No More Learning

The "denial of life " regarded as the object of life, the object of evolution ! Existence--a piece of tremendous stupidity! Any such mad interpreta tion is only the outcome of life's being measured by the factors of consciousness (pleasure and pain, good and evil). Here the means are made to stand against the end--the " unholy," absurd, and, above all, disagreeable means: how can the end be any use when it requires such means? But where the fault lies is here--instead of looking for the end which would explain the necessity of such means, we posited an end from the start which actually excludes such means, i. e. we made a desideratum in regard to certain means (especially pleasurable, rational, and virtuous) into a rule, and then only did we decide what end would be desirable. . . .
Where the fundamental fault lies is in the fact that, instead of regarding consciousness - as an instrument and an isolated phenomenon of life in general, we made it a standard, the highest value in life: it is the faulty standpoint of a partc ad
? ? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.
totum,--and that is why all philosophers are instinctively seeking at the present day for a col lective consciousness, a thing that lives and wills consciously with all that happens, a "Spirit," a " God. " r But they must be told that it is precisely thus that life is converted into a monster; that a " God " and a general sensorium would necessarily be something on whose account the whole of
existence would have to be condemned. . . . Our greatest relief came when we eliminated the
consciousness which postulates ends and means--in this way we ceased from being neces
sarily pessimists. . . . Our greatest indictment of life was the existence of God.
708.
Concerning the value of "Becoming. "--If the movement of the world really tended to reach a final state, that state would already have been reached. The only fundamental fact, however, is that it does not tend to reach a final state: and every philosophy and scientific hypothesis (eg. materialism) according to which such a final state is necessary, is refuted by this fundamental fact.
Ishould like to have a concept of the world which does justice to this fact. Becoming ought to be explained without having recourse to such final designs. Becoming must appear justified at every instant (or it- must defy all valuation: which has unity as its end); the present must not under any circumstances be justified by a future, nor must the past be justified for the sake of the
VOL. II. M
general
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present. "Necessity" must not be interpreted in the form of a prevailing and ruling collective force or as a prime motor; and still less as the necessary cause of some valuable result. But to this end it is necessary to deny a collective consciousness for Becoming,--a "God," in order that life may not be veiled under the shadow of a being who feels and knows as we do and yet wills nothing: " God " is useless if he wants nothing; and if he do want something, this presupposes a
general sum of suffering and irrationality which lowers the general value of Becoming. Fortun ately any such general power is lacking (a suffering God overlooking everything, a general sensorium and ubiquitous Spirit, would be the greatest indict
ment of existence).
Strictly speaking nothing of the nature of
Being must be allowed to remain,---because in that case Becoming loses its value and gets to be sheer and superfluous nonsense.
The next question, then, is: how did the illusion Being originate (why was it obliged to originate);
Likewise: how was it that all valuations based upon the hypothesis that there was such a thing as Being came to be depreciated.
But in this way we have recognised that this hypothesis concerning Being is the source of all the calumny that has been directed against the world (the "Better world," the "True world " the " World Beyond," the " Thing-in-itself").
(I) Becoming has no final state, it does not tend towards stability.
? ? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE. Becoming not state of appearance;
(2)
the world of
Being probably only
appearance.
Becoming of precisely the same value
(3)
at every instant; the sum of its value
always remains equal: expressed other wise, has no value; for that according to which might be measured, and in regard to which the word value" might have some sense,-
entirely lacking. The collective value of the world defies
valuation; for this reason
pessimism belongs to the order of farces.
709.
We should not make _our little desiderata the judges of existence! Neither should we make culminating evolutionary forms (eg. mind) the " absolute " which stands behind evolution
710.
Our knowledge has become scientific to the extent in which has. been able to make use of number and measure. It might be worth while to try and see whether scientific order of values might not be constructed according to scale of numbers and measures representing energy. .
All other values are matters of prejudice, simplicity, and misunderstanding. They may all be reduced
to that scale of numbers and measures
ing energy. The ascent in this scale would
philosophical
I79
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THE WILL TO POWER.
represent an increase of value, the descent a diminution.
