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THE

WILL TO POWER

_AN ATTEMPTED_

_TRANSVALUATION OF ALL VALUES_

By

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE


TRANSLATED BY

ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI


VOL. II

BOOKS III AND IV

T.N. FOULIS

13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET

EDINBURGH: AND LONDON

1913




CONTENTS OF VOL. II.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

THIRD BOOK. THE PRINCIPLES OF A NEW VALUATION.

I. THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE--

_(a)_ The Method of Investigation
_(b)_ The Starting-Point of Epistemology
_(c)_ The Belief in the "Ego." Subject
_(d)_ Biology of the Instinct of Knowledge. Perspectivity
_(e)_ The Origin of Reason and Logic
_(f)_ Consciousness
_(g)_ Judgment. True--False
_(h)_ Against Causality
_(i)_ The Thing-in-Itself and Appearance
_(k)_ The Metaphysical Need
_(l)_ The Biological Value of Knowledge
_(m)_ Science

II. THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE--

1. The Mechanical Interpretation of the World
2. The Will to Power as Life--
_(a)_ The Organic Process
_(b)_ Man
3. Theory of the Will to Power and of Valuations

III. THE WILL TO POWER AS EXEMPLIFIED IN

SOCIETY AND IN THE INDIVIDUAL

1. Society and the State
2. The Individual

IV. THE WILL TO POWER IN ART

FOURTH BOOK. DISCIPLINE AND BREEDING.

I. THE ORDER OF RANK--

1. The Doctrine of the Order of Rank
2. The Strong and the Weak
3. The Noble Man
4. The Lords of the Earth
5. The Great Man
6. The Highest Man as Lawgiver of the Future

II. DIONYSUS

III. ETERNAL RECURRENCE




TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.


For the history of the text constituting this volume I would refer
readers to my preface to _The Will to Power,_ Books I, and II., where
they will also find a brief explanation of the actual title of the
complete work.

In the two books before us Nietzsche boldly carries his principle
still further into the various departments of human life, and does not
shrink from showing its application even to science, to art, and to
metaphysics.

Throughout Part I. of the Third Book we find him going to great pains
to impress the fact upon us that science is as arbitrary as art in
its mode of procedure, and that the knowledge of the scientist is but
the outcome of his inexorable will to power interpreting facts in the
terms of the self-preservative conditions of the particular order of
human beings to which he belongs. In Aphorisms 515 and 516, which are
typical of almost all the thought expressed in Part I., Nietzsche says
distinctly: "The object is not 'to know,' but to schematise,--to impose
as much regularity and form upon chaos as our practical needs require."

Unfamiliarity, constant change, and the inability to reckon with
possibilities, are sources of great danger: hence, everything _must_
be explained, assimilated, and rendered capable of calculation, if
Nature is to be mastered and controlled.

Schemes for interpreting earthly phenomena must be devised which,
though they do not require to be absolute or irrefutable, must
yet favour the maintenance of the kind of men that devises them.
Interpretation thus becomes all important, and facts sink down to
the rank of raw material which must first be given some shape (some
sense--always anthropocentric) before they can become serviceable.

Even the development of reason and logic Nietzsche consistently shows
to be but a spiritual development of the physiological function
of digestion which compels an organism to make things "like" (to
"assimilate") before it can absorb them (Aph. 510). And seeing that he
denies that hunger can be a first motive (Aphs. 651-656), and proceeds
to show that it is the amœba's will to power which makes it extend its
pseudopodia in search of what it can appropriate, and that, once the
appropriated matter is enveloped, it is a process of making _similar_
which constitutes the process of absorption, reason itself is by
inference acknowledged to be merely a form of the same fundamental will.

An interesting and certainly inevitable outcome of Nietzsche's argument
appears in Aph. 516, where he declares that even our inability to deny
and affirm one and the same thing is not in the least necessary, _but
only a sign of inability._

The whole argument of Part I. tends to draw science ever nearer and
nearer to art (except, of course, in those cases in which science
happens to consist merely of an ascertainment of facts), and to prove
that the one like the other is no more than a means of gaining some
foothold upon the slippery soil of a world that is for ever in flux.

In the rush and pell-mell of Becoming, some milestones must be fixed
for the purposes of human orientation. In the torrent of evolutionary
changes pillars must be made to stand, to which man can for a space
hold tight and collect his senses. Science, like art, accomplishes this
for us, and it is our will to power which "creates the impression of
Being out of Becoming" (Aph. 517).

According to this standpoint, then, consciousness is also but a weapon
in the service of the will to power, and it extends or contracts
according to our needs (Aph. 524). It might disappear altogether (Aph.
523), or, on the other hand, it might increase and make our life more
complicated than it already is. But we should guard against making
it the Absolute behind Becoming, simply because it happens to be the
highest and most recent evolutionary form (Aph. 709). If we had done
this with each newly acquired characteristic, sight itself, which is a
relatively recent development, would also have required to have been
deified.

Pantheism, Theism, Unitarianism--in fact all religions in which a
_conscious_ god is worshipped, are thus aptly classed by Nietzsche
as the result of man's desire to elevate that which is but a new and
wonderful instrument of his will to power, to the chief place in the
imaginary world beyond (eternal soul), and to make it even the deity
itself (God Omniscient).

With the question of Truth we find Nietzsche quite as ready to uphold
his thesis as with all other questions. He frankly declares that "the
criterion of truth lies in the enhancement of the feeling of power"
(Aph. 534), and thus stands in diametrical opposition to Spencer, who
makes constraint or inability the criterion of truth. (See _Principles
of Psychology,_ new edition, chapter ix.... "the unconceivableness of
its negation is the ultimate test of the truth of a proposition.")

However paradoxical Nietzsche's view may seem, we shall find that
it is actually substantiated by experience; for the activity of our
senses certainly convinces us more or less according to the degree to
which it is provoked. Thus, if we walked for long round a completely
dark room, and everything yielded, however slightly, to our touch, we
should remain quite unconvinced that we were in a room at all, more
particularly if--to suppose a still more impossible case--the floor
yielded too. What provokes great activity in the bulbs of our fingers,
then, likewise generates the sensation of truth.

From this Nietzsche proceeds to argue that what provokes the strongest
sentiments in ourselves is also true to us, and, from the standpoint of
thought, "that which gives thought the greatest sensation of strength"
(Aph. 533).

The provocation of intense emotion, and therefore the provocation
of that state in which the body is above the normal in power, thus
becomes the index to truth; and it is a very remarkable thing that two
prominent English thinkers should, at the very end of their careers,
have practically admitted this, despite the fact that all their
philosophical productions had been based upon a completely different
belief. I refer, of course, to Spencer and Buckle, who both upheld the
view that in a system of thought the emotional factor is of the highest
importance.

It follows from all this, that lies and false doctrines may quite
conceivably prove to be even more preservative to species than truth
itself, and although this is a view we have already encountered in the
opening aphorisms of _Beyond Good and Evil,_ in Aph, 538 this volume
we find it further elucidated by Nietzsche's useful demonstration
of the fact that "the easier way of thinking always triumphs over
the more difficult way"; and that logic, inasmuch as it facilitated
classification and orderly thought, ultimately "got to act like truths."

Before leaving Part I., with which it would be impossible to deal in
full, a word or two ought to be said in regard to Nietzsche's views
concerning the belief in "cause and effect." In the _Genealogy of
Morals_ (1st Essay, Aph. 13), we have already read a forecast of our
author's more elaborate opinions on this question, and the aphorism
in question might be read with advantage in conjunction with the
discussion on the subject found in this book (Aphs. 545-555).

The whole of Nietzsche's criticism, however, resolves itself into
this, that the doctrine of causality begins with an unnecessary
duplication of all that happens. Language, and its origin among a
people uneducated in thoughts and concepts, is at the root of this
scientific superstition, and Nietzsche traces its evolution from the
primeval and savage desire always to find a "doer" behind every deed:
to find some one who is responsible and who, being known, thus modifies
the unfamiliarity of the deed which requires explaining. "The so-called
instinct of causality [of which Kant speaks with so much assurance] is
nothing more than the fear of the unfamiliar."

In Aph. 585 (A), we have a very coherent and therefore valuable
exposition of much that may still seem obscure in Nietzsche's
standpoint, and we might almost regard this aphorism as the key to
the epistemology of the Will to Power. When we find the "will to
truth" defined merely as "the longing for a stable world," we are in
possession of the very leitmotiv of Nietzsche's thought throughout Part
I., and most of what follows is clearly but an elaboration of this
thought.

In Part II. Nietzsche reveals himself as utterly opposed to all
mechanistic and materialistic interpretations of the Universe. He
exalts the spirit and repudiates the idea that mere pressure from
without--naked environment--is to be held responsible (and often
guilty!) for all that materialistic science would lay at its door.
Darwin again comes in for a good deal of sharp criticism; and, to those
who are familiar with the nature of Nietzsche's disagreement with this
naturalist, such aphorisms as Nos. 643, 647, 649, 651, 684, 685, will
be of special interest. There is one question of great moment, which
all Nietzsche's perfectly sincere and profoundly serious deprecation
of the Darwinian standpoint ought to bring home to all Englishmen who
have perhaps too eagerly endorsed the conclusions of their own British
school of organic evolution, and that is, to what extent were Malthus,
and afterwards his disciple Darwin, perhaps influenced in their
analysis of nature by preconceived notions drawn from the state of
high pressure which prevailed in the thickly-populated and industrial
country in which they both lived?

It is difficult to defend Darwin from the fundamental attack which
Nietzsche directs at the very root of his teaching, and which turns
upon the question of the motive of all Life's struggle. To assume
that the motive is always a "struggle for existence" presupposes the
constant presence of two conditions--want and over-population,--an
assumption which is absolutely non-proven, and it likewise lends a
peculiarly ignoble and cowardly colouring to the whole of organic life,
which not only remains unsubstantiated in fact, but which the struggle
for power completely escapes. In Part III., which, throughout, is
pretty plain sailing, Aphorism 786 contains perhaps the most important
statements. Here morality is shown to be merely an instrument, but this
time it is the instrument of the gregarious will to power. In the last
paragraph of this aphorism Nietzsche shows himself quite antagonistic
to Determinism, because of its intimate relation to, and its origin in,
a mechanistic interpretation of the Universe. But we should always
remember that, inasmuch as Nietzsche would distribute beliefs, just as
others distribute bounties--that is to say, according to the needs of
those whom he has in view, we must never take for granted that a belief
which he deprecates for one class of man ought necessarily, according
to him, to be denied another class.

Hard as it undoubtedly is to bear this in mind, we should remember that
his appeal is almost without interruption made to higher men, and that
doctrines and creeds which he condemns for them he would necessarily
exalt in the case of people who were differently situated and otherwise
constituted. Christianity is a case in point (see _Will to Power,_ vol.
i. Aph. 132).

We now come to Part IV., which is possibly the most important part of
all, seeing that it treats of those questions which may be regarded as
Nietzsche's most constant concern from the time when he wrote his first
book.

The world as we now see and know it, with all that it contains which is
beautiful, indifferent, or ugly, from a human standpoint, is, according
to Nietzsche, the creation of our own valuing minds. Perhaps only a few
people have had a hand in shaping this world of values. Maybe their
number could be counted on the fingers of two hands; but still, what
Nietzsche insists upon is, that it is human in its origin. Our whole
outlook, everything that gives us joy or pain, must at one time or
other have been valued for us, and in persisting in these valuations
we, as the acclimatised herd, are indebted to our artists, to our
higher men, to all those in history, who at some time or other have
dared to stand up and to declare emphatically that _this_ was ugly and
that _that_ was beautiful, and to fight, and if necessary to die, for
their opinion.

Religion, morality, and philosophy, while they all aim at so-called
universal Truth, tend to depreciate the value of life in the eyes of
exceptional men. Though they establish the "beautiful" for the general
stock, and in that way enhance the value of life for that stock,
they contradict higher men's values, and, by so doing, destroy their
innocent faith in the world. For the problem here is not, what value is
true?--but, what value is most conducive to the highest form of human
life on earth?

Nietzsche would fain throw all the burden of valuing upon the Dionysian
artist him who speaks about this world out of the love and plenitude
of power that is in his own breast, him who, from the very health that
is within him, cannot look out upon life without transfiguring it,
hallowing it, blessing it, and making it appear better, bigger, and
more beautiful. And, in this view, Nietzsche is quite consistent; for,
if we must accept his conclusion that our values are determined for us
by our higher men, then it becomes of the highest importance that these
valuers should be so constituted that their values may be a boon and
not a bane to the rest of humanity.

Alas! only too often, and especially in the nineteenth century, have
men who lacked this Dionysian spirit stood up and valued the world; and
it is against these that Nietzsche protests. It is the bad air they
have spread which he would fain dispel.

An to what art means to the artist himself, apart from its actual
effect on the world, Nietzsche would say that it is a manner of
discharging his will to power. The artist tries to stamp his opinion
of what is desirable, and of what is beautiful or ugly, upon his
contemporaries and the future; it is in this valuing that his impulse
to prevail finds its highest expression. Hence the instinctive economy
of artists in sex matters--that is to say, in precisely that quarter
whither other men go when their impulse to prevail urges them to
action. Nietzsche did not of course deny the sensual nature of artists
(Aph. 815); all he wished to make plain was this, that an artist who
was not moderate, _in eroticis,_ while engaged upon his task, was open
to the strongest suspicion.

In the Fourth Book Nietzsche is really at his very best. Here, while
discussing questions such as "The Order of Rank," he is so thoroughly
in his exclusive sphere, that practically every line, even if it were
isolated and taken bodily from the context, would bear the unmistakable
character of its author. The thought expressed in Aphorism 871 reveals
a standpoint as new as it is necessary. So used have we become to the
practice of writing and legislating for a mass, that we have forgotten
the rule that prevails even in our own navy--that the speed of a fleet
is measured by its slowest vessel.

On the same principle, seeing that all our philosophies and moralities
have hitherto been directed at a mass and at a mob, we find that their
elevation must of necessity be decided by the lowest of mankind. Thus
all passions are banned, because base men do not know how to enlist
them in their service. Men who are masters of themselves and of others,
men who understand the management and privilege of passion, become the
most despised of creatures in such systems of thought, because they are
confounded with the vicious and licentious; and the speed of mankind's
elevation thus gets to be determined by humanity's slowest vessels.

Aphorisms 881, 882, 886 fully elucidate the above considerations, while
in 912, 916, 943, and 951 we have plans of a constructive teaching
which the remainder of Part I. elaborates.

And now, following Nietzsche carefully through Part II. (Dionysus),
what is the inevitable conclusion of all we have read? This analysis
of the world's collective values and their ascription to a certain
"will to power" may now seem to many but an exhaustive attempt at a new
system of nomenclature, and little else. As a matter or fact it is very
much more than this. By mean? of it Nietzsche wishes to show mankind
how much has lain, and how much still lies, in man's power By laying
his finger on everything and declaring to man that it was human will
that created it. Nietzsche wished to give man the courage of this will,
and a clean conscience in exercising it. For it was precisely this very
will to power which had been most hated and most maligned by everybody
up to Nietzsche's time.

Long enough, prompted by the fear of attributing any one of his
happiest thoughts to this hated fundamental will, had man ascribed
all his valuations and all his most sublime inspirations to something
outside himself,--whether this something were a God, a principle, or
the concept Truth. But Nietzsche's desire was to show man how human,
all too human, have been the values that have appeared heretofore;
he wished to prove, that to the rare sculptors of values, the world,
despite its past, is still an open field of yielding clay, and in
pointing to what the will to power has done until now, Nietzsche
suggests to these coming sculptors what might still be done, provided
they fear nothing, and have that innocence and that profound faith in
the fundamental will which others hitherto have had in God, Natural
Laws, Truth, and other euphemistic fictions.

The doctrine of Eternal Recurrence, to which Nietzsche attached so much
importance that it may be regarded almost as the inspiration which led
to his great work, _Thus Spake Zarathustra,_ ought to be understood
in the light of a purely disciplinary and chastening creed. In one of
his posthumous works we find Nietzsche saying: "The question which
thou shalt have to answer before every deed that thou doest;--is this
such a deed as I am prepared to perform an incalculable number of
times,--is the best ballast." Thus it is obvious that, feeling the need
of something in his teaching which would replace the metaphysics of
former beliefs, he applied the doctrine of Eternal Recurrence to this
end. Seeing, however, that even among Nietzscheans themselves there
is considerable doubt concerning the actual value of the doctrine as
a ruling belief, it does not seem necessary to enter here into the
scientific justification which he claims for it. Suffice it to say
that, as knowledge stands at present, the statement that the world will
recur eternally in small things as in great, is still a somewhat daring
conjecture--a conjecture, however, which would have been entirely
warrantable if its disciplinary value had been commensurate with its
daring.

                                               ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI.




THIRD BOOK.

THE PRINCIPLES OF A NEW VALUATION.




I.


THE WILL TO POWER IN SCIENCE.


(a) The Method of Investigation.


466.

The distinguishing feature of our nineteenth century is not the triumph
of _science,_ but the triumph of the scientific _method_ over science.


467.

_The history of scientific methods_ was regarded by Auguste Comte
almost as philosophy itself.


468.

The great _Methodologists:_ Aristotle, Bacon, Descartes, Auguste Comte.


469.

The most valuable knowledge is always discovered last: but the most
valuable knowledge consists of _methods._

All methods, all the hypotheses on which the science of our day
depends, were treated with the profoundest contempt for centuries:
on their account a man used to be banished from the society of
_respectable_ people--he was held to be an "_enemy of God,_" a reviler
of the highest ideal, a madman.

We had the whole _pathos_ of mankind against us,--our notion of what
"truth" ought to be, of what the service of truth ought to be, our
objectivity, our method, our calm, cautious and distrustful manner were
altogether _despicable...._ At bottom, that which has kept men back
most, is an æsthetic taste: they believed in the picturesque effect of
truth; what they demanded of the scientist was, that he should make a
strong appeal to their imagination.

From the above, it would almost seem as if the very _reverse_ had been
achieved, as if a sudden _jump_ had been made: as a matter of fact, the
schooling which the moral hyperboles afforded, gradually prepared the
way for that _milder form of pathos_ which at last became incarnate in
the scientific man....

_Conscientiousness in small things,_ the self-control of the religious
man, was a preparatory school for the scientific character, as was
also, in a very pre-eminent sense, the attitude of mind which makes a
man _take problems seriously,_ irrespective of what personal advantage
he may derive from them....




_(b)_ The Starting-point of Epistemology.


470.

Profound disinclination to halt once and for all at any collective view
of the world. The charm of the opposite point of view: the refusal to
relinquish the stimulus residing in the enigmatical.


471.

The hypothesis that, at bottom, things proceed in such a moral fashion
that _human reason must be right,_ is a mere piece of good-natured
and simple-minded trustfulness, the result of the belief in Divine
truthfulness--God regarded as the Creator of all things.--These
concepts are our inheritance from a former existence in a Beyond.


472.

The contradiction of the so-called "facts of consciousness."
Observation a thousand times more difficult, error is perhaps the
absolute _condition_ of observation.


473.

The intellect cannot criticise itself, simply because it can be
compared with no other kind of intellect, and also because its ability
to know would only reveal itself in the presence of "actual reality";
that is to say, because, in order to criticise the intellect, we should
have to be higher creatures with "absolute knowledge." This would
presuppose the existence of _something,_ a "thing-in-itself," apart
from all the perspective kinds of observation and senso-spiritual
perception. But the psychological origin of the belief in _things,_
forbids our speaking of "things in themselves."


474.

The idea that a sort of adequate relation exists between _subject_ and
_object,_ that the object is something which _when seen from inside_
would be a subject, is a well-meant invention which, I believe, has
seen its best days. The measure of that which we are conscious of, is
perforce entirely dependent upon the coarse utility of the function of
consciousness: how could this little garret-prospect of consciousness
warrant our asserting anything in regard to "subject" and "object,"
which would bear any relation to reality!


475.

Criticism of modern philosophy: erroneous starting-point, as if there
were such things as "facts of consciousness"--and no _phenomenalism_ in
_introspection._


476.

"Consciousness"--to what extent is the idea which is thought of, the
idea of will, or the idea of a feeling (_which is known by us alone_),
quite superficial? Our _inner_ world is also "appearance."


477.

I am convinced of the phenomenalism of the _inner_ world also:
everything that reaches our consciousness is utterly and completely
adjusted, simplified, schematised, interpreted, the _actual_ process
of inner "perception," the _relation of causes_ between thoughts,
feelings, desires, between subject and object, is absolutely concealed
from us, and may be purely imaginary. This "_inner_ world of
appearance" is treated with precisely the same forms and procedures as
the "outer" world. We never come across a single "fact": pleasure and
pain are more recently evolved intellectual phenomena....

Causality evades us; to assume the existence of an immediate causal
relation between thoughts, as Logic does, is the result of the coarsest
and most clumsy observation. There are _all sorts of passions_ that may
intervene between two thoughts: but the interaction is too rapid--that
is why we _fail to recognise_ them, that is why we actually _deny_
their existence....

"Thinking," as the epistemologists understand _\r_ it, never takes
place at all: it is an absolutely gratuitous fabrication, arrived at
by selecting one element from the process and by eliminating all the
rest--an artificial adjustment for the purpose of the understanding....

The "mind," _something that thinks_: at times, even, "the mind absolute
and pure"--this concept is an evolved and second result of false
introspection, which believes in "thinking": in the first place an act
is imagined here which does not really occur at all, _i.e._ "thinking";
and, _secondly,_ a subject-substratum is imagined in which every
process of this thinking has its origin, and nothing else--that is to
say, _both the action and the agent are fanciful._


478.

Phenomenalism must not be sought in the wrong quarter: nothing is more
phenomenal, or, to be more precise, nothing is so much _deception,_ as
this inner world, which we observe with the "inner sense."

Our belief that the will is a cause was so great, that, according to
our personal experiences in general, we projected a cause into all
phenomena (_i.e._ a certain motive is posited as the cause of all
phenomena).

We believe that the thoughts which follow one upon the other in our
minds are linked by some sort of causal relation: the logician, more
especially, who actually speaks of a host of facts which have never
once been seen in reality, has grown accustomed to the prejudice that
thoughts _are the cause_ of thoughts.

We believe--and even our philosophers believe it still--that pleasure
and pain are the causes of reactions, that the very purpose of pleasure
and pain is to occasion reactions. For hundreds of years, pleasure and
pain have been represented as the _motives_ for every action. Upon
reflection, however, we are bound to concede that everything would have
proceeded in exactly the same way, according to precisely the same
sequence of cause and effect, if the states "pleasure" and "pain" had
been entirely absent; and that we are simply deceived when we believe
that they actually cause anything:--they are the _attendant phenomena,_
and they have quite a different purpose from that of provoking
reactions; they are in themselves effects involved in the process of
reaction which takes place.

_In short:_ Everything that becomes conscious is a final phenomenon, a
conclusion--and is the cause of nothing; all succession of phenomena
in consciousness is absolutely atomistic.--And we tried to understand
the universe from the _opposite_ point of view--as if nothing were
effective or real, save thinking, feeling, willing! ...


479.

_The phenomenalism of the "inner world!" A chronological inversion
takes place,_ so that the cause reaches consciousness as the
effect.--We know that pain is projected into a certain part of the
body although it is not really situated there; we have learnt that all
sensations which were ingenuously supposed to be conditioned by the
outer world are, as a matter of fact, conditioned by the inner world:
that the real action of the outer world never takes place in a way of
which we can become conscious.... That fragment of the outer world of
which we become conscious, is born after the effect produced by the
outer world has been recorded, and is subsequently interpreted as the
"cause" of that effect....

In the phenomenalism of the "inner world," the chronological order
of cause and effect is inverted. The fundamental fact of "inner
experience" is, that the cause is imagined after the effect has been
recorded.... The same holds good of the sequence of thoughts: we seek
for the reason of a thought, before it has reached our consciousness;
and then the reason reaches consciousness first, whereupon follows
its effect. All our dreams are the interpretation of our collective
feelings with the view of discovering the possible causes of the
latter; and the process is such that a condition only becomes
conscious, when the supposed causal link has reached consciousness.[1]

The whole of "inner experience" is founded on this: that a cause is
sought and imagined which accounts for a certain irritation in our
nerve-centres, and that it is only the cause which is found in this way
which reaches consciousness; this cause may have absolutely nothing to
do with the real cause--it is a sort of groping assisted by former
"inner experiences," that is to say, by memory. The memory, however,
retains the habit of old interpretations,--that is to say, of erroneous
causality,--so that "inner experience" comprises in itself all the
results of former erroneous fabrications of causes. Our "outside
world," as we conceive it every instant, is indissolubly bound up with
the old error of cause: we interpret by means of the schematism of
"the thing," etc.


"Inner experience" only enters consciousness when it has found a
language which the individual can _understand_--that is to say, a
translation of a certain condition into conditions with which he is
_familiar;_ "understand" means simply this: to be able to express
something new in the terms of something old or familiar. For instance,
"I feel unwell"--a judgment of this sort presupposes a _very great and
recent neutrality on the part of the observer:_ the simple man always
says, "This and that make me feel unwell,"--he begins to be clear
concerning his indisposition only after he has discovered a reason for
it.... This is what I call _a lack of philological_ knowledge; to be
able to read a text, _as such,_ without reading an interpretation into
it, is the latest form of "inner experience,"--it is perhaps a barely
possible form....


[Footnote 1: When in our dream we hear a bell ringing, or a tapping at
our door, we scarcely ever wake before having already accounted for the
sound, in the terms of the dream-world we were in.--TR.]


480.

There are no such things as "mind," reason, thought, consciousness,
soul, will, or truth: they all belong to fiction, and can serve no
purpose. It is not a question of "subject and object," but of a
particular species of animal which can prosper only by means of a
certain _exactness,_ or, better still, _regularity_ in recording its
perceptions (in order that experience may be capitalised)....

Knowledge works as an _instrument_ of power. It is therefore obvious
that it increases with each advance of power....

The purpose of knowledge: in this case, as in the case of "good" or
"beautiful," the concept must be regarded strictly and narrowly from an
anthropocentric and biological standpoint. In order that a particular
species may maintain and increase its power, its conception of reality
must contain enough which is calculable and constant to allow of its
formulating a scheme of conduct. _The utility of preservation_--and
_not_ some abstract or theoretical need to eschew deception--stands as
the motive force behind the development of the organs of knowledge; ...
they evolve in such a way that their observations may suffice for our
preservation. In other words, the _measure_ of the desire for knowledge
depends upon the extent to which _the Will to Power_ grows in a certain
species: a species gets a grasp of a given amount of reality, _in order
to master it, in order to enlist that amount in its service._



(c) The Belief in the "Ego." Subject.


481.

In opposition to Positivism, which halts at phenomena and says,
"These are only _facts_ and nothing more," I would say: No,
facts are precisely what is lacking, all that exists consists of
_interpretations._ We cannot establish any fact "in itself": it
may even be nonsense to desire to do such a thing. "Everything is
_subjective,_" ye say: but that in itself is _interpretation._ The
subject is nothing given, but something superimposed by fancy,
something introduced behind.--Is it necessary to set an interpreter
behind the interpretation already to hand? Even that would be fantasy,
hypothesis.

To the extent to which knowledge has any sense at all, the world is
knowable: but it may be interpreted _differently,_ it has not one sense
behind it, but hundreds of senses.--"Perspectivity."

It is our needs that _interpret the world_; our instincts and their
impulses for and against. Every instinct is a sort of thirst for power;
each has its point of view, which it would fain impose upon all the
other instincts as their norm.


482.

Where our ignorance really begins, at that point from which we can see
no further, we set a word; for instance, the word "I," the word "do,"
the word "suffer"--these concepts may be the horizon lines of our
knowledge, but they are not "truths."


483.

Owing to the phenomenon "thought," the ego is taken for granted; but
up to the present everybody believed, like the people, that there
was something unconditionally certain in the notion "I think," and
that by analogy with our understanding of all other causal reactions
this "I" was the given _cause_ of the thinking. However customary
and indispensable this fiction may have become now, this fact proves
nothing against the imaginary nature of its origin; it might be a
life-preserving belief and _still_ be _false._


484.

"Something is thought, therefore there is something that thinks": this
is what Descartes' argument amounts to. But this is tantamount to
considering our belief in the notion "_substance_" as an "_a priori_"
truth:--that there must be something "that thinks" when we think, is
merely a formulation of a grammatical custom which sets an agent to
every action. In short, a metaphysico-logical postulate is already put
forward here--and it is not merely _an ascertainment of fact...._ On
Descartes' lines nothing absolutely certain is attained, but only the
fact of a very powerful faith.

If the proposition be reduced to "Something is thought, therefore there
are thoughts," the result is mere tautology; and precisely the one
factor which is in question, the "_reality_ of thought," is not touched
upon,--so that, in this form, the apparitional character of thought
cannot be denied. What Descartes _wanted_ to prove was, that thought
not only had _apparent reality,_ but absolute reality.


485.

The concept _substance_ is an outcome of the concept _subject,_ and not
conversely! If we surrender the concept soul, the subject, the very
conditions for the concept "substance" are lacking. _Degrees of Being_
are obtained, but Being is lost.

Criticism of "_reality_": what does a _"plus or minus of reality"_ lead
to, the gradation of Being in which we believe?

The degree of our feeling of _life_ and _power_ (the logic and
relationship of past life) presents us with the measure of "Being,"
"reality," "non-appearance."

_Subject i_ this is the term we apply to our belief in an _entity_
underlying all the different moments of the most intense sensations
of reality; we regard this belief as the effect of a cause,--and we
believe in our belief to such an extent that, on its account alone,
we imagine "truth," "reality," "substantiality."--a "Subject" is the
fiction which would fain make us believe that several similar states
were the effect of one substratum: but we it was who first _created_
the "similarity" of these states; the similising and adjusting of them
is the _fact--not_ their similarity (on the contrary, this ought rather
to be denied).


486.

One would have to know what _Being_ is, in order to be able to
_decide_ whether this or that is real (for instance, "the facts of
consciousness"); it would also be necessary to know what _certainty_
and _knowledge_ are, and so forth.--But, as we do _not_ know these
things, a criticism of the faculty of knowledge is nonsensical: how is
it possible for an instrument to criticise itself, when it is itself
that exercises the critical faculty. It cannot even define itself!


487.

Should not all philosophy ultimately disclose the first principles on
which the reasoning processes depend?--that is to say, our _belief_
in the "ego" as a substance, as the only reality according to which,
alone, we are able to ascribe reality to things? The oldest realism
at length comes to light, simultaneously with man's recognition of
the fact that his whole religious history is no more than a history
of soul-superstitions. _Here there is a barrier;_ our very thinking,
itself, involves that belief (with its distinctions--substance,
accident, action, agent, etc.); to abandon it would mean to cease from
being able to think.

But that a belief, however useful it may be for the preservation of a
species, has nothing to do with the truth, may be seen from the fact
that we _must_ believe in time, space, and motion, without feeling
ourselves compelled to regard them as absolute realities.


488.

_The psychological origin of our belief in reason.--_The ideas
"reality," "Being," are derived from our _subject-_feeling.

"Subject," interpreted through ourselves so that the ego may stand as
substance, as the cause of action, as the _agent._

The metaphysico-logical postulates, the belief in substance, accident,
attribute, etc. etc., draws its convincing character from our habit of
regarding all our actions as the result of our will: so that the ego,
as substance, does not vanish in the multiplicity of changes.--_But
there is no such thing as will._ We have no categories which allow
us to separate a "world as thing-in-itself," from "a world of
appearance." All our _categories of reason_ have a sensual origin: they
are deductions from the empirical world. "The soul," "the ego"--the
history of these concepts shows that here, also, the oldest distinction
("_spiritus_," "life") obtains....

If there is nothing material, then there can be nothing immaterial. The
concept no longer _means_ anything.

No subject-"atoms." The sphere of a subject _increasing_ or
_diminishing_ unremittingly, the centre of the system continually
_displacing_ itself, in the event of the system no longer being able
to organise the appropriated mass, it divides into two. On the other
hand, it is able, without destroying it, to transform a weaker subject
into one of its own functionaries, and, to a certain extent, to compose
a new entity with it. Not a "substance," but rather something which in
itself strives after greater strength; and which wishes to "preserve"
itself only indirectly (it wishes to _surpass_ itself).


489.

Everything that reaches consciousness as an entity is already
enormously complicated: we never have anything more than the _semblance
of an entity._

The phenomenon of the _body_ is the richer, more distinct, and more
tangible phenomenon: it should be methodically drawn to the front, and
no mention should be made of its ultimate significance.


490.

The assumption of a _single subject_ is perhaps not necessary, it
may be equally permissible to assume a plurality of subjects, whose
interaction and struggle lie at the bottom of our thought and our
consciousness in general. A sort of _aristocracy_ of "cells" in which
the ruling power is vested? Of course an aristocracy of equals, who are
accustomed to ruling co-operatively, and understand how to command?

_My hypotheses_. The subject as a plurality. Pain intellectual and
dependent upon the judgment harmful, projected. The effect always
"unconscious": the inferred and imagined cause is projected, it
_follows_ the event. Pleasure is a form of pain. The only kind of power
that exists is of the same nature as the power of will: a commanding
of other subjects which thereupon alter themselves. The unremitting
transientness and volatility of the subject. "Mortal soul." _Number_ as
perspective form.


491.

The belief in the body is more fundamental than the belief in the soul:
the latter arose from the unscientific observation of the agonies
of the body. (Something which leaves it. The belief in the _truth of
dreams_)


492.

The body and physiology the starting-point: why?--We obtain a correct
image of the nature of our subject-entity, that is to say, as a
number of regents at the head of a community (not as "souls" or as
"life-forces") as also of the dependence of these regents upon their
subjects, and upon the conditions of a hierarchy, and of the division
of labour, as the means ensuring the existence of the part and the
whole. We also obtain a correct image of the way in which the living
entities continually come into being and expire, and we see how
eternity cannot belong to the "subject"; we realise that the struggle
finds expression in obeying as well as in commanding, and that a
fluctuating definition of the limits of power is a factor of life. The
comparative _ignorance_ in which the ruler is kept, of the individual
performances and even disturbances taking place in the community,
also belong to the conditions under which government may be carried
on. In short, we obtain a valuation even of _want-of-knowledge,_
of seeing-things-generally-as-a-whole, of simplification, of
falsification, and of perspective. What is most important, however,
is, that we regard the ruler and his subjects as of the _same kind,_
all feeling, willing, thinking--and that wherever we see or suspect
movement in a body, we conclude that there is co-operative-subjective
and invisible life. Movement as a symbol for the eye; it denotes that
something has been felt, willed, thought.

The danger of directly questioning the subject _concerning_ the
subject, and all spiritual self-reflection, consists in this, that it
might be a necessary condition of its activity to interpret itself
_erroneously._ That is why we appeal to the body and lay the evidence
of sharpened senses aside: or we try and see whether the subjects
themselves cannot enter into communication with us.



_(d)_ Biology of the Instinct of Knowledge. Perspectivity.


493.

_Truth is that kind of error_ without which a certain species of living
being cannot exist. The value for _Life_ is ultimately decisive.


494.

It is unlikely that our "knowledge" extends farther than is exactly
necessary for our self-preservation. Morphology shows us how the
senses and the nerves as well as the brain evolve in proportion as the
difficulties of acquiring sustenance increase.


495.

If the morality of "Thou shalt not lie" be refuted, the sense for truth
will then have to justify itself before another tribunal--as a means
to the preservation of man, _as Will to Power._

Likewise our love of the beautiful: it is also the _creative will._
Both senses stand side by side; the sense of truth is the means
wherewith the power is appropriated to adjust things according to one's
taste. The love of adjusting and reforming--a primeval love! We can
only _take cognisance_ of a world which we ourselves have _made._


496.

Concerning the multifariousness of knowledge. The tracing of _its_
relation to many other things (or the relation of kind)--how should
"knowledge" be of another? The way to know and to investigate is in
itself among the conditions of life; that is why the conclusion that
there could be no other kind of intellect (for ourselves) than the kind
which serves the purpose of our preservation is an excessively hasty
one: this _actual_ condition may be only an accidental, not in the
least an essential; one.

Our apparatus for acquiring knowledge is not adjusted for knowledge.


497.

_The most strongly credited a priori "truths" are, to my mind, mere
assumptions pending further investigation_; for instance, the law
of causation is a belief so thoroughly acquired by practice and so
completely assimilated, that to disbelieve in it would mean the ruin of
our kind. But is it therefore true? What an extraordinary conclusion!
As if truth were proved by the mere fact that man survives!


498.

To what extent is our _intellect_ also a result of the conditions of
life?--We should not have it did we not _need_ to have it, and we
should not have it _as_ we have it, if we did not need it _as_ we need
it--that is to say, if we could live otherwise.


499.

Thinking in a primitive (inorganic) state is to _persevere in forms,_
as in the case of the crystal.--In _our_ thought, the _essential
factor_ is the harmonising of the new material with the old schemes (=
Procrustes' bed), the _assimilation_ of the unfamiliar.


500.

The perception of the senses projected outwards: "inwards" and
"outwards"--does the _body_ command here?

The same equalising and ordering power which rules in the idioplasma,
also rules in the incorporation of the outer world: our sensual
perceptions are already the _result_ of this process of _adaptation_
and _harmonisation_ in regard to _all_ the past in us; they do not
follow directly upon the "impression."


501.

All thought, judgment, perception, regarded as an act of _comparing_[2]
has as a first condition the act of _equalising,_ and earlier still the
act of _"making equal."_ The process of making equal is the same as the
assimilation by the amœba of the nutritive matter it appropriates.

"Memory" late, in so far as the equalising instinct appears to have
been _subdued_: the difference is preserved. Memory--a process of
classification and collocation; active--who?

[Footnote 2: The German word _vergleichen,_ meaning "to compare,"
contains the root "equal" _(gleich)_ which cannot be rendered in
English. TR.]


502.

In regard to the _memory,_ we must unlearn a great deal: here we meet
with the greatest temptation to assume the existence of a "soul,"
which, irrespective of time, reproduces and recognises again and again,
etc. What I have experienced, however, continues to live "in the
memory"; I have nothing to do with it when memory "comes," my will is
inactive in regard to it, as in the case of the coming and going of a
thought. Something happens, of which I become conscious: now something
similar comes--who has called it forth? Who has awakened it?


503.

The whole apparatus of knowledge is an abstracting and simplifying
apparatus--not directed at knowledge, but at the _appropriation_ of
things: "end" and "means" are as remote from the essence of this
apparatus as "concepts" are. By the "end" and the "means" a process is
appropriated (--a process is _invented_ which may be grasped), but by
"_concepts_" one appropriates the "things" which constitute the process.


504.

_Consciousness_ begins outwardly as co-ordination and knowledge of
impressions,--at first it is at the point which is remotest from the
biological centre of the individual; but it is a process which deepens
and which tends to become more and more an inner function, continually
approaching nearer to the centre.


505.

Our perceptions, as we understand them--that is to say, the sum of all
those perceptions the consciousness whereof was useful and essential
to us and to the whole organic processes which preceded us: therefore
they do not include all perceptions (for instance, not the electrical
ones);--that is to say, we have _senses_ only for a definite selection
of perceptions--such perceptions as concern us with a view to our
self-preservation. _Consciousness extends so far only as it is useful._
There can be no doubt that all our sense-perceptions are entirely
permeated by valuations (useful or harmful--consequently, pleasant or
painful). Every particular colour; besides being a colour, expresses a
value to us (although we seldom admit it, or do so only after it has
affected us exclusively for a long time, as in the case of convicts
in gaol or lunatics). Insects likewise react in different ways to
different colours: some like this shade, the others that. Ants are a
case in point.


506.

In the beginning _images_ how images originate in the mind must be
explained. Then _words,_ applied to images. Finally _concepts,_
possible only when there are words--the assembling of several pictures
into a whole which is not for the eye but for the ear (word). The
small amount of emotion which the "word" generates,--that is, then,
which the view of the similar pictures generates, for which one word
is used,--this simple emotion is the common factor, the basis of a
concept. That weak feelings should all be regarded as alike, _as the
same,_ is the fundamental fact. There is therefore a confusion of
two very intimately associated feelings in the _ascertainment_ of
these feelings;--but who is it that ascertains? _Faith_ is the very
first step in every sensual impression: a sort of yea-saying is the
_first_ intellectual activity! A "holding-a-thing-to-be-true" is
the beginning. It were our business, therefore, to explain how the
"holding-of-a-thing-to-be-true" arose! What sensation lies beneath the
comment "true"?


507.

The _valuation_, "I believe that this and that is so," is the essence
of "truth." In all valuations, the conditions of _preservation_ and
of _growth_ find expression. All our _organs and senses_ of knowledge
have been developed only in view of the conditions of preservation
and growth. The _trust_ in reason and its categories, the trust
in dialectics, and also the _valuation_ of logic, prove only that
_experience_ has taught the usefulness of these things to life: not
their "truth." The prerequisites of all living things and of their
lives is: that there should be a large amount of faith, that it should
be possible to pass definite judgments on things, and that _there
should be no doubt_ at all concerning all essential values. Thus it is
necessary that something should be assumed to be true, _not_ that it
_is_ true.

"The _real_ world and the world of _appearance_"-- I trace this
contrast to the _relation of values._ We have posited _our_ conditions
of existence as the _attributes of being_ in general. Owing to the
fact that, in order to prosper, we must be stable in our belief, we
developed the idea that the real world was neither a changing nor an
evolving one, but a world of _being._



_(e)_ The Origin of Reason and Logic.


508.

Originally there was chaos among our ideas. Those ideas which were able
to stand side by side remained over, the greater number perished--and
are still perishing.


509.

The kingdom of desires out of which logic grew: the gregarious instinct
in the background. The assumption of similar facts is the first
condition for "similar souls." _For the purpose of mutual understanding
and government._


510.

Concerning the _origin of logic._ The fundamental proneness to
_equalise_ things and to _see them equal_, gets to be modified,
and kept within bounds, by the consideration of what is useful or
harmful--in fact, by considerations of success: it then becomes adapted
in suchwise as to be gratified in a milder way, without at the same
time denying life or endangering it. This whole process corresponds
entirely with that external and mechanical process (which is its
symbol) by which the _protoplasm_ continually assimilates, makes equal
to itself, what it appropriates, and arranges it according to its own
forms and requirements.


511.

Likeness and Similarity.

1. The coarser the organ the more apparent likenesses it sees;

2. The mind _will_ have likeness--that is to say, the identification
of one sensual impression with others already experienced: just as the
body _assimilates_ inorganic matter.

For the understanding of Logic:--

_The will which tends to see likeness everywhere is the will to
power_--the belief that something is so and so (the essence of a
judgment), is the result of a will which _would fain have it_ as
similar as possible.


512.

Logic is bound up with the proviso: granted _that identical cases
exist_. As a matter of fact, before one can think and conclude in a
logical fashion, _this_ condition _must_ first be assumed. That is
to say, the will to _logical truth_ cannot be consummated before a
fundamental falsification of all phenomena has been assumed. From which
it follows that an instinct rules here, which is capable of employing
both means: first, falsification; and secondly, the carrying out of its
own point of view: logic does not spring from a will to truth.


513.

The inventive force which devised the categories, worked in the service
of our need of security, of quick intelligibility, in the form of
signs, sounds, and abbreviations.--"Substance," "subject," "object,"
"Being," "Becoming," are not matters of metaphysical truth. It was
the powerful who made the names of things into law, and, among the
powerful, it was the greatest artists in abstraction who created the
categories.


514.

A moral--that is to say, a method of living which long experience
and experiment have tested and proved efficient, at last enters
consciousness as a law, as dominant.... And then the whole group of
related values and conditions become part of it: it becomes venerable,
unassailable, holy, true; a necessary part of its evolution is that
its origin should be forgotten.... That is a sign that it has become
master. Exactly the same thing might have happened with the categories
of reason: the latter, after much groping and many trials, might have
proved true through relative usefulness.... A stage was reached when
they were grasped as a whole, and when they appealed to consciousness
as a whole,--when belief in them was commanded,--that is to say, when
they acted as if they commanded.... From that time forward they passed
as a priori, as beyond experience, as irrefutable. And, possibly, they
may have been the expression of no more than a certain practicality
answering the ends of a race and a species,--their usefulness alone is
their "truth."


515.

The object is, not "to know," but to schematise,--to impose as much
regularity and form upon chaos, as our practical needs require. In
the formation of reason, logic, and the categories, it was a need
in us that was the determining power: not the need "to know," but
to classify, to schematise, for the purpose of intelligibility and
calculation. (The adjustment and interpretation of all similar and
equal things,--the same process, which every sensual impression
undergoes, is the development of reason!) No pre-existing "idea" had
anything to do with it: but utility, which teaches us that things
can be reckoned with and managed, only when we view them roughly
as equal.... _Finality_ in reason is an effect, not a cause: Life
degenerates with every other form of reason, although constant attempts
are being made to attain to those other forms of reason;--for Life
would then become too obscure, too unequal.

The categories are "truths" only in the sense that they are the
conditions of our existence, just as Euclid's Space is a conditional
"truth." (Between ourselves, as no one will maintain that men are
absolutely necessary, reason, as well as Euclid's Space, are seen
to be but an idiosyncrasy of one particular species of animals, one
idiosyncrasy alone among many others....)

The subjective constraint which prevents one from contradicting here,
is a biological constraint: the instinct which makes us see the utility
of concluding as we do conclude, is in our blood, we _are_ almost this
instinct.... But what simplicity it is to attempt to derive from this
fact that we possess an absolute truth! ... The inability to contradict
anything is a proof of impotence but not of "truth."


516.

We are not able to affirm and to deny one and the same thing: that
is a principle of subjective experience--which is not in the least
"necessary," _but only a sign of inability._

If, according to Aristotle, the _principium contradictionis_ is the
most certain of all principles; if it is the most ultimate of all,
and the basis of every demonstration; if the principle of every
other axiom lie within it: then one should analyse it all the more
severely, in order to discover how many assumptions _already lie_ at
its root. It either assumes something concerning reality and Being,
as if these had become known in some other sphere--that is to say, as
if it were _impossible_ to ascribe the opposite attributes to it; or
the proposition means: that the opposites _should_ not be ascribed to
it. In that case, logic would be an imperative, _not_ directed at the
knowledge of truth, but at the adjusting and fixing of a world _which
must seem true to us._

In short, the question is a debatable one: are the axioms of logic
adequate to reality, or are they measures and means by which alone
we can, _create_ realities, or the concept "reality"?... In order to
affirm the first alternative, however, one would, as we have seen,
require a previous knowledge of Being; which is certainly not the case.
The proposition therefore contains no _criterion of truth,_ but an
_imperative_ concerning that which _should_ pass as true.

Supposing there were no such thing as A identical with itself, as
every logical (and mathematical) proposition presupposes, and that A
is in itself an _appearance,_ then logic would have a mere world _of
appearance_ as its first condition. As a matter of fact, we believe
in that proposition, under the influence of an endless empiricism
which seems to _confirm_ it every minute. The "thing"--that is the
real substratum of A; _our belief in things_ is the first condition of
our faith in logic. The A in logic is, like the atom, a reconstruction
of the thing.... By not understanding this, and by making logic
into a criterion of _real being,_ we are already on the road to the
classification of all those hypostases, substance, attribute, object,
subject, action, etc., as realities--that is to say, the conception of
a metaphysical world or a "real world" (--_this is, however, once more
the world of appearance..._).

The primitive acts of thought, affirmation, and negation, the holding
of a thing for true, and the holding of a thing for not true,--in so
far as they do not only presuppose a mere habit, but the very _right_
to postulate truth or untruth at all,--are already dominated by a
belief, _that there is such a thing as knowledge for us,_ and _that
judgments can really hit the truth:_ in short, logic never doubts that
it is able to pronounce something concerning truth in itself (--that
is to say, that to the thing which is in itself true, no opposite
attributes _can_ be ascribed).

In this belief there _reigns_ the sensual and coarse prejudice that our
sensations teach us _truths_ concerning things,--that I cannot at the
same moment of time say of one and the same thing that it is _hard_ and
_soft._ (The instinctive proof, "I cannot have two opposite sensations
at once," is quite _coarse_ and _false_.)

That all contradiction in concepts should be forbidden, is the result
of a belief, that we _are able_ to form concepts, that a concept not
only characterises but also _holds_ the essence of a thing.... As a
matter of fact, logic (like geometry and arithmetic) only holds good of
_assumed existences which we have created._ Logic is _the attempt on
our part to understand the actual world according to a scheme of Being
devised by ourselves; or, more exactly, it is our attempt at making the
actual world more calculable and more susceptible to formulation, for
our own purposes...._


517.

In order to be able to think and to draw conclusions, it is necessary
to _acknowledge that which exists:_ logic only deals with formulæ for
things which are constant. That is why this acknowledgment would not in
the least prove reality: "that which is" is part of our optics. The ego
regarded as Being (not affected by either Becoming or evolution).

The _assumed world_ of subject, substance, reason, etc., is necessary,
an adjusting, simplifying falsifying, artificially-separating power
resides in us. "Truth" is the will to be master over the manifold
sensations that reach consciousness; it is the will to _classify_
phenomena according to definite categories. In this way we start out
with a belief in the "true nature" of things (we regard phenomena as
real).

The character of the world in the process of Becoming _is not
susceptible of formulation;_ it is "false" and "contradicts itself."
_Knowledge_ and the process of _evolution_ exclude each other.
_Consequently,_ knowledge must be something else: it must be preceded
by a will to make things knowable, a kind of Becoming in itself must
create the _illusion_ of _Being._


518.

If our "ego" is the only form of Being, according to which we make
and understand all Being: very good! In that case it were very
proper to doubt whether an _illusion_ of perspective were not active
here--the apparent unity which everything assumes in our eyes on the
horizon-line. Appealing to the body for our guidance, we are confronted
by such appalling manifoldness, that for the sake of method it is
allowable to use that phenomenon which is _richer_ and more easily
studied as a clue to the understanding of the poorer phenomenon.

Finally: admitting that all is Becoming, _knowledge is only possible
when based on a belief in Being._


519.

If there is "only one form of Being, the ego," and all other forms
of Being are made in its own image,--if, in short, the belief in the
"ego," together with the belief in logic, stands and falls with the
metaphysical truth of the categories of reason: if, in addition, the
"ego" is shown to be something that is _evolving: then----_


520.

The continual transitions that occur, forbid our speaking of the
"individual," etc.; the "number" of beings itself fluctuates. We should
know nothing of time or of movement, if, in a rough way, we did not
believe we saw things "standing still" behind or in front of things
moving. We should also know just as little about cause and effect,
and without the erroneous idea of "empty space" we should never have
arrived at the concept of space at all. The principle of identity is
based on the "fact of appearance" that there are some things alike.
Strictly speaking, it would not be possible to "understand" and "know"
an evolving world; something which is called "knowledge" exists only
in so far as the "understanding" and "knowing" intellect already
finds an adjusted and rough world to hand, fashioned out of a host
of mere appearances, but become fixed _to_ the extent in which this
kind of appearance has helped to preserve life; only to this extent is
"knowledge" possible--that is to say, as a measuring of earlier and
more recent errors by one another.


521.

_Concerning logical appearance._--The concept "individual" and the
concept "species" are equally false and only apparent. "_Species_" only
expresses the fact that an abundance of similar creatures come forth at
the same time, and that the speed of their further growth and of their
further transformation has been made almost imperceptible for a long
time: so that the actual and trivial changes and increase of growth are
of no account at all (--a stage of evolution in which the process of
evolving is not visible, so that, not only does a state of equilibrium
_seem_ to have been reached, but the road is also made clear for the
error of supposing _that an actual goal has been reached_--and that
evolution had a goal...).

The form seems to be something enduring, and therefore valuable;
but the form was invented merely by ourselves; and however often
"the same form is attained," it does not signify that it _is the
same form,--because something new always appears_; and we alone, who
compare, reckon the new with the old, in so far as it resembles the
latter, and embody the two in the unity of "form." As if a _type_ had
to be reached and were actually intended by the formative processes.

_Form, species, law, idea, purpose_--the same fault is made in respect
of all these concepts, namely, that of giving a false realism to a
piece of fiction: as if all phenomena were infused with some sort of
obedient spirit--an artificial distinction is here made between that
_which_ acts and that _which_ guides action (but both these things are
only fixed in order to agree with our metaphysico-logical dogma: they
are not "facts").

We should not interpret this _constraint_ in ourselves, to imagine
concepts, species, forms, purposes, and laws ("_a world of identical
cases_") as if we were in a position to construct a _real world_; but
as a constraint to adjust a world by means of which _our existence_
will be ensured: we thereby create a world which is determinable,
simplified, comprehensible, etc., for us.

The very same constraint is active in _the functions of the senses_
which support the reason--by means of simplification, coarsening,
accentuation, and interpretation; whereon all "recognition," all the
ability of making one's self intelligible rests. Our _needs_ have made
our senses so precise, that the "same world of appearance" always
returns, and has thus acquired the semblance of _reality._

Our subjective constraint to have faith in logic, is expressive only
of the fact that long before logic itself became conscious in us, we
did nothing _save introduce its postulates into the nature of things:_
now we find ourselves in their presence,--we can no longer help
it,--and now we would fain believe that this constraint is a guarantee
of "truth." We it was who created the "thing," the "same thing," the
subject, the attribute, the action, the object, the substance, and
the form, after we had carried the process of equalising, coarsening,
and simplifying as far as possible. The world _seems_ logical to us,
because we have already made it logical.


522.

_Fundamental solution._--We believe in reason: this is, however, the
philosophy of colourless _concepts._ Language is built upon the most
_naïf_ prejudices.

