No More Learning

.


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
305
He denies that there can be higher states of
intellectuality-he regards his view as a non plus
ultra. . . . Here intellectuality is placed much
lower than goodness; its highest value (as art, for
instance) would be to lead up to, and to advise
the adoption of, morality, the absolute predomin-
ance of moral values.
Next to Schopenhauer I will now characterise
Kant: there was nothing Greek in Kant; he was
quite anti-historical (cf. his attitude in regard to
the French Revolution) and a moral fanatic (see
Goethe's words concerning the radically evil
element in human nature *). Saintliness also
lurked somewhere in his soul. . . . I require a
criticism of the saintly type.
Hegel's value: "Passion. "
Herbert Spencer's tea-grocer's philosophy: total
absence of an ideal save that of the mediocre man.
a
* TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. —This is doubtless a reference to a
a
passage in a letter written by Goethe to Herder, on 7th June
1793, from the camp at Marienborn, near Mainz, in which
the following words occur :- -“ Dagegen hat aber auch Kant
seinen philosophischen Mantel, nachdem er ein langes
Menschenleben gebraucht hat, ihn von mancherlei sudel-
haften Vorurteilen zu reinigen, freventlich mit dem Schand-
fleck des radikalen Bösen beschlabbert, damit doch auch
Christen herbeigelockt werden den Saum zu küssen. ”-
("Kant, on the other hand, after he had tried throughout
his life to keep his philosophical cloak unsoiled by foul pre-
judices, wantonly dirtied it in the end with the disreputable
stain of the 'radical evil' in human nature, in order that
Christians too might be lured into kissing its hem. ") From
this passage it will be seen how Goethe had anticipated
Nietzsche's view of Kant ; namely, that he was a Christian
in disguise.
U
VOL. I.


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THE WILL TO POWER.
Fundamental instinct of all philosophers,
historians, and psychologists: everything of value
in mankind, art, history, science, religion, and
technology must be shown to be morally valuable
and morally conditioned, in its aim, means, and
result. Everything is seen in the light of this
highest value; for instance, Rousseau's question
concerning civilisation, “ Will it make man grow
better? "-a funny question, for the reverse is
obvious, and is a fact which speaks in favour of
civilisation,
383
Religious morality. - Passion, great desire; the
passions of power, love, revenge, and property :
the moralists wish to uproot and exterminate all
these things, and “purify” the soul by driving
them out of it.
The argument is : the passions often lead to
disaster—therefore, they are evil and ought to be
condemned. Man must wring himself free from
them, otherwise he cannot be a good man.
This is of the same nature as: “If thy right eye
offend thee, pluck it out. " In this particular case
when, with that “ bucolic simplicity," the Founder
of Christianity recommended a certain practice to
His disciples, in the event of sexual excitement,
the result would not be only the loss of a parti-
cular member, but the actual castration of the
whole of the man's character. . . . And the same
applies to the moral mania, which, instead of
insisting upon the control of the passions, sues for


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
307
their extirpation. Its conclusion always is: only
the emasculated man is a good man.
Instead of making use of and of economising
the great sources of passion, those torrents of the
soul which are often so dangerous, overwhelming,
and impetuous, morality—this most shortsighted
and most corrupted of mental attitudes—would
fain make them dry up.
384.
Conquest over the passions ? --No, not if this is
to mean their enfeeblement and annihilation.
They must be enlisted in our service : and to this
end it may be necessary to tyrannise them a good
deal (not as individuals, but as communities, races,
etc. ). At length we should trust them enough to
restore their freedom to them: they love us like
good servants, and willingly go wherever our best
interests lie.
385.
Intolerance on the part of morality is a sign of
man's weakness: he is frightened of his own
“immorality," he must deny his strongest instincts,
because he does not yet know how to use them.
Thus the most fruitful quarters of the globe
remain uncultivated longest: the power is lack-
ing that might become master here. . . .
386.
There are some very simple peoples and men
who believe that continuous fine weather would be