But here appearance and prejudice are against one (moral values are only apparent values com pared with those which are physiological).
711.
Why the standpoint of " value " lapses :--
Because in the " whole process of the universe " the work of mankind does not come under considera tion; because a general process (viewed in the light of a system) does not exist.
Because there is no such thing as a whole; because no depreciation of human existence or human aims can be made in regard to something
' that does not exist.
Because " necessity," " causality," " design," are
merely useful semblances.
Because the aim is not " the increase of the
sphere of consciousness," but the increase ofpower; in which increase the utility of consciousness is also contained; and the same holds good of
? and pain.
Because a mere means must not be elevated to
the highest criterion of value (such as states of consciousness like pleasure and pain, if con sciousness is in itself only a means).
Because the world is not an organism at all, but a thing of chaos; because the development of " intellectuality " is only a means tending relatively to extend the duration of an organisation.
Because all " desirability " has no sense in regard to the general character of existence.
pleasure
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and utilising its power in order to a'zkorganise.
The ever-increasing suppression of societies, and the latter's subjection by smaller number of stronger individuals.
(h) The ever-increasing suppression of the privileged and the strong, hence the rise of democracy, and ultimately of anarchy, in the elements.
713
Value the highest amount of power that man can assimilate--a man, not mankind! Man kind much more of means than an end. It
question of type: mankind merely the experimental material; the overflow of the ill-constituted--a field of ruins.
THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE. 18!
712.
" God " the culminating moment: life an eternal process of deifying and undeifying. But
withal there no zenith of values, but zenith ofpower.
Absolute exclusion of mechanical and material istic z'nteryfiretations: they are both only expres sions of inferior states, of emotions deprived of all spirit (of the "will to power
The retrograde movement from the zenith of development (the intellectualisation of power on some slave-infected soil) may be shown to be the result of the highest degree of energy turning against itself, once no longer has anything to
only
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714.
Words relating to values are merely banners planted on those spots where a new blessedness was discovered--a new feeling.
715
The standpoint of " value " is the same as that of the conditions of _preservation and enhancement, in regard to complex creatures of relative stability appearing in the course of evolution.
There are no such things as lasting and ultimate entities, no atoms, no monads: here also "permanence" was first introduced by ourselves (from practical, utilitarian, and other motives).
" The forms that rule "; the sphere of the sub jugated is continually extended; or it decreases or increases according to the conditions (nourish~ ment) being either favourable or unfavourable.
" Value " is essentially the standpoint for the increase or decrease of these dominating centres (pluralities in any case; for " unity " cannot be observed anywhere in the nature of development).
The means of expression afforded by language are useless for the purpose of conveying any facts concerning "development": the need of positing a rougher world of stable existences and things forms part of our eternal desire for preservation. We may speak of atoms and monads in a relative sense: and this is certain, that the smallest world
is tlze most staole world. . . . There is no such thing as will: there are only punctuations of will, which are constantly increasing and decreasing their power.
? ? ? ? III.
THE WILL TO POWER AS EXEMPLI FIED IN SOCIETY -AND THE IN DIVIDUAL.
I. SOCIETY AND THE STATE.
716.
WE take as principle that only individuals feel any responsibility. Corporations are invented to do what the individual has not the courage to do. For this reason all communities are vastly more upright and instructive, as regards the nature of man, than the individual who too cowardly to
have the courage of his own desires.
All altruism the prudence of the private man
societies are not mutually altruistic. The com mandment, " Thou shalt love thy next-door neighbour," has never been extended to thy neighbour in general. Rather what Manu says probably truer: " We must conceive of all the States on our own frontier, and their allies, as being hostile, and for the same reason we must consider
all of their neighbours as being friendly to us. " The study of society invaluable, because man
in society far more childlike than man in :83
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THE WILL 'ro POWER.
dividually. Society has never regarded virtue as anything else than as a means to strength, power, and order. Manu's words again are simple and dignified: "Virtue could hardly rely on her own strength alone. Really it is only the fear of punishment that keeps men in their limits, and leaves every one in peaceful possession of his own. "
717.