Now we read discord and problems into things, because we are able to
_think only_ in the form of language--we also believe in the "eternal
truth" of "wisdom" (for instance, subject, attribute, etc.).

_We cease from thinking if we do not wish to think under the control
of language_; the most we can do is to attain to an attitude of doubt
concerning the question whether the boundary here really is a boundary.

_Rational thought is a process of interpreting according to a scheme
which we cannot reject._



(_f_) Consciousness.


523.

There is no greater error than that of making psychical and physical
phenomena the two faces, the two manifestations of the same substance.
By this means nothing is explained: the concept _"substance"_ is
utterly useless as a means of explanation. _Consciousness_ may be
regarded as secondary, almost an indifferent and superfluous thing,
probably destined to disappear and to be superseded by perfect
automatism--

When we observe mental phenomena we may be likened to the deaf and dumb
who divine the spoken word, which they do not hear, from the movements
of the speaker's lips. From the appearance of the inner mind we draw
conclusions concerning invisible and other phenomena, which we could
ascertain if our powers of observation were adequate for the purpose.

For this inner world we have no finer organs, and that is why a
_complexity which is thousandfold_ reaches our consciousness as a
simple entity, and we invent a process of causation in it, despite
the fact that we can perceive no cause either of the movement or of
the change--the sequence of thoughts and feelings is nothing more
than their becoming visible to consciousness. That this sequence
has anything to do with a chain of causes is not worthy of belief:
consciousness never communicates an example of cause and effect to us.


524.

_The part "consciousness" plays,_--It is essential that one should not
mistake the part that "consciousness plays" it is our _relation to the
outer world; it was the outer world that developed it._ On the other
hand, the _direction_--that is to say, the care and cautiousness which
is concerned with the inter-relation of the bodily functions, does
_not_ enter into our consciousness any more than does the _storing
activity_ of the intellect: that there is a superior controlling
force at work in these things cannot be doubted--a sort of directing
committee, in which the various _leading desires_ make their votes and
their power felt. "Pleasure" and "pain" are indications which reach us
from this sphere: as are also _acts of will_ and _ideas._

_In short:_ That which becomes conscious has causal relations which are
completely and absolutely concealed from our knowledge--the sequence of
thoughts, feelings, and ideas, in consciousness, does not signify that
the order in which they come is a causal order: it is _so apparently,_
however, in the highest degree. We have _based_ the whole of our notion
of _intellect, reason, logic,_ etc., upon this _apparent truth_ (all
these things do not exist: they are imaginary syntheses and entities),
and we then projected the latter into and _behind_ all things!

As a rule _consciousness_ itself is understood to be the general
sensorium and highest ruling centre; albeit, it is only a _means of
communication:_ it was developed by intercourse, and with a view to
the interests of intercourse.... "Intercourse" is understood, here,
as "relation," and is intended to cover the action of the outer world
upon us and our necessary response to it, as also our actual influence
_upon_ the outer world. It is _not_ the conducting force, but an _organ
of the latter._


525.

My principle, compressed into a formula which savours of antiquity, of
Christianity, Scholasticism, and other kinds of musk: in the concept,
"God is _spirit,_" God as perfection is "_denied...._"


526.

Wherever people have observed a certain unity in the grouping of
things, _spirit_ has always been regarded as the cause of this
co-ordination: an assumption for which reasons are entirely lacking.
Why should the idea of a complex fact be one of the conditions of that
fact? Or why should the _notion_ of a complex fact have to precede it
as its cause?

We must be on our guard against explaining _finality_ by the spirit:
there is absolutely no reason whatever for ascribing to spirit the
peculiar power of organising and systematising. The domain of the
nervous system is much more extensive: the realm of consciousness is
superadded. In the collective process of adaptation and systematising,
consciousness plays no part at all.


527.

Physiologists, like philosophers, believe that consciousness increases
in _value_ in proportion as it _gains_ in clearness: the most lucid
consciousness and the most logical and impassive thought are of the
_first_ order. Meanwhile--according to what standard is this value
determined?--In regard to the _discharge of will-power_ the most
superficial and _most simple_ thought is the most useful--it might
therefore, etc. etc. (because it leaves few motives over).

_Precision in action_ is opposed to the _far-sighted_ and often
uncertain judgments of _caution:_ the latter is led by the _deeper_
instinct.


528.

_The chief error of psychologists:_ they regard the indistinct idea as
of a lower _kind_ than the distinct; but that which keeps at a distance
from our consciousness and which is therefore _obscure, may_ on that
very account be quite clear in itself. _The fact that a thing becomes
obscure_ is a question _of the perspective of consciousness._


529.

The great misapprehensions:--

(1) The senseless _overestimation of consciousness,_ its elevation to
the dignity of an entity: "a spirit," "a soul," something that feels,
thinks, and wills;

(2) The spirit regarded as a _cause,_ especially where finality,
system, and co-ordination appear;

(3) Consciousness classed as the highest form attainable, as the most
superior kind of being, as "God";

(4) Will introduced wherever effects are observed;

(5) The "real world" regarded as the spiritual world, accessible by
means of the facts of consciousness;

(6) Absolute knowledge regarded as the faculty of consciousness,
wherever knowledge exists at all.

_Consequences:_--

Every step forward consists of a step forward in consciousness; every
step backwards is a step into unconsciousness (unconsciousness was
regarded as a falling-back upon the _passions_ and _senses--_as a
state of _animalism ..._.)

Man approaches reality and real being through dialectics: man _departs_
from them by means of instincts, senses, and automatism....

To convert man into a spirit, would mean to make a god of him: spirit,
will, goodness--all one.

_All goodness_ must take its root in spirituality, must be a fact of
consciousness.

Every step made towards _something better_ can be only a step forward
in _consciousness._



(g) Judgment. True--false.


530.

Kant's theological bias, his unconscious dogmatism, his moral outlook,
ruled, guided, and directed him.

The πρῶτον ψεῡδος: how is the fact knowledge possible? Is knowledge
a fact at all? What is knowledge? If we do not _know_ what knowledge
is, we cannot possibly reply to the question, Is there such a thing
as knowledge? Very _fine!_ But if I do not already "know" whether
there is, or can be, such a thing as knowledge, I cannot reasonably
ask the question, "What is knowledge?" Kant _believes_ in the fact of
knowledge: what he requires is a piece of _naïveté: the knowledge of
knowledge!_

"Knowledge is judgment." But judgment is a belief that something is
this or that! And not knowledge! "All knowledge consists in synthetic
judgments" which have the character of being _universally true_ (the
fact is _so_ in all cases, and does not change), and which have the
character of being _necessary_ (the reverse of the proposition cannot
be imagined to exist).

The _validity_ of a belief in knowledge is always taken for granted; as
is also the _validity_ of the feelings which conscience dictates. Here
_moral ontology_ is the _ruling_ bias.

The conclusion, therefore, is: (1) there are propositions which we
believe to be universally true and necessary.

(2) This character of universal truth and of necessity cannot spring
from experience.

(3) Consequently it must base itself upon no experience at all, _but
upon something else_, it must be derived from another source of
knowledge!

Kant concludes (1) that there are some propositions which hold good
only on one condition; (2) this condition is that they do not spring
from experience, but from pure reason.

Thus, the question is, whence do we derive our reasons for _believing_
in the truth of such propositions? No, whence does our belief get
its cause? But the _origin of a belief,_ of a strong conviction,
is a psychological problem: and very limited and narrow experience
frequently brings about such a belief! _It already presupposes_ that
there are not only "data _a posteriori_" but also "data _a priori_"--
that is to say, "previous to experience." Necessary and universal truth
cannot be given by experience: it is therefore quite clear that it has
come to us without experience at all?

There is no such thing as an isolated judgment!

An isolated judgment is never "true," it is never knowledge; only in
_connection with,_ and when _related to,_ many other judgments, is a
guarantee of its truth forthcoming.

What is the difference between true and false belief? What is
knowledge? He "knows" it, that is heavenly! Necessary and universal
truth cannot be given by experience! It is therefore independent of
experience, _of_ all experience! The view which comes quite _a priori,_
and therefore independent of all experience, _merely out of reason,_ is
"pure knowledge"!

"The principles of logic, the principle of identity and of
contradiction, are examples of pure knowledge, because they precede all
experience."--But these principles are not cognitions, but _regulative
articles of faith._

In order to establish the _a priori_ character (the pure rationality)
of mathematical axioms, space _must be conceived as a form of pure
reason._

Hume had declared that there were no _a priori_ synthetic judgments.
Kant says there are--the mathematical ones! And if there are such
judgments, there may also be such things as metaphysics and a knowledge
of things by means of pure reason!

Mathematics is possible under conditions which are _not_ allowed to
metaphysics. All human knowledge is either experience or mathematics.

A judgment is synthetic--that is to say, it co-ordinates various ideas.
It is _a priori_--that is to say, this co-ordination is universally
true and necessary, and is arrived at, not by sensual experience, but
by pure reason.

If there are such things as _a priori_ judgments, then reason must be
able to co-ordinate: co-ordination is a form. Reason must _possess a
formative faculty._


531.

_Judging_ is our oldest faith; it is our habit of believing this to be
true or false, of asserting or denying, our certainty that something
is thus and not otherwise, our belief that we really "know"--_what_ is
believed to be true in all judgments?

What are _attributes_?--We did not regard changes in ourselves merely
as such, but as "things in themselves," which are strange to us, and
which we only "perceive"; and we did _not_ class them as phenomena,
but as Being, as "attributes"; and in addition we invented a creature
to which they attach themselves--that is to say, we made the _effect_
the _working cause,_ and _the latter_ we made _Being._ But even in
this plain statement, the concept "effect" is arbitrary: for in regard
to those changes which occur in us, and of which we are convinced
we ourselves are _not_ the cause, we still argue that they must be
effects: and this is in accordance with the belief that "every change
must have its author";--but this belief in itself is already mythology;
for it _separates_ the working _cause from_ the cause in work. When I
say the "lightning flashes," I set the flash down, once as an action
and a second time as a subject acting; and thus a thing is fancifully
affixed to a phenomenon, which is not one with it, but which is
_stable,_ which _is,_ and does not "come."--_To make the phenomenon the
working cause,_ and to make _the effect into a thing--into Being:_
this is the _double_ error, or _interpretation,_ of which we are guilty.


532.

The _Judgment_--that is the faith: "This and this is so. In every
judgment, therefore, there lies the admission that an "identical"
case has been met with: it thus takes some sort of comparison for
granted, with the help of the memory. Judgment does _not_ create the
idea that an identical case seems to be there. It believes rather that
it actually perceives such a case; it works on the hypothesis that
there are such things as identical cases. But what is that much _older_
function called, which must have been active much earlier, and which
in itself equalises unequal cases and makes them alike? What is that
second function called, which with this first one as a basis, etc. etc,
"That which provokes the same sensations as another thing is equal
to that other thing": but what is that called which makes sensations
equal, which regards them as equal?--There could be no judgments if
a sort of equalising process were not active within all sensations:
memory is only possible by means of the underscoring of all that has
already been experienced and learned. Before a judgment can be formed,
_the process of assimilation must already have been completed_: thus,
even here, an intellectual activity is to be observed which does
not enter consciousness in at all the same way as the pain which
accompanies a wound. Probably the psychic phenomena correspond to all
the organic functions--that is to say, they consist of assimilation,
rejection, growth, etc.

The essential thing is to start out from the body and to use it as the
general clue. It is by far the richer phenomenon, and allows of much
more accurate observation. The belief in the body is much more soundly
established than the belief in spirit.

"However strongly a thing may be believed, the degree of belief is no
criterion of its truth." But what is truth? Perhaps it is a form of
faith, which has become a condition of existence? Then _strength_ would
certainly be a criterion; for instance, in regard to causality.


533.

Logical accuracy, transparency, considered as the criterion
of truth ("_omne illud verum est, quod clare et distincte
percipitur._"--Descartes): by this means the mechanical hypothesis of
the world becomes desirable and credible.

But this is gross confusion: like _simplex sigillum veri._ Whence comes
the knowledge that the real nature of things stands in _this_ relation
to our intellect? Could it not be otherwise? Could it not be this,
that the hypothesis which gives the intellect the greatest feeling of
power and security, is _preferred, valued,_ and marked as _true_--The
intellect sets its _freest_ and _strongest faculty_ and _ability_
as the criterion of what is most valuable, consequently of what is
_true...._

    "True"--from the standpoint of sentiment--is that which most
    provokes sentiment ("I");

    from the standpoint of thought--is that which gives thought
    the greatest sensation of strength;

    from the standpoint of touch, sight, and hearing--is that
    which calls forth the greatest resistance.

Thus it is the _highest degrees of activity_ which awaken belief in
regard to the _object_, in regard to its "reality." The sensations of
strength, struggle, and resistance convince the subject that there is
something which is being resisted.


534.

The criterion of truth lies in the enhancement of the feeling of power.


535.

According to my way of thinking, "truth" does not necessarily mean
the opposite of error, but, in the most fundamental cases, merely
the relation of different errors to each other: thus one error might
be older, deeper than another, perhaps altogether ineradicable, one
without which organic creatures like ourselves could not exist;
whereas other errors might not tyrannise over us to that extent as
conditions of existence, but when measured according to the standard
of those other "tyrants," could even be laid aside and "refuted." Why
should an irrefutable assumption necessarily be "true"? This question
may exasperate the logicians who limit _things_ according to the
limitations they find in themselves: but I have long since declared war
with this logician's optimism.


536.

Everything simple is simply imaginary, but not "true." That which is
real and true is, however, neither a unity nor reducible to a unity.


537.

_What is truth?_--Inertia; _that_ hypothesis which brings satisfaction,
the smallest expense of intellectual strength, etc.


538.

First proposition. The _easier_ way of thinking always triumphs
over the more difficult way;--_dogmatically_: _simplex sigillum
veri_.--_Dico_: to suppose that _clearness_ is any proof of truth, is
absolute childishness. . . .

Second proposition. The teaching of Being, of things, and of all those
constant entities, is a _hundred times more easy_ than the teaching of
_Becoming_ and of evolution. . .

Third proposition. Logic was intended to be a method of _facilitating_
thought: a _means of expression_, --not truth. . . . Later on it got to
_act_ like truth. . . .


539.

Parmenides said: "One can form no concept of the non-existent";--we are
at the other extreme, and say, "That Of which a concept can be formed,
is certainly fictional."


540.

There are many kinds of eyes. Even the Sphinx has eyes--therefore there
must be many kinds of "truths," and consequently there can be no truth.


541.

_Inscriptions over the porch of a modern lunatic asylum._

"That which is necessarily true in thought must be necessarily true in
morality."--HERBERT SPENCER.

"The ultimate test of the truth of a proposition is the
inconceivableness of its negation,"--HERBERT SPENCER.


542.

If the character of existence were false,:--and this would be
possible,--what would truth then be, all our truth? ... An unprincipled
falsification of the false? A higher degree of falseness? ...


543.

In a world which was essentially false, truthfulness would be an
_anti-natural tendency_: its only purpose would be to provide a means
of attaining to a _higher degree of falsity._ For a world of truth and
Being to be simulated, the truthful one would first have to be created
(it being understood that he must believe himself to be "truthful").

Simple, transparent, not in contradiction with himself, lasting,
remaining always the same to himself, free from faults, sudden changes,
dissimulation, and form: such a man conceives a world of Being as
"_God_" in His own image.

In order that truthfulness may be possible, the whole sphere in which
man moves must be very tidy, small, and respectable: the advantage
in every respect must be with the truthful one.--Lies, tricks,
dissimulations, must cause astonishment.


544.

_"Dissimulation"_ increases in accordance with the rising _order of
rank_ among organic beings. In the inorganic world it seems to be
entirely absent. There power opposes power quite roughly _--ruse_
begins in the organic world; plants are already masters of it. The
greatest men, such as Cæsar and Napoleon (see Stendhal's remark
concerning him),[3] as also the higher races (the Italians), the Greeks
(Odysseus); the most supreme cunning, belongs to the very _essence_
of the elevation of man. ... The problem of the actor. My Dionysian
ideal.... The optics of all the organic functions, of all the strongest
vital instincts: the power which _will_ have error in all life; error
as the very first principle of thought itself. Before "thought" is
possible, "fancy" must first have done its work; the _picturing_ of
identical cases, of the _seemingness_ of identity, is more primeval
than the cognition of identity.

[Footnote 3: The reference to Stendhal here, seems to point to a
passage in his _Life of Napoleon_ (Preface, p. xv) of which Nietzsche
had made a note in another place, and which reads: "Une croyance
presque instinctive chez moi c'est que tout homme puissant ment quand
il parle et à plus forte raison quand il écrit."]




_(h)_ Against Causality.


545.

I believe in absolute space as the basis of force, and I believe the
latter to be limited and formed. Time, eternal. But space and time
as things in themselves do not exist. "Changes" are only appearances
(or mere processes of our senses to us); if we set recurrence,
however regular, between them, nothing is proved beyond the fact that
it has always happened so. The feeling that _post hoc_ is _propter
hoc,_ is easily explained as the result of a misunderstanding, it is
comprehensible. But appearances cannot be "causes"!


546.

The interpretation of a phenomenon, _either_ as an action _or_ as the
endurance of an action (that is to say, every action involves the
suffering of it), amounts to this: every change, every differentiation,
presupposes the existence of an agent and somebody acted upon, _who_ is
"altered."


547.

Psychological history of the concept _subject._ The body, the thing,
the "whole," which is visualised by the eye, awakens the thought of
distinguishing between an action and an agent; the idea that the agent
is the cause of the action, after having been repeatedly refined, at
length left the "subject" over.


548.

Our absurd habit of regarding a mere mnemonic sign or abbreviated
formula as an independent being, and ultimately as a _cause_; as, for
instance, when we say of lightning that it flashes, even the little
word "I." A sort of double-sight in seeing which makes sight a _cause
of seeing in itself_: this was the feat in the invention of the
"subject" of the "ego."


549.

"Subject," "object," "attribute"--these distinctions have been _made,_
and are now used like schemes to cover all apparent facts. The false
fundamental observation is this, that I believe it is I who does
something, who suffers something, who "has" something, who "has" a
quality.


550.

In every judgment lies the whole faith in subject, attribute, or cause
and effect (in the form of an assumption that every effect is the
result of activity, and that all activity presupposes an agent), and
even this last belief is only an isolated case of the first, so that
faith remains as the most fundamental belief! there are such things as
subjects, everything that happens is related attributively to a subject
of some sort.

I notice something, and try to discover the reason of it: originally
this was, I look for an _intention_ behind it, and, above all, I
look for one who has an intention, for a subject, an agent: every
phenomenon is an action, formerly intentions were seen behind _all_
phenomena, this is our oldest habit. Has the animal also this habit?
As a living organism, is it not also compelled to interpret things
through itself. The question why? is always a question concerning the
_causa finalis,_ and the general "purpose" of things. We have no sign
of the "sense of the efficient cause"; in this respect Hume is quite
right, habit (but not only that of the individual) allows us to expect
that a certain process, frequently observed, will follow upon another,
but nothing more! That which gives us such an extraordinarily firm
faith in causality, is not the rough habit of observing the sequence of
processes, but our _inability_ to _interpret_ a phenomenon otherwise
than as the result of _design._ It is the _belief in_ living and
thinking things, as the only agents of _causation_; it is the belief in
will, in design--the belief that all phenomena are actions, and that
all actions presuppose an agent; it is the belief in the "subject." Is
not this belief in the concepts subject and object an arrant absurdity?

Question: Is the design the cause of a phenomenon? Or is that also
illusion? Is it not the phenomenon itself?


551.

_A criticism of the concept "cause."_--We have absolutely no experience
concerning _cause_, viewed psychologically we derive the whole concept
from the subjective conviction, that _we_ ourselves are causes--that is
to say, that the arm moves.... _But that is an error._ We distinguish
ourselves, the agents, from the action, and everywhere we make use of
this scheme--we try to discover an agent behind every phenomenon. What
have we done? We have _misunderstood_ a feeling of power, tension,
resistance, a muscular feeling, which is already the beginning of the
action, and posited it as a cause; or we have understood the will to
do this or that, as a cause, because the action follows it. There is
no such thing as "Cause," in those few cases in which it seemed to
be given, and in which we projected it out of ourselves in_ order to
understand a phenomenon,_ it has been shown to be an illusion. Our
understanding of a phenomenon consisted in our inventing a subject
who was responsible for something happening, and for the manner in
which it happened. In our concept "cause" we have embraced our feeling
of will, our feeling of "freedom," our feeling of responsibility and
our design to do an action: _causa efficiens_ and _causa finalis_ are
fundamentally one.

We believed that an effect was explained when we could point to a state
in which it was inherent. As a matter of fact, we invent all causes
according to the scheme of the effect: the latter is known to us.... On
the other hand, we are not in a position to say of any particular thing
how it will "act." The thing, the subject the will, the design--all
inherent in the conception "cause." We try to discover things in order
to explain why something has changed. Even the "atom" is one of these
fanciful inventions like the "thing" and the "primitive subject."...

At last we understand that things--consequently also atoms--effect
nothing: _because they are non-existent;_ and that the concept
causality is quite! useless. Out of a necessary sequence of states,
the latter's causal relationship does _not_ follow (that would be
equivalent to extending their _active principle_ from 1 to 2, to 3, to
4, to 5). _There is no such thing as a cause or an effect._ From the
standpoint of language we do not know how to rid ourselves of them.
But that does not matter. If I imagine _muscle_ separated from its
"effects," I have denied it....

In short: _a phenomenon is neither effected nor capable of effecting.
Causa_ is a _faculty to effect something,_ superadded fancifully to
what happens....

_The interpretation of causality is an illusion...._ A "thing" is the
sum of its effects, synthetically united by means of a concept, an
image. As a matter of fact, science has robbed the concept causality
of all meaning, and has reserved it merely as an allegorical formula,
which has made it a matter of indifference whether cause or effect be
put on this side or on that. It is asserted that in two complex states
(centres of force) the quantities of energy remain constant.

_The calculability of a phenomenon_ does not lie in the fact that
a rule is observed, or that a necessity is obeyed, or that we have
projected a law of causality into every phenomenon: it lies in the
_recurrence of "identical cases."_

There is no such thing as a _sense of causality,_ as Kant would have
us believe. We are aghast, we feel insecure, we will have something
familiar, which can be relied upon.... As soon as we are shown the
existence of something old in a new thing, we are pacified. The
so-called instinct of causality is nothing more than the _fear of
the unfamiliar_, and the attempt at finding something in it which is
already _known._--It is not a search for causes, but for the familiar.


552.

_To combat determinism and teleology._--From the fact that something
happens regularly, and that its occurrence may be reckoned upon, it
does not follow that it happens _necessarily._ If a quantity of force
determines and conducts itself in a certain way in every particular
case, it does not prove that it has "no free will." "Mechanical
necessity" is not an established fact: it was _we_ who first read
into the nature of all phenomena. We interpreted the possibility of
_formularising_ phenomena as a result of the dominion of necessary law
over all existence. But it does not follow, because I do a determined
thing, that I am bound to do it. _Compulsion_ cannot be demonstrated
in things: all that the rule proves is this, that one and the same
phenomenon is not another phenomenon. Owing to the very fact that we
fancied the existence of subjects "_agents_" in things, the notion
arose that all phenomena are the _consequence_ of a _compulsory force_
exercised over the subject--exercised by whom? once more by an "agent."
The concept "Cause and Effect" is a dangerous one, so long as people
believe in something that _causes,_ and a something that is _caused._

_(a)_ Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.

***

_(b)_ When it is understood that the "subject" is nothing that _acts,_
but only a thing of fancy, there is much that follows.

Only with the subject as model we invented _thingness_ and read it into
the pell-mell of sensations. If we cease from believing in the _acting_
subject, the belief in _acting_ things, in reciprocal action, in cause
and effect between phenomena which we call things, also falls to pieces.

In this case the world of _acting atoms_ also disappears: for this
world is always assumed to exist on the pre-determined grounds that
subjects are necessary.

Ultimately, of course, _the "thing-in-itself"_ also disappears: for
at bottom it is the conception of a "subject-in-itself." But we
have seen that the subject is an imaginary thing. The antithesis
"thing-in-itself" and "appearance" is untenable; but in this way the
concept "_appearance_" also disappears.

***

_(c)_ If we abandon the idea of the acting _subject,_ we also abandon
the _object_ acted upon. Duration, equality to self, Being, are
inherent neither in what is called subject, nor in what is called
object: they are complex phenomena, and in regard to other phenomena
are apparently durable--they are distinguishable, for instance, by
the different tempo with which they happen (repose--movement, fixed
--loose: all antitheses which do not exist in themselves and by means
of which _differences of degree_ only are expressed; from a certain
limited point of view, though, they seem to be antitheses. There are no
such things as antitheses; it is from logic that we derive our concept
of contrasts--and starting out from its standpoint we spread the error
over all things).

***

_(d)_ If we abandon the ideas "subject" and "object"; then we must also
abandon the idea _"substance"_--and therefore its various modifications
too; for instance: "matter," "spirit," and other hypothetical things,
"eternity and the immutability of matter," etc. We are then rid of
_materiality._

***

From a moral standpoint _the world is false._ But inasmuch as morality
itself is a part of this world, morality also is false. The will
to truth is a process of _establishing things_, it is a process of
_making_ things true and lasting, a total elimination of that _false_
character, a transvaluation of it into _being._ Thus, "truth" is not
something which is present and which has to be found and discovered; it
is something _which has to be created_ and which _gives_ its name _to a
process,_ or, better still, to the Will to overpower, which in itself
has no purpose: to introduce truth is a _processus in infinitum,_ an
_active determining_--it is not a process of becoming conscious of
something, which in itself is fixed and determined. It is merely a word
for "The Will to Power."

Life is based on the hypothesis of a belief in stable and regularly
recurring things, the mightier it is, the more vast must be the world
of knowledge and the world called being. Logicising, rationalising, and
systematising are of assistance as means of existence.

Man projects his instinct of truth, his "aim," to a certain extent
beyond himself, in the form of a metaphysical world of Being, a
"thing-in-itself," a world already to hand. His requirements as a
creator make him _invent_ the world in which he works in advance; he
anticipates it: this anticipation (this faith in truth) is his mainstay.

***

All phenomena, movement, Becoming, regarded as the establishment of
relations of degree and of force, as a contest....

***

As soon as we _fancy_ that some one is responsible for the fact that
we are thus and thus, etc. (God, Nature), and that we ascribe our
existence, our happiness, our misery, our _destiny,_ to that some one,
we corrupt the _innocence of Becoming_ for ourselves. We then have some
one who wishes to attain to something by means of us and with us.

***

The "welfare of the individual" is just as fanciful as the "welfare
of the species": the first is _not_ sacrificed to the last; seen
from afar, the species is just as fluid as the individual. "The
_preservation_ of the species" is only a result of the _growth_ of the
species--that is to say, _of the overcoming of the species_ on the road
to a stronger kind.

***

Theses:--The apparent conformity of means to end ("the conformity of
means to end which far surpasses the art of man) is merely the result
of that "_Will to Power_" which manifests itself in all phenomena:--_To
become stronger_ involves a process of ordering, which may well be
mistaken for an attempted conformity of means to end:--The _ends_ which
are apparent are not intended but, as soon as a superior power prevails
over an inferior power, and the latter proceeds to work as a function
of the former, an order of _rank_ is established, an organisation which
must give rise to the idea that there is an arrangement of means and
ends.

Against apparent "_necessity_":--

This is only an expression for the fact that a certain power is not
also something else.

Against the apparent conformity of means to ends":--

The latter is only an _expression_ for the order among the spheres of
power and their interplay.

_(i)_ The Thing-in-Itself and Appearance.


553.

The foul blemish on Kant's criticism has at last become visible
even to the coarsest eyes: Kant had no right to his distinction
"_appearance_" and "_thing-in-itself,_"--in his own writings he had
deprived himself of the right of differentiating any longer in this
old and hackneyed manner, seeing that he had condemned the practice of
drawing any conclusions concerning the cause of an appearance from the
appearance itself, as unallowable in accordance with his conception
of the idea of causality and its _purely intraphenomenal_ validity,
and this conception, on the other hand, already anticipates that
_differentiation,_ as if the "thing in itself" were not only inferred
but actually _given._


554.

It is obvious that neither things-in-themselves _nor_ appearances can
be related to each other in the form of cause and effect: and from this
it follows that the concept "cause and effect" is _not applicable_ in a
philosophy which believes in things-in-themselves and in appearances.
Kant's mistake--... As a matter of fact, from a psychological
standpoint, the concept "cause and effect" is derived from an attitude
of mind which believes it sees the action of will upon will everywhere,
which believes only in living things, and at bottom only in souls (not
in things). Within the mechanical view of the world (which is logic
and its application to space and time) that concept is reduced to
the mathematical formula with which--and this is a fact which cannot
be sufficiently emphasised--nothing is ever understood, but rather
_defined_--deformed.


555.

The greatest of all fables is the one relating to knowledge. People
would like to know how things-in-themselves are constituted: but
behold, there are no things-in-themselves! But even supposing there
_were_ an "in-itself," an unconditional thing, it could on that very
account _not be known_! Something unconditioned cannot be known:
otherwise it would not be unconditioned! Knowing, however, is always a
process of "coming into relation with something"; the knowledge-seeker,
on this principle, wants the thing, which he would know, to be nothing
to him, and to be nothing to anybody at all: and from this there
results a contradiction,--in the first place, between this _will_ to
know, and this desire that the thing to be known _should_ be nothing
to him (wherefore know at all then?); and secondly, because something
which is nothing to anybody, does not even _exist,_ and therefore
cannot be known. Knowing means: "to place one's self in relation with
something," to feel one's self conditioned by something and one's
self conditioning it under all circumstances, then, it is a process
of _making stable or fixed,_ of _defining,_ of _making conditions
conscious_ (not a process of _sounding_ things, creatures, or objects
in-themselves).


556.

A "thing-in-itself" is just as absurd as a "sense-in-itself," a
"meaning-in-itself." There is no such thing as a "fact-in-itself,"
_for a meaning must always be given to it before it can become a fact._

The answer to the question, "What is that?" is a process of _fixing a
meaning_ from a different standpoint. The "_essence_" the "_essential
factor,_" is something which is only seen as a whole in perspective,
and which presupposes a basis which is multifarious. Fundamentally the
question is "What is that for me?" (for us, for everything that lives,
etc. etc.).

A thing would be defined when all creatures had asked and answered this
question, "What is that?" concerning it. Supposing that one single
creature, with its own relations and standpoint in regard to all
things, were lacking, that thing would still remain undefined.

In short: the essence of a thing is really only an _opinion_ concerning
that "thing." Or, better still; "_it is worth_" is actually what is
meant by _"it is"_ or by "that is."

One may not ask: "_Who_ interprets, then?" for the act of interpreting
_itself_ as a form of the Will to Power, manifests itself (not as
"Being," but as a _process,_ as _Becoming_) as a passion.

The origin of "things" is wholly the work of the idealising, thinking,
willing, and feeling subject. The concept thing as well as all its
attributes.--Even "the subject" is a creation of this order, a "thing"
like all others: a simplification, aiming at a definition of the
_power_ that fixes, invents, and thinks, as such, as distinct from
all isolated fixing, inventing, and thinking. Thus a capacity defined
or distinct from all other individual capacities; at bottom action
conceived collectively in regard to all the action which has yet to
come (action and the probability of similar action).


557.

The qualities of a thing are its effects upon other "things."

If one imagines other "things" to be non-existent, a thing has no
qualities.

That is to say; _there is nothing without other things._

That is to say; there is no "thing-in-itself."


558.

The thing-in-itself is nonsense. If I think all the "relations," all
the "qualities" all the "activities" of a thing, away, the thing itself
does _not_ remain: for "thingness" was only _invented fancifully_ by
us to meet certain logical needs--that is to say, for the purposes of
definition and comprehension (in order to correlate that multitude of
relations, qualities, and activities).


559.

"Things which have a nature _in themselves_"--a dogmatic idea, which
must be absolutely abandoned.


560.

That things should have a _nature in themselves,_ quite apart from
interpretation and subjectivity, _is a perfectly idle hypothesis_:
it would presuppose that _interpretation_ and the _act of being
subjective_ are not essential, that a thing divorced from all its
relations can still be a thing.

Or, the other way round: the apparent _objective_ character of things;
might it not be merely the result of a _difference of degree_ within
the subject perceiving?--could not that which changes slowly strike
us as being objective, lasting, Being, "in-itself"?--could not the
objective view be only a false way of conceiving things and a contrast
_within_ the perceiving subject?


561.

If all unity were only unity as organisation. But the "thing" in
which we believe was _invented_ only as a substratum to the various
attributes. If the thing "acts," it means: we regard _all the other_
qualities which are to hand, and which are momentarily latent, as
the cause accounting for the fact that one individual quality steps
forward--that is to say, _we take the sum of its qualities--x--_as
the cause of the quality _x_; which is obviously _quite_ absurd and
imbecile!

All unity is _only so_ in the form of _organisation_ and _collective
action:_ in the same way as a human community is a unity--that is to
say, _the reverse of_ atomic _anarchy_; thus it is a body politic,
which _stands for_ one, yet _is_ not one.


562.

"At some time in the development of thought, a point must have been
reached when man became conscious of the fact that what he called
the _qualities of a thing_ were merely the sensations of the feeling
subject: and thus the qualities ceased from belonging to the thing."
The "thing-in-itself" remained over. 'The distinction between the
thing-in-itself and the thing-for-us, is based upon that older and
artless observation which would fain grant energy to things: but
analysis revealed that even force was only ascribed to them by our
fancy, as was also--substance. "The thing affects a subject?" Thus the
root of the idea of substance is in language, not in things outside
ourselves! The thing-in-itself is not a problem at all!

Being will have to be conceived as a sensation which is no longer based
upon anything quite devoid of sensation.

In movement no new _meaning_ is given to feeling. That which is, cannot
be the substance of movement: it is therefore a form of Being.

    _N.B._--The explanation of life may be sought, in the first
    place, through mental images of phenomena which _precede_ it
    (purposes);

    Secondly, through mental images of phenomena which follow
    behind it (the mathematico-physical explanation).

The two should not be confounded. Thus: the physical explanation, which
is the symbolisation of the world by means of feeling and thought,
cannot in itself make feeling and thinking originate again and show
its derivation: physics must rather construct the world of feeling,
consistently _without feeling or purpose _ right up to the highest man.
And teleology is only a _history of purposes,_ and is never physical.


563.

Our method of acquiring "knowledge" is limited to a process of
establishing _quantities,_ but we can by no means help feeling the
difference of quantity as differences of _quality._ Quality is merely a
_relative_ truth for _us_; it is not a "thing-in-itself."

Our senses have a certain definite quantum as a mean, within the limits
of which they perform their functions--that is to say, we become
conscious of bigness and smallness in accordance with the conditions of
our existence. If we sharpened or blunted our senses tenfold, we should
perish--that is to say, we feel even _proportions_ as _qualities_ in
regard to our possibilities of existence.


564.

But could not all _quantities_ be merely tokens of _qualities_? Another
consciousness and scale of desires must correspond to greater power
in fact, another point of view; growth in itself is the expression of
a desire _to become more;_ the desire for a greater _quantum_ springs
from a certain _quale,_ in a purely quantitative world, everything
would be dead, stiff, and motionless.--The reduction of all qualities
to quantities is nonsense: it is discovered that they can only stand
together, an analogy--


565.

Qualities are our insurmountable barriers; we cannot possibly help
feeling mere _differences of quantity_ as something fundamentally
different from quantity--that is to say, as _qualities,_ which we can
no longer reduce to terms of quantity. But everything in regard to
which the word "knowledge" has any sense at all, belongs to the realm
of reckoning, weighing, and measuring, to quantity whereas, conversely,
all our valuations (that is to say, our sensations) belong precisely to
the realm of qualities, _i.e._ to those truths which belong to us alone
and to our point of view, and which absolutely cannot be "known." It is
obvious that every one of us, different creatures, must feel different
qualities, and must therefore live in a different world from the rest.
Qualities are an idiosyncrasy proper to human nature; the demand that
these our human interpretations and values, should be general and
perhaps real values, belongs to the hereditary madnesses of human pride.


566.

The "real world," in whatever form it has been conceived hitherto--was
always the world of appearance _over again._


567.

The world of appearance, _i.e._ a world regarded in the light of
values; ordered, selected according to values--that is to say, in
this case, according to the standpoint of utility in regard to the
preservation and the increase of power of a certain species of animals.

It is _the point of view,_ then, which accounts for the character of
"appearance." As if a world could remain over, when the point of view
is cancelled! By such means _relativity_ would also be cancelled!

Every centre of energy has its _point of view_ of the whole of the
_remainder_ of the world--that is to say, its perfectly definite
_valuation,_ its mode of action, its mode of resistance. The "world of
appearance" is thus reduced to a specific kind of action on the world
proceeding from a centre.

But there is no other kind of action: and the "world" is only a word
for the collective play of these actions. _Reality_ consists precisely
in this particular action and reaction of every isolated factor against
the whole.

There no longer remains a shadow of a _right_ to speak here of
"appearance." ...

The _specific way of reacting_ is the only way of reacting; we do not
know how many kinds and what sort of kinds there are.

But there is no "_other,_" no "real," no essential being,--for thus a
world _without_ action and reaction would be expressed....

The antithesis: world of appearance and real world, is thus reduced to
the antitheses "world" and "nonentity."


568.

A criticism of the concept "_real and apparent_ world."--Of these two
the first is a mere fiction, formed out of a host of imaginary things.

Appearance itself belongs to reality: it is a form of its being; _i.e._
in a world where there is no such thing as being, a certain calculable
world of _identical_ cases must first be created through _appearance;_
a _tempo_ in which observation and comparison is possible, etc.

"Appearance" is an adjusted and simplified world, in which our
_practical_ instincts have worked: for us it is perfectly true: for we
_live_ in it, we can live in it: _this is the proof_ of its truth as
far as we are concerned....

The world, apart from the fact that we have to live in it--the
world, which we have _not_ adjusted to our being, our logic, and our
psychological prejudices--does _not_ exist as a world "in-itself"; it
is essentially a world of relations: under certain circumstances it has
a _different aspect_ from every different point at which it is seen:
it presses against every point, and every point resists it--and these
collective relations are in every case _incongruent._

The _measure of power_ determines what _being_ possesses the other
measure of power: under what form, force, or constraint, it acts or
resists.

Our particular case is interesting enough: we have created a conception
in order to be able to live in a world, in order to perceive just
enough to enable us to _endure_ life in that world....


569.

The nature of our psychological vision is determined by the fact--

(1) That _communication_ is necessary, and that for communication
to be possible something must be stable, simplified, and capable of
being stated precisely (above all, in the so-called _identical_ case).
In order that it may be communicable, it must be felt as something
_adjusted,_ as "_recognisable_." The material of the senses, arranged
by the understanding, reduced to coarse leading features, made similar
to other things, and classified with its like. Thus: the indefiniteness
and the chaos of sense-impressions are, as it were, _made logical._

(2) The _phenomenal_ world is the adjusted world which _we believe
to be real,_ Its "reality" lies in the constant return of similar,
familiar, and related things, in their _rationalised character,_ and in
the belief that we are here able to reckon and determine.

(3) The opposite of this phenomenal world is not "the real world,"
but the amorphous and unadjustable world consisting of the chaos of
sensations--that is to say, _another kind_ of phenomenal; world, a
world which to us is "unknowable."

(4) The question how things-in-themselves are constituted, quite apart
from our sense-receptivity and from the activity of our understanding,
must be answered by the further question: how were we able to know
_that things existed?_ "Thingness" is one of our own inventions. The
question is whether there are not a good many more ways of creating
such a world of appearance--and whether this creating, rationalising,
adjusting, and falsifying be not the best-guaranteed _reality_ itself:
in short, whether that which "fixes the meaning of things" is not
the only reality: and whether the "effect of environment upon us"
be not merely the result of such will-exercising subjects.... The
other "creatures" act upon us; our _adjusted_ world of appearance
is an arrangement and an _overpowering_ of its activities: a sort
of _defensive_ measure. _The subject alone is demonstrable_;
the _hypothesis_ might be advanced _that subjects are all that
exist,_--that "object" is only a form of action of subject upon
subject ... a _modus of the subject._



_(k)_ The Metaphysical Need.


570.

If one resembles all the philosophers that have gone before, one
can have no eyes for what has existed and what will exist--one sees
only what _is._ But as there is no such thing as Being; all that the
philosophers had to deal with was a host of _fancies,_ this was their
"world."


571.

To assert the _existence_ as a whole of things concerning which we know
nothing, simply because there is an advantage in not being able to know
anything of them, was a piece of artlessness on Kant's part, and the
result of the recoil-stroke of certain needs--especially in the realm
of morals and metaphysics.


572.

An artist cannot endure reality; he turns away or back from it: his
earnest opinion is that the worth of a thing consists in that nebulous
residue of it which one derives from colour, form, sound, and thought;
he believes that the more subtle, attenuated, and volatile, a thing
or a man becomes, _the more valuable he becomes: the less real,_ the
greater the worth. This is Platonism: but Plato was guilty of yet
further audacity in the matter of turning tables--he measured the
degree of reality according to the degree of value, and said: The more
there is of "idea" the more there is of Being. He twisted the concept
"reality" round and said: "What ye regard as real is an error, and the
nearer we get to the 'idea' the nearer we are to 'truth.'"--Is this
understood? It was the _greatest of all rechristenings:_ and because
Christianity adopted it, we are blind to its astounding features. At
bottom, Plato, like the artist he was, _placed appearance before_
Being! and therefore lies and fiction before truth! unreality before
actuality!--He was, however, so convinced of the value of appearance,
that he granted it the attributes of "Being," "causality," "goodness,"
and "truth," and, in short, all those things which are associated with
value.

The concept value itself regarded as a cause: first standpoint.

The ideal granted all attributes, conferring honour: second standpoint.


573.

The idea of the "true world" or of "God" as absolutely spiritual,
intellectual, and good, is an _emergency measure_ to the extent to
which the _antagonistic_ instincts are all-powerful....

Moderation and existing humanity is reflected exactly in the
humanisation of the gods. The Greeks of the strongest period, who
entertained no fear whatever of themselves, but on the contrary were
pleased with themselves, brought down their gods to all their emotions.

The spiritualisation of the idea of God is thus very far from being a
sign of _progress_: one is heartily conscious of this when one reads
Goethe--in his works the vaporisation of God into virtue and spirit is
felt as being upon a lower plane.


574.

The nonsense of all metaphysics shown to reside in the derivation of
the conditioned out of the unconditioned.

It belongs to the nature of thinking that it adds the unconditioned to
the conditioned, that it invents it--just as it thought of and invented
the "ego" to cover the multifariousness of its processes i it measures
the world according to a host of self-devised measurements--according
to its fundamental fictions "the unconditioned," "end and means,"
"things," "substances," and according to logical laws, figures, and
forms.

There would be nothing which could be called knowledge, if thought did
not first so _re-create_ the world into "things" which are in its own
image. It is only _through_ thought that there is _untruth._

The _origin_ of thought, like that of _feelings,_ cannot be traced:
but that is _no_ proof of its primordiality or absoluteness! It simply
shows that we cannot get _behind it,_ because we have nothing else save
thought and feeling.


575.

To know is to _point to past experience:_ in its nature it is a
_regressus in infinitum._ That which halts (in the face of a so-called
_causa prima_ or the unconditioned, etc.) is _laziness,_ weariness.


576.

_Concerning the psychology of metaphysics_--the influence of fear. That
which has been most feared, the cause of the _greatest suffering_ (lust
of power, voluptuousness, etc.), has been treated with the greatest
amount of hostility by men, and eliminated from the "real" world. Thus
the _passions_ have been step by step _struck out,_ God posited as
the opposite of evil--that is to say, reality is conceived to be the
_negation of the passions and the emotions_ (i.e. _nonentity_).

_Irrationality,_ impulsive action, accidental action, is, moreover,
hated by them (as the cause of incalculable suffering). _Consequently_
they denied this element in the absolute, and interpreted it as
absolute "rationality" and "conformity of means to ends."

_Change_ and _perishability_ were also feared; and by this fear an
oppressed soul is revealed, full of distrust and painful experiences
(the case with _Spinoza_: a man differently constituted would have
regarded this change as a charm).

A nature overflowing and _playing_ with energy, would call precisely
the _passions, irrationality_ and _change, good_ in a eudemonistic
sense, together with their consequences: danger, contrast, ruin, etc.


577.

Against the value of that which always remains the same (remember
Spinoza's artlessness and Descartes' likewise), the value of the
shortest and of the most perishable, the seductive flash of gold on the
belly of the serpent _vita_----


578.

_Moral values in epistemology itself:_--

    The faith in reason--why not mistrust?

    The "real world" is the good world--why?

    Appearance, change, contradiction, struggle, regarded as
    immoral: the desire for a world which _knows nothing_ of
    these things.

    The transcendental world discovered, _so that_ a place may
    be kept for "moral freedom" (as in Kant).

    Dialectics as the road to virtue (in Plato and Socrates:
    probably because sophistry was held to be the road to
    immorality).

    Time and space are ideal: consequently there is unity in
    the essence of things; consequently no sin, no evil, no
    imperfection, a _justification_ of God.

    Epicurus _denied_ the possibility of knowledge, in order to
    keep the moral (particularly the hedonistic) values as the
    highest.

    Augustine does the same, and later Pascal ("corrupted
    reason"), in favour of Christian values.

    Descartes' contempt for everything variable; likewise
    Spinoza's.


579.

_Concerning the psychology of metaphysics._--This world is only
apparent: _therefore_ there must be a real world;--this world is
conditioned: _consequently_ there must be an unconditioned world;--this
world is contradictory: _consequently_ there is a world free from
contradiction;--this world is evolving: _consequently_ there is
somewhere a static world:--a host of false conclusions (blind faith
in reason: if A exists, then its opposite B must also _exist_). Pain
_inspires these conclusions_: at bottom they are _withes_ that such
a world might exist; the hatred of a world which leads to suffering
is likewise revealed by the fact that another and _better_ world is
imagined: the _resentment_ of the metaphysician against reality is
creative here.

_The second_ series of questions: _wherefore_ suffer? ... and from
this a conclusion is derived concerning the relation of the real
world to our apparent, changing, suffering, and contradictory world:
(1) Suffering as the consequence of error: how is error possible?
(2) Suffering as the consequence of guilt: how is guilt possible?
(A host of experiences drawn from the sphere of nature or society,
universalised and made absolute.) But if the conditioned world be
causally determined by the unconditioned, then the _freedom to err, to
be sinful,_ must also be derived from the same quarter: and once more
the question arises, _to what purpose?_ ... The world of appearance, of
Becoming, of contradiction, of suffering, is therefore _willed; to what
purpose?_

The error of these conclusions; two contradictory concepts are
formed--because one of them corresponds to a reality, the other
"_must_" also correspond to a reality. "_Whence_" would one otherwise
derive its contradictory concept? _Reason_ is thus a source of
revelation concerning the absolute.

But the _origin_ of the above contradictions _need not necessarily_ be
a supernatural source of reason: it is sufficient to oppose t_he real
genesis_ of the concepts, this springs from practical spheres, from
utilitarian spheres, hence the _strong faith_ it commands _(one is
threatened with ruin_ if one's conclusions are not in conformity with
this reason; but this fact is no "_proof_" of what the latter asserts).

_The preoccupation of metaphysicians with pain,_ is quite artless.
"Eternal blessedness": psychological nonsense. Brave and creative men
never make pleasure and pain ultimate questions--they are incidental
conditions: both of them must be desired when one _will attain to_
something. It is a sign of fatigue and illness in these metaphysicians
and religious men, that they should press questions of pleasure and
pain into the foreground. Even _morality_ in their eyes derives its
great importance _only_ from the fact that it is regarded as an
essential condition for abolishing pain.

_The same holds good of the preoccupation with appearance and error_
the cause of pain. A superstition that happiness and truth are related
(confusion: happiness in "certainty," in "faith").


580.

To what extent are the various _epistemological positions_
(materialism, sensualism, idealism) consequences of valuations? The
source of the highest feelings of pleasure ("feelings of value") may
also judge concerning the problem of _reality_!

The measure of _positive knowledge_ is quite a matter of indifference
and beside the point; as witness the development of Indici.

The Buddhistic _negation_ of reality in general (appearance pain) is
perfectly consistent: undemonstrability, inaccessibility, lack of
categories, not only for an "absolute world," but a recognition of
the _erroneous procedures_ by means of which the whole concept has
been reached. "Absolute reality," "Being in itself," a contradiction.
In a world of _Becoming,_ reality is merely a _simplification_ for
the purpose of practical ends, or a _deception_ resulting from the
coarseness of certain organs, or a variation in the tempo of Becoming.

The logical denial of the world and Nihilism is a consequence of the
fact that we must oppose nonentity with Being, and that Becoming is
denied. ("_Something_" becomes.)


581.

_Being_ and _Becoming._--"_Reason_" developed upon a sensualistic basis
upon the _prejudices of the senses_--that is to say, with the belief in
the truth of the judgment of the senses.

"Being," as the generalisation of the concept "_Life_" (breath), "to be
animate," "to will," "to act upon," "become."

The opposite is: "to be inanimate," "_not_ to become," "_not_ to will."
_Thus_: "Being" is _not_ opposed to "not-Being," to "appearance," nor
is it opposed to death (for only that can be dead which can also live).

The "soul," the "ego," posited as _primeval facts;_ and introduced
wherever _there is Becoming._


582.

_Being_--we have no other idea of it than that which we derive from
"_living._"--How then can everything "be" dead?


583.

_A._

I see with astonishment that science resigns itself to-day to the fate
of being reduced to the world of appearance: we certainly have no organ
of knowledge for the real world--be it what it may.

At this point we may well ask: With what organ of knowledge is this
contradiction established?...

The fact that a world which is accessible to our organs is also
understood to be dependent upon these organs, and the fact that we
should understand a world as subjectively conditioned, are _no_ proofs
of the actual _possibility_ of an objective world. Who urges us to
believe that subjectivity _is_ real or essential?

The absolute is even an absurd concept: an "absolute mode of existence"
is nonsense, the concept "being," "thing," is always _relative_ to us.

The trouble is that, owing to the old antithesis "apparent" and "real,"
the correlative valuations "of little value" and "absolutely valuable"
have been spread abroad.

The world of appearance does not strike us as a "valuable" world;
appearance is on a lower plane than the highest value. Only a "real"
world can be absolutely "valuable"....

_Prejudice of prejudices!_ It is perfectly possible in itself that
the real nature of things would be so unfriendly, so opposed to the
first conditions of life, that appearance is necessary in order to
make life possible.... This is certainly the case in a large number of
situations--for instance, marriage.

Our empirical world would thus be conditioned, even in its limits
to knowledge, by the instinct of self-preservation, we regard that
as good, valuable, and true, which favours the preservation of the
species....

_(a)_ We have no categories which allow us to distinguish between a
real and an apparent world. (At the most, there could exist a world of
appearance, but not _our_ world of appearance.)

_(b)_ Taking the _real_ world for granted, it might still be the _less
valuable_ to us; for the quantum of illusion might be of the highest
order, owing to its value to us as a preservative measure. (Unless
_appearance_ in itself were sufficient to condemn anything?)

_(c)_ That there exists a correlation between the _degrees of value_
and the _degrees of reality_ (so that the highest values also possessed
the greatest degree of reality), is a metaphysical postulate which
starts out with the hypothesis that we _know_ the order of rank among
values; and that this order is a _moral_ one. It is only on this
hypothesis that _truth_ is necessary as a definition of all that is of
a superior value.

_B._

It is of cardinal importance that the _real world_ should be
suppressed. It is the most formidable inspirer of doubts, and
depredator of values, concerning the _world which we are_: it was our
most dangerous_ attempt_ heretofore on the life of Life.

_War_ against all the hypotheses upon which a real world has been
imagined. The notion that _moral values_ are the _highest_ values,
belongs to this hypothesis.

The superiority of the moral valuation would be refuted, if it could
be shown to be the result of an _immoral_ valuation--a specific case
of real immorality: it would thus reduce itself to an _appearance,_
and as an _appearance_ it would cease from having any right to condemn
appearance.

_C._

Then the "Will to Truth" would have to be examined psychologically: it
is not a moral power, but a form of the Will to Power. This would have
to be proved by the fact that it avails itself of every _immoral_ means
there is; above all, of the metaphysicians.

At the present moment we are face to face with the necessity of testing
the assumption that moral values are the highest values, _Method in
research_ is attained only when all _moral prejudices_ have been
overcome: it represents a conquest over morality....


584.

The aberrations of philosophy are the outcome of the fact that,
instead of recognising in logic and the categories of reason merely
a means to the adjustment of the world for utilitarian ends (that is
to say, especially, a useful _falsification_), they were taken to be
the criterion of truth--particularly of _reality._ The "criterion
of truth" was, as a matter of fact, merely the _biological utility
of a systematic falsification of this sort, on principle:_ and,
since a species of animals knows nothing more important than its own
preservation, it was indeed allowable here to speak of "truth." Where
the artlessness came in, however, was in taking this anthropocentric
idiosyncrasy as the _measure of things,_ as the canon for recognising
the "real" and the "unreal": in short, in making a relative thing
absolute. And behold, all at once, the world fell into the two halves,
"real" and "apparent": and precisely that world which man's reason had
arranged for him to live and to settle in, was discredited. Instead of
using the forms as mere instruments for making the world manageable
and calculable, the mad fancy of philosophers intervened, and saw that
in these categories the concept of that world is given which does
not correspond to the concept of the world in which man lives.... The
means were misunderstood as measures of value, and even used as a
condemnation of their original purpose....

