Nietzsche virtually distinguishes the moralities in this manner himself;[1] and yet in a broader sense all morality, whether of the group or of any class within it, is utilitarian according to his way of thinking—that is, it is good and binding not on its own account, but in that it furthers a given type of life and corresponds to the conditions of its preservation and development.[2]
III
Such are the broad outlines of his view. I give now the particular philological suggestions that seem to have inspired it, or at least, as he thought, to confirm it. He is not dogmatic in using them, and some of his conjectures he came to see were mistaken.[3] It was a method of approaching the subject that interested him, more than any particular results. In a note appended to the first treatise of Genealogy of Morals, he expressed the wish that some philosophical faculty would institute a series of prize papers on the history of morality and particularly in answer to the question, "What hints does the science of language, and especially etymological investigation, furnish for the history of the development of moral conceptions"? i It is of interest to note that after almost a quarter of a century one German university has fulfilled this wish.[4] I shall mention only the more important of Nietzsche's philological suggestions; they are mainly as to words expressive of the master-class valuations, which he thinks were the older of the two.
The Greek word for good, ἀγαθός is, he is aware, of uncertain derivation, but the words for "superior," "noble" were, he thinks, unquestionably class-designations (i.e., ruler-class, aristocratic) at the start, and he suspects that xxx was too.[5] He instances phrases like "we superior, we good, we beautiful,
- ↑ Ibid., § 260; Genealogy etc., I, § 2.
- ↑ See the further statement as to terminology in note u to chap, xxix.
- ↑ For example, his view as to the connection of "gut" (and "Goth") with "göttlich," expressed in Genealogy etc., I, § 5. He abandoned it after Brandes had communicated strictures upon it (see Briefe. III, 311-2; cf. 279).
- ↑ So R. M. Meyer, Nietzsche (1913), p. 526 (without mentioning the university by name).
- ↑ Genealogy etc. I, §§ 4, 5; cf. Werke, XI, 256, § 236 (as to höflich, gentile, edel, vomehm, noble, genereux, courtoisie, gentleman).