The State, or umnaralily organised, is from within--the police, the penal code, status, com merce, and the family; and from without, the will to war, to power, to conquest and revenge.
A multitude will do things an individual will not, because of the division of responsibility, of command and execution; because the virtues of obedience, duty, patriotism, and local sentiment are all introduced; because feelings of pride, severity, strength, hate, and revenge--in short, all typical traits are upheld, and these are character
istics utterly alien to the herd~man.
718.
You haven't, any of you, the courage either to kill or to flog a man. But the huge machinery of the State quells the individual and makes him de cline to be answerable for his own deed (obedience, loyalty, etc. ).
Everything that a man does in the service of the State is against his own nature. Similarly, everything he learns in view of future service of the
? ? ? ? SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
I85,
State. This result is obtained through division of labour (so that responsibility is subdivided too) :-
The legislator--and he who fufils the law.
The teacher of discipline--and those who have grown hard and severe under discipline.
719.
A division of labour among the emotions exists inside society, making individuals and classes
an imperfect, but more useful, kind of soul. Observe how every type in society has become atrophied with regard to certain emotions with the view of fostering and accentuating other
emotions.
Mgrality, may be thusjustified :--
Econo111ically,--as aiming at the greatest possible use of all individual power, with the view of pre venting the waste of exceptional natures.
produce
? ? sthetically,----as the formation of fixed types, and the'ple'asure in one's own.
I the art of bearing with the
Rolitz'eally,--as
sevefe divergencies of the degrees of power in society.
Psychglogically,--as an imaginary preference for the b'u'ngled and the mediocre, in order to preserve the weak.
720.
Man has one terrible and fundamental wish; he desires power, and this impulse, which is called freedom, must be the longest restrained. Hence
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ethics has instinctively aimed at such an education as shall restrain the desire for power; thus our morality slanders the would-be tyrant, and glorifies charity, patriotism, and the ambition of the herd.
72I.
Impotence to power,---how it disguises itself and plays the hypocrite, as obedience, subordina tion, the pride of duty and morality, submission, devotion, love (the idolisation and apotheosis of the commander is a kind of compensation, and indirect self-enhancement). It veils itself further under fatalism and resignation, objectivity, self
_tyranny, stoicism, asceticism, self - abnegation, hallowing. Other disguises are: criticism, pessim
ism, indignation, susceptibility, "beautiful-soul," virtue, self -deification, philosophic detachment, freedom from contact with the world (the realisa tion of impotence disguises itself as disdain).
There is a universal need to exercise some kind of power; or to create for one's self the appearance,
of some power, if only temporarily, in. the form of intoxication.
There are men who desire power simply for the sake of the happiness it will bring; these belong chiefly to political parties. Other men have the same yearning, even when power means visible
disadvantages, the sacrifice of their happiness, and well-being; they are the ambitious. Other men, again,are only like dogs in a manger, and will have power only to prevent its falling into the hands of others on whom they would then be dependent.
? ? ? ? What
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
187
722.
If there be justice and equality before the law,
would thereby be abolished i--Suspense, enmity, hatred. But it is a mistake to think that you thereby increase happiness; for the Corsicans rejoice in more happiness than the Contineritals.
723.
Reciprocity and the expectation of a reward is one of the most seductive forms of the devaluation of mankind.
It involves that equality which de preciates any gulf as immoral.
724.
Utility is entirely dependent upon the object to be attained,--the wherefore P And this wherefore, this purpose, is again dependent upon the degree ofpower. Utilitarianism is not, therefore, a funda mental doctrine; it is only a story of sequels, and cannot be made obligatory for all.
725
Of old, the State was regarded theoretically as a utilitarian institution; it has now become so in a practical sense. The time of kings has gone by, because people are no longer worthy of them. They do not wish to see the symbol of their ideal in a king; but only a means to their own ends. That's the whole truth.
