The Rudolf Steiner Archive

A continuation of my reply to E. Horneffer's essay "A defense of the so-called ‘Wiederkunff des Gleichen’ von Nietzsche”

Ernst Horneffer makes the following claim with regard to my refutation of his pamphlet "Nietzsche's Doctrine of the Eternal Return and its Publication to Date" printed in No. 6 of this journal: "The entire structure of Steiner's refutation is flawed. If you want to refute me, you have to refute my reconstruction of the sketch or draft that Koegel bases his book on". I do not believe that I have such an obligation to uphold the objections I have raised against Hornefler. For these objections do not refer to Hornefler's reconstruction, but to his false interpretation of individual Nietzschean aphorisms. And anyone who misunderstands Nietzsche as Horneffer does does not really need to worry about his reconstruction of the "return of the same". If I have now linked individual thoughts to this reconstruction, it is because the creation of fairy tales is one of the means of the "Nietzsche Archive", and it does not seem appropriate to me to add to the many other fairy tales the one about my capitulation to Horneffer's reconstruction.

Whoever wants to understand Nietzsche's thought of the eternal return of all things and its connection with the "Draft" "The Return of the Same" printed in the ı2nd volume of the Complete Edition, p. 5, must know the source of this thought. For there is no doubt that the essay that was planned with this draft is to be understood as follows: that the idea of the return of the same formed the occasion for it, and that everything else was added to this idea in order to support it.

How did Nietzsche arrive at the idea of the eternal return of all things? I have repeatedly pointed out the source of this idea in conversations with Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and with Dr. Koegel in 1896. I still hold the conviction I expressed then today: that Nietzsche conceived the idea on the occasion of reading Eugen Dühring's "Kursus der Philosophie als streng wissenschaftlicher Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung" (Leipzig 1875), and under the influence of this book. On p. 84 of this work this idea is expressed quite clearly; only there it is fought against just as vigorously as Nietzsche defends it. The book is in Nietzsche's library. As numerous pencil marks in the margins show, Nietzsche read it avidly. Incidentally, even without this we know that Nietzsche was an avid reader of Dühring. Dühring says: "The deeper logical ground of all conscious life therefore demands, in the strictest sense of the word, an infinity of entities. Is this infinity, by virtue of which ever new forms are driven forth, possible in itself? The mere number of material parts and elements of force would in itself exclude the infinite accumulation of combinations if the continuous medium of space and time did not guarantee an infinity of variations. From that which is countable, only an exhaustible number of combinations can follow. But from that which by its nature cannot be conceived as something countable without contradiction, the unlimited multiplicity of positions and relations must also be able to emerge. This unlimitedness, which we claim for the fate of the formations of the universe, is now compatible with every change and even with the occurrence of an interval of approximate persistence or complete self-sameness, but not with the cessation of all change. Those who wish to cultivate the idea of a being that corresponds to the original state should remember that temporal development has only one real direction, and that causality is also in accordance with this direction. It is easier to blur the differences than to retain them, and it therefore costs little effort to imagine the end by analogy with the beginning, ignoring the gap. Let us, however, beware of such superficial hastiness; for the existence of the universe, once given, is not an indifferent episode between two states of the night, but the only firm and clear ground from which we make our inferences and anticipations." As a mathematically trained mind, Dühring must fight the idea of an eternal repetition of the same world states. For only if the number of combinations were limited would the first one have to recur after all possibilities have been exhausted. Now, in the continuous space, not a limited but an infinite number of combinations is possible. New states can therefore enter into the infinite. Dühring also finds that a perpetual repetition of states has no appeal for life: "Now it goes without saying that the principles of the stimulus of life are not compatible with eternal repetition of the same forms." If we now accept the mathematically-logically impossible thought, if we make the assumption that a countable number of combinations are possible with the material parts and force elements, then we have Nietzsche's idea of the "eternal return of the same". We have nothing other than the defense of a counter-idea taken from Dühring's view in Aphorism 203 (Volume XII in Koegel's edition and Aph. 22 in Horneffer's writing: "Nietzsche's Doctrine of the Eternal Second Coming"): "The measure of the All-Power is determined, nothing "infinite: let us beware of such excesses of the concept! Consequently, the number of positions, changes, combinations and developments of this force is indeed immense and practically "immmeasurable", but in any case also determined and not infinite, that is: the force is eternally the same and eternally active: - up to this moment an infinity has already expired, that is, all possible developments must have already existed. Consequently, the momentary development must be a repetition and so that which gave birth to it and that which arises from it and so on forwards and backwards! Everything has been there countless times, insofar as the overall situation of all forces always returns ..." And Nietzsche's feeling towards this thought is exactly the opposite of that which Dühring has with him. For Nietzsche, this thought is the highest formula for the affirmation of life. Aphotism 43 (in Horneffer, 234 in Koegel's edition) reads: "the future history: more and more this thought will triumph, - and those who do not believe in it must by their nature finally die out! - Only those who consider their existence capable of eternal repetition remain: among such, however, a state is possible that no utopian has reached!" It is possible to prove that many of Nietzsche's thoughts arose in the same way as the idea of eternal return. Nietzsche formed the counter-idea to some existing idea. Ultimately, the same tendency led him to his main work: "Revaluation of all values."

In Dühring, one can see a thinker who consistently, if one-sidedly, represents the knowledge brought forth by Western intellectual development. Nietzsche could only be inspired by him in such a way that he contrasted his statements and values with the opposite ones. Anyone who compares Dühring's "Kursus der Philosophie" with Nietzsche's aphorisms on the "Wiederkunft" can also prove this in detail.

Dühring believes in the absolute validity of certain fundamental truths. "Just as one cannot ask of a mathematical truth how long it is or will be true, one cannot make the absolute necessities of the real dependent on a duration, but must, conversely, make the duration and its respective magnitude dependent on these themselves." From such irrefutable fundamental truths, Dühring deduces the impossibility of an eternal return of the same states. Nietzsche accepts this eternal return. He must therefore also deny the absolute validity of Dühring's fundamental truths. Why does Dühting profess these basic truths? Because they are simply true for him. For Nietzsche they cannot be true. Their truth cannot therefore be the reason why they are recognized by man. Man must need them, even though they are untrue. And he needs them in order to find his way in reality with them, to master it. What is recognized as true is not true, but it gives us power over reality. He who accepts the truth of knowledge needs no other reason to justify it; its truth in itself is reason enough. Whoever denies the truth must ask: why does man take these errors into himself, why does he assimilate them? Nietzsche wants to give the answer to these questions in the first four chapters of the work on the "Eternal Return".

I will now show how this work is to be understood from such points of view. I will also show why Nietzsche abandoned the plan to write it. In doing so, a hypothesis will emerge as to the reasons why the Nietzsche Archive views this publication with such a skeptical eye, why they speak of a "so-called" "return of the same". Hornefler's reconstruction will show what it is worth.

