No More Learning

This kind of artistic pessimism is precisely the
reverse of that religio-moral pessimism which
suffers from the corruption of man and the
enigmatic character of existence: the latter in-
sists upon deliverance, or at least upon the hope
of deliverance. Those who suffer, doubt, and dis-
trust themselves,—the sick, in other words,-have
in all ages required the transporting influence of
visions in order to be able to exist at all (the
notion "blessedness" arose in this way). A
similar case would be that of the artists of
decadence, who at bottom maintain a Nihilistic
attitude to life, and take refuge in the beauty of
form,-in those select cases in which Nature is
perfect, in which she is indifferently great and in-
differently beautiful. (The “love of the beautiful”
may thus be something very different from the
ability to see or create the beautiful: it may be
the expression of impotence in this respect. ) The
most convincing artists are those who make
harmony ring out of every discord, and who
benefit all things by the gift of their power and
inner harmony: in every work of art they merely
reveal the symbol of their inmost experiences-
their creation is gratitude for their life.
The depth. of the tragic artist consists in the
fact that his æsthetic instinct surveys the more
remote results, that he does not halt shortsightedly
at the thing that is nearest, that he says Yea to
the whole cosmic economy, which justifies the
terrible, the evil, and the questionable; which
more than justifies it.


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THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
289
!
853
Art in the “ Birth of Tragedy. "
I.
The conception of the work which lies
right in the background of this book, is extra-
ordinarily gloomy and unpleasant: among all the
types of pessimism which have ever been known
hitherto, none seems to have attained to this degree
of malice. The contrast of a true and of an ap-
parent world is entirely absent here: there is but
one world, and it is false, cruel, contradictory,
seductive, and without sense. A world thus
constituted is the true world. We are in need of
lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this
truth—that is to say, in order to live. . . That
lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of
the terrible and questionable character of existence,
Metaphysics, morality, religion, science,-in this
book, all these things are regarded merely as
different forms of falsehood : by means of them we
are led to believe in life. “Life must inspire con-
fidence”: the task which this imposes upon us is
enormous. In order to solve this problem man
must already be a liar in his heart, but he must
above all else be an artist. And he is that.
Metaphysics, religion, morality, science,—all these
things are but the offshoot of his will to art, to
falsehood, to a flight from "truth,” to a denial of
truth. ” This ability, this artistic capacity par
excellence of man- -thanks to which he overcomes
reality with lies,—is a quality which he has in
T
66
VOL. II.


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290
THE WILL TO POWER.
common with all other forms of existence. He
himself is indeed a piece of reality, of truth, of
nature : how could he help being also a piece
of genius in prevarication !
The fact that the character of existence is
misunderstood, is the profoundest and the highest
secret motive behind everything relating to virtue,
science, piety, and art. To be blind to many
things, to see many things falsely, to fancy
many things: Oh, how clever man has been
in those circumstances in which he believed
he was anything but clever! Love, enthusiasm,
“ God”
are but subtle forms of ultimate
self-deception; they are but seductions to life
and to the belief in life! In those moments
when man was deceived, when he had befooled
himself and when he believed in life: Oh, how
his spirit swelled within him! Oh, what ecstasies
he had! What power he felt ! And what artistic
triumphs in the feeling of power! . . . Man had
once more become master of “matter,"—master of
truth! . . . And whenever man rejoices it is always
in the same way: he rejoices as an artist, his power
is his joy, he enjoys falsehood as his power. . . .
II.
Art and nothing else! Art is the great means
of making life possible, the great seducer to life,
the great stimulus of life.
Art is the only superior counteragent to all will
to the denial of life; it is par excellence the anti-
Christian, the anti-Buddhistic, the anti-Nihilistic
force.


