Nothing
more promotion than systematic Nihilism in action.
more promotion than systematic Nihilism in action.
Nietzsche - Works - v14 - Will to Power - a
?
I92
THE WILL TO POWER.
(For the treatment of pangs of conscience recommend Mitchell's Treatment. *)
234.
A pang of conscience in a man is a sign tha his character is not yet equal to his deed. Ther is such a thing as a pang of conscience after goo
deeds: in this case it is their unfamiliarity, thei incompatibility with an old environment.
235.
Against remorse. --I do not like this form c
cowardice in regard to one's own actions, on must not leave one's self in the lurch under th
pressure of sudden shame or distress, Extrem
pride is much more fitting here. What is th
good of it all in the end| No deed get
undone because it is regretted, no more thal because it is "forgiven" or "expiated. " A man mus
be a theologian in order to believe in a power tha erases faults: we immoralists prefer to disbeliev in "faults. " We believe that all deeds, of wha kind soever, are identically of the same value a root; just as deeds which turn against us ma
*TRANSLATOR's NoTE. --In The New Sydenham Society Lexicon of Medicine and the Allied Sciences, the followin; description of Mitchell's treatment is to be found: "A method of treating cases of neurasthenia and hysteria . . by removal from home, rest in bed, massage twice a day
electrical excitation of the muscles, and excessive feeding at first with milk. "
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I93
be useful from an economical point of view, and
even generally desirable. In certain individual
cases, we admit that we might well have been
spared a given action; the circumstances alone
predisposed us in its favour. Which of us, if
favoured by circumstances, would not already
have committed every possible crime? . . . That
is why one should never say: "Thou shouldst
never have done such and such a thing," but only:
"How strange it is that I have not done such and
such a thing hundreds of times already l"--As a
matter of fact, only a very small number of acts are typical acts and real epitomes of a personality,
and seeing what a small number of people really are personalities, a single act very rarely character
ises a man. Acts are mostly dictated by circum stances; they are superficial or merely reflex
movements performed in response to a stimulus, long before the depths of our beings are affected
? or consulted in the matter. A
temper,
gesture,
knife: how little the
these acts l--A deed very stupor feeling con
that the agent feels almost
recollection, though
blow with individual resides
often brings sort
straint its wake: spellbound
belonged
creature.
he and were not an independent
This mental disorder, which form
of hypnotism, must be resisted all costs: surely
single deed, whatever be, when compared with all one has done, nothing, and may be deducted from the sum without making the account wrong. The unfair interest which society
manifests controlling the whole our lives VOL.
? ? I.
in
a
N
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to
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of
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as
fit of
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of
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its
so of in
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a
of
? I94
THE WILL TO POWER.
in one direction, as though the very purpose of its existence were to cultivate a certain individual
act,
unfortunately this happens almost continually.
The reason of this that every deed, followed
by unexpected consequences, leads certain mental disturbance, no matter whether the con
should not infect the man of action: but
sequences be good
bad. Behold lover who promise, poet while he
from an audience: far concerned, these men are no way different from the anarchist who
suddenly confronted by detective bearing search warrant.
There are some acts which are unworthy us: acts which, they were regarded typical, would
set down belonging lower class man.
here,
regard them typical. There another kind act which we are unworthy: exceptional acts,
born particular abundance happiness and health; they are the highest waves our spring
tides, driven an unusual height by storm --an accident: such acts and "deeds" are also
not typical. An artist should never be judged
has been given receiving applause
intellectual torpor
? The one fault that has be avoided
according
the measure his works.
236.
A. proportion Christianity seems necessary
to-day, man still wild and fatal.
another sense, not necessary, but
extremely dangerous, though captivating and
? ? B.
In In
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? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I95
seductive, because it corresponds with the morbid character of whole classes and types of modern humanity, . . . they simply follow their inclinations when they aspire to Christianity--they are de cadents of all kinds.
A and B must be kept very sharply apart.
In the case of A, Christianity is a cure, or at least a taming process (under certain circumstances it serves the purpose of making people ill: and this is sometimes useful as a means of subduing savage and brutal natures). In the case of B, it is a symptom of illness itself, it renders the state of decadence more acute; in this case it stands opposed to a corroborating system of treatment, it
is the invalid's instinct standing against that which would be most salutary to him.
237.
On one side there are the serious, the dignified,
and reflective people: and on the other the bar barous, the unclean, and the irresponsible beasts:
it is merely a question of taming animals--and
in this case the tamer must be hard, terrible, and
awe-inspiring, at least to his beasts.
All essential requirements must be imposed upon
the unruly creatures with almost brutal distinct ness--that is to say, magnified a thousand times.
Even the fulfilment of the requirement must be presented in the coarsest way possible, so
that it may command respect, as in the case of the spiritualisation of the Brahmins.
sk
? ? ? ? 196
THE WILL TO POWER.
The struggle with the rabble and the herd. If
any degree
reached, the chasm separating these purified and
regenerated people
from the terrible remainder
of tameness and order has been
must have been bridged. . . .
This chasm is a means of increasing self-respect
in higher castes, and of confirming their belief in that which they represent--hence the Chandala. Contempt and its excess are perfectly correct psychologically -- that is to say, magnified a
hundred times, so that it may at least be felt.
238.
The struggle against brutal instincts is quite different from the struggle against morbid instincts;
it may even be a means of overcoming brutality
by making the brutes ill. The psychical treatment practised by Christianity is often nothing more
than the process of converting a brute into a sick and therefore tame animal.
The struggle against raw and savage natures must be a struggle with weapons which are able
to affect such natures: superstitions and such means are therefore indispensable and essential.
239.
Our age, in a certain sense, is mature (that is to say, decadent), just as Buddha's was. . . . That is why a sort of Christianity is possible without
all the absurd dogmas (the most repulsive offshoots of ancient hybridism).
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
24O.
I97
Supposing it were impossible to disprove Chris
tianity, Pascal thinks, in view of the terrible
possibility that it may be true, that it is in the highest degree prudent to be a Christian. As a
proof of how much Christianity has lost of its terrible nature, to-day we find that other attempt to justify which consists asserting, that even
were mistake, nevertheless provides the greatest advantages and pleasures for its adherents
? throughout
their lives:--it therefore seems that
this belief should be upheld owing the peace
and quiet ensures--not owing the terror
threatening possibility, but rather out fear
life that has lost one of its charms. This hedonistic turn thought, which uses happiness proof,
symptom decline: takes the place the proof resulting from power from that which
the Christian mind most terrible--namely, fear. With this new interpretation, Christianity
matter fact, nearing its stage
exhaustion. People are satisfied with Christianity which an opiate, because they no longer have the
strength seek, struggle, dare,
stand alone, nor take up Pascal's position and
share that gloomily brooding self-contempt, that belief human unworthiness, and that anxiety
which believes that "may be damned. " But Christianity the chief object which soothe diseased nerves, does not require the terrible solution consisting "God on the cross"; that
? ? of a
to it
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? 198
THE WILL TO POWER.
is why Buddhism is secretly gaining ground all over Europe.
