182 Nietzschethey both nurtured his "thirst for knowledge" while he was in great
physical distress. In Ecce Homo, he wrote: "Never have I felt happier with
myself than in the sickest and most painful periods of my life: one need
look no further than Daybreak or possibly The Wandererand His Shadow"
(6,326; EH "Human, All Too Human" § 4).
Human, All Too Human and Daybreak belong together for the addi-
tional reason that Nietzsche was undertaking an experiment to "turn
over" morality, art, and religion in both of these works, which meant he
would observe them as phenomena that do not have a privileged access
to truth, as is alleged by history. He found an auspicious and inspiring
formulation of the principle of his analyses in a statement by Paul Rèe,
who was his friend at that time. On the subject of morality, Rèe con-
tended that "the moral person does not stand nearer to the intelligible
(metaphysical) world than does the physical person, because there is no
intelligible world." Nietzsche quoted part of this proposition in Human,
All Too Human (2,61; HH I § 37) and continued to return to it, even
much later in Ecce Homo (6,328; EH "Human, All Too Human" § 6).
However, he went beyond Rèe by wrenching religion and art as well as
moral feelings from their basis in metaphysical truth. Rèe, whose
Ursprung der moralischen Empfindungen (Origin of Moral Feelings) had been
published in 1877, admired Nietzsche's greater boldness. "I see my own
self projected outward on a magnified scale" (15,82; Chronik), he wrote
to Nietzsche after receiving the first volume of Human, All Too Human.
Nietzsche had met Rèe in 1873. The son of a Jewish landowner in
Pomerania, Rèe took up philosophy after studying law and came to Basel
in order to hear lectures by Nietzsche, who was only a few years his sen-
ior. In the winter of 1876—77 in Sorrento, at the home of Malwida von
Meysenbug, the friendship between the two grew quite close. The result
was an intensive collaborative effort. They read their manuscripts aloud
to each other, provided advice, criticized, and revised. Five years later, in
the late fall of 1882, this friendship collapsed under the strain of their
romantic involvement with Lou Salomé. After Rèe and Nietzsche had
gone their separate ways, Rèe published several additional books on