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308
THE WILL TO POWER.
a desirable thing: they still believe to-day in
rebus moralibus, that the “good man" alone and
nothing else than the “good man” is to be desired,
and that the ultimate end of man's evolution will
be that only the good man will remain on earth
(and that it is only to that end that all efforts
should be directed). This is in the highest
degree an uneconomical thought; as we have
already suggested, it is the very acme of simplicity,
and it is nothing more than the expression of the
agreeableness which the “good man" creates (he
gives rise to no fear, he permits of relaxation,
he gives what one is able to take).
With a more educated eye one learns to desire
exactly the reverse that is to say, an ever
greater dominion of evil, man's gradual emancipa-
tion from the narrow and aggravating bonds of
morality, the growth of power around the greatest
forces of Nature, and the ability to enlist the
passions in one's service,
387.
The whole idea of the hierarchy of the passions :
as if the only right and normal thing were to be
led by reason-whereas the passions are abnormal,
dangerous, half-animal, and moreover, in so far as
their end is concerned, nothing more than desires
for pleasure.
Passion is deprived of its dignity (1) as if it
only manifested itself in an unseemly way and
were not necessary and always the motive force,


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY,
309
>
(2) inasmuch as it is supposed to aim at no high
purpose-merely at pleasure. .
The misinterpretation of passion and reason, as
if the latter were an independent entity, and not
a state of relationship between all the various
passions and desires; and as though every passion
did not possess its quantum of reason. . . .
>
388.
How it was that, under the pressure of the
dominion of an ascetic and self-effacing morality,
it was precisely the passions—love, goodness, pity,
even justice, generosity, and heroism, which were
necessarily misunderstood :
It is the richness of a personality, the fullness of
it, its power to flow over and to bestow, its
instinctive feeling of ease, and its affirmative
attitude towards itself, that creates great love
and great sacrifices: these passions proceed from
strong and godlike personalism as surely as do
the desire to be master, to obtrude, and the inner
certainty that one has a right to everything. The
opposite views, according to the most accepted
notions, are indeed common views; and if one
does not stand firmly and bravely on one's legs,
one has nothing to give, and it is perfectly useless
to stretch out one's hand either to protect or to
support others. . .
How was it possible to transform these instincts
to such an extent that man could feel that to be
of value which is directed against himself, so that
he could sacrifice himself for another self! O the


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310
THE WILL TO POWER.
psychological baseness and falseness which hither-
to has laid down the law in the Church and in
Church-infected philosophy !
If man is thoroughly sinful, then all he can do
is to hate himself. As a matter of fact, he ought
not to regard even his fellows otherwise than he
does himself; the love of man requires a justifi-
cation, and it is found in the fact that God
commanded it. From this it follows that all the
natural instincts of man (to love, etc. ) appear to
him to be, in themselves, prohibited ; and that he
re-acquires a right to them only after having
denied them as an obedient worshipper of God.
Pascal, the admirable logician of Christianity,
went as far as this ! let any one examine his
relations to his sister. “Not to make one's self
loved," seemed Christian to him,
389.
Let us consider how dearly a moral canon such
as this ("an ideal”) makes us pay. (Its enemies
are-well ?
The "egoists. ")
The melancholy astuteness of self-abasement in
Europe (Pascal, La Rochefoucauld)—inner en-
feeblement, discouragement, and self-consumption
of the non-gregarious man.
The perpetual process of laying stress upon
mediocre qualities as being the most valuable
(modesty in rank and file, the creature who is an
instrument).
Pangs of conscience associated with all that


