Part II. The Psychology of Friedrich Nietzsche as a Psychopathological Problem

We can clearly observe a certain incoherence in. Nietzsche's ideas. Where only logical association of ideas would be in order, thought connections appear in him which rest merely upon external, accidental signs, for example, sound similarity in words, or metaphorical relationships which are completely inconsequential at a point where concepts are used. In one place in Also Sprach Zarathustra, Thus spake Zarathustra, where the man of the future is contrasted with the man of the present, we find this digression of fantasy: “Do like the wind when it rushes forth from its mountain caves: to its own piping will it dance; the seas tremble and leap under its footsteps ... That which giveth wings to asses, that which milketh those lionesses: praise be to that good, unruly spirit, which cometh like a hurricane unto all present and to all the populace ... which is hostile to thistle-heads and puzzle-heads, and to all withered leaves and weeds: praised be this good, free spirit of the storm, which danceth upon fens and afflictions as upon meadows: which hateth the consumptive populace-dogs, and all the ill-constituted, sullen brood: praised be this spirit of all free spirits, the laughing storms, which bloweth dust into the eyes of these melanotic and melancholic ones!” (Nietzsche's Works, Volume VI, p. 429) In the Antichrist is the following thought, in which the word “truth” in a quite external sense gives occasion for an idea-association at a most important point: “Must I still say that in the entire New Testament there is but one single figure which one must revere? Pilate, the Roman Governor. He does not convince himself into taking a Jewish affair seriously. One Jew more or less—what does it matter? ... The noble scorn of a Roman, before whom a disgraceful misuse of the word ‘truth’ has occurred, has enriched the New Testament with the single word which is of value ... which is his criticism, his annihilation itself, ‘What is truth?’ ...” (Nietzsche's Works, Volume VIII, p. 280). It is absolutely a part of this class of incoherent association of ideas when, in Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Beyond Good and Evil, at the end of a discussion on the value of German culture, the following sentence which should have more value than a matter of style, appears: “It is artful of a people to make themselves be evaluated as deep, awkward, good-natured, honest, lacking in cleverness, or to let themselves be considered so, or, indeed it could be that they are deep! Finally, one should honor one's name; not for nothing is one called the deceiving nation. ...”