No More Learning

The only nobility is that of birth and blood.
(I do not refer here to the prefix “Lord” and
L'almanac de Gotha: this is a parenthesis for
donkeys. ) Wherever people speak of the “ aristo-
cracy of intellect," reasons are generally not
lacking for concealing something; it is known to
be a password among ambitious Jews. Intellect
alone does not ennoble; on the contrary, some-
thing is always needed to ennoble intellect. What
then is needed P-Blood.
z
VOL. II.


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354
THE WILL TO POWER.
943.
What is noble ?
-External punctiliousness; because this punc-
tiliousness hedges a man about, keeps him at a
distance, saves him from being confounded with
somebody else.
A frivolous appearance in word, clothing, and
bearing, with which stoical hardness and self-
control protect themselves from all prying inquisi-
tiveness or curiosity.
-A slow step and a slow glance. There are
not too many valuable things on earth : and these
come and wish to come of themselves to him who
has value. We are not quick to admire.
-We know how to bear poverty, want, and
even illness.
-We avoid small honours owing to our mis-
trust of all who are over-ready to praise : for the
man who praises believes he understands what he
praises : but to understand-Balzac, that typical
man of ambition, betrayed the fact-comprendre
c'est égaler.
-Our doubt concerning the communicativeness
of our hearts goes very deep; to us, loneliness is
not a matter of choice, it is imposed upon us.
-We are convinced that we only have duties to
our equals, to others we do as we think best: we
know that justice is only to be expected among
equals (alas ! this will not be realised for some
time to come).
-We are ironical towards the “gifted ”; we
hold the belief that no morality is possible with-
out good birth.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
355
}
-We always feel as if we were those who had
to dispense honours : while he is not found too
frequently who would be worthy of honouring us.
-We are always disguised: the higher a man's
nature the more is he in need of remaining incog-
nito. If there be a God, then out of sheer decency
He ought only to show Himself on earth in the
form of a man.
-We are capable of otium, of the uncondi-
tional conviction that although a handicraft does
not shame one in any sense, it certainly reduces
one's rank. However much we may respect “in-
dustry," and know how to give it its due, we do
not appreciate it in a bourgeois sense, or after the
of those insatiable and cackling artists who,
like hens, cackle and lay eggs, and cackle again.
-We protect artists and poets and any one
who happens to be a master in something; but as
creatures of a higher order than those, who only
know how to do something, who are only “pro-
ductive men," we do not confound ourselves with
them.
-We find joy in all forms and ceremonies;
we would fain foster everything formal, and we
are convinced that courtesy is one of the greatest
virtues; we feel suspicious of every kind of laisser
aller, including the freedom of the press and of
thought; because, under such conditions, the intel-
lect grows easy-going and coarse, and stretches
its limbs.
-We take pleasure in women as in a perhaps
daintier, more delicate, and more ethereal kind of
creature. What a treat it is to meet creatures


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THE WILL TO POWER.
who have only dancing and nonsense and finery
in their minds! They have always been the de-
light of every tense and profound male soul, whose
life is burdened with heavy responsibilities.
-We take pleasure in princes and in priests,
because in big things, as in small, they actually up-
hold the belief in the difference of human values,
even in the estimation of the past, and at least
symbolically.
-We are able to keep silence: but we do not
breathe a word of this in the presence of listeners.
-We are able to endure long enmities : we
lack the power of easy reconciliations.
-We have a loathing of demagogism, of en-
lightenment, of amiability, and plebeian familiarity.
-We collect precious things, the needs of
higher and fastidious souls; we wish to possess
nothing in common. We want to have our own
books, our own landscapes.
-We protest against evil and fine experiences,
and take care not to generalise too quickly. The
individual case: how ironically we regard it when
it has the bad taste to put on the airs of a rule !
-We love that which is naif, and naïf people,
but as spectators and higher creatures; we think
Faust is just as simple as his Margaret.
-We have a low estimation of good people,
because they are gregarious animals: we know
how often an invaluable golden drop of goodness
lies concealed beneath the most evil, the most
malicious, and the hardest exterior, and that this -
single grain outweighs all the mere goody-goodi-
ness of milk-and-watery souls.


