"
In Plato's heages the following passage will be found: "Every one of us would like possible to be master of mankind possible, a God.
In Plato's heages the following passage will be found: "Every one of us would like possible to be master of mankind possible, a God.
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means of its noble instincts it abandons its privileges, and owing to its refined and excessive culture, it takes an interest in the people, the weak, the poor, and the poetry of the lowly, etc.
939
There is such a thing as a noble and dangerous form of carelessness, which allows of profound conclusions and insight: the carelessness of the self-reliant and over-rich soul, which has never troubled itself about friends, but which knows only hospitality and knows how to practise it; whose heart and house are open to all who will enter-- beggar, cripple, or king. This is genuine sociability: he who is capable of it has hundreds of " friends," but probably not one friend.
94?
";The teaching p. 118e? v dryau applies to men with overflowing strength,--not to the mediocre. xpe? -reia and damn: are only steps to higher things. Above them stands "golden N ature. "
" Thou shalt "----unconditional obedience in Stoics, in Christian and Arabian Orders, in Kant's philosophy immaterial whether this obedience
? shown to superior or to
Higher than " Thou shalt" stands "I will"
(the heroes)
higher than " will" stands "I am "
(the gods of the Greeks).
Barbarian gods express nothing of the pleasure
of restraint,---they are neither simple, nor light hearted, nor moderate.
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The essence of our gardens and palaces (and to the same extent the essence of all yearning after riches) is the desire to rid the eye of disorder ana vulgarity, and to build a home for our soul's nobility.
The majority of people certainly believe that they will develop higher natures when those beautiful and peaceful things have operated upon them : hence the exodus to Italy, hence all travel ling, etc. , and all reading and visits to theatres. People want to be formed--that is the kernel of their labours for culture ! But the strong, the mighty, would themselves have a hand in the form ing, and wouldfain have nothing strange about them I
It is for this reason, too, that men go to open Nature, not to find themselves, but to lose them selves and to forget themselves. The desire " to get away from one's self" is proper to all weaklings, and to all those who are discontented with themselVes.
942
The only nobility is that of birth and blood. (I do not refer here to the prefix "Lord" and L'almanac de Gotha: this is a parenthesis for donkeys. ) Wherever people speak of the" aristo cracy of intellect," reasons are generally not lacking for concealing something; it is known to be a password among ambitious Jews. Intellect alone does not ennoble; on the contrary, some thing is always needed to ennoble intellect--What
then is needed ? ---Blood.
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943
What is noble?
--Extemal punctiliousness; because this punc
tiliousness hedges a man about, keeps him at a distance, saves him from being confounded with somebody else.
--A frivolous appearance in word, clothing, and bearing, with which stoical hardness and self control protect themselves from all prying inquisi tiveness or curiosity.
---A slow step and a slow glance. There are not too many valuable things on earth: and these come and wish to come of themselves to him who has value. We are not quick to admire.
--We know how to bear poverty, want, and even illness.
---We avoid small honours owing to our mis trust of all who are over-ready to praise: for the man who praises believes he understands what he praises: but to understand--Balzac, that typical man of ambition, betrayed the fact--comprendre
e'est ejgaler.
--Our doubt concerning the communicativeness
of our hearts goes very deep; to us, loneliness is not a matter of choice, it is imposed upon us.
---We are convinced that we only have duties to our equals, to others we do as we think best: we know that justice is only to be expected among equals (alas! -this will not be realised for some
time to come).
--We are ironical towards the "gifted"; we
hold the belief that no morality is possible with out good birth.
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--We always feel as if we were those who had to dispense honours: while he is not found too frequently who would be worthy of honouring us.
---We are always disguised: the higher a man's nature the more is he in need of remaining incog nito. If there be a God, then out of sheer decency He ought only to show Himself on earth in the form of a man.
--We are capable of otiurn, of the uncondi tional conviction that although a handicraft does not shame one in any sense, it certainly reduces one's rank. However much we may respect " in dustry," and know how to give it its due, we do not appreciate it in a bourgeois sense, or after the manner of those insatiable and cackling artists who, like hens, cackle and lay eggs, and cackle again.
--We protect artists and poets and any one who happens to be a master in something; but as creatures of a higher order than those, who only know how to do something, who are only "pro ductive men," we do not confound ourselves with them.
'--We find joy in all forms and ceremonies; we would fain foster everything formal, and we are convinced that courtesy is one of the greatest virtues; we feel suspicious of every kind of laisser alter, including the freedom of the press and of thought; because, under such conditions, the intel lect grows easy-going and coarse, and stretches its limbs.
--We take pleasure in women as in a perhaps daintier, more delicate, and more ethereal kind of creature. What a treat it is to meet creatures
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who have only dancing and nonsense and finery in their minds! They have always been the de light of every tense and profound male soul, whose life is burdened with heavy responsibilities.
--We take pleasure in princes and in priests, because in big things, as in small, they actually up hold the belief in the difference of human values, even in the estimation of the past, and at least symbolically.
--We are able to keep silence: but we do not breathe a word of this in the presence of listeners.
--We are able to endure long enmities: we lack the power of easy reconciliations.
--We have a loathing of demagogism, of en lightenment, of amiability, and plebeian familiarity.
--We collect precious things, the needs of
? and fastidious souls; we wish to possess nothing in common. We want to have our own books, our own landscapes.
higher
--We protest against evil and fine experiences, and take care not to generalise too quickly. The individual case: how ironically we regard it when it has the bad taste to put on the airs of a rule!
-We love that which is naif, and naif people, but as spectators and higher creatures; we think Faust is just as simple as his Margaret.
---We have a low estimation of good people, because they are gregarious animals: we know how often an invaluable golden drop of goodness lies concealed beneath the most evil, the most malicious, and the hardest exterior, and that this single grain outweighs all the mere goody-goodi ness of milk-and-watery souls.
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---We don't regard a man of our kind as refuted by his vices, nor by his tomfooleries. We are well aware that we are not recognised with ease, and that we have every reason to make our foreground very prominent.
944
What is noble ? --The fact that one is constantly forced to be playing a part. That one is constantly searching for situations in which one is forced to put on airs. That one leaves happiness to the
greatest number: the happiness which consists of inner peacefulness, of virtue, of comfort, and of
I
? la Spencer. That one instinctively seeks for heavy responsi
Anglo-angelic-back-parlour-smugness,d
bilities. That one knows how to create enemies everywhere, at a pinch even in one's self. That one contradicts the greatest number, not in words at all, but by continually behaving diflerently from them.
945
Virtue (for instance, truthfulness) is our most noble and most dangerous luxury. We must not decline the disadvantages which it brings in its
train.
946
We refuse to be praised : we do what serves our purpose, what gives us pleasure, or what we are obliged to do.
947 -
What is chastity in a man? It means that his taste in sex has remained noble; that in eroticis
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he likes neither the brutal, the morbid, nor the clever.
