Vicious and unbridled people: their depressing
influence
upon the value of the passions.
Nietzsche - Works - v15 - Will to Power - b
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.
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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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, the artist. He is distinct from those who are
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
? criminals
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realists' are on the increase: this the sign of growing culture plunging forward at headlong speed--that to say, its excrement, its refuse, the
rubbish that shot from
to acquire more importance,--the movement keeps pace with the advance.
Finally, the social mishmash, which 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
every day, beginning retrogressive
? -
recognised--everything
has become mob. And thus ,there results collective instinct against selection, against every kind of privilege; and this instinct operates with such power, certainty, hardness, and cruelty that, as 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
of pity, of honour, even for all that suffers, all that low and despised, and has lived
" *Tbe " German word "Naturalist," and really means realist bad sense--TR.
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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,
In this way a new antagonist is evolved for exceptional men--0r 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 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 broad basis, upon strongly and soundly consoli
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dated mediocrity. In its service and assisted by science and even art do their work. Science could not wish for better state of affairs: in its middle-class type of man,-- out of place,--there not
essence belongs to
among exceptions
anything aristocratic
anarchic in its instincts--The power of the middle classes then upheld by means of commerce, but, above all, by means of money-dealing: the instinct of great financiers 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: they would have power, and they should need even over the revolu tionary party, this only the result of what have already said, and in no way contradicts it. Against other extreme movements they may occasionally require to excite terror--by showing how much power in their hands. But their instinct itself 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 well known,
the word "Liberal. "
and still less anything
? all nonsense to suppose that this general conquest of values anti-biological.
In order to explain we ought to try and show that the result of certain interest of life to maintain the type "man," even by means of this
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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 a'ecimate 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 slackners and torpidity intervene: all great ages have to be paidfar. . . . 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
? 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
degree
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305
mediocre nor woman to be woman! Do not make everything uniform! We should have clear idea of how dearly we have to pay for the establishment of a virtue; and that virtue nothing generally desirable, but noble piece madness, beautiful exception, which gives us the privilege of feeling elated.
866.
It necessary to show that a counter-movement inevitably associated with any increasingly economical consumption of men and mankind, and
with an ever more closely involved " machinery " of interests and services. call this counter movement the separation of the luxurious surplus of mankind: by means of a stronger kind, 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 as you know, the word "Superman. " Along the first road, which can now be completely
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
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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. "i 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.
306
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peoples,
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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-50 that nobody knows what end this monstrous purpose has served. A wherefore? new wherefore ? -- this what mankind requires.
867
The recognition of the increase of collective
we should calculate to what extent the ruin of individuals, of castes, of ages, and of
power:
? included in this general increase.
The transposition of the ballast of culture.
The cost of every vast growth: who bears it? Why must 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 be
for stronger race to be bred from him ? --Such race as would have classical taste? The classical taste: this the will to simplicity, to accentuation, and to happiness made visible, the will to the terrible, and the courage for psychological nakedness (simplification the
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outcome of the will to accentuate; allowing
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!
happiness
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309
870.
The root of all evil that the slave morality of modesty, chastity, selflessness, and absolute
obedience should have triumphed.
natures were thus condemned (I) to hypocrisy,
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
keeping within the bounds qf maderation was not in the scope of their powers: they feared and slandered the passions and instincts of nature-- likewise the aspect of the ruling Cmsars 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 aesthetic natures, in measure; the pleasure derived from the beauty of measure, was overloahed 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
(2)
Dominating
ability
of
? pleasure of a rider on a fiery steed !
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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bad light upon them--the best men have remained concealed --and have often unsurzderstood' them~ selves.
87I.
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, confusion, 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
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
? before
? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
311
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 Caesar 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 naif. 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. If one
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. "
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.
873.
The misunderstanding of egoism: on the part of ignoble natures who know nothing of the lust of
? ? ? ? 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 Caesars 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 measure themselves according to the standard of virtues upheld by the slaves--and discover that
312
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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 prepafed 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 mam--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
? 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 affords 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,
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
princes,
? ? ? 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. . . . But 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 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
the
? a man's worth is not even
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 he costs or the damage he able to inflict upon
concepts
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is
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just as good and just as bad as to appraise the value of work of art according to its effects. But in this way the value of one man compared with another not even touched upon. The "moral valuation," in so far as social, measures men altogether according to their effects. But what about the man who has his own taste on his tongue, who surrounded and concealed by his isolation, uncommunicative and not to be communicated with; man whom no one has fathomed yet--that to say, creature of higher, and, at any rate, diferent species: how would ye appraise his worth, seeing that ye
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315
? ' cannot know him and can compare him with
nothing
Moral valuation was the cause of the most
enormous obtuseness of judgment: the value of man in himself underrated, well-nigh over
looked, practically denied. This the remains of simple-minded teleology: the value of man can only be measured with regard to other men.
879.
