No More Learning

This is how the case stands at
present.
“Art
for Art's sake": this is a similarly dangerous
principle: by this means a false contrast is lent
to things—it culminates in the slander of reality
(“idealising” into the hateful). When an ideal
is severed from reality, the latter is debased, im-
poverished, and calumniated. “Beauty for Beauty's
sake," “ Truth for Truth's sake," « Goodness for
Goodness' sake "these are three forms of the evil
eye for reality.
Art, knowledge, and morality are means :
instead of recognising a life-promoting tendency
in them, they have been associated with the
opposite of Lifewith “God,"—they have also
been regarded as revelations of a higher world,
which here and there transpires through them. . .
Beautiful” and “ugly," "true" and "false,"
"good" and "evil”—these things are distinctions
and antagonisms which betray the preservative
and promotive measures of Life, not necessarily
of man alone, but of all stable and enduring
organisms which take up a definite stand against
their opponents. The war which thus ensues is
the essential factor: it is a means of separating
things, leading to stronger isolation. . . .
C
299
Moral naturalism : The tracing back of ap-
parently independent and supernatural values to


## p. 247 (#271) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
247
»
-
their real “nature"_that is to say, to natural
immorality, to natural “ utility," etc.
Perhaps I may designate the tendency of these
observations by the term moral naturalism: my
object is to re-translate the moral values which
have apparently become independent and un-
natural into their real nature—that is to say,
into their natural “ immorality. ”
N. B. —Refer to Jewish “holiness” and its
natural basis. The case is the same in regard
to the moral law which has been made sovereign,
emancipated from its real nature (until it is
almost the opposite of Nature).
The stages in the denaturalisation of morality
(or so-called “ Idealisation') :
First it is a road to individual happiness,
then it is the result of knowledge,
then it is a Categorical Imperative,
then it is a way to Salvation,
then it is a denial of the will to live.
(The gradual progress of the hostility of morality
to Life. )
300.
The suppressed and effaced Heresy in morality.
-Concepts: paganism, master-morality, virtù.
301.
My problem : What harm has mankind suffered
hitherto from morals, as also from its own
morality ? Intellectual harm, etc.
,


## p. 248 (#272) ############################################

248
THE WILL TO POWER.
302.
Why are not human values once more deposited
nicely in the rut to which they alone have a right
- as routinary values ? Many species of animals
have already become extinct; supposing man
were also to disappear, nothing would be lacking
on earth. A man should be enough of a philo-
sopher to admire even this "nothing” (Nil
admirari).
303
Man, a small species of very excitable animals,
which—fortunately—has its time. Life in general
on earth is a matter of a moment, an incident,
an exception that has no consequence, something
which is of no importance whatever to the general
character of the earth; the earth itself is, like
every star, a hiatus between two nonentities, an
event without a plan, without reason, will, or self-
consciousness-the worst kind of necessity-
foolish necessity. . . . Something in us rebels
against this view; the serpent vanity whispers to
our hearts, “ All this must be false because it is
revolting. . . . Could not all this be appearance?
And man in spite of all, to use Kant's words”.
4. How VIRTUE IS MADE TO DOMINATE.
304
Concerning the ideal of the moralist. -In this
treatise we wish to speak of the great politics of


## p. 249 (#273) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
249
>
3
.
virtue. We wrote it for the use of all those who
are interested, not so much in the process of
becoming virtuous as in that of making others
virtuous-in how virtue is made to dominate. I
even intend to prove that in order to desire this
one thing—the dominion of virtue-the other
must be systematically avoided; that is to say,
one must renounce all hopes of becoming virtuous.
This sacrifice is great: but such an end is perhaps
a sufficient reward for such a sacrifice. And even
greater sacrifices ! . . . And some of the most
famous moralists have risked as much.
For these,
indeed, had already recognised and anticipated
the truth which is to be revealed for the first time
in this treatise: that the dominion of virtue is
absolutely attainable only by the use of the same
means which are employed in the attainment of
any other dominion, in any case not by means of
virtue itself. . . .
As I have already said, this treatise deals with
the politics of virtue: it postulates an ideal of
these politics; it describes it as it ought to be,
if anything at all can be perfect on this earth.
Now, no philosopher can be in any doubt as to
what the type of perfection is in politics; it is, of
course, Machiavellianism. But Machiavellianism
which is pur, sans mélange, cru, vert, dans toute sa
force, dans toute son âpreté, is superhuman, divine,
transcendental, and can never be achieved by
man—the most he can do is to approximate it.
Even in this narrower kind of politics—in the
politics of virtue—the ideal never seems to have
been realised. Plato, too, only bordered upon it.


