Friedrich Nietzsche
For Nietzsche, belief in God has collapsed, so traditional morality has lost its ground – and we must create new values of our own instead of sinking into nihilism.
Placement
God is dead: the revaluation of all values, the will to power and the Übermensch as the answer to nihilism.
Key ideas
- Will to power
- Eternal recurrence
- Übermensch
- Genealogy of morality
Influence
Influenced by 11
Heraclitus
influenced by ✓
Nietzsche praised Heraclitus’ eternal becoming in Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks (written 1873) and felt closest to him (Ecce Homo, 1888). F. Nietzsche, Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen (1873, unpublished); Ecce homo (1888), on The Birth of Tragedy; SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Heraclitus › c. 535–475 BCE
Michel de Montaigne
influenced by ✓
In Schopenhauer as Educator (1874) Nietzsche praised Montaigne’s honesty and cheerfulness: that such a man wrote has increased the joy of living on this earth. F. Nietzsche, Schopenhauer als Erzieher (1874); SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Michel de Montaigne › 1533–1592
Baruch de Spinoza
influenced by ✓
In a postcard to Overbeck (1881) Nietzsche hailed Spinoza as his precursor, who like him denied free will, purposes, a moral world order and evil. F. Nietzsche, postcard to F. Overbeck, 30 July 1881; SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Baruch de Spinoza › 1632–1677
Voltaire
influenced by ✓
Nietzsche dedicated Human, All Too Human (1878) to Voltaire’s memory on the centenary of his death, marking his turn to free-spirited critique in an Enlightenment vein. F. Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches (1878), dedication; SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Voltaire › 1694–1778
Friedrich Hölderlin
influenced by ✓
As a pupil at Schulpforta Nietzsche wrote an essay recommending Hölderlin to a friend as his favourite poet (1861), at a time when Hölderlin was little read. F. Nietzsche, “Brief an meinen Freund, in dem ich ihm meinen Lieblingsdichter zum Lesen empfehle” (1861)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Friedrich Hölderlin › 1770–1843
Ralph Waldo Emerson
influenced by ✓
Nietzsche read Emerson’s essays from his school years and put a passage from Emerson’s ‘History’ as the motto of the first edition of The Gay Science (1882). F. Nietzsche, Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1882), motto; R. W. Emerson, Essays: First Series (1841), “History”; SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Ralph Waldo Emerson › 1803–1882
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Baltasar Gracián
influenced by disputed ✓
References to Gracián appear in Nietzsche’s writings and library; S. Santiago Romero (2017) reads the Oracle’s ‘scientific cheerfulness’ as anticipating Nietzsche’s free spirit. S. Santiago Romero, “Arte para ser dichoso. La jovialidad científica de Baltasar Gracián y su relación con Nietzsche”, Logos 27 (2017)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Baltasar Gracián › 1601–1658
Jacob Burckhardt
influenced by ✓
Nietzsche attended Burckhardt’s lectures in Basel from 1869 and, in Twilight of the Idols (1889), invoked him as an authority on Greek culture. F. Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung (1889), “Was ich den Alten verdanke”; SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Jacob Burckhardt › 1818–1897
Fyodor Dostoevsky
influenced by ✓
Nietzsche discovered Dostoevsky in 1887 in a French translation (L’Esprit souterrain) and in Twilight of the Idols (1889) called him a psychologist he had learned from. F. Nietzsche, letter to F. Overbeck, Feb. 1887; Götzen-Dämmerung (1889), “Streifzüge eines Unzeitgemässen”; SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Fyodor Dostoevsky › 1821–1881
Kuno Fischer
influenced by
