**
Under the empire of Christian prejudice this
question was never put at all: the purpose of life
seemed to lie in the salvation of the individual
soul; the question whether humanity might last
for a long or a short time was not considered.
Under the empire of Christian prejudice this
question was never put at all: the purpose of life
seemed to lie in the salvation of the individual
soul; the question whether humanity might last
for a long or a short time was not considered.
Nietzsche - v14 - Will to Power - a
Virtue-mongers, you
have no superiority over us; we should like to
make you take modesty a little more to heart:
it is wretched personal interests and prudence which
suggest your virtue to you. And if you had
more strength and courage in your bodies you
would not lower yourselves thus to the level of
virtuous nonentities. You make what you can of
yourselves : partly what you are obliged to make,
—that is to say, what your circumstances force
you to make,-partly what suits your pleasure and
partly what seems useful to you. But if you do
only what is in keeping with your inclinations,
* TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. —Here Nietzsche returns to
Christian virtue which is negative and moral.
## p. 259 (#283) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
259
or what necessity exacts from you, or what is
useful to you, you ought neither to praise your-
selves nor let others praise you ! . . One is a
thoroughly puny kind of man when one is only
virtuous: nothing should mislead you in this
regard! Men who have to be considered at all,
were never such donkeys of virtue: their inmost
instinct, that which determined their quantum of
power, did not find its reckoning thus: whereas
with your minimum amount of power nothing
can
more full of wisdom to you than
virtue. But the multitude are on your side: and
because you tyrannise over us, we shall fight
you. •
seem
319.
A virtuous man is of a lower species because,
in the first place, he has no "personality," but
acquires his value by conforming with a certain
human scheme which has been once and for ever
fixed. He has no independent value: he may
be compared; he has his equals, he must not be
an individual.
Reckoning up the qualities of the good man,
why is it they appear pleasant to us? Because
they urge us neither to war, to mistrust, to
caution, to the accumulating of forces, nor to
severity: our laziness, our good nature, and our
levity, have a good time. This, our feeling of
well-being, is what we project into the good man
in the form of a quality, in the form of a valuable
possession,
## p. 260 (#284) ############################################
260
THE WILL TO POWER,
320.
Under certain circumstances, virtue is merely a
venerable form of stupidity: who could blame
her for it? And this form of virtue, has not
been outlived even to-day. A sort of honest
peasant-simplicity, which is possible, however, in all
classes of society, and which one cannot meet with
anything else than a respectful smile, still thinks
to-day that everything is in good hands that is
to say, in “God's hands”: and when it supports
this proposition with that same modest assurance
as that with which it would assert that two and
two are four, we others naturally refrain from
contradiction.
Why disturb this pure foolery? Why darken
it with our cares concerning man, people, goals,
the future? Even if we wished to do so, we
shouldn't succeed. In all things these people see
the reflection of their own venerable stupidity and
goodness (in them the old God-deus myops-
still lives); we others see something else in
everything: our problematic nature, our contra-
dictions, our deeper, more painful, and more
suspicious wisdom.
321.
He who finds a particular virtue an easy
matter, ultimately laughs at it. Seriousness
cannot be maintained once virtue is attained. As
soon as a man has reached virtue, he jumps out
of it-whither ? Into devilry.
Meanwhile, how intelligent all our evil tend-
## p. 261 (#285) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
261
encies and impulses have become !
What an
amount of scientific inquisitiveness torments them!
They are all fishhooks of knowledge!
322,
• The idea is to associate vice with something so
terrible that at last one is obliged to run away
from it in order to be rid of its associations.
This is the well-known case of Tannhäuser.
Tannhäuser, brought to his wits' end by Wagner-
ian music, cannot endure life any longer even in
the company of Mrs. Venus: suddenly virtue
begins to have a charm for him; a Thuringian
virgin goes up in price, and what is even worse
still, he shows a liking for Wolfram von Eschen-
bach's melody
323.
The Patrons of Virtue. —Lust of property, lust
of power, laziness, simplicity, fear; all these things
are interested in virtue; that is why it stands so
securely.
324.
Virtue is no longer believed in; its powers of
attraction are dead; what is needed is some one
who will once more bring it into the market in the
form of an outlandish kind of adventure and of
dissipation. It exacts too much extravagance and
narrow-mindedness from its believers to allow of
conscience not being against it to-day. Certainly,
for people without either consciences or scruples,
## p. 262 (#286) ############################################
262
THE WILL TO POWER,
this may constitute its new charm: it is now
what it has never been before a vice.
325.
Virtue is still the most expensive vice : let it
remain so!
326.
Virtues are as dangerous as vices, in so far as
they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and
laws coming from outside, and not as qualities one
develops one's self. The latter is the only right
way; they should be the most personal means of
defence and most individual needs--the determin-
ing factors of precisely our existence and growth,
which ve recognise and acknowledge independ-
ently of the question whether others grow with us
with the help of the same or of different principles.
This view of the danger of the virtue which is
understood as impersonal and objective also holds
good of modesty: through modesty many of the
choicest intellects perish. The morality of modesty
is the worst possible softening influence for those
souls for which it is pre-eminently necessary that
they become hard betimes.
327.
The domain of morality must be reduced and
limited step by step; the names of the instincts
which are really active in this sphere must be
drawn into the light of day and honoured, after
## p. 263 (#287) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
263
they have lain all this time in the concealment of
hypocritical names of virtue. Out of respect for
one's "honesty," which makes itself heard ever
more and more imperiously, one ought to unlearn
the shame which makes one deny and "explain
away” all natural instincts. The extent to which
one can dispense with virtue is the measure of
one's strength; and a height may be imagined
'where the notion "virtue” is understood in such a
way as to be reminiscent of virtù-the virtue of
the Renaissance-free from moralic acid. But
for the moment-how remote this ideal seems!
The reduction of the domain of morality is a
sign of its progress. Wherever, hitherto, thought
has not been guided by causality, thinking has
taken a moral turn.
328.
After all, what have I achieved? Let us not
close our eyes to this wonderful result: I have
lent new charms to virtue—it now affects one
in the same way as something forbidden. It has
our most subtle honesty against it, it is salted in
the "cum grano salis” of the scientific pang of
conscience. It savours of antiquity and of old
fashion, and thus it is at last beginning to draw
refined people and to make them inquisitive—in
short, it affects us like a vice. Only after we have
once recognised that everything consists of lies and
appearance, shall we have again earned the right
to uphold this most beautiful of all fictions_virtue.
There will then remain no further reason to de-
prive ourselves of it: only when we have shown
## p. 264 (#288) ############################################
264
THE WILL TO POWER.
virtue to be a form of immorality do we again
justify it,-it then becomes classified, and likened,
in its fundamental features, to the profound and
general immorality of all existence, of which it is
then shown to be a part. It appears as a form of
luxury of the first order, the most arrogant, the
dearest, and rarest form of vice. We have robbed
it of its grimaces and divested it of its drapery;
we have delivered it from the importunate famili-
arity of the crowd; we have deprived it of its
ridiculous rigidity, its empty expression, its stiff
false hair, and its hieratic muscles.
329.
And is it supposed that I have thereby done
any harm to virtue ? Just as little as anar-
chists do to princes. Only since they have been
shot at, have they once more sat securely on their
thrones. . . . For thus it has always been and
will ever be: one cannot do a thing a better
service than to persecute it and to run it to earth.
This I have done.
.
5. THE MORAL IDEAL.
A. A Criticism of Ideals.
330.
It were the thing to begin this criticism in such-
wise as to do away with the word “Ideal”: a
criticism of desiderata.
## p. 265 (#289) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
265
331.