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
311
is self-glorifying and original: thus follows the
unhappiness—the gloominess of the world from
the standpoint of stronger and better-constituted
men!
Gregarious consciousness
consciousness and timorousness
transferred to philosophy and religion.
Let us leave the psychological impossibility of
a purely unselfish action out of consideration !
390.
My ultimate conclusion is, that the real man
represents a much higher value than the “de-
sirable” man of any ideal that has ever existed
hitherto; that all “ desiderata" in regard to man-
kind have been absurd and dangerous dissipations
by means of which a particular kind of man has
sought to establish his measures of preservation
and of growth as a law for all; that every
" desideratum” of this kind which has been made
to dominate has reduced man's worth, his strength,
and his trust in the future; that the indigence
and mediocre intellectuality of man becomes most
apparent, even to-day, when he reveals a desire;
that man's ability to fix values has hitherto been
developed too inadequately to do justice to the
actual, not merely to the “desirable,” worth of
man; that, up to the present, ideals have really
been the power which has most slandered man
and the world, the poisonous fumes which have
hung over reality, and which have seduced men to
yearn for nonentity. . . .


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312
THE WILL TO POWER.
D. A Criticism of the Words : Improving,
Perfecting, Elevating.
391.
The standard according to which the value of
moral valuations is to be determined.
The fundamental fact that has been overlooked :
The contradiction between “becoming more
moral" and the elevation and the strengthening
of the type man.
Homo natura : The “will to power. "
G
392.
Moral values regarded as values of appearance
and compared with physiological values.
393
Reflecting upon generalities is always retrograde:
the ultimate “ desiderata” concerning men, for
instance, have never been regarded as problems
by philosophers. They always postulate the
"improvement” of man, quite guilelessly, as
though by means of some intuition they had been
helped over the note of interrogation following
the question, why necessarily “improve"? Το
what extent is it desirable that man should be
more virtuous, or more intelligent, or happier?
Granting that nobody yet knows the "wherefore?
of mankind, all such desiderata have no sense
whatever; and if one aspires to one of them-


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
313
who knows —perhaps one is frustrating the
other. Is an increase of virtue compatible with
an increase of intelligence and insight ? Dubito:
only too often shall I have occasion to show that
the reverse is true. Has virtue, as an end, in the
strict sense of the word, not always been opposed
to happiness hitherto? And again, does it not
require misfortune, abstinence, and self-castigation
as a necessary means ? And if the aim were to
arrive at the highest insight, would it not therefore
be necessary to renounce all hope of an increase
in happiness, and to choose danger, adventure,
mistrust, and seduction as a road to enlighten-
ment? . . . And suppose one will have happiness;
maybe one should join the ranks of the “poor
in spirit. ”
394.
The wholesale deception and fraud of so-called
moral improvement.
We do not believe that one man can be another
if he is not that other already—that is to say, if
he is not, as often happens, an accretion of person-
alities or at least of parts of persons. In this
case it is possible to draw another set of actions
from him into the foreground, and to drive back
" the older man. " . . . The man's aspect is altered,
but not his actual nature. . . It is but the
merest factum brutum that any one should cease
from performing certain actions, and the fact
allows of the most varied interpretations. Neither
does it always follow therefrom that the habit of
performing a certain action is entirely arrested,


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314
THE WILL TO POWER.
nor that the reasons for that action are dissipated.
He whose destiny and abilities make him a
criminal never unlearns anything, but is con-
tinually adding to his store of knowledge: and
long abstinence acts as a sort of tonic on his
talent. . . . Certainly, as far as society is con-
cerned, the only interesting fact is that some one
has ceased from performing certain actions; and
to this end society will often raise a man out of
those circumstances which make him able to per-
form those actions: this is obviously a wiser course
than that of trying to break his destiny and his
particular nature. The Church,—which has done
nothing except to take the place of, and to
appropriate, the philosophic treasures of antiquity,
-starting out from another standpoint and wishing
to secure a “soul” or the “salvation ” of a soul,
believes in the expiatory power of punishment, as
also in the obliterating power of forgiveness: both
of which supposed processes are deceptions due to
religious prejudice-punishment expiates nothing,
forgiveness obliterates nothing; what is done can-
not be undone. Because some one forgets some-
thing it by no means proves that something has
been wiped out. . . . An action leads to certain
consequences, both in a man and outside him, and
it matters not whether it has met with punishment,
or whether it has been “expiated,” “ forgiven,"
or "obliterated,” it matters not even if the Church
meanwhile canonises the man who performed
it. The Church believes in things that do not
exist, it believes in “Souls"; it believes in
"influences” that do not exist-in divine in-
.