948
The concept of honour is founded upon the belief in select society, in knightly excellences, in the Obligation of having continually to play a part. In essentials it means that one does not take one's life too seriously, that one adheres unconditionally to the most dignified manners in one's dealings with everybody (at least in so far as they do not belong to " us "); that one is neither familiar, nor
good-natured, nor hearty, nor modest, except inter pares; that one is always playing a part.
949
The fact that one sets one's life, one's health, and one's honour at stake, is the result of high spirits and of an overflowing and spendthrift will : it is not the result of philanthropy, but of the fact that every danger kindles our curiosity concern ing the measure Of our strength, and provokes our courage.
950.
" Eagles swoop down straight "--nobility of soul is best revealed by the magnificent and proud foolishness with which it makes its attacks.
95! .
War should be made against all namby-pamby ideas of nobility ! ---A certain modicum of brutality
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cannot be dispensed with: no more than we can do without a 'certain approximation to criminality. "Self-satisfaction" must not be allowed; a man should look upon himself with an adventurous spirit; he should experiment with himself and run risks with himself--no beautiful soul-quackery should be tolerated. I want to give a more robust
ideal a chance of prevailing.
952
" Paradise is under the shadow of a swordsman " _--this is also a symbol and a test-word by which souls with noble and warrior-like origin betray and discover themselves.
953
The two paths. ---There comes a period when man has a surplus amount of power at his dis \
posal. Science aims at establishing the slavery/of nature.
Then man acquires the leisure in which to develop himself into something new and more lofty. A new aristocracy. It is then that a large number of virtues which are now conditions existence are superseded--Qualities which are no longer needed are on that account lost. We no longer need virtues: consequently we are losing them (likewise the morality of " one thing is needful," of the salvation of the soul, and of im mortality: these were means wherewith to make man capable of enormous self-tyranny, through the emotion of great fear! !
The different kinds of needs by means of whose
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discipline man is formed: need teaches work, thought, and self-control.
*
Physiological purification and strengthening. The new aristocracy is in need of an opposing body which it may combat: it must be driven to ex tremities in order to maintain itself.
The two futures of mankind: (I) the conse
quence of a levelling-down to mediocrity; conscious aloofness and self-development.
A doctrine which would cleave a gulf: it main
tains the highest and the lowest species destroys
the intermediate).
The aristocracies, both spiritual and temporal,
which have existed hitherto prove nothing against the necessity of new aristocracy.
4. THE LORDs OF THE EARTH.
954
A certain question constantly recurs to us; perhaps seductive and evil question; may be whispered into the ears of those who have right to such doubtful problems--those strong souls of to-day whose dominion over themselves un swerving: not high time, now that the type " gregarious animal " developing ever more and more in Europe, to set about rearing, thoroughly, artificially, and consciously, an opposite type, and to attempt to establish the latter's virtues And would not the democratic movement itself find for
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the first time a sort of goal, salvation, and justifi cation, if some one appeared who availed himself of it--so that at last, beside its new and sublime product, slavery (for this must be the end of European demOcracy), that higher species of ruling and Casarian spirits might also be produced, which would stand upon hold to and would
elevate themselves through it? This new race would climb aloft to new and hitherto impossible things, to broader vision, and to its task on earth.
955
The aspect of the European of to-day makes me very hopeful. A daring and ruling race here building itself up upon the foundation of an extremely intelligent, gregarious mass. It obvious that the educational movements for the latter are not alone prominent nowadays.
956
The same conditions which go to develop the
animal also force the development of the leaders.
957
The question, and at the same time the task, approaching with hesitation, terrible as Fate, but nevertheless inevitable: how shall the earth as whole be ruled? And to what end shall man as
whole--no longer as a people or as race--be reared and trained
Legislative moralities are the principal means
gregarious
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by which one can form mankind, according to the fancy ot a creative and profound will: provided, of course, that such an artistic will of the first order gets the power into its own hands, and can make its creative will/prevail over long periods in the form of legislation, religions, and morals. At present, and probably for some time to come, one
will seek such colossally creative men, such really great men, as I understand them, in vain: they will be lacking, until, after many disappointments, we are forced to begin to understand why it is
they are lacking, and that nothing bars with greater hostility their rise and development, at present and for some time to come, than that which is now called the morality in Europe.
? Just as if there were no other kind of morality, and
could be no other kind, than the one we have already characterised as herd-morality. It is this morality which is now striving with all its power to attain to that green-meadow happiness on earth, which consists in security, absence of danger, ease, facilities for livelihood, and, last but not least, "if
all goes well," even hopes to dispense with all kinds of shepherds and bell-wethers. The two doctrines which it preaches most universally are "equality of rights " and "pity for all sufferers "
and it even regards suffering itself as something which must be got rid of absolutely. That such ideas may be modern leads one to think very poorly Of modernity. He, however, who has re
flected deeply concerning the question, how and where the plant man has hitherto grown most
vigorously,
is forced to believe that this has
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always taken place under the opposite conditions; that to this end the danger of the situation has to increase enormously, his inventive faculty and
have to fight their way up under long oppression and compulsion, and his
will to life has to be increased to the uncon ditioned will to power, to over-power: he believes that danger, severity, violence, peril in the street and in the heart, inequality of rights, secrecy, stoicism, seductive art, and devilry of every kind-- in short, the opposite of all gregarious desiderata-- are necessary for the elevation of man. Such a morality with opposite designs, which would rear man upwards instead of to comfort and mediocrity ; , such a morality, with the intention of producing a ruling caste--the future lords of the earth--must,
in order to be taught at all, introduce itself as if it were in some way correlated to the prevailing moral law, and must come forward under the cover of the latter's words and forms. But seeing that, to this end, a host of transitionary and de ceptive measures must be discovered, and that the life of a single individual stands for almost nothing in view of the accomplishment of such lengthy tasks and aims, the first thing that must be done is to rear a new kind of man in whom the duration of the necessary will and the necessary instincts is guaranteed for many generations. This must be a new kind of ruling species and caste--this ought to be quite as clear as the somewhat lengthy and not easily expressed consequences of this thought. The aim should be to prepare a trans valuation of values for a particularly strong kind of
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THE WILL TO POWER.
