No More Learning

I recognise virtue in that: (1) it does not insist upon being recognised; (2) it does not presuppose the existence of virtue everywhere, but precisely something else; (3) it does not suffer from the absence of virtue, but regards it rather as a relation of perspective which throws virtue into relief: it does not proclaim itself; (4) it
makes no propaganda; (5) it allows no one to pose as judge because it is always a personal virtue; (6) it does precisely what is generally
forbidden: virtue as I understand it is the actual vetitum within all gregarious legislation; (7) in
short, I recognise virtue in that it is in the
Renaissance style--virtu`-free from all moralic acid. . . .
3. 18.
In the first place," Messrs. Virtue-mongers, you
have no superiority over us; we should like to make you take modesty a little more to heart:
it is wretched personal interests and prudence which suggest your virtue to you. And if you had more strength and courage in your bodies you
would not lower yourselves thus to the level of virtuous nonentities. You make what you can of yourselves: partly what you are obliged to make,
--that is to say, what your circumstances force you to make,--partly what suits your pleasure and
partly what seems useful to you. But if you do only what is in keeping with your inclinations,
* TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. --Here Nietzsche returns to Christian virtue which is negative and moral.
? ? ? ? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY,
259
or what necessity exacts from you, or what is useful to you, you ought neither to praise your
selves nor let others praise you ! . . . One is a thoroughly puny kind of man when one is only virtuous: nothing should mislead you in this regard | Men who have to be considered at all, were never such donkeys of virtue: their inmost instinct, that which determined their quantum of power, did not find its reckoning thus: whereas with your minimum amount of power nothing can seem more full of wisdom to you than virtue. But the multitude are on your side: and because you tyrannise over us, we shall,fight you. . . .
3 IQ.
A virtuous man is of a lower species because,
in the first place, he has no "personality," but
acquires his value by conforming with a certain human scheme which has been once and for ever
fixed. He has no independent value: he may
be compared; he has his equals, he must not be an individual.
Reckoning up the qualities of the good man, why is it they appear pleasant to us? Because they urge us neither to war, to mistrust, to caution, to the accumulating of forces, nor to severity: our laziness, our good nature, and our levity, have a good time. This, our feeling of
well-being, is what we project into the good man
in the form of a quality, in the form of a valuable possession,
? ? ? ? 260 THE WILL TO POWER.
32O.
Under certain circumstances, virtue is merely a venerable form of stupidity: who could blame her for it? And this form of virtue has not
been outlived even to-day. A sort of honest peasant-simplicity, which is possible, however, in all
classes of society, and which one cannot meet with anything else than a respectful smile, still thinks
to-day that everything is in good hands--that is
to say, in "God's hands": and when it supports
this proposition with that same modest assurance as that with which it would assert that two and
2
? i |
two are four, we others naturally refrain from contradiction.
Why disturb this pure foolery; Why darken
it with our cares concerning man, people, goals,
the future? Even if we wished to do so, we
shouldn't succeed. In all things these people see
the reflection of their own venerable stupidity and
goodness (in them the old God--deus myops--
still lives); we others see something else in everything: our problematic nature, our contra
dictions, our deeper, more painful, and more suspicious wisdom.
32 I.
He who finds a particular virtue an easy matter, ultimately laughs at Seriousness cannot be maintained once virtue attained. As
soon man has reached virtue, he jumps out
it--whither? Into devilry.
Meanwhile, how intelligent all our evil tend
? ? > of
as a
is it.
? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY. 261
fishhooks of knowledge |
322.
The idea is to associate vice with something so
terrible that at last one is obliged to run away
from it in order to be rid of associations. This the well-known case of Tannha? user.
Tannha? user, brought his wits' end by Wagner ian music, cannot endure life any longer even
encies and impulses have become ! What an
a- inquisitiveness
amount of scientific torments them !
? the company begins have virgin goes up
still, he shows bach's melody.