Only the fewest amongst us are aware of what
is involved, from the standpoint of desirability, in
every
“thus should it be, but it is not,” or even
“thus it ought to have been”: such expressions
of opinion involve a condemnation of the whole
course of events. For there is nothing quite
.
isolated in the world : the smallest thing bears the
largest on its back; on thy small injustice the
whole nature of the future depends; the whole is
condemned by every criticism which is directed at
the smallest part of it. Now granting that the
moral norm-even as Kant understood it-is
never completely fulfilled, and remains like a sort
of Beyond hanging over reality without ever
falling down to it; then morality would contain
in itself a judgment concerning the whole, which
would still, however, allow of the question : whence
does it get the right thereto? How does the part
come to acquire this judicial position relative to
the whole ? And if, as some have declared, this
moral condemnation of, and dissatisfaction with,
reality, is an ineradicable instinct, is it not possible
that this instinct may perhaps belong to the
ineradicable stupidities and immodesties of our;
species ? —But in saying this, we are doing pre-
cisely what we deprecate; the point of view of
desirability and of unauthorised fault-finding is
part and parcel of the whole character of worldly
phenomena just as every injustice and imperfection
is—it is our very notion of “perfection” which is
never gratified. Every instinct which desires to
## p. 266 (#290) ############################################
266
THE WILL TO POWER.
be indulged gives expression to its dissatisfaction
with the present state of things : how? Is the
whole perhaps made up of a host of dissatisfied
parts, which all have desiderata in their heads? Is
the “ course of things" perhaps "the road hence ?
the road leading away from reality"—that is to
say, eternal dissatisfaction in itself? Is the concep-
tion of desiderata perhaps the essential motive-
power of all things? Is it-deus ?
*
It seems to me of the utmost importance that
we should rid ourselves of the notion of the whole,
of an entity, and of any kind of power or form of
the unconditioned. For we shall never be able
to resist the temptation of regarding it as the
supreme being, and of christening it “God. ”
The “ All" must be subdivided; we must unlearn
our respect for it, and reappropriate that which
we have lent the unknown and an imaginary
entity, for the purposes of our neighbour and our-
selves. Whereas, for instance, Kant said: “Two
things remain for ever worthy of honour" (at the
close of his Practical Reason)-to-day we should
prefer to say: "Digestion is more worthy of
honour. " The concept, “the All," will always
give rise to the old problems, “How is evil
,
possible? ” etc. Therefore, there is no “ All,"
there is no great sensorium or inventarium or
power-magazine,
332.
A man as he ought to be: this sounds to me in
just as bad taste as: “A tree as it ought to be. "
0
## p. 267 (#291) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
267
"
»
333.
Ethics: or the “philosophy of desirability. ”.
Things ought to be otherwise," "things ought to
become different”: dissatisfaction would thus seem
the heart of ethics.
One could find a way out of it, first, by select-
ing only those states in which one is free from
emotion; secondly, by grasping the insolence and
stupidity of the attitude of mind : for to desire
that something should be otherwise than it is,
means to desire that everything should be different
-it involves a damaging criticism of the whole.
But life itself consists in such desiring!
To ascertain what exists, how it exists seems an
ever so much higher and more serious matter than
every "thus should it be," because the latter, as
a piece of human criticism and arrogance, appears
to be condemned as ludicrous from the start. It
expresses a need which would fain have the
organisation of the world correspond with our
human well-being, and which directs the will as
much as possible towards the accomplishment of
that relationship.
On the other hand, this desire," thus it ought
to be," has only called forth that other desire,
« what exists? ” The desire of knowing what exists,
is already a consequence of the question, “how?
is it possible? Why precisely so? ” Our wonder
at the disagreement between our desires and the
course of the world has led to our learning to
know the course of the world. Perhaps the
matter stands differently: maybe the expression,
»
## p. 268 (#292) ############################################
268
THE WILL TO POWER.
“thus it ought to be," is merely the utterance of
our desire to overcome the world-
334.
"
To-day when every attempt at determining how
man should be—is received with some irony, when
we adhere to the notion that in spite of all one
only becomes what one is (in spite of all-that
is to say, education, instruction, environment,
accident, and disaster), in the matter of morality
we have learnt, in a very peculiar way, how to
reverse the relation of cause and effect. Nothing
perhaps distinguishes us more than this from the
ancient believers in morality. We no longer say,
for instance, “ Vice is the cause of a man's physical
ruin," and we no longer say, “A man prospers with
virtue because it brings a long life and happiness. ”
Our minds to-day are much more inclined to the
belief that vice and virtue are not causes but only
effects. A man becomes a respectable member of
society because he was a respectable man from the
start—that is to say, because he was born in
possession of good instincts and prosperous pro-
pensities. . . . Should a man enter the world poor,
and the son of parents who are neither economical
nor thrifty, he is insusceptible of being improved-
that is to say, he is only fit for the prison or the
madhouse. . . . To-day we are no longer able to
separate moral from physical degeneration : the
former is merely a complicated symptom of the
latter; a man is necessarily bad just as he is
necessarily ill. . . . Bad: this word here stands
. .
## p. 269 (#293) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
269
for a certain lack of capacity which is related
physiologically with the degenerating type—for
instance, a weak will, an uncertain and many-sided
personality, the inability to resist reacting to a
stimulus and to control one's self, and a certain
constraint resulting from every suggestion pro-
ceeding from another's will. Vice is not a cause ;
it is an effect. . . . Vice is a somewhat arbitrary
epitome of certain effects resulting from physio-
logical degeneracy. A general proposition such
as that which Christianity teaches, namely, “Man
is evil,” would be justified provided one were
justified in regarding a given type of degenerate
man as normal.
But this may be an exaggeration.
Of course, wherever Christianity prospers and pre-
vails, the proposition holds good : for then the
existence of an unhealthy soil-of a degenerate
territory-is demonstrated.
335.
It is difficult to have sufficient respect for man,
when on
sees how he understands the art of
fighting his way, of enduring, of turning circum-
stances to his own advantage, and of overthrowing
opponents; but when he is seen in the light of
his desires, he is the most absurd of all animals,
. . . It is just as if he required a playground for
his cowardice, his laziness, his feebleness, his
sweetness, his submissiveness, where he recovers
from his strong virile virtues. Just look at man's
desiderata” and his “ideals. ” Man, when he
desires, tries to recover from that which is
## p. 270 (#294) ############################################
270
THE WILL TO POWER.
eternally valuable in him, from his deeds; and
then he rushes into nonentity, absurdity, valueless-
ness, childishness. The intellectual indigence and
lack of inventive power of this resourceful and
inventive animal is simply terrible. The “ideal”
is at the same time the penalty man pays for the
enormous expenditure which he has to defray
in all real and pressing duties. Should reality
cease to prevail, there follow dreams, fatigue,
weakness: an “ideal” might even be regarded
as a form of dream, fatigue, or weakness. The
strongest and the most impotent men become
alike when this condition overtakes them : they
deify the cessation of work, of war, of passions,
of suspense, of contrasts, of “reality”-in short, of
the struggle for knowledge and of the trouble
of acquiring it.
" Innocence” to them is idealised stultification;
"blessedness" is idealised idleness; “love," the
“
ideal state of the gregarious animal that will no
longer have an enemy. And thus everything that
lowers and belittles man is elevated to an ideal.
336.
A desire magnifies the thing desired; and by
not being realised it grows—the greatest ideas
are those which have been created by the strongest
and longest desiring. Things grow ever more
valuable in our estimation, the more our desire
for them increases: if “ moral values ” have become
the highest values, it simply shows that the moral
ideal is the one which has been realised least (and
## p. 271 (#295) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
271
thus it represented the Beyond to all suffering, as a
road to blessedness). Man, with ever-increasing
ardour, has only been embracing clouds : and
ultimately called his desperation and impotence
« God. ”
»
337.
