No More Learning

First of all we should know what "good and
evil” mean. That is as good as wishing to know
why man is here, and what his goal or his destiny
is. And that means that one would fain know
that man actually has a goal or a destiny.
339.
The very obscure and arbitrary notion that
humanity has a general duty to perform, and that,
as a whole, it is striving towards a goal, is
still in its infancy. Perhaps we shall once more
be rid of it before it becomes a “fixed idea. "
But humanity does not constitute a whole: it
is an indissoluble multiplicity of ascending and
descending organisms—it knows no such thing
as a state of youth followed by maturity and
But its strata lie confused and
superimposed-and in a few thousand years
then age.
>


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272
THE WILL TO POWER.
there may be even younger types of men than
we can point out to-day. Decadence, on the
other hand, belongs to all periods of human
history: everywhere there is refuse and decaying
matter, such things are in themselves vital pro-
cesses; for withering and decaying elements must
be eliminated.
**
Under the empire of Christian prejudice this
question was never put at all: the purpose of life
seemed to lie in the salvation of the individual
soul; the question whether humanity might last
for a long or a short time was not considered.
The best Christians longed for the end to come
as soon as possible ;-concerning the needs of the
individual, there seemed to be no doubt whatsoever.
The duty of every individual for the present
was identical with what it would be in any sort
of future for the man of the future: the value,
the purpose, the limit of values was for ever fixed,
unconditioned, eternal, one with God. . . . What
deviated from this eternal type was impious,
diabolic, criminal.
The centre of gravity of all values for each
soul lay in that soul itself: salvation or damnation !
The salvation of the immortal soul ! The most
extreme form of personalisation. . . For each
soul there was only one kind of perfection; only
one ideal, only one road to salvation.
most extreme form of the principle of equal rights,
associated with an optical magnification of in-
dividual importance to the point of megalomania
. . . The


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
273
. . . Nothing but insanely important souls, re-
volving round their own axes with unspeakable
terror. .
*
Nobody believes in these assumed airs of im-
portance any longer to-day: and we have sifted
our wisdom through the sieve of contempt.
Nevertheless the optical habit survives, which
would fain measure the value of man by his
proximity to a certain ideal man: at bottom the
personalisation view is upheld as firmly as that of
the equality of rights as regards the ideal. In
short: people seem to think that they know what
the ultimate desideratum is in regard to the ideal
man.
.
But this belief is merely the result of the
exceedingly detrimental influence of the Christian
ideal, as anybody can discover for himself every
time he carefully examines the “ideal type. " In
the first place, it is believed that the approach to
a given "type” is desirable; secondly, that this
particular type is known; thirdly, that every
deviation from this type is a retrograde movement,
a stemming of the spirit of progress, a loss of
power and might in man. To dream of a
state of affairs in which this perfect man will
be in the majority: our friends the Socialists
and even Messrs. the Utilitarians have not gone
farther than this. In this way an aim seems to
have crept into the evolution of man: at any
rate the belief in a certain progress towards an
ideal is the only shape in which an aim is con-
S
VOL. 1.


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274
THE WILL TO POWER.
ceived in the history of mankind to-day. ) In
short: the coming of the “ Kingdom of God" has
been placed in the future, and has been given an
earthly, a human meaning-but on the whole the
faith in the old ideal is still maintained.
340.
»
The more concealed forms of the cult of Christian,
moral ideals. —The insipid and cowardly notion
“ Nature," invented by Nature-enthusiasts (without
any knowledge whatsoever of the terrible, the
implacable, and the cynical element in even “the
most beautiful” aspects), is only a sort of attempt
at reading the moral and Christian notion of
"humanity” into Nature ;-Rousseau's concept of
Nature, for instance, which took for granted that
“Nature" meant freedom, goodness, innocence,
equity, justice, and Idylls, was nothing more at
bottom than the cult of Christian morality. We
should collect passages from the poets in order
to see what they admired, in lofty mountains, for
instance. What Goethe had to do with them
why he admired Spinoza. Absolute ignorance
concerning the reasons of this cult.
The insipid and cowardly concept “Man," à la
Comte and Stuart Mill, is at times the subject of
a cult. . . . This is only the Christian moral ideal
again under another name. . . Refer also to the
freethinkers-Guyau for example.
The insipid and cowardly concept “ Art," which
is held to mean sympathy with all suffering and
with everything botched and bungled (the same


