Even in the preface, in which Richard Wagner
is, as it were, invited to join with him in conversa-
tion, the author expresses this article of faith, this
gospel for artists : “ Art is the only task of life, art
is the metaphysical activity of life, .
is, as it were, invited to join with him in conversa-
tion, the author expresses this article of faith, this
gospel for artists : “ Art is the only task of life, art
is the metaphysical activity of life, .
Nietzsche - v15 - Will to Power - b
He was thankful for
life precisely where it was not exactly Christian.
With a moral interpretation the world is in-
sufferable; Christianity was the attempt to over-
come the world with morality : 1. e. to deny it. In
praxi such a mad experiment-an imbecile eleva-
tion of man above the world—could only end in
--the beglooming, the dwarfing, and the impoverish-
ment of mankind: the only kind of man who
gained anything by it, who was promoted by it,
was the most mediocre, the most harmless and
gregarious type.
Homer as an apotheosis artist; Rubens also.
Music has not yet had such an artist.
The idealisation of the great criminal (the
feeling for his greatness) is Greek; the deprecia- -
tion, the slander, the contempt of the sinner, is
Judæo-Christian.
846.
Romanticism and its opposite. In regard to
all æsthetic values I now avail myself of this
fundamental distinction : in every individual case
I ask myself has hunger or has superabundance
been creative here? At first another distinction
might perhaps seem preferable, it is far more
obvious, -e. g. the distinction which decides whether
a desire for stability, for eternity, for Being, or
whether a desire for destruction, for change, for
Becoming, has been the cause of creation. But
both kinds of desire, when examined more closely,
prove to be ambiguous, and really susceptible of
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THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
281
interpretation only according to that scheme already
mentioned and which I think is rightly preferred.
The desire for destruction, for change, for Be-
coming, may be the expression of an overflowing
power pregnant with promises for the future (my
term for this, as is well known, is Dionysian);
it may, however, also be the hate of the ill-con-
stituted, of the needy and of the physiologically
botched, that destroys, and must destroy, because
such creatures are indignant at, and annoyed by
everything lasting and stable.
The act of immortalising can, on the other hand,
be the outcome of gratitude and love: an art
which has this origin is always an apotheosis art;
dithyrambic, as perhaps with Rubens; happy, as
perhaps with Hafiz; bright and gracious, and shed-
ding a ray of glory over all things, as in Goethe.
But it may also, however, be the outcome of the
tyrannical will of the great sufferer who would
make the most personal, individual, and narrow trait
about him, the actual idiosyncrasy of his pain—in
fact, into a binding law and imposition, and who
thus wreaks his revenge upon all things by stamp-
ing, branding, and violating them with the image of
his torment. The latter case is romantic pessim-
ism in its highest form, whether this be Schopen-
hauerian voluntarism or Wagnerian music.
847.
It is a question whether the antithesis, classic and
romantic, does not conceal that other antithesis, the
active and the reactive.
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THE WILL TO POWER.
848.
In order to be a classic, one must be possessed
of all the strong and apparently contradictory gifts
and passions : but in such a way that they run in
harness together, and culminate simultaneously in
elevating a certain species of literature or art or
politics to its height and zenith (they must not do
this after that elevation has taken place . . . ). They
must reflect the complete state (either of a people
or of a culture), and express its most profound and
most secret nature, at a time when it is still stable
and not yet discoloured by the imitation of foreign
things (or when it is still dependent . . . ); not
a reactive but a deliberate and progressive spirit,
saying Yea in all circumstances, even in its
hate.
“And does not the highest personal value belong
thereto? ". . , . . It is worth considering whether
moral prejudices do not perhaps exercise their in-
fluence here, and whether great moral loftiness is
not perhaps a contradiction of the classical ? . . .
Whether the moral monsters must not necessarily
be romantic in word and deed? Any such pre-
ponderance of one virtue over others (as in the
case of the moral monster) is precisely what with
most hostility counteracts the classical power in
equilibrium ; supposing a people manifested this
moral loftiness and were classical notwithstanding,
we should have to conclude boldly that they were
also on the same high level in immorality! this
was perhaps the case with Shakespeare (provided
that he was really Lord Bacon).
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THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
283
849.
Concerning the future. Against the romanticism
of great passion. — We must understand how a
certain modicum of coldness, lucidity, and hard-
ness is inseparable from all classical taste: above
all consistency, happy intellectuality, “the three
unities,” concentration, hatred of all feeling, of all
sentimentality, of all esprit, hatred of all multi-
formity, of all uncertainty, evasiveness, and of all
nebulosity, as also of all brevity, finicking, pretti-
ness and good nature. Artistic formulæ must not
be played with : life must be remodelled so that
it should be forced to formulate itself accordingly.
It is really an exhilarating spectacle which we
have only learned to laugh at quite recently, be-
cause we have only seen through it quite recently :
this spectacle of Herder's, Winckelmann's, Goethe's,
and Hegel's contemporaries claiming that they had
rediscovered the classical ideal . . . and at the same
time, Shakespeare! And this same crew of men
had scurvily repudiated all relationship with the
classical school of France ! As if the essential
principle could not have been learnt as well here
as elsewhere! . . . But what people wanted was
"nature," and "naturalness": Oh, the stupidity of
it ! It was thought that classicism was a kind of
naturalness!
Without either prejudice or indulgence we should
try and investigate upon what soil a classical taste
can be evolved. The hardening, the simplification,
the strengthening, and the bedevilling of man are
inseparable from classical taste. Logical and
## p. 284 (#314) ############################################
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THE WILL TO POWER.
psychological simplification. A contempt of de-
tail, of complexity, of obscurity.
The romanticists of Germany do not protest
against classicism, but against reason, against
illumination, against taste, against the eighteenth
century.
The essence of romantico-Wagnerian music is
the opposite of the classical spirit.
The will to unity (because unity tyrannises : e. g.
the listener and the spectator), but the artist's in-
ability to tyrannise over himself where it is most
needed that is to say, in regard to the work it-
self (in regard to knowing what to leave out, what
to shorten, what to clarify, what to simplify). The
overwhelming by means of masses (Wagner, Victor
Hugo, Zola, Taine).
850.
The Nihilism of artists. --Nature is cruel in
her cheerfulness; cynical in her sunrises. We are
hostile to emotions. We flee thither where Nature
moves our senses and our imagination, where we
have nothing to love, where we are not reminded
of the moral semblances and delicacies of this
northern nature; and the same applies to the arts.
We prefer that which no longer reminds us of
good and evil. Our moral sensibility and tender-
ness seem to be relieved in the heart of terrible
and happy Nature, in the fatalism of the senses and
forces. Life without goodness.
Great well-being arises from contemplating
Nature's indifference to good and evil.
No justice in history, no goodness in Nature.
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THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
285
That is why the pessimist when he is an artist
prefers those historical subjects where the absence
of justice reveals itself with magnificent simplicity,
where perfection actually comes to expression-
and likewise he prefers that in Nature, where her
callous evil character is not hypocritically concealed,
where that character is seen in perfection. . . .
The Nihilistic artist betrays himself in willing and
preferring cynical history and cynical Nature.
851.
What is tragic ? -Again and again I have
pointed to the great misunderstanding of Aristotle
in maintaining that the tragic emotions were the
two depressing emotions-fear and pity. Had he
been right, tragedy would be an art unfriendly to
life: it would have been necessary to caution people
against it as against something generally harmful
and suspicious. Art, otherwise the great stimulus
of life, the great intoxicant of life, the great will
to life, here became a tool of decadence, the hand-
maiden of pessimism and ill-health (for to sup-
pose, as Aristotle supposed, that by exciting these
emotions we thereby purged people of them, is
simply an error). Something which habitually
excites fear or pity, disorganises, weakens, and dis-
courages: and supposing Schopenhauer were
right in thinking that tragedy taught resignation
(i. e, a meek renunciation of happiness, hope, and
of the will to live), this would presuppose an art
in which art itself was denied. Tragedy would
then constitute a process of dissolution; the in-
stinct of life would destroy itself in the instinct of
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THE WILL TO POWER.
art. Christianity, Nihilism, tragic art, physiological
decadence; these things would then be linked,
they would then preponderate together and assist
each other onwards-downwards. . . . Tragedy
would thus be a symptom of decline.