Think of the naïveté of all ultimate “ desiderata"
-when the “wherefore ” of man remains unknown.
338.
What is the counterfeit coinage of morality?
First of all we should know what "good and
evil” mean. That is as good as wishing to know
why man is here, and what his goal or his destiny
is. And that means that one would fain know
that man actually has a goal or a destiny.
339.
The very obscure and arbitrary notion that
humanity has a general duty to perform, and that,
as a whole, it is striving towards a goal, is
still in its infancy. Perhaps we shall once more
be rid of it before it becomes a “fixed idea. "
But humanity does not constitute a whole: it
is an indissoluble multiplicity of ascending and
descending organisms—it knows no such thing
as a state of youth followed by maturity and
But its strata lie confused and
superimposed-and in a few thousand years
then age.
>
## p. 272 (#296) ############################################
272
THE WILL TO POWER.
there may be even younger types of men than
we can point out to-day. Decadence, on the
other hand, belongs to all periods of human
history: everywhere there is refuse and decaying
matter, such things are in themselves vital pro-
cesses; for withering and decaying elements must
be eliminated.
**
Under the empire of Christian prejudice this
question was never put at all: the purpose of life
seemed to lie in the salvation of the individual
soul; the question whether humanity might last
for a long or a short time was not considered.
The best Christians longed for the end to come
as soon as possible ;-concerning the needs of the
individual, there seemed to be no doubt whatsoever.
The duty of every individual for the present
was identical with what it would be in any sort
of future for the man of the future: the value,
the purpose, the limit of values was for ever fixed,
unconditioned, eternal, one with God. . . . What
deviated from this eternal type was impious,
diabolic, criminal.
The centre of gravity of all values for each
soul lay in that soul itself: salvation or damnation !
The salvation of the immortal soul ! The most
extreme form of personalisation. . . For each
soul there was only one kind of perfection; only
one ideal, only one road to salvation.
most extreme form of the principle of equal rights,
associated with an optical magnification of in-
dividual importance to the point of megalomania
. . . The
## p. 273 (#297) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
273
. . . Nothing but insanely important souls, re-
volving round their own axes with unspeakable
terror. .
*
Nobody believes in these assumed airs of im-
portance any longer to-day: and we have sifted
our wisdom through the sieve of contempt.
Nevertheless the optical habit survives, which
would fain measure the value of man by his
proximity to a certain ideal man: at bottom the
personalisation view is upheld as firmly as that of
the equality of rights as regards the ideal. In
short: people seem to think that they know what
the ultimate desideratum is in regard to the ideal
man.
.
But this belief is merely the result of the
exceedingly detrimental influence of the Christian
ideal, as anybody can discover for himself every
time he carefully examines the “ideal type. " In
the first place, it is believed that the approach to
a given "type” is desirable; secondly, that this
particular type is known; thirdly, that every
deviation from this type is a retrograde movement,
a stemming of the spirit of progress, a loss of
power and might in man. To dream of a
state of affairs in which this perfect man will
be in the majority: our friends the Socialists
and even Messrs. the Utilitarians have not gone
farther than this. In this way an aim seems to
have crept into the evolution of man: at any
rate the belief in a certain progress towards an
ideal is the only shape in which an aim is con-
S
VOL. 1.
## p. 274 (#298) ############################################
274
THE WILL TO POWER.
ceived in the history of mankind to-day. ) In
short: the coming of the “ Kingdom of God" has
been placed in the future, and has been given an
earthly, a human meaning-but on the whole the
faith in the old ideal is still maintained.
340.
»
The more concealed forms of the cult of Christian,
moral ideals. —The insipid and cowardly notion
“ Nature," invented by Nature-enthusiasts (without
any knowledge whatsoever of the terrible, the
implacable, and the cynical element in even “the
most beautiful” aspects), is only a sort of attempt
at reading the moral and Christian notion of
"humanity” into Nature ;-Rousseau's concept of
Nature, for instance, which took for granted that
“Nature" meant freedom, goodness, innocence,
equity, justice, and Idylls, was nothing more at
bottom than the cult of Christian morality. We
should collect passages from the poets in order
to see what they admired, in lofty mountains, for
instance. What Goethe had to do with them
why he admired Spinoza. Absolute ignorance
concerning the reasons of this cult.
The insipid and cowardly concept “Man," à la
Comte and Stuart Mill, is at times the subject of
a cult. . . . This is only the Christian moral ideal
again under another name. . . Refer also to the
freethinkers-Guyau for example.
The insipid and cowardly concept “ Art," which
is held to mean sympathy with all suffering and
with everything botched and bungled (the same
## p. 275 (#299) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
275
thing happens to history, cf. Thierry): again it is
the cult of the Christian moral ideal.
And now, as to the whole socialistic ideal: it is
nothing but a blockheaded misunderstanding of
the Christian moral ideal.
341.
The origin of the ideal. The examination of
the soil out of which it grows.
A. Starting out from those " ästhetic" mental
states during which the world seems rounder,
fuller, and more perfect: we have the pagan ideal
with its dominating spirit of self-affirmation
(people give of their abundance). The highest
type: the classical ideal—regarded as an expres-
sion of the successful nature of all the more
important instincts. In this classical ideal we
find the grand style as the highest style. An
expression of the "will to power" itself. The
instinct which is most feared dares to acknow-
ledge itself.
B. Starting out from the mental states in
which the world seemed emptier, paler, and thinner,
when “spiritualisation" and the absence of sensu-
ality assume the rank of perfection, and when all
that is brutal, animal, direct, and proximate is
avoided (people calculate and select): the “sage,”
" the angel ”; priestliness = virginity = ignorance,
are the physiological ideals of such idealists: the
anemic ideal. Under certain circumstances this
anæmic ideal may be the ideal of such natures as
## p. 276 (#300) ############################################
276
THE WILL TO POWER.
represent paganism (thus Goethe sees his “saint"
in Spinoza).
C. Starting out from those mental states in
which the world seemed more absurd, more evil,
poorer, and more deceptive, an ideal cannot even
be imagined or desired in it (people deny and
annihilate); the projection of the ideal into the
sphere of the anti-natural, anti-actual, anti-logical;
the state of him who judges thus (the “impover-
ishment” of the world as a result of suffering:
people take, they no longer bestow): the anti-natural
ideal.
(The Christian ideal is a transitional form
between the second and the third, now inclining
more towards the former type, and anon inclining
towards the latter. )
The three ideals : A. Either a strengthening
of Life ( paganism), or B. an impoverishment of Life
(anæmia), or C. a denial of Life (anti-naturalism).
The state of beatitude in A. is the feeling of
extreme abundance; in B. it is reached by the
most fastidious selectiveness; in C. it is the
contempt and the destruction of Life.
342.
A. The consistent type understands that even
evil must not be hated, must not be resisted, and
that it is not allowable to make war against
one's self; that it does not suffice merely to accept
the pain which such behaviour brings in its train;
that one lives entirely in positive feelings; that
one takes the side of one's opponents in word
## p. 277 (#301) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
277
and deed ; that by means of a superfætation of
peaceful, kindly, conciliatory, helpful, and loving
states, one impoverishes the soil of the other
states, that one is in need of unremitting
practice. What is achieved thereby ? — The
Buddhistic type, or the perfect cow.
This point of view is possible only where no
moral fanaticism prevails—that is to say, when
evil is not hated on its own account, but because
it opens the road to conditions which are painful
(unrest, work, care, complications, dependence).
This is the Buddhistic point of view: there is
no hatred of sin, the concept “sin," in fact, is
entirely lacking.