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THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
291
Art is the alleviation of the seeker after know-
ledge,of him who recognises the terrible and
questionable character of existence, and who will
recognise it, of the tragic seeker after know-
ledge.
Art is the alleviation of the man of action, of
him who not only sees the terrible and questionable
character of existence, but also lives it, will live it,
—of the tragic and warlike man, the hero.
Art is the alleviation of the sufferer,—as the
way to states in which pain is willed, is trans-
figured, is deified, where suffering is a form of
great ecstasy.
III.
It is clear that in this book pessimism, or,
better still, Nihilism, stands for "truth. " But truth
is not postulated as the highest measure of value,
and still less as the highest power. The will to
appearance, to illusion, to deception, to becoming,
and to change (to objective deception), is here re-
garded as more profound, as more primeval, as
more metaphysical than the will to truth, to reality,
to appearance: the latter is merely a form of the
will to illusion. Happiness is likewise conceived
as more primeval than pain : and pain is considered
as conditioned, as a consequence of the will to
happiness (of the will to Becoming, to growth, to
forming, i. e. to creating; in creating, however, de-
struction is included). The highest state of Yea-
saying to existence is conceived as one from which
the greatest pain may not be excluded : the tragico-
Dionysian state.


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292
THE WILL TO POWER.
IV.
In this way this book is even anti-pessimistic,
namely, in the sense that it teaches something which
is stronger than pessimism and which is more
“ divine” than truth: Art. Nobody, it would seem,
would be more ready seriously to utter a radical
denial of life, an actual denial of action even more
than a denial of life, than the author of this book.
Except that he knows—for he has experienced it,
and perhaps experienced little else ! —that art is of
more value than truth.
Even in the preface, in which Richard Wagner
is, as it were, invited to join with him in conversa-
tion, the author expresses this article of faith, this
gospel for artists : “ Art is the only task of life, art
is the metaphysical activity of life, . . .


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FOURTH BOOK.
DISCIPLINE AND BREEDING.


## p. 294 (#324) ############################################



## p. 295 (#325) ############################################

I,
THE ORDER OF RANK.
1. THE DOCTRINE OF THE ORDER OF RANK.
854.
In this age of universal suffrage, in which every-
body is allowed to sit in judgment upon everything
and everybody, I feel compelled to re-establish the
order of rank.
855.
Quanta of power alone determine rank and dis-
tinguish rank: nothing else does.
856.
The will to power. -How must those men be
constituted who would undertake this transvalua-
tion? The order of rank as the order of power :
war and danger are the prerequisites which allow
of a rank maintaining its conditions. The pro-
digious example: man in Nature—the weakest
and shrewdest creature making himself master, and
putting a yoke upon all less intelligent forces.
295


## p. 296 (#326) ############################################

296
THE WILL TO POWER.
857
I distinguish between the type which represents
ascending life and that which represents. decay,
decomposition and weakness. Ought one to
suppose that the question of rank between these
two types can be at all doubtful ? . .
858.
The modicum of power which you represent
decides your rank; all the rest is cowardice.
859.
The advantages of standing detached from one's
age. --Detached from the two movements, that of
individualism and that of collectivist morality; for
even the first does not recognise the order of rank,
and would give one individual the same freedom
as another. My thoughts are not concerned with
the degree of freedom which should be granted to
the one or to the other or to all, but with the
degree of power which the one or the other should
exercise over his neighbour or over all; and more
especially with the question to what extent a
sacrifice of freedom, or even enslavement, may
afford the basis for the cultivation of a superior
type. In plain words : how could one sacrifice the
development of mankind in order to assist a higher
species than man to come into being.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
297
860.
Concerning rank. —The terrible consequences
of “equality"-in the end everybody thinks he has
the right to every problem. All order of rank
has vanished.
861.
It is necessary for higher men to declare war
upon the masses! In all directions mediocre
people are joining hands in order to make them-
selves masters. Everything that pampers, that
softens, and that brings the “people” or “woman
to the front, operates in favour of universal suffrage
—that is to say, the dominion of inferior men.
But we must make reprisals, and draw the
whole state of affairs (which commenced in
Europe with Christianity) to the light of day
and to judgment.
862.
A teaching is needed which is strong enough
to work in a disciplinary manner; it should
operate in such a way as to strengthen the strong
and to paralyse and smash up the world-weary.
The annihilation of declining races. The
decay of Europe. The annihilation of slave-
tainted valuations. The dominion of the world
as a means to the rearing of a higher type. The
annihilation of the humbug which is called
morality (Christianity as a hysterical kind of
honesty in this regard : Augustine, Bunyan)


