1 Beyond Good and Evil
thing which has not grown in Germany, and therefore has
not taken and does not take root in German hearts, as the
Bible has done.
- There are two kinds of geniuses: one which above all
engenders and seeks to engender, and another which will-
ingly lets itself be fructified and brings forth. And similarly,
among the gifted nations, there are those on whom the
woman’s problem of pregnancy has devolved, and the secret
task of forming, maturing, and perfecting—the Greeks, for
instance, were a nation of this kind, and so are the French;
and others which have to fructify and become the cause of
new modes of life—like the Jews, the Romans, and, in all
modesty be it asked: like the Germans?— nations tortured
and enraptured by unknown fevers and irresistibly forced
out of themselves, amorous and longing for foreign races
(for such as ‘let themselves be fructified’), and withal impe-
rious, like everything conscious of being full of generative
force, and consequently empowered ‘by the grace of God.’
These two kinds of geniuses seek each other like man and
woman; but they also misunderstand each other—like man
and woman.
- Every nation has its own ‘Tartuffery,’ and calls that its
virtue.—One does not know—cannot know, the best that
is in one.
- What Europe owes to the Jews?—Many things, good
and bad, and above all one thing of the nature both of