B. The inconsistent type.
War is waged
against evil—there is a belief that war waged
for Goodness' sake does not involve the same moral
results or affect character in the same way as
war generally does (and owing to which tend-
encies it is detested as evil). As a matter of
fact, a war of this sort carried on against evil is
much more profoundly pernicious than any sort
of personal hostility; and generally, it is “the
person” which reassumes, at least in fancy, the
position of opponent (the devil, evil spirits, etc. ).
The attitude of hostile observation and spying in
regard to everything which may be bad in us, or
hail from a bad source, culminates in a most
tormented and most anxious state of mind : thus
“miracles," rewards, ecstasy, and transcendental
solutions of the earth-riddle now became desir-
able, . . . The Christian type: or the perfect bigot.
*
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278
THE WILL TO POWER.
C. The stoical type. Firmness, self-control,
imperturbability, peace in the form of the rigidity
of a will long active-profound quiet, the de-
fensive state, the fortress, the mistrust of war-
firmness of principles; the unity of knowledge
and will; great self-respect. The type of the
anchorite. The perfect blockhead.
begun tout
343
An ideal which is striving to prevail or to
assert itself endeavours to further its purpose
(a) by laying claim to a spurious origin; (6) by
assuming a relationship between itself and the
powerful ideals already existing; (c) by means
of the thrill produced by mystery, as though
an unquestionable power were manifesting itself;
(d) by the slander of its opponents' ideals; (e) by
a lying teaching of the advantages which follow in
its wake, for instance: happiness, spiritual peace,
general peace, or even the assistance of a mighty
God, etc. —Contributions to the psychology of
the idealists : Carlyle, Schiller, Michelet.
Supposing all the means of defence and
protection, by means of which an ideal survives,
are discovered, is it thereby refuted? It has
merely availed itself of the means by which every-
thing lives and grows—they are all “immoral. ”
My view : all the forces and instincts which
are the source of life are lying beneath the ban
of morality: morality is the life-denying instinct.
Morality must be annihilated if life is to be
emancipated.
## p. 279 (#303) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY,
279
344.
To avoid knowing himself is the prudence of the
idealist. The idealist: a creature who has reasons
for remaining in the dark concerning himself, and
who is also clever enough to remain in the dark
concerning these reasons also.
345.
The tendency of moral evolution. -Every one's
desire is that there should be no other teaching
and valuation of things than those by means of
which he himself succeeds. Thus the fundamental
tendency of the weak and mediocre of all times,
has been to enfeeble the strong and to reduce them
to the level of the weak : their chief weapon in this
process was the moral principle. The attitude of
the strong towards the weak is branded as evil; the
highest states of the strong become bad bywords.
The struggle of the many against the strong,
of the ordinary against the extraordinary, of the
weak against the strong: meets with one of its
finest interruptions in the fact that the rare, the
refined, the more exacting, present themselves as
the weak, and repudiate the coarser weapons of
power.
346.
(1) The so-called pure instinct for knowledge
of all philosophers is dictated to them by their
moral “ truths," and is only seemingly inde-
pendent.
(2) The "Moral Truths,” “ thus shall things be
»
## p. 280 (#304) ############################################
280
THE WILL TO POWER.
done,” are mere states of consciousness of an
instinct which has grown tired, “thus and thus
are things done by us. ” The “ideal” is supposed
to re-establish and strengthen an instinct; it
flatters man to feel he can obey when he is only
an automaton.
6
>
cases
347.
Morality as a means of seduction. --"Nature is
good; for a wise and good God is its cause.
Who, therefore, is responsible for the 'corruption
of man'? Tyrants and seducers and the ruling
classes are responsible—they must be wiped out":
this is Rousseau's logic (compare with Pascal's logic,
which concludes by an appeal to original sin).
Refer also to Luther's logic, which is similar.
In both
a pretext is sought for the
introduction of an insatiable lust of revenge
as a moral and religious duty. The hatred
directed against the ruling classes tries to sanctify
itself . . . (the “sinfulness of Israel ” is the
basis of the priest's powerful position).
Compare this with Paul's logic, which is
similar. It is always under the cover of God's
business that these reactions appear, under the
cover of what is right, or of humanity, etc. In
the case of Christ the rejoicings of the people
appear as the cause of His crucifixion.
an anti-priestly movement from the beginning.
Even in the anti-Semitic movement we find the
same trick: the opponent is overcome with moral
condemnations, and those who attack him pose
as retributive Justice.
.
It was
## p. 281 (#305) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
281
348.
.
The incidents of the fight : the fighter tries to
transform his opponent into the exact opposite of
himself—imaginatively, of course.
He tries to
believe in himself to such an extent that he may
have the courage necessary for the “good Cause”
(as if he were the good Cause); as if reason, taste,
and virtue were being assailed by his opponents.
. . The belief of which he is most in need, as
the strongest means of defence and attack, is the
belief in himself, which, however, knows how to
misinterpret itself as a belief in God.
He never
pictures the advantages and the uses of victory,
but only understands victory for the sake of
victory—for God's sake. Every small community
(or individual), finding itself involved in a struggle,
strives to convince itself of this : "Good taste, good
judgment, and virtue are ours. " War urges people
to this exaggerated self-esteem. . . .
349.
»
a
Whatever kind of eccentric ideal one may have
(whether as a "Christian," a "free - spirit,” an
“immoralist,” or German Imperialist), one
should try to avoid insisting upon its being the
ideal; for, by so doing, it is deprived of all its
privileged nature. One should have an ideal as a
distinction; one should not propagate it, and thus
level one's self down to the rest of mankind.
How is it, that in spite of this obvious fact, the
majority of idealists indulge in propaganda for
## p. 282 (#306) ############################################
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THE WILL TO POWER.
their ideal, just as if they had no right to it unless
the majority acquiesce therein ? —For instance, all
those plucky and insignificant girls behave in this
way, who claim the right to study Latin and
mathematics. What is it urges them to do this?
I fear it is the instinct of the herd, and the terror
of the herd: they fight for the “emancipation of
woman,” because they are best able to achieve
their own private little distinction by fighting for
it under the cover of a charitable movement, under
the banner bearing the device “For others. ”
The cleverness of idealists consists in their per-
sistently posing as the missionaries and "repre-
sentatives” of an ideal: they thus“ beautify
themselves in the eyes of those who still believe
in disinterestedness and heroism. Whereas real
heroism consists, not in fighting under the banner
of self-sacrifice, submission, and disinterestedness,
but in not fighting at all. . . . "I am thus; I
.
will be thus—and you can go to the devil ! "
350.
Every ideal assumes love, hate, reverence, and con-
tempt. Either positive feeling is the primum mobile,
or negative feeling is. Hatred and contempt are
the primum mobile in all the ideals which proceed
from resentment.
B. A Criticism of the " Good Man," of the Saint, etc.
351.
The "good man. ” Or, hemiplegia of virtue. -
In the opinion of every strong and natural man,
## p. 283 (#307) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
283
.
.
love and hate, gratitude and revenge, goodness
and anger, affirmative and negative action, belong
to each other. A man is good on condition that
he knows how to be evil; a man is evil, because
otherwise he would not know how to be good.
Whence comes the morbidness and ideological
unnaturalness which repudiates these compounds
-which teaches a sort of one-sided efficiency as
the highest of all things? Whence this hemiplegia
of virtue, the invention of the good man? The
object seems to be to make man amputate those
instincts which enable him to be an enemy, to be
harmful, to be angry, and to insist upon revenge.
This unnaturalness, then, corresponds to
that dualistic concept of a wholly good and of a
wholly bad creature (God, Spirit, Man); in the first
are found all the positive, in the second all the
negative forces, intentions, and states. This
method of valuing thus believes itself to be
“idealistic"; it never doubts that in its concept
of the “good man,” it has found the highest de-
sideratum. When aspiring to its zenith it fancies
a state in which all evil is wiped out, and in which
only good creatures have actually remained over.