In 1881 Nietzsche read Fischer’s volume on Spinoza and then named Spinoza a precursor in a postcard to Overbeck. R. de Pablos Escalante, Anales del Seminario de Historia de la Filosofía 33 (2016), 137–161, citing T. Brobjer, Nietzsche’s Philosophical Context (2008)
Evidence: AI draft
Kuno Fischer › 1824–1907
Friedrich Albert Lange
influenced by ✓
From Lange’s History of Materialism Nietzsche learned about the psychophysics of Fechner and the physiological reading of Kant, and he cited Lange as an influence, though how far this reached is contested. SEP “Friedrich Albert Lange” (N. Hussain, L. Patton, E. Widmer), §4.1, after G. Stack, Lange and Nietzsche (1983) and critical replies; SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche” (R. L. Anderson), §6.2
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Friedrich Albert Lange › 1828–1875
Influenced 30
Sigmund Freud
influenced disputed
Direct influence is disputed: Freud said he avoided Nietzsche, whose guesses agreed with psychoanalysis, yet took ‘das Es’ via Groddeck from Nietzsche (The Ego and the Id, 1923). S. Freud, Das Ich und das Es (1923); Selbstdarstellung (1925); R. Lehrer, Nietzsche’s Presence in Freud’s Life and Thought (1995)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Sigmund Freud › 1856–1939
C. G. Jung
influenced
Jung read Nietzsche’s Apollonian and Dionysian as psychological types (Psychologische Typen, 1921) and interpreted Zarathustra as an expression of the unconscious in a Zurich seminar (1934–39). C. G. Jung, Psychologische Typen (1921); Nietzsche’s Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934–1939, ed. J. L. Jarrett (1988)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
C. G. Jung › 1875–1961
Martin Heidegger
influenced ✓
In his Nietzsche lectures (1936–40; publ. 1961) Heidegger read will to power and eternal recurrence as the last form of metaphysics, in which nihilism is completed. M. Heidegger, Nietzsche (2 vols., 1961; lectures 1936–40); “Nietzsches Wort ‚Gott ist tot‘” (1943), in Holzwege (1950); SEP “Martin Heidegger”
Martin Heidegger › 1889–1976
Theodor W. Adorno
influenced ✓
Dialectic of Enlightenment (1947) counted Nietzsche among the few after Hegel who recognised enlightenment’s dialectic, and Adorno’s Minima Moralia (1951) took up his aphoristic critique of morality. M. Horkheimer and T. W. Adorno, Dialektik der Aufklärung (1947); T. W. Adorno, Minima Moralia (1951); SEP “Theodor W. Adorno”
Theodor W. Adorno › 1903–1969
Michel Foucault
influenced ✓
Foucault took over Nietzsche’s genealogy of descent and emergence, without origin or goal (‘Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire’, 1971), and applied it to the prison (Discipline and Punish, 1975). M. Foucault, “Nietzsche, la généalogie, l’histoire” (1971); Surveiller et punir (1975); SEP “Michel Foucault”; SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Michel Foucault › 1926–1984
Jacques Derrida
influenced ✓
Derrida counted Nietzsche’s play of forces and critique of truth among the sources of différance (‘La différance’, 1968) and read his styles and his ‘woman’ in Éperons (1978). J. Derrida, “La différance” (1968), in Marges de la philosophie (1972); Éperons. Les styles de Nietzsche (1978); SEP “Jacques Derrida”
Jacques Derrida › 1930–2004
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Georg Brandes
influenced
Brandes corresponded with Nietzsche from 1887, lectured on him in Copenhagen in 1888 and called his thought ‘aristocratic radicalism’, a formula Nietzsche welcomed (letters, 1887; essay, 1889). G. Brandes, “Aristokratisk Radikalisme”, Tilskueren (1889); Brandes to Nietzsche, 26 Nov. 1887, and Nietzsche’s reply, 2 Dec. 1887, in Brandes–Nietzsche correspondence (1887–89)
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Brandes › 1842–1927
Georg Simmel
influenced