This theory may be refuted in the most cold-
blooded way, namely, by measuring the effect of
a tragic emotion by means of a dynamometer
The result would be a fact which only the bottom-
less falsity of a doctrinaire could misunderstand:
that tragedy is a tonic. If Schopenhauer refuses
to see the truth here, if he regards general depres-
sion as a tragic condition, if he would have informed
the Greeks (who to his disgust were not "re-
signed") that they did not firmly possess the
highest principles of life: it is only owing to
his parti pris, to the need of consistency in his
system, to the dishonesty of the doctrinaire—that
dreadful dishonesty which step for step corrupted
the whole psychology of Schopenhauer (he who
had arbitrarily and almost violently misunderstood
genius, art itself, morality, pagan religion, beauty,
knowledge, and almost everything).
852.
The tragic artist. Whether, and in regard to
what, the judgment "beautiful” is established is a
question of an individuals or of a people's strength
The feeling of plenitude, of overflowing strength
(which gaily and courageously meets many an
obstacle before which the weakling shudders)—the
feeling of power utters the judgment "beautiful”
concerning things and conditions which the in-
stinct of impotence can only value as hateful and
"
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THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
287
!
ugly. The flair which enables us to decide whether
the objects we encounter are dangerous, problem-
atic, or alluring, likewise determines our ästhetic
Yea. (“This is beautiful,” is an affirmation).
From this we see that, generally speaking, a
preference for questionable and terrible things is a
symptom of strength; whereas the taste for pretty
and charming trifles is characteristic of the weak
and the delicate. The love of tragedy is typical
{
of strong ages and characters: its non plus ultra
is perhaps the Divina Commedia. It is the heroic
spirits which in tragic cruelty say Yea unto them-
selves: they are hard enough to feel pain as a
pleasure.
On the other hand, supposing weaklings desire
to get pleasure from an art which was not designed
for them, what interpretation must we suppose they
would like to give tragedy in order to make it suit
their taste? They would interpret their own feel-
ings of value into it: e. g. the "triumph of the
móral order of things,” or the teaching of the
"uselessness of existence," or the incitement to
"resignation” (or also half-medicinal and half-
moral outpourings, d la Aristotle). Finally, the
art of terrible natures, in so far as it may excite
the nerves, may be regarded by the weak and ex-
hausted as a stimulus: this is now taking place,
for instance, in the case of the admiration meted
out to Wagner's art. A test of man's well-being
and consciousness of power is the extent to which
he can acknowledge the terrible and questionable
character of things, and whether he is in any need
of a faith at the end.
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THE WILL TO POWER.
This kind of artistic pessimism is precisely the
reverse of that religio-moral pessimism which
suffers from the corruption of man and the
enigmatic character of existence: the latter in-
sists upon deliverance, or at least upon the hope
of deliverance. Those who suffer, doubt, and dis-
trust themselves,—the sick, in other words,-have
in all ages required the transporting influence of
visions in order to be able to exist at all (the
notion "blessedness" arose in this way). A
similar case would be that of the artists of
decadence, who at bottom maintain a Nihilistic
attitude to life, and take refuge in the beauty of
form,-in those select cases in which Nature is
perfect, in which she is indifferently great and in-
differently beautiful. (The “love of the beautiful”
may thus be something very different from the
ability to see or create the beautiful: it may be
the expression of impotence in this respect. ) The
most convincing artists are those who make
harmony ring out of every discord, and who
benefit all things by the gift of their power and
inner harmony: in every work of art they merely
reveal the symbol of their inmost experiences-
their creation is gratitude for their life.
The depth. of the tragic artist consists in the
fact that his æsthetic instinct surveys the more
remote results, that he does not halt shortsightedly
at the thing that is nearest, that he says Yea to
the whole cosmic economy, which justifies the
terrible, the evil, and the questionable; which
more than justifies it.
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THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
289
!
853
Art in the “ Birth of Tragedy. "
I.
The conception of the work which lies
right in the background of this book, is extra-
ordinarily gloomy and unpleasant: among all the
types of pessimism which have ever been known
hitherto, none seems to have attained to this degree
of malice. The contrast of a true and of an ap-
parent world is entirely absent here: there is but
one world, and it is false, cruel, contradictory,
seductive, and without sense. A world thus
constituted is the true world. We are in need of
lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this
truth—that is to say, in order to live. . . That
lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of
the terrible and questionable character of existence,
Metaphysics, morality, religion, science,-in this
book, all these things are regarded merely as
different forms of falsehood : by means of them we
are led to believe in life. “Life must inspire con-
fidence”: the task which this imposes upon us is
enormous. In order to solve this problem man
must already be a liar in his heart, but he must
above all else be an artist. And he is that.
Metaphysics, religion, morality, science,—all these
things are but the offshoot of his will to art, to
falsehood, to a flight from "truth,” to a denial of
truth. ” This ability, this artistic capacity par
excellence of man- -thanks to which he overcomes
reality with lies,—is a quality which he has in
T
66
VOL. II.
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THE WILL TO POWER.
common with all other forms of existence. He
himself is indeed a piece of reality, of truth, of
nature : how could he help being also a piece
of genius in prevarication !
The fact that the character of existence is
misunderstood, is the profoundest and the highest
secret motive behind everything relating to virtue,
science, piety, and art. To be blind to many
things, to see many things falsely, to fancy
many things: Oh, how clever man has been
in those circumstances in which he believed
he was anything but clever! Love, enthusiasm,
“ God”
are but subtle forms of ultimate
self-deception; they are but seductions to life
and to the belief in life! In those moments
when man was deceived, when he had befooled
himself and when he believed in life: Oh, how
his spirit swelled within him! Oh, what ecstasies
he had! What power he felt ! And what artistic
triumphs in the feeling of power! . . . Man had
once more become master of “matter,"—master of
truth! . . . And whenever man rejoices it is always
in the same way: he rejoices as an artist, his power
is his joy, he enjoys falsehood as his power. . . .
II.
Art and nothing else! Art is the great means
of making life possible, the great seducer to life,
the great stimulus of life.
Art is the only superior counteragent to all will
to the denial of life; it is par excellence the anti-
Christian, the anti-Buddhistic, the anti-Nihilistic
force.
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THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
291
Art is the alleviation of the seeker after know-
ledge,of him who recognises the terrible and
questionable character of existence, and who will
recognise it, of the tragic seeker after know-
ledge.
Art is the alleviation of the man of action, of
him who not only sees the terrible and questionable
character of existence, but also lives it, will live it,
—of the tragic and warlike man, the hero.
Art is the alleviation of the sufferer,—as the
way to states in which pain is willed, is trans-
figured, is deified, where suffering is a form of
great ecstasy.
III.
It is clear that in this book pessimism, or,
better still, Nihilism, stands for "truth. " But truth
is not postulated as the highest measure of value,
and still less as the highest power. The will to
appearance, to illusion, to deception, to becoming,
and to change (to objective deception), is here re-
garded as more profound, as more primeval, as
more metaphysical than the will to truth, to reality,
to appearance: the latter is merely a form of the
will to illusion. Happiness is likewise conceived
as more primeval than pain : and pain is considered
as conditioned, as a consequence of the will to
happiness (of the will to Becoming, to growth, to
forming, i. e. to creating; in creating, however, de-
struction is included). The highest state of Yea-
saying to existence is conceived as one from which
the greatest pain may not be excluded : the tragico-
Dionysian state.
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THE WILL TO POWER.
IV.