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
315
fluences; it believes in states that do not exist,
in sin, redemption, and spiritual salvation: in all
things it stops at the surface and is satisfied with
signs, attitudes, words, to which it lends an
arbitrary interpretation. It possesses a method
of counterfeit psychology which is thought out
quite systematically.
395.
“ Illness makes men better," this famous
assumption which is to be met with in all ages,
and in the mouth of the wizard quite as often as
in the mouth and jaws of the people, really
makes one ponder. In view of discovering
whether there is any truth in it, one might be
allowed to ask whether there is not perhaps a
fundamental relationship between morality and
illness? Regarded as
Regarded as a whole, could not the
improvement of mankind"-that is to say, the
unquestionable softening, humanising, and taming
which the European has undergone within the
last two centuries—be regarded as the result of a
long course of secret and ghastly suffering, failure,
abstinence, and grief? Has illness made “ Euro-
peans » "better"? "Or, put into other words, is
not our modern soft-hearted European morality,
which could be likened to that of the Chinese,
perhaps an expression of physiological deteriora-
tion? . . . It cannot be denied, for instance, that
wherever history shows us "man” in a state of
particular glory and power, his type is always
dangerous, impetuous, and boisterous, and cares
O
"


## p. 316 (#340) ############################################

316
THE WILL TO POWER,
»
little for humanity; and perhaps, in those cases
in which it seems otherwise, all that was required
was the courage or subtlety to see sufficiently
below the surface in psychological matters, in
order even in them to discover the general pro-
position : "the more healthy, strong, rich, fruitful,
and enterprising a man may feel, the more
immoral he will be as well. " A terrible thought, to
which one should on no account give way. Pro-
vided, however, that one take a few steps forward
with this thought, how wondrous does the future
then appear! What will then be paid for more
dearly on earth, than precisely this very thing
which we are all trying to promote, by all means
in our power—the humanising, the improving,
and the increased “civilisation" of man? Noth-
ing would then be more expensive than virtue :
for by means of it the world would ultimately be
turned into a hospital: and the last conclusion of
wisdom would be, “everybody must be everybody
else's nurse. " Then we should certainly have
attained to the “Peace on earth," so long desired!
But how little "joy we should find in each
other's company”! How little beauty, wanton
spirits, daring, and danger! So few “actions"
which would make life on earth worth living!
Ah! and no longer any “deeds”!
“ deeds”! But have not
all the great things and deeds which have re-
mained fresh in the memory of men, and which
have not been destroyed by time, been immoral
in the deepest sense of the word ? . .
"


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
317
396.
66
The priests—and with them the half-priests or
philosophers of all ages—have always called that
doctrine true, the educating influence of which
was a benevolent one or at least seemed som
that is to say, tended to " improve. ” In this way
they resemble an ingenuous plebeian empiric and
miracle-worker who, because he had tried a
certain poison as a cure, declared it to be no
poison. By their fruits ye shall know them”
that is to say, " by our truths. ” This has been
the reasoning of priests until this day. They
have squandered their sagacity, with results that
have been sufficiently fatal, in order to make the
“proof of power” (or the proof" by the fruits ")
pre-eminent and even supreme arbiter over all
other forms of proof. “That which makes good
must be good ; that which is good cannot lie”.
these are their inexorable conclusions "that
which bears good fruit must consequently be
true; there is no other criterion of truth. ”
But to the extent to which“ improving" acts as
an argument, deteriorating must also act as a refuta-
tion. The error can be shown to be an error, by
examining the lives of those who represent it: a
false step, a vice can refute. . . . This indecent
form of opposition, which comes from below and
behind-the doglike kind of attack, has not died
out either. Priests, as psychologists, never dis-
covered anything more interesting than spying out
the secret vices of their adversaries--they prove
their Christianity by looking about for the world's
.
.
>