It does not therefore regard the mutual depend-
ence of the opposites good and evil as proved.
On the contrary, the latter ought to vanish, and
the former should remain. The first has a right
to exist, the second ought not to be with us at
all. .
have no superiority over us; we should like to
make you take modesty a little more to heart:
it is wretched personal interests and prudence which
suggest your virtue to you. And if you had
more strength and courage in your bodies you
would not lower yourselves thus to the level of
virtuous nonentities. You make what you can of
yourselves : partly what you are obliged to make,
—that is to say, what your circumstances force
you to make,-partly what suits your pleasure and
partly what seems useful to you. But if you do
only what is in keeping with your inclinations,
* TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. —Here Nietzsche returns to
Christian virtue which is negative and moral.
## p. 259 (#283) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
259
or what necessity exacts from you, or what is
useful to you, you ought neither to praise your-
selves nor let others praise you ! . . One is a
thoroughly puny kind of man when one is only
virtuous: nothing should mislead you in this
regard! Men who have to be considered at all,
were never such donkeys of virtue: their inmost
instinct, that which determined their quantum of
power, did not find its reckoning thus: whereas
with your minimum amount of power nothing
can
more full of wisdom to you than
virtue. But the multitude are on your side: and
because you tyrannise over us, we shall fight
you. •
seem
319.
A virtuous man is of a lower species because,
in the first place, he has no "personality," but
acquires his value by conforming with a certain
human scheme which has been once and for ever
fixed. He has no independent value: he may
be compared; he has his equals, he must not be
an individual.
Reckoning up the qualities of the good man,
why is it they appear pleasant to us? Because
they urge us neither to war, to mistrust, to
caution, to the accumulating of forces, nor to
severity: our laziness, our good nature, and our
levity, have a good time. This, our feeling of
well-being, is what we project into the good man
in the form of a quality, in the form of a valuable
possession,
## p. 260 (#284) ############################################
260
THE WILL TO POWER,
320.
Under certain circumstances, virtue is merely a
venerable form of stupidity: who could blame
her for it? And this form of virtue, has not
been outlived even to-day. A sort of honest
peasant-simplicity, which is possible, however, in all
classes of society, and which one cannot meet with
anything else than a respectful smile, still thinks
to-day that everything is in good hands that is
to say, in “God's hands”: and when it supports
this proposition with that same modest assurance
as that with which it would assert that two and
two are four, we others naturally refrain from
contradiction.
Why disturb this pure foolery? Why darken
it with our cares concerning man, people, goals,
the future? Even if we wished to do so, we
shouldn't succeed. In all things these people see
the reflection of their own venerable stupidity and
goodness (in them the old God-deus myops-
still lives); we others see something else in
everything: our problematic nature, our contra-
dictions, our deeper, more painful, and more
suspicious wisdom.
321.
He who finds a particular virtue an easy
matter, ultimately laughs at it. Seriousness
cannot be maintained once virtue is attained. As
soon as a man has reached virtue, he jumps out
of it-whither ? Into devilry.
Meanwhile, how intelligent all our evil tend-
## p. 261 (#285) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
261
encies and impulses have become !
What an
amount of scientific inquisitiveness torments them!
They are all fishhooks of knowledge!
322,
• The idea is to associate vice with something so
terrible that at last one is obliged to run away
from it in order to be rid of its associations.
This is the well-known case of Tannhäuser.
Tannhäuser, brought to his wits' end by Wagner-
ian music, cannot endure life any longer even in
the company of Mrs. Venus: suddenly virtue
begins to have a charm for him; a Thuringian
virgin goes up in price, and what is even worse
still, he shows a liking for Wolfram von Eschen-
bach's melody
323.
The Patrons of Virtue. —Lust of property, lust
of power, laziness, simplicity, fear; all these things
are interested in virtue; that is why it stands so
securely.
324.
Virtue is no longer believed in; its powers of
attraction are dead; what is needed is some one
who will once more bring it into the market in the
form of an outlandish kind of adventure and of
dissipation. It exacts too much extravagance and
narrow-mindedness from its believers to allow of
conscience not being against it to-day. Certainly,
for people without either consciences or scruples,
## p. 262 (#286) ############################################
262
THE WILL TO POWER,
this may constitute its new charm: it is now
what it has never been before a vice.
325.
Virtue is still the most expensive vice : let it
remain so!
326.
Virtues are as dangerous as vices, in so far as
they are allowed to rule over one as authorities and
laws coming from outside, and not as qualities one
develops one's self. The latter is the only right
way; they should be the most personal means of
defence and most individual needs--the determin-
ing factors of precisely our existence and growth,
which ve recognise and acknowledge independ-
ently of the question whether others grow with us
with the help of the same or of different principles.
This view of the danger of the virtue which is
understood as impersonal and objective also holds
good of modesty: through modesty many of the
choicest intellects perish. The morality of modesty
is the worst possible softening influence for those
souls for which it is pre-eminently necessary that
they become hard betimes.
327.
The domain of morality must be reduced and
limited step by step; the names of the instincts
which are really active in this sphere must be
drawn into the light of day and honoured, after
## p. 263 (#287) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
263
they have lain all this time in the concealment of
hypocritical names of virtue. Out of respect for
one's "honesty," which makes itself heard ever
more and more imperiously, one ought to unlearn
the shame which makes one deny and "explain
away” all natural instincts. The extent to which
one can dispense with virtue is the measure of
one's strength; and a height may be imagined
'where the notion "virtue” is understood in such a
way as to be reminiscent of virtù-the virtue of
the Renaissance-free from moralic acid. But
for the moment-how remote this ideal seems!
The reduction of the domain of morality is a
sign of its progress. Wherever, hitherto, thought
has not been guided by causality, thinking has
taken a moral turn.
328.
After all, what have I achieved? Let us not
close our eyes to this wonderful result: I have
lent new charms to virtue—it now affects one
in the same way as something forbidden. It has
our most subtle honesty against it, it is salted in
the "cum grano salis” of the scientific pang of
conscience. It savours of antiquity and of old
fashion, and thus it is at last beginning to draw
refined people and to make them inquisitive—in
short, it affects us like a vice. Only after we have
once recognised that everything consists of lies and
appearance, shall we have again earned the right
to uphold this most beautiful of all fictions_virtue.
There will then remain no further reason to de-
prive ourselves of it: only when we have shown
## p. 264 (#288) ############################################
264
THE WILL TO POWER.
virtue to be a form of immorality do we again
justify it,-it then becomes classified, and likened,
in its fundamental features, to the profound and
general immorality of all existence, of which it is
then shown to be a part. It appears as a form of
luxury of the first order, the most arrogant, the
dearest, and rarest form of vice. We have robbed
it of its grimaces and divested it of its drapery;
we have delivered it from the importunate famili-
arity of the crowd; we have deprived it of its
ridiculous rigidity, its empty expression, its stiff
false hair, and its hieratic muscles.
329.
And is it supposed that I have thereby done
any harm to virtue ? Just as little as anar-
chists do to princes. Only since they have been
shot at, have they once more sat securely on their
thrones. . . . For thus it has always been and
will ever be: one cannot do a thing a better
service than to persecute it and to run it to earth.
This I have done.
.
5. THE MORAL IDEAL.
A. A Criticism of Ideals.
330.
It were the thing to begin this criticism in such-
wise as to do away with the word “Ideal”: a
criticism of desiderata.
## p. 265 (#289) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
265
331.