## p. 298 (#328) ############################################

298
THE WILL TO POWER.
The annihilation of universal suffrage that is
to say, that system by means of which the
lowest natures prescribe themselves as a law for
higher natures. The annihilation of mediocrity
and its prevalence. (The one-sided, the indivi- .
duals—peoples; constitutional plenitude should
be aimed at by means of the coupling of opposites;
to this end race-combinations should be tried. )
The new kind of courage—no a priori truths
(those who were accustomed to believe in some-
thing sought such truths ! ), but free submission to
a ruling thought, which has its time; for instance,
time conceived as the quality of space, etc.
2. THE STRONG AND THE WEAK.
863.
The notion," strong and weak man," resolves itself
into this, that in the first place much strength is
inherited—the man is a total sum ; in the other,
not yet enough (inadequate inheritance, subdivision
of the inherited qualities). Weakness may be a
starting phenomenon : not yet enough; or a final
phenomenon: “no more. "
The determining point is there where great
strength is present, or where a great amount of
strength can be discharged. The mass, as the
sum-total of the weak, reacts slowly; it defends
itself against much for which it is too weak,-
against that for which it has no use; it never
creates, it never takes a step forward. This is
-


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THỆ ORDER OF RANK.
299
opposed to the theory which denies the strong
individual and would maintain that the masses
do everything. " The difference is similar to that
which obtains between separated generations :
four or even five generations may lie between the
masses and him who is the moving spirit—it is a
chronological difference.
The values of the weak are in the van,
because
the strong have adopted them in order to lead
with them.
864.
Why the weak triumph. -On the whole, the sick
and the weak have more sympathy and are more
“ humane”: the sick and the weak have more
intellect, and are more changeable, more variegated,
more entertaining-more malicious; the sick alone
invented malice. (A morbid precocity is often to be
observed among rickety, scrofulitic, and tuberculous
people. ) Esprit: the property of older races ;
Jews, Frenchmen, Chinese. (The anti-Semites
do not forgive the Jews for having both intellect-
and money. Anti-Semites—another name for
“ bungled and botched. ")
The sick and the weak have always had fascina-
tion on their side; they are more interesting than
the healthy : the fool and the saint—the two most
interesting kinds of men. . . . Closely related
thereto is the "genius. " The "great adventurers
and criminals" and all great men, the most healthy
in particular, have always been sick at certain
periods of their lives—great disturbances of the


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300
THE WILL TO POWER
emotions, the passion for power, love, revenge, are
all accompanied by very profound perturbations.
And, as for decadence, every man who does not
die prematurely manifests it in almost every
respect—he therefore knows from experience the
instincts which belong to it: for half his life
nearly every man is decadent.
And finally, woman! One-half of mankind is
weak, chronically sick, changeable, shifty-woman
requires strength in order to cleave to it; she also
requires a religion of the weak which glorifies
weakness, love, and modesty as divine : or, better
still, she makes the strong weak—she rules when
she succeeds in overcoming the strong.
Woman
has always conspired with decadent types,-the
priests, for instance,-against the"mighty," against
the “strong," against men. Women avail them.
selves of children for the cult of piety, pity, and
love : the mother stands as the symbol of con-
vincing altruism.
Finally, the increase of civilisation with its
necessary correlatives, the increase of morbid
elements, of the neurotic and psychiatric and of
the criminal. A sort of intermediary species arises,
A
the artist. He is distinct from those who are
criminals as the result of weak wills and of the
fear of society, although they may not yet be ripe
for the asylum; but he has antenna which grope
inquisitively into both spheres : this specific plant
of culture, the modern artist, painter, musician, and,
above all, novelist, who designates his particular
kind of attitude with the very indefinite word
« naturalism. "
Lunatics, criminals, and
.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
301
-
realists are on the increase: this is the sign of
a growing culture plunging forward at headlong
speed—that is to say, its excrement, its refuse, the
rubbish that is shot from it every day, is beginning
to acquire more importance,—the retrogressive
movement keeps pace with the advance.
Finally, the social mishmash, which is the result
of revolution, of the establishment of equal rights,
and of the superstition, the "equality of men. ”
Thus the possessors of the instincts of decline (of
resentment, of discontent, of the lust of destruction,
of anarchy and Nihilism), as also the instincts of
slavery, of cowardice, of craftiness, and of rascality,
which are inherent among those classes of society
which have long been suppressed, are beginning to
get infused into the blood of all ranks.
Two or
three generations later, the race can no longer be
recognised-everything has become mob. And
thus there results a collective instinct against
selection, against every kind of privilege; and
this instinct operates with such power, certainty,
hardness, and cruelty that, as a matter of fact, in
the end, even the privileged classes have to
submit: all those who still wish to hold on to
power flatter the mob, work with the mob, and
must have the mob on their side—the “geniuses”
above all. The latter become the heralds of those
feelings with which the mob can be inspired,—the
expression of pity, of honour, even for all that
suffers, all that is low and despised, and has lived
* The German word is “Naturalist," and really means
« realist” in a bad sense. —TR.