In the last article (No. 16 column 401 ff. of this journal) I believe I proved that Nietzsche's doctrine of the "eternal return of all things" is the counter-idea to Dühring's position on this idea in his "Kursus der Philosophie". I would also like to point out that Nietzsche himself spoke out about such a formation of counter-ideas. On page 65 of the 11th volume of the complete edition of Nietzsche's works we read the following "aphorism": "What is the reaction of opinions? When an opinion ceases to be interesting, one tries to give it a charm by holding it to its counter-opinion. Usually, however, the opposing opinion seduces and now makes new supporters: it has become more interesting in the meantime." I would like to mention a few more things that prove that Nietzsche understood this idea of the "eternal return" in no other way than natural science. Mrs. Lou Andreas-Salomé first made a statement in the journal "Freie Bühne", May 1892, and then in her book "Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken" (Friedrich Nietzsche in his Works), which is interesting for clarifying the facts, even though the entire book by this woman, who was in contact with Nietzsche for several months in 1882, gives a completely skewed view of his teaching. Mrs. Lou Salomé claims: "Even a superficial study soon showed Nietzsche that the scientific foundation of the idea of reincarnation on the basis of the atomistic theory was not feasible; he thus found his fear that the disastrous idea would be irrefutably proven to be correct not confirmed and thus seemed to be freed from the task of his proclamation, from this fate awaited with horror. But now something peculiar occurred: far from feeling redeemed by the insight he had gained, Nietzsche behaved in exactly the opposite way; from the moment the dreaded doom seemed to recede from him, he resolutely took it upon himself and carried his doctrine among the people; the moment his fearful assumption became unprovable and untenable, it hardened for him, as if by a magic spell, into an irrefutable conviction. What should become scientifically proven truth takes on the character of a mystical revelation, and henceforth Nietzsche gives his philosophy in general as the final foundation, instead of the scientific basis, the inner inspiration - his own personal inspiration." Nietzsche's friend of many years, Peter Gast, opposes this view of Lou Andreas-Salomé, that in Nietzsche's mind an initially scientific idea has been transformed into a mystical inspiration, in his truly excellent, profound introduction, which he wrote a few years ago to "Menschliches, Allzumenschliches". He condemns any overplaying of Nietzsche's views into the mystical and says that the doctrine of the Second Coming is a "purely mechanistic doctrine of the exhaustibility, i.e. repetition, of cosmic molecular combinations". Mrs. Lou Salomé thus admits for the first times in which Nietzsche represented the idea of the Second Coming that it was conceived "on the basis of the atomistic theory"; Peter Gast accepts the mechanical conception with the exclusion of all mysticism, through which Mrs. Lou Salomé then confuses the matter. The mechanical conception, however, is the counter-idea to Dühring's, and we must therefore assume that Nietzsche conceived the "Eternal Return" in this mechanical version in 1881. As soon as I received his copies of the manuscript of the Second Coming through Dr. Koegel in the summer of 1896, I was a staunch advocate of Peter Gast's view. I had to fight against some people who at that time professed a mystical view. But this mechanical idea of Nietzsche's does not fit in with the rest of our mechanical science. Anyone who thinks in terms of rational mechanics must, like Dühring, fight against the "eternal return". If Nietzsche wanted to defend it, he could not do so for this one mechanical conception alone, but he had to set up the counter-opinion for the whole mechanical view of nature. He had to show that this whole mechanical conception was not as irrefutable as it was held by people like Dühring. From there he arrived at the question of the value of truth. Why are generally recognized truths believed as such? That became his question. Dühring and others would have answered simply: because they are true, because they correspond to reality. Nietzsche said to himself that this is not the case at all. Where do any of our concepts correspond to reality? Nowhere. "Our assumption that there are bodies, surfaces, lines, forms, is only the consequence of our assumption that there are substances and things, persistent things. As certain as our concepts are fictions, so are the shapes of mathematics. There is no such thing; we can no more realize a surface, a circle, a line, than a concept." (Aph. 18 p.17 of the ı2nd volume of Koegel's edition.) But these concepts, these fictions are the things with which the sciences operate. So there can be no question of the absoluteness of scientific truths. Why do we accept them after all? Because we need them in order to orient ourselves in reality. There is no circle anywhere, no surface anywhere; but we use such fiction to orient ourselves within reality. It is not the truth, but the usefulness for life that is the reason for our belief in so-called truths. In order to become aware of this usefulness, however, we must experience the applicability of our conceptual fictions in our own bodies. We have to implore these fictions and try to live with them. Until now, mankind has only believed their so-called truths because it has incorporated them and found that it is possible to live with them. If one now wants to penetrate deeper into the structure of the world's being, one cannot stop at simply going along with this incorporation as it has happened so far. It could very well be that one could also live with completely different opinions. A proof against the "eternal return" only has the meaning that it shows that one cannot unite this idea with the fictions of which one has so far found that one can live with their incorporation. But if one wants to find out whether the "eternal return" has a possibility of life, then one must try to live with the counter-opinions of the previous ideas. One must return to the state of innocence, in which no opinions have yet been incorporated; one must make oneself an "experiment" in order to see how one can live with other ideas than the previous ones. Only in this way can we really test life to see whether it is worth living in its deepest depths. When we have cast off the heaviness that we feel in ourselves through the belief in absolute truths, when we "face up like children to what used to be the seriousness of life", then we can try out how we can live with opinion and counter-opinion. (Aph. 148 in volume ı2 5.89 in Koegel's edition.) The people of the past were burdened with the confidence that it was only possible to live with the incorporated fictions. One throws off this confidence; one casts off all belief in certain opinions; one experiments with all drives and passions and waits to see how far they can be incorporated, i.e. how far one can live with them. One must lighten one's life from all the incorporated heresies. At first, however, this will result in a degradation, attenuation of life. For we are equipped to live with the armor we have accumulated so far. If we discard it, we initially weaken ourselves. But it is precisely this that enables us to try the "new heavyweight" with the "eternal return" in contrast to the old heavyweight. Once again, as "individuals", we want to take up the struggle for life on a broader basis than with the fictions we have absorbed so far. "A play of children, on which the eye of the wise looks, have power over this and that state" (Aph. 148 in Koegel's edition). What must come out of such a trying life if life is to seem worth living to us, if we do not prefer to choose annihilation? "An absolute surplus must be demonstrated, otherwise the annihilation of ourselves with regard to humanity is to be chosen as the means of the annihilation of humanity". (In the same aphorism.) We have thus gained a standard for the incorporation of a new doctrine. So far we have only ever lived with the opposite doctrine; now we want to see whether the "doctrine of the Second Coming" gives a surplus of pleasure. "This establishes the connection between point 4 of the draft" of the "Eternal Return" and point 5. The first is called: "The innocent. The individual as experiment. The easing of life, humiliation, attenuation, transition." The last is: "The new emphasis: the eternal return of the same, etc." - These last two chapters would therefore have had to describe the task Nietzsche had in mind if he wanted to create a "new center of gravity". In contrast, the first three chapters should show how humanity has developed so far. It has fought its way through life with the help of errors (incorporation of basic errors). The erroneous beliefs were believed because they proved to be useful. But not only the beliefs by which we orient ourselves in reality are incorporated errors: instincts and passions, pleasure and displeasure are also such errors. What I experience as pain is not really pain. It is only a completely indifferent stimulus, initially without pleasure or displeasure. Only when I interpret it with the help of my brain does it become pain or pleasure. "Without intellect there is no pain, but the lowest form of intellect comes to light, that of "matter, of "atoms. - There is a way of being surprised by an injury (like the one who got a shotgun pellet through the cheek while sitting on the cherry tree) that one does not feel the pain at all. The pain is a brain product." (Aph. 47 in Koegel's edition). By evaluating life according to the impressions of pleasure and pain, we are therefore not moving in a realm of reality at all, but in a sphere of our interpretation. What matters in life is not how a stimulus affects us, but how we believe that it affects us. This belief is as much an inherited one as the belief in fundamental errors. Just as these are inherited, so are the assessments, the interpretations of the stimuli. "Without imagination and memory there would be no pleasure and no pain. The affects aroused in the process immediately have at their disposal past similar cases and the bad possibilities, they interpret, they interpret. Therefore, a pain is generally quite out of proportion to its significance for life - it is inexpedient. But where an injury is not perceived by the eye or touch, it is much less painful; there the imagination is untrained." (Aph. 50 in Koegel's edition). I will now give an example to show how profound Dühring's influence was on Nietzsche's thoughts in 1881. Dühring says in his "Kursus der Philosophie": if "sensations and feelings were simple, they would have to be decided by direct axiomatic judgment in a similar way as a mathematical principle"... "The kind of applause or attunement that a completely simple excitement would bring with it would also be a fact that could not be misunderstood and would have to be just as valid in its field as a geometric or physical necessity." (Kursus der Philosophie, page 165.) As you can see, Dühring claims that a stimulus can only have one consequence, i.e. that it is pleasurable or painful in itself. Here, too, Nietzsche contrasts Dühring's opinion with the counter-opinion: "Why does a cut finger hurt? In itself it does not hurt (whether it already experiences "stimuli"), he whose brain is chloroformed has no "pain" in his finger". (Aph. 48 in Koegel's edition.) The moral drives and passions are also based on an interpretation of reality, not on a true state of affairs, but on one that is believed to be true. "If we translate the qualities of the lowest animate being into our "reason", they become "moral" drives." (Aph. 64 in Koegel's edition.) "In the desire to please is refined lust for possession, refined lust for sex, refined exuberance of the secure, etc." (Aph. 95 in Koegel.) In our actions we do not have reality in mind: the lust for possession, the refined lust for sex, but the passion of benevolence incorporated into us, which is, however, only an interpretation of reality. We see how people arrive at "truths" and "passions". They interpret reality and assimilate the interpretations. The moment people realize that they do not possess reality, but rather their interpretations of reality, they begin to doubt these interpretations. Whereas up to now people have assimilated as true that which was conducive to life, regardless of whether it was true or false, they now question the truth as such. The life-promoting has been called "true". This gave "the true" a certain prestige, a value. People began to strive for "the true". But there was nothing else to do but to make a selection among the basic errors. For there was nothing else but these. A particularly select genre of fundamental errors was called "truths". There was even nothing but errors to establish what truth is. Where can such a striving come from? Only from the belief that truth enhances life (passion of knowledge).

This may well have been the ideas that went through Nietzsche's mind when he wrote the "Draft" of the "Return of the Same" in Sils-Maria in 1881. At least this was my impression of the situation when Dr. Koegel gave me his compilation of the individual aphorisms in the summer of 1896. Anyone who now reads the volume ı2 (which Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had withdrawn from the book trade) will gain the impression that the aphorisms arranged under the individual chapters more or less elaborate and clarify the main train of thought in individual points. There is no doubt that Nietzsche wrote these individual aphorisms in an unconstrained order. It will therefore never be possible to find an absolutely correct principle for their arrangement. Even the question of whether one or the other aphorism could be left out or not will be answered one way by one editor and differently by another. Dr. Horneffer claims that only the 44 aphorisms listed by him in his brochure "Nietzsche's Doctrine of the Eternal Second Coming" are entitled to be included in the draft. I ask myself in vain why he omits the aphorism in this way (from Koegel's edition), the content of which is in line with the aphorisms that Koegel prints as 49 and 51 and which Horneffer himself recognizes as legitimate. I do not understand why aphorism ı19 should not fall under the draft, since it clearly speaks of incorporated errors. "The great things in nature, all sensations of the high, noble, graceful, beautiful, kind, austere, powerful, enchanting, which we have in nature and in man and history, are not immediate feelings, but the after-effects of countless errors that have been incorporated into us.... " Compare this aphorism with the 51st, which Dr. Horneffer again gives a place in the " Wiederkunft": "...Likewise, the measure of pleasure is not in proportion to our present knowledge, -- but it is to the "knowledge" of the most primitive and longest pre-period of humanity and animality. We are under the law of the past, that is, its assumptions and estimations." But why argue about the individual, since it is in the nature of these aphorisms that one person can arrange them one way and another another. What matters much more is this: I believe I have shown through my explanations that Nietzsche's idea of the "Eternal Return" is correctly what Peter Gast describes it as: "The purely mechanically understandable doctrine of the exhaustibility, i.e. repetition, of cosmic molecular combinations", and that Nietzsche, in order to keep this idea in contrast to Dühring, wanted to provide a kind of new theory of knowledge in the first four chapters. This should show that the way in which the previous "truths" have come about is no obstacle to opposing them with counter-opinions. If Dr. Koegel were really quite wrong and only the 44 aphorisms cited by Horneffer belonged to the "Eternal Return", then this idea would still remain, because nothing else follows from these 44 aphorisms either. So we are dealing with a doctrine to be understood mechanically and not with a "religious idea", as Dr. Horneffer believes. And it was precisely Mrs. Lou Andreas' mistake that she allowed the transparent clarity of this idea to be drowned in a mystical fog. Rather, this Nietzschean idea is conceived in such a way that we will only incorporate it if we find, in the "experiment" we conduct with it, that we can orient ourselves with it within the whole of nature in the same way as with the previous theory of nature. And when Horneffer asks: "How could he have had the idea of invoking physics and the natural sciences in general to support it?", the answer is: "He would have had to do so if he had wanted to implement the idea in the same way in which he had conceived it. Not, however, to prove the idea, but to show that it can be incorporated. The whole of natural science would have had to take on a different face under the influence of this idea. For feeling would never have tolerated that natural science should continue to operate in the old way and that religious feeling should resign itself to an idea that contradicted the knowledge of nature. Rather, a new competition of opinions should have been fought through. The "new emphasis" can only assert itself if it proves to be more life-promoting than the old scientific truths. Dr. E. Horneffer says on p. 26 of his book: "Nietzsche's Doctrine of the Eternal Second Coming": "I would like to mention that I do not believe that Nietzsche wanted to give his doctrine of the eternal second coming a broader, scientific basis. I doubt that he ever intended to prove it in more detail through empirical knowledge. ... For why the detailed proof that we need ideas that go beyond demonstrable experience, that we need errors if they have a favorable effect on life? Why the further proof that the eternal return is an idea which, whether true or false, must have a very favorable effect on life? Does this way of recommending philosophical ideas not presuppose the assumption that they cannot be proven empirically at all?" No, certainly, it does not presuppose this proof. But it does demand to decide by incorporation whether the new opinion has a more favorable effect on life than the old scientific opinions. Nietzsche could not and was not allowed to prove his "new emphasis" with the old scientific methods, but with this new emphasis he had to defeat the old methods themselves; he had to prove the greater strength of the new idea through experiment. And because he saw himself incapable of such proof, he initially dropped the new idea; that is why an idea increasingly came to the fore in his mind that was not directed against the old scientific truths, but which lay in their direction, the idea of the superman. For the superman is an idea that is entirely compatible with all other modern scientific ideas. Read "Zarathustra": "Man is a rope knotted between animal and superman. ... I love him who works and invents, that he may build the house of the superman and prepare for him earth, animal, plant: for thus he wills his downfall." These words are spoken entirely in harmony with the great modern developmental idea of natural science. "All beings up to now have created something beyond themselves: and you want to be the ebb tide of this great flood and would rather go back to the animal than overcome man? You have made the journey from worm to man, and much in you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even now man is more ape than any ape." These words of Zarathustra were spoken by a man who was made a poet prophet not by the "Eternal Return", but by the great developmental idea of modern natural science. The fact that the plan for a work on the "Eternal Return" developed into that for "Zarathustra" has no other reason than that Nietzsche at that moment did not consider the "Eternal Return" but the idea of the superman to be more life-promoting. If the idea of the "Eternal Return" then reappears later, if we find it sporadically in the "Joyful Science", in "Zarathustra" itself, if he even presents it as the crowning glory, as the last positive thought, of his otherwise completely negative work "Revaluation of all Values", there can be no other reason for this than that the preparatory illness blunted his sense of how little life-enhancing this thought is, how little it can assert itself in the battle of opinions, and that Nietzsche had a certain weakness for the thought once it had emerged in him. I am not afraid of the scurrilous accusation that I am not a true Nietzsche admirer because I express my above conviction. I know how difficult it has become for me, this conviction that the preliminary stages of the illness play into the last phase of Nietzsche's philosophizing yet.

