No More Learning

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 ? The classical taste: this is the will to
simplicity, to accentuation, and to happiness made
visible, the will to the terrible, and the courage
for psychological nakedness (simplification is the
!


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308
THE WILL TO POWER.
outcome of the will to accentuate; allowing
happiness as well as nakedness to become visible
is a consequence of the will to the terrible . . . ).
In order to fight one's way out of that chaos, and
up to this form, a certain disciplinary constraint is
necessary : a man should have to choose between
either going to the dogs or prevailing. A ruling
race can only arise amid terrible and violent
conditions. Problem: where are the barbarians
of the twentieth century? Obviously they will
only show themselves and consolidate themselves
after enormous socialistic crises. They will con-
sist of those elements which are capable of the
greatest hardness towards themselves, and which
can guarantee the most enduring will-power,
869.
The mightiest and most dangerous passions of
man, by means of which he most easily goes to
rack and ruin, have been so fundamentally banned
that mighty men themselves have either become
impossible or else must regard themselves as evil,
“harmful and prohibited. ” The losses are heavy,
but up to the present they have been necessary.
Now, however, that a whole host of counter-forces
has been reared, by means of the temporary
suppression of these passions (the passion for
dominion, the love of change and deception), their
liberation has once more become possible: they
will no longer possess their old savagery. We
can now allow ourselves this tame sort of bar-
barism : look at our artists and our statesmen !


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
309
870.
The root of all evil : that the slave morality
of modesty, chastity, selflessness, and absolute
obedience should have triumphed. Dominating
natures were thus condemned (1) to hypocrisy,
(2) to qualms of conscience,-creative natures
regarded themselves as rebels against God, un-
certain and hemmed in by eternal values.
The barbarians showed that the ability of
keeping within the bounds of moderation was not
in the scope of their powers : they feared and
slandered the passions and instincts of nature-
likewise the aspect of the ruling Cæsars and
castes. On the other hand, there arose the sus-
picion that all restraint is a form of weakness or
of incipient old age and fatigue (thus La Rochefou-
cauld suspects that "virtue" is only a euphemism
in the mouths of those to whom vice no longer
affords any pleasure). The capacity for restraint
was represented as a matter of hardness, self-
control, asceticism, as a fight with the devil, etc.
etc. The natural delight of æsthetic natures, in
measure; the pleasure derived from the beauty of
measure, was overlooked and denied, because that
which was
desired was
an anti-eudaemonistic
morality. The belief in the pleasure which comes
of restraint has been lacking hitherto — this
pleasure of a rider on a fiery steed! The modera-
tion of weak natures was confounded with the
restraint of the strong!
In short, the best things have been blasphemed
because weak or immoderate swine have thrown a


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310
THE WILL TO POWER.
bad light upon them- the best men have remained
concealed - and have often misunderstood them-
selves.
871.
Vicious and unbridled people: their depressing
influence upon the value of the passions. It was
the appalling barbarity of morality which was
principally responsible in the Middle Ages for
the compulsory recourse to a veritable “ league
of virtue”—and this was coupled with an equally
appalling exaggeration of all that which consti-
tutes the value of, man. Militant “civilisation"
(taming) is in need of all kinds of irons and
tortures in order to maintain itself against terrible
and beast-of-prey natures.
In this case, contusion, although it may have
the most nefarious influences, is quite natural:
that which men of power and will are able to
demand of themselves gives them the standard for
what they may also allow themselves. Such natures
are the very opposite of the vicious and the un-
bridled; although under certain circumstances they
may perpetrate deeds for which an inferior man
would be convicted of vice and intemperance.
In this respect the concept, “all men are equal
before God," does an extraordinary amount of
harm; actions and attitudes of mind were for-
bidden which belonged to the prerogative of the
strong alone, just as if they were in themselves
unworthy of man. All the tendencies of strong
men were brought into disrepute by the fact that
the defensive weapons of the most weak (even of


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
311
1
those who were weakest towards themselves) were
established as a standard of valuation.
The confusion went so far that precisely the
great virtuosos of life (whose self-control presents
the sharpest contrast to the vicious and the un-
bridled) were branded with the most opprobrious
names. Even to this day people feel themselves
compelled to disparage a Cæsar Borgia : it is
simply ludicrous. The Church has anathematised
German Kaisers owing to their vices: as if a monk
or a priest had the right to say a word as to what
a Frederick II. should allow himself. Don Juan
is sent to hell : this is very naïf. Has anybody
ever noticed that all interesting men are lacking
in heaven? . . This is only a hint to the girls,
as to where they may best find salvation.
think at all logically, and also have a profound
insight into that which makes a great man, there
can be no doubt at all that the Church has dis-
patched all “great men” to Hades—its fight is
against all “greatness in man. ”
.
If one
872.
The rights which a man arrogates to himself
are relative to the duties which he sets himself,
and to the tasks which he feels capable of per-
forming. The great majority of men have no
right to life, and are only a misfortune to their
higher fellows.
1
873.
The misunderstanding of egoism : on the part
of ignoble natures who know nothing of the lust of


