No More Learning

The struggle of the many against the strong,
of the ordinary against the extraordinary, of the
weak against the strong: meets with one of its
finest interruptions in the fact that the rare, the
refined, the more exacting, present themselves as
the weak, and repudiate the coarser weapons of
power.
346.
(1) The so-called pure instinct for knowledge
of all philosophers is dictated to them by their
moral “ truths," and is only seemingly inde-
pendent.
(2) The "Moral Truths,” “ thus shall things be
»


## p. 280 (#304) ############################################

280
THE WILL TO POWER.
done,” are mere states of consciousness of an
instinct which has grown tired, “thus and thus
are things done by us. ” The “ideal” is supposed
to re-establish and strengthen an instinct; it
flatters man to feel he can obey when he is only
an automaton.
6
>
cases
347.
Morality as a means of seduction. --"Nature is
good; for a wise and good God is its cause.
Who, therefore, is responsible for the 'corruption
of man'? Tyrants and seducers and the ruling
classes are responsible—they must be wiped out":
this is Rousseau's logic (compare with Pascal's logic,
which concludes by an appeal to original sin).
Refer also to Luther's logic, which is similar.
In both
a pretext is sought for the
introduction of an insatiable lust of revenge
as a moral and religious duty. The hatred
directed against the ruling classes tries to sanctify
itself . . . (the “sinfulness of Israel ” is the
basis of the priest's powerful position).
Compare this with Paul's logic, which is
similar. It is always under the cover of God's
business that these reactions appear, under the
cover of what is right, or of humanity, etc. In
the case of Christ the rejoicings of the people
appear as the cause of His crucifixion.
an anti-priestly movement from the beginning.
Even in the anti-Semitic movement we find the
same trick: the opponent is overcome with moral
condemnations, and those who attack him pose
as retributive Justice.
.
It was


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
281
348.
.
The incidents of the fight : the fighter tries to
transform his opponent into the exact opposite of
himself—imaginatively, of course.
He tries to
believe in himself to such an extent that he may
have the courage necessary for the “good Cause”
(as if he were the good Cause); as if reason, taste,
and virtue were being assailed by his opponents.
. . The belief of which he is most in need, as
the strongest means of defence and attack, is the
belief in himself, which, however, knows how to
misinterpret itself as a belief in God.
He never
pictures the advantages and the uses of victory,
but only understands victory for the sake of
victory—for God's sake. Every small community
(or individual), finding itself involved in a struggle,
strives to convince itself of this : "Good taste, good
judgment, and virtue are ours. " War urges people
to this exaggerated self-esteem. . . .
349.
»
a
Whatever kind of eccentric ideal one may have
(whether as a "Christian," a "free - spirit,” an
“immoralist,” or German Imperialist), one
should try to avoid insisting upon its being the
ideal; for, by so doing, it is deprived of all its
privileged nature. One should have an ideal as a
distinction; one should not propagate it, and thus
level one's self down to the rest of mankind.
How is it, that in spite of this obvious fact, the
majority of idealists indulge in propaganda for


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282
THE WILL TO POWER.
their ideal, just as if they had no right to it unless
the majority acquiesce therein ? —For instance, all
those plucky and insignificant girls behave in this
way, who claim the right to study Latin and
mathematics. What is it urges them to do this?
I fear it is the instinct of the herd, and the terror
of the herd: they fight for the “emancipation of
woman,” because they are best able to achieve
their own private little distinction by fighting for
it under the cover of a charitable movement, under
the banner bearing the device “For others. ”
The cleverness of idealists consists in their per-
sistently posing as the missionaries and "repre-
sentatives” of an ideal: they thus“ beautify
themselves in the eyes of those who still believe
in disinterestedness and heroism. Whereas real
heroism consists, not in fighting under the banner
of self-sacrifice, submission, and disinterestedness,
but in not fighting at all. . . . "I am thus; I
.
will be thus—and you can go to the devil ! "
350.
Every ideal assumes love, hate, reverence, and con-
tempt. Either positive feeling is the primum mobile,
or negative feeling is. Hatred and contempt are
the primum mobile in all the ideals which proceed
from resentment.
B. A Criticism of the " Good Man," of the Saint, etc.
351.
The "good man. ” Or, hemiplegia of virtue. -
In the opinion of every strong and natural man,