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357
>
-We don't regard a man of our kind as refuted
by his vices, nor by his tomfooleries. We are well
aware that we are not recognised with ease, and
that we have every reason to make our foreground
very prominent.
944.
What is noble ? — The fact that one is constantly
forced to be playing a part. That one is constantly
searching for situations in which one is forced
to put on airs. That one leaves happiness to the
greatest number: the happiness which consists of
inner peacefulness, of virtue, of comfort, and of
Anglo-angelic-back-parlour-smugness,à la Spencer.
That one instinctively seeks for heavy responsi-
bilities. That one knows how to create enemies
everywhere, at a pinch even in one's self. That one
contradicts the greatest number, not in words at
all, but by continually behaving differently from
them.
945.
Virtue (for instance, truthfulness) is our most
noble and most dangerous luxury. We must not
decline the disadvantages which it brings in its
train.
946.
We refuse to be praised: we do what serves our
purpose, what gives us pleasure, or what we are
obliged to do.
947.
What is chastity in a man? It means that his
taste in sex has remained noble; that in eroticis


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THE WILL TO POWER
he likes neither the brutal, the morbid, nor the
clever,
948.
1
The concept of honour is founded upon the
belief in select society, in knightly excellences, in
the obligation of having continually to play a part.
In essentials it means that one does not take one's
life too seriously, that one adheres unconditionally
to the most dignified manners in one's dealings
with everybody (at least in so far as they do not
belong to "us"); that one is neither familiar, nor
good-natured, nor hearty, nor modest, except inter
pares; that one is always playing a part.
949.
The fact that one sets one's life, one's health,
and one's honour at stake, is the result of high
spirits and of an overflowing and spendthrift will :
it is not the result of philanthropy, but of the fact
that every danger kindles our curiosity concern-
ing the measure of our strength, and provokes our
courage.
950.
"
“ Eagles swoop down straight”-nobility of
soul is best revealed by the magnificent and proud
foolishness with which it makes its attacks.
951.
War should be made against all namby-pamby
ideas of nobility ! -A certain modicum of brutality


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
359
cannot be dispensed with: no more than we can do
without a tertain approximation to criminality.
“ Self-satisfaction" must not be allowed; a man
should look upon himself with an adventurous
spirit; he should experiment with himself and
run risks with himself—no beautiful soul-quackery
should be tolerated. I want to give a more robust
ideal a chance of prevailing.
952.
“ Paradise is under the shadow of a swordsman
—this is also a symbol and a test-word by which
souls with noble and warrior-like origin betray and
discover themselves.
953.
The two paths. There comes a period when
man has a surplus amount of power at his dis-
posal. Science aims at establishing the slavery of
nature.
Then man acquires the leisure in which to
develop himself into something new and more
lofty. A new aristocracy. It is then that a large
number of virtues which are now conditions of
existence are superseded. —Qualities which are no
longer needed are on that account lost.
longer need virtues : consequently we are losing
them likewise the morality of "one thing is
needful,” of the salvation of the soul, and of im-
mortality: these were means wherewith to make
man capable of enormous self-tyranny, through the
emotion of great fear! ! ! ).
The different kinds of needs by means of whose
We no


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360
THE WILL TO POWER.
discipline man is formed: need teaches work,
thought, and self-control.
*
Physiological purification and strengthening. The
new aristocracy is in need of an opposing body
which it may combat: it must be driven to ex-
tremities in order to maintain itself.
The two futures of mankind: (1) the conse-
quence of a levelling down to mediocrity; (2)
conscious aloofness and self-development.
A doctrine which would cleave a gulf: it main-
tains the highest and the lowest species (it destroys
the intermediate).
The aristocracies, both spiritual and temporal,
which have existed hitherto prove nothing against
the necessity of a new aristocracy.
4. THE LORDS OF THE EARTH.
954
A certain question constantly recurs to us; it is
perhaps a seductive and evil question; may it be
whispered into the ears of those who have a right
to such doubtful problems—those strong souls of
to-day whose dominion over themselves is un-
swerving: is it not high time, now that the type
"gregarious animal” is developing ever more and
more in Europe, to set about rearing, thoroughly,
artificially, and consciously, an opposite type, and
to attempt to establish the latter's virtues ? And
would not the democratic movement itself find for


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
361
the first time a sort of goal, salvation, and justifi-
cation, if some one appeared who availed himself
of it—so that at last, beside its new and sublime
product, slavery (for this must be the end of
European democracy), that higher species of ruling
and Cæsarian spirits might also be produced,
which would stand upon it, hold to it, and would
elevate themselves through it? This new race
would climb aloft to new and hitherto impossible
things, to a broader vision, and to its task on
earth.
955.
The aspect of the European of to-day makes
me very hopeful. A daring and ruling race is
here building itself up upon the foundation of an
extremely intelligent, gregarious mass. It is
obvious that the educational movements for the
latter are not alone prominent nowadays.
956.
The same conditions which go to develop the
gregarious animal also force the development of
the leaders.
957.
The question, and at the same time the task, is
approaching with hesitation, terrible as Fate, but
nevertheless inevitable: how shall the earth as a
whole be ruled ? And to what end shall man as
a whole—no longer as a people or as a race-be
reared and trained ?
Legislative moralities are the principal means
-