In this way this book is even anti-pessimistic,
namely, in the sense that it teaches something which
is stronger than pessimism and which is more
“ divine” than truth: Art. Nobody, it would seem,
would be more ready seriously to utter a radical
denial of life, an actual denial of action even more
than a denial of life, than the author of this book.
Except that he knows—for he has experienced it,
and perhaps experienced little else ! —that art is of
more value than truth.
Even in the preface, in which Richard Wagner
is, as it were, invited to join with him in conversa-
tion, the author expresses this article of faith, this
gospel for artists : “ Art is the only task of life, art
is the metaphysical activity of life, . . .
## p. 293 (#323) ############################################
FOURTH BOOK.
DISCIPLINE AND BREEDING.
## p. 294 (#324) ############################################
## p. 295 (#325) ############################################
I,
THE ORDER OF RANK.
1. THE DOCTRINE OF THE ORDER OF RANK.
854.
In this age of universal suffrage, in which every-
body is allowed to sit in judgment upon everything
and everybody, I feel compelled to re-establish the
order of rank.
855.
Quanta of power alone determine rank and dis-
tinguish rank: nothing else does.
856.
The will to power. -How must those men be
constituted who would undertake this transvalua-
tion? The order of rank as the order of power :
war and danger are the prerequisites which allow
of a rank maintaining its conditions. The pro-
digious example: man in Nature—the weakest
and shrewdest creature making himself master, and
putting a yoke upon all less intelligent forces.
295
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THE WILL TO POWER.
857
I distinguish between the type which represents
ascending life and that which represents. decay,
decomposition and weakness. Ought one to
suppose that the question of rank between these
two types can be at all doubtful ? . .
858.
The modicum of power which you represent
decides your rank; all the rest is cowardice.
859.
The advantages of standing detached from one's
age. --Detached from the two movements, that of
individualism and that of collectivist morality; for
even the first does not recognise the order of rank,
and would give one individual the same freedom
as another. My thoughts are not concerned with
the degree of freedom which should be granted to
the one or to the other or to all, but with the
degree of power which the one or the other should
exercise over his neighbour or over all; and more
especially with the question to what extent a
sacrifice of freedom, or even enslavement, may
afford the basis for the cultivation of a superior
type. In plain words : how could one sacrifice the
development of mankind in order to assist a higher
species than man to come into being.
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THE ORDER OF RANK.
297
860.
Concerning rank. —The terrible consequences
of “equality"-in the end everybody thinks he has
the right to every problem. All order of rank
has vanished.
861.
It is necessary for higher men to declare war
upon the masses! In all directions mediocre
people are joining hands in order to make them-
selves masters. Everything that pampers, that
softens, and that brings the “people” or “woman
to the front, operates in favour of universal suffrage
—that is to say, the dominion of inferior men.
But we must make reprisals, and draw the
whole state of affairs (which commenced in
Europe with Christianity) to the light of day
and to judgment.
862.
A teaching is needed which is strong enough
to work in a disciplinary manner; it should
operate in such a way as to strengthen the strong
and to paralyse and smash up the world-weary.
The annihilation of declining races. The
decay of Europe. The annihilation of slave-
tainted valuations. The dominion of the world
as a means to the rearing of a higher type. The
annihilation of the humbug which is called
morality (Christianity as a hysterical kind of
honesty in this regard : Augustine, Bunyan)
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THE WILL TO POWER.
The annihilation of universal suffrage that is
to say, that system by means of which the
lowest natures prescribe themselves as a law for
higher natures. The annihilation of mediocrity
and its prevalence. (The one-sided, the indivi- .
duals—peoples; constitutional plenitude should
be aimed at by means of the coupling of opposites;
to this end race-combinations should be tried. )
The new kind of courage—no a priori truths
(those who were accustomed to believe in some-
thing sought such truths ! ), but free submission to
a ruling thought, which has its time; for instance,
time conceived as the quality of space, etc.
2. THE STRONG AND THE WEAK.
863.
The notion," strong and weak man," resolves itself
into this, that in the first place much strength is
inherited—the man is a total sum ; in the other,
not yet enough (inadequate inheritance, subdivision
of the inherited qualities). Weakness may be a
starting phenomenon : not yet enough; or a final
phenomenon: “no more. "
The determining point is there where great
strength is present, or where a great amount of
strength can be discharged. The mass, as the
sum-total of the weak, reacts slowly; it defends
itself against much for which it is too weak,-
against that for which it has no use; it never
creates, it never takes a step forward. This is
-
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THỆ ORDER OF RANK.
299
opposed to the theory which denies the strong
individual and would maintain that the masses
do everything. " The difference is similar to that
which obtains between separated generations :
four or even five generations may lie between the
masses and him who is the moving spirit—it is a
chronological difference.
The values of the weak are in the van,
because
the strong have adopted them in order to lead
with them.
864.
Why the weak triumph. -On the whole, the sick
and the weak have more sympathy and are more
“ humane”: the sick and the weak have more
intellect, and are more changeable, more variegated,
more entertaining-more malicious; the sick alone
invented malice. (A morbid precocity is often to be
observed among rickety, scrofulitic, and tuberculous
people. ) Esprit: the property of older races ;
Jews, Frenchmen, Chinese. (The anti-Semites
do not forgive the Jews for having both intellect-
and money. Anti-Semites—another name for
“ bungled and botched. ")
The sick and the weak have always had fascina-
tion on their side; they are more interesting than
the healthy : the fool and the saint—the two most
interesting kinds of men. . . . Closely related
thereto is the "genius. " The "great adventurers
and criminals" and all great men, the most healthy
in particular, have always been sick at certain
periods of their lives—great disturbances of the
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THE WILL TO POWER
emotions, the passion for power, love, revenge, are
all accompanied by very profound perturbations.
And, as for decadence, every man who does not
die prematurely manifests it in almost every
respect—he therefore knows from experience the
instincts which belong to it: for half his life
nearly every man is decadent.
And finally, woman! One-half of mankind is
weak, chronically sick, changeable, shifty-woman
requires strength in order to cleave to it; she also
requires a religion of the weak which glorifies
weakness, love, and modesty as divine : or, better
still, she makes the strong weak—she rules when
she succeeds in overcoming the strong.
Woman
has always conspired with decadent types,-the
priests, for instance,-against the"mighty," against
the “strong," against men. Women avail them.
selves of children for the cult of piety, pity, and
love : the mother stands as the symbol of con-
vincing altruism.
Finally, the increase of civilisation with its
necessary correlatives, the increase of morbid
elements, of the neurotic and psychiatric and of
the criminal. A sort of intermediary species arises,
A
the artist. He is distinct from those who are
criminals as the result of weak wills and of the
fear of society, although they may not yet be ripe
for the asylum; but he has antenna which grope
inquisitively into both spheres : this specific plant
of culture, the modern artist, painter, musician, and,
above all, novelist, who designates his particular
kind of attitude with the very indefinite word
« naturalism. "
Lunatics, criminals, and
.
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THE ORDER OF RANK.
301
-
realists are on the increase: this is the sign of
a growing culture plunging forward at headlong
speed—that is to say, its excrement, its refuse, the
rubbish that is shot from it every day, is beginning
to acquire more importance,—the retrogressive
movement keeps pace with the advance.
Finally, the social mishmash, which is the result
of revolution, of the establishment of equal rights,
and of the superstition, the "equality of men. ”
Thus the possessors of the instincts of decline (of
resentment, of discontent, of the lust of destruction,
of anarchy and Nihilism), as also the instincts of
slavery, of cowardice, of craftiness, and of rascality,
which are inherent among those classes of society
which have long been suppressed, are beginning to
get infused into the blood of all ranks.