## p. 283 (#307) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
283
.
.
love and hate, gratitude and revenge, goodness
and anger, affirmative and negative action, belong
to each other. A man is good on condition that
he knows how to be evil; a man is evil, because
otherwise he would not know how to be good.
Whence comes the morbidness and ideological
unnaturalness which repudiates these compounds
-which teaches a sort of one-sided efficiency as
the highest of all things? Whence this hemiplegia
of virtue, the invention of the good man? The
object seems to be to make man amputate those
instincts which enable him to be an enemy, to be
harmful, to be angry, and to insist upon revenge.
This unnaturalness, then, corresponds to
that dualistic concept of a wholly good and of a
wholly bad creature (God, Spirit, Man); in the first
are found all the positive, in the second all the
negative forces, intentions, and states. This
method of valuing thus believes itself to be
“idealistic"; it never doubts that in its concept
of the “good man,” it has found the highest de-
sideratum. When aspiring to its zenith it fancies
a state in which all evil is wiped out, and in which
only good creatures have actually remained over.
It does not therefore regard the mutual depend-
ence of the opposites good and evil as proved.
On the contrary, the latter ought to vanish, and
the former should remain. The first has a right
to exist, the second ought not to be with us at
all. . . What, as a matter of fact, is the reason
of this desire? In all ages, and particularly in the
Christian age, much labour has been spent in
trying to reduce men to this one-sided activity:


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284
THE WILL TO POWER.
6
and even to-day, among those who have been
deformed and weakened by the Church, people
are not lacking who desire precisely the same
thing with their “humanisation ” generally, or
with their “ Will of God,” or with their “ Salvation
of the Soul. ” The principal injunction behind all
these things is, that man should no longer do
anything evil, that he should under no circum-
stances be harmful or desire harm.
The way to
arrive at this state of affairs is to amputate all
hostile tendencies, to suppress all the instincts of
resentment, and to establish“ spiritual peace” as
a chronic disease.
This attitude of mind, in which a certain type
of man is bred, starts out with this absurd
hypothesis : good and evil are postulated as
realities which are in a state of mutual contradic-
tion (not as complementary values, which they
are), people are advised to take the side of the
good, and it is insisted upon that a good man
resists and forswears evil until every trace of it is
uprooted—but with this valuation Life is actually
denied, for in all its instincts Life has both yea
and nay. But far from understanding these facts,
this valuation dreams rather of returning to the
wholeness, oneness, and strengthfulness of Life: it
actually believes that a state of blessedness will
be reached when the inner anarchy and state of
unrest which result from these opposed impulses
is brought to an end. It is possible that no more
dangerous ideology, no greater mischief in the
science of psychology, has ever yet existed, than
this will to good: the most repugnant type of man
키
​

## p. 285 (#309) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
285
has been reared, the man who is not free, the
bigot; it was taught that only in the form of a
bigot could one tread the path which leads to
God, and that only a bigot's life could be a godly
life.
And even here, Life is still in the right-Life
that knows not how to separate Yea from Nay:
what is the good of declaring with all one's might
that war is an evil, that one must harm no one,
that one must not act negatively? One is still
waging a war even in this, it is impossible to do
otherwise ! The good man who has renounced
all evil, and who is afflicted according to his desire
with the hemiplegia of virtue, does not therefore
cease from waging war, or from making enemies,
or from saying “nay” and doing “nay. " The
Christian, for instance, hates "sin ” ! and what
on earth is there which he does not call “ sin ”!
It is precisely because of his belief in a moral
antagonism between good and evil, that the world
for him has grown so full of hatefulness and
things that must be combated eternally. The
" "good man” sees himself surrounded by evil, and,
thanks to the continual onslaughts of the latter,
his eye grows more keen, and in the end discovers
traces of evil in every one of his acts. And thus
he ultimately arrives at the conclusion, which to
him is quite logical, that Nature is evil, that man is
corrupted, and that being good is an act of grace
(that is to say, it is impossible to man when he
stands alone). In short: he denies Life, he sees
how "good,” as the highest value, condemns Life.
. . And thus his ideology concerning good and


