No More Learning

857
I distinguish between the type which represents
ascending life and that which represents. decay,
decomposition and weakness. Ought one to
suppose that the question of rank between these
two types can be at all doubtful ? . .
858.
The modicum of power which you represent
decides your rank; all the rest is cowardice.
859.
The advantages of standing detached from one's
age. --Detached from the two movements, that of
individualism and that of collectivist morality; for
even the first does not recognise the order of rank,
and would give one individual the same freedom
as another. My thoughts are not concerned with
the degree of freedom which should be granted to
the one or to the other or to all, but with the
degree of power which the one or the other should
exercise over his neighbour or over all; and more
especially with the question to what extent a
sacrifice of freedom, or even enslavement, may
afford the basis for the cultivation of a superior
type. In plain words : how could one sacrifice the
development of mankind in order to assist a higher
species than man to come into being.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
297
860.
Concerning rank. —The terrible consequences
of “equality"-in the end everybody thinks he has
the right to every problem. All order of rank
has vanished.
861.
It is necessary for higher men to declare war
upon the masses! In all directions mediocre
people are joining hands in order to make them-
selves masters. Everything that pampers, that
softens, and that brings the “people” or “woman
to the front, operates in favour of universal suffrage
—that is to say, the dominion of inferior men.
But we must make reprisals, and draw the
whole state of affairs (which commenced in
Europe with Christianity) to the light of day
and to judgment.
862.
A teaching is needed which is strong enough
to work in a disciplinary manner; it should
operate in such a way as to strengthen the strong
and to paralyse and smash up the world-weary.
The annihilation of declining races. The
decay of Europe. The annihilation of slave-
tainted valuations. The dominion of the world
as a means to the rearing of a higher type. The
annihilation of the humbug which is called
morality (Christianity as a hysterical kind of
honesty in this regard : Augustine, Bunyan)


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298
THE WILL TO POWER.
The annihilation of universal suffrage that is
to say, that system by means of which the
lowest natures prescribe themselves as a law for
higher natures. The annihilation of mediocrity
and its prevalence. (The one-sided, the indivi- .
duals—peoples; constitutional plenitude should
be aimed at by means of the coupling of opposites;
to this end race-combinations should be tried. )
The new kind of courage—no a priori truths
(those who were accustomed to believe in some-
thing sought such truths ! ), but free submission to
a ruling thought, which has its time; for instance,
time conceived as the quality of space, etc.
2. THE STRONG AND THE WEAK.
863.
The notion," strong and weak man," resolves itself
into this, that in the first place much strength is
inherited—the man is a total sum ; in the other,
not yet enough (inadequate inheritance, subdivision
of the inherited qualities). Weakness may be a
starting phenomenon : not yet enough; or a final
phenomenon: “no more. "
The determining point is there where great
strength is present, or where a great amount of
strength can be discharged. The mass, as the
sum-total of the weak, reacts slowly; it defends
itself against much for which it is too weak,-
against that for which it has no use; it never
creates, it never takes a step forward. This is
-


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THỆ ORDER OF RANK.
299
opposed to the theory which denies the strong
individual and would maintain that the masses
do everything. " The difference is similar to that
which obtains between separated generations :
four or even five generations may lie between the
masses and him who is the moving spirit—it is a
chronological difference.
The values of the weak are in the van,
because
the strong have adopted them in order to lead
with them.
864.
Why the weak triumph. -On the whole, the sick
and the weak have more sympathy and are more
“ humane”: the sick and the weak have more
intellect, and are more changeable, more variegated,
more entertaining-more malicious; the sick alone
invented malice. (A morbid precocity is often to be
observed among rickety, scrofulitic, and tuberculous
people. ) Esprit: the property of older races ;
Jews, Frenchmen, Chinese. (The anti-Semites
do not forgive the Jews for having both intellect-
and money. Anti-Semites—another name for
“ bungled and botched. ")
The sick and the weak have always had fascina-
tion on their side; they are more interesting than
the healthy : the fool and the saint—the two most
interesting kinds of men. . . . Closely related
thereto is the "genius. " The "great adventurers
and criminals" and all great men, the most healthy
in particular, have always been sick at certain
periods of their lives—great disturbances of the