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362
THE WILL TO POWER.
by which one can form mankind, according to the
fancy of a creative and profound will: provided,
of course, that such an artistic will of the first
order gets the power into its own hands, and can
make its creative will prevail over long periods in
the form of legislation, religions, and morals. At
present, and probably for some time to come, one
will seek such colossally creative men, such really
great men, as I understand them, in vain : they
will be lacking, until, after many disappointments,
we are forced to begin to understand why it is
they are lacking, and that nothing bars with
greater hostility their rise and development, at
present and for some time to come, than that
which is now called the morality in Europe. Just
as if there were no other kind of morality, and
could be no other kind, than the one we have
already characterised as herd-morality. It is this
morality which is now striving with all its power
to attain to that green-meadow happiness on earth,
which consists in security, absence of danger, ease,
facilities for livelihood, and, last but not least, " if
all goes well,” even hopes to dispense with all
kinds of shepherds and bell-wethers. The two
doctrines which it preaches most universally are
“ equality of rights” and “pity for all sufferers
and it even regards suffering itself as something
which must be got rid of absolutely. That such
ideas be modern leads one to think very
poorly of modernity. He, however, who has re-
flected deeply concerning the question, how and
where the plant man has hitherto grown most
vigorously, is forced to believe that this has
may


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
363
always taken place under the opposite conditions ;
that to this end the danger of the situation has to
increase enormously, his inventive faculty and
dissembling powers have to fight their way up
under long oppression and compulsion, and his
will to life has to be increased to the uncon-
ditioned will to power, to over-power : he believes
that danger, severity, violence, peril in the street
and in the heart, inequality of rights, secrecy,
stoicism, seductive art, and devilry of every kind
in short, the opposite of all gregarious desiderata
are necessary for the elevation of man.
Such a
morality with opposite designs, which would rear
man upwards instead of to comfort and mediocrity ;
such a morality, with the intention of producing a
ruling caste—the future lords of the earth—must,
in order to be taught at all, introduce itself as if
it were in some way correlated to the prevailing
moral law, and must come forward under the
cover of the latter's words and forms. But seeing
that, to this end, a host of transitionary and de-
ceptive measures must be discovered, and that the
life of a single individual stands for almost nothing
in view of the accomplishment of such lengthy
tasks and aims, the first thing that must be done
is to rear a new kind of man in whom the duration
of the necessary will and the necessary instincts
is guaranteed for many generations. This must
be a new kind of ruling species and caste—this
ought to be quite as clear as the somewhat lengthy
and not easily expressed consequences of this
thought. The aim should be to prepare a trans-
valuation of values for a particularly strong kind of


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364
THE WILL TO POWER.
man, most highly gifted in intellect and will, and,
to this end, slowly and cautiously to liberate in
him a whole host of slandered instincts hitherto
held in check: whoever meditates about this
problem belongs to us, the free spirits—certainly
not to that kind of " free spirit” which has existed
hitherto: for these desired practically the reverse.
To this order, it seems to me, belong, above all,
the pessimists of Europe, the poets and thinkers
of a revolted idealism, in so far as their discontent
with existence in general must consistently at least
have led them to be dissatisfied with the man of
the present; the same applies to certain insati-
ably ambitious artists who courageously and un-
conditionally fight against the gregarious animal
for the special rights of higher men, and subdue
all herd-instincts and precautions of more ex-
ceptional minds by their seductive art. Thirdly
and lastly, we should include in this group all
those critics and historians by whom the dis-
covery of the Old World, which has begun so
happily—this was the work of the new Columbus,
of German intellect--will be courageously con-
tinued (for we still stand in the very first stages
of this conquest). For in the Old World, as a
matter of fact, a different and more lordly morality
ruled than that of to-day; and the man of antiquity,
under the educational ban of his morality, was
a stronger and deeper man than the man of
to-day - up to the present he has been the
only well - constituted man. The temptation,
however, which from antiquity to the present
day has always exercised its power on such lucky