man, most highly gifted in intellect and will, and,
to this end, slowly and cautiously to liberate in rhim a whole host of slandered instincts hitherto held in check: whoever meditates about this
problem belongs to us, the free spirits--certainly not to that kind of " free spirit " which has existed hitherto: for these desired practically the reverse. To this order, it seems to me, belong, above all, the pessimists of Europe, the poets and thinkers of a revolted idealism, in so far as their discontent with existence in general must consistently at least have led them to be dissatisfied with the man of the present; the same applies to certain insati ably ambitious artists who courageously and un conditionally fight against the gregarious animal for the special rights of higher men, and subdue all herd-instincts and precautions of more ceptional minds by their seductive art. Thirdly and lastly, we should include in this group all those critics and historians by whom the dis covery of the Old World, which has begun so happily--this was the work of the new Columbus, of German intellect--will be courageously con tinued (for we still stand in the very first stages of this conquest). For in the Old World, as a matter of fact, a different and more lordly morality ruled than that of to-day ; and the man of antiquity, under the educational ban of his morality, was a stronger and deeper man than the man of to-day--up to the present he has been the only well-constituted man. The temptation, however, which from antiquity to the present day has always exercised its power on such lucky
? _ex
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From now henceforward there will be such favourable first conditions for greater ruling powers as have never yet been found on earth. And, this by no means the most important point. The establishment has been made possible of in ternational race unions which will set themselves the task of rearing ruling race, the future "lords of the earth "--a new, vast aristocracy based upon the most severe self-discipline, in which the will of philosophical men of power and artist-tyrants will
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strokes of Nature, i. e. on strong and enterprising souls, is, even at the present day, the most subtle and most effective of anti-democratic and anti Christian powers, just as was in the time of the Renaissance.
958.
am writing for race of men which does not yet exist: for " the lords of the earth.
"
In Plato's heages the following passage will be found: "Every one of us would like possible to be master of mankind possible, a God. " This attitude of mind must be reinstated in our midst.
Englishmen, Americans, and Russians.
959
That primeval forest-plant " Man " always
? where the struggle for power has been waged longest. Great men.
appears
Primeval forest creatures, the Romans.
960.
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be stamped upon thousands of years: a higher species of men which, thanks to their preponder ance of will, knowledge, riches, and influence, will avail themselves of democratic Europe as the most suitable and supple instrument they can
have for taking the fate of the earth into their own hands, and working as artists upon man him self. Enough! The time is coming for us to transform all our views on politics.
5. THE GREAT MAN.
961.
I will endeavour to see at which periods in history great men arise. The significance of despotic moralities that have lasted a long time: they strain the bow, provided they do not break it.
962.
A great man,--a man whom Nature has built up and invented in a grand style,--What. is such a' man? First, in his general course of action his consistency is so broad that owing to its very breadth it can be surveyed only with difficulty,
and consequently misleads; he possesses the capacity of extending his will over great stretches of his life, and 0f despising and rejecting all small things, whatever most beautiful and " divine" things of the world there may be among them. Second! , he is colder, harder, less cautious and more free from the fear of "public opinion " ; he does not
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possess the virtues which are compatible with respectability and with being respected, nor any of those things which are counted among the " virtues of the herd. " If he unable to lead, he walks alone; he may then perchance grunt at many things which he meets on his way. Thirdly,
he asks for no "compassionate" heart, but servants, instruments; in his dealings with men his one aim to make something out of them. He knows that he cannot reveal himself to anybody: he
bad taste to become familiar; and as not familiar when people think he is.
thinks
rule he
When he
mask. He would rather lie than tell the truth, because lying requires more spirit and will. There
not talking to his soul, he wears
? a loneliness within his heart which neither praise nor blame can reach, because he his own judge from whom no appeal.
963
The great man necessarily sceptic do not mean to say by this that he must appear to be one), provided that greatness consists in this:
4v to will something great, together with the means thereto. Freedom from any kind of conviction factor in his strength of will. And thus
in keeping with that "enlightened form of des potism" which every great passion exercises. Such passion enlists intellect in its service; even has the courage for unholy means; creates without hesitation; allows itself con victions, even uses them, but never
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to them. The need of faith and of anything un conditionally negative or affirmative is a proof of weakness ; all weakness is weakness of will. The man of faith, the believer, is necessarily an inferior
species
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of man. From this it follows that " all freedom of spirit," i. e. instinctive scepticism, is the prerequisite of greatness.
964.
The great man is conscious of his power over a people, and of the fact that he coincides temporarily with a people or with a century--this magnifying of his self-consciousness as causa and voluntas is
' misunderstood as " altruism ": he feels driven to means Of communication: all great men are in ventive in such means. They want to form great communities in their own image; they would fain give multiformity and disorder definite shape; it stimulates them to behold chaos.
The misunderstanding of love. There is a * slavish love which subordinates itself and gives itself away--which idealises and deceives itself; there
is a divine species of love which despises and loves at the same time, and which remodels and elevates the thing it loves.
The object is to attain that enormous energy of greatness which can model the man of the future by means of discipline and also by means of the
annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched, and which can yet avoid going to ruin at the sight of the suffering created thereby, the like of which has never been seen before.
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965
The revolution, confusion, and distress of whole peoples in my opinion of less importance than the misfortunes which attend great individuals in their development. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived: the many misfortunes of all these small folk do not together constitute sum-total, except in the feelings of mighty men--To think of one's self in moments of great danger, and to draw , one's own advantage from the calamities of thou sands--in the case of the man who differs verylmuch from the cOmrnon ruck--may be sign of great character which able to master its feelings Of pity and justice.
966.
In contradistinction to the animal, man has developed such host of antagonistic instincts and
in himself, that he has become master of the earth by means of this synthesis. ---Moralities are only the expression of local and limited orders of rank in this multifarious world of instincts which prevent man from perishing through their antag onism. Thus masterful instinct so weakens and subtilises the instinct which opposes that becomes an impulse which provides the stimulus for the activity of the principal instinct.
The highest man would have the greatest multifariousness in his instincts, and he would possess these in the relatively strongest degree in which he able to' endure them. As matter Of
fact, wherever the plant, man, found VOL. 11. 2A
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mighty instincts are to be found opposing each other (cg. Shakespeare), but they are subdued.
957
Would one not be justified in reckoning all great men among the wicked? This is not so easy to demonstrate in the case of individuals. They are so frequently capable Of masterly dis simulation that they very often assume the airs and forms of great virtues. Often, too, they seriously reverence virtues, and in such a way as to be passionately hard towards themselves; but as the result of cruelty. Seen from a distance such things are liable to deceive. Many, on the other hand, misunderstand themselves; not infrequently, too, a great mission will call forth great qualities, e. g.
justice. The essential fact'is: the greatest men may also perhaps have great virtues, but then they also have the opposites of these virtues. I believe that it is precisely out Of the presence of these opposites and of the feelings they suscitate, that the great man arises,-. --for the great man is the broad arch which spans two banks lying far apart.
968.
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In great men we find the specific qualities ot life in their highest manifestation: injustice, false hood, exploitation. ' But inasmuch as their effect has always been overwhelming, their essential nature has been most thoroughly misunderstood,
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and interpreted as goodness. The type of such an interpreter would be Carlyle. "
969.