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
275
thing happens to history, cf. Thierry): again it is
the cult of the Christian moral ideal.
And now, as to the whole socialistic ideal: it is
nothing but a blockheaded misunderstanding of
the Christian moral ideal.
341.
The origin of the ideal. The examination of
the soil out of which it grows.
A. Starting out from those " ästhetic" mental
states during which the world seems rounder,
fuller, and more perfect: we have the pagan ideal
with its dominating spirit of self-affirmation
(people give of their abundance). The highest
type: the classical ideal—regarded as an expres-
sion of the successful nature of all the more
important instincts. In this classical ideal we
find the grand style as the highest style. An
expression of the "will to power" itself. The
instinct which is most feared dares to acknow-
ledge itself.
B. Starting out from the mental states in
which the world seemed emptier, paler, and thinner,
when “spiritualisation" and the absence of sensu-
ality assume the rank of perfection, and when all
that is brutal, animal, direct, and proximate is
avoided (people calculate and select): the “sage,”
" the angel ”; priestliness = virginity = ignorance,
are the physiological ideals of such idealists: the
anemic ideal. Under certain circumstances this
anæmic ideal may be the ideal of such natures as


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THE WILL TO POWER.
represent paganism (thus Goethe sees his “saint"
in Spinoza).
C. Starting out from those mental states in
which the world seemed more absurd, more evil,
poorer, and more deceptive, an ideal cannot even
be imagined or desired in it (people deny and
annihilate); the projection of the ideal into the
sphere of the anti-natural, anti-actual, anti-logical;
the state of him who judges thus (the “impover-
ishment” of the world as a result of suffering:
people take, they no longer bestow): the anti-natural
ideal.
(The Christian ideal is a transitional form
between the second and the third, now inclining
more towards the former type, and anon inclining
towards the latter. )
The three ideals : A. Either a strengthening
of Life ( paganism), or B. an impoverishment of Life
(anæmia), or C. a denial of Life (anti-naturalism).
The state of beatitude in A. is the feeling of
extreme abundance; in B. it is reached by the
most fastidious selectiveness; in C. it is the
contempt and the destruction of Life.
342.
A. The consistent type understands that even
evil must not be hated, must not be resisted, and
that it is not allowable to make war against
one's self; that it does not suffice merely to accept
the pain which such behaviour brings in its train;
that one lives entirely in positive feelings; that
one takes the side of one's opponents in word


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
277
and deed ; that by means of a superfætation of
peaceful, kindly, conciliatory, helpful, and loving
states, one impoverishes the soil of the other
states, that one is in need of unremitting
practice. What is achieved thereby ? — The
Buddhistic type, or the perfect cow.
This point of view is possible only where no
moral fanaticism prevails—that is to say, when
evil is not hated on its own account, but because
it opens the road to conditions which are painful
(unrest, work, care, complications, dependence).
This is the Buddhistic point of view: there is
no hatred of sin, the concept “sin," in fact, is
entirely lacking.
B. The inconsistent type.
War is waged
against evil—there is a belief that war waged
for Goodness' sake does not involve the same moral
results or affect character in the same way as
war generally does (and owing to which tend-
encies it is detested as evil). As a matter of
fact, a war of this sort carried on against evil is
much more profoundly pernicious than any sort
of personal hostility; and generally, it is “the
person” which reassumes, at least in fancy, the
position of opponent (the devil, evil spirits, etc. ).
The attitude of hostile observation and spying in
regard to everything which may be bad in us, or
hail from a bad source, culminates in a most
tormented and most anxious state of mind : thus
“miracles," rewards, ecstasy, and transcendental
solutions of the earth-riddle now became desir-
able, . . . The Christian type: or the perfect bigot.
*