Mrs. Venus: suddenly virtue charm for him; Thuringian
price, and what even worse liking for Wolfram von Eschen
323.
Virtue. --Lust property, lust
The Patrons
power, laziness, simplicity, fear; all these things
are interested virtue; that why stands securely.
324.
Virtue no longer believed in; its powers
attraction are dead; what needed some one
who will once more bring into the market the form of an outlandish kind of adventure and of
dissipation. exacts too much extravagance and narrow-mindedness from its believers to allow of conscience not being against to-day. Certainly,
for people without either consciences scruples,
? ? or
is
it
it is
is
It
in . a of of . ina
in
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so
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to
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is a
its
.
to
? 262 THE WILL TO POWER.
this may constitute its new charm: it is now what it has never been before--a vice.
325.
326.
Virtues are as dangerous as vices, in so far as
they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and laws coming from outside, and not as qualities one
develops one's self. The latter is the only right
way; they should be the most personal means of defence and most individual needs--the determin
ing factors of precisely our existence and growth, which we recognise and acknowledge independ
ently of the question whether others grow with us
with the help of the same or of different principles.
This view of the danger of the virtue which is
understood as impersonal and objective also holds good of modesty: through modesty many of the
choicest intellects perish. The morality of modesty
is the worst possible softening influence for those souls for which it is pre-eminently necessary that
they become hard betimes.
327.
The domain of morality must be reduced and limited step by step; the names of the instincts which are really active in this sphere must be drawn into the light of day and honoured, after
/\
remain so !
Virtue is still the most expensive vice: let it
? ? ? ? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
263
they have lain all this time in the concealment of hypocritical names of virtue. Out of respect for one's "honesty," which makes itself heard ever more and more imperiously, one ought to unlearn the shame which makes one deny and "explain away" all natural instincts. The extent to which
one can dispense with virtue is the measure of one's strength; and a height may be imagined where the notion "virtue" is understood in such a
way as to be reminiscent of virta`--the virtue of the Renaissance--free from moralic acid. But
for the moment--how remote this ideal seems |
The reduction of the domain of morality is a sign of its progress. Wherever, hitherto, thought
has not been guided by causality, thinking has taken a moral turn.
328.
After all, what have I achieved ? Let us not
close our eyes to this wonderful result: I have lent new charms to virtue--it now affects one
in the same way as something forbidden. It has our most subtle honesty against salted
? the "cum grano salis"
conscience. savours fashion, and thus
the scientific pang antiquity and old
last beginning draw make them inquisitive--in
refined people and
short, affects like vice. Only after we have once recognised that everything consists lies and appearance, shall have again earned the right
uphold this most beautiful all fictions--virtue. There will then remain no further reason to de
prive ourselves it: only when we have shown
? ? of
we
It us
to
it
it a tois
at of of of
of
to of
is
of in
it, it
? 264
THE WILL TO POWER.
virtue to be a form of immorality do we again justify it--it then becomes classified, and likened,
in fundamental features, the profound and general immorality all existence, which
then shown part. appears form luxury the first order, the most arrogant, the
dearest, and rarest form vice. We have robbed grimaces and divested its drapery;
we have delivered from the importunate famili arity the crowd; we have deprived its
ridiculous rigidity, its empty expression, its stiff false hair, and its hieratic muscles.
? And any harm
supposed
329.
that have thereby done Just little anar Only since they have been
virtue? princes.
chists
shot at, have they once more sat securely on their thrones. For thus has always been and
will ever be: one cannot do thing
service than persecute and run This--I have done.
THE MORAL IDEAL.