## p. 302 (#332) ############################################

302
THE WILL TO POWER.
under persecution, becomes predominant (types :
Victor Hugo, Richard Wagner). —The rise of the
mob signifies once more the rise of old values.
In the case of such an extreme movement, both
in tempo and in means, as characterises our civil-
isation, man's ballast is shifted. Those men whose
worth is greatest, and whose mission, as it were, is
to compensate for the very great danger of such
a morbid movement, such men become dawdlers
par excellence; they are slow to accept anything,
and are tenacious ; they are creatures that are
relatively lasting in the midst of this vast mingling
and changing of elements. In such circumstances
power is necessarily relegated to the mediocre :
mediocrity, as the trustee and bearer of the future,
consolidates itself against the rule of the mob and
of eccentricities (both of which are, in most cases,
united). In this way a new antagonist is evolved
for exceptional men-or in certain cases a new
temptation. Provided that they do not adapt
themselves to the mob, and stand up for what
satisfies the instincts of the disinherited, they will
find it necessary to be “mediocre and sound.
They know : mediocritas is also aurea,—it alone
has command of money and gold (of all that
glitters . ). . . . And, once more, old virtue and
the whole superannuated world of ideals in general
secures a gifted host of special-pleaders. . . . Result:
mediocrity acquires intellect, wit, and genius,-it
becomes entertaining, and even seductive.
.
Result. -A high culture can only stand upon a
broad basis, upon a strongly and soundly consoli-


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
303
-
-
dated mediocrity. In its service and assisted by
it, science and even art do their work.
Science
could not wish for a better state of affairs : in its
essence it belongs to a middle-class type of man, —
among exceptions it is out of place, there is not
anything aristocratic and still
less anything
anarchic in its instincts. The power of the middle
classes is then upheld by means of commerce, but,
above all, by means of money-dealing: the instinct
of great financiers is opposed to everything extreme
-on this account the Jews are, for the present,
the most conservative power in the threatening
and insecure conditions of modern Europe. They
can have no use either for revolutions, for social-
ism, or for militarism : if they would have power,
and if they should need it, even over the revolu-
tionary party, this is only the result of what I
have already said, and it in no way contradicts
it. Against other extreme movements they may
occasionally require to excite terror-by showing
how much power is in their hands. But their
instinct itself is inveterately conservative and
“ mediocre. " . . . Wherever power exists, they
know how to become mighty ; but the application
of their power always takes the same direction.
The polite term for mediocre, as is well known,
is the word “ Liberal. ”
*
Reflection. It is all nonsense to suppose that
this general conquest of values is anti-biological.
In order to explain it, we ought to try and show
that it is the result of a certain interest of life to
maintain the type "man," even by means of this