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300
THE WILL TO POWER
emotions, the passion for power, love, revenge, are
all accompanied by very profound perturbations.
And, as for decadence, every man who does not
die prematurely manifests it in almost every
respect—he therefore knows from experience the
instincts which belong to it: for half his life
nearly every man is decadent.
And finally, woman! One-half of mankind is
weak, chronically sick, changeable, shifty-woman
requires strength in order to cleave to it; she also
requires a religion of the weak which glorifies
weakness, love, and modesty as divine : or, better
still, she makes the strong weak—she rules when
she succeeds in overcoming the strong.
Woman
has always conspired with decadent types,-the
priests, for instance,-against the"mighty," against
the “strong," against men. Women avail them.
selves of children for the cult of piety, pity, and
love : the mother stands as the symbol of con-
vincing altruism.
Finally, the increase of civilisation with its
necessary correlatives, the increase of morbid
elements, of the neurotic and psychiatric and of
the criminal. A sort of intermediary species arises,
A
the artist. He is distinct from those who are
criminals as the result of weak wills and of the
fear of society, although they may not yet be ripe
for the asylum; but he has antenna which grope
inquisitively into both spheres : this specific plant
of culture, the modern artist, painter, musician, and,
above all, novelist, who designates his particular
kind of attitude with the very indefinite word
« naturalism. "
Lunatics, criminals, and
.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
301
-
realists are on the increase: this is the sign of
a growing culture plunging forward at headlong
speed—that is to say, its excrement, its refuse, the
rubbish that is shot from it every day, is beginning
to acquire more importance,—the retrogressive
movement keeps pace with the advance.
Finally, the social mishmash, which is the result
of revolution, of the establishment of equal rights,
and of the superstition, the "equality of men. ”
Thus the possessors of the instincts of decline (of
resentment, of discontent, of the lust of destruction,
of anarchy and Nihilism), as also the instincts of
slavery, of cowardice, of craftiness, and of rascality,
which are inherent among those classes of society
which have long been suppressed, are beginning to
get infused into the blood of all ranks.
Two or
three generations later, the race can no longer be
recognised-everything has become mob. And
thus there results a collective instinct against
selection, against every kind of privilege; and
this instinct operates with such power, certainty,
hardness, and cruelty that, as a matter of fact, in
the end, even the privileged classes have to
submit: all those who still wish to hold on to
power flatter the mob, work with the mob, and
must have the mob on their side—the “geniuses”
above all. The latter become the heralds of those
feelings with which the mob can be inspired,—the
expression of pity, of honour, even for all that
suffers, all that is low and despised, and has lived
* The German word is “Naturalist," and really means
« realist” in a bad sense. —TR.


## p. 302 (#332) ############################################

302
THE WILL TO POWER.
under persecution, becomes predominant (types :
Victor Hugo, Richard Wagner). —The rise of the
mob signifies once more the rise of old values.
In the case of such an extreme movement, both
in tempo and in means, as characterises our civil-
isation, man's ballast is shifted. Those men whose
worth is greatest, and whose mission, as it were, is
to compensate for the very great danger of such
a morbid movement, such men become dawdlers
par excellence; they are slow to accept anything,
and are tenacious ; they are creatures that are
relatively lasting in the midst of this vast mingling
and changing of elements. In such circumstances
power is necessarily relegated to the mediocre :
mediocrity, as the trustee and bearer of the future,
consolidates itself against the rule of the mob and
of eccentricities (both of which are, in most cases,
united). In this way a new antagonist is evolved
for exceptional men-or in certain cases a new
temptation. Provided that they do not adapt
themselves to the mob, and stand up for what
satisfies the instincts of the disinherited, they will
find it necessary to be “mediocre and sound.
They know : mediocritas is also aurea,—it alone
has command of money and gold (of all that
glitters . ). . . . And, once more, old virtue and
the whole superannuated world of ideals in general
secures a gifted host of special-pleaders. . . . Result:
mediocrity acquires intellect, wit, and genius,-it
becomes entertaining, and even seductive.
.
Result. -A high culture can only stand upon a
broad basis, upon a strongly and soundly consoli-