Only the fewest amongst us are aware of what
is involved, from the standpoint of desirability, in
every
“thus should it be, but it is not,” or even
“thus it ought to have been”: such expressions
of opinion involve a condemnation of the whole
course of events. For there is nothing quite
.
isolated in the world : the smallest thing bears the
largest on its back; on thy small injustice the
whole nature of the future depends; the whole is
condemned by every criticism which is directed at
the smallest part of it. Now granting that the
moral norm-even as Kant understood it-is
never completely fulfilled, and remains like a sort
of Beyond hanging over reality without ever
falling down to it; then morality would contain
in itself a judgment concerning the whole, which
would still, however, allow of the question : whence
does it get the right thereto? How does the part
come to acquire this judicial position relative to
the whole ? And if, as some have declared, this
moral condemnation of, and dissatisfaction with,
reality, is an ineradicable instinct, is it not possible
that this instinct may perhaps belong to the
ineradicable stupidities and immodesties of our;
species ? —But in saying this, we are doing pre-
cisely what we deprecate; the point of view of
desirability and of unauthorised fault-finding is
part and parcel of the whole character of worldly
phenomena just as every injustice and imperfection
is—it is our very notion of “perfection” which is
never gratified. Every instinct which desires to
## p. 266 (#290) ############################################
266
THE WILL TO POWER.
be indulged gives expression to its dissatisfaction
with the present state of things : how? Is the
whole perhaps made up of a host of dissatisfied
parts, which all have desiderata in their heads? Is
the “ course of things" perhaps "the road hence ?
the road leading away from reality"—that is to
say, eternal dissatisfaction in itself? Is the concep-
tion of desiderata perhaps the essential motive-
power of all things? Is it-deus ?
*
It seems to me of the utmost importance that
we should rid ourselves of the notion of the whole,
of an entity, and of any kind of power or form of
the unconditioned. For we shall never be able
to resist the temptation of regarding it as the
supreme being, and of christening it “God. ”
The “ All" must be subdivided; we must unlearn
our respect for it, and reappropriate that which
we have lent the unknown and an imaginary
entity, for the purposes of our neighbour and our-
selves. Whereas, for instance, Kant said: “Two
things remain for ever worthy of honour" (at the
close of his Practical Reason)-to-day we should
prefer to say: "Digestion is more worthy of
honour. " The concept, “the All," will always
give rise to the old problems, “How is evil
,
possible? ” etc. Therefore, there is no “ All,"
there is no great sensorium or inventarium or
power-magazine,
332.
A man as he ought to be: this sounds to me in
just as bad taste as: “A tree as it ought to be. "
0
## p. 267 (#291) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
267
"
»
333.
Ethics: or the “philosophy of desirability. ”.
Things ought to be otherwise," "things ought to
become different”: dissatisfaction would thus seem
the heart of ethics.
One could find a way out of it, first, by select-
ing only those states in which one is free from
emotion; secondly, by grasping the insolence and
stupidity of the attitude of mind : for to desire
that something should be otherwise than it is,
means to desire that everything should be different
-it involves a damaging criticism of the whole.
But life itself consists in such desiring!
To ascertain what exists, how it exists seems an
ever so much higher and more serious matter than
every "thus should it be," because the latter, as
a piece of human criticism and arrogance, appears
to be condemned as ludicrous from the start. It
expresses a need which would fain have the
organisation of the world correspond with our
human well-being, and which directs the will as
much as possible towards the accomplishment of
that relationship.
On the other hand, this desire," thus it ought
to be," has only called forth that other desire,
« what exists? ” The desire of knowing what exists,
is already a consequence of the question, “how?
is it possible? Why precisely so? ” Our wonder
at the disagreement between our desires and the
course of the world has led to our learning to
know the course of the world. Perhaps the
matter stands differently: maybe the expression,
»
## p. 268 (#292) ############################################
268
THE WILL TO POWER.
“thus it ought to be," is merely the utterance of
our desire to overcome the world-
334.
"
To-day when every attempt at determining how
man should be—is received with some irony, when
we adhere to the notion that in spite of all one
only becomes what one is (in spite of all-that
is to say, education, instruction, environment,
accident, and disaster), in the matter of morality
we have learnt, in a very peculiar way, how to
reverse the relation of cause and effect. Nothing
perhaps distinguishes us more than this from the
ancient believers in morality. We no longer say,
for instance, “ Vice is the cause of a man's physical
ruin," and we no longer say, “A man prospers with
virtue because it brings a long life and happiness. ”
Our minds to-day are much more inclined to the
belief that vice and virtue are not causes but only
effects. A man becomes a respectable member of
society because he was a respectable man from the
start—that is to say, because he was born in
possession of good instincts and prosperous pro-
pensities. . . . Should a man enter the world poor,
and the son of parents who are neither economical
nor thrifty, he is insusceptible of being improved-
that is to say, he is only fit for the prison or the
madhouse. . . . To-day we are no longer able to
separate moral from physical degeneration : the
former is merely a complicated symptom of the
latter; a man is necessarily bad just as he is
necessarily ill. . . . Bad: this word here stands
. .
## p. 269 (#293) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
269
for a certain lack of capacity which is related
physiologically with the degenerating type—for
instance, a weak will, an uncertain and many-sided
personality, the inability to resist reacting to a
stimulus and to control one's self, and a certain
constraint resulting from every suggestion pro-
ceeding from another's will. Vice is not a cause ;
it is an effect. . . . Vice is a somewhat arbitrary
epitome of certain effects resulting from physio-
logical degeneracy. A general proposition such
as that which Christianity teaches, namely, “Man
is evil,” would be justified provided one were
justified in regarding a given type of degenerate
man as normal.
But this may be an exaggeration.
Of course, wherever Christianity prospers and pre-
vails, the proposition holds good : for then the
existence of an unhealthy soil-of a degenerate
territory-is demonstrated.
335.
It is difficult to have sufficient respect for man,
when on
sees how he understands the art of
fighting his way, of enduring, of turning circum-
stances to his own advantage, and of overthrowing
opponents; but when he is seen in the light of
his desires, he is the most absurd of all animals,
. . . It is just as if he required a playground for
his cowardice, his laziness, his feebleness, his
sweetness, his submissiveness, where he recovers
from his strong virile virtues. Just look at man's
desiderata” and his “ideals. ” Man, when he
desires, tries to recover from that which is
## p. 270 (#294) ############################################
270
THE WILL TO POWER.
eternally valuable in him, from his deeds; and
then he rushes into nonentity, absurdity, valueless-
ness, childishness. The intellectual indigence and
lack of inventive power of this resourceful and
inventive animal is simply terrible. The “ideal”
is at the same time the penalty man pays for the
enormous expenditure which he has to defray
in all real and pressing duties. Should reality
cease to prevail, there follow dreams, fatigue,
weakness: an “ideal” might even be regarded
as a form of dream, fatigue, or weakness. The
strongest and the most impotent men become
alike when this condition overtakes them : they
deify the cessation of work, of war, of passions,
of suspense, of contrasts, of “reality”-in short, of
the struggle for knowledge and of the trouble
of acquiring it.
" Innocence” to them is idealised stultification;
"blessedness" is idealised idleness; “love," the
“
ideal state of the gregarious animal that will no
longer have an enemy. And thus everything that
lowers and belittles man is elevated to an ideal.
336.
A desire magnifies the thing desired; and by
not being realised it grows—the greatest ideas
are those which have been created by the strongest
and longest desiring. Things grow ever more
valuable in our estimation, the more our desire
for them increases: if “ moral values ” have become
the highest values, it simply shows that the moral
ideal is the one which has been realised least (and
## p. 271 (#295) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
271
thus it represented the Beyond to all suffering, as a
road to blessedness). Man, with ever-increasing
ardour, has only been embracing clouds : and
ultimately called his desperation and impotence
« God. ”
»
337.