## p. 318 (#342) ############################################

318
THE WILL TO POWER.
filth.
They apply this principle more particu-
larly to the greatest on earth, to the geniuses :
readers will remember how Goethe has been
attacked on every conceivable occasion in Ger-
many (Klopstock and Herder were among the
first to give a "good example" in this respect-
birds of a feather flock together).
"
397.
One must be very immoral in order to make
people moral by deeds. The moralist's means are
the most terrible that have ever been used; he
who has not the courage to be an immoralist in
deeds may be fit for anything else, but not for
the duties of a moralist.
Morality is a menagerie; it assumes that iron
bars may be more useful than freedom, even for
the creatures it imprisons; it also assumes that
there are animal-tamers about who do not shrink
from terrible means, and who are acquainted with
the use of red-hot iron. This terrible species,
which enters into a struggle with the wild animal,
is called “priests. "
Man, incarcerated in an iron cage of errors, has
become a caricature of man; he is sick, emaciated,
ill-disposed towards himself, filled with a loathing
of the impulses of life, filled with a mistrust of
all that is beautiful and happy in life—in fact,
he is a wandering monument of misery. How
shall we ever succeed in vindicating this pheno-


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
319
menon- this artificial, arbitrary, and recent mis-
carriage—the sinner—which the priests have bred
on their territory?
.
.
In order to think fairly of morality, we must
put two biological notions in its place: the taming
of the wild beasts, and the rearing of a particular
species.
The priests of all ages have always pretended
that they wished to "improve. "
improve. " . . . But we, of
another persuasion, would laugh if a lion-tamer
ever wished to speak to us of his “improved
animals. As a rule, the taming of a beast is only
achieved by deteriorating it: even the moral man
is not a better man; he is rather weaker
member of his species. But he is less harm-
ful.
398.
What I want to make clear, with all the means
in my power, is :-
(a) That there is no worse confusion than that
which confounds rearing and taming: and these
two things have always been confused. . . .
Rearing, as I understand it, is a means of hus-
banding the enormous powers of humanity in
such a way that whole generations may build
upon the foundations laid by their progenitors-
not only outwardly, but inwardly, organically,
developing from the already existing stem and
growing stronger. .
(6) That there is an exceptional danger in
believing that mankind as a whole is developing
.


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320
THE WILL TO POWER.
and growing stronger, if individuals are seen to
grow more feeble and more equally mediocre.
Humanity-mankind is an abstract thing: the
object of rearing, even in regard to the most
individual cases, can only be the strong man
(the man who has no breeding is weak, dissipated,
and unstable).
6. CONCLUDING REMARKS CONCERNING THE
CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
399.
These are the things I demand of you--how-
ever badly they may sound in your ears: that
you subject moral valuations themselves to
criticism. That you should put a stop to your
instinctive moral impulse-which in this case
demands submission and not criticism-with the
question: "why precisely submission ? " That
this yearning for a “why? ”—for a criticism of
morality should not only be your present form of
morality, but the sublimest of all moralities, and
an honour to yourselves and to the age you live
in. That your honesty, your will, may give an
account of itself, and not deceive you: "why
· not? "-Before what tribunal ?
400.
The three postulates -
All that is ignoble is high (the protest of the
“vulgar man ”).
All that is contrary to Nature is high (the
protest of the physiologically botched).