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
303
-
-
dated mediocrity. In its service and assisted by
it, science and even art do their work. Science
could not wish for a better state of affairs : in its
essence it belongs to a middle-class type of man, —
among exceptions it is out of place, there is not
anything aristocratic and still
less anything
anarchic in its instincts. The power of the middle
classes is then upheld by means of commerce, but,
above all, by means of money-dealing: the instinct
of great financiers is opposed to everything extreme
-on this account the Jews are, for the present,
the most conservative power in the threatening
and insecure conditions of modern Europe. They
can have no use either for revolutions, for social-
ism, or for militarism : if they would have power,
and if they should need it, even over the revolu-
tionary party, this is only the result of what I
have already said, and it in no way contradicts
it. Against other extreme movements they may
occasionally require to excite terror-by showing
how much power is in their hands. But their
instinct itself is inveterately conservative and
“ mediocre. " . . . Wherever power exists, they
know how to become mighty ; but the application
of their power always takes the same direction.
The polite term for mediocre, as is well known,
is the word “ Liberal. ”
*
Reflection. It is all nonsense to suppose that
this general conquest of values is anti-biological.
In order to explain it, we ought to try and show
that it is the result of a certain interest of life to
maintain the type "man," even by means of this


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304
THE WILL TO POWER.
method which leads to the prevalence of the weak
and the physiologically botched—if things were
otherwise, might man not cease to exist ? Problem. . .
The enhancement of the type may prove fatal
to the maintenance of the species. Why ? —The
experience of history shows that strong races
decimate each other mutually, by means of war,
lust for power, and venturousness; the strong
emotions ; wastefulness strength is no longer
capitalised, disturbed mental systems arise from
excessive tension); their existence is a costly
affair-in short, they persistently give rise to
friction between themselves ; periods of profound
slackness and torpidity intervene: all great ages
have to be paid for. . . . The strong are, after all,
weaker, less wilful, and more absurd than the
average weak ones.
They are squandering races. “ Permanence,"
in itself, can have no value: that which ought to
be preferred thereto would be a shorter life for
the species, but a life richer in creations. It would
remain to be proved that, even as things are, a
richer sum of creations is attained than in the
case of the shorter existence; i. e. that man, as a
storehouse of power, attains to a much higher
degree of dominion over things under the con-
ditions which have existed hitherto. . . . We are
here face to face with a problem of economics.
•
865.
The state of mind which calls itself “idealism,"
and which will neither allow mediocrity to be


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
305
mediocre nor woman to be woman! Do not
make everything uniform ! We should have a
clear idea of how dearly we have to pay for the
establishment of a virtue; and that virtue is
nothing generally desirable, but a noble piece of
madness, a beautiful exception, which gives us the
privilege of feeling elated. .
.
866.
It is necessary to show that a counter-movement
is inevitably associated with any increasingly
economical consumption of men and mankind, and
with an ever more closely involved "machinery ”
of interests and services. I call this counter-
movement the separation of the luxurious surplus
1 of mankind: by means of it a stronger kind, a
higher type, must come to light, which has other
conditions for its origin and for its maintenance than
the average man. My concept, my metaphor for
this type is, as you know, the word “ Superman. "
Along the first road, which can now be completely
surveyed, arose adaptation, stultification, higher
Chinese culture, modesty in the instincts, and
satisfaction at the sight of the belittlement of
man—a kind of stationary level of mankind. If
ever we get that inevitable and imminent, general
control of the economy of the earth, then man-
kind can be used as machinery and find its best
purpose in the service of this economy—as an
enormous piece of clock-work consisting of ever
smaller and ever more subtly adapted wheels;
then all the dominating and commanding elements
U
VOL. II.