Two or
three generations later, the race can no longer be
recognised-everything has become mob. And
thus there results a collective instinct against
selection, against every kind of privilege; and
this instinct operates with such power, certainty,
hardness, and cruelty that, as a matter of fact, in
the end, even the privileged classes have to
submit: all those who still wish to hold on to
power flatter the mob, work with the mob, and
must have the mob on their side—the “geniuses”
above all. The latter become the heralds of those
feelings with which the mob can be inspired,—the
expression of pity, of honour, even for all that
suffers, all that is low and despised, and has lived
* The German word is “Naturalist," and really means
« realist” in a bad sense. —TR.
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THE WILL TO POWER.
under persecution, becomes predominant (types :
Victor Hugo, Richard Wagner). —The rise of the
mob signifies once more the rise of old values.
In the case of such an extreme movement, both
in tempo and in means, as characterises our civil-
isation, man's ballast is shifted. Those men whose
worth is greatest, and whose mission, as it were, is
to compensate for the very great danger of such
a morbid movement, such men become dawdlers
par excellence; they are slow to accept anything,
and are tenacious ; they are creatures that are
relatively lasting in the midst of this vast mingling
and changing of elements. In such circumstances
power is necessarily relegated to the mediocre :
mediocrity, as the trustee and bearer of the future,
consolidates itself against the rule of the mob and
of eccentricities (both of which are, in most cases,
united). In this way a new antagonist is evolved
for exceptional men-or in certain cases a new
temptation. Provided that they do not adapt
themselves to the mob, and stand up for what
satisfies the instincts of the disinherited, they will
find it necessary to be “mediocre and sound.
They know : mediocritas is also aurea,—it alone
has command of money and gold (of all that
glitters . ). . . . And, once more, old virtue and
the whole superannuated world of ideals in general
secures a gifted host of special-pleaders. . . . Result:
mediocrity acquires intellect, wit, and genius,-it
becomes entertaining, and even seductive.
.
Result. -A high culture can only stand upon a
broad basis, upon a strongly and soundly consoli-
## p. 303 (#333) ############################################
THE ORDER OF RANK.
303
-
-
dated mediocrity. In its service and assisted by
it, science and even art do their work. Science
could not wish for a better state of affairs : in its
essence it belongs to a middle-class type of man, —
among exceptions it is out of place, there is not
anything aristocratic and still
less anything
anarchic in its instincts. The power of the middle
classes is then upheld by means of commerce, but,
above all, by means of money-dealing: the instinct
of great financiers is opposed to everything extreme
-on this account the Jews are, for the present,
the most conservative power in the threatening
and insecure conditions of modern Europe. They
can have no use either for revolutions, for social-
ism, or for militarism : if they would have power,
and if they should need it, even over the revolu-
tionary party, this is only the result of what I
have already said, and it in no way contradicts
it. Against other extreme movements they may
occasionally require to excite terror-by showing
how much power is in their hands. But their
instinct itself is inveterately conservative and
“ mediocre. " . . . Wherever power exists, they
know how to become mighty ; but the application
of their power always takes the same direction.
The polite term for mediocre, as is well known,
is the word “ Liberal. ”
*
Reflection. It is all nonsense to suppose that
this general conquest of values is anti-biological.
In order to explain it, we ought to try and show
that it is the result of a certain interest of life to
maintain the type "man," even by means of this
## p. 304 (#334) ############################################
304
THE WILL TO POWER.
method which leads to the prevalence of the weak
and the physiologically botched—if things were
otherwise, might man not cease to exist ? Problem. . .
The enhancement of the type may prove fatal
to the maintenance of the species. Why ? —The
experience of history shows that strong races
decimate each other mutually, by means of war,
lust for power, and venturousness; the strong
emotions ; wastefulness strength is no longer
capitalised, disturbed mental systems arise from
excessive tension); their existence is a costly
affair-in short, they persistently give rise to
friction between themselves ; periods of profound
slackness and torpidity intervene: all great ages
have to be paid for. . . . The strong are, after all,
weaker, less wilful, and more absurd than the
average weak ones.
They are squandering races. “ Permanence,"
in itself, can have no value: that which ought to
be preferred thereto would be a shorter life for
the species, but a life richer in creations. It would
remain to be proved that, even as things are, a
richer sum of creations is attained than in the
case of the shorter existence; i. e. that man, as a
storehouse of power, attains to a much higher
degree of dominion over things under the con-
ditions which have existed hitherto. . . . We are
here face to face with a problem of economics.
•
865.
The state of mind which calls itself “idealism,"
and which will neither allow mediocrity to be
## p. 305 (#335) ############################################
THE ORDER OF RANK.
305
mediocre nor woman to be woman! Do not
make everything uniform ! We should have a
clear idea of how dearly we have to pay for the
establishment of a virtue; and that virtue is
nothing generally desirable, but a noble piece of
madness, a beautiful exception, which gives us the
privilege of feeling elated. .
.
866.
It is necessary to show that a counter-movement
is inevitably associated with any increasingly
economical consumption of men and mankind, and
with an ever more closely involved "machinery ”
of interests and services. I call this counter-
movement the separation of the luxurious surplus
1 of mankind: by means of it a stronger kind, a
higher type, must come to light, which has other
conditions for its origin and for its maintenance than
the average man. My concept, my metaphor for
this type is, as you know, the word “ Superman. "
Along the first road, which can now be completely
surveyed, arose adaptation, stultification, higher
Chinese culture, modesty in the instincts, and
satisfaction at the sight of the belittlement of
man—a kind of stationary level of mankind. If
ever we get that inevitable and imminent, general
control of the economy of the earth, then man-
kind can be used as machinery and find its best
purpose in the service of this economy—as an
enormous piece of clock-work consisting of ever
smaller and ever more subtly adapted wheels;
then all the dominating and commanding elements
U
VOL. II.
## p. 306 (#336) ############################################
306
THE WILL TO POWER.
will become ever more superfluous; and the
whole gains enormous energy, while the individual
factors which compose it represent but small
modicums of strength and of value. To oppose
this dwarfing and adaptation of man to a special-
ised kind of utility, a reverse movement is needed
—the procreation of the synthetic man who em-
bodies everything and justifies it; that man for
whom the turning of mankind into a machine is
a first condition of existence, for whom the rest of
mankind is but soil on which he can devise his
higher mode of existence.
He is in need of the opposition of the masses,
of those who are "levelled down"; he requires
that feeling of distance from them; he stands
upon them, he lives on them. This higher form
of aristocracy is the form of the future, From
the moral point of view, the collective machinery
above described, that solidarity of all wheels,
represents the most extreme example in the
exploitation of mankind: but it presupposes the
existence of those for whom such an exploitation
would have some meaning. * Otherwise it would
signify, as a matter of fact, merely the general
depreciation of the type man,-a retrograde
phenomenon on a grand scale.
Readers are beginning to see what I am
combating—namely, economic optimism: as if
* This sentence for ever distinguishes Nietzsche's aristoc-
racy from our present plutocratic and industrial one, for
which, at the present moment at any rate, it would be
difficult to discover some meaning. -TR.
## p. 307 (#337) ############################################
THE ORDER OF RANK.
307
the general welfare of everybody must necessarily
increase with the growing self-sacrifice of every-
body. The very reverse seems to me to be the
case, the self-sacrifice of everybody amounts to a
collective loss; man becomes inferior-so that
nobody knows what end this monstrous purpose
has served. A wherefore ? a new wherefore ? -
this is what mankind requires.
867
The recognition of the increase of collective
power: we should calculate to what extent the
ruin of individuals, of castes, of ages, and of
peoples, is included in this general increase.
The transposition of the ballast of a culture.
The cost of every vast growth: who bears it?
Why must it be enormous at the present time?
868.
General aspect of the future European: the
latter regarded as the most intelligent servile
animal, very industrious, at bottom very modest,
inquisitive to excess, multifarious, pampered,
weak of will, - a chaos of cosmopolitan pas-
sions and intelligences. How would it be
possible for a stronger race to be bred from
him Such a race as would have a classical
taste ?
life precisely where it was not exactly Christian.