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304
THE WILL TO POWER.
method which leads to the prevalence of the weak
and the physiologically botched—if things were
otherwise, might man not cease to exist ? Problem. . .
The enhancement of the type may prove fatal
to the maintenance of the species. Why ? —The
experience of history shows that strong races
decimate each other mutually, by means of war,
lust for power, and venturousness; the strong
emotions ; wastefulness strength is no longer
capitalised, disturbed mental systems arise from
excessive tension); their existence is a costly
affair-in short, they persistently give rise to
friction between themselves ; periods of profound
slackness and torpidity intervene: all great ages
have to be paid for. . . . The strong are, after all,
weaker, less wilful, and more absurd than the
average weak ones.
They are squandering races. “ Permanence,"
in itself, can have no value: that which ought to
be preferred thereto would be a shorter life for
the species, but a life richer in creations. It would
remain to be proved that, even as things are, a
richer sum of creations is attained than in the
case of the shorter existence; i. e. that man, as a
storehouse of power, attains to a much higher
degree of dominion over things under the con-
ditions which have existed hitherto. . . . We are
here face to face with a problem of economics.
•
865.
The state of mind which calls itself “idealism,"
and which will neither allow mediocrity to be


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
305
mediocre nor woman to be woman! Do not
make everything uniform ! We should have a
clear idea of how dearly we have to pay for the
establishment of a virtue; and that virtue is
nothing generally desirable, but a noble piece of
madness, a beautiful exception, which gives us the
privilege of feeling elated. .
.
866.
It is necessary to show that a counter-movement
is inevitably associated with any increasingly
economical consumption of men and mankind, and
with an ever more closely involved "machinery ”
of interests and services. I call this counter-
movement the separation of the luxurious surplus
1 of mankind: by means of it a stronger kind, a
higher type, must come to light, which has other
conditions for its origin and for its maintenance than
the average man. My concept, my metaphor for
this type is, as you know, the word “ Superman. "
Along the first road, which can now be completely
surveyed, arose adaptation, stultification, higher
Chinese culture, modesty in the instincts, and
satisfaction at the sight of the belittlement of
man—a kind of stationary level of mankind. If
ever we get that inevitable and imminent, general
control of the economy of the earth, then man-
kind can be used as machinery and find its best
purpose in the service of this economy—as an
enormous piece of clock-work consisting of ever
smaller and ever more subtly adapted wheels;
then all the dominating and commanding elements
U
VOL. II.


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306
THE WILL TO POWER.
will become ever more superfluous; and the
whole gains enormous energy, while the individual
factors which compose it represent but small
modicums of strength and of value. To oppose
this dwarfing and adaptation of man to a special-
ised kind of utility, a reverse movement is needed
—the procreation of the synthetic man who em-
bodies everything and justifies it; that man for
whom the turning of mankind into a machine is
a first condition of existence, for whom the rest of
mankind is but soil on which he can devise his
higher mode of existence.
He is in need of the opposition of the masses,
of those who are "levelled down"; he requires
that feeling of distance from them; he stands
upon them, he lives on them. This higher form
of aristocracy is the form of the future, From
the moral point of view, the collective machinery
above described, that solidarity of all wheels,
represents the most extreme example in the
exploitation of mankind: but it presupposes the
existence of those for whom such an exploitation
would have some meaning. * Otherwise it would
signify, as a matter of fact, merely the general
depreciation of the type man,-a retrograde
phenomenon on a grand scale.
Readers are beginning to see what I am
combating—namely, economic optimism: as if
* This sentence for ever distinguishes Nietzsche's aristoc-
racy from our present plutocratic and industrial one, for
which, at the present moment at any rate, it would be
difficult to discover some meaning. -TR.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
307
the general welfare of everybody must necessarily
increase with the growing self-sacrifice of every-
body. The very reverse seems to me to be the
case, the self-sacrifice of everybody amounts to a
collective loss; man becomes inferior-so that
nobody knows what end this monstrous purpose
has served. A wherefore ? a new wherefore ? -
this is what mankind requires.
867
The recognition of the increase of collective
power: we should calculate to what extent the
ruin of individuals, of castes, of ages, and of
peoples, is included in this general increase.
The transposition of the ballast of a culture.
The cost of every vast growth: who bears it?
Why must it be enormous at the present time?
868.
General aspect of the future European: the
latter regarded as the most intelligent servile
animal, very industrious, at bottom very modest,
inquisitive to excess, multifarious, pampered,
weak of will, - a chaos of cosmopolitan pas-
sions and intelligences. How would it be
possible for a stronger race to be bred from
him Such a race as would have a classical
taste ? The classical taste: this is the will to
simplicity, to accentuation, and to happiness made
visible, the will to the terrible, and the courage
for psychological nakedness (simplification is the
!