## p. 306 (#336) ############################################

306
THE WILL TO POWER.
will become ever more superfluous; and the
whole gains enormous energy, while the individual
factors which compose it represent but small
modicums of strength and of value. To oppose
this dwarfing and adaptation of man to a special-
ised kind of utility, a reverse movement is needed
—the procreation of the synthetic man who em-
bodies everything and justifies it; that man for
whom the turning of mankind into a machine is
a first condition of existence, for whom the rest of
mankind is but soil on which he can devise his
higher mode of existence.
He is in need of the opposition of the masses,
of those who are "levelled down"; he requires
that feeling of distance from them; he stands
upon them, he lives on them. This higher form
of aristocracy is the form of the future, From
the moral point of view, the collective machinery
above described, that solidarity of all wheels,
represents the most extreme example in the
exploitation of mankind: but it presupposes the
existence of those for whom such an exploitation
would have some meaning. * Otherwise it would
signify, as a matter of fact, merely the general
depreciation of the type man,-a retrograde
phenomenon on a grand scale.
Readers are beginning to see what I am
combating—namely, economic optimism: as if
* This sentence for ever distinguishes Nietzsche's aristoc-
racy from our present plutocratic and industrial one, for
which, at the present moment at any rate, it would be
difficult to discover some meaning. -TR.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
307
the general welfare of everybody must necessarily
increase with the growing self-sacrifice of every-
body. The very reverse seems to me to be the
case, the self-sacrifice of everybody amounts to a
collective loss; man becomes inferior-so that
nobody knows what end this monstrous purpose
has served. A wherefore ? a new wherefore ? -
this is what mankind requires.
867
The recognition of the increase of collective
power: we should calculate to what extent the
ruin of individuals, of castes, of ages, and of
peoples, is included in this general increase.
The transposition of the ballast of a culture.
The cost of every vast growth: who bears it?
Why must it be enormous at the present time?
868.
General aspect of the future European: the
latter regarded as the most intelligent servile
animal, very industrious, at bottom very modest,
inquisitive to excess, multifarious, pampered,
weak of will, - a chaos of cosmopolitan pas-
sions and intelligences. How would it be
possible for a stronger race to be bred from
him Such a race as would have a classical
taste ? The classical taste: this is the will to
simplicity, to accentuation, and to happiness made
visible, the will to the terrible, and the courage
for psychological nakedness (simplification is the
!


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308
THE WILL TO POWER.
outcome of the will to accentuate; allowing
happiness as well as nakedness to become visible
is a consequence of the will to the terrible . . . ).
In order to fight one's way out of that chaos, and
up to this form, a certain disciplinary constraint is
necessary : a man should have to choose between
either going to the dogs or prevailing. A ruling
race can only arise amid terrible and violent
conditions. Problem: where are the barbarians
of the twentieth century? Obviously they will
only show themselves and consolidate themselves
after enormous socialistic crises. They will con-
sist of those elements which are capable of the
greatest hardness towards themselves, and which
can guarantee the most enduring will-power,
869.
The mightiest and most dangerous passions of
man, by means of which he most easily goes to
rack and ruin, have been so fundamentally banned
that mighty men themselves have either become
impossible or else must regard themselves as evil,
“harmful and prohibited. ” The losses are heavy,
but up to the present they have been necessary.
Now, however, that a whole host of counter-forces
has been reared, by means of the temporary
suppression of these passions (the passion for
dominion, the love of change and deception), their
liberation has once more become possible: they
will no longer possess their old savagery. We
can now allow ourselves this tame sort of bar-
barism : look at our artists and our statesmen !


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
309
870.
The root of all evil : that the slave morality
of modesty, chastity, selflessness, and absolute
obedience should have triumphed. Dominating
natures were thus condemned (1) to hypocrisy,
(2) to qualms of conscience,-creative natures
regarded themselves as rebels against God, un-
certain and hemmed in by eternal values.
The barbarians showed that the ability of
keeping within the bounds of moderation was not
in the scope of their powers : they feared and
slandered the passions and instincts of nature-
likewise the aspect of the ruling Cæsars and
castes. On the other hand, there arose the sus-
picion that all restraint is a form of weakness or
of incipient old age and fatigue (thus La Rochefou-
cauld suspects that "virtue" is only a euphemism
in the mouths of those to whom vice no longer
affords any pleasure). The capacity for restraint
was represented as a matter of hardness, self-
control, asceticism, as a fight with the devil, etc.
etc. The natural delight of æsthetic natures, in
measure; the pleasure derived from the beauty of
measure, was overlooked and denied, because that
which was
desired was
an anti-eudaemonistic
morality. The belief in the pleasure which comes
of restraint has been lacking hitherto — this
pleasure of a rider on a fiery steed! The modera-
tion of weak natures was confounded with the
restraint of the strong!
In short, the best things have been blasphemed
because weak or immoderate swine have thrown a