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312
THE WILL TO POWER.
conquest and the insatiability of great love, and who
likewise know nothing of the overflowing feelings
of power which make a man wish to overcome things,
to force them over to himself, and to lay them on
his heart, the power which impels an artist to
his material. It often happens also that the
active spirit looks for a field for its activity. In
ordinary "egoism” it is precisely the “non-ego,"
the profoundly mediocre creature, the member of
the herd, who wishes to maintain himself—and
when this is perceived by the rarer, more subtle,
and less mediocre natures, it revolts them. For
the judgment of the latter is this: “We are the
noble! It is much more important to maintain us
than that cattle! ”
874.
The degeneration of the ruler and of the ruling
classes has been the cause of all the great dis-
orders in history! Without the Roman Cæsars
and Roman society, Christianity would never have
prevailed.
When it occurs to inferior men to doubt
whether higher men exist, then the danger is
great! It is then that men finally discover that
there are virtues even among inferior, suppressed,
and poor-spirited men, and that everybody is
equal before God: which is the non plus ultra of
all confounded nonsense that has ever appeared
on earth! For in the end higher men begin to
themselves according to the standard of
virtues upheld by the slaves—and discover that


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
313
they are “proud,” etc. , and that all their higher
qualities should be condemned.
When Nero and Caracalla stood at the helm,
it was then that the paradox arose: “The lowest
man is of more value than that one on the throne ! ”
And thus the path was prepared for an image of
God which was as remote as possible from the
image of the mightiest,—God on the Cross !
875.
Higher man and gregarious man. —When great
men are wanting, the great of the past are con-
verted into demigods or whole gods: the rise of
religions proves that mankind no longer has any
pleasure in man "nor in woman neither," as in
Hamlet's case). Or a host of men are brought
together in a heap, and it is hoped that as a
Parliament they will operate just as tyrannically.
Tyrannising is the distinctive quality of great
men: they make inferior men stupid.
876.
Buckle åffords the best example of the extent
to which a plebeian agitator of the mob is in-
capable of arriving at a clear idea of the concept,
"higher nature. ” The opinion which he combats
so passionately—that “great men," individuals,
princes, statesmen, geniuses, warriors, are the
levers and causes of all great movements, is in-
stinctively misunderstood by him, as if it meant
that all that was essential and valuable in such


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314
THE WILL TO POWER.
a “higher man," was the fact that he was capable
of setting masses in motion; in short, that his
sole merit was the effect he produced.
the “higher nature" of the great man resides
precisely in being different, in being unable to
communicate with others, in the loftiness of his
rank-not in any sort of effect he may produce
even though this be the shattering of both hemi-
spheres.
877.
The Revolution made Napoleon possible: that
is its justification. We ought to desire the
anarchical collapse of the whole of our civilisation
if such a reward were to be its result. Napoleon
made nationalism possible: that is the latter's
excuse.
The value of a man (apart, of course, from
morality and immorality: because with these
concepts a man's worth is not even skimmed)
does not lie in his utility ; because he would
continue to exist even if there were nobody to
whom he could be useful. And why could not
that man be the very pinnacle of manhood who
was the source of the worst possible effects for
his race: so high and so superior, that in his
presence everything would go to rack and ruin
from envy?
878.
To appraise the value of a man according to
his utility to mankind, or according to what
costs it, or the damage he is able to infict upon it,


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
315
is just as good and just as bad as to appraise the
value of a work of art according to its effects.
But in this way the value of one man compared
with another is not even touched upon. The
“moral valuation," in so far as it is social, measures
men altogether according to their effects. But
what about the man who has his own taste on
his tongue, who is surrounded and concealed
by his isolation, uncommunicative and not to be
communicated with; a man whom no one has
fathomed yet—that is to say, a creature of a
higher, and, at any rate, different species : how
would ye appraise his worth, seeing that ye
cannot know him and can compare him with
nothing?
Moral valuation was the cause of the most
enormous obtuseness of judgment: the value of
a man in himself is underrated, well-nigh over-
looked, practically denied. This is the remains
of simple-minded teleology : the value of man
can only be measured with regard to other men.
879.
To be obsessed by moral considerations pre-
supposes a very low grade of intellect: it shows
that the instinct for special rights, for standing
apart, the feeling of freedom in creative natures,
in “ children of God” (or of the devil), is lacking.
And irrespective of whether he preaches a ruling
morality or criticises the prevailing ethical code
from the point of view of his own ideal: by
doing these things a man shows that he belongs