? ? ? ? [88 THE WILL TO POWER.
726.
I am trying to grasp the absolute sense of the communal standard of judgment and valuation, naturally without any intention of deducing morals.
The degree of psychological falsity and dense ness required in order to sanctify the emotions essential to preservation and expansion of power, and to create a good conscience for them.
The degree of stupidity required in order that general rules and values may remain possible (including education, formation of culture, and training).
The degree of inquisitiveness, suspicion, and in tolerance required in order to deal with exceptions, to suppress them as criminals, and thus to_give them bad consciences, and to make them sick with their own singularity.
727
Morality is essentially a shield, a means of defence; and, in so far, it is a sign of the im perfectly developed ' man (he is still in armour;
he is still stoical).
The fully developed man is above all provided
with weapons: he is a man who attacks.
The weapons of war are converted into weapons
of peace (out of scales and carapaces grow feathers and hair).
728.
The very notion," living organism," implies that
? there must be
groivth_,--that there must be a
? ? ? SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
striving after an extension of power, and therefore process of absorption of other forces. Under the
drowsiness brought on by moral narcotics, people
speak of the right of theindividual to defend himself;
on the same principle one might speak of his right to attack: for both--and the latter more than the formei--are necessities where all living organisms are concerned: aggressive and defensive egoism are not questions of choice or even of " free will," but they are fatalities of life itself.
In this respect immaterial whether one have an individual, a living body, or "an ad vancing society " in view. The right to punish (or society's means of defence) has been arrived at only through misuse of the word "right": right acquired only by contract,--but self defence and self-preservation do not stand upon the basis of contract. A people ought at least, with quite as much justification, to be able to regard its lust of power, either in arms, commerce, trade, or colonisation, as right--the right of growth,
perhaps.
decadent: ripe for democracy and the rule of shopkeepers. In the majority of cases, true, assurances of peace are merely
stupefying draughts.
729
The maintenance of the military State the last means of adhering to the great tradition of the past; or, where has been lost, to revive it.
. By means of the superior or strong type of
conquest,
189
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THE WILL TO POWER. '
man is preserved, and all institutions and ideas which perpetuate enmity and order of rank in States, such as national feeling, protective tariffs, etc. , may on that account seem justified.
730
In order that a thing may last longer than a person (that is to say, in order that a'work may outlive the individual who has created it), all manner of limitations and prejudices must be imposed upon people. But how? By means of love, reverence, gratitude towards the person who created the work, or by means of the thought
that our ancestors fought for or by virtue of the feeling that the safety of our descendants will be secured we uphold the work--for instance, the polis. Morality essentially the means of making something survive the individual, because
makes him of necessity slave. Obviously the aspect from above different from the aspect from below, and will lead to quite different inter pretations. How organised power maintained?
--By the fact that countless generations sacrifice themselves to its cause. '
731.
Marriage, property, speech, tradition, race, family, people, and State, are each links a chain ----separate parts which have more or less high
or low origin. Economically they are justified by the surplus derived from the advantages of uninterrupted work and multiple production, as
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191
weighed against the disadvantages of greater expense in barter and the difficulty of making things last. (The working parts are multiplied, and yet remain largely idle. Hence the cost of producing them is greater, and the cost of main taining them by no means inconsiderable. ) The advantage consists in avoiding interruption and incident loss. Nothing is more expensive than a start. " The higher the standard of living, the greater will be the expense of maintenance, nourishment, and propagation, as also the risk and the probability of an utter fall on reaching
the summit. "
. 732.