24 I.
The humour of European culture: people
regard one thing as true, but do the other. For
instance, what is the use of the art reading and criticising, the ecclesiastical interpretation
the Bible, whether according Catholics Protestants, still upheld
242.
No one sufficiently aware the barbarity
the notions among which we Europeans still live. To think that men have been able to believe that
? depended upon book And am told that this still
the "Salvation the soul"
believed.
What the good all scientific education, all
criticism and all hermeneutics, such nonsense as
the Church's interpretation the Bible has not
yet turned the colours our bodies permanently into the red of shame?
243.
Subject for reflection: To what extent does the fatal belief "Divine Providence"--the most
paralysing
standing that has ever existed--continue pre vail; what extent have the Christian hypothesis and interpretation Life continued their lives
belief for both the hand and the under
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? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
under the cover of terms like "Nature," "Progress,"
"perfectionment," "Darwinism,"
or beneath the superstition that there is a certain relation between happiness and virtue, unhappiness and sin? That
absurd belief in the course of things, in "Life"
and in the "instinct of Life"; that foolish resig
nation which arises from the notion that if only
every one did his duty all would go well--all this
sort of thing can only have a meaning if one
assumes that there is a direction of things sub
specie boni. Even fatalism, our present form of
philosophical sensibility, is the result of a long
belief in Divine Providence, an unconscious result:
as though it were nothing to do with us how everything goes! (As though we might let things
take their own course; the individual being only a modus of the absolute reality. )
I99
? It is the
height psychological falsity
of (** on the
part of man to imagine a being according to his
own petty standard, who is a beginning, a "thing
in-itself," and who appears to him good, wise,
mighty, and precious; for thus he suppresses in
thought all the causality by means of which every
kind of goodness, wisdom, and power comes into
existence and has value. In short, elements of
the most recent and most conditional origin were regarded not as evolved, but as spontaneously
generated and "things-in-themselves," and perhaps
as the cause of all things. . . . Experience teaches us that, in every case in which a man has
? ? ? 2OO THE WILL TO POWER.
elevated himself to any great extent above the average of his fellows, every high degree of power always involves a corresponding degree of freedom from Good and Evil as also from "true" and
"false," and cannot take into account what good ness dictates: the same holds good of a high
degree of wisdom--in this case goodness is just as much suppressed as truthfulness, justice, virtue,
and other popular whims in valuations. In fact, is it not obvious that every high degree of goodness
itself presupposes a certain intellectual myopia
and obtuseness? as also an inability to dis
tinguish at a great distance between true and false, useful and harmful ? --not to mention the fact that
a high degree of power in the hands of the highest goodness might lead to the most baleful conse
quences ("the suppression of evil"). In sooth it is enough to perceive with what aspirations the
"God of Love" inspires His believers: they ruin mankind for the benefit of "good men. " In practice, this same God has shown Himself to be a God of the most acute myopia, devilry, and im potence, in the face of the actual arrangement of the universe, and from this the value of His con ception may be estimated.
Knowledge and wisdom can have no value in themselves, any more than goodness can: the goal
they are striving after must be known first, for
then only can their value or worthlessness be judged--a goal might be imagined which would
make excessive wisdom a great disadvantage (if, for instance, complete deception were a prerequisite to the enhancement of life; likewise, if goodness
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION. * 2OI
were able to paralyse and depress the main springs of the great passions). . . .
Taking our human life as it cannot denied that all "truth," "goodness," "holiness,"
and "Godliness" the Christian sense, have
hitherto shown themselves be great dangers--
danger perishing owing to an ideal which hostile to life.
245
Let any one think which all human
institutions suffer, when divine and transcend
even now mankind
? ental, higher sphere postulated
which must first
sanction these institutions By recognising their
worth this sanction alone (as the case
marriage, for instance) their natural dignity
reduced,
Nature spitefully misjudged the same
and under certain circumstances denied.
ratio as the anti-natural notion of God held in honour. "Nature" then comes to mean no more than "contemptible," "bad. "
The fatal nature belief God the reality of the highest moral qualities: through all real
systematically regarded as valueless. Thus Anti-Nature ascended the
throne. With relentless logic the last step was
reached, and this was the absolute demand deny Mature
246.
values were denied and
By pressing
and love into the foreground, Christianity by no
the doctrine disinterestedness
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? 2O2 THE WILL TO POWER.
means elevated the interests of the species above those of the individual. Its real historical effect,
its fatal effect, remains precisely the increase of
egotism, of individual egotism, to excess (to the extreme which consists in the belief in individual
immortality).
The individual was made so
important and so absolute, by means of Christian values, that he could no longer be sacrificed, despite
the fact that the species can only be maintained by human sacrifices. All "souls" became equal before God: but this is the most pernicious of all
valuations !
If one
regards equals, individuals as
the demands of the species are ignored, and a
process is initiated which ultimately leads to its
ruin. Christianity is the reverse of the principle of
selection. If the degenerate and sick man ("the
Christian") is to be of the same value as the
healthy man ("the pagan"), or if he is even to be
valued higher than the latter, as Pascal's view of
health and sickness would have us value him, the
natural course of evolution is thwarted and the
unnatural becomes law. . . . In practice this general love of mankind is nothing more than deliberately favouring all the suffering, the botched,
and the degenerate: it is this love that has reduced and weakened the power, responsibility, and lofty duty of sacrificing men. According to the scheme
of Christian values, all that remained was the
alternative of self-sacrifice, but this vestige of human sacrifice, which Christianity conceded and even recommended, has no meaning when regarded in the light of rearing a whole species. The pro
sperity of the species is by no means affected by
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
2O3
the sacrifice of one individual (whether in the
monastic and ascetic manner, or by means of crosses, stakes, and scaffolds, as the "martyrs" of error).
What the species requires is the suppression of the physiologically botched, the weak and the degenerate: but it was precisely to these people that Christianity appealed as a preservative force, it simply strengthened that natural and very strong
instinct of all the weak which bids them protect, maintain, and mutually support each other. What
is Christian "virtue" and "love of men," if not
precisely
survival, this solidarity of the weak, this thwarting
of selection ? What is Christian altruism, if it is
not the mob-egotism of the weak which divines
that, if everybody looks after everybody else,
every individual will be preserved for a longer period of time? . . . He who does not consider
this attitude of mind as immoral, as a crime against life, himself belongs to the sickly crowd, and also
shares their instincts. . . . Genuine love of man
kind exacts sacrifice for the good of the species --it is hard, full of self-control, because it needs
pseudo-humanity which is called Christianity, would fain establish
this mutual assistance with a view to
? human sacrifices. And this
the rule that nobody should be sacrificed.
247.
Nothing
more promotion than systematic Nihilism in action. --As I understand the phenomena of Christianity
and pessimism, this is what they say: "We are
could be more useful and deserves
? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER.
