ABSTRACT
If the basic outline of the story of the First Essay is simple, the questions it raises are many and complex. Why exactly have we lost sight of this momentous historical event? In what sense is a psychological mechanism adequate to explain an historic transformation in values of the scope Nietzsche describes? How does such a mechanism operate? What precisely distinguishes a morality of “good and evil” from a morality of “good and bad”? And, most perplexing of all, why should this revaluation have been successful, given the advantage in resources and arms of the oppressors? We shall take up these questions in turn and, in the course of exploring the answers, examine the arguments of the First Essay.
