posit values withdraw them again, but that those who posit and those who retract are men from one and the same Western history. We ourselves, the contemporary representatives of Nietzsche's era, belong to those who are once again withdrawing values that were posited ear- lier. The deposition of values does not arise from a mere thirst for blind destruction and vain innovation. It arises from the need and necessity to give the world the meaning that does not reduce it to a mere passage into the beyond. A world must arise that enables a man to develop his essence from his own fund of values. But for that we need a transition, a way through the predicament in which the world appears value-less but at the same time demands a new value. The passage through the intermediate state must perceive it as such with the greatest possible awareness. To achieve that, it is necessary to recognize the origin of the intermediate state and to bring to light the first cause of nihilism. The decisive will to overcome the intermediate state can only emerge from an awareness of it.
Nietzsche's exposition, which began as an enumeration of the conditions for the emergence of nihilism and as a mere description of its course, now suddenly sounds like a declaration of what we are acting out; indeed, must act out. It is not a question here of historical recognition of past events and their effects on the present. Something imminent is at stake, something barely under way, involving decisions and tasks whose transitional character is interpreted as investing values in and withdrawing values from the world.
But there is more than one kind of "nihilism." Nihilism is not only the process of devaluing the highest values, nor simply the withdrawal of these values. The very positing of these values in the world is already nihilism. The devaluation of values does not end with a gradual becoming worthless of values, like a rivulet that trickles into the sand, Nihilism is achieved in the withdrawal of values, in the aggressive removal of values, Nietzsche wants to make clear to us the inner richness of the essence of nihilism. Section B therefore must inspire us to adopt a decisive stance.
If we now review section A with a sharper focus, we are able to detect the various modes of introduction of the three conditions for the emergence of nihilism, which to all appearances are merely being enumerated.