2O4
ripe for nonentity, for us it is reasonable not to be. " This hint from "reason" in this case, is simply the voice of selective Nature.
On the other hand, what deserves the most rigorous condemnation, is the ambiguous and cowardly infirmity of purpose of a religion like Christianity,--or rather like the Church,--which, instead of recommending death and self-destruction, actually protects all the botched and bungled, and encourages them to propagate their kind.
Problem: with what kind of means could one
lead up to a severe form of really contagious
Nihilism--a Nihilism which would teach and prac
tise voluntary death with scientific conscientious
ness (and not the feeble continuation of a vegetative
sort of life with false hopes of a life after death)? Christianity cannot be sufficiently condemned
for having depreciated the value of a great cleansing
Nihilistic movement (like the one which was pro bably in the process of formation), by its teaching
of the immortality of the private individual, as
also by the hopes of resurrection which it held out: that is to say, by dissuading people from perform
ing the deed of Nihilism which is suicide. . . . In the latter's place it puts lingering suicide, and
gradually a puny, meagre, but durable life; gradu ally a perfectly ordinary, bourgeois, mediocre life, etC.
248.
Christian moral quackery. --Pity and contempt
succeed each other at short intervals, and at the sight of them I feel as indignant as if I were in
? ? ? ? Proposition
IV. : Man converted into a weak
CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
2O5
the presence of the most despicable crime. Here error is made a duty--a virtue, misapprehension
has become a knack, the destructive instinct is
systematised under the name of "redemption";
here every operation becomes a wound, an amputa
tion of those very organs whose energy would be
the prerequisite to a return of health. And in the
best of cases no cure is effected; all that is done
is to exchange one set of evil symptoms for another set. . . . And this pernicious nonsense, this system
atised profanation and castration of life, passes for holy and sacred; to be in its service, to be an
instrument of this art of healing--that is to say, to be a priest, is to be rendered distinguished,
reverent, holy, and sacred. God alone could have
been the Author of this supreme art of healing; redemption is only possible as a revelation, as an
act of grace, as an unearned gift, made by the Creator Himself.
Proposition I. : Spiritual healthiness is regarded as morbid, and creates suspicion. . . .
Proposition II. : The prerequisites of a strong, exuberant life--strong desires and passions--are reckoned as objections against strong and ex uberant life.
Proposition III. : Everything which threatens
danger to man, and which can overcome and ruin him, is evil, must be rejected--and should be torn root and branch from his soul.
? creature, inoffensive to himself and others, crushed
by humilit-y and modesty, and conscious of his
weakness, fact, "sinner,"
in the --this is the
? ? ? 2O6 THE WILL TO POWER.
desirable type, and one which one can Produce by means of a little spiritual surgery. . . .
249.
What is it I protest against? That people should regard this paltry and peaceful mediocrity, this spiritual equilibrium which knows nothing of
the fine impulses of great accumulations of strength, as something high, or possibly as the standard of all things.
Bacon of Verulam says: Infimarum virtutum apud vulgus laus est, mediarum admiratio, supre
marum sensus nullus. Christianity as a religion, however, belongs to the vulgus: it has no feeling for the highest kind of virtus.
25O.
Let us see what the "genuine Christian " does with all the things which his instincts forbid:--he covers beauty, pride, riches, self-reliance, brilliancy, knowledge, and power with suspicion and mud-
in short, all culture: his object is to deprive the latter of its clean conscience.
25 I.
The attacks made upon Christianity, hitherto,
have been not only timid but false. So long as
Christian morality was not felt to be a capital crime against Life, apologists had good time.
The question concerning the mere "truth"
? ? ? of
its
a
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
207
Christianity--whether in regard to the existence of its God, or to the legendary history of its origin,
not to speak of its astronomy and natural science --is quite beside the point so long as no inquiry
is made into the value ofChristian morality. Are
Christian morals worth anything, or are they a profanation and an outrage, despite all the arts of
holiness and seduction with which they are en
forced? The question concerning the truth of the religion may be met by all sorts of subterfuges;
and the most fervent believers can, in the end, avail themselves of the logic used by their opponents, in order to create a right for their side to assert that certain things are irrefutable--that is to say, they transcend the means employed to refute them (nowadays this trick of dialectics is
? called "Kantian Criticism").
252.
-
Christianity should never be forgiven for having
precisely what should be combated in Christianity, namely,
ruined such men as Pascal. This is
that it has the will to break the spirit of the
strongest and noblest natures. One should take no rest until this thing is utterly destroyed:--the
ideal of mankind which Christianity advances, the demands it makes upon men, and its "Nay" and
"Yea" relative to humanity. The whole of the remaining absurdities, that is to say, Christian
fable, Christian cobweb-spinning in ideas and
principles, and Christian theology, do not concern us; they might be a thousand times more absurd
? ? ? 2O8 THE WILL TO POWER.
and we should not raise a finger to destroy them. But what we do stand up against, is that ideal which, thanks to its morbid beauty and feminine seductiveness, thanks to its insidious and slanderous eloquence, appeals
to all the cowardices and
vanities of wearied souls,--and the strongest have
their moments of fatigue,--as though all that which seems most useful and desirable at such
moments--that is to say, confidence, artlessness, modesty, patience, love of one's like, resignation, submission to God, and a sort of self-surrender-- were useful and desirable per se; as though the puny, modest abortion which in these creatures takes the place of a soul, this virtuous, mediocre
animal and sheep of the flock--which deigns to
call itself man, were not only to take precedence of the stronger, more evil, more passionate, more
defiant, and more prodigal type of man, who by virtue of these very qualities is exposed to a
hundred times more dangers than the former, but were actually to stand as an ideal for man in general, as a goal, a measure--the highest de sideratum. The creation of this ideal was the
most appalling temptation that had ever been put in the way of mankind; for, with the stronger
and more successful exceptions, the lucky cases among men, which the will power and growth leads the whole species "man" one step farther forward, this type was threatened with disaster. By means the values this ideal, the growth such higher men would be checked
the root. For these men, owing their superior demands and duties, readily accept
? ? ? at
of
in
of to
to
it,
of
a to
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
2O9
more dangerous life (speaking economically, it is a case of an increase in the costs of the under
taking coinciding with a greater chance of failure).
What is it we combat in Christianity? That it aims at destroying the strong, at breaking their
spirit, at exploiting their moments of weariness and debility, at converting their proud assurance
into anxiety and conscience-trouble; that it knows
how to poison the noblest instincts and to infect
them with disease, until their strength, their will to power, turns inwards, against themselves--
until the strong perish through their excessive
self-contempt and self-immolation: that gruesome
way of perishing, of which Pascal is the most famous example,
? VOL. O
? ? I. e.
? II.
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
I. THE ORIGIN OF MORAL VALUATIONS.
2. 53.