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278
THE WILL TO POWER.
C. The stoical type. Firmness, self-control,
imperturbability, peace in the form of the rigidity
of a will long active-profound quiet, the de-
fensive state, the fortress, the mistrust of war-
firmness of principles; the unity of knowledge
and will; great self-respect. The type of the
anchorite. The perfect blockhead.
begun tout
343
An ideal which is striving to prevail or to
assert itself endeavours to further its purpose
(a) by laying claim to a spurious origin; (6) by
assuming a relationship between itself and the
powerful ideals already existing; (c) by means
of the thrill produced by mystery, as though
an unquestionable power were manifesting itself;
(d) by the slander of its opponents' ideals; (e) by
a lying teaching of the advantages which follow in
its wake, for instance: happiness, spiritual peace,
general peace, or even the assistance of a mighty
God, etc. —Contributions to the psychology of
the idealists : Carlyle, Schiller, Michelet.
Supposing all the means of defence and
protection, by means of which an ideal survives,
are discovered, is it thereby refuted? It has
merely availed itself of the means by which every-
thing lives and grows—they are all “immoral. ”
My view : all the forces and instincts which
are the source of life are lying beneath the ban
of morality: morality is the life-denying instinct.
Morality must be annihilated if life is to be
emancipated.


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY,
279
344.
To avoid knowing himself is the prudence of the
idealist. The idealist: a creature who has reasons
for remaining in the dark concerning himself, and
who is also clever enough to remain in the dark
concerning these reasons also.
345.
The tendency of moral evolution. -Every one's
desire is that there should be no other teaching
and valuation of things than those by means of
which he himself succeeds. Thus the fundamental
tendency of the weak and mediocre of all times,
has been to enfeeble the strong and to reduce them
to the level of the weak : their chief weapon in this
process was the moral principle. The attitude of
the strong towards the weak is branded as evil; the
highest states of the strong become bad bywords.
The struggle of the many against the strong,
of the ordinary against the extraordinary, of the
weak against the strong: meets with one of its
finest interruptions in the fact that the rare, the
refined, the more exacting, present themselves as
the weak, and repudiate the coarser weapons of
power.
346.
(1) The so-called pure instinct for knowledge
of all philosophers is dictated to them by their
moral “ truths," and is only seemingly inde-
pendent.
(2) The "Moral Truths,” “ thus shall things be
»


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280
THE WILL TO POWER.
done,” are mere states of consciousness of an
instinct which has grown tired, “thus and thus
are things done by us. ” The “ideal” is supposed
to re-establish and strengthen an instinct; it
flatters man to feel he can obey when he is only
an automaton.
6
>
cases
347.
Morality as a means of seduction. --"Nature is
good; for a wise and good God is its cause.
Who, therefore, is responsible for the 'corruption
of man'? Tyrants and seducers and the ruling
classes are responsible—they must be wiped out":
this is Rousseau's logic (compare with Pascal's logic,
which concludes by an appeal to original sin).
Refer also to Luther's logic, which is similar.
In both
a pretext is sought for the
introduction of an insatiable lust of revenge
as a moral and religious duty. The hatred
directed against the ruling classes tries to sanctify
itself . . . (the “sinfulness of Israel ” is the
basis of the priest's powerful position).
Compare this with Paul's logic, which is
similar. It is always under the cover of God's
business that these reactions appear, under the
cover of what is right, or of humanity, etc. In
the case of Christ the rejoicings of the people
appear as the cause of His crucifixion.
an anti-priestly movement from the beginning.
Even in the anti-Semitic movement we find the
same trick: the opponent is overcome with moral
condemnations, and those who attack him pose
as retributive Justice.
.
It was