In Schopenhauer und Nietzsche (1907) Simmel read Nietzsche’s ethics as aiming at the elevation of the human type, not at egoism. G. Simmel, Schopenhauer und Nietzsche (1907); “Friedrich Nietzsche. Eine moralphilosophische Silhouette” (1896); SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Simmel › 1858–1918
Lou Andreas-Salomé
influenced ✓
Her book Friedrich Nietzsche in seinen Werken (1894) is a study of his personality and philosophy by a woman who had met him in 1882. NDB “Andreas-Salomé, Lou” (E. Heimpel, NDB 1, 1953, pp. 284–285; read); SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche” (R. L. Anderson), §1
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Lou Andreas-Salomé › 1861–1937
Max Weber
influenced
Weber tested Nietzsche’s theory of ressentiment in his sociology of religion, accepting it only for some ethics of the disprivileged (‘Einleitung’ to Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen, 1915). M. Weber, “Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. Einleitung”, Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik 41 (1915); W. Hennis, Max Webers Fragestellung (1987); SEP “Max Weber”
Evidence: AI draft
Max Weber › 1864–1920
Lev Shestov
influenced ✓
In The Good in the Teaching of Tolstoy and Nietzsche (1900) Shestov sided with Nietzsche’s revolt against morality, reading it as a search for God beyond the good. L. Shestov, Dobro v uchenii gr. Tolstogo i F. Nitshe (1900)
Lev Shestov › 1866–1938
Aby Warburg
influenced
Warburg closed his Hamburg seminar on Burckhardt (1927) by pairing him with Nietzsche as two ‘seismographs’ and contrasting types of seer. A. Warburg, closing session of the Burckhardt seminar (1927), in Werke in einem Band, ed. M. Treml et al. (2010); E. H. Gombrich, Aby Warburg: An Intellectual Biography (1970)
Evidence: AI draft
Aby Warburg › 1866–1929
Emma Goldman
influenced ✓
Goldman took from Nietzsche, whom she discovered in Vienna (1895–96), the defence of the free individual against conformity and the ‘majority’ (Anarchism and Other Essays, 1910). E. Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays (1910), “Minorities versus Majorities”; Living My Life (1931)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Emma Goldman › 1869–1940
Max Scheler
influenced
Scheler took over Nietzsche’s ressentiment but denied that Christian love springs from it, finding it instead in modern humanitarian morality (‘Über Ressentiment und moralisches Werturteil’, 1912). M. Scheler, “Über Ressentiment und moralisches Werturteil” (1912); “Das Ressentiment im Aufbau der Moralen”, in Vom Umsturz der Werte (1915); SEP “Max Scheler”
Evidence: AI draft
Max Scheler › 1874–1928
Muhammad Iqbal
influenced ✓
Iqbal took up Nietzsche’s call for the strong, self-affirming individual in his philosophy of the self (Asrar-i khudi, 1915), but rejected his denial of God. M. Iqbal, Asrar-i khudi (1915), tr. R. A. Nicholson, The Secrets of the Self (1920); A. Schimmel, Gabriel’s Wing (1963)
Muhammad Iqbal › 1877–1938
Karl Jaspers
influenced
In Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of His Philosophical Activity (1936) Jaspers read Nietzsche as a thinker of Existenz whose contradictions must be thought through, not resolved. K. Jaspers, Nietzsche. Einführung in das Verständnis seines Philosophierens (1936); SEP “Karl Jaspers”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Karl Jaspers › 1883–1969
Hiratsuka Raichō
influenced
Hiratsuka’s Seitō manifesto (1911) drew on Zarathustra, just translated by her mentor Ikuta Chōkō, quoting it and calling for women’s hidden genius to be released. Hiratsuka Raichō, “Genshi josei wa taiyō de atta”, Seitō 1 (1911); E. I. Garaeva, Ežegodnik Japonija 48 (2019)
Evidence: AI draft
Hiratsuka Raichō › 1886–1971
Alfred Baeumler
influenced