THIS is an attempt at investigating morality
without being affected by charm, and not without some mistrust regard the beguiling
? beauty
which we can admire, which keeping with
its attitudes and looks. world
our capacity for worship--which demonstrating itself--in small things
this the Christian standpoint which to us all.
continually large:
common
But owing an increase our astuteness,
our mistrust, and our scientific spirit (also through more developed instinct for truth, which again due Christian influence), this interpre
tation has grown ever less and less tenable for us. The craftiest subterfuges: Kantian criticism.
The intellect not only denies itself every right interpret things that way, but also reject the interpretation once has been made. People
are satisfied with greater demand upon their credulity and faith, with renunciation all
? ? a
of
a
it
in
its
in
of
to
is or in
to
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to A
of
? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY. 2II
right to reason concerning the proof of their creed, with an intangible and superior "Ideal" (God) as a stop-gap.
The Hegelian subterfuge, a continuation of the Platonic, a piece of romanticism and reaction, and
at the same time a symptom of the historical
sense of a new power: "Spirit" itself is the "self revealing and self-realising ideal": we believe
that in the "process of development" an ever
greater proportion of this ideal is being mani
fested--thus the ideal is being realised, faith is
vested in the future, into which all its noble
needs are projected, and in which they are being worshipped.
? In short:--
*
(1) God is unknowable to us and not to be
demonstrated by us (the concealed meaning
behind the whole of the epistemological move ment);
(2) God may be demonstrated, but as some thing evolving, and we are part of our
pressing desire for an ideal proves (the concealed
meaning behind the historical movement).
should be observed that criticism never
levelled the ideal itself, but only the
problem which gives rise
cerning the ideal--that yet been realised, why
small things great.
controversy con say, why has not
not demonstrable
makes all the difference: whether man recognises this state distress such owing
? ? It
It
in or of
as
a to
it
at is
it, as
>k
is
in
as
it to to is a
at
? 212 THE WILL TO POWER.
a passion or to a yearning in himself, or whether
it comes home to him as a problem which he arrives at only by straining his thinking powers
and his historical imagination to the utmost. Away from the religious and philosophical
points of view we find the same phenomena.
Utilitarianism (socialism and democracy) criticises the origin of moral valuations, though it believes
in them just as much as the Christian does. (What guilelessness! As if morality could remain
when the sanctioning deity is no longer present :
The belief in a "Beyond" is absolutely necessary,
if the faith in morality is to be maintained. )
Fundamental problem : whence comes this
almighty power of Faith? Whence this faith in morality ? (It is betrayed by the fact that even the fundamental conditions of life are falsely interpreted in favour of it: despite our knowledge of plants and animals. "Self-preser
vation": the Darwinian prospect of a reconcilia tion of the altruistic and egotistic principles. )
254.
An inquiry into the origin of our moral
valuation does diminish its prestige, and pre
pares the way critical attitude and spirit towards
? valuations and tables of law has
nothing to do with the criticism of them, though people persist in believing it has; the two matters quite apart, notwithstanding the fact that the knowledge the pudenda origo of
absolutely
? ? it.
lie
to a
of
a
? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
213
What is the actual worth of our valuations and
tables of moral laws? What is the outcome of their dominion ? For whom ? In relation to what? --
answer: for Life. But what is Life A new and
more definite concept of what "Life" becomes
necessary here. My formula this concept is: Life Will to Power.
the meaning the very act of valuing
What
Does world,
historical movement. ) short: what
origin Or had no human "origin"? --
Answer: moral valuations are sort
ation, they constitute method
Interpretation itself symptom definite
does who lived
point
back another, metaphysical point down? (As Kant believed, period which preceded the great
? physiological conditions,
spiritual level ruling judgments. What that interprets 3-Our passions.
255.
upon physio logical conditions: the principal organic functions, more particularly, should considered necessary
and good. All virtues are really refined passions and elevated physiological conditions.
Pity and philanthropy may regarded the
All virtues should looked
developments
development
sexual relations,--justice the the passion for revenge,--virtue resistance, the will power
the love
honour an acknowledgment an equal,
an equally powerful, force.
explana interpreting.
also definite
? ? of
be to
or of
as as
is it
is its
as
as
of of of
in
in
a it
be
is a as a
In a
to of
of
be
of
it
as
of of
a of of
is,
or it
is
is
f
? 2I4
THE WILL TO POWER.
256.
Under "Morality" I understand a system of valuations which is in relation with the conditions
of a creature's life.
257.
Formerly it was said of every form of morality,
"Ye shall know them by their fruits. " I say of every form of morality: "It is a fruit, and from
it I learn the Soil out of which it grew. "
258.
I have tried to understand all moral judgments as symptoms and a language of signs in which the processes of physiological prosperity or the reverse, as also the consciousness of the conditions of preservation and growth, are betrayed--a mode of interpretation equal in worth to astrology, prejudices, created by instincts (peculiar to races, communities, and different stages of existence, as, for instance, youth or decay, etc. ).
Applying this principle to the morality of
Christian Europe more particularly, we find that
our moral values are signs of decline, of a dis belief in Life, and of a preparation for pes simism.
My leading doctrine is this: there are no moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of
Phenomena. The origin of this interpretation itself lies beyond the pale of morality.
What is the meaning of the fact that we have
? ? ? ? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
2I5
imagined
of paramount importance: behind all other valuations those moral valuations stand com mandingly. Supposing they disappear, according to what standard shall we then measure ? And
then of what value would knowledge be, etc. etc. ? ? ?
259.
A point of view: in all valuations there is a
definite purpose: the preservation of an individ ual, a community, a race, a state, a church, a
belief, or a culture. --Thanks to the fact that people forget that all valuing has a purpose, one
and the same man may swarm with a host of contradictory valuations, and therefore with a host
of contradictory impulses. This is the expression
of disease in man as opposed to the health of animals, in which all the instincts answer certain definite purposes.
This creature full of contradictions, however,
has in his being a grand method of acquiring
knowledge: he feels the pros and cons, he elevates
himself to Justice--that is to say, to the ascertain
ing of principles beyond the valuations good and evil. The wisest man would thus be the richest in
contradictions, he would also be gifted with mental antennae wherewith he could understand
all kinds of men; and with it all he would have his great moments, when all the chords in his being would ring in splendid unison--the rarest
of accidents even in us! A sort of movement.
a contradiction in existence? This is
? planetary
? ? ? 216 THE WILL TO POWER.
26O.
"To will" is to will an object. But "object," as an idea, involves a valuation. Whence do valuations originate? Is a permanent norm, "pleasant or painful," their basis?
But in an incalculable number of cases we
first of make with valuation.
thing painful, by investing
The compass moral valuations: they play part almost every mental impression. To
the world coloured by them.
We have imagined the purpose and value
?
THE WILL TO POWER.
(For the treatment of pangs of conscience recommend Mitchell's Treatment. *)
234.
A pang of conscience in a man is a sign tha his character is not yet equal to his deed. Ther is such a thing as a pang of conscience after goo
deeds: in this case it is their unfamiliarity, thei incompatibility with an old environment.