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY,
321
All that is of average worth is high (the pro-
test of the herd, of the “mediocre ").
Thus in the history of morality a will to power
finds expression, by means of which, either the
slaves, the oppressed, the bungled and the botched,
those that suffer from themselves, or the mediocre,
attempt to make those valuations prevail which
favour their existence.
From a biological standpoint, therefore, the
phenomenon Morality is of a highly suspicious
nature. Up to the present, morality has developed
at the cost of: the ruling classes and their specific
instincts, the well - constituted and beautiful
natures, the independent and privileged classes in
all respects.
Morality, then, is a sort of counter-movement
opposing Nature's endeavours to arrive at a higher
type. Its effects are: mistrust of life in general:
(in so far as its tendencies are felt to be immoral),
--hostility towards the senses inasmuch as the
highest values are felt to be opposed to the
higher instincts),-Degeneration and self-destruc-
tion of “higher natures,” because it is precisely in
them that the conflict becomes conscious.
-
401.
Which values have been paramount hitherto ?
Morality as the leading value in all phases of
philosophy (even with the Sceptics). Result: this
world is no good, a “true world” must exist
somewhere.
What is it that here determines the highest
х
VOL. I.


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THE WILL TO POWER.
value? What, in sooth, is morality? The instinct
of decadence; it is the exhausted and the dis-
inherited who take their revenge in this way and
play the masters.
Historical proof: philosophers have always been
decadents and always in the pay of Nihilistic
religions.
The instinct of decadence appears as the will
to power. The introduction of its system of
means: its means are absolutely immoral.
General aspect: the values that have been
highest hitherto have been a special instance of
the will to power ; morality itself is a particular
instance of immorality.
1
Why the Antagonistic Values always succumbed.
1. How was this actually possible? Question :
why did life and physiological well-constitutedness
succumb everywhere? Why was there no affirma-
tive philosophy, no affirmative religion ?
The historical signs of such movements: the
pagan religion. Dionysos versus the Christ.
The Renaissance. Art.
2. The strong and the weak: the healthy and
the sick; the exception and the rule. There is
no doubt as to who is the stronger.
General view of history : Is man an exception in
the history of life on this account? -An objection
to Darwinism. The means wherewith the weak suc-
ceed in ruling have become: instincts, “ humanity,”
institutions. "
3. The proof of this rule on the part of the


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
323
weak is to be found in our political instincts, in
our social values, in our arts, and in our science,
*
The instincts of decadence have become master
of the instincts of ascending life. . . . The will to
nonentity has prevailed over the will to life!
Is this true? is there not perhaps a stronger
guarantee of life and of the species in this victory
of the weak and the mediocre -is it not perhaps
only a means in the collective movement of life, a
mere slackening of the pace, a protective measure
against something even more dangerous ?
Suppose the strong were masters in all respects,
even in valuing: let us try and think what their
attitude would be towards illness, suffering, and
sacrifice! Self-contempt on the part of the weak
would be the result: they would do their utmost
to disappear and to extirpate their kind, And
would this be desirable-should we really like a
world in which the subtlety, the consideration, the
intellectuality, the plasticity-in fact, the whole
influence of the weak-was lacking ? *
* TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. -Werealise here the great differ-
ence between Nietzsche and those who draw premature con-
clusions from Darwinism. There is no brutal solution of
modern problems in Nietzsche's philosophy. He did not
advocate anything so ridiculous as the total suppression of
the weak and the degenerate. What he wished to resist and
to overthrow was their supremacy, their excessive power. He
felt that there was a desirable and stronger type which was
in need of having its hopes, aspirations, and instincts upheld
in defiance of Christian values.


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324
THE WILL TO POWER,
>
We have seen two “ wills to power” at war (in
this special case we had a principle: that of agree-
ing with the one that has hitherto succumbed, and
of disagreeing with the one that has hitherto
triumphed): we have recognised the “real world”
as a “world of lies, and morality as a form of
immorality. We do not say “the stronger is
wrong. "
We have understood what it is that has deter-
mined the highest values hitherto, and why the
latter should have prevailed over the opposite
value: it was numerically the stronger.
If we now purify the opposite value of the in-
fection, the half-heartedness, and the degeneration,
with which we identify it, we restore Nature to
the throne, free from moralic acid.
402.
Morality, a useful error; or, more clearly still,
a necessary and expedient lie according to the
greatest and most impartial of its supporters.
403.
One ought to be able to acknowledge the truth
up to that point where one is sufficiently elevated
no longer to require the disciplinary school of moral
error. —When one judges life morally, it disgusts
one.
Neither should false personalities be invented;
one should not say, for instance, “ Nature is cruel. "
It is precisely when one perceives that there is no


