,
Even in the preface, in which Richard Wagner is, as were, invited to join with him in conversa tion, the author expresses this article of faith, this gospel for artists: " Art the only task of life, art
the metaphysical activity of life.
Even in the preface, in which Richard Wagner is, as were, invited to join with him in conversa tion, the author expresses this article of faith, this gospel for artists: " Art the only task of life, art
the metaphysical activity of life.
Nietzsche - Works - v15 - Will to Power - b
Whether the moral monsters must not necessarily be romantic in word and deed?
Any such pre ponderance of one virtue over others (as in the case of the moral monster) precisely what with most hostility counteracts the classical power in equilibrium; supposing people manifested this moral loftiness and were classical notwithstanding, we should have to conclude boldly that they were also on the same high level in immorality!
this was perhaps the case with Shakespeare (provided that he was really Lord Bacon).
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Concerning the future. Against the romantiasm of great passion. --We must understand how a certain modicum of coldness, lucidity, and hard ness is inseparable from all classical taste: above all consistency, happy intellectuality, " the three unities," concentration, hatred of all feeling, of all sentimentality, of all esprit, hatred of all multi formity, of all uncertainty, evasiveness, and of all nebulosity, as also of all brevity, finicking, pretti ness and good nature. Artistic formula must not be played with: life must be remodelled so that it should be forced to formulate itself accordingly.
It is really an exhilarating spectacle which we have only learned to laugh at quite recently, be cause we have only seen through it quite recently: this spectacle of Herder's, Winckelmann's, Goethe's, and Hegel's contemporaries claiming that they had rediscovered the classical ideal . . . and at the same time, Shakespeare! And this same crew of men had scurvily repudiated all relationship'with the classical school of France! As if the essential
principle could not have been learnt as well here as elsewhere! . . . But what people wanted was " nature," and " naturalness ": Oh, the stupidity of it! It was thought that classicism was a kind of naturalness !
Without either prejudice or indulgence we should try and investigate upon what soil a classical taste can be evolved. The hardening, the simplification, the strengthening, and the bedevilling of man are inseparable from classical taste. Logical and
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283
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THE WILL TO POWER.
A contempt of de tail, of complexity, of obscurity.
The romanticists of Germany do not protest against classicism, but against reason, against illumination, against taste, against the eighteenth century.
The essence Of romantico-Wagnerian music is the opposite of the classical spirit.
The will to unity (because unity tyrannises: eg. the listener and the spectator), but the artist's in ability to tyrannise over himself where it is most needed--that is to say, in regard to the work it self (in regard to knowing what to leave out, what
to shorten, what to clarify, what to simplify). The overwhelming by means of masses (Wagner, Victor Hugo, Zola, Taine).
850.
The Nihilirm of artists--Nature is cruel in her cheerfulness; cynical in her sunrises. We are hostile to emotions. We flee thither where Nature moves our senses and our imagination, where we have nothing to love, where we are not reminded of the moral semblances and delicacies of this northern nature; and the same applies to the arts. We prefer that which no longer reminds us of good and 'evil. Our moral sensibility and tender ness seem to be relieved in the heart of terrible
and happy Nature, in the fatalism of the senses and . forces. Life without goodness.
psychological simplification.
? Great well-being arises from Nature's indifference to good and evil.
contemplating NO justice in history, no goodness in Nature.
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{That why the pessimist when he an artist prefers those historical subjects where the absence of justice reveals itself with magnificent simplicity,
"where perfection actually comes to expression-- and likewise he prefers that in Nature, where her callous evil character not hypocritically concealed, where that character seen in perfection.
The Nihilistic artist betrays himself in willing and preferring cynical history and cynical Nature.
851.
What tragic P--Again and again have pointed to the great misunderstanding of Aristotle in maintaining that the tragic emotions were the two depressing emotions--fear and pity. Had he been right, tragedy would be an art unfriendly to life: would have been necessary to caution people
against as against something generally harmful and suspicious. Art, otherwise the great stimulus of life, the great intoxicant of life, the great will to life, here became tool of decadence, the hand maiden of pessimism and ill-health (for to sup pose, as Aristotle supposed, that by exciting these emotions we thereby purged people of them, simply an error). Something which habitually excites fear or pity, disorganises, weakens, and dis
courages: and supposing Schopenhauer were right in thinking that tragedy taught resignation
meek renunciation of happiness, hope, and of the will to live), this Would presuppose an art in which art itself was denied. Tragedy would then constitute process of dissolution; the in stinct of life would destroy itself in the instinct of
THE WILL 'ro POWER IN ART.
285
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art. Christianity, Nihilism, tragic art, physiological decadence; these things would then be linked, they would then preponderate together and assist each other onwards--downwards. . . . Tragedy would thus be a symptom of decline.
This theory may be refuted in the most cold blooded way, namely, by measuring the effect of a tragic emotion by means of a dynamometer The result would be a fact which only the bottom less falsity of a doctrinaire could misunderstand:
that tragedy is a tonic. If Schopenhauer refuses to see the truth here, if he regards general depres sion as a tragic condition, if he would have informed the Greeks (who to his disgust were not "re signed ") that they did not firmly possess the highest principles of life: it is only owing to his parti pris, to the need of consistency in his system, to the dishonesty of the doctrinaire--that dreadful dishonesty which step for step corrupted the whole psychology of Schopenhauer (he who had arbitrarily and almost violently misunderstood
genius, art itself, morality, pagan religion, beauty, knowledge, and almost everything).