235.
Against remorse. --I do not like this form c
cowardice in regard to one's own actions, on must not leave one's self in the lurch under th
pressure of sudden shame or distress, Extrem
pride is much more fitting here. What is th
good of it all in the end| No deed get
undone because it is regretted, no more thal because it is "forgiven" or "expiated. " A man mus
be a theologian in order to believe in a power tha erases faults: we immoralists prefer to disbeliev in "faults. " We believe that all deeds, of wha kind soever, are identically of the same value a root; just as deeds which turn against us ma
*TRANSLATOR's NoTE. --In The New Sydenham Society Lexicon of Medicine and the Allied Sciences, the followin; description of Mitchell's treatment is to be found: "A method of treating cases of neurasthenia and hysteria . . by removal from home, rest in bed, massage twice a day
electrical excitation of the muscles, and excessive feeding at first with milk. "
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I93
be useful from an economical point of view, and
even generally desirable. In certain individual
cases, we admit that we might well have been
spared a given action; the circumstances alone
predisposed us in its favour. Which of us, if
favoured by circumstances, would not already
have committed every possible crime? . . . That
is why one should never say: "Thou shouldst
never have done such and such a thing," but only:
"How strange it is that I have not done such and
such a thing hundreds of times already l"--As a
matter of fact, only a very small number of acts are typical acts and real epitomes of a personality,
and seeing what a small number of people really are personalities, a single act very rarely character
ises a man. Acts are mostly dictated by circum stances; they are superficial or merely reflex
movements performed in response to a stimulus, long before the depths of our beings are affected
? or consulted in the matter. A
temper,
gesture,
knife: how little the
these acts l--A deed very stupor feeling con
that the agent feels almost
recollection, though
blow with individual resides
often brings sort
straint its wake: spellbound
belonged
creature.
he and were not an independent
This mental disorder, which form
of hypnotism, must be resisted all costs: surely
single deed, whatever be, when compared with all one has done, nothing, and may be deducted from the sum without making the account wrong. The unfair interest which society
manifests controlling the whole our lives VOL.
? ? I.
in
a
N
is it
in
to
it, at
of
it is
as
fit of
a
at
or or
is a
of
a
its
so of in
a
a
of
? I94
THE WILL TO POWER.
in one direction, as though the very purpose of its existence were to cultivate a certain individual
act,
unfortunately this happens almost continually.
The reason of this that every deed, followed
by unexpected consequences, leads certain mental disturbance, no matter whether the con
should not infect the man of action: but
sequences be good
bad. Behold lover who promise, poet while he
from an audience: far concerned, these men are no way different from the anarchist who
suddenly confronted by detective bearing search warrant.
There are some acts which are unworthy us: acts which, they were regarded typical, would
set down belonging lower class man.
here,
regard them typical. There another kind act which we are unworthy: exceptional acts,
born particular abundance happiness and health; they are the highest waves our spring
tides, driven an unusual height by storm --an accident: such acts and "deeds" are also
not typical. An artist should never be judged
has been given receiving applause
intellectual torpor
? The one fault that has be avoided
according
the measure his works.
236.
A. proportion Christianity seems necessary
to-day, man still wild and fatal.
another sense, not necessary, but
extremely dangerous, though captivating and
? ? B.
In In
of of
is
as
to
to
as
as if
is
us a
it
itis of a or
is
of is a . as
. of
to if
to to a
a
a of as a
is of of to
a is in as is
a
or
is,
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
I95
seductive, because it corresponds with the morbid character of whole classes and types of modern humanity, . . . they simply follow their inclinations when they aspire to Christianity--they are de cadents of all kinds.
A and B must be kept very sharply apart.
In the case of A, Christianity is a cure, or at least a taming process (under certain circumstances it serves the purpose of making people ill: and this is sometimes useful as a means of subduing savage and brutal natures). In the case of B, it is a symptom of illness itself, it renders the state of decadence more acute; in this case it stands opposed to a corroborating system of treatment, it
is the invalid's instinct standing against that which would be most salutary to him.
237.
On one side there are the serious, the dignified,
and reflective people: and on the other the bar barous, the unclean, and the irresponsible beasts:
it is merely a question of taming animals--and
in this case the tamer must be hard, terrible, and
awe-inspiring, at least to his beasts.
All essential requirements must be imposed upon
the unruly creatures with almost brutal distinct ness--that is to say, magnified a thousand times.
Even the fulfilment of the requirement must be presented in the coarsest way possible, so
that it may command respect, as in the case of the spiritualisation of the Brahmins.
sk
? ? ? ? 196
THE WILL TO POWER.
The struggle with the rabble and the herd. If
any degree
reached, the chasm separating these purified and
regenerated people
from the terrible remainder
of tameness and order has been
must have been bridged. . . .
This chasm is a means of increasing self-respect
in higher castes, and of confirming their belief in that which they represent--hence the Chandala. Contempt and its excess are perfectly correct psychologically -- that is to say, magnified a
hundred times, so that it may at least be felt.
238.
The struggle against brutal instincts is quite different from the struggle against morbid instincts;
it may even be a means of overcoming brutality
by making the brutes ill. The psychical treatment practised by Christianity is often nothing more
than the process of converting a brute into a sick and therefore tame animal.
The struggle against raw and savage natures must be a struggle with weapons which are able
to affect such natures: superstitions and such means are therefore indispensable and essential.
239.
Our age, in a certain sense, is mature (that is to say, decadent), just as Buddha's was. . . . That is why a sort of Christianity is possible without
all the absurd dogmas (the most repulsive offshoots of ancient hybridism).
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
24O.
I97
Supposing it were impossible to disprove Chris
tianity, Pascal thinks, in view of the terrible
possibility that it may be true, that it is in the highest degree prudent to be a Christian. As a
proof of how much Christianity has lost of its terrible nature, to-day we find that other attempt to justify which consists asserting, that even
were mistake, nevertheless provides the greatest advantages and pleasures for its adherents
? throughout
their lives:--it therefore seems that
this belief should be upheld owing the peace
and quiet ensures--not owing the terror
threatening possibility, but rather out fear
life that has lost one of its charms. This hedonistic turn thought, which uses happiness proof,
symptom decline: takes the place the proof resulting from power from that which
the Christian mind most terrible--namely, fear. With this new interpretation, Christianity
matter fact, nearing its stage
exhaustion. People are satisfied with Christianity which an opiate, because they no longer have the
strength seek, struggle, dare,
stand alone, nor take up Pascal's position and
share that gloomily brooding self-contempt, that belief human unworthiness, and that anxiety
which believes that "may be damned. " But Christianity the chief object which soothe diseased nerves, does not require the terrible solution consisting "God on the cross"; that
? ? of a
to it
to
of
as in isa
of of
of
to
or
is to
a to
of
to
to
a to
of
to
it
a it,
is, to
isa if a it
is
it
it
in
of
of
a of
as a
? 198
THE WILL TO POWER.
is why Buddhism is secretly gaining ground all over Europe.