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
325
such central controlling and responsible force that
one is relieved!
Evolution of man. A. He tried to attain to
a certain power over Nature and over
himself. (Morality was necessary in
order to make man triumph in his
struggle with Nature and the “wild
animal. ")
B. If power over Nature has been attained,
this power can be used as a help in
our development: Will to Power as a
self-enhancing and self-strengthening
principle.
404.
Morality may be regarded as the illusion of
a species, fostered with the view of urging the
individual to sacrifice himself to the future, and
seemingly granting him such a very great value,
that with that self-consciousness he may tyrannise
over, and constrain, other sides of his nature, and
find it difficult to be pleased with himself.
We ought to be most profoundly thankful for
what morality has done hitherto: but now it is
no more than a burden which may prove fatal.
Morality itself in the form of honesty urges us
to deny morality.
405.
To what extent is the self-destruction of morality
still a sign of its own strength? We Europeans
have within us the blood of those who were ready
to die for their faith; we have taken morality


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326
THE WILL TO POWER.
frightfully seriously, and there is nothing which
we have not, at one time, sacrificed to it. On the
other hand, our intellectual subtlety has been
reached essentially through the vivisection of our
consciences. We do not yet know the "whither”
towards which we are urging our steps, now that
we have departed from the soil of our forebears.
But it was on this very soil that we acquired the
strength which is now driving us from our homes
in search of adventure, and it is thanks to that
strength that we are now in mid-sea, surrounded
by untried possibilities and things undiscovered-
we can no longer choose, we must be conquerors,
now that we have no land in which we feel at
home and in which we would fain "survive. " A
concealed "yea” is driving us forward, and it is
stronger than all our “nays. " Even our strength
no longer bears with us in the old swampy land:
we venture out into the open, we attempt the task.
The world is still rich and undiscovered, and even
to perish were better than to be half-men or
poisonous men. Our very strength itself urges
us to take to the sea; there where all suns have
hitherto sunk we know of a new world.
9


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III.
CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY.
I. GENERAL REMARKS.
406.
LET us rid ourselves of a few superstitions
which heretofore have been fashionable among
philosophers!
407.
Philosophers are prejudiced against appearance,
change, pain, death, the things of the body, the
senses, fate, bondage, and all that which has no
purpose.
In the first place, they believe in: absolute
knowledge, (2) in knowledge for its own sake,
(3) in virtue and happiness as necessarily related,
(4) in the recognisability of men's acts. They are
led by instinctive determinations of values, in
which former cultures are reflected (more danger-
ous cultures too).
408.
What have philosophers lacked? (1) A sense
of history, (2) a knowledge of physiology, (3) a


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328
THE WILL TO POWER.
goal in the future. —The ability to criticise without
irony or moral condemnation.
409.
Philosophers have had (1) from times im-
memorial a wonderful capacity for the contradictio
in adjecto, (2) they have always trusted concepts
as unconditionally as they have mistrusted the
senses : it never seems to have occurred to them
that notions and words are our inheritance of past
ages in which thinking was neither very clear nor
very exact.
What seems to dawn upon philosophers last of
all: that they must no longer allow themselves to
be presented with concepts already conceived, nor
must they merely purify and polish up those con-
cepts; but they must first make them, create them,
themselves, and then present them and get people
to accept them. Up to the present, people have
trusted their concepts generally, as if they had
been a wonderful dowry from some kind of
wonderland: but they constitute the inheritance
of our most remote, most foolish, and most intelli-
gent forefathers. This piety towards that which
already exists in us is perhaps related to the moral
element in science. What we needed above all is
absolute scepticism towards all traditional concepts
(like that which a certain philosopher may already
have possessed—and he was Plato, of course : for
he taught the reverse).
S