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308
THE WILL TO POWER.
outcome of the will to accentuate; allowing
happiness as well as nakedness to become visible
is a consequence of the will to the terrible . . . ).
In order to fight one's way out of that chaos, and
up to this form, a certain disciplinary constraint is
necessary : a man should have to choose between
either going to the dogs or prevailing. A ruling
race can only arise amid terrible and violent
conditions. Problem: where are the barbarians
of the twentieth century? Obviously they will
only show themselves and consolidate themselves
after enormous socialistic crises. They will con-
sist of those elements which are capable of the
greatest hardness towards themselves, and which
can guarantee the most enduring will-power,
869.
The mightiest and most dangerous passions of
man, by means of which he most easily goes to
rack and ruin, have been so fundamentally banned
that mighty men themselves have either become
impossible or else must regard themselves as evil,
“harmful and prohibited. ” The losses are heavy,
but up to the present they have been necessary.
Now, however, that a whole host of counter-forces
has been reared, by means of the temporary
suppression of these passions (the passion for
dominion, the love of change and deception), their
liberation has once more become possible: they
will no longer possess their old savagery. We
can now allow ourselves this tame sort of bar-
barism : look at our artists and our statesmen !


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
309
870.
The root of all evil : that the slave morality
of modesty, chastity, selflessness, and absolute
obedience should have triumphed. Dominating
natures were thus condemned (1) to hypocrisy,
(2) to qualms of conscience,-creative natures
regarded themselves as rebels against God, un-
certain and hemmed in by eternal values.
The barbarians showed that the ability of
keeping within the bounds of moderation was not
in the scope of their powers : they feared and
slandered the passions and instincts of nature-
likewise the aspect of the ruling Cæsars and
castes. On the other hand, there arose the sus-
picion that all restraint is a form of weakness or
of incipient old age and fatigue (thus La Rochefou-
cauld suspects that "virtue" is only a euphemism
in the mouths of those to whom vice no longer
affords any pleasure). The capacity for restraint
was represented as a matter of hardness, self-
control, asceticism, as a fight with the devil, etc.
etc. The natural delight of æsthetic natures, in
measure; the pleasure derived from the beauty of
measure, was overlooked and denied, because that
which was
desired was
an anti-eudaemonistic
morality. The belief in the pleasure which comes
of restraint has been lacking hitherto — this
pleasure of a rider on a fiery steed! The modera-
tion of weak natures was confounded with the
restraint of the strong!
In short, the best things have been blasphemed
because weak or immoderate swine have thrown a


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310
THE WILL TO POWER.
bad light upon them- the best men have remained
concealed - and have often misunderstood them-
selves.
871.
Vicious and unbridled people: their depressing
influence upon the value of the passions. It was
the appalling barbarity of morality which was
principally responsible in the Middle Ages for
the compulsory recourse to a veritable “ league
of virtue”—and this was coupled with an equally
appalling exaggeration of all that which consti-
tutes the value of, man. Militant “civilisation"
(taming) is in need of all kinds of irons and
tortures in order to maintain itself against terrible
and beast-of-prey natures.
In this case, contusion, although it may have
the most nefarious influences, is quite natural:
that which men of power and will are able to
demand of themselves gives them the standard for
what they may also allow themselves. Such natures
are the very opposite of the vicious and the un-
bridled; although under certain circumstances they
may perpetrate deeds for which an inferior man
would be convicted of vice and intemperance.
In this respect the concept, “all men are equal
before God," does an extraordinary amount of
harm; actions and attitudes of mind were for-
bidden which belonged to the prerogative of the
strong alone, just as if they were in themselves
unworthy of man. All the tendencies of strong
men were brought into disrepute by the fact that
the defensive weapons of the most weak (even of