A. Criticism of Ideals.
33O.
were the thing begin this criticism
better earth.
wise
criticism of desiderata.
do away with the word "Ideal":
such
? ? as to
. . .
do is to to it
of its
of
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? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
33 I.
265
Only the fewest amongst us are aware of what is involved, from the standpoint of desirability, in
every "thus should it be, but it is not," or even "thus it ought to have been": such expressions of opinion involve a condemnation of the whole
nothing quite isolated in the world: the smallest thing bears the largest on its back; on thy small injustice the
whole nature of the future depends; the whole is condemned by every criticism which is directed at
the smallest part of Now granting that the moral norm--even as Kant understood it--is
never completely fulfilled, and remains like sort Beyond hanging over reality without ever
falling down it; then morality would contain itself judgment concerning the whole, which
would still, however, allow the question: whence
does get the right thereto How does the part come acquire this judicial position relative
the whole And some have declared, this
course of events. For there is
? with, reality, an ineradicable instinct, not possible
moral condemnation and dissatisfaction
that this instinct may perhaps belong the
ineradicable stupidities and immodesties our, species? --But saying this, we are doing pre
cisely what we deprecate; the point view
desirability and part and parcel phenomena just
unauthorised fault-finding
the whole character worldly every injustice and imperfection
is--it our very notion "perfection" which never gratified. Every instinct which desires
? ? to is
is of
to
is
is
to it
a
to
as of of of
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is it
if, of,as
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P
?
of
in
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? 266 THE WILL TO POWER.
be indulged gives expression to its dissatisfaction
with the present state of things: how? Is the
whole perhaps made up of a host of dissatisfied
parts, which all have desiderata in their heads? Is
the "course of things" perhaps "the road hence? the road leading away from reality"--that is to
say, eternal dissatisfaction in itself? Is the concep tion of desiderata perhaps the essential motive power of all things? Is it--deus *
>k
It seems to me of the utmost importance that we should rid ourselves of the notion of the whole,
of an entity, and of any kind of power or form of the unconditioned. For we shall never be able
to resist the temptation of regarding it as the supreme being, and of christening it "God. "
The "All " must be subdivided; we must unlearn our respect for and reappropriate that which
? imaginary entity, for the purposes our neighbour and our selves. Whereas, for instance, Kant said: "Two
things remain for ever worthy honour" (at the
close his Practical Reason)--to-day we should prefer say: "Digestion more worthy
honour. " The concept, "the All," will always
we have lent the unknown and an
give rise the old problems, possible? " etc. Therefore, there
there great sensorium power-magazine.
332. just bad taste as: "A tree
man he ought
"How evil "All,"
inventarium
this sounds me ought be. "
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is no
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be :
as or it
of
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is
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is
it,
? A. CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
333.
267
Ethics: or the "philosophy of desirability. "-- "Things ought to be otherwise," "things ought to become different": dissatisfaction would thus seem the heart of ethics.
One could find a way out of first, by select ing only those states which one free from emotion; secondly, by grasping the insolence and stupidity
the attitude mind: for desire that something should be otherwise than
means desire that everything should different --it involves damaging criticism the whole. But life itself consists such desiring
To ascertain what exists, how exists seems an ever much higher and more serious matter than every "thus should be," because the latter,
piece human criticism and arrogance, appears to be condemned as ludicrous from the start.
? expresses
organisation the world correspond with our
need which would fain have the
human well-being, and which directs the will much possible towards the accomplishment
that relationship.
On the other hand, this desire, "thus ought
be," has only called forth that other desire, "what exists f" The desire knowing what exists, already consequence the question, "how? possible? Why precisely so? " Our wonder
the disagreement between our desires and the course the world has led our learning know the course the world. Perhaps the matter stands differently: maybe the expression,
? ? of
it
at is is it
to
a
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? 268 THE WILL TO POWER.
"thus it ought to be," is merely the utterance of our desire to overcome the world
3. 34.
To-day when every attempt at determining how
man should be--is received with some irony, when
we adhere to the notion that in spite of all one
only becomes what one is (in spite of all--that
say, education, instruction, environment, accident, and disaster), in the matter of morality we have learnt, in a very peculiar way, how to
is to
reverse the relation of cause and effect.