852.
lee tragic artist--Whether, and in regard to what, the judgment " beautiful " is established is a question of an individual's Or of a people's strength The feeling of plenitude, of overflowing strength
? gaily and courageously meets many an obstacle before which the weakling shudders)--the" feeling of power utters the judgment " beautiful concerning things and conditions which the in stinct of impotence can only value as hateful and
(which
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THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
ugly. The flair which enables us to decide whether the objects we encounter are dangerous, problem atic, or alluring, likewise determines our asthetic Yea. This beautiful," an aflirmation).
From this we see that, generally speaking, preference for questionable and terrible things symptom of strength; whereas the taste for pretty and charming trifles characteristic of the weak and the delicate. i'The love of tragedy typical of strong ages and characters: its non plus ultra
perhaps the Divina Commedia. It the heroic spirits which in tragic cruelty say Yea unto them selves: they are hard enough to feel pain as pleasure.
On the other hand, supposing weaklings desire to get pleasure from an art which was not designed for them, what interpretation must we suppose they would like to give tragedy in order to make suit their taste? They would interpret their own feel ings of value into it: e. g. the " triumph of the moral order of things," or the teaching of the "uselessness "of existence," or the incitement to "resignation (or also half-medicinal and half moral outpourings, la Aristotle). Finally, the art of terrible natures, in so far as may excite the nerves, may be regarded by the weak and ex hausted as stimulus: this now taking place, for instance, in the case of the admiration meted out to Wagner's art. A test of man's well-being and consciousness of power the extent to which he can acknowledge the terrible and questionable
character of things, and whether he in any need of faith at the end.
287
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This kind of artistic pessimism is precisely the reverse of that religiO-moral pessimism which suffers from the corruption of man and the enigmatic character of existence: the latter in sists upon deliverance, or at least upon the hope of deliverance. Those who sufl'er, doubt, and dis trust themselves,--the sick, in other words,--have
in all ages required the transporting influence of
visions in order to be able to exist at all notion "blessedneSs" arose in this way). A similar case would be that of the artists of decadence, who at bottom maintain a Nihilistic attitude to life, and take refuge in the beauty of form,--in those select cases in which Nature is
perfect, in which she is indifferently great and in diflerently beautiful. (The " love of the beautiful" may thus be something very different from the ability to see or create the beautiful: it may be the expression of impotence in this respect. ) The most convincing artists are those who make harmony ring out of every discord, and who benefit all things by the gift or their power and inner harmony: in every work of art they merely reveal the symbol of their inmost experiences-- their creation is gratitude for their life.
The depth. of the tragic artist consists in the fact that his asthetic instinct surveys the more remote results, that he does not halt shortsightedly
at the thing that is nearest, that he says Yea to ,
the whole cosmic economy, which justifies the terrible, the evil, and the questionable; which more than justifies it.
(the
? ? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
289
8 5 3.
Art in the " Birth of Tragedy. "
I.
ordinarily gloomy and unpleasant: among all the types Of pessimism which have ever been known hitherto, none seems to have attained to this degree of malice. The contrast of a true and of an ap parent world is entirely absent here: there is but one world, and it is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive, and without sense. . . . A world thus constituted is the true world. We are in need of lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this truth--that is to say, in order to live. . . . That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence.
Metaphysics, morality, religion, science,---in this book, all these things are regarded merely as different forms of falsehood: by means of them we are led to believe in life, " Life must inspire con fidence": the task which this imposes upon us is enormous. In order to solve this problem man must already be a liar in his heart, but he must above all else be an artist. And he is that. Metaphysics, religion, morality, science,--all these
things are but the Oflshoot of his will to art, to falsehood, to a flight from "truth," to a denial of "truth. " This ability, this artistic capacity par excellence of man--thanks to which he overcomes
reality with lies,--is a quality which he has in VOL. :1. T
The conception of right
the work which lies in the background of this book, is extra
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THE WILL TO POWER.
common with all other forms of existence. He himself is indeed a piece of reality, of truth, of nature: how could he help being also a piece of genius in prevarication !
The fact that the character of existence is misunderstood, is the profoundest and the highest secret motive behind everything relating to virtue, science, piety, and art. To be blind to many
things, to see many things falsely, to fancy many things: Oh, how clever man has been in those circumstances in which he believed he was anything but clever! Love, enthusiasm, " God "--are but subtle forms of ultimate self-deception; they are but seductions to life and to the belief in life! In those moments when man was deceived, when he had befooled
himself and when he believed in life: Oh, how his spirit swelled within him! Oh, what ecstasies he had! What power he felt! And what artistic triumphs in the feeling of power! . . . Man had once more become master of " matter,"--master of truth! . . . And whenever man rejoices it is always in the same way: he rejoices as an artist, his power
is his joy, he enjoys falsehood as his power. . . .
II.
Art and nothing else! Art is the great means of making life possible, the great seducer to life, the great stimulus of life.
Art is the only superior counteragent to all will to the denial of life; it is par excellence the anti Christian, the anti-Buddhistic, the anti-Nihilistic force.
_
? ? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
Art is the alleviation of the seeker after know ledge,--of him who recognises the terrible and questionable character Of existence, and who will recognise it,--of the tragic seeker after know ledge.
Art is the alleviation of the man of action,--of him who not only sees the terrible and questionable character of existence, but also lives will live --of the tragic and warlike man, the hero.
Art the alleviation of the sgfferer,--as the way to states in which pain willed, trans figured, deified, where suffering form of great ecstasy.
III.