The purpose was, to deceive one's self in a useful way: the means
thereto was the invention of forms and signs, with the help of which
the confusing multifariousness of life could be reduced to a useful and
wieldy scheme.

But woe! a _moral category_ was now brought into the game: no creature
would deceive itself, no creature may deceive itself--consequently
there is only a will to truth. What is "truth"?

The principle of contradiction provided the scheme: the real world to
which the way is being sought cannot be in contradiction with itself,
cannot change, cannot evolve, has no beginning and no end.

That is the greatest error which has ever been committed, the really
fatal error of the world: it was believed that in the forms of reason a
criterion of reality had been found--whereas their only purpose was to
master reality, by _misunderstanding_ it intelligently....

And behold, the world became false precisely owing to the qualities
_which constitute its reality,_ namely, change, evolution,
multifariousness, contrast, contradiction, war. And thenceforward the
whole fatality was there.

1. How does one get rid of the false and merely apparent world? (it was
the real and only one).

2. How does one become one's self as remote as possible from the
world of appearance? (the concept of the perfect being as a contrast
to the real being; or, more correctly still, as _the contradiction of
life_....).

The whole direction of values was towards the _slander of life_; people
deliberately confounded ideal dogmatism with knowledge in general: so
that the opposing parties also began to reject _science_ with horror.

Thus the road to science was _doubly_ barred: first, by the belief
in the real world; and secondly, by the opponents of this belief.
Natural science and psychology were (1) condemned in their objects, (2)
deprived of their artlessness....

Everything is so absolutely bound and related to everything else in
the real world, that to condemn, or to _think away_ anything, means to
condemn and think away the whole. The words "this should not be," "this
ought not to be," are a farce.... If one imagines the consequences,
one would ruin the very source of Life by suppressing everything which
is in any sense whatever _dangerous or destructive._ Physiology proves
this _much better_!

We see how morality _(a) poisons_ the whole concept of the world, _(b)_
cuts off the way to _science, (c)_ dissipates and undermines all real
instincts (by teaching that their root is _immoral_).

We thus perceive a terrible tool of decadence at work, which succeeds
in remaining immune, thanks to the holy names and holy attitudes it
assumes.


585.

The awful recovery of our _consciousness:_ not of the individual, but
of the human species. Let us reflect; let us think backwards; let us
follow the narrow and broad highway.

_A._

Man seeks "the truth": a world that does not contradict itself,
that does not deceive, that does not change, a _real_ world--a
world in which there is no suffering: contradiction, deception,
variability---the causes of suffering! He does not doubt that there is
such a thing as a world as it ought to be; he would fain find a road to
it. (Indian criticism: even the ego is apparent and _not_ real.)

Whence does man derive the concept of _reality_? --Why does he make
variability, deception, contradiction, the origin of _suffering;_ why
not rather of his happiness? ...

The contempt and hatred of all that perishes, changes, and varies:
whence comes this valuation of stability? Obviously, the will to truth
is _merely_ the longing for a _stable world._

The senses deceive; reason corrects the errors: _therefore,_ it was
concluded, reason is the road to a static state; the most _spiritual_
ideas must be nearest to the "real world."--It is from the senses that
the greatest number of misfortunes come they are cheats, deluders, and
destroyers.

Happiness can be promised only by Being: change and happiness exclude
each other. The loftiest desire is thus to be one with Being. That is
the formula for the way to happiness.

_In summa:_ The world as it _ought_ to be exists; this world in which
we live is an error--this our world should _not_ exist.

_The belief in Being_ shows itself only as a result: the real primum
_mobile_ is the disbelief in Becoming, the mistrust of Becoming, the
scorn of all Becoming....

What kind of a man reflects in this way? An unfruitful, _suffering_
kind, a world-weary kind. If we try and fancy what the opposite kind
of man would be like, we have a picture of a creature who would not
require the belief in Being; he would rather despise it as dead,
tedious, and indifferent....

The belief that the world which ought to be, is, really exists, is a
belief proper to the unfruitful, _who do not wish to create a world as
it should be._ They take it for granted, they seek for means and ways
of attaining to it. "The will to truth"--_is the impotence of the will
to create._

To recognise that something      } Antagonism in
is _thus_ or _thus:_             } the degrees of
To act so that something will    }   energy in
be _thus_ or _thus:_             } various natures.


The fiction of a world which corresponds to our desires; psychological
artifices and interpretations calculated to associate all that we
honour and regard as pleasant, with this _real world._

"The will to truth" at this stage is essentially _the art of
interpretation:_ to which also belongs that interpretation which still
possesses strength.

The same species of men, grown one degree poorer, _no longer possessed
of the power_ to interpret and to create fictions, produces the
Nihi_lists._ A Nihilist is the man who says of the world as it is,
that it ought _not_ to exist, and of the world as it ought to be, that
it does not exist. According to this, existence (action, suffering,
willing, and feeling) has no sense: the pathos of the "in vain" is the
Nihilist's pathos--and as pathos it is moreover an _inconsistency_ on
the part of the Nihilist.

He who is not able to introduce his will into things, the man without
either will or energy, at least invests them with some meaning, _i.e._
he believes that a will is already in them.

The degree of a man's _will-power_ may be measured from the extent to
which he can dispense with the meaning in things, from the extent to
which he is able to endure a world without meaning: _because he himself
arranges a small portion of it._

The _philosophical objective view of things_ may thus be a sign of
poverty both of will and of energy. For energy organises what is
closest and next; the "scientists," whose only desire is to _ascertain_
what exists, are such as cannot arrange things _as they ought to be._

The _artists,_ an intermediary species, they at least set up a symbol
of what should exist,--they are productive inasmuch as they actually
_alter_ and transform; not like the scientists, who leave everything as
it is.

_The connection between philosophers and the pessimistic religions;_
the same species of man (_they attribute the highest degree of
reality_ to the _things which are valued highest_).

_The connection between philosophers and moral men_ and their
evaluations (the _moral_ interpretation of the world as the sense of
the world: after the collapse of the religious sense).

_The overcoming of philosophers_ by the annihilation of the world of
being: intermediary period of Nihilism; before there is sufficient
strength present to transvalue values, and to make the world of
becoming, and of appearance, the _only_ world to be deified and called
good.

_B._

Nihilism as a normal phenomenon may be a symptom of increasing
_strength_ or of increasing _weakness_:--

Partly owing to the fact that the strength _to create_ and _to will_
has grown to such an extent, that it no longer requires this collective
interpretation and introduction of a _sense_ ("present duties," state,
etc.);

Partly owing to the fact that even the creative power necessary
to invent sense, declines, and disappointment becomes the ruling
condition. The inability to _believe_ in a sense becomes "unbelief."

What is the meaning of _science_ in regard to both possibilities?

(1) It is a sign of strength and self-control; it shows an _ability_ to
dispense with healing, consoling worlds of illusion.

(2) It is also able to undermine, to dissect, to disappoint, and to
weaken.


_C._

_The belief in truth,_ the need of holding to something which is
believed to be true: psychological reduction apart from the valuations
that have existed hitherto. Fear and laziness.

At the same time _unbelief:_ Reduction. In what way does it acquire a
_new value,_ if a real world does not exist at all (by this means the
capacity of valuing, which hitherto has been _lavished_ upon the world
of being, becomes free once more).


586.

The _real_ and the _ "apparent" world._

_A._

The _erroneous concepts_ which proceed from this concept are of three
kinds:--

_(a)_ An unknown world:--we are adventurers, we are inquisitive,--that
which is known to us makes us weary (the danger of the concept lies in
the fact it suggests that "this" world is known to us....);

_(b) Another_ world, where things are different:--something in us draws
comparisons, and thereby our calm submission and our silence lose their
value--perhaps all will be for the best, we have not hoped in vain....
The world where things are different--who knows?--where we ourselves
will be different....

_(c)_ A _real_ world:--that is the most singular blow and attack
which we have ever received; so many things have become encrusted in
the word "true," that we involuntarily give these to the "real world";
the _real_ world must also be a _truthful_ world, such a one as would
not deceive us or make fools of us; to believe in it in this way is to
be almost _forced_ to believe (from convention, as is the case among
people worthy of confidence).

***

The concept, "the _unknown_ world," suggests that this world is known
to us (is tedious);

The concept, "the other world," suggests that this world _might be
different,_ it suppresses necessity and fate (it is useless to _submit_
and to _adapt one's self_);

The concept, _the true world,_ suggests that this world is
untruthful, deceitful, dishonest, not genuine, and not essential,
and _consequently_ not a world calculated to be useful to us (it is
unadvisable to become adapted to it; _better_ resist it).

***

Thus we _escape_ from "this" world in three different ways:----

_(a)_ With our _curiosity_--as though the interesting part was
somewhere else;

_(b)_ With our _submission_--as though it was not necessary to submit,
as though this world was not an ultimate necessity;

_(c)_ With our _sympathy_ and respect--as though this world did not
deserve them, as though it was mean and dishonest towards us....

_In summa_: we have become revolutionaries in three different ways; we
have made _x_ our criticism of the "known world."

_B._

_The first step to reason:_ to understand to what extent we have been
_seduced,_--for it might be _precisely_ the reverse:

_(a)_ The _unknown_ world could be so constituted as to give us a
liking for "this" world--it may be a more stupid and meaner form of
existence.

_(b)_ The other world, very far from taking account of our desires
which were never realised here, might be part of the mass of things
which _this_ world makes possible for us; to learn to know this world
would be a means of satisfying us,

_(c)_ The _true_ world: but who actually says that the apparent world
must be of less value than the true world? Do not our instincts
contradict this judgment? Is not man eternally occupied in creating an
imaginative world, because he will have a better world than reality?
_In the first place,_ how do we know that _our_ world is _not_ the
true world? ... for it might be that the other world is the world of
"appearance" (as a matter of fact, the Greeks, for instance, actually
imagined a _region of shadows, a life of appearance,_ beside _real_
existence). And finally, what right have we to establish _degrees of
reality,_ as it were? That is something different from an unknown
world--that is already the _will to know something of the unknown._ The
"other," the "unknown" world--good! but to speak of the "true world" is
as good as "_knowing_ something about it,"--that is the _contrary_ of
the assumption of an _x_-world....

In short, the world _x_ might be in every way a more tedious, a more
inhuman, and a less dignified world than this one.

It would be quite another matter if it were assumed that there were
several _x_-worlds--that is to say, every possible kind of world
besides our own. But this has _never been assumed...._

_C._

Problem: why has the _image of the other world_ always been to the
disadvantage of "this" one--that is to say, always stood as a criticism
of it; what does this point to?--

A people that are proud of themselves, and who are on the ascending
path of Life, always; picture _another_ existence as lower and less
valuable than theirs; they regard the strange unknown world as their
enemy, as their opposite; they feel no curiosity, but rather repugnance
in regard to what is strange to them.... Such a body of men would never
admit that another people were the "true people"....

The very fact that such a distinction is possible,--that this world
should be called the world of appearance, and that the other should be
called the true world,--is symptomatic.

The places of origin of the idea, of "another world":

    The philosopher who invents a rational world where _reason_
    and logical functions are adequate:--this is the root of
    the "true" world.

    The religious man who invents a "divine world";--this is the
    root of the "denaturalised" and the "anti-natural" world.

    The moral man who invents a "free world":--this is the root
    of the good, the perfect, the just, and the holy world.

The _common factor_ in the three places of origin: _psychological_
error, physiological confusion.

With what attributes is the "other world," as it actually appears in
history, characterised? With the stigmata of philosophical, religious,
and moral prejudices.

The "other world" as it appears in the light of these facts, is
_synonymous_ with _not-Being,_ with not-living, with the _will_ not to
live....

_General aspect:_ it was the instinct of the _fatigue of living,_ and
not that of life, which created the "other world."

_Result:_ philosophy, religion, and morality are _symptoms of
decadence._



_(l)_ The Biological Value of Knowledge.


587.

It might seem as though I had evaded the question concerning
"certainty". The reverse is true: but while raising the question of the
criterion of certainty, I wished to discover the weights and measures
with which men had weighed heretofore--and to show that the question
concerning certainty is already in itself a _dependent_ question, a
question of the second rank.


588.

The question of values is more _fundamental_ than the question of
certainty: the latter only becomes serious once the question of values
has been answered.

Being and appearance, regarded psychologically, yield no "Being in
itself," no criterion for reality, but only degrees of appearance,
measured according to the strength of the sympathy which we feel for
appearance.

There is no struggle for existence between ideas and observations,
but only a struggle for supremacy--the vanquished idea is _not
annihilated,_ but only _driven to the background_ or _subordinated.
There is no such thing as annihilation in intellectual spheres._


589.

    "End and means"
    "Cause and effect"
    "Subject and object"
    "Action and suffering"
    "Thing-in-itself and
    appearance"

As interpretations (_not_ as established facts)--and in what respect
were they perhaps necessary interpretations? (as "preservative
measures")--all in the sense of a Will to Power.


590.

Our values are _interpreted into the heart_ of things.

Is there, then, any _sense_ in the absolute?

Is not sense necessarily _relative-sense_ and perspective?

All sense is Will to Power (all relative senses may be identified with
it).


591.

The desire for "established facts"--Epistemology: how much pessimism
there is in it!


592.

The antagonism between the "true world," as pessimism depicts it, and
a world in which it were possible to live--for this the rights of
_truth_ must be tested. It is necessary to measure all these "ideal
forces" according to the standard of life, in order to understand the
nature of that antagonism: the struggle of sickly, desperate life,
cleaving to a beyond, against healthier, more foolish, more false,
richer, and fresher life. Thus it is not "truth" struggling with Life,
but _one_ kind of Life with another kind.--But the former would fain
be the _higher_ kind!--Here we must prove that some order of rank is
necessary,--that the first problem is _the order of rank among kinds of
Life._


593.

The belief, "It is _thus_ and _thus,_" must be altered into the will,
"Thus and thus _shall it be._"




_(m)_ Science.


594.

Science hitherto has been a means of disposing of the confusion of
things by hypotheses which "explain everything"--that is to say, it
has been the result of the intellect's repugnance to chaos. This
same repugnance takes hold of me when I contemplate _myself;_ I
should like to form some kind of representation of my inner world
for myself by means of a _scheme,_ and thus overcome intellectual
confusion. Morality was a simplification of this sort: it taught man as
_recognised,_ as _known,_--Now we have annihilated morality--we have
once more grown _completely obscure_ to ourselves! I know that I know
nothing _about myself. Physics_ shows itself to be a _boon_ for the
mind: science (as the road to _knowledge_) acquires a new charm after
morality has been laid aside--and _owing to the fact_ that we find
consistency here alone, we must _order_ our lives in accordance with
it so that it may help us to _preserve it. _ This results in a sort of
_practical meditation_ concerning the _conditions of our existence_ as
investigators.


595.

Our first principles: no God: no purpose: limited energy. We will take
good care to _avoid_ thinking out and prescribing the necessary lines
of thought for the lower orders.


596.

No "_moral_ education" of humanity: but the _disciplinary school of
scientific errors_ is necessary, because truth disgusts and creates a
dislike of life, provided a man is not already irrevocably launched
upon his _way,_ and bears the consequences of his honest standpoint
with tragic pride.


597.

The first principle of _scientific work:_ faith in the union and
continuance of scientific work, so that the individual may undertake to
work at any point, however small, and feel sure that his efforts _will
not be in vain._

There is a great paralysing force: to work _in vain,_ to struggle _in
vain._

***

The periods of _hoarding,_ when energy and power are stored, to be
utilised later by subsequent periods: _Science_ as a _half-way house,_
at which the mediocre, more multifarious, and more complicated beings
find their most natural gratification and means of expression: all
those who do well to avoid _action._


598.

A. philosopher recuperates his strength in a way quite his own, and
with other means: he does it, for instance, with Nihilism. The belief
_that there is no such thing as truth,_ the Nihilistic belief, is a
tremendous relaxation for one who, as a warrior of knowledge, is
unremittingly struggling with a host of hateful truths. For truth is
ugly.


599.

The "purposelessness of all phenomena": the belief in this is the
result of the view that all interpretations hitherto have been false,
it is a generalisation on the part of discouragement and weakness--it
is not a necessary belief.

The arrogance of man: when he sees no purpose, he _denies_ that there
can be one!


600.

The unlimited ways of interpreting the world: every interpretation is a
symptom of growth or decline.

Unity (monism) is a need of inertia; Plurality in interpretation is a
sign of strength. One should not _desire to deprive_ the world of its
disquieting and enigmatical nature.


601.

Against the desire for reconciliation and peaceableness. To this also
belongs every attempt on the part of monism.


602.

This relative world, this world for the eye, the touch, and the
ear, is very false, even when adjusted to a much more sensitive
sensual apparatus. But its comprehensibility, its clearness, its
practicability, its beauty, will begin to _near their end_ if we
_refine_ our senses, just as beauty ceases to exist when the processes
of its history are reflected upon: the arrangement of the _end_ is in
itself an illusion. Let it suffice, that the more coarsely and more
superficially it is understood, the _more valuable,_ the more definite,
the more beautiful and important the world then seems. The more
deeply one looks into it, the further our valuation retreats from our
view,-_senselessness approaches!_ We have created the world that has
any value! Knowing this, we also perceive that the veneration of truth
is already the _result of illusion_--and that it is much more necessary
to esteem the formative, simplifying, moulding, and romancing power.

"All is false--everything is allowed!"

Only as the result of a certain bluntness of vision and the desire for
simplicity does the beautiful and the "valuable" make its appearance:
in itself it is purely fanciful.


603.

We know that the destruction of an illusion does not necessarily
produce a truth, but only one more piece of _ignorance;_ it is the
extension of our "empty space," an increase in our "waste."


604.

Of what alone can _knowledge_ consist?--"Interpretation," the
introduction of a sense into things, _not_ "explanation" (in the
majority of cases a new interpretation of an old interpretation which
has grown incomprehensible and little more than a mere sign). There
is no such thing as an established fact, everything fluctuates,
everything, is intangible, yielding; after all, the most lasting of all
things are our opinions.


605.

The ascertaining of "truth" and "untruth," the ascertaining of facts
in general, is fundamentally different from the creative _placing,_
forming, moulding, subduing, and _willing_ which lies at the root of
_philosophy. To give a sense to things_--this duty always remains
_over,_ provided _no sense already lies in them._ The same holds good
of sounds, and also of the fate of nations they are susceptible of the
most varied interpretations and turns, _for different purposes._

A higher duty is to _fix a goal_ and to mould facts according to
it: _that is,_ the _interpretation of action,_ and not merely a
_transvaluation_ of concepts.


606.

Man ultimately finds nothing more in things than he himself has laid
in them--this process of finding again is science, the actual process
of laying a meaning in things, is art, religion, love, pride. In both,
even if they are child's play, one should show good courage and one
should plough ahead; on the one hand, to find again, on the other,--we
are the other,--to lay a sense in things.


607.

_Science_: its two sides:--

    In regard to the individual;

    In regard to the complex of culture ("levels of culture")

--antagonistic valuation in regard to this and that side.


608.

The development of science tends ever more to transform the known into
the unknown: its aim, however, is to do the _reverse,_ and it starts
out with the instinct of tracing the unknown to the known.

In short, science is laying the road to _sovereign ignorance,_ to a
feeling that "knowledge" does not exist at all, that it was merely a
form of haughtiness to dream of such a thing; further, that we have not
preserved the smallest notion which would allow us to class knowledge
even as a _possibility_ that "knowledge" is a contradictory idea. We
_transfer_ a primeval myth and piece of human vanity into the land
of hard facts: we can _allow_ a thing-in-itself as a concept, just
as little as we can _allow_ "knowledge-in-itself." The _misleading_
influence of "numbers and logic," the misleading influence of "laws."

_Wisdom_ is an attempt to _overcome_ the perspective valuations (_i.e._
the "will to power"): it is a principle which is both unfriendly to
Life, and also decadent; a symptom in the case of the Indians, etc.;
_weakness_ of the power of appropriation.


609.

It does not suffice for you to see in what ignorance man and beast now
live; you must also have and learn the _desire_ for _ignorance._ It
is necessary that you should know that without this form of ignorance
life itself would be impossible, that it is merely a vital condition
under which, alone, a living organism can preserve itself and prosper:
a great solid belt of ignorance must stand about you.


610.

Science--the transformation of Nature into concepts for the purpose of
governing Nature--that is part of the rubric _means._

But the _purpose_ and _will_ of mankind must grow in the same way, the
intention in regard to the whole.


611.

_Thought_ is the strongest and most persistently exercised function in
all stages of life--and also in every act of perception or apparent
experience! Obviously it soon becomes the _mightiest_ and _most
exacting_ of all functions, and in time tyrannises over other powers.
Ultimately it becomes "passion in itself."


612.

The right to great passion must be reclaimed for the investigator,
after self-effacement and the cult of "objectivity" have created a
false order of rank in this sphere. Error reached its zenith when
Schopenhauer taught: _in the release from passion and_ in will alone
lay the road to "truth," to knowledge; the intellect freed from will
_could not help_ seeing the true and actual essence of things. The same
error in art: as if everything became _beautiful_ the moment it was
regarded without will.


613.

The contest for supremacy among the passions, and the dominion of one
of the passions over the intellect.


614.

To "humanise" the world means to feel ourselves ever more and more
masters upon earth.


615.

Knowledge, among a higher class of beings, will also take new forms
which are not yet necessary.


616.

That the _worth of the world_ lies in our interpretations (that perhaps
yet other interpretations are possible somewhere, besides mankind's);
that the interpretations made hitherto were perspective valuations,
by means of which we were able to survive in life, _i.e._ in the
Will to Power and in the growth of power; that every _elevation of
man_ involves the overcoming of narrower interpretations; that every
higher degree of strength or power attained, brings new views in its
train, and teaches a belief in new horizons--these doctrines lie
scattered through all my works. The world that _concerns us at all_ is
false--that is to say, is not a fact; but a romance, a piece of human
sculpture, made from a meagre sum of observation; it is "in flux"; it
is something that evolves, a great revolving lie continually moving
onwards and never getting any nearer to truth--for there is no such
thing as "truth."


617.

_Recapitulation_:--

To _stamp_ Becoming with the character of Being--this is the highest
_Will to Power._

_The twofold falsification,_ by the senses on the one hand, by the
intellect on the other, with the view of maintaining a world of being,
of rest, of equivalent cases, etc.

That _everything recurs,_ is the very nearest _approach of a world of
Becoming to a world of Being, the height of contemplation._

It is out of the values which have been attributed to Being, that the
condemnation of, and dissatisfaction with, Becoming, have sprung: once
such a world of Being had been invented.

The metamorphoses of Being (body, God, ideas, natural laws, formulæ,
etc.).

"Being" as appearance the twisting round of values: appearance was that
which _conferred the values._

Knowledge in itself in a world of Becoming is impossible; how can
knowledge be possible at all, then? Only as a mistaking of one's self,
as will to power, as will to deception.

Becoming is inventing, willing, self-denying, self-overcoming; no
subject but an action, it places things, it is creative, no "causes and
effects."

Art is the will to overcome Becoming, it is a process of eternalising,
but short-sighted, always according to the perspective, repeating, as
it were in a small way, the tendency of the whole.

That which _all life_ shows, is to be regarded as a reduced formula for
the collective tendency: hence the new definition of the concept "Life"
as "will to power."

Instead of "cause and effect," the struggle of evolving factors with
one another, frequently with the result that the opponent is absorbed;
no constant number for Becoming.

The uselessness of old ideals for the interpretation of all that takes
place, once their bestial origin and utility have been recognised, they
are, moreover, all hostile to life.

The uselessness of the mechanical theory--it gives the impression that
there _can be no purpose._

All the _idealism_ of mankind, hitherto, is on the point of
turning into _Nihilism_--may be shown to be a belief in absolute
_worth_lessness, _i.e. purpose_lessness.

The annihilation of ideals, the new desert waste the new arts which
will help us to endure it--_amphibia_ that we are!

_First principles,_ bravery, patience, no "stepping-back," not too much
ardour to get to the fore. (_N.B._--Zarathustra constantly maintaining
an attitude of parody towards all former values, as the result of his
overflowing energy.)




II.


THE WILL TO POWER IN NATURE.


1. The Mechanical Interpretation of the World.


618.

Of all the interpretations of the world attempted heretofore, the
_mechanical_ one seems to-day to stand most prominently in the front.
Apparently it has a clean conscience on its side; for no science
believes inwardly in progress and success unless it be with the help
of mechanical procedures. Every one knows these procedures: "reason"
and "purpose" are allowed to remain out of consideration as far as
possible; it is shown that, provided a sufficient amount of time be
allowed to elapse, everything can evolve out of everything else, and no
one attempts to suppress his malicious satisfaction, when the "apparent
design in the fate" of a plant or of the yolk of an egg, may be traced
to stress and thrust in short, people are heartily glad to pay respect
to this principle of profoundest stupidity, if I may be allowed to pass
a playful remark concerning these serious matters. Meanwhile, among the
most select intellects to be found in this movement, some presentiment
of evil, some anxiety is noticeable, as if the theory had a rent in it,
which sooner or later might be its last: I mean the sort of rent which
denotes the end of all balloons inflated with such theories.

Stress and thrust themselves cannot be "explained," one cannot get rid
of the _actio in distans._ The belief even in the ability to explain is
now lost, and people peevishly admit that one can only describe, not
explain that the dynamic interpretation of the world, with its denial
of "empty space" and its little agglomerations of atoms, will soon get
the better of physicists: although in this way _Dynamis_ is certainly
granted an inner quality.


619.

The triumphant concept "_energy_" with which our physicists created
God and the world, needs yet to be completed: it must be given an
inner will which I characterise as the "_Will to Power_"--that is to
say, as an insatiable desire to manifest power; or the application and
exercise of power as a creative instinct, etc. Physicists cannot get
rid of the "_actio in distans_" in their principles; any more than they
can a repelling force (or an attracting one). There is no help for it,
all movements, all "appearances," all "laws" must be understood as
_symptoms_ of an _inner_ phenomenon, and the analogy of man must be
used for this purpose. It is possible to trace all the instincts of an
animal to the will to power; as also all the functions of organic life
to this one source.


620.

Has anybody ever been able to testify to a _force!_ No, but to
_effects,_ translated into a completely strange language. Regularity in
sequence has so spoilt us, _that we no longer wonder at the wonderful
process._


621.

A force of which we cannot form any idea, is an empty word, and ought
to have no civic rights in the city of science: and the same applies to
the purely mechanical powers of attracting and repelling by means of
which we can form an image of the world--no more!


622.

_Squeezes and kicks_ are something incalculably recent, evolved and
not primeval. They presuppose something which holds together and _can_
press and strike! But how could it hold together?


623.

There is nothing _unalterable_ in chemistry: this is only appearance,
a mere school prejudice. We it was who _introduced_ the unalterable,
taking it from metaphysics as usual, Mr. Chemist. It is a mere
superficial judgment to declare that the diamond, graphite, and carbon
are identical. Why? Simply because no loss of substance can be traced
in the scales! Well then, at least they have something in common; but
the work of the molecules in the process of changing from one form to
the other, an action we can neither see nor weigh, is just exactly what
makes one material something different--with specifically different
qualities.


624.

_Against_ the physical _atom._--In order to understand the world, we
must be able to reckon it up; in order to be able to reckon it up, we
must be aware of constant causes; but since we find no such constant
causes in reality, we _invent_ them for ourselves and call them atoms.
This is the origin of the atomic theory.

The possibility of calculating the world, the possibility of expressing
all phenomena by means of formulæ--is that really "understanding"? What
would be understood of a piece of music, if all that were calculable in
it and capable of being expressed in formulas, were reckoned up?--Thus
"constant causes", things, substances, something "unconditioned," were
therefore _invented_;--what has been attained thereby?


625.

The mechanical concept of "movement" is already a translation of the
original process into the _language of symbols of the eye and the
touch._

The concept _atom,_ the distinction between the "seat of a motive force
and the force itself," is a _language of symbols derived from our
logical and physical world._

It does not lie within our power to alter our means of expression:
it is possible to understand to what extend they are but symptomatic.
To demand an _adequate means of expression is nonsense_: it lies at
the heart of a language, of a medium of communication, to express
_relation_ only.... The concept "truth" is _opposed to good sense._
The whole province of truth--_falseness_ only applies to the relations
between beings, not to an "absolute." There is no such thing as a
"being in itself" (_relations_ in the first place constitute being),
any more than there can be "knowledge in itself."


626.

"_The feeling of force_ cannot proceed from movement: feeling in
general cannot proceed from movement."

"Even in support of this, an apparent experience is the only evidence:
in a substance (brain) feeling is generated through transmitted motion
(stimuli). But generated? Would this show that the feeling did _not_
yet exist there _at all_? so that its appearance would _have_ to
be regarded as the _creative act_ of the intermediary--motion? The
feelingless condition of this substance is only an hypothesis! not an
experience! Feeling, therefore is the _quality_ of the substance: there
actually are substances that feel."

"Do we learn from certain substances that they have _no_ feeling? No,
we merely cannot tell that they have any. It is impossible to seek the
origin of feeling in non-sensitive substance."--_Oh what hastiness!_


627.

"To attract" and "to repel", in a purely mechanical sense, is pure
fiction: a word. We cannot imagine an attraction without a _purpose.--_
Either the will to possess one's self of a thing, or the will to defend
one's self from a thing or to repel it--_that_ we "understand"; that
would be an interpretation which we could use.

In short, the psychological necessity of believing in causality lies in
the _impossibility of imagining a process without a purpose_: but of
course this says nothing concerning truth or untruth (the justification
of such a belief)! The belief in _causæ_ collapses with the belief in
τέλει (against Spinoza and his causationism).


628.

It is an illusion to suppose that something is _known,_ when all
we have is a mathematical formula of what has happened; it is only
_characterised, described;_ no more!


629.

If I bring a regularly recurring phenomenon into a formula, I have
facilitated and shortened my task of characterising the whole
phenomenon, etc. But I have not thereby ascertained a "law," I have
only replied to the question: How is it that something recurs here? It
is a supposition that the formula corresponds to a complex of really
unknown forces and the discharge of forces; it is pure mythology to
suppose that forces here obey a law, so that, as the result of their
obedience, we have the same phenomenon every time.


630.

I take good care not to speak of chemical "_laws_": to do so savours of
morality. It is much more a question of establishing certain relations
of power: the stronger becomes master of the weaker, in so far as the
latter cannot maintain its degree of independence,--here there is no
pity, no quarter, and, still less, any observance of "law."


631.

The unalterable sequence of certain phenomena does not prove any "law,"
but a relation of power between two or more forces. To say, "But it
is precisely this relation that remains the same!" is no better than
saying, "One and the same force cannot be another force."--It is not a
matter of _sequence,_ but a matter of _interdependence,_ a process in
which the procession of moments do _not_ determine each other after the
manner of cause and effect....

The separation of the "action" from the "agent"; of the phenomenon from
the _worker_ of that phenomenon: of the process from one that is not
process, but lasting, _substance,_ thing, body, soul, etc.; the attempt
to understand a life as a sort of shifting of things and a changing of
places; of a sort of "being" or stable entity: this ancient mythology
established the belief in "cause and effect," once it had found a
lasting form in the functions of speech and grammar.


632.

The "regularity" of a sequence is only a metaphorical expression, not
a fact, just _as if_ a rule were followed here! And the same holds
good of "conformity to law." We find a formula in order to express an
ever-recurring kind of succession of phenomena: but that does not show
that we have _discovered a law_; much less a force which is the cause
of a recurrence of effects. The fact that something always happens
thus or thus, is interpreted here as if a creature always acted thus
or thus as the result of obedience to a law or to a lawgiver: whereas
apart from the "law" it would be free to act differently. But precisely
that inability to act otherwise might originate in the creature itself,
it might be that it did not act thus or thus in response to a law,
but simply because it was so constituted. It would mean simply: that
something cannot also be something else; that it cannot be first this,
and then something quite different; that it is neither free nor the
reverse, but merely thus or thus. _The fault lies in thinking a subject
into things._


633.

To speak of two consecutive states, the first as "cause," and the
second as "effect," is false. The first state cannot bring about
anything, the second has nothing effected in it.

It is a question of a struggle between two elements unequal in power:
a new adjustment is arrived at, according to the measure of power each
possesses. The second state is something fundamentally different from
the first (it is not its effect): the essential thing Is, that the
factors which engage in the struggle leave it with different quanta of
power.


634.

_A. criticism of Materialism._--Let us dismiss the two popular
concepts, Necessity and Law, from this idea: the first introduces a
false constraint, the second a false liberty into the world. "Things"
do not act regularly, they follow no _rule:_ there are no things (that
is our fiction); neither do they act in accordance with any necessity.
There is no obedience here: for, the fact that _something is_ as it is,
strong or weak, is not the result of obedience or of a rule or of a
constraint....

The degree of resistance and the degree of superior power--this is the
question around which all phenomena turn: if we, for our own purposes
and calculations, know how to express this in formulas and "laws," all
the better for us! But that does not mean that we have introduced any
"morality" into the world, just because we have fancied it as obedient.

There are no laws: every power draws its last consequence at every
moment. Things are calculable precisely owing to the fact that there is
no possibility of their being otherwise than they are.

A quantum of power is characterised by the effect it produces
and the influence it resists. The adiaphoric state which would be
thinkable in itself, is entirely lacking. It is essentially a will to
violence and a will to defend one's self against violence. It is not
self-preservation: every atom exercises its influence over the whole of
existence--it is thought out of existence if one thinks this radiation
of will-power away. That is why I call it a quantum of "_Will to
Power_"; with this formula one can express the character which cannot
be abstracted in thought from mechanical order, without suppressing the
latter itself in thought.

The translation of the world of effect into a _visible_ world--a world
for the eye--is the concept "movement." Here it is always understood
that _something_ has been moved,--whether it be the fiction of an
atomic globule or even of the abstraction of the latter, the dynamic
atom, something is always imagined that has an effect--that is to say,
we have not yet rid ourselves of the habit into which our senses and
speech inveigled us. Subject and object, an agent to the action, the
action and that which does it separated: we must not forget that all
this signifies no more than semeiotics and--nothing real. Mechanics as
a teaching of _movement_ is already a translation of phenomena into
man's language of the senses.


635.

We are in need of "unities" in order to be able to reckon: but this is
no reason for supposing that "unities" actually _exist._ We borrowed
the concept "unity" from our concept "ego,"--our very oldest article
of faith. If we did not believe ourselves to be unities we should never
have formed the concept "thing." Now--that is to say, somewhat late in
the day, we are overwhelmingly convinced that our conception of the
concept "ego" is no security whatever for a real entity. In order to
maintain the mechanical interpretation of the world theoretically, we
must always make the reserve that it is with fictions that we do so:
the concept of _movement_ (derived from the language of our senses)
and the concept of the _atom_ (= entity, derived from our psychical
experience) are based upon a _sense-prejudice_ and a _psychological
prejudice._

Mechanics formulates consecutive phenomena, and it does so
semeiologically, in the terms of the senses and of the mind (that all
influence is _movement_; that where there is movement something is at
work moving): it does not touch the question of the causal force.

The _mechanical_ world is imagined as the eye and the sense of touch
alone could imagine a world (as "moved"),--in such a way as to be
calculable,--as to simulate causal entities "things" (atoms) whose
effect is constant (the transfer of the false concept of subject to the
concept atom).

The mixing together of the concept of numbers, of the concept of thing
(the idea of subject), of the concept of activity (the separation of
that which is the cause, and the effect), of the concept of movement:
all these things are phenomenal; our eye and our _psychology_ are still
in it all.

If we eliminate these adjuncts, nothing remains over but dynamic
quanta, in a relation of tension to all other dynamic quanta: the
essence of which resides in their relation to all other quanta, in
their "influence" upon the latter. The will to power, not Being, not
Becoming, but a _pathos_--is the elementary fact, from these first
results a Becoming, an influencing....


636.

The physicists believe in a "true world" after their own kind; a
fixed _systematising of atoms_ to perform necessary movements, and
holding good equally of all creatures, so that, according to them,
the "world of appearance" reduces itself to the side of general and
generally-needed Being, which is accessible to every one according to
his kind (accessible and also adjusted,--made "subjective"). But here
they are in error. The atom which they postulate is arrived at by the
logic of that perspective of consciousness; it is in itself therefore
a subjective fiction. This picture of the world which they project
is in no way essentially different from the subjective picture: the
only difference is, that it is composed simply with more extended
senses, but certainly with _our_ senses.... And in the end, without
knowing it, they left something out of the constellation: precisely
the necessary _perspective factor,_ by means of which every centre of
power--and not man alone--constructs the rest of the world _from its
point of view_--that is to say, measures it, feels it, and moulds it
according to its degree of strength.... They forgot to reckon with
this perspective-fixing power, in "true being,"--or, in school-terms,
subject-being. They suppose that this was "evolved" and added;--but
even the chemical investigator needs it: it is indeed _specific Being,_
which determines action and reaction according to circumstances.

_Perspectivity is only a complex form, of specificness._ My idea is
that every specific body strives to become master of all space, and to
extend its power (its will to power), and to thrust back everything
that resists it. But inasmuch as it is continually meeting the same
endeavours on the part of other bodies, it concludes by coming to terms
with those (by "combining" with those) which are sufficiently related
to it--_and thus they conspire together for power._ And the process
continues.


637.

Even in the inorganic world all that concerns an atom of energy is its
immediate neighbourhood: distant forces balance each other. Here is
the root of _perspectivity,_ and it explains why a living organism is
"egoistic" to the core.


638.

Granting that the world disposed of a quantum of force, it is obvious
that any transposition of force to any place would affect the whole
system--thus, besides the causality of _sequence,_ there would also be
a dependence, _contiguity,_ and _coincidence._


639.

The only possible way of upholding the sense of the concept "God" would
be: to make _Him not_ the motive force, but the condition of _maximum
power,_ an _epoch;_ a point in the further development of the _Will to
Power;_ by means of which subsequent evolution just as much as former
evolution--up to Him--could be explained.

Viewed mechanically, the energy of collective Becoming remains
constant; regarded from the economical standpoint, it ascends
to its zenith and then recedes therefrom in order to remain
eternally rotatory. This "_Will to Power_" expresses itself in the
_interpretation in the manner in which the strength is used._--The
conversion of energy into life; "life in its highest power"
thenceforward appears as the goal. The same amount of energy, at
different stages of development, means different things.

That which determines growth in Life is the economy which becomes ever
more sparing and methodical, which achieves ever more and more with a
steadily decreasing amount of energy.... The ideal is the principle of
the least possible expense....

The only thing _that is proved_ is that the world is _not_ striving
towards a state of stability. Consequently its zenith must not be
conceived as a state of absolute equilibrium....

The dire necessity of the same things happening in the course of the
world, as in all other things, is not an eternal determinism reigning
over all phenomena, but merely the expression of the fact that the
impossible is not possible; that a given force cannot be different
from that given force; that a given quantity of resisting force does
not manifest itself otherwise than in conformity with its degree of
strength;--to speak of events as being necessary is tautological.



2. The Will to Power as Life.


_(a) The Organic Process._


640.

Man imagines that he was present at the generation of the organic
world: what was there to be observed, with the eyes and the touch,
in regard to these processes? How much of it can be put into round
numbers? What rules are noticeable in the movements? Thus, man would
fain arrange all phenomena as if they were _for the eye and for the
touch,_ as if they were forms of motion: he will discover _formules_
wherewith to _simplify_ the unwieldy mass of these experiences.

_The reduction of all phenomena_ to the level of men with senses and
with mathematics. It is a matter of making _an inventory of human
experiences:_ granting that man, or rather the _human eye and the
ability to form concepts,_ have been the eternal witnesses of all
things.


641.

A plurality of forces bound by a common nutritive process we call
"Life." To this nutritive process all so-called feeling, thinking,
and imagining belong as means--that is to say, (1) in the form of
opposing other forces; (2) in the form of an adjustment of other forces
according to mould and rhythm; (3) the form of a valuation relative to
assimilation and excretion.


642.

The bond between the inorganic and the organic world must lie in the
repelling power exercised by every atom of energy. "Life" might be
defined as a lasting form of _force-establishing processes,_ in which
the various contending forces, on their part, grow unequally. To what
extent does counter-strife exist even in obedience? Individual power is
by no means surrendered through it. In the same way, there exists in
the act of commanding, an acknowledgment of the fact that the absolute
power of the adversary has not been overcome, absorbed, or dissipated.
"Obedience," and "command," are forms of the game of war.


643.

The Will to Power _interprets_ (an organ in the process of formation
has to be interpreted): it defines, it determines gradations,
differences of power. Mere differences of power could not be aware of
each other as such: something must be there which _will_ grow, and
which interprets all other things that would do the same, according to
the value of the latter. In sooth, all interpretation is but a means
in itself to become master of something. (Continual _interpretation_ is
the first principle of the organic process.)


644.

Greater complexity, sharp differentiation, the contiguity of the
developed organs and functions, with the disappearance of intermediate
members--if _that_ is _perfection,_ then there is a Will to Power
apparent in the organic process by means of whose _dominating,
shaping,_ and _commanding_ forces it is continually increasing the
sphere of its power, and persistently simplifying things within that
sphere, it _grows_ imperatively.

"Spirit" is only a means and an instrument in the service of higher
life, in the service of the elevation of life.


645.

"_Heredity,_" as something quite incomprehensible, cannot be used
as an explanation, but only as a designation for the identification
of a problem. And the same holds good of "_adaptability._" As a
matter of fact, the account of morphology, even supposing it were
perfect, _explains_ nothing, it merely describes an enormous fact.
_How_ a given organ gets to be used for any particular purpose is not
explained. There is just as little explained in regard to these things
by the assumption of _causæ finales_ as by the assumption of _causæ
efficientes._ The concept "causa" is only a means of expression, no
_more_; a means of designating a thing.


646.

They are analogies; for instance, our _memory_ may suggest another kind
of memory which makes itself felt in heredity, development, and forms.
Our _inventive_ and experimentative powers suggest another kind of
inventiveness in the application of instruments to new ends, etc.

That which we call our "_consciousness_" is quite guiltless of any
of the essential processes of our preservation and growth; and no
human brain could be so subtle as to construct anything more than a
machine--to which every organic process is infinitely superior.


647.

_Against Darwinism._--The use of an organ does _not_ explain its
origin, on the contrary! During the greater part of the time occupied
in the formation of a certain quality, this quality does not help to
preserve the individual; it is of no use to him, and particularly not
in his struggle with external circumstances and foes.

What is ultimately "useful"? It is necessary to ask, "Useful for what"?

For instance, that which promotes the _lasting powers_ of the
individual might be unfavourable to his strength or his beauty; that
which preserves him might at the same time fix him and keep him stable
throughout development. On the other hand, a _deficiency,_ a state of
_degeneration,_ may be of the greatest possible use, inasmuch as it
acts as a stimulus to other organs. In the same way, a _state of need_
may be a condition of existence, inasmuch as it reduces an individual
to that modicum of means which, though it _keeps him together,_ does
not allow him to squander his strength.--The individual himself is
the struggle of parts (for nourishment, space, etc.): his development
involves the _triumph,_ the _predominance,_ of isolated parts; the
_wasting away,_ or the "development into organs," of other parts.

The influence of "environment" is nonsensically _overrated_ in Darwin,
the essential factor in the process of life is precisely the tremendous
inner power to shape and to create forms, which merely _uses, exploits_
"environment."

The new forms built up by this inner power are not produced with a view
to any end; but, in the struggle between the parts, a new form does not
exist long _without_ becoming related to some kind of semi-utility,
and, according to its use, develops itself ever more and more perfectly.


648.

"Utility" in respect of the acceleration of the speed of evolution, is
a different kind of "utility" from that which is understood to mean the
greatest possible stability and staying power of the evolved creature.


649.

"Useful" in the sense of Darwinian biology means: that which favours a
thing in its struggle with others. But in my opinion the _feeling of
being surcharged,_ the feeling accompanying an _increase in strength,_
quite apart from the utility of the struggle, is the actual _progress_:
from these feelings the will to war is first derived.


650.

Physiologists should bethink themselves before putting down the
instinct of self-preservation as the cardinal instinct of an organic
being. A living thing seeks above all to _discharge_ its strength:
"_self-preservation" _ is only one of the results thereof.--Let us
beware of _superfluous_ teleological principles!--one of which is the
whole concept of "self-preservation."[4]

[Footnote 4: See _Beyond Good and Evil,_ in this edition, Aph. 13.]


651.

The most-fundamental--and most primeval activity of a protoplasm cannot
be ascribed to a will to self-preservation, for it absorbs an amount
of material which is absurdly out of proportion with the needs of its
preservation: and what is more, it does _not_ "preserve itself" in the
process, but actually falls to _pieces...._ The instinct which rules
here, must account for this total absence in the organism of a desire
to preserve itself: hunger is already an interpretation based upon the
observation of a more or less complex organism (hunger is a specialised
and later form of the instinct; it is an expression of the system of
divided labour, in the service of a higher instinct which rules the
whole).


652.

It is just as impossible to regard _hunger_ as the _primum mobile,_ as
it is to take self-preservation to be so. Hunger, considered as the
result of insufficient nourishment, means hunger as the result of a
will to power _which can no longer dominate_ It is not a question of
replacing a loss, it is only later on, as the result of the division of
labour, when the Will to Power has discovered other and quite different
ways of gratifying itself, that the appropriating lust of the organism
is _reduced_ to hunger--to the need of replacing what has been lost.


653.

We can but laugh at the false "_Altruism_" of biologists: propagation
among the amœbæ appears as a process of jetsam, as an advantage to
them. It is an excretion of useless matter.


654.

The division of a protoplasm into two takes place when its power is
no longer sufficient to subjugate the matter it has appropriated:
procreation is the result of impotence.

In the cases in which the males seek the females and become one with
them, procreation is the result of hunger.


655.

The weaker vessel is driven to the stronger from a need of nourishment;
it desires to get under it, if possible to become _one_ with it. The
stronger, on the contrary, defends itself from others; it refuses to
perish in this way; it prefers rather to split itself into two or more
parts in the process of growing. One may conclude that the greater the
urgency seems to become one with something else, the more weakness in
some form is present. The greater the tendency to variety, difference,
inner decay, the more strength is actually to hand.

The instinct to cleave to something, and the instinct to repel
something, are in the inorganic as in the organic world, the uniting
bond. The whole distinction is a piece of hasty judgment.

The will to power in every combination of forces, _defending itself
against the stronger and coming down unmercifully upon the weaker, is
more correct._

N. B. _All processes may be regarded as "beings"._


656.

The will to power can manifest itself only against _obstacles;_ it
therefore goes in search of what resists it--this is the primitive
tendency of the protoplasm when it extends its _pseudopodia_ and feels
about it. The act of appropriation and assimilation is, above all, the
result of a desire to overpower, a process of forming, of additional
building and rebuilding, until at last the subjected creature has
become completely a part of the superior creature's sphere of power,
and has increased the latter.--If this process of incorporation
does not succeed, then the whole organism falls to pieces; and the
_separation_ occurs as the result of the will to power: in order to
prevent the escape of that which has been subjected, the will to power
falls into two wills (under some circumstances without even abandoning
completely its relation to the two).

"Hunger" is only a more narrow adaptation, once the fundamental
instinct of power has won power of a more abstract kind.


657.

What is "passive"?

    To be hindered in the outward movement of grasping: it is
    thus an act of resistance and reaction.

What is "active"?

    To stretch out for power.

"Nutrition"...

    Is only a derived phenomenon; the primitive form of it was
    the will to stuff everything inside one's own skin.

"Procreation"...

    Only derived; originally, in those cases In which one
    will was unable to organise the collective mass it had
    appropriated, an _opposing will_ came into power, which
    undertook to effect the separation and establish a new
    centre of organisation, after a struggle with the original
    will.

"Pleasure"...

    Is a feeling of power (presupposing the existence of pain).


658.

(1) The organic functions shown to be but forms of the fundamental
will, the will to power,--and buds thereof.

(2) The will to power specialises itself as will to nutrition, to
property, to _tools,_ to servants (obedience), and to rulers: the body
as an example.--The stronger will directs the weaker. There is no other
form of causality than that of will to will. It is not to be explained
mechanically.

(3) Thinking, feeling, willing, in all living organisms. What is a
desire if it be not: a provocation of the feeling of power by an
obstacle (or, better still, by rhythmical obstacles and resisting
forces)--so that it surges through it? Thus in all pleasure pain is
understood.--If the pleasure is to be very great, the pains preceding
it must have been very long, and the whole bow of life must have been
strained to the utmost.

(4) Intellectual functions. The will to shaping, forming, and making
like, etc.


_(b) Man._


659.

_With the body as clue._--Granting that the "_soul_" was only an
attractive and mysterious thought, from which philosophers rightly,
but reluctantly, separated themselves--that which they have since
learnt to put in its place is perhaps even more attractive and even
more mysterious. The human _body,_ in which the whole of the most
distant and most recent past of all organic life once more becomes
living and corporal, seems to flow through, this past and right over
it like a huge and inaudible torrent; the body is a more wonderful
thought than the old "soul." In all ages the body, as our actual
property, as our most certain being, in short, as our ego, has been
more earnestly believed in than the spirit (or the "soul," or the
subject, as the school jargon now calls it). It has never occurred to
any one to regard his stomach as a strange or a divine stomach; but
that there is a tendency and a predilection in man to regard all his
thoughts as "inspired," all his values as "imparted to him by a God,"
all his instincts as dawning activities--this is proved by the evidence
of every age in man's history. Even now, especially among artists,
there may very often be noticed a sort of wonder, and a deferential
hesitation to decide, when the question occurs to them, by what means
they achieved their happiest work, and from which world the creative
thought came down to them: when they question in this way, they are
possessed by a feeling of guilelessness and childish shyness. They dare
not say: "That came from me; it was my hand which threw that die."
Conversely, even those philosophers and theologians, who in their logic
and piety found the most imperative reasons for regarding their body as
a deception (and even as a deception overcome and disposed of), could
not help recognising the foolish fact that the body still remained: and
the most unexpected proofs of this are to be found partly in Pauline
and partly in Vedantic philosophy. But what does _strength of faith_
ultimately mean? Nothing!--A strong faith might also be a foolish
faith!--There is food for reflection.

And supposing the faith in the body were ultimately but the result
of a conclusion; supposing it were a false conclusion, as idealists
declare it is, would it not then involve some doubt concerning the
trustworthiness of the spirit itself which thus causes us to draw wrong
conclusions?

Supposing the plurality of things, and space, and time, and motion
(and whatever the other first principles of a belief in the body may
be) were errors--what suspicions would not then be roused against the
spirit which led us to form such first principles? Let it suffice that
the belief in the body is, at any rate for the present, a much stronger
belief than the belief in the spirit, and he who would fain undermine
it assails the authority of the spirit most thoroughly in so doing!


660.

_The Body as an Empire._

The aristocracy in the body, the majority of the rulers (the fight
between the cells and the tissues).

Slavery and the division of labour: the higher type alone possible
through the _subjection_ of the lower to a function.

Pleasure and pain, not contraries. The feeling of power.

"Nutrition" only a result of the insatiable lust of appropriation in
the Will to Power.

"Procreation": this is the decay which supervenes when the ruling cells
are too weak to organise appropriated material.

It is the _moulding_ force which will have a continual supply of new
material (more "force"). The masterly construction of an organism out
of an egg.

"The mechanical interpretation": recognises only quantities: but the
real energy is in the quality. Mechanics can therefore only describe
processes; it cannot explain them.

"Purpose." We should start out from the "sagacity" of plants.

The concept of "meliorism": _not_ only greater complexity, but greater
_power_ (it need not be only greater masses).

Conclusion concerning the evolution of man: the road to perfection lies
in the bringing forth of the most powerful individuals, for whose use
the great masses would be converted into mere tools (that is to say,
into the most intelligent and flexible tools possible).


661.

Why is all _activity,_ even that of a _sense,_ associated with
pleasure? Because, before the activity was possible, an obstacle or
a burden was done away with. Or, rather, because all action is a
process of overcoming, of becoming master of, and of _increasing_ the
_feeling of power_? The pleasure of thought. Ultimately it is not
only the feeling of power, but also the pleasure of creating and of
contemplating the _creation:_ for all activity enters our consciousness
in the form of "works."


662.

Creating is an act of selecting and of finishing the thing selected.
(In every act of the will, this is the essential element.)


663.

All phenomena which are the result of intentions may be reduced to _the
intention of increasing power._


664.

When we do anything, we are conscious of a _feeling of strength;_
we often have this sensation before the act--that is to say, while
imagining the thing to do (as, for instance, at the sight of an enemy,
of an obstacle, which we feel _equal to_): it is always an accompanying
sensation. Instinctively we think that this feeling of strength is
the cause of the action, that it is the "motive force." Our belief in
causation is the belief in force and its effect; it is a transcript
of our experience: in which we identify force and the feeling of
force.--Force, however, never moves things; the strength which is
conscious "does not set the muscles moving." "Of such a process we have
no experience, no idea." "We experience as little concerning force as
a motive power, as concerning the _necessity_ of a movement." Force is
said to be the constraining element! "All we know is that one thing
follows another;--we know nothing of either compulsion or arbitrariness
in regard to the one following the other. Causality is first invented
by thinking compulsion into the sequence of processes. A certain
"understanding" of the thing is the result--that is to say, we humanise
the process a little, we make it more "familiar"; the familiar is the
known habitual fact of _human compulsion associated with the feeling of
force._


665.