So it was a failed work, a work whose basic conception was untenable because it did not promote life. And Nietzsche felt that he could do nothing with this basic concept. That is why he did not complete the work. The editor of Nietzsche's estate could not produce anything other than an unsustainable work. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche says in her introduction to Lichtenberger's book on "The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche": "The then editor Dr. Fritz Koegel, without taking note of the later still undeciphered manuscripts, brought the contents of a written notebook by my brother from the summer of 1881 under a disposition that did not belong to it. ... The manuscript compiled by Dr. Koegel instilled suspicion in me from the outset and I had requested the assistance of an expert editor to examine it before it was published. ... I myself was first prevented by my mother's fatal illness and then by my own illness from examining the matter more closely; but after various critics, for example in the "Zukunft" and in the "Frankfurter Zeitung", had expressed their astonishment and displeasure at this strange and meagre publication, which must have disappointed every sincere Nietzsche admirer, I felt compelled in the fall of 1898 to have the publishing company withdraw the XIIth volume from the book trade. Volume from the book trade." Now the "paucity" of the publication was not due to the publisher, but to the fact that the work itself was a misguided one. And no sincere Nietzsche admirer could be in any way impaired in his Nietzsche worship by the fact that he saw how Nietzsche carried on for a few weeks with the plan for an unrealizable work. And Horneffer's attack on Koegel cannot change the fact that this is the case in the slightest. The 44 aphorisms that Hornefler has now published after sifting through the manuscript also prove that Nietzsche's idea of the "Eternal Second Coming" in 1881 was a scientific-mechanistic counter-idea to Dühring's view and that as such it is untenable, mistaken. The admission of this fact has now been and is being countered by the Nietzsche Archive. The scientific character and the scientific implications of this idea are denied. But no matter how many mistakes Dr. Koegel may have made in the publication: this fact is correct and, whoever is unbiased, will find it confirmed precisely by Horneffer's attack on Koegel. And any edition of Friedrich Nietzsche's works that conceals this fact will be an objective forgery. Because the idea of the "Eternal Second Coming" is scientifically untenable: that is why the Nietzsche Archive wants Nietzsche to have never conceived it scientifically. That is why Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, when its untenability was made clear to her, began to claim that this thought would not only have been conceived later, but also in 1881, in the same way as Mrs. Lou Andreas-Salomé claims that it was later conceived by Nietzsche: as a mystery. See what Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche wrote to me in September 1898: "If this shattering thought could not be proven splendidly, irrefutably, scientifically, then it was better and more pious (sic) to treat it as a mystery, as a mysterious idea that can have tremendous consequences." It is not the mistakes Koegel has made that form the starting point of the whole battle; no, it is the fact that he, as editor, has not made a "mystery" out of the "idea of return". Just look at Mrs. Lou Salomé's book p. 225: "What should become scientifically proven truth takes on the character of a mystical revelation". Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche is thus not only marching in perfect harmony with Mrs. Lou Salomé, whom she otherwise fiercely opposes; no, she even surpasses her with regard to the doctrine of the Second Coming. What Mrs. Salomé claims only for Nietzsche's last period; Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche applies it to Nietzsche from the moment he conceived the thought. It is amusing for me, as I have often had the opportunity to notice Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's stormy opposition to Lou Salomé, to see how she leads Friedrich Nietzsche down the slippery slope - not of Eduard von Hartmann, but of Lou Andreas-Salomé. And Dr. Horneffer is in a position to lay a plan for the "Eternal Reappearance" work that also leads to these surreptitious paths of Mrs. Lou Salomé. After all, he says: "Nietzsche wanted to throw down his idea of the eternal return as a religious idea."

A reply to Dr. Seidl's “unmasking”

Dr. Arthur Seidl has felt compelled to defend Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche against the allegations I made in an article in "Magazin für Literatur" (No. 6 of the current 69th issue) by "unmasking" me. He uses the following means for this "debunking". He imputes dishonest, even impure motives to my statements. He asserts things off the top of his head about which he knows nothing other than what Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche told him. He accuses me of contradictory statements in my article. He falsifies an account of a fact given by me, either because he is unable to understand what I have written or because he deliberately wants to cast a false light on my actions by distorting them. He invents a new interpretation of the old Heraclitus in order to provide a metaphysical-psychological explanation of the fact that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche calls red today what was blue yesterday. He talks about the errors he found in Koegel's edition of Nietzsche's works. In between he rants.

I will discuss these means of Dr. Arthur Seidl one by one. It is very characteristic of this gentleman's attitude that he accuses me of having written the article about the Nietzsche Archive and about Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche in order to help the "Magazin", which I published "with highly controversial success", by creating a "sensation". If anything within literary philistinism has caused the talk of "controversial success", it is precisely the fact that I run the "Magazin" with the greatest sacrifices, without resorting to journalistic tricks and "sensations", purely from a factual point of view. The philistines would, of course, find it more rational if I made use of all possible gimmicks. I have renounced all successes that could ever have brought me "sensations". Dr. Seidl insinuates, out of a genuinely philistine attitude, that in such an important matter as Nietzsche's I am out for sensationalism. At the end of my article I have clearly stated what my motives were. "I would have remained silent even now if I had not been driven to indignation by Horneffer's brochure and by the protection that Lichtenberger's book has received: In what hands Nietzsche's estate is." There are simply people who cannot believe in objective motives. They transfer their own way of thinking onto others. Nietzsche would say: they lack the most elementary instincts of intellectual purity. I will come back to other motives that Dr. Seidl imputes to me later on.

First of all, it is necessary for me to correct the facts that Dr. Seidl has distorted in the most irresponsible manner, insofar as they relate to the role that I am supposed to have played in the break between Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche on the one hand and Dr. Fritz Koegel on the other. In the fall of 1896, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche moved with the Nietzsche Archive from Naumburg a.d.S. to Weimar. Around the time of her move, a large part of the German press reported that I was working on the Nietzsche edition together with Dr. Koegel. The author of this untrue note has never been discovered. I was highly embarrassed by it, for I knew Dr. Koegel's sensitivities in this direction. He attached great importance to being named in public as the sole editor of those parts of the edition which he really edited alone. Until then, he had edited the entire edition up to and including the tenth volume, with the exception of the parts edited by Dr. von der Hellen, the second volume of "Menschliches, Allzumenschliches" and the essay "Jenseits von Gut und Böse" in the seventh volume. He also assured me that when Dr. von der Hellen left the Nietzsche Archive, he had received a definite promise from Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche that he would be the sole editor of all volumes of the estate (following the eighth volume). I had every reason not to give the impression that I wanted to use my friendly relationship with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche to smuggle myself into the editorship. And Dr. Koegel had lost his sense of trust, as he had had a large number of differences with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche over the years, which had repeatedly led him to believe that his position had been shaken. It was necessary on my part to avoid any confusion about my completely unofficial relationship with the Nietzsche Archive. When I visited Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche in Weimar for the first time, at her request, I told her that the rumor that had arisen from the above newspaper article, as if I were to be employed at the Nietzsche Archive, must be firmly countered. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche agreed and at the same time regretted that the matter could not be true. I had the feeling that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche would have liked to see my employment at that time, but her definite promise to Dr. Koegel that he would be the sole editor in the future stood in the way. I would like to emphasize, however, that no mention was made of Dr. Koegel's inability to edit the edition alone. I have now sent to a number of German newspapers, with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's consent, a correction of the above-mentioned note, which contains the words: "The sole editor of Nietzsche's works is Dr. Fritz Koegel. I have no official relationship with the Nietzsche Archive. Nor is such a relationship envisaged for the future." Dr. Koegel was on a vacation trip at the time. He had left behind in the Nietzsche Archive the printed manuscript of the " Wiederkunft des Gleichen" (Return of the Same) that he had compiled. He had already sent me this compilation in July of the same year. I then spoke to him several times about the thoughts contained in the printed manuscript. I never went through Nietzsche's manuscript. In October 1896, I also spoke repeatedly with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche about the "Second Coming of the Same" and already then expressed the idea, which still forms my conviction today, that Nietzsche's main idea of the "Eternal Return" of all things arose from reading Dühring. In Dühring's "Kursus der Philosophie" this idea is expressed, only it is fought against there. We looked in Nietzsche's copy of Dühring's book and found the characteristic Nietzschean pencil marks in the margin where the thought is mentioned. At that time I told Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche many other things about the relationship of her brother's philosophy to other philosophical currents. The result was that one day she came out with the plan: I should develop my views and results for her in private lessons. Of course, even then I had the feeling, with which Dr. Seidl was now crawling, that these lectures should first be given by the editor of Nietzsche's writings; and I explained to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche that I could only agree to give the lectures if Dr. Koegel agreed. I talked it over with Dr. Koegel, and the plan with the private lessons was realized. When Dr. Seidl claims in an outrageously scolding tone that I have no right to call these lectures on the "philosophy of Nietzsche", I reply that I have no name for such an untrue assertion, for which he cannot provide the slightest proof. For it is simply a lie to call these lectures by any other name. I must surely know what I dealt with in the lessons. Dr. Seid] knows nothing about it. I dealt with Nietzsche's view of Greek philosophy, his relationship to modern philosophy, especially Kant's and Schopenhauer's, and the deeper foundations of his own thought. Dr. Seidl interprets the reasons why Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche took lessons from me in a - I really cannot say otherwise - childish way. But if what he says about it is true, then he would have done Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche the worst possible service by revealing these alleged reasons. He is imposing on her a deceitfulness and a frivolous game with people that, despite everything I know about her, I would not expect her to play. When she asked me for the lessons, she should not have wanted to learn something, but to examine me to see whether I was fit to be a Nietzsche editor. There can be no doubt that if I had had the slightest inkling of such a plan, I would have indignantly left Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, never to return. Dr. Seidl is of the opinion that this woman has caught me with such a plan in ambush under all kinds of pretexts. Anyone who does such a thing is acting frivolously. I leave it to Dr. Seidl to argue with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche about this interpretation of her conduct.

