History 332 – German History – September 24, 2008  

Young Nietzsche  

Even as a 21-year old college student, Friedrich Nietzsche had a knack for being controversial.  He had a very complicated relationship with his younger sister, Elizabeth. As brother and sister, they loved each other. Growing up in the same home, they shared lots of memories.  In one way, though, they were very different. Elizabeth was quite at home in the culture in which she and her brother had been raised.  He was not.  In 1865, when Friedrich was a 21-year old college student, Elizabeth sent him a letter urging him to stop trying to be so difficult!  

 

Here is Nietzsche’s reply (Kaufmann, 3^rd edition, 23).   

As for your principle that truth is always on the side of the more difficult, I admit this in part.  However, it is difficult to believe that 2 x 2 is not 4; does that, then, make it true? On the other hand, is it really so difficult simply to accept everything that one has been brought up on and that has gradually struck deep roots – what is considered truth in the circle of one’s relatives and of many good men, and what moreover really comforts and elevates man?  Is that more difficult than to strike new paths, fighting the habitual, experiencing the insecurity of independence and the frequent wavering of one’s feelings and even one’s conscience, proceeding often without any consolation, but ever with the eternal goal of the true, the beautiful, and the good?  Is it decisive after all that we arrive at that view of God, world, and reconciliation which makes us feel most comfortable?  Rather, is not the result of his inquiries something wholly indifferent to the true inquirer?  Do we, after all, seek rest, peace, and pleasure in our inquiries?  No, only truth – even if it be most abhorrent and ugly.  Still, one last question: if we had believed from childhood that all salvation issued from another than Jesus – say, from Mohammed – is it not certain that we should have experienced the same blessings?  … Every true faith is infallible inasmuch as it accomplished what the person who has the faith hopes to find in it; but faith does not offer the least support for a proof of objective truth.  Here the ways of men part: if you wish to strive for peace of soul and pleasure, then believe; if you wish to be a devotee of truth, then inquire.

 

 

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