I have the intention of extending my arm; taking it for granted that
I know as little of the physiology of the human body and of the
mechanical laws of its movements as the man in the street, what could
there be more vague, more bloodless, more uncertain than this intention
compared with what follows it? And supposing I were the astutest
of mechanics, and especially conversant with the formulæ which are
applicable in this case, I should not be able to extend my arm one
whit the better. Our "knowledge" and our "action" in this case lie
coldly apart: as though in two different regions.--Again: Napoleon
carries out a plan of campaign--what does that mean? In this case,
everything concerning the consummation of the campaign is _known,_
because everything must be done through words of command: but even here
subordinates are taken for granted, who apply and adapt the general
plan to the particular emergency, to the degree of strength, etc.


666.

For ages we have always ascribed the value of an action, of a
character, of an existence, to the _intention,_ to the _purpose_ for
which it was done, acted, or lived: this primeval idiosyncrasy of taste
ultimately takes a dangerous turn provided the lack of intention and
purpose in all phenomena comes ever more to the front in consciousness.
With it a general depreciation of all values seems to be preparing:
"All is without sense."--This melancholy phrase means: "All sense
lies in the intention, and if the intention is absolutely lacking,
then sense must be lacking too." In conformity with this valuation,
people were forced to place the value of life in a a life after death,
or in the progressive development of ideas, or of mankind, or of the
people, or of man to superman; but in this way the _progressus in
infinitum_ of purpose had been reached: it was ultimately necessary to
find one's self a place in the process of the world (perhaps with the
disdæmonistic outlook, it was a process which led to nonentity).

In regard to this point, "_purpose_" needs a somewhat more severe
criticism: it ought to be recognised that an action _is never
caused by a purpose;_ that an object and the means thereto are
interpretations, by means of which certain points in a phenomena
are selected and accentuated, at the cost of other, more numerous,
points, that every time something is done for a purpose, something
fundamentally different, and yet other things happen; that in regard
to the action done with a purpose, the case is the same as with the
so-called purposefulness of the heat which is radiated from the sun:
the greater part of the total sum is squandered; a portion of it, which
is scarcely worth reckoning, has a "purpose," has "sense"; that an
"end" with its "means" is an absurdly indefinite description, which
indeed may be able to command as a precept, as "will," but presupposes
a system of obedient and trained instruments, which, in the place of
the indefinite, puts forward a host of determined entities _(i.e._ we
imagine a system of _clever_ but narrow intellects who postulate end
and means, in order to be able to grant our only known "end," the rôle
of the "cause of an action,"--a proceeding to which we have no right:
it is tantamount to solving a problem by placing its solution in an
inaccessible world which we cannot observe).

Finally, why could not an "end" be merely an _accompanying feature_
in the series of changes among the active forces which bring about
the action--a pale stenographic symbol stretched in consciousness
beforehand, and which serves as a guide to what happens, even as
a symbol of what happens, _not_ as its cause?--But in this way we
criticise _will_ itself: is it not an illusion to regard that which
enters consciousness as will-power, as a cause? Are not all conscious
phenomena only final phenomena--the lost links in a chain, but
apparently conditioning one another in their sequence within the plane
of consciousness? This might be an illusion.


667.

Science does _not_ inquire what impels us to will: on the contrary, it
_denies_ that _willing_ takes place at all, and supposes that something
quite different has happened--in short, that the belief in "will" and
"end" is an illusion. It does not inquire into the _motives_ of an
action, as if these had been present in consciousness previous to the
action, but it first divides the action up into a group of phenomena,
and then seeks the previous history of this mechanical movement--but
_not_ in the terms of feeling, perception, and thought; from this
quarter it can never accept the explanation: perception is precisely
the matter of science, _which has to be explained._--The problem of
science is precisely to explain the world, _without_ taking perceptions
as the cause: for that would mean regarding _perceptions_ themselves
as the _cause_ of perceptions. The task of science is by no means
accomplished.

Thus: either there is _no_ such thing as will,--the hypothesis of
science,--or the will is _free_. The latter assumption represents the
prevailing feeling, of which we cannot rid ourselves, even if the
hypothesis of science were _proved._

The popular belief in cause and effect is founded on the principle that
free will _is the cause of every effect:_ thereby alone do we arrive
at the feeling of causation. And thereto belongs also the feeling that
every cause is _not_ an effect, but always only a cause--if will is
the cause. "Our acts of will are _not necessary_"--this lies in the
very _concept of "will."_ The effect necessarily comes _after_ the
cause--that is what we feel. It is merely a _hypothesis_ that even our
willing is compulsory in every case.


668.

"To will" is not "to desire," to strive, to aspire to; it distinguishes
itself from that through the _passion of commanding._

There is no such thing as "willing," but only the willing of
_something:_ the _aim_ must not be severed from the state--as the
epistemologists sever it. "Willing," as they understand it, is no more
possible than "thinking": it is a pure invention.

It is essential to willing that something should be _commanded_ (but
that does not mean that the will is carried into effect).

The general _state of tension,_ by virtue of which a force seeks to
discharge itself, is not "willing."


669.

"Pain" and "pleasure" are the most absurd _means of expressing_
judgments, which of course does not mean that the judgments which are
enunciated in this way must necessarily be absurd. The elimination
of all substantiation and logic, a yes or no in the reduction to a
passionate desire to have or to reject, an imperative abbreviation, the
utility of which is irrefutable: that is pain and pleasure. Its origin
is in the central sphere of the intellect; its prerequisite is an
infinitely accelerated process of perceiving, ordering, co-ordinating,
calculating, concluding: pleasure and pain are always final phenomena,
they are never causes.

As to deciding what provokes pain and pleasure, that is a question
which depends upon the _degree of power:_ the same thing, when
confronted with a small quantity of power, may seem a danger and may
suggest the need of speedy defence, and when confronted with the
consciousness of greater power, may be a voluptuous stimulus and may be
followed by a feeling of pleasure.

All feelings of pleasure and pain presuppose a _measuring of collective
utility_ and _collective harmfulness_: consequently a sphere where
there is the willing of an object (of a condition) and the selection of
the means thereto. Pleasure and pain are never "original facts."

The feelings of pleasure and pain are _reactions of the will_
(emotions) in which the intellectual centre fixes the value of certain
supervening changes as a collective value, and also as an introduction
of contrary actions.


670.

_The belief in "emotions"_--Emotions are a fabrication of the
intellect, an invention of _causes_ which do not exist. All general
_bodily sensations_ which we do not understand are interpreted
intellectually--that is to say, a _reason_ is sought why we feel
thus or thus among certain people or in certain experiences. Thus
something disadvantageous dangerous, and strange is taken for granted,
as if it were the cause of our being indisposed; as a matter of fact,
it gets _added to_ the indisposition, so as to make our condition
thinkable.--Mighty rushes of blood to the brain, accompanied by
a feeling of suffocation, are _interpreted_ as anger: the people
and things which provoke our anger are a means of relieving our
physiological condition. Subsequently, after long habituation, certain
processes and general feelings are so regularly correlated that the
sight of certain processes provokes that condition of general feeling,
and induces vascular engorgements, the ejection of seminal fluid, etc.:
we then say that the "emotion is provoked by propinquity."

_Judgments_ already inhere in pleasure and pain: stimuli become
differentiated, according as to whether they increase or reduce the
feeling of power.

_The belief in willing._ To believe that a thought may be the cause
of a mechanical movement is to believe in miracles. The _consistency
of science_ demands that once we have made the world _thinkable_ for
ourselves by means of pictures, we should also make the emotions, the
desires, the will, etc., _thinkable_--that is to say, we should _deny_
them and treat them as _errors of the intellect._


671.

Free will or no free will?--There is _no such thing_ as "_Will_": that
is only a simplified conception on the part of the understanding, like
"matter."

_All actions must first be prepared and made possible mechanically
before they can be willed._ Or, _in most cases_ the "_object_" of an
action enters the brain only after everything is prepared for its
accomplishment. The object is an inner "stimulus"--nothing _more._


672.

The most proximate prelude to an action relates to that action: but
_further back still_ there lies a preparatory history which covers _a
far wider field:_ the individual action is only a factor in a much more
extensive and _subsequent_ fact. The shorter and the longer processes
are not reported.


673.

The theory of _chance:_ the soul is a selecting and self-nourishing
being, which is persistently extremely clever and creative (this
_creative_ power is commonly overlocked! it is taken to be merely
passive).

I recognised the _active_ and creative _power_ within the
accidental.--Accident is in itself nothing more than _the clashing of
creative impulses._


674.

Among the enormous multiplicity of phenomena to be observed in an
organic being, that part which becomes _conscious_ is a mere means:
and the particle of "virtue," "self abnegation," and other fanciful
inventions, are denied in a most thoroughgoing manner by the whole of
the remaining phenomena. We would do well to study our organism in all
its immorality....

The animal functions are, as a matter of fact, a million times more
important than all beautiful states of the soul and heights of
consciousness: the latter are an overflow, in so far as they are not
needed as instruments in the service of the animal functions. The whole
of _conscious_ life: the spirit together with the soul, the heart,
goodness, and virtue; in whose service does it work? In the greatest
possible perfection of the means (for acquiring nourishment and
advancement) serving the fundamental animal functions: above all, the
_ascent of the line of Life._

That which is called "flesh" and "body" is of such incalculably greater
importance, that the rest is nothing more than a small appurtenance.
To continue the chain of life _so that it becomes ever more
powerful_--that is the task.

But now observe how the heart, the soul, virtue, and spirit together
conspire formally to thwart this purpose: as _if they_ were the object
of every endeavour! ... The _degeneration of life_ is essentially
determined by the extraordinary _fallibility of consciousness,_ which
is held at bay least of all by the instincts, and thus commits the
gravest and profoundest _errors._

Now could any more insane extravagance of vanity be imagined than
to measure the _value_ of existence according to the _pleasant or
unpleasant feelings of this consciousness_? It is obviously only a
means: and pleasant or unpleasant feelings are also no more than means.

According to what standard is the objective value measured? According
to the quantity of _increased_ and _more organised power_ alone.


675.

The value of all _valuing._--My desire would be to see the agent once
more identified with the action, after action has been deprived of all
meaning by having been separated in thought from the agent; I should
like to see the notion of doing _something,_ the idea of a "purpose,"
of an "intention," of an object, reintroduced into the action, after
action has been made insignificant by having been artificially
separated from these things.

All "objects," "purposes," "meanings," are only manners of expression
and metamorphoses of the one will inherent in all phenomena; of the
will to power. To have an object, a purpose, or an intention, in
fact _to will_ generally, is equivalent to the desire for _greater
strength,_ for fuller growth, and for the _means_ thereto _in addition._

The most general and fundamental instinct in all action and willing
is precisely on that account the one which is least known and is most
concealed; for in practice we always follow its bidding, for the simple
reason that we _are_ in ourselves its bidding....

All valuations are only the results of, and the narrow points of view
in _servings this_ one will: valuing _in itself_ is nothing save this,
_--will to power._

To criticise existence from the standpoint of any one of these
values is utter nonsense and error. Even supposing that a process of
annihilation follows from such a value, even so this process is in the
service of this will.

The _valuation of existence itself!_ But existence is this valuing
itself!--and even when we say "no," we still do what we _are._

We ought now to perceive the _absurdity_ of this pretence at judging
existence; and we ought to try and discover _what_ actually takes place
there. It is symptomatic.


676.

_Concerning the Origin of our Valuations._

We are able to analyse our body, and by doing so we get the same
idea of it as of the stellar system, and the differences between
organic and inorganic lapses. Formerly the movements of the stars were
explained as the effects of beings consciously pursuing a purpose:
this is no longer required, and even in regard to the movements of
the body and its changes, the belief has long since been abandoned
that they can be explained by an appeal to a consciousness which has
a determined purpose. By far the greater number of movements have
nothing to do with consciousness at all: _neither have they anything
to do with sensation._ Sensations and thoughts are extremely _rare_
and _insignificant_ things compared with the innumerable phenomena
occurring every second.

On the other hand, we believe that a certain conformity of means
to ends rules over the very smallest phenomenon, which it is quite
beyond our deepest science to understand; a sort of cautiousness,
selectiveness, co-ordination, and repairing process, etc. In short, we
are in the presence of an _activity_ to which it would be necessary
to ascribe an _incalculably higher and more extensive intellect_ than
the one we are acquainted with. We learn to _think less of_ all that
is conscious: we unlearn the habit of making ourselves responsible for
ourselves, because, as conscious beings fixing purposes, we are but the
smallest part of ourselves.

Of the numerous influences taking effect every second, for instance,
air, electricity, we feel scarcely anything at all. There might be a
number of forces, which, though they never make themselves felt by
us, yet influence us continually. Pleasure and pain are very rare and
scanty phenomena, compared with the countless stimuli with which a cell
or an organ operates upon another cell or organ.

It is the phase of the _modesty of consciousness._ Finally, we can
grasp the conscious ego itself, merely as an instrument in the
service of that higher and more extensive intellect: and then we may
ask whether all conscious _willing,_ all conscious _purposes,_ all
_valuations,_ are not perhaps only means by virtue of which something
essentially _different is attained,_ from that which consciousness
supposes. We _mean_: it is a question of our _pleasure_ and _pain_ but
pleasure and pain might be the means whereby we _had something to do_
which lies outside our consciousness.

This is to show how very _superficial_ all conscious phenomena
really are; how an action and the image of it differ; how _little_
we know about what _precedes_ an action; how fantastic our feelings,
"freewill," and "cause and effect" are; how thoughts and images, just
like words, are only signs of thoughts; the impossibility of finding
the grounds of any action; the superficiality of all praise and blame;
how _essentially our_ conscious life is composed of _fancies_ and
_illusion_; how all our words merely stand for fancies (our emotions
too), and how the _union of mankind_ depends upon the transmission
and continuation of these fancies: whereas, at bottom, the real union
of mankind by means of procreation pursues its unknown way. Does this
belief in the common fancies of men really _alter_ mankind? Or is the
whole body of ideas and valuations only an expression in itself of
unknown changes? _Are there_ really such things as will, purposes,
thoughts, values? Is the whole of conscious life perhaps no more than
_mirage_? Even when values seem to _determine_ the actions of a man,
they are, as a matter of fact, doing something quite different! In
short, granting that a certain conformity of means to end might be
demonstrated in the action of nature, without the assumption of a
ruling ego: could not _our_ notion of purposes, and our will, etc., be
only a _symbolic language_ standing for something quite different--that
is to say, something not-willing and unconscious? only the thinnest
semblance of that natural conformity of means to end in the organic
world, but not in any way different therefrom?

Briefly, perhaps the whole of mental development is a matter of the
_body:_ it is the consciously recorded history of the fact that a
_higher body is forming._ The organic ascends to higher regions.
Our longing to know Nature is a means by virtue of which the body
would reach perfection. Or, better still, hundreds of thousands of
experiments are made to alter the nourishment and the mode of living
of the _body_: the body's consciousness and valuations, its kinds of
pleasure and pain, are _signs of these changes and experiments. In the
end, it is not a question concerning man; for he must be surpassed._


677.

_To what Extent are all Interpretations of the World Symptoms of a
Ruling Instinct._

The _artistic_ contemplation of the world: to sit before the world
and to survey it. But here the analysis of æsthetical contemplation,
its reduction to cruelty, its feeling of security, its judicial and
detached attitude, etc., are lacking. The artist himself must be taken,
together with his psychology (the criticism of the instinct of play, as
a discharge of energy, the love of change, the love of bringing one's
soul in touch with strange things, the absolute egoism of the artist,
etc.). What instincts does he sublimate?

The _scientific_ contemplation of the world: a criticism of the
psychological longing for science, the desire to make everything
comprehensible; the desire to make everything practical, useful,
capable of being exploited--to what extent this is anti-æsthetic.
Only that value counts, which may be reckoned in figures. How it
happens that a mediocre type of man preponderates under the influence
of science. It would be terrible if even history were to be taken
possession of in this way--the realm of the superior, of the judicial.
What instincts are here sublimated!

The religious contemplation of the world: a criticism of the religious
man. It is not necessary to take the moral man as the type, but the man
who has extreme feelings of exaltation and of deep depression, and who
interprets the former with thankfulness or suspicion without, however,
seeking their origin in _himself_ (nor the latter either). The man who
essentially feels anything but free, who sublimates his conditions and
states of submission.

The _moral_ contemplation of the world. The feelings peculiar to
certain social ranks are projected into the universe: stability,
law, the making of things orderly, and the making of things alike,
are _sought_ in the highest spheres, because they are valued most
highly,--above everything or behind everything.

What is _common_ to all: the ruling instincts _wish to be regarded_ as
_the highest values in general,_ even as the _creative_ and _ruling
powers._ It is understood that these instincts either oppose or
overcome each other (join up synthetically, or alternate in power).
Their profound antagonism is, however, so great, that in those cases in
which they _all_ insist upon being gratified, a man of very thorough
_mediocrity_ is the outcome.


678.

It is a question whether the origin of our apparent "knowledge" is not
also a mere offshoot of our _older valuations,_ which are so completely
assimilated that they belong to the very basis of our nature. In this
way only _the more recent_ needs engage in battle _with results of the
oldest needs._

The world is seen, felt, and interpreted thus and thus, in order
that organic life may be preserved with this particular manner of
interpretation. Man is _not_ only an individual, but the continuation
of collective organic life in one definite line. The fact that _man_
survives, proves that a certain species of interpretations (even though
it still be added to) has also survived; that, as a system, this method
of interpreting has not changed. "Adaptation."

Our "dissatisfaction," our "ideal," etc., may possibly be the _result_
of this incorporated piece of interpretation, of our particular point
of view: the organic world may ultimately perish owing to it just as
the division of labour in organisms may be the means of bringing about
the ruin of the whole, if one part happen to wither or weaken. The
_destruction_ of organic life, and even of the highest form thereof,
must follow the same principles as the destruction of the individual.


679.

Judged from the standpoint of the theory of descent, _individuation_
shows the continuous breaking up of one into two, and the equally
continuous annihilation of individuals _for the sake of a few_
individuals, which evolution bears onwards; the greater mass always
perishes ("the body").

The fundamental phenomena: _innumerable individuals are sacrificed for
the sake of a few,_ in order to make the few possible.--One must not
allow one's self to be deceived; the case is the same with _peoples_
and _races_: they produce the "body" for the generation of isolated and
valuable _individuals,_ who continue the great process.


680.

I am opposed to the theory that the individual studies the interests of
the _species,_ or of posterity, at the cost of his own advantage: all
this is only apparent.

The excessive importance which he attaches to the _sexual instinct_
is not the _result_ of the latter's importance to the species, for
procreation is the actual performance of the individual, it is his
greatest interest, and therefore it is his _highest expression of
power_ (not judged from the standpoint of consciousness, but from the
very centre of the individual).


681.

The _fundamental errors_ of the biologists who have lived hitherto: it
is not a matter of the species, but of rearing stronger individuals
(the many are only a means).

Life is _not_ the continuous adjustment of internal relations to
external relations, but will to power, which, proceeding from inside,
subjugates and incorporates an ever-increasing quantity of "external"
phenomena.

These biologists _continue_ the moral valuations ("the absolutely
higher worth of Altruism," the antagonism towards the lust of dominion,
towards war, towards all that which is not useful, and towards all
order of rank and of class).


682.

In natural science, the moral depreciation of the _ego_ still goes hand
in hand with the overestimation of the _species._ But the species is
quite as illusory as the ego: a false distinction has been made. The
ego is a hundred times _more_ than a mere unit in a chain of creatures;
it is the chain _itself,_ in every possible respect, and the species
is merely an abstraction suggested by the multiplicity and partial
similarity of these chains. That the individual is _sacrificed_ to the
species, as people often say he is, is not a fact at all: it is rather
only an example of false interpretation.


683.

The formula of the _"progress"-superstition_ according to a famous
physiologist of the cerebral regions:--

_"L'animal ne fait jamais de progrès comme espèce. L'homme seul fait de
progrès comme espèce._"

No.


684.

_Anti-Darwin._--The _domestication of man:_ what definite value can
it have, or has domestication in itself a definite value?--There are
reasons for denying the latter proposition.

Darwin's school of thought certainly goes to great pains to convince
us of the reverse: it would fain prove that the influence of
domestication may be profound and fundamental. For the time being, we
stand firmly as we did before; up to the present no results save very
superficial modification or degeneration have been shown to follow upon
domestication. And everything that escapes from the hand and discipline
of man, returns almost immediately to its original natural condition.
The type remains constant, man cannot "_dénaturer la nature_."

Biologists reckon upon the struggle for existence, the death of the
weaker creature and the survival of the most robust, most gifted
combatant; on that account they imagine a _continuous increase in the
perfection of all creatures._ We, on the contrary, have convinced
ourselves of the fact, that in the struggle for existence, accident
serves the cause of the weak quite as much as that of the strong;
that craftiness often supplements strength with advantage; that the
_prolificness_ of a species is related in a remarkable manner to that
species _chances of destruction_....

_Natural Selection_ is also credited with the power of slowly
effecting unlimited metamorphoses: it is believed that every advantage
is transmitted by heredity, and strengthened in the course of
generations (when heredity is known to be so capricious that ...);
the happy adaptations of certain creatures to very special conditions
of life, are regarded as the result of _surrounding influences._
Nowhere, however, are examples of _unconscious selection_ to be found
(absolutely nowhere). The most different individuals associate one with
the other; the extremes become lost in the mass. Each vies with the
other to maintain his kind; those creatures whose appearance shields
them from certain dangers, do not alter this appearance when they are
in an environment quite devoid of danger.... If they live in places
where their coats or their hides do not conceal them, they do not adapt
themselves to their surroundings in any way.

The _selection of the most beautiful_ has been so exaggerated, that
it greatly exceeds the instincts for beauty in our own race! As a
matter of fact, the most beautiful creature often couples with the
most debased, and the largest with the smallest. We almost always see
males and females taking advantage of their first chance meeting, and
manifesting no taste or selectiveness at all.--Modification through
climate and nourishment--but as a matter of fact unimportant.

There are no _intermediate forms.--_

The growing evolution of creatures is assumed. All grounds for this
assumption are entirely lacking. Every type has its _limitations_:
beyond these evolution cannot carry it.

_My general point of view. First proposition_: Man as a species is
_not_ progressing. Higher specimens are indeed attained; but they do
not survive. The general level of the species is not raised.

_Second proposition_: Man as a species does not represent any sort of
progress compared with any other animal. The whole of the animal and
plant world does not develop from the lower to the higher.... but all
simultaneously, haphazardly, confusedly, and at variance. The richest
and most complex forms--and the term "higher type" means no more than
this--perish more easily: only the lowest succeed in maintaining their
apparent imperishableness. The former are seldom attained, and maintain
their superior position with difficulty, the latter are compensated
by great fruitfulness.--In the human race, also, the _superior
specimens,_ the happy cases of evolution, are the first to perish amid
the fluctuations of chances for and against them. They are exposed to
every form of decadence: they are extreme, and, on that account alone,
already decadents.... The short duration of beauty, of genius, of the
Cæsar, is _sui generis:_ such things are not hereditary. The _type_ is
inherited, there is nothing extreme or particularly "happy" about a
type----It is not a case of a particular fate, or of the "evil will" of
Nature, but merely of the concept "superior type": the higher type is
an example of an incomparably greater degree of complexity a greater
sum of co-ordinated elements: but on this account disintegration
becomes a thousand times more threatening. "Genius" is the sublimest
machine in existence--hence it is the most fragile.

_Third propositio:_: The domestication (culture) of man does not
sink very deep. When it does sink far below the skin it immediately
becomes degeneration (type: the Christian). The wild man (or, in moral
terminology, the _evil_ man) is a reversion to Nature--and, in a
certain sense, he represents a recovery, a _cure_ from the effects of
"culture." ...


685.

_Anti-Darwin._--What surprises me most on making a general survey of
the great destinies of man, is that I invariably see the reverse of
what to-day Darwin and his school sees or _will_ persist in seeing:
selection in favour of the stronger, the better-constituted, and the
progress of the species. Precisely the reverse of this stares one in
the face: the suppression of the lucky cases, the uselessness of the
more highly constituted types, the inevitable mastery of the mediocre,
and even of those who are _below mediocrity._ Unless we are shown some
reason why man is an exception among living creatures, I incline to the
belief that Darwin's school is everywhere at fault. That will to power,
in which I perceive the ultimate reason and character of all change,
explains why it is that selection is never in favour of the exceptions
and of the lucky cases: the strongest and happiest natures are weak
when they are confronted with a majority ruled by organised gregarious
instincts and the fear which possesses the weak. My general view of
the world of values shows that in the highest values which now sway the
destiny of man, the happy cases among men, the select specimens do not
prevail: but rather the decadent specimens,--perhaps there is nothing
more interesting in the world than this _unpleasant_ spectacle....

Strange as it may seem, the strong always have to be upheld against the
weak; and the well-constituted against the ill-constituted, the healthy
against the sick and physiologically botched. If we drew our morals
from reality, they would read thus: the mediocre are more valuable than
the exceptional creatures, and the decadent than the mediocre; the
will to nonentity prevails over the will to life--and the general aim
now is, in Christian, Buddhistic, Schopenhauerian phraseology: "It is
better not to be than to be."

I _protest_ against this formulating of reality into a moral: and I
loathe Christianity with a deadly loathing, because it created sublime
words and attitudes in order to deck a revolting truth with all the
tawdriness of justice, virtue, and godliness....

I see all philosophers and the whole of science on their knees before a
reality which is the reverse of "the struggle for life," as Darwin and
his school understood it--that is to say, wherever I look, I see those
prevailing and surviving, who throw doubt and suspicion upon life and
the value of life.--The error of the Darwinian school became a problem
to me: how can one be so blind as to make _this_ mistake?

That _species_ show an ascending tendency, is the most nonsensical
assertion that has ever been made: until now they have only manifested
a dead level. There is nothing whatever to prove that the higher
organisms have developed from the lower. I see that the lower, owing to
their numerical strength, their craft, and ruse, now preponderate,--and
I fail to see an instance in which an accidental change produces
an advantage, at least not for a very long period: for it would be
necessary to find some reason why an accidental change should become so
very strong.

I do indeed find the "cruelty of Nature" which is so often referred
to; but in a different place: Nature is cruel, but against her lucky
and well-constituted children; she protects and shelters and loves the
lowly.

In short, the increase of a species' power, as the result of the
preponderance of its particularly well-constituted and strong
specimens, is perhaps less of a certainty than that it is the result of
the preponderance of its mediocre and lower specimens ... in the case
of the latter, we find great fruitfulness and permanence: in the case
of the former, the besetting dangers are greater, waste is more rapid,
and decimation is more speedy.


686.

Man as he has appeared up to the present is the embryo of the man
of the future; _all_ the formative powers which are to produce the
latter, already lie in the former: and owing to the fact that they are
enormous, the more _promising for the future_ the modern individual
happens to be, the more _suffering_ falls to his lot. This is the
profoundest concept of _suffering._ The formative powers clash.--The
isolation of the individual need not deceive one--as a matter of fact,
some uninterrupted current does actually flow through all individuals,
and does thus unite them. The fact that they feel themselves isolated,
is the _most powerful spur_ in the process of setting themselves the
loftiest of aims: their search for happiness is the means which keeps
together and moderates the formative powers, and keeps them from being
mutually destructive.


687.

_Excessive intellectual_ strength sets _itself_ new goals; it is not in
the least satisfied by the command and the leadership of the inferior
world, or by the preservation of the organism, of the "individual."

We are _more_ than the individual: we are the whole chain itself, with
the tasks of all the possible futures of that chain in us.



3. Theory of the Will to Power and of Valuations.


688.

_The unitary view of psychology._--We are accustomed to regard the
development of a vast number of forms as compatible with one single
origin.

My theory would be: that the will to power is the primitive motive
force out of which all other motives have been derived;

That it is exceedingly illuminating to substitute _power_ for
individual "happiness" (after which every living organism is said to
strive): "It strives after power, after _more_ power";--happiness is
only a symptom of the feeling of power attained, a consciousness of
difference (it does not strive after happiness: but happiness steps
in when the object is attained, after which the organism has striven:
happiness is an accompanying, not an actuating factor);

That all motive force is the will to power; that there is no other
force, either physical, dynamic, or psychic.

In our science, where the concept cause and effect is reduced to a
relationship of complete equilibrium, and in which it seems desirable
for the _same_ quantum of force to be found on either side, _all idea
of a motive power is absent_: we only apprehend results, and we call
these equal from the point of view of their content of force....

It is a matter of mere experience that change never ceases: at bottom
we have not the smallest grounds for assuming that any one particular
change must follow upon any other. On the contrary, any state which
has been attained would seem almost forced to maintain itself intact
if it had not within itself a capacity for not desiring to maintain
itself.... Spinoza's proposition concerning "self-preservation" ought
as a matter of fact to put a stop to change. But the proposition is
false; the contrary is true. In all living organisms it can be clearly
shown that they do everything not to remain as they are, but to become
greater....


689.

_"Will to power" and causality._--From a psychological point of view
the idea of "cause" is our feeling of power in the act which is called
willing--our concept effect is the superstition that this feeling of
power is itself the force which moves things....

A state which accompanies an event and is already an effect of
that event is deemed "sufficient cause" of the latter; the tense
relationship of our feeling of power (pleasure as the feeling of power)
and of an obstacle being overcome--are these things illusions?

If we translate the notion "cause" back into the only sphere which is
known to us, and out of which we have taken it, we cannot imagine _any
change_ in which the will to power is not inherent. We do not know how
to account for any change which is not a _trespassing_ of one power on
another.

Mechanics only show us the results, and then only in images (movement
is a figure of speech); gravitation itself has no mechanical cause,
because it is itself the first cause of mechanical results.

The will to _accumulate force_ is confined to the phenomenon of life,
to nourishment, to procreation, to inheritance, to society, states,
customs, authority. Should we not be allowed to assume that this will
is the motive power also of chemistry?--and of the cosmic order?

Not only conservation of energy, but the minimum amount of waste; so
that the only reality is this: _the will of every centre of power to
become stronger_--not self-preservation, but the desire to appropriate,
to become master, to become more, to become stronger.

Is the fact that science is possible a proof of the principle of
causation--"From like causes, like effects"--"A permanent law of
things"--"Invariable order"? Because something is calculable, is it
therefore on that account necessary?

If something happens thus, and thus only, it is not the manifestation
of a "principle," of a "law," of "order." What happens is that certain
quanta of power begin to operate, and their essence is to exercise
their power over all other quanta of power. Can we assume the existence
of a striving after power without a feeling of pleasure and pain,
_i.e._ without the sensation of an increase or a decrease of power?
Is mechanism only a language of signs for the concealed fact of a
world of fighting and conquering quanta of will-power? All mechanical
first-principles, matter, atoms, weight, pressure, and repulsion, are
not facts in themselves, but interpretations arrived at with the help
of psychical fictions.

Life, which is our best known form of being, is altogether "will to
the accumulation of strength"--all the processes of life hinge on
this: everything aims, not at preservation, but at accretion and
accumulation. Life as an individual case (a hypothesis which may be
applied to existence in general) strives after the maximum feeling
of power; life is essentially a striving after more power; striving
itself is only a straining after more power; the most fundamental
and innermost thing of all is this will. (Mechanism is merely the
semeiotics of the results.)


690.

The thing which is the cause of the existence of development cannot
in the course of investigation be found above development; it should
neither be regarded as "evolving" nor as evolved ... the "will to
power" cannot have been evolved.


691.

What is the relation of the whole of the organic process towards the
rest of nature?--Here the fundamental will reveals itself.


692.

Is the "will to power" a kind of will, or is it identical with the
concept will? Is it equivalent to desiring or commanding; is it the
will which Schopenhauer says is the essence of things?

My proposition is that the will of psychologists hitherto has been an
unjustifiable generalisation, and that there is no such thing as this
sort of will, that instead of the development of one will into several
forms being taken as a fact, the character of will has been cancelled
owing to the fact that its content, its "whither," was subtracted from
it: in Schopenhauer this is so in the highest degree; what he calls
"will" is merely an empty word. There is even less plausibility in
the will to live: for life is simply one of the manifestations of the
will to power; it is quite arbitrary and ridiculous to suggest that
everything is striving to enter into this particular form of the will
to power.


693.

If the innermost essence of existence is the will to power; if
happiness is every increase of power, and unhappiness the feeling of
not being able to resist, of not being able to become master: may
we not then postulate happiness and pain as cardinal facts? Is will
possible without these two oscillations of yea and nay? But who feels
happiness? ... Who will have power? ... Nonsensical question! If the
essence of all things is itself will to power, and consequently the
ability to feel pleasure and pain! Albeit: contrasts and obstacles are
necessary, therefore also, relatively, units which trespass on one
another.


694.

According to the obstacles which a force seeks with a view of
overcoming them, the measure of the failure and the fatality thus
provoked must increase, and in so far as every force can only manifest
itself against some thing that opposes it, an element of unhappiness is
necessarily inherent in every action. But this pain acts as a greater
incitement to life, and increases the will to power.


695.

If pleasure and pain are related to the feeling of power, life would
have to represent such an increase in power that the difference, the
"plus," would have to enter consciousness. A dead level of power,
if maintained, would have to measure its happiness in relation
to depreciations of that level, _i.e._ in relation to states of
unhappiness and not of happiness.... The will to an increase lies
in the essence of happiness: that power is enhanced, and that this
difference becomes conscious.

In a state of decadence after a certain time the opposite difference
becomes conscious, that is decrease: the memory of former strong
moments depresses the present feelings of happiness in this state
comparison reduces happiness.


696.

It is not the satisfaction of the will which is the cause of happiness
(to this superficial theory I am more particularly opposed--this absurd
psychological forgery in regard to the most simple things), but it is
that the will is always striving to overcome that which stands in its
way. The feeling of happiness lies precisely in the discontentedness of
the will, in the fact that without opponents and obstacles it is never
satisfied. "The happy man": a gregarious ideal.


697.

The normal discontent of our instincts--for instance, of the instinct
of hunger, of sex, of movement--contains nothing which is in itself
depressing; it rather provokes the feeling of life, and, whatever the
pessimists may say to us, like all the rhythms of small and irritating
stimuli, it strengthens. Instead of this discontent making us sick of
life, it is rather the great stimulus to life.

(Pleasure might even perhaps be characterised as the rhythm of small
and painful stimuli.)


698.

Kant says: "These lines of Count Verri's (_Sull' indole del piacere
e del dolore;_ 1781) I confirm with absolute certainty: 'Il solo
principio motore dell' uomo è il dolore. Il dolore precede ogni
piacere. Il piacere non è un essere positivo.'"[5]

[Footnote 5: _On the Nature of Pleasure and Pain._ "The only motive
force of man is pain. Pain precedes every pleasure. Pleasure is not a
positive thing."--Tr.]


699.

Pain is something different from pleasure--I mean it is not the
latter's opposite.

If the essence of pleasure has been aptly characterised as the feeling
of increased power (that is to say, as a feeling of difference which
presupposes comparison), that does not define the nature of pain.
The false contrasts which the people, and consequently the language,
believes in, are always dangerous fetters which impede the march of
truth. There are even cases where a kind of pleasure is conditioned
by a certain rhythmic sequence of small, painful stimuli: in this way
a very rapid growth of the feeling of power and of the feeling of
pleasure is attained. This is the case, for instance, in tickling,
also in the sexual tickling which accompanies the coitus: here we see
pain acting as the ingredient of happiness. It seems to be a small
hindrance which is overcome, followed immediately by another small
hindrance which once again is overcome--this play of resistance and
resistance overcome is the greatest excitant of that complete feeling
of overflowing and surplus power which constitutes the essence of
happiness.

The converse, which would be an increase in the feeling of pain through
small intercalated pleasurable stimuli, does not exist: pleasure and
pain are not opposites.

Pain is undoubtedly an intellectual process in which a judgment is
inherent--the judgment harmful, in which long experience is epitomised.
There is no such thing as pain in itself. It is not the wound that
hurts, it is the experience of the harmful results a wound may have for
the whole organism, which here speaks in this deeply moving way, and is
called pain. (In the case of deleterious influences which were unknown
to ancient man, as, for instance, those residing in the new combination
of poisonous chemicals, the hint from pain is lacking, and we are lost.)

That which is quite peculiar in pain is the prolonged disturbance,
the quivering subsequent to a terrible shock in the ganglia of the
nervous system. As a matter of fact, nobody suffers from the cause of
pain (from any sort of injury, for instance), but from the protracted
disturbance of his equilibrium which follows upon the shock. Pain is a
disease of the cerebral centres--pleasure is no disease at all.

The fact that pain may be the cause of reflex actions has appearances
and even philosophical prejudice in its favour. But in very sudden
accidents, if we observe closely, we find that the reflex action occurs
appreciably earlier than the feeling of pain. I should be in a bad way
when I stumbled if I had to wait until the fact had struck the bell
of my consciousness, and until a hint of what I had to do had been
telegraphed back to me. On the contrary, what I notice as clearly as
possible is, that first, in order to avoid a fall, reflex action on the
part of my foot takes place, and then, after a certain measurable space
of time, there follows quite suddenly a kind of painful wave in my
forehead. Nobody, then, reacts to pain. Pain is subsequently projected
into the wounded quarter--but the essence of this local pain is
nevertheless not the expression of a kind of local wound, it is merely
a local sign, the strength and nature of which is in keeping with the
severity of the wound, and of which the nerve centres have taken note.
The fact that as the result of this shock the muscular power of the
organism is materially reduced, does not prove in any way that the
essence of pain is to be sought in the lowering of the feeling of power.

Once more let me repeat: nobody reacts to pain: pain is no "cause" of
action. Pain itself is a reaction; the reflex movement is another and
earlier process--both originate at different points....


700.

The message of pain: in itself pain does not announce that which has
been momentarily damaged, but the significance of this damage for the
individual as a whole.

Are we to suppose that there are any pains which "the species" feel,
and which the individual does not?


701.

"The sum of unhappiness outweighs the sum of happiness: consequently
it were better that the world did not exist"--"The world is something
which from a rational standpoint it were better did not exist, because
it occasions more pain than pleasure to the feeling subject"--this
futile gossip now calls itself pessimism!

Pleasure and pain are accompanying factors, not causes; they are
second-rate valuations derived from a dominating value,--they are one
with the feeling "useful," "harmful," and therefore they are absolutely
fugitive and relative. For in regard to all utility and harmfulness
there are a hundred different ways of asking "what for?"

I despise this pessimism of sensitiveness: it is in itself a sign of
profoundly impoverished life.


702.

Man does not seek happiness and does not avoid unhappiness. Everybody
knows the famous prejudices I here contradict. Pleasure and pain are
mere results, mere accompanying phenomena--that which every man, which
every tiny particle of a living organism will have, is an increase of
power. In striving after this, pleasure and pain are encountered; it is
owing to that will that the organism seeks opposition and requires that
which stands in its way.... Pain as the hindrance of its will to power
is therefore a normal feature, a natural ingredient of every organic
phenomenon; man does not avoid it, on the contrary, he is constantly
in need of it: every triumph, every feeling of pleasure, every event
presupposes an obstacle overcome.

Let us take the simplest case, that of primitive nourishment; the
protoplasm extends its pseudopodia in order to seek for that which
resists it,--it does not do so out of hunger, but owing to its will to
power. Then it makes the attempt to overcome, to appropriate, and to
incorporate that with which it comes into contact--what people call
"nourishment" is merely a derivative, a utilitarian application, of the
primordial will to become stronger.

Pain is so far from acting as a diminution of our feeling of power,
that it actually forms in the majority of cases a spur to this
feeling,--the obstacle is the stimulus of the will to power.


703.

Pain has been confounded with one of its subdivisions, which is
exhaustion: the latter does indeed represent a profound reduction and
lowering of the will to power, a material loss of strength--that is
to say, there is _(a)_ pain as the stimulus to an increase or power,
and _(b)_ pain following upon an expenditure of power; in the first
case it is a spur, in the second it is the outcome of excessive
spurring.... The inability to resist is proper to the latter form of
pain: the provocation of that which resists is proper to the former....
The only happiness which is to be felt in the state of exhaustion is
that of going to sleep; in the other case, happiness means triumph....
The great confusion of psychologists consisted in the fact that they
did not keep these two kinds of happiness--that of falling asleep,
and that of triumph--sufficiently apart. Exhausted people will have
repose, slackened limbs, peace and quiet--and these things constitute
the bliss of Nihilistic religions and philosophies, the wealthy in
vital strength, the active, want triumph, defeated opponents, and the
extension of their feeling of power over ever wider regions. Every
healthy function of the organism has this need,--and the whole organism
constitutes an intricate complexity of systems struggling for the
increase of the feeling of power....


704.

How is it that the fundamental article of faith in all psychologies is
a piece of most outrageous contortion and fabrication? "Man strives
after happiness," for instance--how much of this is true? In order to
understand what life is, and what kind of striving and tenseness life
contains, the formula should hold good not only of trees and plants,
but of animals also. "What does the plant strive after?"--But here we
have already invented a false entity which does not exist,--concealing
and denying the fact of an infinitely variegated growth, with
individual and semi-individual starting-points, if we give it the
clumsy title "plant" as if it were a unit. It is very obvious that
the ultimate and smallest "individuals" cannot be understood in the
sense of metaphysical individuals or atoms; their sphere of power is
continually shifting its ground: but with all these changes, can it be
said that any of them strives after happiness?--All this expanding,
this incorporation and growth, is a search for resistance; movement
is essentially related to states of pain: the driving power here must
represent some other desire if it leads to such continual willing and
seeking of pain.--To what end do the trees of a virgin forest contend
with each other? "For happiness"?--For power! ...

Man is now master of the forces of nature, and master too of his own
wild and unbridled feelings (the passions have followed suit, and have
learned to become useful)--in comparison with primeval man, the man of
to-day represents an enormous quantum of power, but not an increase
in happiness! How can one maintain, then, that he has striven after
happiness?..


705.

But while I say this I see above me, and below the stars, the
glittering rat's-tail of errors which hitherto has represented the
greatest inspiration of man: "All happiness is the result of virtue all
virtue is the result of free will"!

Let us transvalue the values: all capacity is the outcome of a
happy organisation, all freedom is the outcome of capacity (freedom
understood here as facility in self-direction. Every artist will
understand me).


706.

"The value of life."--Every life stands by itself; all existence must
be justified, and not only life,--the justifying principle must be one
through which life itself speaks.

Life is only a means to something: it is the expression of the forms of
growth in power.


707.

The "conscious world" cannot be a starting-point for valuing: an
"objective" valuation is necessary.

In comparison with the enormous and complicated antagonistic processes
which the collective life of every organism represents, its conscious
world of feelings, intentions, and valuations, is only a small slice.
We have absolutely no right to postulate this particle of consciousness
as the object, the wherefore, of the collective phenomena of life:
the attainment of consciousness is obviously only an additional means
to the unfolding of life and to the extension of its power. That
is why it is a piece of childish simplicity to set up happiness,
or intellectuality, or morality, or any other individual sphere of
consciousness, as the highest value: and maybe to justify "the world"
with it.

This is my fundamental objection to all philosophical and moral
cosmologies and theologies, to all wherefores and highest values that
have appeared in philosophies and philosophic religions hitherto. A
kind of means is misunderstood as the object itself: conversely life
and its growth of power were debased to a means.

If we wished to postulate an adequate object of life it would not
necessarily be related in any way with the category of conscious life;
it would require rather to explain conscious life as a mere means to
itself....

The "denial of life" regarded as the object of life, the object of
evolution! Existence--a piece of tremendous stupidity! Any such mad
interpretation 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 parte ad totum,_--and that is why
all philosophers are instinctively seeking at the present day for a
collective consciousness, a thing that lives and wills consciously with
all that happens, a "Spirit," a "God." 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 general consciousness which postulates ends
and means--in this way we ceased from being necessarily 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 (_e.g._ materialism) according to which such a final state
is necessary, is refuted by this fundamental fact.

I should 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. Booming 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 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. Fortunately
any such general power is lacking (a suffering God overlooking
everything, a general sensorium and ubiquitous Spirit, would be the
greatest indictment 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").

(1) Becoming has no final state, it does not tend towards stability.

(2) Becoming is not a state of appearance, the world of Being is
probably only appearance.

(3) Becoming is of precisely the same value at every instant; the sum
of its value always remains equal: expressed otherwise, it has no
value; for that according to which it might be measured, and in regard
to which the word value might have some sense, is entirely lacking.
The collective value of the world defies valuation; for this reason
philosophical 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 (_e.g._ mind) the
"absolute" which stands behind evolution!


710.

Our knowledge has become scientific to the extent in which it has
been able to make use of number and measure. It might be worth while
to try and see whether a scientific order of values might not be
constructed according to a 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 representing energy. The ascent in this scale would represent
an increase of value, the descent a diminution.

But here appearance and prejudice are against one (moral values are
only apparent values compared 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 consideration_; 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 of power_; in which increase the utility of
consciousness is also contained; and the same holds good of pleasure
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
consciousness 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.


712.

"God" is the culminating moment: life is an eternal process of deifying
and undeifying. _But withal there is no zenith of values,_ but only a
zenith of _power._

Absolute _exclusion of mechanical and materialistic interpretations._
they are both only expressions of inferior states, of emotions deprived
of all spirit (of the "will to power").

_The retrograde movement front 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 it no longer has anything to organise, and utilising its
power in order to _disorganise._

_(a)_ The ever-increasing _suppression_ of societies, and the latter's
subjection by a smaller number of stronger individuals.

(b) The ever-increasing suppression of the privileged and the strong,
hence the rise of democracy, and ultimately of _anarchy,_ in the
elements.


713.

_Value_ is the highest amount of power that a man can assimilate--a
man, not mankind! Mankind is much more of a means than an end. It is a
question of type: mankind is merely the experimental material; it is
the overflow of the ill-constituted--a field of ruins.


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 subjugated is continually
extended; or it decreases or increases according to the conditions
(nourishment) 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 the most stable 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 EXEMPLIFIED IN SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL.


1. Society and the State.


716.

We take it as a 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 is too cowardly to have the courage of his own desires.

All altruism is the prudence of the private man. societies are not
mutually altruistic. The commandment, "Thou shalt love thy next-door
neighbour," has never been extended to thy neighbour in general. Rather
what Manu says is 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 is invaluable, because man in society is far more
childlike than man individually. 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 _unmorality_ organised, is from within--the police, the
penal code, status, commerce, 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
characteristics 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
decline 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 State. This result is obtained through division of labour (so
that responsibility is subdivided too):--

The legislator--and he who fulfils 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 produce 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.

Morality may be thus justified:--

_Economically,_--as aiming at the greatest possible use of all
individual power, with the view of preventing the waste of exceptional
natures.

_Æsthetically,_--as the formation of fixed types, and the pleasure in
one's own.

_Politically,_--as the art of bearing with the severe divergencies of
the degrees of power in society.

_Psychologically,_ as an imaginary preference for the bungled 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 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.


721.

Impotence to power, how it disguises itself and plays the hypocrite, as
obedience, subordination, 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, pessimism, indignation, susceptibility, beautiful soul,
virtue, self--deification, philosophic detachment, freedom from contact
with the world (the realisation 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.


722.

If there be justice and equality before the law, what would thereby
be abolished?--Suspense, enmity, hatred. But it is a mistake to think
that you thereby increase happiness; for the Corsicans rejoice in more
happiness than the Continentals.


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 depreciates any gulf as immoral.


724.

Utility is entirely dependent upon the object to be attained,--the
wherefore? And this wherefore, this purpose, is again dependent upon
the degree of power. Utilitarianism is not, therefore, a fundamental
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.


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 denseness 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 intolerance 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 imperfectly 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
growth,--that there must be a striving after an extension of power,
and therefore a process of absorption of other forces. Under the
drowsiness brought on by moral narcotics, people speak of the right of
the individual to _defend himself;_ on the same principle one might
speak of his right to _attack_: for _both_--and the latter more than
the former--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 it is immaterial whether one have an individual, a
living body, or "an advancing society" in view. The right to punish
(or society's means of defence) has been arrived at only through a
misuse of the word "right": a right is acquired only by contract, but
self-defence and self-preservation do not stand upon the basis of a
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 a right the right of growth, perhaps.... When the
instincts of a society ultimately make it give up war and renounce
conquest, it is decadent: it is ripe for democracy and the rule of
shopkeepers. In the majority of cases, it is true, assurances of peace
are merely stupefying draughts.


729.

The maintenance of the military State is the last means of adhering to
the great tradition of the past; or, where it has been lost, to revive
it. By means of it the superior or strong type of 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 it, or by virtue of the feeling that the safety of our
descendants will be secured if we uphold the work--for instance, the
_polis._ Morality is essentially the means of; making something survive
the individual, because it makes him of necessity a slave. Obviously
the aspect from above is different from the aspect from below, and
will lead to quite different interpretations. How is 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 in a chain--separate parts which have a 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 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 maintaining 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, compatibility, 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 property. Marriage, as understood by the
real old nobility, meant the breeding forth of the race (but are there
any nobles nowadays? _Quaeritur_),--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 contrary! It did not even presuppose that mutual
sympathy which is the _sine qua non_ of the bourgeois 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
"moderns," 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
aristocratic community--where convention and abstinence are most severe.


733.

_Concerning the future of marriage._ A super-tax on inherited property,
a longer term of military service for bachelors of a certain minimum
age within the community.

Privileges of all sorts for fathers who lavish boys upon the world, and
perhaps plural votes as well.

A medical certificate as a condition of any marriage, endorsed by the
parochial authorities, in which a 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, I would
recommend leasehold marriages (to last for a term of years or months),
with adequate provision for the children.

Every marriage to be warranted and sanctioned by a certain number of
good men and true, of the parish, as a parochial obligation.


734.

_Another commandment of philanthropy._--There are cases where to have a
child would be a 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 is the inability to exercise any self-restraint in the
presence of stimuli, and the tendency to respond to the smallest sexual
attraction. It would be quite a mistake, for instance, to think of
Leopardi as a chaste man. In such cases the priest and moralist play
a hopeless game: it would be far better to send for the apothecary.
Lastly, society here has a positive duty to fulfil, and of all the
demands that are made on it, there are few more 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 of day: it 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," is
a piece of ingenuous puerility compared with the earnestness of this
forbidding of life to decadents, "Thou shalt not beget"!!! ... For
life itself recognises no 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, it 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 a coarse, immature
crime: yet it is the great justification of their anæmic little
existence, it is 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.


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 great souls). To
feel one's self adrift from all questions 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.


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
determination 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 whatever. Inability
to offer any resistance to a stimulus, and the feeling that one must
react to it: this excessive susceptibility of decadents makes all such
systems of punishment and reform altogether senseless.

The idea "amelioration" presupposes a normal 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 effect 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 it, and is consequently forced to be secretive,
underhand, and cautious.) Thus any prohibition deteriorates the
character of those who do not willingly submit themselves to it, but
are constrained thereto.


739.

_"Punishment and reward."_--These two things stand or fall together.
Nowadays no one will accept a reward or acknowledge that any authority
should have the power to punish. Warfare has been reformed. We have
a desire: it meets with opposition: we then see that we shall most
easily obtain it by coming to some agreement--by drawing up a contract.
In modern society where every one has given his assent to a certain
contract, the criminal is a man who breaks that contract. This at least
is a clear concept. But in that case, anarchists and enemies of social
order could not be tolerated.


740.

Crimes belong to the category of revolt against the social system, A
rebel is not punished, he is simply suppressed. He _may_ be an utterly
contemptible and pitiful creature; but there is nothing intrinsically
despicable about rebellion in fact, in our particular society revolt is
far from being disgraceful. There are cases in which a rebel deserves
honour precisely because he is conscious of certain elements in society
which cry aloud for hostility; for such a man rouses us from our
slumbers. When a criminal commits but one crime against a particular
person, it does not alter the fact that all his instincts urge him
to make a stand against the whole social system. His isolated act is
merely a symptom.

The idea of punishment ought to be reduced to the concept of the
suppression of revolt, a weapon against the vanquished (by means of
long or short terms of imprisonment). But punishment should not be
associated in any way with contempt. A criminal is at all events a man
who has set his life, his honour, his freedom at stake; he is therefore
a 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. Punishment 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 rancour of the _unclassed_--has not reached consciousness
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 circumstances have been wanting in our lives. And supposing
we were induced to commit such a crime would our worth be materially
affected? As a matter of fact, we should only be despised, if we were
not credited with possessing the power to kill a man under certain
circumstances. In nearly every crime certain qualities come into play
without which no one would be a true man. Dostoievsky was not far wrong
when he said of the inmates of the penal colonies in Siberia, that they
constituted the strongest and most valuable portion of the Russian
people. The fact that in our society the criminal happens to be a badly
nourished and stunted animal is simply a condemnation of our system. In
the days of the Renaissance the criminal was a flourishing specimen of
humanity, and acquired his own virtue for himself,--Virtue in the sense
of the Renaissance--that is to say, _virtù;_ free from moralic acid.

It is only those whom we do not despise that we are able to elevate.
Moral contempt is a far greater indignity and insult than any kind of
crime.


741.

Shame was first introduced into punishment when certain penalties
were inflicted on persons held in contempt, such as slaves. It was a
despised class that was most frequently punished, and thus it came to
pass that punishment and contempt were associated.


742.

In the ancient idea of punishment a religious concept was immanent,
namely, the retributive power of chastisement. Penalties purified; in
modern society, however, penalties degrade. Punishment is a form of
paying off a debt: once it has been paid, one is freed from the deed
for which one was so ready to suffer. Provided belief in the power of
punishment exist, once the penalty is paid a feeling of relief and
lightheartedness results, which is not so very far removed from a state
of convalescence and health. One has made one's peace with society,
and one appears to one's self more dignified pure.... To-day, however,
punishment isolates even more than the crime; the fate behind the sin
has become so formidable that it is almost hopeless. One rises from
punishment still an enemy of society. Henceforward it reckons yet
another enemy against it. The _jus talionis_ may spring from the spirit
of retribution (that is to say, from a sort of modification of the
instinct of revenge); but in the Book of Manu, for instance, it is the
need of having some equivalent in order to do penance, or to become
free in a religious sense.