I continue with my account of the facts. Everything went pretty well until Dr. Koegel's engagement, which, if I remember correctly, took place at the end of November 1896. An error of memory on my part could only refer to a few days at most. Dr. Seidl finds himself compelled to accuse me of the "equally malicious and simple-minded insinuation" that I had made a connection between Dr. Koegel's engagement and the "enlightenment". engagement and Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's "enlightenment" about Koegel's talent "& tout prix". I believe that only a not entirely pure imagination can see a malicious insinuation in my sentence (in the "Magazin" essay). I said nothing more than: "Soon after Dr. Koegel's engagement, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche used my presence in the Nietzsche Archive during a private lesson to tell me that she had doubts about Dr. Koegel's abilities". Let us hear what a certainly classic witness says in this regard, namely Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche herself. In the unsolicited letter to me of September 1898, also mentioned by Dr. Seidl, she writes: "Dr. Koegel was not only to be the editor, but also the son and heir of the archive. But the latter was only possible if I had a sincere mutual friendship with Dr. Koegel. I also felt this lack and had hoped that we could become better friends through his marriage. But since I was completely mistaken about the bride, the lack of friendship and trust became much more noticeable after the engagement than before." Dr. Arthur Seidl! You dare to call me a "knight of the sad figure" because of my conduct towards Dr. Förster-Nietzsche. Look at you: how you fight! What you call a "malicious" and "simple-minded insinuation" of mine is nothing more than a reproduction of a passage from a letter by the "lonely woman" for whom you so "bravely" stand up, you knight in shining armor.

The fact is that almost immediately after the engagement a profound difference arose between Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche and Dr. Fritz Koegel. For me, this difference became more noticeable and more embarrassing with each passing day. As often as I met Dr. Koegel, he talked excitedly about scenes with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche and remarked that every day he felt more and more that she wanted to be rid of him. When I came to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's lessons, she brought up all sorts of things against Dr. Koegel. It is characteristic how her objections to Koegel's suitability as editor changed. At first she acted deeply offended that Dr. Koegel had neglected to put "Archivist of the Nietzsche Archive" on his engagement announcements. Soon afterwards, a new motif appeared on the scene. The family in Jena into which Dr. Koegel married was a pious one; Dr. Koegel would not be able to combine his position in the Nietzsche Archive with such a relationship. It would be bad if the Nietzsche editor had to get married in church and have his children baptized. As a light-hearted intermezzo, something else came in between. Dr. Koegel was reading the proof sheets of the French edition of Zarathustra because the Nietzsche Archive wanted to check this edition for accuracy. Koegel's bride was present at the reading of one of the sheets in the Nietzsche Archive. There was a discussion about the French translation of a sentence, and Dr. Koegel agreed with his bride about the correct French expression of a thought, contrary to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's opinion. She then complained to me that she was no longer the master of her archive. Gradually, such objections to Dr. Koegel gave rise to others, all in successive development. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche began to doubt Koegel's philosophical expertise. The matter was at this stage when, on December 5, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche attempted to involve me in the matter. The whole behavior of this woman, with all the dodges in which it was so rich, simply gave me the impression that she no longer wanted Koegel and was looking for all kinds of reasons. Dr. Arthur Seidl, in his comic chivalry, has an expression for this: "What at that time was still a certain unprovable instinct in her, subjective feeling and a dark sensation that the matter was not quite right, that something was not in order, was soon to prove... as a serious objective error and as scientific untenability". Strange, most strange: Mrs. Elisabeth Förster Nietzsche's instinct that something is scientifically wrong is expressed by the fact that she acts offended when her editor does not identify himself as "Archivist at the Nietzsche Archive" on his engagement announcements, or in the fear that he will get married in church.

If I were to characterize the role I had played in the whole affair up to that point, I could not say otherwise than that I acted as an "honest broker". I tried to present Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche with all the reasons I could find for retaining Dr. Koegel as editor. I tried to calm the sometimes highly agitated Dr. Koegel. Then came December 5. I had a lesson with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche. She had already indicated to me the day before, by a card she gave me, that she had important things to tell me the next day. This card was, of course, quite superfluous, because I would have appeared at the lesson that Saturday in any case. As soon as I arrived, the conversation turned to Dr. Koegel. He was an artist and an aesthete, but not a philosopher. He could not publish "The Revaluation of All Values" on his own. I have never denied that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche tried to persuade me at the time that I should become editor alongside Dr. Koegel, that she made all sorts of nebulous remarks about modes of collaboration, and so on. I made no secret to Dr. Koegel of this gossip of hers. Only at that moment did the mutual bitterness between Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche and Dr. Koegel run too high. I foresaw that the mere announcement that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche was planning to make a change in his position would provoke Dr. Koegel to the extreme. But Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche

I had to listen to her out of courtesy. I told her that with Dr. Koegel's present irritability, it was highly inadvisable to let him know anything about her plan. I myself never gave my consent to this plan. Everything I said can be summarized in the conditional sentence: "Madam, my consent is irrelevant; even if I wanted to, such a will would be without consequence". - Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche could not take these words to mean that I would have wanted to, but only as a conditional acceptance of her plan, not to agree, but to reduce it to absurdity. I wanted to make her understand: firstly, that she could not change Dr. Koegel's position now, after she had promised him sole editorship; secondly, that Dr. Koegel would never agree to work with a second editor. That was all that happened on my part. As you can see, I wanted nothing more than to continue playing the "honest broker" role. If Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche now believes that she can dispose of me as she pleases, it is only due to her peculiarity that she believes she can place people wherever she wants like chess pieces. For my part, I had not the slightest reason to take Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's word for not talking about her plan. It was absolutely her wish. I believe I even expressly remarked that, given my relationship with Dr. Koegel, I had to tell him something like that. Very well: we agreed not to talk about one of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's plans, the absurdity of which I had explained to her. Dr. Arthur Seidl has the audacity to present this as follows: "he made the request to the lady mentioned, to whom he must (or should) have felt a warm obligation, to protect his person in the event of any harangue her person from another side and then to deny a de facto consultation with his mouth - to put it nicely: the imposition of a lie". This is where Dr. Seidl commits an objective falsification. At the express wish of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, I gave her my word not to speak of her plan to Dr. Koegel, and then naturally asked her to do the same. Because I knew what would come out if she said anything. Where on earth can one speak of the imposition of a "lie"? But Dr. Seidl wants to say something completely different. He wants to create the impression that, after Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had broken her word, which was not given because of me but because of her, I would have expected her to deny something. I will tell you in a moment how things stand with this supposed denial. But first I must tell Dr. Seidl that he is either incapable of understanding the account I have given (in the "Magazin" article), or that he is deliberately falsifying it. He has to choose between two things, either he has to confess that he does not understand a clearly formulated sentence, or the other, that he deliberately commits a falsification in order to slander me. In the former case, the impression of his comic knighthood increases for me; in the latter, however, I must tell him what Carl Vogt said to the Göttingen Court Councillor in the famous materialism dispute:

"To a rough block a rough wedge,
To a rascal one and a half!"

Sunday followed Saturday. On this day, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had arranged an engagement dinner for Dr. Koegel at the Nietzsche Archive. Various gentlemen from the Weimar Goethe Archive were invited, as well as Gustav Naumann, who together with his uncle ran the publishing house where Nietzsche's works were published, myself and others. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche gave a speech during the meal in which she praised Koegel's services to the Nietzsche edition in words of appreciation. After the meal, she took Gustav Naumann aside and told him: Dr. Koegel was not a philosopher; he could not do the "revaluation of all values" at all. Dr. Steiner was a philosopher, he had read her philosophy splendidly; he can and will do the revaluation. Mr. Gustav Naumann believed he owed it to his friendship with Dr. Koegel to inform him of this conversation with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche that very evening. Now Dr. Koegel's excitement, which I had wanted to avoid, had erupted. I met him that same evening. I calmed him down by telling him that I would do everything I could to keep him; I would never agree to become a second editor. I made no mention of my fruitless conversation with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche on Saturday, because I was bound by my word; and even if that had not been the case, it would not have been necessary, for why waste words on Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's talk, since it could lead to nothing without my consent. On the following Wednesday I received a letter from Dr. Koegel, who had gone to Jena to visit his future parents-in-law, in which he informed me that on Tuesday Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had told Koegel's sister (whom she used at that time as an official intermediary between herself and Dr. Koegel, although she could always have spoken to him herself) that I had declared that a collaboration between myself and Dr. Koegel would be excellent, and that I would be happy to agree to it. Both were incorrect, as can be seen from my explanation of the facts. (Dr. Seidl, of course, has the audacity to claim a priori that it is correct. Another philosophical principle: what you cannot prove, you assert a priori). This Wednesday I had to go to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's class again. I now confronted her. I explained to her that she had put me in a fatal situation with her incorrect information. Dr. Koegel could not possibly explain the matter in any other way than that I was playing the role of an intriguer who was pretending other things than were going on behind the scenes. I told her in the most definite terms that I would clarify the matter in a preliminary letter to Dr. Koegel, and that I must demand that she herself set the record straight before Dr. Koegel and myself. I said at the time that I found it almost unbelievable that she should appear to be an intriguer, when I had made every effort to see that the facts of the case were absolutely clear. At the same time I remarked, in order to make clear to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche the full extent of the inconvenience she had caused me: I would rather shoot myself than gain a position through intrigue. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche then twisted these words in such a way that she later often claimed that I had said I would have to shoot myself if she did not retract her false statements. Dr. Seidl also rehashes the nonsensical duel tale. Never did Dr. Koegel threaten a duel. He did, however, write to Naumann that if what Mrs. Förster had said about an intrigue of mine turned out to be true, he wanted to challenge me. This passage from Dr. Koegel's letter became known to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche; and she later, with the intention of riding me into enmity with Dr. Koegel, threw this threat, which was only uttered behind my back - to use Dr. Seidi's tasteful comparative language - "like a sausage at a ham". She could not bring this threat of a duel to my ears and eyes often enough, both verbally and in writing. Dr. Seidl had the audacity to say that I had "imploringly asked" Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche to "lie my way out of it". If Dr. Seidl, as such a comical knight, did not faithfully parrot everything he was told: one would truly have to take him for a rogue. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche now claimed in the conversation just discussed that she had written me a letter the previous day - that is, on Tuesday - in which I would find the explanation for her behavior. I said I wouldn't have cared about such a letter, but I never received one. And strangely enough, on Wednesday afternoon, a few hours after the conversation with Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, I found a letter from her in which she wrote the following: "So today, for certain reasons, I was compelled to tell Miss Koegel that I had asked you whether, in the event that I asked you to publish the revaluation with Dr. Koegel, you would be inclined to do so and whether you believed that you would both be finished with it in a year; - you would have answered in the affirmative. You also said that Dr. Koegel had already told you of similar intentions on my part. This was all on Saturday. I will let you know quickly so that you are informed." So Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche believed that she could dispose of me in any way she liked; she only had to give the order: I say you have done this and then it is so. "I'll let you know quickly so that you are informed." It was also urgently necessary, this instruction. It's just a pity that I only received the letter after Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche had already wreaked havoc. Otherwise I would have told her beforehand: "If for certain reasons you feel compelled to say false things about me, then for certain reasons I will feel compelled to accuse you of untruth. On December 10, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche made a definite statement to Dr. Koegel, myself and two witnesses that what she had said to Koegel's sister about me was not true. The next day she was already sorry again that she had made this statement, and she tried to turn the matter around in the following way. She insisted that there had been a conversation between her and me on the Saturday in question. I had to admit that. I explained to her on the Saturday of ır. December: it didn't matter that there had been any conversation at all, but only that the information she had given Koegel's sister was incorrect. For me, the matter was now closed. I can prove that I never demanded of Frau Förster that she should deny anything; rather, from the moment I heard of her incorrect statements through Dr. Koegel, I was quite certain that I also reproached her for this incorrectness. On Sunday, December 2, she wrote me a letter from which it is clear that I never asked her to lie to me, but that I always asserted the incorrectness of her statements to her face. In this letter she writes: "It is a pity that we have never spoken properly about the whole matter. Think that I was indeed firmly convinced that you knew as well as I did that the much disputed conversation had really taken place. Now you think that yesterday it suddenly dawned on me that you are really and truly convinced that you have heard nothing of the things I remember exactly." So Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche built golden bridges for herself by claiming to remember exactly. I allowed her the pleasure. I have no interest in the way she makes things up. But she admits here that I never - as Dr. Seidl now "chivalrously" babbles - "implored" her to lie, but that I told her frankly and freely: it is not true that I gave my consent. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche goes on to describe the matter quite nicely: "What a boundless pity that I was not convinced sooner, for then the whole thing would have gained a much more cheerful and natural appearance. It was nothing more than one of those cases of absent-mindedness that so often occur, especially among scholars: one person talks about certain things in a vague way, the other listens distractedly, says yes and makes friendly faces, and then forgets the whole thing in the subsequent philosophical lecture." Now Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche may rest assured that I would certainly not have forgotten a promise on my part. But what she said was meaningless and actually irrelevant to me.