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
281
348.
.
The incidents of the fight : the fighter tries to
transform his opponent into the exact opposite of
himself—imaginatively, of course.
He tries to
believe in himself to such an extent that he may
have the courage necessary for the “good Cause”
(as if he were the good Cause); as if reason, taste,
and virtue were being assailed by his opponents.
. . The belief of which he is most in need, as
the strongest means of defence and attack, is the
belief in himself, which, however, knows how to
misinterpret itself as a belief in God.
He never
pictures the advantages and the uses of victory,
but only understands victory for the sake of
victory—for God's sake. Every small community
(or individual), finding itself involved in a struggle,
strives to convince itself of this : "Good taste, good
judgment, and virtue are ours. " War urges people
to this exaggerated self-esteem. . . .
349.
»
a
Whatever kind of eccentric ideal one may have
(whether as a "Christian," a "free - spirit,” an
“immoralist,” or German Imperialist), one
should try to avoid insisting upon its being the
ideal; for, by so doing, it is deprived of all its
privileged nature. One should have an ideal as a
distinction; one should not propagate it, and thus
level one's self down to the rest of mankind.
How is it, that in spite of this obvious fact, the
majority of idealists indulge in propaganda for


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282
THE WILL TO POWER.
their ideal, just as if they had no right to it unless
the majority acquiesce therein ? —For instance, all
those plucky and insignificant girls behave in this
way, who claim the right to study Latin and
mathematics. What is it urges them to do this?
I fear it is the instinct of the herd, and the terror
of the herd: they fight for the “emancipation of
woman,” because they are best able to achieve
their own private little distinction by fighting for
it under the cover of a charitable movement, under
the banner bearing the device “For others. ”
The cleverness of idealists consists in their per-
sistently posing as the missionaries and "repre-
sentatives” of an ideal: they thus“ beautify
themselves in the eyes of those who still believe
in disinterestedness and heroism. Whereas real
heroism consists, not in fighting under the banner
of self-sacrifice, submission, and disinterestedness,
but in not fighting at all. . . . "I am thus; I
.
will be thus—and you can go to the devil ! "
350.
Every ideal assumes love, hate, reverence, and con-
tempt. Either positive feeling is the primum mobile,
or negative feeling is. Hatred and contempt are
the primum mobile in all the ideals which proceed
from resentment.
B. A Criticism of the " Good Man," of the Saint, etc.
351.
The "good man. ” Or, hemiplegia of virtue. -
In the opinion of every strong and natural man,


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
283
.
.
love and hate, gratitude and revenge, goodness
and anger, affirmative and negative action, belong
to each other. A man is good on condition that
he knows how to be evil; a man is evil, because
otherwise he would not know how to be good.
Whence comes the morbidness and ideological
unnaturalness which repudiates these compounds
-which teaches a sort of one-sided efficiency as
the highest of all things? Whence this hemiplegia
of virtue, the invention of the good man? The
object seems to be to make man amputate those
instincts which enable him to be an enemy, to be
harmful, to be angry, and to insist upon revenge.
This unnaturalness, then, corresponds to
that dualistic concept of a wholly good and of a
wholly bad creature (God, Spirit, Man); in the first
are found all the positive, in the second all the
negative forces, intentions, and states. This
method of valuing thus believes itself to be
“idealistic"; it never doubts that in its concept
of the “good man,” it has found the highest de-
sideratum. When aspiring to its zenith it fancies
a state in which all evil is wiped out, and in which
only good creatures have actually remained over.
It does not therefore regard the mutual depend-
ence of the opposites good and evil as proved.
On the contrary, the latter ought to vanish, and
the former should remain. The first has a right
to exist, the second ought not to be with us at
all. . . What, as a matter of fact, is the reason
of this desire? In all ages, and particularly in the
Christian age, much labour has been spent in
trying to reduce men to this one-sided activity:


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284
THE WILL TO POWER.
6
and even to-day, among those who have been
deformed and weakened by the Church, people
are not lacking who desire precisely the same
thing with their “humanisation ” generally, or
with their “ Will of God,” or with their “ Salvation
of the Soul. ” The principal injunction behind all
these things is, that man should no longer do
anything evil, that he should under no circum-
stances be harmful or desire harm.
The way to
arrive at this state of affairs is to amputate all
hostile tendencies, to suppress all the instincts of
resentment, and to establish“ spiritual peace” as
a chronic disease.
This attitude of mind, in which a certain type
of man is bred, starts out with this absurd
hypothesis : good and evil are postulated as
realities which are in a state of mutual contradic-
tion (not as complementary values, which they
are), people are advised to take the side of the
good, and it is insisted upon that a good man
resists and forswears evil until every trace of it is
uprooted—but with this valuation Life is actually
denied, for in all its instincts Life has both yea
and nay. But far from understanding these facts,
this valuation dreams rather of returning to the
wholeness, oneness, and strengthfulness of Life: it
actually believes that a state of blessedness will
be reached when the inner anarchy and state of
unrest which result from these opposed impulses
is brought to an end. It is possible that no more
dangerous ideology, no greater mischief in the
science of psychology, has ever yet existed, than
this will to good: the most repugnant type of man
키
​

## p. 285 (#309) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
285
has been reared, the man who is not free, the
bigot; it was taught that only in the form of a
bigot could one tread the path which leads to
God, and that only a bigot's life could be a godly
life.
And even here, Life is still in the right-Life
that knows not how to separate Yea from Nay:
what is the good of declaring with all one's might
that war is an evil, that one must harm no one,
that one must not act negatively? One is still
waging a war even in this, it is impossible to do
otherwise ! The good man who has renounced
all evil, and who is afflicted according to his desire
with the hemiplegia of virtue, does not therefore
cease from waging war, or from making enemies,
or from saying “nay” and doing “nay. " The
Christian, for instance, hates "sin ” ! and what
on earth is there which he does not call “ sin ”!
It is precisely because of his belief in a moral
antagonism between good and evil, that the world
for him has grown so full of hatefulness and
things that must be combated eternally. The
" "good man” sees himself surrounded by evil, and,
thanks to the continual onslaughts of the latter,
his eye grows more keen, and in the end discovers
traces of evil in every one of his acts. And thus
he ultimately arrives at the conclusion, which to
him is quite logical, that Nature is evil, that man is
corrupted, and that being good is an act of grace
(that is to say, it is impossible to man when he
stands alone). In short: he denies Life, he sees
how "good,” as the highest value, condemns Life.
. . And thus his ideology concerning good and


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286
THE WILL TO POWER.
evil ought to strike him as refuted.
But one
cannot refute a disease. Therefore he is obliged
to conceive another life!
.
352.
Power, whether in the hands of a god or of a
man, is always understood to consist in the ability
to harm as well as to help. This is the case with
the Arabs and with the Hebrews, in fact with all
strong and well-constituted races.
The dualistic separation of the two powers is
fatal. . . . In this way morality becomes the
. . .
poisoner of life.
353
A criticism of the good man. —Honesty, dignity,
dutifulness, justice, humanity, loyalty, uprightness,
clean conscience-is it really supposed that, by
means of these fine-sounding words, the qualities
they stand for are approved and affirmed for their
own sake?
Or is it this, that qualities and states
indifferent in themselves have merely been looked
at in a light which lends them some value ? Does
the worth of these qualities lie in themselves, or
in the use and advantages to which they lead (or
to which they seem to lead, to which they are
expected to lead)?
I naturally do not wish to imply that there is
any opposition between the ego and the alter in
the judgment: the question is, whether it is the
results of these qualities, either in regard to him
who possesses them or in regard to environment,