In bourgeois marriages, naturally in the best sense of the word marriage, there is no question whatsoever of love any more than there is of money. For on love no institution can be founded. The whole matter consists in society giving leave to two persons to satisfy their sexual desires under conditions obviously designed to safeguard social order. Of course there must be a certain attraction between the parties and a vast amount of good nature, patience,
bility, and charity in any such contract. But the word love should not be misused as regards such a union. For two lovers, in the real and strong meaning of the word, the satisfaction of sexual desire is unessential; it is a mere symbol. For the one side, as I have already said, it is a symbol of unqualified submission: for the other, a sign of condescension--a sign of the appropriation of
? compati
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property. Marriage, as understood by the real old nobility, meant the breeding forth of the race (but are there any nobles nowadays? Qua'rz'tur), ---that is to say, the maintenance of a fixed definite type of ruler, for which object husband and wife were sacrificed. Naturally the first consideration here had nothing to do with love; on the con trary! It did not even presuppose that mutual sympathy which is the sine qua non of the bour geois marriage. The prime consideration was the interest of the race, and in the second place came the interest of a particular class. But in the face of the coldness and rigour and calculating lucidity of such a noble concept of marriage as prevailed among every healthy aristocracy, like that of ancient Athens, and even of Europe during the eighteenth century, we warm-blooded animals, with our miserably oversensitive hearts, we "modems," cannot restrain a slight shudder. That is why love as a passion, in the big meaning of this word, was invented for, and in, an aristo cratic community--where convention and abstin
'
733
Coneerning' the future of marriage--A super tax on inherited property, a longer term of military service for bachelors of a certain mini mum age within the community.
'Privileges of all sorts for fathers who lavish
boys upon the world, and perhaps plural votes
192
THE WILL TO POWER.
? ence are most severe.
as well.
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A medical certificate as condition of any marriage, endorsed by the parochial authorities, in which series of questions addressed to the parties and the medical officers must be answered
family histories
As a counter-agent to prostitution, or as its
ennoblement, would recommend leasehold marriages (to last for term of years or months), with adequate provision for the children.
Every marriage to be warranted and sanctioned by certain number of good men and true, of the parish, as parochial obligation.
734
SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.
193
? )
Another commandment of philanthropy. --There are cases where to have child would be crime --for example, for chronic invalids and extreme neurasthenics. These people should be converted to chastity, and for this purpose the music of Parsifal might at all events be tried. For Parsifal himself, that born fool, had ample reasons for not desiring to propagate. Unfortunately, however, one of the regular symptoms of exhausted stock
the inability to exercise any self-restraint in the presence of stimuli, and the tendency to respond to the smallest sexual attraction. would be quite mistake, for instance, to think of Leopardi as chaste man. In such cases the priest and moralist play a hopeless game: would be far
better to send for the apothecary. Lastly, society here has positive duty to fulfil, and of all the demands that are made on there are few more
VOL 1:. N
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urgent and necessary than this one. Society as the trustee of life, is responsible to life for every botched life that comes into existence, and as it has to atone for such lives, it ought consequently to make it impossible for them ever to see the light
day: should in many cases actually prevent the act of procreation, and may, without any regard for rank, descent, or intellect, hold in readiness the most rigorous forms of compulsion
and restriction, and, under certain circumstances, have recourse to castration. The Mosaic law, "Thou shalt do no murder," piece of in genuous puerility compared with the earnestness of this forbidding of life to decadents, " Thou shalt
? not beget "ll!
solidarity or equality of rights between the healthy and unhealthy parts of an organism. The latter must at all cost be eliminated, lest the whole fall to pieces. Compassion for decadents, equal rights
for the physiologically botched--this would be the very pinnacle of immorality, would be setting up Nature's most formidable opponent as morality itself!