With a moral interpretation the world is in-
sufferable; Christianity was the attempt to over-
come the world with morality : 1. e. to deny it. In
praxi such a mad experiment-an imbecile eleva-
tion of man above the world—could only end in
--the beglooming, the dwarfing, and the impoverish-
ment of mankind: the only kind of man who
gained anything by it, who was promoted by it,
was the most mediocre, the most harmless and
gregarious type.
Homer as an apotheosis artist; Rubens also.
Music has not yet had such an artist.
The idealisation of the great criminal (the
feeling for his greatness) is Greek; the deprecia- -
tion, the slander, the contempt of the sinner, is
Judæo-Christian.
846.
Romanticism and its opposite. In regard to
all æsthetic values I now avail myself of this
fundamental distinction : in every individual case
I ask myself has hunger or has superabundance
been creative here? At first another distinction
might perhaps seem preferable, it is far more
obvious, -e. g. the distinction which decides whether
a desire for stability, for eternity, for Being, or
whether a desire for destruction, for change, for
Becoming, has been the cause of creation. But
both kinds of desire, when examined more closely,
prove to be ambiguous, and really susceptible of
## p. 281 (#311) ############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
281
interpretation only according to that scheme already
mentioned and which I think is rightly preferred.
The desire for destruction, for change, for Be-
coming, may be the expression of an overflowing
power pregnant with promises for the future (my
term for this, as is well known, is Dionysian);
it may, however, also be the hate of the ill-con-
stituted, of the needy and of the physiologically
botched, that destroys, and must destroy, because
such creatures are indignant at, and annoyed by
everything lasting and stable.
The act of immortalising can, on the other hand,
be the outcome of gratitude and love: an art
which has this origin is always an apotheosis art;
dithyrambic, as perhaps with Rubens; happy, as
perhaps with Hafiz; bright and gracious, and shed-
ding a ray of glory over all things, as in Goethe.
But it may also, however, be the outcome of the
tyrannical will of the great sufferer who would
make the most personal, individual, and narrow trait
about him, the actual idiosyncrasy of his pain—in
fact, into a binding law and imposition, and who
thus wreaks his revenge upon all things by stamp-
ing, branding, and violating them with the image of
his torment. The latter case is romantic pessim-
ism in its highest form, whether this be Schopen-
hauerian voluntarism or Wagnerian music.
847.
It is a question whether the antithesis, classic and
romantic, does not conceal that other antithesis, the
active and the reactive.
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282
THE WILL TO POWER.
848.
In order to be a classic, one must be possessed
of all the strong and apparently contradictory gifts
and passions : but in such a way that they run in
harness together, and culminate simultaneously in
elevating a certain species of literature or art or
politics to its height and zenith (they must not do
this after that elevation has taken place . . . ). They
must reflect the complete state (either of a people
or of a culture), and express its most profound and
most secret nature, at a time when it is still stable
and not yet discoloured by the imitation of foreign
things (or when it is still dependent . . . ); not
a reactive but a deliberate and progressive spirit,
saying Yea in all circumstances, even in its
hate.
“And does not the highest personal value belong
thereto? ". . , . . It is worth considering whether
moral prejudices do not perhaps exercise their in-
fluence here, and whether great moral loftiness is
not perhaps a contradiction of the classical ? . . .
Whether the moral monsters must not necessarily
be romantic in word and deed? Any such pre-
ponderance of one virtue over others (as in the
case of the moral monster) is precisely what with
most hostility counteracts the classical power in
equilibrium ; supposing a people manifested this
moral loftiness and were classical notwithstanding,
we should have to conclude boldly that they were
also on the same high level in immorality! this
was perhaps the case with Shakespeare (provided
that he was really Lord Bacon).
## p. 283 (#313) ############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
283
849.
Concerning the future. Against the romanticism
of great passion. — We must understand how a
certain modicum of coldness, lucidity, and hard-
ness is inseparable from all classical taste: above
all consistency, happy intellectuality, “the three
unities,” concentration, hatred of all feeling, of all
sentimentality, of all esprit, hatred of all multi-
formity, of all uncertainty, evasiveness, and of all
nebulosity, as also of all brevity, finicking, pretti-
ness and good nature. Artistic formulæ must not
be played with : life must be remodelled so that
it should be forced to formulate itself accordingly.
It is really an exhilarating spectacle which we
have only learned to laugh at quite recently, be-
cause we have only seen through it quite recently :
this spectacle of Herder's, Winckelmann's, Goethe's,
and Hegel's contemporaries claiming that they had
rediscovered the classical ideal . . . and at the same
time, Shakespeare! And this same crew of men
had scurvily repudiated all relationship with the
classical school of France ! As if the essential
principle could not have been learnt as well here
as elsewhere! . . . But what people wanted was
"nature," and "naturalness": Oh, the stupidity of
it ! It was thought that classicism was a kind of
naturalness!
Without either prejudice or indulgence we should
try and investigate upon what soil a classical taste
can be evolved. The hardening, the simplification,
the strengthening, and the bedevilling of man are
inseparable from classical taste. Logical and
## p. 284 (#314) ############################################
284
THE WILL TO POWER.
psychological simplification. A contempt of de-
tail, of complexity, of obscurity.
The romanticists of Germany do not protest
against classicism, but against reason, against
illumination, against taste, against the eighteenth
century.
The essence of romantico-Wagnerian music is
the opposite of the classical spirit.
The will to unity (because unity tyrannises : e. g.
the listener and the spectator), but the artist's in-
ability to tyrannise over himself where it is most
needed that is to say, in regard to the work it-
self (in regard to knowing what to leave out, what
to shorten, what to clarify, what to simplify). The
overwhelming by means of masses (Wagner, Victor
Hugo, Zola, Taine).
850.
The Nihilism of artists. --Nature is cruel in
her cheerfulness; cynical in her sunrises. We are
hostile to emotions. We flee thither where Nature
moves our senses and our imagination, where we
have nothing to love, where we are not reminded
of the moral semblances and delicacies of this
northern nature; and the same applies to the arts.
We prefer that which no longer reminds us of
good and evil. Our moral sensibility and tender-
ness seem to be relieved in the heart of terrible
and happy Nature, in the fatalism of the senses and
forces. Life without goodness.
Great well-being arises from contemplating
Nature's indifference to good and evil.
No justice in history, no goodness in Nature.
## p. 285 (#315) ############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
285
That is why the pessimist when he is an artist
prefers those historical subjects where the absence
of justice reveals itself with magnificent simplicity,
where perfection actually comes to expression-
and likewise he prefers that in Nature, where her
callous evil character is not hypocritically concealed,
where that character is seen in perfection. . . .
The Nihilistic artist betrays himself in willing and
preferring cynical history and cynical Nature.
851.
What is tragic ? -Again and again I have
pointed to the great misunderstanding of Aristotle
in maintaining that the tragic emotions were the
two depressing emotions-fear and pity. Had he
been right, tragedy would be an art unfriendly to
life: it would have been necessary to caution people
against it as against something generally harmful
and suspicious. Art, otherwise the great stimulus
of life, the great intoxicant of life, the great will
to life, here became a tool of decadence, the hand-
maiden of pessimism and ill-health (for to sup-
pose, as Aristotle supposed, that by exciting these
emotions we thereby purged people of them, is
simply an error). Something which habitually
excites fear or pity, disorganises, weakens, and dis-
courages: and supposing Schopenhauer were
right in thinking that tragedy taught resignation
(i. e, a meek renunciation of happiness, hope, and
of the will to live), this would presuppose an art
in which art itself was denied. Tragedy would
then constitute a process of dissolution; the in-
stinct of life would destroy itself in the instinct of
## p. 286 (#316) ############################################
286
THE WILL TO POWER.
art. Christianity, Nihilism, tragic art, physiological
decadence; these things would then be linked,
they would then preponderate together and assist
each other onwards-downwards. . . . Tragedy
would thus be a symptom of decline.