743.

My pretty radical note of interrogation in the case of all more
modern laws of punishment is this: should not the punishment fit the
crime?--for in your heart of hearts thus would you have it. But then
the susceptibility of the particular criminal to pain would have to
be taken into account. In other words, there should be no such thing
as a preconceived penalty for any crime--no fixed penal code. But as
it would be no easy matter to ascertain the degree of sensitiveness
of each individual criminal, punishment would have to be abolished in
practice? What a sacrifice! Is it not? Consequently ...


744.

Ah! and the philosophy of jurisprudence! That is a science which, like
all moral sciences, has not even been wrapped in swaddling-clothes yet.
Even among jurists who consider themselves liberal, the oldest and
most valuable significance of punishment is still misunderstood--it
is not even known. So long as jurisprudence does not build upon a new
foundation--on history and comparative anthropology--it will never
cease to quarrel over the fundamentally false abstractions which are
fondly imagined to be the "philosophy of law," and which have nothing
whatever to do with modern man. The man of to-day, however, is such a
complicated woof even in regard to his legal valuation that he allows
of the most varied interpretation.

745.

An old Chinese sage once said he had heard that when mighty empires
were doomed they began to have numberless laws.

746.

Schopenhauer would have all rapscallions castrated, and all geese shut
up in convents. But from what point of view would this be desirable?
The rascal has at least this advantage over other men--that he is not
mediocre; and the fool is superior to us inasmuch as he does not suffer
at the sight of mediocrity. It would be better to widen the gulf--that
is to say, roguery and stupidity should be increased. In this way human
nature would become broader ... but, after all, this is Fate, and
it will happen, whether we desire it or not. Idiocy and roguery are
increasing: this is part of modern progress.


747.

Society, to-day, is full of consideration, tact, and reticence, and of
good-natured respect for other people's rights--even for the exactions
of strangers. To an even greater degree is there a certain charitable
and instinctive depreciation of the worth of man as shown by all
manner of trustful habits. Respect for men, and not only for the most
virtuous, is perhaps the real parting of the ways between us and the
Christian mythologists also have our good share of irony even when
listening to moral sermons. He who preaches morality to us debases
himself in our eyes and becomes almost comical. Liberal-mindedness
regarding morality is one of the best signs of our age. In cases where
it is most distinctly wanting, we regard it as a sign of a morbid
condition (the case of Carlyle in England, of Ibsen in Norway, and
Schopenhauer's pessimism throughout Europe). If there is anything
which can reconcile us to our own age, it is precisely the amount
of immorality which it allows itself without falling in its own
estimation--very much the reverse! In what, then, does the superiority
of culture over the want of culture consist--of the Renaissance, for
instance, over the Middle Ages? In this alone: the greater quantity of
acknowledged immorality. From this it necessarily follows that the very
_zenith_ of human development _must_ be regarded by the moral fanatic
as the _non plus ultra_ of corruption (in this connection let us recall
Savonarola's judgment of Florence, Plato's indictment of Athens under
Pericles, Luther's condemnation of Rome, Rousseau's anathemas against
the society of Voltaire, and Germany's hostility to Goethe).

A little more fresh air, for Heaven's sake! This ridiculous condition
of Europe _must_ not last any longer. Is there a single idea behind
this bovine nationalism? What possible value can there be in
encouraging this arrogant self-conceit when everything to-day points
to greater and more common interests?--at a moment when the spiritual
dependence and denationalisation, which are obvious to all, are paving
the way for the reciprocal _rapprochements_ and fertilisations which
make up the real value and sense of present-day culture! ... And it is
precisely now that "the new German Empire" has been founded upon the
most thread-bare and discredited of ideas--universal suffrage and equal
right for all.

Think of all this struggling for advantage among conditions which are
in every way degenerate: of this culture of big cities, of newspapers,
of hurry and scurry, and of "aimlessness"! The economic unity of
Europe must necessarily come--and with it, as a reaction, the pacivist
movement.

A pacivist party, free from all sentimentality, which forbids its
children to wage war; which forbids recourse to courts of justice;
which forswears all fighting, all contradiction, and all persecution:
for a while the party of the oppressed, and later the powerful
party:--this party would be opposed to everything in the shape of
revenge and resentment.

There will also be a war party, exercising the same thoroughness and
severity towards itself, which will proceed in precisely the opposite
direction.


749.

The princes of Europe should really consider whether as a matter of
fact they can dispense with our services--with us, the immoralists. We
are to-day the only power which can win a victory without allies: and
we are therefore far and away the strongest of the strong. We can even
do without lying, and let me ask what other power can dispense with
this weapon? A strong temptation fights for us; the strongest, perhaps,
that exists--the temptation of truth.... Truth? How do I come by this
word? I must withdraw it: I must repudiate this proud word. But no. We
do not even want it--we shall be quite able to achieve our victory of
power without its help. The real charm which fights for us, the eye
of Venus which our opponents themselves deaden and blind--this charm
is the magic of the extreme. The fascination which everything extreme
exercises: we immoralists--we are in every way the extremists.


750.

The corrupted ruling classes have brought ruling into evil odour. The
State administration of justice is a piece of cowardice, because the
great man who can serve as a standard is lacking. At last the feeling
of insecurity becomes so great that men fall in the dust before any
sort of will-power that commands.


751.

"The will to power" is so loathed in democratic ages that the whole of
the psychology of these ages seems directed towards its belittlement
and slander. The types of men who sought the highest honours are said
to have been Napoleon! Cæsar! and Alexander!--as if these had not been
precisely the greatest _scorners_ of honour.

And Helvetius would fain show us that we strive after power in order
to have those pleasures which are at the disposal of the mighty--that
is to say, according to him, this striving after power is the will to
pleasure--hedonism!


752.

According as to whether a people feels: "the rights, the keenness of
vision, and the gifts of leading, etc., are with the few" or "with the
many"--it constitutes En oligarchic or a democratic community.

Monarchy represents the belief in a man who is completely superior a
leader, a saviour, a demigod.

Aristocracy represents the belief in a chosen few--in a higher caste.

Democracy represents the disbelief in all great men and in all elite
societies: everybody is everybody else's equal, "At bottom we are all
herd and mob."


753.

I am opposed to Socialism because it dreams ingenuously of goodness,
truth, beauty, and equal rights (anarchy pursues the same ideal, but in
a more brutal fashion).

I am opposed to parliamentary government and the power of the press,
because they are the means whereby cattle become masters.


754.

The arming of the people means in the end the arming of the mob.


755.

Socialists are particularly ridiculous in my eyes, because of their
absurd optimism concerning the "good man" who is supposed to be waiting
in their cupboard, and who will come into being when the present
order of society has been overturned and has made way for natural
instincts. But the opposing party is quite as ludicrous, because it
will not see the act of violence which lies beneath every law, the
severity and egoism inherent in every kind of authority. "I and my kind
will rule and prevail. Whoever degenerates will be either expelled
or annihilated."--This was the fundamental feeling of all ancient
legislation. The idea of a higher order of man is hated much more
profoundly than monarchs themselves. Hatred of aristocracy always uses
hatred of monarchy as a mask.


756.

How treacherous are all parties! They bring to light something
concerning their leaders which the latter, perhaps, have hitherto kept
hidden beneath a bushel with consummate art.


757.

Modern Socialism would fain create a profane counterpart to jesuitism:
everybody a perfect instrument. But as to the object of it all, the
purpose of it--this has not yet been ascertained.


758.

_The slavery of to-day_: a piece of barbarism. Where are the masters
for whom these slaves work? One must not always expect the simultaneous
appearance of the two complementary castes of society.

Utility and pleasure are slave theories of life.

"The blessing of work" is an ennobling phrase for slaves. Incapacity
for leisure.


759.

There is no such thing as a right to live, a right to work, or a right
to be happy: in this respect man is not different from the meanest worm.


760.

We must undoubtedly think of these things as uncompromisingly as Nature
does: they preserve the species.


761.

We should look upon the needs of the masses with ironic compassion:
they want something which we have got--Ah!


762.

European democracy is only in a very slight degree the manifestation
of unfettered powers. It represents, above all, the unfettering of
laziness, fatigue, and _weakness_.


753.

_Concerning the future of the workman_--Workmen men should learn to
regard their duties as _soldiers_ do. They receive emoluments, incomes,
but they do not get wages!

There is no relationship between _work done_ and money received;
the individual should, _according to his kind,_ be so placed as to
_perform_ the _highest_ that is compatible with his powers.


764.

Noblemen ought one day to live as the bourgeois do now--but above
them, distinguishing themselves by the simplicity of their wants--the
superior caste will then live in a poorer and simpler way and yet be in
possession of power.

For lower orders of mankind the reverse valuations hold good: it is a
matter of implanting "virtues" in them. Absolute commands, terrible
compulsory methods, in order that they may rise above mere ease in
life. The remainder may obey, but their vanity demands that they may
feel themselves dependent, not upon great men, but upon principles.


765.

"_The Atonement of all Sin?_"

People speak of the profound injustice of the social arrangement, as
it the fact that one man is born in favourable circumstances and that
another is born in unfavourable ones--or that one should possess gifts
the other has not, were on the face of it an injustice. Among the
more honest of these opponents of society this is what is said: "We,
with all the bad, morbid, criminal qualities which we acknowledge we
possess, are only the inevitable result of the oppression for ages of
the weak by the strong"; thus they insinuate their evil natures into
the consciences of the ruling classes. They threaten and storm and
curse. They become virtuous from sheer indignation--they don't want
to have become bad men and _canaille_ for nothing. The name for this
attitude, which is an invention of the last century, is, if I am not
mistaken, pessimism; and even that pessimism which is the outcome of
indignation. It is in this attitude of mind that history is judged,
that it is deprived of its inevitable fatality, and that responsibility
and even guilt is discovered in it. For the great desideratum is to
find guilty people in it. The botched and the bungled, the decadents
of all kinds, are revolted at themselves, and require sacrifices
in order that they may not slake their thirst for destruction upon
themselves (which might, indeed, be the most reasonable procedure). But
for this purpose they at least require a semblance of justification,
_i.e._ a theory according to which the fact of their existence, and of
their character, may be expiated by a scapegoat. This scapegoat may
be God,--in Russia such resentful atheists are not wanting,--or the
order of society, or education and upbringing, or the Jews, or the
nobles, or, finally, the well-constituted of every kind. "It is a sin
for a man to have been born in decent circumstances, for by so doing
he disinherits the others, he pushes them aside, he imposes upon them
the curse of vice and of work.... How can I be made answerable for my
misery; surely some one must be responsible for it, or I could not bear
to live."...

In short, resentful pessimism discovers responsible parties in order to
create a pleasurable sensation for itself--revenge.... "Sweeter than
honey"--thus does even old Homer speak of revenge.

***

The fact that such a theory no longer meets with understanding--or
rather, let us say, contempt is accounted for by that particle of
Christianity which still circulates in the blood of every one of us; it
makes us tolerant towards things simply because we scent a Christian
savour about them.... The Socialists appeal to the Christian instincts;
this is their really refined piece of cleverness.... Thanks to
Christianity, we have now grown accustomed to the superstitious concept
of a soul--of an immortal soul, of soul monads, which, as a matter of
fact, hails from somewhere else, and which has only become inherent in
certain cases--that is to say, become incarnate in them--by accident:
but the nature of these cases is not altered, let alone determined by
it. The circumstances of society, of relationship, and of history are
only accidents for the soul, perhaps misadventures: in any case, the
world is not their work. By means of the idea of soul the individual is
made transcendental; thanks to it, a ridiculous amount of importance
can be attributed to him.

As a matter of fact, it was Christianity which first induced the
individual to take up this position of judge of all things. It made
megalomania almost his duty: it has made everything temporary and
limited subordinate to eternal rights! What is the State, what is
society, what are historical laws, what is physiology to me? Thus
speaks something from beyond Becoming, an immutable entity throughout
history: thus speaks something immortal, something divine--it is the
soul!

Another Christian, but no less insane, concept has percolated even
deeper into the tissues of modern ideas: the concept of the equality
of all souls before God. In this concept the prototype of all theories
concerning equal rights is to be found. Man was first taught to
stammer this proposition religiously: later, it was converted into
a moral; no wonder he has ultimately begun to take it seriously, to
take it _practically_!--that is to say, politically, socialistically,
resento-pessimistically.

Wherever responsible circumstances or people have been looked for,
it was the _instinct of revenge_ that sought them. This instinct of
revenge obtained such an ascendancy over man in the course of centuries
that the whole of metaphysics, psychology, ideas of society, and, above
all, morality, are tainted with it. Man has nourished this idea of
responsibility to such an extent that he has introduced the bacillus
of vengeance into everything. By means of it he has made God Himself
ill, and killed innocence in the universe, by tracing every condition
of things to acts of will, to intentions, to responsible agents. The
whole teaching of will, this most fatal fraud that has ever existed
in psychology hitherto, was invented essentially for the purpose of
punishment. It was the social utility of punishment that lent this
concept its dignity, its power, and its truth. The originator of that
psychology, that we shall call volitional psychology, must be sought in
those classes which had the right of punishment in their hands; above
all, therefore, among the priests who stood on the very pinnacle of
ancient social systems: these people wanted to create for themselves
the right to wreak revenge--they wanted to supply God with the
privilege of vengeance. For this purpose; man was declared "free": to
this end every action had to be regarded as voluntary, and the origin
of every deed had to be considered as lying in consciousness. But by
such propositions as these ancient psychology is refuted.

To-day, when Europe seems to have taken the contrary direction; when
we halcyonians would fain withdraw, dissipate, and banish the concept
of guilt and punishment with all our might from the world; when our
most serious endeavours are concentrated upon purifying psychology,
morality, history, nature, social institutions and privileges, and
even God Himself, from this filth; in whom must we recognise our most
mortal enemies? Precisely in those apostles of revenge and resentment,
in those who are _par excellence_ pessimists from indignation, who make
it their mission to sanctify their filth with the name of "righteous
indignation."... We others, whose one desire is to reclaim innocence on
behalf of Becoming, would fain be the missionaries of a purer thought,
namely, that no one is responsible for man's qualities; neither God,
nor society, nor his parents, nor his ancestors, nor himself--in
fact, that no one is to blame for him ... The being who might be made
responsible for a man's existence, for the fact that he is constituted
in a particular way, or for his birth in certain circumstances and
in a certain environment, is absolutely lacking.--_And it is a great
blessing that such a being is non-existent ..._. We are _not_ the
result of an eternal design, of a will, of a desire: there is no
attempt being made with us to attain to an "ideal of perfection," to
an "ideal of happiness," to an "ideal of virtue,"--and we are just as
little the result of a mistake on God's part in the presence of which
He ought to feel uneasy (a thought which is known to be at the very
root of the Old Testament). There is not a place nor a purpose nor a
sense to which we can attribute our existence or our kind of existence.
In the first place, no one is in a position to do this: it is quite
impossible to judge, to measure, or to compare, or even to deny the
whole universe! And why?--For five reasons, all accessible to the man
of average intelligence: for instance, _because there is no existence
outside the universe ..._ and let us say it again, this is a great
blessing, for therein lies the whole innocence of our lives.



2. The Individual.


766.

_Fundamental errors:_ to regard the _herd_ as an aim instead of
the individual! The herd is only a means and nothing _more_! But
nowadays people are trying to understand _the herd_ as they would an
individual, and to confer higher rights upon it than upon isolated
personalities. Terrible mistake!! In addition to this, all that makes
for gregariousness, _e.g._ sympathy, is regarded as the _more valuable_
side of our natures.


767.

The individual is something quite _new,_ and capable of _creating
new things._ He is something absolute, and all his actions are quite
his own. The individual in the end has to seek the valuation for his
actions in himself: because he has to give an individual meaning even
to traditional words and notions. His interpretation of a formula is at
least personal, even if he does not create the formula itself: at least
as an interpreter he is creative.


768.

The "ego" oppresses and kills. It acts like an organic cell. It is
predatory and violent. It would fain regenerate itself--pregnancy. It
would fain give birth to its God and see all mankind at its feet.


769.

Every living organism gropes around as far as its power permits, and
overcomes all that is weaker than itself: by this means it finds
pleasure in its own existence. The _increasing "humanity"_ of this
tendency consists in the fact that we are beginning to feel ever more
subtly how difficult it is really to _absorb_ others: while we could
show our power by injuring him, his will _estranges_ him from us, and
thus makes him less susceptible of being overcome.


770.

The degree of resistance which has to be continually overcome in order
to remain _at the top,_ is the measure of _freedom,_ whether for
individuals or for societies: freedom being understood as positive
power, as will to power. The highest form of individual freedom, of
sovereignty, would, according to this, in all probability be found not
five feet away from its opposite--that is to say, where the danger of
slavery hangs over life, like a hundred swords of Damocles. Let any one
go through the whole of history from this point of view: the ages when
the individual reaches perfect maturity, _i.e._ the free ages, when the
classical type, _sovereign man,_ is attained to--these were certainly
not humane times!

There should be no choice: either one must be uppermost or
nethermost--like a worm, despised, annihilated, trodden upon. One
must have tyrants against one in order to become a tyrant, _i.e._ in
order to be free. It is no small advantage to have a hundred swords of
Damocles suspended over one: it is only thus that one learns to dance,
it is only thus that one attains to any freedom in one's movements.


771.

Man more than any other animal was originally _altruistic_--hence
his slow growth (child) and lofty development. Hence, too, his
extraordinary and latest kind of egoism.--Beasts of prey are much more
_individualistic._


772.

A criticism of _selfishness._ The involuntary ingenuousness of La
Rochefoucauld, who believed that he was saying something bold, liberal,
and paradoxical (in his days, of course, truth in psychological matters
was something that astonished people) when he said. "_Les grandes âmes
ne sont pas celles qui ont moins de passions et plus de vertus que les
âmes communes, mais seulement celles qui ont de plus grands desseins._"
Certainly, John Stuart Mill (who calls Chamfort the _noble_ and
philosophical La Rochefoucauld of the eighteenth century) recognises
in him merely an astute and keen-sighted observer of all that which is
the result of habitual selfishness in the human breast, and he adds: "A
noble spirit is unable to see the necessity of a constant observation
of _baseness_ and _contemptibility_, unless it were to show against
what corrupting influences a lofty spirit and a noble character were
able to triumph."


773.

_The Morphology of the Feelings of Self._

_First standpoint_--To what extent are _sympathy_ or _communal
feelings,_ the lower or preparatory states, at a time when personal
self-esteem and initiative in valuation, on the part of individuals,
are not yet possible?

_Second standpoint._--To what extent is the zenith of collective
self-esteem, the pride in the distinction of the clan, the feeling
of inequality and a certain abhorrence of mediation, of equal rights
and of reconciliation, the school for individual self-esteem? It may
be this in so far as it compels the individual to represent the pride
of the community --he is obliged to speak and act with tremendous
self-respect, because he stands for the community And the same
holds good when the individual regards himself as the instrument or
speaking-tube of a godhead.

_Third standpoint._--To what extent do these forms of impersonality
invest the individual with enormous importance? In so far as higher
powers are using him as an intermediary: religious shyness towards
one's self is the condition of prophets and poets.

_Fourth standpoint._--To what extent does responsibility for a whole
educate the individual in foresight, and give him a severe and
terrible hand, a calculating and cold heart, majesty of bearing and of
action--things which he would not allow himself if he stood only for
his own rights?

In short, collective self-esteem is the great preparatory school
for personal sovereignty. The noble caste is that which creates the
heritage of this faculty.


774.

The disguised forms of will to power:--

(1) _The desire for freedom,_ for independence for equilibrium,
for peace, for _co-ordination._ Also that of the anchorite, the
"Free-Spirit." In its lowest form, the will to live at all costs--the
instinct of self-preservation.

(2) Subordination, with the view of satisfying the will to power of a
whole community; submissiveness, the making of one's self indispensable
and useful to him who has the power; love, a secret path to the heart
of the powerful, in order to become his master.

(3) The feeling of duty, conscience, the imaginary comfort of belonging
to a higher order than those who actually hold the reins of power;
the acknowledgment of an order of rank which allows of judging even
the more powerful, self-depreciation; the discovery of new _codes of
morality_ (of which the Jews are a classical example).


775.

_Praise and gratitude as forms of will to power.--_Praise and
gratitude for harvests, for good weather, victories, marriages, and
peace--all festivals need a subject on which feeling can be outpoured.
The desire is to make all good things that happen to one appear as
though they had been done to one: people will have a donor. The same
holds good of the work of art: people are not satisfied with it
alone, they must praise the artist.--What, then, is praise? It is a
sort of compensation for benefits received, a sort of giving back,
a manifestation of _our_ power--for the man who praises assents to,
blesses, values, _judges_. he arrogates to himself the right to give
his consent to a thing, to be able to confer honours. An increased
feeling of happiness or of liveliness is also an increased feeling
of power, and it is as a result of this feeling that a man _praises_
(it is as the outcome of this feeling that he invents a donor, a
"subject"). Gratitude is thus revenge of a lofty kind: it is most
severely exercised and demanded where equality and pride both require
to be upheld--that is to say, where revenge is practised to its fullest
extent.


776.

_Concerning the Machiavellism of Power._

The _will to power_ appears:--

_(a)_ Among the oppressed and slaves of all kinds, in the form of will
to "_freedom_": the mere fact of breaking loose from something seems to
be an end in itself (in a religio-moral sense: "One is only answerable
to one's own conscience"; "evangelical freedom," etc. etc.),

_(b)_ In the case of a stronger species, ascending to power, in the
form of the will to overpower. If this fails, then it shrinks to the
"will to justice"--that is to say, to the will to the same measure of
rights as the ruling caste possesses.

_(c)_ In the case of the strongest, richest, most independent, and
most courageous, in the form of "love of humanity," of "love of the
people," of the "gospel," of "truth" of "God," of "pity," of self
sacrifice," etc. etc.; in the form of overpowering, of deeds of
capture, of imposing service on some one, of an instinctive reckoning
of one's self as part of a great mass of power to which one attempts
to give a direction: the hero, the prophet, the Cæsar, the Saviour,
the bell-wether. (The love of the sexes also belongs to this category,
it will overpower something, possess it utterly, and it looks like
self-abnegation. At bottom it is only the love of one's instrument, of
one's "horse"--the conviction that things belong to one because one is
in a position to use them.)

_"Freedom," "Justice," "Love"_!!!


777.

_Love._--Behold this love and pity of women--what could be more
egoistic? ... And when they do sacrifice themselves and their honour
or reputation, to whom do they sacrifice themselves? To the man? Is it
not rather to an unbridled desire? These desires are quite as selfish,
even though they may be beneficial to others and provoke gratitude.
... To what extent can such a hyperfœtation of one valuation sanctify
everything else!!


778.

_"Senses," "Passions."._--When the fear of the senses and of the
passions and of the desires becomes so great as to warn us against
them, it is already a symptom of _weakness:_ extreme measures always
characterise abnormal conditions. That which is lacking here, or more
precisely that which is decaying, is the power to resist an impulse:
when one feels instinctively that one must yield,--that is to say, that
one must react,--then it is an excellent thing to avoid opportunities
(temptations).

The stimulation of the senses is only a temptation in so far as those
creatures are concerned whose systems are easily swayed and influenced:
on the other hand, in the case of remarkable constitutional obtuseness
and hardness, strong stimuli are necessary in order to set the
functions in motion. Dissipation can only be objected to in the case of
one who has no right to it; and almost all passions have fallen into
disrepute thanks to those who were not strong enough to convert them to
their own advantage.

One should understand that passions are open to the same objections as
illnesses: yet we should not be justified in doing without illnesses,
and still less without passions. We require the abnormal; we give life
a tremendous shock by means of these great illnesses.

In detail the following should be distinguished:--

(1) The _dominating passion,_ which may even bring the supremest form
of health with it: in this case the co-ordination of the internal
system and its functions to perform one task is best attained,--but
this is almost a definition of health.

(2) The antagonism of the passions the double, treble, and multiple
soul in one breast:[6] this is very unhealthy; it is a sign of inner
ruin and of disintegration, betraying and promoting an internal dualism
and anarchy--unless, of course, one passion becomes master. _Return to
health._


(3) The juxtaposition of passions without their being either opposed
or united with one another. Very often transitory, and then, as soon
as order is established, this condition may be a healthy one. A most
interesting class of men belong to this order, the chameleons; they are
not necessarily at loggerheads with themselves, they are both happy and
secure, but they cannot develop--their moods lie side by side, even
though they may seem to lie far apart. They change, but they become
nothing.

[Footnote 6: This refers to Goethe's _Faust._ In Part I., Act I., Scene
11., we find Faust exclaiming in despair: "Two souls, alas! within my
bosom throne!" See Theodore Martin's _Faust,_ translated into English
verse.--Tr.]


779.

The quantitative estimate of aims and its influence upon the valuing
standpoint, the _great_ and the _small_ criminal. The greatness or
smallness of the aims will determine whether the doer feels respect for
himself with it all, or whether he feels pusillanimous and miserable.

The degree of intellectuality manifested in the means employed may
likewise influence our valuation. How differently the philosophical
innovator, experimenter, and man of violence stands out against
robbers, barbarians, adventurers!--There is a semblance of
disinterestedness in the former.

Finally, noble manners, bearing, courage, self-confidence,--how they
alter the value of that which is attained by means of them!

***

Concerning the optics of valuation:--

The influence of the greatness or smallness of the aims.

The influence of the intellectuality of the means. The influence of the
behaviour in action. The influence of success or failure. The influence
of opposing forces and their value. The influence of that which is
permitted and that which is forbidden.


780.

The tricks by means of which actions, measures, and passions are
legitimised, which from an individual standpoint are no longer good
form or even in good taste.--

Art, which allows us to enter such strange worlds, makes them tasteful
to us.

Historians prove its justification and reason; travels, exoticism,
psychology, penal codes, the lunatic asylum, the criminal, sociology.

Impersonality (so that as media of a collective whole we allow
ourselves these passions and action--the Bar, juries, the bourgeois,
the soldier, the minister, the prince, society, "critics") makes us
feel that we are _sacrificing something._


781.

Preoccupations concerning one's self and one's eternal salvation are
not expressive either of a rich or of a self-confident nature, for the
latter lets all questions of eternal bliss go to the devil,--it is
not interested in such matters of happiness it is all power, deeds,
desires; it imposes itself upon things; it even violates things. The
Christian is a romantic hypochondriac who does not stand firmly on his
legs.

Whenever hedonistic views come to the front, one can always presuppose
the existence of pain and a certain ill-constitutedness.


782.

"The growing autonomy of the individual"--Parisian philosophers like
M. Fouillée talk of such things: they would do well to study the
_race moutonnière_ for a moment; for they belong to it. For Heaven's
sake open your eyes, ye sociologists who deal with the future! The
individual grew strong under quite opposite conditions: ye describe the
extremest weakening and impoverishment of man; ye actually want this
weakness and impoverishment, and ye apply the whole lying machinery of
the old ideal in order to achieve your end. Ye are so constituted that
ye actually regard your gregarious wants as an ideal! Here we are in
the presence of an absolute lack of psychological honesty.


783.

The two traits which characterise the modern European are apparently
antagonistic _individualism and the demand for equal rights_: this I
am at last beginning to understand. The individual is an extremely
vulnerable piece of vanity: this vanity, when it is conscious of its
high degree of susceptibility to pain, demands that every one should
be made equal; that the individual should only stand _inter pares_.
But in this way a social race is depicted in which, as a matter of
fact, gifts and powers are on the whole equally distributed. The pride
which would have loneliness and but few appreciators is quite beyond
comprehension: really "great" successes are only attained through the
masses--indeed, we scarcely understand yet that a mob success is in
reality only a small success; because _pulchrum est paucorum hominum._

No morality will countenance order of rank among men, and the jurists
know nothing of a communal conscience. The principle of individualism
rejects _really great_ men, and demands the most delicate vision for,
and the speediest discovery of, a talent among people who are almost
equal; and inasmuch as every one has some modicum of talent in such
late and civilised cultures (and can, therefore, expect to receive his
share of honour), there is a more general buttering-up of modest merits
to-day than there has ever been. This gives the age the appearance of
_unlimited justice._ Its want of justice is to be found not in its
unbounded hatred of tyrants and demagogues, even in the arts; but in
its detestation of noble natures who scorn the praise of the many. The
demand for equal rights (that is to say, the privilege of sitting in
judgment on everything and everybody) is anti-aristocratic.

This age knows just as little concerning the absorption of the
individual, of his mergence into a great type of men who do not want to
be personalities. It was this that formerly constituted the distinction
and the zeal of many lofty natures (the greatest poets among them); or
of the desire to be a _polis,_ as in Greece; or of Jesuitism, or of
the Prussian Staff Corps, and bureaucracy; or of apprenticeship and a
continuation of the tradition of great masters: to all of which things,
non-social conditions and the absence of _petty vanity_ are necessary.


784.

_Individualism_ is a modest and still unconscious form of will to
power; with it a single human unit seems to think it sufficient to free
himself from the preponderating power of society (or of the State or
Church). He does not set himself up in opposition as a _personality,_
but merely as a unit; he represents the rights of all other individuals
as against the whole. That is to say, he instinctively places himself
on a level with every other unit: what he combats he does not combat as
a person, but as a representative of units against a mass.

Socialism is merely an agitatory measure of individualism: it
recognises the fact that in order to attain to something, men must
organise themselves into a general movement--into a "power." But what
the Socialist requires is not society as the object of the individual,
_but society as a means of making many individuals possible_: this is
the instinct of Socialists, though they frequently deceive themselves
on this point (apart from this, however, in order to make their kind
prevail, they are compelled to deceive others to an enormous extent).
Altruistic moral preaching thus enters into the service of individual
egoism,--one of the most common frauds of the nineteenth century.

_Anarchy_ is also merely an agitatory measure of Socialism; with it
the Socialist inspires fear, with fear he begins to fascinate and to
terrorise: but what he does above all is to draw all courageous and
reckless people to his side, even in the most intellectual spheres.

In spite of all this, individualism is the most modest stage of the
will to power.

***

When one has reached a certain degree of independence, one always
longs for more: separation in proportion to the degree of force;
the individual is no longer content to regard himself as equal to
everybody, he actually _seeks for his peer_--he makes himself stand out
from others. Individualism is followed by a development in groups and
organs; correlative tendencies join up together and become powerfully
active: now there arise between these centres of power, friction,
war, a reconnoitring of the forces on either side, reciprocity,
understandings, and the regulation of mutual services. Finally, there
appears an order of rank.

Recapitulation--

1. The individuals emancipate themselves.

2. They make war, and ultimately agree concerning equal rights (justice
is made an end in itself).

3. Once this is reached, the actual differences in degrees of power
begin to make themselves felt, and to a greater extent than before (the
reason being that on the whole peace is established, and innumerable
small centres of power begin to create differences which formerly were
scarcely noticeable). Now the individuals begin to form groups, these
strive after privileges and preponderance, and war starts afresh in a
milder form.

People demand freedom only when they have no power. Once power is
obtained, a preponderance thereof is the next thing to be coveted; if
this is not achieved (owing to the fact that one is still too weak for
it), then _"justice" i.e. "equality_ of power" become the objects of
desire.


785.

_The rectification of the concept "egoism."_--When one has discovered
what an error the "individual" is, and that every single creature
represents the whole process of evolution (not alone "inherited," but
in "himself"), the individual then acquires _an inordinately great
importance._ The voice of instinct is quite right here. When this
instinct tends to decline, _i.e._ when the individual begins to seek
his worth in his services to others, one may be sure that exhaustion
and degeneration have set in. An altruistic attitude of mind, when
it is fundamental and free from all hypocrisy, is the instinct of
creating a second value for one's self in the service of other egoists.
As a rule, however, it is only apparent--a circuitous path to the
preservation of one's own feelings of vitality and worth.


786.

_The History of Moralisation and Demoralisation._

_Proposition one._--There are no such things as moral actions: they
are purely imaginary. Not only is it impossible to demonstrate their
existence (a fact which Kant and Christianity, for instance, both
acknowledged) but they are not even possible. Owing to psychological
misunderstanding, a man invented an _opposite_ to the instinctive
impulses of life, and believed that a new species of instinct was
thereby discovered: a _primum mobile_ was postulated which does not
exist at all. According to the valuation which gave rise to the
antithesis "moral" and "immoral," one should say: _There is nothing
else on earth but immoral intentions and actions._

_Proposition two._----The whole differentiation, "moral" and "immoral,"
arises from the assumption that both moral and immoral actions are the
result of a spontaneous will--in short, that such a will exists; or in
other words, that moral judgments can only hold good with regard to
intuitions and actions _that are free._ But this whole order of actions
and intentions is purely imaginary: the only world to which the moral
standard could be applied does not exist at all: _there is no such
thing as a moral or an immoral action._

The _psychological error_ out of which the antithesis "moral" and
"immoral" arose is: "selfless," "unselfish," "self-denying"--all unreal
and fantastic.

A false dogmatism also clustered around the concept "ego"; it was
regarded as atomic, and falsely opposed to a non-ego; it was also
liberated from Becoming, and declared to belong to the sphere of
Being. The false materialisation of the ego: this (owing to the belief
in individual immortality) was made an article of faith under the
pressure of _religio-moral discipline._ According to this artificial
liberation of the ego and its transference to the realm of the
absolute, people thought that they had arrived at an antithesis in
values which seemed quite irrefutable--the single ego and the vast
non-ego. It seemed obvious that the value of the individual ego could
only exist in conjunction with the vast non-ego, more particularly in
the sense of being subject to it and existing only for its sake. Here,
of course, the gregarious instinct determined the direction of thought:
nothing is more opposed to this instinct than the sovereignty of the
individual. Supposing, however, that the ego be absolute, then its
value must lie in _self-negation._

Thus: (1) the false emancipation of the "individual" as an atom;

(2) The gregarious self-conceit which abhors the desire to remain an
atom, and regards it as hostile.

(3) As a result: the overcoming of the individual by changing his aim.

(4) At this point there appeared to be actions that were self-effacing:
around these actions a whole sphere of antitheses was fancied.

(5) It was asked, in what sort of actions does man most strongly
assert himself? Around these (sexuality, covetousness, lust for power,
cruelty, etc. etc.) hate, contempt, and anathemas were heaped: it
was believed that there could be such things as selfless impulses.
Everything selfish was condemned, everything unselfish was in demand.

(6) And the result was: what had been done? A ban had been placed
on the strongest, the most natural, yea, the only genuine impulses,
henceforward, in order that an action might be praiseworthy, there must
be no trace in it of any of those genuine impulses--_monstrous fraud
in psychology._ Every kind of "self-satisfaction" had to be remodelled
and made possible by means of misunderstanding and adjusting one's self
_sub specie boni._ Conversely: that species which found its advantage
in depriving mankind of its self-satisfaction, the representatives of
the gregarious instincts, _e.g._ the priests and the philosophers, were
sufficiently crafty and psychologically astute to show how selfishness
ruled everywhere. The Christian conclusion from this was: "Everything
is sin, even our virtues. Man is utterly undesirable. Selfless actions
are impossible." Original sin. In short, once man had opposed his
instincts to a purely imaginary world of the good, he concluded by
despising himself as incapable of performing "good" actions.

_N.B._ In this way Christianity represents a step forward in the
sharpening of psychological insight: La Rochefoucauld and Pascal. It
perceived the essential equality of human actions, and the equality of
their values as a whole (all immoral).

***

Now the first serious object was to rear men in whom self-seeking
impulses were extinguished. _priests, saints._ And if people doubted
that perfection was possible, they did not doubt what perfection was.

The psychology of the saint and of the priest and of the "good" man,
must naturally have seemed purely phantasmagorical. The real motive of
all action had been declared bad: therefore, in order to make action
still possible, deeds had to be prescribed which, though not possible,
had to be declared possible and sanctified. They now honoured and
idealised things with as much falsity as they had previously slandered
them.

Inveighing against the instincts of life came to be regarded as holy
and estimable. The priestly ideal was: absolute chastity, absolute
obedience, absolute poverty! The lay ideal: alms, pity, self-sacrifice,
renunciation of the beautiful, of reason, and of sensuality, and a dark
frown for all the strong qualities that existed.

***

An advance is made: the slandered instincts attempt to re-establish
their rights (_e.g._ Luther's Reformation, the coarsest form of
moral falsehood under the cover of "Evangelical freedom"), they are
rechristened with holy names.

The calumniated instincts try to demonstrate that they are necessary in
order that the virtuous instincts may be possible. _Il faut vivre, afin
de vivre pour autrui:_ egoism as a means to an end.[7]


But people go still further: they try to grant both the egoistic and
altruistic impulses the right to exist--equal rights for both--from the
utilitarian standpoint.

People go further: they see greater utility in placing the egoistic
rights before the altruistic--greater utility in the sense of more
happiness for the majority, or of the elevation of mankind, etc. etc.
Thus the rights of egoism begin to preponderate, but under the cloak of
an extremely altruistic standpoint--the collective utility of humanity.

An attempt is made to reconcile the altruistic mode of action with the
natural order of things. Altruism is sought in the very roots of life.
Altruism and egoism are both based upon the essence of life and nature.

The disappearance of the opposition between them is dreamt of as a
future possibility. Continued adaptation, it is hoped, will merge the
two into one.

At last it is seen that altruistic actions are merely a species of the
egoistic--and that the degree to which one loves and spends one's self
is a proof of the extent of one's individual power and personality. In
short, that the more evil man can be made, the better he is, and that
one cannot be the one without the other. At this point the curtain
rises which concealed the monstrous fraud of the psychology that has
prevailed hitherto.

***

_Results._--There are only immoral intentions and actions; the
so-called moral actions must be shown to be immoral. All emotions are
traced to a single will, the will to power, and are called essentially
equal. The concept of life: in the apparent antithesis good and evil,
degrees of power in the instincts alone are expressed. A temporary
order of rank is established according to which certain instincts are
either controlled or enlisted in our service. Morality is justified:
economically, etc.

***

Against proposition two.--Determinism: the attempt to rescue the moral
world by transferring it to the unknown.

Determinism is only a manner of allowing ourselves to conjure our
valuations away, once they have lost their place in a world interpreted
mechanistically. Determinism must therefore be attacked and undermined
at all costs: just as our right to distinguish between an absolute and
phenomenal world should be disputed.

[Footnote 7: Spencer's conclusion in the _Data of Ethics._--Tr.]


787.

It is absolutely necessary to emancipate ourselves from motives:
otherwise we should not be allowed to attempt to sacrifice ourselves
or to neglect ourselves! Only the innocence of Becoming gives us the
highest courage and the highest freedom.


788.

A clean conscience must be restored to the evil man--has this been my
involuntary endeavour all the time? for I take as the evil man him
who is strong (Dostoievsky's belief concerning the convicts in prison
should be referred to here).


789.

Our new "freedom." What a feeling of relief there is in the thought
that we emancipated spirits do not feel ourselves harnessed to any
system of teleological aims. Likewise that the concepts reward and
punishment have no roots in the essence of existence! Likewise that
good and evil actions are not good or evil in themselves, but only
from the point of view of the self-preservative tendencies of certain
species of humanity! Likewise that our speculations concerning pleasure
and pain are not of cosmic, far less then of metaphysical, importance!
(That form of pessimism associated with the name of Hartmann, which
pledges itself to put even the pain and pleasure of existence into
the balance, with its arbitrary confinement in the prison and within
the bounds of pre-Copernican thought, would be something not only
retrogressive, but degenerate, unless it be merely a bad joke on the
part of a "Berliner."[8])

[Footnote 8: "Berliner"--The citizens of Berlin are renowned in Germany
for their poor jokes.--Tr.]


790.

If one is clear as to the "wherefore" of one's life, then the "how" of
it can take care of itself.


It is already even a sign of disbelief in the wherefore and in the
purpose and sense of life--in fact, it is a sign of a lack of
will--when the value of pleasure and pain step into the foreground,
and hedonistic and pessimistic teaching becomes prevalent; and
self-abnegation, resignation, virtue, "objectivity," _may,_ at the very
least, be signs that the most important factor is beginning to make its
absence felt.


791.

Hitherto there has been no German culture. It is no refutation of this
assertion to say that there have been great anchorites in Germany
(Goethe, for instance); for these had their own culture. But it was
precisely around them, as though around mighty, defiant, and isolated
rocks, that the remaining spirit of Germany, _as their antithesis,_
lay that is to say, as a soft, swampy, slippery soil, upon which every
step and every footprint of the rest of Europe made an impression and
created forms. German culture was a thing devoid of character and of
almost unlimited yielding power.


792.

Germany, though very rich in clever and well-informed scholars, has
for some time been so excessively poor in great souls and in mighty
minds, that it almost seems to have forgotten what a great soul or
a mighty mind is; and to-day mediocre and even ill-constituted men
place themselves in the market square without the suggestion of a
conscience-prick or a sign of embarrassment, and declare themselves
great men, reformers, etc. Take the case of Eugen Dühring, for
instance, a really clever and well-informed scholar, but a man who
betrays with almost every word he says that he has a miserably small
soul, and that he is horribly tormented by narrow envious feelings;
moreover, that it is no mighty overflowing, benevolent, and spendthrift
spirit that drives him on, but only the spirit of ambition! But to be
ambitious in such an age as this is much more unworthy of a philosopher
than ever it was: to-day, when it is the mob that rules, when it is the
mob that dispenses the honours.


793.

My "future": a severe polytechnic education. Conscription; so that as
a rule every man of the higher classes should be an officer, whatever
else he may be besides.




IV.

THE WILL TO POWER IN ART.


794.

Our religion, morality, and philosophy are decadent human institutions.
The counter-agent. Art.


795.

The _Artist-philosopher._ A higher concept of art. Can man stand at
so great a distance from his fellows as to mould them? (Preliminary
exercises thereto:--

1. To become a self-former, an anchorite.

2. To do what artists have done hitherto, _i.e._ to reach a small
degree of perfection in a certain medium.)


796.

Art as it appears without the artist, _i.e._ as a body, an organisation
(the Prussian Officers' Corps, the Order of the Jesuits). To what
extent is the artist merely a preliminary stage? The world regarded as
a self-generating work of art.


797.

The phenomenon, "artist," is the easiest to see through: from it one
can look down upon the fundamental instincts of power, of nature, etc.,
even of religion and morality.

"Play," uselessness--as the ideal of him who is overflowing with power,
as the ideal of the child. The childishness of God, παῑς παίζων.


798.

_Apollonian, Dionysian._ There are two conditions in which art
manifests itself in man even as a force of nature, and disposes of
him whether he consent or not: it may be as a constraint to visionary
states, or it may be an orgiastic impulse. Both conditions are to be
seen in normal life, but they are then somewhat weaker: in dreams and
in moments of elation or intoxication.[9]

But the same contrast exists between the dream state and the state of
intoxication; both of these states let loose all manner of artistic
powers within us, but each unfetters powers of a different kind.
Dreamland gives us the power of vision, of association, of poetry:
intoxication gives us the power of grand attitudes, of passion, of
song, and of dance.

[Footnote 9: German: "Rausch."--There is no word in English for the
German expression "Rausch." When Nietzsche uses it, he means a sort of
blend of our two words: intoxication and elation.--Tr.]


799.

Sexuality and voluptuousness belong to the Dionysiac intoxication:
but neither of them is lacking in the Apollonian state. There is also
a difference of tempo between the states.... _The extreme peace of
certain feelings of intoxication_ (or, more strictly, the slackening
of the feeling of time, and the reduction of the feeling of space) is
wont to reflect itself in the vision of the most restful attitudes
and states of the soul. The classical style essentially represents
repose, simplification, foreshortening, and concentration--the _highest
feeling of power_ is concentrated in the classical type. To react with
difficulty: great consciousness: no feeling of strife.


800.

The feeling of intoxication is, as a matter of fact, equivalent to a
sensation of _surplus power_: it is strongest in seasons of rut: new
organs, new accomplishments, new colours, new forms. Embellishment is
an outcome of _increased power._ Embellishment is merely an expression
of a triumphant will, of an increased state of co-ordination, of a
harmony of all the strong desires, of an infallible and perpendicular
equilibrium. Logical and geometrical simplification is the result of an
increase of power: conversely, the mere aspect of such a simplification
increases the sense of power in the beholder.... The zenith of
development: the grand style.

Ugliness signifies _the decadence of a type_: contradiction and
faulty co-ordination among the inmost desires--this means a decline
in the _organising_ power, or, psychologically speaking, in the will.
The condition of pleasure which is called intoxication is really
an exalted feeling of power. ... Sensations of space and time are
altered; inordinate distances are traversed by the eye, and only then
become visible; the extension of the vision over greater masses and
expanses; the refinement of the organ which apprehends the smallest
and most elusive things; divination, the power of understanding at the
slightest hint, at the smallest suggestion; intelligent sensitiveness;
_strength_ as a feeling of dominion in the muscles, as agility and
love of movement, as dance, as levity and quick time; strength as the
love of proving strength, as bravado, adventurousness, fearlessness,
indifference in regard to life and death.... All these elated moments
of life stimulate each other; the world of images and of imagination
of the one suffices as a suggestion for the other: in this way states
finally merge into each other, which might do better to keep apart,
_e.g._ the feeling of religious intoxication and sexual irritability
(two very profound feelings, always wonderfully co-ordinated. What is
it that pleases almost all pious women, old or young? Answer: a saint
with beautiful legs, still young, still innocent). Cruelty in tragedy
and pity (likewise normally correlated). Spring-time, dancing, music,
--all these things are but the display of one sex before the other,--as
also that "infinite yearning of the heart" peculiar to Faust.

Artists when they are worth anything at all are men of strong
propensities (even physically), with surplus energy, powerful animals,
sensual; without a certain overheating of the sexual system a man like
Raphael is unthinkable.... To produce music is also in a sense to
produce children; chastity is merely the economy of the artist, and
in all creative artists productiveness certainly ceases with sexual
potency.... Artists should not see things as they are; they should
see them fuller, simpler, stronger: to this end, however, a kind of
youthfulness, of vernality, a sort of perpetual elation, must be
peculiar to their lives.


801.

The states in which we transfigure things and make them fuller, and
rhapsodise about them, until they reflect our own fulness and love
of life back upon us: sexuality, intoxication, post-prandial states,
spring, triumph over our enemies, scorn, bravado, cruelty, the ecstasy
of religious feeling. But three elements above all are active:
_sexuality, intoxication, cruelty_; all these belong to the oldest
_festal joys_ of mankind, they also preponderate in budding artists.

Conversely: there are things with which we meet which already show
us this transfiguration and fulness, and the animal world's response
thereto is a state of excitement in the spheres where these states
of happiness originate. A blending of these very delicate shades of
animal well-being and desires is the _æsthetic state._ The latter only
manifests itself in those natures which are capable of that spendthrift
and overflowing fulness of bodily vigour; the latter is always the
_primum mobile._ The sober-minded man, the tired man, the exhausted and
dried-up man (_e.g._ the scholar), can have no feeling for art, because
he does not possess the primitive force of art, which is the tyranny
of inner riches: he who cannot give anything away cannot feel anything
either.

_"Perfection"_--In these states (more particularly in the case of
sexual love) there is an ingenuous betrayal of what the profoundest
instinct regards as the highest, the most desirable, the most valuable,
the ascending movement of its type; also of the condition towards which
it is actually striving. Perfection: the extraordinary expansion of
this instinct's feeling of power, its riches, its necessary overflowing
of all banks.


802.

Art reminds us of states of physical vigour: it may be the overflow and
bursting forth of blooming life in the world of pictures and desires;
on the other hand, it may be an excitation of the physical functions by
means of pictures and desires of exalted life--an enhancement of the
feeling of life, the latter's stimulant.

To what extent can ugliness exercise this power? In so far as it may
communicate something of the triumphant energy of the artist who has
become master of the ugly and the repulsive; or in so far as it gently
excites our lust of cruelty (in some circumstances even the lust of
doing harm to ourselves, self-violence, and therewith the feeling of
power over ourselves).


803.

"Beauty" therefore is, to the artist, something which is above all
order of rank, because in beauty contrasts are overcome, the highest
sign of power thus manifesting itself in the conquest of opposites;
and achieved without a feeling of tension: violence being no longer
necessary, everything submitting and obeying so easily, and doing so
with good grace; this is what delights the powerful will of the artist.


804.

The biological value of _beauty_ and _ugliness._ That which we feel
instinctively opposed to us æsthetically is, according to the longest
experience of mankind, felt to be harmful, dangerous, and worthy of
suspicion: the sudden utterance of the æsthetic instinct, _e.g._ in the
case of loathing, implies an act of judgment. To this extent beauty
lies within the general category of the biological values, useful,
beneficent, and life-promoting: thus, a host of stimuli which for
ages have been associated with, and remind us of, useful things and
conditions, give us the feeling of beauty, _i.e._ the increase of the
feeling of power (not only things, therefore, but the sensations which
are associated with such things or their symbols). In this way beauty
and ugliness are recognised as determined by our most fundamental
self-preservative values. Apart from this, it is nonsense to postulate
anything as beautiful or ugly. Absolute beauty exists just as little
as absolute goodness and truth. In a particular case it is a matter of
the self-preservative conditions of a certain type of man: thus the
gregarious man will have quite a different feeling for beauty from the
exceptional or super-man.

It is the optics of things in the foreground which only consider
immediate consequences, from which the value beauty (also goodness and
truth) arises.

All instinctive judgments are short-sighted in regard to the
concatenation of consequences: they merely advise what must be done
forthwith. Reason is essentially an obstructing apparatus preventing
the immediate response to instinctive judgments: it halts, it
calculates, it traces the chain of consequences further.

Judgments concerning beauty and ugliness are short-sighted (reason is
always opposed to them): but they are convincing in the highest degree;
they appeal to our instincts in that quarter where the latter decide
most quickly and say yes or no with least hesitation, even before
reason can interpose.

The most common affirmations of beauty stimulate each other
reciprocally; where the æsthetic impulse once begins to work, a
whole host of other and foreign perfections crystallise around the
"particular form of beauty." It is impossible to remain objective, it
is certainly impossible to dispense with the interpreting, bestowing,
transfiguring, and poetising power (the latter is a stringing together
of affirmations concerning beauty itself). The sight of a beautiful
woman....

Thus (1) judgment concerning beauty is short-sighted; it sees only the
immediate consequences.

(2) It smothers the object which gives rise to it with a charm that is
determined by the association of various judgments concerning beauty,
which, however, are quite alien to the _essence of the particular
object._ To regard a thing as beautiful is necessarily to regard it
falsely (that is why incidentally love marriages are from the social
point of view the most unreasonable form of matrimony).


805.

_Concerning the genesis of Art._ That making perfect and seeing
perfect, which is peculiar to the cerebral system overladen with sexual
energy (a lover alone with his sweetheart at eventide transfigures the
smallest details: life is a chain of sublime things, "the misfortune
of an unhappy love affair is more valuable than anything else"); on
the other hand, everything perfect and beautiful operates like an
unconscious recollection of that amorous condition and of the point of
view peculiar to it--all perfection, and the whole of the beauty of
things, through contiguity, revives aphrodisiac bliss. (Physiologically
it is the creative instinct of the artist and the distribution of
his semen in his blood.) The desire for art and beauty is an indirect
longing for the ecstasy; of sexual desire, which gets communicated to
the brain. The world become perfect through "love."


806.

_Sensuality in its various disguises._--(1) As idealism (Plato), common
to youth, constructing a kind of concave-mirror in which the image of
the beloved is an incrustation, an exaggeration, a transfiguration, an
attribution of infinity to everything. (2) In the religion of love, "a
fine young man," "a beautiful woman," in some way divine; a bridegroom,
a bride of the soul. (3) In art, as a decorating force, _e.g._ just as
the man sees the woman and makes her a present of everything that can
enhance her personal charm, so the sensuality of the artist adorns an
object with everything else that he honours and esteems, and by this
means perfects it (or idealises it). Woman, knowing what man feels
in regard to her, tries to meet his idealising endeavours half-way
by decorating herself, by walking and dancing well, by expressing
delicate thoughts: in addition, she may practise modesty, shyness,
reserve--prompted by her instinctive feeling that the idealising
power of man increases with all this, (In the extraordinary finesse
of woman's instincts, modesty must not by any means be considered as
conscious hypocrisy: she guesses that it is precisely artlessness and
real shame which seduces man most and urges him to an exaggerated
esteem of her. On this account, woman is ingenuous, owing to the
subtlety of her instincts which reveal to her the utility of a state of
innocence. A wilful closing of one's eyes to one's self.... Wherever
dissembling has a stronger influence by being unconscious it actually
becomes unconscious.)


807.

What a host of things can be accomplished by the state of intoxication
which is called by the name of love, and which is something else
besides love!--And yet everybody has his own experience of this matter.
The muscular strength of a girl suddenly increases as soon as a man
comes into her presence: there are instruments with which this can be
measured. In the case of a still closer relationship of the sexes,
as, for instance, in dancing and in other amusements which society
gatherings entail, this power increases to such an extent as to make
real feats of strength possible: at last one no longer trusts either
one's eyes, or one's watch! Here at all events we must reckon with the
fact that dancing itself, like every form of rapid movement, involves
a kind of intoxication of the whole nervous, muscular, and visceral
system. We must therefore reckon in this case with the collective
effects of a double intoxication.--And how clever it is to be a little
off your head at times! There are some realities which we cannot admit
even to ourselves: especially when; we are women and have all sorts
of feminine, _"pudeurs."..._Those young creatures dancing over there
are obviously beyond all reality: they are dancing only with a host
of tangible ideals: what is more, they even see ideals sitting around
them, their mothers!... An opportunity for quoting _Faust._ They look
incomparably fairer, do these pretty creatures, when they have lost
their head a little; and how well they know it too, they are even more
delightful _because_ they know it! Lastly, it is their finery which
inspires them; their finery is their third little intoxication. They
believe in their dressmaker as in their God: and who would destroy this
faith in them? Blessed is this faith! And self-admiration is healthy!
Self-admiration can protect one even from cold! Has a beautiful woman,
who knew she was well-dressed, ever caught cold? Never yet on this
earth! I even suppose a case in which she has scarcely a rag on her.