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316
THE WILL TO POWER.
to the herd-even though he may be what it is
most in need of-that is to say, a “shepherd. ”
!
880.
4
We should substitute morality by the will to our
own ends, and consequently to the means to them.
881.
Concerning the order of rank. What is it that
constitutes the mediocrity of the typical man?
That he does not understand that things neces-
sarily have their other side; that he combats evil
conditions as if they could be dispensed with;
that he will not take the one with the other; that
he would fain obliterate and erase the specific
character of a thing, of a circumstance, of an age,
and of a person, by calling only a portion of their
qualities good, and suppressing the remainder.
The “ desirability” of the mediocre is that which
we others combat: their ideal is something which
shall no longer contain anything harmful, evil,
dangerous, questionable, and destructive. We
recognise the reverse of this: that with every
growth of man his other side must grow as well;
that the highest man, if such a concept be allowed,
would be that man who would represent the antag-
onistic character of existence most strikingly, and
would be its glory and its only justification.
Ordinary men may only represent a small corner
and nook of this natural character; they perish
the moment the multifariousness of the elements
composing them, and the tension between their
!
1
1
.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
317
antagonistic traits, increases: but this is the pre-
requisite for greatness in man. That man should
become better and at the same time more evil, is
my
formula for this inevitable fact.
The majority of people are only piecemeal and
fragmentary examples of man: only when all
these creatures are jumbled together does one
whole man arise. Whole ages and whole peoples
in this sense, have a fragmentary character about
them; it may perhaps be part of the economy of
human development that man should develop
himself only piecemeal. But, for this reason, one
should not forget that the only important con-
sideration is the rise of the synthetic man; that
inferior men, and by far the great majority of
people, are but rehearsals and exercises out of
which here and there a whole man may arise; a
man who is a human milestone, and who indicates
how far mankind has advanced up to a certain
point.
Mankind does not advance in a straight
line; often a type is attained which is again lost
(for instance, with all the efforts of three hundred
years, we have not reached the men of the Renais-
sance again, and in addition to this we must not
forget that the man of the Renaissance was already
behind his brother of classical antiquity).
882.
The superiority of the Greek and the man of
the Renaissance is recognised, but people would
like to produce them without the conditions and
causes of which they were the result.


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318
THE WILL TO POWER.
883.
" Purification of taste" can only be the result
of the strengthening of the type. Our society
to-day represents only the cultivating systems;
the cultivated man is lacking. The great synthetic
man, in whom the various forces for attaining a
purpose are correctly harnessed together, is alto-
gether wanting. The specimen we possess is the
multifarious man, the most interesting form of
chaos that has ever existed: but not the chaos
preceding the creation of the world, but that fol-
lowing it: Goethe as the most beautiful expression
of the type (completely and utterly un-Olympian! )
884.
Handel, Leibniz, Goethe, and Bismarck, are
characteristic of the strong German type. They
lived with equanimity, surrounded by contrasts.
They were full of that agile kind of strength
which cautiously avoids convictions and doctrines,
by using the one as a weapon against the other,
and reserving absolute freedom for themselves.
885.
Of this I am convinced, that if the rise of great
and rare men had been made dependent upon the
voices of the multitude (taking for granted, of
* The Germans always call Goethe the Olympian. —TR.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
319
course, that the latter knew the qualities which
: belong to greatness, and also the price that all
greatness pays for its self-development), then there
would never have been any such thing as a great
man!
The fact that things pursue their course inde-
pendently of the voice of the many, is the reason why
a few astonishing things have taken place on earth.
886.
The Order of Rank in Human Values.
(a) A man should not be valued according to
isolated acts. Epidermal actions. Nothing is more
rare than a personal act. Class, rank, race, environ-
ment, accident-all these things are much more
likely to be expressed in an action or deed than
the "personality" of the doer.
(6) We should on no account jump to the con-
clusion that there are many people who are per-
sonalities. Some men are but conglomerations of
personalities, whilst the majority are not even one.
In all cases in which those average qualities pre-
ponderate, which ensure the maintenance of the
species, to be a personality would involve un-
necessary expense, it would be a luxury--in fact,
it would be foolish to iemand of anybody that he
should be a personality. In such circumstances
everybody is a channel or a transmitting vessel.
(c) A “personality” is a relatively isolated phen-
omenon; in view of the superior importance of
the continuation of the race at an average level, a