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
365
strokes of Nature, i. e, on strong and enterprising
souls, is, even at the present day, the most subtle
and most effective of anti-democratic and anti-
Christian powers, just as it was in the time of the
Renaissance.
958.
I am writing for a race of men which does not
yet exist: for “the lords of the earth. ”
In Plato's Theages the following passage will
be found : “Every one of us would like if possible
to be master of mankind; if possible, a God. ” This
attitude of mind must be reinstated in our midst.
Englishmen, Americans, and Russians.
959.
That primeval forest-plant “Man" always
appears where the struggle for power has been
waged longest. Great men.
Primeval forest creatures, the Romans.
960.
From now henceforward there will be such
favourable first conditions for greater ruling powers
as have never yet been found on earth. And
this is by no means the most important point.
The establishment has been made possible of in-
ternational race unions which will set themselves
the task of rearing a ruling race, the future “lords
of the earth"-a new, vast aristocracy based up
the most severe self-discipline, in which the will of
philosophical men of power and artist-tyrants will


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366
THE WILL TO POWER.
be stamped upon thousands of years: a higher
species of men which, thanks to their preponder-
ance of will, knowledge, riches, and influence, will
avail themselves of democratic Europe as the
most suitable and supple instrument they can
have for taking the fate of the earth into their
own hands, and working as artists upon man him-
self. Enough! The time is coming for us to
transform all our views on politics.
5. THE GREAT MAN.
961.
I will endeavour to see at which periods in
history great men arise. The significance of
despotic moralities that have lasted a long time:
they strain the bow, provided they do not break it.
962.
up.
A great man, -a man whom Nature has built
and invented in a grand style,-What is such a
man? First, in his general course of action his
consistency is so broad that owing to its very
breadth it can be surveyed only with difficulty,
and consequently misleads; he possesses the
capacity of extending his will over great stretches
of his life, and of despising and rejecting all small
things, whatever most beautiful and “divine”
things of the world there may be among them.
Secondly, he is colder, harder, less cautious and more
free from the fear of “public opinion”; he does not


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
367
possess the virtues which are compatible with
respectability and with being respected, nor any
of those things which are counted among the
virtues of the herd. ” If he is unable to lead, he
walks alone; he may then perchance grunt at
many things which he meets on his way. Thirdly,
he asks for no “compassionate” heart, but servants,
instruments; in his dealings with men his one
aim is to make something out of them. He knows
that he cannot reveal himself to anybody: he
thinks it bad taste to become familiar; and as a
rule he is not familiar when people think he is.
When he is not talking to his soul, he wears a
mask. He would rather lie than tell the truth,
because lying requires more spirit and will. There
is a loneliness within his heart which neither
praise nor blame can reach, because he is his own
judge from whom is no appeal.
963.
The great man is necessarily a sceptic (I do
not mean to say by this that he must appear to
be one), provided that greatness consists in this:
to will something great, together with the means
thereto. Freedom from any kind of conviction is
a factor in his strength of will. And thus it is
in keeping with that "enlightened form of des-
potism” which every great passion exercises.
Such a passion enlists intellect in its service;
it even has the courage for unholy means; it
creates without hesitation; it allows itself con-
victions, it even uses them, but it never submits


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368
THE WILL TO POWER.
to them.
The need of faith and of anything un-
conditionally negative or affirmative is a proof of
weakness; all weakness is weakness of will. The
man of faith, the believer, is necessarily an inferior
species of man. From this it follows that “all
freedom of spirit," i. e. instinctive scepticism, is the
prerequisite of greatness.
>
964.
>
1
1
The great man is conscious of his power over a
people, and of the fact that he coincides temporarily
with a people or with a century--this magnifying
of his self-consciousness as causa and voluntas is
misunderstood as “ altruism”: he feels driven to
means of communication: all great men are in-
ventive in such means. They want to form great
communities in their own image; they would fain
give multiformity and disorder definite shape; it
stimulates them to behold chaos.
The misunderstanding of love. There is a
-slavish love which subordinates itself and gives itself
away—which idealises and deceives itself; there
is a divine species of love which despises and loves
at the same time, and which remodels and elevates
the thing it loves.
The object is to attain that enormous energy of
greatness which can model the man of the future
by means of discipline and also by means of the
annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched,
and which can yet avoid going to ruin at the sight
of the suffering created thereby, the like of which
has never been seen before.
1
1
1


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369
965.
The revolution, confusion, and distress of whole
peoples is in my opinion of less importance than
the misfortunes which attend great individuals in
their development. We must not allow ourselves
to be deceived: the many misfortunes of all these
small folk do not together constitute a sum-total,
except in the feelings of mighty men.
-To think of
one's self in moments of great danger, and to draw
one's own advantage from the calamities of thou-
sands—in the case of the man who differs very.
much
from the common ruck-may be a sign of a great
character which is able to master its feelings of
pity and justice.
966.
In contradistinction to the animal, man has
developed such a host of antagonistic instincts and
impulses in himself, that he has become master of
the earth by means of this synthesis. -Moralities
are only the expression of local and limited orders
of rank in this multifarious world of instincts which
prevent man from perishing through their antag-
onism. Thus a masterful instinct so weakens
and subtilises the instinct which opposes it that it
becomes an impulse which provides the stimulus
for the activity of the principal instinct.
The highest man would have the greatest
multifariousness in his instincts, and he would
possess these in the relatively strongest degree in
which he is able to endure them. As a matter of
fact, wherever the plant, man, is found strong,
2 A
VOL. II.


