Friedrich nietzsche genealogy of morals essay 1

In support of his argument, Nietzsche remarks on the similarity between the German word for "bad" and the words for "plain" and "simple." By contrast, he notes, in most languages, the word for "good" derives from the same root as the words for "powerful" or "masters" or "rich."

On the Genealogy of Morals Friedrich Nietzsche (1887) Prologue 1 We don’t know ourselves, we knowledgeable people —we are personally ignorant about ourselves. And there’s good reason for that. We’ve never tried to find out who we are— how could it happen that one day we’d discover ourselves? With justice it’s been said,

Now, first of all, it’s obvious to me that from this theory the essential focus for the origin of the idea “good” has been sought for and established in the wrong place: the judgment “good” did not move here from those to whom “goodness” was shown!

But Nietzsche also remarks that only with the priests do human beings become interesting. With the priests, the human soul first gains those attributes that set it apart from animals: it acquires depth and becomes evil.