Generally speaking, everything is worth no more and no less than one has paid for it. This 0! course does not hold good in the case of an isolated individual: the great capacities of the individual have no relation whatsoever to that which he has done, sacrificed, and suffered for them. But if one should examine the previous history of his race one would be sure to find the record of an
extraordinary storing up and capitalising of power by means of all kinds of abstinence, struggle, in dustry, and determination. It is because the great man has cost so much, and not because he stands there as a miracle, as a gift from heaven, or as an accident, that he became great: "Heredity" is a false notion. A man's ancestors have always paid the price of what he is.
970.
The danger of modesty. ---To adapt ourselves too early to duties, societies, and daily schemes of work in which accident may have placed us, at a time when neither our powers nor our aim in life has stepped peremptorily into our consciousness;
* This not only refers to Heroes and Hero-Worship, but doubtless to Carlyle's prodigious misunderstanding of Goethe --a misunderstanding which still requires to be put right by a critic untainted by PuritanisIIL--TR.
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the premature certainty of conscience and feeling of relief and *Of sociability which is acquired by this precocious, modest attitude, and which appears to our minds as a deliverance from those inner and outer disturbances Of our feelings--all this pampers and keeps a man down in the most dangerous fashion imaginable. To learn to respect things which people about us respect, as if we had no standard or right of our own to determine values; the strain of appraising things as others appraise them,'counter to the whisperings of our inner taste, which also has a conscience of its own, becomes a terribly subtle kind of constraint: and if in the end no explosion takes place which bursts all the bonds of love and morality at once, then such a spirit becomes withered, dwarfed, feminine, and objective. The reverse of this is bad enough, but still it is better than the foregoing: to suffer from one's environment, from its praise just as much as from its blame; to be wounded by it and to fester inwardly without betraying the fact; to defend one's self involuntarily and suspiciously against its love ; to learn to be silent, and perchance to conceal this by talking; to create nooks and safe, lonely hiding-places Where one can go and take breath for a moment, or shed tears of sublime comfort--
until at last one has grown strong enough to say: "What on earth have I to do with you? " and to
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'
971.
Those men who are in themselves destinies, and whose advent is the advent of fate, the whole race of
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heroic bearers of burdens: oh how heartin and gladly would they have respite from themselves for once in while l--how they crave after stout hearts
- and shoulders, that they might free themselves,were but for an hour or two, from that which oppresses
them! And how fruitlessly they crave! . . They wait; they observe all that passes before their eyes: no man even cometh nigh to them with thousandth part of their suffering and passion no man guesseth to what end they have waited. .
At last, at last, they learn the first lesson of their life: to wait no longer; and forthwith they learn their second lesson: to be affable, to be modest; and from that time onwards to endure everybody and every kind of thing--in short, to endure still
little more than they had endured theretofore.
THE HIGHEST MAN as LAWGIVER OF THE FUTURE.
972.
The lawgivers of the future--After having tried for a long time in vain to attach particular meaning to the word " philosopher,"---for found many antagonistic traits,--I recognised that we can distinguish between two kinds of philosophers :--
(1) Those who desire to establish any large system of values (logical or moral);
(2) Those who are the lawgivers Of such valua tions.
The former try to seize upon the world of the present or the past, by embodying or abbreviating
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the multifarious phenomena by means of signs: their object is to make it possible for us to survey, to reflect upon, to comprehend, and to utilise everything that has happened hitherto--they serve the purpose of man by using all past things to the benefit Of his future.
The second class, however, are commanders ; they say: " Thus shall it be I " They alone determine the " whither " and the " wherefore," and that which will be useful and beneficial to man; they have command over the previous work of scientific men, and all knowledge is to them only a means to their creations. This second kind of philosopher
seldom appears; and as a matter Of fact their situation and their danger is appalling. How often have they not intentionally blindfolded their eyes in order to shut out the sight of the small strip Of ground which separates them from the abyss and from utter destruction. _Plato, for instance, when he persuaded himself that " the good," as he wanted
was not Plato's good, but " the good in itself," the eternal treasure which certain man of the name of Plato had chanced to find on his way! This same will to blindness prevails in much coarser form in the case of the founders religion their "Thou shalt " must on no account sound to
their ears like "I will,"--they only dare to pursue their task as under the command of God; their legislation of values can only be burden they can bear they regard as "revelation," in this way their conscience not crushed by the responsi bility.
As soon as those two comforting expedients--
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that of Plato and that of Muhammed--have been overthrown, and no thinker can any longer relieve his conscience with the hypothesis " God " or " eternal values," the claim of the lawgiver to de termine new values rises to an awfulness which has not yet been experienced. Now those elect, on whom the faint light of such a duty is beginning to dawn, try and see whether they cannot escape it--as their greatest danger--by means of a timely side-spring: for instance,they try to persuade themselves that their taskis already accomplished, or that it defies accomplishment, or that their shoulders are not broad enough for such burdens, or that they are already taken up with burdens closer to hand, or even that this new and remote
is a temptation and a seduction, drawing them away from all other duties ; a disease, a kind of madness. Many, as a matter of fact, do succeed in evading the path appointed to them: throughout the whole of history we can see the traces of such de serters and their guilty consciences. In most cases, however, there comes to such men of destiny that hour of delivery, that autumnal season of maturity, in which they are forced to do that which they did not even " wish to do ": and that deed before which in the past they have trembled most, falls easily and unsought from the tree, as an involun tary deed, almost as a present.
973'
The human horizon--Philosophers may be con ceived as men who make the greatest efforts to
? duty
? ? ? 376
THE WILL TO POWER.
discover to what extent man can elevate himself-- this holds good more particularly of Plato: how far man's power can extend. But they do this as individuals; perhaps the instinct of Caesars and of all founders of states, etc. , was greater, for it pre occupied itself with the question how far man could be urged forward in development under " favourable circumstances. " 'What they did not sufficiently understand, however, was the nature of favourable circumstances. The great question : "Where has the plant ' man ' grown most magnificently heretofore? " In order to answer this, a comparative study of history is necessary.
974
Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths.
975
To remain objective, severe, firm, and hard while making a thought prevail is perhaps the best forte of artists ; but if for this purpose any one have to work upon human material (as teachers, states men, have to do, etc. ), then the repose, the coldness, and the hardness soon vanish. natures like Caesar and Napoleon we are able to divine something of the nature of " disinterestedness " in their work on their marble, whatever be the number of men that are sacrificed in the process. In this direction the future of higher men lies: to bear the greatest re sponsibilities and not to go to rack and ruin
? ? ? Iln
? (3)
(4)
THE ORDER OF RANK.
is a
d
a7 >|< -a
is it
? 352
THE WILL TO POWER.
means of its noble instincts it abandons its privileges, and owing to its refined and excessive culture, it takes an interest in the people, the weak, the poor, and the poetry of the lowly, etc.
939
There is such a thing as a noble and dangerous form of carelessness, which allows of profound conclusions and insight: the carelessness of the self-reliant and over-rich soul, which has never troubled itself about friends, but which knows only hospitality and knows how to practise it; whose heart and house are open to all who will enter-- beggar, cripple, or king. This is genuine sociability: he who is capable of it has hundreds of " friends," but probably not one friend.