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CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY.
329
410.
Profoundly mistrustful towards the dogmas of
the theory of knowledge, I liked to look now out
of this window, now out of that, though I took
good care not to become finally fixed anywhere,
indeed I, should have thought it dangerous to
have done so-though finally: is it within the
range of probabilities for an instrument to criticise
its own fitness ? What I noticed more particu-
larly was, that no scientific scepticism or dog-
matism has ever arisen quite free from all arrières
pensées—that it has only a secondary value as
soon as the motive lying immediately behind it is
discovered.
Fundamental aspect: Kant's, Hegel's, Schopen-
hauer's, the sceptical and epochistical, the histori-
fying and the pessimistic attitudes all have a
moral origin. I have found no one who has
dared to criticise the moral valuations, and I soon
turned my back upon the meagre attempts that
have been made to describe the evolution of these
feelings (by English and German Darwinians).
How can Spinoza's position, his denial and
repudiation of the moral values, be explained ?
(It was the result of his Theodicy ! )
411.
Morality regarded as the highest form of
protection. Our world is either the work and
expression (the modus) of God, in which case it
must be in the highest degree perfect (Leibnitz's


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330
THE WILL TO POWER.
conclusion . . . ),—and no one doubted that he
knew what perfection must be like,—and then all
evil can only be apparent (Spinoza is more radical,
he says this of good and evil), or it must be a part
of God's high purpose (a consequence of a particu-
larly great mark of favour on God's part, who thus
allows man to choose between good and evil : the
privilege of being no automaton; "freedom," with
the ever-present danger of making a mistake and
of choosing wrongly. . . . See Simplicius, for
instance, in the commentary to Epictetus).
Or our world is imperfect; evil and guilt are
real, determined, and are absolutely inherent to
its being; in that case it cannot be the real
world: consequently knowledge can only be a
way of denying the world, for the latter is error
which may be recognised as such. This is
Schopenhauer's opinion, based upon Kantian
first principles. Pascal was still more desperate :
he thought that even knowledge must be corrupt
and false—that revelation is a necessity if only
in order to recognise that the world should be
denied.
412.
Owing to our habit of believing in uncondi-
tional authorities, we have grown to feel a
profound need for them : indeed, this feeling is
so strong that, even in an age of criticism such
as Kant's was, it showed itself to be superior to
the need for criticism, and, in a certain sense, was
able to subject the whole work of critical acumen,
and to convert it to its own use. It proved its


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CRITICISM OF PHILOSOPHY.
331
superiority once more in the generation which
followed, and which, owing to its historical
instincts, naturally felt itself drawn to a relative
view of all authority, when it converted even the
Hegelian philosophy of evolution (history re-
christened and called philosophy) to its own use,
and represented history as being the self-revela-
tion and self-surpassing of moral ideas. Since
Plato, philosophy has lain under the dominion of
morality. Even in Plato's predecessors, moral
interpretations play a most important rôle (Anaxi-
mander declares that all things are made to perish
as a punishment for their departure from pure
being; Heraclitus thinks that the regularity of
phenomena is a proof of the morally correct
character of evolution in general).
413.
The progress of philosophy has been hindered
most seriously hitherto through the influence of
moral arrières-pensées.
414.
9
In all ages, “ fine feelings" have been regarded
as arguments, “heaving breasts” have been the
bellows of godliness, convictions have been the
"criteria” of truth, and the need of opposition
has been the note of interrogation affixed to
wisdom. This falseness and fraud permeates the
whole history of philosophy. But for a few
respected sceptics, no instinct for intellectual
uprightness is to be found anywhere. Finally,


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THE WILL TO POWER,
Kant guilelessly sought to make this thinker's
corruption scientific by means of his concept,
practical reason. " He expressly invented a
reason which, in certain cases, would allow one
not to bother about reason—that is to say, in cases
where the heart's desire, morality, or “duty” are
the motive power.
415
Hegel : his popular side, the doctrine of war
and of great men. Right is on the side of the
victorious : he (the victorious man) stands for the
progress of mankind.