So. Now I come back to you, Dr. Arthur Seidl. I have proved to you that you were reckless enough to repeat things whose incorrectness is easy to demonstrate. Before I show you the flimsiness of your assertions about my alleged contradictions, I will ask you two more things. I. You write: "And it must not be overlooked that in the whole battle that broke out, the selfish and personal motives were entirely on the side of her (Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's) opponents, who as Nietzsche's publishers wanted to create pecuniary advantages for themselves." Since you speak of Nietzsche publishers in the plural, you imply that I have ever sought pecuniary advantages in this matter. I was never a Nietzsche publisher; I never wanted to become one, so I never wanted to gain pecuniary advantages. You will not be able to provide proof for your assertions. You are therefore putting slander into the world. 2. you claim: I should have felt a warm obligation towards Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche. I challenge you to tell me the very least that entitles Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche to claim any special thanks from me.

But now to your "logical contradictions" in my essay. You, Dr. Arthur Seidl, claim that it follows from my account that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche must have been convinced in the autumn of 1896 that the volumes ııı and ı2 were erroneous, since she claimed that Dr. Koegel could not publish the "Umwertung". You say: "Well, I think that in such a case one can only feel doubt and anxiety on the basis of existing samples and work already done, which must have been available from Dr. Koegel up to and including volume 12." If there is even a milligram of sense in this reply, then I want to be called "Peter Zapfel". I declare on the basis of the facts that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche knew nothing of errors in the ıı. and ı2. volumes in the autumn of 1896 and conclude from this that she based her assertion that Dr. Koegel could not publish the "Umwertung" on nothing; and the Dr. Seidl comes and says: Yes, it is precisely from the fact that she declared him incapable of publishing the "Umwrertung" that one can see that she must have recognized the flawed nature of volumes 11 and ı2. Think of this philosopher Seidl as a judge. The defense lawyer of a defendant proves that he could not have committed a murder that demonstrably took place in Berlin at ı2 o'clock because the defendant only arrived in Berlin at ı2 o'clock. The judge, Dr. Seidl, throws himself on his chest and says: "Mr. Defense Attorney, you are not a logician: if the defendant only arrived in Berlin at ı2 o'clock, then the murder can only have happened after one o'clock. Well, after this rehearsal, I won't get any further into Dr. Seidl's logic. It seems too unfruitful. It is the height of nonsense that old Heraclitus has to be used to justify Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche calling red today what was blue yesterday. "Everything flows", says the good Heraclitus; therefore, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's statements about one and the same object may also "flow". "Yesterday's blue color can indeed take on a reddish hue in our eyes, depending on today's lighting." Certainly it can, wise Dr. Seidl; but if you claim that the color that only took on a red hue today already had it yesterday, then you have simply lied, despite your ingenious interpretation of Heraclitus. You are no different to old Heraclitus than you are to me: you know quite as much about both: namely nothing.¹

I am not arguing with you about the value of Lichtenberger's book, Dr. Seidl. For you are just as happy with the justification of this book from Nietzsche's sentence . with the "light feet" as you are with the derivation of "Today blue, tomorrow red" from Heraclitus' "Everything flows". Certainly, Dr. Seidl, light feet are a great advantage; but in such cases as the one we are dealing with here, they must carry a spirit-filled head. Zarathustra is a dancer, says Nietzsche. Dr. Seidl quickly re-evaluates this Nietzschean value: every dancer is a Zarathustra. What you can learn in Weimar today!

You are forgiven, Dr. Seidl, for tearing down my booklet "Nietzsche, a fighter against his time". By the way, you can believe me that I know the weaknesses of this book, written five years ago, better than you do. I would perhaps write some things differently today. But it has one advantage over many: it is an honest book in every line. That is why it has not only found praise among Nietzsche followers, but a fierce opponent of Nietzsche recently found that I am the only one among Nietzsche's followers who "can be taken seriously". Dr. Seidl claims that in "Zarathustra" it is not the idea of the "superman" that is important, but the "eternal return". He puts forward a reason for this that is truly "godly". This idea occurs no less than three times in Zarathustra. Now three times some other thoughts also occur in Zarathustra. According to Mr. Seidl's logic, they could therefore just as well be placed above the "superman" thought, which does not occur three times, but runs like a red thread through the whole. And that "the whole" boils down to the idea of the Second Coming is simply not true. Dr. Seidl also seems to sense the flimsiness of his logic; in order to prove more than he is capable of, he invokes the fact that Richard Strauss turned the "nuptial ring of rings" into the "light-footed" ring dance of an ideal waltz rhythm. This is how I recognize Dr. Arthur Seidl. I have the honor of knowing him from Weimar. It was always like this with him: wherever concepts were lacking, he always found the right music at the right time.

A logical snippet from Dr. Seidl, which, however, seems to point to the current school in the Nietzsche Archive, I would like to mention at the end. With all kinds of sources, Dr. Seidl claims that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche has "so far made the right decision in all decisive points concerning the organization of the complete edition". Now she and the current editors claim that on the most important point so far, with regard to Dr. Koegel's editorship, she has made the wrong decision. As the logic goes: "All Cretans are liars, says a Cretan. Since he himself is a liar, it cannot be true that all Cretans are liars. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche has always hit on the right thing, so she also hit on the right thing when she claimed that she had hit on the wrong thing with Dr. Fritz Koegel. That is Nietzsche editor logic.

Now I would like to say a few words about your brazen assertions at the end of your essay. Dr. Seidl, it is you, not me, who is pulling the wool over the eyes of uninformed people. For I have admitted from the outset the errors which you reproach Koegel's edition with and about which you do not know enough "morality tales" to tell. I have even conceded that an edition with such errors may be withdrawn if the opportunity arises. It is not these errors that matter. I believe them, too, without first checking them again, as you do with Dr. Koegel. The main point of my refutation of Horneffer's brochure consists in proving that the aphorisms compiled by Dr. Koegel in volume ı2 do indeed give an idea of the form of the "Eternal Reappearance Doctrine" that this doctrine took in Nietzsche in August 1881. In order to provide such proof, one need only have the aphorisms printed in volume ı2 in front of one's eyes. The reading errors made by Koegel do not change this. Dr. Seidl avoids a reply to this proof of mine with the completely meaningless suspicion: I judge without having seen the manuscripts. No, I have not seen them; but I do not need to have seen them for what I am claiming. I lack the space here to substantiate my conviction regarding Nietzsche's idea of the "Eternal Second Coming" in greater depth. I will do so elsewhere. The fact is - as can be asserted with a probability almost bordering on certainty - that Nietzsche took up the idea of the "Eternal Second Coming" from Dühring and initially envisaged it as the opposite view to the generally accepted one, which was also held by Dühring. The "draft" that Koegel communicated in the ı2nd volume belongs to the time when Nietzsche had such a plan. However, he soon dropped the idea because he felt that the "draft" of 1881 could not be realized. Later it only appeared sporadically, as in Zarathustra, and at the very end of his work it reappeared, as I now believe, as one of the symptoms of the madness that had previously announced itself. What Dr. Koegel published in the ı2nd volume could therefore only be a flawed work, simply because the insertion of the idea of reincarnation into Nietzsche's system of ideas was a flawed one. And some critics, e.g. Mr. Kretzer (in an article in the "Frankfurter Zeitung"), felt this deficiency. And it was around this time that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's earlier "dark feeling" began to become an "objective error" on the part of Dr. Koegel. In the aforementioned unsolicited letter to me, she wrote: "If this shattering thought could not be proven splendidly, irrefutably, scientifically, it was better and more reverent to treat it as a mystery than as a mysterious idea that could have tremendous consequences. The scientific proof would have come! It is clear from all my brother's notes that he wished this idea to be treated in this way: "Don't speak! Dr. Koegel's poor, misguided, falsified publication murdered this tremendous idea! I will never forgive him for that." I believed: here we have the crux of the matter. The core. Nietzsche's work on the "Eternal Return" from 1881 is untenable. Nietzsche abandoned the plan because it was untenable. Dr. Koegel, as editor of the estate, had to give an idea of this untenable work. That is his main crime. What is untenable in Nietzsche is to be explained as a forgery by the editor. Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche claims on $. LXIV of her introduction to Lichtenberger's book that "this strange and meager publication must disappoint every sincere Nietzsche admirer". Well, the sincere Nietzsche admirers cannot be disappointed when they see that the revered man conceives a flawed plan and then puts it aside because he recognizes its inadequacy. Whoever is of the opinion of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche that these embryonic developments of thought should have been published with the addition of the later ones that perfected them (see introduction to Lichtenberger p. LXIV): precisely he has the tendency: the form of the idea of reincarnation, as Nietzsche had it in 1881, should have been falsified by the addition of later thoughts.

I have never disputed the merits of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, which she really has. I even remember a certain letter that I wrote to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, although not unsolicited at the time, in which I wrote about these real merits, because Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche needed something like that at the time. She wrote me a letter on October 27, 1895, in which she thanked me for my letter: "Your manifesto against the unbelievers and the uninstructed pleases Dr. Koegel and me extraordinarily and we read it with great edification. Thank you very much for it." But there was nothing to entitle Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche to draw me into a matter that was none of my business, into which I did not want to be drawn. And when this involvement then had consequences that Dr. Seidl calls "more brutal than particularly effective", I was again the first to regret that such scenes had been made necessary. But no one else made them necessary than Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche.

If only the "lonely woman" in Weimar had not been treated worse by anyone than by me! Right up to the point when she provoked me in an outrageous way, of course. I wonder if she gets along better with knights of comic stature like Dr. Arthur Seidl!

• 1. Dr. Seidl endeavors to explain the contradictory nature of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's behavior in anthropological terms; now I think I would have said in my essay, in order to ward off any moral accusations against her: "I expressly emphasize, however, that I have never suspected Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche of deliberately distorting facts or deliberately making untrue assertions. No, she believes what she says at every moment." To use the pompous word "anthropological explanation" for this interpretation of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's mental characteristics in the style of Dr. Seidl goes against my taste.

Berlin, June 27, 1898 Dear Madam!

The weeks that have passed since I was once again allowed to visit the Nietzsche Archive - after a long time - have brought me many worries and excitements; and with these I ask you, dear madam, to excuse the fact that I am only able to follow up on the previous discussion today. From information given to me by my dear friend Dr. Heitmüller, I see how you, madam, currently feel about the matter.