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320
THE WILL TO POWER.
personality might even be regarded as something
hostile to nature. For a personality to be possible,
timely isolation and the necessity for an existence
of offence and defence, are prerequisites; something
in the nature of a walled enclosure, a capacity for
shutting out the world; but above all, a much lower
degree of sensitiveness than the average man has,
who is too easily infected with the views of others.
The first question concerning the order of rank:
how far is a man disposed to be solitary or gre-
garious? (in the latter case, his valueconsists in those
qualities which secure the survival of his tribe or
his type; in the former case, his qualities are those
which distinguish him from others, which isolate
and defend him, and make his solitude possible).
Consequence : the solitary type should not be
valued from the standpoint of the gregarious type,
or vice versa.
Viewed from above, both types are necessary ;
as is likewise their antagonism,—and nothing is
more thoroughly reprehensible than the “ desire
which would develop a third thing out of the two
(“ virtue" as hermaphroditism). This is as little
worthy of desire as the equalisation and reconcilia-
tion of the sexes. The distinguishing qualities must
be developed ever more and more, the gulf must be
made ever wider. . .
The concept of degeneration in both cases : the
approximation of the qualities of the herd to those
of solitary creatures: and vice versa—in short, when
they begin to resemble each other.
of degeneration is beyond the sphere of moral
judgments.
"
This concept


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
321
887.
Where the strongest natures are to be sought.
The ruin and degeneration of the solitary species is
much greater and more terrible: they have the in-
stincts of the herd, and the tradition of values,
against them; their weapons of defence, their in-
stincts of self-preservation, are from the beginning
insufficiently strong and reliable—fortune must be
peculiarly favourable to them if they are to prosper
(they prosper best in the lowest ranks and dregs
of society; if ye are seeking personalities it is there
that ye will find them with much greater certainty
than in the middle classes ! )
When the dispute between ranks and classes,
which aims at equality of rights, is almost settled,
the fight will begin against the solitary person. (In
a certain sense the latter can maintain and develop
himself most easily in a democratic society: there
where the coarser means of defence are no longer
necessary, and a certain habit of order, honesty,
justice, trust, is already a general condition. The
strongest must be most tightly bound, most strictly
watched, laid in chains and supervised: this is the
instinct of the herd. To them belongs a régime of
self-mastery, of ascetic detachment, of “duties”
consisting in exhausting work, in which one can no
longer call one's soul one's own.
888.
I am attempting an economic justification of
virtue. The object is to make man as useful as
х
VOL. II.


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322
THE WILL TO POWER.
possible, and to make him approximate as nearly
as one can to an infallible machine : to this end he
must be equipped with machine-like virtues (he
must learn to value those states in which he works
in a most mechanically useful way, as the highest
of all: to this end it is necessary to make him as
disgusted as possible with the other states, and to
represent them as very dangerous and despicable).
Here is the first stumbling-block: the tedious-
ness and monotony which all mechanical activity
brings with it. To learn to endure this and not
only to endure it, but to see tedium enveloped in
a ray of exceeding charm : this hitherto has been
the task of all higher schools. To learn something
which you don't care a fig about, and to find pre-
cisely your “duty” in this “objective” activity ;
to learn to value happiness and duty as things
apart; this is the invaluable task and performance
of higher schools. It is on this account that the
philologist has, hitherto, been the educator per se:
because his activity, in itself, affords the best
pattern of magnificent monotony in action; under
his banner youths learn to "swat”: first pre-
“
requisite for the thorough fulfilment of mechanical
duties in the future (as State officials, husbands,
slaves of the desk, newspaper readers, and soldiers).
Such an existence may perhaps require a philosoph-
ical glorification and justification more than any
other : pleasurable feelings must be valued by some
sort of infallible tribunal, as altogether of inferior
rank; “duty per se," perhaps even the pathos of re-
verence in regard to everything unpleasant-must
be demanded imperatively as that which is above all
:


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
323
useful, delightful, and practical things. . . A
mechanical form of existence regarded as the
highest and most respectable form of existence,
worshipping itself (type: Kant as the fanatic of the
formal concept “Thou shalt ”).
889.
The economic valuation of all the ideals that
have existed hitherto—that is to say, the selection
and rearing of definite passions and states at the
cost of other passions and states. The law-giver
(or the instinct of the community) selects a number
of states and passions the existence of which
guarantees the performance of regular actions
(mechanical actions would thus be the result of
the regular requirements of those passions and
states).
In the event of these states and passions con-
taining ingredients which were painful, a means
would have to be found for overcoming this pain-
fulness by means of a valuation ; pain would have
to be interpreted as something valuable, as some-
thing pleasurable in a higher sense.
Conceived in
a formula: “How does something unpleasant become
pleasant ? " For instance, when our obedience and
our submission to the law become honoured, thanks
to the energy, power, and self-control they entail.
The same holds good of our public spirit, of our
neighbourliness, of our patriotism, our “ humanisa-
tion," our "altruism," and our "heroism. "
“ The
object of all idealism should be to induce people to
do unpleasant things cheerfully.
a
»
»


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THE WILL TO POWER.
890.
The belittlement of man must be held as the
chief aim for a long while: because what is needed
in the first place is a broad basis from which a
stronger species of man may arise (to what extent
hitherto has every stronger species of man arisen
from a substratum of inferior people? ).
891.
The absurd and contemptible form of idealism
which would not have mediocrity mediocre, and
which instead of feeling triumphant at being ex-
ceptional, becomes indignant at cowardice, false-
ness, pettiness, and wretchedness. We should not
wish things to be any different, we should make the
gulfs even wider ! —The higher types among men
should be compelled to distinguish themselves by
means of the sacrifices which they make to their
own existence.
Principal point of view : distances must be es-
tablished, but no contrasts must be created. The
middle classes must be dissolved, and their influence
decreased: this is the principal means of main-
taining distances.
892.
Who would dare to disgust the mediocre of their
mediocrity! As you observe, I do precisely the
reverse: every step away from mediocrity—thus
do I teach leads to immorality.


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
325
893
To hate mediocrity is unworthy of a philo-
sopher: it is almost a note of interrogation to his
right to philosophy. ” It is precisely because he is
the exception that he must protect the rule and
ingratiate all mediocre people.
894.
What I combat: that an exceptional form should
make war upon the rule—instead of understanding
that the continued existence of the rule is the first
condition of the value of the exception. For in-
stance, there are women who, instead of consider-
ing their abnormal thirst for knowledge as a dis-
tinction, would fain dislocate the whole status of
womanhood.
895.
The increase of strength despite the temporary
ruin of the individual :-
A new level must be established ;
We must have a method of storing up forces
for the maintenance of small performances,
in opposition to economic waste;
Destructive nature must for once be reduced
to an instrument of this economy of the
future;
The weak must be maintained, because there
is an enormous mass of finicking work to
be done;


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THE WILL TO POWER.
The weak and the suffering must be upheld
in their belief that existence is still possible;
Solidarity must be implanted as an instinct
opposed to the instinct of fear and servility;
War must be made upon accident, even upon
the accident of “the great man. ”
896.
War upon great men justified on economic
grounds. Great men are dangerous; they are
accidents, exceptions, tempests, which are strong
enough to question things which it has taken time
to build and establish. Explosive material must
not only be discharged harmlessly, but, if possible,
its discharge must be prevented altogether; this is
the fundamental instinct of all civilised society.
1
897.
He who thinks over the question of how the type
man may be elevated to its highest glory and
power, will realise from the start that he must
place himself beyond morality; for morality was
directed in its essentials at the opposite goal—that
is to say, its aim was to arrest and to annihilate
that glorious development wherever it was in pro-
cess of accomplishment. For, as a matter of fact,
development of that sort implies that such an
enormous number of men must be subservient to it,
that a counter-movement is only too natural: the
weaker, more delicate, more mediocre existences,
find it necessary to take up sides against that glory
1


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
327
of life and power; and for that purpose they must
get a new valuation of themselves by means of
which they are able to condemn, and if possible to
destroy, life in this high degree of plenitude.
Morality is therefore essentially the expression of
hostility to life, in so far as it would overcome
vital types.
898.
The strong of the future. --To what extent neces-
sity on the one hand and accident on the other
have attained to conditions from which a stronger
species may be reared: this we are now able to
understand and to bring about consciously; we
can now create those conditions under which such
an elevation is possible.
Hitherto education has always aimed at the
utility of society: not the greatest possible utility
for the future, but the utility of the society actually
extant. What people required were “instruments"
for this purpose. Provided the wealth of forces
were greater, it would be possible to think of a
draft being made upon them, the aim of which
would not be the utility of society, but some future
utility.
The more people grasped to what extent the
present form of society was in such a state of tran-
sition as sooner or later to be no longer able to exist
for its own sake, but only as a means in the hands
of a stronger race, the more this task would have to
be brought forward.
The increasing belittlement of man is precisely
the impelling power which leads one to think of
»