Think of the naïveté of all ultimate “ desiderata"
-when the “wherefore ” of man remains unknown.
338.
What is the counterfeit coinage of morality?
First of all we should know what "good and
evil” mean. That is as good as wishing to know
why man is here, and what his goal or his destiny
is. And that means that one would fain know
that man actually has a goal or a destiny.
339.
The very obscure and arbitrary notion that
humanity has a general duty to perform, and that,
as a whole, it is striving towards a goal, is
still in its infancy. Perhaps we shall once more
be rid of it before it becomes a “fixed idea. "
But humanity does not constitute a whole: it
is an indissoluble multiplicity of ascending and
descending organisms—it knows no such thing
as a state of youth followed by maturity and
But its strata lie confused and
superimposed-and in a few thousand years
then age.
>
## p. 272 (#296) ############################################
272
THE WILL TO POWER.
there may be even younger types of men than
we can point out to-day. Decadence, on the
other hand, belongs to all periods of human
history: everywhere there is refuse and decaying
matter, such things are in themselves vital pro-
cesses; for withering and decaying elements must
be eliminated.
**
Under the empire of Christian prejudice this
question was never put at all: the purpose of life
seemed to lie in the salvation of the individual
soul; the question whether humanity might last
for a long or a short time was not considered.
The best Christians longed for the end to come
as soon as possible ;-concerning the needs of the
individual, there seemed to be no doubt whatsoever.
The duty of every individual for the present
was identical with what it would be in any sort
of future for the man of the future: the value,
the purpose, the limit of values was for ever fixed,
unconditioned, eternal, one with God. . . . What
deviated from this eternal type was impious,
diabolic, criminal.
The centre of gravity of all values for each
soul lay in that soul itself: salvation or damnation !
The salvation of the immortal soul ! The most
extreme form of personalisation. . . For each
soul there was only one kind of perfection; only
one ideal, only one road to salvation.
most extreme form of the principle of equal rights,
associated with an optical magnification of in-
dividual importance to the point of megalomania
. . . The
## p. 273 (#297) ############################################
A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
273
. . . Nothing but insanely important souls, re-
volving round their own axes with unspeakable
terror. .
*
Nobody believes in these assumed airs of im-
portance any longer to-day: and we have sifted
our wisdom through the sieve of contempt.
Nevertheless the optical habit survives, which
would fain measure the value of man by his
proximity to a certain ideal man: at bottom the
personalisation view is upheld as firmly as that of
the equality of rights as regards the ideal. In
short: people seem to think that they know what
the ultimate desideratum is in regard to the ideal
man.
.
But this belief is merely the result of the
exceedingly detrimental influence of the Christian
ideal, as anybody can discover for himself every
time he carefully examines the “ideal type. " In
the first place, it is believed that the approach to
a given "type” is desirable; secondly, that this
particular type is known; thirdly, that every
deviation from this type is a retrograde movement,
a stemming of the spirit of progress, a loss of
power and might in man. To dream of a
state of affairs in which this perfect man will
be in the majority: our friends the Socialists
and even Messrs. the Utilitarians have not gone
farther than this. In this way an aim seems to
have crept into the evolution of man: at any
rate the belief in a certain progress towards an
ideal is the only shape in which an aim is con-
S
VOL. 1.
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274
THE WILL TO POWER.
ceived in the history of mankind to-day. ) In
short: the coming of the “ Kingdom of God" has
been placed in the future, and has been given an
earthly, a human meaning-but on the whole the
faith in the old ideal is still maintained.
340.
»
The more concealed forms of the cult of Christian,
moral ideals. —The insipid and cowardly notion
“ Nature," invented by Nature-enthusiasts (without
any knowledge whatsoever of the terrible, the
implacable, and the cynical element in even “the
most beautiful” aspects), is only a sort of attempt
at reading the moral and Christian notion of
"humanity” into Nature ;-Rousseau's concept of
Nature, for instance, which took for granted that
“Nature" meant freedom, goodness, innocence,
equity, justice, and Idylls, was nothing more at
bottom than the cult of Christian morality. We
should collect passages from the poets in order
to see what they admired, in lofty mountains, for
instance. What Goethe had to do with them
why he admired Spinoza. Absolute ignorance
concerning the reasons of this cult.
The insipid and cowardly concept “Man," à la
Comte and Stuart Mill, is at times the subject of
a cult. . . . This is only the Christian moral ideal
again under another name. . . Refer also to the
freethinkers-Guyau for example.
The insipid and cowardly concept “ Art," which
is held to mean sympathy with all suffering and
with everything botched and bungled (the same
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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
275
thing happens to history, cf. Thierry): again it is
the cult of the Christian moral ideal.
And now, as to the whole socialistic ideal: it is
nothing but a blockheaded misunderstanding of
the Christian moral ideal.
341.
The origin of the ideal. The examination of
the soil out of which it grows.
A. Starting out from those " ästhetic" mental
states during which the world seems rounder,
fuller, and more perfect: we have the pagan ideal
with its dominating spirit of self-affirmation
(people give of their abundance). The highest
type: the classical ideal—regarded as an expres-
sion of the successful nature of all the more
important instincts. In this classical ideal we
find the grand style as the highest style. An
expression of the "will to power" itself. The
instinct which is most feared dares to acknow-
ledge itself.
B. Starting out from the mental states in
which the world seemed emptier, paler, and thinner,
when “spiritualisation" and the absence of sensu-
ality assume the rank of perfection, and when all
that is brutal, animal, direct, and proximate is
avoided (people calculate and select): the “sage,”
" the angel ”; priestliness = virginity = ignorance,
are the physiological ideals of such idealists: the
anemic ideal. Under certain circumstances this
anæmic ideal may be the ideal of such natures as
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THE WILL TO POWER.
represent paganism (thus Goethe sees his “saint"
in Spinoza).
C. Starting out from those mental states in
which the world seemed more absurd, more evil,
poorer, and more deceptive, an ideal cannot even
be imagined or desired in it (people deny and
annihilate); the projection of the ideal into the
sphere of the anti-natural, anti-actual, anti-logical;
the state of him who judges thus (the “impover-
ishment” of the world as a result of suffering:
people take, they no longer bestow): the anti-natural
ideal.
(The Christian ideal is a transitional form
between the second and the third, now inclining
more towards the former type, and anon inclining
towards the latter. )
The three ideals : A. Either a strengthening
of Life ( paganism), or B. an impoverishment of Life
(anæmia), or C. a denial of Life (anti-naturalism).
The state of beatitude in A. is the feeling of
extreme abundance; in B. it is reached by the
most fastidious selectiveness; in C. it is the
contempt and the destruction of Life.
342.
A. The consistent type understands that even
evil must not be hated, must not be resisted, and
that it is not allowable to make war against
one's self; that it does not suffice merely to accept
the pain which such behaviour brings in its train;
that one lives entirely in positive feelings; that
one takes the side of one's opponents in word
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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
277
and deed ; that by means of a superfætation of
peaceful, kindly, conciliatory, helpful, and loving
states, one impoverishes the soil of the other
states, that one is in need of unremitting
practice. What is achieved thereby ? — The
Buddhistic type, or the perfect cow.
This point of view is possible only where no
moral fanaticism prevails—that is to say, when
evil is not hated on its own account, but because
it opens the road to conditions which are painful
(unrest, work, care, complications, dependence).
This is the Buddhistic point of view: there is
no hatred of sin, the concept “sin," in fact, is
entirely lacking.
B. The inconsistent type.
War is waged
against evil—there is a belief that war waged
for Goodness' sake does not involve the same moral
results or affect character in the same way as
war generally does (and owing to which tend-
encies it is detested as evil). As a matter of
fact, a war of this sort carried on against evil is
much more profoundly pernicious than any sort
of personal hostility; and generally, it is “the
person” which reassumes, at least in fancy, the
position of opponent (the devil, evil spirits, etc. ).