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286
THE WILL TO POWER.
evil ought to strike him as refuted.
But one
cannot refute a disease. Therefore he is obliged
to conceive another life!
.
352.
Power, whether in the hands of a god or of a
man, is always understood to consist in the ability
to harm as well as to help. This is the case with
the Arabs and with the Hebrews, in fact with all
strong and well-constituted races.
The dualistic separation of the two powers is
fatal. . . . In this way morality becomes the
. . .
poisoner of life.
353
A criticism of the good man. —Honesty, dignity,
dutifulness, justice, humanity, loyalty, uprightness,
clean conscience-is it really supposed that, by
means of these fine-sounding words, the qualities
they stand for are approved and affirmed for their
own sake?
Or is it this, that qualities and states
indifferent in themselves have merely been looked
at in a light which lends them some value ? Does
the worth of these qualities lie in themselves, or
in the use and advantages to which they lead (or
to which they seem to lead, to which they are
expected to lead)?
I naturally do not wish to imply that there is
any opposition between the ego and the alter in
the judgment: the question is, whether it is the
results of these qualities, either in regard to him
who possesses them or in regard to environment,


## p. 287 (#311) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
287
.
.
society, "humanity," which lend them their value;
or whether they have a value in themselves. . .
In other words: is it utility which bids men
condemn, combat, and deny the opposite qualities
(duplicity, falseness, perversity, lack of self-
confidence, inhumanity)? Is the essence of such
qualities condemned, or only their consequences
In other words: were it desirable that there should
exist no men at all possessed of such qualities?
In any case, this is believed. . . But here lies
the error, the shortsightedness, the monocularity
of narrow egoism.
Expressed otherwise: would it be desirable to
create circumstances in which the whole advan-
tage would be on the side of the just—so that all
those with opposite natures and instincts would
be discouraged and would slowly become extinct ?
At bottom, this is a question of taste and of
esthetics : should we desire the most honourable
types of men—that is to say, the greatest bores-
alone to subsist? the rectangular, the virtuous,
the upright, the good-natured, the straightforward,
and the “blockheads”?
If one can imagine the total suppression of the
huge number constituting the “others," even the
just man himself ceases from having a right to
exist, he is, in fact, no longer necessary,—and in
this
way it is seen that coarse utility alone could
have elevated such an insufferable virtue to a
place of honour.
Desirability may lie precisely on the other side,
It might be better to create conditions in which
the “just man" would be reduced to the humble
"


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288
THE WILL TO POWER,
G
position of a “useful instrument"-an “ideal
gregarious animal,” or at best a herdsman: in
short, conditions in which he would no longer
stand in the highest sphere, which requires other
qualities.
354.
The "good man as a tyrant. -Mankind has
always repeated the same error: it has always
transformed a mere vital measure into the measure
and standard of life;-instead of seeking the
standard in the highest ascent of life, in the
problem of growth and exhaustion, it takes the
preservative measures of a very definite kind of
life, and uses them to exclude all other kinds of
life, and even to criticise Life itself and to select
from among its forms. That is to say, man
ultimately forgets that measures are a means to
an end, and gets to like them for themselves :
they take the place of a goal in his mind, and
even become the standard of goals to him-
that is to say, a given species of man regards his
means of existence as the only legitimate means,
as the means which ought to be imposed upon all,
as “truth," "goodness," "perfection”: the given
“
species, in fact, begins to tyrannise. . . . It is a
form of faith, of instinct, when a certain species
of man does not perceive that his kind has been
conditioned, when he does not understand his
relation to other species. At any rate, any species
of men (a people or a race) seems to be doomed
as soon as it becomes tolerant, grants equal rights,
and no longer desires to be master,


## p. 289 (#313) ############################################

A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
289
355.
"
“All good people are weak: they are good
because they are not strong enough to be evil,”
said the Latuka chieftain Comorro to Baker.
“Disasters are not to the faint-hearted," is a
Russian proverb.
356.
Modest, industrious, benevolent, and temperate:
thus you would that men were ? —that good men
were ? But such men I can only conceive as
slaves, the slaves of the future.
357.
The metamorphoses of slavery; its disguise in
the cloak of religion; its transfiguration through
morality.
358.
The ideal slave (the “good man”). --He who
cannot regard himself as a "purpose," and who
cannot give himself any aim whatsoever, in-
stinctively honours the morality of unselfishness.
Everything urges him to this morality: his
prudence, his experience, and his vanity. And
even faith is a form of self-denial.
Atavism : delightful feeling, to be able to obey
unconditionally for once.
日​*
VOL. I.