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THE WILL TO POWER.
mighty instincts are to be found opposing each
other (e. g. Shakespeare), but they are subdued.
967.
Would one not be justified in reckoning all
great men among the wicked? This is not so
easy to demonstrate in the case of individuals.
They are so frequently capable of masterly dis-
simulation that they very often assume the airs and
forms of great virtues. Often, too, they seriously
reverence virtues, and in such a way as to be
passionately hard towards themselves; but as the
result of cruelty. Seen from a distance such things
are liable to deceive. Many, on the other hand,
misunderstand themselves; not infrequently, too,
a great mission will call forth great qualities, eg.
justice. The essential fact is: the greatest men
may also perhaps have great virtues, but then
they also have the opposites of these virtues. I
believe that it is precisely out of the presence
of these opposites and of the feelings they suscitate,
that the great man arises, for the great man is the
broad arch which spans two banks lying far apart.
968.
In great men we find the specific qualities of
life in their highest manifestation : injustice, false-
hood, exploitation. But inasmuch as their effect
has always been overwhelming, their essential
nature has been most thoroughly misunderstood,


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
371
and interpreted as goodness. The type of such
an interpreter would be Carlyle. *
969.
.
Generally speaking, everything is worth no more
and no less than one has paid for it. This of
course does not hold good in the case of an isolated
individual : the great capacities of the individual
have no relation whatsoever to that which he has
done, sacrificed, and suffered for them. But if
one should examine the previous history of his
race one would be sure to find the record of an
extraordinary storing up and capitalising of power
by means of all kinds of abstinence, struggle, in-
dustry, and determination. It is because the great
man has cost so much, and not because he stands
there as a miracle, as a gift from heaven, or as
an accident, that he became great: “Heredity"
is a false notion. A man's ancestors have always
paid the price of what he is.
970.
The danger of modesty. To adapt ourselves
too early to duties, societies, and daily schemes of
work in which accident may have placed us, at a
time when neither our powers nor our aim in life ·
has stepped peremptorily into our consciousness;
* This not or refers to Heroes and Hero-Worship, but
i doubtless to Carlyle's prodigious misunderstanding of Goethe
-a misunderstanding which still requires to be put right by
a critic untainted by Puritanism. -TR.


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the premature certainty of conscience and feeling
of relief and of sociability which is acquired by
this precocious, modest attitude, and which appears
to our minds as a deliverance from those inner and
outer disturbances of our feelings—all this pampers
and keeps a man down in the most dangerous
fashion imaginable. To learn to respect things
which people about us respect, as if we had no
standard or right of our own to determine values ;
the strain of appraising things as others appraise
them, counter to the whisperings of our inner taste,
which also has a conscience of its own, becomes
a terribly subtle kind of constraint: and if in the
end no explosion takes place which bursts all the
bonds of love and morality at once, then such a
spirit becomes withered, dwarfed, feminine, and
objective. The reverse of this is bad enough, but
still it is better than the foregoing: to suffer from
one's environment, from its praise just as much as
from its blame; to be wounded by it and to fester
inwardly without betraying the fact; to defend
one's self involuntarily and suspiciously against its
love; to learn to be silent, and perchance to conceal
this by talking; to create nooks and safe, lonely
hiding-places where one can go and take breath
for a moment, or shed tears of sublime comfort-
until at last one has grown strong enough to say:
“What on earth have I to do with you ? " and to
go one's way alone.
971.
Those men who are in themselves destinies, and
whose advent is the advent of fate, the whole race of


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373
heroic bearers of burdens: oh! how heartily and
gladly would they have respite from themselves for
once in a while ! -how they crave after stout hearts
and shoulders, that they might free themselves, were
it but for an hour or two, from that which oppresses
them! And how fruitlessly they crave! . . .
They wait; they observe all that passes before
their eyes: no man even cometh nigh to them with a
thousandth part of their suffering and passion; no
man guesseth to what end they have waited.
At last, at last, they learn the first lesson of their
life: to wait no longer; and forthwith they learn
their second lesson: to be affable, to be modest;
and from that time onwards to endure everybody
and every kind of thing-in short, to endure still
a little more than they had endured theretofore.
.
6. THE HIGHEST MAN AS LAWGIVER OF
THE FUTURE.
972.
The lawgivers of the future. —After having tried
for a long time in vain to attach a particular
meaning to the word "philosopher,"—for I found
many antagonistic traits I recognised that we can
distinguish between two kinds of philosophers :-
(1) Those who desire to establish any large
system of values (logical or moral);
(2) Those who are the lawgivers of such valua-
tions.
The former try to seize upon the world of the
present or the past, by embodying or abbreviating