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310
THE WILL TO POWER.
bad light upon them- the best men have remained
concealed - and have often misunderstood them-
selves.
871.
Vicious and unbridled people: their depressing
influence upon the value of the passions. It was
the appalling barbarity of morality which was
principally responsible in the Middle Ages for
the compulsory recourse to a veritable “ league
of virtue”—and this was coupled with an equally
appalling exaggeration of all that which consti-
tutes the value of, man. Militant “civilisation"
(taming) is in need of all kinds of irons and
tortures in order to maintain itself against terrible
and beast-of-prey natures.
In this case, contusion, although it may have
the most nefarious influences, is quite natural:
that which men of power and will are able to
demand of themselves gives them the standard for
what they may also allow themselves. Such natures
are the very opposite of the vicious and the un-
bridled; although under certain circumstances they
may perpetrate deeds for which an inferior man
would be convicted of vice and intemperance.
In this respect the concept, “all men are equal
before God," does an extraordinary amount of
harm; actions and attitudes of mind were for-
bidden which belonged to the prerogative of the
strong alone, just as if they were in themselves
unworthy of man. All the tendencies of strong
men were brought into disrepute by the fact that
the defensive weapons of the most weak (even of


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
311
1
those who were weakest towards themselves) were
established as a standard of valuation.
The confusion went so far that precisely the
great virtuosos of life (whose self-control presents
the sharpest contrast to the vicious and the un-
bridled) were branded with the most opprobrious
names. Even to this day people feel themselves
compelled to disparage a Cæsar Borgia : it is
simply ludicrous. The Church has anathematised
German Kaisers owing to their vices: as if a monk
or a priest had the right to say a word as to what
a Frederick II. should allow himself. Don Juan
is sent to hell : this is very naïf. Has anybody
ever noticed that all interesting men are lacking
in heaven? . . This is only a hint to the girls,
as to where they may best find salvation.
think at all logically, and also have a profound
insight into that which makes a great man, there
can be no doubt at all that the Church has dis-
patched all “great men” to Hades—its fight is
against all “greatness in man. ”
.
If one
872.
The rights which a man arrogates to himself
are relative to the duties which he sets himself,
and to the tasks which he feels capable of per-
forming. The great majority of men have no
right to life, and are only a misfortune to their
higher fellows.
1
873.
The misunderstanding of egoism : on the part
of ignoble natures who know nothing of the lust of


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312
THE WILL TO POWER.
conquest and the insatiability of great love, and who
likewise know nothing of the overflowing feelings
of power which make a man wish to overcome things,
to force them over to himself, and to lay them on
his heart, the power which impels an artist to
his material. It often happens also that the
active spirit looks for a field for its activity. In
ordinary "egoism” it is precisely the “non-ego,"
the profoundly mediocre creature, the member of
the herd, who wishes to maintain himself—and
when this is perceived by the rarer, more subtle,
and less mediocre natures, it revolts them. For
the judgment of the latter is this: “We are the
noble! It is much more important to maintain us
than that cattle! ”
874.
The degeneration of the ruler and of the ruling
classes has been the cause of all the great dis-
orders in history! Without the Roman Cæsars
and Roman society, Christianity would never have
prevailed.
When it occurs to inferior men to doubt
whether higher men exist, then the danger is
great! It is then that men finally discover that
there are virtues even among inferior, suppressed,
and poor-spirited men, and that everybody is
equal before God: which is the non plus ultra of
all confounded nonsense that has ever appeared
on earth! For in the end higher men begin to
themselves according to the standard of
virtues upheld by the slaves—and discover that


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
313
they are “proud,” etc. , and that all their higher
qualities should be condemned.
When Nero and Caracalla stood at the helm,
it was then that the paradox arose: “The lowest
man is of more value than that one on the throne ! ”
And thus the path was prepared for an image of
God which was as remote as possible from the
image of the mightiest,—God on the Cross !
875.
Higher man and gregarious man. —When great
men are wanting, the great of the past are con-
verted into demigods or whole gods: the rise of
religions proves that mankind no longer has any
pleasure in man "nor in woman neither," as in
Hamlet's case). Or a host of men are brought
together in a heap, and it is hoped that as a
Parliament they will operate just as tyrannically.
Tyrannising is the distinctive quality of great
men: they make inferior men stupid.
876.
Buckle åffords the best example of the extent
to which a plebeian agitator of the mob is in-
capable of arriving at a clear idea of the concept,
"higher nature. ” The opinion which he combats
so passionately—that “great men," individuals,
princes, statesmen, geniuses, warriors, are the
levers and causes of all great movements, is in-
stinctively misunderstood by him, as if it meant
that all that was essential and valuable in such


