Beyond Good and Evil

Preface.

Assuming that truth is a woman — , well? Is there not cause for the suspicion that all philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have been poor judges of women? That the ghastly seriousness, the clumsy obtrusiveness with which they have been accustomed to approach truth until now, were awkward and inappropriate methods for winning over a woman? It is certain that she has not let herself be won over: — and every kind of dogmatism stands today with a saddened and discouraged posture. If it stands at all! For there are scoffers who claim it has fallen, that all dogmatism lies on the ground, or more, that all dogmatism is in its death throes. Speaking seriously, there are good reasons to hope that all dogmatizing in philosophy, however solemn, however final and definitive it may have appeared, may have been nothing more than a noble childishness and apprenticeship; and the time is perhaps very near when one will realize again and again what has actually been sufficient to provide the foundation for such sublime and absolute philosophical edifices, which the dogmatists have built until now, — some popular superstition from immemorial time (like the superstition of the soul, which as the subject- and ego-superstition has not yet ceased to cause mischief even today), some play on words perhaps, a seduc-