"mean" were originally simply antitheses to "gentle" and "noble," "villain" meaning a feudal tenant, "knave" a servant, "rascal" one of the common herd; they even say that "bad" probably meant originally weak or womanish[1]—in other words, all were practically class terms, applied de haut en bas. Nietzsche makes his most problematical conjecture as to the Latin malus—suggesting that the common man as the dark-colored (particularly dark-haired) is thus indicated. He connects it with the Greek μέλος (black)—as does also, I may add, Wundt (citing Curtius), though Wundt has rather in mind dirt or uncleanness, as viewed by the priestly class.[2] The hypothesis is that "dark-haired" points to the pro-Aryan inhabitants of Italy, whom the Latin peoples conquered, they being dark as the Latin Aryans were blond. Nietzsche finds an analogy in the Gaelic, where "fin" (e.g., in Fin-Gal)—the distinctive term for the nobility, and coming at last to mean the good, noble, pure-designated originally the blond head, in contrast to the dark, black-haired aborigines. The Celts also, in common with the other Aryan invaders of Europe, were blond—although it appears to Nietzsche that, as time has gone on, the aborigines have everywhere more or less got the upper hand of their conquerors, in both bodily and moral characteristics.[3] As to the German "schlecht," practically all the authorities agree with Nietzsche's view already given.[4] His general idea is that the ruler classes virtually stamped their view on current speech[5]—that is, did so at the start, for other valuations, coming from other classes, are the prevailing ones now.[6]
As stated, "good" and "bad" designated classes at first, but in time their meaning came to be generalized, so that they stood simply for the qualities of the contrasted classes, irrespective of who possessed them.j These more general meanings were, roughly speaking, fixed for the Greek world in the time of
- ↑ Op. cit., p. 176. They remark also that "cattivo," the Italian word for "bad," meant originally "captive" (cf. the English "caitiff").
- ↑ Wundt, op. cit., I, 44; Curtius, Griechische Etymologie (5th ed.), p. 370.
- ↑ Genealogy etc., I, § 5.
- ↑ Cf., e.g., Wundt, op. cit., I, 41.
- ↑ Dewey and Tufts admit that "the upper class has been most effectual in shaping language and standards of approval" (op. cit., p. 175).
- ↑ Nietzsche argues this at length in Genealogy etc., I, §§ 1-3.