It clear that in this book pessimism, or, better still, Nihilism, stands for " truth. " But truth not postulated as the highest measure of value, and still less as the highest power. The will to to illusion, to deception, to becoming,
appearance,
and to change (to objective deception), here re
garded as more profound, as more primeval, as more metaphysical than the will to truth, to reality, toappearance: the latter merely form of the will to illusion. Happiness likewise conceived as more primeval than pain and pain considered as conditioned, as consequence Of the will to happiness (of the will to Becoming, to growth, to forming, i. e. to creating; in creating, however, de struction included). The highest state of Yea saying to existence conceived as one from which
the greatest pain may not be excluded the tragico Dionysian state.
291
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THE WILL TO POWER.
IV.
In this way this book is even anti-pessimistic, namely, in the sense that it teaches something which is stronger than pessimism and which is more " divine " than truth: Art. Nobody, it would seem, would be more ready seriously to utter a radical denial of life, an actual denial of action even more
than a denial of life, than the author of this book. Except that he knows--for he has experienced and perhaps experienced little else l--that art of more value than truth.
,
Even in the preface, in which Richard Wagner is, as were, invited to join with him in conversa tion, the author expresses this article of faith, this gospel for artists: " Art the only task of life, art
the metaphysical activity of life. .
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? ? FOURTH BOOK. DISCIPLINE AND BREEDING.
? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
I. THE DOCTRINE or THE ORDER OF RANK.
854.
IN this age of universal suffrage, in which every body allowed to sit in judgment upon everything and everybody, feel compelled to re-establish the order of rank.
855.
Quanta of power alone determine rank and dis tinguish rank: nothing else does.
856.
The will to power. ---How must those men be constituted who would undertake this transvalua tion? The order of rank as the order of power: war and danger are the prerequisites which allow of rank maintaining its conditions. The pro digious example: man in Nature--the weakest and shrewdest creature making himself master, and
putting yoke upon all less intelligent forces. 395
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THE WILL To POWER.
857.
I distinguish between the type which represents ascending life and that which represents. decay, decomposition and weakness. Ought one to suppose that the question of rank between these two types can be at all doubtful? . .
858.
The modicum of power which you represent decides your rank; all the rest is cowardice.
859.
The advantages Of standing detached from one's age--Detached from the two movements, that of individualism and that of collectivist morality; for even the first does not recognise the order of rank, and would give one individual the same freedom as another. My thoughts are not concerned with the degree of freedom which should be granted to the one or to the other or to all, but with the degree of power which the one or the other should exercise over his neighbour or over all ;_ and more especially with the question to what extent a sacrifice of freedom, or even enslavement, may afford the basis for the cultivation of a superior type. In plain words: how could one sacrifice the
development of mankind in order to assist a higher species than man to come into being.
? ? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
297
860.
Concerning rank--The terrible consequences of " equality "---in the end everybody thinks he has the right to every problem. All order of rank has vanished.
861.
It is necessary for higher men to declare war upon the masses! In all directions mediocre people are joining hands in order to make them selves masters. Everything that pampers, that softens, and that brings the " people " or " woman " to the front, operates in favour of universal suffrage --that is to say, the dominion of inferior men. But we must make reprisals, and draw the whole state? of affairs (which commenced in Europe with Christianity) to the light of day and to judgment.
862.
A teaching is needed which is strong enough
to work in a disciplinary manner; it should . operate in such a way as to strengthen the strong and to paralyse and smash up the world-weary.
The annihilation of declining races. The decay of Europe. The annihilation of slave tainted valuations. The dominion of the world as a means to the rearing of a higher type. The annihilation of the humbug which is called morality (Christianity as a hysterical kind of honesty in this regard: Augustine, Bunyan)
? ? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER.
The annihilation of universal suffrage--that is to say, that system by means of which the lowest natures prescribe themselves as a law for
_ higher natures. The annihilation of mediocrity and its prevalence. (The one-sided, the indivi duals--peoples; constitutional plenitude should be aimed at by means of the coupling of opposites ; to this end race-combinations should be tried. ) The new kind of courage--no a priori truths (those who were accustomed to believe in some thing sought such truths but free submission to a ruling thought, which has its time; for instance, time conceived as the quality of space, etc.
2. THE STRONG AND THE WEAK.
863.
The notion, " strong and weak man," resolves itself into this, that in the first place much strength inherited--the man total sum in the other, not yet enough (inadequate inheritance, subdivision of the inherited qualities). Weakness may be
starting phenomenon: not yet enough; or final phenomenon: " no more. "
298
? The determining point
strength present, or where
strength can be discharged.
sum-total of the weak, reacts slowly; defends itself against much for which too weak,-- against that for which has no use; never creates, never takes step forward. This
there where great great amount of
The mass, as the
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opposed to the theory which denies the strong individual and would maintain that the " masses do everything. " The difference is similar to that which obtains between
separated generations: four or even five generations may lie between the masses and him who is the moving spirit--it is a
difference.
The value: of the weak are in the van, because
the strong have adopted them in order to lead with them.
864.
