No More Learning

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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.
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THE ORDER OF RANK.
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
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370
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 WILL TO POWER.
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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THE ORDER OF RANK.
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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374
THE WILL TO POWER.
!
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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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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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. And
thus, in the end, a man appears who is such
a monster of strength, that he craves
monstrous task. For it is our power which has
command of us : and the wretched intellectual
play of aims and intentions and motivations lies
only in the foreground-however much weak eyes
may recognise the principal factors in these things.
2B
for a
VOL. II.


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386
THE WILL TO POWER.
996.
The sublime man has the highest value, even
when he is most delicate and fragile, because an
abundance of very difficult and rare things have
been reared through many generations and united
in him.
997.
I teach that there are higher and lower men,
and that a single individual may under certain cir-
cumstances justify whole millenniums of existence
that is to say, a wealthier, more gifted, greater,
and more complete man, as compared with in-
numerable imperfect and fragmentary men.
998.
Away from rulers and rid of all bonds, live the
highest men : and in the rulers they have their
instruments.
999.
The order of rank : he who determines values and
leads the will of millenniums, and does this by
leading the highest natures—he is the highest
man.
1000.
I fancy I have divined some of the things that
lie hidden in the soul of the highest man; perhaps
every man who has divined so much must go to
ruin : but he who has seen the highest man must
do all he can to make him possible.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
387
Fundamental thought : we must make the future
the standard of all our valuations-and not seek
the laws for our conduct behind us.
1001.
Not “mankind,” but Superman is the goal !
1002.
“ Come l'uom s'eterna.
. "-Inf. xv. 85.
.


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II.
DIONYSUS.
1003
To him who is one of Nature's lucky strokes, to
him unto whom my heart goes out, to him who
is carved from one integral block, which is hard,
sweet, and fragrant-to him from whom even my
nose can derive some pleasure— let this book be
dedicated.
He enjoys that which is beneficial to him.
His pleasure in anything ceases when the limits
of what is beneficial to him are overstepped.
He divines the remedies for partial injuries ;
his illnesses the great stimulants of his
existence.
He understands how to exploit his serious
accidents.
He grows stronger under the misfortunes which
threaten to annihilate him.
He instinctively gathers from all he sees, hears,
and experiences, the materials for what concerns
him most,-he pursues a selective principle,-he
rejects a good deal.
He reacts with that tardiness which long caution
are
-
388


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DIONYSUS.
389
and deliberate pride have bred in him, he tests
the stimulus : whence does it come? whither does
it lead ? He does not submit.
He is always in his own company, whether his
intercourse be with books, with men, or with
Nature.
He honours anything by choosing it, by
conceding to it, by trusting it.
1004
We should attain to such a height, to such
a lofty eagle's ledge, in our observation, as to
be able to understand that everything happens,
just as it ought to happen : and that all " imperfec-
tion," and the pain it brings, belong to all that
which is most eminently desirable.
1005.
Towards 1876 I experienced a fright; for I
saw that everything I had most wished for up to
that time was being compromised. I realised this
when I perceived what Wagner was actually
driving at: and I was bound very fast to him-
by all the bonds of a profound similarity of needs,
by gratitude, by the thought that he could not be
replaced, and by the absolute void which I saw
facing me.
Just about this time I believed myself to be
inextricably entangled in my philology and my
professorship-in the accident and last shift of
my
life: I did not know how to get out of it, and
was tired, used up, and on my last legs.


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THE WILL TO POWER.
»
At about the same time I realised that what my
instincts most desired to attain was precisely the
reverse of what Schopenhauer's instincts wanted
-that is to say, a justification of life, even where
it was most terrible, most equivocal, and most
false : to this end, I had the formula "Dionysian
in my hand.
Schopenhauer's interpretation of the “absolute"
as will was certainly a step towards that concept
of the “absolute” which supposed it to be
necessarily good, blessed, true, and integral; but
Schopenhauer did not understand how to deify this
will : he remained suspended in the moral-
Christian ideal. Indeed, he was still so very
much under the dominion of Christian values,
that, once he could no longer regard the absolute
as God, he had to conceive it as evil, foolish,
utterly reprehensible. He did not realise that
there is an infinite number of ways of being
different, and even of being God.
10об.
.
Hitherto, moral values have been the highest
values: does anybody doubt this? . . If we
bring down the values from their pedestal, we
thereby alter all values: the principle of their order
of rank which has prevailed hitherto is thus over-
thrown.
1007.
Transvalue values—what does this mean? It
implies that all spontaneous motives, all new,