## p. 250 (#274) ############################################

250
THE WILL TO POWER.
Granted that one have eyes for concealed things,
one can discover, even in the most guileless and
most conscious moralists (and this is indeed the
name of these moral politicians and of the
founders of all newer moral forces), traces showing
that they too paid their tribute to human weak-
ness. They all aspired to virtue on their own
account--at least in their moments of weariness;
and this is the leading and most capital error on
the part of any moralist—whose duty it is to be
an immoralist in deeds. That he must not exactly
appear to be the latter, is another matter. Or
rather it is not another matter : systematic self-
denial of this kind (or, expressed morally: dis-
simulation) belongs to, and is part and parcel of,
the moralist's canon and of his self-imposed
duties : without it he can never attain to his
particular kind of perfection. Freedom from
morality and from truth when enjoyed for that
purpose which rewards every sacrifice: for the
sake of making morality dominate—that is the
canon, Moralists are in need of the attitudes of
virtue, as also of the attitudes of truth; their
error begins when they yield to virtue, when they
lose control of virtue, when they themselves become
moral or true. A great moralist is, among other
things, necessarily a great actor; his only danger
is that his pose may unconsciously become a
second nature, just like his ideal, which is to keep
his esse and his operari apart in a divine way;
everything he does must be done sub specie boni
-a lofty, remote, and exacting ideal ! A divine
ideal! And, as a matter of fact, they say that


## p. 251 (#275) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
251
the moralist thus imitates a model which is no less
than God Himself: God, the greatest Immoralist
in deeds that exists, but who nevertheless under-
stands how to remain what He is, the good
God. .
305.
The dominion of virtue is not established by
means of virtue itself; with virtue itself, one re-
nounces power, one loses the Will to Power.
306.
The victory of a moral ideal is achieved by the
same “immoral” means as any other victory:
violence, lies, slander, injustice.
307
He who knows the way fame originates will be
suspicious even of the fame virtue enjoys.
308.
Morality is just as “immoral”
as any other
thing on earth; morality is in itself a form of
immorality.
The great relief which this conviction brings.
The contradiction between things disappears, the
unity of all phenomena is saved
309.
There are some who seek for the immoral
side of things. When they say:
" this is


## p. 252 (#276) ############################################

252
THE WILL TO POWER.
wrong," they believe it ought to be done away
with or altered. On the other hand, I do not
rest until I am quite clear concerning the im-
morality of any particular thing which happens
to come under my notice. When I discover it,
I recover my equanimity.
9
310.
A. The ways which lead to power : the presenta-
tion of the new virtue under the name of an old
one, the awakening of “interest” concerning it
(“ happiness” declared to be its reward, and vice
verså),-artistic slandering of all that stands in
its way,—the exploitation of advantages and
accidents with the view of glorifying it,—the con-
version of its adherents into fanatics by means
of sacrifices and separations,-symbolism on a
grand scale.
B. Power attained : (1) Means of constraint of
virtue; (2) seductive means of virtue; (3) the
(court) etiquette of virtue.
311.
By what means does a virtue attain to power? -
With precisely the same means as a political party :
slander, suspicion, the undermining of opposing
virtues that happen to be already in power, the
changing of their names, systematic persecution
and scorn; in short, by means of acts of general
“immorality. "
How does a desire behave towards itself in


## p. 253 (#277) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
253
order to become a virtue -A process of re-
christening; systematic denial of its intentions ;
practice in misunderstanding itself; alliance with
established and recognised virtues; ostentatious
enmity towards its adversaries. If possible, too,
the protection of sacred powers must be purchased;
people must also be intoxicated and fired with
enthusiasm ; idealistic humbug must be used, and
a party must be won, which either triumphs or
perishes—one must be unconscious and naïf.
312.
Cruelty has become transformed and elevated
into tragic pity, so that we no longer recognise
it as such. The same has happened to the love
of the sexes which has become amour-passion;
the slavish attitude of mind appears as Christian
obedience; wretchedness becomes humility; the
disease of the nervus sympathicus, for instance, is
eulogised as Pessimism, Pascalism, or Carlylism, etc.
313.
We should begin to entertain doubts concerning
a man if we heard that he required reasons in
order to remain respectable: we should, in any
case, certainly avoid his society. The little word
“ for” in certain cases may be compromising;
sometimes a single "for” is enough to refute one.
If we should hear, in course of time, that such-and-
such an aspirant for virtue was in need of bad
reasons in order to remain respectable, it would not
>


## p. 254 (#278) ############################################

254
THE WILL TO POWER.
conduce to increasing our respect for him.
But
he goes further; he comes to us, and tells us
quite openly: “You disturb my morality with
your disbelief, Mr. Sceptic; so long as you cannot
believe in my bad reasons,—that is to say, in my
God, in a disciplinary Beyond, in free will, etc. ,-
you put obstacles in the way of my virtue. . . .
Moral, sceptics must be suppressed: they prevent
the moralisation of the masses. ”
.
314.
Our most sacred convictions, those which are
permanent in us concerning the highest values,
are judgments emanating from our muscles.
315
Morality in the valuation of races and classes. -
In view of the fact that the passions and funda-
mental instincts in every race and class express
the means which enable the latter to preserve
themselves (or at least the means which have
enabled them to live for the longest period of
time), to call them “virtuous” practically means :
That they change their character, shed their
skins, and blot out their past.
It means that they should cease from differen-
tiating themselves from others.
It means that they are getting to resemble each
other in their needs and aspirations—or, more
exactly, that they are declining.
It means that the will to one kind of morality