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328
THE WILL TO POWER.
the cultivation of a stronger race: a race which
would have a surplus precisely there where the
dwarfed species was weak and growing weaker
(will, responsibility, self-reliance, the ability to
postulate aims for one's self).
The means would be those which history teaches:
isolation by means of preservative interests which
would be the reverse of those generally accepted;
exercise in transvalued valuations; distance as
pathos; a clean conscience in what to-day is most
despised and most prohibited.
The levelling of the mankind of Europe is the
great process which should not be arrested ; it
should even be accelerated. The necessity of
cleaving gulfs, of distance, of the order of rank, is
therefore imperative; but not the necessity of re-
tarding the process above mentioned.
This levelled-down species requires justification
as soon as it is attained : its justification is that
it exists for the service of a higher and sovereign
race which stands upon it and can only be elevated
upon its shoulders to the task which it is destined
to perform. Not only a ruling race whose task
would be consummated in ruling alone: but a race
with vital spheres of its own, with an overflow of
energy for beauty, bravery, culture, and manners,
even for the most abstract thought; a yea-saying
race which would be able to allow itself every kind
of great luxury-strong enough to be able to dis-
pense with the tyranny of the imperatives of virtue,
rich enough to be in no need of economy or
pedantry; beyond good and evil; a forcing-house
for rare and exceptional plants.
:


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
329
899.
Our psychologists, whose glance dwells in-
voluntarily upon the symptoms of decadence, lead
us to mistrust intellect ever more and more.
People persist in seeing only the weakening, pam-
pering, and sickening effects of intellect, but there
are now going to appear :-
The union of
Cynics
intellectual
New
Experiment. superiority
barbarians alists
with well-be-
Conquerors ing and an
overflow of
strength.
900.
I point to something new : certainly for such a
democratic community there is a danger of bar-
barians; but these are sought only down below.
There is also another kind of barbarians who come
from the heights: a kind of conquering and ruling
natures, which are in search of material that they
can mould. Prometheus was a barbarian of this
stamp.
901.
Principal standpoint : one should not suppose
the mission of a higher species to be the leading
of inferior men (as Comte does, for instance); but
the inferior should be regarded as the foundation
upon which a higher species may live their higher
life-upon which alone they can stand.


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330
THE WILL TO POWER.
The conditions under which a strong, noble
species maintains itself (in the matter of intellectual
discipline) are precisely the reverse of those under
which the industrial masses—the tea-grocers à la
Spencer — subsist. Those qualities which are
within the grasp only of the strongest and most
terrible natures, and which make their existence
possible--leisure, adventure, disbelief, and even dis-
sipation-would necessarily ruin mediocre natures
--and does do so when they possess them. In
the case of the latter industry, regularity, modera-
tion, and strong “conviction" are in their proper
place-in short, all “gregarious virtues”: under
their influence these mediocre men become perfect.
902.
Concerning the ruling types. —The shepherd as
opposed to the “lord" (the former is only a means
to the maintenance of the herd; the latter, the
purpose for which the herd exists).
903.
The temporary preponderance of social valua-
tions is both comprehensible and useful; it is a
matter of building a foundation upon which a
stronger species will ultimately be made possible.
The standard of strength: to be able to live under
the transvalued valuations, and to desire them for
all eternity. State and society regarded as a sub-
structure: economic point of view, education con-
ceived as breeding.


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904.
A consideration which " free spirits' lack: that
the same discipline which makes a strong nature
still stronger, and enables it to go in for big under-
takings, breaks up and withers the mediocre: doubt
-la largeur de ceur-experiment—independence.
905.
The hammer. How should men who must value
in the opposite way be constituted ? — Men who
possess all the qualities of the modern soul, but are
strong enough to convert them into real health ?
The means to their task.
906.
The strong man, who is mighty in the instincts
of a strong and healthy organisation, digests his
deeds just as well as he digests his meals; he even
gets over the effects of heavy fare: in the main,
however, he is led by an inviolable and severe
instinct which prevents his doing anything which
goes against his grain, just as he never does any-
thing against his taste.
907.
Can we foresee the favourable circumstances
under which creatures of the highest value might
arise? It is a thousand times too complicated, and
the probabilities of failure are very great: on that
account we cannot be inspired by the thought of