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!
the multifarious phenomena by means of signs :
their object is to make it possible for us to survey,
to reflect upon, to comprehend, and to utilise
everything that has happened hitherto-they serve
the purpose of man by using all past things to
the benefit of his future.
The second class, however, are commanders; they
say: “Thus shall it be! ” They alone determine
the "whither” and the "wherefore," and that
which will be useful and beneficial to man; they
have command over the previous work of scientific
men, and all knowledge is to them only a means
to their creations. This second kind of philosopher
seldom appears; and as a matter of fact their
situation and their danger is appalling. How often
have they not intentionally blindfolded their eyes
in order to shut out the sight of the small strip of
ground which separates them from the abyss and
from utter destruction. Plato, for instance, when
he persuaded himself that “the good," as he wanted
it, was not Plato's good, but "the good in itself,"
the eternal treasure which a certain man of the
name of Plato had chanced to find on his way!
This same will to blindness prevails in a much
coarser form in the case of the founders of religion;
their “ Thou shalt" must on no account sound to
their ears like "I will," they only dare to pursue
their task as if under the command of God; their
legislation of values can only be a burden they can
bear if they regard it as “revelation,” in this way
their conscience is not crushed by the responsi-
bility.
As soon as those two comforting expedients
"
»


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
375
that of Plato and that of Muhammed-have been
overthrown, and no thinker can any longer relieve
his conscience with the hypothesis “God” or
“ eternal values," the claim of the lawgiver to de-
termine new values rises to an awfulness which has
not yet been experienced. Now those elect, on
whom the faint light of such a duty is beginning
to dawn, try and see whether they cannot escape
it-as their greatest danger-by means of a
timely side-spring: for instance, they try to persuade
themselves that their task is already accomplished,
or that it defies accomplishment, or that their
shoulders are not broad enough for such burdens,
or that they are already taken up with burdens
closer to hand, or even that this new and remote
duty is a temptation and a seduction, drawing
them away from all other duties; a disease, a kind of
madness. Many, as a matter of fact, do succeed in
evading the path appointed to them: throughout the
whole of history we can see the traces of such de-
serters and their guilty consciences.
In most cases,
however, there comes to such men of destiny that
hour of delivery, that autumnal season of maturity,
in which they are forced to do that which they did
not even “wish to do”: and that deed before
"
which in the past they have trembled most, falls
easily and unsought from the tree, as an involun-
tary deed, almost as a present.
973.
The human horison. -Philosophers may be con-
ceived as men who make the greatest efforts to


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376
THE WILL TO POWER.
discover to what extent man can elevate himself-
this holds good more particularly of Plato: how
far man's power can extend. But they do this as
individuals; perhaps the instinct of Cæsars and
of all founders of states, etc. , was greater, for it pre-
occupied itself with the question how far man could
be urged forward in development under "favourable
circumstances. " What they did not sufficiently
understand, however, was the nature of favourable
circumstances. The great question : "Where has the
plant'man' grown most magnificently heretofore? ”
In order to answer this, a comparative study of
history is necessary.
974.
Every fact and every work exercises a fresh
persuasion over every age and every new species
History always enunciates new truths.
of man.
975.
To remain objective, severe, firm, and hard
while making a thought prevail is perhaps the best
forte of artists; but if for this purpose any one have
to work upon human material (as teachers, states-
men, have to do, etc. ), then the repose, the coldness,
and the hardness soon vanish. In natures like Cæsar
and Napoleon we are able to divine something of
the nature of " disinterestedness” in their work on
their marble, whatever be the number of men that
are sacrificed in the process. In this direction the
.
future of higher men lies: to bear the greatest re-
sponsibilities and not to go to rack and ruin