24 I.
The humour of European culture: people
regard one thing as true, but do the other. For
instance, what is the use of the art reading and criticising, the ecclesiastical interpretation
the Bible, whether according Catholics Protestants, still upheld
242.
No one sufficiently aware the barbarity
the notions among which we Europeans still live. To think that men have been able to believe that
? depended upon book And am told that this still
the "Salvation the soul"
believed.
What the good all scientific education, all
criticism and all hermeneutics, such nonsense as
the Church's interpretation the Bible has not
yet turned the colours our bodies permanently into the red of shame?
243.
Subject for reflection: To what extent does the fatal belief "Divine Providence"--the most
paralysing
standing that has ever existed--continue pre vail; what extent have the Christian hypothesis and interpretation Life continued their lives
belief for both the hand and the under
? ? of
to
in
is
|
.
.
. is
to
is
a
of
of if
all
of Iof
is
if
of
to
of
or
!
of
of
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
under the cover of terms like "Nature," "Progress,"
"perfectionment," "Darwinism,"
or beneath the superstition that there is a certain relation between happiness and virtue, unhappiness and sin? That
absurd belief in the course of things, in "Life"
and in the "instinct of Life"; that foolish resig
nation which arises from the notion that if only
every one did his duty all would go well--all this
sort of thing can only have a meaning if one
assumes that there is a direction of things sub
specie boni. Even fatalism, our present form of
philosophical sensibility, is the result of a long
belief in Divine Providence, an unconscious result:
as though it were nothing to do with us how everything goes! (As though we might let things
take their own course; the individual being only a modus of the absolute reality. )
I99
? It is the
height psychological falsity
of (** on the
part of man to imagine a being according to his
own petty standard, who is a beginning, a "thing
in-itself," and who appears to him good, wise,
mighty, and precious; for thus he suppresses in
thought all the causality by means of which every
kind of goodness, wisdom, and power comes into
existence and has value. In short, elements of
the most recent and most conditional origin were regarded not as evolved, but as spontaneously
generated and "things-in-themselves," and perhaps
as the cause of all things. . . . Experience teaches us that, in every case in which a man has
? ? ? 2OO THE WILL TO POWER.
elevated himself to any great extent above the average of his fellows, every high degree of power always involves a corresponding degree of freedom from Good and Evil as also from "true" and
"false," and cannot take into account what good ness dictates: the same holds good of a high
degree of wisdom--in this case goodness is just as much suppressed as truthfulness, justice, virtue,
and other popular whims in valuations. In fact, is it not obvious that every high degree of goodness
itself presupposes a certain intellectual myopia
and obtuseness? as also an inability to dis
tinguish at a great distance between true and false, useful and harmful ? --not to mention the fact that
a high degree of power in the hands of the highest goodness might lead to the most baleful conse
quences ("the suppression of evil"). In sooth it is enough to perceive with what aspirations the
"God of Love" inspires His believers: they ruin mankind for the benefit of "good men. " In practice, this same God has shown Himself to be a God of the most acute myopia, devilry, and im potence, in the face of the actual arrangement of the universe, and from this the value of His con ception may be estimated.
Knowledge and wisdom can have no value in themselves, any more than goodness can: the goal
they are striving after must be known first, for
then only can their value or worthlessness be judged--a goal might be imagined which would
make excessive wisdom a great disadvantage (if, for instance, complete deception were a prerequisite to the enhancement of life; likewise, if goodness
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION. * 2OI
were able to paralyse and depress the main springs of the great passions). . . .
Taking our human life as it cannot denied that all "truth," "goodness," "holiness,"
and "Godliness" the Christian sense, have
hitherto shown themselves be great dangers--
danger perishing owing to an ideal which hostile to life.
245
Let any one think which all human
institutions suffer, when divine and transcend
even now mankind
? ental, higher sphere postulated
which must first
sanction these institutions By recognising their
worth this sanction alone (as the case
marriage, for instance) their natural dignity
reduced,
Nature spitefully misjudged the same
and under certain circumstances denied.
ratio as the anti-natural notion of God held in honour. "Nature" then comes to mean no more than "contemptible," "bad. "
The fatal nature belief God the reality of the highest moral qualities: through all real
systematically regarded as valueless. Thus Anti-Nature ascended the
throne. With relentless logic the last step was
reached, and this was the absolute demand deny Mature
246.
values were denied and
By pressing
and love into the foreground, Christianity by no
the doctrine disinterestedness
? ? of
of
is,
to
is
as it,
a in in
it
. in .
to
. . .
in is
is is a ofin
in
of is:
is of
be
!
a the as
? 2O2 THE WILL TO POWER.
means elevated the interests of the species above those of the individual. Its real historical effect,
its fatal effect, remains precisely the increase of
egotism, of individual egotism, to excess (to the extreme which consists in the belief in individual
immortality).
The individual was made so
important and so absolute, by means of Christian values, that he could no longer be sacrificed, despite
the fact that the species can only be maintained by human sacrifices. All "souls" became equal before God: but this is the most pernicious of all
valuations !
If one
regards equals, individuals as
the demands of the species are ignored, and a
process is initiated which ultimately leads to its
ruin. Christianity is the reverse of the principle of
selection. If the degenerate and sick man ("the
Christian") is to be of the same value as the
healthy man ("the pagan"), or if he is even to be
valued higher than the latter, as Pascal's view of
health and sickness would have us value him, the
natural course of evolution is thwarted and the
unnatural becomes law. . . . In practice this general love of mankind is nothing more than deliberately favouring all the suffering, the botched,
and the degenerate: it is this love that has reduced and weakened the power, responsibility, and lofty duty of sacrificing men. According to the scheme
of Christian values, all that remained was the
alternative of self-sacrifice, but this vestige of human sacrifice, which Christianity conceded and even recommended, has no meaning when regarded in the light of rearing a whole species. The pro
sperity of the species is by no means affected by
? ? ? ? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
2O3
the sacrifice of one individual (whether in the
monastic and ascetic manner, or by means of crosses, stakes, and scaffolds, as the "martyrs" of error).
What the species requires is the suppression of the physiologically botched, the weak and the degenerate: but it was precisely to these people that Christianity appealed as a preservative force, it simply strengthened that natural and very strong
instinct of all the weak which bids them protect, maintain, and mutually support each other. What
is Christian "virtue" and "love of men," if not
precisely
survival, this solidarity of the weak, this thwarting
of selection ? What is Christian altruism, if it is
not the mob-egotism of the weak which divines
that, if everybody looks after everybody else,
every individual will be preserved for a longer period of time? . . . He who does not consider
this attitude of mind as immoral, as a crime against life, himself belongs to the sickly crowd, and also
shares their instincts. . . . Genuine love of man
kind exacts sacrifice for the good of the species --it is hard, full of self-control, because it needs
pseudo-humanity which is called Christianity, would fain establish
this mutual assistance with a view to
? human sacrifices. And this
the rule that nobody should be sacrificed.