This theory may be refuted in the most cold-
blooded way, namely, by measuring the effect of
a tragic emotion by means of a dynamometer
The result would be a fact which only the bottom-
less falsity of a doctrinaire could misunderstand:
that tragedy is a tonic. If Schopenhauer refuses
to see the truth here, if he regards general depres-
sion as a tragic condition, if he would have informed
the Greeks (who to his disgust were not "re-
signed") that they did not firmly possess the
highest principles of life: it is only owing to
his parti pris, to the need of consistency in his
system, to the dishonesty of the doctrinaire—that
dreadful dishonesty which step for step corrupted
the whole psychology of Schopenhauer (he who
had arbitrarily and almost violently misunderstood
genius, art itself, morality, pagan religion, beauty,
knowledge, and almost everything).
852.
The tragic artist. Whether, and in regard to
what, the judgment "beautiful” is established is a
question of an individuals or of a people's strength
The feeling of plenitude, of overflowing strength
(which gaily and courageously meets many an
obstacle before which the weakling shudders)—the
feeling of power utters the judgment "beautiful”
concerning things and conditions which the in-
stinct of impotence can only value as hateful and
"
## p. 287 (#317) ############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
287
!
ugly. The flair which enables us to decide whether
the objects we encounter are dangerous, problem-
atic, or alluring, likewise determines our ästhetic
Yea. (“This is beautiful,” is an affirmation).
From this we see that, generally speaking, a
preference for questionable and terrible things is a
symptom of strength; whereas the taste for pretty
and charming trifles is characteristic of the weak
and the delicate. The love of tragedy is typical
{
of strong ages and characters: its non plus ultra
is perhaps the Divina Commedia. It is the heroic
spirits which in tragic cruelty say Yea unto them-
selves: they are hard enough to feel pain as a
pleasure.
On the other hand, supposing weaklings desire
to get pleasure from an art which was not designed
for them, what interpretation must we suppose they
would like to give tragedy in order to make it suit
their taste? They would interpret their own feel-
ings of value into it: e. g. the "triumph of the
móral order of things,” or the teaching of the
"uselessness of existence," or the incitement to
"resignation” (or also half-medicinal and half-
moral outpourings, d la Aristotle). Finally, the
art of terrible natures, in so far as it may excite
the nerves, may be regarded by the weak and ex-
hausted as a stimulus: this is now taking place,
for instance, in the case of the admiration meted
out to Wagner's art. A test of man's well-being
and consciousness of power is the extent to which
he can acknowledge the terrible and questionable
character of things, and whether he is in any need
of a faith at the end.
## p. 288 (#318) ############################################
288
THE WILL TO POWER.
This kind of artistic pessimism is precisely the
reverse of that religio-moral pessimism which
suffers from the corruption of man and the
enigmatic character of existence: the latter in-
sists upon deliverance, or at least upon the hope
of deliverance. Those who suffer, doubt, and dis-
trust themselves,—the sick, in other words,-have
in all ages required the transporting influence of
visions in order to be able to exist at all (the
notion "blessedness" arose in this way). A
similar case would be that of the artists of
decadence, who at bottom maintain a Nihilistic
attitude to life, and take refuge in the beauty of
form,-in those select cases in which Nature is
perfect, in which she is indifferently great and in-
differently beautiful. (The “love of the beautiful”
may thus be something very different from the
ability to see or create the beautiful: it may be
the expression of impotence in this respect. ) The
most convincing artists are those who make
harmony ring out of every discord, and who
benefit all things by the gift of their power and
inner harmony: in every work of art they merely
reveal the symbol of their inmost experiences-
their creation is gratitude for their life.
The depth. of the tragic artist consists in the
fact that his æsthetic instinct surveys the more
remote results, that he does not halt shortsightedly
at the thing that is nearest, that he says Yea to
the whole cosmic economy, which justifies the
terrible, the evil, and the questionable; which
more than justifies it.
## p. 289 (#319) ############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
289
!
853
Art in the “ Birth of Tragedy. "
I.
The conception of the work which lies
right in the background of this book, is extra-
ordinarily gloomy and unpleasant: among all the
types of pessimism which have ever been known
hitherto, none seems to have attained to this degree
of malice. The contrast of a true and of an ap-
parent world is entirely absent here: there is but
one world, and it is false, cruel, contradictory,
seductive, and without sense. A world thus
constituted is the true world. We are in need of
lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this
truth—that is to say, in order to live. . . That
lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of
the terrible and questionable character of existence,
Metaphysics, morality, religion, science,-in this
book, all these things are regarded merely as
different forms of falsehood : by means of them we
are led to believe in life. “Life must inspire con-
fidence”: the task which this imposes upon us is
enormous. In order to solve this problem man
must already be a liar in his heart, but he must
above all else be an artist. And he is that.
Metaphysics, religion, morality, science,—all these
things are but the offshoot of his will to art, to
falsehood, to a flight from "truth,” to a denial of
truth. ” This ability, this artistic capacity par
excellence of man- -thanks to which he overcomes
reality with lies,—is a quality which he has in
T
66
VOL. II.
## p. 290 (#320) ############################################
290
THE WILL TO POWER.
common with all other forms of existence. He
himself is indeed a piece of reality, of truth, of
nature : how could he help being also a piece
of genius in prevarication !
The fact that the character of existence is
misunderstood, is the profoundest and the highest
secret motive behind everything relating to virtue,
science, piety, and art. To be blind to many
things, to see many things falsely, to fancy
many things: Oh, how clever man has been
in those circumstances in which he believed
he was anything but clever! Love, enthusiasm,
“ God”
are but subtle forms of ultimate
self-deception; they are but seductions to life
and to the belief in life! In those moments
when man was deceived, when he had befooled
himself and when he believed in life: Oh, how
his spirit swelled within him! Oh, what ecstasies
he had! What power he felt ! And what artistic
triumphs in the feeling of power! . . . Man had
once more become master of “matter,"—master of
truth! . . . And whenever man rejoices it is always
in the same way: he rejoices as an artist, his power
is his joy, he enjoys falsehood as his power. . . .
II.
Art and nothing else! Art is the great means
of making life possible, the great seducer to life,
the great stimulus of life.
Art is the only superior counteragent to all will
to the denial of life; it is par excellence the anti-
Christian, the anti-Buddhistic, the anti-Nihilistic
force.
## p. 291 (#321) ############################################
THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
291
Art is the alleviation of the seeker after know-
ledge,of him who recognises the terrible and
questionable character of existence, and who will
recognise it, of the tragic seeker after know-
ledge.
Art is the alleviation of the man of action, of
him who not only sees the terrible and questionable
character of existence, but also lives it, will live it,
—of the tragic and warlike man, the hero.
Art is the alleviation of the sufferer,—as the
way to states in which pain is willed, is trans-
figured, is deified, where suffering is a form of
great ecstasy.
III.
It is clear that in this book pessimism, or,
better still, Nihilism, stands for "truth. " But truth
is not postulated as the highest measure of value,
and still less as the highest power. The will to
appearance, to illusion, to deception, to becoming,
and to change (to objective deception), is here re-
garded as more profound, as more primeval, as
more metaphysical than the will to truth, to reality,
to appearance: the latter is merely a form of the
will to illusion. Happiness is likewise conceived
as more primeval than pain : and pain is considered
as conditioned, as a consequence of the will to
happiness (of the will to Becoming, to growth, to
forming, i. e. to creating; in creating, however, de-
struction is included). The highest state of Yea-
saying to existence is conceived as one from which
the greatest pain may not be excluded : the tragico-
Dionysian state.
## p. 292 (#322) ############################################
292
THE WILL TO POWER.
IV.
In this way this book is even anti-pessimistic,
namely, in the sense that it teaches something which
is stronger than pessimism and which is more
“ divine” than truth: Art. Nobody, it would seem,
would be more ready seriously to utter a radical
denial of life, an actual denial of action even more
than a denial of life, than the author of this book.