Why the weak triumph--On the whole, the sick and the weak have more sympathy and are more " humane ": the sick and the weak have more intellect, and are more changeable, more variegated,
more entertaining--more malicious ; the sick alone invented malice. (A morbid precocity is often to be observed among rickety, scrofulitic, and tuberculous people. ) Esprit: the property of older races ; Jews, Frenchmen, Chinese. (The anti-Semites do not forgive the Jews for having both intellect-- and money. Anti-Semites--another name for " bungled and botched")
The sick and the weak have always had fascina tion on their side; they are more interesting than the healthy: the fool and the saint--the two most interesting kinds of men. . . . Closely related thereto is the " genius. " The " great adventurers and criminals " and all great men, the most healthy in particular, have always been sick at certain periods of their lives--great disturbances of the
chronological
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THE WILL TO POWER.
emotions, the passion for power, love, revenge, are all accompanied by very profound perturbations. And, as for decadence, every man who does not die prematurely manifests it in almost every respect--he therefore knows from experience the instincts which belong to it: for half his life nearly every man is decadent.
And finally, woman! One-half of mankind is weak, chronically sick, changeable, shifty--woman requires strength in order to cleave to it; she also requires a religion of the weak which glorifies weakness, love, and modesty as divine: or, better still, she makes the strong weak--she rules when she succeeds in overcoming the strong. Woman has always conspired with decadent types,--the priests, for instance,--against the" mighty," against the "strong," against men. Women avail them selves of children for the cult of piety, pity, and love :--the mother stands as the symbol of con vincing altruism.
Finally, the increase of civilisation with its necessary correlatives, the increase of morbid elements, of the neurotic and psychiatric and of the criminal. A sort of intermediary species arises, the artist. He is distinct from those who are
as the result of weak wills and of the fear of society, although they may not yet be ripe for the asylum; but he has antenna: which grope inquisitively into both spheres: this specific plant _of culture, the modern artist, painter, musician, and, above all, novelist, who designates his particular kind of attitude with the very indefinite word "naturalism. " . . . Lunatics, criminals, and
? criminals
? ? ? -
THE ORDER OF RANK.
3OI
realists' are on the increase: this the sign of growing culture plunging forward at headlong speed--that to say, its excrement, its refuse, the
rubbish that shot from
to acquire more importance,--the movement keeps pace with the advance.
Finally, the social mishmash, which the result of revolution, of the establishment of equal rights, and of the superstition, the "equality Of men. " Thus the possessors of the instincts of decline (of resentment, of discontent, of the lust of destruction,
of anarchy and Nihilism), as also the instincts of slavery, of cowardice, of craftiness, and of rascality, which are inherent among those classes of society which have long been suppressed, are beginning to get infused into the blood of all ranks. Two or three generations later, the race can no longer be
every day, beginning retrogressive
? -
recognised--everything
has become mob. And thus ,there results collective instinct against selection, against every kind of privilege; and this instinct operates with such power, certainty, hardness, and cruelty that, as matter of fact, in the end, even the privileged classes have to submit: all those who still wish to hold on to power flatter the mob, work with the mob, and must have the mob on their side--the " geniuses "
above all. The latter become the heralds of those feelings with which the mob can be inspired,---the
of pity, of honour, even for all that suffers, all that low and despised, and has lived
" *Tbe " German word "Naturalist," and really means realist bad sense--TR.
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under persecution, becomes predominant (types: Victor Hugo, Richard Wagner). --The rise of the mob signifies once more the rise of old values.
In the case of such an extreme movement, both in tempo and in means, as characterises our civil isation, man's ballast is shifted. Those men whose worth is greatest, and whose mission, as it were, is to compensate for the very great danger of such a morbid movement,-such men become dawdlers
par excellence ; they are slow to accept anything, and are tenacious ; they are creatures that are relatively lasting in the midst of this vast mingling and changing of elements. In such circumstances power is necessarily relegated to the mediocre: mediocrity, as the trustee and bearer of the future, consolidates itself against the rule of the mob and of eccentricities (both of which are, in most cases,
In this way a new antagonist is evolved for exceptional men--0r in certain cases a new temptation. Provided that they do not adapt themselves to the mob, and stand up for what satisfies the instincts of the disinherited, they will find it necessary to be "mediocre" and sound. They know: mediocritas is also aurea,--it alone
has command of money and gold (of all that glitters . . . And, once more, old virtue and the whole superannuated world of ideals in general secures gifted host of special-pleaders. . . Result: mediocrity acquires intellect, wit, and genius,--it becomes entertaining, and even seductive.
Result--A high culture can only stand upon broad basis, upon strongly and soundly consoli
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dated mediocrity. In its service and assisted by science and even art do their work. Science could not wish for better state of affairs: in its middle-class type of man,-- out of place,--there not
essence belongs to
among exceptions
anything aristocratic
anarchic in its instincts--The power of the middle classes then upheld by means of commerce, but, above all, by means of money-dealing: the instinct of great financiers opposed to everything extreme --on this account the Jews are, for the present, the most conservative power in the threatening and insecure conditions of modern Europe. They can have no use either for revolutions, for social ism, or for militarism: they would have power, and they should need even over the revolu tionary party, this only the result of what have already said, and in no way contradicts it. Against other extreme movements they may occasionally require to excite terror--by showing how much power in their hands. But their instinct itself inveterately conservative and " mediocre. " . . Wherever power exists, they know how to become mighty but the application
of their power always takes the same direction. The polite term for mediocre, as well known,
the word "Liberal. "
and still less anything
? all nonsense to suppose that this general conquest of values anti-biological.
In order to explain we ought to try and show that the result of certain interest of life to maintain the type "man," even by means of this
Reflection--It
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method which leads to the prevalence Of the weak and the physiologically botched--if things were otherwise, might man not cease to exist? Problem. . .