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290
THE WILL TO POWER.
Industry, modesty, benevolence, temperance,
are just so many obstacles in the way of sovereign
sentiments, of great ingenuity, of an heroic purpose,
of noble existence for one's self.
It is not a question of going ahead (to that end
all that is required is to be at best a herdsman,
that is to say, the prime need of the herd), it is
rather a matter of getting along alone, of being
able to be another.
359.
We must realise all that has been accumulated
as the result of the highest moral idealism: how
almost all other values have crystallised round it.
This shows that it has been desired for a very
long time and with the strongest passions—and
that it has not yet been attained : otherwise it
would have disappointed everybody (that is to say,
it would have been followed by a more moderate
valuation).
The saint as the most powerful type of man:
this ideal it is which has elevated the value of
moral perfection so high. One would think that
the whole of science had been engaged in proving
that the moral man is the most powerful and most
godly. —The conquest of the senses and the
passions—everything inspired terror;—the un-
natural seemed to the spectators to be super-
natural and transcendental, . . ,
-


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
291
360.
Francis of Assisi: amorous and popular, a poet
who combats the order of rank among souls, in
favour of the lowest. The denial of spiritual
hierarchy"all alike before God. ”
Popular ideals: the good man, the unselfish
man, the saint, the sage, the just man. O Marcus
Aurelius !
361.
I have declared war against the anæmic
Christian ideal (together with what is closely
related to it), not because I want to annihilate it,
but only to put an end to its tyranny and clear
the way for other ideals, for more robust ideals.
. . The continuance of the Christian ideal belongs
to the most desirable of desiderata: if only for
the sake of the ideals which wish to take their
stand beside it and perhaps above it—they must
have opponents, and strong ones too, in order to
grow strong themselves. That is why we im-
moralists require the power of morality: our
instinct of self - preservation insists upon
opponents maintaining their strength — all it
requires is to become master of them.
our
C. Concerning the Slander of the so-called
Evil Qualities.
362.
Egoism and its problem! The Christian
gloominess of La Rochefoucauld, who saw egoism


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292
THE WILL TO POWER.
1
in everything, and imagined that he had therefore
reduced the worth of things and virtues ! In
opposition to him, I first of all tried to show that
nothing else could exist save egoism,—that in
those men whose ego is weak and thin, the power
A to love also grows weak,—that the greatest lovers
are such owing to the strength of their ego,—that
love is an expression of egoism, etc. As a matter
of fact, the false valuation aims at the interest of
those who find it useful, whom it helps in fact,
the herd; it fosters a pessimistic mistrust towards
the basis of Life; it would fain undermine the
most glorious and most well-constituted men (out
of fear); it would assist the lowly to have the upper
hand of their conquerors; it is the cause of uni-
versal dishonesty, especially in the most useful
type of men.
363.
Man is an indifferent egoist : even the cleverest
regards his habits as more important than his
advantage.
364.
Egoism ! But no one has yet asked: what is
the ego like? Everybody is rather inclined to
see all egos alike. This is the result of the slave
theory, of universal suffrage, and of “equality. "
365.
The behaviour of a higher man is the result of
a very complex set of motives : any word such as
"pity” betrays nothing of this complexity. The


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY,
293
most important factor is the feeling, “who am I?
who is the other relative to me? "-Thus the
valuing spirit is continually active.
366.
To think that the history of all moral pheno-
mena may be simplified, as Schopenhauer thought,
--that is to say, that pity is to be found at the
root of every moral impulse that has ever existed
hitherto,-is to be guilty of a degree of nonsense
and ingenuousness worthy only of a thinker who
is devoid of all historical instincts and who has
miraculously succeeded in evading the strong
schooling in history which the Germans, from
Herder to Hegel, have undergone.
6
367
My "pity. ”—This is a feeling for which I can
find no adequate term: I feel it when I am in
the presence of any waste of precious capabilities,
as, for instance, when I contemplate Luther: what
power and what tasteless problems fit for back-
woodsmen! (At a time when the brave and light-
hearted scepticism of a Montaigne was already
possible in France ! ) Or when I see some one
standing below where he might have stood, thanks
to the development of a set of perfectly senseless
accidents. Or even when, with the thought of
man's destiny in my mind, I contemplate with
horror and contempt the whole system of modern
European politics, which is creating the circum-