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332
THE WILL TO POWER.
striving after them! Scepticism. To oppose this
we can enhance courage, insight, hardness, inde-
pendence, and the feeling of responsibility; we can
also subtilise and learn to forestall the delicacy of
the scales, so that favourable accidents may be
enlisted on our side.
908.
Before we can even think of acting, an enormous
amount of work requires to be done. In the main,
however, a cautious exploitation of the present con-
ditions would be our best and most advisable
course of action. The actual creation of conditions
such as those which occur by accident, presupposes
the existence of iron men such as have not yet
lived. Our first task must be to make the personal
ideal prevail and become realised! He who has
understood the nature of man and the origin of
mankind's greatest specimens, shudders before man
and takes flight from all action: this is the result
of inherited valuations ! !
My consolation is, that the nature of man is evil,
and this guarantees his strength!
909.
The typical forms of self-development, or the
eight principal questions :
I. Do we want to be more multifarious or more
simple than we are?
2. Do we want to be happier than we are, or
more indifferent to both happiness and un-
happiness?


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3. Do we want to be more satisfied with our-
selves,or moreexactingand moreinexorable?
4. Do we want to be softer, more yielding, and
more human than we are, or more in-
human ?
5. Do we want to be more prudent than we are,
or more daring?
6. Do we want to attain a goal, or do we want
to avoid all goals (like the philosopher, for
instance, who scents a boundary, a cul-de-
sac, a prison, a piece of foolishness in every
goal)?
7. Do we want to become more respected, or
more feared, or more despised?
8. Do we want to become tyrants, and seducers,
or do we want to become shepherds and
gregarious animals ?
910.
The type of my disciples. —To such men as con-
cern me in any way I wish suffering, desolation,
sickness, ill-treatment, indignities of all kinds. I
wish them to be acquainted with profound self-
contempt, with the martyrdom of self-distrust, with
the misery of the defeated : I have no pity for
them; because I wish them to have the only thing
which to-day proves whether a man has any value
or not, namely, the capacity of sticking to his guns.
9II.
The happiness and self-contentedness of the
lazzaroni, or the blessedness of “beautiful souls,"


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334
THE WILL TO POWER.
or the consumptive love of Puritan pietists,
proves nothing in regard to the order of rank
among men. As a great educator one ought in-
exorably to thrash a race of such blissful creatures
into unhappiness. The danger of belittlement and
of a slackening of powers follows immediately-
I am opposed to happiness à la Spinoza or à la
Epicurus, and to all the relaxation of contemplative
states. But when virtue is the means to such
happiness, well then, one must master even virtue.
912.
I cannot see how any one can make up for
having missed going to a good school at the proper
time. Such a person does not know himself; he
walks through life without ever having learned to
walk. His soft muscles betray themselves at every
step. Occasionally life itself is merciful enough to
make a man recover this lost and severe schooling:
by means of periods of sickness, perhaps, which
exact the utmost will-power and self-controi; or
by means of a sudden state of poverty, which
threatens his wife and child, and which may force
a man to such activity as will restore energy to his
slackened tendons, and a tough spirit to his will to
life. The most desirable thing of all, however, is,
under all circumstances to have severe discipline at
the right time, i. e. at that age when it makes us
proud that people should expect great things from
us. For this is what distinguishes hard schooling,
as good schooling, from every other schooling,
namely, that a good deal is demanded, that a good


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
335
deal is severely exacted; that goodness, nay even
excellence itself, is required as if it were normal;
that praise is scanty, that leniency is non-existent;
that blame is sharp, practical, and without reprieve,
and has no regard to talent and antecedents. We
are in every way in need of such a school : and
ị this holds good of corporeal as well as of spiritual
things; it would be fatal to draw distinctions here!
The same discipline makes the soldier and the
scholar efficient; and, looked at more closely, there
is no true scholar who has not the instincts of a
true soldier in his veins. To be able to command
and to be able to obey in a proud fashion; to keep
one's place in rank and file, and yet to be ready
at any moment to lead; to prefer danger to
comfort; not to weigh what is permitted and
what is forbidden in a tradesman's balance; to be
more hostile to pettiness, slyness, and parasitism
than to wickedness. What is it that one learns in
a hard school to obey and to command.
913.
We should repudiate merit—and do only that
which stands above all praise and above all under-
standing.
914.
one
The new forms of morality :
Faithful vows concerning that which
wishes to do or to leave undone; complete and
definite abstention from many things. . Test
Tests as
to whether one is ripe for such discipline.