808.

If one should require the most astonishing proof of how far the power
of transfiguring, which comes of intoxication, goes, this proof is
at hand in the phenomenon of love; or what is called love in all
the languages and silences of the world. Intoxication works to such
a degree upon reality in this passion that in the consciousness of
the lover the cause of his love is quite suppressed, and something
else seems to take its place,--a vibration and a glitter of all the
charm-mirrors of Circe.... In this respect to be man or an animal
makes no difference: and still less does spirit, goodness, or honesty.
If one is astute, one is befooled astutely; if one is thick-headed,
one is befooled in a thick-headed way. But love, even the love of
God, saintly love, "the love that saves the soul," are at bottom all
one; they are nothing but a fever which has reasons to transfigure
itself--a state of intoxication which does well to lie about itself....
And, at any rate, when a man loves, he is a good liar about himself
and to himself: he seems to himself transfigured, stronger, richer,
more perfect; he _is_ more perfect.... _Art_ here acts as an organic
function: we find it present in the most angelic instinct "love";
we find it as the greatest stimulus of life--thus art is sublimely
utilitarian, even in the fact that it lies.... But we should be wrong
to halt at its power to lie: it does more than merely imagine; it
actually transposes values. And it not only transposes the _feeling_
for values: the lover actually _has_ a greater value; he is stronger.
In animals this condition gives rise to new weapons, colours, pigments,
and forms, and above all to new movements, new rhythms, new love-calls
and seductions. In man it is just the same. His whole economy is
richer, mightier, and _more complete_ when he is in love than when he
is not. The lover becomes a spendthrift; he is rich enough for it. He
now dares; he becomes an adventurer, and even a donkey in magnanimity
and innocence; his belief in God and in virtue revives, because he
believes in love. Moreover, such idiots of happiness acquire wings and
new capacities, and even the door to art is opened to them.

If we cancel the suggestion of this intestinal fever from the lyric
of tones and words, what is left to poetry and music? ... _L'art pour
l'art_ perhaps; the professional cant of frogs shivering outside in
the cold, and dying of despair in their swamp.... Everything else was
created by love.


809.

All art works like a suggestion on the muscles and the senses which
were originally active in the ingenuous artistic man; its voice is only
heard by artists--it speaks to this kind of man, whose constitution
is attuned to such subtlety in sensitiveness. The concept "layman"
is a misnomer. The deaf man is not a subdivision of the class, whose
ears are sound. All art works as a _tonic;_ it increases strength, it
kindles desire _(i.e._ the feeling of strength), it excites all the
more subtle recollections of intoxication; there is actually a special
kind of memory which underlies such states--a distant flitful world of
sensations here returns to being.

Ugliness is the contradiction of art. It is that which art _excludes,_
the _negation_ of art: wherever decline, impoverishment of life,
impotence, decomposition, dissolution, are felt, however remotely, the
æsthetic man reacts with his _No._ Ugliness _depresses_: it is the sign
of depression. It _robs_ strength, it impoverishes, it weighs down, ...
Ugliness _suggests_ repulsive things. From one's states of health one
can test how an indisposition may increase one's power of fancying ugly
things. One's selection of things, interests, and questions becomes
different. Logic provides a state which is next of kin to ugliness:
heaviness, bluntness. In the presence of ugliness equilibrium is
lacking in a mechanical sense: ugliness limps and stumbles--the direct
opposite of the godly agility of the dancer.

The æsthetic state represents an overflow _of means of communication_
as well as a condition of extreme sensibility to stimuli and signs. It
is the zenith of communion and transmission between living creatures;
it is the source of languages. In it, languages, whether of signs,
sounds, or glances, have their birthplace. The richer phenomenon is
always the beginning: our abilities are subtilised forms of richer
abilities. But even to-day we still listen with our muscles, we even
read with our muscles.

Every mature art possesses a host of conventions as a basis: in so
far as it is a language. Convention is a condition of great art,
_not_ an obstacle to it.... Every elevation of life likewise elevates
the power of communication, as also the understanding of man. _The
power of living in other people's souls_ originally had nothing to do
with morality, but with a physiological irritability of suggestion:
"sympathy," or what is called "altruism," is merely a product of
that <DW43>-motor relationship which is reckoned as spirituality
(<DW43>-motor induction, says Charles Féré). People never communicate a
thought to one another: they communicate a movement, an imitative sign
which is then interpreted as a thought.


810.

_Compared with music,_ communication by means of words is a shameless
mode of procedure; words reduce and stultify; words make impersonal;
words make common that which is uncommon.


811.

It is exceptional states that determine the artist--such states as are
all intimately related and entwined with morbid symptoms, so that it
would seem almost impossible to be an artist without being ill.

The physiological conditions which in the artist become moulded into a
"personality," and which, to a certain degree, may attach themselves to
any man:--

(1) Intoxication, the feeling of enhanced power; the inner compulsion
to make things a mirror of one's own fulness and perfection.

(2) The extreme sharpness of certain senses, so that they are capable
of understanding a totally different language of signs--and to create
such a language (this is a condition which manifests itself in some
nervous diseases); extreme susceptibility out of which great powers of
communion are developed; the desire to speak on the part of everything
that is capable of making-signs; a need of being rid of one's self by
means of gestures and attitudes; the ability of speaking about one's
self in a hundred different languages--in fact, a state of _explosion._

One must first imagine this condition as one in which there is a
pressing and compulsory desire of ridding one's self of the ecstasy of
a state of tension, by all kinds of muscular work and movement; also as
an involuntary _co-ordination_ of these movements with inner processes
(images, thoughts, desires)--as a kind of automatism of the whole
muscular system under the compulsion of strong stimuli acting from
within; the inability to resist reaction; the apparatus of resistance
is also suspended. Every inner movement (feeling, thought, emotion)
is accompanied by _vascular changes,_ and consequently by changes in
colour, temperature, and secretion. The suggestive power of music, its
"_suggestion mentale._"

(3) _The compulsion to imitate:_ extreme irritability, by means of
which a certain example becomes contagious--a condition is guessed
and represented merely by means of a few signs.... A complete picture
is visualised by one's inner consciousness, and its effect soon shows
itself in the movement of the limbs,--in a certain suspension of the
_will_ (Schopenhauer!!!!). A sort of blindness and deafness towards the
external world,--the realm of admitted stimuli is sharply defined.

This differentiates the artist from the layman (from the spectator
of art): the latter reaches the height of his excitement in the mere
act of apprehending: the former in giving--and in such a way that
the antagonism between these two gifts is not only natural but even
desirable. Each of these states has an opposite standpoint--to demand
of the artist that he should have the point of view of the spectator
(of the critic) is equivalent to asking him to impoverish his creative
power.... In this respect the same difference holds good as that which
exists between the sexes: one should not ask the artist who gives to
become a woman--to _"receive."_

Our æsthetics have hitherto been women's æsthetics, inasmuch as they
have only formulated the experiences of what is beautiful, from the
point of view of the receivers in art. In the whole of philosophy
hitherto the artist has been lacking ... _i.e._ as we have already
suggested, a necessary fault: for the artist who would begin to
understand himself would therewith begin to mistake himself--he must
not look backwards, he must not look at all; he must give.--It is an
honour for an artist to have no critical faculty; if he can criticise
he is mediocre, he is modern.


812.

Here I lay down a series of psychological states as signs of
flourishing and complete life, which to-day we are in the habit of
regarding as morbid. But, by this time, we have broken ourselves of
the habit of speaking of healthy and morbid as opposites: the question
is one of degree, what I maintain on this point is that what people
call healthy nowadays represents a lower level of that which under
favourable circumstances actually would be healthy--that we are
relatively sick....

The artist belongs to a much stronger race. That which in us would be
harmful and sickly, is natural in him. But people object to this that
it is precisely the impoverishment of the machine which renders this
extraordinary power of comprehending every kind of suggestion possible:
_e.g._ our hysterical females.

An overflow of spunk and energy may quite as well lead to symptoms of
partial constraint, sense hallucinations, peripheral sensitiveness,
as a poor vitality does--the stimuli are differently determined, the
effect is the same.... What is not the same is above all the ultimate
result; the extreme torpidity of all morbid natures, after their
nervous eccentricities, has nothing in common with the states of the
artist, who need in no wise repent his best moments.... He is rich
enough for it all: he can squander without becoming poor.

Just as we now feel justified in judging genius as a form of neurosis,
we may perhaps think the same of artistic suggestive power,--and
our artists are, as a matter of fact, only too closely related to
hysterical females!!! This, however, is only an argument against the
present day, and not against artists in general.

The inartistic states are: objectivity, reflection suspension of the
will ... (Schopenhauer's scandalous misunderstanding consisted in
regarding art as a mere bridge to the denial of life)... The inartistic
states are: those which impoverish, which subtract, which bleach, under
which life suffers--the Christian.


813.

The modern artist who, in his physiology, is next of kin to the
hysteric, may also be classified as a character belonging to this state
of morbidness. The hysteric is false,--he lies from the love of lying,
he is admirable in all the arts of dissimulation,--unless his morbid
vanity hood-wink him. This vanity is like a perpetual fever which is
in need of stupefying drugs, and which recoils from no self-deception
and no farce that promises it the most fleeting satisfaction. (The
incapacity for pride and the need of continual revenge for his
deep-rooted self-contempt, this is almost the definition of this man's
vanity.)

The absurd irritability of his system, which makes a crisis out of
every one of his experiences, and sees dramatic elements in the most
insignificant occurrences of life, deprives him of all calm reflection;
he ceases from being a personality, at most he is a rendezvous of
personalities of which first one and then the other asserts itself with
barefaced assurance. Precisely on this account he is great as an actor
_i_ all these poor will-less people, whom doctors study so profoundly,
astound one through their virtuosity in mimicking, in transfiguration,
in their assumption of almost any character required.


814.

Artists are not men of great passion, despite all their assertions
to the contrary both to themselves and to others. And for the
following two reasons: they lack all shyness towards themselves (they
watch themselves live, they spy upon themselves, they are much too
inquisitive), and they also lack shyness in the presence of passion
(as artists they exploit it). Secondly, however, that vampire, their
talent, generally forbids them such an expenditure of energy as passion
demands.--A man, who has a talent is sacrificed to that talent; he
lives under the vampirism of his talent.

A man does not get rid of his passion by reproducing it, but rather
he is rid of it if he is able to reproduce it. (Goethe teaches the
reverse, but it seems as though he deliberately misunderstood himself
here--from a sense of delicacy.)


815.

_Concerning a reasonable mode of life._--.Relative, chastity, a
fundamental and shrewd caution in regard to _erotica,_ even in thought,
may be a reasonable mode of life even in richly equipped and perfect
natures. But this principle applies more particularly to artists; it
belongs to the best wisdom of their lives. Wholly trustworthy voices
have already been raised in favour of this view, _e.g._ Stendhal, Th.
Gautier, and Flaubert. The artist is perhaps in his way necessarily
a sensual man, generally susceptible, accessible to everything, and
capable of responding to the remotest stimulus or suggestion of a
stimulus. Nevertheless, as a rule he is in the power of his work, of
his will to mastership, really a sober and often even a chaste man. His
dominating instinct will have him so: it does not allow him to spend
himself haphazardly. It is one and the same form of strength which is
spent in artistic conception and in the sexual act: there is only one
form of strength. The artist who yields in this respect, and who spends
himself, is betrayed: by so doing he reveals his lack of instinct, his
lack of will in general. It may be a sign of decadence,--in any case it
reduces the value of his art to an incalculable degree.


816.

Compared with the artist, the scientific man, regarded as a phenomenon,
is indeed a sign of a certain storing-up and levelling-down of
life (but also of an increase of strength, severity, hardness, and
will-power). To what extent can falsity and indifference towards truth
and utility be a sign of youth, of childishness, in the artist? ...
Their habitual manner, their unreasonableness, their ignorance of
themselves, their indifference to "eternal values," their seriousness
in play, their lack of dignity; clowns and gods in one; the saint and
the rabble.... Imitation as an imperious instinct.--Do not artists of
ascending life and artists of degeneration belong to all phases? ...
Yes!


817.

Would any link be missing in the whole chain of science and art, if
woman, if woman's work, were excluded from it? Let us acknowledge the
exception--it proves the rule--that woman is capable of perfection in
everything which does not constitute a work: in letters, in memoirs,
in the most intricate handiwork--in short, in everything which is not
a craft; and just precisely because in the things mentioned woman
perfects herself, because in them she obeys the only artistic impulse
in her nature,--which is to captivate.... But what has woman to do
with the passionate indifference of the genuine artist who sees more
importance in a breath, in a sound, in the merest trifle, than in
himself?--who with all his five fingers gropes for his most secret
and hidden treasures?--who attributes no value to anything unless
it knows how to take shape (unless it surrenders itself, unless it
visualises itself in some way). Art as it is practised by artists--do
you not understand what it is? is it not an outrage on all _our
pudeurs? ..._ Only in this century has woman dared to try her hand at
literature ("_Vers la canaille plumière écrivassière,"_ to speak with
old Mirabeau): woman now writes, she now paints, she is losing her
instincts. And to what purpose, if one may put such a question?


818.

A man is an artist to the extent to which he regards everything
that inartistic people call "form" as the actual substance, as the
"principal" thing. With such ideas a man certainly belongs to a world
upside down: for henceforward substance seems to him something merely
formal,--his own life included.


819.

A sense for, and a delight in, nuances (which is characteristic of
modernity), in that which is not general, runs counter to the instinct
which finds its joy and its strength in grasping what is typical: like
Greek taste in its best period. In this there is an overcoming of the
plenitude of life; restraint dominates, the peace of the strong soul
which is slow to move and which feels a certain repugnance towards
excessive activity is defeated. The general rule, the law, is honoured
and made prominent, conversely, the exception is laid aside, and shades
are suppressed. All that which is firm, mighty, solid, life resting
on a broad and powerful basis, concealing its strength this pleases:
_i.e._ it corresponds with what we think of ourselves.


820.

In the main I am much more in favour of artists than any philosopher
that has appeared hitherto: artists, at least, did not lose sight of
the great course which life pursues; they loved the things "of this
world,"--they loved their senses. To strive after "spirituality,"
in cases where this is not pure hypocrisy or self-deception, seems
to me to be either a misunderstanding, a disease, or a cure, I wish
myself, and all those who live without the troubles of a puritanical
conscience, and who are able to live in this way, an ever greater
spiritualisation and multiplication of the senses. Indeed, we would
fain be grateful to the senses for their subtlety, power, and
plenitude, and on that account offer them the best we have in the way
of spirit. What do we care about priestly and metaphysical anathemas
upon the senses? We no longer require to treat them in this way: it
is a sign of well-constitutedness when a man like Goethe clings with
ever greater joy and heartiness to the "things of this world"--in this
way he holds firmly to the grand concept of mankind, which is that man
becomes the glorifying power of existence when he learns to glorify
himself.


821.

_Pessimism in art?_--The artist gradually learns to like for their own
sake, those means which bring about the condition of æsthetic elation;
extreme delicacy and glory of colour, definite delineation, quality of
tone; distinctness where in normal conditions distinctness is absent.
All distinct things, all nuances, in so far as they recall extreme
degrees of power which give rise to intoxication, kindle this feeling
of intoxication by association;--the effect of works of art is the
excitation of the state which creates art, of æsthetic intoxication.

The essential feature in art is its power of perfecting
existence, its production of perfection and plenitude; art is
essentially the affirmation, the blessing, and the deification of
existence.... What does a pessimistic art signify? Is it not a
_contradictio_?--Yes.--Schopenhauer is in error when he makes certain
works of art serve the purpose of pessimism. Tragedy does not teach
"resignation." ... To represent terrible and questionable things
is, in itself, the sign of an instinct of power and magnificence
in the artist; he doesn't fear them.... There is no such thing as
a pessimistic, art.... Art affirms. Job affirms. But Zola? and the
Goncourts?--the things they show us are ugly, their reason, however,
for showing them to us is their love of ugliness ... I don't care what
you say! You simply deceive yourselves if you think otherwise.--What a
relief Dostoievsky is!


822.

If I have sufficiently initiated my readers into the doctrine that
even "goodness," in the whole comedy of existence, represents a form
of exhaustion, they will now credit Christianity with consistency for
having conceived the good to be the ugly. In this respect Christianity
was right.

It is absolutely unworthy of a philosopher to say that "the good and
the beautiful are one"; if he should add "and also the true," he
deserves to be thrashed. Truth is ugly.

Art is with us in order that we may not perish through truth.


823.

Moralising tendencies may be combated with art. Art is freedom from
moral bigotry and philosophy _à la_ Little Jack Horner: or it may be
the mockery of these things. The flight to Nature, where beauty and
terribleness are coupled. The concept of the great man.

--Fragile, useless souls-de-luxe, which are disconcerted by a mere
breath of wind, "beautiful souls."

--Ancient ideals, in their inexorable hardness and brutality, ought to
be awakened, as the mightiest of monsters that they are.

--We should feel a boisterous delight in the psychological perception
of how all moralised artists become worms and actors without knowing it.

--The falsity of art, its immorality, must be brought into the light of
day.

--The "fundamental idealising powers" (sensuality, intoxication,
excessive animality) should be brought to light.


824.

Modern counterfeit practices in the arts: regarded as necessary--that
is to say, as fully in keeping with the needs most proper to the modern
soul.

The gaps in the gifts, and still more in the education, antecedents,
and schooling of modern artists, are now filled up in this way:--

_First:_ A less artistic public is sought which is capable of unlimited
love (and is capable of falling on its knees before a personality).
The superstition of our century, the belief in "genius," assists this
process.

_Secondly;_ Artists harangue the dark instincts of the dissatisfied,
the ambitious, and the self-deceivers of a democratic age: the
importance of poses.

_Thirdly:_ The procedures of one art are transferred to the realm
of another; the object of art is confounded with that of science,
with that of the Church, or with that of the interests of the race
(nationalism), or with that of philosophy--a man rings all bells at
once, and awakens the vague suspicion that he is a god.

_Fourthly:_ Artists flatter women, sufferers, and indignant folk.
Narcotics and opiates are made to preponderate in art. The fancy of
cultured people, and of the readers of poetry and ancient history, is
tickled.


825.

We must distinguish between the "public" and the "select"; to satisfy
the public a man must be a charlatan to-day, to satisfy the select he
_will_ be a virtuoso and nothing else. The geniuses peculiar to our
century overcame this distinction, they were great for both; the great
charlatanry of Victor Hugo and Richard Wagner was coupled with such
genuine virtuosity that it even satisfied the most refined artistic
connoisseurs. This is why greatness is lacking: these geniuses had a
double outlook; first, they catered for the coarsest needs, and then
for the most refined.


826.

False "accentuation": (1) In romanticism, this unremitting
"_expressivo_" is not a sign of strength, but of a feeling of
deficiency;

(2) Picturesque music, the so-called dramatic kind, is above all
easier (as is also the brutal scandalmongering and the juxtaposition of
facts and traits in realistic novels);

(3) "Passion" as a matter of nerves and exhausted souls; likewise the
delight in high mountains, deserts, storms, orgies, and disgusting
details,--in bulkiness and massiveness (historians, for instance); as a
matter of fact, there is actually a cult of exaggerated feelings (how
is it that in stronger ages art desired just the opposite--a restraint
of passion?);

(4) The preference for exciting materials (_Erotica_ or _Socialistica_
or _Pathologica_): all these things are the signs of the style
of public that is being catered for to-day--that is to say, for
overworked, absentminded, or enfeebled people.

Such people must be tyrannised over in order to be affected.


827.

Modern art is the art of tyrannising. A coarse and salient definiteness
in delineation; the motive simplified into a formula; formulæ
tyrannise. Wild arabesques within the lines; overwhelming masses,
before which the senses are confused; brutality in coloration, in
subject-matter, in the desires. Examples: Zola, Wagner, and, in a more
spiritualised degree, Taine. Hence logic, massiveness, and brutality.


828.

In regard to the painter: _Tous ces modernes sont des poètes qui ont
voulu être peintres, L'un a cherché des drames dans l'histoire,
l'autre des scènes de mœurs, celui ci traduit des religions, celui
là une philosophie._ One imitates Raphael, another the early Italian
masters. The landscapists employ trees and clouds in order to make odes
and elegies. Not one is simply a painter; they are all archæologists,
psychologists, and impresarios of one or another kind of event or
theory. They enjoy our erudition and our philosophy. Like us, they are
full, and too full, of general ideas. They like a form, not because it
is what it is, but because of what it expresses. They are the scions of
a learned, tormented, and reflecting generation, a thousand miles away
from the Old Masters who never read, and only concerned themselves with
feasting their eyes.


829.

At bottom, even Wagner's music, in so far as it stands for the whole
of French romanticism, is literature: the charm of exoticism (strange
times, customs, passions), exercised upon sensitive cosy-corner people.
The delight of entering into extremely distant and prehistoric lands to
which books lead one, and by which means the whole horizon is painted
with new colours and new possibilities.... Dreams of still more distant
and unexploited worlds; disdain of the boulevards. ... For Nationalism,
let us not deceive ourselves, is also only a form of exoticism....
Romantic musicians merely relate what exotic books have made of them:
people would fain experience exotic sensations and passions according
to Florentine and Venetian taste; finally they are satisfied to look
for them in an image.... The essential factor is the kind of novel
desire, the desire to imitate, the desire to live as people have
lived once before in the past, and the disguise and dissimulation of
the soul.... Romantic art is only an emergency exit from defective
"reality."

The attempt to perform new things: revolution, Napoleon. Napoleon
represents the passion of new spiritual possibilities, of an extension
of the soul's domain.

The greater the debility of the will, the greater the extravagances in
the desire to feel, to represent, and to dream new things.--The result
of the excesses which have been indulged in: an insatiable thirst for
unrestrained feelings.... Foreign literatures afford the strongest
spices.


830.

Winckelmann's and Goethe's Greeks, Victor Hugo's Orientals, Wagner's
Edda characters, Walter Scott's Englishmen of the thirteenth
century--some day the whole comedy will be exposed! All of it was
disproportionately historical and false, _but_--modern.


831.

Concerning the characteristics of national genius in regard to the
strange and to the borrowed--

English genius vulgarises and makes realistic everything it sees;

The French whittles down, simplifies, rationalises, embellishes;

The German muddles, compromises, involves, and infects everything with
morality;

The Italian has made by far the freest and most subtle use of borrowed
material, and has enriched it with a hundred times more beauty than
it ever drew out of it: it is the richest genius, it had the most to
bestow.


832.

The Jews, with Heinrich Heine and Offenbach, approached genius in
the sphere of art. The latter was the most intellectual and most
high-spirited satyr, who as a musician abided by great tradition,
and who, for him who has something more than ears, is a real relief
after the sentimental and, at bottom, degenerate musicians of German
romanticism.


833.

_Offenbach;_ trench music imbued with Voltaire's intellect, free,
wanton, with a slight sardonic grin, but clear and intellectual almost
to the point of banality (Offenbach never titivates), and free from the
_mignardise_ of morbid or blond-Viennese sensuality.


834.

If by artistic genius we understand the most consummate freedom
within the law, divine ease, and facility in overcoming the greatest
difficulties, then Offenbach has even more right to the title genius
than Wagner has. Wagner is heavy and clumsy: nothing is more foreign to
him than the moments of wanton perfection which this clown Offenbach
achieves as many as five times, six times, in nearly every one of his
buffooneries. But by genius we ought perhaps to understand something
else.


835.

_Concerning "music."_--French, German, and Italian music. (Our most
debased periods in a political sense are our most productive. The
Slavs?)--The ballet, which is the outcome of excessive study of the
history of strange civilisations, has become master of opera.--Stage
music and musicians music.--It is an error to suppose that what Wagner
composed was _a. form_: it was rather formlessness. The possibilities
of dramatic construction have yet to be discovered.--Rhythm.
"Expression" at all costs. Harlotry in instrumentation.--All honour to
Heinrich Schütz; all honour to Mendelssohn: in them we find an element
of Goethe, but nowhere else! (We also find another element of Goethe
coming to blossom in Rahel; a third element in Heinrich Heine.)


836.

Descriptive music leaves reality to work its effects alone.... All
these kinds of art are easier, and more easy to imitate; poorly gifted
people have recourse to them. The appeal to the instincts; suggestive
art.


837.

_Concerning our modern music._--The decay of melody, like the decay
of "ideas," and of the freedom of intellectual activity, is a piece
of clumsiness and obtuseness, which is developing itself into new
feats of daring and even into principles;--in the end man has only the
principles of his gifts, or of his lack of gifts.

"Dramatic music"--nonsense! It is simply bad music.... "Feeling" and
"passion" are merely substitutes when lofty intellectuality and the
joy of it (_e.g._ Voltaire's) can no longer be attained. Expressed
technically, feeling and "passion" are easier; they presuppose a much
poorer kind of artist. The recourse to drama betrays that an artist is
much more a master in tricky means than in genuine ones. To-day we have
both dramatic painting and dramatic poetry, etc.


838.

What we lack in music is an æsthetic which would impose laws upon
musicians and give them a conscience; and as a result of this we lack
a real contest concerning "principles."--For as musicians we laugh
at Herbart's velleities in this department just as heartily as we
laugh at Schopenhauer's. As a matter of fact, tremendous difficulties
present themselves here. We no longer know on what basis to found our
concepts of what is exemplary, masterly, perfect. With the instincts
of old loves and old admiration we grope about in a realm of values,
and we almost believe, "that is good which pleases us".... I am always
suspicious when I hear people everywhere speak innocently of Beethoven
as a "classic"; what I would maintain, and with some seventy, is that,
in other arts, a classic is the very reverse of Beethoven. But when
the complete and glaring dissolution of style, Wagner's so-called
dramatic style, is taught and honoured as exemplary, as masterly, as
progressive, then my impatience exceeds all bounds. Dramatic style in
music, as Wagner understood it, is simply renunciation of all style
whatever; it is the assumption that something else, namely, drama, is a
hundred times more important than music. Wagner can paint; he does not
use music for the sake of music, with it he accentuates attitudes; he
is a poet. Finally he made an appeal to beautiful feelings and heaving
breasts, just as all other theatrical artists have done, and with it
all he converted women and even those whose souls thirst for culture
to him. But what do women and the uncultured care about music? All
these people have no conscience for art: none of them suffer when the
first and fundamental virtues of an art are scorned and trodden upon in
favour of that which is merely secondary (as _ancilla dramaturgica_).
What good can come of all extension in the means of expression, when
that which is expressed, art itself, has lost all its law and order?
The picturesque pomp and power of tones, the symbolism of sound,
rhythm, the colour effects of harmony and discord, the suggestive
significance of music, the whole sensuality of this art which Wagner
made prevail--it is all this that Wagner derived, developed, and drew
out of music. Victor Hugo did something very similar for language: but
already people in France are asking themselves, in regard to the case
of Victor Hugo, whether language was not corrupted by him, whether
reason, intellectuality, and thorough conformity to law in language
are not suppressed when the sensuality of expression is elevated to a
high place? Is it not a sign of decadence that the poets in France have
become plastic artists, and that the musicians of Germany have become
actors and culturemongers?


839.

To-day there exists a sort of musical pessimism even among people
who are not musicians. Who has not met and cursed the confounded
youthlet who torments his piano until it shrieks with despair,
and who single-handed heaves the slime of the most lugubrious and
drabby harmonies before him? By so doing a man betrays himself as a
pessimist.... It is open to question, though, whether he also proves
himself a musician by this means. I for my part could never be made
to believe it. Wagnerite _pur sang_ is unmusical, he submits to the
elementary forces of music very much as a woman submits to the will
of the man who hypnotises her--and in order to be able to do this he
must not be made suspicious _in rebus musicis et musicantibus_ by a
too severe or too delicate conscience. I said "very much as"--but in
this respect I spoke perhaps more than a parable. Let any one consider
the means which Wagner uses by preference, when he wishes to make an
effect (means which for the greater part he first had to invent), they
are appallingly similar to the means by which a hypnotist exercises
his power (the choice of his movements, the general colour of his
orchestration; the excruciating evasion of consistency, and fairness
and squareness, in rhythm; the creepiness, the soothing touch, the
mystery, the hysteria of his "unending melody"). And is the condition
to which the overture to _Lohengrin,_ for instance, reduces the men,
and still more the women, in the audience, so essentially different
from the somnambulistic trance? On one occasion after the overture in
question had been played, I heard an Italian lady say, with her eyes
half closed, in a way in which female Wagnerites are adepts: "_Come si
dorme con questa musica!_"[10]

[Footnote 10: "How the music makes one sleep!"--Tr.]


840.

_Religion in music._--What a large amount of satisfaction all religious
needs get out of Wagnerian music, though this is never acknowledged
or even understood! How much prayer, virtue, unction, virginity,
salvation, speaks through this music!... Oh what capital this cunning
saint, who leads and seduces us back to everything that was once
believed in, makes out of the fact that he may dispense with words
and concepts! ... Our intellectual conscience has no need to feel
ashamed--it stands apart--if any old instinct puts its trembling lips
to the rim of forbidden philtres.... This is shrewd and healthy, and,
in so far as it betrays a certain shame in regard to the satisfaction
of the religious instinct, it is even a good sign.... Cunning
Christianity: the type of the music which came from the "last Wagner."


841.

I distinguish between courage before persons, courage before things,
and courage on paper. The latter was the courage of David Strauss, for
instance. I distinguish again between the courage before witnesses
and the courage without witnesses: the courage of a Christian, or
of believers in God in general, can never be the courage without
witnesses--but on this score alone Christian courage stands condemned.
Finally, I distinguish between the courage which is temperamental and
the courage which is the fear of fear; a single instance of the latter
kind is moral courage. To this list the courage of despair should be
added.

This is the courage which Wagner possessed. His attitude in regard to
music was at bottom a desperate one. He lacked two things which go
to make up a good musician: nature and nurture, the predisposition
for music and the discipline and schooling which music requires. He
had courage: out of this deficiency he established a principle; he
invented a kind of music for himself. The dramatic music which he
invented was the music which he was able to compose,--its limitations
are Wagner's limitations.

And he was misunderstood!--Was he really misunderstood?... Such is
the case with five-sixths of the artists of to-day. Wagner is their
Saviour: five-sixths, moreover, is the "lowest proportion." In any case
where Nature has shown herself without reserve, and wherever culture is
an accident, a mere attempt, a piece of dilettantism, the artist turns
instinctively--what do I say?--I mean enthusiastically, to Wagner; as
the poet says: "Half drew he him, and half sank he."[11]

[Footnote 11: This is an adapted quotation from Goethe's poem, "The
Fisherman." The translation is E. A. Bowring's.--Tr.]


842.

"Music" and the grand style. The greatness of an artist is not to be
measured by the beautiful feelings which he evokes: let this belief
be left to the girls. It should be measured according to the extent
to which he approaches the grand style, according to the extent to
which he is capable of the grand style. This style and great passion
have this in common--that they scorn to please; that they forget to
persuade; that they command: that they will.... To become master of
the chaos which is in one; to compel one's inner chaos to assume form;
to become consistent, simple, unequivocal, mathematical, law this is
the great ambition here. By means of it one repels; nothing so much
endears people to such powerful men as this,--a desert seems to lie
around them, they impose silence upon all, and awe every one with the
greatness Of their sacrilege.... All arts know this kind of aspirant to
the grand style: why are they absent in music? Never yet has a musician
built as that architect did who erected the Palazzo Pitti.... This is a
problem. Does music perhaps belong to that culture in which the reign
of powerful men of various types is already at an end? Is the concept
"grand style" in fact a contradiction of the soul of music,--of "the
Woman" in our music? ...

With this I touch upon the cardinal question: how should all our music
be classified? The age of classical taste knows nothing that can be
compared with it: it bloomed when the world of the Renaissance reached
its evening, when "freedom" had already bidden farewell to both men and
their customs--is it characteristic of music to be Counter-Renaissance?
Is music, perchance, the sister of the baroque style, seeing that in
any case they were contemporaries? Is not music, modern music, already
decadence? ...

I have put my finger before on this question: whether music is not an
example of Counter-Renaissance art? whether it is not the next of kin
to the baroque style? whether it has not grown in Opposition to all
classic taste, so that any aspiration to classicism is forbidden by the
very nature of music?

The answer to this most important of all questions of values would
not be a very doubtful one, if people thoroughly understood the
fact that music attains to its highest maturity and plenitude as
romanticism--likewise as a reactionary movement against classicism.

Mozart, a delicate and lovable soul, but quite eighteenth century,
even in his serious lapses ... Beethoven, the first great romanticist
according to the French conception of romanticism, just as Wagner is
the last great romanticist ... both of them are instinctive opponents
of classical taste, of severe style--not to speak of "grand" in this
regard.


843.

Romanticism: an ambiguous question, like all modern questions.

The æsthetic conditions are twofold:--

The abundant and generous, as opposed to the seeking and the desiring.


844.

A romanticist is an artist whose great dissatisfaction with himself
makes him productive--; who looks away from himself and his fellows,
and sometimes, therefore, looks backwards.


845.

Is art the result of dissatisfaction with reality? or is it the
expression of gratitude for happiness experienced? In the first case,
it is romanticism; in the second, it is glorification and dithyramb
(in short, apotheosis art): even Raphael belongs to this, except for
the fact that he was guilty of the duplicity of having defied the
appearance of the Christian view of the world. He was thankful for life
precisely where it was not exactly Christian.

With a moral interpretation the world is insufferable; Christianity was
the attempt to overcome the world with morality: _i.e._ to deny it.
_In praxi_ such a mad experiment--an imbecile elevation of man above
the world--could only end in the beglooming, the dwarfing, and the
impoverishment of mankind: the only kind of man who gained anything by
it, who was promoted by it, was the most mediocre, the most harmless
and gregarious type.

Homer as an apotheosis artist; Rubens also. Music has not yet had such
an artist.

The idealisation of the great criminal (the feeling for his greatness)
is Greek; the depreciation, the slander, the contempt of the sinner, is
Judæo-Christian.


846.

Romanticism and its opposite. In regard to all æsthetic values I now
avail myself of this fundamental distinction: in every individual
case I ask myself has hunger or has superabundance been creative
here? At first another distinction might perhaps seem preferable, it
is far more obvious,--_e.g._ the distinction which decides whether a
desire for stability, for eternity, for Being, or whether a desire for
destruction, for change, for Becoming, has been the cause of creation.
But both kinds of desire, when examined more closely, prove to be
ambiguous, and really susceptible of interpretation only according to
that scheme already mentioned and which I think is rightly preferred.

The desire for destruction, for change, for Becoming, may be the
expression of an overflowing power pregnant with promises for the
future (my term for this, as is well known, is Dionysian); it may,
however, also be the hate of the ill-constituted, of the needy and of
the physiologically botched, that destroys, and must destroy, because
such creatures are indignant at, and annoyed by everything lasting and
stable.

The act of immortalising can, on the other hand, be the outcome
of gratitude and love: an art which has this origin is always an
apotheosis art; dithyrambic, as perhaps with Rubens, happy, as perhaps
with Hafiz; bright and gracious, and shedding a ray of glory over all
things, as in Goethe. But it may also, however, be the outcome of the
tyrannical will of the great sufferer who would make the most personal,
individual, and narrow trait about him, the actual idiosyncrasy of his
pain--in fact, into a binding law and imposition, and who thus wreaks
his revenge upon all things by stamping, branding, and violating them
with the image of his torment. The latter case is romantic pessimism
in its highest form, whether this be Schopenhauerian voluntarism or
Wagnerian music.


847.

It is a question whether the antithesis, classic and romantic, does not
conceal that other antithesis, the active and the reactive.


848.

In order to be a classic, one must be possessed of all the strong and
apparently contradictory gifts and passions: but in such a way that
they run in harness together, and culminate simultaneously in elevating
a certain species of literature or art or politics to its height and
zenith (they must not do this after that elevation has taken place
...). They must reflect the complete state (either of a people or of
a culture), and express its most profound and most secret nature,
at a time when it is still stable and not yet discoloured by the
imitation of foreign things (or when it is still dependent ...); not
a reactive but a deliberate and progressive spirit, saying Yea in all
circumstances, even in its hate.

"And does not the highest personal value belong thereto?" It is worth
considering whether moral prejudices do not perhaps exercise their
influence here, and whether great moral loftiness is not perhaps a
contradiction of the classical? ... Whether the moral monsters must
not necessarily be romantic in word and deed? Any such preponderance
of one virtue over others (as in the case of the moral monster) is
precisely what with most hostility counteracts the classical power in
equilibrium, supposing a people manifested this moral loftiness and
were classical notwithstanding, we should have to conclude boldly that
they were also on the same high level in immorality! this was perhaps
the case with Shakespeare (provided that he was really Lord Bacon).


849.

_Concerning the future. Against the romanticism of great passion._--We
must understand how a certain modicum of coldness, lucidity,
and hardness 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 multiformity, of all uncertainty, evasiveness, and of
all nebulosity, as also of all brevity, finicking, prettiness and
good nature. Artistic formulæ must not be played with: life must be
remodelled so that it should be forced to formulate itself accordingly.

It is really an exhilarating spectacle which we have only learned
to laugh at quite recently, because 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 psychological
simplification. A contempt of detail, of complexity, of obscurity.

The romanticists of Germany do not protest against classicism, but
against reason, against illumination, against taste, against the
eighteenth century.

The essence of romantico-Wagnerian music is the opposite of the
classical spirit.

The will to unity (because unity tyrannises. _e.g._ the listener and
the spectator), but the artist's inability to tyrannise over himself
where it is most needed--that is to say, in regard to the work itself
(in regard to knowing what to leave out, what to shorten, what to
clarify, what to simplify). The overwhelming by means of masses
(Wagner, Victor Hugo, Zola, Taine).


850.

_The Nihilism of artists._--Nature is cruel in her cheerfulness;
cynical in her sunrises. We are hostile to emotions. We flee thither
where Nature moves our senses and our imagination, where we have
nothing to love, where we are not reminded of the moral semblances and
delicacies of this northern nature; and the same applies to the arts.
We prefer that which no longer reminds us of good and evil. Our moral
sensibility and tenderness seem to be relieved in the heart of terrible
and happy Nature, in the fatalism of the senses and forces. Life
without goodness.

Great well-being arises from contemplating Nature's indifference to
good and evil.

No justice in history, no goodness in Nature. That is why the
pessimist when he is an artist prefers those historical subjects where
the absence of justice reveals itself with magnificent simplicity,
where perfection actually comes to expression--and likewise he prefers
that in Nature, where her callous evil character is not hypocritically
concealed, where that character is seen in perfection.... The
Nihilistic artist betrays himself in willing and preferring cynical
history and cynical Nature.


851.

What is tragic?--Again and again I have pointed to the great
misunderstanding of Aristotle in maintaining that the tragic emotions
were the two depressing emotions--fear and pity. Had he been right,
tragedy would be an art unfriendly to life: it would have been
necessary to caution people against it as against something generally
harmful and suspicious. Art, otherwise the great stimulus of life, the
great intoxicant of life, the great will to life, here became a tool of
decadence, the hand-maiden of pessimism and ill-health (for to suppose,
as Aristotle supposed, that by exciting these emotions we thereby
purged people of them, is simply an error). Something which habitually
excites fear or pity, disorganises, weakens, and discourages: and
supposing Schopenhauer were right in thinking that tragedy taught
resignation (_i.e._ a meek renunciation of happiness, hope, and of
the will to live), this would presuppose an art in which art itself
was denied. Tragedy would then constitute a process of dissolution;
the instinct of life would destroy itself in the instinct of 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 bottomless falsity of
a doctrinaire could misunderstand: that tragedy is a tonic. If
Schopenhauer refuses to see the truth here, if he regards general
depression as a tragic condition, if he would have informed the Greeks
(who to his disgust were not "resigned") that they did not firmly
possess the highest principles of life: it is only owing to his _parti
pris,_ to the need of consistency in his system, to the dishonesty of
the doctrinaire--that dreadful dishonesty which step for step corrupted
the whole psychology of Schopenhauer (he who had arbitrarily and almost
violently misunderstood genius, art itself, morality, pagan religion,
beauty, knowledge, and almost everything).


852.

_The tragic artist._--Whether, and in regard to what, the judgment
"beautiful" is established is a question of an individual's or of a
people's strength The feeling of plenitude, of overflowing strength
(which gaily and courageously meets many an obstacle before which
the weakling shudders)--the feeling of power utters the judgment
"beautiful" concerning things and conditions which the instinct of
impotence can only value as hateful and ugly. The _flair_ which
enables us to decide whether the objects we encounter are dangerous,
problematic, or alluring, likewise determines our æsthetic Yea. ("This
is beautiful," is an affirmation).

From this we see that, generally speaking, a preference for
questionable and terrible things is a symptom of strength; whereas the
taste for pretty and charming trifles is characteristic of the weak
and the delicate. The love of tragedy is typical of strong ages and
characters: its _non plus ultra_ is perhaps the _Divina Commedia._ It
is the heroic spirits which in tragic cruelty say Yea unto themselves:
they are hard enough to feel pain as a pleasure.

On the other hand, supposing weaklings desire to get pleasure from
an art which was not designed for them, what interpretation must we
suppose they would like to give tragedy in order to make it suit their
taste? They would interpret their own feeling 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, _à la_ Aristotle). Finally,
the art of terrible natures, in so far as it may excite the nerves,
may be regarded by the weak and exhausted as a stimulus: this is now
taking place, for instance, in the case of the admiration meted out to
Wagner's art. A test of man's well-being and consciousness of power is
the extent to which he can acknowledge the terrible and questionable
character of things, and whether he is in any need of a faith at the
end.

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 insists upon
deliverance, or at least upon the hope of deliverance. Those
who suffer, doubt, and distrust themselves,--the sick, in other
words,--have in all ages required the transporting influence of visions
in order to be able to exist at all (the notion "blessedness" arose in
this way). A similar case would be that of the artists of decadence,
who at bottom maintain a Nihilistic attitude to life, and take
refuge in the beauty of form,--in those select cases in which Nature
is perfect, in which she is indifferently great and indifferently
beautiful. (The "love of the beautiful" may thus be something very
different from the ability to see or create the beautiful: it may be
the expression of impotence in this respect.) The most convincing
artists are those who make harmony ring out of every discord, and
who benefit all things by the gift of their power and inner harmony:
in every work of art they merely reveal the symbol of their inmost
experiences--their creation is gratitude for life.

The depth of the tragic artist consists in the fact that his æsthetic
instinct surveys the more remote results, that he does not halt
shortsightedly at the thing that is nearest, that he says Yea to the
whole cosmic economy, which justifies the terrible, the evil, and the
questionable; which more than justifies it.


853.

_Art in the "Birth of Tragedy."_

I.

The conception of the work which lies right in the background of this
book, is extraordinarily 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
apparent 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 confidence";
the task which this imposes upon us is enormous. In order to solve,
this problem man must already be a liar in his heart, but he must above
all else be an artist. And he is that. Metaphysics, religion, morality,
science, all these things are but the offshoot of his will to art,
to falsehood, to a flight from "truth," to a denial of "truth." This
ability, this artistic capacity _par excellence_ of man--thanks to
which he overcomes reality with lies,--is a quality which he has in
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 counter-agent to all will to the denial of
life; it is _par excellence_ the anti-Christian, the anti-Buddhistic,
the anti-Nihilistic force.

Art is the alleviation of the seeker after knowledge,--of him who
recognises the terrible and questionable character Of existence, and
who will recognise it,--of the tragic seeker after knowledge.

Art is the alleviation of the man of action,--of him who not only sees
the terrible and questionable character of existence, but also lives
it, will live it,--of the tragic and warlike man, the hero. Art is the
alleviation of the sufferer,--as the way to states in which pain is
willed, is transfigured, is deified, where suffering is a form of great
ecstasy.


III.

It is clear that in this book pessimism, or, better still, Nihilism,
stands for "truth." But truth is not postulated as the highest measure
of value, and still less as the highest power. The will to appearance,
to illusion, to deception, to becoming, and to change (to objective
deception), is here regarded as more profound, as more primeval, as
more metaphysical than the will to truth, to reality, to appearance:
the latter is merely a form of the will to illusion. Happiness is
likewise conceived as more primeval than pain: and pain is considered
as conditioned, as a consequence Of the will to happiness (of the will
to Becoming, to growth, to forming, i.e. to creating; in creating,
however, destruction is included). The highest state of Yea-saying to
existence is conceived as one from which the greatest pain may not be
excluded: the tragico-Dionysian state.


IV.

In this way this book is even anti-pessimistic, namely, in the sense
that it teaches something which is stronger than pessimism and which
is more "divine" than truth: Art. Nobody, it would seem, would be more
ready seriously to utter a radical denial of life, an actual denial
of action even more than a denial of life, than the author of this
book. Except that he knows--for he has experienced it, and perhaps
experienced little else!--that art is of more value than truth.

Even in the preface, in which Richard Wagner is, as it were, invited
to join with him in conversation, the author expresses this article of
faith, this gospel for artists; "Art is the only task of life, art is
the metaphysical activity of life...."




FOURTH BOOK


DISCIPLINE AND BREEDING.




I.


THE ORDER OF RANK.


1. The Doctrine of the Order of Rank.


854.

In this age of universal suffrage, in which everybody is allowed to
sit in judgment upon everything and everybody, I feel compelled to
re-establish the order of rank.


855.

Quanta of power alone determine rank and distinguish rank: nothing else
does.


856.

_The will to power._--How must those men be constituted who would
undertake this transvaluation? The order of rank as the order of power:
war and danger are the prerequisites which allow of a rank maintaining
its conditions. The prodigious example: man in Nature--the weakest and
shrewdest creature making himself master, and putting a yoke upon all
less intelligent forces.


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.


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
themselves 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 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
individuals--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 something sought such truths!),
but _free_ submission to a ruling thought, which has its time; for
instance, time conceived as the quality of space, etc.



2. The Strong and the Weak.


863.

_The notion, "strong and weak man"_ resolves itself into this, that in
the first place much strength is inherited--the man is a total sum; in
the other, _not yet enough_ (inadequate inheritance, subdivision of the
inherited qualities). Weakness may be a _starting_ phenomenon: _not yet
enough_; or a final phenomenon: "no more."

The determining point is there where great strength is present, or
where a great amount of strength can be discharged. The mass, as the
sum-total of the _weak,_ reacts _slowly;_ it defends itself against
much for which it is too weak,--against that for which it has no
use; it _never_ creates, it _never_ takes a step forward. This is
opposed to the theory which denies the strong individual and would
maintain that the "masses do everything." The difference is similar
to that which obtains between separated generations: four or even
five generations may lie between the masses and him who is the moving
spirit--it is a _chronological_ difference.

The _values of the weak_ are in the van, because the strong have
adopted them in order to _lead_ with them.


864.

_Why the weak triumph._--On the whole, the sick and the weak have
more _sympathy_ and are more "humane"; the sick and the weak have
more intellect, and are more changeable more variegated, more
entertaining--more malicious; the sick alone invented _malice._ (A
morbid precocity is often to be observed among rickety, scrofulitic,
and tuberculous people.) _Esprit:_ the property of older races; Jews,
Frenchmen, Chinese. (The anti-Semites do not forgive the Jews for
having both intellect--and money. Anti-Semites--another name for
"bungled and botched.")

The sick and the weak have always had _fascination_ 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 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
themselves of children for the cult of piety, pity, and love:--the
_mother_ stands as the symbol of _convincing_ 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 criminals as the
result of weak wills and of the fear of society, although they may
not yet be ripe for the asylum; but he has antennas 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 realists[1] are on
the increase: this is the sign of a growing culture plunging forward
at headlong speed--that is to say, its excrement, its refuse, the
rubbish that is shot from it every day, is beginning to acquire more
importance, the retrogressive movement _keeps pace_ with the advance.

Finally, _the social mishmash,_ which is the result of revolution,
of the establishment of equal rights, and of the superstition, the
"equality of men." Thus the possessors of the instincts of decline
(of resentment, of discontent, of the lust of destruction, of anarchy
and Nihilism), as also the instincts of slavery, of cowardice, of
craftiness, and of rascality, which are inherent among those classes
of society which have long been suppressed, are beginning to get
infused into the blood of all ranks. Two or three generations later,
the race can no longer be recognised--everything has become _mob._ And
thus there results a collective instinct against _selection,_ against
every kind of _privilege_, and this instinct operates with such power,
certainty, hardness, and cruelty that, as a matter of fact, in the end,
even the privileged classes have to submit: all those who still wish to
hold on to power flatter the mob, work with the mob, and must have the
mob on their side--the "geniuses" _above all._ The latter become the
_heralds_ of those feelings with which the mob can be inspired,--the
expression of pity, of honour, even for all that suffers, all that is
low and despised, and has lived 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 civilisation, man's ballast is shifted. Those
men whose worth is greatest, and whose mission, as it were, is to
compensate for the very great danger of such a morbid movement,--such
men become dawdlers _par excellence_; they are slow to accept anything,
and are tenacious; they are creatures that are relatively lasting
in the midst of this vast mingling and changing of elements. In
such circumstances power is necessarily relegated to the _mediocre:
mediocrity,_ as the trustee and bearer of the future, consolidates
itself against the rule of the mob and of eccentricities (both of
which are, in most cases, united). In this way a new antagonist is
evolved for exceptional men--or in certain cases a new temptation.
Provided that they do not adapt themselves to the mob, and stand up
for what satisfies the instincts of the disinherited, they will find
it necessary to be "mediocre" and sound. They know: _mediocritas_
is also _aurea,_--it alone has command of money and _gold_ (of all
that glitters ...).... And, once more, old virtue and the whole
superannuated world of ideals in general secures a gifted host of
special-pleaders.... Result: mediocrity acquires intellect, wit, and
genius, it becomes entertaining, and even seductive.

***

_Result._--A high culture can only stand upon a broad basis, upon a
strongly and soundly consolidated mediocrity. In its service and
assisted by it, _science_ and even art do their work. Science could
not wish for a better state of affairs: in its essence it belongs to a
middle-class type of man,--among exceptions it is out of place,--there
is not anything aristocratic and still less anything anarchic in its
instincts.--The power of the middle classes is then upheld by means of
commerce, but, above all, by means of money-dealing: the instinct of
great financiers is opposed to everything extreme--on this account
the Jews are, for the present, the most _conservative_ power in the
threatening and insecure conditions of modern Europe. They can have
no use either for revolutions, for socialism, or for militarism: if
they would have power, and if they should need it, even over the
revolutionary party, this is only the result of what I have already
said, and it in no way contradicts it. Against other extreme movements
they may occasionally require to excite terror by showing how much
power is in their hands. But their instinct itself is inveterately
conservative and "mediocre, ... Wherever power exists, they know how to
become mighty; but the application of their power always takes the same
direction. The polite term for _mediocre,_ as is well known, is the
word _"Liberal."_

_Reflection._--It is all nonsense to suppose that this general
_conquest of values_ is anti-biological. In order to explain it, we
ought to try and show that it is the result of a certain interest of
life to maintain the type "man," even by means of this method which
leads to the prevalence of the weak and the physiologically botched--if
things were otherwise, might man not cease to exist? Problem ...

The _enhancement_ of the type may prove fatal to the _maintenance of
the species._ Why?--The experience of history shows that strong races
_decimate_ each other _mutually,_ by means of war, lust for power, and
venturousness; the strong emotions; wastefulness (strength is no longer
capitalised, disturbed mental systems arise from excessive tension);
their existence is a costly affair in short, they persistently give
rise to friction _between themselves;_ periods of _profound slackness_
and torpidity intervene: all great ages have to be _paid for...._ The
strong are, after all, weaker, less wilful, and more absurd than the
average weak ones.

They are _squandering_ races. "_Permanence,_" in itself, can have no
value: that which ought to be preferred thereto would be a shorter life
for the species, but a life _richer_ in creations. It would remain
to be proved that, even as things are, a richer sum of creations is
attained than in the case of the shorter existence; _i.e._ that man, as
a storehouse of power, attains to a much higher degree of dominion over
things under the conditions which have existed hitherto.... We are here
face to face with a problem of _economics._

[Footnote 1: The German word is "Naturalist," and really means
"realist" in a bad sense.--Tr.]


865.

The state of mind which calls itself "idealism," and which will neither
allow mediocrity to be mediocre nor woman to be woman! Do not make
everything uniform! We should have a clear idea of how _dearly we have
to pay for the establishment of a virtue;_ and that virtue is nothing
generally desirable, but a _noble piece of madness,_ a beautiful
exception, which gives us the privilege of feeling elated....


866.

It is _necessary_ to show _that a counter-movement is inevitably
associated_ with any increasingly economical consumption of men
and mankind, and with an ever more closely involved "machinery" of
interests and services. I call this counter-movement the _separation
of the luxurious surplus of mankind:_ by means of it a stronger kind,
a higher type, must come to light, which has other conditions for its
origin and for its maintenance than the average man. My concept, my
metaphor for this type is, as you know, the word "Superman." Along the
first road, which can now be completely surveyed, arose adaptation,
stultification, higher Chinese culture, modesty in the Instincts,
and satisfaction at the sight of the belittlement of man--a kind of
_stationary level of mankind._ If ever we get that inevitable and
imminent, general control of the economy of the earth, then mankind
_can_ be used as machinery and find its best purpose in the service of
this economy--as an enormous piece of clock-work consisting of ever
smaller and ever more subtly adapted wheels; then all the dominating
and commanding elements will become ever more superfluous; and the
whole gains enormous energy, while the individual factors which compose
it represent but small modicums of strength and of _value._ To oppose
this dwarfing and adaptation of man to a specialised kind of utility, a
reverse movement is needed -the procreation of the _synthetic_ man who
_embodies_ everything and _justifies_ it; that man for whom the turning
of mankind into a machine is a first condition of existence, for whom
the rest of mankind is but soil on which he can devise his _higher
mode_ of existence.

