Thoughts out of Season, part 1 | Page 2

first is, of course, not to begin reading Nietzsche at too
early an age. While fully admitting that others may be more gifted than
himself, the Editor begs to state that he began to study Nietzsche at the
age of twenty-six, and would not have been able to endure the weight
of such teaching before that time. Secondly, the Editor wishes to
dissuade the student from beginning the study of Nietzsche by reading
first of all his most complicated works. Not having been properly
prepared for them, he will find the Zarathustra abstruse, the Ecce Homo
conceited, and the Antichrist violent. He should rather begin with the
little pamphlet on Education, the Thoughts out of Season, Beyond
Good and Evil, or the Genealogy of Morals. Thirdly, the Editor wishes
to remind students of Nietzsche's own advice to them, namely: to read
him slowly, to think over what they have read, and not to accept too
readily a teaching which they have only half understood. By a too ready
acceptance of Nietzsche it has come to pass that his enemies are, as a
rule, a far superior body of men to those who call themselves his eager
and enthusiastic followers. Surely it is not every one who is chosen to
combat a religion or a morality of two thousand years' standing, first
within and then without himself; and whoever feels inclined to do so
ought at least to allow his attention to be drawn to the magnitude of his
task.
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NIETZSCHE IN ENGLAND: AN INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY
THE EDITOR. DEAR ENGLISHMEN,--In one of my former writings
I have made the remark that the world would have seen neither the
great Jewish prophets nor the great German thinkers, if the people from
among whom these eminent men sprang had not been on the whole
such a misguided, and, in their misguidedness, such a tough and
stubborn race. The arrow that is to fly far must be discharged from a

well distended bow: if, therefore, anything is necessary for greatness, it
is a fierce and tenacious opposition, an opposition either of open
contempt, or of malicious irony, or of sly silence, or of gross stupidity,
an opposition regardless of the wounds it inflicts and of the precious
lives it sacrifices, an opposition that nobody would dare to attack who
was not prepared, like the Spartan of old, to return either with his shield
or on it.
An opposition so devoid of pity is not as a rule found amongst you,
dear and fair-minded Englishmen, which may account for the fact that
you have neither produced the greatest prophets nor the greatest
thinkers in this world. You would never have crucified Christ, as did
the Jews, or driven Nietzsche into madness, as did the Germans--you
would have made Nietzsche, on account of his literary faculties,
Minister of State in a Whig Ministry, you would have invited Jesus
Christ to your country houses, where he would have been worshipped
by all the ladies on account of his long hair and interesting looks, and
tolerated by all men as an amusing, if somewhat romantic, foreigner. I
know that the current opinion is to the contrary, and that your country
is constantly accused, even by yourselves, of its insularity; but I, for my
part, have found an almost feminine receptivity amongst you in my
endeavour to bring you into contact with some ideas of my native
country--a receptivity which, however, has also this in common with
that of the female mind, that evidently nothing sticks deeply, but is
quickly wiped out by what any other lecturer, or writer, or politician
has to tell you. I was prepared for indifference--I was not prepared for
receptivity and that benign lady's smile, behind which ladies, like all
people who are only clever, usually hide their inward contempt for the
foolishness of mere men! I was prepared for abuse, and even a good
fight--I was not prepared for an extremely faint-hearted criticism; I did
not expect that some of my opponents would be so utterly
inexperienced in that most necessary work of literary execution. No, no:
give me the Germans or the Jews for executioners: they can do the
hanging properly, while the English hangman is like the Russian, to
whom, when the rope broke, the half-hanged revolutionary said: "What
a country, where they cannot hang a man properly!" What a country,
where they do not hang philosophers properly--which would be the
proper thing to do to them--but smile at them, drink tea with them,

discuss with them, and ask them to contribute to their newspapers!
To get to the root of the matter: in spite of many encouraging signs,
remarks and criticisms, adverse or benevolent, I do not think I have
been very successful in my crusade for that European thought