival of the fittest” (Spencer was obviously not the first to believe this—Plato has Thrasymachus argue it in the Republic and Aristotle dismisses it as faulty in the Politics in the discussion of slavery by convention; not to mention Hobbes’ (1588-1679) decree that life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short”).

IV)

Henry Thomas Buckle (1821-1862):

Nietzsche writes in section four: “The amount of damage such prejudice is capable of doing in ethics and history, once it becomes inflamed with hatred, is clearly shown by the case of Buckle.”  Buckle was an English historian most famous for his History of Civilization in England, first published in 1857 with a second volume in 1861.  He essentially argued for human action to be directed by fixed laws, despite rejecting predestination as a hollow theory and free will as an erroneous presumption, and that English men had subdued nature, which was permitting them (and would continue to) to overcome physical laws and increase exponentially in intellect.  An earlier work, composed as a book review and at once with the death of his mother, argued that immortality was an absurd hope, but one without which we could not live.

V) Foreign Terms:

Arya: Sanskrit, kind, favorable, master, honorable, owner, rich, possessor.

Esthlos: Greek, one who is, has truth, has true reality.

Agathos: Greek, The Good.

Kakos: Greek, worthless.

Deilos: Greek, timid, fearful.

Malus: Latin, bad, wicked.

Melas: Greek, black, dark.

Bonus: Latin, warrior (for Nietzsche), a morally good man

Duonus, Latin, old form of Bonus,

Bellum, duellum, duen-lum: Latin, War.

Gut: German, good.

Göttlich: German, god-like.

Goth: German, etc., tribe of Northern Germany.

Names:

Theognis (of Megara): (6th c. BCE) Greek poet, a famous elegy to a young Cyrnus encourages him to be good and avoid evil, encouraging loyalty and severe vengeance.

Rudolf Virchow: (1821-1902) German scientist (doctor and thinker); one of the few anti-racist European thinkers concerned with biology and related early sciences, founded the Society for Anthropology, Ethnology, and Prehistory (1870’s) and through phrenology (often used to “prove” Aryan superiority) he proposed that Europe was founded/settled by mixed races, thus, no one race could claim biological supremacy.

VI)

Neurasthenia: a (dated) medical condition of chronic fatigue and depression.

Fakirs: A Sufi ascetic, often a spiritual recluse.

Brahmans: A Hindu of the priestly caste.

IX)

Foreign Terms:

Raison d’être: French, reason to be.

Quaeritur: Latin, form of quaero, to seek, to look for.

X)

Foreign Terms:

Deilos: Greek, timid, fearful.

Deilaios: Greek, paltry, insignificant.

Poneros: Greek, bad, of a bad nature, good for nothing.

Mochtheros: Greek, suffering hardship, knavish.

Eu prattein: Greek, to do well, acting well.

Gennaios: Greek, brave.

Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau: (1749-1791) French writer, politician who, during French Revolution era, held secret negotiations with the monarchy.

Loving one’s enemy: Matthew 5:43 or Luke 6:27.

XI)

Hesiod: (700’s bce) Greek poet, most famous ancient poet next to Homer.

Homer: (700’s bce) Greek poet, author of Iliad and Odyssey.

XIII)

Kantian “Thing-in-itself:” the noumena, that which exceeds human capacity to know it.

XV)

Dante: (1265-1321) Italian poet, writer; most famous for his Divine Comedy.

Thomas Aquinas: (1225-1274) St. Thomas Aquinas, scholastic theologian/saint, deeply influenced by Aristotle; the quote, in English: “The blessed in the heavenly kingdom will see the torment of the damned so that they may even more thoroughly enjoy their blessedness” (Summa Theologica, supplement to Third Part, question XCVII, a.1, “conclusio.” 

Tertullian: (ca.155-230 CE) Converted to Christianity; argued ‘Christians are made, not born,’ and each needs a radical breaking in order to believe.   Was said to have a ‘passionate temper’ apparent in his writing—perhaps what captured the imagination of Nietzsche.  He married, despite also being a priest; broke with the Catholic Church and joined the heretical ‘Montanisms’ (mid-2nd c. through the 8th; some argue its ties to Pentecostalism; Montanus, the founder, claimed to receive direct commands from God, traveled with two women who were the ‘embodiment of the holy spirit;’ ecstatic praying leads to possession by God; books/doctrine/etc. not needed b/c god talked directly through possession; fasting; believed that some were always condemned—you fall from grace and will never be forgiven, vengeful god; chaste; promotion of martyrdom) but later broke with them for not being rigorous enough.  Augustine claimed he turned back to Christianity near his death, but this is unsubstantiated.  Preached a materialistic realism—divorced from all Platonic mysticism; believed in unique soul, not predating person, essential sinfulness of all humanity and our bond to Satan that we try to renounce in baptism and prayer; god’s a spirit with an essential corporality (not flesh); first to coin ‘trinity;’ believed in strict discipline and austerity; misogynist.

Talmud: Jewish holy book that includes the Mishnah, Jewish oral law, and the Germara, commentary on the former; this forms the basis for rabbinic law.

Samaritan: Israeli ethnic group whose name means “keepers of the law.”

Judas Iscariot: one of the twelve apostles of Jesus, known for his betrayal of Jesus.