He is in need of the _opposition_ of the masses, of those who are
"levelled down"; he requires that feeling of distance from them; he
stands upon them, he lives on them. This higher form of _aristocracy_
is the form of the future. From the moral point of view, the collective
machinery above described, that solidarity of all wheels, represents
the most extreme example in the _exploitation of mankind_: but it
presupposes the existence of those for whom such an exploitation would
have some _meaning.[2]_ Otherwise it would signify, as a matter of
fact, merely the general depreciation of the type man,--a _retrograde
phenomenon_ on a grand scale.

Readers are beginning to see what I am combating--namely, _economic_
optimism: as if the genera] welfare of everybody must necessarily
increase with the growing self-sacrifice of everybody. The very reverse
seems to me to be the case, _the self-sacrifice of everybody amounts
to a collective loss;_ man becomes _inferior_--so that nobody knows
what end this monstrous purpose has served. A wherefore? a _new_
wherefore?--this is what mankind requires.

[Footnote 2: This sentence for ever distinguishes Nietzsche's
aristocracy from our present plutocratic and industrial one, for which,
at the present moment at any rate, it would be difficult to discover
some meaning.--Tr.]



867.

The recognition of the _increase of collective power:_ we should
calculate to what extent the ruin of individuals, of castes, of ages,
and of peoples, is included in this general increase.

The transposition of the _ballast_ of a culture. The _cost_ of every
vast growth: who bears it? _Why must it be enormous at the present
time?_


868.

General aspect of the future European: the latter regarded as the most
intelligent servile animal, very industrious, at bottom very modest,
inquisitive to excess, multifarious, pampered, weak of will,--a chaos
of cosmopolitan passions 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 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 consist 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 barbarism: look at our artists and
our statesmen!


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, uncertain and hemmed in by eternal values.

The barbarians showed that the ability o_f 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
suspicion that all _restraint_ is a form of weakness or of incipient
old age and fatigue (thus La Rochefoucauld 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-eudæmonistic
morality. The belief in the pleasure which comes of restraint has
been lacking hitherto--this pleasure of a rider on a fiery steed! The
moderation 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 bad light upon them--the best men have
_remained concealed_--and have often _misunderstood_ themselves.


871.

_Vicious_ and _unbridled people_: their depressing influence upon the
_value of the pussions._ 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 constitutes 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 _unbridled;_ 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
forbidden 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 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 unbridled) 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. If one 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 dispatched
all "great men" to Hades--its fight is _against_ all "greatness in man."


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
performing._ The great majority of men have no right to life, and are
only a misfortune to their higher fellows.


873.

_The misunderstanding of egoism:_ on the part of _ignoble natures_ who
know nothing of the lust of 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 disorders 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 I 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 measure themselves according to the standard
of virtues upheld by the slaves--and discover that 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 converted 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 affords the best example of the extent to which a plebeian
agitator of the mob is incapable 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 instinctively misunderstood by him, as if it meant that all that was
essential and valuable in such 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.... But 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 hemispheres.


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 he costs it, or the _damage_ he is able to inflict
upon it, 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 _overlooked,_ 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_ presupposes 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 to the herd--even though he may be
what it is most in need of--that is to say, a "shepherd."


880.

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 necessarily 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
antagonistic 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 antagonistic traits, increases: but this is the
prerequisite 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
consideration 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
Renaissance 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.


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 altogether 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 following it: _Goethe_ as the most beautiful expression of the
type (_completely and utterly un-Olympian_!)[3]

[Footnote 3: The Germans always call Goethe the Olympian.--Tr.]


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 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 _independently_ 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, environment, accident--all these things are much more likely to
be expressed in an action or deed than the "personality" of the doer.

_(b)_ We should on no account jump to the conclusion that there are
many people who are personalities. Some men are but conglomerations
of personalities, whilst the majority are not even _one._ In all
cases in which those average qualities preponderate, which ensure
the maintenance of the species, to be a personality would involve
unnecessary expense, it would be a luxury in fact, it would be
foolish to demand 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_ phenomenon; in view of
the superior importance of the continuation of the race at an average
level, a 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 _gregarious?_ (in the latter case, his
value consists 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 versâ._

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 reconciliation 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
versâ_--in short, when they begin to _resemble_ each other. This
concept of degeneration is beyond the sphere of moral judgments.


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 instincts of the herd, and the tradition of
values, against them; their weapons of defence, their instincts 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 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 tediousness 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 precisely 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 prerequisite
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 philosophical
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 reverence in regard to everything unpleasant,--must be demanded
imperatively as that which is above all 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
lawgiver (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 containing ingredients
which were painful, a means would have to be found for overcoming
this painfulness by means of a valuation; pain would have to be
interpreted as something valuable, as something 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 "humanisation," our "altruism,"
and our "heroism." The _object of all idealism_ should, be to induce
people to do unpleasant things cheerfully.


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
exceptional, becomes _indignant_ at cowardice, falseness, 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 established, but _no
contrasts must be created._ The _middle classes_ must be dissolved, and
their influence decreased: this is the principal means of maintaining
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._


893.

To hate mediocrity is unworthy of a philosopher: 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 instance,
there are women who, instead of considering their abnormal thirst for
knowledge as a distinction, 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;

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.


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 process
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 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 necessity 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 transition 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 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 retarding 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 dispense 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.


899.

Our psychologists, whose glance dwells involuntarily upon the symptoms
of decadence, lead us to mistrust intellect ever more and more. People
persist in seeing only the weakening, pampering, and sickening effects
of intellect, but there are now going to appear:--

New                Cynics             The union of intellectual
  barbarians       Experimentalists   superiority with well-being
                   Conquerors         and an overflow of strength.



900.

I point to something new: certainly for such a democratic community
there is a danger of barbarians; 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._ 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 dissipation--would necessarily ruin mediocre natures --and does
do so--when they possess them. In the case of the latter industry,
regularity, moderation, 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 valuations 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 conceived as breeding.


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 undertakings, _breaks up and withers the mediocre_: doubt --_la
largeur de cœur_--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 anything
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 striving after them!
Scepticism.--To oppose this we can enhance courage, insight, hardness,
independence, 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 conditions 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:_--

1. 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 unhappiness?

3. Do we want to be more satisfied with ourselves, or more exacting and
more inexorable?

4. Do we want to be softer, more yielding, and more human than we are,
or more inhuman?

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 _concern vie 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._


911.

The happiness and self-contentedness of the lazzaroni, or the
blessedness of "beautiful souls," or the consumptive love of Puritan
pietists, proves nothing in regard to _the order of rank_ among men.
As a great educator one ought inexorably 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-control; 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 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 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 understanding.


914.

The new forms of morality:--

Faithful vows concerning that which one wishes to do or to leave
undone; complete and definite abstention from many things. Tests as to
whether one is _ripe_ for such discipline.


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
instructed or trained the brain; it never even 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
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 detachment 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
understand: 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 ones own nature: dressing-up in morality,_--To be
able to call one's passions 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 ones self stronger_ or, expressed otherwise: 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 ("hallucinations.")

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 protected
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 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. We must not confound ourselves with them; we must feel
distance--betimes!

Beware of good-natured people!. Dealings with them make one torpid.
All environment is good which makes one exercise those defensive and;
aggressive powers which are instinctive in man. All one's inventiveness
should apply itself to putting one's power of will to the test....
_Here_ the determining factor must be recognised as something which is
not knowledge, astuteness, or wit.

One must learn to command betimes,--likewise to obey. A man must learn
modesty and tact in modesty: he must learn to distinguish and to
honour where modesty is displayed; he must likewise distinguish and
honour wherever he bestows his confidence.

What does one repent most? One's modesty; the fact that one has not
lent an ear to one's most individual needs; the fact that one has
mistaken one's self; the fact that one has esteemed one's self low;
the fact that one has lost all delicacy of hearing in regard to one's
instincts.--This want of reverence in regard to one's self is avenged
by all sorts of losses: in health, friendship, well-being, pride,
cheerfulness, freedom, determination, courage. A man never forgives
himself, later on, for this want of genuine egoism: he regards it as an
objection and as a cause of doubt concerning his real ego.


919.

I should like man to begin by _respecting_ himself: everything else
follows of itself. Naturally a man ceases from being anything to others
in this way: for this is precisely what they are least likely to
forgive. "What? a man who respects himself?"[4] This is something quite
different from the blind instinct to _love_ one's self. Nothing is more
common in the love of the sexes or in that duality which is called
ego, than a certain contempt for that which is loved the fatalism of
love.

[Footnote 4: Cf. Disraeli in _Tancred:_ "Self-respect, too, is a
superstition of past ages.... It is not suited to these times; it
is much too arrogant, too self-conceited, too egoistical. No one is
important enough to have self-respect nowadays" (book iii. chap.
v.).--Tr.]


920.

"I will have this or that"; "I would that this or that were so"; "I
know that this or that is so the degrees of power: the man of _will,_
the man of _desire,_ the man of _fate._


921.

_The means by which a strong species maintains itself_:--

It grants itself the right of exceptional actions, as a test of the
power of self-control and of freedom.

It abandons itself to states in which a man is not allowed to be
anything else than a barbarian.

It tries to acquire strength of will by every kind of asceticism.

It is not expansive, it practises silence; it is cautious in regard to
all charms.

It learns to obey in such a way that obedience provides a test of
self-maintenance. Casuistry is carried to its highest pitch in regard
to points of honour.

It never argues, "What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the
gander,"--but conversely! it regards reward, and the ability to repay,
as a privilege, as a distinction.

It does not covet _other_ people's virtues.


922.

The way in which one has to treat raw savages and the impossibility of
dispensing with barbarous methods, becomes obvious, in practice, when
one is transplanted, with all one's European pampering, to a spot such
as the Congo, or anywhere else where it is necessary to maintain one's
mastery over barbarians.


923.

_Warlike and peaceful people._--Art thou a man who has the instincts of
a warrior in thy blood? If this be so, another question must be put. Do
thy instincts impel thee to attack or to defend? The rest of mankind,
all those whose instincts are not warlike, desire peace, concord,
freedom, "equal rights": these things are but names and steps for one
and the same thing. Such men only wish to go where it is not necessary
for them to defend themselves,--such men become discontented with
themselves when they are obliged to offer resistance: they would fain
create circumstances in which war is no longer necessary. If the worst
came to the worst, they would resign themselves, obey, and submit: all
these things are better than waging war--thus does the Christian's
instinct, for instance, whisper to him. In the born warrior's
character there is something of armour, likewise in the choice of his
circumstances and in the development of every one of his qualities,
weapons are best evolved by the latter type, shields are best devised
by the former.

What expedients and what virtues do the unarmed and the undefended
require in order to survive--and even to conquer?


924.

What will become of a man who no longer has any reasons for either
defence or attack? What will remain of his _passions_ when he has lost
those which form his defence and his weapons?


925.

A marginal note to a _niaiserie anglaise_: "Do not to others that
which you would not that they should do unto you." This stands for
wisdom; this stands for prudence; this stands as the very basis of
morality as "a golden maxim." John Stuart Mill believes in it (and what
Englishman does not?).... But the maxim does not bear investigation.
The argument, Do not as you would not be done by, forbids action
which produce harmful results; the thought behind always is that an
action is invariably requited. What if some one came forward with the
_"Principe"_ in his hands, and said: "We must do those actions alone
which enable us to steal a march on others,--and which deprive others
of the power of doing the same to us"?--On the other hand, let us
remember the Corsican who pledges his honour to vendetta. He too does
not desire to have a bullet through him; but the prospect of one, the
probability of getting one, does not deter him from vindicating his
honour.... And in all really decent actions are we not intentionally
indifferent as to what result they will bring? To avoid an action which
might have harmful results,--that would be tantamount to forbidding all
decent actions in general.

Apart from this, the above maxim is valuable because it betrays a
certain _type of man_: it is the instinct of the herd which formulates
itself through him,--we are equal, we regard each other as equal: as
I am to thee so art thou to me.--In this community equivalence of
actions is really believed in--an equivalence which never under any
circumstances manifests itself in real conditions. It is impossible
to requite every action: among real individuals equal actions do not
exist, consequently there can be no such thing as "requital." ... When
I do anything, I am very far from thinking that any man is able to do
anything at all like it: the action belongs to me.... Nobody can pay
me back for anything I do; the most that can be done is to make me the
victim of another action.


926.

_Against John Stuart Mill._--I abhor the man's vulgarity when he says:
"What is right for one man is right for another"; "Do not to others
that which you would not that they should do unto you. Such principles
would fain establish the whole of human traffic _upon mutual services,_
so that every action would appear to be a cash payment for something
done to us. The hypothesis here is ignoble to the last degree: it
is taken for granted that there is some sort of equivalence in value
between my actions and thine; the most personal value Of an action is
simply cancelled in this manner (that part of an action which has no
equivalent and which cannot be remunerated). "Reciprocity" is a piece
of egregious vulgarity; the mere fact that what I do _cannot_ and _may_
not be done by another, that there is _no such thing as equivalence_
(except in those _very select circles_ where one actually has one's
equal, _inter pares_), that in a really profound sense a man never
requites because he is something _unique_ in himself and can only do
_unique_ things,--this fundamental conviction contains the cause of
_aristocratic aloofness from the mob_, because the latter believes in
equality, and _consequently_ in the feasibility of equivalence and
"reciprocity."


927.

The suburban Philistinism of moral valuations and of its concepts
"useful" and "harmful" is well founded; it is the necessary point of
view of a community which is only able to see and survey _immediate
and proximate_ consequences. The _State_ and the _political man_ are
already in need of a more _super-moral_ attitude of mind: because
they have to calculate concerning a much more complicated tissue
of consequences. An economic policy for the whole world should be
possible which could look at things in such broad perspective that all
its isolated demands would seem for the moment not only unjust, but
arbitrary.


928.

"_Should one follow one's feelings?_"--To set one's life at stake on
the impulse of the moment, and actuated by a generous feeling, has
little worth, and does not even distinguish one. Everybody is alike in
being capable of this--and in behaving in this way with determination,
the criminal, the bandit, and the Corsican certainly outstrip the
honest man.

A higher degree of excellence would be to overcome this impulse, and to
refrain from performing an heroic deed at its bidding--and to remain
cold, _raisonnable_, free from the tempestuous surging of concomitant
sensations of delight.... The same holds good of pity: it must first be
_sifted through_ reason; without this it becomes just as dangerous as
any other passion.

The _blind yielding_ to a passion, whether it be generosity, pity, or
hostility, is the cause of the greatest evil. Greatness of character
does not consist in not possessing these passions--on the contrary, a
man should possess them to a terrible degree: but he should lead them
by the bridle.. and even this he should not do out of love of control,
but merely because....


929.

"To give up one's life for a cause"--very effective. But there are many
things for which one gives up one's life: the passions, one and all,
will be gratified. Whether one's life be pledged to pity, to anger,
or to revenge--it matters not from the point of view of value. How
many have not sacrificed their lives for pretty girls--and even what
is worse, their health! When one has temperament, one instinctively
chooses the most dangerous things: if one is a philosopher, for
instance, one chooses the adventures of speculation; if one is
virtuous, one chooses immorality. One kind of man will risk nothing,
another kind will risk everything. Are we despisers of life? On the
contrary, what we seek is life raised to a higher power, life in
danger.... But, let me repeat, we do not, on that account, wish to
be more virtuous than others, Pascal, for instance, wished to risk
nothing, and remained a Christian. That perhaps was virtuous.----A man
always sacrifices something.


930.

How many _advantages_ does not a man sacrifice! To how small an extent
does he seek his own profit! All his emotions and passions wish to
assert their rights, and how remote a passion is From that cautious
utility which consists in personal profit!

A man does _not_ strive after "happiness"; one must be an Englishman to
be able to believe that a man is always seeking his own advantage. Our
desires long to violate things with passion--their overflowing strength
seeks obstacles.


931.

All passions are generally _useful,_ some directly, others indirectly;
in regard to utility it is absolutely impossible to fix upon any
gradation of values,--however certainly the forces of nature in general
may be regarded as good (_i.e._ useful), from an economic point of
view, they are still the sources of much that is terrible and much
that is fatally irrevocable. The most one might say would be, that
the mightiest passions are the most valuable: seeing that no stronger
sources of power exist.


932.

All well-meaning, helpful, good-natured attitudes of mind have _not_
come to be honoured on account of their usefulness: but because they
are the conditions peculiar to _rich souls_ who are able to bestow
and whose value consists in their vital exuberance. Look into the
eyes of the benevolent man! In them you will see the exact reverse of
self-denial, of hatred of self, of Pascalism.


933.

_In short,_ what we require is to dominate the passions and not to
weaken or to extirpate them!--The greater the dominating power of the
will, the greater the freedom that may be given to the passions.

The "great man" is so, owing to the free scope which he gives to his
desires, and to the still greater power which knows how to enlist these
magnificent monsters into its service.

The "good man" in every stage of civilisation is at one and the same
time the _least dangerous_ and the _most useful:_ a sort of medium;
the idea formed of such a man by the common mind is that he is some
one _whom one has no reason to fear, but whom one must not therefore
despise._

Education: essentially a means of _ruining_ exceptions in favour of the
rule. Culture: essentially the means of directing taste against the
exceptions in favour of the mediocre.

Only when a culture can dispose of an overflow of force, is it capable
of being a hothouse for the luxurious culture of the exception, of the
experiment, of the danger, of the _nuance: this_ is the tendency of
_every_ aristocratic culture.


934.

All questions of strength: to what extent ought one to try and
prevail against the preservative measures of society and the latter's
prejudices?--to what extent ought one to unfetter _one's terrible
qualities,_ through which so many go to the dogs?--to what extent
ought one to run counter to _truth,_ and take up sides with its most
questionable aspects?--to what extent ought one to oppose suffering,
self-contempt, pity, disease, vice, when it is always open to question
whether one can ever master them (what does not kill us makes us
_stronger..._.)?--and, finally, to what extent ought one to acknowledge
the rights of the rule, of the common-place, of the petty, of the good,
of the upright, in fact of the average man, without thereby allowing
one's self to become vulgar? ... The strongest test of character is to
resist being ruined by the seductiveness of goodness. _Goodness_ must
be regarded as a luxury, as a refinement, as a _vice._



3. The Noble Man.


935.

_Type._ real goodness, nobility, greatness of soul, as the result of
vital wealth: which does not give in order to receive--and which has no
desire to _elevate_ itself by being good, _squandering_ is typical of
genuine goodness, vital _personal_ wealth is its prerequisite.


936.

_Aristocracy._--Gregarious ideals at present culminating in the highest
standard of value for society. It has been attempted to give them a
cosmic, yea, and even a metaphysical, value.--I defend _aristocracy_
against them.

Any society which would of itself preserve a feeling of respect
and _délicatesse_ in regard to freedom, must consider itself as an
exception, and have a force against it from which it distinguishes
itself, and upon which it looks down with hostility.

The more rights I surrender and the more I level myself down to others,
the more deeply do I sink into the average and ultimately into the
greatest number. The first condition which an aristocratic society
must have in order to maintain a high degree of freedom among its
members, is that extreme tension which arises from the presence of
the most _antagonistic_ instincts in all its units: from their will to
dominate....

If ye would fain do away with strong contrasts and differences of rank,
ye will also abolish, strong love, lofty attitudes of mind, and the
feeling of individuality.

***

Concerning the _actual_ psychology of societies based upon freedom and
equality.--What is it that tends to _diminish_ in such a society?

The will to be _responsible for ones self_ (the loss of this is a sign
of the decline of autonomy); the ability to defend and to attack, even
in spiritual matters; the power of command; the sense of reverence,
of subservience, the ability to be silent, _great passion,_ great
achievements, tragedy and cheerfulness.


937.

In 1814 Augustin Thierry read what Montlosier had said in his work, _De
la Monarchie française:_ he answered with a cry of indignation, and set
himself to his task. That emigrant had said:

"_Race d'affranchis, race d'esclaves arrachés de nos mains, peuple
tributaire, peuple nouveau, licence vous fut octroyée d'être libres,
et non pas à nous d'être nobles; pour nous tout est de droit, pour
vous tout est de grâce, nous ne sommes point de votre communauté; nous
sommes un tout par nous mêmes._"


938.

How constantly the aristocratic world shears and weakens itself ever
more and more! By means of its noble instincts it abandons its
privileges, and owing to its refined and excessive culture, it takes
an interest in the people, the weak, the poor, and the poetry of the
lowly, etc.


939.

There is such a thing as a noble and dangerous form of carelessness,
which allows of profound conclusions and insight: the carelessness
of the self-reliant and over-rich soul, which has never _troubled_
itself about friends, but which knows only hospitality and knows
how to practise it; whose heart and house are open to all who will
enter--beggar, <DW36>, or king. This is genuine sociability: he who is
capable of it has hundreds of "friends," but probably not one friend.


940.

The teaching μηδὲν ἄγαν applies to men with overflowing
strength,--not to the mediocre, ἐγκράτεια and ἄσκησις are only
steps to higher things. Above them stands "golden Nature."

_"Thou shalt"_--unconditional obedience in Stoics, in Christian and
Arabian Orders, in Kant's philosophy (it is immaterial whether this
obedience is shown to a superior or to a concept).

Higher than "Thou shalt" stands "I will" (the heroes); higher than "I
will" stands "I am" (the gods of the Greeks).

Barbarian gods express nothing of the pleasure of restraint,--they are
neither simple, nor light-hearted, nor moderate.


941.

The essence of our gardens and palaces (and to the same extent the
essence of all yearning after riches) is _the desire to rid the eye of
disorder and vulgarity, and to build a home for our soul's nobility._

The majority of people certainly believe that they will develop higher
natures when those beautiful and peaceful things have operated upon
them: hence the exodus to Italy, hence all travelling, etc., and all
reading and visits to theatres. _People want to be formed_--that is the
kernel of their labours for culture! But the strong, the mighty, would
themselves _have a hand in the forming, and would fain have nothing
strange about them_!

It is for this reason, too, that men go to open Nature, not to find
themselves, but to lose themselves and to forget themselves. The desire
"_to get away from one's self_" is proper to all weaklings, and to all
those who are discontented with themselves.


942.

The only nobility is that of birth and blood. (I do not refer here to
the prefix "Lord" and _L'almanac de Gotha_: this is a parenthesis for
donkeys.) Wherever people speak of the "aristocracy of intellect,"
reasons are generally not lacking for concealing something, it is
known to be a password among ambitious Jews. Intellect alone does
not ennoble; on the contrary, something is always needed _to ennoble
intellect._--What then is needed?--Blood.


943.

What is noble?

--External punctiliousness; because this punctiliousness hedges a man
about, keeps him at a distance, saves him from being confounded with
somebody else.

A frivolous appearance in word, clothing, and bearing, with which
stoical hardness and self-control protect themselves from all prying
inquisitiveness or curiosity.

--A slow step and a slow glance. There are not too many valuable things
on earth: and these come and wish to come of themselves to him who has
value. We are not quick to admire.

--We know how to bear poverty, want, and even illness.

--We avoid small honours owing to our mistrust of all who are
over-ready to praise: for the man who praises believes he understands
what he praises: but to understand--Balzac, that typical man of
ambition, betrayed the fact _comprendre c'est égaler._

--Our doubt concerning the communicativeness of our hearts goes very
deep; to us, loneliness is not a matter of choice, it is imposed upon
us.

--We are convinced that we only have duties to our equals, to others we
do as we think best: we know that justice is only to be expected among
equals (alas! this will not be realised for some time to come),

--We are ironical towards the "gifted"; we hold the belief that no
morality is possible without good birth.

--We always feel as if we were those who had to dispense honours: while
he is not found too frequently who would be worthy of honouring us.

--We are always disguised: the higher a man's nature the more is he
in need of remaining incognito. If there be a God, then out of sheer
decency He ought only to show Himself on earth in the form of a man.

--We are capable of _otium,_ of the unconditional conviction that
although a handicraft does not shame one in any sense, it certainly
reduces one's rank. However much we may respect "industry," and know
how to give it its due, we do not appreciate it in a bourgeois sense,
or after the manner of those insatiable and cackling artists who, like
hens, cackle and lay eggs, and cackle again.

--We protect artists and poets and any one who happens to be a master
in something; but as creatures of a higher order than those, who only
know how to do something, who are only "productive men," we do not
confound ourselves with them.

--We find joy in all _forms_ and ceremonies; we would fain foster
everything formal, and we are convinced that courtesy is one of the
greatest virtues; we feel suspicious of every kind of _laisser aller,_
including the freedom of the press and of thought; because, under such
conditions, the intellect grows easy-going and coarse, and stretches
its limbs.

--We take pleasure in women as in a perhaps daintier, more delicate,
and more ethereal kind of creature. What a treat it is to meet
creatures who have only dancing and nonsense and finery in their
minds! They have always been the delight of every tense and profound
male soul, whose life is burdened with heavy responsibilities.

--We take pleasure in princes and in priests, because in big things, as
in small, they actually uphold the belief in the difference of human
values, even in the estimation of the past, and at least symbolically.

--We are able to keep silence _i_ but we do not breathe a word of this
in the presence of listeners.

--We are able to endure long enmities: we lack the power of easy
reconciliations.

--We have a loathing of demagogism, of enlightenment, of amiability,
and plebeian familiarity.

--We collect precious things, the needs of higher and fastidious souls;
we wish to possess nothing in common. We want to have our own books,
our _own_ landscapes.

--We protest against evil and fine experiences, and take care not to
generalise too quickly. The individual case: how ironically we regard
it when it has the bad taste to put on the airs of a rule!

--We love that which is _naïf,_ and _naïf_ people, but as spectators
and higher creatures; we think Faust is just as simple as his Margaret.

--We have a low estimation of good people, because they are gregarious
animals: we know how often an invaluable golden drop of goodness
lies concealed beneath the most evil, the most malicious, and the
hardest exterior, and that this single grain outweighs all the mere
goody-goodiness of milk-and-watery souls.

--We don't regard a man of our kind as refuted by his vices, nor by his
tomfooleries. We are well aware that we are not recognised with ease,
and that we have every reason to make our foreground very prominent.


944.

_What is noble?_--The fact that one is constantly forced to be playing
a part. That one is constantly searching for situations in which one
is forced to put on airs. That one leaves happiness to the _greatest
number:_ the happiness which consists of inner peacefulness, of virtue,
of comfort, and of Anglo-angelic-back-parlour-smugness, _à la_ Spencer.
That one instinctively seeks for heavy responsibilities. That one knows
how to create enemies everywhere, at a pinch even in one's self. That
one contradicts the _greatest number,_ not in words at all, but by
continually behaving differently from them.


945.

Virtue (for instance, truthfulness) is _our_ most noble and most
dangerous luxury. We must not decline the disadvantages which it brings
in its train.


946.

We refuse to be _praised:_ we do what serves our purpose, what gives us
pleasure, or what we are obliged to do.


947.

What is chastity in a man? It means that his taste in sex has remained
noble; that _in eroticis_ he likes neither the brutal, the morbid, nor
the clever.


948.

The concept of honour is founded upon the belief in select society,
in knightly excellences, in the obligation of having continually to
play a part. In essentials it means that one does not take one's life
too seriously, that one adheres unconditionally to the most dignified
manners in one's dealings with everybody (at least in so far as they do
not belong to "us"); that one is neither familiar, nor good-natured,
nor hearty, nor modest, except _inter pares_; that one is _always
playing a part._


949.

The fact that one sets one's life, one's health, and one's honour
at stake, is the result of high spirits and of an overflowing and
spendthrift will: it is not the result of philanthropy, but of the fact
that every danger kindles our curiosity concerning the measure of our
strength, and provokes our courage.


950.

Eagles swoop down straight nobility of soul is best revealed by the
magnificent and proud foolishness with which it makes its _attacks._


951.

War should be made against all namby-pamby ideas of _nobility_!--A
certain modicum of brutality cannot be dispensed with: no more
than we can do without a certain approximation to criminality.
"Self-satisfaction" must _not_ be allowed; a man should look upon
himself with an adventurous spirit; he should experiment with himself
and run risks with himself--no beautiful soul-quackery should be
tolerated. I want to give _a more robust ideal_ a chance of prevailing.


952.

"Paradise is under the shadow of a swordsman"--this is also a symbol
and a test-word by which souls with noble and warrior-like origin
betray and discover themselves.


953.

_The two paths._--There comes a period when man has a surplus amount
of power at his disposal. Science aims at establishing the _slavery of
nature._

Then man acquires the _leisure_ in which to develop himself into
something new and more lofty. _A new aristocracy._ It is then that a
large number of virtues which are now _conditions of existence_ are
superseded.--Qualities which are no longer needed are on that account
lost. We no longer need virtues: _consequently_ we are losing them
(likewise the morality of "one thing is needful," of the salvation of
the soul, and of immortality: these were means wherewith to make man
capable of enormous self-tyranny, through the emotion of great fear!!!).

The different kinds of needs by means of whose discipline man is
formed: need teaches work, thought, and self-control.

***

_Physiological_ purification and strengthening. The new aristocracy is
in need of an opposing body which it may combat: it must be driven to
extremities in order to maintain itself.

_The two futures of mankind_: (1) the consequence of a levelling-down
to mediocrity, (2) conscious aloofness and self-development.

A doctrine which would cleave a _gulf:_ it maintains the _highest and
the lowest species_ (it destroys the intermediate).

The aristocracies, both spiritual and temporal, which have existed
hitherto prove nothing _against_ the necessity of a new aristocracy.



4. The Lords of the Earth.


954.

A certain question constantly recurs to us; it is perhaps a seductive
and evil question; may it be whispered into the ears of those who
have a right to such doubtful problems--those strong souls of to-day
whose dominion over themselves is unswerving: is it not high time,
now that the type "gregarious animal" is developing ever more and
more in Europe, to set about rearing, thoroughly, artificially, and
consciously, an opposite type, and to attempt to establish the latter's
virtues? And would not the democratic movement itself find for the
first time a sort of goal, salvation, and justification, if some one
appeared who availed himself of it--so that at last, beside its new
and sublime product, slavery (for this must be the end of European
democracy), that higher species of ruling and Cæsarian spirits might
also be produced, which would stand upon it, hold to it, and would
elevate themselves through it? This new race would climb aloft to new
and hitherto impossible things, to a broader vision, and to its task on
earth.


955.

The aspect of the European of to-day makes me very hopeful. A daring
and ruling race is here building itself up upon the foundation of
an extremely intelligent, gregarious mass. It is obvious that the
educational movements for the latter are not alone prominent nowadays.


956.

The same conditions which go to develop the gregarious animal also
force the development of the leaders.


957.

The question, and at the same time the task, is approaching with
hesitation, terrible as Fate, but nevertheless inevitable: how shall
the earth as a whole be ruled? And to what end shall man as a whole--no
longer as a people or as a race--be reared and trained?

Legislative moralities are the principal means by which one can form
mankind, according to the fancy of a creative and profound will:
provided, of course, that such an artistic will of the first order gets
the power into its own hands, and can make its creative will prevail
over long periods in the form of legislation, religions, and morals.
At present, and probably for some time to come, one will seek such
colossally creative men, such really great men, as I understand them,
in vain: they will be lacking, until, after many disappointments, we
are forced to begin to understand why it is they are lacking, and that
nothing bars with greater hostility their rise and development, at
present and for some time to come, than that which is now called _the_
morality in Europe. Just as if there were no other kind of morality,
and could be no other kind, than the one we have already characterised
as herd-morality. It is this morality which is now striving with
all its power to attain to that green-meadow happiness on earth,
which consists in security, absence of danger, ease, facilities for
livelihood, and, last but not least, "if all goes well," even hopes
to dispense with all kinds of shepherds and bell-wethers. The two
doctrines which it preaches most universally are "equality of rights"
and "pity for all sufferers"--and it even regards suffering itself as
something which must be got rid of absolutely. That such ideas may be
modern leads one to think very poorly of modernity. He, however, who
has reflected deeply concerning the question, how and where the plant
man has hitherto grown most vigorously, is forced to believe that this
has always taken place under the opposite conditions; that to this end
the danger of the situation has to increase enormously, his inventive
faculty and dissembling powers have to fight their way up under long
oppression and compulsion, and his will to life has to be increased
to the unconditioned will to power, to over-power: he believes that
danger, severity, violence, peril in the street and in the heart,
inequality of rights, secrecy, stoicism, seductive art, and devilry of
every kind--in short, the opposite of all gregarious desiderata--are
necessary for the elevation of man. Such a morality with opposite
designs, which would rear man upwards instead of to comfort and
mediocrity; such a morality, with the intention of producing a ruling
caste--the future lords of the earth--must, in order to be taught at
all, introduce itself as if it were in some way correlated to the
prevailing moral law, and must come forward under the cover of the
latter's words and forms. But seeing that, to this end, a host of
transitionary and deceptive measures must be discovered, and that the
life of a single individual stands for almost nothing in view of the
accomplishment of such lengthy tasks and aims, the first thing that
must be done is to rear _a new kind_ of man in whom the duration of
the necessary will and the necessary instincts is guaranteed for many
generations. This must be a new kind of ruling species and caste--this
ought to be quite as clear as the somewhat lengthy and not easily
expressed consequences of this thought. The aim should be to prepare
a _transvaluation of values_ for a particularly strong kind of man,
most highly gifted in intellect and will, and, to this end, slowly
and cautiously to liberate in him a whole host of slandered instincts
hitherto held in check: whoever meditates about this problem belongs
to us, the free spirits--certainly not to that kind of "free spirit"
which has existed hitherto: for these desired practically the reverse.
To this order, it seems to me, belong, above all, the pessimists of
Europe, the poets and thinkers of a revolted idealism, in so far as
their discontent with existence in general must _consistently_ at least
have led them to be dissatisfied with the man of the present; the same
applies to certain insatiably ambitious artists who courageously and
unconditionally fight against the gregarious animal for the special
rights of higher men, and subdue all herd-instincts and precautions
of more exceptional minds by their seductive art. Thirdly and lastly,
we should include in this group all those critics and historians by
whom the discovery of the Old World, which has begun so happily--this
was the work of the _new_ Columbus, of German intellect--will be
courageously _continued_ (for we still stand in the very first stages
of this conquest). For in the Old World, as a matter of fact, a
different and more lordly morality ruled than that of to-day; and the
man of antiquity, under the educational ban of his morality, was a
stronger and deeper man than the man of to-day--up to the present he
has been the only well-constituted man. The temptation, however, which
from antiquity to the present day has always exercised its power on
such lucky strokes of Nature, _i.e._ on strong and enterprising souls,
is, even at the present day, the most subtle and most effective of
anti-democratic and anti-Christian powers, just as it was in the time
of the Renaissance.


958.

I am writing for a race of men which does not yet exist: for "the lords
of the earth."

In Plato's _Theages_ the following passage will be found: "Every one
of us would like if possible to be master of mankind; if possible, a
_God!" This_ attitude of mind must be reinstated in our midst.

Englishmen, Americans, and Russians.


959.

That primeval forest-plant Man always appears where the struggle for
power has been waged longest. _Great_ men.

Primeval forest creatures, the _Romans._


960.

From now henceforward there will be such favourable first conditions
for greater ruling powers as have never yet been found on earth.
And this is by no means the most important point. The establishment
has been made possible of international race unions which will set
themselves the task of rearing a ruling race, the future "lords
of the earth"--a new, vast aristocracy based upon the most severe
self-discipline, in which the will of philosophical men of power and
artist-tyrants will be stamped upon thousands of years: a higher
species of men which, thanks to their preponderance of will, knowledge,
riches, and influence, will avail themselves of democratic Europe as
the most suitable and supple instrument they can have for taking the
fate of the earth into their own hands, and working as artists upon man
himself. Enough! The time is coming for us to transform all our views
on politics.



5. The Great Man.


961.

I will endeavour to see at which periods in history great men arise.
The significance of despotic moralities that have lasted a long time:
they strain the bow, provided they do not break it.


962.

A great man,--a man whom Nature has built up and invented in a grand
style,--What is such a man? _First,_ in his general course of action
his consistency is so broad that owing to its very breadth it can be
surveyed only with difficulty, and consequently misleads; he possesses
the capacity of extending his will over great stretches of his life,
and of despising and rejecting all small things, whatever most
beautiful and "divine" things of the world there may be among them.
_Secondly,_ he is _colder, harder, less cautious and more free from
the fear of "public opinion";_ he does not possess the virtues which
are compatible with respectability and with being respected, nor any
of those things which are counted among the "virtues of the herd." If
he is unable to _lead_, he walks alone; he may then perchance grunt
at many things which he meets on his way. _Thirdly_, he asks for no
"compassionate" heart, but servants, instruments; in his dealings with
men his one aim is _to make_ something out of them. He knows that he
cannot reveal himself to anybody: he thinks it bad taste to become
familiar; and as a rule he is not familiar when people think he is.
When he is not talking to his soul, he wears a mask. He would rather
lie than tell the truth, because lying requires more spirit and _will_.
There is a loneliness within his heart which neither praise nor blame
can reach, because he is his own judge from whom is no appeal.


963.

The great man is necessarily a sceptic (I do not mean to say by this
that he must appear to be one), provided that greatness consists in
this: to _will_ something great, together with the means thereto.
Freedom from any kind of conviction is a factor in his _strength
of will_. And thus it is in keeping with that "enlightened form of
despotism" which every great passion exercises. Such a passion enlists
intellect in its service; it even has the courage for unholy means;
it creates without hesitation; it allows itself convictions, it even
_uses_ them, but it never submits to them. The need of faith and
of anything unconditionally negative or affirmative is a proof of
weakness; all weakness is weakness of will. The man of faith, the
believer, is necessarily an inferior species of man. From this it
follows that "all freedom of spirit," _i.e._ instinctive scepticism, is
the prerequisite of greatness.


964.

The great man is conscious of his power over a people, and of the fact
that he coincides temporarily with a people or with a century--this
_magnifying_ of his self-consciousness as _causa_ and _voluntas_
is _misunderstood_ as "altruism": he feels driven to _means_ of
communication: all great men are _inventive_ in such means. They want
to form great communities in their own image; they would fain give
multiformity and disorder definite shape; it stimulates them to behold
chaos.

The misunderstanding of love. There is a _slavish_ love which
subordinates itself and gives itself away--which idealises and deceives
itself; there is a _divine_ species of love which despises and loves at
the same time, and which _remodels_ and _elevates_ the thing it loves.

The object is to attain that enormous _energy of greatness_ which can
model the man of the future by means of discipline and also by means
of the annihilation of millions of the bungled and botched, and which
can yet avoid _going to ruin_ at the sight of the suffering _created_
thereby, the like of which has never been seen before.


965.

The revolution, confusion, and distress of whole peoples is in my
opinion of less importance than _the misfortunes which attend great
individuals in their development._ We must not allow ourselves to be
deceived: the many misfortunes of all these small folk do not together
constitute a sum-total, except in the feelings of _mighty_ men.--To
think of one's self in moments of great danger, and to draw ones own
advantage from the calamities of thousands in the case of the man
who differs very much from the common ruck--may be a sign of a great
character which is able to master its feeling of pity and justice.


966.

In contradistinction to the animal, man has developed such a host
of _antagonistic_ instincts and impulses in himself, that he has
become master of the earth by means of this synthesis.--Moralities
are only the expression of local and limited _orders of rank in_ this
multifarious world of instincts which prevent man from perishing
through their _antagonism._ Thus a masterful instinct so weakens and
subtilises the instinct which opposes it that it becomes an _impulse_
which provides the _stimulus_ for the activity of the principal
instinct.

The highest man would have the greatest multifariousness in his
instincts, and he would _possess_ these in the relatively strongest
degree in which he is able to endure them. As a matter of fact,
wherever the plant, man, is found strong, mighty instincts are to be
found opposing each other (_e.g._ Shakespeare), but they are subdued.


967.

Would one not be justified in reckoning all great men among the
_wicked?_ This is not so easy to demonstrate in the case of
individuals. They are so frequently capable of masterly dissimulation
that they very often assume the airs and forms of great virtues. Often,
too, they seriously reverence virtues, and in such a way as to be
passionately hard towards themselves; but as the result of cruelty.
Seen from a distance such things are liable to deceive. Many, on the
other hand, misunderstand themselves; not infrequently, too, a great
mission will call forth great qualities, _e.g._ justice. The essential
fact is: the greatest men may also perhaps have great virtues, but then
they also have the opposites of these virtues. I believe that it is
precisely out of the presence of these opposites and of the feelings
they suscitate, that the great man arises,--for the great man is the
broad arch which spans two banks lying far apart.


968.

In _great men_ we find the specific qualities of life in their highest
manifestation: injustice, falsehood, exploitation. But inasmuch as
their effect has always been _overwhelming,_ their essential nature has
been most thoroughly misunderstood, and interpreted as goodness. The
type of such an interpreter would be Carlyle.[5]

[Footnote 5: This not only refers to _Heroes and Hero-Worship,_
but doubtless to Carlyle's prodigious misunderstanding of Goethe a
misunderstanding which still requires to be put right by a critic
untainted by Puritanism.--Tr.]


969.

Generally speaking, everything _is worth no more and no less than one
has paid for it._ This of course does not hold good in the case of an
isolated individual; the great capacities of the individual have no
relation whatsoever to that which he has done, sacrificed, and suffered
for them. But if one should examine the previous history of his race
one would be sure to find the record of an extraordinary storing up and
capitalising of power by means of all kinds of abstinence, struggle,
industry, and determination. It is because the great man has cost so
much, and not because he stands there as a miracle, as a gift from
heaven, or as an accident, that he became great: "Heredity" is a false
notion. A man's ancestors have always paid the price of what he is.


970.

_The danger of modesty._ To adapt ourselves too early to duties,
societies, and daily schemes of work in which accident may have placed
us, at a time when neither our powers nor our aim in life has stepped
peremptorily into our consciousness; the premature certainty of
conscience and feeling of relief and of sociability which is acquired
by this precocious, modest attitude, and which appears to our minds
as a deliverance from those inner and outer disturbances of our
feelings--all this pampers and keeps a man down in the most dangerous
fashion imaginable. To learn to respect things which people about us
respect, as if we had no standard or right of our own to determine
values; the strain of appraising things as others appraise them,
_counter_ to the whisperings of our inner taste, which also has a
conscience of its own, becomes a terribly subtle kind of constraint:
and if in the end no explosion takes place which bursts all the bonds
of love and morality at once, then such a spirit becomes withered,
dwarfed, feminine, and objective. The reverse of this is bad enough,
but still it is better than the foregoing: to suffer from one's
environment, from its praise just as much as from its blame; to be
wounded by it and to fester inwardly without betraying the fact; to
defend one's self involuntarily and suspiciously against its love; to
learn to be silent, and perchance to conceal this by talking; to create
nooks and safe, lonely hiding-places where one can go and take breath
for a moment, or shed tears of sublime comfort--until at last one has
grown strong enough to say: "What on earth have I to do with you?" and
to go _one's_ way alone.


971.

Those men who are in themselves destinies, and whose advent is the
advent of fate, the whole race of _heroic_ bearers of burdens: oh!
how heartily and gladly would they have respite from themselves for
once in a while!--how they crave after stout hearts and shoulders, that
they might free themselves, were it but for an hour or two, from that
which oppresses them! And how fruitlessly they crave! ... They wait;
they observe all that passes before their eyes: no man even cometh nigh
to them with a thousandth part of their suffering and passion, no man
guesseth to what end they have waited.... At last, at last, they learn
the first lesson of their life: to wait no longer; and forthwith they
learn their second lesson: to be affable, to be modest; and from that
time onwards to endure everybody and every kind of thing--in short, to
endure still a little more than they had endured theretofore.



6. The Highest Man as Lawgiver of the Future.


972.

_The lawgivers of the future._--After having tried for a long time in
vain to attach a particular meaning to the word "philosopher,"--for I
found many antagonistic traits, I recognised that we can distinguish
between two kinds of philosophers:--

(1) Those who desire to establish any large system of values (logical
or moral);

(2) Those who are the _lawgivers_ of such valuations.

The former try to seize upon the world of the present or the past,
by embodying or abbreviating the multifarious phenomena by means of
signs: their object is to make it possible for us to survey, to reflect
upon, to comprehend, and to utilise everything that has happened
hitherto--they serve the purpose of man by using all past things to the
benefit of his future.

The second class, however, are _commanders;_ they say: "Thus shall it
be!" They alone determine the "whither" and the "wherefore," and that
which will be useful and beneficial to man; they have command over the
previous work of scientific men, and all knowledge is to them only
a means to their creations. This second kind of philosopher seldom
appears; and as a matter of fact their situation and their danger is
appalling. How often have they not intentionally blindfolded their
eyes in order to shut out the sight of the small strip of ground which
separates them from the abyss and from utter destruction. Plato, for
instance, when he persuaded himself that "the good," as he wanted it,
was not Plato's good, but "the good in itself," the eternal treasure
which a certain man of the name of Plato had chanced to find on his
way! This same will to blindness prevails in a much coarser form in the
case of the founders of religion; their "Thou shalt" must on no account
sound to their ears like "I will,"--they only dare to pursue their task
as if under the command of God; their legislation of values can only be
a burden they can bear if they regard it as "revelation," in this way
their conscience is not crushed by the responsibility.

As soon as those two comforting expedients--that of Plato and that of
Muhammed--have been overthrown, and no thinker can any longer relieve
his conscience with the hypothesis "God" or "eternal values," the
claim of the lawgiver to determine new values rises to an awfulness
which has not yet been experienced. Now those elect, on whom the
faint light of such a duty is beginning to dawn, try and see whether
they cannot escape it--as their greatest danger--by means of a timely
side-spring: for instance, they try to persuade themselves that their
task is already accomplished, or that it defies accomplishment, or that
their shoulders are not broad enough for such burdens, or that they
are already taken up with burdens closer to hand, or even that this
new and remote duty is a temptation and a seduction, drawing them away
from all other duties; a disease, a kind of madness. Many, as a matter
of fact, do succeed in evading the path appointed to them: throughout
the whole of history we can see the traces of such deserters and their
guilty consciences. In most cases,, however, there comes to such men
of destiny that hour of delivery, that autumnal season of maturity, in
which they are forced to do that which they did not even "wish to do":
and that deed before which in the past they have trembled most, falls
easily and unsought from the tree, as an involuntary deed, almost as a
present.


973.

_The human horizon._--Philosophers may be conceived as men who make
the greatest efforts to _discover_ to what extent man can _elevate_
himself--this holds good more particularly of Plato: how far man's
_power_ can extend. But they do this as individuals; perhaps the
instinct of Cæsars and of all founders of states, etc., was greater,
for it preoccupied itself with the question how far man could be urged
forward in _development_ under "favourable circumstances." What they
did not sufficiently understand, however, was the nature of favourable
circumstances. The great question: "Where has the plant 'man' grown
most magnificently heretofore? In order to answer this, a comparative
study of history is necessary.


974.

Every fact and every work exercises a fresh persuasion over every age
and every new species of man. History always enunciates new truths.


975.

To remain objective, severe, firm, and hard while making a thought
prevail is perhaps the best forte of artists; but if for this purpose
any one have to work upon human material (as teachers, statesmen,
have to do, etc.), then the repose, the coldness, and the hardness
soon vanish. In natures like Cæsar and Napoleon we are able to divine
something of the nature of "disinterestedness" in their work on their
marble, whatever be the number of men that are sacrificed in the
process. In this direction the future of higher men lies: to bear the
greatest responsibilities and not to go to rack and ruin through
them.--Hitherto the deceptions of inspiration have almost always been
necessary for a man not to lose faith in his own hand, and in his right
to his task.


976.

The reason why philosophers are mostly failures. Because among the
conditions which determine them there are qualities which generally
ruin other men:--

(1) A philosopher must have an enormous multiplicity of qualities; he
must be a sort of abbreviation of man and have all man's high and base
desires: the danger of the contrast within him, and of the possibility
of his loathing himself;

(2) He must be inquisitive in an extraordinary number of ways: the
danger of versatility;

(3) He must be just and honest in the highest sense, but profound both
in love and hate (and in injustice);

(4) He must not only be a spectator but a lawgiver: a judge and
defendant (in so far as he is an abbreviation of the world);

(5) He must be extremely multiform and yet firm and hard. He must be
supple.


977.

The really _regal_ calling of the philosopher (according to the
expression of Alcuin the Anglo-Saxon): "_Prava corrigere, et recta
corroborare, et sancta sublimare._"


978.

The new philosopher can only arise in conjunction with a ruling class,
as the highest spiritualisation of the latter. Great politics, the
rule of the earth, as a proximate contingency, the total _lack of
principles_ necessary thereto.


979.

Fundamental concept: the new values must first be created--this remains
_our duty_! The philosopher must be our lawgiver. New species. (How the
greatest species hitherto [for instance, the Greeks] were reared: this
kind of accident must now be _consciously_ striven for.)


980.

Supposing one thinks of the philosopher as an educator who, looking
down from his lonely elevation, is powerful enough to draw long chains
of generations up to him: then he must be granted the most terrible
privileges of a great educator. An educator never says what he himself
thinks; but only that which he thinks it is good for those whom he is
educating to hear upon any subject. This dissimulation on his part
must not be found out; it is part of his masterliness that people
should believe in his honesty, he must be capable of all the means of
discipline and education: there are some natures which he will only be
able to raise by means of lashing them with his scorn; others who are
lazy, irresolute, cowardly, and vain, he will be able to affect only
with exaggerated praise. Such a teacher stands beyond good and evil,
but nobody must know that he does.


981.

We must _not_ make men "better," we must _not_ talk to them about
morality in any form as if "morality in itself," or an ideal kind
of man in general, could be taken for granted; but we must _create
circumstances_ in which _stronger men are necessary,_ such as for
their part will require a morality (or, better still: a bodily and
spiritual discipline) which makes men strong, and upon which they will
consequently insist! As they will need one so badly, they will have it.

We must not let ourselves be seduced by blue eyes and heaving breasts:
_greatness of soul has absolutely nothing romantic about it. And
unfortunately nothing whatever amiable either._


982.

From warriors we must learn: (1) to associate death with those
interests for which we are fighting--that makes us venerable; (2) we
must learn to _sacrifice_ numbers, and to take our cause sufficiently
seriously not to spare men; (3) we must practise inexorable discipline,
and allow ourselves violence and cunning in war.


983.

The _education_ which rears those _ruling_ virtues that allow a man to
become master of his benevolence and his pity: the great disciplinary
virtues ("Forgive thine enemies" is mere child's play beside them),
_and the passions of the creator, must be elevated_ to the heights--we
must cease from carving marble! The exceptional and powerful position
of those creatures (compared with that of all princes hitherto): the
Roman Cæsar with Christ's soul.


984.

We must not separate greatness of soul from intellectual greatness. For
the former involves _independence_; but without intellectual greatness
independence should not be allowed; all it does is to create disasters
even in its lust of well-doing and of practising "justice." Inferior
spirits _must_ obey, consequently they cannot be possessed of greatness.


985.

The more lofty philosophical man who is surrounded by loneliness, not
because he wishes to be alone, but because he is what he is, and cannot
find his equal: what a number of dangers and torments are reserved for
him, precisely at the present time, when we have lost our belief in
the order of rank, and consequently no longer know how to understand
or honour this isolation! Formerly the sage almost sanctified himself
in the consciences of the mob by going aside in this way; to-day
the anchorite sees himself as though enveloped in a cloud of gloomy
doubt and suspicions. And not alone by the envious and the wretched:
in every well-meant act that he experiences he is bound to discover
misunderstanding, neglect, and superficiality. He knows the crafty
tricks of foolish pity which makes these people feel so good and holy
when they attempt to save him from his own destiny, by giving him more
comfortable situations and more decent and reliable society. Yes, he
will even get to admire the unconscious lust of destruction with which
all mediocre spirits stand up and oppose him, believing all the while
that they have a holy right to do so! For men of such incomprehensible
loneliness it is necessary to put a good stretch of country between
them and the officiousness of their fellows: this is part of their
prudence. For such a man to maintain himself uppermost to-day amid
the dangerous maelstroms of the age which threaten to draw him under,
even cunning and disguise will be necessary. Every attempt he makes to
order his life in the present and with the present, every time he draws
near to these men and their modern desires, he will have to expiate as
if it were an actual sin: and withal he may look with wonder at the
concealed wisdom of his nature, which after every one of these attempts
immediately leads him back to himself by means of illnesses and painful
accidents.


986.

                    _"Maledetto colui_
    _che contrista, un spirto immortal!"_
    MANZONI (_Conte di Carmagnola,_ Act II.)


987.

The most difficult and the highest form which man can attain is the
most seldom successful: thus the history of philosophy reveals a
superabundance of bungled and unhappy cases of manhood, and its march
is an extremely slow one; whole centuries intervene and suppress what
has been achieved: and in this way the connecting-link is always made
to fail. It is an appalling history, this history of the highest men,
of the sages.--What is most often damaged is precisely the recollection
of great men, for the semi-successful and botched cases of mankind
misunderstand them and overcome them by their "successes." Whenever
an "effect" is noticeable, the masses gather in a crowd round it;
to hear the inferior and the poor in spirit having their say is a
terrible ear-splitting torment for him who knows and trembles at the
thought, that the fate of man depends upon the success of its highest
types. From the days of my childhood I have reflected upon the sage's
conditions of existence, and I will not conceal my happy conviction
that in Europe he has once more become possible--perhaps only for a
short time.