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
287
.
.
society, "humanity," which lend them their value;
or whether they have a value in themselves. . .
In other words: is it utility which bids men
condemn, combat, and deny the opposite qualities
(duplicity, falseness, perversity, lack of self-
confidence, inhumanity)? Is the essence of such
qualities condemned, or only their consequences
In other words: were it desirable that there should
exist no men at all possessed of such qualities?
In any case, this is believed. . . But here lies
the error, the shortsightedness, the monocularity
of narrow egoism.
Expressed otherwise: would it be desirable to
create circumstances in which the whole advan-
tage would be on the side of the just—so that all
those with opposite natures and instincts would
be discouraged and would slowly become extinct ?
At bottom, this is a question of taste and of
esthetics : should we desire the most honourable
types of men—that is to say, the greatest bores-
alone to subsist? the rectangular, the virtuous,
the upright, the good-natured, the straightforward,
and the “blockheads”?
If one can imagine the total suppression of the
huge number constituting the “others," even the
just man himself ceases from having a right to
exist, he is, in fact, no longer necessary,—and in
this
way it is seen that coarse utility alone could
have elevated such an insufferable virtue to a
place of honour.
Desirability may lie precisely on the other side,
It might be better to create conditions in which
the “just man" would be reduced to the humble
"


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THE WILL TO POWER,
G
position of a “useful instrument"-an “ideal
gregarious animal,” or at best a herdsman: in
short, conditions in which he would no longer
stand in the highest sphere, which requires other
qualities.
354.
The "good man as a tyrant. -Mankind has
always repeated the same error: it has always
transformed a mere vital measure into the measure
and standard of life;-instead of seeking the
standard in the highest ascent of life, in the
problem of growth and exhaustion, it takes the
preservative measures of a very definite kind of
life, and uses them to exclude all other kinds of
life, and even to criticise Life itself and to select
from among its forms. That is to say, man
ultimately forgets that measures are a means to
an end, and gets to like them for themselves :
they take the place of a goal in his mind, and
even become the standard of goals to him-
that is to say, a given species of man regards his
means of existence as the only legitimate means,
as the means which ought to be imposed upon all,
as “truth," "goodness," "perfection”: the given
“
species, in fact, begins to tyrannise. . . . It is a
form of faith, of instinct, when a certain species
of man does not perceive that his kind has been
conditioned, when he does not understand his
relation to other species. At any rate, any species
of men (a people or a race) seems to be doomed
as soon as it becomes tolerant, grants equal rights,
and no longer desires to be master,


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
289
355.
"
“All good people are weak: they are good
because they are not strong enough to be evil,”
said the Latuka chieftain Comorro to Baker.
“Disasters are not to the faint-hearted," is a
Russian proverb.
356.
Modest, industrious, benevolent, and temperate:
thus you would that men were ? —that good men
were ? But such men I can only conceive as
slaves, the slaves of the future.
357.
The metamorphoses of slavery; its disguise in
the cloak of religion; its transfiguration through
morality.
358.
The ideal slave (the “good man”). --He who
cannot regard himself as a "purpose," and who
cannot give himself any aim whatsoever, in-
stinctively honours the morality of unselfishness.
Everything urges him to this morality: his
prudence, his experience, and his vanity. And
even faith is a form of self-denial.
Atavism : delightful feeling, to be able to obey
unconditionally for once.
日​*
VOL. I.


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290
THE WILL TO POWER.
Industry, modesty, benevolence, temperance,
are just so many obstacles in the way of sovereign
sentiments, of great ingenuity, of an heroic purpose,
of noble existence for one's self.
It is not a question of going ahead (to that end
all that is required is to be at best a herdsman,
that is to say, the prime need of the herd), it is
rather a matter of getting along alone, of being
able to be another.
359.
We must realise all that has been accumulated
as the result of the highest moral idealism: how
almost all other values have crystallised round it.
This shows that it has been desired for a very
long time and with the strongest passions—and
that it has not yet been attained : otherwise it
would have disappointed everybody (that is to say,
it would have been followed by a more moderate
valuation).
The saint as the most powerful type of man:
this ideal it is which has elevated the value of
moral perfection so high. One would think that
the whole of science had been engaged in proving
that the moral man is the most powerful and most
godly. —The conquest of the senses and the
passions—everything inspired terror;—the un-
natural seemed to the spectators to be super-
natural and transcendental, . . ,
-