The enhancement of the type may prove fatal to the maintenance of the species. Why ? --The experience of history shows that strong races a'ecimate each other mutually, by means of war, lust for power, and venturousness; the strong emotions; wastefulness (strength is no longer capitalised, disturbed mental systems arise from excessive tension); their existence is a costly affair--in short, they persistently give rise to friction between themselves; periods of profound slackners and torpidity intervene: all great ages have to be paidfar. .
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849.
Concerning the future. Against the romantiasm of great passion. --We must understand how a certain modicum of coldness, lucidity, and hard ness is inseparable from all classical taste: above all consistency, happy intellectuality, " the three unities," concentration, hatred of all feeling, of all sentimentality, of all esprit, hatred of all multi formity, of all uncertainty, evasiveness, and of all nebulosity, as also of all brevity, finicking, pretti ness and good nature. Artistic formula must not be played with: life must be remodelled so that it should be forced to formulate itself accordingly.
It is really an exhilarating spectacle which we have only learned to laugh at quite recently, be cause we have only seen through it quite recently: this spectacle of Herder's, Winckelmann's, Goethe's, and Hegel's contemporaries claiming that they had rediscovered the classical ideal . . . and at the same time, Shakespeare! And this same crew of men had scurvily repudiated all relationship'with the classical school of France! As if the essential
principle could not have been learnt as well here as elsewhere! . . . But what people wanted was " nature," and " naturalness ": Oh, the stupidity of it! It was thought that classicism was a kind of naturalness !
Without either prejudice or indulgence we should try and investigate upon what soil a classical taste can be evolved. The hardening, the simplification, the strengthening, and the bedevilling of man are inseparable from classical taste. Logical and
THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
283
? ? ? 284
THE WILL TO POWER.
A contempt of de tail, of complexity, of obscurity.
The romanticists of Germany do not protest against classicism, but against reason, against illumination, against taste, against the eighteenth century.
The essence Of romantico-Wagnerian music is the opposite of the classical spirit.
The will to unity (because unity tyrannises: eg. the listener and the spectator), but the artist's in ability to tyrannise over himself where it is most needed--that is to say, in regard to the work it self (in regard to knowing what to leave out, what
to shorten, what to clarify, what to simplify). The overwhelming by means of masses (Wagner, Victor Hugo, Zola, Taine).
850.
The Nihilirm of artists--Nature is cruel in her cheerfulness; cynical in her sunrises. We are hostile to emotions. We flee thither where Nature moves our senses and our imagination, where we have nothing to love, where we are not reminded of the moral semblances and delicacies of this northern nature; and the same applies to the arts. We prefer that which no longer reminds us of good and 'evil. Our moral sensibility and tender ness seem to be relieved in the heart of terrible
and happy Nature, in the fatalism of the senses and . forces. Life without goodness.
psychological simplification.
? Great well-being arises from Nature's indifference to good and evil.
contemplating NO justice in history, no goodness in Nature.
? ? ? ,
_~
{That why the pessimist when he an artist prefers those historical subjects where the absence of justice reveals itself with magnificent simplicity,
"where perfection actually comes to expression-- and likewise he prefers that in Nature, where her callous evil character not hypocritically concealed, where that character seen in perfection.
The Nihilistic artist betrays himself in willing and preferring cynical history and cynical Nature.
851.
What tragic P--Again and again have pointed to the great misunderstanding of Aristotle in maintaining that the tragic emotions were the two depressing emotions--fear and pity. Had he been right, tragedy would be an art unfriendly to life: would have been necessary to caution people
against as against something generally harmful and suspicious. Art, otherwise the great stimulus of life, the great intoxicant of life, the great will to life, here became tool of decadence, the hand maiden of pessimism and ill-health (for to sup pose, as Aristotle supposed, that by exciting these emotions we thereby purged people of them, simply an error). Something which habitually excites fear or pity, disorganises, weakens, and dis
courages: and supposing Schopenhauer were right in thinking that tragedy taught resignation
meek renunciation of happiness, hope, and of the will to live), this Would presuppose an art in which art itself was denied. Tragedy would then constitute process of dissolution; the in stinct of life would destroy itself in the instinct of
THE WILL 'ro POWER IN ART.
285
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art. Christianity, Nihilism, tragic art, physiological decadence; these things would then be linked, they would then preponderate together and assist each other onwards--downwards. . . . Tragedy would thus be a symptom of decline.
This theory may be refuted in the most cold blooded way, namely, by measuring the effect of a tragic emotion by means of a dynamometer The result would be a fact which only the bottom less falsity of a doctrinaire could misunderstand:
that tragedy is a tonic. If Schopenhauer refuses to see the truth here, if he regards general depres sion as a tragic condition, if he would have informed the Greeks (who to his disgust were not "re signed ") that they did not firmly possess the highest principles of life: it is only owing to his parti pris, to the need of consistency in his system, to the dishonesty of the doctrinaire--that dreadful dishonesty which step for step corrupted the whole psychology of Schopenhauer (he who had arbitrarily and almost violently misunderstood
genius, art itself, morality, pagan religion, beauty, knowledge, and almost everything).
852.
lee tragic artist--Whether, and in regard to what, the judgment " beautiful " is established is a question of an individual's Or of a people's strength The feeling of plenitude, of overflowing strength
? gaily and courageously meets many an obstacle before which the weakling shudders)--the" feeling of power utters the judgment " beautiful concerning things and conditions which the in stinct of impotence can only value as hateful and
(which
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THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
ugly. The flair which enables us to decide whether the objects we encounter are dangerous, problem atic, or alluring, likewise determines our asthetic Yea. This beautiful," an aflirmation).