Second Essay

I:

Vis Inertia: The power of inertia, the at-rest-ness that resists any change.

II:

“…(autonomous and moral are mutually exclusive)…”: a stab at Kant’s ethics (see below on Kant) which poses that the moral person is well an autonomous person because morality is a metaphysical question with universally true premises (act so that your actions can be willed universally), so, while ethics implies social embeddedness, the individual alone, through reason, can deduce the true universal moral principles.  For Nietzsche, morality is relative to an extreme, so that morality is always tied to time and place, its principles are never universally true and deducible in isolation.

III:

Mnemotechnics: techniques of memory (i.e., ancient Greek thought proposed envisioning information spatially so as to ‘walk’ it in ones mind to remember it; Nietzsche intends the idea of how pain helps the memory, the child will only touch the hot stove once because it will remember that burn).

IV:

Compos Mentis: Latin, having control, to be mentally in control (non compos mentis, Latin, to not be in control of one’s mind, the early characterization of insanity).

V:

si plus minusve secuerunt, ne fraude esto: Latin, part of the third statute (“Debt”) from the Roman Law of the Twelve Tables (which formed the base of Roman law); in full, it reads: Tertiis nundinis partis secanto. Si plus minusve secuerunt, se fraude esto (On the third market day, (creditors) may cut pieces. If they take more than they are due, they do so with impunity). 

Faire le mal pour le plaisir de la faire: French, idiomatic expression, pleasure of violation, rape.

VI:

Kant’s Categorical Imperative:  Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): German philosopher famous for his three “critiques:” The Critique of Pure Reason, The Critique of Practical Reason, and The Critique of the Power of Judgment; the first concerns knowledge, the second ethics, and the third aesthetics and teleology.  Kant was a strong influence on Nietzsche, who nevertheless deeply critiques his critical project: he mostly rejects the existence of a noumenal realm, rejects the utility foundation of ethics, and rejects the Kantian requirement for approaching art from the stance of disinterest (as if one can or should shut off the emotive impact on judgment).  His Categorical Imperative is the heart of his ethical theory; the first formulation is that you should only act on a maxim that you wish to become a general law; the more famous fourth and final formulation runs a person ought not use another person as a means to an end, but should treat the other as an end in him/herself.

Tartufferie: noun, Tartuffe, a hypocrite, especially one who affects religious piety, religious hypocrite; the term was coined after the protagonist of “Tartuffe,” a play by Molière (also surfaces in essay I, §VI).

Spinoza’s sympathia malevolens: Malevolent sympathy; Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) Dutch philosopher, mathematically or logically inclined philosopher, most famous for his posthumous Ethics, created a great logical system wherein everything that is, is one; all reality is one reality, thus, God and Nature are the same, the substance that is and of which we are all mere modes.  He demonstrates his argument through a geometrically precise, analytically numbered work of premises and proofs.  Despite the premise that all is one, this is not a universal system; ethics are relative: good and evil are those things perceived by individuals to be good or evil, nothing is essentially either.  These perceptions engender desire in individuals and yields their life as one of bondage—slaves to their lusts generated by perceptions of good and evil.

Auto da fé: French, Burning at the stake.

VII:

Taedium vitae: Latin, tedious life, wearisome life.

Pope Innocent III: (1161-1216) became pope in 1198.  Prior to his election to pope, he wrote a treatise entitled On the Miserable Condition of Man expressing a strong ascetic religious interpretation.

Bluestocking: an outdated term for a feminist.

Les nostalgias de la croix: French, literally, nostalgia of the cross; passions, implied religious meaning.

XI:

Eugen Karl Dühring: (1833-1921) German philosopher and economist; Nietzsche criticizes his evaluation that justice (law) is born from the reactive (instead, viewing all law to be against the reactive by the active) and critiqued him for his socialism which would later be criticized by Engels for its anti-Marxist tendencies.  Nevertheless, Nietzsche and Dühring share quite a few views, namely their mutual renunciation of any Kantian noumena or religious-mystical inclinations for how both can delude humanity from seeing the ugly truth of reality (despite the difference that this permits the latter to embrace an odd idealism that Nietzsche would reject).  Nietzsche would not, however, go so far as Dühring in anti-Semitic expressions. 

XII:

Causa fiendi: Latin, Cause of Becoming.

XV:

Morsus conscientiae: Latin, bitten (stinging) conscience

Sub ratione boni: Latin, roughly, below/under good reason.

Spinoza: see above.

XVII:

“Their work is an instinctive imposing of forms.  They are the most spontaneous artists that exist”: See Birth of Tragedy, p.24, §I: “No longer the artist, he has himself become a work of art…”

XVIII:

“labyrinth of the heart”: Goethe.

“Except that now the material upon which this great natural force…”: See Birth of Tragedy, p.24, §I: “No longer the artist, he has himself become a work of art…”

Altruism as a moral value: See Essay I, §II.

XIX:

The relationship between men and their forebears: recall Chinese ancestor worship as discussed when reading Confucius.

XX:

Causa Prima: Latin, Prime (first) cause.

XXV:

Zarathustra: The main figure in Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, a wise man who ventures far and encounters much; also sometimes used to indicate the Übermensch (the “overman,” or “super man”) who can go beyond the dichotomy of good and evil. 

** Third Essay Background Coming **