Note Summary and Analysis

The author's underlying motivation for writing "The Genealogy of Morals" is exposed in this biographical section. Paul Ree is a close friend of Friedrich Nietzsche, who praises Ree's book as "clear, tidy and shrewd." However, in The Genealogy Nietzsche disagrees with the points Ree makes. Ree and Nietzsche serve in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Ree is a soldier and Nietzsche is a volunteer medical orderly. Ree is four years younger than Nietzsche and a doctoral student in philosophy. Nietzsche is a twenty-eight year old professor at the University of Basel when their friendship begins in 1873. Nietzsche is impressed by Ree's concept of denial of universal principles of right and wrong stated in his 1877 "Origin of Moral Feelings." Ten years later Nietzsche writes "The Genealogy of Morals" in reaction to Ree's book, presumably on philosophical grounds.

However, the underlying story disclosed in...