94?
";The teaching p. 118e? v dryau applies to men with overflowing strength,--not to the mediocre. xpe? -reia and damn: are only steps to higher things. Above them stands "golden N ature. "
" Thou shalt "----unconditional obedience in Stoics, in Christian and Arabian Orders, in Kant's philosophy immaterial whether this obedience
? shown to superior or to
Higher than " Thou shalt" stands "I will"
(the heroes)
higher than " will" stands "I am "
(the gods of the Greeks).
Barbarian gods express nothing of the pleasure
of restraint,---they are neither simple, nor light hearted, nor moderate.
concept).
? ? ;
is
I
a
is
a (it
e'fy
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353
94!
The essence of our gardens and palaces (and to the same extent the essence of all yearning after riches) is the desire to rid the eye of disorder ana vulgarity, and to build a home for our soul's nobility.
The majority of people certainly believe that they will develop higher natures when those beautiful and peaceful things have operated upon them : hence the exodus to Italy, hence all travel ling, etc. , and all reading and visits to theatres. People want to be formed--that is the kernel of their labours for culture ! But the strong, the mighty, would themselves have a hand in the form ing, and wouldfain have nothing strange about them I
It is for this reason, too, that men go to open Nature, not to find themselves, but to lose them selves and to forget themselves. The desire " to get away from one's self" is proper to all weaklings, and to all those who are discontented with themselVes.
942
The only nobility is that of birth and blood. (I do not refer here to the prefix "Lord" and L'almanac de Gotha: this is a parenthesis for donkeys. ) Wherever people speak of the" aristo cracy of intellect," reasons are generally not lacking for concealing something; it is known to be a password among ambitious Jews. Intellect alone does not ennoble; on the contrary, some thing is always needed to ennoble intellect--What
then is needed ? ---Blood.
vOL. 11. Z
? .
? ? ? 354
THE WILL 'ro POWER.
943
What is noble?
--Extemal punctiliousness; because this punc
tiliousness hedges a man about, keeps him at a distance, saves him from being confounded with somebody else.
--A frivolous appearance in word, clothing, and bearing, with which stoical hardness and self control protect themselves from all prying inquisi tiveness or curiosity.
---A slow step and a slow glance. There are not too many valuable things on earth: and these come and wish to come of themselves to him who has value. We are not quick to admire.
--We know how to bear poverty, want, and even illness.
---We avoid small honours owing to our mis trust of all who are over-ready to praise: for the man who praises believes he understands what he praises: but to understand--Balzac, that typical man of ambition, betrayed the fact--comprendre
e'est ejgaler.
--Our doubt concerning the communicativeness
of our hearts goes very deep; to us, loneliness is not a matter of choice, it is imposed upon us.
---We are convinced that we only have duties to our equals, to others we do as we think best: we know that justice is only to be expected among equals (alas! -this will not be realised for some
time to come).
--We are ironical towards the "gifted"; we
hold the belief that no morality is possible with out good birth.
? ? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
355
--We always feel as if we were those who had to dispense honours: while he is not found too frequently who would be worthy of honouring us.
---We are always disguised: the higher a man's nature the more is he in need of remaining incog nito. If there be a God, then out of sheer decency He ought only to show Himself on earth in the form of a man.
--We are capable of otiurn, of the uncondi tional conviction that although a handicraft does not shame one in any sense, it certainly reduces one's rank. However much we may respect " in dustry," and know how to give it its due, we do not appreciate it in a bourgeois sense, or after the manner of those insatiable and cackling artists who, like hens, cackle and lay eggs, and cackle again.
--We protect artists and poets and any one who happens to be a master in something; but as creatures of a higher order than those, who only know how to do something, who are only "pro ductive men," we do not confound ourselves with them.
'--We find joy in all forms and ceremonies; we would fain foster everything formal, and we are convinced that courtesy is one of the greatest virtues; we feel suspicious of every kind of laisser alter, including the freedom of the press and of thought; because, under such conditions, the intel lect grows easy-going and coarse, and stretches its limbs.
--We take pleasure in women as in a perhaps daintier, more delicate, and more ethereal kind of creature. What a treat it is to meet creatures
? ? ? ? 356
THE WILL To POWER.
who have only dancing and nonsense and finery in their minds! They have always been the de light of every tense and profound male soul, whose life is burdened with heavy responsibilities.
--We take pleasure in princes and in priests, because in big things, as in small, they actually up hold the belief in the difference of human values, even in the estimation of the past, and at least symbolically.
--We are able to keep silence: but we do not breathe a word of this in the presence of listeners.
--We are able to endure long enmities: we lack the power of easy reconciliations.
--We have a loathing of demagogism, of en lightenment, of amiability, and plebeian familiarity.
--We collect precious things, the needs of
? and fastidious souls; we wish to possess nothing in common. We want to have our own books, our own landscapes.
higher
--We protest against evil and fine experiences, and take care not to generalise too quickly. The individual case: how ironically we regard it when it has the bad taste to put on the airs of a rule!
-We love that which is naif, and naif people, but as spectators and higher creatures; we think Faust is just as simple as his Margaret.
---We have a low estimation of good people, because they are gregarious animals: we know how often an invaluable golden drop of goodness lies concealed beneath the most evil, the most malicious, and the hardest exterior, and that this single grain outweighs all the mere goody-goodi ness of milk-and-watery souls.
? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
357
---We don't regard a man of our kind as refuted by his vices, nor by his tomfooleries. We are well aware that we are not recognised with ease, and that we have every reason to make our foreground very prominent.
944
What is noble ? --The fact that one is constantly forced to be playing a part. That one is constantly searching for situations in which one is forced to put on airs. That one leaves happiness to the
greatest number: the happiness which consists of inner peacefulness, of virtue, of comfort, and of
I
? la Spencer. That one instinctively seeks for heavy responsi
Anglo-angelic-back-parlour-smugness,d
bilities. That one knows how to create enemies everywhere, at a pinch even in one's self. That one contradicts the greatest number, not in words at all, but by continually behaving diflerently from them.
945
Virtue (for instance, truthfulness) is our most noble and most dangerous luxury. We must not decline the disadvantages which it brings in its
train.
946
We refuse to be praised : we do what serves our purpose, what gives us pleasure, or what we are obliged to do.
947 -
What is chastity in a man? It means that his taste in sex has remained noble; that in eroticis
? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER
he likes neither the brutal, the morbid, nor the clever.
948
The concept of honour is founded upon the belief in select society, in knightly excellences, in the Obligation of having continually to play a part. In essentials it means that one does not take one's life too seriously, that one adheres unconditionally to the most dignified manners in one's dealings with everybody (at least in so far as they do not belong to " us "); that one is neither familiar, nor
good-natured, nor hearty, nor modest, except inter pares; that one is always playing a part.
