We Philologists, Volume 8

We Philologists, Volume 8

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Title: We Philologists, Volume 8 (of 18)
Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
Editor: Oscar Levy
Translator: J. M. Kennedy
Release Date: April 27, 2006 [EBook #18267]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE COMPLETE WORKS OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

First Complete and Authorised English translation in Eighteen
Volumes
EDITED BY
DR OSCAR LEVY
[Illustration: Nietzsche.]
VOLUME EIGHT
* * * * *
THIRD EDITION
WE PHILOLOGISTS
TRANSLATED BY
J. M. KENNEDY
* * * * *
T. N. FOULIS
13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET
EDINBURGH · AND LONDON
1911

CONTENTS
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE TO "WE PHILOLOGISTS" 105
WE PHILOLOGISTS 109

WE PHILOLOGISTS
AUTUMN 1874
(PUBLISHED POSTHUMOUSLY)
TRANSLATED BY J. M. KENNEDY
AUTHOR OF "THE QUINTESSENCE OF NIETZSCHE,"
"RELIGIONS AND PHILOSOPHIES OF THE EAST," &C.
The mussel is crooked inside and rough outside · it is only when we
hear its deep note after blowing into it that we can begin to esteem it at
its true value.--(Ind. Spruche, ed Bothlingk, 1 335)
An ugly-looking-wind instrument · but we must first blow into it.
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION
The subject of education was one to which Nietzsche, especially during
his residence in Basel, paid considerable attention, and his insight into
it was very much deeper than that of, say, Herbert Spencer or even
Johann Friedrich Herbart, the latter of whom has in late years exercised
considerable influence in scholastic circles. Nietzsche clearly saw that
the "philologists" (using the word chiefly in reference to the teachers of
the classics in German colleges and universities) were absolutely
unfitted for their high task, since they were one and all incapable of
entering into the spirit of antiquity. Although at the first reading,
therefore, this book may seem to be rather fragmentary, there are two
main lines of thought running through it: an incisive criticism of
German professors, and a number of constructive ideas as to what
classical culture really should be.
These scattered aphorisms, indeed, are significant as showing how far
Nietzsche had travelled along the road over which humanity had been
travelling from remote ages, and how greatly he was imbued with the
pagan spirit which he recognised in Goethe and valued in Burckhardt.
Even at this early period of his life Nietzsche was convinced that

Christianity was the real danger to culture; and not merely modern
Christianity, but also the Alexandrian culture, the last gasp of Greek
antiquity, which had helped to bring Christianity about. When, in the
later aphorisms of "We Philologists," Nietzsche appears to be throwing
over the Greeks, it should be remembered that he does not refer to the
Greeks of the era of Homer or Æschylus, or even of Aristotle, but to the
much later Greeks of the era of Longinus.
Classical antiquity, however, was conveyed to the public through
university professors and their intellectual offspring, and these
professors, influenced (quite unconsciously, of course) by religious and
"liberal" principles, presented to their scholars a kind of emasculated
antiquity. It was only on these conditions that the State allowed the
pagan teaching to be propagated in the schools; and if, where classical
scholars were concerned, it was more tolerant than the Church had been,
it must be borne in mind that the Church had already done all the rough
work of emasculating its enemies, and had handed down to the State a
body of very innocuous and harmless investigators. A totally erroneous
conception of what constituted classical culture was thus brought about.
Where any distinction was actually made, for example, later Greek
thought was enormously over-rated, and early Greek thought equally
undervalued. Aphorism 44, together with the first half-dozen or so in
the book, may be taken as typical specimens of Nietzsche's protest
against this state of things.
It must be added, unfortunately, that Nietzsche's observations in this
book apply as much to England as to Germany. Classical teachers here
may not be rated so high as they are in Germany, but their influence
would appear to be equally powerful, and their theories of education
and of classical antiquity equally chaotic. In England as in Germany
they are "theologians in disguise." The danger of modern "values" to
true culture may be readily gathered from a perusal of aphorisms that
follow: and, if these aphorisms enable even one scholar in a hundred to
enter more thoroughly into the