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314
THE WILL TO POWER.
a “higher man," was the fact that he was capable
of setting masses in motion; in short, that his
sole merit was the effect he produced.
the “higher nature" of the great man resides
precisely in being different, in being unable to
communicate with others, in the loftiness of his
rank-not in any sort of effect he may produce
even though this be the shattering of both hemi-
spheres.
877.
The Revolution made Napoleon possible: that
is its justification. We ought to desire the
anarchical collapse of the whole of our civilisation
if such a reward were to be its result. Napoleon
made nationalism possible: that is the latter's
excuse.
The value of a man (apart, of course, from
morality and immorality: because with these
concepts a man's worth is not even skimmed)
does not lie in his utility ; because he would
continue to exist even if there were nobody to
whom he could be useful. And why could not
that man be the very pinnacle of manhood who
was the source of the worst possible effects for
his race: so high and so superior, that in his
presence everything would go to rack and ruin
from envy?
878.
To appraise the value of a man according to
his utility to mankind, or according to what
costs it, or the damage he is able to infict upon it,


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
315
is just as good and just as bad as to appraise the
value of a work of art according to its effects.
But in this way the value of one man compared
with another is not even touched upon. The
“moral valuation," in so far as it is social, measures
men altogether according to their effects. But
what about the man who has his own taste on
his tongue, who is surrounded and concealed
by his isolation, uncommunicative and not to be
communicated with; a man whom no one has
fathomed yet—that is to say, a creature of a
higher, and, at any rate, different species : how
would ye appraise his worth, seeing that ye
cannot know him and can compare him with
nothing?
Moral valuation was the cause of the most
enormous obtuseness of judgment: the value of
a man in himself is underrated, well-nigh over-
looked, practically denied. This is the remains
of simple-minded teleology : the value of man
can only be measured with regard to other men.
879.
To be obsessed by moral considerations pre-
supposes a very low grade of intellect: it shows
that the instinct for special rights, for standing
apart, the feeling of freedom in creative natures,
in “ children of God” (or of the devil), is lacking.
And irrespective of whether he preaches a ruling
morality or criticises the prevailing ethical code
from the point of view of his own ideal: by
doing these things a man shows that he belongs


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316
THE WILL TO POWER.
to the herd-even though he may be what it is
most in need of-that is to say, a “shepherd. ”
!
880.
4
We should substitute morality by the will to our
own ends, and consequently to the means to them.
881.
Concerning the order of rank. What is it that
constitutes the mediocrity of the typical man?
That he does not understand that things neces-
sarily have their other side; that he combats evil
conditions as if they could be dispensed with;
that he will not take the one with the other; that
he would fain obliterate and erase the specific
character of a thing, of a circumstance, of an age,
and of a person, by calling only a portion of their
qualities good, and suppressing the remainder.
The “ desirability” of the mediocre is that which
we others combat: their ideal is something which
shall no longer contain anything harmful, evil,
dangerous, questionable, and destructive. We
recognise the reverse of this: that with every
growth of man his other side must grow as well;
that the highest man, if such a concept be allowed,
would be that man who would represent the antag-
onistic character of existence most strikingly, and
would be its glory and its only justification.
Ordinary men may only represent a small corner
and nook of this natural character; they perish
the moment the multifariousness of the elements
composing them, and the tension between their
!
1
1
.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
317
antagonistic traits, increases: but this is the pre-
requisite for greatness in man. That man should
become better and at the same time more evil, is
my
formula for this inevitable fact.
The majority of people are only piecemeal and
fragmentary examples of man: only when all
these creatures are jumbled together does one
whole man arise. Whole ages and whole peoples
in this sense, have a fragmentary character about
them; it may perhaps be part of the economy of
human development that man should develop
himself only piecemeal. But, for this reason, one
should not forget that the only important con-
sideration is the rise of the synthetic man; that
inferior men, and by far the great majority of
people, are but rehearsals and exercises out of
which here and there a whole man may arise; a
man who is a human milestone, and who indicates
how far mankind has advanced up to a certain
point.
Mankind does not advance in a straight
line; often a type is attained which is again lost
(for instance, with all the efforts of three hundred
years, we have not reached the men of the Renais-
sance again, and in addition to this we must not
forget that the man of the Renaissance was already
behind his brother of classical antiquity).
882.
The superiority of the Greek and the man of
the Renaissance is recognised, but people would
like to produce them without the conditions and
causes of which they were the result.


