Third Part · LVI. Old and New Tables

Good and evil an illusion; holy precepts slay

There is an old illusion—it is called good and evil. Around soothsayers and astrologers hath hitherto revolved the orbit of this illusion.

Once did one BELIEVE in soothsayers and astrologers; and THEREFORE did one believe, “Everything is fate: thou shalt, for thou must!”

Then again did one distrust all soothsayers and astrologers; and THEREFORE did one believe, “Everything is freedom: thou canst, for thou willest!”

O my brethren, concerning the stars and the future there hath hitherto been only illusion, and not knowledge; and THEREFORE concerning good and evil there hath hitherto been only illusion and not knowledge!

“Thou shalt not rob! Thou shalt not slay!”—such precepts were once called holy; before them did one bow the knee and the head, and take off one’s shoes.

But I ask you: Where have there ever been better robbers and slayers in the world than such holy precepts?

Is there not even in all life—robbing and slaying? And for such precepts to be called holy, was not TRUTH itself thereby—slain?

—Or was it a sermon of death that called holy what contradicted and dissuaded from life?—O my brethren, break up, break up for me the old tables!

The belief in fate and then in freedom both rested on illusion about the stars and the future. The holy 'Thou shalt not rob, slay' is itself called a robber and slayer of truth.

Revaluation of values (old and new tables)Good and evil are an old illusion tied to fate and freedom, and the holy precepts contradict life.
Nihilism (all is empty)A sermon of death is seen behind what is called holy.

Commentary on this passage

What the critics said

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

Life is essentially will to powerAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909exposition

Ludovici presents paragraph 10 of 'Old and New Tables' as a protest against reading a moral order into life, citing Nietzsche that life is essentially immoral and is will to power, appropriation and conquest, while Spencer's adaptation is only a secondary re-activity.

Commentary on this chapter

Nietzsche elsewhere

Composing Parts II and IIIFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

Nietzsche says that 'The Night-Song' was composed in Rome above the Piazza Barberini, the second part in ten days at Sils, the third at Nice, with 'Old and New Tables' composed on the climb from the station to Eza, each part taking no more than ten days; his creative energy coincided with great bodily vigour, dancing, walking and laughter.

The work stands alone; the highest soulFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

Nietzsche says that Zarathustra stands alone, born of superabundant strength, his concept 'Dionysian' become the highest deed; in it man is constantly overcome, the Superman becomes the greatest reality, all contradictions are bound into a new unity in this most yea-saying spirit, and Zarathustra defines the highest of all living things as the soul with the longest ladder.

The hammer and the image in the stoneFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

Nietzsche says that for Zarathustra man is neither an object of love nor of pity but raw material, an ugly stone for the sculptor's chisel, quoting the passage where the creative will drives the hammer against the stone to free the Superman's image; a Dionysian task needs the hardness of the hammer and the joy even of destruction, 'all creators are hard'.

All creators are hardFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

Nietzsche says that the command 'Harden yourselves!' and the conviction that all creators are hard are the distinctive sign of a Dionysian nature.

The good as the most harmful menFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

Nietzsche says that as immoralist he denies both the 'good' man and Christian morality; the good exist through falsehood, refusing to see reality and treating distress as an objection, and Zarathustra therefore calls them the last men and the beginning of the end, who crucify the writer of new values and are the most detrimental of men.

The good as the most harmful menFriedrich Nietzsche · Ecce Homo, 1888Nietzsche

What the critics said

Georg Brandes, Aristocratic Radicalism (1889)

The lies of pity and the mountain airGeorg Brandes · Aristocratic Radicalism, 1889exposition

Brandes says that Zarathustra's greatest danger among men lay in forbearance and pity, which taught him to lie among the good, and that he returns to the free mountain air to sit among broken and half-written tables awaiting the hour when the lion comes with the doves.

Maxims from the new tablesGeorg Brandes · Aristocratic Radicalism, 1889exposition

Brandes paraphrases maxims of Zarathustra's new tables: spare not thy neighbour, there is no requital, beware of the good who never speak the truth, a new nobility that loves its children's land and so redeems the past, trial marriages, push what is falling, reserve oneself for worthier foes, and the creators are hard.

Maxims from the new tablesGeorg Brandes · Aristocratic Radicalism, 1889exposition

Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, Introduction to Thus Spake Zarathustra (1905) — Partisan source: the author shaped Nietzsche's posthumous reputation and is not a reliable interpreter.

Parts Three and Four; the private printingElisabeth Förster-Nietzsche · Introduction to Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1905biography

Förster-Nietzsche records that Part Three was written in Nice in winter 1883–84, 'Old and New Tables' composed on the climb to Eza amid bodily vigour and dancing, and that Part Four, written 1884–85 with interruptions, was meant 'only for my friends', printed in forty copies of which he gave away only seven, while he still planned a fifth and sixth part.

H. L. Mencken, The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (1908)

Portrait of the supermanH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908interpretation

Mencken argues that the superman will be perfect in body and mind, delight in combat, say yes to life's pleasures and ills, be scornful, merciless and free of fear of gods and laws, owe nothing to his neighbours and sacrifice himself only for generations unborn; he will distinguish instinct from passion and renounce from expediency, as Zarathustra's sayings to the brethren and to the higher men are taken to show.

Portrait of the supermanH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908interpretation

Bodily efficiency and the earthly goalH. L. Mencken · The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, 1908interpretation

Mencken argues that Nietzsche made the improvement of the body the first step of progress, that the superman's freed will to live will be refined by natural selection into an accurate instinct, summed up in Zarathustra's 'Be hard!', and that unlike Schopenhauer, Comte and the humanitarians Nietzsche held man to be of the earth, rising only after casting off transcendental morality.

Anthony M. Ludovici, Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra (1909)

Freedom not an end in itselfAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909interpretation

Ludovici argues that in 'Old and New Tables' freedom receives its death-blow as a general desideratum: Nietzsche held freedom dangerous in unworthy hands, asking 'free for what?' and requiring that one first be such as can will.

Values as foot-bridges over the streamAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909exposition

Ludovici restates Nietzsche's teaching that nothing is stable, not even good and evil: values stand like foot-bridges over the stream of life, seemingly firm in winter, until the thaw-wind sweeps them away, a state Nietzsche thinks has now been reached.

Rearing a select raceAnthony M. Ludovici · Notes on Thus Spake Zarathustra, 1909judgement

Ludovici holds that paragraphs 11–12 of 'Old and New Tables' express Nietzsche's principle of rearing a select race, and endorses it by appeal to Gobineau on the evils of promiscuous marriages and Darwin on the degeneration of cultivated types through promiscuous breeding.