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
291
360.
Francis of Assisi: amorous and popular, a poet
who combats the order of rank among souls, in
favour of the lowest. The denial of spiritual
hierarchy"all alike before God. ”
Popular ideals: the good man, the unselfish
man, the saint, the sage, the just man. O Marcus
Aurelius !
361.
I have declared war against the anæmic
Christian ideal (together with what is closely
related to it), not because I want to annihilate it,
but only to put an end to its tyranny and clear
the way for other ideals, for more robust ideals.
. . The continuance of the Christian ideal belongs
to the most desirable of desiderata: if only for
the sake of the ideals which wish to take their
stand beside it and perhaps above it—they must
have opponents, and strong ones too, in order to
grow strong themselves. That is why we im-
moralists require the power of morality: our
instinct of self - preservation insists upon
opponents maintaining their strength — all it
requires is to become master of them.
our
C. Concerning the Slander of the so-called
Evil Qualities.
362.
Egoism and its problem! The Christian
gloominess of La Rochefoucauld, who saw egoism


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292
THE WILL TO POWER.
1
in everything, and imagined that he had therefore
reduced the worth of things and virtues ! In
opposition to him, I first of all tried to show that
nothing else could exist save egoism,—that in
those men whose ego is weak and thin, the power
A to love also grows weak,—that the greatest lovers
are such owing to the strength of their ego,—that
love is an expression of egoism, etc. As a matter
of fact, the false valuation aims at the interest of
those who find it useful, whom it helps in fact,
the herd; it fosters a pessimistic mistrust towards
the basis of Life; it would fain undermine the
most glorious and most well-constituted men (out
of fear); it would assist the lowly to have the upper
hand of their conquerors; it is the cause of uni-
versal dishonesty, especially in the most useful
type of men.
363.
Man is an indifferent egoist : even the cleverest
regards his habits as more important than his
advantage.
364.
Egoism ! But no one has yet asked: what is
the ego like? Everybody is rather inclined to
see all egos alike. This is the result of the slave
theory, of universal suffrage, and of “equality. "
365.
The behaviour of a higher man is the result of
a very complex set of motives : any word such as
"pity” betrays nothing of this complexity. The


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY,
293
most important factor is the feeling, “who am I?
who is the other relative to me? "-Thus the
valuing spirit is continually active.
366.
To think that the history of all moral pheno-
mena may be simplified, as Schopenhauer thought,
--that is to say, that pity is to be found at the
root of every moral impulse that has ever existed
hitherto,-is to be guilty of a degree of nonsense
and ingenuousness worthy only of a thinker who
is devoid of all historical instincts and who has
miraculously succeeded in evading the strong
schooling in history which the Germans, from
Herder to Hegel, have undergone.
6
367
My "pity. ”—This is a feeling for which I can
find no adequate term: I feel it when I am in
the presence of any waste of precious capabilities,
as, for instance, when I contemplate Luther: what
power and what tasteless problems fit for back-
woodsmen! (At a time when the brave and light-
hearted scepticism of a Montaigne was already
possible in France ! ) Or when I see some one
standing below where he might have stood, thanks
to the development of a set of perfectly senseless
accidents. Or even when, with the thought of
man's destiny in my mind, I contemplate with
horror and contempt the whole system of modern
European politics, which is creating the circum-


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294
THE WILL TO POWER.
stances and weaving the fabric of the whole future
of mankind. Yes, to what could not "mankind”
attain, if- ! This is my “pity"; despite the
fact that no sufferer yet exists with whom I
sympathise in this way.
368.
hriatha
Pity is a waste of feeling, a moral parasite
which is injurious to the health,“ it cannot possibly
be our duty to increase the evil in the world. ” If
one does good merely out of pity, it is one's self
and not one's neighbour that one is succouring.
Pity does not depend upon maxims, but upon
emotions. The suffering we see infects us; pity
is an infection.
369.
There is no such thing as egoism which keeps
within its bounds and does not exceed them
consequently, the “allowable,” the “morally in-
different” egoism of which some people speak,
does not exist at all.
“One is continually promoting the interests of
one's 'ego' at the cost of other people”; “Living
consists in living at the cost of others "-he who
has not grasped this fact, has not taken the first
step towards truth to himself.
370.
The “subject” is a piece of fiction: the ego of
which every one speaks when he blames egoism,
does not exist at all.