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294
THE WILL TO POWER.
stances and weaving the fabric of the whole future
of mankind. Yes, to what could not "mankind”
attain, if- ! This is my “pity"; despite the
fact that no sufferer yet exists with whom I
sympathise in this way.
368.
hriatha
Pity is a waste of feeling, a moral parasite
which is injurious to the health,“ it cannot possibly
be our duty to increase the evil in the world. ” If
one does good merely out of pity, it is one's self
and not one's neighbour that one is succouring.
Pity does not depend upon maxims, but upon
emotions. The suffering we see infects us; pity
is an infection.
369.
There is no such thing as egoism which keeps
within its bounds and does not exceed them
consequently, the “allowable,” the “morally in-
different” egoism of which some people speak,
does not exist at all.
“One is continually promoting the interests of
one's 'ego' at the cost of other people”; “Living
consists in living at the cost of others "-he who
has not grasped this fact, has not taken the first
step towards truth to himself.
370.
The “subject” is a piece of fiction: the ego of
which every one speaks when he blames egoism,
does not exist at all.


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
295
371.
Our “ego”—which is not one with the unitary
controlling force of our beings ! —is really only an
imagined synthesis ; therefore there can be no
"egoistic" actions.
372.
Since all instincts are unintelliġent, utility cannot
represent a standpoint as far as they are concerned.
Every instinct, when it is active, sacrifices strength
and other instincts into the bargain: in the end
it is stemmed, otherwise it would be the end of
everything owing to the waste it would bring
about. Thus: that which is “unegoistic," self-
sacrificing, and imprudent is nothing in particular
-it is common to all the instincts; they do not
consider the welfare of the whole ego (because they
simply do not think ! ), they act counter to our
interests, against the ego: and often for the ego-
innocent in both cases !
373.
The origin of moral values. -Selfishness has as
much value as the physiological value of him who
possesses it. Each individual represents the whole
course of Evolution, and he is not, as morals teach,
something that begins at his birth.
If he re-
present the ascent of the line of mankind, his
value is, in fact, very great; and the concern about
his maintenance and the promoting of his growth
may even be extreme. (It is the concern about


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296
THE WILL TO POWER.
the promise of the future in him which gives the
well-constituted individual such an extraordinary
right to egoism. ) If he represent descending
development, decay, chronic sickening, he has
little worth : and the greatest fairness would have
him take as little room, strength, and sunshine as
possible from the well-constituted. In this case
society's duty is to suppress egoism (for the latter
may sometimes manifest itself in an absurd, morbid,
and seditious manner): whether it be a question
of the decline and pining away of single individuals
or of whole classes of mankind. A morality and
a religion of “ love," the curbing of the self-affirming
spirit, and a doctrine encouraging patience, re-
signation, helpfulness, and co-operation in word and
deed may be of the highest value within the
confines of such classes, even in the eyes of their
rulers : for it restrains the feelings of rivalry, of
resentment, and of envy,-feelings which are only
too natural in the bungled and the botched,—and
it even deifies them under the ideal of humility, of
obedience, of slave-life, of being ruled, of poverty,
of illness, and of lowliness. This explains why
the ruling classes (or races) and individuals of all
ages have always upheld the cult of unselfishness,
the gospel of the lowly and of “God on the Cross. "
The preponderance of an altruistic way of
valuing is the result of a consciousness of the fact
that one is botched and bungled. Upon ex-
amination, this point of view turns out to be: I
am not worth much," simply a psychological valua-
tion; more plainly still : it is the feeling of im-
potence, of the lack of the great self-asserting
«C