From this we see that, generally speaking, preference for questionable and terrible things symptom of strength; whereas the taste for pretty and charming trifles characteristic of the weak and the delicate. i'The love of tragedy typical of strong ages and characters: its non plus ultra
perhaps the Divina Commedia. It the heroic spirits which in tragic cruelty say Yea unto them selves: they are hard enough to feel pain as pleasure.
On the other hand, supposing weaklings desire to get pleasure from an art which was not designed for them, what interpretation must we suppose they would like to give tragedy in order to make suit their taste? They would interpret their own feel ings of value into it: e. g. the " triumph of the moral order of things," or the teaching of the "uselessness "of existence," or the incitement to "resignation (or also half-medicinal and half moral outpourings, la Aristotle). Finally, the art of terrible natures, in so far as may excite the nerves, may be regarded by the weak and ex hausted as stimulus: this now taking place, for instance, in the case of the admiration meted out to Wagner's art. A test of man's well-being and consciousness of power the extent to which he can acknowledge the terrible and questionable
character of things, and whether he in any need of faith at the end.
287
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This kind of artistic pessimism is precisely the reverse of that religiO-moral pessimism which suffers from the corruption of man and the enigmatic character of existence: the latter in sists upon deliverance, or at least upon the hope of deliverance. Those who sufl'er, doubt, and dis trust themselves,--the sick, in other words,--have
in all ages required the transporting influence of
visions in order to be able to exist at all notion "blessedneSs" arose in this way). A similar case would be that of the artists of decadence, who at bottom maintain a Nihilistic attitude to life, and take refuge in the beauty of form,--in those select cases in which Nature is
perfect, in which she is indifferently great and in diflerently beautiful. (The " love of the beautiful" may thus be something very different from the ability to see or create the beautiful: it may be the expression of impotence in this respect. ) The most convincing artists are those who make harmony ring out of every discord, and who benefit all things by the gift or their power and inner harmony: in every work of art they merely reveal the symbol of their inmost experiences-- their creation is gratitude for their life.
The depth. of the tragic artist consists in the fact that his asthetic instinct surveys the more remote results, that he does not halt shortsightedly
at the thing that is nearest, that he says Yea to ,
the whole cosmic economy, which justifies the terrible, the evil, and the questionable; which more than justifies it.
(the
? ? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
289
8 5 3.
Art in the " Birth of Tragedy. "
I.
ordinarily gloomy and unpleasant: among all the types Of pessimism which have ever been known hitherto, none seems to have attained to this degree of malice. The contrast of a true and of an ap parent world is entirely absent here: there is but one world, and it is false, cruel, contradictory, seductive, and without sense. . . . A world thus constituted is the true world. We are in need of lies in order to rise superior to this reality, to this truth--that is to say, in order to live. . . . That lies should be necessary to life is part and parcel of the terrible and questionable character of existence.
Metaphysics, morality, religion, science,---in this book, all these things are regarded merely as different forms of falsehood: by means of them we are led to believe in life, " Life must inspire con fidence": the task which this imposes upon us is enormous. In order to solve this problem man must already be a liar in his heart, but he must above all else be an artist. And he is that. Metaphysics, religion, morality, science,--all these
things are but the Oflshoot of his will to art, to falsehood, to a flight from "truth," to a denial of "truth. " This ability, this artistic capacity par excellence of man--thanks to which he overcomes
reality with lies,--is a quality which he has in VOL. :1. T
The conception of right
the work which lies in the background of this book, is extra
? ? ? ? 290
THE WILL TO POWER.
common with all other forms of existence. He himself is indeed a piece of reality, of truth, of nature: how could he help being also a piece of genius in prevarication !
The fact that the character of existence is misunderstood, is the profoundest and the highest secret motive behind everything relating to virtue, science, piety, and art. To be blind to many
things, to see many things falsely, to fancy many things: Oh, how clever man has been in those circumstances in which he believed he was anything but clever! Love, enthusiasm, " God "--are but subtle forms of ultimate self-deception; they are but seductions to life and to the belief in life! In those moments when man was deceived, when he had befooled
himself and when he believed in life: Oh, how his spirit swelled within him! Oh, what ecstasies he had! What power he felt! And what artistic triumphs in the feeling of power! . . . Man had once more become master of " matter,"--master of truth! . . . And whenever man rejoices it is always in the same way: he rejoices as an artist, his power
is his joy, he enjoys falsehood as his power. . . .
II.
Art and nothing else! Art is the great means of making life possible, the great seducer to life, the great stimulus of life.
Art is the only superior counteragent to all will to the denial of life; it is par excellence the anti Christian, the anti-Buddhistic, the anti-Nihilistic force.
_
? ? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.
Art is the alleviation of the seeker after know ledge,--of him who recognises the terrible and questionable character Of existence, and who will recognise it,--of the tragic seeker after know ledge.
Art is the alleviation of the man of action,--of him who not only sees the terrible and questionable character of existence, but also lives will live --of the tragic and warlike man, the hero.
Art the alleviation of the sgfferer,--as the way to states in which pain willed, trans figured, deified, where suffering form of great ecstasy.
III.
It clear that in this book pessimism, or, better still, Nihilism, stands for " truth. " But truth not postulated as the highest measure of value, and still less as the highest power. The will to to illusion, to deception, to becoming,
appearance,
and to change (to objective deception), here re
garded as more profound, as more primeval, as more metaphysical than the will to truth, to reality, toappearance: the latter merely form of the will to illusion. Happiness likewise conceived as more primeval than pain and pain considered as conditioned, as consequence Of the will to happiness (of the will to Becoming, to growth, to forming, i. e. to creating; in creating, however, de struction included). The highest state of Yea saying to existence conceived as one from which
the greatest pain may not be excluded the tragico Dionysian state.