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
295
371.
Our “ego”—which is not one with the unitary
controlling force of our beings ! —is really only an
imagined synthesis ; therefore there can be no
"egoistic" actions.
372.
Since all instincts are unintelliġent, utility cannot
represent a standpoint as far as they are concerned.
Every instinct, when it is active, sacrifices strength
and other instincts into the bargain: in the end
it is stemmed, otherwise it would be the end of
everything owing to the waste it would bring
about. Thus: that which is “unegoistic," self-
sacrificing, and imprudent is nothing in particular
-it is common to all the instincts; they do not
consider the welfare of the whole ego (because they
simply do not think ! ), they act counter to our
interests, against the ego: and often for the ego-
innocent in both cases !
373.
The origin of moral values. -Selfishness has as
much value as the physiological value of him who
possesses it. Each individual represents the whole
course of Evolution, and he is not, as morals teach,
something that begins at his birth.
If he re-
present the ascent of the line of mankind, his
value is, in fact, very great; and the concern about
his maintenance and the promoting of his growth
may even be extreme. (It is the concern about


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296
THE WILL TO POWER.
the promise of the future in him which gives the
well-constituted individual such an extraordinary
right to egoism. ) If he represent descending
development, decay, chronic sickening, he has
little worth : and the greatest fairness would have
him take as little room, strength, and sunshine as
possible from the well-constituted. In this case
society's duty is to suppress egoism (for the latter
may sometimes manifest itself in an absurd, morbid,
and seditious manner): whether it be a question
of the decline and pining away of single individuals
or of whole classes of mankind. A morality and
a religion of “ love," the curbing of the self-affirming
spirit, and a doctrine encouraging patience, re-
signation, helpfulness, and co-operation in word and
deed may be of the highest value within the
confines of such classes, even in the eyes of their
rulers : for it restrains the feelings of rivalry, of
resentment, and of envy,-feelings which are only
too natural in the bungled and the botched,—and
it even deifies them under the ideal of humility, of
obedience, of slave-life, of being ruled, of poverty,
of illness, and of lowliness. This explains why
the ruling classes (or races) and individuals of all
ages have always upheld the cult of unselfishness,
the gospel of the lowly and of “God on the Cross. "
The preponderance of an altruistic way of
valuing is the result of a consciousness of the fact
that one is botched and bungled. Upon ex-
amination, this point of view turns out to be: I
am not worth much," simply a psychological valua-
tion; more plainly still : it is the feeling of im-
potence, of the lack of the great self-asserting
«C


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À CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
297
impulses of power (in muscles, nerves, and ganglia).
This valuation gets translated, according to the
particular culture of these classes, into a moral or
religious principle (the pre-eminence of religious or
moral precepts is always a sign of low culture):
it tries to justify itself in spheres whence, as far
as it is concerned, the notion "value" hails. The
interpretation by means of which the Christian
sinner tries to understand himself, is an attempt
at justifying his lack of power and of self-con-
fidence: he prefers to feel himself a sinner rather
than feel bad for nothing: it is in itself a symptom
of decay when interpretations of this sort are used
at all. In some cases the bungled and the botched
do not look for the reason of their unfortunate
condition in their own guilt (as the Christian does),
but in society: when, however, the Socialist, the
Anarchist, and the Nihilist are conscious that their
existence is something for which some one must be
guilty, they are very closely related to the Christian,
who also believes that he can more easily endure
his ill ease and his wretched constitution when he
has found some one whom he can hold responsible
for it. The instinct of revenge and resentment
appears in both cases here as a means of enduring
life, as a self-preservative measure, as is also the
favour shown to altruistic theory and practice.
The hatred of egoism, whether it be one's own (as
in the case of the Christian), or another's (as in
the case of the Socialists), thus appears as a valua-
tion reached under the predominance of revenge;
and also as an act of prudence on the part of the
preservative instinct of the suffering, in the form


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298
THE WILL TO POWER.