Except that he knows—for he has experienced it,
and perhaps experienced little else ! —that art is of
more value than truth.
Even in the preface, in which Richard Wagner
is, as it were, invited to join with him in conversa-
tion, the author expresses this article of faith, this
gospel for artists : “ Art is the only task of life, art
is the metaphysical activity of life, . . .
## p. 293 (#323) ############################################
FOURTH BOOK.
DISCIPLINE AND BREEDING.
## p. 294 (#324) ############################################
## p. 295 (#325) ############################################
I,
THE ORDER OF RANK.
1. THE DOCTRINE OF THE ORDER OF RANK.
854.
In this age of universal suffrage, in which every-
body is allowed to sit in judgment upon everything
and everybody, I feel compelled to re-establish the
order of rank.
855.
Quanta of power alone determine rank and dis-
tinguish rank: nothing else does.
856.
The will to power. -How must those men be
constituted who would undertake this transvalua-
tion? The order of rank as the order of power :
war and danger are the prerequisites which allow
of a rank maintaining its conditions. The pro-
digious example: man in Nature—the weakest
and shrewdest creature making himself master, and
putting a yoke upon all less intelligent forces.
295
## p. 296 (#326) ############################################
296
THE WILL TO POWER.
857
I distinguish between the type which represents
ascending life and that which represents. decay,
decomposition and weakness. Ought one to
suppose that the question of rank between these
two types can be at all doubtful ? . .
858.
The modicum of power which you represent
decides your rank; all the rest is cowardice.
859.
The advantages of standing detached from one's
age. --Detached from the two movements, that of
individualism and that of collectivist morality; for
even the first does not recognise the order of rank,
and would give one individual the same freedom
as another. My thoughts are not concerned with
the degree of freedom which should be granted to
the one or to the other or to all, but with the
degree of power which the one or the other should
exercise over his neighbour or over all; and more
especially with the question to what extent a
sacrifice of freedom, or even enslavement, may
afford the basis for the cultivation of a superior
type. In plain words : how could one sacrifice the
development of mankind in order to assist a higher
species than man to come into being.
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THE ORDER OF RANK.
297
860.
Concerning rank. —The terrible consequences
of “equality"-in the end everybody thinks he has
the right to every problem. All order of rank
has vanished.
861.
It is necessary for higher men to declare war
upon the masses! In all directions mediocre
people are joining hands in order to make them-
selves masters. Everything that pampers, that
softens, and that brings the “people” or “woman
to the front, operates in favour of universal suffrage
—that is to say, the dominion of inferior men.
But we must make reprisals, and draw the
whole state of affairs (which commenced in
Europe with Christianity) to the light of day
and to judgment.
862.
A teaching is needed which is strong enough
to work in a disciplinary manner; it should
operate in such a way as to strengthen the strong
and to paralyse and smash up the world-weary.
The annihilation of declining races. The
decay of Europe. The annihilation of slave-
tainted valuations. The dominion of the world
as a means to the rearing of a higher type. The
annihilation of the humbug which is called
morality (Christianity as a hysterical kind of
honesty in this regard : Augustine, Bunyan)
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298
THE WILL TO POWER.
The annihilation of universal suffrage that is
to say, that system by means of which the
lowest natures prescribe themselves as a law for
higher natures. The annihilation of mediocrity
and its prevalence. (The one-sided, the indivi- .
duals—peoples; constitutional plenitude should
be aimed at by means of the coupling of opposites;
to this end race-combinations should be tried. )
The new kind of courage—no a priori truths
(those who were accustomed to believe in some-
thing sought such truths ! ), but free submission to
a ruling thought, which has its time; for instance,
time conceived as the quality of space, etc.
2. THE STRONG AND THE WEAK.
863.
The notion," strong and weak man," resolves itself
into this, that in the first place much strength is
inherited—the man is a total sum ; in the other,
not yet enough (inadequate inheritance, subdivision
of the inherited qualities). Weakness may be a
starting phenomenon : not yet enough; or a final
phenomenon: “no more. "
The determining point is there where great
strength is present, or where a great amount of
strength can be discharged. The mass, as the
sum-total of the weak, reacts slowly; it defends
itself against much for which it is too weak,-
against that for which it has no use; it never
creates, it never takes a step forward. This is
-
## p. 299 (#329) ############################################
THỆ ORDER OF RANK.
299
opposed to the theory which denies the strong
individual and would maintain that the masses
do everything. " The difference is similar to that
which obtains between separated generations :
four or even five generations may lie between the
masses and him who is the moving spirit—it is a
chronological difference.
The values of the weak are in the van,
because
the strong have adopted them in order to lead
with them.
864.
Why the weak triumph. -On the whole, the sick
and the weak have more sympathy and are more
“ humane”: the sick and the weak have more
intellect, and are more changeable, more variegated,
more entertaining-more malicious; the sick alone
invented malice. (A morbid precocity is often to be
observed among rickety, scrofulitic, and tuberculous
people. ) Esprit: the property of older races ;
Jews, Frenchmen, Chinese. (The anti-Semites
do not forgive the Jews for having both intellect-
and money. Anti-Semites—another name for
“ bungled and botched. ")
The sick and the weak have always had fascina-
tion on their side; they are more interesting than
the healthy : the fool and the saint—the two most
interesting kinds of men. . . . Closely related
thereto is the "genius. " The "great adventurers
and criminals" and all great men, the most healthy
in particular, have always been sick at certain
periods of their lives—great disturbances of the
## p. 300 (#330) ############################################
300
THE WILL TO POWER
emotions, the passion for power, love, revenge, are
all accompanied by very profound perturbations.
And, as for decadence, every man who does not
die prematurely manifests it in almost every
respect—he therefore knows from experience the
instincts which belong to it: for half his life
nearly every man is decadent.
And finally, woman! One-half of mankind is
weak, chronically sick, changeable, shifty-woman
requires strength in order to cleave to it; she also
requires a religion of the weak which glorifies
weakness, love, and modesty as divine : or, better
still, she makes the strong weak—she rules when
she succeeds in overcoming the strong.
Woman
has always conspired with decadent types,-the
priests, for instance,-against the"mighty," against
the “strong," against men. Women avail them.
selves of children for the cult of piety, pity, and
love : the mother stands as the symbol of con-
vincing altruism.
Finally, the increase of civilisation with its
necessary correlatives, the increase of morbid
elements, of the neurotic and psychiatric and of
the criminal. A sort of intermediary species arises,
A
the artist. He is distinct from those who are
criminals as the result of weak wills and of the
fear of society, although they may not yet be ripe
for the asylum; but he has antenna which grope
inquisitively into both spheres : this specific plant
of culture, the modern artist, painter, musician, and,
above all, novelist, who designates his particular
kind of attitude with the very indefinite word
« naturalism. "
Lunatics, criminals, and
.
## p. 301 (#331) ############################################
THE ORDER OF RANK.
301
-
realists are on the increase: this is the sign of
a growing culture plunging forward at headlong
speed—that is to say, its excrement, its refuse, the
rubbish that is shot from it every day, is beginning
to acquire more importance,—the retrogressive
movement keeps pace with the advance.
Finally, the social mishmash, which is the result
of revolution, of the establishment of equal rights,
and of the superstition, the "equality of men. ”
Thus the possessors of the instincts of decline (of
resentment, of discontent, of the lust of destruction,
of anarchy and Nihilism), as also the instincts of
slavery, of cowardice, of craftiness, and of rascality,
which are inherent among those classes of society
which have long been suppressed, are beginning to
get infused into the blood of all ranks.