You will certainly believe in my enthusiasm for the great cause of Friedrich Nietzsche, dear madam, and you yourself have often spoken such beautiful words to me about my understanding of his art and his teaching that I was deeply moved. I have now suffered deeply since those unfortunate days, which will remain in the memory of all concerned. You may believe me, madam, that it is not at all in my nature to bring my personal interests into the great affair that has become yours through the leadership of your brother's cause. You know, madam, how satisfied I was with the secondary role I was given for a time. At that time I did not feel called upon to assert dissenting views, because I considered it my duty to do nothing against existing rights. But you, dear madam, know best of all that I myself contributed nothing to the role which circumstances then forced upon me. The pain of which I spoke was increased by a special circumstance. Surely you remember our conversation - I think it was in the late summer of '96 - about the "eternal return". At that time we arrived at an idea about this doctrine which I should have developed and defended; then this doctrine would have become a subject of discussion in the widest circles today. I am infinitely sorry that such things, which I believe lie in the direction of my talent, but which I could and should only have done with your constant support, were not done by me. The volume in which the Return of the Same is found should have become an event in Nietzsche literature. You may believe me, madam, that it is infinitely difficult for me to be so distant from the cause of Friedrich Nietzsche now. I felt the pain renewed in your last beautiful letter in the "Zukunft".

I would like to return once again to messages that my dear and highly esteemed friend Heitmüller sent me. You seem, dear madam, to doubt my courage. I assure you that I will not lack courage in a matter that is so close to my heart. And from the unreserved frankness with which I speak here, may you, madam, draw the proof of how seriously I take this matter, how it is linked to my innermost thoughts, feelings and will.

No matter how one may judge my talent: I am deeply rooted in the way of thinking that has found such a grandiose expression through Friedrich Nietzsche, and therefore feel able to contribute my mite to the spread of his art and teachings. I did this myself only recently on the occasion of a lecture I gave in the city of Kant, in Königsberg. The people of Königsberg were unable to suppress their slight displeasure, but afterwards a few clever people confessed to me that the good people of Königsberg only have the understanding for their Kant to gather every year on his birthday and eat their lunch dishes, which are popular in Königsberg. There is no toast because the people of Königsberg don't know what to say about Kant.

May these words of mine show you, madam, that nothing has changed in my nature and that I will always be able to uphold the words that I often said to you in the good, happy hours before the unfortunate events. How can we better honor and understand Friedrich Nietzsche than that we, who believe we have the talents to do so, do our part to spread his ideas? I would consider it an abandonment of myself if I acted otherwise. I am and will always have the strength and courage to stand up for his cause.

With heartfelt respect, yours sincerely

Rudolf Steiner
Berlin W., Habsburgerstr. 11 I.

The outrageous attacks that have recently been directed against me by the Nietzsche Archive and its friends, in particular the outrageous one by Mr. Michael Georg Conrad in the second June issue of the "Gesellschaft", oblige me to add the following to the whole dispute. I was prompted to write the essay that I directed against the "Nietzsche Archive" in Weimar in February of this year (in No. 6 of this weekly) by two facts. The first was the protection given by the "Nietzsche Archive" to the book by the French philosopher Henri Lichtenberger "La Philosophie de Nietzsche". This book was published at the end of last year in German translation with an introduction by Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche. In this introduction, Nietzsche's sister says quite clearly that she identifies with Lichtenberger's remarks. It is my conviction that the French philosopher's book distorts Nietzsche's ideas into the trivial. Nevertheless, I might never have bothered with it if it had not been declared the official interpretation of Nietzsche's world view by the introduction and explanation of Nietzsche's sister. That I can have a disparaging judgment of the book for no other than factual reasons, I already proved in the above-mentioned attack by the fact that I myself am praised in the book by Lichtenberger. I will add today that not only am I discussed in the course of Lichtenberger's account (on $. 179 of the French edition) in a way that, if I were concerned with personal vanity or the like, could fully satisfy me, but that the following passage is also found on the last page of the French edition: "R. Steiner. F. Nietzsche, ein Kämpfer gegen seine Zeit, Weimar 1895; ouvrage signal& par Mme Foerster-Nietzsche comme exposant le plus fidelement les idees de son frere." The second fact that prompted my attack was the appearance of a brochure by Dr. E. Horneffer, the current editor of the Nietzsche edition, "Nietzsche's Return of the Same and its publication to date." In this pamphlet, Nietzsche's view of the eternal return of all things is the subject of assertions which I consider to be fundamentally false. At the same time, it is said that the former editor of the Nietzsche edition, Dr. Fritz Koegel, made egregious errors in the publication of the "Eternal Return" in the 12th volume, which has since been withdrawn from the book trade by the Nietzsche Archive. These errors are said to consist not only in individual readings; but by compiling the individual aphorisms belonging to the idea of the Second Coming, Dr. Koegel is said to have given a completely false picture of what Nietzsche wanted. I have not doubted the errors in detail, but have tried to defend my view that despite them, the picture that the reader gains of Nietzsche's writings from the ı2nd volume corresponds to the true one. Dr. Horneffer sought to maintain his assertion in a reply to my attack in No. ı5 of this weekly. I further defended my conviction in a reply (No. 15 ff. of the "Magazin"). My opinion is that the Nietzsche Archive is not presenting the facts of the case correctly. I am of the opinion, and believe that I have sufficiently proven this in numbers 15-17 of the "Magazin", that Nietzsche's doctrine of the Second Coming is a misguided work, and that Nietzsche himself soon convinced himself of the untenability of the ideas under consideration here. That is why he did not develop the concept any further. What we have in the 12th volume could therefore only give a picture of an unsustainable train of thought by Friedrich Nietzsche. The Nietzsche Archive, however, claims that the appearance of untenability is only caused by Dr. Koegel's misguided editing.

There is therefore a completely scientific dispute here. I am of the opinion that I am defending the truth against a distortion. Unfortunately, in my aforementioned essay, I had to add to the factual attack against the current publications of the Nietzsche Archive a characterization of the events that led to Dr. Fritz Koegel's dismissal. For I had to show that this dismissal was not due to Koegel's academic ability, but to a personal dispute between Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and Dr. Koegel. To this end, I have simply related the facts that I know from personal experience. From the day I wrote the essay, I was aware that I would be subjected to the sharpest attacks from Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche and her friends. This could not prevent me from speaking the truth in a matter that is as important to me as Nietzsche's cause. Nevertheless, I might have avoided speaking about the character traits and actions of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche if this woman had not made it necessary by the way she administers her brother's estate. Anyone who pushes herself personally to the fore like Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche regrettably makes a purely factual treatment of the matters under consideration impossible. The public should accept what Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche says and does. That is why she also had to be informed about her qualities. There was therefore a compelling reason for me to make a personal characterization, despite knowing what misinterpretations I was exposing myself to by such an approach. I know two things: firstly, that Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche is a charming socialite, captivating through her personal amiability, and that this quality clouds the view of her friends for a truthful assessment of her qualities. I could therefore imagine that her friends would fall all over me. The second is that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche undeniably has great merits in the administration of her brother's estate. These can always be played off against someone who is forced to act as an opponent of this woman. And I could have no doubt that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche herself would defend herself in a way that corresponds to the character I have outlined. I therefore understand her outrageous attack in No. 29 of the "Zukunft" (of April 21, 1900), and finally I also understand the defence that Dr. Arthur Seidl sang for her in the first May issue of the "Gesellschaft". This "defense" of Dr. Seidl shows sufficiently what kind of a child the defender is; and I have unraveled his web of incorrect assertions, of frivolous accusations of my person, and, what matters to me above all, of unbelievable logical nonsense, in the second May issue of the "Gesellschaft".

But now comes something completely incomprehensible. In the second June issue of the "Gesellschaft", Mr. Michael Georg Conrad published a short essay entitled "Steiner versus Seidl", which trumps everything incredible that has been achieved by Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's friends. This essay begins: "For Steiner's manner and behavior in the Nietzsche controversy, I feel that one sentence is decisive, which flows from Steiner's pen in "Magazin" as well as in "Gesellschaft". An artist of style like Steiner writes what he wants to write, with full consideration of the moments of impression and the suggestive value of each individual word. Everything unconscious and unintentional is excluded. Therefore, Dr. Steiner has to bear full responsibility for the effect of his writing. In discussing the effect, I will limit myself to a single sentence. - In the "Society" it is found at $. 201, line 9: "Soon after Dr. Koegel's engagement, Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche used my presence, etc." And now my opponent follows this sentence with the following edifying observation: "Now everything is as clear as day. Now it's obvious why Dr. Koegel has remained silent about the most serious accusations ever since. The persecuted man of honor could not open his mouth out of pure consideration. Of course. Silence is a knight's duty in such a case. Only his faithful squire, Dr. Rudolf Steiner, was allowed to tap on this point with a careful finger. Koegel's engagement! Aha! Poor Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, out of spurned love you acted so wickedly towards the archive doctor and gave him the slip! Because she was not the chosen one! - This is how the uninfluenced, naive reader argues, this is how he must argue. ... The other reader is different, who, with sufficient knowledge of the people and the facts, scrutinizes every word spoken in this dispute with extreme coldness and caution. He receives a completely different impression of Steiner's prose in "Magazin" and in "Gesellschaft" and in "Zukunft" than the good-natured, gullible average reader who is so grateful for ambiguity and scandal. - He reacts to the motif of "Dr. Koegel's engagement", so casually struck, in Steiner's score also with an "aha!" and a "Donnerwetter! But for a substantially different reason. In a flash, this one note has illuminated Dr. Steiner's entire method and attitude to the core. Everything is bright and clear through and through. All the contrapuntal ingenuity, all the contradictory repartee, all the dazzle of syllabic bravura, all the pomposity and snark - poor, ineffective arts! He disrespected the woman and thus stirred up all the dull and evil feelings in the flock to the detriment of Nietzsche's venerable sister. By appealing to the community of bad instincts, Steiner has judged himself."

Now Dr. Arthur Seidl has already reproached me with the same thing in his article in the "Gesellschaft" and found it compatible with his taste and other of his qualities to call my sentence in question an "equally malicious and simple-minded insinuation". I did not owe him the answer. I have provided him with objective proof - as objective as it can be - that I did not insinuate anything, but that with this sentence I merely reproduced a passage in a letter from Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche (from a letter to me), which reads: "Dr. Koegel was not only to be the editor, but also the son and heir of the archive. However, the latter was only possible if I had a sincere mutual friendship with Dr. Koegel. I felt this lack and had hoped that we could become better friends through his marriage. But since I was completely mistaken about the bride, the lack of friendship and trust became much more noticeable after the engagement than before."