The attitude of hostile observation and spying in
regard to everything which may be bad in us, or
hail from a bad source, culminates in a most
tormented and most anxious state of mind : thus
“miracles," rewards, ecstasy, and transcendental
solutions of the earth-riddle now became desir-
able, . . . The Christian type: or the perfect bigot.
*
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THE WILL TO POWER.
C. The stoical type. Firmness, self-control,
imperturbability, peace in the form of the rigidity
of a will long active-profound quiet, the de-
fensive state, the fortress, the mistrust of war-
firmness of principles; the unity of knowledge
and will; great self-respect. The type of the
anchorite. The perfect blockhead.
begun tout
343
An ideal which is striving to prevail or to
assert itself endeavours to further its purpose
(a) by laying claim to a spurious origin; (6) by
assuming a relationship between itself and the
powerful ideals already existing; (c) by means
of the thrill produced by mystery, as though
an unquestionable power were manifesting itself;
(d) by the slander of its opponents' ideals; (e) by
a lying teaching of the advantages which follow in
its wake, for instance: happiness, spiritual peace,
general peace, or even the assistance of a mighty
God, etc. —Contributions to the psychology of
the idealists : Carlyle, Schiller, Michelet.
Supposing all the means of defence and
protection, by means of which an ideal survives,
are discovered, is it thereby refuted? It has
merely availed itself of the means by which every-
thing lives and grows—they are all “immoral. ”
My view : all the forces and instincts which
are the source of life are lying beneath the ban
of morality: morality is the life-denying instinct.
Morality must be annihilated if life is to be
emancipated.
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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY,
279
344.
To avoid knowing himself is the prudence of the
idealist. The idealist: a creature who has reasons
for remaining in the dark concerning himself, and
who is also clever enough to remain in the dark
concerning these reasons also.
345.
The tendency of moral evolution. -Every one's
desire is that there should be no other teaching
and valuation of things than those by means of
which he himself succeeds. Thus the fundamental
tendency of the weak and mediocre of all times,
has been to enfeeble the strong and to reduce them
to the level of the weak : their chief weapon in this
process was the moral principle. The attitude of
the strong towards the weak is branded as evil; the
highest states of the strong become bad bywords.
The struggle of the many against the strong,
of the ordinary against the extraordinary, of the
weak against the strong: meets with one of its
finest interruptions in the fact that the rare, the
refined, the more exacting, present themselves as
the weak, and repudiate the coarser weapons of
power.
346.
(1) The so-called pure instinct for knowledge
of all philosophers is dictated to them by their
moral “ truths," and is only seemingly inde-
pendent.
(2) The "Moral Truths,” “ thus shall things be
»
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THE WILL TO POWER.
done,” are mere states of consciousness of an
instinct which has grown tired, “thus and thus
are things done by us. ” The “ideal” is supposed
to re-establish and strengthen an instinct; it
flatters man to feel he can obey when he is only
an automaton.
6
>
cases
347.
Morality as a means of seduction. --"Nature is
good; for a wise and good God is its cause.
Who, therefore, is responsible for the 'corruption
of man'? Tyrants and seducers and the ruling
classes are responsible—they must be wiped out":
this is Rousseau's logic (compare with Pascal's logic,
which concludes by an appeal to original sin).
Refer also to Luther's logic, which is similar.
In both
a pretext is sought for the
introduction of an insatiable lust of revenge
as a moral and religious duty. The hatred
directed against the ruling classes tries to sanctify
itself . . . (the “sinfulness of Israel ” is the
basis of the priest's powerful position).
Compare this with Paul's logic, which is
similar. It is always under the cover of God's
business that these reactions appear, under the
cover of what is right, or of humanity, etc. In
the case of Christ the rejoicings of the people
appear as the cause of His crucifixion.
an anti-priestly movement from the beginning.
Even in the anti-Semitic movement we find the
same trick: the opponent is overcome with moral
condemnations, and those who attack him pose
as retributive Justice.
.
It was
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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
281
348.
.
The incidents of the fight : the fighter tries to
transform his opponent into the exact opposite of
himself—imaginatively, of course.
He tries to
believe in himself to such an extent that he may
have the courage necessary for the “good Cause”
(as if he were the good Cause); as if reason, taste,
and virtue were being assailed by his opponents.
. . The belief of which he is most in need, as
the strongest means of defence and attack, is the
belief in himself, which, however, knows how to
misinterpret itself as a belief in God.
He never
pictures the advantages and the uses of victory,
but only understands victory for the sake of
victory—for God's sake. Every small community
(or individual), finding itself involved in a struggle,
strives to convince itself of this : "Good taste, good
judgment, and virtue are ours. " War urges people
to this exaggerated self-esteem. . . .
349.
»
a
Whatever kind of eccentric ideal one may have
(whether as a "Christian," a "free - spirit,” an
“immoralist,” or German Imperialist), one
should try to avoid insisting upon its being the
ideal; for, by so doing, it is deprived of all its
privileged nature. One should have an ideal as a
distinction; one should not propagate it, and thus
level one's self down to the rest of mankind.
How is it, that in spite of this obvious fact, the
majority of idealists indulge in propaganda for
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THE WILL TO POWER.
their ideal, just as if they had no right to it unless
the majority acquiesce therein ? —For instance, all
those plucky and insignificant girls behave in this
way, who claim the right to study Latin and
mathematics. What is it urges them to do this?
I fear it is the instinct of the herd, and the terror
of the herd: they fight for the “emancipation of
woman,” because they are best able to achieve
their own private little distinction by fighting for
it under the cover of a charitable movement, under
the banner bearing the device “For others. ”
The cleverness of idealists consists in their per-
sistently posing as the missionaries and "repre-
sentatives” of an ideal: they thus“ beautify
themselves in the eyes of those who still believe
in disinterestedness and heroism. Whereas real
heroism consists, not in fighting under the banner
of self-sacrifice, submission, and disinterestedness,
but in not fighting at all. . . . "I am thus; I
.
will be thus—and you can go to the devil ! "
350.
Every ideal assumes love, hate, reverence, and con-
tempt. Either positive feeling is the primum mobile,
or negative feeling is. Hatred and contempt are
the primum mobile in all the ideals which proceed
from resentment.
B. A Criticism of the " Good Man," of the Saint, etc.
351.
The "good man. ” Or, hemiplegia of virtue. -
In the opinion of every strong and natural man,
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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
283
.
.
love and hate, gratitude and revenge, goodness
and anger, affirmative and negative action, belong
to each other. A man is good on condition that
he knows how to be evil; a man is evil, because
otherwise he would not know how to be good.
Whence comes the morbidness and ideological
unnaturalness which repudiates these compounds
-which teaches a sort of one-sided efficiency as
the highest of all things? Whence this hemiplegia
of virtue, the invention of the good man? The
object seems to be to make man amputate those
instincts which enable him to be an enemy, to be
harmful, to be angry, and to insist upon revenge.
This unnaturalness, then, corresponds to
that dualistic concept of a wholly good and of a
wholly bad creature (God, Spirit, Man); in the first
are found all the positive, in the second all the
negative forces, intentions, and states. This
method of valuing thus believes itself to be
“idealistic"; it never doubts that in its concept
of the “good man,” it has found the highest de-
sideratum. When aspiring to its zenith it fancies
a state in which all evil is wiped out, and in which
only good creatures have actually remained over.
It does not therefore regard the mutual depend-
ence of the opposites good and evil as proved.
On the contrary, the latter ought to vanish, and
the former should remain. The first has a right
to exist, the second ought not to be with us at
all. .