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336
THE WILL TO POWER.
915.
It is my desire to naturalise asceticism: I would
substitute the old intention of asceticism, “self-
denial,” by my own intention,“ self-strengthening":
a gymnastic of the will; a period of abstinence
and occasional fasting of every kind, even in things
intellectual; a casuistry in deeds, in regard to the
opinions which we derive from our powers; we
should try our hand at adventure and at deliberate
dangers. (Dîners chez Magny: all intellectual
gourmets with spoilt stomachs. ) Tests ought also
to be devised for discovering a man's power in
keeping his word.
916.
The things which have become spoilt through
having been abused by the Church :
(1) Asceticism. —People have scarcely got the
courage yet to bring to light the natural utility
and necessity of asceticism for the purpose of the
education of the will. Our ridiculous world of
education, before whose eyes the useful State
official hovers as an ideal to be striven for, believes
that it has completed its duty when it has in-
structed or trained the brain; it never
suspects that something else is first of all necessary
--the education of will-power; tests are devised for
everything except for the most important thing
of all: whether a man can will, whether he can
promise; the young man completes his education
without a question or an inquiry having been
even


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THE ORDER OF RANK.
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made concerning the problem of the highest value
of his nature.
(2) Fasting:-In every sense- even as a means
of maintaining the capacity for taking pleasure in
all good things (for instance, to give up reading
for a while, to hear no music for a while, to cease
from being amiable for a while: one ought also
to have fast days for one's virtues).
(3) The monastery. —Temporary isolation with
severe seclusion from all letters, for instance; a
kind of profound introspection and self-recovery,
which does not go out of the way of “temptations,"
but out of the way of “duties”; a stepping out
of the daily round of one's environment; a detach-
ment from the tyranny of stimuli and external
influences, which condemns us to expend our
power only in reactions, and does not allow it to
gather volume until it bursts into spontaneous
activity (let anybody examine our scholars closely :
they only think reflexively, i. e. they must first
read before they can think).
(4) Feasts. —A man must be very coarse in order
not to feel the presence of Christians and Christian
values as oppressive, so oppressive as to send all
festive moods to the devil. By feasts we under-
stand: pride, high-spirits, exuberance; scorn of
all kinds of seriousness and Philistinism ; a divine
saying of Yea to one's self, as the result of physical
plenitude and perfection--all states to which the
Christian cannot honestly say Yea. A feast is a
pagan thing par excellence,
(5) The courage of one's own nature : dressing-
up in morality. -To be able to call one's passions
Y
-
VOL. II.


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338
THE WILL TO POWER.
1
good without the help of a moral formula: this is
the standard which measures the extent to which
a man is able to say Yea to his own nature,
namely, how much or how little he has to have
recourse to morality.
(6) Death. —The foolish physiological fact must
be converted into a moral necessity. One should
live in such a way that one may have the will to
die at the right time !
917.
To feel one's self stronger-or, expressed other-
wise: happiness always presupposes a comparison
(not necessarily with others, but with one's self, in
the midst of a state of growth, and without being
conscious that one is comparing).
Artificial accentuation : whether by means of
exciting chemicals or exciting errors (“halluci-
nations. ")
Take, for instance, the Christian's feeling of
security; he feels himself strong in his confidence,
in his patience, and his resignation : this artificial
accentuation he owes to the fancy that he is pro-
tected by a God. Take the feeling of superiority,
for instance : as when the Caliph of Morocco sees
only globes on which his three united kingdoms
cover four-fifths of the space. Take the feeling
of uniqueness, for instance: as when the European
imagines that culture belongs to Europe alone,
and when he regards himself as a sort of abridged
cosmic process; or, as when the Christian makes
all existence revolve round the “ Salvation of man. "
The question is, where does one begin to feel the


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pressure of constraint: it is thus that different
degrees are ascertained. A philosopher, for instance,
in the midst of the coolest and most transmontane
feats of abstraction feels like a fish that enters its
element: while colours and tones oppress him;
not to speak of those dumb desires-of that which
others call “ the ideal. ”
918.
>
A healthy and vigorous little boy will look up
sarcastically if he be asked: “Wilt thou become
virtuous ? ”—but he immediately becomes eager if
he be asked: “Wilt thou become stronger than
thy comrades ? "
*
How does one become stronger ? —By deciding
slowly; and by holding firmly to the decision
once it is made. Everything else follows of itself.
Spontaneous and changeable natures: both species
of the weak.