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À CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
297
impulses of power (in muscles, nerves, and ganglia).
This valuation gets translated, according to the
particular culture of these classes, into a moral or
religious principle (the pre-eminence of religious or
moral precepts is always a sign of low culture):
it tries to justify itself in spheres whence, as far
as it is concerned, the notion "value" hails. The
interpretation by means of which the Christian
sinner tries to understand himself, is an attempt
at justifying his lack of power and of self-con-
fidence: he prefers to feel himself a sinner rather
than feel bad for nothing: it is in itself a symptom
of decay when interpretations of this sort are used
at all. In some cases the bungled and the botched
do not look for the reason of their unfortunate
condition in their own guilt (as the Christian does),
but in society: when, however, the Socialist, the
Anarchist, and the Nihilist are conscious that their
existence is something for which some one must be
guilty, they are very closely related to the Christian,
who also believes that he can more easily endure
his ill ease and his wretched constitution when he
has found some one whom he can hold responsible
for it. The instinct of revenge and resentment
appears in both cases here as a means of enduring
life, as a self-preservative measure, as is also the
favour shown to altruistic theory and practice.
The hatred of egoism, whether it be one's own (as
in the case of the Christian), or another's (as in
the case of the Socialists), thus appears as a valua-
tion reached under the predominance of revenge;
and also as an act of prudence on the part of the
preservative instinct of the suffering, in the form


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298
THE WILL TO POWER.
»
of an increase in their feelings of co-operation and
unity. . . . At bottom, as I have already suggested,
the discharge of resentment which takes place in
the act of judging, rejecting, and punishing egoism
(one's own or that of others) is yet another self-
preservative instinct on the part of the bungled
and the batched. In short: the cult of altruism is
merely a particular form of egoism, which regularly
appears under certain definite physiological cir-
cumstances,
When the Socialist, with righteous indignation,
cries for “justice,” “rights,” “equal rights,” it
only shows that he is oppressed by his inade-
quate culture, and is unable to understand why
he suffers : he also finds pleasure in crying ;if
he were more at ease he would take jolly good
care not to cry in that way: in that case he
would seek his pleasure elsewhere. The same
holds good of the Christian : he curses, condemns,
and slanders the “world”—and does not even
except himself.
But that is no reason for taking
him seriously. In both cases we are in the
presence of invalids who feel better for crying,
and who find relief in slander.
.
374.
Every society has a tendency to reduce its
opponents to caricatures, at least in its own
imagination,-as also to starve them. As an
example of this sort of caricature we have our
“ criminal. ” In the midst of the Roman and
aristocratic order of values, the Jew was reduced


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
299
to a caricature. Among artists, "Mrs. Grundy
and the bourgeois” become caricatures; while
among pious people it is the heretics, and among
aristocrats, the plebeian. Among immoralists it
is the moralist. Plato, for instance, in my books
becomes a caricature.
375.
All the instincts and forces which morality
praises, seem to me to be essentially the same as
those which it slanders and rejects: for instance,
justice as will to power, will to truth as a means
in the service of the will to power.
376.
The turning of man's nature inwards. The
process of turning a nature inwards arises when,
owing to the establishment of peace and society,
powerful instincts are prevented from venting
themselves outwardly, and strive to survive
harmlessly inside in conjunction with the imagi-
nation. The need of hostility, cruelty, revenge,
and violence is reverted, “it steps backwards”;
in the thirst for knowledge there lurks both the
lust of gain and of conquest; in the artist, the
powers of dissimulation and falsehood find their
scope; the instincts are thus transformed into
demons with whom a fight takes place, etc.
377.
Falsity. --Every sovereign instinct makes the
others its instruments, its retainers and its syco-