? perhaps distinguishes
Nothing
us more than this from the
ancient believers in morality. We no longer say,
for instance, "Vice is the cause of a man's physical ruin," and we no longer say, "A man prospers with
virtue because it brings a long life and happiness. " Our minds to-day are much more inclined to the belief that vice and virtue are not causes but only effects. A man becomes a respectable member of society because he was a respectable man from the start--that is to say, because he was born in possession of good instincts and prosperous pro
pensities. . . . Should a man enter the world poor,
and the son of parents who are neither economical nor thrifty, he is insusceptible of being improved--
that is to say, he is only for the prison the madhouse. To-day we are no longer able separate moral from physical degeneration: the former merely complicated symptom the latter; man necessarily bad just he
necessarily
Bad: this word here stands
? ? ill.
. . .
a is
. isa .
as
or
is
to
of
fit
?
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
269
for a certain lack of capacity which is related physiologically with the degenerating type--for
instance, a weak will, an uncertain and many-sided
personality, the inability to resist reacting to a
stimulus and to control one's self, and a certain constraint resulting from every suggestion pro
ceeding from another's will. Vice is not a cause;
arbitrary epitome of certain effects resulting from physio logical degeneracy. A general proposition such
as that which Christianity teaches, namely, "Man is evil," would be justified provided one were justified in regarding a given type of degenerate man as normal. But this may be an exaggeration. Of course, wherever Christianity prospers and pre vails, the proposition holds good: for then the
existence of an unhealthy soil--of a degenerate
it is an effect. . . . Vice is a somewhat
? - territory--is
demonstrated.
3. 35.
It is difficult to have sufficient respect for man, when one sees how he understands the art of
fighting his way, of enduring, of turning circum
stances to his own advantage, and of overthrowing
opponents; but when he is seen in the light of his desires, he is the most absurd of all animals. . . . It is just as if he required a playground for his cowardice, his laziness, his feebleness, his sweetness, his submissiveness, where he recovers
from his strong virile virtues. Just look at man's "desiderata " and his "ideals. " Man, when he
desires,
tries to recover from that which is
? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER.
27o
eternally valuable in him, from his deeds; and
then he rushes into nonentity, absurdity, valueless
ness, childishness. The intellectual indigence and
lack of inventive power of this resourceful and
inventive animal is simply terrible. The "ideal"
is at the same time the penalty man pays for the
enormous expenditure which he has to defray
in all real and pressing duties. Should reality cease to prevail, there follow dreams, fatigue,
weakness: an "ideal" might even be regarded
as a form of dream, fatigue, or weakness. The
strongest and the most impotent men become
alike when this condition overtakes them: they deify the cessation of work, of war, of passions,
of suspense, of contrasts, of "reality"--in short, of
the struggle for knowledge and of the trouble of acquiring
"Innocence" them idealised stultification;
"blessedness" idealised idleness; "love," the
ideal state the gregarious animal that will no longer have an enemy. And thus everything that
? elevated to an ideal.
desire magnifies the thing desired; and by not being realised grows--the greatest ideas
are those which have been created by the strongest and longest desiring. Things grow ever more
waluable our estimation, the more our desire for them increases: "moral values" have become
the highest values, simply shows that the moral ideal the one which has been realised least (and
lowers and belittles man
336.
? ? is
A in
it
if
it
is
is
of
is to
it.
? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
271
thus it represented the Beyond to all suffering, as a
road to blessedness). Man, with ever-increasing ardour, has only been embracing clouds: and
ultimately called his desperation and impotence "GOd. "
337.
Think of the naivete? of all ultimate "desiderata. " --when the "wherefore " of man remains unknown.
338.
What is the counterfeit coinage of morality?
First of all we should know what "good and
evil" mean. That is as good as wishing to know
why man is here, and what his goal or his destiny is. And that means that one would fain know
that man actually has a goal or a destiny.
339.