949
The fact that one sets one's life, one's health, and one's honour at stake, is the result of high spirits and of an overflowing and spendthrift will : it is not the result of philanthropy, but of the fact that every danger kindles our curiosity concern ing the measure Of our strength, and provokes our courage.
950.
" Eagles swoop down straight "--nobility of soul is best revealed by the magnificent and proud foolishness with which it makes its attacks.
95! .
War should be made against all namby-pamby ideas of nobility ! ---A certain modicum of brutality
358
'
? ? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
359
cannot be dispensed with: no more than we can do without a 'certain approximation to criminality. "Self-satisfaction" must not be allowed; a man should look upon himself with an adventurous spirit; he should experiment with himself and run risks with himself--no beautiful soul-quackery should be tolerated. I want to give a more robust
ideal a chance of prevailing.
952
" Paradise is under the shadow of a swordsman " _--this is also a symbol and a test-word by which souls with noble and warrior-like origin betray and discover themselves.
953
The two paths. ---There comes a period when man has a surplus amount of power at his dis \
posal. Science aims at establishing the slavery/of nature.
Then man acquires the leisure in which to develop himself into something new and more lofty. A new aristocracy. It is then that a large number of virtues which are now conditions existence are superseded--Qualities which are no longer needed are on that account lost. We no longer need virtues: consequently we are losing them (likewise the morality of " one thing is needful," of the salvation of the soul, and of im mortality: these were means wherewith to make man capable of enormous self-tyranny, through the emotion of great fear! !
The different kinds of needs by means of whose
? '
of
? ? l).
? 360
THE WILL TO POWER.
discipline man is formed: need teaches work, thought, and self-control.
*
Physiological purification and strengthening. The new aristocracy is in need of an opposing body which it may combat: it must be driven to ex tremities in order to maintain itself.
The two futures of mankind: (I) the conse
quence of a levelling-down to mediocrity; conscious aloofness and self-development.
A doctrine which would cleave a gulf: it main
tains the highest and the lowest species destroys
the intermediate).
The aristocracies, both spiritual and temporal,
which have existed hitherto prove nothing against the necessity of new aristocracy.
4. THE LORDs OF THE EARTH.
954
A certain question constantly recurs to us; perhaps seductive and evil question; may be whispered into the ears of those who have right to such doubtful problems--those strong souls of to-day whose dominion over themselves un swerving: not high time, now that the type " gregarious animal " developing ever more and more in Europe, to set about rearing, thoroughly, artificially, and consciously, an opposite type, and to attempt to establish the latter's virtues And would not the democratic movement itself find for
(2)
? ? ? ?
a
is
is it
is
is
a
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a
(it
? THE ORDER OF RANK.
the first time a sort of goal, salvation, and justifi cation, if some one appeared who availed himself of it--so that at last, beside its new and sublime product, slavery (for this must be the end of European demOcracy), that higher species of ruling and Casarian spirits might also be produced, which would stand upon hold to and would
elevate themselves through it? This new race would climb aloft to new and hitherto impossible things, to broader vision, and to its task on earth.
955
The aspect of the European of to-day makes me very hopeful. A daring and ruling race here building itself up upon the foundation of an extremely intelligent, gregarious mass. It obvious that the educational movements for the latter are not alone prominent nowadays.
956
The same conditions which go to develop the
animal also force the development of the leaders.
957
The question, and at the same time the task, approaching with hesitation, terrible as Fate, but nevertheless inevitable: how shall the earth as whole be ruled? And to what end shall man as
whole--no longer as a people or as race--be reared and trained
Legislative moralities are the principal means
gregarious
36!
? ? ? ?
a
a
it,
a is
is is
a
it,
? 362
THE WILL To POWER.
by which one can form mankind, according to the fancy ot a creative and profound will: provided, of course, that such an artistic will of the first order gets the power into its own hands, and can make its creative will/prevail over long periods in the form of legislation, religions, and morals. At present, and probably for some time to come, one
will seek such colossally creative men, such really great men, as I understand them, in vain: they will be lacking, until, after many disappointments, we are forced to begin to understand why it is
they are lacking, and that nothing bars with greater hostility their rise and development, at present and for some time to come, than that which is now called the morality in Europe.
? Just as if there were no other kind of morality, and
could be no other kind, than the one we have already characterised as herd-morality. It is this morality which is now striving with all its power to attain to that green-meadow happiness on earth, which consists in security, absence of danger, ease, facilities for livelihood, and, last but not least, "if
all goes well," even hopes to dispense with all kinds of shepherds and bell-wethers. The two doctrines which it preaches most universally are "equality of rights " and "pity for all sufferers "
and it even regards suffering itself as something which must be got rid of absolutely. That such ideas may be modern leads one to think very poorly Of modernity. He, however, who has re
flected deeply concerning the question, how and where the plant man has hitherto grown most
vigorously,
is forced to believe that this has
? ? ? dissembling powers
THE ORDER OF RANK.
363
always taken place under the opposite conditions; that to this end the danger of the situation has to increase enormously, his inventive faculty and
have to fight their way up under long oppression and compulsion, and his
will to life has to be increased to the uncon ditioned will to power, to over-power: he believes that danger, severity, violence, peril in the street and in the heart, inequality of rights, secrecy, stoicism, seductive art, and devilry of every kind-- in short, the opposite of all gregarious desiderata-- are necessary for the elevation of man. Such a morality with opposite designs, which would rear man upwards instead of to comfort and mediocrity ; , such a morality, with the intention of producing a ruling caste--the future lords of the earth--must,
in order to be taught at all, introduce itself as if it were in some way correlated to the prevailing moral law, and must come forward under the cover of the latter's words and forms. But seeing that, to this end, a host of transitionary and de ceptive measures must be discovered, and that the life of a single individual stands for almost nothing in view of the accomplishment of such lengthy tasks and aims, the first thing that must be done is to rear a new kind of man in whom the duration of the necessary will and the necessary instincts is guaranteed for many generations. This must be a new kind of ruling species and caste--this ought to be quite as clear as the somewhat lengthy and not easily expressed consequences of this thought. The aim should be to prepare a trans valuation of values for a particularly strong kind of
? ? ? ? 364
THE WILL TO POWER.
man, most highly gifted in intellect and will, and,
to this end, slowly and cautiously to liberate in rhim a whole host of slandered instincts hitherto held in check: whoever meditates about this
problem belongs to us, the free spirits--certainly not to that kind of " free spirit " which has existed hitherto: for these desired practically the reverse. To this order, it seems to me, belong, above all, the pessimists of Europe, the poets and thinkers of a revolted idealism, in so far as their discontent with existence in general must consistently at least have led them to be dissatisfied with the man of the present; the same applies to certain insati ably ambitious artists who courageously and un conditionally fight against the gregarious animal for the special rights of higher men, and subdue all herd-instincts and precautions of more ceptional minds by their seductive art. Thirdly and lastly, we should include in this group all those critics and historians by whom the dis covery of the Old World, which has begun so happily--this was the work of the new Columbus, of German intellect--will be courageously con tinued (for we still stand in the very first stages of this conquest). For in the Old World, as a matter of fact, a different and more lordly morality ruled than that of to-day ; and the man of antiquity, under the educational ban of his morality, was a stronger and deeper man than the man of to-day--up to the present he has been the only well-constituted man. The temptation, however, which from antiquity to the present day has always exercised its power on such lucky
? _ex
? ? ? _
From now henceforward there will be such favourable first conditions for greater ruling powers as have never yet been found on earth. And, this by no means the most important point. The establishment has been made possible of in ternational race unions which will set themselves the task of rearing ruling race, the future "lords of the earth "--a new, vast aristocracy based upon the most severe self-discipline, in which the will of philosophical men of power and artist-tyrants will
THE ORDER OF RANK.