I told Dr. Seidl: "Only a not entirely pure imagination can see a malicious insinuation in my sentence." And now comes Mr. Michael Georg Conrad, ignores my proof, ignores the interpretation that my sentence receives from the fact that it does not come from me, but from Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche, and erects an edifying accusation on this "single" sentence. There are now only two assumptions for me. Either I return Mr. Michael Georg Conrad's compliment and say: "A stylistic artist like Michael Georg Conrad writes what he wants to write, with full consideration of the moments of impression and the suggestive value of each individual word. Therefore, Mr. Michael Georg Conrad has to bear full responsibility for the effect of his writing." Then I would have to say: Mr. Michael Georg Conrad writes an objectively refuted assertion with the specific intention of suspecting me, of degrading me in public opinion. He uses the means that he hopes many will fall for: he sets himself up as the protector of a "worthy" woman who has been severely insulted in her femininity. He is imputing to me the intention of speculating on the base instincts of the "herd" in the most disgraceful way. Anyone who is reasonably unbiased could form their own opinion of my statements, which reflect objective facts, if I wanted to say that about Michael Georg Conrad. I did not need to put my own here, for - what could I possibly care about the statements of a man who is capable of such things! But I do not believe that this is the case. On the contrary, I am of the opinion that Mr. Michael Georg Conrad writes his plate in good faith. He has not the slightest understanding of the whole matter, of the content of the dispute. And because this content is a closed book to him, because he is completely incapable of forming a real judgment, he falls for the marked way out in his childish - basically harmless - manner. Instead, I attach particular importance to another sentence in Conrad's writing. It reads: "The most blind must realize today that everything and every right in this dispute is on the side of Nietzsche's sister." I subscribe to this sentence. Yes, I claim to have proven precisely this sentence through my "contrapuntal resourcefulness" in "Magazin", "Gesellschaft" and "Zukunft". Yes, the "blindest" will realize that everything and every right is on the side of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche. The sighted, however, must be convinced of the opposite. I do not shorten Mr. Michael Georg Conrad's claim to belong to the "blindest" by one iota. He is fully entitled to this claim. He disregards everything I have said on the matter; he asserts the most childish things from the "personal and factual knowledge" that he can muster. When such a man then says: "Dr. Koegel, Dr. Steiner and Gustav Naumann (the author of the silly Zarathustra commentary with the ragamuffin-like naughty and malicious introductions) have severely damaged the reputation of German scholarship, education and chivalry" (on p. 374 of the "Society"), I can only smile pityingly at such a sentence. Moreover, I do not need to prove that Mr. Michael Georg Conrad - whom I appreciate to a certain extent as a poet and novelist - has nothing, nothing at all to do with German scholarship. Because anyone who is at all familiar with "German science" knows that.

I believe Mr. Michael Georg Conrad that it would be right for him if my voice in the Nietzsche controversy could be eliminated with talk as far removed from the issue as his is. For then he, who is not entitled to a judgment on the matter, could do something.

It remains sad that an article like Michael Georg Conrads is possible at all. You champion a cause, and some random person who happens to have personal connections to the people involved in the cause comes along and dares to write in the most spiteful way - to write upholding an absolutely disproved assertion - without at the same time feeling obliged to somehow address the substance of what matters.

And a man who proceeds in this way also has the naivety to pass judgment on the endangerment of "German education". -- One would have to become quite bitter if the matter were not so boundlessly ridiculous. So let's leave Mr. Michael Georg Conrad alone.

With Dr. Arthur Seidl, who in the first May issue of the "Gesellschaft" repeated with as much loquacity as lack of insight what he had been told in Weimar, who does not deny my assertion that Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche today calls blue what was red to her yesterday, but explains from the theorem of the old Heraclitus that "everything flows", - with this Dr. Arthur Seidl in my essay "Frau Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche und ihr Ritter von komischer Gestalt" (2nd May issue of "Gesellschaft"). However, since Michael Georg Conrad's omissions again contain a sentence in a slightly different form that Dr. Seidl already dared to write, I will at least repeat here what I replied to this gentleman on p. 208 of the "Gesellschaft". Mr. Seidl had the audacity to write: "And it must not be overlooked that in the whole battle that broke out, the self-interested and personal motives lay entirely on the side of her (Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's) opponents, who, as Nietzsche publishers, wanted to create pecuniary advantages for themselves." I replied to this gentleman: "Since you speak of Nietzsche publishers in the plural, you are implying that I have ever sought pecuniary advantages in this matter. I was never a Nietzsche publisher; I never wanted to become one, so I never wanted to gain pecuniary advantages. You will not be able to provide proof for your assertions. So you are putting slander into the world."

Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche herself objected to my attack in an article entitled "Der Kampf um die Nietzsche-Ausgabe" in No. 29 of "Die Zukunft" (dated April 2, 1900). It simply asserts: "In the autumn of 1896, he (Dr. Rudolf Steiner) had the passionate desire to become Nietzsche editor, as he was without a position after completing his work on the natural science part of the Goethe edition."

"...As long as Dr. Steiner still saw the slightest possibility that I could involve him in the complete edition, he remained silent. Only now, when he sees from Hornefler's writing and has probably also heard that he is completely superfluous and that everything is going well in the Nietzsche Archive, both philologically and philosophically, does he seek revenge." Although I know Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, I would not have assumed that she would try to impute ugly, personal motives to my attack by making assertions that are as completely out of thin air as this one. I never applied for the position of Nietzsche editor, never expressed a wish of Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche in this direction. On the contrary, in the fall of 1896 I had to fend off this woman's continual "strangest attempts" to make me an editor. Despite this, today she is able to write sentences like the ones quoted. As much as I would have liked to avoid this, I must now return to Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's efforts to involve me in some way in the work of the Nietzsche Archive with words that illuminate the situation even more crudely than those I have used so far. For years, this woman kept me busy trying to carve out some kind of position for me in the Nietzsche Archive. She started in the spring of 1895. She wanted me to come to Naumburg for at least a few days - the Nietzsche Archive was there at the time - to organize and catalog Nietzsche's library. I evaded her for as long as I could in every possible way, finally invoking the "weakened state of health" so popular in such cases. Then I complied with her wish and cataloged the library. I thought this would give me peace of mind. I had been mistaken. The molesting didn't stop. When Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche moved to Weimar in the autumn of 1896, where I was also living at the time, I even used a clear sign of rudeness to avoid any further questions. At first I did not pay Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche a visit in Weimar. She wrote to me saying that I would like to come. I have described several times the situation I was in when the quarrel with Dr. Koegel broke out. I would certainly have left Weimar at that time to be safe from Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche if it had not been my heart's desire to complete my final work on "Goethe's Weltanschauung" in the place where I had spent years thinking and researching Goethe's view of nature. I only made one mistake. I allowed the importance of Nietzsche's cause to keep me from putting Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche's chair in front of the door again and again. And this woman is now saying that I wanted to take revenge because I did not get a position in the Nietzsche Archive. Indeed, in No. 33 (May 9, 1900) of the "Zukunft" she manages to write: "It seems insignificant to me that Dr. Steiner wants to prove that I offered him the position, but he did not even consider it. I do not know whether there are people anywhere who think it possible that I am considering an editor who does not want it at all." Yes, of course, one should not think it possible. But Mrs. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche has done the impossible after all. She claims so many things. For example, she also says (in an omission from May 19 that trumps the one from April 21): "Since the spring of 1894 it had been Dr. Steiner's passionate wish to become Nietzsche editor; and when I, who at that time could not think of choosing him because he was still employed at the Goethe Archive, hired Dr. v. d. Hellen, who was just concluding his work at the Goethe Archive, Dr. Steiner made a terrible scene for Mr. v. d. Hellen and accused him in the most embarrassing way of having taken away this position for which he would have been predestined." Of course, I do not want to draw attention to the glaring contradiction that lies in the fact that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche claims: she could not have thought of hiring me because I was busy elsewhere, but I would very well have thought of seeking the position in the Nietzsche Archive despite being tied up elsewhere. After all, there are more than enough contradictions in everything Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche writes. But this is a good example of how she retells facts. I once had the misfortune of being considered the most suitable Nietzsche editor, not by me, but by a number of other people. Dr. von der Hellen also had this opinion at the time. He therefore took a step with quite noble and benevolent intentions, which, from my point of view, I had to resent. He, who had a position at the Nietzsche Archive, came to me to apologize for it. At the time I had not even remotely thought of seeking the position, and felt quite uncomfortable that I was expected to placate myself. The tearful story that Mrs. Förster-Nietzsche also told in the "Zukunft" on May 9 is just as incorrect as the "embarrassing" scene with v. d. Hellen, but a good deal more ridiculous.

For the time being, that should suffice. For with the basic fable that I had the unfortunate wish to become Nietzsche's editor, all other little fibs fall apart by themselves.

Books like this one can only owe their origin to the unfortunate mania of wanting to write at all costs. On 124 pages, the author compiles all the ideas he has come up with about human abilities, branches of culture, God, religion, religious development, the state, education, morality, law and the life of nations. It is understandable that he does not spare us ideas of social reform, for how could he not believe that he knows something about the future if he thinks he can judge all the circumstances of the past? But we are of the opinion that every educated person has probably already thought something about the above-mentioned concepts; this, however, is no reason to string together such random, incoherent ideas without guiding points of view, without a uniform world view, in a book and have them printed. We do not mean to say that among these ideas there are not some good ones, but alongside them we find sentences which we cannot understand how a man who has grown up in the education of the present can write down, for example, page 73: "Sufferings which someone endures through the sins of his parents, he does not suffer unjustly because he is the flesh and blood of his parents." It would have been more commendable than welding this book together if the author had pursued his really good thoughts on the position of the peasantry in the state and on the mortgage system in economic life and worked them out for himself. For the complete misunderstanding of the principle that (see page 64) "a peasant population that is as strong and healthy as possible is a mainstay of the nation through its ability to develop" on the part of many so-called free-minded men of the people cannot be countered often enough by clarifying the correct view. It is also necessary that the realization of the need to reform the mortgage system, which in its present form is causing serious damage to agriculture, should become more and more widespread. The author would have to deal with these questions separately if his comments, which are correct in this respect, are to fall on fertile ground.

Clearness, clarity and vividness are undoubtedly the characteristics of a good textbook. The present psychology meets these requirements to a large extent. In terms of clarity, the author even seems to go too far. He keeps too close to the surface of the subject matter in his treatment of the material and in his choice of examples. For this reason, he only passes on to the candidates for the magisterium the most tangible, coarsest facts of the life of the soul. The more intimate manifestations of the spirit, the finer forms of its expression are not taken into account. We consider this to be a shortcoming, especially in view of the purpose of the book. The future teacher should also be introduced to the more secret expressions of the human inner being. It is precisely through this that the right ideal of education will develop in him. He will understand the golden rule of all pedagogy, that every pupil is to be treated individually; he will take pleasure in studying every new human soul. He will discover new points of view in every single object of education. He will put his best into his profession because he knows the knowledge of the developing human being in its finest ramifications. He will know how to make something out of the child because he knows the germ that is to develop. If he only understands the main threads of the spiritual fabric, his educational activity will be pedantic, mechanical, average, not appropriate to the subtleties of the soul, which he cannot hear. The arrangement of the material in this book seems to us otherwise excellent, the empirical treatment generally appropriate to the purpose. The discussion of the facts and the exegesis of the phenomena are always followed by the conclusion of the laws, and then their application to pedagogy. However, the pedantic uniformity with which this maxim is applied throughout the book makes it appear as if this method did not originate from the subject matter, but had been introduced into it from outside.