The very obscure and arbitrary notion that humanity has a general duty to perform, and that,
as a whole, it is striving towards a goal, is
still in infancy. Perhaps we shall once more be rid of before becomes "fixed idea. "
(But humanity does not constitute whole: indissoluble multiplicity ascending and
descending organisms--it knows no such thing
state youth followed by maturity and then age. But its strata lie confused and superimposed--and few thousand years
? ? ? in a
as a
is an
it its of
a of
a
. it .
it
? 272
THE WILL TO POWER.
there may be even younger types of men than we can point out to-day. Decadence, on the
other hand, belongs to all periods of human history: everywhere there is refuse and decaying
matter, such things are in themselves vital pro cesses; for withering and decaying elements must be eliminated.
>k
Under the empire of Christian prejudice this
question was never put at all : the purpose of life seemed to lie in the salvation of the individual
soul; the question whether humanity might last for a long or a short time was not considered. The best Christians longed for the end to come as soon as possible;--concerning the needs of the individual, there seemed to be no doubt whatsoever.
. . . The duty of every individual for the present
was identical with what it would be in any sort
of future for the man of the future: the value,
the purpose, the limit of values was for ever fixed, unconditioned, eternal, one with God. . . . What
deviated from this eternal type was impious, diabolic, criminal.
The centre of gravity of all values for each
soul lay in that soul itself: salvation or damnation | The salvation of the immortal soul! The most
extreme form of personalisation. . . . For each soul there was only one kind of perfection; only one ideal, only one road to salvation. . . . The most extreme form of the principle of equal rights,
associated with an optical magnification of in dividual importance to the point of megalomania
? ? ? ? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
273
. . . Nothing but insanely important souls, re
volving round their own axes with unspeakable terror. . . .
sk
Nobody believes in these assumed airs of im portance any longer to-day: and we have sifted
our wisdom through the sieve of contempt.
Nevertheless the optical habit survives, which
would fain measure the value of man by his
proximity to a certain ideal man: at bottom the personalisation view is upheld as firmly as that of
the equality of rights as regards the ideal. In
short: people seem to think that they know what the ultimate desideratum is in regard to the ideal IIlall. . . .
But this belief is merely the result of the
exceedingly detrimental influence of the Christian
ideal, as anybody can discover for himself every
time he carefully examines the "ideal type. " In
the first place, it is believed that the approach to a given "type" is desirable; secondly, that this
particular type is known; thirdly, that every deviation from this type is a retrograde movement, a stemming of the spirit of progress, a loss of
power and might in man. . . . To dream of a state of affairs in which this perfect man will be in the majority: our friends the Socialists and even Messrs. the Utilitarians have not gone farther than this. In this way an aim seems to have crept into the evolution of man: at any rate the belief in a certain progress towards an
ideal is the only shape in which an aim is con VOL. I. S
? ? ? ? 274
THE WILL TO POWER.
ceived in the history of mankind to-day. ) In
short: the coming of the "Kingdom of God" has
been placed in the future, and has been given an
earthly, a human meaning--but on the whole the faith in the old ideal is still maintained. . . .
34O.
The more concealed forms of the cult of Christian,
moral ideals. --The insipid and cowardly notion
"Mature," invented by Nature-enthusiasts (without any knowledge whatsoever of the terrible, the
implacable, and the cynical element in even "the
most beautiful" aspects), is only a sort of attempt
at reading the moral and Christian notion of "humanity" into Nature;--Rousseau's concept of
Nature, for instance, which took for granted that
? freedom, goodness, innocence, equity, justice, and Idylls, was nothing more at
bottom than the cult of Christian morality. We should collect passages from the poets in order to see what they admired, in lofty mountains, for instance. What Goethe had to do with them--
why he admired Spinoza. Absolute ignorance
"Nature" meant
concerning
The insipid and cowardly concept "Man," a la
the reasons of this cult. . . .
Comte and Stuart Mill, is at times the subject of
a cult. . . . This is only the Christian moral ideal
again under another name. . . . Refer also to the freethinkers--Guyau for example.
The insipid and cowardly concept "Art," which
is held to mean sympathy with all suffering and with everything botched and bungled (the same
? ? ? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY,
275
And now, the whole socialistic ideal: nothing but blockheaded misunderstanding the Christian moral ideal.