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300
THE WILL TO POWER.
phants: it never allows itself to be called by its
more hateful name : and it brooks no terms of
praise in which it cannot indirectly find its share.
Around every sovereign instinct all praise and
blame in general crystallises into a rigorous
form of ceremonial and etiquette. This is one of
the causes of falsity.
Every instinct which aspires to dominion, but
which finds itself under a yoke, requisitions all
the most beautiful names and the most generally
accepted values to strengthen it and to support its
self-esteem, and this explains why as a rule it
dares to come forward under the name of the
“master” it is combating and from whom it
would be free (for instance, under the domination
of Christian values, the desires of the flesh and of
power act in this way). This is the other cause
of falsity.
In both cases complete ingenuousness reigns :
the falseness never even occurs to the mind of
those concerned. It is the sign of a broken
instinct when man sees the motive force and its
"expression” (“the mask") as separate things-
it is a sign of inner contradiction and is much less
formidable. Absolute innocence in bearing, word,
and passion, a "good conscience” in falseness,
and the certainty wherewith all the grandest and
most pompous words and attitudes are appro-
priated-all these things are necessary for
victory.
In the other case: that is to say, when extreme
clearsightedness is present, the genius of the actor
is needful as well as tremendous discipline in self-


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
301
control, if victory is to be achieved.
That is why
priests are the cleverest and most conscious hypo-
crites; and then come princes, in whom their
position in life and their antecedents account
for a certain histrionic gift. Society men and
diplomatists come third, and women fourth.
The fundamental thought : Falsity seems so
deep, so many-sided, and the will is directed so
inexorably against perfect self-knowledge and
accurate self-classification, that one is very pro-
bably right in supposing that Truth and the will to
truth are perhaps something quite different and
only disguises. (The need of faith is the greatest
obstacle in the way of truthfulness. )
378.
“Thou shalt not tell a falsehood”: people
insist upon truthfulness. But the acknowledg-
ment of facts (the refusal to allow one's self to be
lied to) has always been greatest with liars: they
actually recognised the unreality of this popular
“ truthfulness. ” There is too much or too little
being said continually: to insist upon people's
exposing themselves with every word they say, is
a piece of naïveté.
People say what they think, they are "truth-
“
ful"; but only under certain circumstances : that is
to say, provided they be understood (inter pares),
and understood with good will into the bargain
(once more inter pares). One conceals one's self in
the presence of the unfamiliar: and he who would
attain to something, says what he would fain have


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302
THE WILL TO POWER.
2
people think about him, but not what he thinks.
(“ The powerful man is always a liar. ")
379.
"
9
The great counterfeit coinage of Nihilism con
cealed beneath an artful abuse of moral values :-
(a) Love regarded as self-effacement; as also
pity.
(6) Only the most impersonal intellect ("the
philosopher") can know the truth, “the true
essence and nature of things. ”
© Genius, great men are great, because they
do not strive to further their own interests: the
value of man increases in proportion as he effaces
himself.
(d) Art as the work of the "pure free-willed
subject"; misunderstanding of “objectivity. ”
(e) Happiness as the object of life: virtue as a
means to an end.
The pessimistic condemnation of life by Scho-
penhauer is a moral one. Transference of the
gregarious standards into the realm of meta-
physics.
The “individual” lacks sense, he must there-
fore have his origin in " the thing in itself” (and
the significance of his existence must be shown
to be "error"); parents are only an "accidental
“
“
cause. ”—The mistake on the part of science in
considering the individual as the result of all
past life instead of the epitome of all past life, is
now becoming known,


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
303
380.
1. Systematic falsification of history; so that
it may present a proof of the moral valua-
tions:
(a) The decline of a people and corruption.
(6) The rise of a people and virtue.
(c) The zenith of a people (“its culture”)
regarded as the result of high moral excellence.
2. Systematic falsification of great men, great
creators, and great periods. The desire is to make
faith that which distinguishes great men: whereas
carelessness in this respect, scepticism, “immoral-
ity," the right to repudiate a belief, belongs to
greatness (Cæsar, Frederick the Great, Napoleon ;
but also Homer, Aristophanes, Leonardo, Goethe).
The principal fact—their " free will”-is always
suppressed.
381.
A great lie in history; as if the corruption of
the Church were the cause of the Reformation !
This was only the pretext and self-deception of
the agitators—very strong needs were making
themselves felt, the brutality of which sorely re-
quired a spiritual dressing.
382.
Schopenhauer declared high intellectuality to
be the emancipation from the will: he did not
wish to recognise the freedom from moral pre-
judices which is coincident with the emancipation