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318
THE WILL TO POWER.
883.
" Purification of taste" can only be the result
of the strengthening of the type. Our society
to-day represents only the cultivating systems;
the cultivated man is lacking. The great synthetic
man, in whom the various forces for attaining a
purpose are correctly harnessed together, is alto-
gether wanting. The specimen we possess is the
multifarious man, the most interesting form of
chaos that has ever existed: but not the chaos
preceding the creation of the world, but that fol-
lowing it: Goethe as the most beautiful expression
of the type (completely and utterly un-Olympian! )
884.
Handel, Leibniz, Goethe, and Bismarck, are
characteristic of the strong German type. They
lived with equanimity, surrounded by contrasts.
They were full of that agile kind of strength
which cautiously avoids convictions and doctrines,
by using the one as a weapon against the other,
and reserving absolute freedom for themselves.
885.
Of this I am convinced, that if the rise of great
and rare men had been made dependent upon the
voices of the multitude (taking for granted, of
* The Germans always call Goethe the Olympian. —TR.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
319
course, that the latter knew the qualities which
: belong to greatness, and also the price that all
greatness pays for its self-development), then there
would never have been any such thing as a great
man!
The fact that things pursue their course inde-
pendently of the voice of the many, is the reason why
a few astonishing things have taken place on earth.
886.
The Order of Rank in Human Values.
(a) A man should not be valued according to
isolated acts. Epidermal actions. Nothing is more
rare than a personal act. Class, rank, race, environ-
ment, accident-all these things are much more
likely to be expressed in an action or deed than
the "personality" of the doer.
(6) We should on no account jump to the con-
clusion that there are many people who are per-
sonalities. Some men are but conglomerations of
personalities, whilst the majority are not even one.
In all cases in which those average qualities pre-
ponderate, which ensure the maintenance of the
species, to be a personality would involve un-
necessary expense, it would be a luxury--in fact,
it would be foolish to iemand of anybody that he
should be a personality. In such circumstances
everybody is a channel or a transmitting vessel.
(c) A “personality” is a relatively isolated phen-
omenon; in view of the superior importance of
the continuation of the race at an average level, a


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320
THE WILL TO POWER.
personality might even be regarded as something
hostile to nature. For a personality to be possible,
timely isolation and the necessity for an existence
of offence and defence, are prerequisites; something
in the nature of a walled enclosure, a capacity for
shutting out the world; but above all, a much lower
degree of sensitiveness than the average man has,
who is too easily infected with the views of others.
The first question concerning the order of rank:
how far is a man disposed to be solitary or gre-
garious? (in the latter case, his valueconsists in those
qualities which secure the survival of his tribe or
his type; in the former case, his qualities are those
which distinguish him from others, which isolate
and defend him, and make his solitude possible).
Consequence : the solitary type should not be
valued from the standpoint of the gregarious type,
or vice versa.
Viewed from above, both types are necessary ;
as is likewise their antagonism,—and nothing is
more thoroughly reprehensible than the “ desire
which would develop a third thing out of the two
(“ virtue" as hermaphroditism). This is as little
worthy of desire as the equalisation and reconcilia-
tion of the sexes. The distinguishing qualities must
be developed ever more and more, the gulf must be
made ever wider. . .
The concept of degeneration in both cases : the
approximation of the qualities of the herd to those
of solitary creatures: and vice versa—in short, when
they begin to resemble each other.
of degeneration is beyond the sphere of moral
judgments.
"
This concept


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
321
887.
Where the strongest natures are to be sought.
The ruin and degeneration of the solitary species is
much greater and more terrible: they have the in-
stincts of the herd, and the tradition of values,
against them; their weapons of defence, their in-
stincts of self-preservation, are from the beginning
insufficiently strong and reliable—fortune must be
peculiarly favourable to them if they are to prosper
(they prosper best in the lowest ranks and dregs
of society; if ye are seeking personalities it is there
that ye will find them with much greater certainty
than in the middle classes ! )
When the dispute between ranks and classes,
which aims at equality of rights, is almost settled,
the fight will begin against the solitary person. (In
a certain sense the latter can maintain and develop
himself most easily in a democratic society: there
where the coarser means of defence are no longer
necessary, and a certain habit of order, honesty,
justice, trust, is already a general condition. The
strongest must be most tightly bound, most strictly
watched, laid in chains and supervised: this is the
instinct of the herd. To them belongs a régime of
self-mastery, of ascetic detachment, of “duties”
consisting in exhausting work, in which one can no
longer call one's soul one's own.
888.
I am attempting an economic justification of
virtue. The object is to make man as useful as
х
VOL. II.