247.
Nothing
more promotion than systematic Nihilism in action. --As I understand the phenomena of Christianity
and pessimism, this is what they say: "We are
could be more useful and deserves
? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER.
2O4
ripe for nonentity, for us it is reasonable not to be. " This hint from "reason" in this case, is simply the voice of selective Nature.
On the other hand, what deserves the most rigorous condemnation, is the ambiguous and cowardly infirmity of purpose of a religion like Christianity,--or rather like the Church,--which, instead of recommending death and self-destruction, actually protects all the botched and bungled, and encourages them to propagate their kind.
Problem: with what kind of means could one
lead up to a severe form of really contagious
Nihilism--a Nihilism which would teach and prac
tise voluntary death with scientific conscientious
ness (and not the feeble continuation of a vegetative
sort of life with false hopes of a life after death)? Christianity cannot be sufficiently condemned
for having depreciated the value of a great cleansing
Nihilistic movement (like the one which was pro bably in the process of formation), by its teaching
of the immortality of the private individual, as
also by the hopes of resurrection which it held out: that is to say, by dissuading people from perform
ing the deed of Nihilism which is suicide. . . . In the latter's place it puts lingering suicide, and
gradually a puny, meagre, but durable life; gradu ally a perfectly ordinary, bourgeois, mediocre life, etC.
248.
Christian moral quackery. --Pity and contempt
succeed each other at short intervals, and at the sight of them I feel as indignant as if I were in
? ? ? ? Proposition
IV. : Man converted into a weak
CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
2O5
the presence of the most despicable crime. Here error is made a duty--a virtue, misapprehension
has become a knack, the destructive instinct is
systematised under the name of "redemption";
here every operation becomes a wound, an amputa
tion of those very organs whose energy would be
the prerequisite to a return of health. And in the
best of cases no cure is effected; all that is done
is to exchange one set of evil symptoms for another set. . . . And this pernicious nonsense, this system
atised profanation and castration of life, passes for holy and sacred; to be in its service, to be an
instrument of this art of healing--that is to say, to be a priest, is to be rendered distinguished,
reverent, holy, and sacred. God alone could have
been the Author of this supreme art of healing; redemption is only possible as a revelation, as an
act of grace, as an unearned gift, made by the Creator Himself.
Proposition I. : Spiritual healthiness is regarded as morbid, and creates suspicion. . . .
Proposition II. : The prerequisites of a strong, exuberant life--strong desires and passions--are reckoned as objections against strong and ex uberant life.
Proposition III. : Everything which threatens
danger to man, and which can overcome and ruin him, is evil, must be rejected--and should be torn root and branch from his soul.
? creature, inoffensive to himself and others, crushed
by humilit-y and modesty, and conscious of his
weakness, fact, "sinner,"
in the --this is the
? ? ? 2O6 THE WILL TO POWER.
desirable type, and one which one can Produce by means of a little spiritual surgery. . . .
249.
What is it I protest against? That people should regard this paltry and peaceful mediocrity, this spiritual equilibrium which knows nothing of
the fine impulses of great accumulations of strength, as something high, or possibly as the standard of all things.
Bacon of Verulam says: Infimarum virtutum apud vulgus laus est, mediarum admiratio, supre
marum sensus nullus. Christianity as a religion, however, belongs to the vulgus: it has no feeling for the highest kind of virtus.
25O.
Let us see what the "genuine Christian " does with all the things which his instincts forbid:--he covers beauty, pride, riches, self-reliance, brilliancy, knowledge, and power with suspicion and mud-
in short, all culture: his object is to deprive the latter of its clean conscience.
25 I.
The attacks made upon Christianity, hitherto,
have been not only timid but false. So long as
Christian morality was not felt to be a capital crime against Life, apologists had good time.
The question concerning the mere "truth"
? ? ? of
its
a
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
207
Christianity--whether in regard to the existence of its God, or to the legendary history of its origin,
not to speak of its astronomy and natural science --is quite beside the point so long as no inquiry
is made into the value ofChristian morality. Are
Christian morals worth anything, or are they a profanation and an outrage, despite all the arts of
holiness and seduction with which they are en
forced? The question concerning the truth of the religion may be met by all sorts of subterfuges;
and the most fervent believers can, in the end, avail themselves of the logic used by their opponents, in order to create a right for their side to assert that certain things are irrefutable--that is to say, they transcend the means employed to refute them (nowadays this trick of dialectics is
? called "Kantian Criticism").
252.
-
Christianity should never be forgiven for having
precisely what should be combated in Christianity, namely,
ruined such men as Pascal. This is
that it has the will to break the spirit of the
strongest and noblest natures. One should take no rest until this thing is utterly destroyed:--the
ideal of mankind which Christianity advances, the demands it makes upon men, and its "Nay" and
"Yea" relative to humanity. The whole of the remaining absurdities, that is to say, Christian
fable, Christian cobweb-spinning in ideas and
principles, and Christian theology, do not concern us; they might be a thousand times more absurd
? ? ? 2O8 THE WILL TO POWER.
and we should not raise a finger to destroy them. But what we do stand up against, is that ideal which, thanks to its morbid beauty and feminine seductiveness, thanks to its insidious and slanderous eloquence, appeals
to all the cowardices and
vanities of wearied souls,--and the strongest have
their moments of fatigue,--as though all that which seems most useful and desirable at such
moments--that is to say, confidence, artlessness, modesty, patience, love of one's like, resignation, submission to God, and a sort of self-surrender-- were useful and desirable per se; as though the puny, modest abortion which in these creatures takes the place of a soul, this virtuous, mediocre
animal and sheep of the flock--which deigns to
call itself man, were not only to take precedence of the stronger, more evil, more passionate, more
defiant, and more prodigal type of man, who by virtue of these very qualities is exposed to a
hundred times more dangers than the former, but were actually to stand as an ideal for man in general, as a goal, a measure--the highest de sideratum. The creation of this ideal was the
most appalling temptation that had ever been put in the way of mankind; for, with the stronger
and more successful exceptions, the lucky cases among men, which the will power and growth leads the whole species "man" one step farther forward, this type was threatened with disaster. By means the values this ideal, the growth such higher men would be checked
the root. For these men, owing their superior demands and duties, readily accept
? ? ? at
of
in
of to
to
it,
of
a to
? CRITICISM OF RELIGION.
2O9
more dangerous life (speaking economically, it is a case of an increase in the costs of the under
taking coinciding with a greater chance of failure).
What is it we combat in Christianity? That it aims at destroying the strong, at breaking their
spirit, at exploiting their moments of weariness and debility, at converting their proud assurance
into anxiety and conscience-trouble; that it knows
how to poison the noblest instincts and to infect
them with disease, until their strength, their will to power, turns inwards, against themselves--
until the strong perish through their excessive
self-contempt and self-immolation: that gruesome
way of perishing, of which Pascal is the most famous example,
? VOL. O
? ? I. e.