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
377
through them. -Hitherto the deceptions of inspira-
tion have almost always been necessary for a man
not to lose faith in his own hand, and in his right
to his task.
976.
The reason why philosophers are mostly failures.
Because among the conditions which determine
them there are qualities which generally ruin other
men :
(1) A philosopher must have an enormous
multiplicity of qualities; he must be a sort of ab-
breviation of man and have all man's high and
base desires: the danger of the contrast within
him, and of the possibility of his loathing him-
self;
(2) He must be inquisitive in an extraordinary
number of ways: the danger of versatility;
(3) He must be just and honest in the highest
sense, but profound both in love and hate (and in
injustice);
(4) He must not only be a spectator but a law-
giver: a judge and defendant (in so far as he is an
abbreviation of the world);
(5) He must be extremely multiform and yet
firm and hard. He must be supple.
977.
The really regal calling of the philosopher
(according to the expression of Alcuin the Anglo-
Saxon): “Prava corrigere, et recta corroborare, et
sancta sublimare. "


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378
THE WILL TO POWER.
978.
The new philosopher can only arise in conjunc-
tion with a ruling class, as the highest spiritualisa-
tion of the latter. Great politics, the rule of the
earth, as a proximate contingency; the total lack of
principles necessary thereto.
979.
Fundamental concept: the new values must first
be created this remains our duty! The philoso-
pher must be our lawgiver. New species. (How
the greatest species hitherto [for instance, the
Greeks] were reared: this kind of accident must
now be consciously striven for. )
980.
Supposing one thinks of the philosopher as an
educator who, looking down from his lonely eleva-
tion, is powerful enough to draw long chains of
generations up to him: then he must be granted
the most terrible privileges of a great educator.
An educator never says what he himself thinks;
but only that which he thinks it is good for those
whom he is educating to hear upon any subject.
This dissimulation on his part must not be found
out; it is part of his masterliness that people should
believe in his honesty, he must be capable of all
the means of discipline and education: there are
some natures which he will only be able to raise
by means of lashing them with his scorn ; others
who are lazy, irresolute, cowardly, and vain, he will


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
379
be able to affect only with exaggerated praise.
Such a teacher stands beyond good and evil, but
nobody must know that he does.
981.
We must not make men “better," we must not
talk to them about morality in any form as if
"morality in itself," or an ideal kind of man in
general, could be taken for granted; but we must
create circumstances in which stronger men are
necessary, such as for their part will require a
morality (or, better still: a bodily and spiritual
discipline) which makes men strong, and upon
which they will consequently insist! As they will
need one so badly, they will have it.
We must not let ourselves be seduced by blue
eyes and heaving breasts : greatness of soul has
absolutely nothing romantic about it. And unfortu-
nately nothing whatever amiable either.
982.
From warriors we must learn: (1) to associate
death with those interests for which we are fighting
—that makes us venerable; (2) we must learn to
sacrifice numbers, and to take our cause sufficiently
seriously not to spare men; (3) we must practise
inexorable discipline, and allow ourselves violence
and cunning in war.
983.
The education which rears those ruling virtues
that allow a man to become master of his benevo-


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380
THE WILL TO POWER.
lence and his pity: the great disciplinary virtues
(“Forgive thine enemies" is mere child's play beside
them), and the passions of the creator, must be ele-
vated to the heights--we must cease from carving
marble ! The exceptional and powerful position
of those creatures (compared with that of all
princes hitherto): the Roman Cæsar with Christ's
soul.
984.
We must not separate greatness of soul from
intellectual greatness. For the former involves
independence; but without intellectual greatness
independence should not be allowed; all it does is
to create disasters even in its lust of well-doing
and of practising “justice. ” Inferior spirits must
obey, consequently they cannot be possessed of
greatness.
985.
The more lofty philosophical man who is sur-
rounded by loneliness, not because he wishes to be
alone, but because he is what he is, and cannot find
his equal: what a number of dangers and torments
are reserved for him, precisely at the present time,
when we have lost our belief in the order of rank,
and consequently no longer know how to under-
stand or honour this isolation! Formerly the sage
almost sanctified himself in the consciences of the
mob by going aside in this way; to-day the anchor-
ite sees himself as though enveloped in a cloud of
gloomy doubt and suspicions. And not alone by the
7


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
381
envious and the wretched : in every well-meant act
that he experiences he is bound to discover mis-
understanding, neglect, and superficiality. He
knows the crafty tricks of foolish pity which makes
these people feel so good and holy when they
attempt to save him from his own destiny, by
giving him more comfortable situations and more
decent and reliable society. Yes, he will even get
to admire the unconscious lust of destruction with
which all mediocre spirits stand up and oppose him,
believing all the while that they have a holy right
to do so! For men of such incomprehensible
loneliness it is necessary to put a good stretch of
country between them and the officiousness of their
fellows: this is part of their prudence. For such
a man to maintain himself uppermost to-day amid
the dangerous maelstroms of the age which threaten
to draw him under, even cunning and disguise will
be necessary. Every attempt he makes to order
his life in the present and with the present, every
time he draws near to these men and their modern
desires, he will have to expiate as if it were an
actual sin: and withal he may look with wonder
at the concealed wisdom of his nature, which after
every one of these attempts immediately leads him
back to himself by means of illnesses and painful
accidents.
986.
“ Maledetto colui
che contrista un spirto immortal ! ”
MANZONI (Conte di Carmagnola, Act II. )