291
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THE WILL TO POWER.
IV.
In this way this book is even anti-pessimistic, namely, in the sense that it teaches something which is stronger than pessimism and which is more " divine " than truth: Art. Nobody, it would seem, would be more ready seriously to utter a radical denial of life, an actual denial of action even more
than a denial of life, than the author of this book. Except that he knows--for he has experienced and perhaps experienced little else l--that art of more value than truth.
,
Even in the preface, in which Richard Wagner is, as were, invited to join with him in conversa tion, the author expresses this article of faith, this gospel for artists: " Art the only task of life, art
the metaphysical activity of life. .
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? ? FOURTH BOOK. DISCIPLINE AND BREEDING.
? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
I. THE DOCTRINE or THE ORDER OF RANK.
854.
IN this age of universal suffrage, in which every body allowed to sit in judgment upon everything and everybody, feel compelled to re-establish the order of rank.
855.
Quanta of power alone determine rank and dis tinguish rank: nothing else does.
856.
The will to power. ---How must those men be constituted who would undertake this transvalua tion? The order of rank as the order of power: war and danger are the prerequisites which allow of rank maintaining its conditions. The pro digious example: man in Nature--the weakest and shrewdest creature making himself master, and
putting yoke upon all less intelligent forces. 395
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857.
I distinguish between the type which represents ascending life and that which represents. decay, decomposition and weakness. Ought one to suppose that the question of rank between these two types can be at all doubtful? . .
858.
The modicum of power which you represent decides your rank; all the rest is cowardice.
859.
The advantages Of standing detached from one's age--Detached from the two movements, that of individualism and that of collectivist morality; for even the first does not recognise the order of rank, and would give one individual the same freedom as another. My thoughts are not concerned with the degree of freedom which should be granted to the one or to the other or to all, but with the degree of power which the one or the other should exercise over his neighbour or over all ;_ and more especially with the question to what extent a sacrifice of freedom, or even enslavement, may afford the basis for the cultivation of a superior type. In plain words: how could one sacrifice the
development of mankind in order to assist a higher species than man to come into being.
? ? ? ? THE ORDER OF RANK.
297
860.
Concerning rank--The terrible consequences of " equality "---in the end everybody thinks he has the right to every problem. All order of rank has vanished.
861.
It is necessary for higher men to declare war upon the masses! In all directions mediocre people are joining hands in order to make them selves masters. Everything that pampers, that softens, and that brings the " people " or " woman " to the front, operates in favour of universal suffrage --that is to say, the dominion of inferior men. But we must make reprisals, and draw the whole state? of affairs (which commenced in Europe with Christianity) to the light of day and to judgment.
862.
A teaching is needed which is strong enough
to work in a disciplinary manner; it should . operate in such a way as to strengthen the strong and to paralyse and smash up the world-weary.
The annihilation of declining races. The decay of Europe. The annihilation of slave tainted valuations. The dominion of the world as a means to the rearing of a higher type. The annihilation of the humbug which is called morality (Christianity as a hysterical kind of honesty in this regard: Augustine, Bunyan)
? ? ? ? THE WILL TO POWER.
The annihilation of universal suffrage--that is to say, that system by means of which the lowest natures prescribe themselves as a law for
_ higher natures. The annihilation of mediocrity and its prevalence. (The one-sided, the indivi duals--peoples; constitutional plenitude should be aimed at by means of the coupling of opposites ; to this end race-combinations should be tried. ) The new kind of courage--no a priori truths (those who were accustomed to believe in some thing sought such truths but free submission to a ruling thought, which has its time; for instance, time conceived as the quality of space, etc.
2. THE STRONG AND THE WEAK.
863.
The notion, " strong and weak man," resolves itself into this, that in the first place much strength inherited--the man total sum in the other, not yet enough (inadequate inheritance, subdivision of the inherited qualities). Weakness may be
starting phenomenon: not yet enough; or final phenomenon: " no more. "
298
? The determining point
strength present, or where
strength can be discharged.
sum-total of the weak, reacts slowly; defends itself against much for which too weak,-- against that for which has no use; never creates, never takes step forward. This
there where great great amount of
The mass, as the
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opposed to the theory which denies the strong individual and would maintain that the " masses do everything. " The difference is similar to that which obtains between
separated generations: four or even five generations may lie between the masses and him who is the moving spirit--it is a
difference.
The value: of the weak are in the van, because
the strong have adopted them in order to lead with them.
864.
Why the weak triumph--On the whole, the sick and the weak have more sympathy and are more " humane ": the sick and the weak have more intellect, and are more changeable, more variegated,
more entertaining--more malicious ; the sick alone invented malice. (A morbid precocity is often to be observed among rickety, scrofulitic, and tuberculous people. ) Esprit: the property of older races ; Jews, Frenchmen, Chinese. (The anti-Semites do not forgive the Jews for having both intellect-- and money. Anti-Semites--another name for " bungled and botched")
The sick and the weak have always had fascina tion on their side; they are more interesting than the healthy: the fool and the saint--the two most interesting kinds of men. . . . Closely related thereto is the " genius. " The " great adventurers and criminals " and all great men, the most healthy in particular, have always been sick at certain periods of their lives--great disturbances of the
chronological
? ? ? ? 300
THE WILL TO POWER.
emotions, the passion for power, love, revenge, are all accompanied by very profound perturbations. And, as for decadence, every man who does not die prematurely manifests it in almost every respect--he therefore knows from experience the instincts which belong to it: for half his life nearly every man is decadent.