365
strokes of Nature, i. e. on strong and enterprising souls, is, even at the present day, the most subtle and most effective of anti-democratic and anti Christian powers, just as was in the time of the Renaissance.
958.
am writing for race of men which does not yet exist: for " the lords of the earth.
"
In Plato's heages the following passage will be found: "Every one of us would like possible to be master of mankind possible, a God. " This attitude of mind must be reinstated in our midst.
Englishmen, Americans, and Russians.
959
That primeval forest-plant " Man " always
? where the struggle for power has been waged longest. Great men.
appears
Primeval forest creatures, the Romans.
960.
? ? . . ~. "\ . c>> -. ~. . _----'-. --. ~ 3>>.
a
T
a
is
; if
it
if
I
? 366
THE WILL To POWER.
be stamped upon thousands of years: a higher species of men which, thanks to their preponder ance of will, knowledge, riches, and influence, will avail themselves of democratic Europe as the most suitable and supple instrument they can
have for taking the fate of the earth into their own hands, and working as artists upon man him self. Enough! The time is coming for us to transform all our views on politics.
5. THE GREAT MAN.
961.
I will endeavour to see at which periods in history great men arise. The significance of despotic moralities that have lasted a long time: they strain the bow, provided they do not break it.
962.
A great man,--a man whom Nature has built up and invented in a grand style,--What. is such a' man? First, in his general course of action his consistency is so broad that owing to its very breadth it can be surveyed only with difficulty,
and consequently misleads; he possesses the capacity of extending his will over great stretches of his life, and 0f despising and rejecting all small things, whatever most beautiful and " divine" things of the world there may be among them. Second! , he is colder, harder, less cautious and more free from the fear of "public opinion " ; he does not
? ? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
367
possess the virtues which are compatible with respectability and with being respected, nor any of those things which are counted among the " virtues of the herd. " If he unable to lead, he walks alone; he may then perchance grunt at many things which he meets on his way. Thirdly,
he asks for no "compassionate" heart, but servants, instruments; in his dealings with men his one aim to make something out of them. He knows that he cannot reveal himself to anybody: he
bad taste to become familiar; and as not familiar when people think he is.
thinks
rule he
When he
mask. He would rather lie than tell the truth, because lying requires more spirit and will. There
not talking to his soul, he wears
? a loneliness within his heart which neither praise nor blame can reach, because he his own judge from whom no appeal.
963
The great man necessarily sceptic do not mean to say by this that he must appear to be one), provided that greatness consists in this:
4v to will something great, together with the means thereto. Freedom from any kind of conviction factor in his strength of will. And thus
in keeping with that "enlightened form of des potism" which every great passion exercises. Such passion enlists intellect in its service; even has the courage for unholy means; creates without hesitation; allows itself con victions, even uses them, but never
submits
? ? a it
is
it it
is
it
a
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aa
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is (I
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is
is
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? 368 ~
to them. The need of faith and of anything un conditionally negative or affirmative is a proof of weakness ; all weakness is weakness of will. The man of faith, the believer, is necessarily an inferior
species
THE WILL T0 POWER.
of man. From this it follows that " all freedom of spirit," i. e. instinctive scepticism, is the prerequisite of greatness.
964.
The great man is conscious of his power over a people, and of the fact that he coincides temporarily with a people or with a century--this magnifying of his self-consciousness as causa and voluntas is
' misunderstood as " altruism ": he feels driven to means Of communication: all great men are in ventive in such means. They want to form great communities in their own image; they would fain give multiformity and disorder definite shape; it stimulates them to behold chaos.
The misunderstanding of love. There is a * slavish love which subordinates itself and gives itself away--which idealises and deceives itself; there
is a divine species of love which despises and loves at the same time, and which remodels and elevates the thing it loves.
The object is to attain that enormous energy of greatness which can model the man of the future by means of discipline and also by means of the
annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched, and which can yet avoid going to ruin at the sight of the suffering created thereby, the like of which has never been seen before.
? ? ? ? '
THE ORDER OF RANK.
965
The revolution, confusion, and distress of whole peoples in my opinion of less importance than the misfortunes which attend great individuals in their development. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived: the many misfortunes of all these small folk do not together constitute sum-total, except in the feelings of mighty men--To think of one's self in moments of great danger, and to draw , one's own advantage from the calamities of thou sands--in the case of the man who differs verylmuch from the cOmrnon ruck--may be sign of great character which able to master its feelings Of pity and justice.
966.
In contradistinction to the animal, man has developed such host of antagonistic instincts and
in himself, that he has become master of the earth by means of this synthesis. ---Moralities are only the expression of local and limited orders of rank in this multifarious world of instincts which prevent man from perishing through their antag onism. Thus masterful instinct so weakens and subtilises the instinct which opposes that becomes an impulse which provides the stimulus for the activity of the principal instinct.
The highest man would have the greatest multifariousness in his instincts, and he would possess these in the relatively strongest degree in which he able to' endure them. As matter Of
fact, wherever the plant, man, found VOL. 11. 2A
. _ impulses _-
e_
strong,
369
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a
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a
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a
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? THE WILL TO- POWER.
mighty instincts are to be found opposing each other (cg. Shakespeare), but they are subdued.
957
Would one not be justified in reckoning all great men among the wicked? This is not so easy to demonstrate in the case of individuals. They are so frequently capable Of masterly dis simulation that they very often assume the airs and forms of great virtues. Often, too, they seriously reverence virtues, and in such a way as to be passionately hard towards themselves; but as the result of cruelty. Seen from a distance such things are liable to deceive. Many, on the other hand, misunderstand themselves; not infrequently, too, a great mission will call forth great qualities, e. g.
justice. The essential fact'is: the greatest men may also perhaps have great virtues, but then they also have the opposites of these virtues. I believe that it is precisely out Of the presence of these opposites and of the feelings they suscitate, that the great man arises,-. --for the great man is the broad arch which spans two banks lying far apart.