To be obsessed moral considerations supposes very low grade of intellect: 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), lacking. And irrespective of whether he preaches ruling morality or criticises the prevailing ethical code from the point of view of his own ideal: by doing these things man shows that he belongs
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316
to the herd--even though he may be What it is most in need of--that is to say, a " shepherd. "
880.
We should substitute morality by the will to our own ends, and consequently to the means to them.
881.
Concerning the order qf 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 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
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THE ORDER OF RANK.
antagonistic traits, increases: but this the pre requisite for greatness in man. That man should become better and at the same time more evil, 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 fragmentary character about them; 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 the rise of the synthetic man; that inferior men, and by far the great majority of
people,
Mankind does not advance in straight line often type attained which again lost (for instance, with all the eflorts 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 recognised, but people would like to produce them without the conditions and causes of which they were the result.
point.
317
? are but rehearsals and exercises out of which here and there a whole man may arise; a man who human milestone, and who indicates how far mankind has advanced up to certain
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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 ! )'
p 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, i 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
*Tbe Germans always call Goethe the Olympian--TR.
? ? ? ? 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 great man!
The fact that things pursue their course inde pendently of the voice of the many, the reason why few astonishing things have taken place on earth.
886.
The Order of Rank in Human Values.
A man should not be valued according to isolated acts. Epidermal actions. Nothing more rare than 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.
(b) 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
? (a)
whilst the majority are not even one. In all cases in which those average qualities pre
which ensure the maintenance of the to be personality would involve un
necessary expense, would be a luxury--in fact, would be foolish to ":mand of anybody that he Should be personality. In such circumstances
everybody channel or transmitting vessel.
A " personality " relatively isolated phen omenon; in view of the superior importance of the continuation of the race an average level,
personalities,
ponderate, V species,
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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 versd.
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 versd--in short, when they begin to resemble each other. This concept Of degeneration is beyond the sphere of moral
judgments.
? ? ? ? '
Where the strongest natures are to be sought. The ruin and degeneration of the solitary species 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 they are to prosper (they prosper best in the lowest ranks and dregs of society; ye are seeking personalities 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, almost settled,
the fight will begin against the solitaryI person. 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 certain habit of order, honesty, justice, trust, already general condition. ) The strongest must be most tightly bound, most strictly
watched, laid in chains and supervised: this the instinct of the herd. To them belongs regime 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.
am attempting an economic justification of virtue. The object to make man as useful as
vor. . 11.
THE ORDER OF RANK.
321
887.
? (In
?
chronological
? ? ? ? 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, the artist. He is distinct from those who are
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
? criminals
? ? ? -
THE ORDER OF RANK.
3OI
realists' are on the increase: this the sign of growing culture plunging forward at headlong speed--that to say, its excrement, its refuse, the
rubbish that shot from
to acquire more importance,--the movement keeps pace with the advance.
Finally, the social mishmash, which 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
every day, beginning retrogressive
? -
recognised--everything
has become mob. And thus ,there results collective instinct against selection, against every kind of privilege; and this instinct operates with such power, certainty, hardness, and cruelty that, as 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
of pity, of honour, even for all that suffers, all that low and despised, and has lived
" *Tbe " German word "Naturalist," and really means realist bad sense--TR.
expression
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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,
In this way a new antagonist is evolved for exceptional men--0r 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 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 broad basis, upon strongly and soundly consoli
302
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.
a
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.
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? THE ORDER OF RANK.
303
dated mediocrity. In its service and assisted by science and even art do their work. Science could not wish for better state of affairs: in its middle-class type of man,-- out of place,--there not
essence belongs to
among exceptions
anything aristocratic
anarchic in its instincts--The power of the middle classes then upheld by means of commerce, but, above all, by means of money-dealing: the instinct of great financiers 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: they would have power, and they should need even over the revolu tionary party, this only the result of what have already said, and in no way contradicts it. Against other extreme movements they may occasionally require to excite terror--by showing how much power in their hands. But their instinct itself 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 well known,
the word "Liberal. "
and still less anything
? all nonsense to suppose that this general conquest of values anti-biological.
In order to explain we ought to try and show that the result of certain interest of life to maintain the type "man," even by means of this
Reflection--It
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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 a'ecimate 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 slackners and torpidity intervene: all great ages have to be paidfar. . . . 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
? 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
degree
? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
305
mediocre nor woman to be woman! Do not make everything uniform! We should have clear idea of how dearly we have to pay for the establishment of a virtue; and that virtue nothing generally desirable, but noble piece madness, beautiful exception, which gives us the privilege of feeling elated.
866.
It necessary to show that a counter-movement inevitably associated with any increasingly economical consumption of men and mankind, and
with an ever more closely involved " machinery " of interests and services. call this counter movement the separation of the luxurious surplus of mankind: by means of a stronger kind, 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 as you know, the word "Superman. " Along the first road, which can now be completely
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
vor. n.
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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. "i 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.
306
? ? ? ? . _
peoples,
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-50 that nobody knows what end this monstrous purpose has served. A wherefore? new wherefore ? -- this what mankind requires.