And finally, woman! One-half of mankind is weak, chronically sick, changeable, shifty--woman requires strength in order to cleave to it; she also requires a religion of the weak which glorifies weakness, love, and modesty as divine: or, better still, she makes the strong weak--she rules when she succeeds in overcoming the strong. Woman has always conspired with decadent types,--the priests, for instance,--against the" mighty," against the "strong," against men. Women avail them selves of children for the cult of piety, pity, and love :--the mother stands as the symbol of con vincing altruism.
Finally, the increase of civilisation with its necessary correlatives, the increase of morbid elements, of the neurotic and psychiatric and of the criminal. A sort of intermediary species arises, the artist. He is distinct from those who are
as the result of weak wills and of the fear of society, although they may not yet be ripe for the asylum; but he has antenna: which grope inquisitively into both spheres: this specific plant _of culture, the modern artist, painter, musician, and, above all, novelist, who designates his particular kind of attitude with the very indefinite word "naturalism. " . . . Lunatics, criminals, and
? criminals
? ? ? -
THE ORDER OF RANK.
3OI
realists' are on the increase: this the sign of growing culture plunging forward at headlong speed--that to say, its excrement, its refuse, the
rubbish that shot from
to acquire more importance,--the movement keeps pace with the advance.
Finally, the social mishmash, which the result of revolution, of the establishment of equal rights, and of the superstition, the "equality Of men. " Thus the possessors of the instincts of decline (of resentment, of discontent, of the lust of destruction,
of anarchy and Nihilism), as also the instincts of slavery, of cowardice, of craftiness, and of rascality, which are inherent among those classes of society which have long been suppressed, are beginning to get infused into the blood of all ranks. Two or three generations later, the race can no longer be
every day, beginning retrogressive
? -
recognised--everything
has become mob. And thus ,there results collective instinct against selection, against every kind of privilege; and this instinct operates with such power, certainty, hardness, and cruelty that, as matter of fact, in the end, even the privileged classes have to submit: all those who still wish to hold on to power flatter the mob, work with the mob, and must have the mob on their side--the " geniuses "
above all. The latter become the heralds of those feelings with which the mob can be inspired,---the
of pity, of honour, even for all that suffers, all that low and despised, and has lived
" *Tbe " German word "Naturalist," and really means realist bad sense--TR.
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under persecution, becomes predominant (types: Victor Hugo, Richard Wagner). --The rise of the mob signifies once more the rise of old values.
In the case of such an extreme movement, both in tempo and in means, as characterises our civil isation, man's ballast is shifted. Those men whose worth is greatest, and whose mission, as it were, is to compensate for the very great danger of such a morbid movement,-such men become dawdlers
par excellence ; they are slow to accept anything, and are tenacious ; they are creatures that are relatively lasting in the midst of this vast mingling and changing of elements. In such circumstances power is necessarily relegated to the mediocre: mediocrity, as the trustee and bearer of the future, consolidates itself against the rule of the mob and of eccentricities (both of which are, in most cases,
In this way a new antagonist is evolved for exceptional men--0r in certain cases a new temptation. Provided that they do not adapt themselves to the mob, and stand up for what satisfies the instincts of the disinherited, they will find it necessary to be "mediocre" and sound. They know: mediocritas is also aurea,--it alone
has command of money and gold (of all that glitters . . . And, once more, old virtue and the whole superannuated world of ideals in general secures gifted host of special-pleaders. . . Result: mediocrity acquires intellect, wit, and genius,--it becomes entertaining, and even seductive.
Result--A high culture can only stand upon broad basis, upon strongly and soundly consoli
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303
dated mediocrity. In its service and assisted by science and even art do their work. Science could not wish for better state of affairs: in its middle-class type of man,-- out of place,--there not
essence belongs to
among exceptions
anything aristocratic
anarchic in its instincts--The power of the middle classes then upheld by means of commerce, but, above all, by means of money-dealing: the instinct of great financiers opposed to everything extreme --on this account the Jews are, for the present, the most conservative power in the threatening and insecure conditions of modern Europe. They can have no use either for revolutions, for social ism, or for militarism: they would have power, and they should need even over the revolu tionary party, this only the result of what have already said, and in no way contradicts it. Against other extreme movements they may occasionally require to excite terror--by showing how much power in their hands. But their instinct itself inveterately conservative and " mediocre. " . . Wherever power exists, they know how to become mighty but the application
of their power always takes the same direction. The polite term for mediocre, as well known,
the word "Liberal. "
and still less anything
? all nonsense to suppose that this general conquest of values anti-biological.
In order to explain we ought to try and show that the result of certain interest of life to maintain the type "man," even by means of this
Reflection--It
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method which leads to the prevalence Of the weak and the physiologically botched--if things were otherwise, might man not cease to exist? Problem. . .
The enhancement of the type may prove fatal to the maintenance of the species. Why ? --The experience of history shows that strong races a'ecimate each other mutually, by means of war, lust for power, and venturousness; the strong emotions; wastefulness (strength is no longer capitalised, disturbed mental systems arise from excessive tension); their existence is a costly affair--in short, they persistently give rise to friction between themselves; periods of profound slackners and torpidity intervene: all great ages have to be paidfar. .