Two or
three generations later, the race can no longer be
recognised-everything has become mob. And
thus there results a collective instinct against
selection, against every kind of privilege; and
this instinct operates with such power, certainty,
hardness, and cruelty that, as a matter of fact, in
the end, even the privileged classes have to
submit: all those who still wish to hold on to
power flatter the mob, work with the mob, and
must have the mob on their side—the “geniuses”
above all. The latter become the heralds of those
feelings with which the mob can be inspired,—the
expression of pity, of honour, even for all that
suffers, all that is low and despised, and has lived
* The German word is “Naturalist," and really means
« realist” in a bad sense. —TR.
## p. 302 (#332) ############################################
302
THE WILL TO POWER.
under persecution, becomes predominant (types :
Victor Hugo, Richard Wagner). —The rise of the
mob signifies once more the rise of old values.
In the case of such an extreme movement, both
in tempo and in means, as characterises our civil-
isation, man's ballast is shifted. Those men whose
worth is greatest, and whose mission, as it were, is
to compensate for the very great danger of such
a morbid movement, such men become dawdlers
par excellence; they are slow to accept anything,
and are tenacious ; they are creatures that are
relatively lasting in the midst of this vast mingling
and changing of elements. In such circumstances
power is necessarily relegated to the mediocre :
mediocrity, as the trustee and bearer of the future,
consolidates itself against the rule of the mob and
of eccentricities (both of which are, in most cases,
united). In this way a new antagonist is evolved
for exceptional men-or in certain cases a new
temptation. Provided that they do not adapt
themselves to the mob, and stand up for what
satisfies the instincts of the disinherited, they will
find it necessary to be “mediocre and sound.
They know : mediocritas is also aurea,—it alone
has command of money and gold (of all that
glitters . ). . . . And, once more, old virtue and
the whole superannuated world of ideals in general
secures a gifted host of special-pleaders. . . . Result:
mediocrity acquires intellect, wit, and genius,-it
becomes entertaining, and even seductive.
.
Result. -A high culture can only stand upon a
broad basis, upon a strongly and soundly consoli-
## p. 303 (#333) ############################################
THE ORDER OF RANK.
303
-
-
dated mediocrity. In its service and assisted by
it, science and even art do their work. Science
could not wish for a better state of affairs : in its
essence it belongs to a middle-class type of man, —
among exceptions it is out of place, there is not
anything aristocratic and still
less anything
anarchic in its instincts. The power of the middle
classes is then upheld by means of commerce, but,
above all, by means of money-dealing: the instinct
of great financiers is opposed to everything extreme
-on this account the Jews are, for the present,
the most conservative power in the threatening
and insecure conditions of modern Europe. They
can have no use either for revolutions, for social-
ism, or for militarism : if they would have power,
and if they should need it, even over the revolu-
tionary party, this is only the result of what I
have already said, and it in no way contradicts
it. Against other extreme movements they may
occasionally require to excite terror-by showing
how much power is in their hands. But their
instinct itself is inveterately conservative and
“ mediocre. " . . . Wherever power exists, they
know how to become mighty ; but the application
of their power always takes the same direction.
The polite term for mediocre, as is well known,
is the word “ Liberal. ”
*
Reflection. It is all nonsense to suppose that
this general conquest of values is anti-biological.
In order to explain it, we ought to try and show
that it is the result of a certain interest of life to
maintain the type "man," even by means of this
## p. 304 (#334) ############################################
304
THE WILL TO POWER.
method which leads to the prevalence of the weak
and the physiologically botched—if things were
otherwise, might man not cease to exist ? Problem. . .
The enhancement of the type may prove fatal
to the maintenance of the species. Why ? —The
experience of history shows that strong races
decimate each other mutually, by means of war,
lust for power, and venturousness; the strong
emotions ; wastefulness strength is no longer
capitalised, disturbed mental systems arise from
excessive tension); their existence is a costly
affair-in short, they persistently give rise to
friction between themselves ; periods of profound
slackness and torpidity intervene: all great ages
have to be paid for. . . . The strong are, after all,
weaker, less wilful, and more absurd than the
average weak ones.
They are squandering races. “ Permanence,"
in itself, can have no value: that which ought to
be preferred thereto would be a shorter life for
the species, but a life richer in creations. It would
remain to be proved that, even as things are, a
richer sum of creations is attained than in the
case of the shorter existence; i. e. that man, as a
storehouse of power, attains to a much higher
degree of dominion over things under the con-
ditions which have existed hitherto. . . . We are
here face to face with a problem of economics.
•
865.
The state of mind which calls itself “idealism,"
and which will neither allow mediocrity to be
## p. 305 (#335) ############################################
THE ORDER OF RANK.
305
mediocre nor woman to be woman! Do not
make everything uniform ! We should have a
clear idea of how dearly we have to pay for the
establishment of a virtue; and that virtue is
nothing generally desirable, but a noble piece of
madness, a beautiful exception, which gives us the
privilege of feeling elated. .
.
866.
It is necessary to show that a counter-movement
is inevitably associated with any increasingly
economical consumption of men and mankind, and
with an ever more closely involved "machinery ”
of interests and services. I call this counter-
movement the separation of the luxurious surplus
1 of mankind: by means of it a stronger kind, a
higher type, must come to light, which has other
conditions for its origin and for its maintenance than
the average man. My concept, my metaphor for
this type is, as you know, the word “ Superman. "
Along the first road, which can now be completely
surveyed, arose adaptation, stultification, higher
Chinese culture, modesty in the instincts, and
satisfaction at the sight of the belittlement of
man—a kind of stationary level of mankind. If
ever we get that inevitable and imminent, general
control of the economy of the earth, then man-
kind can be used as machinery and find its best
purpose in the service of this economy—as an
enormous piece of clock-work consisting of ever
smaller and ever more subtly adapted wheels;
then all the dominating and commanding elements
U
VOL. II.
## p. 306 (#336) ############################################
306
THE WILL TO POWER.
will become ever more superfluous; and the
whole gains enormous energy, while the individual
factors which compose it represent but small
modicums of strength and of value. To oppose
this dwarfing and adaptation of man to a special-
ised kind of utility, a reverse movement is needed
—the procreation of the synthetic man who em-
bodies everything and justifies it; that man for
whom the turning of mankind into a machine is
a first condition of existence, for whom the rest of
mankind is but soil on which he can devise his
higher mode of existence.
He is in need of the opposition of the masses,
of those who are "levelled down"; he requires
that feeling of distance from them; he stands
upon them, he lives on them. This higher form
of aristocracy is the form of the future, From
the moral point of view, the collective machinery
above described, that solidarity of all wheels,
represents the most extreme example in the
exploitation of mankind: but it presupposes the
existence of those for whom such an exploitation
would have some meaning. * Otherwise it would
signify, as a matter of fact, merely the general
depreciation of the type man,-a retrograde
phenomenon on a grand scale.
Readers are beginning to see what I am
combating—namely, economic optimism: as if
* This sentence for ever distinguishes Nietzsche's aristoc-
racy from our present plutocratic and industrial one, for
which, at the present moment at any rate, it would be
difficult to discover some meaning. -TR.
## p. 307 (#337) ############################################
THE ORDER OF RANK.
307
the general welfare of everybody must necessarily
increase with the growing self-sacrifice of every-
body. The very reverse seems to me to be the
case, the self-sacrifice of everybody amounts to a
collective loss; man becomes inferior-so that
nobody knows what end this monstrous purpose
has served. A wherefore ? a new wherefore ? -
this is what mankind requires.
867
The recognition of the increase of collective
power: we should calculate to what extent the
ruin of individuals, of castes, of ages, and of
peoples, is included in this general increase.
The transposition of the ballast of a culture.
The cost of every vast growth: who bears it?
Why must it be enormous at the present time?
868.
General aspect of the future European: the
latter regarded as the most intelligent servile
animal, very industrious, at bottom very modest,
inquisitive to excess, multifarious, pampered,
weak of will, - a chaos of cosmopolitan pas-
sions and intelligences. How would it be
possible for a stronger race to be bred from
him Such a race as would have a classical
taste ?