Baeumler appropriated Nietzsche for National Socialism, recasting the will to power as heroic realism (Nietzsche, der Philosoph und Politiker, 1931) – a reading scholarship treats as distortion. A. Baeumler, Nietzsche, der Philosoph und Politiker (1931); M. Montinari, “Nietzsche zwischen Alfred Baeumler und Georg Lukács” (1982); S. E. Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany 1890–1990 (1992)
Evidence: AI draft
Alfred Baeumler › 1887–1968
Watsuji Tetsurō
influenced
Watsuji’s first book was a study of Nietzsche (Nīche kenkyū, 1913), written before he turned to Japanese culture and to ethics. Watsuji Tetsurō, Nīche kenkyū (1913); SEP “Watsuji Tetsurō”
Evidence: AI draft
Watsuji Tetsurō › 1889–1960
José Carlos Mariátegui
influenced
In the foreword to Seven Interpretive Essays on Peruvian Reality (1928) Mariátegui said his work followed Nietzsche’s wish for an author whose thoughts form a book spontaneously, not one bent on producing a book deliberately. J. C. Mariátegui, Siete ensayos de interpretación de la realidad peruana (1928), “Advertencia”
Evidence: AI draft
José Carlos Mariátegui › 1894–1930
Nishitani Keiji
influenced
In The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1949) Nishitani took up Nietzsche’s diagnosis of European nihilism and his attempt to overcome it from within, as a crisis reaching Japan too. Nishitani Keiji, Nihirizumu (1949), tr. G. Parkes & S. Aihara, The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism (1990); SEP “Nishitani Keiji”
Evidence: AI draft
Nishitani Keiji › 1900–1990
Emil Cioran
influenced ✓
Cioran’s first book, On the Heights of Despair (1934), followed Nietzsche in lyrical fragments that set lived suffering against systematic philosophy. E. Cioran, Pe culmile disperării (1934); M. Petreu, An Infamous Past: E. M. Cioran and the Rise of Fascism in Romania (2005); E. M. Cioran, Entretiens (1995)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
Emil Cioran › 1911–1995
Albert Camus
influenced ✓
In The Rebel (1951) Camus took up Nietzsche’s diagnosis of nihilism after the death of God and his affirmation of the world, while defending him against Nazi appropriation. A. Camus, L’Homme révolté (1951), “Nietzsche et le nihilisme”; SEP “Albert Camus”
Albert Camus › 1913–1960
Gilles Deleuze
influenced ✓
In Nietzsche and Philosophy (1962) Deleuze read Nietzsche against Hegel as a thinker of affirmation, of active and reactive forces and of eternal return as selection of difference. G. Deleuze, Nietzsche et la philosophie (1962); SEP “Gilles Deleuze”; SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Gilles Deleuze › 1925–1995
Jean Baudrillard
influenced ✓
Baudrillard said he had been a great devotee of Nietzsche, more ingrained than cited (Baudrillard Live, 1993); commentators link his simulacra to Nietzsche’s ‘true world’ become fable. M. Gane (ed.), Baudrillard Live: Selected Interviews (1993); F. Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung (1889); SEP “Jean Baudrillard”
Jean Baudrillard › 1929–2007
Bernard Williams
influenced ✓
Williams used Nietzsche’s genealogy to explain values through their history, but in vindicating rather than debunking form, for the virtues of truth (Truth and Truthfulness, 2002). B. Williams, Truth and Truthfulness: An Essay in Genealogy (2002); “Nietzsche’s Minimalist Moral Psychology” (1993); SEP “Bernard Williams”
Bernard Williams › 1929–2003
Gianni Vattimo
influenced
Vattimo read Nietzsche’s critique of the subject (Il soggetto e la maschera, 1974) and made his ‘no facts, only interpretations’ and accomplished nihilism the basis of weak thought. G. Vattimo, Il soggetto e la maschera (1974); La fine della modernità (1985); Dialogo con Nietzsche (2000)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Gianni Vattimo › 1936–2023
Peter Sloterdijk
influenced
Sloterdijk read The Birth of Tragedy as a staging of thinking (Der Denker auf der Bühne, 1986) and Nietzsche as a theorist of practising life (2009). P. Sloterdijk, Der Denker auf der Bühne. Nietzsches Materialismus (1986); Du mußt dein Leben ändern (2009)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Peter Sloterdijk › b. 1947
