Macmillan

and
BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL 175
243
I hear with pleasurethat our sun is moving rapidlytowards
the constellationHercules: and I hope that the men
on this earth will do like the sim. And we foremost,we
good Europeans!
244
There was a time when it was customary to callGermans
"deep"by way of distinction; but now that the most successful
type of new Germanism is covetous of quiteother
honours,and perhapsmisses "smartness" in all that has
depth,itis almost opportuneand patriotic to doubt whether
we did not formerlydeceive ourselves with that commendation:
in short, whether German depthis not at bottom something
differentand worse
"
somethingfrom which țhank
God, we are on the pointof successfully riddingourselves.
Let us try,then,to releam with regardto German depth;
the only thingnecessary for the purpose is a littlevivisection
of the German The soul." German soul is above all
manifold,varied in its source, aggregatedand superimposed,
rather than actuallybuilt: this is owing to its origin. A
German who would embolden himself to assert: "Two souls,
alas,dwell in my breast,"would make a bad guess at the
truth,or, more correctly, he would come far short of the
truth about the number of souls. As a people made up of
the most
extraordinary mixingand
minglingof races, perhaps
even with a preponderanceof the pre-Aryanelement,
as the "peopleof the centre" in every sense of the term,
the Germans are more intangible, more ample,more conadictory,more
unknown, more incalculable, more sur-
I