34
The origin the ideal. The examination
states during which the world seems rounder, fuller, and more perfect: we have the pagan ideal
thing happens to history, Thierry): again the cult of the Christian moral ideal.
grows.
the soil out which
A. Starting out from those "aesthetic" mental
? with dominating spirit
(people give their abundance). type: the classical ideal--regarded
self-affirmation The highest an expres
sion of the successful nature of all the more
important
find the grand style
expression instinct which
this classical ideal we the highest style. An
power" itself. The
when "spiritualisation" and the absence sensu
ality assume the rank perfection, and when all that brutal, animal, direct, and proximate
avoided (people calculate and select): the "sage,"
angel"; priestliness virginity ignorance,
are the physiological ideals such idealists: the anaemic ideal. Under certain circumstances this
anaemic ideal may the ideal such natures
ledge
Starting
"the
itself.
instincts.
the "will
most feared dares acknow
out from the mental states which the world seemed emptier, paler, and thinner,
? ? be
it
I.
of = of
to
cf.
as
is in
B. is
its
of of of
=
of
of as
of
as In
is
of
to
it of ofisis
a
as to
it
? 276
THE WILL TO POWER.
represent paganism (thus Goethe sees his "saint" in Spinoza).
C. Starting out from those mental states in
which the world seemed more absurd, more evil,
poorer, and more deceptive, an ideal cannot even be imagined or desired in it (people deny and annihilate); the projection of the ideal into the sphere of the anti-natural, anti-actual, anti-logical;
the state of him who judges thus (the "impover
ishment" of the world as a result of suffering:
People take, they no longer bestow): the anti-natural ideal.
(The Christian ideal is a transitional form between the second and the third, now inclining more towards the former type, and anon inclining towards the latter. )
The three ideals: A. Either a strengthening of Life (paganism), or B. an impoverishment of Life
(anaemia), or C. a denial of Life (anti-naturalism). The state of beatitude in A. is the feeling of extreme abundance; in B. it is reached by the most fastidious selectiveness; in C, it is the contempt and the destruction of Life.
342.
A. The consistent type understands that even
evil must not be hated, must not be resisted, and
that it is not allowable to make war against
one's self; that it does not suffice merely to accept
the pain which such behaviour brings in its train; that one lives entirely in positive feelings; that
one takes the side of one's opponents in word
? ? ? ? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
277
and deed; that by means of a superfoetation of peaceful, kindly, conciliatory, helpful, and loving
states, one impoverishes the soil of the other states, . . . that one is in need of unremitting practice. What is achieved thereby ? --The
Buddhistic type, or the perfect cow.
This point of view is possible only where no
moral fanaticism prevails--that is to say, when
evil is not hated on its own account, but because
it opens the road to conditions which are painful (unrest, work, care, complications, dependence).
This is the Buddhistic point of view: there is no hatred of sin, the concept "sin," in fact, is
entirely lacking.
B. The inconsistent type. War is waged against evil--there is a belief that war waged
for Goodness' sake does not involve the same moral
results or affect character in the same way as
war generally does (and owing to which tend
encies it is detested as evil). As a matter of
fact, a war of this sort carried on against evil is much more profoundly pernicious than any sort
of personal hostility; and generally, it is "the person" which reassumes, at least in fancy, the position of opponent (the devil, evil spirits, etc. ).
The attitude of hostile observation and spying in regard to everything which may be bad in us, or
hail from a bad source, culminates in a most tormented and most anxious state of mind: thus
"miracles," rewards, ecstasy, and transcendental solutions of the earth-riddle now became desir
able. . . . The Christian type: or the perfect bigot, >k
? ? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER.
type. Firmness, self-control, imperturbability, peace in the form of the rigidity of a will long active--profound quiet, the de fensive state, the fortress, t-he mistrust of war--
278
C. The stoical
firmness of principles; the unity of knowledge and will; great self-respect.