Byung-Chul Han
influenced
In Müdigkeitsgesellschaft (2010) Han drew on Nietzsche’s call to learn to see, not to react at once to every stimulus, against the hyperactivity of the achievement society. B.-C. Han, Müdigkeitsgesellschaft (2010); F. Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung (1889)
Evidence: AI draft
Byung-Chul Han › b. 1959
Amia Srinivasan
influenced
Srinivasan read Nietzsche’s genealogy of morals as having, beside any epistemic force, a non-epistemic power to reveal what our representations do (‘Genealogy, Epistemology and Worldmaking’, 2019). A. Srinivasan, “Genealogy, Epistemology and Worldmaking”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 119 (2019); F. Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887)
Evidence: AI draft
Amia Srinivasan › b. 1984
Criticism
Criticized by 5
Harald Høffding
criticised by
Against the Nietzsche whom Brandes presented, Høffding defended a welfare ethics of the greatest happiness and rejected the great human being as the measure of culture (Tilskueren, 1889). H. Høffding, “Demokratisk Radikalisme”, Tilskueren 1889; W. Banks (ed.), The Great Debate: Nietzsche, Culture, and the Scandinavian Welfare Society (2024)
Evidence: AI draft
Harald Høffding › 1843–1931
Ferdinand Tönnies
criticised by
Tönnies, an early admirer, attacked the late Nietzsche’s master morality and the fashionable cult around it (Der Nietzsche-Kultus. Eine Kritik, 1897). F. Tönnies, Der Nietzsche-Kultus. Eine Kritik (1897)
Evidence: AI draft
Ferdinand Tönnies › 1855–1936
Georg Lukács
criticised by
Lukács read Nietzsche as the founder of the irrationalism of the imperialist period, which prepared the ground for fascism (Die Zerstörung der Vernunft, 1954, ch. III). G. Lukács, Die Zerstörung der Vernunft (1954), ch. III (“Nietzsche als Begründer des Irrationalismus der imperialistischen Periode”)
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Lukács › 1885–1971
Martin Luther King Jr.
criticised by
King recalled that Nietzsche’s glorification of power and attack on Christian love shook his faith in the power of love until he discovered Gandhi (Stride Toward Freedom, 1958). M. L. King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom (1958), ch. 6 “Pilgrimage to Nonviolence”
Evidence: AI draft
Martin Luther King Jr. › 1929–1968
Alasdair MacIntyre
criticised by
MacIntyre credited Nietzsche with exposing the failure of Enlightenment morality, but rejected his solitary great man for an Aristotelian ethics of virtues within practices (After Virtue, 1981). A. MacIntyre, After Virtue (1981), ch. 9 “Nietzsche or Aristotle?”, ch. 18
Evidence: AI draft
Alasdair MacIntyre › 1929–2025
Criticizes 7
Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha)
criticised
Nietzsche judged Buddhism more realistic than Christianity but, like it, a religion of decadence for a weary humanity seeking release from suffering (The Antichrist, 1888, §§20–23). F. Nietzsche, Der Antichrist (1888), §§20–23
Evidence: AI draft
Siddhartha Gautama (Buddha) › c. 480–400 BCE · conventionally dated 563–483 BCE
Socrates
criticised
Nietzsche saw in Socrates the ‘theoretical man’ whose faith in reason killed tragedy (Birth of Tragedy, 1872), and later a symptom of decadence (Twilight of the Idols). F. Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie (1872), §§12–15; Götzen-Dämmerung (1889), “Das Problem des Sokrates”
Evidence: AI draft
Socrates › 470–399 BCE
Plato
criticised
Nietzsche called Plato’s invention of pure spirit and the good in itself the worst of errors, and Christianity ‘Platonism for the people’ (Beyond Good and Evil, 1886, Preface). F. Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse (1886), Preface; Götzen-Dämmerung (1889), “How the True World Finally Became a Fable”
Evidence: AI draft
Plato › 428–348 BCE
Immanuel Kant
criticised