988.

These new philosophers begin with a description of a systematic order
of rank and difference of value among men,--what they desire is, alas
precisely the reverse of an assimilation and equalisation of man: they
teach estrangement in every sense, they cleave gulfs such as have
never yet existed, and they would fain have man become more evil than
he ever was. For the present they live concealed and estranged even
from each other. For many reasons they will find it necessary to be
anchorites and to wear masks--they will therefore be of little use
in the matter of seeking for their equals. They will live alone, and
probably know the torments of all the loneliest forms of loneliness.
Should they, however, thanks to any accident, meet each other on the
road, I wager that they would not know each other, or that they would
deceive each other in a number of ways.


989.

"Les philosophes ne sont pas faits pour s'aimer. Les aigles ne volent
point en compagnie. Il faut laisser cela aux perdrix, aux étourneaux
... Planer au-dessus et avoir des griffes, voila le lot des grands
génies."--GALIANI.


990.

I forgot to say that such philosophers are cheerful, and that they
like to sit in the abyss of a perfectly clear sky: they are in need of
different means for enduring life than other men; for they suffer in
a different way (that is to say, just as much from the depth of their
contempt of man as from their love of man).--The animal which suffered
most on earth discovered for itself _--laughter._


991.

_Concerning the misunderstanding of "cheerfulness."_ --It is a
temporary relief from long tension; it is the wantonness, the
Saturnalia of a spirit, which is consecrating and preparing itself for
long and terrible resolutions. The "fool" in the form of "science."


992.

The new order of rank among spirits; tragic natures no longer in the
van.


993.

It is a comfort to me to know that over the smoke and filth of human
baseness there is a _higher and brighter_ mankind, which, judging from
their number, must be a small race (for everything that is in any way
distinguished is _ipso facto_ rare). A man does not belong to this race
because he happens to be more gifted, more virtuous, more heroic, or
more loving than the men below, but because he is _colder, brighter,
more far-sighted, and more lonely;_ because he endures, prefers, and
even insists upon, loneliness as the joy, the privilege, yea, even the
condition of existence; because he lives amid clouds and lightnings as
among his equals, and likewise among sunrays, dewdrops, snowflakes,
and all that which must needs come from the heights, and which in its
course moves ever from heaven to earth. The desire to look aloft is not
our desire.--Heroes, martyrs, geniuses, and enthusiasts of all kinds,
are not quiet, patient, subtle, cold, or slow enough for us.


994.

The absolute conviction that valuations above and below are different;
that innumerable experiences are wanting to the latter: that when
looking upwards from below misunderstandings are necessary.


995.

How do men attain to great power and to great tasks? All the virtues
and proficiences of the body and the soul are little by little
laboriously acquired, through great industry, self-control, and keeping
one's self within narrow bounds, through a frequent, energetic, and
genuine repetition of the same work and of the same hardships; but
there are men who are the heirs and masters of this slowly acquired
and manifold treasure of virtues and proficiences because, owing
to happy and reasonable marriages and also to lucky accidents, the
acquired and accumulated forces of many generations, instead of being
squandered and subdivided, have been assembled together by means of
steadfast struggling and willing. And thus, in the end, a man appears
who is such a monster of strength, that he craves for a monstrous
task. For it is our power which has command of us: and the wretched
intellectual play of aims and intentions and motivations lies only in
the foreground--however much weak eyes may recognise the principal
factors in these things.


990.

The sublime man has the highest value, even when he is most delicate
and fragile, because an abundance of very difficult and rare things
have been reared through many generations and united in him.


997.

I teach that there are higher and lower men, and that a single
individual may under certain circumstances justify whole millenniums of
existence --that is to say, a wealthier, more gifted, greater, and more
complete man, as compared with innumerable imperfect and fragmentary
men.


998.

Away from rulers and rid of all bonds, live the highest men: and in the
rulers they have their instruments.


999.

_The order of rank:_ he who _determines_ values and leads the will of
millenniums, and does this by leading the highest natures--he _is the
highest man._


1000.

I fancy I have divined some of the things that lie hidden in the soul
of the highest man; perhaps every man who has divined so much must go
to ruin: but he who has seen the highest man must do all he can to
make him _possible._ Fundamental thought: we must make the future the
standard of all our valuations--and not seek the laws for our conduct
behind us.


1001.

Not "mankind," but _Superman_ is the goal!


1002.

"Come l'uom s'eterna...."--_Inf._ xv. 85.




II.


DIONYSUS.


1003.

To _him who is one of Nature's lucky strokes,_ to, him unto whom my
heart goes out, to him who is carved from one integral block, which is
hard, sweet, and fragrant--to him from whom even my nose can derive
some pleasure--let this book be dedicated.

He enjoys that which is beneficial to him.

His pleasure in anything ceases when the limits of what is beneficial
to him are overstepped.

He divines the remedies for partial injuries; his illnesses are the
great stimulants of his existence.

He understands how to exploit his serious accidents.

He grows stronger under the misfortunes which threaten to annihilate
him.

He instinctively gathers from all he sees, hears, and experiences,
the materials for what concerns him most,--he pursues a selective
principle,--he rejects a good deal.

He reacts with that tardiness which long caution and deliberate
_pride_ have bred in him,--he tests the stimulus: whence does it come?
whither does it lead? He does not submit.

He is always in his own company, whether his intercourse be with books,
with men, or with Nature.

He honours anything by choosing it, by conceding to it, by trusting it.


1004.

We should attain to such a height, to such a lofty eagle's ledge, in
our observation, as to be able to understand that everything happens,
_just as it ought to happen_: and that all "imperfection," and the pain
it brings, belong to all that which is most eminently desirable.


1005.

Towards 1876 I experienced a fright; for I saw that everything I had
most wished for up to that time was being compromised. I realised this
when I perceived what Wagner was actually driving at: and I was bound
very fast to him--by all the bonds of a profound similarity of needs,
by gratitude, by the thought that he could not be replaced, and by the
absolute void which I saw facing me.

Just about this time I believed myself to be inextricably entangled in
my philology and my professorship--in the accident and last shift of my
life: I did not know how to get out of it, and was tired, used up, and
on my last legs.

At about the same time I realised that what my instincts most desired
to attain was precisely the reverse of what Schopenhauer's instincts
wanted--that is to say, a _justification of life,_ even where it was
most terrible, most equivocal, and most false: to this end, I had the
formula "_Dionysian_" in my hand.

Schopenhauer's interpretation of the "absolute" as _will_ was certainly
a step towards that concept of the "absolute" which supposed it to be
necessarily good, blessed, true, and integral, but Schopenhauer did
not understand how to deify this will: he remained suspended in the
moral-Christian ideal. Indeed, he was still so very much under the
dominion of Christian values, that, once he could no longer regard
the absolute as God, he had to conceive it as evil, foolish, utterly
reprehensible. He did not realise that there is an infinite number of
ways of being different, and even of being God.


1006.

Hitherto, moral values have been the highest values: does anybody doubt
this? If we bring down the values from their pedestal, we thereby
alter _all_ values; the principle of their _order of rank_ which has
prevailed hitherto is thus overthrown.


1007.

Transvalue values--what does this mean? It implies that all spontaneous
motives, all new, future, and stronger motives, are still extant; but
that they now appear under false names and false valuations, and have
not yet become conscious of themselves.

We ought to have the courage to become, conscious, and to affirm all
that which has been _attained_--to get rid of the humdrum character
of old valuations, which makes us unworthy of the best and strongest
things that we have achieved.


1008.

Any doctrine would be superfluous for which everything is not already
prepared in the way of accumulated forces and explosive material. A
transvaluation of values can only be accomplished when there is a
tension of new needs, and a new set of needy people who feel all old
values as painful,--although they are not conscious of what is wrong.


1009.

The standpoint from which my values are determined: is abundance or
desire active? ... Is one a mere spectator, or is one's own shoulder
at the wheel--is one looking away or is one turning aside? ... Is one
acting spontaneously, as the result of accumulated strength, or is one
merely reacting to a goad or to a stimulus? ... Is one simply acting
as the result of a paucity of elements, or of such an overwhelming
dominion over a host of elements that this power enlists the latter
into its service if it requires them? ... Is one a _problem_ one's
self or is one a _solution_ already? ... Is _one perfect_ through
the smallness of the task, or _imperfect_ owing to the extraordinary
character of the aim? ... Is one genuine or only an _actor;_ is one
genuine as an actor, or only the bad copy of an actor? is one a
representative or the creature represented? Is one a personality or
merely a rendezvous of personalities? ... Is one ill from a disease or
from surplus health? Does one lead as a shepherd, or as an "exception"
(third alternative: as a fugitive)? Is one in need of dignity, or can
one play the clown? Is one in search of resistance, or is one evading
it? Is one imperfect owing to one's precocity or to one's tardiness? Is
it one's nature to say yea, or no, or is one a peacock's tail of garish
parts? Is one proud enough not to feel ashamed even of one's vanity? Is
one still able to feel a bite of conscience (this species is becoming
rare; formerly conscience had to bite too often: it is as if it now no
longer had enough teeth to do so)? Is one still capable of a "duty"?
(there are some people who would lose the whole joy of their lives
if they were _deprived_ of their duty--this holds good especially of
feminine creatures, who are born subjects).


1010.

Supposing our common comprehension of the universe were a
_misunderstanding,_ would it be possible to conceive of a form of
_perfection,_ within the limits of which even such a _misunderstanding
as this_ could be sanctioned?

The concept of a _new_ form of perfection: that which does _not_
correspond to our logic, to our "beauty," to our "good," to our
"truth," might be perfect in a _higher_ sense even than our ideal is.


1011.

Our most important limitation: we must not deify the unknown; we are
just beginning to know so little. The false and wasted endeavours.

Our "new world": we must ascertain to what extent we are the _creators_
of our valuations--we will thus be able to put "sense" into history.

This belief in truth is reaching its final logical conclusion in
us--ye know how it reads: that if there is anything at all that must
be worshipped it is _appearance;_ that _falsehood_ and _not_ truth
is--divine.


1012.

He who urges rational thought forward, thereby also drives its
antagonistic power--mysticism and foolery of every kind--to new feats
of strength.

We should recognise that every movement is (1) _partly_ the
manifestation of fatigue resulting from a previous movement (satiety
after it, the malice of weakness towards it, and disease); and (2)
_partly_ a newly awakened accumulation of long slumbering forces, and
therefore wanton, violent, healthy.


1013.

Health and morbidness: let us be careful! The standard is the bloom of
the body, the agility, courage, and cheerfulness of the mind--but also,
of course, how much _morbidness a man can bear and overcome,_--and
convert into health. That which would send more delicate natures to the
dogs, belongs to the stimulating means of _great_ health.


1014.

It is only a question of power: to have all the morbid traits of the
century, but to balance them I by means of overflowing, plastic, and
rejuvenating power. The _strong_ man.


1015.

_Concerning the strength of the nineteenth century.--_We are more
mediæval than the eighteenth century; not only more inquisitive or more
susceptible to the strange and to the rare. We have revolted against
the _Revolution,_ ... We have freed ourselves from the fear of reason,
which was the spectre of the eighteenth century: we once more dare to
be childish, lyrical, absurd, in a word, we are musicians. And we are
just as little frightened of the _ridiculous_ as of the _absurd._ The
_devil_ finds that he is tolerated even by God:[6] better still, he has
become interesting as one who has been misunderstood and slandered for
ages,--we are the saviours of the devil's honour.

We no longer separate the great from the terrible. We reconcile good
things, in all their complexity, with the very _worst_ things; we
have overcome the _desideratum_ of the past (which wanted goodness to
grow without the increase of evil). The _cowardice_ towards the ideal,
peculiar to the Renaissance, has diminished--we even dare to aspire to
the latter's morality. _Intolerance_ towards priests and the Church has
at the same time come to an end; "It is immoral to believe in God"--but
this is precisely what we regard as the best possible justification of
this belief.

On all these things we have conferred the civic rights of our minds. We
do not tremble before the back side of "good things" (we even look for
it, we are brave and inquisitive enough for that), of Greek antiquity,
of morality, of reason, of good taste, for instance (we reckon up
the losses which we incur with all this treasure: we almost reduce
ourselves to poverty with such a treasure). Neither do we conceal the
back side of "evil things" from ourselves.

[Footnote 6: This is reminiscent of Goethe's _Faust,_ See "Prologue in
Heaven."--Tr.]


1016.

_That which does us honour._--If anything does us honour, it is this:
we have transferred our seriousness to other things; all those things
which have been despised and laid aside as base by all ages, we regard
as important--on the other hand, we surrender "fine feelings" at a
cheap rate.

Could any aberration be more dangerous than the contempt of the body?
As if all intellectuality were not thereby condemned to become morbid,
and to take refuge in the _vapeurs_ of "idealism"!

Nothing that has been thought out by Christians and idealists holds
water: we are more radical. We have discovered the "smallest world"
everywhere as the most decisive.

The paving-stones in the streets, good air in our rooms, food
understood according to its worth: we value all the _necessaries_ of
life seriously, and _despise_ all "beautiful soulfulness" as a form of
"levity and frivolity." That which has been most despised hitherto, is
now pressed into the front rank.


1017

In the place of Rousseau's "man of Nature," the nineteenth century has
discovered a much _more genuine_ image of "Man,"--it had the courage
to do this.... On the whole, the Christian concept of man has in a way
been reinstalled. What we have not had the courage to do, was to call
precisely this "man _par excellence_," good, and to see the future of
mankind guaranteed in him. In the same way, we did not dare to regard
the _growth in the terrible side_ of man's character as an accompanying
feature of every advance in culture; in this sense we are still
under the influence of the Christian ideal, and side with it against
paganism, and likewise against the Renaissance concept of _virtù._ But
the key of culture is not to be found in this way: and _in praxi_ we
still have the forgeries of history in favour of the "good man" (as if
he alone constituted the progress of humanity) and the _socialistic
ideal (i.e._ the _residue_ of Christianity and of Rousseau in the
de-Christianised world).

_The fight against the eighteenth century:_ it meets with its _greatest
conquerors_ in _Goethe_ and _Napoleon._ Schopenhauer, too, fights
against the eighteenth century; but he returns involuntarily to
the seventeenth--he is a modern Pascal, with Pascalian valuations,
_without_ Christianity. Schopenhauer was not strong enough to invent a
_new yea._

_Napoleon:_ we see the necessary relationship between the higher and
the terrible man. "Man" reinstalled, and her due of contempt and fear
restored to woman. Highest activity and health are the signs of the
great man; the straight line and grand style rediscovered in action;
the mightiest of all instincts, that of life itself,--the lust of
dominion,--heartily welcomed.


1018.

(_Revue des deux mondes,_ 15th February 1887. Taine concerning
Napoleon) "Suddenly the master faculty reveals itself: the _artist,_
which was latent in the politician, comes forth from his scabbard; he
creates _dans l'idéal et l'impossible._ He is once more recognised as
that which he is: the posthumous brother of Dante and of Michelangelo;
and verily, in view of the definite contours of his vision, the
intensity, the coherence, and inner consistency of his dream, the depth
of his meditations, the superhuman greatness of his conception, he is
their equal: _son génie a la même taille et la même structure; il est
un des trois esprits souverains de la renaissance italienne._"

_Nota bene._ Dante, Michelangelo, Napoleon.


1019.

_Concerning the pessimism of strength._ In the internal economy of
_the primitive_ man's soul, the _fear_ of evil preponderates. What is
_evil!_ Three kinds of things: accident, uncertainty, the unexpected.
How does primitive man combat evil?--He conceives it as a thing of
reason, of power, even as a person. By this means he is enabled to
make treaties with it, and generally to operate upon it in advance--to
forestall it.

--Another expedient is to declare its evil and harmful character to
be but apparent: the consequences of accidental occurrences, and of
uncertainty and the unexpected, are interpreted as _well-meant,_ as
reasonable.

--A third means is to interpret evil, above all, as merited: evil is
thus justified as a punishment.

--In short, _man submits to in_ all religious and moral interpretations
are but forms of submission to evil.--The belief that a good purpose
lies behind all evil, implies the renunciation of any desire to combat
it.

Now, the history of every culture shows a diminution of this _fear
of the accidental, of the uncertain, and of the unexpected._ Culture
means precisely, to learn to reckon, to discover causes, to acquire
the power of forestalling events, to acquire a belief in necessity.
With the growth of culture, man is able to dispense with that primitive
form of submission to evil (called religion or morality), and that
"justification of evil." Now he wages war against "evil,"--he gets rid
of it. Yes, a state of security, of belief in law and the possibility
of calculation, is possible, in which consciousness regards these
things with tedium,--in which the joy of the accidental, of the
uncertain, and of the unexpected, actually becomes a spur.

Let us halt a moment before this symptom of _highest_ culture, I
call it the _pessimism of strength._ Man now no longer requires a
"justification of evil"; justification is precisely what he abhors:
he enjoys evil, _pur, cru_; he regards purposeless evil as the most
interesting kind of evil. If he had required a God in the past, he now
delights in cosmic disorder without a God, a world of accident, to the
essence of which terror, ambiguity, and seductiveness belong.

In a state of this sort, it is precisely _goodness_ which requires
to be justified--that is to say, it must either have an evil and a
dangerous basis, or else it must contain a vast amount of stupidity:
_in which case it still pleases._ Animality no longer awakens terror
now; a very intellectual and happy wanton spirit in favour of the
animal in man, is, in such periods, the most triumphant form of
spirituality. Man is now strong enough to be able to feel ashamed of
_a belief in God:_ he may now play the part of the devil's advocate
afresh. If in practice he pretends to uphold virtue, it will be for
those reasons which lead virtue to be associated with subtlety,
cunning, lust of gain, and a form of the lust of power.

_This pessimism of strength_ also ends in a _theodicy, i.e._ in an
absolute saying of yea to the world--but the same arguments will
be raised in favour of life which formerly were raised against it:
and in this way, in a conception of this world _as the highest ideal
possible,_ which has been effectively attained.


1020.

_The principal kinds of pessimism:--_

The pessimism of _sensitiveness_ (excessive irritability with a
preponderance of the feelings of pain).

The pessimism of the _will that is not free_ (otherwise expressed: the
lack of resisting power against stimuli).

The pessimism of _doubt_ (shyness in regard to everything fixed, in
regard to all grasping and touching).

The psychological conditions which belong to these different kinds of
pessimism, may all be observed in a lunatic asylum, even though they
are there found in a slightly exaggerated form. The same applies to
"Nihilism" (the penetrating feeling of nonentity).

What, however, is the nature of Pascal's moral pessimism, and the
_metaphysical pessimism_ of the Vedânta-Philosophy? What is the nature
of the _social pessimism_ of anarchists (as of Shelley), and of the
pessimism of compassion (like that of Leo Tolstoy and of Alfred de
Vigny)?

Are all these things not also the phenomena of decay and sickness?...
And is not excessive seriousness in regard to moral values, or in
regard to "other-world" fictions, or social calamities, or _suffering_
in general, of the same order? All such _exaggeration_ of a single and
narrow standpoint is in itself a sign of sickness. The same applies to
the preponderance of a negative over an affirmative attitude!

_In this respect we must not confound with the above:_ the joy of
saying and doing _no,_ which is the result of the enormous power and
tenseness of an affirmative attitude--peculiar to all rich and mighty
men and ages. It is, as it were, a luxury, a form of courage too,
which opposes the terrible, which has sympathy with the frightful and
the questionable, because, among other things, one is terrible and
questionable: the _Dionysian_ in will, intellect, and taste.


1021.

_My Five "Noes."_

(1) My fight against _the feeling of sin_ and the introduction of
the notion of _punishment_ into the physical and metaphysical world,
likewise into psychology and the interpretation of history. The
recognition of the fact that all philosophies and valuations hitherto
have been saturated with morality.

(2) My identification and my discovery of the _traditional_ ideal,
of the Christian ideal, even where the dogmatic form of Christianity
has been wrecked. The _danger of the Christian ideal_ resides in its
valuations, in that which can dispense with concrete expression: my
struggle against _latent Christianity_ (for instance, in music, in
Socialism).

(3) My struggle against the eighteenth century of Rousseau, against
his "Nature," against his "good man," his belief in the dominion of
feeling--against the pampering, weakening, and moralising of man: an
ideal born of the _hatred of aristocratic culture,_ which in practice
is the dominion of unbridled feelings of resentment, and invented as a
standard for the purpose of war (the Christian morality of the feeling
of sin, as well as the morality of resentment, is an attitude of the
mob).

(4) My fight against _Romanticism,_ in which the ideals of Christianity
and of Rousseau converge, but which possesses at the same time a
yearning for that _antiquity_ which knew of sacerdotal and aristocratic
culture, a yearning for _virtù,_ and for the "strong man"--something
extremely hybrid; a false and imitated kind of _stronger_ humanity,
which appreciates extreme conditions in general and sees the symptom
of strength in them ("the cult of passion"; an imitation of the
most expressive _forms, furore espressivo,_ originating not out of
plenitude, but out _of want)._--(In the nineteenth century there are
some things which are born out of relative plenitude--_i.e._ out of
_well-being;_ cheerful music, etc.--among poets, for instance, Stifter
and Gottfried Keller give signs of more strength and inner well-being
than--. The great strides of engineering, of inventions, of the natural
sciences and of history (?) are relative products of the strength and
self-reliance of the nineteenth century.)

(5) My struggle against the _predominance of gregarious instincts,_ now
science makes common cause with them; against the profound hate with
which every kind of order of rank and of aloofness is treated.


1022.

From the pressure of plenitude, from the tension of forces that are
continually increasing within us and which cannot yet discharge
themselves, a condition is produced which is very similar to that which
precedes a storm: we--like Nature's sky--become overcast. I hat, too,
is "pessimism.".. A teaching which puts an end to such a condition by
the fact that it _commands_ something: a transvaluation of values by
means of which the accumulated forces are given a channel, a direction,
so that they explode into deeds and flashes of lightning-does not
in the least require to be a hedonistic teaching: in so far as it
_releases strength_ which was compressed to an agonising degree, it
brings happiness.


1023.

_Pleasure_ appears with the feeling of power.

_Happiness_ means that the consciousness of power and triumph has begun
to prevail.

_Progress_ is the strengthening of the type, the ability to exercise
great will-power, everything else is a misunderstanding and a danger.


1024.

There comes a time when the old masquerade and moral togging-up of the
passions provokes repugnance: _naked Nature;_ when the _quanta_ of
_power_ are recognised as _decidedly_ simple (as _determining rank_);
when _grand style_ appears again as the result of great passion.


1025.

The purpose of culture _would have_ us enlist everything terrible,
step by step and experimentally, into its service; but before it is
_strong enough_ for this it must combat, moderate, mask, and even curse
everything terrible.

Wherever a culture points to anything as evil, it betrays its _fear_
and therefore weakness.

_Thesis:_ everything good is the evil of yore which has been rendered
serviceable. _Standard:_ the more terrible and the greater the passions
may be which an age, a people, and an individual are at liberty to
possess, because they are able to use them as _a means, the higher is
their culture:_ the more mediocre, weak, submissive, and cowardly a man
may be, the more things he will regard as _evil:_ according to him the
kingdom of evil is the largest. The lowest man will see the kingdom of
evil (_i.e._ that which is forbidden him and which is hostile to him)
everywhere.


1026.

It is not a fact that "happiness follows virtue"--but it is the mighty
man who first _declares his happy state to be virtue._

Evil actions belong to the mighty and the virtuous: bad and base
actions belong to the subjected.

The mightiest man, the creator, would have to be the most evil,
inasmuch as he makes his ideal prevail over all men in _opposition_ to
their ideals, and remoulds them according to his own image.

Evil, in this respect, means hard, painful, enforced.

Such men as Napoleon must always return and always settle our belief
in the self-glory of the individual afresh: he himself, however, was
corrupted by the means he had to stoop to, and had _lost noblesse_
of character. If he had had to prevail among another kind of men, he
could have availed himself of other means; and thus it would not seem
_necessary_ that a Cæsar _must become bad._


1027.

Man is a combination of the _beast_ and the _super-beast_; higher
man a combination of the monster and the superman:[7] these opposites
belong to each other. With every degree of a man's growth towards
greatness and loftiness, he also grows downwards into the depths and
into the terrible: we should not desire the one without the other;--or,
better still: the more fundamentally we desire the one, the more
completely we shall achieve the other.

[Footnote 7: The play on the German words: "Unthier" and "Überthier,"
"Unmensch" and "Übermensch," is unfortunately not translatable.--Tr.]


1028.

Terribleness belongs to greatness: let us not deceive ourselves.


1029.

I have taught the knowledge of such terrible things, that all
"Epicurean contentment" is impossible concerning them. Dionysian
pleasure is the only _adequate_ kind here: _I was the first to discover
the tragic._ Thanks to their superficiality in ethics, the Greeks
misunderstood it. Resignation is not the lesson of tragedy, but only
the misunderstanding of it! The yearning for nonentity is the _denial_
of tragic wisdom, its opposite!


1030.

A rich and powerful soul not only gets over painful and even terrible
losses, deprivations, robberies, and insults: it actually leaves such
dark infernos in possession of still greater plenitude and power;
and, what is most important of all, in possession of an increased
blissfulness in love. I believe that he who has divined something of
the most fundamental conditions of love, will understand Dante for
having written over the door of his Inferno: "I also am the creation of
eternal love."


1031.

To have travelled over the whole circumference of the modern soul,
and to have sat in all its corners--my ambition, my torment, and my
happiness.

Veritably to have _overcome_ pessimism, and, as the result thereof, to
have acquired the eyes of a Goethe--full of love and goodwill.


1032.

The first question is by no means whether we are satisfied with
ourselves; but whether we are satisfied with anything at all. Granting
that we should say yea to any single moment, we have then affirmed
not only ourselves, but the whole of existence. For nothing stands by
itself, either in us or in other things: and if our soul has vibrated
and rung with happiness, like a chord, once only and only once, then
all eternity was necessary in order to bring about that one event,--and
all eternity, in this single moment of our affirmation, was called
good, was saved, justified, and blessed.


1033.

The passions which _say yea._ I ride, happiness, health, the love of
the sexes, hostility and war, reverence, beautiful attitudes, manners,
strong will, the discipline of lofty spirituality, the will to power,
and gratitude to the Earth and to Life: all that is rich, that would
fain bestow, and that refreshes, gilds, immortalises, and deifies
Life--the whole power of the virtues that _glorify_--all declaring
things good, saying yea, and doing yea.


1034.

We, many or few, who once more dare to live in a world _purged of
morality_, we _pagans_ in faith, we are probably also the first who
understand what a _pagan faith_ is: to be obliged to imagine higher
creatures than man, but to imagine them _beyond_ good and evil; to be
compelled to value all higher existence as _immoral_ existence. We
believe in Olympus, and _not_ in the "man on the cross."


1035.

The more modern man has exercised his idealising power in regard to a
_God_ mostly by _moralising the latter_ ever more and more--what does
that mean?--nothing good, a diminution in man's strength.

As a matter of fact, the reverse would be possible: and indications
of this are not wanting. God imagined as emancipation from morality,
comprising the whole of the abundant assembly of Life's contrasts, and
_saving_ and _justifying_ them in a divine agony. God as the beyond,
the superior elevation, to the wretched _cul-de-sac_ morality of "Good
and Evil."


1036.

A humanitarian God cannot be _demonstrated_ from the world that
is known to us: so much are ye driven and forced to conclude
to-day. But what conclusion do ye draw from this? "He cannot be
demonstrated to _us_": the scepticism of knowledge. You all _fear_
the conclusion: "From the world that is known to us quite a different
God would be _demonstrable,_ such a one as would certainly not be
humanitarian"--and, in a word, you cling fast to your God, and invent a
world for Him which _is unknown to us._


1037.

Let us banish the highest good from our concept of God: it is unworthy
of a God. Let us likewise banish the highest wisdom: it is the vanity
of philosophers who have perpetrated the absurdity of a God who is a
monster of wisdom: the idea was to make Him as like them as possible.
No! God _as the highest power_--that is sufficient!--Everything
follows from that, even--"the world"!


1038

And how many new Gods are not still possible! I, myself, in whom the
religious--that is to say, the god-_creating_ instinct occasionally
becomes active at the most inappropriate moments: how very differently
the divine has revealed itself every time to me! ... So many strange
things have passed before me in those timeless moments, which fall into
a man's life as if they came from the moon, and in which he absolutely
no longer knows how old he is or how young he still may be! ... I would
not doubt that there are several kinds of gods.... Some are not wanting
which one could not possibly imagine without a certain halcyonic calm
and levity.... Light feet perhaps belong to the concept "God". Is it
necessary to explain that a _God_ knows how to hold Himself preferably
outside all Philistine and rationalist circles? also (between
ourselves) beyond good and evil? His outlook is a _free_ one--as Goethe
would say.--And to invoke the authority of Zarathustra, which cannot be
too highly appreciated in this regard: Zarathustra goes as far as to
confess, "I would only believe in a God who knew how to _dance_ ..."

Again I say: how many new Gods are not still possible! Certainly
Zarathustra himself is merely an old atheist: he believes neither in
old nor in new gods. Zarathustra says, _"he would"_--but Zarathustra
will not.... Take care to understand him well.

The type God conceived according to the type of creative spirits, of
"great men."


1039.

And how many new _ideals_ are not, at bottom, still possible? Here is
a little ideal that I seize upon every five weeks, while upon a wild
and lonely walk, in the azure moment of a blasphemous joy. To spend
one's life amid delicate and absurd things; a stranger to reality,
half-artist, half-bird, half-metaphysician; without a yea or a nay for
reality, save that from time to time one acknowledges it, after the
manner of a good dancer, with the tips of one's toes; always tickled
by some happy ray of sunlight; relieved and encouraged even by sorrow
--for sorrow _preserves_ the happy man; fixing a little tail of jokes
even to the most holy thing: this, as is clear, is the ideal of a heavy
spirit, a ton in weight _of the spirit of gravity._


1040.

_From the military-school of the soul._ (Dedicated to the brave, the
good-humoured, and the abstinent.)

I should not like to undervalue the amiable virtues; but greatness
of soul is not compatible with them. Even in the arts, grand style
excludes all merely pleasing qualities.

***

In times of painful tension and vulnerability, choose war. War hardens
and develops muscle.

***

Those who have been deeply wounded have the Olympian laughter; a man
only has what he needs.

***

It has now already lasted ten years: no sound any longer _reaches_
me--a land without rain. A man must have a vast amount of humanity at
his disposal in order not to pine away in such drought.[8]

[Footnote 8: For the benefit of those readers who are not acquainted
with the circumstances of Nietzsche's life, it would be as well to
point out that this is a purely personal plaint, comprehensible enough
in the mouth of one who, like Nietzsche, was for years a lonely
anchorite.--Tr.]


1041.

_My new road to an affirmative attitude._--Philosophy, as I have
understood it and lived it up to the present, is the voluntary quest
of the repulsive and atrocious aspects of existence. From the long
experience derived from such wandering over ice and desert, I learnt
to regard quite differently everything that had been philosophised
hitherto: the _concealed_ history of philosophy, the psychology of its
great names came into the light for me. "How much truth can a spirit
_endure_; for how much truth is it _daring_ enough?"--this for me
was the real measure of value. Error is a piece of _cowardice_ ...
every victory on the part of knowledge, is the _result_ of courage, of
hardness towards one's self, of cleanliness towards one's self.... The
kind of _experimental philosophy_ which I am living, even anticipates
the possibility of the most fundamental Nihilism, on principle: but
by this I do not mean that it remains standing at a negation, at a
_no,_ or at a will to negation. It would rather attain to the very
reverse--to a _Dionysian affirmation_ of the world, as it is, without
subtraction, exception, or choice--it would have eternal circular
motion: the same things, the same reasoning, and the same illogical
concatenation. The highest state to which a philosopher can attain: to
maintain a Dionysian attitude to Life--my formula for this is _amor
fati._

To this end we must not only consider those aspects of life which
have been denied hitherto, as: _necessary,_ but as desirable, and not
only desirable to those aspects which have been affirmed hitherto (as
complements or first prerequisites, so to speak), but for their own
sake, as the more powerful, more terrible, and more _veritable_ aspects
of life, in which the latter's will expresses itself most clearly.

To this end, we must also value that aspect of existence which alone
has been affirmed until now; we must understand whence this valuation
arises, and to how slight an extent it has to do with a Dionysian
valuation of Life: I selected and understood that which in this respect
says "yea" (on the one hand, the instinct of the sufferer; on the
other, the gregarious instinct; and thirdly, the _instinct of the
greater number_ against the exceptions).

Thus I divined to what extent a stronger kind of man must necessarily
imagine--the elevation and enhancement of man in another direction:
_higher creatures,_ beyond good and evil, beyond those values which
bear the stamp of their origin in the sphere of suffering, of the herd,
and of the greater number--I searched for the data of this topsy-turvy
formation of ideals in history (the concepts "pagan," "classical,"
"noble," have been discovered afresh and brought forward).


1042.

We should demonstrate to what extent the religion of the Greeks was
_higher_ than Judæo-Christianity. The latter triumphed because the
Greek religion was degenerate (and decadent).


1043.

It is not surprising that a couple of centuries have been necessary in
order to link up again--a couple of centuries are very little indeed.


1044.

There must be some people who sanctify functions, not only eating and
drinking, and not only in memory of them, or in harmony with them; but
this world must be for ever glorified anew, and in a novel fashion.


1045.

The most intellectual men feel the ecstasy and charm of _sensual_
things in a way which other men --those with "fleshy hearts"--cannot
possibly imagine, and ought not to be able to imagine: they are
sensualists with the best possible faith, because they grant the senses
a more fundamental value than that fine sieve, that thinning and
mincing machine, or whatever it is called, which in the language of the
people is termed _"spirit"_ The strength and power of the senses--this
is the most essential thing in a sound man who is one of Nature's lucky
strokes: the splendid beast must first be there--otherwise what is the
value of all "humanisation"?


1046.

(1) We want to hold fast to our senses, and to the belief in them--and
accept their logical conclusions! The hostility to the senses in the
philosophy that has been written up to the present, has been man's
greatest feat of nonsense.

(2) The world now extant, on which all earthly and living things have
so built themselves, that it now appears as it does (enduring and
proceeding slowly), we would fain _continue building_--not criticise it
away as false!

(3) Our valuations help in the process of building; they emphasise and
accentuate. What does it mean when whole religions say: "Everything is
bad and false and evil"? This condemnation of the whole process can
only be the judgment of the failures!

(4) True, the failures might be the greatest sufferers and therefore
the most subtle! The contented might be worth little!

(5) We must understand the fundamental _artistic_ phenomenon which is
called "Life,"--_the formative_ spirit, which constructs under the most
unfavourable circumstances: and in the slowest manner possible----The
_proof_ of all its combinations must first be given afresh: _it
maintains itself._


1047.

Sexuality, lust of dominion, the pleasure derived from appearance
and deception, great and joyful gratitude to Life and its typical
conditions--these things are essential to all paganism, and it has
a good conscience on its side.--_That which is hostile to Nature_
(already in Greek antiquity) combats paganism in the form of morality
and dialectics.


1040.

An anti-metaphysical view of the world--yes, but an artistic one.


1049.

_Apollo's_ misapprehension: the eternity of beautiful forms, the
aristocratic prescription, "_Thus shall it ever be!_"

_Dionysus_. Sensuality and cruelty. The perishable nature of existence
might be interpreted as the joy of procreative and destructive force,
as _unremitting creation._


1050.

The word "_Dionysian_" expresses: a constraint to unity, a soaring
above personality, the common-place, society, reality, and above
the abyss of the _ephemeral_, the passionately painful sensation of
superabundance, in darker, fuller, and more fluctuating conditions;
an ecstatic saying of yea to the collective character of existence,
as that which remains the same, and equally mighty and blissful
throughout all change, the great pantheistic sympathy with pleasure
and pain, which declares even the most terrible and most questionable
qualities of existence good, and sanctifies them; the eternal will to
procreation, to fruitfulness, and to recurrence; the feeling of unity
in regard to the necessity of creating and annihilating.

The word "_Apollonian_" expresses: the constraint to be absolutely
isolated, to the typical "individual," to everything that simplifies,
distinguishes, and makes strong, salient, definite, and typical to
freedom within the law.

The further development of art is just as necessarily bound up with the
antagonism of these two natural art-forces, as the further development
of mankind is bound up with the antagonism of the sexes. The plenitude
of power and restraint, the highest form of self-affirmation in a cool,
noble, and reserved kind of beauty: the Apollonianism of the Hellenic
will.

This antagonism of the Dionysian and of the Apollonian in the Greek
soul, is one of the great riddles which made me feel drawn to the
essence of Hellenism. At bottom, I troubled about nothing save the
solution of the question, why precisely Greek Apollonianism should have
been forced to grow out of a Dionysian soil: the Dionysian Greek had
need of being Apollonian; that is to say in order to break his will to
the titanic, to the complex, to the uncertain, to the horrible by a
will to measure, to simplicity, and to submission to rule and concept.
Extravagance, wildness, and Asiatic tendencies lie at the root of the
Greeks. Their courage consists in their struggle with their Asiatic
nature: they were not given beauty, any more than they were given Logic
and moral! naturalness: in them these things are victories, they are
willed and fought for--they constitute the _triumph_ of the Greeks.


1051.

It is clear that only the rarest and most lucky cases of humanity
can attain to the highest and most sublime human joys in which Life
celebrates its own glorification; and this only happens when these
rare creatures themselves and their forbears have lived a long
preparatory life leading to this goal, without, however, having done
so consciously. It is then that an overflowing wealth of multifarious
forces and the most agile power of "free will" and lordly command
exist together in perfect concord in one man; then the intellect is
just as much at ease, or at home, in the senses as the senses are at
ease or at home in it; and everything that takes place in the latter
must give rise to extraordinarily subtle joys in the former. And _vice
versâ:_ just think of this _vice versâ_ for a moment in a man like
Hafiz; even Goethe, though to a lesser degree, gives some idea of this
process. It is probable that, in such perfect and well-constituted
men, the most sensual functions are finally transfigured by a symbolic
elatedness of the highest intellectuality; in themselves they feel a
kind of _deification of the body_ and are most remote from the ascetic
philosophy of the principle "God is a Spirit": from this principle it
is clear that the ascetic is the "botched man" who declares only that
to be good and "God" which is absolute, and which judges and condemns.

From that height of joy in which man feels himself completely and
utterly a deified form and self-justification of nature, down to the
joy of healthy peasants and healthy semi-human beasts, the whole of
this long and enormous gradation of the light and colour of _happiness_
was called by the Greek--not without that grateful quivering of one
who is initiated into secret, not without much caution and pious
silence--by the godlike name: _Dionysus._ What then _do_ all modern
men--the children of a crumbling, multifarious, sick and strange age
_know_ of the _compass_ of Greek happiness, how _could_ they know
anything about it! Whence would the slaves of "modern ideas" derive
their right to Dionysian feasts!

When the Greek body and soul were in full "bloom," and not, as it were,
in states of morbid exaltation and madness, there arose the secret
symbol of the loftiest affirmation and transfiguration of life and the
world that has ever existed. There we have a _standard_ beside which
everything that has grown since must seem too short, too poor, too
narrow: if we but pronounce the word "Dionysus" in the presence of
the best of more recent names and things, in the presence of Goethe,
for instance, or Beethoven, or Shakespeare, or Raphael, in a trice we
realise that our best things and moments are _condemned._ Dionysus
is a _judge!_ Am I understood? There can be no doubt that the Greeks
sought to interpret, by means of their Dionysian experiences, the
final mysteries of the "destiny of the soul" and everything they knew
concerning the education and the purification of man, and above all
concerning the absolute hierarchy and inequality of value between man
and man. There is the deepest experience of all Greeks, which they
conceal beneath great silence,--_we do not know the Greeks_ so long
as this hidden and sub-terranean access to them remains obstructed.
The indiscreet eyes of scholars will never perceive anything in these
things, however much learned energy may still have to be expended in
the service of this excavation--; even the noble zeal of such friends
of antiquity as Goethe and Winckelmann, seems to savour somewhat of
bad form and of arrogance, precisely in this respect. To wait and to
prepare oneself; to await the appearance of new sources of knowledge;
to prepare oneself in solitude for the sight of new faces and the
sound of new voices; to cleanse one's soul ever more and more of the
dust and noise, as of a country fair, which is peculiar to this age;
to _overcome_ everything Christian by something super-Christian,
and not only to rid oneself of it,--for the Christian doctrine is
the counter-doctrine to the Dionysian; to rediscover the _South_
in oneself, and to stretch a clear, glittering, and mysterious
southern sky above one; to reconquer the southern healthiness and
concealed power of the soul, once more for oneself; to increase the
compass of one's soul step by step, and to become more supernational,
more European, more super-European, more Oriental, and finally more
_Hellenic_--for Hellenism was, as a matter of fact, the first great
union and synthesis of everything Oriental, and precisely on that
account, the _beginning_ of the European soul, the discovery of _our
"new_ world":--he who lives under such imperatives, who knows what he
may not encounter some day? Possibly--a _new dawn!_


1052.

_The two types; Dionysus and Christ on the Cross._ We should ascertain
whether the typically _religious_ man is a decadent phenomenon (the
great innovators are one and all morbid and epileptic); but do not let
us forget to include that type of the religious man who is _pagan._ Is
the pagan cult not a form of gratitude for, and affirmation of, Life?
Ought not its most representative type to be an apology and deification
of Life? The type of a well-constituted and ecstatically overflowing
spirit! The type of a spirit which absorbs the contradictions and
problems of existence, and which _solves_ them!

At this point I set up the _Dionysus_ of the Greeks: the religious
affirmation of Life, of the whole of Life, not of denied and partial
Life (it is typical that in this cult the sexual act awakens ideas of
depth, mystery, and reverence).

Dionysus _versus_ "Christ"; here you have the contrast. It is _not_
a difference in regard to the martyrdom,--but the latter has a
different meaning. Life itself--Life s eternal fruitfulness and
recurrence caused anguish, destruction, and the will to annihilation.
In the other case, the suffering of the "Christ as the Innocent One"
stands as an objection against Life, it is the formula of Life's
condemnation.--Readers will guess that the problem concerns the meaning
of suffering; whether a Christian or a tragic meaning be given to it.
In the first case it is the road to a holy mode of existence; in the
second case _existence itself is regarded as sufficiently holy_ to
justify an enormous amount of suffering. The tragic man says yea even
to the most excruciating suffering: he is sufficiently strong, rich,
and capable of deifying, to be able to do this; the Christian denies
even the happy lots on earth: he is weak, poor, and disinherited enough
to suffer from life in any form. God on the Cross is a curse upon Life,
a signpost directing people to deliver themselves from it;--Dionysus
cut into pieces is a _promise_ of Life: it will be for ever born anew,
and rise afresh from destruction.




III.


ETERNAL RECURRENCE.


1053.

My philosophy reveals the triumphant thought through which all other
systems of thought must ultimately perish. It is the great disciplinary
thought: those races that cannot bear it are doomed; those which regard
it as the greatest blessing are destined to rule.


1054.

The _greatest_ of all fights: for this purpose a new _weapon_ is
required.

A hammer: a terrible alternative must be created. Europe must be
brought face to face with the logic of facts, and confronted with the
question whether its will for ruin is really earnest.

General levelling down to mediocrity must be avoided. Rather than this
it would be preferable to perish.


1055.

A pessimistic attitude of mind and a pessimistic doctrine and ecstatic
Nihilism, may in certain circumstances even prove indispensable to the
philosopher--that is to say, as a mighty form of pressure, or hammer,
with which he can smash up degenerate, perishing races and put them out
of existence; with which he can beat a track to a new order of life,
or instil a longing for nonentity in those who are degenerate and who
desire to perish.


1056.

I wish to teach the thought which gives unto many the right to cancel
their existences--the great disciplinary thought.


1057.

_Eternal Recurrence. _ A prophecy.

1. The exposition of the doctrine and its _theoretical_ first
principles and results.

2. The proof of the doctrine.

3. Probable results which will follow from its being _believed._ (It
makes everything break open.)

_(a)_ The means of enduring it.

_(b)_ The means of ignoring it.

4. Its place in history is a means.

The period _of_ greatest danger. The foundation of an oligarchy _above_
peoples and their interests: education directed at establishing a
political policy for humanity in general.

_A counterpart of Jesuitism._


1058.

The two greatest philosophical points of view (both discovered by
Germans).

(a) That of _becoming_ and that of _evolution._

(b) That based upon the _values of existence_ (but the wretched form of
German pessimism must first be overcome!)--

Both points of view reconciled by me in a decisive manner.

Everything becomes and returns for ever, _escape is impossible!_

Granted that we _could_ appraise the value of existence, what would
be the result of it? The thought of recurrence is a principle _of
selection_ in the service of _power_ (and barbarity!).

The ripeness of man for this thought.


1059.

1. The thought of eternal recurrence: its first principles which must
necessarily be true if it were true. What its result is.

2. It is the most _oppressive_ thought: its probable results, provided
it be not prevented, that is to say, provided all values be not
transvalued.

3. The means of _enduring it:_ the transvaluation of all values.
Pleasure no longer to be found in certainty, but in uncertainty; no
longer "cause and effect," but continual creativeness; no longer
the will to self-preservation, but to power; no longer the modest
expression "it is all _only_ subjective," but "it is all _our_ work!
let us be proud of it."


1060.

In order to endure the thought of recurrence, freedom from morality
is necessary; new means against the _fact pain_ (pain regarded as
the instrument, as the father of pleasure; there is no accretive
consciousness of pain); pleasure derived from all kinds of uncertainty
and tentativeness, as a counterpoise to extreme fatalism; suppression
of the concept "necessity"; suppression of the "will"; suppression of
"absolute knowledge."

_Greatest elevation_ of man's _consciousness of strength,_ as that
which creates superman.


1061.

The two extremes of thought--the materialistic and the platonic--are
reconciled in _eternal recurrence_: both are regarded as ideals.


1062.

If the universe had a goal, that goal would have been reached by now.
If any sort of unforeseen final state existed, that state also would
have! been reached. If it were capable of any halting or stability of
any being, it would only have possessed this capability of becoming
stable for one instant in its development; and again becoming would
have been at an end for ages, and with it all thinking and all
"spirit." The fact of "intellects" being in a _state of development_
proves that the universe can have no goal, no final state, and is
incapable of being. But the old habit of thinking of some purpose in
regard to all phenomena, and of thinking of a directing and creating
deity in regard to the universe, is so powerful, that the thinker has
to go to great pains in order to avoid thinking of the very aimlessness
of the world as intended. The idea that the universe intentionally
evades a goal, and even knows artificial means wherewith it prevents
itself from falling into a circular movement, must occur to all those
who would fain attribute to the universe the capacity of eternally
regenerating itself--that is to say, they would fain impose upon a
finite, definite force which is invariable in quantity, like the
universe, the miraculous gift of renewing its forms and its conditions
_for all eternity._ Although the universe is no longer a God, it must
still be capable of the divine power of creating and transforming;
it must forbid itself to relapse into any one of its previous forms;
it must not only have the intention, but also the means, of avoiding
any sort of repetition, every second of its existence, even, it must
control every single one of its movements, with the view of avoiding
goals, final states, and repetitions and all the other results of such
an unpardonable and insane method of thought and desire. All this
is nothing more than the old religious mode of thought and desire,
which, in spite of all, longs to believe that in some way or other the
universe resembles the old, beloved, infinite, and infinitely-creative
God--that in some way or other "the old God still lives"--that longing
of Spinoza's which is expressed in the words "_deus sive natura_"
(what he really felt was "_natura sive deus_"). Which, then, is the
proposition and belief in which the decisive change, the present
_preponderance_ of the scientific spirit over the religious and
god-fancying spirit, is best formulated? Ought it not to be: the
universe, as force, must not be thought of as unlimited, because it
cannot be thought of in this way,--we forbid ourselves the concept
_infinite_ force, because it is _incompatible_ with the idea of force?
Whence it follows that the universe lacks the power of eternal renewal.


1063.

The principle of the conservation of energy inevitably involves
_eternal recurrence._


1064.

That a state of equilibrium has never been reached, proves that it is
impossible, but in infinite space it must have been reached. Likewise
in spherical space. The _form_ of space must be the cause of the
eternal movement, and ultimately of all imperfection. That "energy" and
"stability" and "immutability" are contradictory. The measure of energy
(dimensionally) is fixed though it is essentially fluid.

"That which is timeless" must be refuted, any given moment of energy,
the absolute conditions for a new distribution of all forces are
present, it cannot remain stationary. Change is part of its essence,
therefore time is as well; by this means, however, the necessity of
change has only been established once more in theory.


1065.

A certain emperor always bore the fleeting nature of all things in his
mind, in order not to value them too seriously, and to be able to live
quietly in their midst. Conversely, everything seems to me much too
important for it to be so fleeting, I seek an eternity for everything:
ought one to pour the most precious salves and wines into the sea? My
consolation is that everything that has been is eternal: the sea will
wash it up again.


1066.

_The new concept of the universe._ The universe exists; it is nothing
that grows into existence and that passes out of existence. Or, better
still, it develops, it passes away, but it never began to develop,
and has never ceased from passing away; it _maintains_ itself in both
states. It lives on itself, its excrements are its nourishment.

We need not concern ourselves for one instant with the hypothesis of a
_created_ world. The concept create is to-day utterly indefinable and
unrealisable; it is but a word which hails from superstitious ages,
nothing can be explained with a word. The last attempt that was made
to conceive of a world that _began_ occurred quite recently, in many
cases with the help of logical reasoning,--generally, too, as you will
guess, with an ulterior theological motive.

Several attempts have been made lately to show that the concept that
"the universe has an infinite past (_regressus in infinitum_) is
contradictory, it was even demonstrated, it is true, at the price
of confounding the head with the tail. Nothing can prevent me from
calculating backwards from this moment of time, and of saying: "I
shall never reach the end"; just as I can calculate without end in a
forward direction, from the same moment. It is only when I wish to
commit the error--I shall be careful to avoid it--of reconciling this
correct concept of a _regressus in infinitum_ with the absolutely
unrealisable concept of a finite _progressus_ up to the present; only
when I consider the direction (forwards or backwards) as logically
indifferent, that I take hold of the head--this very moment--and think
I hold the tail: this pleasure I leave to you, Mr. Dühring!...

I have come across this thought in other thinkers before me, and every
time I found that it was determined by other ulterior motives (chiefly
theological, in favour of a _creator spiritus)._ If the universe were
in any way able to congeal, to dry up, to perish; or if it were capable
of attaining to a state of equilibrium; or if it had any kind of goal
at all which a long lapse of time, immutability, and finality reserved
for it (in short, to speak metaphysically, if becoming could resolve
itself into being or into nonentity), this state ought already to have
been reached.

But it has not been reached: it therefore follows.... This is the only
certainty we can grasp, which can serve as a corrective to a host of
cosmic hypotheses possible in themselves. If, for instance, materialism
cannot consistently escape the conclusion of a finite state, which
William Thomson has traced out for it, then materialism is thereby
refuted.

If the universe may be conceived as a definite quantity of energy,
as a definite number of centres of energy,--and every other concept
remains indefinite and therefore useless,--it follows therefrom that
the universe must go through a calculable number of combinations in
the great game of chance which constitutes its existence. In infinity,
at some moment or other, every possible combination must once have
been realised; not only this, but it must have been realised an
infinite number of times. And inasmuch as between every one of these
combinations and its next recurrence every other possible combination
would necessarily have been undergone, and since every one of these
combinations would determine the whole series in the same order, a
circular movement of absolutely identical series is thus demonstrated:
the universe is thus shown to be a circular movement which has already
repeated itself an infinite number of times, and which plays its game
for all eternity.--This conception is not simply materialistic; for if
it were this, it would not involve an infinite recurrence of identical
cases, but a finite state. Owing to the fact that the universe has
not reached this finite state, materialism shows itself to be but an
imperfect and provisional hypothesis.


1067.

And do ye know what "the universe" is to my mind? Shall I show it
to you in my mirror? This universe is a monster of energy, without
beginning or end; a fixed and brazen quantity o; energy which grows
neither bigger nor smaller, which does not consume itself, but only
alters its face; as a whole its bulk is immutable, it is a household
without either losses or gains, but likewise without increase and
without sources of revenue, surrounded by nonentity as by a frontier,
it is nothing vague or wasteful, it does not stretch into infinity;
but it is a definite quantum of energy located in limited space,
and not in space which would be anywhere empty. It is rather energy
everywhere, the play of forces and force-waves, at the same time one
and many, agglomerating here and diminishing there, a sea of forces
storming and raging in itself, for ever changing, for ever rolling
back over in calculable ages to recurrence, with an ebb and flow of
its forms, producing the most complicated things out of the most
simple structures; producing the most ardent, most savage, and most
contradictory things out of the quietest, most rigid, and most frozen
material, and then returning from multifariousness to uniformity, from
the play of contradictions back into the delight of consonance, saying
yea unto itself, even in this homogeneity of its courses and ages; for
ever blessing itself as something which recurs for all eternity,--a
becoming which knows not satiety, or disgust, or weariness:--this, my
Dionysian world of eternal self-creation, of eternal self-destruction,
this mysterious world of twofold voluptuousness; this, my "Beyond Good
and Evil" without aim, unless there is an aim in the bliss of the
circle, without will, unless a ring must by nature keep goodwill to
itself,--would you have a name for my world? A _solution_ of all your
riddles? Do ye also want a light, ye most concealed, strongest and
most undaunted men of the blackest midnight?--_This world is the Will
to Power--and nothing else!_ And even ye yourselves are this will to
power--and nothing besides!






End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Will to Power, Book III and IV, by 
Friedrich Nietzsche

*** 