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1
those who were weakest towards themselves) were
established as a standard of valuation.
The confusion went so far that precisely the
great virtuosos of life (whose self-control presents
the sharpest contrast to the vicious and the un-
bridled) were branded with the most opprobrious
names. Even to this day people feel themselves
compelled to disparage a Cæsar Borgia : it is
simply ludicrous. The Church has anathematised
German Kaisers owing to their vices: as if a monk
or a priest had the right to say a word as to what
a Frederick II. should allow himself. Don Juan
is sent to hell : this is very naïf. Has anybody
ever noticed that all interesting men are lacking
in heaven? . . This is only a hint to the girls,
as to where they may best find salvation.
think at all logically, and also have a profound
insight into that which makes a great man, there
can be no doubt at all that the Church has dis-
patched all “great men” to Hades—its fight is
against all “greatness in man. ”
.
If one
872.
The rights which a man arrogates to himself
are relative to the duties which he sets himself,
and to the tasks which he feels capable of per-
forming. The great majority of men have no
right to life, and are only a misfortune to their
higher fellows.
1
873.
The misunderstanding of egoism : on the part
of ignoble natures who know nothing of the lust of


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THE WILL TO POWER.
conquest and the insatiability of great love, and who
likewise know nothing of the overflowing feelings
of power which make a man wish to overcome things,
to force them over to himself, and to lay them on
his heart, the power which impels an artist to
his material. It often happens also that the
active spirit looks for a field for its activity. In
ordinary "egoism” it is precisely the “non-ego,"
the profoundly mediocre creature, the member of
the herd, who wishes to maintain himself—and
when this is perceived by the rarer, more subtle,
and less mediocre natures, it revolts them. For
the judgment of the latter is this: “We are the
noble! It is much more important to maintain us
than that cattle! ”
874.
The degeneration of the ruler and of the ruling
classes has been the cause of all the great dis-
orders in history! Without the Roman Cæsars
and Roman society, Christianity would never have
prevailed.
When it occurs to inferior men to doubt
whether higher men exist, then the danger is
great! It is then that men finally discover that
there are virtues even among inferior, suppressed,
and poor-spirited men, and that everybody is
equal before God: which is the non plus ultra of
all confounded nonsense that has ever appeared
on earth! For in the end higher men begin to
themselves according to the standard of
virtues upheld by the slaves—and discover that


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
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they are “proud,” etc. , and that all their higher
qualities should be condemned.
When Nero and Caracalla stood at the helm,
it was then that the paradox arose: “The lowest
man is of more value than that one on the throne ! ”
And thus the path was prepared for an image of
God which was as remote as possible from the
image of the mightiest,—God on the Cross !
875.
Higher man and gregarious man. —When great
men are wanting, the great of the past are con-
verted into demigods or whole gods: the rise of
religions proves that mankind no longer has any
pleasure in man "nor in woman neither," as in
Hamlet's case). Or a host of men are brought
together in a heap, and it is hoped that as a
Parliament they will operate just as tyrannically.
Tyrannising is the distinctive quality of great
men: they make inferior men stupid.
876.
Buckle åffords the best example of the extent
to which a plebeian agitator of the mob is in-
capable of arriving at a clear idea of the concept,
"higher nature. ” The opinion which he combats
so passionately—that “great men," individuals,
princes, statesmen, geniuses, warriors, are the
levers and causes of all great movements, is in-
stinctively misunderstood by him, as if it meant
that all that was essential and valuable in such