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304
THE WILL TO POWER.
"
see
a
-
of a great mind; he refused to see what is the
typical immorality of genius; he artfully contrived
to set up the only moral value he honoured
self-effacement, as the one condition of highest
intellectual activity: "objective" contemplation.
“Truth,” even in art, only manifests itself after
the withdrawal of the will
. .
Through all moral idiosyncrasies I
fundamentally different valuation. Such absurd
distinctions as "genius” and the world of will, of
morality and immorality, I know nothing about at
all. The moral is a lower kind of animal than
the immoral, he is also weaker; indeed he is a
type in regard to morality, but he is not a type
of his own.
He is a copy; at the best, a good
copy—the standard of his worth lies without him.
I value a man according to the quantum of power
and fullness of his will: not according to the
enfeeblement and moribund state thereof. I con-
sider that a philosophy which teaches the denial
of will is both defamatory and slanderous. . . . I
test the power of a will according to the amount
of resistance it can offer and the amount of pain
and torture it can endure and know how to turn
to its own advantage; I do not point to the evil
and pain of existence with the finger of reproach,
but rather entertain the hope that life may one
day be more evil and more full of suffering than
it has ever been.
The zenith of intellectuality, according to
Schopenhauer, was to arrive at the knowledge
that all is to no purpose-in short, to recognise
what the good man already does instinctively.
.


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.
305
He denies that there can be higher states of
intellectuality-he regards his view as a non plus
ultra. . . . Here intellectuality is placed much
lower than goodness; its highest value (as art, for
instance) would be to lead up to, and to advise
the adoption of, morality, the absolute predomin-
ance of moral values.
Next to Schopenhauer I will now characterise
Kant: there was nothing Greek in Kant; he was
quite anti-historical (cf. his attitude in regard to
the French Revolution) and a moral fanatic (see
Goethe's words concerning the radically evil
element in human nature *). Saintliness also
lurked somewhere in his soul. . . . I require a
criticism of the saintly type.
Hegel's value: "Passion. "
Herbert Spencer's tea-grocer's philosophy: total
absence of an ideal save that of the mediocre man.
a
* TRANSLATOR'S NOTE. —This is doubtless a reference to a
a
passage in a letter written by Goethe to Herder, on 7th June
1793, from the camp at Marienborn, near Mainz, in which
the following words occur :- -“ Dagegen hat aber auch Kant
seinen philosophischen Mantel, nachdem er ein langes
Menschenleben gebraucht hat, ihn von mancherlei sudel-
haften Vorurteilen zu reinigen, freventlich mit dem Schand-
fleck des radikalen Bösen beschlabbert, damit doch auch
Christen herbeigelockt werden den Saum zu küssen. ”-
("Kant, on the other hand, after he had tried throughout
his life to keep his philosophical cloak unsoiled by foul pre-
judices, wantonly dirtied it in the end with the disreputable
stain of the 'radical evil' in human nature, in order that
Christians too might be lured into kissing its hem. ") From
this passage it will be seen how Goethe had anticipated
Nietzsche's view of Kant ; namely, that he was a Christian
in disguise.
U
VOL. I.


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306
THE WILL TO POWER.
Fundamental instinct of all philosophers,
historians, and psychologists: everything of value
in mankind, art, history, science, religion, and
technology must be shown to be morally valuable
and morally conditioned, in its aim, means, and
result. Everything is seen in the light of this
highest value; for instance, Rousseau's question
concerning civilisation, “ Will it make man grow
better? "-a funny question, for the reverse is
obvious, and is a fact which speaks in favour of
civilisation,
383
Religious morality. - Passion, great desire; the
passions of power, love, revenge, and property :
the moralists wish to uproot and exterminate all
these things, and “purify” the soul by driving
them out of it.
The argument is : the passions often lead to
disaster—therefore, they are evil and ought to be
condemned. Man must wring himself free from
them, otherwise he cannot be a good man.
This is of the same nature as: “If thy right eye
offend thee, pluck it out. " In this particular case
when, with that “ bucolic simplicity," the Founder
of Christianity recommended a certain practice to
His disciples, in the event of sexual excitement,
the result would not be only the loss of a parti-
cular member, but the actual castration of the
whole of the man's character. . . . And the same
applies to the moral mania, which, instead of
insisting upon the control of the passions, sues for


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A CRITICISM OF MORALITY.