understanding of the term would lead us to imagine, namely, the dissolution of everything into sheer nothingness.
Nietzsche, whose knowledge of nihilism arose from and essentially adhered to his metaphysics of will to power, did not exhibit that knowledge in connection with the encompassing metaphysical view of history that hovered before his mind's eye. Moreover, we do not know and are no longer able to extrapolate the pure form of that view from the preserved fragments of his writing. Yet Nietzsche nonetheless did think through what within the domain of his thought was meant by the name nihilism in all the aspects , stages, and modes that were essential to him. He set down these thoughts in scattered writings of varying scope and with varying degrees of intensity.
One such note (WM, 2) says: "What does nihilism mean? That the uppermost values devaluate themselves. The aim is lacking; the 'why?' receives no answer." Nihilism is the process of the devaluation of the highest values hitherto. The decline of these values is the collapse of all prior truth concerning beings as such and as a whole. The process of the devaluation of the highest values hitherto is therefore not one historical occurrence among many others but is rather the fundamental event of Western history, which has been sustained and guided by metaphysics. Insofar as metaphysics received a particular theological stamp through Christianity, the devaluation of the highest values hitherto must also be expressed theologically through the statement "God is dead." Here "God" means the suprasensuous realm in general, which as the "true" and eternal world "beyond" proclaims itself in opposition to this "earthly" world the only viable goal. If the faith of the Christian Church has grown weary and has forfeited its worldly dominion, the dominance of its God has not yet disappeared. Rather, its form has been disguised and its claims have hardened beyond recognition. In place of the authority of God and Church looms the authority of conscience, or the domination of reason, or the God of historical progress, or the social instinct.
That the highest values hitherto are devalued means that these ideals lose their capacity to shape history. But if the "death of God" and the decline of the uppermost values is nihilism, how can one still assert