968.
370
? _
In great men we find the specific qualities ot life in their highest manifestation: injustice, false hood, exploitation. ' But inasmuch as their effect has always been overwhelming, their essential nature has been most thoroughly misunderstood,
? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
and interpreted as goodness. The type of such an interpreter would be Carlyle. "
969.
Generally speaking, everything is worth no more and no less than one has paid for it. This 0! course does not hold good in the case of an isolated individual: the great capacities of the individual have no relation whatsoever to that which he has done, sacrificed, and suffered for them. But if one should examine the previous history of his race one would be sure to find the record of an
extraordinary storing up and capitalising of power by means of all kinds of abstinence, struggle, in dustry, and determination. It is because the great man has cost so much, and not because he stands there as a miracle, as a gift from heaven, or as an accident, that he became great: "Heredity" is a false notion. A man's ancestors have always paid the price of what he is.
970.
The danger of modesty. ---To adapt ourselves too early to duties, societies, and daily schemes of work in which accident may have placed us, at a time when neither our powers nor our aim in life has stepped peremptorily into our consciousness;
* This not only refers to Heroes and Hero-Worship, but doubtless to Carlyle's prodigious misunderstanding of Goethe --a misunderstanding which still requires to be put right by a critic untainted by PuritanisIIL--TR.
371
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the premature certainty of conscience and feeling of relief and *Of sociability which is acquired by this precocious, modest attitude, and which appears to our minds as a deliverance from those inner and outer disturbances Of our feelings--all this pampers and keeps a man down in the most dangerous fashion imaginable. To learn to respect things which people about us respect, as if we had no standard or right of our own to determine values; the strain of appraising things as others appraise them,'counter to the whisperings of our inner taste, which also has a conscience of its own, becomes a terribly subtle kind of constraint: and if in the end no explosion takes place which bursts all the bonds of love and morality at once, then such a spirit becomes withered, dwarfed, feminine, and objective. The reverse of this is bad enough, but still it is better than the foregoing: to suffer from one's environment, from its praise just as much as from its blame; to be wounded by it and to fester inwardly without betraying the fact; to defend one's self involuntarily and suspiciously against its love ; to learn to be silent, and perchance to conceal this by talking; to create nooks and safe, lonely hiding-places Where one can go and take breath for a moment, or shed tears of sublime comfort--
until at last one has grown strong enough to say: "What on earth have I to do with you? " and to
372
? go one's way alone.
'
971.
Those men who are in themselves destinies, and whose advent is the advent of fate, the whole race of
? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
heroic bearers of burdens: oh how heartin and gladly would they have respite from themselves for once in while l--how they crave after stout hearts
- and shoulders, that they might free themselves,were but for an hour or two, from that which oppresses
them! And how fruitlessly they crave! . . They wait; they observe all that passes before their eyes: no man even cometh nigh to them with thousandth part of their suffering and passion no man guesseth to what end they have waited. .
At last, at last, they learn the first lesson of their life: to wait no longer; and forthwith they learn their second lesson: to be affable, to be modest; and from that time onwards to endure everybody and every kind of thing--in short, to endure still
little more than they had endured theretofore.
THE HIGHEST MAN as LAWGIVER OF THE FUTURE.
972.
The lawgivers of the future--After having tried for a long time in vain to attach particular meaning to the word " philosopher,"---for found many antagonistic traits,--I recognised that we can distinguish between two kinds of philosophers :--
(1) Those who desire to establish any large system of values (logical or moral);
(2) Those who are the lawgivers Of such valua tions.
The former try to seize upon the world of the present or the past, by embodying or abbreviating
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THE WILL TO POWER.
the multifarious phenomena by means of signs: their object is to make it possible for us to survey, to reflect upon, to comprehend, and to utilise everything that has happened hitherto--they serve the purpose of man by using all past things to the benefit Of his future.
The second class, however, are commanders ; they say: " Thus shall it be I " They alone determine the " whither " and the " wherefore," and that which will be useful and beneficial to man; they have command over the previous work of scientific men, and all knowledge is to them only a means to their creations. This second kind of philosopher
seldom appears; and as a matter Of fact their situation and their danger is appalling. How often have they not intentionally blindfolded their eyes in order to shut out the sight of the small strip Of ground which separates them from the abyss and from utter destruction. _Plato, for instance, when he persuaded himself that " the good," as he wanted
was not Plato's good, but " the good in itself," the eternal treasure which certain man of the name of Plato had chanced to find on his way! This same will to blindness prevails in much coarser form in the case of the founders religion their "Thou shalt " must on no account sound to
their ears like "I will,"--they only dare to pursue their task as under the command of God; their legislation of values can only be burden they can bear they regard as "revelation," in this way their conscience not crushed by the responsi bility.
As soon as those two comforting expedients--
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that of Plato and that of Muhammed--have been overthrown, and no thinker can any longer relieve his conscience with the hypothesis " God " or " eternal values," the claim of the lawgiver to de termine new values rises to an awfulness which has not yet been experienced. Now those elect, on whom the faint light of such a duty is beginning to dawn, try and see whether they cannot escape it--as their greatest danger--by means of a timely side-spring: for instance,they try to persuade themselves that their taskis already accomplished, or that it defies accomplishment, or that their shoulders are not broad enough for such burdens, or that they are already taken up with burdens closer to hand, or even that this new and remote
is a temptation and a seduction, drawing them away from all other duties ; a disease, a kind of madness. Many, as a matter of fact, do succeed in evading the path appointed to them: throughout the whole of history we can see the traces of such de serters and their guilty consciences. In most cases, however, there comes to such men of destiny that hour of delivery, that autumnal season of maturity, in which they are forced to do that which they did not even " wish to do ": and that deed before which in the past they have trembled most, falls easily and unsought from the tree, as an involun tary deed, almost as a present.
973'
The human horizon--Philosophers may be con ceived as men who make the greatest efforts to
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THE WILL TO POWER.
discover to what extent man can elevate himself-- this holds good more particularly of Plato: how far man's power can extend. But they do this as individuals; perhaps the instinct of Caesars and of all founders of states, etc. , was greater, for it pre occupied itself with the question how far man could be urged forward in development under " favourable circumstances. " 'What they did not sufficiently understand, however, was the nature of favourable circumstances. The great question : "Where has the plant ' man ' grown most magnificently heretofore? " In order to answer this, a comparative study of history is necessary.
974
Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths.
975
To remain objective, severe, firm, and hard while making a thought prevail is perhaps the best forte of artists ; but if for this purpose any one have to work upon human material (as teachers, states men, have to do, etc. ), then the repose, the coldness, and the hardness soon vanish. natures like Caesar and Napoleon we are able to divine something of the nature of " disinterestedness " in their work on their marble, whatever be the number of men that are sacrificed in the process. In this direction the future of higher men lies: to bear the greatest re sponsibilities and not to go to rack and ruin
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