In eight chapters: Development of socio-ethical culture, the origin of language, language and thought, the sounds of language, the development of writing, the development of moral-religious ideas among the Greeks, philosophy of art, science, the author gives the main features of the content of modern education. In a preface, he develops his ideas in an attractive form on how our higher educational institutions can be given a development appropriate to the times through the conversion of mere memorized knowledge into organically absorbed educational material. Knowledge should be transformed from a mere collection of material details into a living skill, so that the educated person is able to see through the surrounding circumstances with a sure eye and to give them the desirable direction according to the current state of cultural development. Instead of dead formal stuff, Biese wants to deal with a sense of orientation in the world and in life. These are general propositions whose correctness is not in doubt. The only question is: what needs to be done to reform our secondary schools in this direction? Biese offers very little to answer this question. The answer would have to consist of two parts: ı. What direction should teacher training take in future? 2. What educational material will lead pupils most safely to the stated goals?

There is no doubt that a great deal needs to be done in both respects. The exclusively "scholarly" interest that is rooted in our secondary school teachers, because their previous education only imbues them with such an interest, must be replaced by studies of culture, art history, philosophy and, in particular, psychology, which are obligatory for every future secondary school teacher, with an interest in the free development of human nature. The future teacher must be capable of two things: studying the great developmental process of humanity and observing the individual nature of every single person. Only equipped with these preconditions will he be capable of his true educational task: integrating the individual into the correctly understood total development process of humanity in accordance with the special dispositions inherent in the former.

The individual chapters of Biese's book are stimulating throughout. Everyone will enjoy reading them. The author combines his knowledge of recent views from the fields of ethnology, linguistics and national economics with an eye for the ideal areas of human activity, sharpened by a deeper understanding of the spirit of the classical period. The latter is particularly evident in his remarks on art. The laws of artistic creation and enjoyment are dealt with in a straightforward manner. Everywhere a spirit rooted in the humanism of the classical period is expressed. Some things could have been deepened, some things sharper in expression, but everything is borne by a noble spirit and a fine way of looking at things. The same can be said of the overview of the individual sciences and their interrelationships. To summarize: Biese's book will be useful to anyone who wants to familiarize themselves with the humanistic educational content of our time in a comfortable way. From this point of view, we recommend it to the widest circles.

A journey through the most recent German poetry

Woldemar von Biedermann, who celebrated his eightieth birthday on March 5, is widely known for his contributions to Goethe literature. For thirty years, he has published studies on Goethe, edited his works, letters and conversations and devoted himself to their interpretation. But Biedermann is not only a researcher; he is also an interesting personality. Anyone who has spent an hour chatting with him will remember it fondly. The passion with which the old gentleman talks about things he is interested in reveals that he has kept his heart young. There is still something in him of the enthusiasm with which he sang rapturous songs about love and women fifty years ago. In 1847, he published poems under the pseudonym Ottomar Föhrau, which he called "a young singer". He also approached the figure of Goethe as a poet before turning his researcher's intuition to it. A play "Doctor Goethe in Weimar" is his first Goethe work. However, it was followed just one year later (1865) by his first academic work "Goethe and Leipzig". Biedermann is not a professional scholar. He was a Saxon civil servant for thirty-eight years. His numerous works are not scholarly enough for philologists. But they are indispensable for anyone who wants to get to know Goethe's life and work better. As co-editor of the Hempel and Weimar editions of Goethe's works, he rendered good service with his wide-ranging knowledge. His collection of "Goethe's Conversations", published a few years ago, is an almost monumental work.

The whole world is under the impression of Kaiser Wilhelm's passing. It almost seems as if the whole of non-German politics is celebrating until the glorious prince is led to his grave. Even in the Orient, there is no movement on the Bulgarian question; Sofia has wisely given no reply to the Grand Vizier's telegram and, determined to maintain its present position, is awaiting further action by Russia or Turkey. Prince Ferdinand apparently feels completely secure on his throne and can count on the devotion of his people. After the failure of the Ghika project, the Romanian ministerial crisis found its simplest and best solution in the reappointment of Bratianu. In the Italian parliament, Crispi answered an interpellation from the radical side concerning the attitude of the kingdom to the Bulgarian question by saying that Italy, if it did not want to deny its own history, could never allow a people striving for freedom and independence like the Bulgarians to be oppressed by foreign despotism. In France, the latest Boulanger hype - individual districts wanted to elect the radical "savior of democracy" as a deputy - has fizzled out like all previous demonstrations that had Boulanger as their focal point. In Russia, the devaluation of public values and the armament for war continued; there was already half-loud talk of the imminent outbreak of state bankruptcy. The Austrian House of Representatives discussed the Catechist Law, but the general interest throughout Austria, as in the other states, is only focused on the events in Berlin. To squeeze them into the space of a short weekly review is simply impossible and could only detract from the force and solemnity of it. We must therefore refrain from doing so. Only one thing may be mentioned in particular, namely that the serious bereavement affecting Germany has given renewed cause to emphasize the solidarity between the allied Central European empires. This found particular expression in a brief exchange of dispatches between Prince Bismarck and Count Kalnoky. What else can we say? Emperor Wilhelm has died! His great son succeeded him under the name of Frederick IIIL! He has issued a proclamation to his people and at the same time a letter to the Imperial Chancellor containing the principles which the new Emperor and King has laid down for his government policy. These two mighty documents, which form an everlasting monument to history, must not be missing from any journal that wants to serve the German people. And that is why we are publishing them in full, even though our readers are undoubtedly already familiar with them. Such words should be preserved and cherished and read again and again in every German home. They read:

To my people!

The emperor departed from his glorious life. In the much-loved father, whom I mourn, and for whom My royal house mourns with Me in deepest sorrow, Prussia's loyal people lost its glorious king, the German nation the founder of its unification, the resurrected empire the first German emperor! His noble name will remain inseparably linked with all the greatness of the German fatherland, in whose new foundation the enduring labor of Prussia's people and princes has found its finest reward. By raising the Prussian army to the height of its serious profession with never-tiring patriotic care, King Wilhelm laid the sure foundation for the victories of German arms won under his leadership, from which national unification emerged; he thereby secured a position of power for the empire that every German heart had longed for until then, but had hardly dared to hope for.

And what he had won for his people in a fierce, sacrificial struggle, he was destined to consolidate and beneficially promote through the long peace work of arduous years of rule. Resting securely in its own strength, Germany stands respected in the council of nations and desires only to rejoice in the peaceful development of what it has won. That this is so, we owe to Kaiser Wilhelm, his unwavering loyalty to duty, his unceasing activity dedicated solely to the good of the Fatherland, supported by the unwavering devotion to sacrifice demonstrated by the Prussian people and shared by all German tribes. All rights and duties associated with the crown of My House have now passed to Me, and which I am determined to faithfully exercise in the time that may be granted to My government according to God's will.

Pervaded by the greatness of My task, it will be My whole endeavor to continue the work in the sense in which it was founded, to make Germany a haven of peace and to cultivate the welfare of the German land in agreement with the allied governments, as well as with the constitutional organs of the Empire such as Prussia.

I place my unreserved trust in my loyal people, who have stood by my house through centuries of history in both good and difficult times, because I am convinced that on the basis of the inseparable connection between prince and people, which is which, regardless of any change in the life of the state, forms the imperishable heritage of the Hohenzollern dynasty, My crown will always rest just as securely as the prosperity of the country to whose government I am now called, and to which I vow to be a just and, in joy and sorrow, a faithful king.

May God give me his blessing and strength for this work, to which my life is henceforth consecrated.

Berlin, March 12, 1888 Frederick III

My dear Prince!

At the start of My government, I feel the need to address you, the longstanding, much-tried first servant of My Lord Father, who rests in God. You have been the faithful and courageous advisor who has given form to the goals of his policies and ensured their successful implementation. I am, and My House remains, deeply indebted to you. You therefore have a right to know, above all, what are the points of view which should determine the attitude of My Government.

The constitutional and legal systems of the Empire and Prussia must above all be consolidated in the reverence and customs of the nation. The upheavals caused by frequent changes in state institutions and laws must therefore be avoided as far as possible. The promotion of the tasks of the imperial government must leave untouched the best foundations on which the Prussian state has hitherto rested securely. In the Empire, the constitutional rights of all allied governments are to be respected as conscientiously as those of the Imperial Diet; but equal respect for the rights of the Emperor is to be obtained from both. It must be borne in mind that these reciprocal rights are to serve only to elevate the public welfare, which remains the supreme law, and that newly emerging, undoubted national needs must always be fully satisfied. I see the necessary and surest guarantee for the undisturbed promotion of these tasks in the undiminished preservation of the country's military strength, My tried and tested army and the flourishing navy, to which serious obligations have arisen through the acquisition of overseas possessions. Both must be maintained at all times at the level of training and the perfection of the organization which has established their fame and which ensures their continued efficiency.

I am determined to lead the government in the Empire and in Prussia in conscientious observance of the provisions of the Imperial and State Constitutions. These were founded by My ancestors on the throne in wise recognition of the unavoidable needs and difficult tasks to be solved in social and state life and must be respected on all sides in order to be able to exert their power and beneficial effectiveness.

I want the principle of religious toleration, which has been held sacred in My House for centuries, to continue to be a protection for all My subjects, whatever religious community and creed they belong to. Each one of them is equally close to My heart. After all, all of them have equally proven their full devotion in the days of danger.

In accordance with the views of My Imperial Father, I will warmly support all endeavors that are likely to raise the economic prosperity of the various classes of society, to reconcile their conflicting interests and to mitigate unavoidable grievances to the best of my ability, without creating the expectation that it is possible to put an end to all the ills of society through the intervention of the state.

I consider the care given to the education of young people to be closely linked to social issues. If, on the one hand, higher education must be made accessible to ever wider circles, then it must be avoided that serious dangers are created by half-education, that life demands are awakened which the economic forces of the nation cannot satisfy, or that the educational task remains unconsidered through the one-sided pursuit of increased knowledge. Only a generation growing up on the sound foundation of the fear of God in simple morals will possess sufficient power of resistance to overcome the dangers which, in a time of rapid economic movement, arise for the whole through the examples of highly exalted lifestyles of individuals.

It is My will that no opportunity be missed to influence the public service to counter the temptation to disproportionate expenditure. Every proposal for financial reform is assured of My unprejudiced consideration in advance, unless the time-honored thriftiness of Prussia allows the imposition of new burdens to be avoided and previous requirements to be eased.

I consider the self-government granted to larger and smaller associations in the state to be beneficial; on the other hand, I put it to the test whether the right of tax imposition granted to these associations, which is exercised by them without regard to the burden emanating simultaneously from the realm and the state, may not disproportionately burden the individual. In the same way, it will have to be considered whether a simplifying change in the structure of the authorities would not appear permissible, in which the reduction in the number of employees would make it possible to increase their salaries.

If we succeed in maintaining the foundations of state and social life, it will give me particular satisfaction to see the blossoming of German art and science, which is so abundant, develop to its full potential. For the realization of these intentions of mine, I am counting on your devotion, which you have so often demonstrated, and on the support of your proven experience.

May it be granted to me to lead Germany and Prussia to new honors in peaceful development with the unanimous cooperation of the imperial organs, the dedicated activity of the people's representatives and all authorities and through the trusting cooperation of all classes of the population.

Unconcerned about the splendor of glorious deeds, I will be satisfied if one day it can be said of my government that it has been benevolent to my people, useful to my country and a blessing to the empire.

Berlin, March 12, 1888

Your well-wishing Frederick III