735
There are some delicate and morbid natures, the so-called idealists, who can never under any circumstances rise above coarse, immature crime: yet the great justification of their anxmic little existence, the small requital for their lives of cowardice and falsehood to have been for one instant at least--strong. But they generally
collapse after such an act. _
. For life itself no recognises
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195
736
In our civilised world we seldom hear of any but the bloodless, trembling criminal, overwhelmed by the curse and contempt of society, doubting even himself, and always belittling and belying his deeds--a misbegotten sort of criminal; that is why we are opposed to the idea that all great men have been criminals (only in the grand style, and neither petty nor pitiful), that crime must be inherent in greatness (this at any rate is the unanimous verdict of all those students of human nature who have sounded the deepest waters of
? To feel one's self adrift from all of ancestry, conscience, and duty--this is the danger with which every great man is
confronted. Yet this is precisely what he desires: he desires the great goal, and consequently the means thereto.
i 737-
In times when man is led by reward and punishment, the class of man which the legislator has in view is still of a low and primitive type: he is treated as one treats a child. In our latter day culture, general degeneracy removes all sense from reward and punishment. This determina tion of action by the prospect of reward and punishment presupposes young, strong, and vigorous races. In effete races impulses are so irrepressible that a mere idea has no force what ever. Inability to offer any resistance to a stimulus,
and the feeling that one must react to It: this
great questions
souls).
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THE WILL TO POWER.
excessive susceptibility of decadents makes all such systems of punishment and reform altogether senseless.
*
The idea " amelioration " presupposes a norm and strong creature whose action must in some way be balanced or cancelled if he is not to be lost and turned into an enemy of the community.
738
The efi'ect of prohibition--Every power which forbids and which knows how to excite fear in the person forbidden creates a guilty conscience. (That is to say, a person has a certain desire but is conscious of the danger of gratifying and consequently forced to be secretive, underhand, and cautious. ) Thus any prohibition deteriorates the character of those who do not willingly
? submit themselves to thereto.
739
" Punishment and rewara'. "--These two things stand or fall together. Nowadays no one will accept reward or acknowledge that any authority should have the power to punish. Warfare has been reformed. We have desire: meets with opposition: we then see that we shall most easily obtain by coming to some agreement--by draw ing up contract. In modern society where every one has given his assent to certain con
but are constrained
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197
i Ttract, the criminal is a man who breaks that
This at least clear concept. But in that case, anarchists and enemies of social order could not be tolerated.
74?
Crimes belong to the category of revolt against the social system. A rebel not punished, he
\pppti'act.
He may be an utterly contemptible and pitiful creature; but there
nothing intrinsically despicable about rebellion-- in fact, in our particular society revolt far from
simply suppressed.
? There are cases in which rebel deserves honour precisely because he
conscious of certain elements in society which cry aloud for hostility; for such a man rouses us from our slumbers. When criminal commits but one crime against particular person, does not alter the fact that all his instincts urge him to make a stand against the whole social system.
His isolated act merely symptom.
The idea of punishment ought to be reduced
to the concept of the suppression of revolt, weapon against the vanquished (by means of long
or short terms of imprisonment). But punish ment should not be associated in any way with
being disgraceful.
A criminal at all events man who has set his life, his honour, his freedom at stake; he therefore man of courage. Neither should punishment be regarded as penance or retribution, as though there were some recognised rate of exchange between crime and punishment. Punish
contempt.
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ment does not purify, simply because crime does not sully.
A criminal should not be prevented from making his peace with society, provided he does not belong to the race of criminals. In the latter case, however, he should be opposed even before he has committed an act of hostility. (As soon as he gets into the clutches of society the first
operation to be performed upon him should be that of castration. ) A criminal's bad manners and his low degree of intelligence should not be reckoned against him. Nothing is more common than that he should misunderstand himself (more particularly when his rebellious instinct--the ran cour of the unclassed--has not reached conscious ness simply because he has not read enough). It is natural that he should deny and dishonour his deed while under the influence of fear at its failure. All this is quite distinct from those cases in which, psychologically speaking, the criminal yields to an incomprehensible impulse, and attributes a motive to his deed by associating it with' a merely incidental and insignificant action (for example,
robbing a man, when his real desire was to take
his blood).
The worth of a man should not be measured by
any one isolated act. Napoleon warned us against this. Deeds which are only skin-deep are more particularly insignificant. If we have no crime-- let us say no murder--on our conscience; why is
it? It simply means that a few favourable circum stances have been wanting in our lives. And sup posing we were induced to commit such a crime
? ? ?