## p. 255 (#279) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
255
is merely the tyranny of the particular species,
which is adapted to that kind of morality, over
other species : it means a process of annihilation
or general levelling in favour of the prevailing
species (whether it be to render the non-prevailing
species harmless, or to exploit them); the
“ Abolition of Slavery”-a so-called tribute to
“human dignity"; in truth, the annihilation of
a fundamentally different species (the under-
mining of its values and its happiness).
The qualities which constitute the strength of
an opposing race or class are declared to be the
most evil and pernicious things it has: for by
means of them it may be harmful to us (its
virtues are slandered and rechristened).
When a man or a people harm us, their action
constitutes an objection against them: but from
their point of view we are desirable, because we
are such as can be useful to them.
The insistence upon spreading “humaneness
(which guilelessly starts out with the assumption
that it is in possession of the formula “What is
human”) is all humbug, beneath the cover of
which a certain definite type of man strives to
attain to power: or, more precisely, a very
particular kind of instinct—the gregarious instinct.
“ The equality of men”: this is what lies concealed
behind the tendency of making ever more and
more men alike as men.
The “ interested nature" of the morality of
ordinary people. (The trick was to elevate the
great passions for power and property to the
positions of protectors of virtue. )


## p. 256 (#280) ############################################

256
THE WILL TO POWER.
To what extent do all kinds of business men
and money-grabbers—all those who give and
take credit-find it necessary to promote the
levelling of all characters and notions of value?
the commerce and the exchange of the world leads
to, and almost purchases, virtue.
The State exercises the same influence, as does
also any sort of ruling power at the head of
officials and soldiers; science acts in the same
way, in order that it may work in security and
economise its forces. And the priesthood does
the same.
Communal morality is thus promoted here,
because it is advantageous; and, in order to make
it triumph, war and violence are waged against
immorality-with
what
"right"? Without
any right whatsoever ; but in accordance with
the instinct of self-preservation. The
. The same
classes avail themselves of immorality when it
serves their purpose to do so.
316.
Observe the hypocritical colour which all
civil institutions are painted, just as if they were
the offshoots of morality-for instance: marriage,
work, calling, patriotism, the family, order, and
rights. But as they were all established in
favour of the most mediocre type of man, to
protect him from exceptions and the need of
exceptions, one must not be surprised to find them
sown with lies.


## p. 257 (#281) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
257
-
317.
Virtue must be defended against its preachers :
they are its worst enemies. For they teach virtue
as an ideal for all; they divest virtue of the
charm which consists in its rareness, its inimit-
ableness, its exceptional and
non - average
character—that is to say, of its aristocratic charm. Ł
A stand must also be made against those
embittered idealists who eagerly tap all pots and
are satisfied to hear them ring hollow: what in-
genuousness to demand great and rare things,
and then to declare, with anger and contempt of
one's fellows, that they do not exist It is obvious,
for instance, that a marriage is worth only as
much as those are worth whom it joins—that is
to say, that on the whole it is something wretched
and indecent: no priest or registrar can make
anything else of it.
Virtue * has all the instincts of the average
man against it: it is not profitable, it is not
prudent, and it isolates. It is related to passion,
and not very accessible to reason; it spoils the
character, the head, and the senses—always, of
course, subject to the medium standard of men;
it provokes hostility towards order, and towards
the lies which are concealed beneath all order,
all institutions, and all reality-when seen in
the light of its pernicious influence upon others,
it is the worst of vices.
* TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. –Virtue is used here, of course,
in the sense of “the excellence of man,' not in the sense of
the Christian negative virtue.
R
VOL. I.


## p. 258 (#282) ############################################

258
THE WILL TO POWER.
I recognise virtue in that: (1) it does not
insist upon being recognised; (2) it does not
presuppose the existence of virtue everywhere,
but precisely something else ; (3) it does not suffer
from the absence of virtue, but regards it rather
as a relation of perspective which throws virtue
into relief: it does not proclaim itself; (4) it
makes no propaganda; (5) it allows no one to
pose as judge because it is always a personal
virtue; (6) it does precisely what is generally
forbidden: virtue as I understand it is the actual
vetitum within all gregarious legislation; (7) in
short, I recognise virtue in that it is in the
Renaissance style virtù free from all moralic
acid. .
318.
In the first place, * Messrs. 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


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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,
»


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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
. .


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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


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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


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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.
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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


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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.