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382
THE WILL TO POWER.
987
The most difficult and the highest form which
man can attain is the most seldom successful:
thus the history of philosophy reveals a super-
abundance of bungled and unhappy cases of man-
hood, and its march is an extremely slow one;
whole centuries intervene and suppress what has
been achieved : and in this way the connecting-
link is always made to fail. It is an appalling
history, this history of the highest men, of the
sages. What is most often damaged is precisely
the recollection of great men, for the semi-successful
and botched cases of mankind misunderstand
them and overcome them by their successes. "
Whenever an “effect” is noticeable, the masses
gather in a crowd round it; to hear the inferior
and the poor in spirit having their say is a terrible
ear-splitting torment for him who knows and
trembles at the thought, that the fate of man
depends upon the success of its highest types. -
From the days of my childhood I have reflected
upon the sage's conditions of existence, and I will
not conceal my happy conviction that in Europe
he has once more become possible-perhaps only
for a short time.
988.
These new philosophers begin with a description
of a systematic order of rank and difference of
value among men,—what they desire is, alas
precisely the reverse of an assimilation and
equalisation of man: they teach estrangement


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
383
in every sense, they cleave gulfs such as have
never yet existed, and they would fain have man
become more evil than he ever was. For the
present they live concealed and estranged even
from each other. For many reasons they will find
it necessary to be anchorites and to wear masks-
they will therefore be of little use in the matter of
seeking for their equals. They will live alone, and
probably know the torments of all the loneliest
forms of loneliness. Should they, however, thanks to
any accident, meet each other on the road, I wager
that they would not know each other, or that they
would deceive each other in a number of ways.
989.
"Les philosophes ne sont pas faits pour s'aimer.
Les aigles ne volent point en compagnie. Il faut
laisser cela aux perdrix, aux étourneaux.
Planer au-dessus et avoir des griffes, voilà le lot
des grands génies. " --GALIANI.
.
990.
I forgot to say that such philosophers are
cheerful, and that they like to sit in the abyss
of a perfectly Clear sky: they are in need of
different means for enduring life than other men;
for they suffer in a different way (that is to say,
just as much from the depth of their contempt of
man as from their love of man). — The animal
which suffered most on earth discovered for itself
aughter.


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384
THE WILL TO POWER.
991.
Concerning the misunderstanding of “cheerful-
ness. ”—It is a temporary relief from long tension;
it is the wantonness, the Saturnalia of a spirit,
which is consecrating and preparing itself for long
and terrible resolutions. The “ fool” in the form
of " science. ”
992.
The new order of rank among spirits ; tragic
natures no longer in the van.
993.
It is a comfort to me to know that over the
smoke and filth of human baseness there is a higher
and brighter mankind, which, judging from their
number, must be a small race (for everything that is
in any way distinguished is ipso facto rare). A man
does not belong to this race because he happens to
be more gifted, more virtuous, more heroic, or more
Joving than the men below, but because he is
colder, brighter, more far-sighted, and more lonely;
because he endures, prefers, and even insists upon,
loneliness as the joy, the privilege, yea, even the
condition of existence; because he lives amid
clouds and lightnings as among his equals, and
likewise among sunrays, dewdrops, snowflakes, and
all that which must needs come from the heights,
and which in its course moves ever from heaven to
earth. The desire to look aloft is not our desire.
-Heroes, martyrs, geniuses, and enthusiasts of all


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
385
kinds, are not quiet, patient, subtle, cold, or
slow enough for us.
994.
The absolute conviction that valuations above
and below are different; that innumerable ex-
periences are wanting to the latter : that when
looking upwards from below misunderstandings
are necessary.
995.
How do men attain to great power and to great
tasks? All the virtues and proficiences of the
body and the soul are little by little laboriously
acquired, through great industry, self-control, and
keeping one's self within narrow bounds, through a
frequent, energetic, and genuine repetition of the
same work and of the same hardships ; but there
are men who are the heirs and masters of this
slowly acquired and manifold treasure of virtues
and proficiences—because, owing to happy and
reasonable marriages and also to lucky accidents,
the acquired and accumulated forces of many
generations, instead of being squandered and
subdivided, have been assembled together by
means of steadfast struggling and willing.