Nietzsche mocked Kant’s synthetic a priori, possible ‘by virtue of a faculty’, and called the categorical imperative a danger to life (Beyond Good and Evil §11; Antichrist §11). F. Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse (1886), §11; Der Antichrist (1888), §11
Evidence: AI draft
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Arthur Schopenhauer influenced by
influenced by ✓
Nietzsche discovered The World as Will and Representation in a Leipzig bookshop in 1865 and built The Birth of Tragedy (1872) on Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will and music. F. Nietzsche, “Rückblick auf meine zwei Leipziger Jahre” (1867); Die Geburt der Tragödie (1872); SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
criticised
Nietzsche came to reject Schopenhauer’s morality of pity and denial of the will as a life-denying romanticism (Genealogy of Morals, 1887, Preface §5). F. Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral (1887), Preface §5; Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1887), §370
Evidence: AI draft
Arthur Schopenhauer › 1788–1860
Charles Darwin
criticised
Nietzsche’s ‘Anti-Darwin’ objected that life seeks power, not mere survival, and that the struggle favours the weak over the exceptional (Twilight of the Idols, 1889). F. Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung (1889), Skirmishes §14 “Anti-Darwin”; Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (1887), §349; SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche”
Evidence: AI draft
Charles Darwin › 1809–1882
Paul Rée influenced by
influenced by ✓
Working with Rée in Sorrento in 1876–77 shaped Human, All Too Human, and Rée’s Ursprung der moralischen Empfindungen gave the first impulse for the Genealogy of Morals. Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral, Vorrede §4 (read); SEP “Friedrich Nietzsche” (R. L. Anderson), §1; R. Small, Nietzsche and Rée (2005)
Evidence: also in Wikidata · Wikidata
criticised
In the preface to the Genealogy Nietzsche says he rejected nearly every inference of Rée’s book and contests its derivation of morality from altruistic valuation. Nietzsche, Zur Genealogie der Moral, Vorrede §4 (read)
Evidence: AI draft
Paul Rée › 1849–1901
Works
Apollonian and Dionysian – tragedy and its death at the hands of Socrates.
- 1882The Gay Science
“God is dead” – and the first formulation of the eternal recurrence.
A book for all and none: the overman.
Prelude to a philosophy of the future – against the prejudices of philosophers.
Master and slave morality, guilt and ascetic ideals.
Position
Nietzsche diagnosed the central event of modernity: “God is dead” – belief in the Christian God has become unbelievable, and with it the foundation of traditional morality collapses. The danger is nihilism. In his genealogy he traced morality back to its origins, arguing that values of humility and pity stem from a “slave revolt” of the weak, born of resentment. Against this he set a “revaluation of all values”: the will to power as the basic drive of life, the Übermensch as one who creates values, and the thought of eternal recurrence as a test of whether one can affirm life completely. His aphoristic, perspectival thinking shaped existentialism, postmodernism and psychology. His sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche edited and in part falsified his papers and promoted his appropriation by the Nazis, although he himself despised antisemites.
Life & context
A pastor’s son from Röcken in Saxony, Nietzsche became professor of classical philology in Basel at 24 and was for years close to Richard Wagner. Ill health forced him to resign in 1879; he then lived as a wanderer in Switzerland and Italy and wrote his major books in rapid succession. After a breakdown in Turin in 1889 he spent his last decade in mental darkness.
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