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DIONYSUS.
391
future, and stronger motives, are still extant; but
that they now appear under false names and false
valuations, and have not yet become conscious of
themselves.
We ought to have the courage to become
conscious, and to affirm all that which has been
attained—to get rid of the humdrum character of
old valuations, which makes us unworthy of the
best and strongest things that we have achieved.
I008.
Any doctrine would be superfluous for which
everything is not already prepared in the way of
accumulated forces and explosive material. A
transvaluation of values can only be accomplished
when there is a tension of new needs, and a new
set of needy people who feel all old values as
painful,- although they are not conscious of what
is wrong.
1009.
The standpoint from which my values are
determined: is abundance or desire active ? . . .
Is one a mere spectator, or is one's own shoulder at
the wheel—is one looking away or is one turning
aside ? . . . Is one acting spontaneously, as the
result of accumulated strength, or is one merely
reacting to a goad or to a stimulus ? . . . Is one
simply acting as the result of a paucity of elements,
or of such an overwhelming dominion over a host
of elements that this power enlists the latter into
its service if it requires them ? . . . Is one a
.
.


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392
THE WILL TO POWER.
.
problem one's self or is one a solution already?
Is one perfect through the smallness of the task, or
imperfect owing to the extraordinary character of
the aim ? . . . Is one genuine or only an actor; is
one genuine as an actor, or only the bad copy of
an actor? is one a representative or the creature
represented ?
Is one a personality or merely a
rendezvous of personalities ? . . . Is one ill from a
disease or from surplus health? Does one lead as
a shepherd, or as an “exception” (third alternative:
as a fugitive)? Is one in need of dignity, or can
one play the clown? Is one in search of resistance,
or is one evading it? Is one imperfect owing to
one's precocity or to one's tardiness? Is it one's
nature to say yea, or no, or is one a peacock's tail
of garish parts? Is one proud enough not to feel
ashamed even of one's vanity? Is one still able to
feel a bite of conscience (this species is becoming
rare; formerly conscience had to bite too often: it
is as if it now no longer had enough teeth to do
so)? Is one still capable of a, “duty”? (there
are some people who would lose the whole joy of
their lives if they were deprived of their duty—this
holds good especially of feminine creatures, who
are born subjects).
.
1010.
Supposing our common comprehension of the
universe were a misunderstanding, would it be
possible to conceive of a form of perfection, within
the limits of which even such a misunderstanding
as this could be sanctioned ?
The concept of a new form of perfection: that


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DIONYSUS.
393
which does not correspond to our logic, to our
" beauty,” to our “good,” to our “truth,” might be
perfect in a higher sense even than our ideal is.
IOII.
"
Our most important limitation: we must not
deify the unknown; we are just beginning to know
so little. The false and wasted endeavours.
Our «
new world”: we must ascertain to what
extent we are the creators of our valuations-we
will thus be able to put “sense ” into history.
This belief in truth is reaching its final logical
conclusion in us--ye know how it reads: that if
there is anything at all that must be worshipped
it is appearance; that falsehood and not truth is-
divine.
IOI 2.
-
He who urges rational thought forward, thereby
also drives its antagonistic power—mysticism and
foolery of every kind to new feats of strength.
—
We should recognise that every movement is
(1) partly the manifestation of fatigue resulting from
a previous movement (satiety after it, the malice of
weakness towards it, and disease); and (2) partly a
newly awakened accumulation of long slumbering
forces, and therefore wanton, violent, healthy.
1013
Health and morbidness : let us be careful! The
standard is the bloom of the body, the agility,
courage, and cheerfulness of the mind—but also, of