? II.
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
I. THE ORIGIN OF MORAL VALUATIONS.
2. 53.
THIS is an attempt at investigating morality
without being affected by charm, and not without some mistrust regard the beguiling
? beauty
which we can admire, which keeping with
its attitudes and looks. world
our capacity for worship--which demonstrating itself--in small things
this the Christian standpoint which to us all.
continually large:
common
But owing an increase our astuteness,
our mistrust, and our scientific spirit (also through more developed instinct for truth, which again due Christian influence), this interpre
tation has grown ever less and less tenable for us. The craftiest subterfuges: Kantian criticism.
The intellect not only denies itself every right interpret things that way, but also reject the interpretation once has been made. People
are satisfied with greater demand upon their credulity and faith, with renunciation all
? ? a
of
a
it
in
its
in
of
to
is or in
to
in
is
is a
to
in
to
in
is
in is
to A
of
? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY. 2II
right to reason concerning the proof of their creed, with an intangible and superior "Ideal" (God) as a stop-gap.
The Hegelian subterfuge, a continuation of the Platonic, a piece of romanticism and reaction, and
at the same time a symptom of the historical
sense of a new power: "Spirit" itself is the "self revealing and self-realising ideal": we believe
that in the "process of development" an ever
greater proportion of this ideal is being mani
fested--thus the ideal is being realised, faith is
vested in the future, into which all its noble
needs are projected, and in which they are being worshipped.
? In short:--
*
(1) God is unknowable to us and not to be
demonstrated by us (the concealed meaning
behind the whole of the epistemological move ment);
(2) God may be demonstrated, but as some thing evolving, and we are part of our
pressing desire for an ideal proves (the concealed
meaning behind the historical movement).
should be observed that criticism never
levelled the ideal itself, but only the
problem which gives rise
cerning the ideal--that yet been realised, why
small things great.
controversy con say, why has not
not demonstrable
makes all the difference: whether man recognises this state distress such owing
? ? It
It
in or of
as
a to
it
at is
it, as
>k
is
in
as
it to to is a
at
? 212 THE WILL TO POWER.
a passion or to a yearning in himself, or whether
it comes home to him as a problem which he arrives at only by straining his thinking powers
and his historical imagination to the utmost. Away from the religious and philosophical
points of view we find the same phenomena.
Utilitarianism (socialism and democracy) criticises the origin of moral valuations, though it believes
in them just as much as the Christian does. (What guilelessness! As if morality could remain
when the sanctioning deity is no longer present :
The belief in a "Beyond" is absolutely necessary,
if the faith in morality is to be maintained. )
Fundamental problem : whence comes this
almighty power of Faith? Whence this faith in morality ? (It is betrayed by the fact that even the fundamental conditions of life are falsely interpreted in favour of it: despite our knowledge of plants and animals. "Self-preser
vation": the Darwinian prospect of a reconcilia tion of the altruistic and egotistic principles. )
254.
An inquiry into the origin of our moral
valuation does diminish its prestige, and pre
pares the way critical attitude and spirit towards
? valuations and tables of law has
nothing to do with the criticism of them, though people persist in believing it has; the two matters quite apart, notwithstanding the fact that the knowledge the pudenda origo of
absolutely
? ? it.
lie
to a
of
a
? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
213
What is the actual worth of our valuations and
tables of moral laws? What is the outcome of their dominion ? For whom ? In relation to what? --
answer: for Life. But what is Life A new and
more definite concept of what "Life" becomes
necessary here. My formula this concept is: Life Will to Power.
the meaning the very act of valuing
What
Does world,
historical movement. ) short: what
origin Or had no human "origin"? --
Answer: moral valuations are sort
ation, they constitute method
Interpretation itself symptom definite
does who lived
point
back another, metaphysical point down? (As Kant believed, period which preceded the great
? physiological conditions,
spiritual level ruling judgments. What that interprets 3-Our passions.
255.
upon physio logical conditions: the principal organic functions, more particularly, should considered necessary
and good. All virtues are really refined passions and elevated physiological conditions.
Pity and philanthropy may regarded the
All virtues should looked
developments
development
sexual relations,--justice the the passion for revenge,--virtue resistance, the will power
the love
honour an acknowledgment an equal,
an equally powerful, force.
explana interpreting.
also definite
? ? of
be to
or of
as as
is it
is its
as
as
of of of
in
in
a it
be
is a as a
In a
to of
of
be
of
it
as
of of
a of of
is,
or it
is
is
f
? 2I4
THE WILL TO POWER.
256.
Under "Morality" I understand a system of valuations which is in relation with the conditions
of a creature's life.
257.
Formerly it was said of every form of morality,
"Ye shall know them by their fruits. " I say of every form of morality: "It is a fruit, and from
it I learn the Soil out of which it grew. "
258.
I have tried to understand all moral judgments as symptoms and a language of signs in which the processes of physiological prosperity or the reverse, as also the consciousness of the conditions of preservation and growth, are betrayed--a mode of interpretation equal in worth to astrology, prejudices, created by instincts (peculiar to races, communities, and different stages of existence, as, for instance, youth or decay, etc. ).
Applying this principle to the morality of
Christian Europe more particularly, we find that
our moral values are signs of decline, of a dis belief in Life, and of a preparation for pes simism.
My leading doctrine is this: there are no moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of
Phenomena. The origin of this interpretation itself lies beyond the pale of morality.
What is the meaning of the fact that we have
? ? ? ? A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
2I5
imagined
of paramount importance: behind all other valuations those moral valuations stand com mandingly. Supposing they disappear, according to what standard shall we then measure ? And
then of what value would knowledge be, etc. etc. ? ? ?
259.
A point of view: in all valuations there is a
definite purpose: the preservation of an individ ual, a community, a race, a state, a church, a
belief, or a culture. --Thanks to the fact that people forget that all valuing has a purpose, one
and the same man may swarm with a host of contradictory valuations, and therefore with a host
of contradictory impulses. This is the expression
of disease in man as opposed to the health of animals, in which all the instincts answer certain definite purposes.
This creature full of contradictions, however,
has in his being a grand method of acquiring
knowledge: he feels the pros and cons, he elevates
himself to Justice--that is to say, to the ascertain
ing of principles beyond the valuations good and evil. The wisest man would thus be the richest in
contradictions, he would also be gifted with mental antennae wherewith he could understand
all kinds of men; and with it all he would have his great moments, when all the chords in his being would ring in splendid unison--the rarest
of accidents even in us! A sort of movement.
a contradiction in existence? This is
? planetary
? ? ? 216 THE WILL TO POWER.
26O.
"To will" is to will an object. But "object," as an idea, involves a valuation. Whence do valuations originate? Is a permanent norm, "pleasant or painful," their basis?
But in an incalculable number of cases we
first of make with valuation.
thing painful, by investing
The compass moral valuations: they play part almost every mental impression. To
the world coloured by them.
We have imagined the purpose and value
?