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THE WILL TO POWER.
a “higher man," was the fact that he was capable
of setting masses in motion; in short, that his
sole merit was the effect he produced.
the “higher nature" of the great man resides
precisely in being different, in being unable to
communicate with others, in the loftiness of his
rank-not in any sort of effect he may produce
even though this be the shattering of both hemi-
spheres.
877.
The Revolution made Napoleon possible: that
is its justification. We ought to desire the
anarchical collapse of the whole of our civilisation
if such a reward were to be its result. Napoleon
made nationalism possible: that is the latter's
excuse.
The value of a man (apart, of course, from
morality and immorality: because with these
concepts a man's worth is not even skimmed)
does not lie in his utility ; because he would
continue to exist even if there were nobody to
whom he could be useful. And why could not
that man be the very pinnacle of manhood who
was the source of the worst possible effects for
his race: so high and so superior, that in his
presence everything would go to rack and ruin
from envy?
878.
To appraise the value of a man according to
his utility to mankind, or according to what
costs it, or the damage he is able to infict upon it,


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315
is just as good and just as bad as to appraise the
value of a work of art according to its effects.
But in this way the value of one man compared
with another is not even touched upon. The
“moral valuation," in so far as it is social, measures
men altogether according to their effects. But
what about the man who has his own taste on
his tongue, who is surrounded and concealed
by his isolation, uncommunicative and not to be
communicated with; a man whom no one has
fathomed yet—that is to say, a creature of a
higher, and, at any rate, different species : how
would ye appraise his worth, seeing that ye
cannot know him and can compare him with
nothing?
Moral valuation was the cause of the most
enormous obtuseness of judgment: the value of
a man in himself is underrated, well-nigh over-
looked, practically denied. This is the remains
of simple-minded teleology : the value of man
can only be measured with regard to other men.
879.
To be obsessed by moral considerations pre-
supposes a very low grade of intellect: it shows
that the instinct for special rights, for standing
apart, the feeling of freedom in creative natures,
in “ children of God” (or of the devil), is lacking.
And irrespective of whether he preaches a ruling
morality or criticises the prevailing ethical code
from the point of view of his own ideal: by
doing these things a man shows that he belongs


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316
THE WILL TO POWER.
to the herd-even though he may be what it is
most in need of-that is to say, a “shepherd. ”
!
880.
4
We should substitute morality by the will to our
own ends, and consequently to the means to them.
881.
Concerning the order of rank. What is it that
constitutes the mediocrity of the typical man?
That he does not understand that things neces-
sarily have their other side; that he combats evil
conditions as if they could be dispensed with;
that he will not take the one with the other; that
he would fain obliterate and erase the specific
character of a thing, of a circumstance, of an age,
and of a person, by calling only a portion of their
qualities good, and suppressing the remainder.
The “ desirability” of the mediocre is that which
we others combat: their ideal is something which
shall no longer contain anything harmful, evil,
dangerous, questionable, and destructive. We
recognise the reverse of this: that with every
growth of man his other side must grow as well;
that the highest man, if such a concept be allowed,
would be that man who would represent the antag-
onistic character of existence most strikingly, and
would be its glory and its only justification.
Ordinary men may only represent a small corner
and nook of this natural character; they perish
the moment the multifariousness of the elements
composing them, and the tension between their
!
1
1
.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
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antagonistic traits, increases: but this is the pre-
requisite for greatness in man. That man should
become better and at the same time more evil, is
my
formula for this inevitable fact.
The majority of people are only piecemeal and
fragmentary examples of man: only when all
these creatures are jumbled together does one
whole man arise. Whole ages and whole peoples
in this sense, have a fragmentary character about
them; it may perhaps be part of the economy of
human development that man should develop
himself only piecemeal. But, for this reason, one
should not forget that the only important con-
sideration is the rise of the synthetic man; that
inferior men, and by far the great majority of
people, are but rehearsals and exercises out of
which here and there a whole man may arise; a
man who is a human milestone, and who indicates
how far mankind has advanced up to a certain
point.
Mankind does not advance in a straight
line; often a type is attained which is again lost
(for instance, with all the efforts of three hundred
years, we have not reached the men of the Renais-
sance again, and in addition to this we must not
forget that the man of the Renaissance was already
behind his brother of classical antiquity).
882.
The superiority of the Greek and the man of
the Renaissance is recognised, but people would
like to produce them without the conditions and
causes of which they were the result.


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THE WILL TO POWER.
883.