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394
THE WILL TO POWER.
course, how much morbidness a man can bear and
overcome,—and convert into health. That which
would send more delicate natures to the dogs,
belongs to the stimulating means of great health.
I014.
It is only a question of power : to have all the
morbid traits of the century, but to balance them
by means of overflowing, plastic, and rejuvenating
power. The strong man.
1015.
Concerning the strength of the nineteenth century.
We are more mediæval than the eighteenth century;
not only more inquisitive or more susceptible to the
strange and to the rare. We have revolted against
the Revolution. . . . We have freed ourselves from
the fear of reason, which was the spectre of the
eighteenth century: we once more dare to be
childish, lyrical, absurd,-in a word, "we are
musicians. "
And we are just as little frightened
of the ridiculous as of the absurd. The devil finds
that he is tolerated even by God : * better still, he
has become interesting as one who has been mis-
understood and slandered for ages, we are the
saviours of the devil's honour.
We no longer separate the great from the terrible.
We reconcile good things, in all their complexity,
* This is reminiscent of Goethe's Faust. See“ Prologue in
Heaven. ”—TR.
»


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DIONYSUS.
395
-
with the very worst things; we have overcome the
desideratum of the past (which wanted goodness to
grow without the increase of evil). The cowardice
towards the ideal, peculiar to the Renaissance, has
diminished-we even dare to aspire to the latter's
morality. Intolerance towards priests and the
Church has at the same time come to an end ; " It
is immoral to believe in God"--but this is pre-
cisely what we regard as the best possible justifica-
tion of this belief.
On all these things we have conferred the civic
rights of our minds. We do not tremble before
the back side of "good things" (we even look
for it, we are brave and inquisitive enough for that),
of Greek antiquity, of morality, of reason, of good
taste, for instance (we reckon up the losses which
we incur with all this treasure: we almost reduce
ourselves to poverty with such a treasure).
Neither do we conceal the back side of“ evil things”
from ourselves.
1016.
That which does us honour. -If anything does us
honour, it is this: we have transferred our serious-
ness to other things; all those things which have
been despised and laid aside as base by all ages,
we regard as important-on the other hand, we
surrender “fine feelings" at a cheap rate.
Could any aberration be more dangerous than the
contempt of the body? As if all intellectuality
were not thereby condemned to become morbid,
and to take refuge in the vapeurs of “idealism"!
Nothing that has been thought out by Christians


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396
THE WILL TO POWER.
and idealists holds water: we are more radical.
We have discovered the “smallest world” every-
where as the most decisive.
The paving-stones in the streets, good air in our
rooms, food understood according to its worth: we
value all the necessaries of life seriously, and despise
all “beautiful soulfulness” as a form of “ levity and
frivolity. ” That which has been most despised
hitherto, is now pressed into the front rank.
1017
In the place of Rousseau's "man of Nature," the
nineteenth century has discovered a much more
genuine image of “Man,"—it had the courage to
do this. . . . On the whole, the Christian concept
. . .
of man has in a way been reinstalled. What we
have not had the courage to do, was to call precisely
this “man par excellence," good, and to see the
future of mankind guaranteed in him. In the
same way, we did not dare to regard the growth
in the terrible side of man's character as an ac-
companying feature of every advance in culture;
in this sense we are still under the influence of the
Christian ideal, and side with it against paganism,
and likewise against the Renaissance concept of
virtu. But the key of culture is not to be
found in this way: and in praxi we still have
the forgeries of history in favour of the "good
man (as if he alone constituted the progress
of humanity) and the socialistic ideal (i. e. the
residue of Christianity and of Rousseau in the de-
Christianised world).


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DIONYSUS.
397
The fight against the eighteenth century : it meets
with its greatest conquerors in Goethe and Napoleon.
Schopenhauer, too, fights against the eighteenth
century; but he returns involuntarily to the
seventeenth—he is a modern Pascal, with Pascalian
valuations, without Christianity. Schopenhauer was
not strong enough to invent a new yea.
Napoleon : we see the necessary relationship
between the higher and the terrible man. Man
reinstalled, and her due of contempt and fear re-
stored to woman. Highest activity and health are
the signs of the great man; the straight line and
grand style rediscovered in action; the mightiest
of all instincts, that of life itself,—the lust of
dominion,-heartily welcomed
I018.