867
The recognition of the increase of collective
we should calculate to what extent the ruin of individuals, of castes, of ages, and of
power:
? included in this general increase.
The transposition of the ballast of culture.
The cost of every vast growth: who bears it? Why must 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 be
for stronger race to be bred from him ? --Such race as would have classical taste? The classical taste: this the will to simplicity, to accentuation, and to happiness made visible, the will to the terrible, and the courage for psychological nakedness (simplification the
possible
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308
THE WILL 'ro POWER.
outcome of the will to accentuate; allowing
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!
happiness
? ? ? ? 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.
natures were thus condemned (I) to hypocrisy,
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
keeping within the bounds qf maderation was not in the scope of their powers: they feared and slandered the passions and instincts of nature-- likewise the aspect of the ruling Cmsars 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 aesthetic natures, in measure; the pleasure derived from the beauty of measure, was overloahed 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
(2)
Dominating
ability
of
? pleasure of a rider on a fiery steed !
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
The modera
? ? ? 3X0
THE WILL TO POWER.
bad light upon them--the best men have remained concealed --and have often unsurzderstood' them~ selves.
87I.
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, confusion, 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
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
? before
? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
311
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 Caesar 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 naif. 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. If one
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. "
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.
873.
The misunderstanding of egoism: on the part of ignoble natures who know nothing of the lust of
? ? ? ? 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 Caesars 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 measure themselves according to the standard of virtues upheld by the slaves--and discover that
312
? ? ? ? pleasure
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 prepafed 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 mam--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
? 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 affords 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,
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
princes,
? ? ? 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. . . . But 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 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
the
? a man's worth is not even
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 he costs or the damage he able to inflict upon
concepts
skimmed)
? ? it,
is
it,
? .
-
just as good and just as bad as to appraise the value of work of art according to its effects. But in this way the value of one man compared with another not even touched upon. The "moral valuation," in so far as social, measures men altogether according to their effects. But what about the man who has his own taste on his tongue, who surrounded and concealed by his isolation, uncommunicative and not to be communicated with; man whom no one has fathomed yet--that to say, creature of higher, and, at any rate, diferent species: how would ye appraise his worth, seeing that ye
THE ORDER OF RANK.
315
? ' cannot know him and can compare him with
nothing
Moral valuation was the cause of the most
enormous obtuseness of judgment: the value of man in himself underrated, well-nigh over
looked, practically denied. This the remains of simple-minded teleology: the value of man can only be measured with regard to other men.
879.
To be obsessed moral considerations supposes very low grade of intellect: 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), lacking. And irrespective of whether he preaches ruling morality or criticises the prevailing ethical code from the point of view of his own ideal: by doing these things man shows that he belongs
pre~
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316
to the herd--even though he may be What it is most in need of--that is to say, a " shepherd. "
880.
We should substitute morality by the will to our own ends, and consequently to the means to them.
881.
Concerning the order qf 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 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
? specific
? ? ? W
a _
THE ORDER OF RANK.
antagonistic traits, increases: but this the pre requisite for greatness in man. That man should become better and at the same time more evil, 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 fragmentary character about them; 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 the rise of the synthetic man; that inferior men, and by far the great majority of
people,
Mankind does not advance in straight line often type attained which again lost (for instance, with all the eflorts 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 recognised, but people would like to produce them without the conditions and causes of which they were the result.
point.
317
? are but rehearsals and exercises out of which here and there a whole man may arise; a man who human milestone, and who indicates how far mankind has advanced up to certain
? ? is
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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 ! )'
p 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, i 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
*Tbe Germans always call Goethe the Olympian--TR.
? ? ? ? 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 great man!
The fact that things pursue their course inde pendently of the voice of the many, the reason why few astonishing things have taken place on earth.
886.
The Order of Rank in Human Values.
A man should not be valued according to isolated acts. Epidermal actions. Nothing more rare than 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.
(b) 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
? (a)
whilst the majority are not even one. In all cases in which those average qualities pre
which ensure the maintenance of the to be personality would involve un
necessary expense, would be a luxury--in fact, would be foolish to ":mand of anybody that he Should be personality. In such circumstances
everybody channel or transmitting vessel.
A " personality " relatively isolated phen omenon; in view of the superior importance of the continuation of the race an average level,
personalities,
ponderate, V species,
(c)
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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 versd.
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 versd--in short, when they begin to resemble each other. This concept Of degeneration is beyond the sphere of moral
judgments.
? ? ? ? '
Where the strongest natures are to be sought. The ruin and degeneration of the solitary species 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 they are to prosper (they prosper best in the lowest ranks and dregs of society; ye are seeking personalities 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, almost settled,
the fight will begin against the solitaryI person. 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 certain habit of order, honesty, justice, trust, already general condition. ) The strongest must be most tightly bound, most strictly
watched, laid in chains and supervised: this the instinct of the herd. To them belongs regime 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.
am attempting an economic justification of virtue. The object to make man as useful as
vor. . 11.
THE ORDER OF RANK.
321
887.
? (In
?