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322
THE WILL TO POWER.
possible, and to make him approximate as nearly
as one can to an infallible machine : to this end he
must be equipped with machine-like virtues (he
must learn to value those states in which he works
in a most mechanically useful way, as the highest
of all: to this end it is necessary to make him as
disgusted as possible with the other states, and to
represent them as very dangerous and despicable).
Here is the first stumbling-block: the tedious-
ness and monotony which all mechanical activity
brings with it. To learn to endure this and not
only to endure it, but to see tedium enveloped in
a ray of exceeding charm : this hitherto has been
the task of all higher schools. To learn something
which you don't care a fig about, and to find pre-
cisely your “duty” in this “objective” activity ;
to learn to value happiness and duty as things
apart; this is the invaluable task and performance
of higher schools. It is on this account that the
philologist has, hitherto, been the educator per se:
because his activity, in itself, affords the best
pattern of magnificent monotony in action; under
his banner youths learn to "swat”: first pre-
“
requisite for the thorough fulfilment of mechanical
duties in the future (as State officials, husbands,
slaves of the desk, newspaper readers, and soldiers).
Such an existence may perhaps require a philosoph-
ical glorification and justification more than any
other : pleasurable feelings must be valued by some
sort of infallible tribunal, as altogether of inferior
rank; “duty per se," perhaps even the pathos of re-
verence in regard to everything unpleasant-must
be demanded imperatively as that which is above all
:


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
323
useful, delightful, and practical things. . . A
mechanical form of existence regarded as the
highest and most respectable form of existence,
worshipping itself (type: Kant as the fanatic of the
formal concept “Thou shalt ”).
889.
The economic valuation of all the ideals that
have existed hitherto—that is to say, the selection
and rearing of definite passions and states at the
cost of other passions and states. The law-giver
(or the instinct of the community) selects a number
of states and passions the existence of which
guarantees the performance of regular actions
(mechanical actions would thus be the result of
the regular requirements of those passions and
states).
In the event of these states and passions con-
taining ingredients which were painful, a means
would have to be found for overcoming this pain-
fulness by means of a valuation ; pain would have
to be interpreted as something valuable, as some-
thing pleasurable in a higher sense. Conceived in
a formula: “How does something unpleasant become
pleasant ? " For instance, when our obedience and
our submission to the law become honoured, thanks
to the energy, power, and self-control they entail.
The same holds good of our public spirit, of our
neighbourliness, of our patriotism, our “ humanisa-
tion," our "altruism," and our "heroism. "
“ The
object of all idealism should be to induce people to
do unpleasant things cheerfully.
a
»
»


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324
THE WILL TO POWER.
890.
The belittlement of man must be held as the
chief aim for a long while: because what is needed
in the first place is a broad basis from which a
stronger species of man may arise (to what extent
hitherto has every stronger species of man arisen
from a substratum of inferior people? ).
891.
The absurd and contemptible form of idealism
which would not have mediocrity mediocre, and
which instead of feeling triumphant at being ex-
ceptional, becomes indignant at cowardice, false-
ness, pettiness, and wretchedness. We should not
wish things to be any different, we should make the
gulfs even wider ! —The higher types among men
should be compelled to distinguish themselves by
means of the sacrifices which they make to their
own existence.
Principal point of view : distances must be es-
tablished, but no contrasts must be created. The
middle classes must be dissolved, and their influence
decreased: this is the principal means of main-
taining distances.
892.
Who would dare to disgust the mediocre of their
mediocrity! As you observe, I do precisely the
reverse: every step away from mediocrity—thus
do I teach leads to immorality.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
325
893
To hate mediocrity is unworthy of a philo-
sopher: it is almost a note of interrogation to his
right to philosophy. ” It is precisely because he is
the exception that he must protect the rule and
ingratiate all mediocre people.
894.
What I combat: that an exceptional form should
make war upon the rule—instead of understanding
that the continued existence of the rule is the first
condition of the value of the exception.